Not nearly as cool as Gundam. Tetsujin 28 always looked pretty dorklicious. Plus the live-action movie they made a few years back is pretty... not good.
We got the family together and did a photo shoot with the same lady who took Soapie's baby pics. PLEASE visit the link and post a comment. If we can get 25 people commenting, we'll get a free mounted 11x14" from the photographer. Thanks! Click pic for the link.
And they're doing it the only way they know how... by building giant fucking robots!!!
"Check the megatherm, Hiro!"
Ok, so not really. But they have completed this 1:1 scale of the RX-78 Gundam as part of the 30th anniversary celebrations of Mobile Suit Gundam in Shiokaze park in Tokyo. It's not too far from my old stomping grounds. The plans are to leave it up for the summer, but not sure what's going on after that.
Finally got a chance to see it. Thought it kicked all kinds of ass even though the first ten minutes had me bawling like an angry, hungry baby. I liked the canon reset they did. It seems to me that if any franchise can support TWO canons, it'd be Star Trek.
First, consider what exploded on the Internet yesterday. If you had any sort of mechanical/automotive connections whatsoever, you probably heard the sad tale of a lad called STI2GXSR. His plight has gone so far to be made fun of even on Comedy Central's website. This blog post from motorcycle.com has a good high-level synopsis:
Yes, he poured NOS Energy Drink into the gas tank of his motorcycle thinking it was fuel additive. Or so he claims, unless he's trolling. Who knows. That's not the point. The POINT is the collection of pictures that people have posted to the epic thread and which the blogger on motorcycle.com has collected. Scroll through them. If you can make it past the hottie on the bike with sugar, you'll see a fuzzy low-quality one which is a screencap from The Fast and the Furious that says "Its Called Nitrous, Moron".
I made that.
But here's the kicker. I didn't post it to the GXSR thread.
In fact, I made that image back in 2001 and set it loose on some Mustang forums as a way to mock the F&F movie as we liked to do back then.
Like a note in the bottle, it went floating out on the ocean of the Internet and here, almost ten years later, I stumble back across it. The filename's changed and it's been downsampled, but it's mine. I did some google searches on it under this name and its original name 'not_naws.jpg' and found it scattered all around.
Kinda neat feeling to do something like that and then find out years later that it actually stuck....
We leave for Virgina tomorrow morning... and by morning, I mean 5:30 AM. It's looking to be a dreadful day filled with air travel and then a two hour drive.
I find myself moving more and more towards the whole concept of 'cloud' computing. That buzzword worthy concept where we keep all the good important data bits on the internet (AKA the cloud) and work off netbooks and consoles. I never paid much attention to it as a concept but I find myself adapting bits and pieces of the idea in my everyday life.
I use GoogleDocs a lot these days. In fact, the last nanowrimo, I used GoogleDocs exclusively as my writing platform. I swap around from computer to computer a lot and this fit in a lot more easily even then carting the files around in my cellphone and bluetoothing it over or usb key. I got a bunch of junk in my googledoc area. It's just too convenient not to use.
And now I'm using Xmarks. It's essentially a bookmark synching thing that works across different browsers. I touch at minimum three to four computers daily and having the same consistent set of bookmarks that update across all browsers as I go is a real win. I was able to make a new user account on Peaches' laptop and have my browser up the way I always do in seconds.
Little things like that make my day a little nicer.
Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'
Saturday was a Open House day at the BMW/Triumph dealer. They advertised "refreshment and lunch, live band, demo rides, and many in-store specials." Todd and I saw "demo rides" and were hooked. The idea of free food sealed the deal. We made plans. Thanks to my understanding wife, she re-scheduled a hair appointment for later in the afternoon so that I could go play on other people's bikes for the first half of the day. We made plans to carpool up in case Todd got to ride our friend's GS (in for service) back.
We got there right as they opened. Literally. Employees were walking in with us. It was raining. Apparently, in the Triumph world "9-5" means more along the lines of "When we bloody well get everything ready sometime after 9-5." Todd and I were the only non-employees there, I think. The rain was light to medium, not bad at all and going non-stop. All the gunk was well washed off the roads. But, and I may be mistaken, but I could swear we heard them saying, as if thankful, that they wouldn't do be doing demo rides because of the rain.
Todd and I assaulted the free muffins while mulling this over. Didn't like the sound of that one bit. We hung around for the first hour eating their food, drinking their coffee, and making conversation with some gearheads. Well, Todd made conversation. I'm not a gearhead. And, I hate people. And, it's difficult to talk while cramming free muffins in your maw. The Triumph folks were doing their darnest to hide all the BMWs or move them to the warehouse to make room for the display of historical Triumphs that private owners were bringing in. The guy Todd was chatting with was one of them. He hauled the non-running bike in a bad-ass El Camino with ghost flames. It made Todd squeal.
Todd squeals at odd things.
So the dealership folks were doing their best to redo the place over into a Triumph place versus BMW/Triumph. For a business point of view, this would have something better accomplished the night before. So that they'd be ready to go at 9 AM. Like the flyer said. Just saying. We even had to scoot around while a dude with a ladder strung banners up. Todd kept poking and prodding people about when demo rides would start, we've been here an hour already, the fat guy I'm with is eating all your muffins so you should let him ride to stop.
And... they sort of didn't want to let us.
We finally got to the GM of the place and he eyes up disparagingly and says "You gotta have your own full gear." Todd and I looked at each other. The way he said it to us it was like we were wearing flip flops, Corona tank tops, and backwards ball caps. We were wearing street clothes but had our gear in the car. If we'd been standing around a dealership for over an hour in full gear with no riding, there would have been screaming. Then he asked us for driver license and a credit card. Cheese the bike and you bought it. That made me a little nervous but ah well. I decided I'd go out for one ride and see how it felt and if I didn't feel good, I'd go back to muffin munching. (bow chicka bow wow)
He asked us for what we wanted to ride. Todd knew what he wanted. The Speed Triple. I didn't really know. I named the random monster cruiser, the Rocket III, they had and had even further misgivings. When we got out to the front where they had rolled all the bikes, I had a chance to actually see what was out there and changed my mind, deciding to take the Street Triple, which is closer to my bike. Figured it'd be a good warm-up/feeler ride. A different guy slapped on the dealer plates and pointed the bikes toward the exit. This guy was actually friendly and cool about us riding.
By this point, about an hour and a half in, people were starting to finally show up who were *not* employees or owners showing off their historical bikes. But they all went inside and Todd and I were the only ones who seemed interested in, you know, actually riding motorcycles.
But, we were off:
The Street Triple is, in two words, near perfect. 675 CC motor. Streetfighter looks. You get on it and forget you're on it. You just meld to it. It's light, responsive, and friendly. It's like taking the outgoing, I-want-to-experiment cheerleader to the prom. If I didn't already a bike so close to perfect for me (the VFR), I'd be slavering for one of these babies. I had initial concerns about the seating position as it seemed to lean a little more forward than I'm used to, but wow, that goes away fast. This thing is awesome. I couldn't stop giggling in my helmet. It wouldn't be the first time.
We got back to the dealership and decided to swap mounts. First, I decided I needed rain pants as mine were getting pretty wet and I was definitely going to be riding more bikes. The nervousness and second-guessing was gone and I wanted more action. Fortunately for me, they had a pair in my size that was on clearance. The guy helping us was all, "You guys here for the open house? Going to stay for the band?" Band? BAND? Who the hell goes to a dealership to hear a band? We're here to ride, bitch. Which brings me to my next test ride:
The Speed Triple. The Street Triple's big sister. 1050 CC of naked goodness. This is the hot model girl who is already unbuttoning your pants in the limo on the way to prom. You twist the throttle on this, pop the clutch, and the world turns to plaid. I know that cause Todd told me. I kept the sucker sedate by following Todd on the Street Triple. Very awesome awesome bike. If not having rode the Street, I would have called it perfect, but the ergos and handling on the smaller bike were better. Perhaps after riding the Speed for a while, I'd get more accustomed to it, but it was something the Street excelled at. I got on it a bit once we hit the access road, but I never came close to even taxing this baby. Very nice and very fun. But too much power for me to use responsibly.
Pulling back in to the dealership, both of us giggling in our helmets, we quickly dismounted, found the dealer plate guy and ordered up a pair of Rocket IIIs.
This is Triumph's monster cruiser. 2300cc motor. Big fat rear tire. Continuing the prom motif, this is like going with an older hot chick with fake boobs and an ID to buy booze. You turn the key on this beast and the entire freaking bike shudders. It literally bucks to the side, like something alive. It was the only bike that the plate dude actually gave us a warning about. "Get on it too hard and you'll break the rear loose." Right. Don't do that. Check. It's got forward controls, which for us non-cruiser guys, takes a bit getting used to. This thing gets up and goes for being such a heavy beast. It roars. The ride is comfortable and ergos are good. I'd be happy parking this in the garage next to the VFR.
"Wrap the sucka up! I'm sold!"
When we got back to the dealer from this ride, we decided we had time for one more ride and to raid their free lunch and then I needed to head back so that Peaches could go to her thing. For the last ride, we decided to try something completely different:
The Scrambler. It's a motorcycle alright. Two wheels. A motor. Retro design with modern tech. Supposedly. 865 cc. What's it like? It's like taking your little sister to prom. The ergos aren't great. The motor is detuned and not great. Nothing is great about it. Todd's comment about it was "Now I know why the Japanese crushed everyone else with the motorcycles." We didn't even ride the whole route with it. It was just that meh. This is the bike you get someone to buy when you don't want them to ride.
"Why?"
Getting back to the dealer, another employee, who was the other cool friendly person there in the whole place, ran over and mock wiped drool from our mouths. Todd and I looked at each other and shook our heads in sadness. The Scrambler is not drool worthy. I suggested we ride the Triples again to cleanse the bad taste from our palates, but we were running out of time. We degeared and went in and tracked down the GM, who isn't in the list of friendly folks, and got our credit crap back. The guy quickly dismissed us from his mind. Like, while we were still talking to him. I mean, OK, we're punks. And we're not buying. And... apparently, we were still the only guys (despite the rain having stopped) who were willing to actually inconvenience him by taking him up on his advertised offer of demo rides. The place was packed full of people, but none of them rode. They ate the free food and talked and.... I guess, were waiting for the band.
Todd and I ravaged the brought-in BBQ and the overdone hamburgers and hotdogs and took our leave. The Triples had won a place in our hearts. The Rocket IIs also. The Scramblers... we pretend that didn't happen.
The Rocket III is like 16K. Don't think that's taking up residence in my garage anytime soon... >sigh<
There is a secret message here. There are secret messages everywhere on this site. Trust no one. That SUBMIT button may only be a clever ruse that actually is attached to the Nielsen's Survey system that will deviously use your click to register yet another vote for ANOTHER year of V.I.P!!! STOP THE INSANITY!!!
