And more . . .

Had an interesting ride at lunch today. I received my replacement Fulmer (Fulmer had recalled the Modus in January, I just found out about it last week) this morning -- I had them ship it to work, very fast turn-around. So I swapped out the visor and cheek pads (the stock ones are a bit thick and hurt my face after a while, so I "customized" the ones for the silver helmet I bought) and took a ride at lunch.

The recall replacement helmet fits better than the one I bought, the venting works better and it makes considerably less wind noise to boot. It's interesting the variance between the three XXXL (I have an enormous, oddly shaped melon) Modus helmets I've had from Fulmer. Based on this short ride, I'd say the recall replacement is the best of the lot, followed closely by the recalled one, with the purchased silver unit lagging behind.

I took a short ride last night to a nearby HD dealer to pick up my new helmet.

I'm sitting at the stop light of the intersection of a busy road and an interstate and a kid and someone who I'm assuming is his little brother (maybe 10 or 12) pulls up next to me in a beat-up import. I don't take much notice, but I'm blipping the throttle a bit, just to hear the TORs burble. The kid sticks his head out the window and yells "Excuse me, sir? Nice bike! Is it fast?"

"Oh yeah."

"Has it got nitrous?"

Don't know where that came from - maybe because I'm a lard-ass - but whatever. I'm having too much fun, so I just grin.

"Nope. Doesn't need it."

In a moment of perfect timing, like something out of a movie, the light turns green RIGHT THEN, so I ignore my better judgment and twist the go handle. Maggie (my bike) yells "RRWAAAAAAAAWR!" and we launch hard, leaving the kid, his brother and everyone else in the dust.

I know it was childish, but it was so much fun to look in my mirror and see the kid sitting there with his jaw dangling.

What is it about these bikes that encourages this kind of behavior? Dammit, I used to be a conservative rider! I was even proud of my chicken strips, since they meant I was a safe rider!

The Varmint over at AttackCartoons.com drew this for me. Freakin' awesome.

I trucked Maggie home last night

After the Iron Lady, Maggie Thatcher, of course. Yes, I'm getting a new Triumph *glee!*. The white thing on her seat is a "Don't sit on me, I'm sold!" sign. The vx800, as nice a bike as it is, just doesn't fit me very well, and I'm finally in a place financially where I can drop the hammer on a NEW bike. She's an '07 Bonneville Black, 865cc vertical (not "V") twin. The dealer is going to tweak the exhaust and install a center stand for me, and I get to pick her up Wednesday or Thursday.

Sadly, it looks like it's going to be raining for the rest of the week, so I'll have to truck her to her new home in my garage.

I refuse to watch this on general principle. Yahoo describes the movie thusly:

An astronaut is forced to leave NASA to save his family farm, but he continues to dream of space travel and sets out to build a rocket inside his barn. Though his neighbors consider him an oddity, the media considers him a story, and the government considers him a threat, nothing can deter him from his dream to break through the atmosphere and orbit the earth.

What they don't tell you is that Billy-Bob's character is named "Farmer" in the hokiest Hollywood tradition of naming lead characters after their profession, or at least in relation to it, so the title can be a cute double-entendre. I can imagine the pitch meeting now -" See, J.B., he's an astronaut, who becomes a farmer, and his name is, get this, J.B. - Charles Farmer. Get it? Get it?"

Sorry, Hollywood, but that's not clever, and I refuse to take the bait. I don't care how damn good this movie is, I will never, ever see it. If it's showing on a flight, I'll gouge my eyes out and puncture my eardrums first.

First they came for the meteorologists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a meteorologist.
Then they came for the talk radio hosts
and I did not speak out
because I was not a talk radio host.
Then they came for the bloggers
and I did not speak out
because I was not a blogger.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

(with apologies to Pastor Martin Niemöller)

Well, technically I am a blogger, but you know what I mean. Scary stuff for anyone who appreciates their right to free speech.

A few years ago, I found two books by Mark Sumner that I greatly enjoyed, "The Devil's Tower" and "The Devil's Engine." One extra point of interest for me is that he is a St. Louis area author, so there's a chance I might be able to meet him to talk about writing, sci-fi, fantasy, whatever. I hadn't seen anything by him recently, and I was looking forward to more tales of magick and gunslinging from Medicine Rock, so I started Googling. I managed to find his "home page" over at SFF.net, but it was way out of date so more digging was in order.

And here's the point of why I'm liking the Internet less and less. Which is worse: Discovering an author who's work you enjoy has died (Chris Bunch, may he rest in peace), or discovering an author who's work you've enjoyed is a political junkie from the opposite side of the spectrum from you? Sumner is apparently a denizen of moonbat central, the Daily Kos, and seems to be focusing his writing talent on radical Leftist politics rather than good fiction. Well, a lot of the crap at DK is fiction, but little is intentionally good.

I don't begrudge the man his political views, but the Daily Kos? Next I'll find out he's one of those idiot 9-11 "truthers" who thinks Bush plotted the whole thing from his Crawford ranch and personally pushed the button to set off the demo charges that REALLY dropped the World Trade Center. Or was it a cruise missile? I can never keep that straight.

I can respect not liking Bush. I can respect not supporting the war in Iraq and being suspicious of the "war on terror". But I cannot respect the raving lunacy that passes for "dissent" by Kos and his ilk.

What a disappointment.