Briefly, this is a romantic comedy built around a second-year high school boy with a female phobia from years of abuse by his professional-wrestler mother and exuberant younger sister who gets involved with a sadistic princess classmate and her cross-dressing female “butlerâ€. The manga is an adaptation of a light novel series with a TV anime slated to start March 2011 (probably delayed due to the recent earthquake and tsunami). Continue reading ‘Manga Briefs – Mayo Chiki! (JDM)’
I hate you, JAL bagel. You taste funny. Your label says you’re “maple-walnut flavored” and that you’re “New-York-style”. I haven’t been to New York, but I don’t think I’ve ever had a maple-walnut bagel before you. Don’t get me wrong – I like bagels – just not you. I almost don’t think you’re really a bagel. When I bend you, you tear instantly. Although you’re dense and chewy inside like you should be, your rind is almost nonexistent. It’s like you weren’t boiled anywhere long enough prior to baking. The long-winded description on your packaging says you’re made with the finest wheat from Montana and pure spring water from the Cascades. I didn’t realize Montana was such a famous wheat-producing state. In any regard though, even the best of ingredients can be made into the worst of foods. Importing ingredients from America doesn’t automatically render an American bagel. I saved part of you for Root to eat so he could taste your nostalgically unpleasant flavor and get all angry too, but he didn’t show up today. I don’t want to be wasteful, but I think I’m just going to throw the remainder of you away since my stomach already feels a little upset. Continue reading ‘JAL Bagel’
So I found myself driving the FX16 down the halls of the Hawaii Convention Center this wednesday. Kinda neat actually. The FX ended up being put into the SCCA booth at the show because it was one of the few RallyCross vehicles available. Everyone else would be at the actually rally event Saturday. 
Anyway, it’s pretty cool to have the FX which wouldn’t normally be considered a show car sharing floor space with some nice pretty cars. It’s actually a pretty good example of a rallycross car.
If anyone’s checking out the car show, come upstairs and check out the SCCA booth too!
Major quake off east coast of Japan. Its a bit unclear about magnitude, news media here is saying 8.8, but from other sources that may be Japan scale. From media footage, looks like bulk of damage is tsunami, which was significant size, so sounds like we do need to pay attention to the warning that was issued for Hawaii. Of course the gas stations are a mad house when I was driving home, the line from Koko Marina almost reached our street. I’m sure people are running like mad to buy cases of bottled water. I’ll just go run out and fill the jerry can. I guess I should have restocked the food in a bag stuff, all my MREs have long since expired and been thrown out. Anyway, batten down the hatches and watch the run on bottled water, Spam, and toilet paper!
OK, I don’t know if it’s really a Kohler sink or not, but it works with the alliteration. I’ve got only a little over a week before the First Hawaiian Auto Show where my FX is actually going to be shown! Sounds like one of them reality shows, NOT. So today I continued work on the custom engine gravel guard belly pan. Last I left, the sink was almost to the point that I could eyeball it into place. I continued to trim pieces out and make cuts and bends to get it to fit. J cruised in, I had it to the shape that would fit pretty well now. He jumped in and with his skill with the tin snips we cleaned up more spots and put in a final bend for clearance. Something of a milestone, we drilled the first mounting hole! Continue reading ‘Kustom Kohler’
Update on the kitchen sink mod. Finally got around to working on chopping the sink to make a custom engine belly pan. Destroyed one carbide tipped hacksaw blade labeled good for stainless cutting the flanges off. It worked, but things got difficult as more parts got chopped off. The sink got more floppy and it got more troublesome to secure down pieces. Switching to the cordless demolition saw actually worked better, went through one standard bi-metal blade. I’m sure the neighbors love me, cutting sheetmetal is always a horrendously noisy deal.
After dinner, I set about pounding in new lip. I’m not entirely sure of what I’m doing, this metal forming business is new to me. I make some ugly tears in the corners, but I do get the lip formed. Here’s how it looks for now, it’s begining to look a little more like the plastic shield I’m trying to replace.
Derek made a suggestion the other day about finding a better way to store all the wheels I’ve got, I hadn’t given it much thought before. He’d suggested using the same rack/shelf units I got for the closet and using them for tire storage. Took some quick measurements and it looked like it would work, so I ran down to City Mill. Got them, set up and here it is! Works quite well for my car tires. 
Truck tires are too big to fit a complete set, and actually if you go wider than 195 tires a complete set of four does not fit on one shelf either. But stacking them like this is much more efficient.
Cleans up a bunch of space!
This Belgian dark ale produced by A-B/InBev at the Stella Artois factory in Leuven is typical in manufacture to most Belgian “abbey beers†in that they are brewed by major commercial breweries “under license†from the original abbey brewmasters, or are named after an abbey that no longer exists to cash in on the popularity of abbey beers (in this particular instance the former). The recepie for this ale goes back to 1240, and even though it is no longer produced in the monastic tradition, it is still a good dark ale with a rich, slightly smoky malt flavor. There is a hint of fruitiness and spice, with a mild trailing bitter. It’s not quite syrupy, but this doppel does carry a thicker mouthfeel than a standard ale. A higher alcohol content and abundance of phenolics ensured a good cranking headache afterwards though. I had it with lamb, which was a good pairing with the strong flavors of this beer. Those stronger flavors, along with the slightly heavier mouthfeel make this beer almost a meal in itself, but also would tend to make it not a very good “beginner beerâ€, although people who don’t care for bitter beers may appreciate this one. Continue reading ‘Beer is Good – Leffe Bruin Belgian Dark Ale’
When you engage in certain activities, say snowboarding or mountain biking, you have to be willing to accept the consequences of your actions and decisions. I’ve always been aware of this, but sometimes, something comes along and smacks you in the face to underscore it. A couple of years ago, it was riding into a tree branch I didn’t see and busting my helmet and nose and splitting my goggle lens right down the center (Root was there for that one): This year, it was riding headlong off a triple-overhead drop.
With news of the 5-year record snowfall in my head, several continuous days of snow behind me, I headed out to Sapporo Kokusai ski-jou for some powder poaching. I had no illusions of the bottomless fluff that I’ve experienced there before, as the snowfall had been consistent but not heavy, and a weekend of endusers had probably already cut up most of the easily-accessed ungroomed areas. The morning had arrived with a few centimeters in town, which meant that there would be a little new coverage out at the resort, but it wasn’t enough to erase the sidecountry slash marks that squiggled down the visible faces. Continue reading ‘Pay the Piper’
On the way to Sapporo, I only had an hour layover in Narita, so after getting through immigration, baggage claim, and customs, I ran over to the domestic counter to check my bags in then went up to the observation deck to cool down. After the sweat evaporated, I went inside to look for a quick bite. I was thinking of going to Sushi-den, the usual sushi-ya I eat at, but I didn’t want to scarf everything down in like 10-minutes and run out of there, so I went to Kyotaru, the take-out sushi place over on the North side (it’s right on the main walkway fronting the balcony overlooking the check-in counters). One of the first things I saw was their Battera, so without even looking at any of their other offerings, I grabbed one and was off to the domestic gate. Continue reading ‘Mmm… Battera’