The New Year in Hawaii means interesting seasonal entertainment from Japan on KIKU-TV. The general worldwide economic downturn has been reflected in this annual spectacle in more austere sets and decreased use of expensive shots like the helicopter fly-in on ELT on a rooftop stage at the opening many years back. The talent level has remained fairly consistent through the years, so the enjoyment level has remained pretty much the same. Here are some reflections on this year: Continue reading ‘2010 60th Annual NHK Kohaku Uta Gassen’
12 years. TWELVE YEARS! Can you believe it? It was 12 years ago that I brought The Pig home. All the boys said don’t count the chickens till it’s rolling down the street. Well, here you have it! I’m rather surprised it wasn’t covered in a thicker layer of dust and that after only a bit of monkeying with the brake pad adjusters and airing up the tires, we were able to roll it out of the garage. 
It helps to have a demon on your side. He was just here to help, demons are no fools and he wasn’t about to get stuck with The Pig taking up precious space in his lair. I kid, about him being a demon anyway, nice dude. Pretty cool trailer rig that they borrowed.
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Happy New Year to everyone from me also! Unfortunately I got hit by this dang bug right as the year came to a close. What was annoying is that aside from the hacking cough, sinus pressure and itchy eyes, I feel pretty much ok. The cough has subsided but sinus pressure increased. Ah well, such is life. Anyway, this is my åˆæ—¥ã®å‡º image of this year. Yes, I was lazy and although I woke up early enough, I stayed at home and just went out into the front yard. Had ambitious thoughts of riding up Koko Head, the weather was perfect, but the way I was feeling it wasn’t going to happen. Oh, and as an intersting counterpoint, here’s an image of, I’d guess you’d call it hatsutsukinoiri. I understand this is pretty rare occurance having a full moon on New Years. First I’ve seen and made for a nice photo op. Continue reading ‘hatsuhinode’
Hope last year went well for everyone out there, and that this year goes even better!
I’ve been working on the 2010 SNM wallpaper image, but I don’t have it finished yet. Hopefully I can get it done before I fly up to Vancouver next week, but I still have some snowboard repairs, waxing, packing and some household plumbing tasks to perform, so keep your fingers crossed! It’s quite wonderful, and distinct from last year’s one.
In the meantime, ride safe, and I’ll see you out there in the snow and on the trails!
So much for that theory, the cough is now going nuts. No amount of of cacao is doing any good, but neither is the OTC cough syrup supressent. Couldn’t manage another of those expectorant pills, and I couldn’t find expectorant only syrup. Sheesh, we’ll see if I can get a good nights sleep or not. Sucks.
So I got this annoying cough. I thought I was getting hit with allergies starting a number of days ago. Itchy eyes, sinus pressure. Now this cough and somewhat general melaise. Might be a cold. Just popped a giant guaifenesin expectorant tablet. Damn that thing was a horse pill, wasn’t quite expecting that! Almost gagged it up! Hoping that will loosen things up and make the coughs a bit more productive. This particular one is max strength, hugest dose I’ve seen, 1200mg.
To calm the cough, here’s an interesting one, dark chocolate. Seems the cacao has stuff that in some research has shown to be more effective than codeine in suppressing coughs. Of course I don’t know if it’s been studied wide enough to be reliable, but what the heck, it’s was an excuse to go buy bars of Godiva dark chocolate that was on sale at Longs. And who needs an excuse to have some good dark chocolate anyway! So some hot steaming and spicy pho for dinner certainly loosened up some of that mucous, followed by lots of water, and a 43g bar of dark chocolate, and you know what, hardly a cough. Is it placebo? I dunno, but I’m not complaining. If I plan to continue trying this, it might be better to look for higher cacao concentration bars with less sugar and fats though. In any case, it sure puts me in a better mood, chocolate is good for you!
Oh, and don’t bother with milk or white cholocate. Milk chocolate is barely chocolate, and white chocolate is an insult.
Went by 7-11 in search of some refreshing fruit drink. I saw this and remembered a couple weeks back all the talk of citrus and this fruit mentioned. I had to buy it. I can report it is quite yummy and refreshing. Fragrant. Not quite like yuzu, it’s a different hybrid, supposedly mandarin and kumquat, but still a very nice aroma. Wonder where fresh fruit can be found, I’m sure whereever you go for your Philippino shopping.
3.5 out of 4 vitamin C’d monkeys, I’m sure a fresh squeezed version would be great, but this still brings back “Sweet Memories Of Cebu”!
Believe it or not, someone wants the FJ55 Pig that has sat in the garage being a storage cabinet from when I brought it from Hilo. It never went beyond taking stuff apart and buying some parts for it. Grand plans were thwarted by the enormity of the task and never got off the ground. Anyway, Sunday afternoon was spent moving stuff & cleaning the area to get it ready to move.
Woo hoo! Fun stuff for Chris and Dave from Supply Captain! Along with recent boxes from TAD Gear and Tactical Tailor, it’s like Xmas in December! Wait a minute…
My order of Luxeon Star LEDs came in. I decided to order a few to play with, and to rebuild the center mount brake light on the FX. Safety check snuck up on me. I cleaned out the bulb socket in the rear drivers side, corrosion had taken a toll and made bulb dim. I also noticed my first custom LED attempt for center mount brakelight was performing rather pathetically.
It was done the lo-tech way with a bank of “hi-output” LEDs and some resistors for current limiting. Unfortunately the electrical system output on cars is not exactly stable and eventually the LEDs started failing. And these “hi-output” of that time were the brighter of the affordable, conventional size. Since then, a new generation of super hi-output LEDs have had enough development time to come down in price. Continue reading ‘STARrrr’