Vox Populi

"What's that?"

"What?"

"That."

"You mean this?"

"Yeah."

"It's called a newspaper."

"A what?"

"A newspaper. Haven't you ever seen a newspaper before?"

"I dunno...Hey, did you see the speech?"

"Yeah, I saw it."

"Pretty historic, huh? Man, after that speech I don't even want to hear what that old guy's gonna say. I mean, I don't need to hear it. You know what I mean?"

"Are you new or something? Man, that guy's just feeding us the same old bullshit that they all do. Saying how he's gonna do this and do that, and they don't ever do none of it. Like if he's elected President he's gonna cure cancer or turn sewer water into gasoline or something. I can't believe you bought into that shit."

"No way, man. This guy's different. He's gonna be our first black President."

"So?"

"So? What are you talking about? You don't think a black man can be President?"

"I didn't say that."

"Yeah you did. You're a racist, man, that's what you are."

"Screw you, man. I didn't say anything about a black man can't be President. You're the one talking about race."

"You don't think a black man can be President?"

"Sure he can, but that don't mean he's gonna be a good President just because he's black."

"Yeah, right, whatever man. I know who I'm voting for. That old guy wants to start a nuclear war and throw poor people out in the street, talking like it's not the government's problem. Well then who's problem is it, huh?"

"Since when did you start caring about politics? You never even voted before."

"Well this time it's different. I got to get involved, you know. The people have got to rise up and take action. It's our time, you know...Hey, I think I saw one of those things before."

"What? You mean a newspaper?"

"Yeah, over at my grandma's house. She had one of those. I can't remember what she used it for, though. I think she used to wrap fish in it or something."

"You never read a newspaper before."

"Nah, c'mon. That's old people stuff. Let me see it."

"Sure."

"How does it work?"

"It doesn't 'work', you just read it."

"You just read it? Are you serious? How are you supposed to post comments or links or things like that?"

"You just read it."

"That's some messed up shit, man. You know what I like to do? I like to read something then go down into the comments and post something like 'You suck' or something like that. Man, it pisses 'em off when you do stuff like that."

"Well, you just read a newspaper."

"That's messed up."

"Don't you care what's happening in the world?"

"Yeah, I care. I follow the news, but I don't read boring crap like this newspaper thingy. I read about the things I care about, you know?"

"Like what?"

"I dunno, cool stuff, you know. Like that guy who put a Bic lighter in his microwave and the thing exploded and burned his house down. Did you read about that? What a dumbshit."

"That's what you care about?"

"No, I read about Iraq and stuff like that. How the government's sending people over there to die just so Dick Cheney and his oil friends can get rich. I know what's going on."

"Oh really? But how do you know it's true?"

"Give me a break. What? Do you think we're really over there to fight terrorists when there weren't even any terrorists over there till we arrived."

"No, I mean if you pick and choose only the news that you want to read then how do you know that what you're reading is true? If you're only interested in hearing the same old sermon, then how do you know that the preacher isn't lying?"

"I know when something's bullshit or not, ok? Just because I don't read newspapers that doesn't mean I'm stupid. And besides, I don't get all my news from the internet. I watch TV and things like that."

"No, it doesn't make you stupid - it makes you narrow. You said it yourself. You don't even want to hear what the other guy's gonna say."

"I already know what he's gonna say. I'm not gonna waste my time watching that crap."

"Did you see those May Day parades they had in Moscow?"

"What?"

"I think it was on Youtube."

"So what?"

"Russia's been making lots of money lately on account of all this oil and natural gas they've got and you know what they've been doing with that money? They've been rearming. That parade was pretty impressive. Tanks, missile launchers, troops - all kinds of stuff. When I was watching that speech for some reason I just started to think about that."

"So you're saying if Obama gets elected then the Russians are going to come over here and kick our ass? That's a bunch of bull."

"No, I'm saying that everybody is saying that Obama is the next JFK, so, ok. JFK was young and inexperienced and when he was elected a lot of people around the world percieved him as being weak. That's a big reason why Khruschev built those missile bases in Cuba. The Russians wanted to test JFK and they were pretty sure that if push came to shove he would back down. He didn't, of course, but you gotta think the Russians are looking at Obama and wondering what he'd do in the same situation. I mean, you don't build a huge military machine just to look pretty in the May Day parade."

"What the hell are you talking about. Who the hell is Khruschev?"

"I'm not saying it would be one way or the other. I just think it would be ironic that if confronted by the Russians, maybe this time it would be the U.S. that would back down. Maybe pull our missles out of Poland or something like that. It'll probably never happen, but...I don't know."

"Yeah, well maybe if that old guy gets elected then he'll back down too."

"No, I don't think so. I mean his wife's over in Georgia right now. Sure, it's all for 'humanitarian' purposes, but it's also pretty in your face. The Russians know how McCain would react. I guess that's why Western Europe is so gung-ho for Obama. The last thing they want is a confrontation with the East or another Cold War."

"A 'what' war? So what if Obama backs down, we're better off making friends than enemies. No more of this Iraq shit, or maybe you think we should just blow each other up."

"It's all just hypothetical."

"Here, you can have this back."

"Don't you want to finish reading it?"

"Yeah right. I can't believe people actually used to read these things. What a dumb idea. Why waste a bunch of trees when you can just post it online?"

"These things won't be around much longer anyways, so I wouldn't worry about it. Pretty soon they'll be in museums in little glass cases with signs next to them explaning to people what they were. Kind of sad really."

"Kind of dumb if you ask me. It' not even Web 1.0. No video, no audio, no comments - what can you get from one of these that you can't get online."

"The stuff you don't want to know about."

"I gotta go. We've got a couple of the VC's coming in after lunch and I've got to show 'em how wisely we're using all that seed money they gave us. It's a pain but they're pretty cool about it. I'll see you later."

"Sure you don't want to take this with you?"

"No thanks. Ah hell, why not. I was thinking about swinging by the fish market after work anyway. It might come in handy."

"I got to be going too. Shoot me an email and let me know how the meeting went."

"Will do, and try not to worry too much about the Russians invading Poland or something, ok?"

"And don't go sticking your lighter in the microwave. See 'ya."

Just Another Cheap Thrill

Now that they've finally captured Bigfoot, there are really only a few great mysteries left to ponder - who are we, where did we come from, and, of course, what kind of crazy scoring system are they using for those Olympic boxing matches. Five judges sitting around pressing little buttons, and if they don't press 'em then you don't score. Talk about a system just asking to be abused (not that anyone would ever accuse boxing officials of dirty dealings). It's so bad that I heard one of the announcers wonder if it would be possible for one boxer to knock the other one out and still not score a point.

In Olympic boxing, believe me, it's possible.

But let's not worry about that now. What's done is done. I thought instead what I'd like to do is take a few moments to talk about this video camera I bought. This has absolutely nothing to do with boxing, of course, but it is something to blog about.

First, just let me say that I'm no "tech expert". In fact, even though a lot of people call themselves "tech experts" I'll bet that there are maybe only a dozen or so people in the world who really fit the description. Just because the local news anchor says "and now for a report on this new whiz-bang electronic wonder, here's our tech expert Johnny Kool with all the details", that doesn't mean Johnny's really an expert.

As far as I'm concerned, people who do reviews or reports on new products aren't "experts", they're "consultants". That is, they have some knowledge about something or some experience on how to do something and they're here to pass that knowledge on to others. Some might call them "teachers", but I think of them more as "consultants". Either way they certainly aren't "experts".

So like I said, I'm no "tech expert", but I can tell you a little about this thing from Oregon Scientific called the "ATC3k" - a video camera I bought which has the singular distinction of being (a) waterproof and (b) shock resistant and (c) extremely cheap (like me). I bought the camera so I could record some of my bike rides, and it comes with lots of different mounting options for the helmet, wrist and handlebars. That's the good part.

The bad part is the wobble. I've searched around the web and read all kinds of explanations for it, but for whatever reason the video you get from this camera has a serious case of the wobbles. Some say it's the shutter, some say it's the CCD's, some say it's the compression algorithm done inside the camera, but all agree the camera simply can't handle fast moving objects. I never expected to get Hollywood quality video from a cheap little camera like this, but I certainly wasn't prepared for the wobble.

To show you what I'm talking about I'm posting this video of one of my recent rides. The video has been heavily compressed for the web so the picture quality isn't actually as bad as you see here, but even as poor as it looks you still can't miss the wobble as it ripples its way up and down the screen.

I also muted the video so you don't have to listen to that annoying wind noise you get from in-camera microphones. An option to attach an external mike that could be shielded from the wind would be nice, but you're not going to find that in this price range. The usual procedure for on-bike video is to mute the sound and add some background music, so that's what I've done.

Please take a look and see what you think. I'm no tech expert but I'd say that this camera sucks.



Sunday Ride from Tony Myers on Vimeo.

The Audacity of Blog

Where else but on a blog could the average Joe sit down in front of a computer and singlehandedly solve all the world's problems? The power of this new technology is simply amazing. Global warming got you down? Just ask a blogger - he's got the answers. Want to know the best way to run your business? The blogger hasn't been born who doesn't know the best way for other people to conduct their affairs. No doubt about it. Blogging is the miracle of our times, and attributable, I suppose, only to the fact that there are millions of people scattered across the globe with nothing better to do.

I do a bit of blogging myself, and being the moody, ruminating sort I too have been known to volunteer opinions neither sought nor welcomed. It's a selfish sort of thing, of course, or rather a self-absorbed sort of thing, but having no other serious vices I suppose a blog or two offers little chance of being my ruination. With that in mind I thought I'd do my part and offer up some of my ideas for solving the world's problems.

The problem at the top of most people's list seems to be the price of gas, and wouldn't you know it, I just happen to have a solution. Actually it's quite a brilliant solution, and as we are in the middle of a presidential race I think it's a solution that would work equally well for the Democrats or Republicans. My solution, you see, is predicated on these two theses, namely 1) Sen. Phil Gramm was right and high gas prices are really just a figment of our imaginations and 2) Americans are terrible at math.

The solution, you see, is simple. All we have to do is what the rest of the world is already doing. Instead of selling gasoline by the gallon, we sell it by the liter. I did a rough calculation and gas selling for $4.50 a gallon would sell for only $1.20 per liter (Did I say gas? Sorry, I meant "petrol"). All the next president has to do is make the changeover and he can quite rightly proclaim that since taking office he has reduced the price of gas from $4.50 to $1.20, and before you can say "let me check those numbers" America will be right back at the dealership buying up those Lincoln Navigators and Chevy Tahoes. The voters are happy, the oil companies are happy, and Detroit is happy. I call that a win-win-win.

Okay, now that the energy crisis is solved let's move on to the next challenge. This is a big one. It's the housing crisis. I saw a guy on the news today who said that if his candidate is elected he'll push for new bankruptcy laws that will allow the bankruptcy courts to set aside mortgages. I'm trying to be non-judgemental and non-partisan here so I won't name the candidate (Obama), but that's a hell of an idea, and I'm more than a little disappointed that I didn't think of it myself. As I understand it, under this plan you go to the bank, they lend you a half-million dollars or so you can buy a house, you buy the house, you file for bankruptcy, the judge sets aside the mortgage, and then you get to keep the house without having to pay the money back. Now that's a great idea. It's no wonder that America loves this Obama guy.

Personally, I think the banks probably won't be making many loans under those circumstances, but I still like the thinking behind it. I might suggest a little improvement, however. Instead of forcing people to file for bankruptcy and ruining their credit records (would you take a free house if you knew it was going to ruin your credit record - me too), why not just cut out the middleman. I mean we've got all these empty houses just sitting around, so why not just have the government give them to people. It could be like the 21st century version of the Homestead Act. You go down to the county clerk's office and file your claim, and the house is yours. Home ownership is good for America, right? If we keep making people pay for their houses then some people are never going to be able to afford one.

Problem solved.

Let's see, what's next. How about the Health Care crisis? That's an easy one too. First we need some historical perspective though. You see, back in the old days we used to have this thing called "inflation" that was measured by an index called the CPI, or Consumer Price Index. The CPI had been around since around 1919 and was used to measure changes in the prices of things. That was fine until the 1970's when we had our first "oil crisis". A cartel of oil producing countries decided to cutback their oil shipments and the price of gas shot through the roof (does anyone remember gas lines and "odd and even" days?). Unfortunately, not only did the oil shortage inflict the Ford Pinto and the Chevy Vega on us, it also triggered a round of inflation that by the 1980's took the CPI to around 20%.

Well, that wouldn't do so somewhere it was decided that in order to get prices under control we needed to make some changes to the CPI. What happened next is something we now call the core inflation rate. The core inflation rate, we were told, was more accurate than the CPI because it didn't track prices that were deemed "volatile" like energy prices or food prices. The government liked the new core inflation rate best of all because it was substantially less than the CPI and significantly reduced the amounts it had to pay for entitlements programs that linked to the inflation rate.

So that's why nowadays when people are shopping at thrift stores and taking out payday loans at 400% interest just so they can put some gas in the tank and maybe buy a box of cereal, the government can happily report that prices are stable and inflation is a mere tenths of a percent. What's even better is that now our economists have come up with a newer way to measure to inflation that reduces the numbers even more the core inflation rate. It's called the PCE, and is based on the notion that when the price of something goes up, people will buy a cheaper alternative rather than pay the higher price. For example, when the price of, say, laundry detergent goes up, people tend not to buy laundry detergent anymore but will just go down to the river and use a rock instead. Therefore you can't say that the price of laundry detergent is inflationary because nobody is buying it. Pretty smart, huh?

The reason I'm mention all this is simply because I think we can use the same logic and apply it to the health care system. If people can't afford prescription drugs anymore because the cost is too high, then simply don't include it in health care costs. Likewise if people can't afford health insurance or hospitalization, cross 'em off the list. I think you'll find if you eliminate these and other volatile items from the health care equation, the cost of health care will be substantially reduced. With enough adjustment to the numbers, I think we can bring down health care costs to no more than the price of a Band-aid. Remembering once again America's poor math skills and I'd say the health care crisis would be solved.

I could go on but I think that's enough for today. Besides, solving the energy, housing and health care crises is more than enough for any blog.

The Ride So Far

It's been a year this week since I took my MSF Basic Riding Course and got my motorcycle license, so now you're probably wondering what kind of advice a noob like me can pass along to those other noobs still on the BRC waiting list. Well, since I'm still learning I don't know what advice I can give, but I'll do my best.

"Dear Noob,

With the price of gas being so high I was thinking about saving some money by two-wheeling it. What do you think? Do I really need to take the MSF course? Would a 900 - 1000 cc sportbike be a good bike for a beginner?

motogpwannabe
Decatur, IL"

Well wannabe, you're doing the right thing by asking a stranger on the internet for advice. To answer your question, no you don't need to take the MSF course to learn to ride. Why I remember in the old days all you did was ask an uncle or a friend to take you out to the local parking lot and give you the instruction you needed. Just remember to wear a helmet. As for your second question, I think a liter class sportbike would be an excellent bike to learn on. Just look at this video and see how easy it is.





"Dear Noob,

I saw that video you posted, but I don't want to go racing. I'm an older guy and I just want to get a nice looking bike so that I can cruise and feel virile again. I cashed out my stock options and was wondering - do I need the MSF course? I saw this really cool looking Harley the other day and I think it would make the perfect beginners bike. What do you think?

checkmeout
Covina, CA"

Well checkmeout, I wouldn't bother with the training if I were you. After all, riding a Harley is just like riding a bicycle, only it's 700 pounds heavier and has an extra 100 or so horsepower. If all you're going to do is cruise, then I say go for it. Just look at this guy - fully dressed and ready to go (the bike I mean, not the rider).




And finally this last letter:

"Dear Noob,

I've read that with the all the new riders on the streets today, the number of motorcycle accidents is rising fast. Is motorcycling safe? I'd like to start riding myself but I don't know where to start. Some people say that it's better to start riding on a smaller bike that will be easier to handle and will keep me out of trouble, but other people tell me to get a big bike that I won't grow out of once I learn to ride. What's your advice?

normalguy
Denver, CO"

I can't tell you what to buy, normalguy. I started out on a small bike, but there are plenty of people out there who learned on bigger bikes and never had a problem. It's true that a small bike with less weight and less power can keep you out of trouble in certain circumstances, but that doesn't necessarily make it a "safe" bike. I've only been riding a year so I can't really say what makes a bike "safe", but I think that for the the most part safety has more to do with the person sitting in the saddle than it does with the bike. Any bike can be ridden safely, and any bike can be ridden stupidly.

Whatever you're going to ride, my advice would be to get some professional instruction before you go out and start shopping. Not your uncle or your brother, but someone who's job it is to teach noobs like you and me how to safely ride a motorcycle. After you take the course you'll have a better idea of what sort of bike you can handle, or you may even decide not to ride a bike at all.

I'm going to post this last video just for you normalguy. The other two videos were on the humerous side, but this one is dead serious. Other than some scrapes and bruises and a broken leg, the guys on the first two videos ended up relatively okay. Unfortunately, one of the guys in this video ended up dead. (WARNING! This video is not for the squeamish - you've been warned).

The situation is so typical of a Sunday ride. Twisty two lane highway, heavy traffic, and lots of bikers out riding. The guy shooting the video has a camera mounted to his bike, and he's all set to record his nice little cruise up in the mountains on his fine machine. He's going along pretty uneventfully at a nice, easy pace until suddenly he's passed by another rider twisting and weaving through traffic on his hot little ride. Now it's no more Mr. Nice Guy for our camera biker. His racer blood is boiling, and the next thing you know he's into the throttle and hellbent to show the little twerp that he's got a pretty hot little ride himself.

Problem is, camera biker doesn't have the skills he thinks he does. It's pretty obvious just by watching the video that he's in deep doodoo and trying to ride way beyond his limits, but he's got a fast bike and he's not going to let anyone show him up. You can predict the outcome. When it was all over, our camera biker wound up in the hospital, and another guy wound up dead. So, was that the bike's fault?



Even though I have a year's worth of riding and about 7,000 miles under my belt now, I know I''m still a newbie. I just try to become a better rider every time I ride, and if I never remember anything else from the MSF course I'll always remember their two most important lessons:

One: Search, Evaluate, and Execute - always keep an eye out for trouble and have a plan for getting out of trouble if trouble comes. Assume your invisible and stay alert.

Two: Ride within your limits - if you watched the last video you'll understand why. That video says is all.

Get some instruction and remember those two rules, and you should be okay normalguy. And don't forget to enjoy yourself. No one would argue the point that cars are safer than bikes, but then again they aren't nearly as much fun. Just remember that safety starts with that gray stuff between your ears, and don't forget that for every idiot you come across there are perhaps a hundred or more sane folk who've been riding for years and loving every moment of it. Call it the the luck of the draw, but you know maybe sometimes we make our own luck. Either way, the BRC and some common sense has kept me safe so far (knock on wood).

Top 5 Things You Should Do In These Troubled Times

With food and energy prices soaring, we all need to do some belt-tightening these days. But what to do? To help you get through these troubling times, Dead Cat asked our consumer reporter (that would be me) to offer up his top 5 money saving ideas.


1. Steal Donuts from the break room:

Your boss is a nice guy, so every Friday he brings in a box of donuts for the staff to enjoy. Well here's an idea that can save you hundreds of dollars on your next grocery bill. When Friday comes around, get to the office a little early and wait in the parking lot for the boss to arrive. When you see him, say a friendly hello and offer to take the donuts up to the break room. He'll be glad for the help. When he hands you the box, tell him you forgot something in your car, and then after he leaves place the donuts in a paper bag and stash them in your trunk.

Be careful to leave one or two of the donuts in the box before taking it up to the break room. That way when he sees the almost empty box he won't think the donuts have been stolen, but just assume that the staff wolfed 'em all down and left none for anyone else except a couple of the crappy ones.

Although it may not seem like much, there are enough calories in the average box of donuts to feed a family of four for an entire summer.


2. Take the train instead:

It's no secret that the fuel prices are higher than they've ever been before. Most of us would like to cut back on our gasoline usage, but we've still got jobs we have to get to and places we have to go. Is there some other more fuel-efficient means to travel? Sure there is, and it can be found in every city and county of America.

It' called the freight train, and for well over a hundred years people like Woody Guthrie and Steam Train Maury have hitching rides back and forth all across this great nation of ours. Don't worry about the price or the mileage, just hop aboard. There's no waiting in line and no ticket to buy, and as energy experts will tell you, trains are still our most energy-efficient means of motorized transportation.

That's great you say, but how do I get started. First, check with your local rail yard and see if they have a list of freight trains that will be running through your area. Also find out if they have a map showing the rail lines that connect the areas that your interested in travelling to. Look for sharp bends and steep uphill climbs as these will be the easiest place for you to hop on board. Then, just bundle up some clothes and tie them up in a bandana, attach it to the end of a pole and you're ready to travel.

3. Save on cleaning supplies:

Along with everything else, the cost of cleaning supplies keeps rising. All those disinfectants, tile scrubbers, stain removers, countertop cleaners, air fresheners, etc... can really put a dent in the household budget. Well why not take a tip from that bachelor friend of yours. He's savings money because instead of wasting countless hours scrubbing and washing only to have to do the very same thing all over again next week, he just don't bother.

After all, as most undomesticated males can tell you, that black grime building up on your floors, sinks and countertops may look unsightly, but it probably won't kill you. Those bathtub stains may make your skin crawl, but they aren't fatal. That putrid stench rising up from the garbage piled up under the sink may be unpleasant at first, but only if you forget to hold your breath. By just letting nature take it's course, you will not only save on cleaning supplies, but lower your water and electricity costs as well. Relax, have a beer, and save money in the process.

4. Saving on that next vacation:

Summer's here and it's time once again for that dream vacation. I mean the neighbors dream vacation, of course, not yours. You can't afford a vacation this year. Well, you could afford a vacation, but only one that doesn't involve flying, driving or eating. No, looks like you'll be stuck at home while the neighbors are out on their Polynesian cruise, so why not use their absence to do a little savings while they're gone.

Chances are the neighbors won't be taking their pet along with them on vacation, so why not offer to watch little fluffy or fido for them while they're away? They'll be relieved to have someone close by to watch their pet, and you can use the oppurtunity to ask for their housekey in case an emergency should arise. Then, as soon as they leave, shut down the water and electricty at your house, and go move into theirs.

Forget about paying the utilities. It's their bill, not yours. No more of this turning the air conditioning off. Turn that sucker on, and leave it on - the lights too. Turn on every light in the house and leave them on day and night, take 45 minute showers, run a hose from their yard to yours and water your lawn as much as you like - make it look like the Everglades if you want to. If they've got a pool, crank up that heater and have a pool party. Call up a caterer and have them send the bill to your neighbors address. Live it up. While they're having their vacation, have a little vacation of your own.

Finally, when the neighbors return home, don't admit to anything.

"Say Bob, you know it's the strangest thing. While we were away in Tahiti, our utility bill almost tripled."

"Yours too? Man, I thought it was just us. These utility rates are ridiculous, aren't they?"

5. Children are our most precious asset:

They never listen, they're always mouthing off, they think they know everything, they won't stop fighting...yes, our children are precious to us. But aren't there times when you'd like to be able to just sit down with your kids, as a family, without any of the distractions or the hustle and bustle of daily life, and...

wring their little necks.

No, I'm kidding of course. You don't want to harm your children, but what if you could sell them instead? Pawn 'em off on some poor, unsuspecting couple and let 'em drive someone else crazy for a while. Well, that's what couples in third world nations have been doing for centuries. By selling their children to unscrupulous middlemen, they not only get a cash payment up front, but save thousands and thousands of dollars on the care and feeding of the ungrateful little buggers.

And what a valuable life lesson you'll be passing on to your kids as well. As they spend then next 5, 10, or even 20 years of their lifes in indentured servitude, down on their knees scrubbing some rich woman's floors, perhaps then they'll finally start to appreciate how good they had it. Perhaps then they'll learn to have a little respect for the mother and father who provided for them all those years (the ungrateful little buggers). Money in your pocket and a valuable life lesson as well. It's a win-win situation for both parent and child.

The Green PC

I love a financial panic, don't you? Yeah, there's nothing like the sight of an angry mob breaking down the doors to the bank to put a little drama in your life - like something out of those old Hollywood movies. The most amazing thing to me, though, isn't the lines of people, it's that there are actually people in this country who still have any money left in the bank. Geez, after gassing up the car and paying for my groceries, I'm pretty well tapped out.

And what's even more amazing is that in this new electronic age there are still people who go to the bank at all. Maybe it's just me but I always assumed that pretty much everybody does their banking online these days. Well, maybe not. Apparently a lot of people are doing their banking the old fashioned way - they get in their cars and drive to the bank and fill out their little deposit/withdrawal slips and go stand in line - just like grandma and grandpa used to do.

That's so weird.

You know, people, you don't have to do that anymore. They have these things called ATM's now, and direct deposit and the internet and all kinds of neat stuff. If you want to take your money out of one bank and move it to another, you can even do this thing called an ACH transfer and the banks take care of it all electronically. It's so much easier than grabbing a baseball bat and running down to the bank to demand your money back.

Anyway, I must be out of step because I have at least a half dozen bank accounts and I haven't set foot in a bank in years. No, that's not true. I did have to go into my Credit Union to open a checking account, but then Credit Unions always seem to be a bit behind when it comes to new technologies. Other than that I don't think I'd know what the inside of a bank looks like. Do they still give you cookies? Do they still run passbooks through big noissy machines that stamp your balance on little pink pages?

I just did a google search and according to a 2006 study the percentage of online banking customers back in 2005 was around 40%. Hmm, I guess I was wrong. It looks like most people do still do their banking the old fashioned way. Go figure. Maybe people don't know about this thing called electronic banking. You know maybe...just maybe...this would be an opportunity for me to actually post something useful to this blog. Wouldn't that be something? No guarantees mind you, but why not give it a try.

Let me start by telling you about this guy I saw on the news. He had a CD with Indymac Bank for around $220,000, and when Indymac went belly up he was only able to recover about $170,000 of his deposit. He may get more in the future, but that's all he's gotten so far. Clearly, that guy was doing his banking under the old "sit down at the desk, open an account, get your little book stamped (and ask if they have any cookies)" model. Mind you, there's no law that says you can't do it that way, but you see what can happen.

Nowadays, you have other options. If he had come to me with his money and sought my advice I would have sold him some life insurance. No, no, I'm just kidding. I would have shown him how CD investing works in the modern world.

His first mistake, you see, was going to the bank. I figure he saw an Indymac ad in the paper advertising some ridiculously high CD rate and decided to take all his money and go for it. That's perfectly understandable, particularly if you've looked at some of the pitiful rates that savings and money market accounts are paying these days. However, what he should have done instead of going down to the bank is go online.

Once online he could have gone to a website like bankrate.com and compared Indymac's rates to some other CD rates currently on market, and he could have even bought most of them right there over the internet if he wanted to. Yep, he could have done that, but then he might have ended up in the same fix he's in now. Unfortunately, just because a CD is listed on bankrate.com, that doesn't mean the issuing bank is any more fiscally sound that Indymac was.

With $220k to invest, what I would have recommended instead is that he ladder his CD's, and the easiest way I've found to do that is with an online brokerage account. Most, if not all, online brokerage accounts can be set up online, and in many cases can be linked directly to your bank account, making it easy to transfer cash back and forth between the two. Once you have set up and funded your account, then CD laddering is as simple as it gets.

Maybe I should explain laddering. The whole idea behind CD laddering is to spread your interest rate risk over a group of CD's, trading some upside (and downside) potential for a better average return over time. For example, suppose you put $220,000 in a 12 month CD paying 3.8%. That's great, but let's say that a couple of months after your purchase interest rates start to rise. Now instead of paying 3.8%, newly issued 12 month CD's are paying 4.0%. Oops. By locking yourself in to that one CD, your going to miss out on an extra .02% of interest for the next 10 months until your CD matures. Then let's say that interest rates continue to rise and a couple of months later 12 month CD's are paying 4.2%. Now you're really starting to feel screwed.

If instead of putting all of your $220k into that one CD, though, suppose you laddered your money instead. That is, instead of buying 1 CD you buy 4 CD's of varying lengths. For example, you put $55k into a 3 month CD paying 2.5%, another $55k into a 6 month CD paying 2.9%, another $55k into a 9 month CD paying 3.4%, and finally the final $55k into the 12 month CD paying 3.8%. Obviously, your not going to make as much money laddering as you would by putting all your money into one 12 month CD, but now what happens if interest rates start to rise.

Well, in 3 months the first CD matures so you invest the proceeds from that CD into a new 12 month CD paying 4.0%. In another 3 months the second CD matures and you invest the proceeds from that into a 12 month CD paying 4.2%. In another 3 months the third CD matures and you invest it into a 12 month CD, and in another 3 months the fourth CD matures and you invest it in another 12 month CD as well. As you can see, now instead of having all of your eggs in one basket, you've got a situation where every 3 months one of your CD matures and gets reinvested, allowing you to take advantage of rising interest rates.

Of course, interest rates can also fall, but by laddering you insure that as they fall at least some part of your investment is either at or above the current rate. That's the whole idea behind laddering, and this is just one simple example of how it can be done. By averaging your purchases over time, you guard against fluctuation.

So why do you need an online brokerage account to do that? You don't, but brokerage accounts make it much easier. I'll use Charles Schwab as an example, since that's the broker I use. You might not know it but Schwab isn't just about stocks and bonds, and in fact has a whole section of their website dedicated to CD's ( I'm pretty sure that Ameritrade and Etrade and all the others do as well). If you go to Schwab's CD page you'll see that they offer a list of CD's of different interest rates and maturities offered for sale.

To set up a ladder, all you do is search the maturity your looking for, compare the rates from the different banks, and press the "buy" button. There are no transaction costs involved because Schwab has an agreement with certain banks and the banks pay all the fees. In the above example, you could buy a 3 month CD from Bank A, a 6 month CD from Bank B, a 9 month CD from bank C, and a 12 month CD from bank D, which not only spreads out your interest rate risk but also keeps all your money fully FDIC insured if the individual CD's are with different banks and under the $100k limit.

So you see, there was no reason for that gentleman to lose the money he did. He could have gone online and laddered his CD's and saved himself a lot of grief. It's all about risk management, and I bet you there are a lot of people out there making all sorts of fancy trades who don't have a clue about simple cash investing. It's certainly not very sexy and your not going to sell a lot of copies of Money Magazine by putting CD Laddering on the cover, but with the way things are today and everybody ducking for cover it might not hurt to learn a little about the less glamorous side of investing.

Hope that was useful.

I Got My Acme Toaster

The thing is, I'm an Acme guy. Yeah, I know it sounds weird, but for some reason whatever Acme makes I gotta buy it. That's just who I am. People say, like, "Oh, he's just an Acme fanboy" and things like that, but I don't care. Acme makes the coolest stuff out there, that's all. It's not like someone buys a Samsung or a Sony and I say "Oh, he's just a total Sony fanboy" or something stupid like that. It's just that, for me, life really comes down to just three things - the times when Acme announces a new product, the times when Acme ships a new product, and then all the lonely, meaningless, hours in between.

So like I said, I'm an Acme guy, and this new Acme toaster is just so cool. All the Acme rumor sites were speculating about it last year, but when Acme finally announced it last spring's AcmePlanet conference it just blew everybody away. I mean, everyone knew it would have four slots and all that, but no one predicted it would have an automatic french toast feature. Man, that is awesome. None of the Acme rumor sites predicted that. Of course to make french toast you have to activate the toaster and buy this special Acme bread, and when you can't activate it you have to sign up for a monthly "Ac-ME" subscription, but that doesn't bother me. It's just a matter of time before someone figures out a way to hack the toaster to use regular Orowheat or Wonder Bread instead.

That didn't stop me from buying mine, at least. At first I was just going to go down to Walmart about 2 hours before they opened up and then stand in line, but I guess I started getting a little anxious so I decided to go down the week before and sleep on the sidewalk instead. Some people think that's weird, but, I dunno. I suppose on the scale of human achievement, camping out in front of the store just so I could be first to get an Acme toaster isn't really all that much. It's roughly equivalent to being the first one on the schoolbus just to get a seat by the window, but, I dunno, I just had to have one. You know?

But I got one now and it's so cool. I should probably do a review but I just got it so I haven't really used all the features yet. You can get them in white or stainless steel, and I got one of the stainless steel ones. What's so cool about it, though, is that it doesn't have any buttons. It's just got these lights on the side and you touch them whenever you need to do anything, like change modes or adjust the temperature or things like that. Even if you don't want to make any toast it's still fun just to play with the buttons.

What's kind of a drag, though, is that it uses this really weird cable to plug into the wall. You have to use this special adaptor that goes into the wall socket and then the cable plugs into the adaptor, and if you lose either the cable or the adaptor then you have to buy a totally new power kit from Acme. I think they cost like $40 too, so you gotta be careful not to lose it.

The french toast thing was cool too, but you have to activate your toaster before you can use it. That was kind of a pain. When I got home I tried to activate it, but Acme's servers were down. It took me like 3 hours before I finally got through, and then I had to download the code to my toaster and install it, and that took like another half-hour. Then when I finally got everything installed, I found out that I needed special Acme bread in order to make french toast. I'm going down to the Acme store tomorrow and pick some up and I'll let you know how it turns out. I don't like french toast all that much anyway.

That's all I've got so far. I don't think anyone else has got their toaster post up yet so I'm pretty sure I'm the first. I hope so. That would be killer. Either way I think I'll go take a shower now because, like dude, I've been sleeping on the sidewalk for a week, you know? After that, I dunno, maybe I'll play around with my toaster for a while and then check out the Acme sites to see if there are any new rumors. I'm just so stoked right now that I can't sleep. Maybe later. I can't wait to go into work tomorrow and show everybody my new toaster. That ought to be interesting for, I dunno,

five minutes.

Free-dumb-ah, Free-dumb-ah, Free-dumb-ah, Free-dumb-ah

If this is global warming, then I'm opposed to it. So far we've got fire, drought, heat alerts, and pestilence and plague are probably just around the corner. That's here in California, of course, and it boggles the mind to think that the population experts are saying that if current population trends hold, the Bay Area alone can expect to see an increase of around 1 million new residents by the year 2050.

People, what are you thinking?

Ok, look, if you're going to move here then at least be prepared. I's say , at the minimum, you'll need a fire extinguisher, an earthquake survival kit, and lots and lots of bottled water. A good set of solar panels would also come in handy because I don't think we're going to have enough electricity to go around (nuclear works too).

As for myself, I'm a native, and as long as I've got some gas in my tank then I'll survive. Yeah, call it a case of Nero fiddlin' while California burns, but we've got so many natural disasters going on around here that a person just can't keep up. Better just to gas our tanks, fire up the engine, and go cruising.

Today was particularly bad. Seems a big, smelly high pressure system decided to park itself outside our door, and I'm telling ya' it must have been 900 degrees outside. The kind of day where everything gets frazzled - the people, the birds, and even the trees start getting droopy. I'll never forget it. This afternoon I saw a heat exhausted cat try to cross the street and get to some shade and it just broke my heart to hear his little paws start to sizzle as he stepped across the hot pavement.

Poor little kitty.

All you could see as after he made it across the road were the spots where his skin had blistered off and peeled, leaving little pawprints melted into the asphalt. (Sorry. I just made that up. No animlas were injured in the posting of this blog)

Well, I'm no poor little kitty and I'm no fool either, so when the furnace started heating up I did what any sane Californian would do. I went to the beach. Yeah sure, we had this "spare the air" alert in the valley and we weren't supposed to drive if we didn't have to, but c'mon. Besides, going to the beach gave me a chance to take my first long ride on my new bike. I say if you want clean air then move to the Himalayas - I'm going riding.

The bike is still 100% stock so I headed out without benefit of a windshield or a comfortable place to sit, but it was still a nice ride - about a hundred miles roundtrip. I don't really need a windshield to ride that far anyway, and the seat - well, what can I say about the seat. Let me put it this way.

It was about a 45 minute ride to Santa Cruz due to the road congestion. Unfortunately, about a quarter of million other people had the same idea I had and decided to make it a "beach day" too, so the traffic was a little heavy going over the mountain. It ended up taking me about 45 minutes, and by the time I got to Santa Cruz I felt like I just had a colonoscopy and the proctologist had left a couple of his instruments up there.

Why is that, you ask? Why don't motorcycle manufacturers put a decent seats on their bikes? Well, you're not the only one who wonders this very thing because I've read hundreds and hundreds of posts on the various motorcycle forums about this very same subject, and the consensus seems to be that uncomfortable stock motorcycle seats, like just about every other problem discussed on the internet, is part of a huge conspiracy. The theory among the uniformed is that motorcycle manufacturers recieve secret kickbacks from motorcycle accessory companies for each aftermarket motorcycle seat they sell. Thus, the crappier the stock seats, the more aftermarket seats they sell, and the more money the motorcycle manufacturers make down the road.

Well I've heard some wild conspiracy theories before, and all I can say is that before we all start jumping to conclusions we should look at the facts. Having no facts to look at, however, let me just say that I'm in total agreement. It's a conspiracy, dammit, and those aftermarket seats aren't cheap either.

Of course there are the dissenters, and I particularly remember this one post I read where the guy said "You're riding a motorcycle not sitting on your living room sofa. Get over it." (subtext: quit you're complaining you snively-nosed bunch of whiners). I guess it's reassuring to know that in this age of excess there's still a minimalist or two among us. Just give him a frame, an engine, a couple of wheels and set of handlebars and he's all set. Personally, whiner that I am, I'd add a comfortable place to sit into the mix as well.

Anyway, like I said it was around 900 degrees in the valley today, but the coast was a little cooler. Actually, a lot cooler. Actually, pretty frickin' cold, and there I was with nothing but my mesh riding jacket, my mesh gloves, tshirt, jeans and boots on. As soon as I got north of Santa Cruz the temperature dropped from 900 degrees above zero to about 20 below. Still, ever the adventurer I sallied on, even as my heart slowed and my arms went numb and frostbite started to tickle my toes. The proficient motorcyclist always comes prepared for changing weather conditions, the dumbass motorcyclist just freezes his butt off.

I managed to finish the ride, however, and I had my trusty little camerphone along for some quick snaps. This shot is from the cliffs above Pescadero beach looking south. Normally, the haze you see along this part of the coast would be the fog drifting in from the ocean, but this is not fog. It is the smoke from the California fires making it's way south. Over the next few days the weather people are expecting more and more of this smoke to settle into the Bay Area and across the state, so if you're planning on coming out to California any time soon you might want to throw a respirator or two into your overnight bag.

The bike ran like a dream. This road along this particular stretch of coast is officially called The Cabrillo Highway, but I don't know anyone who calls it that. In fact, if you asked any of the locals for directions on how to get to the Cabrillo Highway, I'm pretty sure they would punch you in the nose and ask "What did you call me?" Up here everyone just calls it Highway 1, and it's a very popular place to go biking (both motorized and non-motorized). I must have seen at least a couple dozen motorcycles go past in just the short stretch I rode - sportbikes, mostly, with just an occaisional hog. Lots of cars like to use the road too and you may even come across an RV or two along the way, but the really nice thing about Highway 1, besides the scenery and the open road, is that it's not very popular with the truckers. In fact, I didn't see a single one today, and that's always a good thing.

All in all, I had a great ride. Lots of butt breaks, but that's just the way it goes. Luckily there a lots of beaches along the way where you can stop and stretch your legs or do whatever you need to do. I'm including this last picture just so you can see some of the luxury accomodations you'll find as you pass down the highway. It's strange that travel writers hardly ever mention restroom facilities when they publish their travel guides, as if that's something no one ever thinks about. I mean, if you're taking a road trip then pitstops are an important consideration, aren't they? I know I think about them, and worry if none are around. Have you ever been travelling down an interstate and casually scanned the bushes along the side of the road wondering what would make a good stopping point in case of emergency? Or is that just me?

Art Sale

The dilemma facing the modern blogger these days is to find a topic worth blogging about. The economy? Too depressing. The energy crisis? Too intractable. The elections? The voter's know who they are going to elect. Up and down the spectrum the issues of the day are simply too bleak to bear scrutiny, the challenges too daunting to believe that talk and wisdom alone can detour or delay their consequence. Isn't it the most compromising trait of leadership that leaders, failing to lead, make such a virtue of debate, as though a "healthy debate of the issues" were a fitting substitute for action. Let the bloggers debate the issues, Senators, and let yourselves get on with the conduct of affairs.

Anyway, I'm fresh out of solutions. Sorry. I hope that isn't why your reading me today. Did you come here for investment advice maybe? Well, I'll be damned if I know where you should invest your money. Stocks, bonds, real estate are all falling, interest on cash deposits is pitiful, and everyone keeps telling us that commodities are the place to be. Really? All I can say is that I have no clue why oil is trading at $145 a barrel, and I'd rather understand what I'm investing in rather than just throw my money in the pot because that's what everyone else is doing. The next time someone tells you to invest in commodities then ask them to explain the corn market to you, or the metals market, or the oil market or whatever, and not in general terms but in specific terms of risk and reward. After you hear their answer, then decide if you want to invest in commodities.

But I don't want to talk about that - it's too depressing. Let's talk about politics. Nah, wait, I don't really want to talk about that either. I want to talk about Bayreuth. I'm sure you must have seen this story come across the wires. In case you didn't, it looks like the Bayreuth festival has decided to go online this year, and in a surprising display of "not getting it" has decided to charge web audiences a mere $77.00 to watch to their live opening night webcast. According to the article, they hope this will attract new generations of opera goers.

Or...uh...maybe not.

Now before I offer my opinion on the subject let me just say that I think it's great that Bayreuth has decided to at least explore new media as a means to reach new audiences. I mean it's not like the festival is going to fail if they choose not to participate in the digital revolution. This is the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, for crying out loud - the house that Wagner built. According to Wikipedia, the Bayreuth festival has been sold out ever since it's first performance in 1876. Clearly, attendance is not a problem.

But the Bayreuth festival doesn't want to be left behind by the newer technologies, so they've decided to experiment with live streaming. Again, I think that's great, even though I'm not as worried as some that opera may be a dying art form. Sure, it's not as popular as it once was, but there are many successful opera houses all around the globe and audiences are still buying tickets to see performances of what is essentially a four hundred year old art form. If you think of all the cultural changes that have taken place over the last four centuries then you have to think that opera has enough staying power to outlast the digital revolution as well.

The key, of course, is new audiences, and that's really what this whole streaming thing is about. It's a great idea, but do they really think they're going to attract new audiences by charging $77.00 for the stream? Not likely. Not when you consider that on the web people expect to get things for free, and that today's teens or twenty-somethings are much more inclined to go to a peer-to-peer site and get a bootlegged copy of what they want (along with various viruses and worms and rootkits, etc...) than they to pay 77 bucks to watch to an opera. It's a good idea Bayreuth, but if you want to generate any buzz on the web you've got to give it away.

Then again I could be wrong, and if just one child is saved from a life of Christina Aguilera records then it will be worth the whole undertaking (pfffffftttt). Actually, I was trying to remember how I first got into opera and I really can't remember any one thing exactly, although I'm pretty sure I didn't have to shell out $77.00 for the experience.

For me, I think, I just got bored with rock and roll. At a certain point I just understood everything there was to understand about that music, and the experience started to go stale. So I started listening to jazz instead, and I liked it, but jazz rarely achieved the kind of artistic depth I was looking for. Jazz was more like a dozen or so real innovators, and 10,000 copycats all doing more or less the same thing.

My real musical epiphany didn't come until a few years later when I was flipping around the radio dial one night and happened upon something that just blew my mind. That was Mahler's Third Symphony and it changed my life. The arts can do that you know. Just look at any teenager and see the effects that a certain style of music can have on the way they act and the way they dress and just their whole cultural outlook. After hearing Mahler's Third for the first time I went out and bought the record and have been listening to classical music ever since. That's the absolute truth, and somewhere along the way opera entered the picture.

So who knows, maybe the Bayreuth webcast will change someone's elses life just as Mahler changed mine. I'm sure there are still plenty of kids out there who are hungering for a deeper musical experience than the three minute songs being served up on the radio or on Itunes, and maybe they'll be willing to spend the $77.00 to try something new. If not then perhaps Bayreuth will try again and maybe offer a free webcast instead. That would be good too. If so, then I'd suggest they try a different opera. Der Meistersinger is nice, but doesn't strike me as the Wagnerian opera that would appeal to a teenager. Teens would probably be more into something like Tannhauseur, with all that sin and redemption and death and stuff. Kids eat that up.

But it'll come, it'll come. Like I said, opera's been around for four hundred years, so I'm pretty sure it's going to stick around for a while, and who knows, maybe four hundred years from now they'll still be singing Christina Aguilera songs too.

Hey, it could happen.

I'm Just Wild About Saffron

Well, I've just been gallivanting around, that's all. Not doing the things I should. Not bettering myself or making the world a better place to live. You know, just wasting my time, living the life of Riley, and not even bothering to check if I spelled "gallivanting" correctly.

Which reminds me. Did you see those kids on the National Spelling Bee? What was the point of all that? Was I supposed to be impressed by that? I watched that thing on TV and all I kept thinking was "Geez, don't these kids have computers? Don't they know how to use a spellchecker?" Well, apparently not, or why would they go to all the trouble of memorizing the dictionary. If you ask me, knowing how to spell some Latin medical term has nothing to do with wisdom or intellect or intelligence at all. It's just a bunch of rote memorization and scholastic drudgery, and completely pointless. Those poor kids. What future could they possibly have except as sorters and classifiers of data. They'll probably all end up as librarians or accountants or non-fiction writers or something. My God, is that what you want for your children?

(By the way, I'm a horrible speller)

But where was I...

Oh yeah, I was gallivanting around. You see, the thing is, I'm not being lazy. It's just that I got this new bike. You remember I've been riding around on that old GZ250 of mine? (You do? Why?) Well, I'd had the GZ for about a year, and I decided it was time for an upgrade. I know I said I was gallivanting, but what I've actually been doing is motorcycle shopping. A lot of motorcycle shopping, in fact.

Wait a minute, maybe I should back up a bit.

If you have been down to your motorcycle dealership lately, let me fill you in on what's been going on. As some of you may have heard, there's been this thing happening with the price of gasoline. Namely, it's been going through the roof - four bucks a gallon in most places, four-and-a-half bucks here in California. Of course, with prices like that you'd expect a lot of people to be scrambling for some other means of transportation. Some are looking at hybrids, some are looking at bicycles, and some, it turns out, are looking at motorcycles. Particularly the little ones that get 60-100 miles per gallon. So now dealers, who a year ago couldn't give away scooters and motorcycles, are finding their showrooms full of people and their inventory of little bikes all but depleted.

I went to one dealer up in Hayward and literally had to drive around the parking lot waiting for someone to leave before I could find a place to park. It was like the Saturday before Christmas. Sure, there are still plenty of people looking for a sportbike or cruiser, but it seemed like every salesman I talked to said the same thing - "we can't keep the scooters in stock", and just driving around town I'm noticing more and more people tooling around on their Vespas and Piaggios and Burgmans and whatever.

Man, it's great. I love it. Instead of guzzling gas in their SUV's, people are actually starting to discover the joy of motorcycling. They're getting out of their motorized living rooms and starting to enjoy a little sunshine and fresh air (okay, fresh air/exhaust fumes). I've been seeing what's happening and figured now would be a pretty good time to trade in my little GZ because, believe me, dealers want 'em. In fact, as I was driving out of the lot after I bought my new bike there were already two people talking to the salesman about buying the bike I just traded in an hour before. Damn, I should have put the thing on Craigslist and sold it for full price instead of trading it in, but then I hate dealing with crazy people who answer ads on Craigslist.

Anyway, it was a good time to trade in and I got a good deal and that's why I'm happily gallivanting around on my brand new, 2008 Suzuki Bumblebee. That's not the official title, mind you, but that's what people are calling them. The official moniker is a Suzuki Boulevard M50. The "Boulevard" part means it's a cruiser, the "M" means it's a so-called "muscle cruiser", the the "50" means it has a 50 cubic inch engine (around 800 cc). They call them Bumblebees because they're painted black and yellow and they look like...well, you know.

Well, not all the M50's are painted black and yellow. Most are painted either all black or black and silver, but I didn't want one of those. I wanted one of the Bumblebees, and when I walked into a showroom and saw they had one, that pretty much cinched the deal. It was pretty cool too because after I'd signed the papers a couple of other people walked in and saw my bike sitting in the showroom and started asking a lot of interested questions about it. Huh, sorry, too late. That bike is mine, sucka! One lady who was in there with her son saw them wheeling my bike out the door to get prepped and the strangest expression came over her face like "the hell with shopping for my son. I want to buy me one of those."

Ah, it was a great look. Made me feel good, you know, and when I drove it home I just kept getting the kinds of looks I never got when I was riding around on my GZ. A couple of guys on Harleys even gave me the little motorcyclist's wave when I passed by. That was really strange. I never had that happen before. I always got the impression that HD guys are a bit cliquish and tend to look down their noses at metrics, but maybe they just look down their noses at guys riding GZ's.

Either way, it was a proud ride home. Here's a picture of a Bumblebee so you can see what they look like, although I don't think it's a very good picture. It's not my Bumblebee. It's just a stock photo, but you get the idea. I know looks are subjective, but I like it, and so far it's proven to be quite an attention getter. Especially for a stock cruiser, and especially at this price level.

But how does it ride? I would say it's a big bike that rides "small", except that it's not really a "big" bike. It's strictly midrange with a nice little electronically fuel-injected, liquid cooled V twin that puts out about 45 horsepower and pushes it's 544 pound dry weight through a shaft-driven final drive. It's no sportbike, but it's got more than enough power to get me around town and up and down the freeway. I don't know it's top speed because I don't drive like a maniac, but 70-75 on the freeway comes solid and easy with lots of throttle left if I need it. Running through the curves or putt-putting around the parking lot feels light and nimble, yet it still has enough weight to feel steady in crosswinds and freeway turbulence. All in all, it's a nice midrange ride that may not win a stoplight drag race against a Hayabusa, but feels just about perfect for normal day-to-day riding or a Sunday cruise to the beach.

On the downside the seat sucks, but then I'm getting the impression that all stock motorcycle seats suck. Luckily, there are plenty of aftermarket options out there and I'll probably be looking into one of those. Other than that I've got no complaints. Pricewise, the M50 is about $300 more than the Harley Sportster 883XL, but when you compare features they are really pretty comparable. My bet is that if someone ever does a side-by-side comparison of the two, the M50 will come out on top, but who am I to say. All I want to do is fire up the engine and do some gallivanting.

See you later, sucka.

Class of Aught '08

Are you like me? Are you sitting around on a balmy June night and thinking about John Glenn? Yeah, it's strange how we're both thinking the same thing, isn't it? What do you remember about John Glenn? Hmmm..., really? Yeah, I remember that, but I was thinking about something else.

I was remembering being a little kid standing in the backyard looking up at the sky and hoping to see John Glenn as he passed over our house. You see, my dad told me that Glenn was in a spaceship that was circling around the earth, so naturally I thought I'd be able to just look up in the sky and see this big spaceship flying by. Unfortunately, it never happened. I stood there for about 5 minutes and when I didn't see anything I just figured that my dad didn't know what he was talking about (and not the last time I'd come to that conclusion, especially as I got older).

That all happened back in 1962, and for the 50%, 60%, or 70% of the current population that wasn't alive back then (I don't know the exact figure), turns out my dad was right and Glenn did orbit the earth a few times. Then, a few years later, we landed a man on the moon and all that other stuff you were probably taught back in grade school.

It was an exciting time, especially for us Americans, and there was this feeling in the air that the future was ours and there was nothing we couldn't do if we were determined to get it done. Now, for some reason, that feeling seems to have gone away. I'm not exactly sure where it went, but sometimes if feels like that America, the America that went to space, is gone forever.

But is it? Let me ask you. Do still feel that American technology is leading the world? Is that how most Americans feel, or do we look at European cars and Asian electronics and wonder why it is we can't build stuff like that? Do Americans really "buy American" because we think American technology is better, or rather out of a sense of duty.

Yep, we landed a man on the moon alright, yet the best we can do these days is build a phone with a built-in gps that can help us find the nearest Starbucks. It was our father's and our grandfather's who united the world, at least symbolically, by extending man's grasp and reaching out into space, and now it is our generation that has found a way to look really cool around the office or at the airport. Doesn't seem the same, does it?

Sure, we've got probes and shuttles and we're building a space station, but that's just adding to the accomplishments of the past - the ground that's already been broken. It' the new frontiers we seem unable to conquer and the new challenges we seem unable to meet. How does America respond to global warming and tight fuel supplies? Why, we pass a new tax on oil companies that's how. That'll solve the problem.

You know back in the sixties a President once asked us to "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship." How different that is from the leaders of today who only ask "if we stick it to the oil companies will you vote for us in November?" That's the kind of bold vision we get now, and instead of Walter Cronkite giving us the latest news on America's space program, we get Katie Couric giving us the closing numbers from the stock exchanges and the latest housing news. Seems we've replaced the "building of things" with the "moving money of things", and, after all, isn't that really more about being clever than being good.

I'm going to my niece's high school graduation tonight, and I'm sure the speeches will go on and on and talk about how our children are our future, which kind of goes without saying if you ask me. What I'd be more interested in hearing is what these bright young grads are really thinking about as they look down from the stage at the people sitting in the audience? I think if they've got any sense at all they'll look at us, the so-called "boomer" generation, and think "what have you done with your lives that entitles you to give us, or anyone else for that matter, any advice about the anything. Sure, you've gotten fat and rich, but look at this country you're now turning over to us. Can you honestly say that it a better country now than the country your parents left to you?"

Well, yeah, in some ways it's much better, and in some ways it's a lot worse. All I can tell you kid is that we did what we could, but we let ourselves get down on ourselves and we left a lot undone. What can I say? We got busy and so wrapped up in our own little differences that we just sort of lost sight of the big picture. I know it's not fair, but you're just going to have to deal with that.

And that doesn't mean we still can't give advice. For example, if I were you I'd start by reforming the political system. No matter what there is that needs to get done, our experience has proved that nothing gets done when you have a dysfunctional government. It doesn't matter how vital or necessary the need for action, if responsibility can be shirked and blame placed on the other party then your government will rest proudly upon it's laurels. Maybe that's our fault for letting our focus become too partisan and narrow. Maybe we would have done better had we not elected so many ideologues and figureheads. The bottom line is that voter apathy eventually leads to Administrations and Congresses incapable of dealing with anything more complex than looking good on the evening news.

All I can say is what's done is done, and our generations legacy to you is a government of itself, by itself and for itself. If you can manage somehow to pick up the pieces and make it whole again, and if you succeed in nothing else, then your generation will have accomplished more than we. Other than that, my only other advice would be to just do what we did - live beyond your means, watch too much TV, drive your kids crazy, and most of all -

enjoy your new Iphones.

For A Change

After being ignored all these years, it looks like the chickens have finally come home to roost. Always too moderate to be "true" conservatives and too grounded to be "true" liberals, the independents will get to have their say in 2008, and not be forced to choose between a bible-thumping Republican or a matronly Democrat as we have in the past. This time, it seems like both sides may come a-courting.

I'm not sure why. It seems like the Democrats would have to shoot themselves in both feet, and both hands and all twenty fingers and toes as well, to lose the presidential election this time, but then these are. Maybe they need us because both of these candidates seem to at least have some passing acquaintance with the middle-of-the-road moderate types, and are each unwillingly to cede their vote to the other.

Being the independent type myself, I'm glad for their attention and happy that this election seems to promise some interesting changes. That's why I was watching the Obama speech last night, and I have to say he gave a hell of a speech. He's definitely got the gift of oratory and, you know, he kind of reminds me of those other two great Democratic orator presidents from Illinois - Stephen Douglas and William Jennings Bryan.

Problem is, despite all his speechifying, I'm never quite sure if Obama really understands the implications of all he's promising to deliver or if he's just playing us. For some reason I just kept thinking "if this guy hadn't decided to go into politics he would have made a great mortgage broker." You know, promising people that they could have the house of their dreams right now for no money down and low, low payments for the first 5 years. Yeah, sounds great, until your 5 years are up.

McCain, on the other hand, well...who knows. I always liked the antecampaign McCain, the fiscally responsible one who was strong on defense and sensible on immigration, but this new McCain sees to be drifting more and more towards that same old Republicanism that seems to be is such good favor around the country these days. If I were him I'd just run as myself, but then I never claimed to know anything about political campaigns. I guess the thing to do is solidify your base and then try to win the votes of independently minded people like me.

The unfortunate thing for McCain, of course, is that the surge in Iraq seems to be working - not spectacularly, mind you, but steadily in the right direction. You'd think that would be a good thing for both McCain and the country, but I don't think the country (and particularly the Democrats) really want the surge to work right now. At least it seems that way because the only time the Iraq War ever makes the news is when an American dies or somebody blows themselves up. The rest of the time the war is back there on page A33 next to the liposuction ads. For some reason only defeat and setback make the news. Success just seems to stick in our craw. It's almost like this war isn't even our war anyway. Nope, it's Bush's war, and we've got nothing to do with it. Hell, it'd probably serve Bush and Cheney and all those other warmongers right if we got the hell kicked out of us, and doesn't it just piss us off when things start to go right.

Funny how things can get turned around like that sometimes. Ever see The Bridge on the River Kwai?

Well, the war is a whole different topic and I don't want to get into it right now. All I'm saying is that either way the war is a no-win situation for McCain. If America makes some progress in Iraq, it's not news. If America suffers a reversal, then the headlines make him look blustering and misguided. Personally, I think foreign policy under McCain will look more like Bush I then Bush II, but that's neither here nor there because in the end reality will settle in and Obama foreign policy won't be much different either. I could be wrong of course. Obama is pretty liberal and if he's anything like the liberals we have around San Francisco then that would be something to worry about. I tell you what. If Obama's first acts as president are to disband the military, raise tariffs and turn the Pentagon into a big homeless shelter, then we'll know just how liberal he really is.

(then everyone around the world will join hands and sing folk songs and form a giant human chain for peace)

Anyway, did you catch that reference to education in the Obama speech. I think it went something like "more money." Now wasn't it just yesterday that we got some report telling us that America ranks number 2 in the world in per pupil eduction spending? Was I just dreaming that? No, it was the 2003 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development study that found that although America trails only South Korea among the industrialized nations in per pupil education spending, it continues to decline and rank near the middle in student performance. Remember that report? The one that the education establishment dismissed as flawed for failing to take into account America's diverse student population (it must be all those Asian immigrants who are dragging America's ranking down)?

Yeah, you remember it because it got a lot of people wondering why it is we spend all this money on schools for such meager results. In a way it's kind of what the whole "No Child Left Behind" movement was all about. That is, instead of just shoveling more money into our schools, why not ask them to be accountable in some way for the results they achieve? If I understand Obama correctly, we're going to scrap that idea and just start dealing out the dough.

If I were going to ask Obama a question then I'd ask him what he thinks of merit pay for teachers. I know what his response would be. He'd be opposed to it. Why? Because the teacher's unions are opposed to it, that's why. The idea that good teachers should be paid more than bad ones is anathema to teachers. Their position has always been that it's unfair to punish teachers if their students aren't learning to read and write and do math. It's a thankless job and all teachers should be paid more, regardless if they are any good or not.

To their credit, the teacher's unions have been very effective in getting parents and the public to buy into this concept, and you don't have to look very hard to see the results. You ever hear parent's talk about teachers? Why it's a wonder that the Pope doesn't canonize the whole lot of them when you hear parents talk about them. "Why Mrs. Jones is so wonderful and dedicated and committed and selfless and never receives any thanks from anyone for all the sacrifices she makes. My little Suzie just loves her and has learned so much, and I don't mind a bit that she's still reading at 4 years below grade level." Well, instead of putting them on pedestals maybe some parents should start being a little more critical and demanding. Sure, there are lots of good teachers. I was a student once, you know, and I had some good teachers, and some real clunkers too. So why not reward the good ones and get rid of the bad? Why shouldn't teachers be accountable to the taxpayers for their job performance? How do you feel about merit pay for teachers, Obama? That's what I'd like to know.

And my question for McCain? Why not universal health coverage? Why not join the rest of the advanced nations of the world and declare health care a basic human right? No, just don't dismiss it as "big government". That doesn't answer the question. What do you do if a major illness strikes and you don't have insurance or your insurance isn't adequate to cover the expenses or if the insurance company declines coverage? What do you do if you can't pay for that expensive operation or if your insurance company won't pay for it? Are you supposed to be comforted by the knowledge that somewhere there are shareholders who can take comfort knowing their United Healthcare dividend is safe? Tell me Senator McCain, why is universal healthcare really so awful?

Questions, questions...sure voting's easy when all you have to know is the red from the blue, but we independents have some questions.

Leafless Desert of the Mind

It's all about celebrity, isn't it? Politics, I mean. This whole idea that people evaluate the candidate's stand on the issues before making their decision is a lot of bunk, if you ask me. I don't even buy the notion that it's the media's fault for obsessing over the "horse race" to the detriment of the voter's "need to know". More bunk. If voters cared about issues then that's what the news broadcasts and newspapers would cover.

People care about celebrities - film celebrities, music celebrities, sports celebrities, and even political celebrities. We want to know is who's hot and who's not, hence the horse race that people complain about. Yeah I know, what other earth-shattering revelations have I got for you tonight.

Well, the only reason I'm broaching the topic is precisely because of all this issues stuff - you know, health care, taxes, gasoline, the War - what the younger generation would call "boring, old-people" news. That's what they call it - I heard it on a podcast. According to the guy on the podcast, what the youth of today wants is "fun" news, which, when you think about it, is really all that anybody wants from their news reports, isn't it? The youth of today is no different than anyone else in that regard, just more honest.

Think about it. What made JFK so special? He was fun. Ronald Reagan? Always cracking with the jokes. Richard Nixon? Well, he was just no fun at all. So with that in mind, I thought I'd turn my attention to our current candidates and ask the question I'm sure is on everybody's mind -

"If life was an opera, what operatic character would our candidates be?"

Great question, and lucky for you I've got a few ideas. First let's look at John McCain. Although the Democrats would probably cast him as Mephistopheles, I think that's going a bit far. Dick Cheney, maybe, but not John McCain. McCain is more like Don Carlo, I think. A bravado character, full of loyalty, brotherhood and gusto, a "man's man" with a strong sense of righteousness. That sounds more like McCain, although the part about being in love with his stepmother is probably a stretch. Other than that though, I'd say McCain is definitely the Don Carlo type. Dio, che nell'alma infondere!

Okay, how about Obama? Well, that seems pretty obvious. The callow youth who turns away from evil and returns with the holy spear to heal our nation's wounds and bring redemption and salvation to a destitute and forlorn. Obama is Parsifal, my friends, come back to us to reveal the grail and restore all hope and purpose. The prophets told us of his coming, and now the prophecy's come true. Yes indeed, and this is the decision we must make. Will we choose the strength of Don Carlo, or the innocent virtue of Parsifal? Well, I don't want to spoil the election but if you've seen the operas then you know who became king, and who was summoned to the tomb. Geez, let's hope the drama doesn't get that intense.

But enough politics. We haven't even had the conventions yet and I'm already sick of this election. Can you believe they've been campaigning since last year and it's still going on? It's worse than the Academy Awards.

Well, anyway, not to change the subject but I was watching the TV the other night and they've got this show on called Nature. I don't know if you've seen it. It's one of those wildlife shows, you know, with the pretty sunsets and the telescopic slo-mo's of animals bonding and frolicking in their struggle for survival out in the great untamed wilderness.

I'll admit I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff, and this particular show was called "What does the female want?", the premise being that by studying the mating rituals of the animal world we can come to a better understanding of our own natures. At least I think that's what the premise was, and it all seemed more than a little bit ridiculous to me. Think about it. Is there a single human on this planet who can relate to a concept like that? Of course not, and these biologists and zoologists are fools if they think we can. The important question for the human species, and trust me on this all of you scientist people, has never been what does the female want, but rather what will the female settle for. If the male human spent all his energy self-consciously trying to be everything that the female human wants him to be, there would be nothing but a bunch of desperate, defeated males and hopelessly disappointed females left to carry on the species. Then again, that does kind of sound like some marriages I've seen.

So, like I said, I'm watching this show and there's some lady putting a stuffed female wood grouse on a little train and wheeling it in front of a male wood grouse to see what the male will do, and the male wood grouse starts calling and strutting because he's hard up and doesn't know the female wood grouse is a fake. When I saw that I just thought "So what?. What is that supposed to teach us?" I mean, if you bought an inflatable human female doll and put it in front of a lovesick human male, you'd get pretty much the same result, wouldn't you? Well he might not buy it a drink or ask it to dance, but he might try to mate with it.

Anyway, the whole show was like this, and it was late and I started to nod off, and then suddenly I woke up and looked at the TV and found myself looking at a video of two spiders, well, you know...you know. I mean they were doing it right there on my TV, and I'm thinking "Is this what I've been reduced to? Is this what we've all been reduced to? We've split the atom, we've mapped the genome, we've walked upon the surface of the moon, and now we have nothing better to do with our science that watch a couple of spiders exchange genes?"

People, what is wrong with us? That's what I'm trying to say. Is there nothing left to ponder? Are we so sophisticated and advanced that the universe lost it's wonder? Are our celebrities all we have left to inspire and excite us? Do they alone matter, because without them all we can do is sit around and watch spiders ----? \\

The keenest pangs the wretched find
Are rapture to the dreary void,
The leafless desert of the mind,
The waste of feelings unemployed.

-Byron

Opus 1 No. 2

Have you ever gotten a song in your head that you just can't get rid of? All day yesterday I kept hearing this old Neil Young song rattling around my brain, so instead of letting it drive me crazy I decided to sit down at my computer and record it instead. For those of you keeping score, this is now exactly my second computer music project, and although the bar was set pretty low by the first one, I think little by little I'm getting the hang of it.

Like I said it's an old Neil Young song, and I even recorded some vocals. Unfortunately they're my vocals. It's a shame, too, because except for my off-key warble it's not that bad of a mix. However, if I may plead my case, let me just say that anyone who's ever heard Neil Young sing shouldn't be so quick to judge. How much worse could my singing be than Neil Young's? Take a listen and you'll find out.

The mix itself is a whopping 9 tracks and I created eight of them myself, the exception being the ocean waves track that I pilfered from Garageband's built-in library. Other than that there are 3 keyboard tracks, 3 guitar tracks, 1 vocal track and 1 drum track. Once again the drum track was a big headache, and I now understand why so many internet drummers farm-out their work to people willing to pay to get their mixes right. Believe me, the beginner soon learns that nothing will ruin a mix faster than bad drums. Take a listen and you'll find out.

So there you have it. I'm not posting this to prove what a great musical genius I am. Rather, I post it as a public service to those of you who would like to try to record your own music but feel intimidated by some of the really good stuff that others are doing. After just one listen to this song I'm sure you'll soon rest easy and think to yourself "Geez, I can come up with something better than that piece of crap."

And indeed you can. The song is called Midnight On The Bay and Neil Young released it at least 25 or 30 years ago. I apologize for the vocals but that David Cook guy was busy doing American Idol, so I had to step in.




Midnight On The Bay

He's a One Man Band

Yes. After much fiddling around I finally managed to accomplish something with Garageband. That's the music software that ships with the Apple Macintosh, and yeah, I know, it's so easy anyone can use it, but let me remind you of a couple of things: First, I'm an old guy and I've never used a sequencer before, and second, I put my guitar down for about 25 years before picking it up again a couple of years ago and I'm still a little rusty. So cut me some slack dude, and quit harshing my buzz.

Anyway, the file is down below, and frankly it sucks. That said, I created all four of the tracks myself, so I'm feeling pretty proud of it. There's a rhythm guitar track (that was easy), there's a keyboard part (nothing fancy so that was easy too), a drum part (that was impossible. I had to turn the mix down real low on that one), and finally a screeching lead guitar part that I must apologize for. I guess I was so concerned that I had the other three parts right that I sort of let that one get away from me.

But there it is. It definitely needs tightening and some vocals, but it's my firstborn and I wanted to share it with the world, even if it is a little premature. As long as you don't expect too much and are cool with the fact that I really put the "ham" in "hamateur" on this one, you just might be able to sit through it. Either way, I don't care. I'm just so stoked on this whole home studio revolution that I can't wait to try out all kinds of new things.

The song is the classic Elmore James tune "Stormy Monday", but there are no vocals so you'd never know it. Like I said, I'm gonna try to add some vocals and redo the lead guitar so it's not running all over the place, and then maybe I'll have somethng really worth uploading. Until then, here goes...


Story Monday Jam


They call it stormy Monday, but Tuesday's just as bad
They call it stormy Monday, but Tuesday's just as bad
And Lord Wednesday's wasted, Thursday's all so sad.


The eagle flies on Friday, and Saturday I go out to play
The eagle flies on Friday, and Saturday I go out to play
On Sunday's I go to church, and I kneel down to pray


Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy on me
Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy on me
I've been trying, trying to find my baby, won't somebody send her home to me

Attack of the Pinnipeds

In keeping with the local tourist theme, here are some pics from my trip to see the elephant seals at Ano Nuevo State Park. I bring you the sights, the sounds, but thankfully not the smells. Should you go? Well, if the sight of blubber on the beach flips your switch, then go for it.


The California coast and wildflowers as seen from Ano Nuevo



When they're not lying around, elephant seals like to fight. Here are two males getting it on.




With cuties like this around, it's no wonder that the boys have got their dander up. Those lips, those eyes - she's the belle of the beach.



Tragedy strikes. A dead pup lies belly up in the sand.



Look real hard and you'll see a lone seal has staked a claim to this part of the beach - far, far from the madding crowd.




Boys! Boys! All this fighting. You're acting like a bunch of Democrats.






But fighting's not for this little guy. Ahhhhh...he's so cute.




Finally, a couple of videos. They were right side up when I uploaded them, but for some reason Youtube turned them on their side. Well, you get the idea.