As Typhoon #15 (“Roke”) passed South of Shikoku last night, all was fairly calm here in Takamatsu, with a light to moderate rain falling in the center of town. The biggest thing I noticed was a single bomb-like thunderclap before midnight when the rain was at its peak. Nonetheless, the typhoon panic led to various school and public facility closures. The ferries were back online, but it was funny that yesterday when they were starting to panic shutdown for the impending storm, conditions were so amazingly calm, whereas today when it was all “safe”, conditions were borderline stomach-churning. There were some legitimate road and facility closures on nearby Ougishima and Megishima due to small landslides or road washouts, but many of the much-touted art sites in the towns remained closed because staff were told to stay home because of the storm. At least this evening dinner was easier to find, as opposed to finding restaurants closed or closing early “because of the typhoon”. I can understand exercising adequate caution, but this event snowballed into a national panic (especially down South where the effects were mild), and I don’t mean this in hindsight – in the days running up to the arrival of the storm at it’s nearest passing point, it was deadly calm with just sporadic drizzling. People were shutting things down days in advance because of the media hype and not actual observed conditions. Continue reading ‘Typhoon Panic’
Archive for the 'rant' Category
Page 28 of 54
Saw a really short medical professional with a fake orangy tan and purple scrubs. The “Oompa-Loompa” song started playing in my head: Coffee almost came out of my nose.
(0)In a span of less than five minutes and a distance of less than three miles between two parking lots in Waipahu, I saw three Suzy SJ410’s and an equal number of Toyota MR-S’s. Do all little cars eventually end up in Waipahu?
(0)Saw two actual commercial AM General Humvees yesterday, one white 2-door fastback and one blue 4-door wagon. Come to think of it, I really haven’t seen many GM H2’s or H3’s around lately, but maybe that’s not because they have been naturally selected out of the gene pool (like any 3-year-old Korean car), but more because I haven’t been driving through the ghetto to see them.
(0)It’s not like politicians lying surprise me, but I seem to recall Chucky D. promising to spare Hawai’i of his nonsense after he lost miserably to Colleen in the last election. Now the hack is on the verge of announcing he’ll challenge her again in the next election? Has he forgotten how soundly he was trounced? Perhaps he’s a legend in his own mind…
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The upper latch on the work van back door suddenly ceased functioning. A quick examination revealed that the little plastic clip that holds the bent end of the pull/pushrod into the latch mechanism had broken, so the L-shaped end of the rod had nothing to control its high propensity to wander around inside the door frame. Toyotas and Nissans usually have secondary guides to limit the wandering of the linkages, but all GM had was a fat piece of foam insulation that only acted to keep the rod from rattling once the plastic retaining clip broke. Not wanting to have the van out of service for such a minor thing, I made a replacement part using a piece of metal pallet strapping. All the tools used were whatever was lying around at work, which wasn’t much. I would have tried making something out of zip-ties, but I couldn’t think of a solution in short order. If you had a little scrap Kydex or some other thermoplastic sheet, you could probably make something a lot nicer. Continue reading ‘GM Door Control Linkage Retaining Clip Repair’
A recent conversation reminded me about these Sharpie pens I bought a while ago.
“industrial super permanent ink”. So it’s more permanent than permanent. I guess the originals are semi-permanent ink then. That anything like semi-boneless? I use one at work, but can’t tell yet if it works any better, although it looks like they need to use a more permanent ink for the labeling on the pen….
Deja vu. I get the feeling I’ve seen this all before… In the late 90’s, TBS started a long-running afternoon drama, Onsen he Ikou! about a woman in he waning years of her marriageability showing up at the onsen-yado run by her estranged mother. After her wedding plans fall apart, the heroine seeks to reinvent herself by taking on a job as a live-in maid at the inn. Of course, cattiness, tension, deceit, and eventually heartwarming moments ensue. Fast-forward a decade in real-time, take a decade off the age of the protagnist, and you’ve got Hanasaku Iroha. As the “turning-thirty” heroine of Onsen was meant to resonate with the early-afternoon housewife audience demographic, the middle teen protagonist of Hanasaku is designed to appeal to girls about to go through (or are going through) that transition between middle school and high school. Because of this, I’m sure it’s not really going to be a direct ripoff of the drama, but I can’t imagine that there will be any storyline or literary twist that hasn’t been previously explored in 5 seasons of Onsen he Ikou!, or the 2008 reprisal, Onsen he Go!, or even Asakusa Fukumaru Ryokan or the multitudinous seasons of Hotel. Continue reading ‘Anime Briefs – Hanasaku Iroha (JDM/USDM)’
Get ready for the ramp-up of allergy season. The avocado blooming two weeks ago made my eyes go redder than an albino rabbit, and this week the albizia are starting to go off. Fun!
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