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A haiku dedicated to my new ride.

silent grabber
aching right leg
kickstart trouble.

I hope future ones are a tad bit happier.

After a long internet search and pussyfooting I got myself a bullet today. My last bike was a second hand splendor, and was a lemon so to say. God save its soul, as it never gave me trouble, still I had to refill its engine oil every month. Coz its piston was nearly gone. And bullet was always like a dream vehicle for me from childhood. And the image it has with popular perception that only men with big “personality” can drive one. The thing which goes with me is its basic design, a design which can be explained in under 200 words. Also the traveller that I am could expand my wings with this. So I decided to buy a bullet. Now the first obvious choice after a second hand splendor was a new bullet. Who wanted lemons when you could have company warranty. Online research showed that bullet has more variables than that.

The models which were made in England, between 1960-70s had a heavy crank in the engine, which to a layman would mean that the engine was more flexible and could be ripped to high speeds. By flexibility, I mean that a bullet with a heavy crank can be driven in the fourth gear at very low speeds. And some of these bullets were expensive. A visit to Karol Bagh, to a shop called “Gurdial Auto Engineers”, gave me an entire different perspective. Most of its clients are embassy people (firangs), who get a second hand nearly junk (khatara) 1960s bike and restore it. After restoration some would even cost more than a lakh. Close to a new bullet.

So I decided against popular wisdom that a newbie should go for a electric start new bullet, and went for a second hand 1990 machismo. The point being, that once I am inside the bullet world (which is very close to a clique, considering many bullet owners considering all other vehicles pansy/sissy), I would be at a better position to decide. Riding it since morning, with the occasional stuck at a signal trying to kickstart, overall its been smooth. And to every guy who thinks that a bullet needs a heavy built “personality”, may rest assured that it needs none. For bullet I can say other vehicles are ridden, while bullet rides itself.

More bullet posts ahead :D.

saw this pic of a bridge made of tree roots.
and also heard the term bioengineering in context of real world engineering. does anybody have any other examples?

via bindu

Do you think big corporate websites should have a sense of humour? whatever you think some of them do. If you type “chuck norris find” and press “I’m feeling lucky” you would see what I mean.

Earlier I had written about Flickr’s use of pop culture lingo here.

via mayank

updated on 5th may ‘08 —-

on swamy’s comment i checked again and found this text at the bottom of the page

This page has no affiliation with Google
Created by Arran Schlosberg

and the “Support this site” leads to a page which says this

The goal of this site is to have the top Google ranking with the keywords “Chuck Norris” so that when these are searched for using the “I’m feeling lucky” function this page will appear.

So swamy you were right :).

via ranchu