Fabio’s favorites Pabo performed, but unfortunately, paired with some old guys. Perfume got to do a solo, but they were pretty terrible with the synthesized Cher-o-phonic distortion thing going, but they still weren’t as bad as show opener Hamasaki Ayumi. I wonder how long it will take people in Japan to wake up and realize that she really sucks jagged kidney stones? Speaking of suck, NHK resurrected the dead with a performance by washed-up has-beens,Speed. Last year it was TMR who got a chance to reprise his youthful days as a top-selling artist. This year, Speed went on to prove that time and a mediocre wine yield an old, mediocre wine. They were still as bad as they were when they were on the Oricon charts, with flat notes and voices strained on the high-pitched edge of cracking in the same places they have always been. Mikawa Kenichi’s performance was somewhat rudely intruded upon by some gangly tall transvestite. I guess recently, they have felt the need to have something on the shocking side - last year it was that naked fitness dude, and the year before that it was HG. Probably the best performances of the night were the operatic tenor dude and Jero (Jerome Charles White, Jr.). Angela Aki, Aoyama Thelma, and Hirai Ken performed well, although I am not a big fan of their genre of pop. Needless to say ,there was no good rock. There have been rock acts in the past, but nothing harder than L’arc en Ciel. They really needed Krauser II and DMC! Here’s the official site if you’re interested.
Archive for the 'rant' Category
The skinned finger healed up in time for the Whistler Thanksgiving trip, so all was good…
That is up until Saturday, when we were out-of-bounds on Blackcomb poaching some unridden fluff. We found a nice log jib, and hung around to session it. I rode it first and cleaned it (with a slightly off-center sortie, but that’s another story). After my run, the snow on top of the log had been scraped away, revealing a prong of death branch sticking out the top. I kicked at it and busted most of it off, but there was still a nubbin of death that bugged me. I got out my Swisstool and sawed it off. While I was shaking the wet sawdust out of the saw blade, the tool slipped out of my hand and disappeared into the snow. Without thinking, I plunged my hand into the snow and found the sawteeth with my fingertip! Blood fountained forth, drenching the tool, dripping all over the log, and splattering the snow like a crime scene! Continue reading ‘BFOD V2.0′
I saw this neat paint chip at the Downtown Post Office loading dock that looks like a galvanized-colored version of the popular image of what a devil is supposed to look like in Western culture.
Saw this sticker on the back window of an old Honda Civic.
No, I will not.
No, this isn’t.
I’m really getting mixed feelings about my iPhone. It’s a nifty device and has proven to be pretty useful in additional to the entertainment options. The 3G network seems to have improved some since my first post, but it still shows problems. So what’s my complaint now? I guess with the complexity and the loadability of software, it’s not as stable as an appliance. I had one instance a couple weeks ago of losing phone service entirely. Thought it was network problem, but doing the reset on phone fixed it. Now today I’ve lost phone service, and it seems wifi. Put a call in to tech support. Ran through the reset I already did, then a reset through the phone setting. Finally am doing a larger scale reset that is still running on my phone and will erase everything. Hopefully that will get the phone back running, we’ll see. So maybe it’s not such a great idea to have one device try to do so many ’smart’ things if you rely on your phone as a phone. To their credit, there was no wait to get a binder reading tech on the line, but is this a case of product getting a high satisfaction rating because even though the product gives problems, the customer support is good?
Ugh, so that reset seems to have zapped the phone and the only thing you can do with it is call 911. I have to restore it from my iTunes, which is on my machine at home. So I’m without a phone today. Needless to say, I’m quite annoyed. The monkeys are getting angry that they have no cake and the forehead veins are begining to swell.
Ooops, I’ve just been informed that AT&T in Hawaii just went down, so it seems it’s not a fault of the iPhone. I wish tech support was aware of that before we erased my phone. I suppose I should have checked AT&T. Veins have subsided, but the monkeys still want their cake!
The Bloody Finger of Death.
Ow! Dammit, that hurts! Pinched my finger between the work van tire and the radial tire patch insertion tool. Those new type pre-glued patch strips break easily during the insertion process, and the tool takes a jump toward the tire. POS! Bring back the old heavily-corded patches!
I didn’t have scissors in my first aid kit since security took away my Leatherman Micra in Banff years ago, so I had to cut the dangling flap of skin off with the apparently dull blade of my Swisstool. Note to self: Buy some scissors.
I really hate when people take the “Drive with Aloha” thing to inappropriate levels. If you’re on the freeway and it’s gridlocked and someone is trying to merge in at an on-ramp, sure, show some Aloha and let ‘da bruddah’ or sistah’ in. It’s when people go out of their way to let you in and cause inconvenience to everyone else around them is where I draw the line. Yesterday I was making a right turn from a side street onto a divided highway, and there was a space coming up in traffic that I could pull into. Continue reading ‘No Aloha for You!’
I’m amazed there aren’t more disasters in this world. Last week filling gas was the second time I’ve seen someone smoking at a gas station. The passenger was puffing away, hanging cigarette hand outside of window which happened to be the pump side. Previous instance a few months ago dude did stop smoking, by flinging the the still smoldering cigerette onto the ground of the filling station. Luckily I was done and I bugged out as I watched the smoldering stick rolling along the concrete.
Last week, Ckucke ordered some parts from Chain Reaction Cycles in the UK, so I had him het me a set of Shimano M770 9-speed shifters and a cassette for the Chase. Parts came in on Friday, but I didn’t have a chance to work on the bike until Tuesday, so I took it into the shop to switch them out. Dug around in back for an XTR 9-speed chain, then I put the cassette on. When I opened the bag-o-shifters (they were OEM packaged or take-offs, not retail packaged), the first one was a left (front) shifter, so I just grabbed he other and put it in my tool tray. I took off the bar plug and grip, removed the brake lever, and set about unmounting the shifter, unthreading the cable from the housing, and disconnecting the cable from the old shifter. The cable in use was a trick Teflon-coated one, so I wanted to use that instead of the generic stainless steel one that shipped with the XT. I pulled the new shifter out of the bag and got ready to take the cable out when I noticed that it was a left shifter. I must have grabbed the wrong one by accident. I grabbed the other shifter and it was the left shifter that I had put down earlier. I got that sick, sinking feeling in my gut. No way! I put the two shifters side-by-side. Both were lefts! WTF?! Continue reading ‘Front and Front’
So, one of my left side rear brake lights has been out for a while. Been lazy, but safety is this month. Got home early tonight and checked it out as I was unloading cargo. Pull the socket out of light assembly. Hmm, the bulb is shattered, and the socket is rusted. Use a rag, crack of most of the other jagged bit of bulb left, and managed to extract the bulb. There’s water in the socket. I pull the other bulbs out, there’s moisture inside the lower housing, the other bulb and socket is rusted together. Continue reading ‘The Rice Lives’