Lack of Postage...

Good morning, fine fellows (and wenches).

Sorry for the lack of posts. This is a very quick post to explain why.

I've been in London, I've been in Newquay, I've been on leave, I've been moving house, and I've been checking out my new naked (female) next door neighbour too, so it's been a little busy.

On top of this, I currently have no internet connection at home, and I'm not really allowed to do this at work, although it's currently lunchtime, so screw you, corporate whores who want to get me in trouble! Ha!

Unfortunately, the internet isn't scheduled to be installed in the new house for 8 days. I'm already suffering from the porn withdrawal (you're never alone with porn), and the callouses on my hands are getting a little soft.

I've been practising my breakdancing again, I will be good, oh yes! My motorbike is still royally fucked too, and will cost £250 to repair, a figure I'm not too happy to pay considering the bike is only 9 months old.

Anyway, despite the fact it's lunchtime, I really must go, as I have things to do.

I'll post a full update as soon as I get an internet connection at home.

Patience, bitches. :D

Robot squirrels will answer your phone for you.

Someday. Article nicked from mobileburn.com



Cellular Squirrel, a robot that screens your calls.

How many times have you been in an important discussion with friends, family, or co-workers, only to have a mobile phone ring at an inopportune time and disrupt everything? While in some situations, such as at home, it might not be a daily happening, it probably is a familiar scene to people in the business world.

The question is, how do you prevent that disruption when the discussion is important and the call is not, but allow the call through when it is important and you really are just talking about last night's episode of "Survivor"?

Dr. Stefan Marti, a man that recently received his PhD from MIT, has developed what he thinks is the solution: Cellular Squirrel.

Marti worked in the Speach Interface Group, part of the famed MIT Media Labs, and developed Cellular Squirrel as part of his dissertation project.

The Squirrel itself is a Bluetooth device that uses a remote PC for its computing power, though future models would be autonomous. When a call comes in, the animatronic squirrel will "wake up" as might a character from a Disney movie. It will then start engaging the remote caller in a conversation in an effort to determine what the call is about, and if it is important enough to disrupt the conversation going on in its area.

The device makes this determination by listening to the conversation around it, trying to pick up key subject words that it can use to compare with what the inbound caller seeks to discuss. The number of the caller is also compared with an internal list of numbers belonging to "friends", and the tone of the callers voice is evaluated.

If the Cellular Squirrel determines that the caller's request is important enough, it will start to gyrate it's body in an effort to get the attention of the call recipient. The more furiously it moves, the more important it thinks the call is. At this point the user can squeeze one of its upper paws to accept the call and access it via a Bluetooth speakerphone function, or squeeze a lower paw to send the call to voicemail, just as the squirrel itself would do if it felt the call was unimportant.

While the project is far from complete, it might still hint at what kind of devices we'll see in the future. In any case, the videos are interesting to watch. You'll find them and more information on the Cellular Squirrel website.

In other news, I've been having a nightmare day with anything electrical, in particular, keyboards. I'll post about that soon.

Online Friends

Good Morning everyone.

It's Monday morning, and I'm in London. I'm here for a few days on a Disaster Recovery(DR) exercise. We practice getting our servers and databases running on a site where we have nothing. This is on the off chance something happens to the datacentre in our building, or one of the other datacentres.

So far there's nothing for me to do here at DR, as I'm waiting for other teams to do their stuff before I can do mine. I've been online and tidied up all my email accounts, something I should have done a long time ago.

As you all are probably aware, I've been on a bit of a mission recently to make some new online friends, or girlies. I like the idea of having lots of good friends all around the world, that I can talk to, and maybe even go and visit sometime.

In an effort to achieve this, I've become a member of a few 'friend' sites. It's difficult to remember which ones I'm a member of, and which ones are any good, so I've decided to write a mini-review of them. It's mostly for my benefit, so I can use this post to keep track of my memberships, but it's also a good way for you to track me down. I'm a member of all the sites on the list below, and my username on most of them is Ryaninja.

Hi 5:

• This site seems to be a bog standard friend site. The interface is fairly straightforward and easy to use, but not terribly inspiring. It has the standard gallery and blogging type features. One thing I like is the testimonial feature - you can write about your friends. This gives me a good excuse to write stupid stuff about people I know.
  Here's a testimonial I wrote about Jamie, for example. It's not hosted on Hi5, cos the link requires you to log in to hi5 before you can read the testimonial.
  
  I haven't been a member of this site for long (maybe a few weeks) and I only had a couple of pictures up, but already I've made a new friend. She's called Pum, a Thai girl living in New York. I haven't actually spoken to her directly yet, but I might drop her a message after I'm done here. I've noticed that Thai and Malaysian people are very friendly online, and seem very keen on meeting new people.

Lets D8:

• Let's D8 is actually a pay site, although it doesn't tell you this until you sign up. It's also a bit like 'real-life porn' as they allow nekkid pictures of people. It's always interesting looking up naked chicks in your city. Unfortunately this site doesn't have a lot of free features, most are available once you sign up. I have no friends on this site yet, but I get the feeling that most of the people on there are there primarily for sex, so if I do get contacted, then things could get interesting!

Multiply:

• I like multiply. It's probably one of the best friend sites out there, although probably isn't the best dating site. It's really good for keeping all your digital content on here, from pictures, and videos, to your own music and blogs. It offers unlimited storage, and your own home page (http://YOURNAME.multiply.com). The network structure (how your friends connect together) is advanced but simple to use, and site is very intuitive. I've not made many friends by via this site, but in all true fairness, I haven't really used it that much. It would be better if I could link directly to the pictures on here, so I could use them for this blog, but I have my .mac account for that, so it's not the end of the world. I bestow high praises upon this site.

Flickr:

• I haven't used this much. It incorporates basic friend tools with a decent photo gallery/organiser. I'll probably start using this more, as it does specify that you can use your photos for nearly any blog. When I can't upload to my .mac account (special tools required), it would be most useful to be able to use this.
  EDIT: I've just tested it - you set up your blog details, and then it's very easy to post to it from Flickr. I like it! This ups the rating from 'pretty good' to 'recommended'. I'd even say 'highly recommended', if you have a blog.

Friendster:

• Friendster is pretty well used and quite popular from what I gather. I've had the most requests for friendship on this site so far, although it's not my favourite site, but I couldn't tell you why. I've probably had my most amount of friend requests from this place. It has all the usual features, including groups that you can join to discuss anything. I'm a member of 2 naruto groups, and one group called 'Are you a Ninja or a Pirate?'. I spent a large amount of time mulling over this very question. Then I realised that I was neither, and both. As I've mentioned before, it's good to be an Evil Ninja Robot Pirate from the future, providing it doesn't stop you from joining groups that demand you're one or the other. Avast Me Hearties!

FaceParty:

• This site is quite good, for a pay site. The free version allows you to view people's pictures and do a lot of the basic stuff you'd expect. The interface isn't particularly nice, but that's just my opinion. If you pay for adult verification, you can also view nudie photos of girls, and has nice features for searching, such as only looking for people with adult pics. There seems to be a lot of English people on this site, in comparison to some of the others, some of which have a much higher Asian community.

Ok Cupid:

• Ok Cupid was the first of these sites I joined. It's also one of my favourites. It has a nice workable interface, and is fun to peruse. The site also incorporates a unique matching system that the other sites match. You answer questions submitted by members and from the site's admins too, and then matches you up with people based upon this. My favourite question on there so far is "could you ever date a giant carnivorous reptile?". I said Yes, as I believe as long as it had a nice personality and was female, then why not?!? I don't want to narrow my chances of pulling too much. Okcupid is funny, and more importantly, free.

So... There you have it! If you think I've missed any off that you're particularly fanatical about, then send me the details, and I might join! If I join, then I'll write a review, and everybody will be happy, except that girl with the clap who's pussy seems to be blowing smoke signals.

EDIT: I have a couple of other sites to add to the list:

Adult Friend Finder:

• I didn't realise I was actually a member of this site, although I've just had an email from them, so I guess I am! This isn't a great site. The interface isn't brilliant, and it bugs the hell out of me that you can't do anything on this site without a membership that you have to pay REAL MONEY for.
  However, this site seems to have more naked women than any other I've visited! Well, it has more members who are willing to upload nekkid photos of themselves on there anyway. But you can only see thumbnails as a basic(free) member.

My Space:

• Ok, Foss suggested it, but I shunned it, because I can't get to it from work. However, I can get to it from disaster recovery. Once I'd seen it, I knew I had to join. I don't like it as much as Multiply, but this one seems to be used by quite a few people in this part of the world, so I yoinked myself a membership. I'll have to use it for longer before I make a decision though. However, the interface isn't quite as easy to get along with as some of the others (I keep feeling like I need to look for what section I need, instead of being able to find it easily), but it offers some good advanced features, and a level of customisation greater than most of the pay sites here, in terms of personalising how it all looks in MySpace. This isn't always a good thing though, as I've seen some truly hideous designs on some people's profiles...

The list is getting quite long now. Sooner or later I might make some friends I can meet in real life!

Was there a whiff of cannabis about Jesus?

Article Stolen from: Cannabis.net

Claims of drug use by biblical figures surprisingly have susbtance, says Professor Carl Ruck.



Was Jesus a Stoner? is the mischievous title of an article about the use of cannabis in ancient Judaism in next month's High Times, a pro-cannabis magazine. Its author, Chris Bennett, likes to shock. He is the host of Burning Shiva, a show on Canada's Pot-TV, and an advocate for the medical use and decriminalisation of marijuana.

Bennett first looked at the use of drugs in religion two years ago in his book Sex, Drugs, Violence, and the Bible. He postulates that Jesus's ministry was fuelled by mind-altering substances, that he may have used cannabis-based oils to heal eye and skin diseases and that his very name - Christ - derives from being anointed with cannabis-enriched oil.

His politics and television career might make it tempting to dismiss him but what Bennett says makes perfect sense. Over the centuries drugs have been used by virtually all religions. Why not Christianity?

In ancient times cannabis was widely cultivated throughout the Middle East. It grows like a weed and provides nourishing seed, which is also a good source of fibre used to make rope.

People certainly knew of its pleasurable effects; it would have been impossible to harvest it without becoming ecstatic as the drug would be absorbed through the skin. And as long ago as 1935 a Slovakian linguist identified the plant known as "fragrant cane" in the English Bible as flowering cannabis, a link since accepted by some Jewish authorities.

Ancient people were fascinated by herbs and their healing powers and knew much more about them than we do; at least about mixing herbs to release their potency.

Ancient wines were always fortified, like the "strong wine" of the Old Testament, with herbal additives: opium, datura, belladonna, mandrake and henbane. Common incenses, such as myrrh, ambergris and frankincense are psychotropic; the easy availability and long tradition of cannabis use would have seen it included in the mixtures. Modern medicine has looked into using cannabis as a pain reliever and in treating multiple sclerosis. It may well be that ancient people knew, or believed, that cannabis had healing power.

Much of their knowledge, passed down through an oral tradition, has been lost and to some extent it is the modern prejudice against drugs that has stopped us looking for it. Revulsion against drugs and the hippie culture even led to the term "entheogen" being coined to describe a psychotropic substance used in religious rituals.

Entheogen comes from the Greek entheos (meaning "god-inspired within") and the word is now commonly employed in English and European languages to discuss sacramental foods used by shamans (mystic or visionary priests) to achieve spiritual ecstasy.

So what of the early Christians? At the time they were evolving, they had to compete with other religions of the Roman empire. The strongest of those was Mithraism, imported from Persia, which exists today as Zoroastrianism.

Its sacrament, Haoma, was virtually identical to what we know of soma, in Brahmanism. Worshipped as a god, soma was a strange plant without leaves or roots that needed little light and induced religious ecstasy. It was most likely amanita muscaria: a magic mushroom. In ancient Rome sharing the Haoma cemented the bond of brotherhood of emperors, bureaucrats and soldiers. Pagan Greek celebrations at the sanctuary of Eleusis, meanwhile, included a visionary experience for a crowd of 1,000 people, from drinking a potion made from a fungus that grows on wheat and produces an effect similar to LSD.

So, did Jesus use cannabis? I think so. The word Christ does mean "the anointed one" and Bennett contends that Christ was anointed with chrism, a cannabis-based oil, that caused his spiritual visions. The ancient recipe for this oil, recorded in Exodus, included over 9lb of flowering cannabis tops (known as kaneh-bosem in Hebrew), extracted into a hin (about 11 pints) of olive oil, with a variety of other herbs and spices. The mixture was used in anointing and fumigations that, significantly, allowed the priests and prophets to see and speak with Yahweh.

Residues of cannabis, moreover, have been detected in vessels from Judea and Egypt in a context indicating its medicinal, as well as visionary, use. Jesus is described by the apostle Mark as casting out demons and healing by the use of this holy chrism. Earlier, from the time of Moses until the later prophet Samuel, holy anointing oil was used by the shamanic Levite priesthood to receive the "revelations of the Lord". The chosen ones were drenched in this potent cannabis oil.

Early Christian documents found in Eygpt, thought to be a more accurate record than the New Testament, portray Jesus as an ecstatic rebel sage who preached enlightenment through rituals involving magical plants. Indeed, Bennett goes so far as to say that Jesus was probably not born the messiah but acquired the title when he was anointed with cannabis oil by John the Baptist. The baptism in the Jordan was probably to wash away the oil after it had done its work. The early Christians fought hard for followers in the ancient world, recognising the similarity of their own "foreign" god and his eucharistic meal to the Greek gods. Various sects and even the elite in what would eventually become the Roman Catholic church probably used the full range of available entheogens for baptism, ordination and the eucharistic meal.

What we now call the host might have been more than just bread. There are indications that early Christians shared magic mushrooms - and the spiritual visions and ecstasies they occasioned - as their eucharistic meal. A 4th-century mosaic discovered at a basilica in Aquileia in northern Italy depicts baskets of mushrooms. Why? This wasn't a restaurant. Could the "red mushrooms" have been the ritual meal?

Eating bread and sharing wine together was, and remains, at the heart of the Christian ritual. We'll never know exactly what Jesus and his disciples consumed at the Last Supper, but as they believed they were drinking the blood of Christ we must accept it was - if not actually hallucinatory - at least fortified by God.

Carl Ruck is professor of classics at Boston University

Hooray For Stuff!

I love stuff. So does Jeff. Just to prove that I do actually read the tagboard, I thought I'd devote a post especially to stuff.

So, without further ado, bring forth the Stuff! The pictures of stuff today are pictures I pulled from various hard drives I have lying around.


The Glastonbury Festival. They never show pictures of this on the news. It would be nice to see happy events, like the blossoming of love for a change, instead of all the depressing stuff they usually bombard us with.


Speaking of the not so good side of the news, a picture showing the remains of a bomb that went off inside a bus in London this morning. This picture seems weird, as it almost looks too clean, as if it's been dismantled by giant cutting machines rather than explosions. A point to note, this bus was NOT an open top bus.


I've been telling random women on the street this for years, but they never listen.


Me, dressed like Austin Powers! Man this was years ago now!


Yeah Baby, Yeah!


More Austin baby, yeah! This is me, with an old mate of mine called Jennyfrog (not her birth name, baka!). I also work with a guy called Austin, although he's nothing like Mr Powers.


Dog or Towel? It could be super deluxe toilet roll I suppose...


I found this picture on my PC, and I don't know who these people are. I think Foss knows them. Wenches. Boobs. Yeah. One on the left is my favourite.


I have a tee shirt with this on it.


A double rainbow! How unusual! This was on the way to see the Chilli Peppers in London's Hyde Park.


A giant moth on my window in work. Looks tasty.


Another shot from work. Bow down before my name plate.


Crazy Japanese Van/Truck thingy.


Crazy I tell thee!


I've had porno sex with this girl all night long. Best birthday ever. And just for the record, she isn't a prossie. Shame on you.


A former colleague of mine took this picture off the coast of Falmouth (Cornwall). I had it as my desktop for ages, it's really calming. You can't do that though, as I've shrunk the pic! If you want a full sized copy, let me know.


I took this photo of a dead dolphin at the beach last year. I doubt it's the same one as in the picture above, although I could not prove this in a court of law.


Jimbo took this picture from our old flat when we lived on the Hoe in Plymouth. Best flat ever. Fuck you Stuart, you ginger Welsh lowlife cunt for driving me from my home. No offence intended to Welsh and or ginger people, but this guy gave you all a bad name. If you know Stuart Morgan, tell him he's a cunt, and punch him in the face. If I knew where he was right now, that's what I'd do.


Another photo by Jimbo from the flat. Go to his site and see more of his work.


Yet another from James at www.ilike-it.com.


Shaved Pussy. Hehehe. Hehehe.


I saw this guy on a bus once. His head seemed to be wired up to something, although I couldn't see what. I suspect it was some for of mind control device. My brain was too strong for him though.


Me on my old bike. Ahhh, those were the days...!


Superman!


My brother's dog, Zeus. He'sAGoodDoggieYesHeHis!


Laura and Nate's cat, Mizuki, although 'Spooky','Suki' or 'Oi, Cat!' seems to suffice.


Me, quite a few years ago, with long hair, on a school uniform night out. I was probably bladdered by this stage.


Monkey! With a cigarette!


Behold the mighty Ninjas! Tremble before their awesome power!


Spot the Ninja.

That's it for the stuff session! Hope you enjoyed it!

The News and Lightsabers.

I have some good news, and plenty of bad news, unfortunately. However, the outlook is still bright, with occasional grey intervals.

Firstly the good news!

The house I mentioned in an earlier post is now ours. We've paid the holding fee, and given in the forms for references, now all we have to do is wait for the all clear to move in! It turned out we were the first people to view it, so that was quite lucky! However I wasn't quite so lucky, and my name was drawn out third from the hat, meaning I got the second-to-worst bedroom. There's not really any bad bedrooms, as they're mostly the same size, but I did want one at the top of the house, as the bedrooms at the top are a little bigger as well as having built in wardrobes.
I have no idea what the hell I'm gonna do with all my stuff, or my projector. I'll have to find somewhere to put it.

I hope the house isn't too small. I like it, and it's really nice, but it's not particularly spacious, especially compared to the places I'm used to living, and 4 of us is gonna be a tiny bit cramped I feel. However, it's gonna be worth it, as it's bound to be quieter than my current place, and it's a hell of a lot cheaper.

What I am looking forward to is the garden though. I haven't had any hammock time for at least six months, and I miss it. I loved coming home from work and setting my hammock up on the roof, and looking out to sea. There'll be no roof, and no views, but at least there'll be me, the hammock, and the sunshine. Hopefully. It seems like the summer is over already.

That's all my good news unfortunately. I found somewhere cheap (and not scabby) to live.

The bad news is that my motorbike seems to be fucked. In my previous post I mentioned the tragedy and misshap that had befallen me, an innocent biker just wanting a tattoo. Well today I got round to having a half decent look at my machine. It would appear that the coolant in the reservior is not getting to the radiator for some reason. Most likely is an air lock - air trapped somewhere in the system and stopping the flow of liquid. I also discovered that there is definately a leak in the radiator itself. This is bad. Very bad. It should be covered under warranty, but I've a feeling it's all gonna turn sour on me. The reason being I've had a couple of spills on the bike (once when I first got it, and a drunk driver took me off, and the other time was on Sunday on the way back from Newquay, as I've already explained. However, neither spill caused the leak. The first accident was about 8 months ago now, so it can't be that, and the other one happened after the bike was already leaking. Problem is that I can't really prove that, and the spill on Sunday left the radiator looking a little bit warped.
I know when I take it to the shop, they'll try and get out of the warranty fix by saying crash damage isn't covered in the warranty.
Also, there's only one place I can take it to in Plymouth to get it fixed under it's warranty, and they can't even look at it until the 18th July!

AND FUUUUUCK! FUCKING BLOGGER JUST STOLE THE REST OF MY POST! CUNTS!

I've just spilt an entire cup of water over my keyboard. It still works, but it's acting a bit weird. I think the Ctrl key is stuck down. This makes it very difficult to type, as I have to hit each key totally seperately from the last. If I type too quickly, the PC thinks I'm pressing two keys at once, which if Ctrl is held down, usually indicates a windows command, so all sorts of weird things keep happening. For a fun simulation, try sellotaping the Ctrl key down, and then typing quickly. Hmmmm..... To make matters worse, I'm not sure if I have another spare keyboard. I did have an excess of them a little while ago, and I was begging people to take them away (recycling is good for badgers and ninjas alike). Now I wish I hadn't got them all! Still, the keyboard might sort itself out after it's dry. The remarkable thing about keyboards is providing you wait until they're dry before using them, they're still good after being totally submerged in water.

However I take no responsibility for any of your failed experiements. Successful ones, I will have though. Yoink!

I've finally got round of getting video footage of my lightsaber. Transferring the video from the DV camera hasn't been so easy though. I've managed to get a weird format from it, and that will play in my quicktime player, but it's about 75mb. A touch large for the internet. The problem is that however I encode it, I seem to lose the sound. Also, the only program that will actually grab the video from the camera will only convert it into a number of rubbish quality formats.

Click LIGHTSABER ACTION to see the video. It's 2mb in size, and not very good quality. I'm trying to fix this, but as with a lot of video transcoding, it takes patience, time and a fair amount of fiddling to get the best results.

Anyway, I'm sick of typing on this piece of crap, I gotta go find a keyboard. Later!

God-damn tattoo parlor.

I'm not having the best day, although suprisingly, it hasn't got to me one bit.

On Friday, I phoned up Atlantic Coast Tattoos, to ask about colouring over an existing tattoo I have:


I got this one done when I was 18, to cover up a surfing logo tat I had when I was 16! My poor mutilated arm!

When I phoned up, I asked what colours would be usable over black. The lady mentioned blue, purples, and greens. I suggested red, and she said, "Ah yes, Red! Yes, that will also cover black."
"Brilliant!" thought I, as I already had a design in the works, and it was based upon a black and red colourscheme. Inspired by the thought of getting the tattoo done, I spent a large part of Friday sat in working on my design. After much work to my original, and very basic design, I had more or less finished.

Here is the design in question. It's not quite finished, but it was enough to get a tattoo done from. Only my lack of photoshop/illustrator knowledge stopped my from doing it exactly how I wanted.


The black circle in the middle is the main body of the coverup. The thin red straightish squiggly lines within this are supposed to represent a tribal or celtic band, and the main background red squiggles/splash I want to be a kind of tribal flame design, but with more broken lines, and less symmetry. More organic than traditional tribal, you might say.

So this morning I donned my leathers, put the waterproof cover on my bag (looked a bit grey in places!) and set off for Newquay. Multimap's direction service estimated that the 50 mile trip would take me about an hour and a quarter, due to Cornwall's twisty single lane roads for most of the way. 40 minutes later (about 30 of which were spent sitting on my bag cover, as it had come off and was flapping around behind me) I arrived in Newquay. New land speed record for my bike too - 148mph. I don't think it will actually go any faster than that, what with the lack of aerodynamics due to my bike having no fairing. That's plastic body parts, like you see on sportsbikes, for the uninformed.

The ride was fast and I worked my bike hard. The roads were nicely surfaced, and both the traffic (which wasn't too heavy), and the twistiness of the roads just made my ride more exciting. Small children's faces would press to the glass and point, unaware that I could see them, my tinted visor dark enough to appear black even on a bright sunny day. I saw the awed expression of a load of kids peering out the pack window of a coach, as I came screaming up behind them at about 120mph, and then smoothly wound the throttle back, and blitzed past them at about 135mph. Their eyes gave insight to the stories they might tell to their friends on the coach who hadn't widnessed the event. Ahh, it was a good ride.

As I parked my bike, I noticed a bit of coolant on the pavement underneath it. Had that been there before? It looked fresh. I peered under the bike, and it was dripping a little, but not a lot. I thought maybe some coolant had come out of the overflow. I couldn't see anything that looked wrong. All pipes connected, etc.

Nothing I could do right then anyway. I wandered into Newquay centre, feeling pretty warm in my full bike leathers. I found the tattoo place - closed. Dammit. Open at midday. What time is it now? 11am. I had an hour to kill.

I bought a sandwich and a drink and went and sat on a bench at the edge of a little park overlooking Fistral Beach. Here's a pic.


It's a better view when not viewed through a cameraphone. It would be better still if everyone had super-huge displays and I didn't have to shrink the pictures as well. It would be an even better world if I had my own secret island base, and I had a monkey, in a tux, that did my bidding! Yes!

Finally the tattooist opened, and I went in, only to discover that yes, you can cover black with a number of colours like green or purple, but unfortunately red isn't one of the colours that does. Bugger.

Unphased, I resolved to go home and redesign it (but not today!). So, I got on my bike and left Newquay and all the tasty pie there behind. I quickly realised I had forgotten to put in my earplugs, the sound of the wind gets deafening, literally!
I stopped in a layby and put my plugs in. This is when I noticed that my bike was still leaking coolant, and it the bike's temperature was a lot higher than it should be. Thanks to the digital dash, it's easy to tell exactly how hot it is. The bike should be ridden gently until the temp is about 50 degrees centigrade, and the large radiator fan kicks in at about 100 deg C to prevent overheating. Right now it was up at about 75, and I had been taking it easy. Not good. Also there seemed to be coolant all over the front and side of the bike. Also not good.

I discovered that if I went too fast, the engine got hotter from the work, and I didn't want that. However, if I didn't go fast enough, there was no wind too cool the radiator manually. Too fast was above 90, in top gear, and too slow was below 60mph. So sticking in the top gear, I cruised along the roads, keeping my speed as constant as possible at about 75-80mph. The roads were wide enough for me to sweep past cars on the white lines between outgoing and oncoming traffic. Fun, but concentration is required. I only had one occasion where I thought, "Wow that was close". I thought the oncoming car was gonna have my knee off to be honest. I was lucky.

So I'm coming home, keeping a watchful eye on the temp, whilst trying to keep a constant speed and dodging traffic, on twisty roads. I was overtaking a car on a left hand bend. Very bad, yes, but there was a large crisscrossed area in between lanes on this one, and so I was on that. I wanted to get past the car before you reach the part of the corner where there's no escape from oncoming traffic if you're still beside it, so I was doing about 90mph. The speed limit was about 50. Oh, and it the road had double white lines, meaning no overtaking.
Just as I'm completing the maneuver, but what do I see on the other side of the road? A Volvo police car. And the lights and sirens JUST came on. Right as I went past. Coincidence? I think not. What to do? Gotta think fast. I was breaking the speed limit. I was overtaking where you're not allowed. I was pretty much at full tilt. I was driving on an area that you're not allowed to. They would probably say I was driving dangerously, despite the fact I was in full control. Only the number dazzle people. Actually doing it isn't half as bad as it sounds, although the rewards in excitement and exhilaration are amazing. So anyway. I also had back tyre that's probably not legal, as the tread has worn down on middle of the back tyre (but there's still loads on the side, and you don't need grooves for hot sunny roads anyway!). Finally, I had an illegal tinted visor on, although this is stupid in my opinion, but the Police still have a go, cos it's "THE LAW". Yes, amazing, thank you.

So I quickly turned off the main road, and drove a short distance down over a cattle grid, and into a barn. I switched off the engine, and peeked out of the barn. A couple of minutes passed and the Police car whipped past, lights on, sirens blaring.

I waited a couple of minutes, and then wheeled my bike out of the barn. I rode back across the cattle grid, but unfortunately for me the back tyre was covered in mud and coolant. The cattle grid was strange, just metal tubes about 15 cms wide, and about 30cms apart from each other. My back wheel slid and spun. I went to put my foot down, but there was nowhere to place it because of the gaps in the cattle grid. The bike when down, on the grid. It's a heavy motherfucker too, especially when you're trying to balance on metal bars whilst lifting the thing up from being most upside down. It took me one or two goes to get a decent grip and leverage.

I gave the bike 5 minutes to cool down, as the radiator was still smoking, and dripping. I inspected the damage. The bike was now covered in coolant, that die to the heat of the engine had dried up all round the front and the right hand side of the bike. It looked like chronic limescale. The fall had given the bike new scars too. The tank has a dent about an inch deep from the bars on the cattle grid. The handlebars took a bit of a beating, although they're still straight, and there's a crack on the mudguard. I won't know the full extent until I get the thing cleaned.


The red circle is where the main dent is. It's very difficult to tell from this pic though. You can also see the coolant on the front of the engine and the side of the bike.

I got back on the road, and I realised the temperature was higher again. Every pit stop seemed to make it worse. I seemed to have made a wrong turn somewhere on the way back too, as instead of being in liskeard, I was approaching Launceston. Not the end of the world, but another 20-30 minutes on to my journey. I stopped in the Tesco Petrol station to have a good look at my bike - I was pretty worried about it now.
I thought of calling Foss, and allowing my bike sometime to cool down, but I remembered he was away this weekend. I had a good look a my bike. I had to be careful, as I didn't want 100 degree coolant in my eyes. I still couldn't see anything wrong. I looked around for somewhere to put more coolant, but couldn't find anywhere. I suspect the radiator was sealed, as the liquid was a turquoise colour, and tasted funny. So I couldn't put more water in, or anything in for that matter. I bought two big bottles of water, and drenched the radiator and engine in water.

By the time I hit the road again, the bike's temperature was about 60 deg, but it quickly rose to about 100, then up to 110. Luckily, the temperature seemed to level off there, and it went up a bit, then down a bit, probably in connection to the wind direction.

I managed to get home, but the bike's not looking so well for it. I'm gonna have to take it to the garage tomorrow I think! I'm guessing the main fan has blown, which meant that the coolant overheated on the way down, and caused a leak in the radiator. Then when the radiator gets hot, the crack widens, and coolant comes out. It's probably all enhanced by the sloshing around caused by tipping the bike left and right to get round corners.

All this, just because someone at that tattoo parlor doesn't know what they're talking about! Bastards! Although I did go there as they are highly recommended tattooists, and are supposed to be excellent artists.

But, Bastards! Although for some reason I'm not too concerned. I know that if Russ, Ian and I manage to get this place tomorrow, I'll have enough cash to get it all fixed! Pleaseeeee! I hope we get this house!

Oh, and if you haven't already been to eatfoss - go there!

Jeff posted a good link - go here it's funneh! Funneh!

"I was touched by his noodly appendage" Classic.

Oh, and in the interest of legality, this post is entirely ficticious. This whole site is completely fabricated. In fact, I even make up the comments, and none of the people I talk about are even real. Thank you.