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Nightbat

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Everything posted by Nightbat

  1. Don't be discouraged, I've been practicing Shoryuken for close to 30 years now, and am convinced that one dat I may be able to knock over a paper cup
  2. I'll say it once, Martin Lawrence better clean up his act, because he was bloody irritating in BB2
  3. That's the reason why I chose a motorcycle as my mode of transportation and haven't regretted it a single day Contrary to popular belief, there is no "Sightseeing" on bikes, not on the move there isn't. What you're doing when touring is enjoying the bike, the way it handles The only scenery you can ponder is the sky ahead, but even that you can chalk up to being aware and preparing for any weather changes You're busy mentally and physically every time, all the time, regardless of the level at which our moving, a short trip to the store, a steady commute, a leisurely tour, balls to the wall track day or highway hooliganism You're always estimating corners, feeling the traction, spotting the dangers, all senses are working Hell, even in a group, it still boils down to just "You and your bike", impressing your buddies leaves no time to enjoy their reactions while you're doing it And admiring your buddies merely morphs unnoticed in a split second into them being objects on the road you need to keep an eye out for Even while I was doing my lessons, I found out a 'bad day' immediately showed itself in the way I was riding There is no room to be preoccupied or distracted In mornings, when I turn the ignition and the bike wakes up, 'I' wake up, fatigue only returns when I switch it off again And if I keep the same level of fatigue after starting, I call my boss that I'll be late, since I'm busy chugging down a bucket of coffee before I venture out on 2 wheels And that's no joke, although rare, I actually called my boss with this exact reason a few times There is a level of focus necessary to ride, which is higher than you can get away with on 4 wheels ....And I love it Which makes the implementation of all these "Rider Aids" sad, a motorcycle should be ridden first and foremost for the challenge it brings Comfort, safety, practicality, ease of use, if you want that, are found, and should be taken from other forms of transportation
  4. Any nice sites for new figure info? The one I've been visiting for many years has become less engaging as time went by
  5. One has to wonder how hard it has to be, to push down a pedal and stir in that box of cogwheels every once in a while (apart from other life-challenging actions, like parking, checking mirrors and having to pay attention to the road instead of the phone/infotainment center) If people like to be driven so badly, why not sell the car and take the bus?
  6. Seeing that DeLorean makes me somewhat regretful I never jumped on that floating one, but damn, that price
  7. Ah, come on, 2 and 3 are awesome popcorn movies in their own right (and the MIA and Afghan resistance are a nice underlying moral story)
  8. Which was a bit of my comedic point with "Magically" Brexit is not gonna make British copyright law suddenly Star Trek Mirror Image European Union legislation Though it might slow courts down a bit
  9. Maybe they put their hopes on Brexit suddenly 'magically' turn UK copyright law in their favor
  10. I've got a certain orange dodge charger with a very politically incorrect roof decal in storage
  11. Shame, "Split Second" is still one of my favorite beer 'n popcorn movies
  12. ....reboot "Some ............s are always trying to ice skate uphill."
  13. Wait what? We achieved space travel? When? Last I checked, we can hardly even see what's beyond Neptune in any detail, and that's only a shoddy 2.5 billion miles away Proxima Centauri, the nearest star is about 2500 trillion miles away The scales are too vast to even speak of actual spacetravel, it's not even comparing the flight of a paper plane, off a mountain, wind in the back, to the distance that Voyager has traveled so far Our space travel has advanced only an inch above flinging a turd into space Look, I'm not all negative, they once said we'd never achieve flight, break the sound barrier, reach the moon, and all that Now if, IF, IF we don't kill ourselves over time, I have high hopes that 1 day, we will fix this nasty FTL issue we need to be able to actually explore space, Scotty might just be proven wrong with "Ye Cannae Change The Laws of Physics" (Not much faith in Quantum Mechanics though, it's become the "God-Answer" for the scientific community) It might as well be 100 times the time it took us from the first modern human to appear, to the year we achieved flight to even figure out how to reach 1/100th the speed of light but Currently, I'm very sceptical of talking about "space travel" when the fastest thing we got took 13 years just to leave our heliosphere (and it's still up in the air if it actually went into 'outer' space yet) I find intelligent life existing in the universe, hell, even in this galaxy, plausible, that this life has the ability to visit us? Not so much and even if it has, I don't think circular spaceships loaded with gastroenterologic equipment are their required means to travel
  14. Ok, I know it's 2 wheels short, but it's about performance on wheels and could be a decent/entertaining story anyways,... So, I had been riding around on a 2006 GSX-R 750 for more than 12 years In 2016 the headgasket started to sweat and overheat the bike, got that fixed, but a bit over a year later after my colleague pulled my bike out of the parking lot with his bumper During those repairs early 2018, my mechanic found out that the base gasket was starting to sweat as well. By this time, the little beastie was already clocking well over 50000 miles. Anyways, I held on to her for as long as no problem arose which would lead to a standstill. Few months later my headers cracked, powdercoat was starting to flake from the swingarm, front fork required a service, it definitely was on it's way to the great circuit in the sky. But, she was still going... So, I figured early 2019 to start looking around for something new(er...ish). After so many years on a 750 (owned a 750 SRAD prior to the K6), I decided to look for her big sister, the K5 1000, figured I was a big boy by now as well. -And I actually first contemplated buying a 2005 GSX-R 1000 instead of the 750 K6, but with not even having my licence for 2 years at that time, I probably wouldn't be enjoying this monster for long. Looked around on my nation's version of Reverb, and other 2nd hand sites, and early march found one I was interested in (2nd choice, but more on that later). 20K on the clock, $6250, ...time for a test ride. This was the first time on a 1k (that 1 time on the Honda 954 Fireblade of my buddy doesn't count as I was following him on his new bike home and he rides like a granny ) My 750 was anything but slow,... but this thing????? There was only one conclusion: Well,.... .....at 20k miles, this one had more salt corrosion than mine did, while mine had been used all year round for 12+ years and was now showing 59000 miles on the dash. And I never was known for being a disciplined polisher Rear tire and valves had dried out, engine covers left and right looked like they were painted in a sandstorm, rim edges were 'polished' (IOW Bare Aluminum) with the powdercoat left in the center starting to flake and the exhaust was loud as hell WITH baffle installed,... Yeah, I needed one, but Nope, not this one! Well, after saying goodbye and heading home, decided to take a detour and grab a coffee at the beach. Never got there though, at a certain point, suddenly my dash showed 0 RPMs and 0 mph, first I figured it was simply my dash dying on me (hey, it also had done 59K). But alas, a few miles further, she died under me, called road assist, conclusion: Generator meltdown, I was riding on the juice of my battery those last few miles. ....great, as if life wasn't throwing me curveballs to the nether-region already, I now was without a bike, and without a mode of transportation to easily shop for another bike (since I only have a motorcycle licence). So, sitting around, browsing the sites, got a few feelers out, but nothing big, getting bored, figured I "generalized" my search parameters, I found her,.... again -Back to that "second choice" comment: Prior to me requesting that test ride on that other 1000, I found one advertised with 4700 miles on the clock, but before I was "actively" starting to shop, it disappeared, logical assumption it sold. But there she was, on a different site, under a misnomer, contacted the owner, tense week passed, called the guy: Yes! He still had it for sale and Yes! I could try her out. Chartered a buddy of mine for a lift, and off we went treasure hunting, time to see if this thing was as advertised. I mean, it hadn't run for 3 years, I'd be expecting everything rubber to be either cracking, covered in dust and grime. Arrived at a 2 national car importers company terrain, through the gate, down a ramp to an underground garage. ...there she stood. As I walked closer, I already noticed that the headlight glass was as clear as if it wasn't present, the color of the top cowl almost seemed to radiate in the dimly lit garage. Then she came in close up view. It really was as if I called Doc Brown and we jumped into the DeLorean and went back to 2005 and walked into the showroom of my local dealer and saw her standing there (Only this time, I wasn't gonna wait a year to buy a different bike). What I found out while talking that the sellers father in law got permission from the neighboring company to store the bike there. ...the neighboring company was the official Dutch Jaguar importer and one of their services to customers was storing their expensive Jaguars in a conditioned garage We were talking showroom condition, except the tires (original front, 2nd rear,...15 and 13 year old production date respectively -Yeah, the testride was 'adventurous'), everything felt and looked like new. Did the mandatory test ride, but when I came back it was already decided: So the past 3 months, I've been busy doubling the miles on the clock (what the previous owner took 13 years to do) and of course adding my own personal touches to it. Those tires went ASAP, they really were dangerous to continue riding on, also grabbed that opportunity to replace the brakelines for steel braided ones, just to be sure Yeah they still felt flexible, but brake fluid is bad stuff, most builders suggest replacement after 5 years, and since I couldn't see their inner condition, decided not to take any chances. Luckily, she was already sporting a Short Yoshimura exhaust (An added bonus, back in 2005 I wanted this slip-on on my SRAD as well, but it was bloody expensive and I managed to get a full system Arrow for cheap instead). Had my mirrors, grips and bar weights from my K6 and put those on there, slapped on some tankgrips, removed the passenger pegs for a single exhaust hanger, Screwed on a set of crash pads, preload adjusters, chain tensioners and a set of levers, put a smoke taillight and smoke turnsignal lenses on the back, changed the smoke windscreen to a lighter shade double bubble, stapled on a seatcover and lastly stuck on a custom design tankpad. By now apart from rear sets, she's pretty much done externally. She's already outfitted with a powercommander, but a custom tune will have to wait, first i need to refurbish the suspension, that was a downside on that low mileage, the front shocks are traveling rather stiff, oh well, since I'm not the biggest guy in the world, it gives me the chance to change the springs to more suit my weight as well. In due time I'll probably upgrade the brakedisks as well, and maybe put her on a set of PVM 10-spoke rims (which I've been lusting after since the days of my SRAD, 14 years back). Well, all talk, now some pics. As I bought her: As she currently stands:
  15. With those F-14's ...you should have a mandatory A6M zero in there
  16. Call me a black-humored b*****d, but I was cackling at the thought if they had Harvey Weinstein doing the voice of charlie
  17. The truly sad part is that our BS-ing might just end up on "Official" UFO-Hunter sites and taken as gospel "From an unknown source we were informed about,...." ...I mean, they once did a mockumentary about the moonlanding, and we all know how that ended up
  18. Then again, who says they weren't acquired via "1-800-Rent-A-Chopper, Virginia , WA" "Rent-A-Chopper, how can I help you?" -"Yes, this is US Special Forces. We would like to hire a few helicopters to kill a #1 terrorist" "Why hello there Sir! Sir, we at Rent-A-Chopper will put in the extra effort to aid our Proud nation. I think I may just have the thing for you Sir No questions asked and we'll automatically add the Veteran's bonus on the lower deductable on damage or loss,... ....and how will you be paying sir? Credit Card? Cash? Bitcoin?" -"Taxmoney"
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