randomwisdom.com

Has anyone ever made a list of car names that WOULDN'T fly outside Japan?

"Chaser" (a car that goes great with Jack Daniels)
"Today" (no, not WHEN, but WHAT KIND of car did you get?)
"Every" (...every what?) (Don't say "wagon" or I'll rip your tonsils out; you can probably find the catchy ad with the singing foreigners on there somewhere)
"Space Gear" (a toothed sprocket floating in orbit)
"Pajero" (literally, in Spanish, f**ker, which is oddly appropriate considering what you'll be shouting when one cuts you off)
"Move" (if it only would, out of my way)
"Life" (to be considered the next time someone tells you to "get a life")
"Naked" (yes, really)
"Homy" (word to yo momma)
"Guts" (you gotta hand it to a truck with spine)
"Emina" (not to be confused with an enema)
"Vino" (goes well with a Chaser)
and "That's"

... all, folks!

Why the hell does pretty much every "online airfare search" in English require you to fly out from a US city? Thank you for assuming that because I speak English I live in the United States. The ones that don't, well they have options for "my dates are flexible"-- you know, so you can fly at a time of year that isn't peak. Except that, again, it only works if you're flying within the United States. Fantastic, guys. Bang up job of telling me this BEFORE I fill out all this information.

Assholes.

For the record, I want to fly from Sendai to Seoul (which means Incheon airport). Someone had mentioned that roundtrip fares were in the range of 30000 to 40000 yen roundtrip in non-peak season. This is peak season (summer vacation) so I expect prices to jump up about 15000 yen. But the price the travel agent quoted me was downright ridiculous (69000) so I wanted to do some comparisons on my own.

The cheapest airline turns out to be Asiana airlines. Flights out on the days I had selected before (leaving on a Friday) were rather expensive, but if I leave on a Thursday the price drops down to about 52000 yen (slightly more on the US site because of taxes, fees, and conversion; but not much). Great! I dig through the Japanese trying to find the "make reservation" button... and then I see it, in red letters. Translation: "As the online reservation time for this flight has expired, you cannot make a reservation". What the hell? Expired???! Do you NOT want me to buy your plane tickets? Assholes!

Rummaging through the rest of the site, I finally dug up a reasonable fare that I could actually book; the one leaving on Thursday was notably cheaper. Called the travel guy back up, and he told me if I changed the dates it would indeed be cheaper, but not as cheap as on the site (because of some added "environment and airport fees"). I told him I'd think about it, and then checked the Asiana site again. Sure enough, as soon as I hit "checkout" the extra SIX THOUSAND YEN worth of fees get tacked on. I believe that's called "bait and switch." ASSHOLES!

I called back the travel agent and made the booking. Through this whole ordeal, he was not an asshole. So while it was still a bit more than I wanted to pay, I gave him my business.

Last Saturday I delved into the depths of my motorcycle to clean out the carburetor. The bike was running OK, but the low end was a bit jerky and sluggish. So, sure as "parts is parts", I rode the bike that morning to my buddy's shop, home of all the tools of the trade. Despite my insistence that I could probably do most of it myself, he realized that I didn't even know how to remove the rear fairings... so he gave me some directions and a phillips-head and went to fetch a wrench. Turn turn turn pull-flump. Pulled out the gas tank, which for some reason doesn't leak when you pull the hoses out. Disconnected the throttle and choke cables. Hmm... looks like we'll have to pull out the airbox, what a pain in the ass-- and then with a bit of magic he extricated the carb from the impossible space between the engine and airbox.

He did most of the work inside the actual carbs. Drain valve? Nah, let's just unscrew the float bowls and let the gas pour out. Unscrewed the jets and put them in the float bowl along with the screws, and pour in some cleaner. Damn, that's nasty, the mixture is turning green. Flip through some magazines about American cars while the chemical does its thing. Then we put the whole thing back together, which took about half an hour. Cranked, started, and she was good to go. He took it around the block to make sure it was working alright, and then I rode home.

In all, not only was the low end much smoother, but I didn't realize how anemic the top end had gotten. Now it's smooth down to 2000 rpm (near-stall for a 14k redline), and the throttle doesn't have any choppy points. Well worth half a day. I really owe my buddy for helping me out with that.

Got home and I wanted to take a shower to wash off the sweat from riding and grease from wrenching, so I hopped in the shower and turned on the tap... one thin high-powered stream of water. What the hell? Switched the faucet over to the bath tap and a bunch of nasty silty crap came out. Fantastic. Out came the phillips-head again, to remove the shower head and clean out the shower jets. Hey, there's a grommet here too. And a bunch of rusty silt-crap, force-rammed into the jets of the showerhead. Easily fixed; just reverse the showerhead, hold it in place backwards, turn it on, and let the water pressure blast the crap out. It worked, but only after a lot of gentle prodding to loosen the dirt. And then, finally, screw it all back together (deja-vu via reassembly) and finally take a shower.