Mowgli1647545497

Was going to trade in the 94 ZX11 for one of these. Went down to the bike store on Morse to look at one, and they had it and a Hayabusa lined up right as you came in.

Not sure which is uglier: the Ninja's 4 bugeye headlights or the Hayabusa's poked out nose. Wait, I'm sure: the schnoz nose - looks like a proboscis monkey.

http://www.streetfighterdirect.com/acatalog/GSXR1300screen.jpghttp://www.jeannieshouse.com/jungle/monkeys/proboscis.jpg

Still, I'll be keeping the ZX11 and passing on them both. Maybe the next busa won't look like ass.

Well after 17 years of wonderful ownership I've finally parted with my 1985 Ninja 900.

Here are her last pictures from Sacramento few days before she sold.

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-2/944597/ba95scd%5B1%5D.jpg

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-2/944597/f6ecscd%5B1%5D.jpg

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-2/944597/3235scd%5B1%5D.jpg

*snif* I miss it already. 21 years old. 12,000 miles. 100% original. 100% great. What a good companion she was.

So this is what it feels like to be a two bike man...

I give you the rebuttal from the Land-of-people-Who-Understand-Thermodynamics (charter member since '86):

"It seems like every 15 years or so some guy comes along and claims to have come up with a way to turn water into clean burning fuel. (Remember the "Bodine Gasoline" pill from the Beverly Hillbillies?) The thing is, any elementary school student can turn water into hydrogen and oxygen, which burns very nicely, turning back into water when it burns. But I have yet to hear of anyone who has come up with a way to turn water into hydrogen and oxygen without using more energy than you produce. If you had an electrolysis machine that produced more energy than it consumed, you could plug it into itself and have yourself a perpetual motion machine."

The perpetual motion aspect is the part that is impossible. Perpetual motion machines are the slang term given to engines or devices that try to get energy for free (even if motion is not involved). always remember to consider the very basic tenant in physics/chemistry that free energy never is. It has to come from somewhere. Even gasoline took way more energy to make than it gives back in combustion (considering the amount of energy input by the sun/earth/biosphere to form crude oil). Stored energy has to be put there by some action involving more energy itself, wether its the energy in an unstable plutonium atom, or the energy in a spinning inertia wheel, or the energy in a gallon of gas or rocket fuel, its all stored energy. And thats an immutable unbreakable law of physics.

Or give up on trying to trade energy for energy and destroy matter to get energy where none existed before: thats fusion and fission. But there are alot of problems with those as energy strategies, portability not the least of which.

However this is an interesting technology if you look at it from this angle: Centralize the hydrolysis process so you can get economies of scale, and run if off of some renewable energy source like nuclear or solar or hydrothermal. Then distribute the HHO gas (which is what the engine is runing off of anyway) just like you distribute petrol today. And our mode of energy distribution is familiar but also better. Clean burning (literally), never ending, and controllable by US.

+1 on the Fran Bar being run down. I can't speak for the players since I play airsoft, but the field is, well, its seen better days.

If Bellefontaine is not too far there's a very nice field up there. All outdoors IIRC.

It doesn't really all depend on the situation. There's no magic variables except disbelief. It doesn't get any easier than X lb cat vs X lb dog, dog loses. And I can say that (and have now what 4 times?) because it was proven over and over again by your friendly neighborhood pit fighters who used to do such matches until the Man cracked down on their fun, but not before the dog owners quit pitting their hard worked champs up to lose em (literally) every time. And they weren't putting 80lb dogs up against 15lb cats. They *thought* they were staging *fair* fights by weight. It wasn't, and didn't last long. The cats were taken out of the circuits ,being considered *ringers*, nobody'd bet against them, so the venues changed. Dogs later did better fighting bears, in packs.

The hyenas don't have anything to do with anything, they're extra sauce, there for entertainment because Eric asked for the link.

More hyena trivia (hyenas are some fucked up creatures:

Sexual dimorphism is very prominent in the spotted hyena, with the females considerably larger than the males. Average weight for males is 100 lb, but females reach over 150 lb in southern Africa. Females are masculinized due to the excess testosterone in their bodies; they have more testosterone in their bodies than most male hyenas. As a result of this masculinization, females are a third to half larger than the males, have more muscle mass, are more aggressive, and have masculinized genetalia.

Sounds like a Grovetucky woman. Ick.

BTW- Cats are now more popular pets in the US (in terms of households) than dogs. And their average weight has been going up for the past couple decades. One thing to thank, new breeds. The relatively new breed of domestic savannah cats for example are becoming more and more common and easier to come by. There are several vendors in Ohio alone. (None reputable, imo, though) Savannah F1-F3 males weigh in at 35-40lbs or more. They're getting common enough some of you are going to have to revise your definition of domestic feline, since the females breed like weeds (the males don't) and their blood is going to mix thru the cat pet population for now on. Some vets are saying the entire domestic population could move upward 10-15lbs across the board. Thats not just the savannahs. And it doesn't include the breeds that show hybrid vigor (resulting in gigantism) like ligers displayed. Savannah/safari cross male F2s hit 50-65lbs. And they still eat Purina cat chow and shit in a box where you told em. ...and would easily open a 50-80lb dog to get to the soft creamy filling.

Good ones (well bred savannahs) are still hard to come by though. I'm on the waiting list for an F2 male from Illinois. Can't wait. Here's his dad:

http://www.savannahcatbreed.com/pp/sabre-pic.jpg

Lion vs Hyenas

http://www.unoriginal.co.uk/nuvideos12/UNORIGNAL.CO.UK%20-%20lion%20vs%20hyena.wmv

Even fight while the hyenas outgang the lionesses. Wait til the end when the male lion returns. The single male lion...

Hyenas have the highest jaw strength in the animal kingdom, btw. But they weigh about what your Brazillion Mastiff does. Watch what good being the same size with more powerful jaws gets em...

(BTW- Hyenas are closer relation to cats than canines, but its still fun to watch the Hyenas getting their junk tore up).

So have we all learned our biography lesson for today?

- Dog vs cat, equal weight - dog loses

- Dog vs cat, dog outweighs cat 3x - cat loses

- Top animal kingdom cat (tiger at 600lbs) vs top animal kingdom dog (timber wolf at 250lbs) - dog shredded (doesn't count hybrid cats like the 1250lb ligers)

Or are there any remaining dumbasses left that need to be held back and put on the short bus?

"Dunt pay no tenshun ta dem, Cleetus, muh dawg iz maeen. Kats r fer city folk. Lets go take our ferty pound hound out n hunt us some ten pound kittahs, since our willies are small."

"Mmkay, Clem. Just dunt ask'n me ta play Deeliveranze whens we git out inna woods."

"Ah shuckz."

Equal size Large cat vs large dog, cat wins.

Fixed.

 

As for the Brazillian mochachino latte decaf Mastiff killing even a cat 100lbs its lighter, please show me one piece of evidence confirming that. And by evidence I don't mean the guy that owns one in his suburban america home or the dude that sells the things...

 

But in any event,

 

200lb this

http://www.fila.org/images/morrisons_fila.jpg

 

meets a 200lb this

http://animals.timduru.org/dirlist/puma%20cougar/cougar%2082.jpg

 

And Fido is

http://www.calvaria.com/dave/images/roadkill.jpg

 

(Yeah most cougars don't reach 200lbs, but some do. The record holder is a male at 233lbs.)

 

Anyway, take 10 minutes and use the internet. Really. You'll find all you need on the outcome when dogs were made to fight cats.

 

Google pitfight, cat, dog, turn of the century

People, please learn before posting. Or listen to Eric. Anecdotal "I met a scary dog" stories don't mean anything. If all you can think of are your 15lb tabbies as personal reference then you don't have enough personal experience to weigh in on the topic. So go read up first.

lb for lb a cat will kill a dog. Every time. End of story. Proven in pit fights time and again until those things became illegal. Cat reflexes are faster, their jaw strength is higher, their leg strength is higher, claws, their muscle fiber density and bone density are both higher. The 15lb cat vs 80lb dog thing is not what the "cat lovers" are saying. They're saying lb for lb.

You don't have to beleive it, you don't have to like it either. Put an 80lb mad angry mean trained Rot up against an 80lb feline and it will die. Period.

Old conclusion, proven long before any of us were even alive.

I'm in Columbus, Dublin actually. And I lived in Philly for three years (just south of Philly actually).

And yes, Philly absolutely sucks. Columbus is head and shoulders a better town than that pile of shit.

You do realize that Bush has received about 1.5 billion dollars from the Kingdom of Saud, right? Why take bribes when you can serve a foreign power and make more money legaly? They've pretty much bankrolled his entire professional life.

Both parties suck. I've voted independent since 1986.

The democrats can't make the poor rich or the rich poor and the republicans can't keep the rich rich or the poor poor. I was born poor in West Virginia and now am doing quite well for myself with not a damn bit of it due to hereditary advantage, real estate, or government help.

And so can everyone else.

All we all need is for the government to stay out of our way as much as possible.

If you think the materials in the V's interior cost less than a Camry's you have a really poor biased eye and touch.

Meanwhile at the same time my colleagues (Audis, Mercedes, and BMW owners all) praise the V's interior. Some like it more than theirs. One is a CFO who owns a Jag X-type as his daily.

As for getting upset by road bumps: Get more wheel time in high-powered RWD cars. Recalibrate that butt meter. The V is acknowledged to be at the top for handling, on smooth and rough roads. Personally, I've never had it get out of orientation by a road bump, and I've taken this thing over 1g lateral. Neither did it have any problem besting AWD competitors in the supercar challenge mogul slalom.

Or he could be a dem and be involved in illegal unethical business practices and get elected president....

I know what party *I'd* hide in if I was an adultering, foreign-bribe-taking, land-deal-scam-workin scumbag.

Oh wait thats already been done.

Both parties suck.

Fewer people would be buying Nissans, Toyotas, or Mitsubishis today (the 30-somethings) without the 300zx, Supra, and 3000GT of before. The halo effect from those high dollar supercars is still rippling here ten years later where kids (and young-adults) are buying crappy (performance wise) Corollas and Sentras even still.

Halo effect. GM needs that as well. They have had for the past 30 years, to date, only one halo car. The corvette. And for a big demographic that car represents Guido with gold chains and a midlife crisis. Anti-halo, if you will, for a large buying segment. (Sorry corvette guys, but for many "non-car" people that stigma is there attached to the car, don't meant to offend - now back to my point...) Now GM is trying to re-establish Cadillac as a performance/technology(?)/luxury leader (again, as in the 1930s). Whether they succeed or not I think its worth a swing at bat.

GM said "We're going to play in the upscale performance sedan market". If you make that statement then you have to come ready to play. So yeah they come out of the gate with a car that wiped the floor with the then M5 and Audi and Mercedes offerings (any car that lets Jeremy from TG utterly outdrive the Stig in a hot Audi means business). Ok great. Nice opening shot. But you have to expect the competitors to respond. And when they do you don't go home with your tail between your legs "Sorry guys, I didn't mean to crash your party, I'm a one-hit-wonder. I'll be going home now. Sorry for the noise." No. You watch what they come back and make your own reply. That means when BMW releases a high dollar, limited production version of their 5 series at 500hp sedan, then you release a 500hp version as well. Second banana halo cars don't do anyone any good.

And IMO they're shooting at the M5 in a way that makes sense for them. No matter what they do with interiors you're going to get the dogmatists (ala Jeremy on Top Gear) bagging on them. Even if they lined them with emeralds and cut the frame from solid magnesium. so you're not going to win that perception bias in the next ten years. But you can out-perform the other guys. Numbers are numbers and can't be argued with (except in those lame little sidebars the magazines use where the writers whine, I mean write how they liked the losing car more because of its zen spirit or espirit or some other subjective drivel). So GM sets the Super-V unequivocally as a luxury performance sedan with a heavy leaning towards performance over the luxury. Gives you an immediate response when you get the "interior sucks" kneejerk thrown in your face: "Yeah, but it out-turns, out-brakes, out-accelerates, out-topspeeds your XXXX car. Which is what we meant to do." Your words are matching your product.

And voila, you're still a legitimate player competing in the high-end game with the traditional players.

I don't know the profit/loss numbers for the Corvette and the CTS, but I'd think that the Z06 sells more than enough to make up for the cost it takes to produce. I just don't see this new CTS doing the same.

SUVs... SUVs just need to quit being made. They have no legitimate reason to exist. Or be owned. (BTW- I like how they're starting to call them "crossovers" now that SUV is a four letter word in marketing.)

And who knows, in ten-twenty years maybe kids will be pimping out Vs to go wreck in mall parking lots on Saturday nights...

And it'll still probably grenade the rear diff on launch.

Good engine, junk car. I rode in one of the current ones, it felt like it was going to fall apart and rode like shit even for a performance car. Hopefully they addressed all that with the new model, regardless it's a fast car!

Not realy, completely different cars, completely different markets. The Caddy seems like more of a bruiser. Its not hard to make a saloon that will out perfom the M5 on the road. It's the other stuff that it does tot he driver that makes the sticker price of the M5 palletable. The Caddy may rip the asphalt from the ground, butI bet it still has a hollow plastic interior, i.e. it'll be fast, it'll be expensive, but it will still feel cheap.

Meanwhile with the $100k you're gonna lay out for an M5 stateside you get wonderful "features" like an iDrive system that sh!ts the entire car's programming and makes the vehicle unstartable. And a cam system that rumored to be grinding off lobes ala the M3's six did for the entire first production run. Thats about as palletable as boiled dog ass.

I'd put my interior up against a Bangle-designed beemer anyday. And you're welcome to sit in my car and point to a piece of hollow plastic. I'll even let you rap on anything you want to show me hollow.

"Grass is greener", gents. All my inlaws in Holland would piss on the M, and want nothing more than to sit their european asses in my V every time they visit.

But IMO the sidewalls do look goofy. Regardless, a 500hp V I like. Guess I gotta go order that Mallet kit. no wait, I'm done racing.

Ahhh, and now we see why they're going bankrupt. Another useless car. Do we need another high hp CTS? Someone needs to bitchslap the shit out of GM's president.

BTW - my boss owns an Audi RS6 and my colleague an 5series BMW. Both squeak more on the interior than my same age V.

That's a helluva airsoft gun! That stuffs very fun. I need to get me a gun.

Yes its a blast. CA M249. Heavy but lays down the suppression. No way to lighten it up so I lightened up my harness from last year. Last year I was toting around 80+lbs over just my clothing weight. Here:

http://www.08eu.com/nuke/modules/coppermine/albums/userpics/10028/OPDH%20020.jpg

This is my new harness this year:

http://www.airsoftevents.com/gallery/albums/airsoft103/DSC_0057.JPG

http://www.airsoftevents.com/gallery/albums/airsoft103/DSC_0071.JPG

Its just a set of loadbearing suspenders, a camelbak, and two belt-hung Molle M249 box mag pouches, plus a radio should pouch. I'm down to 45lbs over carry.

I still sweat my fat ass off.

Gun rental - depends on the event host. I know for Team Strikers' hosted events that if you PM or email Strikers they can usually arrange a gun for rental (a good gun too). Strikers_Blade runs Combatdepot.com so he usually brings some of the store (what fits in a car trunk) with him to events also. Rates are an unknown, I've never rented. Best thing to do is post in one of the threads on it over at AirsoftOhio.com that you'd need to rent and I'm sure you'd get several PMs or replies. Its a great little community for helping out new players. (Just don't buy any of those crap guns you see at Walmart or DicksSportingGoods or SurplusWorld. If you're going to buy stop by AirsoftSmith or AirsoftArms here in town first to hold some models before you decide - then go online or buy from them - supports local small business. I definitely have a preference, but I won't post it since they're both hardworking stores).

Hope to see some of you out. Like I said last fall, its a blast.

Congrats Anthony!

That rocks. Hell i'm stupid I've been on this board for years now and never knew you were ex-Navy too. We need to go out and get a couple squid to squid drinks sometime.

Anyhow - congrats on being (mostly) ok with your health and Uncle Sam owning up to his responsibilities for you. Not sure how to respond to you re: the anullment, but if you're happy thats what matters so I guess thumbs up there too. :wtg

relish the week - they're few and far between

I forgot I'd promised to post upcoming events. We've already had two this season so I apologize for not posting earlier in the year. Moving on:

Got a few coming up that are going to rock.

Op Black Aurora

April 29th - Bellefontaine Ohio - new field

Reg page:

http://www.blackeagleairsoft.net/blackaurora.html

Registration is full but there are alot of unconfirmeds who'll not pay and slots will open so get on the waiting list.

Fee - $10 per person, camping $5 extra

Op Safari Strike 2

June 3rd - Chardon Ohio

Event Page:

http://www.airsoftcleveland.com/safaristrike.htm

Also full, and most paid for already but again you can get on the waiting list as you never know. This one will be big.

Fee - $45 or $50 if camping onsite

Op Blind Fury 3

June 24th-25th - Springfield Ohio

Event Page:

http://airsoftevents.com/events/event_story.php?event_num=57

Not full yet but filling up. This also will be a big one.

Fee - $40 for BF series vets, $45 for new players (radio rental onsite optional fee)

Op Full Throttle 2

May 20th - Columbus Ohio - Franbar park

This one is really informal, and abit of a clusterf%&k so there's no event page for it, only the thread on AirsoftOhio.com to troll thru for info. But if you want to come out and shoot shit without the milsim this may be your bag. I can't attest to the hosts of this though (unlike the above who's hosts are all vets at putting on events). Here's the AO thread pg 5 on the event which seems to have the most accurate info, but again its a bit of a clusterf%&k so I post it for completeness only, and its in town:

http://www.airsoftohio.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9586&perpage=25&pagenumber=5

Fee - $15

So there you go - those are the local (re: Ohio) events that are already scheduled. More will come. And of course there's the national events, but those are bigger and more $$$. So if you're looking for an excuse to get your fat winterized asses (like mine) out of your drivers' seats come on out and get lit up.

Booyah.

http://www.airsoftevents.com/gallery/albums/airsoft103/DSC_0030.JPG

First person shooters on consoles are for this guy:

http://www.sakri.net/crap/albino_ari.jpg

That is all.

(OFP, SteelBeasts, BF2, EECH, WH40K - all on PC)

That site tries to open port 0. Thats a programming trick of unix programmer shady types. Instead of hard-coding a port number, or making code that searches for an open port, Unix programmers specify port 0 as a connection param. That triggers the OS to search for and return the next available port in the dynamic port number range to them.

If you're surfing from a locale (work) that uses unix boxes as a gateway or is in the path of your surfing, they and you could get ganked by going to that site.

(This doesn't affect Windows OS's)

Be safe.

It's all about percentages...

But this plant manager can't control any of that. He runs his plant. Pride needs to go up across the board. Here's his stab at upping pride in their work at his plant.

The designers also need something to bite their butts, but I don't think its all their fault. As Bill Ford said its a whole culture change that needs to happen at Ford (and at GM imo too) - he said they build cars to fill capacity for production. So they take no risks, because any risks puts at risk a giant production run of 100s of thousands of cars over at least a decade. So ever design gets watered down until its bland. And materials get cheapened down because the frigging pensions and wages suck up so much % that they can't afford to buy high end materials to put in the cars. So the products... suck.

They need to quick thinking in terms of massive production runs. They need to think in terms of products people will buy, faster product cycles (Japanese cycle new car models twice or three times as fast as domestics, hell GM and Ford try to keep a car platform alive for 20yrs). They need to take chances, increase quality material use, bring a dose of reality to line workers on what they get paid vs what they do (hanging car doors isn't rocket science - why should they get paid a rocket scientist's salary?), and they need to increase pride in thier work.

Here's one step for that last item by one plant manager.

And Bill Ford said: "You know what? We're not going to sell a bazillion cars anymore. It ain't going to happen. And continuing to go along with our heads up our asses and think in those terms isn't going to solve anything. So you know what? Fuk it - we don't need em, we can't fill em, and we sure as heck can't afford em, so I'm closing these xyz plants." Maybe NOW they can break their old habit and realize its about the flipping product and not about filling some Dearborn plant's build capacity churning out junk nobody but blind loyalists want just to continue to overpay a bunch of workers who don't even have enough pride in what they do to buy the damn cars they get paid highway robbery to make.