A Rememberance Of Things Past

I once had an Honda XL250. A nice, sturdy bike. Ran well, once I replaced the wrong carb some guy had stuck on it with the correct, stock, one.



The big plastic gas tank was a selling point for me when I bought this, as was the Preston Petty front fender.

The lad commented, on seeing this pic, that I haven't lost much more hair since then. But I HAVE lost some weight! Probably stoped wearing jeans around then, too.

The trusty bike broke down one day on the way to work. I parked it, LOCKED, it was gone when I came back after work. I went home to report it to the San Diego police, but since I don't LIVE in San Diego, I had to drive back to San Diego so they would take a report. Is that screwy?

I got it back a year later. The police caught the neighborhood kids who had stolen it. It was all beat up, and a footpeg bolt was broken off in the frame. The kids had to pay restitution, but since I had just priced replacement parts, and not actually had a shop estimate replacing the footpeg bolt, I didn't get much. I broke off a bolt remover in the bolt, so I never did get it out.



I eventually sold it to two guys from Imperial Beach, for a pittance.

Story of my life!

Too Wierd

I don't like to post stuff I've seen on Fark, 'cause, you should be there yourself, lazy!

But I can't resist this.

Wedding Dress Weirdness --

Trash The Dress


Brides Buy TWO Dresses

My wedding, as it were, cost, maybe, 50 bucks. But I'm known for being exceptionally frugal (read-CHEAP!).

How much did YOU spend? Did you get two dresses? Did you BURN them afterwards. And, if not, what DID you do with that white dress?

Lighter Than Air

I like blimps. In lieu of security cameras, I'd like to have a radio-controlled blimp with a video link to see just WHAT those people way over in the hidden corner of the library are up to...

This guy doesn't like them so much, anymore...

Book Review

This isn't really a review, as I don't know how to write one. But this book irritated me enough that I wanted to bring up a few points. The book is The Grays by Whitley Strieber.

First of all, it's a novel about UFOs. If you believe, you will probably like it. I don't.

pg. 42 Refers to an "HO-grade" model train set. What is that? In my 47 years in the hobby, I've only heard it referred to as HO scale or HO gauge. I felt a little sick at this point.

pg. 45 Not a problem here, the book says Conner is 11 years old. A couple of people on Amazon.com said at the end of book, a few days later, Conner is 13. I couldn't find any mention of that.

pg. 162 "An Air Police captain"... According to my research, U.S. Air Force security forces haven't been called Air Police since the 60s. They were called Security Police back in the 70s when I was in the war. As it were.

pg. 163 An Air Force general calls a female Air Force colonel "girlie", and refers to her boobs. Well, I was not an officer, but I'm not believing THAT scene!

pg. 216 A "transmitter" from Radio Shack has "a far greater power output" by bypassing a couple of resisters. I'm not electronic expert, but I'm thinking ... not. I have READ that one can shift the frequency on certain synthesized radios by snipping a resister or so. What kind of transmitter does Radio Shack sell? Citizen's Band? 5 watts? 27 mhz? Why not buy an amateur radio transmitter and apple fryer and pump out a thousand or more watts, no bypassing needed, at 28 mhz? Ten meters rules!

pg. 245 Sounds like a Dyson sphere, to me. Why not just say so? Too technical for the intended audience?

(Foxfire CRASHES! Thank goodness for auto-save!)

pg. 286 Roumania. Maybe it's spelled like that in Romania (or not), but this book is in English, and that is a very odd spelling, to my thinking.

pg. 291 "Super-secure sideband" communications system. Try digital. Frequency-hopping. But what do I know? If you want to sound like a duck, go with sideband.

pg. 292 Enter the secret code, "...then one-niner one in six three three eight nanosecond timed sequence." I don't know about you, but I don't think my reaction time is QUITE that fast.

pg. 298 Just a typo, not worth mentioning.

pg. 300 The building is exploding, and yet the infallible power source for the transmitter keeps on going.

pg. 301 What is the portent of "the lonely way"? I don't get it, and it's not mentioned again. Maybe in the sequel?

pg. 303 How many people were "modified" by Wilkes? I thought it was mostly kids, and only around ten or less. Sounds like the whole town is running amuck!

pg. 305 Someone "far down the road" is standing on a car, shooting at him. Why stand on a car? Isn't that dangerous? They need a truck bed to stand on!!

pg. 311 Washington Monument collapses, weak marble is blamed. Well, it's granite on the inside. But I don't doubt it would have collapsed in a 7.3 earthquake.

pg. 313 The antenna is gone from the miracle transmitter, but the affected citizens still run amuck (I like that word!). Even AFTER the transmitter is destroyed the affected citizens are still bent on their killer obsession. Except when they FINALLY come to their senses. But then we've got the killer modified dog, which the author has pointed will stay affected even AFTER the radio is silenced. In animals, the radio only turns them ON, not OFF. Ok dokay there, hoss.

Well, I suppose if one believes in any sort of "religion", one might be attracted to its fictional representation by one of its adherents.

But, I'm not.

Food

Ran across these food pics on the blog Axis Of Aevil. I'm hungry now!

How did I "run" across this? I was looking for antique cocoa advertisements, spurred by my reading of "Three Men On The Bummel"

No, I did not find a suitable advertisement.

Shark Attack!

I hear tell there is a great white shark off the coast of Great Britain.

The Sun, a newspaper renown for its veracity, has an article (with pics!), with a sidebar by James Orr of useful tips on avoiding shark attack.

Here be a couple of them:

"NEVER urinate in your wetsuit or the ocean — sharks can detect it from five miles away and will think you’re a fish in distress, a ready-made meal."

"DON’T clap your hands and bark like a seal. Great Whites often attack humans after mistaking them for their favourite meal."

Go read the article:

And remember, don't bark like a seal, kids...

Just Testin' Something Here

Just ignore this.


Cutty Sark test

Now this:



Ok, I think I see. I can see the big images on zooomr, but YOU can't. I CAN post a link to the big image, or I COULD copy and paste the html code from zooomr. Huh.

Interestingly, the giant image is all there in the blog preview, but in the actual post it is cut off.

Whoops, just noticed, when I log off zooomr I CAN'T get to the big image through the link!!

But the html code cut and past still is ok. I guess you would see the whole picture if it was like, man, in a regular ol' web page or somethin'.