OK, my old Moto Razr though the original battery was still going strong, I finally decided to retire it after subjecting all my friends with its horrible electrical noise issues. I’d been looking at the iPhone for a while and popped into the bastion of oshare computing, the Apple store. Long lost Roy “Krauser” was there so I bugged him about the phone, among other things. Ended up going for it and picking up the 8G model. Continue reading ‘I Phone?’
Author Archive for taro
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Not a bad showing by the SNM boys!
http://www.okinawanfestival.com/Photo%20Contest/OFPC%202008/2008photocontestwinners.htm
I think this is the second time I ever got money for photos. Good for some beer money, or 1% toward the Canon 5DmkII.
This past thursday’s dinner out with the boys was just Derek and me. Our initial phone conversations were indecisive on where we wanted to eat. After tossing some ideas around, it came down to thai or that “inexpensive izakaya place you went to before Derek.” Not having been there myself, I suggested I pick up D from UH and we could decide from there, with the izakaya as first choice. We found decent parking on street, just a short walk. Walking is good for you! Go to Japan, it’s the way to go there. People here are so lazy! Like how all the fitness buff canoe paddlers parked their cars along the road in the beach park when there was a virtually empty parking lot that the road leads to. Anyway, it’s early so we walk to newly opened Ninja Market (Nijiya Market) to check it out, we’ll blog about it sometime. Continue reading ‘Happy Bird – Kohnotori’
Earlier this week, Derek mentioned this newish place on King Street, Mana Bu’s. They do musubi/onigiri. And that’s it. Actually they do offer some salads and desert items, but the main deal is musubi. Not the mashed together refridgerated bricks of white rice, but carefully crafted triangles of good rice and grains combined with various ingredients. I popped in to check it out and try a sampling. Here’s a tip, go early. I got there at 12:30, and already most of the varieties were sold out. It seems their signature is the 10 grain musubi. Manabu-san’s got it figured out just right to somehow keep all those grains sticking together into a cohesive musubi. It’s quite interesting with the texture and slight nuttyness that the grain medley lends to the musubi, not to mention boosting the healthy factor. They also almost analretentively list the origins of almost all the ingredients. And he manages to price it at $1.50! I’m sure if some yup cali shop were to sell this, they’d upcharge it and sell it with boutique factor. I bought a 10 grain hijiki and 10 grain baked spicy poke. Both tasty. Flavors are more on the subtle side, reflecting a more Japanese palate rather than a heavy local leaning. The hijiki is on the sweet side, would go great with something salty, maybe some fried chicken/karage. Which brings me to one thing, there are no okazu here, so you’ll be doing either a lightish meal, or you’ll need to go elsewhere to find stuff to fill out your picnic. Maybe go down the street a bit to Gulick Deli.
3 out of 5 fairly healthy monkeys (I like to use a 5 monkey scale, yes I know, spank the naughty monkeys for not being consistent)
Mana Bu’s is located on King Street, just Diamond Head of the King-Punahou intersection in the little strip of shops with Baskin Robbins. Take out only, no seating for eating in shop.
Toyota had the one gasket I needed. Didn’t have just about all other things I asked for including some hoses. Does not bode well, will I have to resort to cutting own paper gaskets in the future? I love the Toyota coated metal gaskets so much more. Ah well, anyway after some struggling got the gasket replaced and everything back together. Scat, CKucke and El Santo cruised by after their dinner to bug me. Did an oil change too. Belt sounds a bit squeaky, tried retightening belt. We’ll see how it is, it’s late now, good night.
Ugh. So I ran down to Redline Automotive to pick up a waterpump for the FX. Spun by AM Sears to also buy one of those Diehard Platinum AGM batteries for the AE86 since they finally got them back in stock and I’ll need to move it. Get home, install battery, AE86 starts right up. Move cars, pull FX in. Start on removing the old water pump. In the process I get a chest full of radiator fluid from when the pump finally pops apart and dumps it’s contents out on me, yum. Aside from that it goes relatively painlessly.
Once I get things out, I look at the old pump and start to get a sneaking suspicion. The water stains on the outside don’t look right for a failing waterpump, which usually starts leaking out the weep hole(s). There’s some more waterstains on the block that don’t look quite right. In any case, I have a new pump. This AC Delco replacement has a plastic impeller, interesting. It makes it lighter, and I imagine won’t rust like the original iron impellers
. I also discover the pulley’s got a bunch of ugly holes drilled in it. I can’t figure out why, only thing I can think of it’s an ugly and feeble attempt at lightening the pulley. I can’t imagine this being balanced. Anyway, I don’t have another one handy at the moment, so it goes back on. With everything finally back together, I fill up the radiator. Just about ready for the moment of truth when I check everything over and see a new puddle under the car. Curses! My earlier suspicions were correct, the leak was coming from the water outlet fitting above the water pump. The knocking about & prying to install the pump and alternator must have opened up the leak more because now it was obvious where the leak was coming from. Damn, it’s late, I don’t have gaskets, time to call it a night. I’ll have to go to Toyota tomorrow and pray they have the parts.
Ugh, over the past weeks, the FX has been consuming a lot of water without a really obvious leak. Its so bad now it looses half a quart in a day. When I got home today, I immediately popped the hood and shined the SureFire around. This time I spotted wetness on the water pump. Saves me the trouble of rigging up the riceboy UV black light neon that I had found under the dash of the FX and going to store to find some UV dye. Now the question is what should I do about this? I’d been wanting to do a complete rebuild of the original FX engine and install that. But that’ll take some time. Do I fix this current engine which is of unknown condition that lights up the oil pressure light at low idle and valve clatters like a diesei?
Ah the saga continues. Oh, and had a disheartening trip to Toyota parts. Wanted to replace the fuseable link box, no longer available, neg cable, discontinued. More and more parts are becoming unavailable.
After the conclusion of this year’s Okinawa Festival, I was quite roasted having spent pretty much the entire days there out in the sun. I felt in dire need of some beerage, and air conditioning. Fabio and I started going over options for the Kaimuki area. Bulging forehead vein burgers at Big City came up. Food options there didn’t appeal this evening, and if anything, the a/c is TOO much there for shorts and t-shirts. Fabio mentioned the place Koh no Tori next to Imanas Tei by Pucks Alley. The description perked my interest, well priced izakayaish tidbits. Then thought of Tokkuri Tei. Tokkuri Tei is one of the places that for years I’ve been saying should try. I heard good things about it, but never got around to going there. Continue reading ‘Tokkuri Tei’
Bwahaha, I can’t believe I let this one go by till now! Cropping up in fansubs, an OAV series titled Detroit Metal City. Designs and art are ugly style, ala Initial D, but it fits. I’m sure it’s completely intentional as Studio 4C is well capable of some outstanding artistic work. About a recent college graduate following his dream to perform in a band, but it’s not going in quite the direction he wished. Outrageous and hilarious, and yet with all good humour, there’s a hint of reality. Death metal with a Japanese slant. Who knows what’s really behind the paint!
Oh shoots, I just discovered there’s a live action movie that should be out too, complete with Gene Simmons cameo!
Might just have to get the soundtrack. Hey Roy, cosplay outfit for you!
This past saturday, August 23rd was a culture day, albiet a late start culture day. The plan was to check out the Dragon Boat races. Gave Derek a call and didn’t end up at Ala Moana until noon. This year’s event was rather ill publicized and I would never have known about it, and it seems neither did anyone else. The park was filled with a usual weekend end of summer crowd. When I got to the center area, other than participants there didn’t seem to be anyone else there for the races. It was lunch break time so nothing was going on at the moment. I decided to stroll on down to McCoy Pavillion where the Greek Festival, which I did know about from radio spots and print media. Continue reading ‘Dragons and Beer’