Modern Vespa

Several things cheered me up today. They're all related to the change of season. While I'll miss riding my PTW, I have winter interests (skiing, snowshoeing, etc) that keep me busy. Here's what cheered me up today.

1) I swapped the summer performance wheels/tires on my Subaru TypeRA for the winter set.

2) the maple tree in the front yard dropped almost all it's leaves in the last 48 hours. I enjoy raking leaves, so I cleaned that up.

3) the web cam at the top of the Crystal Express lift at Diamond Peak Ski Resort is looking good! A mixture of natural and man-made snow.

C'mon over, I'll keep you happy for days!

Yankees lost. That cheers me up today.

Not sure about Seattle, but they are here in Olympia. I have my choice of at least a half dozen pho joints within a 10 minute ride of home, none are bad. Pho Hoa is at or near the top of the list.

My brother (who lives in MA) is at a bar / arcade tonight, having a grand (and nostalgic) time playing games from the Golden Age of arcade games.

I'm having flashbacks to 1981.

Greetings, Starfighter. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan armada.

I know that was '84, but it immediately came to mind.

The Arcade boxes never really caught my attention back in the Day....but I had fun tilting a few pinball machines

There is a brewery/pub in downtown Mesa the owner established to hold his collection of pinball machines.

*Edited for spelling error

We had an old pinball machine (Jumpin' Jacks, from 1963) in the basement when I was growing up. When arcade video games came out later on I didn't play much because I was a junior enlisted Army soldier with a wife and a kid… no, two kids… crap, three kids… then a couple more after I got out. We didn't have money for beer, video games, or really anything at all. The last video game I played with any regularity was on a Colecovision and involved Smurfs.

heading to Disneyquest to play Discs of Tron was a highlight of DisneyWorld holidays, then when we got there in October 2017 this was happening

Dude ... back in the '80s my brother was a regional manager for Bally's Aladdin's Castle. I remember going in with him in the morning and he'd fire the place up. All the machines had their own startup sound. He'd put Stargate on free play and let me go to town.

I'm not crying ... it's just dusty in here.

I had the movie poster in my bedroom. Bally was advertising for it and my brother had a bunch of their posters. Also 'Electric Dreams'.

It was a great era to be a kid.

Gorf was another favourite

All hail the supreme Gorfian Empire!

A new 4K disk of The Last Starfighter came out this year from Arrow Video. It was restored and digitized from the original 70mm negative and is SO much better than previous versions!

The Last Starfighter 4K Ultra HD
Collector's Edition

Here's my Hurdy Gurdy from 1966. I got it as non-working, and spent quite a few enjoyable hours getting it working again. The coin mechanism has been disabled. The coolest thing, IMO, is that the monkey "rings" the bell every hundred points. Depending on my luck, more than skill, he's pretty busy.
It is amazing what they did back then with just relay logic!

These machines were designed to make you fail, but only after you get "hooked"on playing them. Then, as now, it's all about the money.

Happy i got unstuck after getting stuck.

And yup, didn't need a stand to keep the bike upright 🤦‍♂️

PS, downhill slope made it harder to get unstuck AND i did have to get over it to get home.

After 7 years of ownership I rode my 180SS for the first time this week. That made me very happy.

^^^ Nice ride.

Yesterday, while the Rapid City Stevens High School Choir was stuffing their cupcake holes (pizza holes?) at the Pizza Ranch Buffet in Sioux Falls, I wandered into a nearby Halloween specialty store and found this way cool latex steampunk plague mask(?) at a whooping 30% off, what with Halloween being over and all that, not particularly surprising I suppose.

For $20, I think it was a very worthy acquisition and addition to my small collection of oddball headgear.

It didn't hurt that the sight of me sitting motionless in the driver's seat when they returned to the bus caused the group noticable....ummm...
discomfort? and just added to the fun.

I should be able to also occasionally wear this mask while riding my Vespa using an open face helmet, though I may need to reinforce and
stiffen the beak section to keep it from flopping about in the wind.

So, what's not 'cheery' about this?

Looks like a mask the doctors wore during the Bubonic Plague.

Looked on Thingiverse and found stl of a part that came off my gts when riding 4wd tracks yesterday

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2719301/files

Next step is to use maybe zip ties to repair the cvt cover ... actually might use pieces of an old computer case with pop rivets

My latest Captcha test :

Tierney,

Good historical call on the plague. Somebody is well read!

Bob Copeland
Minnesota

My dottore delle peste mask is a bit fancier. But then my pants are also fancy so I guess it's a theme.

Kind of a low-grade anxiety-ridden day today- made a dermatologist appointment over concern about a potential lesion on my face and what treatment might entail, had to return to the family farm that we'd sold and worried about my feelings....well, anyway, everything turned out well...the spot on my face was pretty trivial, farm visit went well, and 3 or 4 less significant things went well enough that for the first time in a long time I felt life was on a roll!

I know it can't last, but hey, take your wins where you can get them!

Interesting phrase to use today

We can only hope.

OFG

But we must not say what we predict or hope for

I hope we can all get along.
Regardless of our personal preferences.
Regardless of our chosen loves.
Regardless of how we choose to live our own lives.
Regardless of how, or even IF, we choose to worship.
Regardless of a whole bunch of things,
I hope we can all get along.

The pendant in me thinks some people would argue some of those phrases are political and of course phrasing can suggest an opinion.

(I'm doing my best to not show my own hand and probably should say nothing more)

The realist in me recognizes that some people will argue anything at all.
The pessimist in me is being silenced.
The optimist in me is hoping for a certain outcome, but not wanting to "show my own hand" as it were, well, just crosses fingers.

I retook a blood test last week. The anomalies came back normal... so, that was a relief!

Just got our double flu and covid jabs, did not make me sick this time happy days

This post was not quite
What we were hoping to see
Try again, perhaps?

I'm making custom signs. Let me know if you'd like to put in an order. Also, taking suggestions.

NICE! I did not =\
Cholestrol still 250+ , PCP "wants to see me" about some... "statins" I presume...

My first reaction as I started to read the list was "PiCK a diFFerEnt FoNT!!!"

Then I read the 5th item.

Going down the list:

Agree
Agree
Strongly Agree
Agree with edit to be "musical instrument"
Somewhat agree. There are alternatives that yield the same look w/o causing anti-Comic Sans reactions.
Agree (I don't drink it, but love the smell, and wouldn't dream of limiting someone's joy)
Agree
Strongly Agree

See ... we CAN all come together and find common ground in this crazy old world.

My Unstoppable Vespa cheers me up

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DCGYkYPv53b/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==