The shiraz was adequate..
Jan 20 2011
triumph of the bonnevilles
Yup, it was new bike o’clock. That wonderful time in a guy’s life when he drools over a bike on the internet then goes and test rides it. Oh yes, oh yes. Ride it hard, baby.
According to the font of all knowledge:
Engine 865 cc air-cooled, DOHC, parallel-twin, 360 degree
Power 67 bhp (50 kW) @ 7,500 rpm
Torque 51 ft·lbf (69 N·m) @ 5,800 rpm
Transmission 5-speed gearbox with chain final drive
Wheelbase 1,500 mm
Dimensions L 2,230 mm
W 740 mm
H 1,100 mm
Seat height 770 mm
Weight 205 kg (dry)
Fuel capacity 16 l
It’s so nice and smooth to ride. The seat isn’t the standard one, they call it the ‘King and Queen’ seat – extra comfy. I’ve not gone anywhere far on it yet but I really can’t wait to do it. I sense a bit of a trip in my future. I’ve not much to say about it really.. I got it mainly cos I think it looks fantastic and I love the way it rides.. the future will tell me if the purchase was wise or not. For now.. I hearts it so. Here’s some more pictures.
Oh, yes, the GS got written off curtesy of a guy in a delivery van. RIP, GS.
Ed it, for this must be made ed: It’s actually the 790cc engine, with 62 bhp (46 kW) @ 7400 rpm and 44 ft·lbf (60 N·m) @ 3500 rpm. This fact is a tad annoying as it was sold to me as the 865cc.. but I’d not be able to tell the difference anyway, so oh well.
Jan 11 2011
holey daze
Hello gentle reader! Hello reader who is prone to violent outbursts! I hope you had a good year’s end, and are happy and rested and not cranky or about to do anything surprising or anything.. please?
The subject was exposed to Perth for a period of time. One thing was immediately noticed: the subject’s use of his laptop was vastly lower than has been previously observed during similar such experiments. This was put down to the subject’s ipod touch being a surprisingly good way to keep up with the internet when within range of a friendly wireless signal a predominently used for keeping up with twitter, google reader and other such format friendly things. The only downfall in this plan that was noted was the streaming of the Paris Dakar Rally, which now no longer goes anywhere near Paris or Dakar due to TRRSTs in northern Africa. Such a thing has no facility for ipod streaming that was encounted.
Newly introduced to the Perth facility are some chickens that were previously cruelly crammed into cages, yet were purchased and introduced to the on-site vege patch. They took an hour to move once plopped unceremoniously from their transport box [note: investigate similar transportation option for subject vis a vis cost savings] and were very scruffy and sad looking, but now after several weeks they are very energetic, their combs are perky, and most of the vege patch has been decimated. The asparagus seems to have been spared due to their predilection for snoozing under it. After extensive testing, it was determined that the eggs produced to make this mutually beneficial arrangement so smooth are delicious, if occasionally a little funny looking.
Nov 25 2010
boxes n boxes n
Whoa, I thought I lost the keys to this place.. so much dust everywhere! I think a while ago I said I’d write here more often.. hmm. Well, I.. won’t promise any premises. Though speaking of premises…
.. Work has moved to new digs! We’re in Pyrmont now, which is much closer to home so I can cycle there. Oh, yea, I bought a pushbike a while ago. And a rack for the back with a bag what has panniers. Fo’ shizzley.
I don’t store it there anymore… carrying it up three storeys got old real fast. A few weeks ago a got a little overzealous with the pump and ended up with a blowout of the rear tyre on the way to work.. pushing it back up the hill was Not Fun. Though, speaking of bike problems…
.. Me and some of the lads from work were going for a morning coffee and B&E (7/10), up the Old Pacific Hwy on our motored bikes. A nice twisty, emtpy road that runs along side a major freeway. Luvverly. Just as we were getting to the good bit though I had a clonk clonk clonk from the rear brake.. and not much braking. Once I pulled over to survey the situation I found that there were no bolts holding the rear brake caliper in place.. which is bad. I decided not to ride up a fun road at fun velocities and instead limp home using only the front brake.
There should be bolts in there…
Not so effective up like that…
I decided that the best course of action would be to take it back to the place that changed the rear brake pads two days prior (amoungst other things) and be all ‘wtf mate ^^’. Apparently the vibrations caused by scoring on the disk affecting the new pads that weren’t bedded in caused the bolts to go. Most people seem to think they just cocked it up, but at least it works now and I got safely home. Speaking of home..
.. I’ve been thinking about the place I’d most like to live in. Essentially it boils down to a shed. I want a relatively spacious box which will at one end have space for my bikes and a bunch of tools with which I can create furnishings and whatnot for the other end. That way I can endlessly modify it to add new things like a bar and whatnot. This was somewhat influenced by the new James May series Man Lab. Also it just seems like a lot of fun, and I want an excuse to run an elaborate model train line around the place. One day… one day.
And now, back to radio silence. Until the next time…
Oct 09 2010
2009 vinden cleanskin shiraz
You can’t get this in stores, so you’d best be nice to me. Or go up to the hunter and get some yourself. Either way is good.
Sep 26 2010
tings an’ tings
Bonjour, reader. I hope you’re well. Has that rash gone away yet? I hope so, it looked a little dodgy there for a while.
I got a new ipod touch a couple of weeks ago, the drambuie1 model. It’s an upgrade from my trusty 5G 60GB model. There are many things about it that I like, it’s a good music player, it can has many useful apps and all that whatnot you’ve already heard about. Given I’m a miserable bugger I’ll point out the things I don’t like about it. The most irksome thing is the way it deals with compilation damons2. On my old 5G, when a damon was set to be a compilation the artists on it would not appear in the main artists list. This was great, as it kept things tidy. On the new one however they do appear. When a damon artist is set in the info the various contributers are grouped where than damon would appear in the list so it’s not too catestrophic, but for a pedantic git like myself it’s very irritating. Especially when a damn near 5 year old model does it right. Googling shows much rage aimed at Apple about it, but they seem to be steadfastly ignoring it. In my spite I removed most of the compilations from itunes, but the nerdrage smoulders. If I’m utterly wrong about this, please feel free to correct me. I’d welcome being proven stupid in this case.
The other two things are a bit less irksome. Firstly the RAM is left at 256MB, rather than the 512 that the new iphone has. That’s not too much of an issue, as apps and whatnot are still being made with the old 3GS in mind, but it’s a limitation that could prove to annoy in the nebulous futuretimes. Lastly the camera is far worse than the iphone – a 0.7 megrepixel senser vs a 5 megapixel. I took a few photos today on my ride, this one for example, which you can see is rather less nice than this one that was taken on my Nokia E72 workphone which has a 5mp camera. Not a deal breaker, but something to consider against the ‘ipod touch is an iphone without the phone’ position. Also the body has a rounded back rather than the iphone’s nice square one, but is a little thinner – hence they couldn’t fit the nicer camera in. It does all the rest though, including facetime – I’ve not tried it, but I believe the front-facing camera is about the same as iphone. The retina display has a silly name, but is a very nice little screen. All in all, I probably should have stuck with my perfectly functional 5G ipod.. but it’s fun to mess around with some of the apps.
I might briefly (can you breef?) mention the Nokia E72 here actually. It’s a smaertphone without a touch screen, but it has a full qwerty physical keyboard to partially make up for it. The web browsing is not as nice as anything with a touchscreen, but it has ample social media apps for all that sort of need (it’s called Snaptu and it works great), the call quality is great and the battery life is phenomenal. I charge it once once a week, and usually only because I plug it into my PC to get some photos off. It shows that Nokia can make some fantastic hardware, but they really need to get back into their design-fu. I maintain they make the best mobile telephone hardware you can buy – it’s just that their UI needs some serious work. Every mobile phone I’ve had – including workphones – have been Nokias, so I really hope that the new CEO (Stephen Eloop, ex Microsoft and the first non Finnish CEO ever!) can fix whatever is holding them back there. I don’t want them to out-Apple the iphone, I want them to out-Nokia the iphone. I’ll buy it, if they can pull it off. Wow me, Nokia! Make me a phone I don’t have to be defensive about liking!
That’ll do for now. There’s a few things in the pipeline for future posts that I might even get off my arse and make happen in the next few weeks, but you know.. we’ll see.
1. Brand new-ey
2. Damon Albarn – album
Sep 22 2010
new fuel cafe
It’s a new challenger! .. I mean, B&E roll. At New Fuel Cafe, Chatswood. Large, basic, better than average value. Good, freshly cooked fillings, cheap roll. Let down by the pretty average coffee. 7/10.
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