It’s a 2nd gen Kawasaki KLR650.

Bold choices with both Spinball and Final Fantasy 8. You’re set to have some interesting fandoms with very deep chips on their shoulders – not to mention cosplay buster swords – arriving at your doorstep shortly.

That’s definitely aftermarket from the previous owner. The little rear luggage rack appears to be as well.

Uncharacteristically for the Onion, though. this is not actually satire. This is actually what’s happening.

Or get hooked on your handlebars on the way by and wrapped around your neck, which is a thought I am always cognizant of when riding with my UTG messenger bag or a laptop bag.

Heard. Allow me to introduce you to…

…The badonka-donk.

In these I can fit my entire camping loadout with room to spare, or:

In the left box,

• My welder
• Welding Helmet
• Apron and Gloves
• Hammer, Tongs, Brushes
• 3-4 spools of wire

In the right box,

• My entire drill kit
• A master tap and die set
• Angle grinder plus a selection of wheels and disks
• a 100’ extension cord

All I need to do is figure out how to power the welder from the bike and I can strike anywhere, without warning.

This was basically the end state of East Germany right before the wall fell. Something like 1 in 6 people were either in the Stasi or were Stasi informants working alongside them. One wonders what the power dynamic might have mutated into once there were no more sheep because everyone was working for the wolves.

Maybe that’s the kind of loyalist utopia these (and those) chumps were dreaming of but I’d doubt that’d actually shake out how they expected it to.

This may in fact not be completely outside of the realm of possibility for someone who has no idea how to actually operate his computer, which is most people. The notion that things can be deleted, not to mention when they should be deleted or when they should not be deleted, and the fact that on most modern systems they aren’t actually deleted when you hit “delete” and instead go to some manner of purgatory elsewhere on your drive where they’re still accessible in full (recycle bin/trash) regularly eludes the majority of computer users.

The problem is, the defendant’s excuse could be explained by him being a moron from multiple avenues, so we’ll never know if he’s inept (as in can’t delete files) or inept (as in so stupid he things everyone else is as stupid as he is in order to believe his dumb excuse).

I’ve done it.

I have this UTG messenger bag thing. In general wearing it on any of my bikes isn’t much of a problem, except for on my Shadow where the seating position is low and you’re leaned so far back that it dangles a little too low for comfort. It still works, it’s just sketchy. It’s one of those things where I’ll do it if I have to because the computer I want to bring is already in it, but certainly not because I want it for bike specific transportation.

Surprisingly it does not flap in the wind if you are sub 100 MPH. It will slide around on its strap, though, and it swings out like a pendulum whenever you take a left turn. My commute is quite short, at least compared to the types of people who are constantly bitching about “car brain” (news flash: It’s bike brain around here), at maximum about 10 minutes if I take the direct route and often rather less. As for access, well. You could, but you probably won’t, and I’ve never needed to. You’re wearing gloves for a start, and I don’t know about you but I don’t generally find myself needing to retrieve tools and turn bolts while I’m riding my motorcycle. Getting my laptop out while in motion is likewise a non-starter. Any of that kind of stuff you’re going to do on the side of the road, at which point you will probably take your bag and at least some of your gear off, at which point it’s moot.

Unless by “access” you mean getting at your gun. On that note I advise you to learn to shoot left handed first before making any decisions.

I’m not entirely sold on the idea of a messenger bag for the dedicated on-bike things. I can see how having the weight off kilter to one side like that would get old after a prolonged period, and there’s really no non-annoying way to keep it secured such that it doesn’t swing around. Yes, the UTG bag has a Velcro thingy on the back designed to be a belt loop for this purpose, but if you’re wearing modern textile riding gear the only way to use that would be to undo it and loop it around one of the cinch straps on your pants (from behind!) every time you put it on or took it off.

I’d much rather use a backpack for that sort of thing, which explains the myriad of backpacks I own both motorcycle specific and not. Or if I’m on one of the bikes with luggage, I just jam whatever it is I have in there, and then it can be whatever bag I want.

I see a lot of people get scared by the prospect of sharpening and it’s nothing to be afraid of.

Provided you don’t want to get so far into it that flawlessly sharpening knives becomes your entire pesonality (some guys do indeed make it their sole hobby, apparently) all you need is a decent double sided stone or maybe three diamond stones and you can produce an edge that’s quite good enough for nomal people.

Freehand sharpening on a stone isn’t for everyone and for that reason I propose there’s nothing wrong with a guided sharpening jig of some description. If you only want to buy one thing I always recommend the Work Sharp Field Sharpener.

There is a certain minimum threshold before bothering to take a flight becomes viable, and that’s if your flight is about 3 hours long or more. Otherwise you may as well drive if you can, because the amount of time you spend getting to the airport, getting fondled by the TSA, checking in, waiting to board, standing around in lines, waiting for your bags to show up, renting a car at your destination, etc. all adds up to be the same as just driving. It’s not actually any faster to fly when it still takes all damn day.

And then you can bring all your knives or weed or liquid bottles more than two ounces or whatever it is you’re into without getting thrown into Gitmo and when you arrive you already have your car (or motorcycle).

I’d doubt this is anything approaching universal, but where I am there definitely were three digit signs in the early aughts, which now appear to have all been replaced with two digit ones. I don’t know if this was for cost purposes or the proposed “high score” reason.

There was one right in front of the police station in the town I lived in back in the day, which was a full dot matrix display and didn’t even have discrete digit slots. It could display other messages if it wasn’t in speed readout mode. I passed it at about a buck twenty one night and discovered that it topped out at 99. It’s the first one I recall seeing that didn’t have a third digit, but then they became the norm pretty shortly thereafter.

The ones that are popping up like mushrooms around here now fit within the footprint of a normal speed limit sign and they have a dual color LED matrix that flashes a frowny face at you if you’re 0.01 MPH over the specified speed…

We’ll just have to observe him carefully and see if he’s able to complete a left turn without assistance. That’ll tell us for sure.

I’m going to come at this from the wrong angle and suggest filtered earplugs, the flavor of which I’m currently using are these “motorcycle” oriented ones which are indeed also the ones I use when riding.

There are a zillion variants and rebands of these, and if they all look the same to you that’s because you’re right, and they are. Variants exist being billed as “concert” or “high fidelity” earplugs, or shooter’s earplugs, or whatever the hell else. I noticed a few weeks ago Cabelas/Bass Pro is selling a set of plugs identical to mine but in different packaging and marketed towards shooters rather than riders. They all work the same way with a little plastic puck inserted in the middle that’s ventilated, and with a tiny diaphragm in it.

Regardless of flavor, the deal with these is that they dampen sound quite a bit with the key distinction of not making you completely deaf while you’re wearing them. They also do so while remaining discreet and not making you look like a berk, or as if you’ve got Airpods in. I’ve taken to using these for all tasks where I need hearing protection or want quiet, since I almost always have them on me anyway and they’re the least uncomfortable type of earplugs I’ve found so far for long term use that don’t also cost a mint. They’re washable and my first pair has survived being worn basically every day inside my helmet for about three years running.

Or possibly ten thousand spoons.

I’ve been summoned, just like Beetlejuice.

Yeah, print out that fuckin’ telephone because we called it. Sometimes it sucks to be right.

Prime is already a protection racket. Sure, we could deliver your package on time but we won’t unless you pay us extra to not artificially slow it down.

It’s amazing how so many people still haven’t realized this and dutifully pay for Prime because, “It’s just so convenient!”

Oh, that’s diabolical.

For similar reasons, I always kept Alabaster Potions around to sub out for the Meteor Shower (or Fireball, but Meteor Shower is more amusing). Pick white, you explode. Red, I’ll just give myself 4,294,967,296 health.

You know, I have a deck that could theoretically legitimately cast this by turn 4. Less if you were willing to abuse Lotuses or Moxes.

Usually I just dump all of that colorless mana into a Meteor Shower, though.