I got a frantic email from Jeff the other week while he was away on the mainland for a conference. Apparently, he had been browsing the 1911 forums and came across this neat titanium bushing wrench and thought it was cool. I took one look and jumped in with the group order.  Titanium?  Great!  Any little ti trinket is captivating, coming from a MTB background.  Bottle opener?  Sold! Titanium and bottle opener?  Can’t go wrong there!  M1911 bushing wrench? Bonus! The irony of a bottle opener and pistol-specific tool may be lost on non-firearm owners (and you can put it on your keyring?!)… hey, you don’t have to use them at the same time!  A ¼†hex hole for insert bits?  You already had me at “bottle opener†– how can you make this any better! Continue reading ‘NME Knife and Tool BWB-01T’
Author Archive for risu
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Stopped by Akimune-an in Shirokiya last Tuesday. The “buy two, get one free” campaign is over, but I got two an and two satsuma-imo filled taiyaki anyway. There was also cream filled, but that intuitively offends me, so I didn’t get any of those. The girl working was different than last time. It sort-of seemed like she really didn’t like her job, unlike the girl last time. The final product was just as good, but the foil wrapping was done randomly and haphazardly. This was primarily an experiment to see how the purple sweet potato filling was. Verdict – not as good as the traditional adzuki filling. Continue reading ‘Akimune-an Taiyaki – Revisited’
Nothing is as American as bacon… okay, the word “bacon” is etymologically German, and the consumptiom of belly pork goes back to Europe, but smoked, cured bacon is very American… anyway, check out this velcro-backed bacon patch! These popped up at last year’s SHOT Show, but Dave from Mojo Tactical on Sand Island just got these in. Ckucke was down there and gave me a call and asked if I wanted him to pick me up one (sorry I couldn’t make it down in person, Dave!). Of course I was in! There are two variations, “raw” with more natural, pinky and off-white (fat) colors, and “cooked” with higher contrast red and browns. I opted for the “raw”. Embroidery quality is nice. The patch measures 5″ x 1″ (12.5cm x 2.5cm), so it fits perfectly on a standard nametape of service branch velcro field. From what I can gather online, these source from edcknives-dot-com. Like bacon? Get this patch! Continue reading ‘Tactical Bacon Patch, Raw’
I think the only roadster I frown on is the Saturn Sky. Granted, it has an Aisin (Toyota) tranny and 260hp out of a 2-liter D/I turbo I4 which is more than some of my Z3 forebearers – it’s still so… okay, I can’t use the “G” word here, but yeah, you get the picture.  Arturo Junior’s yellow one was weaving in and out of traffic this morning. I guess you really can’t get away from that user demographic when it comes to Saturns…
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If you’ve never had taiyaki before, you probably don’t know what you’re missing out on. It’s somewhere along the lines of dorayaki, manjyu, or mochi with red (adzuki) bean filling, so if you’ve experienced any of those, you sort-of get the idea. Typically, taiyaki are made with a pancake-like batter – very similar to the batter the dorayaki pancakes are made from – with a dollop of red bean filling inside of fish (tai snapper) shaped iron molds. The molds are placed over gas burners, and that cooks the batter to a crispy golden brown. Continue reading ‘Akimune-an Taiyaki’
Over the holiday season in Sapporo, I really didn’t have a whole lot of time to browse for manga and related goods. I made by with a quick stop at Toranoana and Animate on the way to the airport, and even found something interesting at the bookstore at the airport. I was in a rush, so aside from the latest volumes of things I am already reading that I managed to find in a quick eyeball of the shelves, I grabbed a couple of new titles that seemed interesting from a cursory flip-through. I still haven’t gotten a chance to fully read through these yet, but here are some quick descriptions: Continue reading ‘Manga Briefs – Winter 2011/2012 Impulse Buys!’
The plastic hose that feeds the rear windscreen washer in my M Coupe turned brittle and crumbled after 11+ years of sitting on the exhaust manifold side of the engine compartment. If you’re familiar with bike stuff, it’s the same hard plastic material that Magura used for their hydraulic rim brake hose but with very thin walls. The barb fittings on the connectors were 6mm, so 7/32†vacuum hose would work, but the outside diameter was rather large. I found some black butyl rubber 6mm hose at Tokyu Hands with fairly thin walls. They also had some silicone hose, but it seemed too floppy. In particular, I was concerned that the silicone hose wouldn’t stay put on the barb fittings without some mechanical help. Two meters of the butyl tubing was 602-yen (about $8 USD at 77-yen per $1 USD). I ended up using all but around 60cm. Continue reading ‘BMW M Coupe Rear Washer Hose Repair’
When you engage in certain activities, say snowboarding or mountain biking, you have to be willing to accept the consequences of your actions and decisions. I’ve always been aware of this, but sometimes, something comes along and smacks you in the face to underscore it. A couple of years ago, it was riding into a tree branch I didn’t see and busting my helmet and nose and splitting my goggle lens right down the center (Root was there for that one): This year, it was riding headlong off a triple-overhead drop.
With news of the 5-year record snowfall in my head, several continuous days of snow behind me, I headed out to Sapporo Kokusai ski-jou for some powder poaching. I had no illusions of the bottomless fluff that I’ve experienced there before, as the snowfall had been consistent but not heavy, and a weekend of endusers had probably already cut up most of the easily-accessed ungroomed areas. The morning had arrived with a few centimeters in town, which meant that there would be a little new coverage out at the resort, but it wasn’t enough to erase the sidecountry slash marks that squiggled down the visible faces. Continue reading ‘Pay the Piper’