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Live Whacking Archive 12 January 2006 Steve Edwards isn't happy with our over-taxing, over-spending federal treasurer. Go and read. It's time this smug, born-to-rule prick gave us some fucking tax cuts, and cut massive chunks out of our dreadful, bloated tax code. You know you've got a dickhead as a treasurer when even the agrarian bludgers in the National Party start demanding lower taxes. Christ, if that isn't a reason for suicide I don't know what is.
The grass is just as dumb on the other side The left has never had a monopoly on idiocy. Proof of this is the always amusing Worldnetdaily website. Essentially a bunch of far-right Jesus freaks, along with some more traditional uber-rightist crackpots like Ann Coulter. Worldnetdaily has four obsessions which it posts about every single day: - there is a massive homosexual plot to rape children, spread AIDS and destroy America. But the most entertaining part about these freaks is their ever-changing banner headine. The one from yesterday read as follows:
I'm guessing one of them is Elvis.
I never make New Years Resolutions, but I did this year: I'm going to lose twenty-five kilograms minimum before Christmas 2006. I'm planning on riding a (non-motorised) bike to work every single day, no exceptions. So I've been looking at buying a mountain bike, but I remembered reading about recumbent trikes, and decided to try one out. Yesterday, I took a Greenspeed GT3 for a brief 13km ride around Lake Burley Griffin.
Man, it was one strange experience. Comparing a recumbent trike to a bicycle is an 'apples & oranges' comparison if there ever was one. A more apt comparison would be to a go-cart. The main advantage of a recumbent trike is comfort: you're sitting on a mesh/elastic lounge chair (which doubles as the trike's only means of shock absorption), leaning back at a 40 degree angle, with your feet clipped into the pedals right in front of you. The handlebars are on either side of your hips. When you first get on the thing (which in itself is a tricky exercise), it's one of the strangest feelings imaginable. Being so low to the ground takes some getting used to, and other riders and pedestrians seem to tower over you. My trike was identical to the one in the picture, plus a set of front mudguards, a second mirror, a small bicycle computer and a bottle-holder on the front tube. Oh, and a dorky orange safety flag at the back so you can be seen by cars when you go on the road. The mirrors are truly useless and an awful design: the stems slope inwards, leaving you with a great view of your arms and not much else. They also hit you in the quads while you pedal. It wasn't really an ideal trike for my size and weight. The GT3 is the entry-level model in the Greenspeed range and is "one size fits most". The handlebars had to be adjusted outwards, and the right brake lever was always jammed against the right mudguard stem, which made it a bitch to use. The extendable front tube was maybe a centimetre or two too far away, so I kept sliding down the seat. Worst of all, the gearshifter didn't seem to be adjusted properly, which made finding the right gear a nightmare. I was stuck in high gears going up a steep slope, and sometimes too low going downhill.
Still, I was having fun. For starters, most of the problems I've just outlined are a simple matter of getting the trike set up properly for the rider. Getting the length of the front tube right and properly adjusting the gearshift would have made things much easier, and would have let me focus even more on the strengths of the recumbent trike. Aside from the remarkable level of comfort, the steering is simply mindblowing. In fact, the steering is so sharp you need to take all the weight off the handlebar grips, because the slightest touch on either handlebar will see the bike steer sharply. It's kinda scary to start of with: I was zig-zagging all over the path, looking like a complete pratt, and was so out of control I nearly collected a bike rider coming the other way shortly before nearly riding into the lake. Fightng the handlebars only exacerbates the problem. The solution is to just rest your palms lightly on the stop of the bars, and use only small inputs. The steering is self-centreing, so the trick is to just pedal and relax your hands. Once you've got the steering figured out, it's an awesomely fun tool, especially on fast downhill sections, where you can scream around corners at a frightening pace with a huge shit-eating grin on your mug. Better still, you can use "brake steer" to help you turn even faster. Both front wheels have their own drum brake, so if you actuate the left brake only, the right wheel will pivot around sharply, even without using the handlebars to steer. Once you've practiced it, it's a useful technique and quite a thrill. Oh, how I'd love to take the trike to the top of a twisty mountain pass, and make a full-blast descent. While trikes are slower overall than bikes (due to the extra weight and rolling resistance), there's no way in hell a bike rider will keep up with a triker of equal ability on a fast downhill run. The trike is so fucking fast through the corners even a motor vehicle would be hard pressed to pass the trike in the right conditions. OK, so it's comfy, can turn on the head of a pin, and it's awesome fun on fast downhill runs. What else? Being on three wheels gives you other advantages. For starters, you can ride as slowly as you want up very steep slopes because there's no minimum speed you need to maintain to keep your balance. And because you're not standing up and mashing down on the pedals, there's no knee strain. And if you do feel absolutely buggered, you can just hit the brakes and sit there until you feel like pedalling again. There's also the safety of not being able to fall off. Run over gravel or ice in a corner on a bicycle, you'll crash. On the trike, you'll just keep on going. You can tip a trike over in a fast corner, but I didn't even come close to doing it, despite screaming around some corners with my corpulent mass adding a lot of top-heavy incentive for the trike to tip over. It didn't. No-one using the slightest iota of common sense will tip one of these things. The drum brakes offer plenty of stopping power, even for someone of my size, and have a very good feel at the levers. Greenspeed recommends upgrading to disk brakes, but I don't think I'd bother, unless I were touring with a ton of luggage and anticipated some very long downhill runs, during which the drums may fade. But in a commuting role, the drums bring you to a stop with no fuss. I was happy to see that the width of the trike caused no problems either. It easily kept on my half of the cycle paths, and oncoming ridiers and pedestrians had no difficulty getting past. Toe clips/straps are an absolute necessity for a recumbent trike. Your legs are horizontal, and your toes point toward the sky, so gravity is pulling your feet down off the pedals. If you don't fasten your shoes very tightly, a lot of your energy is wasted just keeping your feet on the pedals. Even with toe-straps, my feet gradually started to slip out, and re-adjustment was necessary. For this reason, a pair of secure "clipless" pedals/shoes are a must to get the most out of a trike. As I said, the GT3 is the entry-level trike in the Greenspeed range, with a small, light build that wasn't suited to me. It also has "only" 27 gears, compared with a whopping 81 on the better models. The GT3 isn't meant for dirt trails or carrying a big load of luggage, and it lacks the super-low gears of the better models have which you'd need to tackle serious-hill climbs. I would have liked a couple of lower gears even for the modest hills I went up, though I doubt anyone fitter than me would have any problem, especially if they kept within the GT3's design brief. Oh, did I mention that the GT3 can be folded in half? Yep, you can quickly "break" it in two for transport in a car or plane, or even storage. Despite some obvious flaws and oddities, I had a ball on the GT3. To summarise... Strong points: - awesome steering Weak points: - jarring ride on bumpy surfaces I'm going to have another test of the GT3 in a month or so, after I do some riding on a borrowed mountain bike to build up my fitness a bit. A little more stamina and careful setup of the trike will enable me to give it better evaluation. I won't buy a GT3. It's not suited to me. I am, however, considering the GTR....
The GTR has 81 gears, higher-spec equipment, is custom-built for each buyer's size & weight and is generally more suited for touring and dirt-road usage. The biggest problem with trikes remains the price. The entry-level GT3 starts at a whopping $2950, and that's without a luggage rack, bottle holder, second mirror or bicycle computer. The GTR starts at $4950, though does come with a higher level of equipment and a much wider range of frame/seat colours. Add disk brakes, luggage and a headlight and you're looking at $6000 or more. Still, I'm tempted. If I can have that much fun on a badly set-up machine which was too small for me while I'm so unfit, how much fun am I going to have on a custom-built one when my fitness improves? Quite a lot I'd say. Greenspeed is an Australian manufacturer with a very high reputation for quality, which would make it a little easier again to hand over the dollars. Would someone like to buy me one, please?
Archived Thom Our little Greenie military imposter has crawled into a hole and hasn't been heard from recently, so here's a little gem of his from 2004:
Heh. And in case you were wondering, no word from his "lawyers" or the police who were supposedly coming to arrest me.
PSA Do not, under any circumstances, download the Incredimail freeware e-mail application. The cunt of a thing is a nightmare to uninstall, involving endless amounts of registry editing, otherwise, you'll get a prompt to install incredimail every fucking time you start your PC.
Quad meme Stolen from the cranky old bastard. Helena Handbasket's responses are included under mine. Four jobs you've had in your life: barista, dishwasher, contract MS Access programmer, software purchasing/licencing coordinator Helena: Cosmetic salesperson, artist's manager, theater director, secretary at a Kuwaiti-owned car-parts distributor. Four movies you could [ and do ] watch over and over: Blade Runner, Office Space, The Godfather, HEAT Helena: My Fair Lady, The Hunt for Red October, Finding Nemo, A Fish Called Wanda Four places you've lived: there's only two - Darwin and Canberra Helena: New York City, Brunswick, ME, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Canberra, Australia Four fiction books you can't live without: The Ninja - Eric Van Lustbader, Salems Lot - Stephen King, The Books of Blood - Clive Barker, The Sunset Warrior - Eric Van Lustbader Helena: The Endless Steppe by Esther Hautzig, Thank You for Smoking by Christopher Buckley, The Fraternity of the Stone by David Morrell, The Thurber Carnival by James Thurber Four non-fiction books you consider essential: Fatal Vision - Joe McGuiness, The Perfect Storm - Sebastian Junger, Black Hawk Down - Mark Bowden, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - Willim Shirer Helena: The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain, The Joy of Sects by Peter Occhiogrosso, The Face of the Tiger by Mark Steyn, A Short History of Byzantium by John Julius Norwich Four TV shows you love to watch: The Simpsons, Law & Order, The Sopranos, Iron Chef Helena: Same as Tex Four places you've been on vacation: Kyoto, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Montreal. Helena: Madrid, Santa Fe, Disneyworld, the Bahamas. Four websites you visit daily: Tim Blair, Sydney Morning Herald, Damian Penny, Superbikeplanet. Helena: MakeupAlley, Tim Blair, The Agitator, The New York Times Four of your favorite foods: Ethiopian spicy beef, fish n' chips, beef vindaloo, Mr Wong's red curry chicken with roti bread. Helena: Steak and fries from La Cabaña in Buenos Aires, Cuban sandwiches from El Malecon in the Bronx, pizza from Sal's and Carmine's on 102nd street and Broadway in Manhattan, pork medallions in raspberry-pepper coulis from On The Veranda in Highland, NC Four places you'd rather be: Melbourne, riding my motorbike, NYC, Macau. Helena: Sephora, Barnes & Noble, Venice, anyplace cold. Four albums you can't live without: meh, don't listen to music much anymore. Helena: Soundtrack to Chicago, La Boheme, Stop Making Sense by Talking Heads, Negotiations and Love Songs by Paul Simon
Creationism is for people who are too stupid to accept that they descended from monkeys
I smoke like a fish - Scott Wickstein, who was actually sober at the time
It's gonna take a lotta fireworks to clean this place up - Homer Simpson
Happy new year folks. I've been too lazy to write anything. Hope you had a nice Christmas, and consumed lots of pork and beer. It's too fucking hot here right now. It hovered around 40c yesterday and feels just as bloody hot today. Thankfully I now have a nice evaporative cooler in my room. Best $229 I ever spent. I've also been entertaining Scott Wickstein, who's visiting from Adelaide, Scott is the ideal house guest: he doesn't expect to be taken anywhere or shown anything. Like me, he prefers to sit on his arse, drink beer and watch TV. Especially drink. The guy went through an entire case of Coopers in 2 days. He also a freak in the reading department, reading Anthony Beevor's Stalingrad in a day, and the equally large Berlin the following day. Today was an equal monument to laziness. It was too fucking hot to go anywhere so we stayed indoors. Fuck all that 'summertime activities' crap. I finished reading Steve Waugh's excellent autobio Out Of My Comfort Zone. A must for cricket fans.
The Changeling Brain has commanded me to complete this meme-thingy, so here goes....
Hmmmmm...... 1: While showering, I hold my left fist in the small of my back. I have absolutely no idea why I do this. And no, I've never done prison time. 2: I like to watch TV with the sound off while I listen to music through headphones. 3: I'm one of the few bloggers who rarely comments on recent news events, uses a white-on-black webpage scheme, and I don't update until around 1am in the morning, assuming I update at all. 4: I watch the finals or big tournament events in sports I usually have no interest in. I watch the soccer world cup, even though I think soccer mostly sucks. I have little interest in rugby or AFL, but often watch the finals of those too. 5: I am one of the few people on earth who hates mashed potatoes. I'd rather drink paint. OK, that's my five, and the following five people are now officially required to do the same: Emily, Yobbo, Mr. Mustard, Val and Bunyip.
For those of you who want an update on crazy Thom, here are some details.... 1- Thom went quiet just before Christmas. This was after yet another flood of amazingly lame (and contradictory) threats, promising that I was about to be arrested at any moment, and that the folks at the POWnetwork were going to be charged with 'aiding a terrorist' for requesting his public records. 2- As usual, Thom can't keep his own bullshit straight. On the one hand, he says a crime was committed when his records were requested, and that Mary Schantag and myself were going to be horribly punished. Yet, when questioned about his service record, Thom asserts that we never actually requested his records and we don't have them. 3- Despite myself and other USENET posters asking him dozens of times, Thom refuses to clarify exactly when he was in the RAAF, nor can he explain why he does not appear in any RAAF records. 4- Thommy has also used the evergreen excuse of the fake military veteran: claiming parts of his records are classified or 'missing'. This is the dog-ate-my-homework excuse of military imposters. 5- Still no word from Thommy's imaginary lawyers and friends in the federal police. 6- Despite being an 'expert' with the Melbourne PC Users group, Thom still seems to have no idea about how the internet works. When questioned about why he hadn't closed down my website as promised, he said my webhosts weren't able to because I have my own domain. Thommy expressed amazement that anyone with a blog would be "crazy" enough to have their own domain, and that noone could possibly have expected such a thing. (Next week, Thom discovers the existence of Netscape Navigator 1.0) 7- Thom offers the following explanation of his tortured syntax and spelling errors:
8- Thom demands to know when I'm going to pay his photographer "friend" for his photo. Despite endless requests, Thom has not been able to provide me with any contact info for this person, despite demanding that I contact him immediately. 9- Some random excerpts of Thommy's huffing and puffing:
Thom Lyons - an amusement park for the mind.
1: I've posted a correction to the 'Thom's claims chart'. Kev Gillett has informed me that the Vietnam Gallantry Cross was a valor award, rather than a service medal. The chart is now as it was when I originally posted it. My apologies go out to all recipients of this decoration for the error. Thom's claims, however, that the VGC is the equivalent to the Silver Star is still an outright lie. 2: Further digging on USENET has turned up another Thom claim: our photographer claims to have flown B52s, even though he's 'not allowed to'. Um....what? He also claims to have piloted an AC-1, an RF-4C, a T-33 and a U-3B. He also says he's flown in a "MiG-15bis" and this year got "half an an hour in a Sukhoi (jet)" as a birthday present. Thom claims to have been an "outstanding airman". 3: Thom claims to have been wounded by a mortar in Vietnam. Wouldn't this entitle him to the Purple Heart? No Purple Heart appears on his records. 4: Thom doesn't seem to know how many 'jumps' he made in Vietnam, or how many ribbons he was awarded. He has claimed figures of "8" and "12+" for the jumps. He has claimed 8 and 9 ribbons (which don't show up on his record). 5: Another weird Thom story appears on his website: Thom claims that on his way to Australia in 1988, he was forced off the plane and detained in a Fiji Airport transit lounge by Colonel Rambuka's goons wielding SMGs and "wearing fez's, funny shirts and dresses". He was eventually released along with a delegation of Australian travel agents who'd been detained at their hotel by the army. Sounds dubious to me. Thom emigrated in August 1988, the Fiji coup happened in May & September 1987. I kinda doubt the army was detaining visitors en masse a year later. 6: Another claim: "I was also a part of a POW rescue group between 1989 and 1999 called the Tachen Committee operating out of Thailand." Thom must have been a busy guy, given the fact that he claimed to be an officer in the RAAF during this period. 7: Another oddity, in response to someone who opposed the Vietnam draft: "So its OK that my life gets disrupted cause my dad was killed in Korea and my Mom was poor but the hippies and spoiled college types have the right not to be equally disrupted???" 8: Says he was also trained in "Nuclear Disaster Control" while in the USAF. Again, how much is true, and how much is horseshit? It's always difficult to tell with old Thommy.
This is a message to Thom from 'Mr Wong', my RAAF contact who debunked Thom's claims of having served in the RAAF.
Amen brother.
Thom again (.........check the update!) Thom is very, very cranky since being outed as a military fraud, sending me a ton of e-mails. Some excerpts:
Heh. poor fella doesn't seem to be coping well. Note: I've posted a correction and some additional info to 'Thom's Claims Chart' of the other day. UPDATE: I just came across yet another Thom stunner on USENET, from Sep 13 2002. Check this out:
Wow..... - now he was in the British Air Force (any of my Brit readers care to check this out?) because of "duel citizen stuff". Thom is therefore claiming British citizenship as well! Bwahaha!!! Oh my God. This guy is the Tolstoy of Bullshit.
Our peace-loving Islamic bretheren are still running wild in Sydney's suburbs, playing their favourite pastime of "bash whitey". Any chance we could import some serving IDF officers for 'crowd control'? Just saying is all...... Fucking pigs.
Thombusting, part 2
Our Castro-loving Greens candidate not only lied about serving in the RAAF, he lied about his Vietnam service with the USAF as well. This morning I received an e-mail from Mary Schantag, of the POWnetwork. She has just received Thom's DOD records and passed on the info. Let's see how Thom's claims stack up:
(** - the "Bronze Battle Star" is not a seperate award, which is the way Thom always mentions it. It is actually the Bronze Service Star, and in Thom's case, is part of his Vietnam service medal, and according to Mary Schantag of the POWnetwork, it means simply he was there for more than one campaign. It is not a valor decoration.) (*** - According to the good folks at POWnetwork, 'Martin Manor' was the name of a washroom at Kontum, which from a quick glance at the map, is over two hundred miles from Tan Son Nhut, where Thom's records say he was stationed) And this is just the stuff which can be checked against his DOD sheet. What other crap has this Walter Mitty made up? Oh, right, his RAAF service.... I guess it's too much to expect a public apology from Thom. I did just get this e-mail from him though:
Denial is a beautiful thing.
12 December 2005 Thombusting Thom Lyons - the Victorian Greens election candidate and Castro-loving lunatic - was never an officer in the RAAF. Here are some claims he made (with links to the USENET posts and website in question):
Gee. Thom Lyons lied about his RAAF service. What a shock. What an asshole. Hmmmm.....what to do with this lying prick?
Sorry lefties, one afternoon of violent drunken assholes on the beach does not equate with years of vicious Lebanese gangs intimidating, raping, assaulting, murdering and generally terrorising the rest of the Sydney population. I'll leave further comments to Paul Sheehan and Tom Paine. Both essential reading.
Following on from his fearsome non-existent lawyers, non-existent 'communications tribunal' and non-existent friends in the Federal Police, the Castro-loving Greens candidate Thom Lyons has issued more threats:
Uh-huh.
My knees are trembling as we speak.
Speaking of mental problems Thommy, I've had two currently serving members of the Australian military write to me in the last few days, pointing out further holes in your military service claims. Here's the first correspondent, whom I'll name 'Troy McLure' :
Here's the second correspondent, whom I'll name 'Mr. Wong'. Mr. Wong is currently in the RAAF, and is doing some checking into Thom's claims: First, on Thom's claims that he came to Australia in 1988 after being hired by Australian Defence Industries:
Next, Mr. Wong comments on one of Thom's other claims:
Mr. Wong also provided two questions to ask Thommy. Questions a real RAAF officer would know the answers to. When I sent Thom these questions, and asking for a comment on the e-mail above, Thom replied with the comments you see above. He's really not happy about having his claims checked on, is he? And in case you were wondering, I still haven't heard from his lawyers.
Caught up with the Spielberg/Cruise sci-fi epic last night. I enjoyed it tremendously, though it could have been better. Spielberg is always at his best when he's being dark, and the mood of this end-of-the-world epic is pitch-perfect. Kudos to Spielberg for the 'minimalist' approach of keeping it focused on Cruise's character and his family. The genuinely scary tripods are seen and heard - often in the background - as a huge, unstoppable terror, through the eyes of the humans. The visuals were astounding (I generally loathe obvious SFX), but it was the extraordinary use of sound that makes so much of the movie unsettling. The noise of the 'fertilisation' sequence while the family hides in the farmhouse basement was superb. Cruise does a surprisingly good job as the dickhead dad. Probably because Cruise himself is such a dick. There are two problems with the movie. First, the masive plot holes related to the tripods being hidden in the earth for thousands of years (nobody on the planet dug one up by accident?), and secondly, the rapid conclusion. One minute the humans are being wiped out, then suddenly, the aliens are dying, and it's 'movie over'. It's a lame, poorly constructed ending to a tense epic that deserved better. Still, it's well worth a look, especially if you have a big screen and surround-sound. Those tripods rock butt.
Willem Defoe kidnaps rich guy Robert Reford. Helen Mirren - the rich guy's wife - wants him back. Defoe and Redford have a bunch of dumb conversations about nothing. Stuff happens. You never find out why any of it happened, or who these people really were. It's all quite watchable, and quite completely pointless. This is a film about, well, nothing.
John Lennon was a worthless cunt who is doing more for the world as grave fertiliser than he ever achieved in life.
This coming from the guy who had an air-conditioned room for his fur coats. Fucking douchebag.
7 December 2005 Thom Lyons: the Truth-telling Greenie For a decorated Vietnam veteran, Thom Lyons seems rather desperate to prevent anyone from looking at his US service records.
Second, he's been sending an increasingly frantic series of e-mails to the folks at POWnetwork, who have filed a request for his records. Thom is claiming on USENET that he is having "discussions" with them, and that they are not carrying out any such check. Problem for Thommy is that the good folks there have been notifying me of Thom's amusing correspondence. Thom wasn't aware of this, so has been caught out lying through his teeth yet again. You see, Thommy has been trying to convince the USENET crowd that I've been lying about his contradictory claims, and demanded I post the name of the person at POWnetwork who I'd been talking to, so he could deny it:
Strange then, that Thom had written this non-existent Mary person the following e-mail only hours earlier:
Thommy old boy, here's some advice: if you're going to tell lies in public, first make sure your intended accomplice is actually on board.
Heh. What a nutbag.
A few brief mentions of other noteworthy claims Thom has made: - his father was in the IRA and was assassinated by MI6 in 1950 in New York City. - about his entry to Australia:
Mmmmkayyyyy. There's a few problems with this story....
- the story about the death of his wife changes all the time:
- despite having the spelling & comprehension skills of a chipmunk, Thom claims to have taught 'military history' at the University of New Mexico 'in the 80s'. - Thom has alternatively claimed that he is retired, but also that he is currently a teacher with an Australian Certificate IV teaching qualification. - Somewhere in all this, Thom claims to have once run a business "for almost 20 years on socialist principles of honesty and service to the cusomer." There may well be a kernel of truth in some or all of these, but I suspect there's a large pile of bullshit to be sorted through as well. Don't you think if you could explain these things, you would? Yet, as usual, Thom's only responses are threats, ravings about 'mental illness', and outright lies.
Thanks to readers Geoff B. and David P. who wrote in with advice on my IDE-USB problem. Their advice worked, and I'm now speedily transferring all my files to the new PC.
Had a chance to test a race-kitted, 2nd-hand Buell XB9R Firebolt last week. It was quite an experience. How can such a fundmentally flawed motorcycle be this much fun?
The bike I was on had 14,000+kms on the clock, and a broken speedo. The 'race kit' as far as I can tell consists of a very loud pipe and a remap of the injection to suit. First impressions were good. The footpegs are high-set but the bike is otherwise quite comfy even for someone of my tall, corpulent dimensions. The position of the handlebars seemed spot-on, and the switchgear was easy to use. Powered by modified version of the Harley Sportster 883 Engine, the XB9R is a seriously schitzoid motorcycle. Here we have super-compact, quick-steering sportsbike built around a tall, overweight, crude and laughably underpowered motor. The first thing I noticed about the engine was how badly it vibrates. Some would call this 'character'. I call it 'shit engineering'. The bike shakes so badly at the lights it's a wonder the mirrors didn't fall off. Get the bike moving though, and it'll bring a smile to your face. The throttle response is simply brilliant, thanks to some good engine mapping and the belt-drive, though it did have a hiccup in the fueling in 1st gear. It had a nice surge of torque for brisk acceleration, at least until to hit redline, which comes in at a laughable 7,000rpm. You've barely opened the taps before you have to kick it up a gear. Between 5,500 and 7,000, you've got a glorious burst of power, but you'll hardly have time to enjoy it. It would be even worse on the stock bike, with less power and less torque to play with. The clutch action was surprisingly smooth, though the gearshift was tractor-like. Oh, did I mention how great this bike sounds with a loud pipe on it? The biggest problem with the bike are the suspenders, which are absolutely dire if this demo bike was any indication. I've read in some overseas reviews that the bike needs some serious suspension tweaking before it will deliver the handling you'd expect from such a compact bike. I'd love to ride an XB9R with an Ohlins kit fitted. The quality of finish wasn't really up the scratch for such a pricey bike, and as the broken speedo indicates, Buells have a long, long way to go before they catch up to Japanese build quality. Oh, and the brakes are pretty ordinary too. That's a lot of faults for a $16,000 sportsbike that will get blown to the weeds by pretty much any Japanese sports tackle. Yet I had an absolute ball riding this bike. Maybe it was the weirdness of a huge, lumpy v-twin in such a tiny frame, or the experience of riding a sportsbike that sounds like a chopper. Maybe it was the handling potential that lies in the super-compact chassis. Riding a Buell is an experience unlike any other on two wheels. But I can't help but wonder how good it would be with a Japanese powerplant inside. The stock bike puts out a feeble 80+hp. Compare that to the hardly-cutting-edge VTR1000, which puts out 105hp. Despite the fun factor, the fact remains that the XB9R is hobbled in the performance department by a dickless cruiser engine. The XB9R was a hoot to ride, and I'd love for Santa to bring me one for Christmas, but if I'm gonna buy a Buell, it'll be the XB12R or nothing.
Since getting my new PC, I've been trying unsuccessfully to get my stuff off my old PC hard drive. I bought an 'R-Driver' USB-to-IDE cable. Try as I might, I cannot get my current WinXP PC to recognise the thing when I plug it in. It simply doesn't appear as an external drive or device. - have tried plug-n-play and using the R-Driver drivers. And yes, the old drive is in "slave" mode. I've checked over and over. Would this be a firewall issue? I use Macafee personal Firewall Plus, with the normal security settings. Any suggestions? This sucks.
Thom Lyons still hasn't sued me or had me arrested, as promised. He is, however, still huffing with rage about my checking up on his claims of military service. Apparently unaware that anyone can request a D.O.D. record, Thom claims this is breaking privacy laws, and has 'dared' me to go to the US Embassy and request his records, because they'll 'arrest' me. Oh, and if anyone was in doubt as to just how crazy Thom Lyons really is, check out his explanation as to why he's not willing to answer those pesky questions about his military service:
So.....Thom won't explain his contradictory claims of military service, because Eschelon will be spying on his answers. Um, yeah, I can see how letting the US government get publically available info they already have is such a frightening idea. Remember kids, this is the man described by the Victorian Greens party as:
As what? An organ doner?
- Fez, That 70's Show
- Alan Shore , Boston Legal |
I got exhausted within 5 minutes of setting off, mostly from the bad gearshifting, the too-long pedal stroke and my own lack of fitness.
First he claimed that requesting his records is a criminal offence (it isn't), and that it requires his permission (it doesn't), and that I would be arrested the second I set foot on American soil if I asked for them. Uh-huh.