The RoggBlog

…and things with Betty are just peachy.

The Ninja 250 is a wonderful little bike, especially after training on a mammoth Honda CB750 for the last few months. It’s much more forgiving during low speed manouevering, and has enough torque to munch anything off the lights. And it’s just so much fun. As Cam said after giving it a go, “This is the first time since about the age of seventeen that I’ve felt like popping a wheelie!”

Owner’s pride required me to break his leg shortly afterwards.

Annoyances? Well, keeping the tach below 5k is a real bugger, since it means an extra shift up when you really don’t want to, especially when you’re stuck at inner city speeds (50kph max). Also, the mirrors are useless.

Still, I should have broken her in properly by the end of our first month. And to make sure, we’re heading out to Mushashiyama to go and buy some togs later this week, as soon as the fricking rain lets up. A bit of time and I should be able to find some proper mirrors too.

And then I will be naught but a green blur, biatches.

And she’s even prettier than I imagined.

Thanks to Cam for taking the photo.

I’ve had my iMac less than a month, so I was understandably pissed when I found a stuck pixel this morning. Red, of all colours, and of course after I realized it was there I couldn’t focus on anything else.

Fortunately for me - Apple has a pretty arbitrary definition of what constitutes a warranty-covered pixel spooging - I came across this little bad boy. JScreenFix opens a window which cycles every pixel inside it; when placed over the offending pixel, it should dislodge it lickety-split. Instructions say 20 minutes, mine was gone in 5.

Incidentally, a stuck pixel is any pixel displaying a fixed colour. If it’s black, it’s dead, and you’re out of luck.

From b3ta.

Dammit. I was all geared up for a whine about how Apple’s Mighty Mouse is one of the wankiest peripherals I’ve ever got my dabs on - no small claim for someone who grew up during Saitek’s heyday - then I saw this by Dave Shea, which rendered it all a a bit pointless.

Part of the iMac’s attraction for me was the GeForce 8800 GS, which, while not the beefiest graphics card out there, I reckoned should be more than enough to indulge myself in a bit of gaming.

So I was more than happily surprised by the fact that, like a properly disciplined subbie, it was able to handle almost anything Team Fortress 2 threw at it, even at a widescreen 1900×1280 with most of the settings turned up to max (I left anti-aliasing on 4x).

The one blood-encrusted band-aid in my swimming pool of newly-found gaming bliss was that bastard Mighty Mouse sullying the innocent joy of taking a human life by spunking the build menu in my face, when all I want to do is ram my Engineer’s wrench up that wisecracking Scout’s posterior and twist his guts off.

*breathes*

I bought a Razer DeathAdder today after flicking through Bit-Tech. And I’m much better now.

I just wish they could’ve done something about the name. :/

At the bike shop this morning…

Assistant: Yeah, the new Ninja’s pretty popular.

Rog: This the first time the 250’s gone on sale in Japan, right?

A: Right. Look at this.

Grabs a fistful of recent orders from the drawer behind him.

A: … Ninja in black, Ninja, Ninja… Ninja in green, black again… Five people in two days.

R: Wait, out of five bikes four are black and only one’s green?

A: Yeah. Weird, huh.

Weird? It’s madness, I tell you.

Ah well. I heartily recommend SCS on Hakusan-dori to anyone in Tokyo, just because they threw in the pillion seat cover and a year’s breakdown service for the low, low price of free.

Incidentally, they once had a visit from Orlando Bloom, who bought a bike for export back to London. The guy dealing with my bike, Masaru, is front left in the first photo.

No, not the Pirates of the Carribbean cover.

After playing around with FeedBurner for work, I’ve added it on here. I realize, of course, that I probably know everyone reading my blog - more than likely, I’m related to them - but RSS is a robust if unsexy technology that doesn’t get the attention it deserves outside of moderately tech-savvy circles.

FeedBurner just makes it easier for all concerned.

Here’s my newly-burned feed.

Incidentally, a Flaming Lamborghini is a drink that can make Yu-sama laugh non-stop for a whole night.

Of course, every outfit requires the appropriate accessories.

After finally passing my ogata (large motorbike) practical test last week, I foolishly thought it was all over: I had my licence, I was now the Two-Wheeled Titan of Tokyo and women would be ogling the vast, throbbing machine between my legs before week was out.

So imagine my disappointment, if you will, after finding out about the compulsory short course and first aid training course, which incidentally seems to be unavailable anywhere less than 45 minutes away from my place. (more…)

I found this while clearing out an old hard drive, dated November 25, 2005.

At 11.30, I finally hauled myself away from my bed and my books, and sat on the balcony, smoking, wondering just how to formulate my thoughts and commit them to paper.

My attempts at writing since I’d arrived here had been dismal, my insights hackneyed and predictable, any attempt at emotion trite. Maybe all this language teaching had warped my perception of what language is actually for: the vast majority of my students want me to teach them to survive in a foreign country, to order at a restaurant, to get through Customs and so on, whereas I’d always felt language to be more than just an enabler. I’d never even liked the image of language as a vehicle for our thoughts, since it had always put me in mind of a rickety two-seater from the Victorian age, when it was still mandatory to have a man waving a red flag in front of your vehicle.

Language is the river bed along which our thoughts, our ideas, and our emotions flow. Without it, the mind is a limpid, stagnant pool. With it, it branches, slows down and speeds up, and is gradually changed by the nature of the water it carries.

This is why I need a tiny familiar (like Jabba’s little mate) to cuff me upside the head once a given level of introspection is reached.