What you missed if you’re not a hopeless loser that stalks scooters on the internet

The Vespa turned 60 this week. If you missed the news on 2strokebuzz, or here, here, here, here, here, here, here, or here, I’ll summarize it for you:

Audrey Hepburn Jennifer Lopez symbol Italy espresso economical style wasp 1946 Vroooooom Can of Corn.

So this is just a reminder that we filter through the PR blather, endlessly rehashed wire stories, ‘Scooter’ Libby updates, high school athletes’ volleyball stats, and Indian stock market reports several times daily just to find those precious nuggets of trivia (“Piaggio is unveiling a commemorative bell tomorrow!”) you care about. Any time Brooke wants to write out his theories about the false economy of scooters, I’ll be happy to print it, because I’m getting really bored with the “As gas prices top three dollars…” stories too (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15— that’s only about half the stories from this week).

D.C. Rob’s Cannonball for cancer research

If you spend any (most) of your time on Scoot.net Chat or the BBS, you’ve probably met Rob Downs III, AKA “D.C. Rob.” If that doesn’t ring a bell, you might remember him as “Rob who got hit by a semi on the Cannonball Run.” A few months ago, Rob’s father, Robert Downs Jr., was diagnosed with a rare form of skin cancer. Rob is riding again in this year’s Cannonball Run, and decided to try to raise money for cancer research and awareness. He’ll be riding about 3500 miles, and his goal is to raise one dollar per mile ($3500) for the ACS. Donations can be made directly to American Cancer Society online (no amount is too small), and he’s looking for corporate/equipment sponsors as well (email Rob).

Pardon the nostalgia

The first issue of 2strokebuzz came out just about 11 years ago, and we’ve been online for almost six years. The first year or so of 2strokebuzz.com wasn’t technically a blog, but we started blogging in October, 2001, and most of those posts are still in our archive (though we lost a few in various server crashes, and some dates were lost). So if you’re feeling nostalgic, or you’re just jonesing for more 2sb (it happens!) check the bottom of the sidebar to see what was happening in 2strokebuzz’s past.

Vintage 2strokebuzz!

gearN.gifIf you were reading 2strokebuzz online way back at the turn of the millenium, you’ll be happy to know that you can see our earliest online version (from before the word “blog” was invented). Relive the early days of the animated gearshift and read all the classics, including the first MASS race, Vina’s ride to the clown cemetery, Rally Soccer, Matt Howie’s Fashion Forecast and Ryan Bastianelli’s (now Silent Ron’s) $100,000 “Can of Corn” Lambretta, and more! Don’t forget, our print issues, dating back to 1995, are also available to download. Ten years goes by so fast.

2strokebuzz Archives

Once we got all the old posts imported, the sidebar archive lists were getting unwieldy, so we’ve moved them to their own page that can always be found under in the sidebar. We’ve also redirected some bad links, so other than a few cosmetic changes and finishing the links page, everything should be nailed-down now. Thanks again for your support as we wrangle 2sb back into a lean, mean, blogging machine.

Good News and Bad News

I finally got ALL the old entries imported and posted last night. The problem is that almost all the old posts have “from_the_archives” in the title (oops) so I’m going to try to delete those and reimport them correctly tonight. Also, since the archive and category lists are so long now, I’m going to move them to their own pages. Thanks for putting up with all the changes here, we’re very close to ‘getting back to normal.’

RSS Feed is back

Along with the move to the new server, we’ve cleaned up the RSS feed and moved it to a new home. Read our feed in your newsreader, or add our news to your web page. We’ll be adding category-specific RSS feeds soon, once we get all the archives added and reorganize our categories. Sorry that the last ten posts have been self-referential, but things are moving and shaking.

Chicco Scooter Club

Milena's Chicco VespaBeen meaning to post this for a while… Becky put Milena’s photos up on the Chicco Scooter Club site. In other Chicco news, Milena backed it into the living room door and busted out a turn signal. Her (Indiana!) license plate fell off a week before that. I keep telling her to fix it, but she keeps riding it, when she gets a ticket, I’m totally not paying it.