.| UrbanNerd |.

There is a blog that is picking up some steam, that I thought I’d share, if you haven’y already heard of it. I understand the man’s point completely.

Husband On Strike

NEW DELHI: Honda Motorcycles & Scooters India Pvt Ltd and Bajaj Auto Ltd led their rivals in sales growth in February as consumers in the world’s second-biggest market for two-wheeled vehicles bought more scooters.

Honda Motorcycles sold 45,935 scooters, 62% of the month’s total for all makers and 29% higher than in January, according to data published today by the New Delhi-based Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers.

The Activa, a 102 cc automatic Honda scooter, is helping revive sales of scooters in India where consumer preference had switched to bigger-wheeled motorcycles since the mid-1990s.

Sales of scooters rose 10% in February, while cumulative 11-month sales in the fiscal year to March 31, 2006, remained lower.

“The scooter is back in vogue and it is a big hit with college-goers,” said K K Mital, who manages the equivalent of $45 million, including shares of Bajaj and two other listed automobile companies, at Escorts Asset Management Ltd. “Bright colours and automatic transmission have changed the image of scooters.”

Source

Not pricey but definitely kicky, Lambretta watches take their inspiration from the mod stylings of the Lambretta scooter which was popular in the 1950s and 60s. They aren’t making the scooters anymore but the legend lives on in watches that have a quirky design sense derived from that era. Some models will be on display at the 2006 BaselWorld watch fair. The watches are generally in the $100-$200 range and have stainless steel cases and rubber or leather bracelets. The Target model shown here sells for $145.

Source

Yesterday Spike TV.com announced the upcoming fighters for Season 3 of the Ultimate Fighter TV Show. Going into the show, we knew that Ken Shamrock and Tito Ortiz would be the coaches on the show. Now we know who the fighters will be competiting in the Middleweight and Light Heavyweight Divisions. MMAWeekly.com gives you information of what you can expect on the upcoming show.

Ultimate Fighter Season 3 Middleweights

Ed Herman – Herman has got to be considered the most decorated fighter for Season 3 of the Ultimate Fighter. Herman, a Team Quest fighter, is 10-3 and has competed against top level competition. Herman defeated Dave Menne by TKO due to corner stoppage at the Extreme Challenge event last July. Herman also has wins against Brian Ebersole and Nick Thompson. Herman battled Joe Doerksen in a tough fight as Ed came up on the short end of the stick in three tough rounds. Herman has to be considered the favorite in the competition.

Mike Stine – Stine, a middleweight has very good stand up. Very explosive but very raw. Has only one fight under his belt and that was a win over Derek Johnson at the Ring of Combat promotion. We didn’t see much of him as the fight only lasted :21 seconds.

Kristian Rotharmel – Talk about a tough professional debut, you have to give Kristian Rotharmel alot of credit as he started his career going against some guy named Jeremy Horn. What ever happened to that Horn right? After losing his first two fights against Horn and Joe Slick in Extreme Challenge, Rotharmel then fired off four straight wins taking out Aaron Pendleton, Chad Cook, Jimmy Cleaver and Sam Adkins. Rotharmel has never gone to a decision in his four wins in six tries. Kristian has spent plenty of time fighting in the midwest.

Danny Abaddi – A relative unknown he is a young aggressive fighter making his debut on the Ultimate Fighter show.

Solomon Hutcherson – Hutcherson has won 6 of his first 8 professional fights. His only losses are to UFC veteran Jorge Rivera and Emyr Bussade earlier in his career. He’s a very well rounded fighter with very good submissions with solid stand up skills as well.

Kendal Groves – Groves has spent most of his fight career in Hawaii. He has fought in big organizations like Rumble on the Rock and King of the Cage. The biggest name Groves has fought was a loss to Joe Riggs at Rumble on the Rock. Groves is very tall as he’s close to 6’4 and uses his length for some great submissions. Groves has a 6-3 MMA record.

Rory Singer – Singer has fought some very tough guys, including Dennis Hallman, Daijiro Matsui and Dustin Denes. Unfortunately he lost to all three fighters. Singer won 8 of his first 13 fights and has very solid submissions as most of his wins have come via submissions.

Kalib Starnes – Starnes is an undefeated fighter who is a perfect 6-0 in his young career. He also has a win over a good veteran in Jason McDonald. The jury is still out on this young fighter but the bottom line is in his undefeated streak he has never been out of the first round and could be the dark horse going into Season 3.

Ultimate Fighter Season 3 Light Heavyweights

Matt Hammel – The most interesting thing about this young man is the fact that he was born deaf. That’s right Matt can’t hear his corner during fights. It will be very interesting to see how he progresses through the competition in the Light Heavyweight Division.

Ross Pointon – A very interesting choice by the TUF 3 producers. Pointon is a fighter who has just a 4-6 record. He is exciting and does bring it every fight. The biggest name he faced was Valentin Overeem as he lost to him in the fight.

Mike Nichols – Nichols has won three of his first four fights. Two of the three wins have come by submission

Jesse Forbes – Forbes had just one professional fight, which was a win. Forbes won his professional debut in the Rage in the Cage organization as he hook out Arturo Segovia by armbar in two rounds.

Noah Inhafer – Maybe the most interesting stat was that he lost to fellow Season 3 member Mike Nichols by rear nake choke prior to this season of the ultimate fighter. Inhafer does have a win against Kyle Olsen to even his record at 1-1.

Josh Haynes – Haynes has won 7 of his 11 professional fights. His losses have come at the hands of veterans Shonie Carter and Scary Jerry Vrbanovic among others. All seven of his wins have come by submission.

Tait Fletcher – A very interesting fighter who has a 3-1 record and his only loss was to Scott Smith (Smith will be fighting David Terrell in the UFC) in the WEC Light Heavyweight Tournament. Fletcher trains under Eddie Bravo and is a submission specialist.

Michael Bisping – Maybe the favorite to win this competitoin with a perfect 10-0 record. Bispring also has a win over fellow TUF 3 contestant Ross Pointon. Big question though, has he fought great competition? Questions should be answered soon enough.

UFC Website

New Delhi: Looking to add power to its scooter range, Kinetic Motors will introduce a 170-cc scooter in the Indian market from its Italian partner Italjet’s range which it hopes will sell 4,000-5,000 units a month.

“We will be launching a 170-cc scooter this month, which is likely to be priced at around Rs 50,000 to Rs 55,000,” Kinetic group chairman Arun Firodia told PTI here.

Source

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Stressed out during a long drive? Road hogs driving you up the wall? The Malaysian government is only too happy to help. The country’s first highway drive-in massage parlor opened Monday, with the aim of reducing accidents by easing tense muscles of stressed-out drivers. The parlors will be equipped with automatic massage chairs.

“I hope highway users will use this facility,” Works Minister S. Samy Vellu said. Samy opened the first massage center along the North-South Highway, and said the government was planning to open another center this year.

The North-South Highway is the country’s main highway, and stretches the length of Peninsular Malaysia.
Hundreds of thousands of Malaysians commute along a web of highways daily, but accidents – and deaths – typically rise during festive occasions when millions leave Kuala Lumpur and major cities during extended holidays.

DENVER – A makeshift mannequin that failed to fool police monitoring the high-occupancy vehicle lane on a highway has fetched $15,000 in an auction on eBay, with proceeds going to charity, the buyer announced.

A company called Video Professor bought the Styrofoam head, coat hanger, and clothing stuffed with newspapers from carpool-lane scofflaw Greg Pringle, 53, said Brian Olson, a spokesman for the company.
Olson said the computer tutoring company will take Tillie to various events and later auction her off again for charity in June.

As part of his sentence handed down earlier this month, Pringle agreed to donate any profits from a Web site – launched to free “Tillie” after she was impounded by police – and the auction to a driver safety awareness program.

“We’ve rescued Tillie from a life of crime and we hope to rehabilitate her so she can be a contributing dummy to our society,” Olson said Thursday, The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News reported.

Pringle also was fined $115 and ordered to hold a sign alongside the highway for four hours reading: “HOV lane not for dummies.” He was pulled over and ticketed Jan. 26 for driving in the lane reserved for car pools, motorcycles, buses, and hybrid vehicles.
Pringle has said it cost him $10 to create Tillie.

IF IT WAS THAT EASY!

NEW DELHI – Village elders ordered a Muslim man in eastern India to leave his wife after he accidentally divorced her in his sleep, a news report said Tuesday.

Aftab Ansari uttered the Urdu word for divorce, “talaq,” three times in his sleep, prompting his worried wife to discuss the matter with her friends, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.

Under Islamic law, a husband need only say “I divorce you” three times to secure a permanent end to his marriage.

Muslim leaders in the couple’s village in West Bengal state found out and decreed that Ansari’s unconscious utterances constituted a divorce, PTI reported. But 30-year-old Ansari said he had no intention of leaving his wife of 11 years. “I have not given talaq. When I uttered talaq three times I had taken medicines to help me sleep,” he was quoted as saying in the report.

The religious leaders said that before remarrying, the couple would have to be apart for at least 100 days and that the wife, Sohela, would also have to spend a night with another man and then be divorced by him.
PTI reported that the couple has been ostracized because of their refusal to abide by the decision of the village leaders.

Gomoto motorcycles are made in China but the badge is unique to South Africa. Previous models, the GT125 Freedom and GTR125 Sprint, were based on the Honda CG125 and seem to share its legendary durability.

Now the range has been expanded to include two scooters that differ only in engine size, the Mantis 125 and 150 – with mixed results. Motoring.co.za was offered the larger of the two to try, which may have been a veiled reference to my 106kg bulk.

Read the full review here

In his book and collection One Last Little Peek, Berkeley Breathed describes how he won over one of his earliest and most unlikely fans, the then-U.S. Secretary of Defense. In a strip Breathed drew in March of 1983, Opus and Milo Bloom are sitting on grassy hill, and Opus begins to recite some poetry:

How I love to watch the morn with golden sun that shines, up above to nicely warm these frosty toes of mine

The wind doth taste of bittersweet,
Like jasper wine and sugar.
I bet it’s blown through others’ feet,
like those of…

(Struggles to think of a rhyme…)

Caspar Weinberger.

At which point Milo, who was enjoying the verse, shouts, “Start over!”

The strip elicited the following response on official stationery from the Department of Defense:

Dear Mr. Breathed,

Many a morn I’ve longed to see
A comic strip be kind to me.
On 30 March, before my eyes
A penguin watched a warm sunrise.
In this land of so much bouty
Could I have that great Bloom County?

Sincerely,

Caspar Weinberger.

Rest in peace Caspar Weinberger