Archive for the 'rant' Category

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Ride Denied

Published on October 14, 2009 in bike and rant by risu. Closed

Krap. Got home a little late, took a while to get geared up and out of the house, and talked to my neighbor about my November JAL ticket, so it was already quite dark when I finally rolled at 17:55. The skies were overcast, but aside from a few random drops, no rain fell. I figured this would be a short ride one way or another, so I did some interval sprints and stand climbs to peg the heartrate and get a burn going. The high humidity helped generate an immediate heavy sweat. After my third lap, I saw a wall of grey coming in over the bay from MCBH, so I cut it short and headed home before the squall hit.

D = 11.36 km (7.06-miles), Vavr = 19.8 km/h (12.3-mph), Vmax = 43.3 km/h (26.9-mph), T = 34-minutes

Angry Chinese Torque

Published on October 10, 2009 in car and rant by taro. Closed

P1010005Oh my throbing middle finger…. I think every begining mechanic should be required to have and use a torque wrench. For some reason everyone seems compelled to over torque oil drain bolts. I guess since they are large bolts they can tolerate quite a bit of overtightening, but if you look in FSMs (factory service manuals) the torque spec is quite low, typicaly in the range of 15 ft lbs or even less. So I was out in the garage tonight, the heat is finally bearable, and was slowly putting things back together with the swapped engine. Figured I better drain the engine oil. Put the small 3/8 breaker on it and tugged at it. Ugh. Alright, fine, I’ll use the 1/2″ 20″ long breaker. I’m working at an awkward angle, so the bigger bar should make it easier. It works, eventually, and suddenly, unfortunately. Going in the pull direction is usually a good habit, but didn’t save me this time since my arms were extended and the angles were wierd. My middle finger met metal car. Amazingly I did not drop the bar, but I was cursing up a storm. Owwie! This was a good one, owwie!

That was it, I could barely muster removing the drain bolt. I’m done for today.

Oh wait, this engine was out of the original FX and the last person who worked on it and did an oil change on it… was me!

Tsukimi

Published on October 5, 2009 in Culture and rant by risu. Closed

Darned rain.  Darned food poisoning.  October 4th came and went.  I missed Tsukimi.  Oh, well – maybe next year.  Oh yeah – that reminds me – I didn’t get to enjoy any moon cake this year.

Oh, What the Heck

Published on October 2, 2009 in rant by risu. Closed

After lunch yesterday, the chills started.  I toughed it out through the day and hung about the office after work until the Monster Mash show opening, figuring a little rest would help.  Feeling no better, I sucked it up and went downtown to drive in circles in search of parking and walked over to the gallery.  I tried putting on my best face even though I felt like krap since this was the first show I’d been involved with in a long time.  I struggled through pizza dinner, then embarked on the painfully long drive home, having to stop for late night gasoline in Kalihi on the way.  A shower and some antipyretics didn’t do much to improve my condition, but sleep did, although interrupted by fits of cramping.  Surprisingly, the expected “blast” so far has not materialized.  In case this was the start of “the dreaded flu” (the incubation period would be about right for me to have picked up something on the airplane from KIX), I was socially responsible and stayed home from work today.  In retrospect, I could have worked through the pain, and  I am now fairly certain this isn’t Novel H1N1.  There goes one vacation day…  Gastroentertis is not your friend.

Wrong of Way

Published on September 30, 2009 in bike, car and rant by risu. Closed

At the bottom of my street, there is a T-intersection. While out riding today, I stopped at the stop sign at the bottom of the hill. Being the after work rush, there was comparatively a lot of traffic at this otherwise quiet intersection. There were two cars on the left, and three cars on the right.

No biggie.

I clipped out and footed down to wait for an opening. The first right car was a Lexus RX. She (I’m profiling here: Lexus RX + illegally dark tint + bad driving = short Asian mom) stopped appropriately to make a left into the street I was coming out of until the left cars passed. She then waited there. If the windows (including windscreen) weren’t excessively dark, I would have probably seen her waving me through. I had the stop sign: She had right of way. I unclipped the other foot and stood down. I was not going to trust her and go. Continue reading ‘Wrong of Way’

Turn Burglar

Published on September 30, 2009 in car, rant and SUAR by risu. Closed

Fool! At the quitting time busy 4-way stop at Cooke and Pohukaina, saw a plateless new luxury sedan (you can probably guess what brand from the dealers in the area) being driven by a dude in the corporate service department uniform pass a car stopped appropriately at the stop sign on Pohukaina and blow through the intersection. He creeped around the stopped car on the right side and narrowly missed being nailed by the cars on Cooke whose turn it was to go. The only thing worse than the drivers in Hawaii is maybe the drivers in Korea, or the bicyclists in Kyoto.

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Americans Hate Wagons

Published on September 30, 2009 in car, rant and SUAR by risu. Closed

Toyota really believes that Americans hate station wagons. The LHD version of the JDM Altezza Gita station wagon was sold on the USDM as the IS 300 SportCross.  Considering the “IS” part of the name is “International Sedan”, that means this station wagon was a really a sedan with a liftgate – in other words, aside from the fact that it wasn’t a sedan, it was a sedan.  Just so long as you don’t use the word “wagon”, everything is right with the world. WTF?!

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Future Caveman

Published on September 28, 2009 in car, rant and SUAR by risu. Closed

The first generation Toyota Highlander hybrid had LED taillight clusters and incandescent bulbs in the high-mount brake light.  The non-hybrid was the opposite.  The current Tacoma pickup has the same LED/incandescent thing going on.  WTF?!

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H and h

Published on September 28, 2009 in car, rant and SUAR by risu. Closed

Saw a paper-plated Lexus HS-250h yesterday.  Based on the JDM Avensis platform like the Scion tC, this entry-luxury sedan is slightly larger than a Toyota Corolla, beating out the next nearest luxury competitor, the Civic-based Canadian-market-only Acura CSX.  I don’t have any gripes with the design (it looks great for a sedan), or the technology (Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive is the benchmark), or the market segment (this has been empty since the Infinity G20 disappeared): It’s the labeling.  The HS is a hybrid-only vehicle, hence the “H”.  Does it really need the “h” after the 250 to drum it into out heads that it  is a hybrid?  If they intended to keep the little h to make it fall in line with all the other hybrid models nomenclature wise, they should have chosen a different series name.

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Surf Box

Published on September 28, 2009 in car, rant and SUAR by risu. Closed

Saw the 2010 Toyota 4Runner today.  I guess it is possible to make it uglier than the previous generation!  It’s as unatractively boxy as the latest Honda Pilot.  They have carried through the very Korean-car-looking nameplate over the rear number plate like the new Highlander, and borrowed the “crab-eye” taillights from the FJ Cruiser.  This example was without a rear wiper – I guess that’s where they are cutting costs on the base models now, just like on the base Matrix.

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