Telling it like it is

What a piss-poor excuse for a day it is today. It was supposed to rain and instead it's snowing. I wouldn't normally mind but I want to get out on the bike! Went to another seminar at R&R this morning, this time on brakes. Went to GameStop to get Midnight Club 3 Dub Edition - it's been delayed until April. And the big news of the day - we got a different style of collar for Dory, and it's been 90 minutes since we put it on her and she's taken to it much better. There's still the odd freak-out, but nowhere near as bad as the other one. Time will tell.

After a phonecall from BMW yesterday, I got another call from the owner of the dealership this morning. He's offered to pay for the cost of the repairs, and get this - if I'm not confident in the bike he's offered to buy it back off me. We're going to meet on wednesday to sort this out !!

Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday, "North Korea should have no reason to believe that any nation wants to attack them." ?? This from the woman who works in the government that fabricated evidence to justify the invasion of Iraq? Hell yes NK have to worry about it. They have thrown America's own excuse back in their face - "we're developing nukes to defend ourselves against an increasingly aggressive America". Reap what you sew.

Prince Charles announced today that he's going to marry Camilla. England went "so what?". America went nuts. It's an adulterer marrying a divorcee. Who cares? The only thing we should care about is keeping Charlie away from the throne. Prince William should be the next King - we should skip Charlie and leave him and his horse-faced bride to quietly slip away into the sunset.

B*sh's lap dog (Blair) piped up today and told Iran "not to hinder peace". He's getting ready to step up and tell us that we need to invade Iran because they have weapons of mass distraction. Oh come ON! Not this shit again. Has nobody in officialdom learned anything from the current quagmire in Iraq? We know B*sh is a warmongering tool, but I thought at least Blair might try to save his own skin. Apparently I was wrong. Blair really is clinically insane.

Disney today officially scrapped it's EZ-D disposable DVD project after (surprisingly) it didn't take off. Quite why people wouldn't buy $5 DVDs that only played for 48 hours seems to be a mystery to Disney. Apparently, they didn't speak to Circuit City after its failed attempt to do a similar thing with DiVX, where you bought the DVD at full price but then had to pay a subscription to actually play it. And then only on specially-equipped players. So now both Disney and Circuit City have learned the same lesson - people won't buy DVDs that they can't play freely. That is, after all, the concept of "fair use". And when you buy a DVD you don't expect to have to keep paying for it, or have it just stop working after a couple of days. But these things tend to come in 3's. So one more company is bound to have a stab at a similar project. We don't know who yet, but it's likely to be some entrepreneurial bunch. Let's see. They'l...

Good news. Paula just called - Dory has come out from hiding already and after some affection and food is now sitting outside on the door mat.

So winter came back with a vengeance overnight. 6 inches of snow in the valley, 2 feet in the mountains. Whee! We're already at 310% of normal in the mountains so it looks good for an end-of-drought year. We took Dory to the vet this morning for her booster shots. We lured her into the kitty carrier with some chicken and as soon as we closed the door, she started crying. All the way there she mewed and cried but when we got to the vet she quietened down. Dr Allen was very good and Dory didn't protest at all. Whilst we were waiting for him to come in, Dory curled up in the tiniest ball I've ever seen her, in the corner of the bench seat next to me. She had her shots and didn't cry, and Dr Allen weighed her at 3.26Kg (7 pounds 3 ounces). She protested a bit on the way home and as soon as we let her out, she quietly slinked off and is now hiding in the laundry room. We're going to leave her there for the day and let her come out of her own accord. If she's not ou...

So I Picked up the motorbike from it's week-long repair yesterday. Needless to say, the engine pulls like a freight train now. It's quiet. It runs cool. It has torque and power. I guess that's what you get for cleaning all the sand out of the engine! The repair bill was staggering, but the result is more than worth the money. It's like having a brand new motorbike. For $1100, this is what they did: - flushed the brake system, replaced rear pads, replaced front bleed valve - flushed the clutch system - flushed the gearbox - flushed the final drive - took off the cylinder heads, cleaned the heads and cylinders - honed the pistons - new piston rings, head gaskets - re-assembled the heads, re-set valve timing, re-set rocker arm vertical play - filed a nubbin off the cam chain tensioner that was making it slap - disassembled the air intakes and throttle bodies and cleaned them - dismantled the rear of the bike to get the airbox out, cleaned all the sand and grit...