Friday Piss Me Off

Friday Piss Me Off

I know what you’re all thinking.  And it’s disgusting.  I hope you don’t kiss your Mother with that, err… mind?!

But aside from that, you’re thinking “What’s pissing you off, Nasty Evil Ninja?”.

And so I shall tell you.

Hanging Blinds

What’s up with kids strangling themselves in the cords on window blinds?  It’s everywhere at the moment, and parents are rallying together to ban these cords on blinds.

Err… WTF?!?!

How about, you know, tying them up out of reach?  Or, may I suggest the children STOP putting their heads in there?  Maybe it’s natural selection?

I wasn’t exactly a model child, and if anyone was a prime candidate of hanging themselves accidentally or for fun, I was it.  I should point out here that I never managed to throttle myself in any window blind cords, so if I didn’t, fuck these retards who do.  And the parents crying about it?  They’re not a fucking new invention, are they?

What’s next?  Banning refrigerator doors because Little Johnny smashed his head in with one, passed out face down in the tub of ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!’ and died of hypothermia???  Fuck right off.

Filthy Great Linking Bloggers

Yes, I KNOW all I have to do is click the link to your other blog, and it SHOULDN’T be a hassle… but it IS!

How about YOU click on Ctrl+A and then Ctrl+V and put the whole blog on here, you know – where you’ve pasted the link?

Spastic Car Drivers

OK, so I need to be a lot more specific here: the car drivers who move over to try and stop motorcycles getting past them.

WTF is the point?  I mean, really?

They’re going to overtake you anyway, and it’s not like they’re inconveniencing you in any way is it?

This is even worse when the bike is filtering through traffic up to a junction or traffic lights – which is completely legal, in the Highway Code, and actively encouraged by Police and advanced riding organisations.

Fuck you and your wing mirrors, you selfish cunts.

“That Causes Cancer!”

Smoking.  Drinking.  Artificial sugars.  Exercising.  Not exercising.  Pies.  Driving.

Look, EVERYTHING causes fucking cancer.  What the fuck is the point of not doing something because “it gives you cancer!” when every day we find out something else we’ve been doing gives you cancer anyway?

Fuck your cancer and fuck your pointless scaremongering!

Soap Opera Headlines

Why is something that happens/did happen in a soap opera headline news?

It’s not real, you pathetic bunch of Joeys!!!!!!

I could write something into a shitty soap opera that will make headlines, too – how about I write in a story about a Muslim lesbian rapist who strangles small children with blind cords?  It’ll be the FIRST TIME EVER on screen!

No, wait… I just made that up, you spanners!  So did they!!!

Presents From A Random Cat

I was backing my bike down my driveway yesterday when I hit an obstruction.  I thought it was just a stone under a wheel, so gave a good hard shove to roll over it, and it suddenly rolled free again.

When I got off the bike I was confronted with the brains of a Sparrow sprayed all over my front tyre and driveway!

I’m assuming this is yet again the work of a cat (possibly the neighbours which we seem to have semi-adopted), and is the fourth dead-animal gift left there in five days.

At this rate there’ll be no damned wildlife left in the area!

So thanks but fuck you, Rebel, you murderous little shit!

(and pink splattered bird brains are NASTY!)

What’s pissing you off at the moment?

Your Comments (an apology)

Hi All!

Just a quick apology to all who’ve let comments on my posts.

It seems they were all being marked as spam, and as I’m new here I didn’t notice…

Normally I’ll reply to every comment, unless there’s the rare occasion where I can’t think of anything to say back.

Umm… how do I end a blog such as this one?

Peace out?  No…

See ya!?  No…

Nope – can’t think of a way!

Second Strike, Still Deadly…

Second Strike, Still Deadly…

Err, or I could have titled this “Second Lesson, Still A Bit Shit”, but I didn’t, so there!

Last night was my second ever driving lesson.  I knew I was cocking up with my crossed-up go-kart steering technique, and so would have to work on the crappy ‘feeding the wheel’ through stuff.

I was considering buying one of those steering wheel jobbies for my Xbox to get some practise in on Forza II… As I didn’t, over the weekend I even thought about picking up a frisbee, or a dinner plate, or a small round dog just to have a go at practising.  Instead I had a few drinks and may have touched some titty.

The time came, and Brian (the instructor) drove me to the small quiet circuit I’d used last time, demonstrating the steering technique on the way.  As it happens, touching some titty was the way to go, as when I took over, whilst not perfect, I was doing it just fine!

Not only that, but instead of doing a few left-turn-only circuits of the route like I was expecting, I started straight off going around so I was doing all right turns at the junctions, and after doing that twice we headed off down some dual carriageway to drive around the ‘scenic’ town of Redditch.

This was amazing to me, but I was doing ok.  Once I hit the accelerator instead of the brake, but caught it quickly with no disaster…

I’m still not properly doing all the observations that I should, but I think that’s what I’ll be working on in the next lesson.

I actually drove the car all the way back home – which I never expected to be doing for a lonnnnng time, as I live on an awkward road and would rather not trash all my neighbours shoddily parked cars.  For the next lesson I’ll be jumping straight in the drivers seat and driving right from the start.

Still a long way to go, and the slow speed manoeuvres may well still kill me, but I seem to have made a huge jump, and can feel there will be others.

It’s good to have an instructor who will push me to do more than I would if it was my choice, but I guess that’s just confidence.

We’re getting there, and I still haven’t killed any kittens, small children, or Gypsies.

Sorted.

Monkey Drive Car!!!

Monkey Drive Car!!!

It’s not good sitting back whilst life happens all around you.  The only thing stopping me learning how to drive was me making that phone call and booking it up.  Well, that and as I found out, there are a little over 400,000 driving instructors on every street in the UK to choose from.  Bastard!

I emailed four of them who seemed to have the best deals going (and who had a website, obviously) and just after emailing the fourth with an enquiry they phoned me back!  I said I could do my first lesson that very night, and that’s exactly what happened!

With not even enough time to panic, a couple of hours later I’d scoffed some bacon and egg and was sat in a car ready to learn for the first time ever!  At the grand age of thirty three!

We went through all the crap about checks, adjusting mirrors and seat etc, and within twenty minutes I was in the driving seat ready to go!

I gently pressed the accelerator pedal to hear the engine scream as the revs soared.

Going from fingertip control of the brakes, clutch and accelerator to using my big old hooves on the pedals was a bit of a shock.  I couldn’t believe how sensitive they were considering you’re supposed to use your bloody feet to operate them!

The same goes for power steering.  Speaking of which, I tend to use a steering wheel like a race driver – arms all crossed up, one hand on the gear lever, and ready to hold that powerslide!  It looks cool, but I really have to get my head around the push-pull crappy method.  Apparently this isn’t a test requirement any more, but if I accidentally twist my arms so far that they snap off at the wrists during the test, the picky bastards will probably fail me.

The gears weren’t as much of a problem as I expected.  I was getting a natural feel for where they all were by the end of the two hours, and only went from third gear into reverse once.  Ahem.  After using clutchless upshifts with a sequential box for the last ten years, I’m having to learn how to use the clutch again with it.  I was also surprised that you’re encouraged to skip gears rather than selecting each in turn when you move up and down the box.

All I did was use quiet country lanes and one short stretch of normal road, only making left turns, but I seemed to be making good progress, and didn’t kill anyone – even the shitty little Jack Russell that was stood in the middle of the bloody lane barking at me whenever I drove past!

I didn’t really do any observations, but my natural instincts are to check my mirrors anyway, so that should help for future lessons.

The instructor seemed pretty cool – we had a laugh and it was very relaxed, which is exactly how I like to learn new stuff.  I might try a few other instructors, but to be honest I doubt I’ll find anyone I’m as comfortable with as that one (Brian).  I may as well take advantage of some of the ‘first lesson’ offers around – after all I’m the one who has to decide who to train with!  I think it’s best to do a few lessons with Brian to get me settled in a car so I’m a bit more used to things, though.

So I’m finally on the road to, err… being on the road!  On four wheels!

Oh – something else that sparked this somewhat unexpected lesson off: the day before I’d unexpectedly acquired a car!

No – not the Lotus Esprit V8 I’d always promised myself as a first car, but a 1 litre Fiat Uno.

Living the dream…

I was glad to jump on the 190mph superbike to ride to work this morning, I have to say…

Mallory Park Trackday 07/05/10

Mallory Park Trackday 07/05/10

The very afternoon before this day, I saw the forecast looked dry and so booked it up!  As it was the first of the year and on a track I’d never been on, I decided to ease into it by booking the Novice group.

After the usual rituals of cleaning/waxing my leathers the night before, I packed a load of water and chocolate bars along with my cameras and settled down for a restless nights ‘sleep’.

I was up bright and early, and got to the dim, cold circuit to find the place almost deserted!  I guess everyone had booked onto the Saturday trackday instead?  I found Martin with the immaculately turned out Kawasaki ZXR636 B1H hire bike from Lady Snoots, chatted for a bit and then signed on ready to go.

The adrenalin finally started pumping as they gave the riders safety briefing.  It seemed like over half the riders were booked into the Novice group, with most of them never having ridden at Mallory before.  I began to wonder if I’d have been better off booking into the Intermediate group just to get the extra track space…

Before I knew it I was throwing my leg over the bike for the first time, but this time it didn’t feel quite as unusual after jumping off my big old bus of a ZX9R.  Either way the first few sessions would be about learning how the bike handled as much as learning the track.  I have to say I quite enjoy this part of hiring a bike!

I lined up right at the back of the pack in the pit lane (as I did in every session – mainly because I had the luxury of tyre warmers so didn’t want to be sat around before we got out on track), and took some deep breaths and got focused.

The sighting laps were painfully slow.  I mean, to the point that I was having to pull the clutch in to get around the hairpin!  I can understand things being a bit slow as this was Novices and first time out, but this was seriously slow.  It seemed the same was true of the out-laps of every session (although not quite as bad).  OK, so I had warmers so expected to overtake a lot who were still getting heat into their tyres, but many people seemed to be riding at a pace that was absolutely useless because there’s no way it would have done them any favours for their grip!  If you’re not working your tyres at least a little then what’s the point?

This was where I realised I had booked into the wrong group, and should have been in Intermediates…  As the day went on they did pick the pace up a lot, but there was only one person anywhere near me, and I think both of us were way ahead of the rest of the group.  Again, I’m not saying this to brag, because I cocked up here and underestimated how quickly I’d find a good pace.  Lesson learned and I think that may be my last time in Novices…

Anyway, the track was much better than I thought it would be.  I thought I might get bored as it’s only short, but there’s a lot of fun to be had and a few corners with plenty of “Shit-I-Should-Have-Done-That-Much-Faster” factor to them!  The weather held off with only a few spots of rain and not enough to wet the track, and I even got sunburnt!

The first corner is the infamous Gerrards.  I NEVER got the entry speed right.  It takes serious balls to hammer into it without being hard on the brakes, but you tip it in and then it’s a right-hander that goes on forever.  This was great for me because I’m far better at getting my left knee down, and at Mallory I don’t think I touched my left knee down once all day!  Definitely good practise for me.

This opens onto Stebb Straight before hammering the brakes for the left-right flick, getting hard on the power whilst still knee-down on the exit, scraping the knee again through the Lake Esses and back over to the left up the hill to the hairpin turn.  This was another problem place for me as I felt I never committed hard enough around it.  It is amazingly tight, though!

Then it’s hard on the power for a short dive into the very tight bus-stop chicane.  You don’t want to run over the curbs here because they’re nasty.

After this it’s hard on the power again through Devils Elbow.  Martin very helpfully told me to short-shift before this corner, as you really have to change up but as you’re banked over can’t get your foot under the gear lever to do it.  Whacking it up a couple of gears on the entry meant I didn’t run out of revs and had the added bonus of putting less power through the cold left side of the tyre and catapulting myself off.

I’d been warned (and seen the YouTube footage) that Mallory is notorious for people binning it on the left-handers, purely because there aren’t many, so the tyre is still cold on that side.  I took it easy all day on these and consequently didn’t die.  The only ‘moments’ I had were a tank slapper through the Esses (caught on video), and a big wiggle around Gerrards which made me call it a day early as I was knackered to death.

Speaking of which, there were a few people who had offs, and they turned out to be pretty big.  Someone on a yellow Triumph road bike went straight on at Gerrards, but then said the bike dug into the wet grass and flipped, causing pretty severe damage.  Another ZX6R did exactly the same, and ended up in hospital with some neck problems (I believe he was ok).  The biggest off was one of the No Limits instructors, whose wheel collapsed on the first lap with the Fast Group, and I heard he had some pretty nasty injuries…  Hopefully he’s ok.

So my day was great!  I thought it would show up my fitness, but I survived ok!

My right hand had serious muscle pump after the first few sessions (I blame Lil Boo for my lack of right hand stamina!) but that went away.  The brakes on the hire bike were Bastard Strong, and my wrists were absolutely knackered by the end of the day!  Something I’ll train a little for next time.  The usual pain like I’d been beaten up came after the adrenalin wore off that night…

I did have a bit of a play with one bike in my group, and that will be the first video I upload.  He and all the people I spoke to there seemed pretty cool, and there should be a fair few videos flying about from what I saw!

I look forward to doing Mallory Park again, as I have a lot of things to improve on, and I’m sure it will be a lot of fun doing it!

If you follow the links from these I’ve uploaded all of the last 3 sessions of the day!

Cash For Gold Aren’t Your Friends Shocker!

Cash For Gold Aren’t Your Friends Shocker!

You’ve all seen the millions of adverts on TV offering to buy your old unwanted gold (What?  Maybe they’re aimed at dragons who need new bedding material?) for ‘the best price’.

Would it surprise you if I told you the companies you see are spending vast sums of money on advertising?  Would it surprise you more if I then said they have to make that back through offering you crap prices on your gold?

*takes deep breaths and tries not to snarl*

I’m pretty sure even you ‘Merkins, Dutchies and Croats will be subject to the same kind of adverts, so we can all relate on this one.

Anyway, I just popped in (did I just say “Popped in”???) to the local cash-for-gold money shop type place – not because I’m a crack-head selling my nephews toys, before you ask – to find two lovely old ladies hunched up at the desk window talking to the cashier.

Aww.

Twenty minutes later the hideous old biddy fucks were STILL there, evidently going through every single damned piece of gold they’d ever managed to steal in their 476 miserable piss-stinking years, including 3 boxes of Terry’s All Gold and 2 boxes of Frosties Lucky Charms.

Each time the girl behind the counter (who at least was nice to look at whilst I was there, sweating in my leathers), would bite their necklace or whatever they do and give them a price that they’ll buy it for.

The Old Biddies would then reply “Oooh no!  We bought that in Jersey for £159 and that was half price!  We won’t do it for £40!” and variations thereof.

Right.  Number 1, you’re selling your gold AS SCRAP.  Nobody gives a kippers dick if it was your fifth husbands prized gold penis plug – it weighs x amount so you get the set sum of cash for it.  Yes, this is low.  Yes, this is a rip-off.  Serves you right for stealing your Aunt Mabel’s ring collection when she died and trying to sell them.

Number 2: If you’re getting shitty offers for the first 400 items you’ve asked them about, there’s every chance you’ll get similar shitty offers for the next 9041 items you hand over.  I would have LOVED to hear this:

“We paid nearly £500 for that from a decapitated Jew who told us it cost four times that if you tried to sell it on the 5th of May in Siberia.”
“Ooh we’ll give you £650 for that one!”
“Will you?!?!??!?”
“No.  £20.”

So after accepting the total offer of £60 for the very first two items they’d shown (I’m not bitter at all), they eventually doddled off to go down the Doctors office or whatever else Old Biddies do when the sun isn’t out.

Despite my inner ranting, I stood there very calmly and very still.  OK, so mainly this was so I didn’t sweat to death, but that’s besides the point.  Ranting in your own head or at traffic is perfectly fine and normal.  Umm, right?

The middle-aged man who came in behind me (after I’d been waiting 20 minutes, I should add) didn’t seem to get this idea.

He paced around, loudly tutting and saying stuff under his breath every time a new bracelet was passed over such as “Oh God!” and something that sounded like “For cooks sake!”.

At least I’m only rude in my head.

Oh, and one thing that did make me laugh… as the Old Biddies were hobbling out into the warm Spring air wearing three thick coats each, one said to the other:

“Isn’t it getting warm in here?”

Nuff said.