Quote from Don :

http://don.vn.cz/photos/powerrangers09/

Please get traffic cop's phone number in the last shot and forward it to my PM box.....

Great photos again as usual Sir!

Quote from Jakg :

Oddly I actually enjoy taking my friends out - plus it's not exactly fun to go somewhere and have to take a helmet round with you.

I'm more of a car person anyway though :P

You attach the helmet to the helmet lock mounted on the bike. Don't you guys have those over there?

I just hung mine from one of the footpegs. Then again, I don't live in urban area, thus I didn't worry much about it being stolen.

Quote from Klutch :

Bit more than just a loud muffler mate, its a full system.

A "full system"?

Funny thing is, my old beater Altima, the muffler separated from the pipe and now sounds just like that. Could have saved yourself a bunch of money. My Altima sounds just as crappy as that video.

Best thing to do to a small engine is, keep a good quiet exhaust on it. They sound like garbage if not, just as both videos posted do. Same crap sound as my Altima with the separated muffler, and just as much performance boost also, which is none....

Glutton for punishment, heh Uncle Benny?

Back on topic. Driving for 21 years and approximately 446,000 miles. Well, here we go.....

April 1988, turned 16 and got my driver's license. Couldn't get learner's early back then, had to be 16.

April 1988 through, er, April 1988 . 1979 Ford Fairmont Futura, mileage negligible. My father had acquired a company car, thus he saved this one for a few years for me. Two weeks and the front brake lines were dry rotted and split (parent's weren't much on vehicular maintenance). Foot went to the floor as I braked to turn onto a bridge. A car was up ahead stopped waiting for traffic turning on from the other direction even though he had his own lane to drive through. No brakes, I avoided him but couldn't avoid another car. Insurance write-off as my parents thought that you should always have full coverage insurance even though you pay twice every year as what the car is actually worth.

1988-1990: 1983 Ford Escort, 23k-36k. The Fairmont wasn't technically mine, just mine to drive. Thus, Mom took the insurance money and put it down on a new car and gave me her old car. I graduated in 1990 from High School and as a gift, my parents said I could have the car to do what I wish rather than it being their car and I could drive it. I promptly went searching for a trade .

1990-1992: 1985 Ford Escort, 43k-86k. That 83 was the last time I had an auto tranny. I don't know why I bought this car, more from listening to my parents. It was 2 door as opposed to 4 door like the 83, and more importantly it was a 4 speed. First time I had ever driven a manual was on the test drive of this car. No problems, must have been born for it I was taking it to the shop for something, brakes or exhaust I can't remember, and the transmission blew a hole in the side of the case.


1992-1995: 1992 Geo Storm, 25 miles to 60k. After buying one tranny for the Escort and finding out Ford changed something halfway through the build year, I couldn't find another transmission. Thus, I decided to trade it. I stupidly let Mom talk me into getting a brand new car as it "wouldn't have so many miles on it and it would be reliable..." Why I let her talk me into it I don't know. I had a job and could afford it just fine as I was staying home while going to college and working the evenings. This thing was a piece of garbage. No so much a piece of garbage that it constantly broke, but a POS in that wear items were constantly wearing prematurely. I was constantly replacing the brakes, which no, it isn't from my driving
because I still drive hard today and don't wear the brakes like that. Also, the tire size was a weird size at the time and I couldn't find anything that fit in a normal all-season tire. Everything was an expensive soft compound "performance" tire. It didn't even have to snow, just look like it was going to snow and the car was all over the place. I literally had to use the handbrake to turn the car in the winter or it would continue going straight no matter how slow I tried to go when turning. That and there are hills everywhere in western PA, so if you had to stop, you weren't going again. Taking a run to get up a hill was a necessity. Thank you PENNDOT for putting stoplights in the middle of every freakin hill there is.

1995-1997: 1989 Toyota Hilux, 89k-139k. I already wrote about this on in the Top Gear Hilux video thread. I watched how much abuse a friend of mine put his Toyota through and knew I had to have one. As said in the other thread, they are nearly indestructible. They say it's snake oil, but I bought into the snake oil and used Slick50 oil in it. Snake oil or not, all I can say is this truck was the smoothest and best running vehicle I had ever had or driven. I completely thrashed this truck all over western PA. I took it hill climbing, mud bogging, higher speed dirt road running, rock climbing, and I had never gotten stuck in it. I was forward momentum hindered for about half an hour, but as it still moved back and forth and I did eventually back out under it's own power, it wasn't stuck. I loved this thing and I'd give anything to have this one back. A Ford Probe ran underneath the rearend of it launching it up and off the side of it's windshield. It was a total loss and the insurance company gave me around $1800 over book value because of it's condition. I have a 3 page list of "drivetrain extra clean", "Interior extra clean", engine compartment, wheels and tires, paint, glass, all listed as "extra clean" with an extra monetary value listed next to each item. The best part is, 2 days prior, you couldn't tell what color it was because it was completely covered in mud from 4wheeling.

1997-1997: 1994 Toyota 4Runner, 50k-66k. I owned this all of 6 months. I started dating my wife who lived about 45 minutes to an hour north of me and went to see her nearly every day. From there we were in the truck constantly also and I couldn't keep the payments up on it. Nor could I keep gasoline in the thing. I mean, really, look at the numbers. 16,000 miles in 6 months.

1997-2002: 1988 Toyota 4Runner, 105k-189k. Thrashed on this thing pretty good to. Opted to get out of the big 94 with the weak 3.0L V6 and get back to the indestructible 22RE motor.

1997-1999: 1992 Chevrolet Corsica. Aquired through marriage. It was my wife's car when we got married.

1999-current: 1996 Nissan Altima, 48k-168k. My current car. I traded my wife's Corsica for this, then acquired it as my own personal work runner when I traded my truck in on a new car for her. It's falling apart, but still runs great. I now again, after 15 years of driving manual transmissions, drive an automatic . I am dying to get rid of this and get back into a manual...

2000-2004: Honda Nighthawk CB550SC, 12k-24k. My first (and only) bike. Put most of the miles on the 2nd year. 10,000 miles that year and 2000 miles the next 2 years. Didn't have time any more to ride.

2002-2007: 1999 Toyota Tacoma, 58k-92k. Frame rotted with only 92k. For a Toyota truck, the motor isn't even broken in yet at 92k. Got rid of it prematurely and got my wife a new vehicle, thus I now drive the POS auto Altima and hate it.

2007-current: 2006 Mazda Tribute S, 900 miles- currently 32k. Was snowing so hard I couldn't even see the front end of the truck from in the cabin. That's my kind of test driving Testing it out in the weather I am buying it for.

Last edited by mrodgers, Thu, 21 May 2009 23:06.

Yes on the water thing. Rinse it with distilled water, that way no minerals and soap will dry on the electronics. If already dried, rinsing it may remove them. Then allow it to dry completely. Do not turn on until you do this. If you already turned it on, it may be broken...

You're absolutely right, it probably is bullshit. I highly doubt I will make an offer on that truck in the future. $4000 is pretty steep for a 94 with 140k on it. It's valued at about $2500 I think (looked it up a while ago, but can't remember the exact number.) It has some rust in the bed which is to be expected.

As for the rest, no bullshit there. The 88 with 189k on it, I can't say there was much left of the body when I got rid of it. In total I put 200,000 miles on the collection of 4 vehicles and the only thing I ever had to "fix" was normal wear items (brakes, shocks, clutch in the 88, tires, and exhaust.)

Nope, scratch that. I had the clutch slave cylinder leak on me and the starter go out on me with the 88. Both were rebuilt for under $10 each.

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

Plus I get the impression you're lying, bikes without a rev counter are a pain because when you have a lid on you cannot hear what the engine is doing, more so when you consider a lot of bikers actually wear ear plugs because of the noise a lid generates when you're actually going faster than 30MPH.

You actually hear the bike and motor easier when wearing ear plugs because you eliminate (drastically reduce) the wind noise. Without ear plugs, I couldn't hear the bike at all. With ear plugs, I could hear it just fine.

In my 4 years of riding, I could not convince my buddy I rode with to wear ear plugs. So much more enjoyable with ear plugs, as well as much less damaging to your hearing.

Well, when it's youtube and you expect 3 pages of "WTF!!!!111!!" and "First I was..... Then I was..... and then I was....", you don't bother with spending the time scrolling through the pages on the very slim hopes that 1 comment was actually intelligent.

Personal experience....

1989 Truck - Absolutely the best vehicle I have ever owned or driven. 22RE motor. Heavily 4wheeled, hill climbed, and jumped. 139,000 miles and it ran better than anything I could have driven off the dealer lot brand new. Found that it leaked all the oil out onto the road in -20some F weather. I 4wheeled it all weekend putting about 400 miles on it before I found the puddle of oil where I parked it at the beginning of the weekend. No problems with it. Launched off the windshield of a Ford Probe putting a hole in the side of a van with the rear bumper (long story). Rear drivetrain and suspension ripped off the frame. Put in 4WD and the front wheels pulled it off the road. A little welding would have put the rearend back together and it could have been driven. I took the $8800 from the insurance company on the truck I paid $6000 for 2 years prior.

1988 4Runner - 22RE motor. Paid $5000. Mildly 4wheeled, few hill climbs, and jumped. 189,000 miles purchased with 105,000 miles. Never had antifreeze as I would fill it up, and an hour later the radiator was dry. Couldn't find leaks, no fluid in the oil, no idea where it was, thus I discontinued trying to keep it filled for the 84,000 miles I owned it. I changed the oil roughly around 160,000 miles because, well, I thought "why not". That was the only time the oil was changed. It was totalled spinning on ice and into a telephone pole. No insurance, thus I pieced it back together. Totalled by a deer jumping out in front of me from behind a tree at 65 mph (I was doing 65, not the deer....) I pieced it back together. Day after piecing the deer crash back together, another deer jumped off the bank on the side of the road. No damage, just a big tire donut on the side of the deer because that's where it hit. Sold for $2200 and ran fantastic.

1994 4Runner - 3.0L V6. Not much to say. Only owned it for 6 months. Will say that I climbed a very greasy hill with ease in the rain that my buddy had trouble with in 4WD and BFG MudTerrains while I was on stock Firestone All Terrains and realizing after the fact that it was still in 2WD.

1999 Tacoma - $12,000. 2.7L 4 popper (based on the 22RE) The only thing that killed it was the common frame rot of the Tacomas. Traded for $7700 the year before Toyota recalled and was buying back for 1.5x the excellent condition value. I would have gotten $13,500 for it if I would have been a year later in getting rid of it.

Unfortunately it is extremely difficult to find a late 80s, early 90s Hilux any more. I do have my eye on one with 140k at $4000, but I don't have $4000 at the moment. If it's still there in the future, I'm making an offer.

Stupidly huge wings on front wheel drive cars.

VTec badges on Toyotas or Mazdas.

Gigantic "rimz" needing rubberbands for tires to allow them to fit.

Those are rice and clearly rice. Tristan's and AJP's thoughts of rice are indeed not rice. Things bolted and done to a car to make it look faster than it is or attempt to make it sound faster than it is, is what rice is. Mounting a nice pleasing set of aftermarket wheels, stainless brake lines/hoses to clean up an engine compartment, that is not rice. It is done for the ascetic appeal of the car, not to say "look at me, I'm so fast."

The automotive companies don't design each car individually to satisfy every customer individually. They make compromises in the design to fit the general population as well as manufacturing cost. On the note of things such as brakes, dampers, and tires, they are chosen strictly on cost. I work in the automotive manufacturing business. The handling of production cars are made for the compromise between those who would want a better ride and those who want better handling. The exhaust is designed on quietness only with a hit in performance. Everything is a compromise. If the manufacturers built cars to be the best, then they would be vastly different and the aftermarket would have never existed.

There is nothing wrong with removing the pillion seat on a motorcycle and replacing it for a cleaner look. That is personalizing the motorcycle. There is nothing wrong with Harley riders dressing their bikes up with chrome. that is personalizing it. There is nothing wrong with new wheels or dressing up the engine compartment in a car. That is personalizing the car. You can argue that putting a gigantic wing on a FWD car is personalizing, but it is so glaringly ridiculous that it is clearly ricing.

With Tristan's and AJP's definition of ricing, their houses would have no floor coverings. They would just have the base subfloor because putting nice hardwood, ceramic tile, or carpeting serves absolutely no purpose other than looks. Thus, it would be ricing and they had better not have anything of the sort in their houses. Painting the interior walls would be ricing. Having nice countertops in the kitchen would be ricing because a basic slab of wood is all you need.

They simply don't understand the slang term "rice" and have made up their own definition that has nothing to do with what it really is.

I was thinking he meant traffic on the ground. FSX does have animated traffic on the roads, doesn't it (I use FS9)?

Anyways, that sounds pretty cool. I'll have to look at it, though I don't fly offline much. I'm mostly on WSPilots' servers when I fly.

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

Every time someone posts a picture of anything modified, you call it rice.

Neither of these fellows you are arguing with have any clue what "rice" actually means when using it in a derrogatory way to cars/bikes.

Quote from TopThrillGTR :

windows live one care is my anti-virus and so can you tell me what is the 36 program i can close ?

I thought I did.

Quote from mrodgers :

Added: OP, you can google search each of your processes to see what it is. I see a process for Lightscribe, which would start any time you wanted to use Lightscribe. It's unnecessary to be running all the time.

I see many processes specific to Windows Media Center. All unnecessary. They will start when needed.

Anything that is non-virus software related that has an update scheduler running, unnecessary. Do you really need Real Player constantly checking for updates and running constantly?

BTDNA.exe, shame shame on you This is probably defaulted to share files. Anything that you have downloaded, you are now uploading probably. That could be an outrageous amount of bandwidth being used if you have a lot of files that you downloaded.

Anything "hpxxxxx" has to do with the HP computer and crap that they preinstall. Many I see are for printer diagnostics. How often do you run diagnostics on the printers? They don't need to be running. You can start them yourself if you ever need to.

I saw this:
svcadmin.exe 1868 Console 0 2ÿ240 K
Run Services as Application should not be running at startup. It is likely a virus, spyware, trojan, or some other sort of malicious program. Use a virus scanner, and/or spyware removal tool to remove it.

That is just from a quick google search on processes. Investigate that further.

Anything that is "ehxxxxxx" has to do with Media Center. These can all be disabled. I have no problems with doing anything with Media Center with those disabled on my computer (why you would want to is beyond me.)

sm56hlpr.exe, another diagnostics, this one for modem drivers. Have you ever needed to run a diagnostics on it? Disable again and you can run it manually if needed.

What is "Windows OneCare Live"? I see a few processes for that.

Several processes for Java stuff. Needed? I have disabled all those and they now only start when needed rather than running all the time.

I am counting at least 36 processes that you should be able to disable. That nearly cuts it down in half.

That right there takes care of at least half of the 36 processes.

Quote from The Moose :

Ohh, nice job sir! I thought i was doing well with only 19.

I cheated. I wasn't counting Firefox, and ATI control center has 3 processes running that I haven't disabled since my card blew up and I went back to the onboard chip. So, in reality I do have 20, but I don't consider Firefox a process because when I'm done with the net, it will disappear and the ATI stuff I really should disable, but I'm too lazy to do anything about it at the moment.

Added: OP, you can google search each of your processes to see what it is. I see a process for Lightscribe, which would start any time you wanted to use Lightscribe. It's unnecessary to be running all the time.

I see many processes specific to Windows Media Center. All unnecessary. They will start when needed.

Anything that is non-virus software related that has an update scheduler running, unnecessary. Do you really need Real Player constantly checking for updates and running constantly?

BTDNA.exe, shame shame on you This is probably defaulted to share files. Anything that you have downloaded, you are now uploading probably. That could be an outrageous amount of bandwidth being used if you have a lot of files that you downloaded.

Anything "hpxxxxx" has to do with the HP computer and crap that they preinstall. Many I see are for printer diagnostics. How often do you run diagnostics on the printers? They don't need to be running. You can start them yourself if you ever need to.

I saw this:
svcadmin.exe 1868 Console 0 2ÿ240 K
Run Services as Application should not be running at startup. It is likely a virus, spyware, trojan, or some other sort of malicious program. Use a virus scanner, and/or spyware removal tool to remove it.

That is just from a quick google search on processes. Investigate that further.

Anything that is "ehxxxxxx" has to do with Media Center. These can all be disabled. I have no problems with doing anything with Media Center with those disabled on my computer (why you would want to is beyond me.)

sm56hlpr.exe, another diagnostics, this one for modem drivers. Have you ever needed to run a diagnostics on it? Disable again and you can run it manually if needed.

What is "Windows OneCare Live"? I see a few processes for that.

Several processes for Java stuff. Needed? I have disabled all those and they now only start when needed rather than running all the time.

I am counting at least 36 processes that you should be able to disable. That nearly cuts it down in half.

Last edited by mrodgers, Wed, 20 May 2009 02:06.

Sounds like the same computer as mine. Mine is the Compaq version, his the HP version. Same year, same internals, yes, if he doesn't know anything about computers, there will be a ton of processes running. Stupid and useless processes.

I think I had 50+ processes when I booted my computer for the first time. It took me months to clean the stupid thing all out and getting it capable of running LFS even in it's most simplest form. I now have 16 processes running.

Quote from jaxx751 :

Not mine. I'm just the photographer.

Was wondering that....

Why is your website down? I was going to check it out.

Nice photo work. You need to visit here.

Quote from Btoryo :

Uh okay... didn't make me laugh.. just weird.

Quote from greg_slideways :

Indeed.......Made me think how stupid some people are...

Thank you to the two of you. At least we have a little hope for our future.

We get closer and closer to the movie "Idiocracy" with every stupid video that goes up on youtube by our youth.

Trek Mod, MSRP $189.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/

There's mine...

Quote from danthebangerboy :

.... without dazzling oncoming drivers.

Over here in the US, I'd swear the government regulations on headlights are such that they be designed to shine directly into oncoming driver's eyes as much as possible.

Quote from danthebangerboy :

Why do people insist on attaching huge images using [img] tags.

Agree.

I fly this....

[img]http://www.hobbyzone.com/images/airplanes/HBZ3500-350.jpg[/img]

Thus, I want one of these really bad....

[img]http://www.iconaircraft.com/dl/news/full/a5_ff_news_1.jpg[/img]

Wow at the youtube link. Big Wheels for big kids!!! I want one!

It would be great to go out to the bike trail with me on one of those and my 2 girls on their plastic Big Wheels

Quote from SilverArrows77 :

Its quite appalling the lengths a group with an objection will go to in the attempt to enforce their view upon others...

Exactly! How dare Gay.com call a day "International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia" and try to enforce their view upon others...

Quote from Intrepid :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... HDdmg&feature=related

Congrats, you're the first to post something decent.

Quote from zeugnimod :

Winner.
Also this and this. <3

Wow, that was something, the Billie Jean thing.