whatcha doing?

[Bigshankhank]

Up at 6:15am on a Sunday having some java and reading Kevin Cameron's Classic Motorcycle Race Engines

[Sisyphus]

Watching a really shitty movie.

Do tell?

"Sideways," a pseudo-chick flick my wife had been pestering me to watch w/ her. A painfully uncomfortable movie about two 40-something losers finding themselves on a weeklong getaway trip that involves wine, a hotel room, two women, and really, really, really tacky California locations. Shot on the cheap, bad music, so-so actors. Depressing and claustrophobic.

[DerGolgo]

"Sideways," a pseudo-chick flick my wife had been pestering me to watch w/ her. A painfully uncomfortable movie about two 40-something losers finding themselves on a weeklong getaway trip that involves wine, a hotel room, two women, and really, really, really tacky California locations. Shot on the cheap, bad music, so-so actors. Depressing and claustrophobic.

Here, you need to get your mind off of that stinker. Have a nice glass of Merlot ...

[xtian]

Hey look at that, I just won the race.

[Bigshankhank]

Watching a really shitty movie.

Do tell?

"Sideways," a pseudo-chick flick my wife had been pestering me to watch w/ her. A painfully uncomfortable movie about two 40-something losers finding themselves on a weeklong getaway trip that involves wine, a hotel room, two women, and really, really, really tacky California locations. Shot on the cheap, bad music, so-so actors. Depressing and claustrophobic.

Oh yeah, Indy film darling when it came out but I thought it was stupid, too. Much like Lost in Translation, way overrated for what was ultimately a mediocre and mostly boring film. At least LiT had Scarlet's ass along with Bill-freaking-Murray, although I lost a lot of respect for him because of that movie.

[Bigshankhank]

Hey look at that, I just won the race.

Que?

[xtian]

Hey look at that, I just won the race.

Que?

My sunday night race, see higher in this thread.

[Bigshankhank]

Ah, tres Bon.

[Sisyphus]

Watching my 7 y.o. reassemble a car stereo that came out of the vee dub while my wife works. At noon we switch.

[sun rat]

Still cleaning up legal messes from bath salts idiot.

[DerGolgo]

Installing a new forum feature. You're welcome.

[Zim]

I really don't want to let the XT225 go but as long as I have the highway-capable KLX650 and my dirt ambitions continue to be mild, the small one will probably have to go.

Had I the resources, I'd love to help you out with that situation. Small displacement? I'm lovin it. Alas, I also have too much stuff in my garage. Hoarder's remorse.

At the moment I'm waiting for the snow to melt. Takes an awfully long time, and like a watched pot... fucking water and heat.

Also tracking an incoming box containing motorcycle boots, of which I've never worn and am quite excited to try on. Staring at the Aerostich Darien I've waited 10 years to get, but won't be able to try out for the next couple of months or so. Dreaming of adventure up on two. Reading moto-related stuff on the Kindle. Got a bunch of moto-related stuff queued up in Netflix. Watching ADVRider like a drone.

Winter hurts.

[Zim]

It's too cold to rattlecan anything in the garage, so why not in the comfort of my own home?! The fumes will just dissipate in the basement, right? So I sprayed bedliner on the rear rack. Can went empty, so I ran out to get more. Returned in about an hour. In through the front door and...



So now I'm ventilating the house with fans in the window. It's 18° outside. 1/2 an hour ago it was 68° inside. Now it's 58°, and I'm not even done airing out.

[guitargeek]

[Sisyphus]

Just finished wire brushing the pots and pans.

[guitargeek]

[Sisyphus]

I had been making a cannon barrel on the lathe but the drill I had wasn't long enough. So I left it until I can find a bit long enough.

[xtian]

undecided. go out for chocolate croissants, or just an egg. or skip breakfast.

[guitargeek]

Done!

[motorpsycho67]

Oooh, sparkly!

[guitargeek]

Oooh, sparkly!

Indeed! And all it took was about a week's worth of elbow grease, a little rubbing compound and some carnauba wax.

Before:





I soda blasted the very corroded bridge:



This left a bunch of very sharp edges, which I had to polish away. This is just to hold my friend over until he can decide on which replacement bridge to order.



Seriously, don't ever ask me "whatcha doin'?", because I'll for damn sure tell you... in boring detail...

[motorpsycho67]

I quite enjoyed Lost in Translation

[Pintgudge]

In that movie, the opening segment is my favorite.

[DerGolgo]

In that movie, the opening segment is my favorite.

Yeah, but it looses a bit about 46 seconds in.

[stiles]

Prepping the Tiger Explorer for its' maiden voyage:

Philly to east goatfuck to Los Angeles to San francisco to San diego to Tuscon to New orleans, to atlanta to Philly.

6,655 miles and about three weeks.

Service is completed, Installing the GPS, heated grips and battery tender lead for the electric vest tomorrow.

[guitargeek]

BRANG IT!

[Rench]

Pooping.

-Rench

[DerGolgo]

I went to the eye doctor. After at least thirty minutes of measuring out my eyes, he found he got significantly different values for correction than the neuro-opthalmologist's practice had found.
I really had only gone to another eye doctor to see whether prisms would help, the neuro-opthalmologist didn't think they would, and the qualified optical measuring person in her practice had quit, so I had to find somebody else.
He had me try out my new glasses for an hour. Turned into two hours of lounging around in the waiting room.

DSC_0004.jpg

Set up for long-distance, so I couldn't even read anything, I was just supposed to "look around".

Then I went to an optician, to get fitted for slightly less jangleplatz glasses. He, of course, produced yet a third set of entirely different measurements as to how much has to be corrected.
But he actually makes the glasses that people actually gotta live with, on a daily basis. He measures to make a sale and create repeat customers, not just for a diagnosis. I'll trust his judgement.
We'll start with long-distance glasses, which I actually look forward to. The trial glasses already corrected some of the double vision, and I am a bit short sighted even in my left eye. Seeing the world in focus for a change was pleasant today. The long-distance glasses will also be the basis for figuring out what reading glasses would be best for me, for working at the computer or reading a book and whatnot. Once I've gotten used to 'em, I'll just get a set of add-on lenses to hold in front of the long-distance glasses and try out to see what works best for me.

[Bigshankhank]

DerGolgo has gone all steampunk!

I have a case of the "Spohs-dahs". I'm spohs-dah be working, but instead I am fucking off on the internet.

[DerGolgo]

Today I broke the law, doubly, and found out something about the health of my right hip.
I went to a protest march, to protest fascist violence, and in memory of Schmuddel. Schmuddel was a punk who, in 2005, was murdered by a nazi pos.This happened in Dortmund, where nazis shits feel particularly welcome in this corner of Germany, the authorities treat them like an endangered species.
A cabal of these fucks live in the same apartment-building and are currently raising money to buy the whole place. So that was where the march was headed.
We had expected maybe 25 to 50 people to show up. We were a bit wrong there. The cops reported about 350, by the official count. Judging the mass of people snaking around a corner on the march route, from my vantage point at the tail-end of the march, I'd say about a thousand. Which works out with the official cop numbers, actually.
The march started out quite nice. If you haven't experienced the noises of a big city getting drowned out by a few hundred particularly enthusiastic protesters shouting Alerta! Alerta! Antifascista!, you should.
The cops were well behaved and only arrested (or ordered to piss off home) those punks who were blitzed beyond reason. The cops at the tail end of the march themselves were, by and large, unshaven and looked less than well. Hungover was the impression we all got. Not happy to be there, at all, but entirely disinclined to get involved in any kind of situation.
They were all wearing sunglasses, which is where I broke the law.
At a protest march, it's entirely illegal to obscure any part of the face (unless you're a cop, who don't even wear badge-numbers in all but one German city). I've heard about people getting arrested for emo haircuts. I had prepared to do the whole march with my right eye clamped tightly shut, but when I got there, not just the cops were in sunglasses. At least a third or so of the protesters were, so I just broke the law, and nobody cared. The other bit where I broke the law was by wearing my robust, ergonomic, non-skid boots. Which happen to be standards-conforming work-boots. With steel toecaps which are also not permitted at political protest marches. Or at least count against you if charged with any misbehavior in such a context.
Less than a mile from our destination, the march was halted in the street and we basically stood around for half an hour. Turns out, the nazi shits knew the well-advertised and officially permitted protest march was coming. So they organized an "impromptu" bbq party in the street outside their apartment building. Entirely illegal and un-permitted. But this was Dortmund. So, rather than rounding up the nazi shits for blocking traffic and whatnot, the boss-cop decided the protest march couldn't be allowed to continue along the permitted route. Within his discretion, actually. So it was announced the march would be directed elsewhere and dispersed. We decided this was silly and buggered off to find beer, a park bench and sunshine. Since the weather was such that, the first time this year, I wore neither sweatshirt nor a jacket, just a t-shirt, we were successful in that endeavor.

I will, at some point, need a new hip-joint. The condition for this to happen would be if I could not walk around for thirty minutes anymore, if the pain got too bad for walking, actually. In the winter, with the cold weather, I did notice evident pain on occasion. But today, with the very nice weather, and probably also because of the arthritis medication I've been taking for the past two months, I walked around for three hours, and didn't get any notable pain in my hip. So that's nice.