Ok, so he didn’t actually say it was ending but he covered some pretty gloomy topics and delivered some alarming stats at his talk at Waikato University tonight that might lead you to believe that it was. When I got home Kym asked me for a summary of the talk at the end of which she said “So was it all Doom and Gloom?“, but I guess that is the role of a journalist like Gwynne and the topics he covers. He’s in the business of informing people about broad reaching global influences and encouraging people to think about how they might themselves do something to make a change.

Dyer gave us a round-up of issues he thought weren’t a big problem, some others he thought were a problem, and a few more that were problems he was really worried about. If you’re a regular reader of his newspaper columns (which are widely syndicated, including by our local Waikato Times) you’ll know that he is a reporter who focuses on problems, so when he says he’s particularly worried about any of them then you can be sure they are issues to be taken seriously.

Some of the issues that made it into the less serious camp included American withdrawl from Iraq and Afghanistan (they will bounce back in their own natural way and time), Oil supply issues (the vendors will always need to sell their oil, to buy food and comodities), the conflict between Georgia/the West and Russia (storm in a teacup).

The issue that he really reinforced as more serious centred around Global warming, its likely affect on traditional food growing regions of the planet, potential conflict between nations over food supply, and the very real potential for catastrophic global thermal runaway that will be beyond our control if temperatures rise by more than the two or three degrees that is expected to result in this.

So was it really all Doom and Gloom? Dyer did discuss some Geo-Engineering options that are being considered to help defer the onset and initial impact of global warming but these are stop gaps which dont offer a solution to the problem of escalating warming. The scientific consensus is apparently that we are unlikely to be able to react in time to stop the process, and that global industrialisation in nations whose “turn it is” now clearly isnt helping.

So where do we go from here? I dont know that there really was any clear message from the speaker regarding this, other than looking at technology for energy generation options with less impact, doing what we can to reduce our input into warming, considering Geo-Engineering options and such like. I get the sense that there’s a big helping of good luck and timing required, but one relatively comforting outcome from the talk came right at the end when Dyer said…

“I’m not quite ready to cut my throat… yet”

It has to be said that we are pretty stoked to have ended up at Turoa for a couple of days skiing on what is their biggest EVER recorded snow-base, currently 4.5m…. or to put a little more emphasis on the statistic…

FOUR POINT FIVE BLOODY METERS OF SNOW!!!

Christ it was good fun these last couple of days, a clear blue sky day mostly on Tuesday, a bit cloudy since then but how the hell can you complain about visibility when you’ve got this friggin awesome snow base underneath the skis. For most north-island skiers its a bloody struggle to get through fresh powder, especially when the entire bloody field is covered in the stuff. Funny tho, it never seems to be a chore to have to get back on your feet and dust off a covering of dry powder. Never ceases to bring a smile to your face, and its a crack-up seeing someone else wipe-out in it and do a disappearing act.

Actually had the day off today, thats what comes with approaching your 5th decade I guess. No more getting up there at 9am every day and skiiing till you drop at 4pm. Christ its great fun, I just love the winter trip rolling around each year. Such a buzz, almost everyone on the mountain is fizzing with excitement, you hear people whooping it up, not coz they’re trying to annoy or impress you, its coz they’re so stoked to be in this amazing alpine environment.

As you can probably pickup, I’m basically having a great break.

This is mostly how I ended up looking seriously at a bike over these last few weeks.

Kym is used to me day-dreaming and flicking endlessly through mags but this time she could see I was a little more serious than usual. We went through the accounting-dance to negotiate just how much moolah I was authorised to spend and I promptly hit the streets.

After testing 8 bikes over the last few weeks and finally settling on two I fancied I visited the two stores in question at lunchtime yesterday to get the best trade deal and ended up riding out of Hamilton Motorcycles on a near-new Triumph Daytona 675. (here’s a wee video of the bike if your interested)

Got insurance sorted out this morning and went out for a lunchtime strop out of town, round a few back-roads near Hamilton Airport and back in through Peacocks rd. It was raining of course, we’ve hardly seen a dry day in the last couple of months, but the bike handled beautifully in the wet. The torque is gorgeous, it loves to rev, brakes are great, engine braking surprisingly good, the engine note is fantastic, I could (and will) listen to all day.

Its fair to say… I’m stoked !!!

EDIT: - took the long way home from work tonight, still raining, also dark, but had some more fun and picked up on some more details. I know its very shallow and cosmetic but am totally loving the tone of the Triple, especially in the low-to-mid-range area, the sound is to die for, has a slightly edgyier-than-twin but less coarse than 4-cyl sort of tone to it. A real nice grumble, not quite as distinctive at the top-end but pleasing none the less.

Handling wise am loving the way it tips in to corners. Not too urgently so it catches you out, just very easy to initiate the roll and very stable and linear as it tips in. The clutch is REAL nice too, requires very little input but still obvious as far as required input goes. Gearbox is a wee bit clunky though, could be the new-ness of the machine I spose. Oh yeah, and on the new-ness front, it still smells new when it warms up. About as close to a new bike as I’ll probably get so I intend to savour it

The season has been shaping up wickedly, the wins have been shared across a number of front runners, and now that we’re half way through its still a close thing between the top three bikes (Rossi, Stoner and Pedrosa)

So its not like we’ve got anything to complain about, the races have been entertaining, lots of thrills and spills, but it’s started to look suspiciously like team Ducati and their top rider Australian Casey Stoner might be getting their act together to the point where they would dominate the rest of the season just the way they did last year.

I’ve got nothing against Ducati winning, Honda and Yamaha have had their fair share of dominance, but noone wants to see a total walk-away season win, and Stoner being 20secs out the front just doesnt make for entertaining watching.

And to be honest I just can’t warm to Stoner, he doesnt have that crazy, cavalier, accessible persona other riders have, and he definately doesnt posses the charisma of the likes of Valentino Rossi.

Which brings me back to last nights race.

Stoner had qualified well and seemed a shoe-in to win if he got out in front early. Rossi was having none of that, he totally put it out there fully commiting to getting in front of the Ducati and staying there. He and Stoner duked it out for the first 10 laps, some awesome passing manouvers, we were roaring with vicariously adrenalised delight in Paul’s lounge as one crazy pass followed another.

Rossi the more aggressive passing and more defensive once he got in front, Stoner decided he’d sit in and watch from behind and bide his time, ran wide a few laps from the end and dumped the bike in the gravel, but remounted and amazingly still took 2nd place on the podium.

Rossi and Stoner were just in a different league out front, not to take anything away from the awesome performances from the likes of Vermuelen, Dovizioso and Spies, but the leading pair may as well have been in their own race. It was the greatest battle of this season, or last, and its been on my mind all day as a totally awesome racing hilight. Here’s hoping we get more of it.

Back home with the box, Kym unpacked it carefully, I kept a safe distance as I was on no uncertain terms banned from any contact with said device. The machine was fired up, and I watched with trepidation as Vista appeared on the screen and began to engrain itself on the silicon and liquid crystal. Some casual input from me over Kym’s shoulder eventually got HER laptop onto our home network and out onto the Internet.

The Lappy was mostly provisioned with the tools Kym is going to need out of the box, and the only thing I dared suggest I might install was a copy of Skype. This was agreed to with a look of suspicion, but I was not to install anything else, and not until the new owner had taken some time to play with the new toy.

So it was a couple of days later I thought I’d take advantage of her Ladyships absence to install Skype. Plugged in my USB stick, copied the installer over, setup a profile for her, and made a test call to the automated Skype service. I wanted to check out the built-in web camera and although I could make a call to the upstairs desktop but there’d be no one on the other end and only other living creature in the house was the Cat so how would that work……. unless…. I called the Cat…

Yes that was it, tilt the laptop screen down so the web cam was aimed at the cat on the sofa, place a call to my account logged in on the desktop upstairs, run upstairs and answer it and see if the cat appears. Which of course he did. So much for the visual image but how about some actual communication???

Our cat Kola is anti-social at the best of times but he does respond to a mouse-like squeak sound that I make by drawing air in between pursed lips, so I let rip with this squeeky sound over the Skype connection. He immediately sat bolt up-right on the sofa with a startled look on his face, glanced nervously around the room, looked suspiciously at the laptop, then settled back down on the sofa.

I figured its gotta be worth repeating the “squeak” just to make sure it wasn’t a one-off. Sure enough Kola responded instantly, but this time looked straight at the laptop, he knew it was coming from the machine, and he didn’t like it. By this stage I’m laughing to myself in the office upstairs, delighted that I had achieved a crude form of inter-species Skype communication. Now all I have to do is train him to place a call.

It was to avoid paying a fine that drove me to the delightful little public Library on Masters Ave in Hillcrest just now. Its your classic suburban library, friendly staff, small enough to get around without being too overwhelmed by choice. Not only was there a possibility of me paying a fine on the book I was returning, but the book itself was lent to me by a cobber whose account the fine would then have appeared on. Fortunately I just got in ahead of the deadline, and avoided the shame of having to apologise.

After returning the book I thought Id take a wee wander about the Library to inspect the shelves. Stopped at a random row, knelt down to see what was on the bottom shelf, looked in what I thought was a random location and the following book leaps out at me:

“Dark side of the Moon”

Had a flick through it, the mystique of the actual dark-side is something that interests me but it turned out the author was talking more about the dark side of the whole space-race of the 60’s. I returned the book and wandered off to another random spot. Same routine, no scanning, just eyeball a spot and grab the first thing I see:

“The Element Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells - The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts”

Intriguing. Was a big heavy beast of a tome, had a flick through it for as long as I could muster the strength to hold the thing. Lots of interesting spells, potions and practices from all cultures and periods. This wasn’t a follow-up volume to the Harry Potter series, this is real witchcraft. Not really my thing, but fascinating none the less. Replaced the book, turned and moved to another spot in the library without consciously looking at shelf labels, stopped, chose another book:

“How to do everything with Photoshop CS”

Now this one seemed relatively innocuous judging by the spine. I’ve been dabbling with Photoshop recently so pulled it off the shelf, turned the book to face me and what do I see on the cover? A photoshopped picture of a couple of bloody Aliens, Grays nonetheless, standing under a spaceship.

Jesus, this was getting spooky. I launched the book back at the shelf, turned on my heels and scampered out the door as quickly as I could without raising the suspicion of the Library staff. That’s it, I’m handing in my library card.

I’m not sure I understand the Alien agenda really but whatever they’re up to just seems to be too much hard work, to be way to visible and be taking much too long. I have a better suggestion for all Aliens reading this blog post (you know who you are) as to how this could all be short-cut to a great degree. If I personally wanted to invade or manipulate a planetery population like ours, this is how I’d handle it:

• Get a crack team of your software developers together
• Have them master the Sony PS2/3 and XBox developer toolkits (dont worry about Wii)
• Have them design a game featuring your own Alien species, accurately modelled
• Make the theme of the game be to exploit and destroy your people
• Sit back and watch, observe the creative desctructive genius that is Human-kind

Once you’ve released a few add-on packs, bonus levels and weapons, and let Humans really exploit what they think is a fictional Alien species, you will then know enough about your own weaknesses, how to defend yourself against the Earthling mongrels, and understand their psyche such that invasion will be an overwhelming and glorious victory with few losses.

The operation will certainly be popular with the voters back in the Pleiades system, you will be a hero and the Emperor will be forever thankful, which is a long time considering you’re likely to be living for a few hundred more solar years yet. Nanu Nanu !!!

ps - I accept all local Galaxian credits as payment for my cunning plan

I ended up buying my 954 Blade and don’t regret it for a second. But now that I’m lookin for a change and after being tainted by a ZX10R experience in the past I had this lingering desire to throw a leg over the newer 06/07 shape as a comparison and realistic option.

I took out the ‘06 one currently on the floor at Waikato Yamaha, after having just ridden an R6 they’d recently traded, knowing full well there would be that same overpowering effect of the Kwaka over the middleweight, but to be honest I had an inkling the R6 wasn’t gonna work out even though I really do love the things.

Dave fired up the Kwaka inside the shop much to my acoustic delight. The machine they have is fitted with a pair of Micron aftermarket cans and by Jesus it sounds like a substantial piece of kit. Not spinning up as quickly as a 600 but the initial bark and subsequent grumble as it idled coarsely out the door to the workshop for a fuel-up was bloody impressive to say the least.

Onto the bike and easing the clutch out gingerly for manoeuvres onto Te Rapa straight and north out of town I was kinda wary of the beast beneath to be honest. You hear lots of criticism from self-proclaimed hard bastards about how Kawasaki took all the character out of the 04/05 model when the 06 one came out, but lets face it, there’s really no room for complacency when your sitting on a 160 rear-wheel horsepower and a pair of cold tyres.

Out through Te Kowhai, south to Whatawhata, and down the Waipa a little towards Te Pahu and by now I’m starting to get my head around the 10. And by Christ I’m loving it. More urgency than my Blade of course but the same order of magnitude of behaviour really. On a couple of occasions the front lofted during 2nd gear roll-ons, probably a third-throttle if that, but they were at times when I knew I was squeezing on a little more than usual and if you’ve got any throttle control at all there’s really no problem keeping the front wheel on the ground.

The Ten has a beautiful smooth delivery of arse-shoving grunt, still has that incredible big-bore rush of the ‘04 model, but its definately spread a little further out across the rev range. Tipping it into a corner was a cinch, I was kinda expecting it to not be as easy as the Blade but it turns in without effort, feels light to the touch as you alter angle and seems very easy to change the pitch mid-corner with a little more or less throttle or a bit of counter steer.

The brakes are good and progressive, but what else would you expect from any modern bike these days. The ergonomics felt comfortable for me, the engine note is glorious, the styling I like, and its GREEN which is a bonus (I’m a closet Kwaka fan having owned them in the past). It has to be said that overall its a bloody great piece of kit that has handling and responsive performance to boot in a package that doesn’t feel too intimidating to someone used to managing a few ponies.

Would I buy it. Definitely. But first I’ve got a couple of other machines to try to satisfy my curiosity.

Today I took my chance. Beautiful clear blue winters day, a little on the cold side in the morning, warming up a bit by midday and the roads were dry. This was it. Took the afternoon off and went to three of the bike-shops in Hamilton to ride the machines I thought best suited my needs. Following is a review of the 1st bike I took out, the others to follow in coming days…

Yamaha R6 ‘07

Back in 2004 I took an as-new R6 out from Jason at Waikato Yamaha and absolutely loved the thing. I’d been riding a Kwaka ZX7R at the time and the nimble, free-revving, crazy little 600 was a real breath of fresh air for me at the time. Things have moved on a lot technologically since then with the R6, but the new model still shares that light handling rev-head character that rewards a rider happy to keep the engine above 10,000rpm.

Apart from the top-end fun, the thing I loved the most about the 04 R6 was the Superman like position of feeling like your looking over the nose of the bike. The 07 R6 seems much the same, it almost disappears beneath you which is weird at first but quickly you forget about the machine and occasionally you catch yourself thinking that your actually flying along the tarmac and not attached to a motorcycle at all. This is what riding a bike is all about to me, being in the moment like that, and it seems so easy on the R6.

For what looks like a wee bike there’s a ton of room on the seat, and it actually felt like it needed a Dani Pedrosa style rubber stopper on the arse end to stop me sliding about.

The engine spins up effortlessly (sometimes actually over-running on shifts with the clutch) but it suprisingly didnt take long to get into the habit of keeping it revving, however it really still is a little breathless when your not working it and would make for some sweaty passing manouvers for a lazy bugger like me who’s used to the beefy torque of a big-bore machine.

The only other gripe I had (which could have been to do with suspenstion setup I guess) was the front end got a little unstable on the gas in the rough stuff a few times when exiting corners. Would just feel like it was unsettled and not holding contact with the road, although to be fair its at times when you pretty much know you’re actively doing something which might cause it.

All up the R6 is still a wicked fun bike, would be a fantastic machine to step up to, and would clearly make a killer track-bike, but I’m not confident I could do without the midrange, and I’m really in the market for something that can also double as a commuter which it probably aint aimed at. Great bike, just still not for me.