Blue’s WordPress Blog

So this is running at Ally Pally from 29th January to 6th February and I’ll be going on Saturday, 5th February with Michael the Bandit owner.

There’s more about it here.

On my shopping list are the following goodies for Blue Rex:

First up is a Respro SLICK Racing Wet Weather Suit

From their web site:

Use the SLICK? Race suit for the following:
Increase Thermal Protection on perforated suits
Reduces weight gain by keeping Leathers from soaking up water
Improved Aero Dynamics at High speed
To go with your High Heeled PVC boots

I like companies with a sense of humour. I’ll not be having the Ducati branding; instead I hope to get some vinyl lettering made up locally, if I can find anywhere.

Secondly, I’m after some new leathers. I’ve seen this suit at Cissbury Leathers for £200 so it’s got to be worth a punt:

They’re an Arlen Ness 1254 two piece racing suit (with no ridiculous Quasimodo hump).

I might also treat myself to a nice new Arai like I posted before on my LJ: my current one is a three year old Arai Quantum F helmet which should really be replaced, but I’m torn between the Schwantz replica like the one I used to have and the Cathcart replica which I’ve always liked.

And that little lot should do it!

In case you missed the news of its sale, LiveJournal has been sold to Six Apart (who are the company responsible for Movable Type - their weblogging product - and TypePad - their service).

There’s much in Brad’s post about how nothing is going to change, but then we’ve all heard that before with the sale (and subsequent resales) of CiX. CiX is now a system I hardly ever use as it’s now a shadow of its former self.

I really hope LiveJournal doesn’t wither and die on the vine in the same way. Yesterday I set up my own Blogger Blog with spooky foresight: I just hope I don’t have to rely on it instead.

For me, the benefit of LiveJournal is that it’s not about publishing my thoughts and deeds to the world and his brother - although I do do that, of course - it’s about my Friends list and the interaction I have with them, both online and In Real Life. That cannot easily be replicated.

Similarly, one of the best features of LiveJournal over my own Blogger Blog and indeed Captain Blue’s MSN Blog of d00m! (or even captainbluemsn) is the ability to choose who has access to my ramblings on a per post basis rather than a global one.

I really hope LiveJournal remains the same.

One intial bad sign is that from now on anyone can have a LiveJournal account rather than just over 13 year-olds. I expect we’ll see lots of “OMG!1!1!!!1111″ comments to our journals in due course…

Just a thought: now I’ve syndicated this Blog on LiveJournal, it’ll show up on the Friends page of anyone who adds it as a feed - 6 people already, it says ‘ere.

The only thing is, LiveJournal adds a comment feature that only comments in the syndication account, i.e. any comment made does not show up in this Blog, so I’ll never know.

Feel free to comment here instead.

Regular readers {snigger} may have noticed that I’ve now included some clickable ads. provided by Google’s AdSense programme.

Basically this generates a tiny bit of revenue for every click-through and helps fund (if only marginally) my web site.

Bit of a bugger this one: at Snetterton last September I noticed that there was some coolant dripping onto the floor of the pit garage we were using.

I shrugged it off as being nothing more than some mild overheating due to my caning Blue Rex (the name I’ve given to my Kawasaki ZRX1200R) around the track.

But the leak just seemed to get worse so that after every outing, the underside of the engine would be covered in green stains.

I eventually tracked it down to the return coolant hose (the one with the drain plug) under the engine and specifically where it is fixed to the back of the water pump housing: it looks like the O ring has given up the ghost.

Still, I’ve ordered it (plus a spare) from Seastar Superbikes, so we’ll see if that cures it. They’ve said it should be here by the weekend.