Monthly Archive for December, 2009

Blue State

This morning, a bunch of non-local news trucks and camera crews were camped out in front of the State office building on Punchbowl, aiming their cameras at Queen’s. Really folks, anything having to do with Rush is not news.  Does anyone else find it ironic or hypocritical that he’s spending his cash for a vacation in a blue state?  It would be even moreso if the Kahala Hotel and Resort was foreign-owned…

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Ugh

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.

Mmm, theobromine

P1010398So 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.

Mmm, Calamansi

P1010397Went 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”!

The Pig

IMG_0551Believe 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.

Boxes of Fun

Box of fun openWoo 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…

STARrrr

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.P1010391 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’

Can O Worms

Oops, opened up that can o worms today. The FX has been off the road in the garage since discovering with all the Thanksgiving rains that there is a leak up top and front. This one is bad because it drips onto the seat and your left thigh if your seated inside. So today I decided to pop the trim to take a look at the top edge of the windscreen. Amazingly the windscreen trim clips are still holding well and it took quite a bit of convincing. I got the top edge off, and then the passenger side. There was a lot of collected crap, and some hidden rust developing. Yuck. So I started on the drivers side. The upper corner, where the suspected leak is, there was a lot of sealant goop in the trim edge groove. Hm, wonder what went on there. The left edge trim is proving stubborn, the clips seem to be imbedded in a lot of goo. The first clip finally starts to work loose. Continue reading ‘Can O Worms’

Goodness My Gracious!

This cracks me up!  This reply to one of Root’s AE86 or FX16 threads was so funny that I had to let y’all see it:

Intimately, the post is really the sweetest on this worthy topic. I concur with your conclusions and will thirstily look forward to your upcoming updates. Saying thanks will not just be enough, for the fantasti c clarity in your writing. I will directly grab your rss feed to stay abreast of any updates. Fabulous work and much success in your business enterprise!

Everybody, please don’t panic!

Learn to Drive!

OK, I’m officially super annoyed at the neighbors on the T street from us. Having the second house tell me not to park directly across from their drive way because it makes it hard for them to back out and they might hit my car. Now who’s fault is it if they do? I’m parked in a perfectly legal spot on a public street, and it’s across from their house, not blocking their view to pull out into street. I park in the spot I do because other idiots don’t know how to drive and cut the corner then swing wide and cream parked FX’s there. I barely contained my urge to say “No, this is a public street, this is a perfectly legal parking spot, you shouldn’t be driving if you can’t back out of your driveway without hitting a parked car on the opposite side of the street, I’m parking here.” WTF! If I were really pissy, I’d get all the vehicles running, I’d park the FJ40 on their side of the street in the space between the two houses who complained to me (and Fabio), and then park the FX directly across the first driveway, and the AE86 directly across the second driveway. See how they like a seven foot tall box blocking their view, and then deal with their poor driving skill getting out of their driveways. Aaarg! Learn to drive, people! But no, I need to live with these neighbors.

Even more reason to get the FJ55 Pig out of the garage and the FX16 carcass out of the driveway so don’t have to park on the street. Which BTW, miracles of miraceles, guy is coming this week to start process of taking the FJ55 away.

P1010390OK, I can tell I’m annoyed, I cooked dinner & ate, had some sake, and I’m still annoyed enough that I went out & took a pic. Take a look at this. If you can’t get out of your driveway from house on left onto this street, something is wrong with you. When you are issued a driver’s liscence, that is supposed to certify that you have the basic skill and ability to operate an automobile safely and with competance on public road conditions. If you lack the skill and ability, you should not have said liscence.