Motorcycle gear and accessories are a funny thing. What might be inexpensive in the automotive or boating world is much more expensive when the label “motorcycle” is applied to the same product. This happens a lot with things like waterproof switches, fuse blocks, and auxiliary lights.

Now, motorcycle auxiliary lights come in one of two flavors: “marker” or “running” lights that are used to help other people see the motorcyclist, and lights that are used to help the motorcyclist see better at night.

There are many lighting products for motorcycles. Supposedly, these cost more money than their automotive counterparts because they are smaller and are made of tough-sounding materials in order to survive the harshness of the open road.

For example, Hyper-Whites are a popular, LED “marker” style lighting system. The LEDs are in a waterproof housing, and the kit comes with a waterproof switch. It will run you about $120.00.

Or, you can just buy some cheap-ass LEDs off of eBay for $5 each and a $2 switch from RadioShack and see if they do the trick.
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Here’s a nice problem to have: too many high-definition doo-dads and not enough high-definition ports on your television. That’s the situation I was facing on both of my televisions. I have FiOS TV, an Xbox 360 and an HTPC on both sets. I have two HDMI ports on my upstairs TV, and my downstairs television only has a single DVI port.

I picked up an IOGear 3-Port HDMI switch from Amazon last week for about $25. There are cheaper, no-name switches out there from sellers I’ve never heard of, but I was new to HDMI switches. I wanted to be able to return it easily if there was something flaky about the technology.
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I recently built two “bug-out” bags (BoB), and did some of my shopping at Wal-Mart. I had plenty of supplies here at the house, but I needed a few odds and ends. I happened to see a three-pack of dry sacks by Outdoor Products. They might come in handy, especially for things I really really didn’t want to get wet.

At $9.99 I was skeptical that the bags could keep anything dry in crappy conditions, but I figured at least it would make a good Gibberish entry. I put the trio of bags in my cart and started thinking about how to test the dry sacks.
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I had to say goodbye to an old friend last week — my old G-Shock GW500A-1V Tough Solar Wave Ceptor atomic watch by Casio. I’d worn it every day for over four years. It went with me swimming, survived my personal training with Yoda, endured Tony Horton and his myriad at-home-workouts, shrugged off being struck repeatedly by solid iron kettlebells, and even a trip to the woods of Virginia for some shotgun training.

However, all good things must come to an end. The internal battery, although recharged by the solar array on the face of the watch, eventually failed to hold a charge for more than three days at a time. I opened the watch to try to replace the battery, but did some, er, irreparable damage to the thin metal cage around the battery. Oh yeah, I also managed to dislodge the rubber waterproof gasket and lose it, probably to be ingested by my youngest dog Pearl.

So I was on the market for a replacement, but didn’t want the same watch. I wanted some of the same features, like the solar charging and atomic time keeping. I also wanted a countdown timer again, something I had on my crufty old Ironman watch but the G-Shock lacked. Although I eventually got used to the G-Shock’s humongous size, I wouldn’t mind having something smaller than a wall clock on my wrist. I turned to Casio to see what they had to offer, and what I could get for less than my old WVM120J.
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We love board games at the Den o’ Gibberish. I prefer to play games that are partly competitive, partly co-operative. If a game isn’t truly co-operative, I like games that allow for “isolated group” play, wherein every person in the game can still do something, no matter how far ahead or behind they are. Games like Settlers of Catan, Dominion, and Carcassonne get a lot of play. Recently we’ve been playing a lot of Power Grid by Rio Grande Games. Power Grid is a nice blend of city building, auctioning, resource management, and tactics. It can be played by a wide range of ages and a wide range of player skill, all at the same time.
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I like getting the most bang for my buck — and as such really like my 1911 handguns from Rock Island Armory. I own both the 5″ barreled Government model (my review), and the 3.5″ barreled Officer’s model (my review). I like the Officer’s model so much that it replaced my trusty Glock 27 as my routine concealed carry piece.

It’s been a little over ten months since I bought the Government model, and I bought the Officer’s model seven months ago. While not a long term test by any means, I thought you’d like to know how the Rock Islands have been holding up.
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Torchlight by Runic Games is an isometric game for the PC that keeps in the tradition of Diablo, Diablo II, and Titan Quest, among others. The premise is simple: control your character as they fight their way down a very deep dungeon below a besieged town. When most video games are trying to cram in as much stuff as possible, Torchlight keeps things simple. And unlike those epic games, Torchlight won’t break the bank at $20USD.

Torchlight is a fun, one-dimensional game that happens to fit right into my gaming style right now, and I highly recommend it. Here’s why.
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Personally, I like sugar-fortified, processed, ever-smooth peanut butter like Jif. However, other folks like natural peanut butter, supposedly because it tastes better and is better for you. What’s the fun in that? The downside to natural peanut butter is that it separates over time. You need to stir it up, especially after you open the jar for the first time.

People use butter knives, spoons, spatulas, and all manner of improvised contraptions to do this, but none of these are optimal. Such crude solutions are messy; they get peanut butter all over the jar, the counter, and yourself.

Enter the Witmer Company peanut butter mixer. It is a novel and clean solution to stirring natural peanut butter.
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Sometimes I take photos while motorcycling. Even though I only take pictures on smooth, flat roads, I am not afraid to ditch my Canon PowerShot SD700IS if I need to. As such, I sought out a device to tether the camera in case I had to drop it suddenly.

This turned out to be a little more complicated than I originally thought. You don’t want a typical lanyard made out of paracord or similar; if you drop it, the camera might smash into the bike or fall into a wheel. Folks over at ADVrider.com took to buying retractable lanyards built for cameras. These are basically janitor’s keyring on steroids. On the advice of several members of the Gear forum, I bought the Gear Keeper RT20012. Unfortunately, it sucked, and wasn’t able to keep my SD700IS from dropping dangerously low to the ground. Even though the digital point and shoot camera is lightweight, the RT20012 wasn’t up to the task.

A few months later I started looking at the Nikon 8172, which is made for their heavyweight range finder. There was a big problem with the specs on Amazon.com: it didn’t list how heavy an object the 8172 could retract. The “breaking” strength was the same as the RT20012: sixty pounds. However, the Nikon 8172 had a reputation for being heavy duty. One Amazon reviewer said he kept 53 keys on it and it retracted day in and day out with no problems. I forked over my $18 and gave it a shot.

The Nikon 8172 rangefinder tether is so good it’s almost too good for my use.
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Mounting a GPS to your car is usually straightforward: you either suction cup it to the dashboard or windshield, or perhaps clip it to an air vent, or even a custom mount like this one I use for my old Garmin i5.

On a motorcycle, things are a bit different. Real estate is at a premium, and you don’t want your accessories getting in the way of your instrument cluster. Furthermore, if you’re one to put a GPS on your motorcycle in the first place you probably want some other shit on there too. Next thing you know, you’ll have a radar detector (where legal, of course), CB radio, satellite radio receiver, and a chain gun. Some fellows have taken to building dashboards and other contraptions, while others have tried to mount stuff creatively on other parts of the bike. Folks who are really desperate have to do both.

I only have my Garmin Nuvi 360 GPS unit for now, but here’s how I mounted it on my 2009 Yamaha FJR1300A.
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