Sorry, wanted to write a longer post on this past Sunday where Derek and I had a snowboard waxing session. I stopped at the India Market on Beretania St. and grabbed a jar of tamarind chutney and some papads straight from the enpowered Indian women. These commercial versions are paper thin, spicier, and saltier than our previous from scratch experiment. Oh, and they have a demented creepy bunny on the package, had to get it! And what does this have to do with waxing? They go hand in hand as we discovered cooking the papadums with a heat gun leads to more even results than trying to cook them over a propane burner.
Anyway, gotta leave for the airport! Will try to add more later!
Monthly Archive for November, 2008
Mmm… it’s good. Very good. I’ve never had good luck with the “plate lunch”-style entrees at KK, but their sandwiches are good. This one and the pastrami are my favorites. The Reuben is their own spin on the classic recipe with their own proprietary dressing. Choose seasoned fries or a Nalo greens salad. It’s a little pricy at around $9 USD, but it’s worth it. If you aren’t from Hawai’i or don’t know who Russell Siu is, just do a websearch and you’ll get some background on this restaurant and his upscale 3660 on the Rise. Continue reading ‘Kaka’ako Kitchen Reuben Sandwich’
Taking someone from the office to the airport before lunchtime means, “Byron’s Little Red Hen fried chicken,” to us. For around seven bucks, you get three pieces of crispy fried chicken, a roll, fries, and a little tub of cole slaw… oh yeah, and a packet of honey. The chicken is great! It is crispy on the surface, and moist on the inside. On par or better than Zippy’s fried chicken. The roll is average, and the slaw is a little on the wet side. The take-out box is generally taped shut id you order more than one, so open it as quickly as possible so your fries don’t get soggy. I haven’t ever used the honey on either the chicken or the roll. The chicken gets a definite A! If you have a fax machine, give them a call and they will send you a menu. There are 10% discount coupons on the bottom of the menu, so you can save a little that way. Continue reading ‘Byron’s Drive-In Little Red Hen Fried Chicken’
Pilsner, Pilsen, or Pils beers are one of the original lager-style beers, and get their name from the city of Pilsen in what is now the Czech Republic. These lagers were originally created in response to the advent of Bavarian-style lagering technology and the associated bottom-fermenting yeasts, as existing brewing techniques yielded inconsistent and often unsatisfactory results. This Pilsner from Otaru Bakushu Brewery in Western Hokkaido has the bright flowery hop flavor common to some examples of this variety. The aromatic is sweet, but not sickeningly so as in some Belgian or Dutch Pilsens. There is however very little initial or finishing bitter. The malt flavor is very faint, and is barely detectable below the hopping. The color is the typical clear amber. The initial flavor is clear and flowery, and the finish earthy. There is very little aftertaste. The carbonation is moderate. This is an easily drinkable Pilsen. One could say it has no character, but I instead find it is without the bad traits that make certain Pilsens objectionable. Continue reading ‘Beer Is Good – Otaru Bakushu Organic Beer Pilsner-Type Jibiiru’
I’m really getting mixed feelings about my iPhone. It’s a nifty device and has proven to be pretty useful in additional to the entertainment options. The 3G network seems to have improved some since my first post, but it still shows problems. So what’s my complaint now? I guess with the complexity and the loadability of software, it’s not as stable as an appliance. I had one instance a couple weeks ago of losing phone service entirely. Thought it was network problem, but doing the reset on phone fixed it. Now today I’ve lost phone service, and it seems wifi. Put a call in to tech support. Ran through the reset I already did, then a reset through the phone setting. Finally am doing a larger scale reset that is still running on my phone and will erase everything. Hopefully that will get the phone back running, we’ll see. So maybe it’s not such a great idea to have one device try to do so many ‘smart’ things if you rely on your phone as a phone. To their credit, there was no wait to get a binder reading tech on the line, but is this a case of product getting a high satisfaction rating because even though the product gives problems, the customer support is good?
Ugh, so that reset seems to have zapped the phone and the only thing you can do with it is call 911. I have to restore it from my iTunes, which is on my machine at home. So I’m without a phone today. Needless to say, I’m quite annoyed. The monkeys are getting angry that they have no cake and the forehead veins are begining to swell.
Ooops, I’ve just been informed that AT&T in Hawaii just went down, so it seems it’s not a fault of the iPhone. I wish tech support was aware of that before we erased my phone. I suppose I should have checked AT&T. Veins have subsided, but the monkeys still want their cake!
The Bloody Finger of Death.
Ow! Dammit, that hurts! Pinched my finger between the work van tire and the radial tire patch insertion tool. Those new type pre-glued patch strips break easily during the insertion process, and the tool takes a jump toward the tire. POS! Bring back the old heavily-corded patches!
I didn’t have scissors in my first aid kit since security took away my Leatherman Micra in Banff years ago, so I had to cut the dangling flap of skin off with the apparently dull blade of my Swisstool. Note to self: Buy some scissors.
Back when Scat got all nostalgic agout skateboarding and peer-pressured Ckucke into getting a board, I picked up a new deck since my old one had been chewed on by the termites after being left outside after coming home from the Shaka, Nara show at the Contomporary Museum. Weeks after the deck arrived, I finally got some Mob Grip tape on the recommendation of the sales dude at T&C Pearlridge – it does in fact have a rougher tooth than Black Magic, but it is more difficult to get on without ending up with creases. Continue reading ‘Skate Resurrection?’
I picked this up in the automotive section at Wal Mart for a buck – really, $1.00 USD! It is rare to find a common houseware like this that isn’t made in the PRC, and no less for a dollar! Of course you can use this for it’s intended purpose of getting automotive radiator coolant into the tank or reservoir, but I got this to use with sports drink powders. Most kitchen funnels have really small openings, generally around 8 to 10mm. Dense powders like Endurox R4 or Cytomax have difficulty getting through openings that small without tapping or shaking the funnel. I was looking for a jar funnel, but those are difficult to find, and the ones I have seen have openings that don’t fit in the neck of a standard sport bottle or liter-sized Nalgene. The 25mm+ opening on this funnel lets powders through unobstructed! Once you use it for coolant, don’t use it for anything else! Get two if you need one for coolant and another for sports drinks.
Highly recommended
Four out of four techno monkeys
$1 USD plus tax!
It’s been a slow start to winter with warm temperatures lingering until last month in both Hokkaido and British Columbia, but the snows have finally arrived. There has been the “snow, rain, melt” cycle going on for a couple of weeks, but the temperatures are stabilizing and dropping, so the snow levels are generally on the increase. The crew is already booked in for Thanksgiving in Whistler, and I’m off to Sapporo the second week of December, so time is getting short until snowboarding time! Continue reading ‘Winter’s Here – Time to Wax!’
I really hate when people take the “Drive with Aloha” thing to inappropriate levels. If you’re on the freeway and it’s gridlocked and someone is trying to merge in at an on-ramp, sure, show some Aloha and let ‘da bruddah’ or sistah’ in. It’s when people go out of their way to let you in and cause inconvenience to everyone else around them is where I draw the line. Yesterday I was making a right turn from a side street onto a divided highway, and there was a space coming up in traffic that I could pull into. Continue reading ‘No Aloha for You!’