Well it’s official. The 08 Kawasaki Ninja 250r will go on sale in November. The Yamaha dealership we deal with here just took over Kawasaki as well, so I spoke to a couple of our friends who work there.

Neither of them would give me a definite day as to when they’ll stick the first Ninja 250r in the showroom, but both assured me I could get one in November, and they were of course more than willing to put one on pre-order for me. I don’t want to go that far, but I know I”ll definitely be getting on now that I know the price is definitely within my budget. MSRP is $3499, and I like the color choices as well.

I refuse to buy one that’s Kawasaki green, and I’m not too enthusiastic about the red one either, but I love the Ebony and Candy Plasma Blue options. I’ll probably stick with the Ebony because I just have a soft spot for black bikes. Our 600r is black, and I wouldn’t change it for the world. I will definitely be adding some Tapeworks graphics though to make it my own.

With a dry weight of 333lbs and a seat height of 30.7″ this one is definitely going to be more my size. It’s got the Bottom-Link Uni-Trak® rear suspension with 5 way adjustable preload, so I shouldn’t have to worry about lowering it at all. I’m interested in seeing what kind of after market parts are going to be available for this little thing.

Yes, Tennessee cops are harassing people again, and it’s just not right. Recently a doctor was their latest target. She was on her way from Knoxville driving down US 129 aka Deal’s Gap. She’s made the trip hundreds of times over 3 decades with no problems until now. Here’s a bit of the story from Tail Of The Dragon.

clipped from tailofthedragon.com

A few weeks ago she had just begun the climb into the stretch of road known as the Dragon when she noticed blue lights in her rear view mirror. She glanced at her speed and noted it was just under 40 mph. Thinking that the emergency vehicle was responding to a wreck on the mountain she began looking for a place to pull off the road to allow the vehicle to pass. Not seeing an immediate pull-off she accelerated so as to find a pull-off as soon as possible.

When she finally pulled into a safe place she was startled to see the Tennessee Highway Patrol car pull in behind her. Trooper Baily cited her for doing 46 in a 30 mph zone. He would not listen to the fact that he caused her to speed-up or that she was returning to Robbinsville to answer 6 medical calls from the local nursing home.

Trooper Baily was mechanical and stated the speed of 46 was a more serious violation by 1 mph. He would not even reduce the infraction 1 mph because of the circumstances.

Unfortunately this isn’t the first time I’ve heard of something like this happening. THP often harasses drivers around Deal’s Gap, especially motorcyclists, and it’s got to stop.

Have you ever needed to design a print publication with more of a newsletter or newspaper layout style? Did you discover that word processing programs like Word, Open Office, or Wordperfect don’t really give you all the tools you need to do something like this while making it look good?

Check out Scribus. It’s a free desktop publishing and page layout program that will give you the results you’re looking for with toolsjust like most of the expensive programs that could cost you up to $1,000.

Because page design isn’t something that’s always easy to just jump into and do, Scribus also has a huge community full of support to help you learn the basics and more. The program is easy to use once you get the hang of it. I use it to create our quarterly newsletters for our local bike group.

Scribus works on Windows and Macs, but it’s also great for those of us who prefer Linux and Unix!

I finally convinced DH to try out Project Gotham Racing 4 now that we’ve got an Xbox 360. There are a few good points and bad points about this game. First of all I like the fact that this game has both cars and motorcycles. In the past with the Playstation 2 we’ve had to purchase multiple games to cover this. We’ve got Tourist Trophy for bikes and Gran Turismo (every edition) for the cars. Project Gotham sort of combines both games into one which is a lot more fun. Personally I like going out there and busting a car’s ass on a bike. We both enjoy playing the MotoGP series, but there’s a lot of things that MotoGP lacks. There’s also the weather aspect that ads an even better racing experience.

Project Gotham ads an entertainment aspect to the races through different body acts of the rider. I like how you can see the rider looking back at the cars behind him. He’ll even flip a bird if one of the cars tries to run him off the track. I loved seeing the rider take his hand off the grip to “shake it out” about half way through a long race.

What I don’t like about Project Gotham is the inability to create custom designs of your own cars and bikes. You’re stuck with very limited color schemes, and I think that’s a part of the game that could definitely be improved upon.

I’ve decided to start a “Cool Site of the Day” segment.  It might not always get posted everyday, but I’ll try to post a new cool site as much as possible.  Think of this as the first edition.

We all know what HD TV is by now, but have you heard about HD Radio?  You may have heard an advertisement for it, and you might have heard that some new cars are going to have it built in, but do you know what it is?  HD Radio doesn’t stand for high definition radio.  Actually HD Radio is the brand name, but the service is still digital, and the sound quality is superior to normal analog radio.

Today’s Cool Site is a “helper” for those of us interested in purchasing HD Radio.  iBiquity lists digital radio stations from all over the country so you can see what’s offered in your area before you make that big purchase towards your HD Radio system.