I was on my way to work recently and saw a skinny bloke skating down the road. He was doing that graceful gliding thing like he was floating one something light and smooth.
He was also wearing the type of outfit I normally associate with artifarts. That is, a cardigan, a fedora and very skinny jeans.
of the next week...
Well, here is something I did in my holidays anyway. Other than getting a tummy bug which made for a quiet New Year's Eve, I finally sorted out the OS on my mac. Panther is a much happier experience than Jaguar. Shinier and it runs a proper range of software. Including DOSBox. :)
If you can run DOSBox, you can run old DOS software (I think I've mentioned this before). So I've found a copy of Ultima 4 - Quest of the Avatar, and I've been plugging away at it. It's been at least 20 years since I played this game, so I've forgotten a decent amount of it. This provides the benefit of making talking to the NPCs actually fun. I've also lost all my notes, so I'm having to work out how things work again, based on the information in the game. Not exactly scintillating, but pretty satisfying.
Well, in amongst all the other things which have been getting in the way of me blogging at a reasonable rate, I bought a scooter. Not one of the little silver things you push along with your feet, but a middling sized thing with an engine. It's Taiwanese and what little faring it has is red. It is not cool. But I love it. Much more than I thought I would.
So far I'd recommend scooter travel to pretty much everyone. Obviously anyone with large, unwieldy or really heavy stuff to cart around isn't going to find it suitable. I'd say it wouldn't suit anyone who needs to look tidy when they get somewhere, but, frankly, this is Wellington, and any look you're going for is pretty much ruined by the first passing breeze anyway. (Though I'll admit my helmet hair is a sartorial trial.)
It provides a really good way of resetting my mind after work, and waking me up before it. Something about having to use my body as part of getting somewhere, and smelling the real smells of what I'm passing. It's more connected with the things around it than driving in a car. And (possibly cause you're not spending money on a tonne of metal so you get more bang for your buck), the ride is very comfortable. I think I'd have to spend a fair pile to get as smooth and balanced handling in a car.
Lastly (and I accept this is boringly didactic), scooters are much, much easier on the environment. They are dirtier than cars, but use less petrol (which I think is probably an even) but they take up substantially less space. In terms of getting people from one place to another they fit in with the existing roads to an almost reasonable degree. I hope many, many more people start to use them. (Though I must note sadly that ACC are paying out more in road accident claims due to increased scooter use, I hope that is due to cheapskates not purchasing decent riding kit rather than the extra messy due to accidents on two wheeled vehicles, but I doubt it.)