Cops and mopeds

Nope, it's not what you're thinking.

About six years ago, I was coming home late from Moped Monday. I lived in an apartment on the Ave, and was locking up to a bike rack in front of the Radio Shack. I was more than a little intoxicated, and ready to hit the sack.

From the corner of my eye I spot a cop car slowly roll up and stop. A warning goes off in my brain, but I ignore the car. I fumble with my keys, hoping that he moves on and doesn't try to give me a hard time about parking on the sidewalk. Regardless, no one wants to talk to a cop when you've got whiskey on your breath.

The window rolls down. I don't look up.

"Hey!" Okay, I finally look up. "Is that a Kinetic?"

Puzzled, I respond, "No, it's a Puch."

"Oh, I've got a Kinetic. I ride it all the time!" Turns out a fellow moped rider just wanted to chat.

Cops and mopeds rarely collide in a way that works well. Usually it's just a recipe for frustration on both parts.

It's like the joke goes: What do you call a moped rider in a suit? The defendant.

This is an oddball article from Moped Biking magazine, circa 1977. It's worth reading. It's pretty clear that, just like today, most cops hate mopeds. Officer Friendly, who's spotlighted in the photos, is obviously not a fan of these moped-things. I can only imagine how much he must have hated riding away from the precinct on the Puch. I can almost hear the ribbing Im sure he took. I'd love to see a conversation between this NYC moped cop and my Seattle cop-moped-enthusiast.

As if cops on mopeds in NYC isn't weird enough, the whole article has a renaissance fair as its backdrop.

Think about this one next time you're pulled over.

Mopeds are dangerous...so are zombies

I snapped this photo in one of the parking garages at work. I haven't thought about the Martha's Vineyard protests in a while. Thanks for reminding me, ultra-safety driver.















Here's one of the best game trailers I've seen in a long time. I think one thing that has been missing with most zombie games is a lack of emotion and humanity. Although, we don't see any actual game play here, they certainly capture a feeling that we've never seen in a game of this sort before.



Speaking of zombies, check out these amazing Walking Dead figures that Mcfarlane Toys will be releasing in September.




















One more zombie-related thing. The best $3 you will ever spend is for Plants vs Zombies for your space phone. Utterly addictive game play. Damn you PopCap games!



Spent your last $3 on beer? Download Zombie Dice for free instead.

Or maybe you just think zombies are played out at this point.

Nerds only

It's been over a year since my gaming group stepped into a post-apocalyptic landscape.

Late last year the newest iteration of Gamma World was released. This is the 7th edition of the game since it's initial release in 1978. The RPG has been around almost as long as D&D.

Last night we sat down for a session of the new game, and it was a blast. It's post-apoc, but with a tongue firmly planted in the cheek. Everyone played as a randomly-created strange mutation, be it a vampiric plant, or a reanimated doppelganger. Oh, and a pony that road shotgun in the pickup truck.

They battled sentient, walking potatoes with a grudge against humanity, zombie rednecks who wanted beer more than brains, and biker pigs on motorcycles. They met the mayor of the town who was a ficus tree from Walmart, who couldn't speak, but rustled his leaves at them. You get the picture.

It was a good time.

I am a splicer killer

I was going to make a decent post this week, but my Sunday was utterly consumed by Bioshock 2. I had plans of working on mopeds, taking a bicycle ride, and going to the grocery store, but none of that happened. I sat down at 10am for a short gaming session and next thing I knew it was 7pm.

And now all I can do is think about the sequel that's forthcoming.



Edit: If you haven't bought this game, it's on sale right now at Amazon for $13.99.

Feats of strength, busloads of gypsies, and other marvels of the modern age

This week, Mosquito Fleet said goodbye to our beloved Awful Hen. Our poultry pal served us well, and many fine voyages were had upon her dirty, yellow wings. People flew in from Arizona to buy her. I'd like to believe that they were a band of Polish gypsy school bus drivers, taking her back to a mobile Polish gypsy school district.

Maybe they'll escape their nazi pursuers and make their way to a new world. Who knows. Hopefully it won't just become a "burner bus" and end up at Burning Man every year. All I know is that the people that bought it were most certainly confused as shit on the drive back by the inside-moped-joke graffiti that cover the walls.

This week I installed springs on a Hobbit clutch. After cutting my hands to shit and getting nowhere, I tried a different approach. I put the clutch in my bench vise, hooked one of the stock springs around the red spring, hooked the other end around an m6 bolt I had laying around, and performed a Travis-impressing feat of strength as I pulled back the spring over the eyelet on the clutch arm. Once hooked I tapped it into place with a rubber mallet.

Safety suggestion: Use eye protection as the stock spring stretched out pretty far

and would have most certainly flown into my face if it stretched any further. In fact, at one point I wound the excess spring around the bolt just to make sure that it wouldn't hit me in the face-parts.

This weekend I finished Mass Effect 2. It's one of the finer examples of what a video game can achieve. One of the best sci-fi stories I've seen in years, and one of the most fully realized game worlds I've ever experienced. Really amazing stuff.

Now that I'm done I'll either start playing Bioshock 2 or Dead Space 2. Speaking of Dead Space 2 this ad campaign hit the internet last week.

I'm still not sure how I feel about the trailer. My initial reaction was to be offended. Mostly because EA seems to be playing into the violent video game controversy. I know they are trying to move units with a viral-type video, but it bothers me when this sort of thing just gives the anti-video game alarmists more ammo (so to speak).

I wish they would focus in on how brilliant and original this game is. How well done and interesting the story is, and how it's some of the most solid game play out there. But really they'd rather just showcase how this game will turn twelve year olds into psychopaths.

EA could attempt to make a case as to why the gaming industry is the most profitable industry in the world, and how sophisticated games have become, rather than just focusing on the grotesque nature of a game, thereby stripping away everything that makes it a compelling and interesting form of entertainment, and when it's at it's best; an art form. Maybe I just don't get it.

Rear-facing zombie phonebooks

Not too much to talk about this week. I have two running bikes again with two brand spankin' new kits installed. The Ciao has another DR kit, and the Maxi has another Metra 65.

After cracking the old Puch intake,

I was trying to figure out how to use another 19mm intake I had laying around. Rear-facing didn't seem like it would work, but after a little case-grinding, moving my CDI electronics, and a new air filter (bought with my Treat Tacos); it's tight, but I got it all to work.

It's not ideally the way I'd like it set up, because it makes rejetting more difficult than before, so if anyone knows where to get one of the above "Scooter Parts" intakes, I'd be grateful.

There's been a lot of talk about the Walking Dead recently. Not just because of the new semi-decent AMC series, but it seems like everyone is zombie-crazy these days, not just geeks like me.

If anyone had a hankering to check out the comic book series, this is the easiest way to get into it.

The compendium reprints the first 48 issues/first 8 trade paperbacks. (Don't call them graphic novels. Graphic novels are originally published, longer format stories self-contained in one published volume. Trade paperbacks collect story arcs of single issue comics in a reprinted format. There's your geek lesson of the day.) It's over a thousand pages and is a heavy volume. Look how thick this thing is. It's like a phone book.

High quality glossy pages, and it's a solid read. It contains the first major arc of the story, and is more than half the length of the series thus far. I picked up mine on Amazon for about $35. Well worth the cash.

Meat suit...nuff said