Beowulf 3D

After doing some Christmas shopping in Milton Keynes yesterday I went to see Beowulf in 3D.

The effect was pretty good although not without fault. I did find it distracting for the first 20 minutes when there were a lot of sequences which were really only there to show off the 3d effects. After the first 20 minutes either the heavy 3d scenes were less prominent or I started ignoring them a bit more and started in enjoying the film.

The glasses weren't uncomfortable and the colours on the screen weren't affected by wearing them, the only fault I could see with the 3d effect was on bright objects at the front and side of the screen which had a ghost effect pointing towards the center of the screen.

Honda Heated Grips

I've just heard back from the garage about my bike, the reason the heated grips aren't working is because the left grip has failed - again. I had these official Honda grips installed by a bike garage last November because the grips which had been on the bike when I brought it a year before that stopped working when the left grip failed in exactly the same way.

Honda are suppose to have a reputation for relibility but I'm really doubting that with these grips. How can 2 seperate sets of grips fail within a 13 months of each other with the same fault?

OK, so I'm not the average bike ride, average bike does 2000 miles per year and I'm doing 25000 miles per year, but I don't leave the grips on for all that time so it's not like the grips have been running for tens times as long as a normal biker because for most of the year the grips are turned on. I suppose it could be because I ride the bike at least twice every day, including during winter so maybe it's not the running time of the heated grips but the number of times it heats up and cools down but I still think that something with 1 moving part (the varible resister used to control the temperate) should be able to last more than a 13 months.

I must admit, I don't actually like the heated grips that much in terms of asthetics, and thats coming from someone who rides what it possibly the uglest honda bike in the range; and I don't really like the control, in theory it's nice having infinate range of temperatures but in practice that just makes it really difficult to set the temperature at the right level and I have felt that a simple switch of off/low/medium/high would be much better.

Since I can't trust the reliability of the Honda Heated Grips, buying another replacement just seems like throwing good money after bad, so I've decided to not get the grips heated, and when I have the time I will be removing all the cabling, the controller, the grips and replacing with the standard equipment. Instead, I'm going to try some more passive heating options, starting with thermal glove lines to see if they can keep my fingers from freezing.

Bloody Honda, a waste of money

Brrrr

It's been a bit chilly recently, made significantly worse by the fact that my heated grips have stopped working again. grrr. I only had those grips fitted last year, unfortunately they are just outside of it's warrenty.

I did think about booking the bike back into the shop which fitted it, but I'm so fed up with stuff they do having little niggling problems afterwards that I've decided to book it into a garage in cambridge and see if they can find the fault. It's probably just a short circuit somewhere but without a multimeter I don't stand a chance of finding it.

While looking for the fuse for the Heated Grips, I noticed that the exhaust has a small hole in it so I've brought some putty and I'm going to try fixing that at lunch time.

Chips away

Tonight was the last night of the sculpture class. For the last 2 classes i have been carving a number plate for my house. I couldn't finish it but you can see what i was aiming for.