redkow97

if prior posters are correct, it's only a misdemeanor in a private business anyway. No real consequence there, and a very good chance of getting off with a slap on the wrist. In a state building, it's a felony. That's a big deal.

i doubt the police asked 10tv.com for their help, but I suppose it's possible.

I read more about the original incidents in the "Cleveland Stater." Apparently there have been more incidents than I was even aware of. - the armed robbery at the coffee shop - a simple assault and robbery (laptop?) on the street - this hotel armed-robbery (which I am told happened at 3:00 in the afternoon, and directly across from the law building) - and then also an incident that I read about where a student was approached about using his cell phone. The student declined, but when pressed, consented. Tehn they guy said, "it's gonna cost you $5" to get the phone back. When the kid opened his wallet, the guy told him, "you can give me all of that" and then exposed a semi-automatic pistol in his waste-band. In one of the other instances (i can't recall which, but it was a street robbery), the victim began to resist, but then realized that 2 other accomplices had approached from behind him while he was speaking with the first guy. awesome.

Gotta love headline sensationalism... Unless it's some kind of Walmart policy to be filming people in their restrooms, the name of the store at which the suspect works is totally irrelevant. Someone just wants to piss on walmart. There are many valid reasons to do so, but inadvertently employing a perv need not be one of them.

I still think this is overly broad. It's a great start, and little more.

half the country makes less than $50k a year as their household income. My household is currently well below that threshold (down from more like $80k at our peak), and I don't consider us "poor." We do live in an inexpensive area as far as cost of living, but intelligent decisions make it quite possible to live on $30k a year.

good guess. I was wondering what the purpose of that would be. Makes sense. almost all of those garages are to overstated for my taste though. I liked the ones that were set up like the car was in a 50's diner though. I think even if i had unlimited funds, you still wouldn't catch me with 2 ferraris and 2 lambos in my garage... Definitely no marble flooring, or any of that crap. Life is not a photo shoot. I'd be plenty pleased with room for 4+ cars, along with 10 bikes or so, a dedicated beer fridge, decent stereo, lots of tools, and enough lawn chairs for my friends to hang out.

Oh, and they had free wifi, so we were posting pictures of Boo Radley's shack on facebook while our dinner was on the grill.

my wife an i camped at the Cloverdale RV park. It was 90% guys working for the power company, 1% track day people, and and 9% total fucking weirdos. Plus Boo Radley's house was falling down in the woods. My wife thought it was cool and went to investigate. I assumed that at best, many animals called it home, and at worst, an evil civil war spirit was going to scare the fucking shit out of me. ...but the shower facilities weren't bad, and the rates were reasonable. I'd go back.

No, they should have the house up for sale. But there are a lot fewer people buying $1.2 million houses these days. Shoudl they be forced to take an $800,000 loss? Maybe... Or the law/policy could just have a limit to the amount of total government aid any one family can receive.

I don't think this is a "loophole" in the traditional sense. It's just shitty policy. These people probably ARE broke. They probably have low (if any) income. The fact that they live in a huge-ass house just means that they used to be wealthy enough to get approved for financing. Extravagance is an easy trap to fall into when times are good.

if you up the voltage, it will do a lot more than 5mph. My brothers and I figured this out with cheap RC cars as kids. My uncle bought them for us for Christmas, and I turned a 3 volt, AA powered slow present into a 9 volt fire-breather I had made an electromagnet for some kind of school project as a kid, so I had a bunch of wire, and enough knowledge to realize that the 3 volt AA batteries were wired in parallel. Simple logic dictated that a 9V taped to the top of the car, with wires extended to the appropriate terminals would yield 3 times the speed. amazingly, it actually worked. The motors burned out damn quick, but they were way more fun than anticipated.

pretty sure this is in my living room. the speakers on my flat-screen are crap. This (along with big-ass 90's speakers) makes all the difference in the world.

I heart bench racing.

Instructional!? Wasn't R1Instigator claiming you were going to embarrass me on your 750? The schedule does look killer though. What camp sites are still open near Putnam?

scenarios similar to this are probably more common than most people would believe. It's the "balla" syndrome, most commonly seen with professional athletes. People get a big break at work, and then start trying to live "the lifestyle." They're making plenty, but spending plenty more too. Then they get fired, or there's an NBA lockout, or they have a career ending injury, or the bread-winner gets cancer or whatever, and their income is gone. They end up broke, with a bunch of expensive shit they can no longer afford to make payments on. So you've got your $3.3 million house - sure you should sell it, but there aren't a ton of people who can afford to buy that expensive of a home, so it's not an easy sell. The same is true for ultra expensive vehicles, and the like. Broke with expensive stuff. One of the many reasons I dislike the "finance it now, worry about it later" attitude in this country...

can we talk to you about getting RD "sponsorship?" basically I paint my bike like theirs, and they give me even SICKER discounts(?) I'm only half joking.

The MSF course is a good start, but no way in hell they teach you everything. They teach you the basics of operating a motorcycle. KTM-Brian has probably forgotten more about riding than most of those MSF instructors know, and even Brian will tell you he doesn't know everything! I'm a pretty solid "advanced" rider and starting to suck less at racing, and every time I go out on the track I encounter someone who makes me feel like a total newb!

5/6 people can play Russian Roulette and say they did just fine too. That's a way over-the-top analogy, but simply cruising YouTube makes it clear that more people wreck 100+ horsepower bikes than sub 100 horsepower bikes. And that's not even necessarily NEW riders. Horsepower just amplifies the possibility for mistakes to be made. spinning up the rear and/or looping the bike are far less likely to be issues on a buell blast than an R6. It absolutely can be done; it's just not the safest way to learn (although in the US, it's certainly one of the most popular ways). To the OP - take everyone's ribbing in stride. The previous owner of your bike has obviously exaggerated its rear-wheel output, but that doesn't make your bike any less awesome. As you noted, it's damn fast. Isn't that all that matters? Headlight upgrades are hugely helpful for street riding, but buy good riding gear first. enjoy the shit-show that is ORDN.

"Jet-Lee" showed up and started stirring the pot. I really didn't get the impression that anyone was hating on the Blast prior to his arrival, nor was anyone telling the OP that stunting sucks. He even posted in the right forum. I believe I found the 11 second Blast referenced, and I have to admit, that's pretty badass. I would ride it for sure. Shit, I wonder if I could race it in Lightweight Twins with WERA... it's "up to" 650cc displacement (i believe it was a 600cc big bore kit) and up to 2 cylinders, right? I'm intrigued now. I don't have $2k or the knowledge to do the engine build myself, but maybe some day.

nice bike. I think it's odd that Kawasaki sold the 636 (with inverted forks, etc) before dropping the ZX7from the lineup, but that bike is started to get pretty collectible in some circles.

Be sure to keep the discussion on political topics. Clarkson hates bikes. I believe it was he who said, "the only sensible motor bike is an Italian motor bike, because it will spend so much time in the garage (britt for repair shop) that you wont have time to crash it and die."

okay, my Google-foo says this is the bike and engine-build he's referencing. The guy bought a big-bore kit, and then spent $1800 modifying the blast engine to make a claimed 70 ft-lbs. and 71hp. (which is indeed impressive). http://www.customfighters.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24223 ...except he the guy who did the build works at a machine shop (i.e. huge cost savings), and appears to have some fairly in-depth knowledge of engine building (did 100% of the labor himself, again saving money). He also admits that it's a "full-blown race engine," and not made for street longevity (although he did say it would maintain highway speeds w/o overheating). So like my EX500 producing 72 rear-wheel horsepower, it may be possible, but it's not practical. A CBR 1000 will do 10.8 second quarter miles all day, every day, for 50,000 miles... A modified Blast will do it 50 or 100 times, and probably explode. As noted earlier, I LIKE THE BUELL BLAST. And I even like ridiculous modifications, purely because someoen said "it can't be done." But to argue that it's "better" or even "almost as good" as a CBR 1000 isn't accurate. Reliability IS a real-world concern. I hope you find some stunting buddies. I can't wheelie to save my life, except during race starts.

I like the blast in stock trim. It's a fine motorcycle, and doesn't pretend to be some kind of fire-breathing horsepower monster. ...but I have to know what modifications allow a Buell Blast to run a quarter mile in under 11 seconds. And IF that's even possible, how reliable is the bike you're left with? I've seen EX500's that produce 72 horsepower (20 over stock). Not sure on their quarter mile times, as that particular model was used for road racing, but I was in such disbelief about it, I asked the guy how long his engine lasted. "about 2 race weekends" was his response. Then it all made sense. cheap. powerful. reliable. You only get to choose two. The Blast is cheap by default. How much reliability is given up to cut 2 seconds off its quarter mile time?

The C5 got a rolling start, which I'm sure helped quite a bit. I would be a hypocrite if I was too critical of the drivers. It's easy to say they were both idiots now that things ended badly. Hindsight is 20/20. I actually kind of feel badly for the guy with the C6. He maintained control, and still got fucked.