hello internet

Oh, I was just out on my motorcycle. It works now.

It is louder, and will be faster once it is tuned (tomorrow morning).

I have a ton of video and pictures of the rebuild, which I’ll eventually compile into a write up for my motorcycle blog. But I’ve been busy. Tomorrow I have to write up two different resumes – I’m dreading each.

I TOOK APART MY ENTIRE MOTORCYCLE AND PUT IT BACK TOGETHER AND IT WORKS!!

I’m excited about it!

Stacy is trying to get me not to delete my myspace page. I think that’s cute.

Vintage Bike Race!

Click here for more info.

I’m very excited for this. I think this will be a perfect trip to test my bike on, once it is all tuned in and good. It is about 80 miles north (Google Map) which I’d think is about 2 hours since I’m taking back roads to get there. It is in two weeks. That is the plan. Let’s hope it happens. Meet me there?

I’m planning on camping for one night up there – maybe I’ll just do it old school style and just bring a sleeping bag and sleep in the dirt next to my bike. I mean – why not? Life is short!

HIGH KICK <- \V \V

This morning, in the wee wee hours, I messed with my motorcycle and started it up. It is loud. It is running great. I just need to adjust the valves and the timing – something I need a wee bit of help on.  Other than that, yahhoooooo.

Coming to a town near you.

this weekend

I worked on my bike almost every single hour.

It is all back together, firing up but something is wrong. Something is retarded (literally), like the timing or something. I don’t know. I’m exhausted. I’m taking a break right now, before I go back down and sit there and look at my bike and check 20 little things over and over and over again.

The crushing irony that I don’t have any transportation, or even enough money to rent myself a car is not lost on me.

I haven’t even looked at my scooter.

It has been very hard to stay positive about things lately.

feeling gravity’s pull

I’m getting really excited about REM’s new album.

Skullphone: Did anyone see it?

Image Credit: Wired (click for article)

A Los Angeles street artist claimed that he “hacked” into Clear Channel’s billboards and put up his Skullphone tag on quite a few L.A. billboards. The picture above is from a billboard right down on Lincoln in Marina Del Ray.

However, Wired picked up on it and contacted Clear Channel, who says that they billboards were rented for two days – as in he paid for it then claimed he “hacked the system.”

Two things piss me off about this.

1: “Hacking” is ridiculous. Sure, there are a lot of people out there that do it for fun, for information purposes, and some with malicious intent. I don’t know a thing about hacking, but claiming that paying Clear Channel to put up your “street art” is not hacking, it’s advertising. You got some people talking – but about what? Everything is a “hack” today. Remember this old story about how people have “hacked” Coke bottles so they can see the iTunes code on the cap and get their free song? Yeah.. the “hack” was tilting the bottle and squishing it up to your face. Way to bring down the system! In fact, here is a link to the story.

2: I think I just covered both things in #1.

Anyway – I didn’t see these billboards up anywhere, but if I did they would just get lost in all the other visual pollution here in Los Angeles. This guy is no Banksy, and if he wanted to really do something cool in Los Angeles, he could have done something like painting a building using lasers. (Click the link and watch the video – you’ll agree it is awesome)

A sample from Flickr:

What a doozy of a week!

A DOUBLE doozy!

Let’s see: in just scooter related news, I ran out of gas once, got a flat tire, fouled two plugs and eventually seized it. In one week. GARRRR! However, this may be an awesome time to do some upgrades to the scooter – a new pipe, an upjetted carb, and a 133 kit perhaps? Quick and fun way to add 15-20 m.p.h. to the scoot. And if I wanted to get stupid(er) a few more tweaks could have me doing wheelies in 3rd gear!

No matter what happens, though, nothing will bring me down! Life is awesome right now and I have INDOMITABLE SPIRIT!

i quit

Everything. 

My scooter seized on the way home, even though it was running rich. I broke the kickstarter somehow. So I decided to do an all-nighter and put my motorcycle back together. But the cam chain tensioner I spent 130 dollars on is too thick at the top, and I don’t have a bench grinder so I hand-ground it down until my hand actually bled, but it’s still too thick to fit in the valve head. I’ll go try and hand grind it down for the next hour. If I work really, really hard, I might be able to have my bike together before 5 a.m.I’m taking a break and eating a sammich.

I’m really tired.

Update: It is 1 a.m. and I decided to quit. I forgot to pick up motor oil, so the engine I just finished putting together can’t be run until I get some obviously. I think the engine went together well, but my back is in serious trouble. I might have done something bad to it. My back is already pretty bad to begin with, but while lifting the engine I may have pulled something.

I took my scooter apart and something is wrong with the piston/cylinder. There is hardly any compression. This is a very bad thing.

It will all feel better Saturday night when I’m riding my motorcycle through the hills. Crossing my fingers.

Tentative trip route

I spent some time working on my possible trip route, but got stuck in Utah. You can check it out here – when this gets better researched/etc. I’ll throw it up on my motorcycle blog:

Here is the link (Google Maps)

low to medium kicks, with a chance of highs in the kick region

Ugh.

No high kicks today, mostly low to medium kicks.

I started to put my Honda’s engine back together last night – I’m pretty nervous and hope I’m not doing it prematurely. I will finish cleaning my valves tonight and put it get everything set up other than the cam shaft. That was a medium kick (not a high kick, because my back has been really getting to me leaning over this engine every night).

Then I came in and got an email and my sister is getting a divorce. This really hit me hard and I’m really upset – it sounds like her husband is being a real asshole and she she only deserves the best. She works hard and with all the chaos around her she somehow keeps it down. Both of my sisters are incredibly strong and when bad things happen I get angry. If I were an older brother, I would probably go and kick my sister’s husbands ass. Maybe I will!

So that is a low kick.

Then, my scooter started taking a dump this morning on the way to work. So I’m at a real impasse – I need my scooter to run well enough for tomorrow so I can put my bike back together this weekend, but do I spend tonight working on my scooter (dropping the engine, checking the exhaust, carb) or do I use that time working on my motorcycle so I have a head start this weekend? Only my psychic knows for sure.

I ate avocado sandwich last night and still full! Also, me talk like HULK NOW!

Let’s see, what else.

Splat.

some things I hate?

I try not to hate many things – I’m a positive guy. But here is a list of things I’ve been a-hatin’ lately!

1. Cocker Spaniels (always and forever)
2. Sandals and socks
3. Old mexican ladies hitting the crosswalk button repeatedly until it says “Walk” (It was funny at first, now just irritating)
4. Rolling Rock aftertaste
5. Sloppy eaters and lip smackers
6. SPIN Magazine
7. Television shows (sue me)
8. People who confuse “lose” and “loose” – WHEN DID THIS START HAPPENING?!
9. Using Windows (only at work – but do you get the connection?)
10. Broken technology
11. Really hard to remove gasket material
12. Crocs (the shoe, not the scary dinosaur)
13. Atheism Vs. Christianity argument – no one will ever win, so just shut up!
14. Lack of cat
15. Crunchy cookies that are too hard to eat and mess up your mouth
16. Urinals
17. Telephones

As not to sound like a negative Nancy – I will now list things I love!

1. You
2. Sushi
3. Super Mario World
4. Listening to Bruce Springsteen’s “Backstreets” while riding my scooter to the grocery store
5. Getting rid of junk
6. Getting up early
7. Planning trips
8. Joe Strummer
9. Rocky
10. Listening to NPR in my garage (hey, it’s the entire experience)
11. Maps
12. Long conversations (but not walks on the beach)
13. Wheelies
14. Hummus
15. That “The Price is Right” game where the guy yodels up the mountain
16. The Beef Ifty Twos

Tell me, reader. Tell me what you love/hate. Don’t hold back! Vent! Or not!

I also love tacos and sinking to the bottom of swimming pools.

HOLY CRAP… TREASURE!

So I’m currently in the middle of “getting rid of everything” and I found some old CD-Rs, and I found some treasures.

Some video treasures.

For instance, this video I just uploaded to YouTube. It is the first video I’ve ever made, and it is clearly a masterpiece. I was 16 at the time, and it is an epic stop-motion battle between The Thing and Spider-Man. This is before all the great comic book movies came out, so I am clearly a genius.

I shot this on a “Quickcam” on a laptop I received for Christmas. The “Quickcam” was like 150 dollars, only shot in black and white and at 15 frames per second. I loved that thing!

I also love this little time capsule because you can see a picture of Jimi Hendrix on my wall, an REM poster and a bunch of smaller REM pictures. My childhood room!

This is just the first of many sad little treasures… INCLUDING a most embarrasing video of me when I was 20ish and doing my first editing. And oh man.. I laughed when I saw myself. That hair… and those clothes… oh man. I almost don’t want to share it. Maybe in private.

Enjoy the battle royale.. more to come.

Edit: This isn’t the first video I’ve ever made… I forgot that in 7th grade me and my friend Tommy Roach made a movie for our English class called “Cronan Vs. Zeus” and it was awesome. I need to have my mom send it up here (if it still exists) and show everyone. If I recall correctly, I was also wearing a Batman t-shirt from a comic book exhibit at OMSI. OH MAN… DORK!!!!!!

Airplane ticket winner

The city winner is: Austin, Texas.

(where I met my Queeeeeeeeeen, where I met my Queeeeeeeeen)

Will happen in June or July after my motorcycle trip.

flat tire

I got a flat tire on my way to work today. I pulled a giant bent nail from my rear tire of my Vespa – I was only a few blocks from work. Luckily I have a spare and I’ll attack it at lunch.

I help my friend Lindsey set up her thesis art show on Sunday – it was fun, and the gallery smelled like paint and it reminded me of high school.

I’ve decided to – gasp! – stop drinking for a while. I’m not having fun with it lately and it just sort of drags me down and makes things happen that I regret later.

I tried to take two bags of CDs and DVDs to sell yesterday, but it was Easter and they were closed.

I hit a brick wall with my motorcycle rebuild (figuratively) but hopefully it will be all done this week.

I have been working furiously on getting rid of a lot of my things – obviously I started with DVDs and CDs. I used to be married to the concept of owning every single CD I’ve ever bought and having this massive collection – but the thought of moving all those CDs again is tiresome. So I am keeping my essential stuff and mp3ing stuff that I listen to occasionally. I won’t be doing the “all digital” thing like a lot of people do, because I still contend that mp3’s sound comparatively bad to CDs. But for stuff I only listen to occasionally it is fine. And the space I’ll be saving will be nice.

As for my DVD’s, I’m keeping most of my music-based stuff and my criterion DVDs, but scrapping the rest. If I had the computer space, I would love to get rid of every DVD I have and just have a digital copy on a hard drive somewhere. I’m not that into special features, and I can use Netflix to rent new movies. I’m pretty over the idea of a giant shelf of media – simplicity has its virtues and optical media is on its way out for most things anyway.

That’s all for now! I just had some “Earl Grey” tea and it always makes me think of Captain Picard from Star Trek when he goes up to this little computer and says “Earl Grey tea, hot” and it zaps it and he drinks it while listening to a symphony. Then Data is like “what is laughter?” and No. 1 strokes his beard.

Update: I changed my tire at lunch, it was pretty easy. I’ve never changed a tire on my scooter yet, and the rear was surprisingly easy. The tire is pretty worn anyway, so I’m just going to order a new rear tire. I’m hungry.

Let’s not kid ourselves!

Ain’t you heard the news? Adam and Eve were Jews.