whatcha doing?

[guitargeek]

[media]https://youtu.be/0x9npV3IO8Q[/media]

[motorpsycho67]

No bike either.

Yeah, chatting with Natalie was a mood lifter.

No wheels at all in L.A. would be awkward. Good luck. (And yeah, she'd be a mood lifter, no question, especially in yoga pants.)

Wouldn't bike be cheaper? If you gotta haul stuff then I can see the problem, but... if it's just a function of finding quick and cheap transportation, bikes are better (at least where you are).

--Jaeger

Yeah, I need a car to haul stuff. Tools for work, etc.

Going to look at a car in a couple of hours. Wish me luck.

[guitargeek]

Shiny.

[Bigshankhank]

Sitting here lamenting that fact that yet again I did not bring my bike to work with me. Its kind of getting old, I have a bike that I love to ride and the weather in which to enjoy it, yet for some reason in the mornings my routine of heading for the cage is so ingrained that I just don't even consider the bike when I am heading for the office. Maybe I need to set out my riding gear the night before as a reminder to saddle up.

[Jaeger]

Watching the first flakes of "Jonah" or "Snowzilla" fall outside my house. We're supposed to get around 2' of snow.

--Jaeger

[Bigshankhank]

Watching the first flakes of "Jonah" or "Snowzilla" fall outside my house. We're supposed to get around 2' of snow.

--Jaeger

I need to get my wife squared away, I don't have any clean shorts to wear this weekend...

[DerGolgo]

Standing outside the neurologist's office for 20 minutes, listening to the Supersuckers. Another 30 minutes before they open. Was told to come in without an appointment. If I wanna come out early enough to get to work, gotta camp out a bit.
I had, from experience, expected to NOT be first in line, but it must be my lucky day.

[DerGolgo]

Being befuddled.
In modern movies about WW2, in the English version, the Germans will usually speak either without any great accent, or with a German accent. If they aren't actual Germans (like in Inglorious Basters).

Now, I'm watching "The Desert Fox: The story of Erwin Rommel".
Hearing the German officers talk not just in thick British "received pronunciation", but speaking outright Brit ... talking of "He's a good fella" and "Those hoodlums!".
That's a kinda spacey experience, that ...

[red]

I got some garage time today, not on the XJ but on my buddy's 87 GS650GL. It's been sitting, neglected in my garage for a while now. When he reassembled the carbs (2013), it never ran right. I was fairly certain he missed something. Earlier this winter, I broke them apart and found he was missing the washer between the needle jet and the main. Ooops. Got the carbs assembled today and back on the bike (I HATE removing/installing the carbs on this bike). Hopefully, I'll be able to do a test start next time.

Side note, I started wearing glasses full time again. It is a real pain in the ass to try and look upside down or have my head at a downward angle. As a quick fix, I made a glasses strap w/some vacuum tubing. Worked like a charm!

[DerGolgo]

So, I'm sitting at home, high on pain-meds. No, I don't actually enjoy it.
My post-traumatic headaches have been getting progressively worse over the last half year, my pain therapist has long run out of options.
Since Thursday, I've been unable to function without horse-doses of opiates.

Today, I had to fill some prescriptions at the pharmacy. Tried that in the morning, but they didn't have everything there, so I had to come back in the afternoon.
On my way there in the afternoon, I wanted to stop by the post-shop (there are literally no more post offices in this town of 390k people. DO NOT LET THEM PRIVATIZE YOUR POSTAL SERVICE!). Drop of the letter and pick up some more stamps. Had stuck my second-to-last one on that very letter, last of the little sheet of 62 cent stamps I bought about six months ago, when they had hiked the postage rates yet again.
But buying stamps wasn't on. Yesterday morning, so I was told, around 6AM, someone kicked down the door of that store, literally right across the street from me, I can see it from my kitchen window. Not just vandalism, no, old-school mail-robbery. Their haul was, so I was told, EIGHTEEN THOUSAND EUROS in stamps. Every last one.
Well, I thought, I can at least drop of my letter.
Nope.
It's 70 cents, now. Third hike in less than two years. And since even the little 8 cent stamps they had issued just for people who, like I, still had 62 cent stamps to use up were gone, I couldn't mail my letter.
Can't they just print out something?
They could. Except the burglars had smashed up the postal terminal.

[Bigshankhank]

That sucks DerG, can't relate too closely with the USPS although they have faced a rapid decline in usefulness over the last few years. It angers me far more than it should that the only way I can buy a single stamp is to go up to the counter. They have self-service machines, which don't take cash and you cannot make a purchase with a credit card of only $0.44, forcing you to buy an entire book of ten. Ten stamps will last me almost an entire year (I only have one bill so archaic as to not have an online payment method). So instead I will deliberately stand in line and hand them four dimes and four pennies just to be irritating and give me enough time for my rage to reach a genuine froth. OK its terribly passive aggressive to think that a gubmint employee gives a flying fuck about my feelings, but whatevs. They have no reason to care, as they are metaphorically building buggy whips next to an auto plant, hoping they'll last long enough to draw a pension.

[DerGolgo]

From what I've read, the USPS works with literally NO dollars in subsidies. And unlike a private carrier, they have to serve you, don't they.
Believe me. Where I live, it's all been entirely privatized. The postal service here has become profitable - and unreliable. Customer service is a joke, if that. Performance is CRAP. A lot of it is, because of the infrastructure they entered the market with, built over centuries, still gives them a quasi-monopoly on many services. A quasi monopoly they like to sit on, fat and contented. While most of their competition won't carry a letter for me, the consumer. They only handle volume-business from local authorities, large companies, etc.
I can mail a parcel with another service, but that's basically it.

A postal service that operates as a government agency can't afford half the silly tricks our privatized postal service likes to do. Oh, you got a note in your letterbox to come to the post office and sign for a registered letter, let's see ... oh, thank goodness, it's actually here!
Last year, one parcel, registered and all, was supposed to be at the "post office". Which, actually, is a branch of the Postbank (once part of the postal service, now legally a separate entity) that also happens to be yet another postal outlet, like the newsagents across the street from me. It wasn't there. Another one was, and the clerk DID express relief that the registered letter was where it was supposed to be.
At other times, I've found the little cards taped to the front-door of my building, with a tick in the box "You weren't in!". When I had been in all day. Once, I found that card on the sidewalk.
Their carriers are over-worked, under-paid, under-equipped and under-trained. AKA "profitable".
When an item is lost in transit, trying to get anything done about that is next to impossible. One moment, they won't talk to the sender because the letter belongs to the recipient, doesn't it. Next moment, they won't talk to the recipient because the sender made the contract for them to carry that letter. According to their terms of service, you have to wait 30 days before even talking to them about that important, time-sensitive thing you sent as a registered letter because of some legal hassle - and when it's lost and you're in a shitheap of trouble, those terms of service will entitle you to a refund of postage, not to the thousands in legal costs you now have because the letter got lost.
When our postal service was a government agency, sending a registered letter or whatever you call the parcel-equivalent meant that IT WOULD GET THERE. End of story. Only possible delay would be during the Christmas Chaos. BUT IT WOULD GET THERE.
Now? They'll do their best, and thank you for chosing Deutsche Post AG! A service representative will be with you shortly ...

[guitargeek]

Take it easy on the Postal Service!
For starters, government employees are people, too, and those who work the counter have to put up with a lot enraged people ALL DAY LONG. You think your little rage is special, do you?

Right wing fuckface politicians have been trying to wreck the Postal Service for a long time now. If you want to blame someone, they deserve it!

[DerGolgo]

I am having
ONE OF THOSE DAYS.
Weeks, really.
I have another round of hospital/rehab stays in my near future. I wanted to tool up for that. Specifically, a nice enough notebook computer, so I could surf the internet while watching Netflix etc., what a little Android tablet won't do.
So I bought a used 17" Fujitsu-Siemens unit on ebay. Fairly decent specs, Windows 7 Ultimate pre-installed and activated. Haggled the guy down 20 bucks.
Except the Windows license key wasn't included in the article description, fair enough, and I could not get the admin password out of the guy.
No worries. Buy used license. Install Windows 7 Home Premium from my original Microsoft CD, upgrade to Windows 10, all is fine.
I ended up having to activate on the phone, that license had been around. 7 activation on 4 different machines in less than two years.
Just when the guy from Microsoft support was about to put me through to the computer voice that'd read out the 48 digit code ... the screen dies. Not "go black", but pixels and shit and stuff being shoved halfway across the screen. Hardware flaw, no question. Would only just show the BIOS bootscreen after that, nothing else.
Repairing something that'll probably break in some other way would be yet another false economy. So, buy a new machine, with a warranty. Grmpf.

EDIT.
The rant about the shitty nature of HP and how they distribute technical data or drivers for their products has been excised.
Safe to say, I bought a new HP notebook, decent specs for a good price. Except for the screen, the letters on the keys and two tiny little LEDs mounted where you can't see 'em, the thing is ALL motorcycle colored. Took me a few minutes just to find the on-button ...

[DerGolgo]

Going into hospital on Tuesday.
Fucking yipee.
Could be days, could be weeks, fuck.
My neurologist arranged for the chief of neurology to take care of me.
But whether there's actually anything they can do remains to be seen.

[Jaeger]

Going into hospital on Tuesday.
Fucking yipee.
Could be days, could be weeks, fuck.
My neurologist arranged for the chief of neurology to take care of me.
But whether there's actually anything they can do remains to be seen.

Suck. Good luck. I'm going in to get my knee fixed on Thursday, but that's a helluva lot easier than your situation.

Still, sounds like it's going to be a shit medical week for the UTMC.

Everybody else, stay the fuck out of the hospital!

--Jaeger

[Pintgudge]

Good Luck please to all of the medicaly challenged folks.

I hope that the attempts to make things better will help.

[red]

Best of luck to you guys. Hope you have a speedy recovery.

[DerGolgo]

Just got an email from the local fuzz, about the complaint I had lodged about how a pair of cops had found that the storage room I rent in the building's basement (and rarely visit) had been borken into. And I had found out about that over 2 months later, when I had a letter in the mail.

Apparently, this chief of the watch or whatchacallit had gotten written statements from the cops involved and wanted to see me to talk about it in person.
Nice PR work.

I only just about managed to keep the email response short and without boiling bile. I restrained myself from informing him that, were we to meet, once side would beat the other side to a bloody pulp, though I'm unsure about who'd be what side in that scenario.

EDIT: and just got the reply. Wow, quick turnaround.
The police department wants to practice modern complaint-resolution, with short turnaround and with close contact with the complainers.
But they of course have sympathy with my situation. The implication of the wording the guy chose being on how I owe them my cooperation (I have written literally thousands of letters to angry consumers, I know how to phrase this shit).
Fuck the police.

[Jaeger]

Just got an email from the local fuzz,....
Fuck the police.

--Jaeger

[DerGolgo]

Getting pumped full of steroids.
No, I haven't taken up American rules rugby.

The boss of neurology figures I've been taking a colorful variety of non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, aka analgesics, for so long, large portion of my demented headaches may be toxic. So, cold turkey on all of that stuff. But I might get all manner of inlamantions now, so they have to pump me full of prednison via IV to be on the safe side. So I won't baloon from inflammation, only from steroid associated weight-gain.
And nothing else for pain relief, so far. Fucking fuckeddy fuck fuck.

At least the hospital has decent wifi.

[guitargeek]

I've taken prednisone, off and on, since 1980.
It works, but it is some bad shit...

[DerGolgo]

I have no doubt. Supposedly, I'm only getting some to prevent inflammations from sudden NSAID withdrawal.

Not quite as bad, I'm surfing the Facebooks, Netflix going in another window. I click to watch a Facebook video. Instead of the agreeable volume in my headphones, I get full blast from the computer speakers.
After a few moments, I make the most startling discovery. Plugging my headphones into the machine has no effect on the inbuilt speaker's volume, whatsover! And the mixer won't offer me to adjust headphone volume!!
As though the speaker and headphone jack were wired up together, inseperable!


I must have the wrong driver. Nuke the site from orbit and reinstall the latest driver version, it's the only way to be sure.
The problem persists, quite identical.
But how can this be?
I check the settings for the speakers. And find that, indeed. Somebody at HP had found it clever to wire the headphone jacks together with the rear line-out jack and the speakers themselves, all in one big, cost efficient mess.


At least, the most complicated thing about getting a USB Audio adaptor at an agreeable price and with delivery on the morrow was checking with the hospital porter whether such a parcel would be accepted or refused.

BTW: The new pain killer, NOT an NSAID, NOT an opoid, yet still regulated as a narcotic, did nothing thus far. Except making me quite dizzy.

[guitargeek]

Well, I'm certainly not digging any of that!

[guitargeek]

I shuffled some bikes around.

[DerGolgo]

That's beautiful, man!

[Bigshankhank]

So much loose wire in that picture, how do you keep your head on straight man?
Where did the VT750 come from?

[guitargeek]

So much loose wire in that picture, how do you keep your head on straight man?

What makes you think I do?

Where did the VT750 come from?

VT500 Ascot, a project that's been languishing in my garage for years...

[Bigshankhank]

So much loose wire in that picture, how do you keep your head on straight man?

What makes you think I do?

Fair point.

Where did the VT750 come from?

VT500 Ascot, a project that's been languishing in my garage for years...

Was the frame originally red, or has it merely been evolving in an effort to fit in with the KZ's?

[guitargeek]

Actually, my buddy painted his Honda frame red before I painted my Kawasaki frame...