GTVs and GT60s Coming to the States!

** Satisfy Your Daily Scooter Fix in Kansas City **

Evil, evil Piaggio! I'm like two weeks away from having Jes and I's vintage Vespas legal and operational, and not only is Piaggio releasing the MP3 in the States early next year, but they are also going to release the GTV here later this year, as well as sending 250, of the only 999 GT60s to be made, to our shores... Hmmm... Modern 250cc automatic Fenderlight Vespa, or cutting edge, best cornering and braking vehicle on the planet... The Dragon is all a flutter. This almost makes up for all those awesome hybrid and electric concept vehicles that never really materialize...

Other news you can find on the Vespa KC blog, yes the MP3 is coming to our shores, but it will called something different.

Vespa is announcing two new vintage styled scooters for 2007, the LXV 150 and the GTV 250. Based on the LX 150 and GTS 250 respectively, these scooters come in a vintage grey color with brown split seat and other vintage styling cues. These scooters will show up some time in late 2006 as 2007 model year units. MSRP of $5799 and $6799.There is also a very limited edition version of the GTV 250 called the GT 60 (honoring Vespa's 60th anniversary). Only 999 GT 60 scooters are being built, and only 250 of those are coming stateside. So if you want the ultimate in a modern era collectible Vespa, this is it. With only 250 coming (meaning about one per dealer), you might want to get your name on one now. By the time they show up at dealers, they will no doubt already be spoken for. It won't come cheap, but it comes with all sorts of great extras including:
Numbered limited edition number plate
Silver plate with customer's initials
Specail edition of the book "Vespa, Italian Style for the World"
Leather key fob
Leather document wallet
Satin vehicle cover
Original sketch of the Vespa GT 60

Highest eBay Bidder Wins ZAP Electric Car

Here's a link to the Ebay auction.

SANTA ROSA, CA--Oct 2, 2006 -- A Massachusetts man joined nearly 8 thousand other eBay users in a bidding war to win the only electric city car available for sale in the United States. ZAP (NYSE Arca: ZP) says Steve Palmer paid $10,800 dollars for its new XEBRA sedan, which plugs in to any household electrical socket, puts out 90 percent fewer emissions than the standard car and eliminates those expensive monthly gas bills.

What Would James Bond Ride?

Nice little ad for the Vespa GT. Maxi-scooter power, but it looks like a "proper" scooter.

Fudo Myoo and other Harbinger's of Change

Well, I've been promising to post this (or some example of my art) for a while now.
Sadly this painting was stolen from an exhibit in a restraunt. Fortunately, I had slides of it (it actually got accepted into the fairly prestigious regional Delta competition in Little Rock, AR, a little over ten years ago.)
I've covered the mythology of Fudo Myoo before, but here's a chunk from Wikipedia, for Westerners who might misinterpret him as evil or demonic:

Acala is typically depicted with a sword for subduing demons in his right hand and a rope for catching and binding them in his left hand. He has a fearsome blue visage and is surrounded by flames, representing the purification of the mind. He is often depicted seated or standing on a rock to show his immovability. His hair commonly has seven knots and is draped on his left side, a servant hairstyle in Buddhist iconography. He is frequently depicted with two protruding fangs. One tooth points down, representing his compassion to the world, and one tooth points up, representing his passion for truth.

To me, he represents many things, the calm eye of the storm, a warning against jumping to concluscions, as well as fierce and unrelenting compassion. And of course hope for growth and inspiration.

Speaking of growth, and inspiration, you should be seeing more changes in the Dragon in the coming weeks. More original art, for one, and hopefully some longer original writing. My restoration of a 1980 Vespa P200E is just about wrapping up, and I've been photo-documenting that process, so there should be a photo essay on that coming up soon.

I know I've been dropping hints, that my creative sap is starting run again, so while for the next few days I'll mostly be posting art from the Dragon's digital archives, I do think that soon, there will be some newer stuff here. There should also be some ruminations on art, craft, creativity and even commerce.

And of course, there will be scooters...

So stay tuned folks.

Why Don't They Just Start A Wikipedia For Scientific Papers?

I really like Techdirt, but don't link to it often.
But this article is really interesting for the postmodern way in which the responses seem to explore and illustrate the various points about breaking down the bottle-necks in the distribution of knowledge. Check it out, and be sure to at least skim the comments.
It really brings home how "information technology" is about more than processor speeds, bandwith, and server space.

There's been a long, ongoing debate in the academic world for a while concerning the changing nature of peer reviewed academic journals. It started a few years ago when a few new peer reviewed journals felt it made sense to put their content online for free. Traditionally, academic journals were extremely expensive (becoming big money makers for their owners), but there were questions about how this limited advancement of science, since not everyone could afford those journals. At the same time, there were questions about whether or not this limited progress, since many who might challenge or be inspired by certain research could never read about it. It looks like some online journals are now taking the concept of openness to a new level. Rather than just making the content free online, one online journal is taking out the peer review part -- and letting anyone act as the peers. Basically, it's a recognition that there are some problems with the traditional peer review system, where two or three anonymous reviewers (picked by the journal) have incredible power over whether or not a paper sent to them ever sees the light of day in a journal... The hope is to generate a lot more conversation and spur additional research early on, rather than waiting until it's gone through the longer, formal process.

Triumph Tessy

Wow, this is a gorgeous bike. This is the prettiest vintage scooter I've seen in ages. And some lucky so-and-so picked up off a Ebay for $475.
Poor bastard he'll never find parts... it'll just end up gathering dust in his garage... Oh, who am I kidding!? I'm so jealous!

Here are some stats on it.

The Truth on TV

Watch it. The simple, ugly truth.

Like the citizens of Argos in Sartre's The Flies, we have been wandering in sackcloth for five years, afraid to dissent or appear unpatriotic in a time of collective mourning. 9/11 was a decisive national moment. In the spirit of unity, we have allowed Bush & Co. to attempt to rewrite history. We did not want to dissent, to be thought of as discordant or lacking in unity or collective vision.

But enough is enough.

Once he gathered the courage to leave seclusion, and actually go to New York, after 9/11, Bush was a charismatic, if not eloquent speaker. He was the coach, who you want to make proud. He harnessed our despair, our shock, our mourning and anger and used them to create and drive a common vision. We allowed him to provide us with a unity of vision and common purpose, so that we could, through action, deal with our national rage and fear. We had been humbled as a nation, and our vision, our story about ourselves had been shattered. We thought Bush offered us a new vision, a chance to restore our pride, and a chance to make the world safer, not only for us, but for all of the world, who also mourned with us that horrible day in September.

Since that humbling blow did not strike them as deeply, our allies began to see through the self-serving nature and ultimately ineffectual negligence of Bush's vision, before us. We tried to laugh this off, as the fearful have always tried to laugh off criticism, by belittlement and bravado. But we are coming to see the truth of their critiques. We have not been regaining our stature in the world. We have been humiliating ourselves. We have disgraced the ideals of liberty and freedom, which we claim to be the inspiration for our deeds. We have made the world, not safer and more unified, but more deadly and divided than ever. We have gone from a nation who believed that "Right makes Might" to a nation that tells the world "Might makes Right." We have been living a lie.

That lie is the revision of history that Bush & Co. have sold us. It is time for us, as a nation, to reject that lie, whose falsehood grows more apparent daily. It is time, on this Yom Kippur 2006, this Day of Atonement, to atone for the lie. We must hold ourselves accountable for allowing ourselves to be lied to, just as we must hold those we allowed to decieve us accountable for their deception. We must find a way to repair the damage we have done to the world, and to ourselves. We must face up to lie maturely, and repentantly achieve a new vision, a new collective story. We must rewrite history, by removing the lie, which has closed our ears to the truth.

Listen to this man. Listen to (at least some of) the truth. It is time for us, as a people, to start being honest with ourselves. If we do not, that will truly be a national tragedy, and a humilating debasement of a once great people.