I stopped by Chinatown Boardroom on this month’s First Friday to say goodbye to the downtown art space and surfboard showroom I enjoyed so much over the years. I got to talk to Eric and roughhouse with Enoki a bit, but Jackie wasn’t in when I was there. It’s difficult to write about a shop closure without getting into the whole “economic downturn†thing, but as Eric summed it up, the whole Chinatown scene has changed so much in the last 10 years, and that in addition to the poor economy has conspired against operating a small shop at a profit. Indeed Chinatown has gone from a seedy crime-infested underbelly to a thriving art community, but in recent years (think around when “block parties†started) the vibe has changed toward more of a hipster club scene. Art has become “old hat†downtown. Face it – hipsters only buy dumb hats and fixie bikes and each one fancies himself an artist, so they don’t really support the art communuity: Where hipsters go, the whole iToons-fostered culture of instantly downloadable sub-$5 consumerism soon follows and the idea of creativity is lost. Continue reading ‘So Long, Chinatown Boardroom’
Archive for the 'rant' Category
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Whatever’s happening at Blaisdel better be freakin good, spent close to 40 minutes trapped on ward getting from krapiolani to king st!!
(0)Damn neighbors woke me up. It’s 04:45 dammit! I wish they would toke more and oof less…
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I recently picked up a Garmin eTrex 30 GPS. It’s a good GPS for a good price, is easy to add maps to via a microSD card “slot” (not really a slot), and uses standard AA batteries or AA-sized lithiums or rechargables. The one thing that quickly became apparent while it was knocking around in my pants cargo pocket or chest rig pouch was that the lack of any key lock feature led to a random display every time I pulled it out, or random waypoints logged or purposely recorded ones deleted. The offender in this case was the multi-function toggle on the face of the unit. This toggle makes the navigation of the non-touch-screen eTrex very easy and intuitive, but it is easily actuated when the unit is on and put inside or against something. Continue reading ‘Garmin eTrex 30 Toggle Guard’
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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No fireworks this year, which was good in a way, since it had become rather tedious in previous years. Instead, we lit the street on fire! With booze! Not good booze, thank you – this was some horrid old Ballantine’s blended scotch that had turned cloudy with black sediment. No drinky? Burrrn!
Hey, it’s that time of year again. Wonder how things will be this time. I imagine the earthquake and tsunami will be an underlying theme this year. I’m doing this live again, so this post will be continually updated over the next several hours as the program progresses… Continue reading ’62nd Annual NHK Kohaku Uta Gassen’
Today while in back of a Lexus LS560, I was reminded that Toyota never uses the same font for any of the rear badging on their cars. I remember our Camry V10 wagon had “Toyota”, “Camry”, “V6”, and “LE” in 4 different fonts and pitches.
(0)You either have to stay the whole season or be really lucky to get an awesome powder day in Niseko. When I got there on Friday, the snow was falling heavily, but the high winds that are typically associated with the storms that bring in the snow closed the resorts for the day. The winds were nowhere near as bad as the time I was there several years ago and got blocked on my last riding day, so at least the snow was accumulating instead of blowing away to cover the surrounding farming plain. Continue reading ‘Typical Niseko’
Driving 1.5 hours from sandy to powder mountain only to find it closed. They were allegedly supposed to be open! Bastage! On to IceBasin instead.