There are times I’m glad to come from a small family, the drama is similar but there’s just less of it.

And yeah, people do come around. I didn’t talk to my mum at all for 12 years, and it was a very slow restart, whereas now she refers to my enby partner as an essential part of the family, and loves when we come to visit.

There’s other relatives I cut out and don’t intend on reconnecting with, but at least it wasn’t all of them.

Well, that’s a … win?

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that they invite you because they think they can “straighten you out”, the garbage they believe is that all kids are straight and cis and it’s down to brainwashing by the deep state Jewish space lasers that anyone would think otherwise.

For your own sake, best to stay away.

Poor camparison, Superbike championship and the TT etc use the frame and engine (and quite a few other bits too). A stock bike in the right hands can get reasonably close to their lap times, and one with light mods (say, €1000 extra and a bit of elbow grease) can be halfway between the two.

That’s the one.

It’s all just horseshit, if you want a motorbike with character, get a classic one. Hell, even my '82 Montesa manages to be reliable, yet has character out the wazoo.

Learn how to do bicycle maintenance and find a good second hand bike that needs a little love.

I have a Giant hard tail that was €1200 new, but I got it used for about €100. Serviced the brakes, put on a new chain, cleaned/oiled/greased everything mechanical and it’s like a new bike.

Superbike championships use road bikes with a change of fairings and upgrades to things like exhaust, brakes, and suspension.

Hell, Isle Of Man TT lightweight class has used stuff like the ER6f as a base which is a budget commuter bike, lol

A halo model super sport is basically a street legal race bike.

Yeah, nah, Ducatis are like the carbon road bikes of the motorcycle world - all about dick waving. A little while back one of the larger YouTube channels took the latest Ducati to a track and put it up against a cheap 7 year old Suzuki, and the Suzuki was still faster … and if you buy a Japanese sport bike it’s not going to have the mechanical problems of a Ducati either.

Source: I have owned, ridden, repaired and raced a lot of motorbikes, including some fast-ish ones.

Yup, especially as a gay, sex scenes in movies have always been “I’m fine with straight people existing, but I don’t want them rubbing my face in it” at best … and it’s rarely at best, with all the chemistry of a jar of nitrogen.

Then he gets into his Audi (everyone else is driving Audis too), and then out of his Audi, then back in his Audi, and so on. Audi.

If I had to call you something, it would be “embarrassingly thoughtless to others”.

Oh I agree with that completely, only babies wet their knickers at the first sign of properly gendering others.

The poster above me here is absolutely right, she shouldn’t be forced to use the wrong pronouns. It might make her uncomfortable.

Wow, and I thought my car insurance of €170 was expensive this year!

Yeah, the firefighters here are well supplied, it’s amazing that places like Canada and Australia don’t have this sorted out already … and don’t get me started on the lack of upkeep of electricity infrastructure causing fires in the US!

It’s my density!

Brain fart, I was thinking of Easy Rider because it features the song Born to be Wild prominently!

Vanishing Point is pretty out-there, they cut a scene where the protagonist sleeps with an angel for example, but it does have a lot of metaphors in regards to freedom from oneself vs freedom from outside forces

Yes … but that was before I volunteered!

Wow, that’s a let down … I guess they were going for a contemporary look?

Yeah, I’m a volunteer firefighter in Catalonia, we only really do maintenance work or fill up gopher roles and damping down in the event of a serious fire … proper firefighting is in no way fun, people need to be paid for it (and you can’t just drag anyone in off the street to do it, lots of my fellow volunteers can’t hold a hose for long and would panic in an emergency … that’s not a criticism, it’s just how people are)