 |
| R, 1 hr. & 40 min |
I went to see this on Tuesday, April 12th, 2016, in Napa, at the CENTURY NAPA VALLEY AND X-D, for the 8:00 p.m. show in auditorium 6, 4th row from the front, 6th column from the left. The price of admission was $6.50 ( All-Day Bargain Tuesday ). And I bought a Nachos w/ Cheese for $5.40 and a small Lemonade--they don't have Powerade Mountain Berry Blast--for $0.00 ( free on my movie watcher e-mail reward coupon ).
Quickie Review: This movie is about how one man's eccentric way of coping with the untimely loss of his wife affects those around him.
I don't know how the audience reacted to this. Although it did have some funny moments. This is not my kind of movie. You may want to wait to rent this.
************************************************
 |
| R, 1 hr & 42 min |
I went to see this movie at 10:15 p.m., immediately after I saw, DEMOLITION. I bought a Lite Bites for $6.80 at the concessions counter.
Quickie Review: This movie deals with the moral issues and legal ramifications of executing a preemptive strike on known terrorists.
You know what I think? If you betray your country, join a terrorist group, and kill many innocent people, you are deserving of the death sentence--and to Hell with "political correctness"!
The audience liked it. I liked it, too. Go see this if you're into Suspense/Thriller type of movies.
I never knew how watching a few loaves of bread could get so suspenseful! What's next, watching paint peel off a wall?
For these two movies, I purposely parked my car at the far end of the parking lot. That way, I would be forced to jog to my car after watching the last movie. I mean, you surely don't want to take your time walking across a dark and lonely parking lot in the middle of the night. Well, do you? But, seriously, I did it so that I could get a little bit of jogging exercise thrown-in.
On my way home, I stopped by the Wal-Mart Super Center in American Canyon, to buy a pair of casual shoes And A Folding Knife w/ Belt Clip. The knife was just for $1.97 before tax. I'm glad that I didn't buy a knife in Chinatown last week!
I also went to the Bicycle Department to browse around. I saw a helmet that I really liked. But I decided to hold-off on buying it.
************************************************
 |
| G, 3 hr? |
I went to see this movie on Wednesday, April 13th, 2016, in Napa, at the CENTURY NAPA VALLEY AND X-D, in auditorium 10, 2nd row from the front, 6th column from the left.
Quickie Review: A group of strangers try to rescue a dying man. Before the man kicks the bucket--literally!--he tells the group about a hidden stash of cash kept under a "big w" somewhere in a town park. Greed takes over and it soon becomes a winner-take-all mad, mad, mad, mad race to try and get to the cash ahead of the rest.
The audience liked this movie. Some even gave it a "Hands Clapper" ending. I liked it, too. Go see this movie.
There are Bonus Scenes during the Ending Credits.
The first time that I saw this 1963 movie classic was probably around 1966 or so; I could only remember the Fire Ladder scene. A few years later, it was shown on TV; the scene with the Three Stooges stuck out the most.
I liked the entrepreneur's wife, the female officer and the bikini dancer. 'Sorry ....
I googled Santa Rosita Park and learned that it was built specifically for this movie. It was demolished two years ago, sad to say.
As with last night, I parked at the far end so that I could jog back to my car.
I went back to Wal-Mart because I held-off long enough!
I decided to buy the Zefal Reflectorized Bicycle Helmet after all. The selling point for me are the 3 red reflectors in the back. This helmet is rated for bicycle use only, but it won't be the first time in my life that I've used such a helmet while riding on a scooter!
 |
| I found this on the Internet. |
Besides, a bicycle can go really fast down a hill, probably faster than my scooter can! So, if it's rated for a bicycle, it should be okay to use on a scooter that goes slower downhill. And I just like the looks of this helmet--if you see it in person and look at it from the side, it kinda looks like the Star Wars' Storm Trooper's helmet. It will look great on me once I start riding on my scooter again.
In 1984, I bought a blue semi-automatic Honda Passport 70cc scooter. A few months later, after it had stopped raining, I had an accident on it which made me slide on the road face-down. 'Good thing I had a full-face helmet on! Or my "handsomeness" would have been compromised---Ahem!
 |
| I found this on the Internet. |
When I took it to the Oakland Honda Motorcycle dealership for inspection, I noticed a new scooter for sale which came in red and in blue, and which had two back wheels. I was immediately taken by it and decided to trade my 70cc Passport for a red 2-stroke 1984 Honda Gyro NN50MD 50cc. What I lost in cc's, I more than gained back in "cuteness overload". Sweet ....
The "Gyro" name is actually an acronym for "Great Your Recreation Original"! Something obviously got lost in the translation. But it sounds better than, "Ygor," which sounds like a hunchbacked horror movie character's name. If you're very tall and you ride on this scooter, you just might look like a hunchback after all. Ha, ha, ha.
Here's a little bit of 1984 Honda Gyro trivia for you: An ad poster for a red Gyro featured Janet Jackson with it.
 |
| I found this on the Internet. I still have to spiff-up my scooter. Mine is exactly the same as this one except that mine came with a rear cargo box. I want to replace the OEM cargo box because its hinges were all molded plastic and now they're of no use. I'll replace it with a cheap one sold on e-Bay for less than 20 bucks. |
After a few months of riding my Gyro, I--once again--got into an accident! I rear-ended a car which stopped on a yellow light. I guess the driver didn't know that a yellow traffic light means Floor The Gas Pedal, dammit! It, too, happened right after it had rained--my scooter's brakes were probably still wet from the rain. The front basket was messed-up. But it could have been worse had I not made it a habit of putting a Kryptonite Lock across the basket. I paid the guy $300.oo for the damage done to his rear bumper. I got a replacement basket for my scooter.
I let a girl, whom I was dating in college at the time, borrow my scooter so that she could save up enough money faster for a car. She ended-up rear-ending somebody in a Volvo Station Wagon, of all cars. The car's rear bumper was not even damaged! But the replacement front basket was damaged. I didn't have the basket replaced this second time around. The damage to the basket could've been worse had she not put the Kryptonite Lock across the basket. She also somehow damaged the engine cover--I really don't know how she did it---My best guess it that she rode off a curbside and the rear corner of the engine cover got dragged against the curb. She and I are not in contact anymore.
I'm gonna have to remove the front basket someday, hammer-out the dents, take it to an auto body shop to get sandblasted clean of rust, then give it a nice thick coating of white liquid rubber. Also, I will need to fix the small access plate's attachment to the underside of the right-side handlebar cover using some liquid weld.
The 1984 Honda Passport 70cc also came with an optional front basket. But the Passport basket is two inches shorter than the Gyro front basket, although the width and depth are identical. I thought about using the Passport's front basket to replace my Gyro's basket until I compared the dimensions between the two of them. Not only that, but the Passport basket's attachments are at the bottom. Whereas, the Gyro basket's attachments are in the back--too much extra work to adapt the Passport's basket to my Gyro.
By the way, the Honda Passport/Cub/Super Cub, is still being mass produced to this day. It's a Guinness Book Record Holder for the most vehicles sold. It is being sold these days as a rebadged scooter, the Sym Symba 100cc, and some non-Honda authorized cheap Chinese knock-offs. The Taiwanese Sym company actually produced the Honda Passport/Cub/Super Cub at some time for Honda. I wish I had kept mine because that thing could climb up a hill with ease!
The last time that I rode my Gyro was in September of 1996. Yep, it's practically been 20 years since I last rode it. I stopped riding it because, unlike when my family used to live in East Oakland where there were lots of flat roads for me to go scooting on, there are just too many damn hills here in Vallejo--it actually would be faster for me to walk up a very steep hill than to ride my scooter up the hill!
There's a Honda Motorcycle Dealership here in Vallejo, and it had done maintenance services on my Gyro before. I'm waiting for a response from Scootling, a scooter shop in New Zealand, to see if their Italian-made 70cc Gyro engine upgrade will be compatible with mine. If their 70cc engine isn't compatible with mine, I'll have the local dealership put a performance exhaust on my scooter and, maybe, de-restrict the engine ( if that's possible ) to give it more horsepower, higher top speed and hill-climbing ability. I'm also gonna order a universal windshield for it in Florida. And I'm gonna buy a replacement brake lever for it because the one on it right now has cracked due to "old age". The brake lever is sold in the UK. The UK shop could possibly also locate for me an engine cover and the wheel center caps that I need to really spiff-up my Gyro to near-original specs!
I don't know why I didn't get an original windshield for it when I had the chance. And I don't know why I didn't get a replacement engine cover for it when I still had the chance to do so. If I can't fix the cracked engine cover, I'll try and fabricate a fiberglass replacement for it.
My Gyro could only go 33 mph on level ground on a warm day. It could go 37 mph downhill, tops. Such mph are very slow, based on today's standards.
In the '70s, a British scooter company came out with the Ariel 3, the Gyro's precursor. And, just like its successor, both 3-wheelers were not popular with scooterists because of their anemic 50cc engines and their low top speeds which were near-identical.
But the Gyro is still being produced--I think--for the Japanese market. And there are places in the world where Gyros are raced against each other. I hope that the 70cc upgrade will fit mine.
My particular Gyro was only produced in small numbers for 1984. The 1985 and 1986 models are completely different in design. The Honda Gyro only had a 3-year run in the United States. So, the 1984 Gyro is considered a rare classic and would fetch a handsome price from an appreciative collector if it's in excellent condition and it has low mileage on it. My scooter only has a little over a thousand miles on the odometer! But I don't know if I'll part with mine. Although I must say that I live in a not-so-good part of town and my Gyro might just end-up being targeted by would-be thieves, like my 1994 Geo Metro was.
*
No comments:
Post a Comment