scoot, scoot, scootin....

The scooter continues to be the apple of my eye. (but Rip is still my true love)

I've decided to stick with the pcx150 and not press my luck with something bigger and faster. But like I said before, it only takes one moment of weakness to do something foolish. Never underestimate the power of a slick commissioned salesman.

The new helmet arrived and it's a big thick clunky thing. When I first put it on I thought; son of bitch, this thing's too tight. But reading the little two bit manual told me that it was supposed to be tight and would mold to the shape of my head. The manual was correct, it's slowly adapting to my square head and if it was any larger the wind would push it up while riding.

A few days ago it was so hot and sunny that I used an umbrella while walking Rip in the afternoon but today it's turned cold and it started to drizzle as I was scooting back from the bakery. The summer fun will soon be over. So it goes.

The new computer is working well but it seems getting windows 10 just swapped one problem for a different problem. Windows 7 often disconnected from the net and I had to run the wizard to resolve the problem, "restore local gateway connection".  Now windows 10 is giving me the "blue screen of death" with the message "THREAD STUCK IN DEVICE DRIVER".  Sonny will be dropping by to check it out and re-install some drivers.

One good thing about windows 10 is the ESPN baseball box scores always come up right away. For some funny reason I always had to refresh the baseball home page before the box scores would come up when using windows 7. I love the box scores. If the games on TV are crappy, I'll spend more time monitoring box scores than watching tv.

One of the best baseball songs:

Billy says he loves you sons of bitches.

is that all there is?

the new computer is up and running.  it was exciting for the first 10 minutes but overall it's not really a big improvement.  it's faster but i'm not crazy about windows 10.  it'll take me a little while to get over the invasion of my privacy by microsoft.

it seems like yesterday that most people i knew were running bootleg copies of windows but now microsoft gives the operating system away. they ended the free windows 10 promotion but i think it's all a marketing gimmick. they signed up all the innovators and the free sign ups dwindled so they ended the promotion making people think they missed out on a good deal. i'm pretty sure microsoft will wait a few months and begin a new free promotion.

tomorrow i take the scooter in for the warranty service. about all they do is change the oil and then charge over a hundred bucks. i'm planning on taking a few big bikes for a test drive while i wait. i'll be taking a honda phantom/shadow out for spin and if the mood strikes i might take a crotch rocket out for a ride. the scooter is much more practical for zipping around the city but having all that power between your legs can be magical. maybe i'll find the fountain of youth.

and hey , let's be careful out there.

gas prices

most people love to complain about the price of gas, myself included.  i don't mind paying the oil and gas companies for the fuel, but i do get a little tired of all the taxes.  what really galls me is the fucking carbon tax on natural gas. with the current low prices on natural gas, the carbon tax was greater than the cost of the commodity. to add icing to the shit cake, the carbon tax just goes into general revenue for our provincial government. it's just another tax.

and here in the great white north we pay a goods and services tax to the federal government on almost everything we purchase. and if that isn't enough, we pay a goods and services tax on the fucking carbon tax.

TAX ON A TAX!!!

this is all leading to the best interactive chart on global gasoline prices that i've ever come across:

Gasoline Prices Around the World: The Real Cost of Filling Up

go the map of the world and click on the country of your choice. better than just giving you the price of gasoline, it will give you the price in the global currency of your choice  in either imperial or metric volume. it then will give you the percent of a days wages that it costs to buy a gallon of gasoline and the percent of your annual salary that you will spend based on average consumption.

of course average consumption can be misleading just as the consumer price index is an incredibly poor index of inflation for poor people. but it's fun to compare.

when i gassed up the scooter today, i calculated the mileage to be 138 miles per imperial gallon. i've only been purchasing premium gasoline for the scooter thinking that the premium gasoline didn't contain ethanol. but lo and behold, i recently discovered that all premium fuel is not created equal. and the sons of bitches don't really tell you. at least chevron clearly stated on the pump that the ultra premium is ethanol free. esso (exxon) just says that their gasoline may contain up to 10% ethanol.

that goddamned ethanol caused me nothing but headaches with my dad's gasoline lawnmower. it's fine if the gas is always fresh but leave that shit sitting in tank over the winter and you're up shit creek.

and hey, let's be careful out there.