Archive for the 'rant' Category

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Spinning Circles in Azabu

The track on my GPS from yesterday wandering around in Roppongi, Shibuya, and Azabu looking for art museums while avoiding the suspicious glances of the high keisatsu presence looking for one of the fugitive Aum guys looks like a hanamaru mark.  My tacti-geek TAD/Patagucci/Scarpa kit kept me comfortable in the heat though.  It’s 90% chance of rain today, and 20C (Chris, I wish I had those softshell pants today!).  My darned email gateway won’t let me through on this network for some reason – I’ll have to d!ck around with it later – but now it’s time to find breakfast.

GoPain

Hot out of the labor camps of Chine, I got my hands on the GoPro Wifi combo kit. The WiFi Bac has been in development for a long time, it was talked about by GoPro many months ago and now finally has made an appearance in retail stores. Some people have been able to get some that were “accidentaly” released by Beast Buy. BB supposedly has an exclusive with GoPro to be the first to sell them so had them ahead of time but were not supposed to sell them before the official date. No worries for GoPro, being perhaps clever the camera requires a significant firmware update so all these people who got them ahead of time had useless little plastic bits with buttons you could press, make symbols on little displays, and plug them into USB ports and make them warm.

Continue reading ‘GoPain’

Pomposity

It’s pretty difficult starting a sentence with, “so I was listening to NPR this morning…” and not come off sounding pompous.  Both Fabio and I are guilty of this!

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Shafted

Dammit! It’s not looking good, all the online Toyota parts sources I’ve checked so far tell me the CV’s are discontinued, none in USA. One guy who brings in OEM JDM parts is going to check if Japan has them, in which case he said it’d take a couple months to get, curses! I could try the junkyards, but the FX16 is a bastard child, the only cross that shares the same shafts is the diesel Corolla. I’ve never seen one of those. I’m not sure if just the ends are shared with any other model, possibly the AW11 MR-2 as it has the same bolt on flange at the transaxle side. Of course that means I need to find some MR-2’s in the junkyard, which isn’t exactly common either now. There is a possibility the next gen AE92 Corolla GT-S shafts might fit, it would be the one piece spindle at the transaxle side instead of the two piece bolt together. If I have to that would be ok, although the two piece is very convenient for servicing, it’s what allows for 20 minute shaft changes.

Please Do Not Panic

That was kinda amusing, just got a call on our home phone from Habib claiming that my computer was full of “junk and viruses” and that he’d help me. I was tempted to play along and see what he wanted me to do, but I didn’t feel like spending any more time once we got to the point that he asked if I could go on my PC.

Random – Ted Says, “Watch Your Step”

Did they just cut-and-paste the face from the wanted poster sketch of Ted Kaczynski?  Even if that’s not the case, the character is still quite creepy.

How Not to Transport Pallets

Yes. He really did drive away like this – probably even got onto the freeway too.  After staring at it for a while, he eventually did put one sad 1” ratcheting tie-down strap around the stack (widthways with respect to the truck).

Slumber Party?

Really, WTF kind of a name for a kid’s bike is “slumber party”? Like what is that supposed to mean in this context? Are they saying this bike is a one-way ticket to a dirt nap? You know things are bad when the company importing horrible death-machine bikes from the PRC even gives up naming their products and relinquishes control to the non-English-speaking Chinese product manager to name with random non-sequitur English words and phrases. I think this bike is from the same company that brings us the “Catapult” dual-suspension “mountain bike” (that’s in quotes because it really isn’t one).

Snakes on a…

The Brown Tree Snake.  Hated by many for good reason.

I found this guy on my last trip to Guam, it really creeped the crap outta me!  We definitely do not want these things in Hawaii!

Akimune-an Anko Cream Cheese Taiyaki

I was rather shocked when I stopped by Shirokiya after work and saw that the sweet potato filling had made a return visit after overstaying it’s welcome a couple of weeks ago. Did they find some leftover potato filling? How was it that potato was still around and last week’s strawberry cream cheese flavor ran out before its two weeks were up? Luckily, hidden between the signs on the counter was a new rotating flavor – anko cream cheese. After having last week’s strawberry cream cheese, I was in, and I was not disappointed. The sweetness of the anko was nicely balanced by the creamy sourness of the cheese. This definitely falls into the classification of otona no aji. I’m glad I got two! Continue reading ‘Akimune-an Anko Cream Cheese Taiyaki’