Modern Vespa

I think that it was a combination of having a sense of self importance, no patience and not knowing the procedure.

From further back it was quite funny.

Ha-ha! I've seen that too, many years back. Of course that was a BMW as well.

On the French gas stations not liking non-French cards, back in 2004 I opened a French bank account just to get a French card.

The USA gas pumps are universally bad at accepting 'alien' cards. No zip code associated with the card? Not acceptable. Though there's usually someone in the office where a 'foreign' card will be fine.

I've experienced that.

I usually pay cash in advance which works fine until you get to CA and then you just double it.

The CC'd thing in France niggled me a bit because I chose not to take any spare fuel this time.

Arse.

I go to the shops to buy Bruno some food (only five tins because if I try to count higher, all I can think about is how znomit's mum was the other night).

On the last stretch of the return trip a car turns across me into a side street that is one way in the wrong way.

Another day another idiot.

50 metres later the very next car I see is sitting in the middle of the narrow street (doesn't even have a center white line) blocking traffic. I beep and they move forward a metre I beep again and another metre. If I go around there's every chance of one of the parked cars pulling out and killing me or opening a car door as it's very narrow. I swear and go around of course.

Clearly never learnt to share.

Another 50 metres and there's a short stretch with a white line so naturally this third car I see which is oncoming has to cross halfway over onto my side.

Am I invisible ya fucker?

That's 3 out of 3 in 100 metres. Seriously? What the f is it with all y'all car drivers?

Strawberry moon.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/the-strawberry-moon-will-soar-to-heights-not-seen-in-nearly-20-years-20250611-p5m6hb.html

as good an explanation as any

Yesterday I was moving some stuff around in the den. I came across a box of old phones dating back to my old Motorola Razr flip phone. Yeah, that was a great phone.

In the mix was my old 1st Gen iPhone SE, probably my favorite phone ever. I picked it up and remembered how much I loved the size and everything about it.

I looked up what I might be able to do with it, and I can use it for a second webcam. Cool.

I plugged it in overnight and it charged up just fine, but this morning I remembered why its in the box. I had given it to my daughter who promptly locked herself out of it and couldn't remember the appleID and password she used to set it up. So, she gave it back to me. Thanks, kiddo.

This was probably 2018. So, Apple has done an excellent job of securing their phones. Good on them. Essentially making stolen iPhones worthless on the black market. It is locked to the owner ID, who is now my daughter, even though she isn't.

So, I plugged it in, updated it, poked around online and found the only way to get past the activation lock that links it to the owner is send a request to Apple with the serial number / IMEI / MEID which I have all of, but also the original purchase receipt. For a phone I bought back in early 2016. And then gave away.

Good on Apple, but I'm kind of stuck now. Unless I have the receipt in a box somewhere ... I still have some boxes. I'll have to look.

But it's a beautiful phone. Not a nick or scratch on it. I'd hate to just recycle it.

If I had a nickel for every Apple product I still have in the house that works, I'd have somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.15

Agreed. I had the original RAZR and loved it. Until the screen died, anyway.

On that note, something else that pisses me off was when Motorola - or someone - adopted the song "Pretty in Pink" for their ad campaign for the pink version. I hate it when advertisers use the music from MY formative years to sell product.

On a lighter note, I am actually going to see the Psychedelic Furs on the 29th.

Is that better or worse than walking into a grocery store and slowly realizing that the faint muzak you've been hearing from the speakers overhead is actually The Psychedelic Furs, or The Cure, or even Radiohead or Pink Floyd?

Not knowing wtf to do with the OEM wheels off my GTS. Trying to downsize whatever we can before the move, and don't *REALLY* wanna take them along, but I also acknowledge i probably shouldn't just take 'em to the dump.

Maybe a scrap metal buyer I spose. I have a bent wheel from the gti to go sell anyway, might as well add em in.

Do you have access to NextDoor, or any service that has a "free" area? I'm always surprised at how quickly someone shows up when you advertise stuff for free.

Craigslist would probably work.

I had an uncle who absolutely HATED the Beatles. Whenever I was with him and heard a Beatles song that had been converted to Muzak I would ask him how he liked it. He would usually respond positively.

Of course you know what I said then.

I live near baltimore.

I'm hesitant to list anything for free lol.

A few months ago while walking around a huge mall, the instrumental versions of Radiohead's Everything in its right place was being played over the Tannoy.

Like I wasn't feeling depressed enough.

Also, the Kinks and the Who were always better than the Beatles.

Fair.

A very good friend of mine from high school and I wrote music for several years in the '90s before life took a left turn. Just last week I sent him a text from the grocery store :

"Just heard Mr. Jones over the store PA while buying cat food at Meijer. Now I am sad"

He responded immediately with

"Yeah ..."

So, for all you twenty somethings out there addicted to Buzzfeed stories about the generational gaps, THAT is the sad truth about life. You and everything you love and have passion for now ... will eventually become irrelevant.

Brian Wilson. RIP

Scammers with a sob story. Well spotted, chandlerman!

I still dislike the Beatles, but loved the movie Yesterday.

With no notice, my hosting company has doubled its fees.

I'm pondering how to afford to carry on hosting the manuals.wotmeworry.org.uk site.

What's it gone up to? (you can PM me if you'd rather not say publicly)

This.

Meh ... it's Friday. I'm already burnt out from the week.

On the bright side, your upload speed is 4x your download speed!

There's always a silver lining. And, even at these speeds, by the end of the month I've gotten what I paid for ... ten bucks worth of internet.

Sucks I'm partway through a 1.6GB Docker pull.

Oof.

It's been a long, long, time since I last flopped a motorcycle onto it's side, maybe thirty years? Don't clearly recall even doing such a thing, but of course, I have at some point back then...until last Wednesday.

A cottontail rabbit caused it, and all it was doing was laying in our front yard eating grass.

I had rolled the R1200R out of the garage backward, as is normal, but as I was sitting on the bike letting it idle for a minute before turning it around and heading out of our short driveway, I noticed the rabbit laying in the front yard grass about twenty feet away.

"Oh, I thought, look at the cute bunny", but as I sat on the bike and rolled backwards to get a better look at it, I rolled the bike out into the street backwards, and at an oblique angle to the drive entrance, and the rear tire went into the street and through the maybe four inch dip caused by the 'soft curb' at the driveway's end.

When the front tire crossed the same curb a second later, the small angled slope of the curb/dip had the front wheel turn abruptly to the left, and I wasn't ready for it, so the bike leaned to the right, and when my right foot instinctively reached for the pavement on that side, there wasn't any pavement there in the 'dip', and the whole shebang went quickly past the Go/No Go point and we crashed down onto the bike's right side.

The rabbit rabbit away.

I found myself laying on the street with a 500 pound motorcycle halfway on top of me, quietly running at idle.

I pulled my right leg out from under the BMW and got up, shut the motor off, and stood there in disbelief of what just happened, then I mouthed a string of curse words, righted the bike and pushed it back into the garage to survey the damage.

The right side bar end mirror was 'toast' if still functional, the black plastic valve cover 'protector' was banged up, a small section of the passenger peg and it's mounting bracket were scratched up, and the rear right turn signal was crashed up but working.

1. The location of the Cottontail Rabbit.

The dotted line is the backwards path of the rolling BMW as it obliquely crossed the uneven driveway/street demarcation.

2. The location of the now flopped BMW

You know, that wouldn't happen on a tricycle.

Damage to my previously minty BMW?

It doesn't look like much, but added up, the replacement of little parts in the four photos would add up to a sobering $732.

Thankfully, the painted parts and gas tank weren't touched, which would have added an almost exponential uptick in repair costs.

That's one expensive bunny! If you could catch it, I bet it would make a nice little stew!

So, yes, I was pissed off about the whole thing.

"Verry interesting - but stupid!"

(with fond memories of Arte Johnson )

Being a friend of all bunnies, great and small (now, not as a 13 year with a .22 back on the farm in Minnesota), I enjoy our yard bunnies and their antics, so they get a pass on just about anything.

The bike wasn't even moving when I flopped it over, but the dollar damage was very impressive considering how little their actually was of it..but...it IS a BMW after all.

Be happy you didn't damage your leg. Sorry about the BMW.

peoples insistence in writing in hard to read colours.

If you'd care for some advice, I'd suggest that you only maneuver a motorcycle when the engine is off as if you lose balance you'll often reach for the throttle.

Edit - My RT weighs a tonne and I'm very conscious of it especially when I push it off its main stand as the weight tends to want to fall away from you as the suspension compresses.

I've promised myself that I ever think that its weight becomes a liability to me I'll sell it and acquire something lighter.

BMW R1250 RT and a Honda Crossrunner parked in a Disabled Bay.

Perfect spot for them

I genuinely LOL'd.

Oh the reason that they all turned up was because the Moto Guzzi in their group had broken down.

Standard.