weekend of sports...
it was a very busy weekend for me for a change. saturday was spent unsuccesfully working on my friend's truck to figure out what was wrong with it. after reseating every electronic module we could find, we decided to give up when all our attempts failed. called the tow truck and hoped that the mechanic was gonna take pity on us. 5 hours later and the truck was back in his hands again. the stupid truck had a dirty sensor which confused the onboard computer into not wanting to work properly. final price for my friend, including towing... $225. not so bad. the bad news is that if the sensor malfunctions again, replacement cost is $403. ouch! thats why i prefer low tech vehicles. haha. while waiting on the truck to be repaired i watched a full days worth of sports. watched some women's golfing which was pretty interesting. the women were pretty good but most of them were kinda boxy looking. haha my bad. afterwards i watched the wimbledon's double championship which was won by the american twins. the rest of the night was spent watching some movies, which i'll review at a later time. earlier today i watched the wimbledon singles champaionship, federer against nadal. nadal kind of annoys me with all the grunting that he does and other on court antics. federer showed alot of reserve and class and i'm really glad he finally beat nadal this year. all in all i have to say it was a great match. ok now for the big one. world cup finals, italy vs. france. it was a very hard fought game with the french outplaying the italians but it was still 1 - 1 going into overtime. i dislike the french but Zinedine Zidane was a sentimental favorite of mine. he is the captain of the french team. throughout the tournament he's shown so much class, until tonight. in the 107th min. of the game after exchanging words with Marco Materazzi, Zidane turned around and gave a vicious head butt to the chest of Materazzi. the refs didnt see it but after the scene was replayed over and over again, a ref came forward and gave a red card to Zidane. this is Zidane's final world cup and he had played brilliantly until now. a fantastic career defined by an act of such poor sportsmanship. i guess he was so ashamed that he didnt even participate in the final ceremony. such a pity he had to go out that way. well no one scored in extra time so they had to go into penalty shoot out. the italians pulled it together and hit all 5 goals. the french had one ball that hit the edge of the goal and bounced out. it was an extremely exciting finish. watching the joy and exuberation on the faces of the italians and u cant help but feel happy for them also. this will probably be the last you will hear me about sports for the next few months. i don't really watch baseball until the word series. gosh... the next few months without sports. how will i ever survive? guess i'll have to concentrate all of my attention on a very special person. wink wink. have a wonderful weekend everybody.more bad luck...
my luck keeps getting better. yesterday my friend called me up and asks if i can come help him do some yard work. he doesnt have a lawn mower so has to borrow one from someone so after all of the rain we have been getting its been a few weeks since he has cut his grass. i say sure, no problem. he has a fairly large yard with lots of bushes and trees and stuff but the problem is that he gets really bad allergies and "can't" do yard work cause it makes him have an allergic reaction. every few weeks he calls me up and i cut the grass for him. he repays me by buying me dinner. i don't mind this arrangement cause i love doing outdoor physical activities and also get a free dinner afterwards. seriously the grass was like a jungle. the lawnmower choked because the grass was too high and stops every few feet. he has a gas powered weed eater but it doesnt automatically feed the line so every few mins i have to disassemble it and manually pull out the line. i'm not such a big guy and gas weedeaters are quite heavy for me to use, so u can imagine how tired i was after finally finishing.when everything was done to my satisfaction we proceeded to get in his car and head off to go eat. 6 kilometers from his house and his truck starts to lose power. we pull into a parking lot and try to figure out what was wrong. by this time it was about 11:30 PM at night. i'm dead tired and starving and we're broken down in the middle of nowhere. i check out his truck and notice that the "alarm armed" light keeps blinking. after reading the manual i figure out that his anti theft system has malfunctioned thus making the truck in-operative. it was late at night and i was in no condition or mood to walk so we call for a taxi. 45 mins later and we're back at his house. by the time i get home it was 1:30 AM. i open up a can of salmon and that was my dinner. i finally was able to sleep at 2 AM.
You can imagine the kind of mood i'm in this morning. the night before i got about 3 hours sleep and i get maybe 3 1/2 hours last nite. my body hurts and i'm in a pretty pissed off mood. oh yeah... i fail to mention that the replacement hard disk i bought for my laptop last month started making noise. it seems the motor is burning out. i had run a media diagnostic on it when i first received it and it passes. there's about 60 gigs worth of movies that are in jeopardy of being lost. hahaha.... god i love my life! well thats enough venting for the day and i really need to get started on work. hope your day turns out better than mine. laterz.
"V for Vendetta"...
yesterday was quite an uneventful day as usual except i finally got a little grocery shopping done. yay for me! trying to be a little creative, i bought many items which i don't normally buy. bean sprouts, cabbages, spinach, basically lots of veggies. looks like i'll be doing lots of stir fries the next week. i was extremely busy at work so missed much of the world cup action between portugal vs. france. i like neither teams but have made a blood pact to hate portugal for the rest of my life. haha. the finals will be interesting and i think i have to go with the italians, not because i like them but because i dislike the french even more.ok now to the movie review. i think Natalie Portman is quite pretty so watched her latest movie only for that reason. haha. I knew nothing about the movie only the hype surrounding when she shaved her hair for the role. i could tell already 10 minutes into the movie when that masked dude first made his appearance and started spewing that theatrical mumbo jumbo, the movie was gonna be a real corny one. don't get me wrong, the action sequences were kinda cool. V had some skill with the swords he always carried around but the political and social statements of the movie i found quite boring. 30 minutes into the movie.....i fell asleep. this rarely happens to me so u can imagine how extremely boring the movie was for me. haha. Natalie Portman did look great in the movie tho and her accent was extremely nice to listen to.
i personally will have to give the movie 2 thumbs down but to be fair here is a positive review from someone that liked it.
Author: anmueller from New York City
There are some that will, upon seeing this film, say that it was akin
to Andrew Lloyd Weber attempting to make a political statement: overly
dramatic. These people would be well served to remember that the symbol
of drama is a mask, which certainly begs one important question- Why,
if you are so put off by an overtly dramatic motion picture, would you
choose to see a movie that stars as the (anti)hero a man in a mask? I
just saw this film at an advanced screening and I must say it is
nothing short of uniquely brilliant. Entertaining from the start, V
manages to combine a strong socio-political message in a compact and
highly intense experience. Infused with issues and concepts that
pervade in the global political climate of our times, this movie is
endowed with a tremendous timely relevance that belies its trappings as
a mere action adventure.
The acting, the cinematography, the effects, and the general vision of
this film all lead me to believe that it will likely receive a cult
following. It is only my hope that the message of this film will come
to summarize the history of our future ascendancy to true liberty.
Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your
country. In the meantime, go see this movie.
amnesia...
looks like i survived another holiday. hip-hip-hoorayyy. lolz. i really like it when i make plans to do something but then ended up not doing a damn thing at all. i wanted to go out of town to houston for no particular reason but just to goof off in chinatown. did that happen? heck no. (lol i said "heck"). i planned on going to the huge july 4th electronic sale. did i do it? nuh uh. i wanted to go to the grocery store and stock up on food. nope... didnt do that either. what did i do the whole holiday? not a damn thing. man i can't even remember if i watched any movies or not. i had a good first half but spent the rest of the day kinda thinking and in a daze. i hate thinking too much. it was bad enough that i almost opened up a bottle of vodka but was too lazy to do so (and also because i hate drinking). what the heck DID i do last night? i honestly can't remember. bleh.i'm wasting time so i better just stop writing. i hate just babbling like this. have a good day everyone.
July 4th epilogue...
I guess we can't escape the past as easily as we both wanted to. The phone call from you was completely unexpected. Even though it lasted less than 2 minutes and was such a small gesture, nevertheless it really meant alot to me. In another month it would have been 2 years since we've seen each other yet everytime I hear your voice I still can see you in my mind's eye as clearly as if it was only yesterday. The problem is, and will always be that we shared and experienced too much with each other. Everything we went through together was carelessly tossed aside, feelings covered up in denial, memories shoved back into the darkest recesses of our minds. Putting the blame on each other and time it seems has diminished the memories and emotions very little. If only we were given a few more months surely things would have turned out differently. I think our deepest regret will be that we each could have, should have, been more patient and tolerant. Austin is not the same. I am not the same. Neither of our lives will ever be the same. I can never thank you enough for everything that you have done for me and I will never forget the lessons you have taught me about life and love. I wish you a happy life, Alexandra.Germany (0), Italy (2)
i am still in shock but glad i didn't decide to shower until the match was over. it was scoreless until the 119 minute mark of the match when Italy finally scores. i guess the Germans were stunned because Italy quickly scores again during the 120 minute mark. just like that and it was all over for the Germans. i still can't believe what i just saw. i hate to admit it but the world cup is now in anyone's hands. i thought Germany would surely be in the finals. well its shower time so take care everyone.Happy July 4th!
well its been a pretty laid back july 4th thus far. i made plans to do alot of things today but ended up chatting naked online all day instead. haha, i'm such a nudist sometimes. got a surpised gift from my friend in japan yesterday. she sent me alot of japanese candies, snacks, seaweed paper, and a really awesome jap t-shirt. the first time i've ever received a gift from overseas. its supposed to be an early birthday gift for me cause she will come on vacation next month to the states. it would be so awesome if she can fit me into her schedule.as we speak, germany and italy are battling it out in world cup play. its halftime during the second half extra time. looks to be a stalemate again ( 0:0 ). i have a feeling its gonna be going into penalty kickoffs like most of the other matches this world cup.
well its 4:14 PM my time and i think i need to shower, put some clothes on and fix me something to eat. lying down naked under the a/c vent while typing with a growling stomach isn't as nice as it sounds to be ;)
have a good one peeps and seeya later!
wow01gold...
first i thought the wow01gold guy was a little weird, i mean i didn't know there are hard core gamers out there willing to pay for world of warcraft points until i saw an advertisement from a dude selling some gaming points for like $600 USD. man i gotta learn how to play some of those games so that i can sell and trade my points. =)looks like easy money to me babyyyyyy. those wacky gamers.... hahaha
thanks for making me laugh for the day wow01gold guy. take care everyone.
"The World's Fastest Indian"...
well i guess this week is movie review week! last night i finally got to see the the movie i have been wanting to see for the past 4 months, "The World's Fastest Indian", with sir anthony hopkins. i have to say that it was worth the wait. for those of you who remembers hopkins for only hannibal the cannibal lecter, this movie will be a major shock for you. the word i can think of that describes this movie is "inspirational". hopkins portrays the lead character as a very frail and eccentric old man who spent most of his adult life in pursuit of a dream, to build the world's fastest motorcycle. the movie was quite entertaining following his quest to go from a tiny town in new zealand to the Bonneville salt flats of utah for the speed trials. it shows all of the people he meets along the way who helps him out on his quest. there are some exciting twists and turns in the plot that makes you think that he will fail in his quest. its nice to see that the movie has a positive ending and makes you leave smiling and happy for the main character.i can't even remember what movie won the oscar this year but i can tell you this movie deserved the nomination. 2 thumbs up and i hope you all give this surprising little movie a try.
Here is a short little biography about the real life Burt Munro.
In 1920 a 21 year old Southlander stood gazing at a brand-new motorcycle in an Invercargill garage. His eyes roved over the neat little V twin engine, the cast alloy primary case, the leaf sprung front fork. His hand lovingly stroked the gleaming red paint and the sparkle of the polished nickel matched that in his eyes. The proprietor was spoken to, a deal was struck, and the young man bought his
motorcycle, beginning a partnership which was to last until his death in December 1978. The man was Burt Munro and the bike was an Indian Scout, destined to become the world's fastest Indian.Burt Munro was born in 1899 at his parents home in Invercargill. His twin sister died at birth and Burt, said the doctor, "won't live till he's two". Fortunately for New Zealand's motorcycle history the doctor was wrong.
In 1915 he bought his first motorcycle, a Douglas, and by 1919 had saved enough to buy a Clyno with sidecar. This cost him £50 new. The sidecar was removed and the Clyno entered in local races. Speed records were set at the Fortrose circuit, near Invercargill, but the Clyno wasn't kept for long when the Indian came on the scene.
The Indian Scout came from the board of Charles Franklin, an Indian employee since 1914 and the first trained engineer to be employed by the company. Franklin's background well qualified him for the position. Born in Ireland in 1886 he graduated from the Dublin College of Science in 1908, securing a position in the engineering department of Dublin's municipal government. He became interested in motorcycling, owning several makes of machine and becoming interested in Indian in 1910. He entered local competitions where his ability and success brought him to the notice of the sole British importer of Indians, Billy Wells. He was a member of the Indian team in the 1911 Isle of Man TT, gaining second place behind Oliver Godfrey, and in front of Arthur Moorhouse, both also Indian mounted, in the historic first 1-2-3 by the same make.
Franklin conceived the design for the Scout as early as 1912, through his
studies of advanced motorcycle design and built a prototype, under Indian auspices, in early 1919. Tests were satisfactory and production started in September of that year on the,1920 models, commencing with engine number 5OR001.The bike bought by Burt Munro carried engine no. 5OR627 and can therefore be seen to have come very early in the life of a machine which remained in production, in basically the same form until 1931.
The Scout itself was a 37cu.in. (60Occ) 42 degree V twin with side valves. A helical gear primary drive was contained in an oil-tight, cast alloy case and a 3 speed, hand change gearbox with foot clutch was fitted. A double down-tube cradle frame was used, rigid at the rear, and a leaf-spring provided the forks with nearly 2 inches of movement at the front. Chain drive was used in contrast to the drive systems still commonly used on English motorcycles.
Burt began modifying his bike in 1926. His methods, to say the least, were unorthodox. He used an old spoke for a micrometer and cast parts in old tins although one American report has him casting pistons in holes in the sand at the local beach! He built his own four-cam design to replace the standard two-cam system and converted to overhead valves. He made his own barrels, flywheels, pistons, cams and followers and lubrication system. In their final form he in effect hand-carved his con-rods from a Caterpillar tractor axle, and hardened and tempered them to 143 tons tensile strength. He built a seventeen plate, thousand pound pressure clutch and used a triple chain drive. He experimented with streamlining and, in its final form, the bike was completely enclosed in a streamlined shell.The leaf-sprung fork was dispensed with and what appears to be a girder fork from a 1925 - 1928 Prince substituted.
Burt, then a grandfather, visited the Bonneville salt flats several times from 1962 onwards. In that year he set a then world record of 178.971 mph with his engine out to 51 cu.in. (85Occ). In 1963 a con-rod broke while he was traveling at an estimated 195mph. In 1966 it was displacing 920cc, when Burt, unhappy with some loss in top speed, completely rebuilt it again.
In 1967, with his engine punched out to 58 cu.in. (950cc) he set a class record of 183.586 mph. To qualify he made a one-way run of 190.07 mph, the fastest ever officially recorded speed on an Indian.
His visits to the salt were not without incident. In issue no. 1 of Motorcycle New Zealand, published in 1973 Burt is quoted as follows:-"At the Salt in 1967 we were going like a bomb. Then she got the wobbles just over half way through the run. To slow her down I sat up. The wind tore my goggles off and the blast forced my eyeballs back into my head - couldn't see a thing. We were so far off the black line that we missed a steel marker stake by inches. I put her down - a few scratches all round but nothing much else". At the time Burt was traveling at close to 206 mph!
Burt, then a grandfather, visited the Bonneville salt flats several times from 1962 onwards. In that year he set a then world record of 178.971 mph with his engine out to 51 cu.in. (85Occ). In 1963 a con-rod broke while he was traveling at an estimated 195mph. In 1966 it was displacing 920cc, when Burt, unhappy with some loss in top speed, completely rebuilt it again.
In 1967, with his engine punched out to 58 cu.in. (950cc) he set a class record of 183.586 mph. To qualify he made a one-way run of 190.07 mph, the fastest ever officially recorded speed on an Indian.
His visits to the salt were not without incident. In issue no. 1 of Motorcycle New Zealand, published in 1973 Burt is quoted as follows:-"At the Salt in 1967 we were going like a bomb. Then she got the wobbles just over half way through the run. To slow her down I sat up. The wind tore my goggles off and the blast forced my eyeballs back into my head - couldn't see a thing. We were so far off the black line that we missed a steel marker stake by inches. I put her down - a few scratches all round but nothing much else". At the time Burt was traveling at close to 206 mph!
His team at Bonneville consisted of Indian enthusiasts from all over the USA, who came voluntarily to provide help and encouragement. "Picked up a station wagon for $90 in Los Angeles last time," said Burt in the same interview. "It was the headquarters for Team Indian".
Burt Munro died in December 1978. The Indian, which had been his for 57yrs is in the hands of an enthusiast in the South Island. As well as the bike he left behind a legend of skill, perseverance, and courage which typifies the ingenuity and resilience of the New Zealand spirit, and of which all New Zealanders, motorcyclists or not, may be justly proud.
After a blow-up. The original engine no, 50R627 is visible. Rumor has it that Burt made his barrels from pieces of cast iron gas pipe, which he scrounged from the gas company after they had been dug up for replacement.
He reasoned that, after some years in the ground, they were well seasoned. He then made aluminum slices which he shrunk over the pipe to make fins.I can believe it looking at this picture (click for closeups and see the damage to cases & barrels)
"Korean Garden" restaurant...
saturday started off really bad for me cause england had got kicked out of the world cup. afterwards i tried calling someone for a full 45 minutes but wasnt able to connect. pehaps due to the fact that it was during world cup time, and we all know how europeans are crazy about that sport. lolz. the rest of the day was spent chilling inside cause i was having some pains and also due to it raining outside. about 8:00 pm i took about 5 painkillers and dragged my lazy ass to take a shower. felt in the mood for some korean food so headed off towards my destination. i hate going to the korean restaurant alone. its such a nice restaurant and i always feel uncomfortable having to go out to such a nice place all by myself. this particular restaurant i havent been to in almost a year so was quite startled when an old friend i knew worked there. talk about major discomfort! fortunately it was quite busy that night so we really didnt have time to talk. i have been craving for squid stir fried with vegetables for about 2 months so ordered that. to my surprise my friend brought me a platter of sushi and told me its on her. i thanked her sheepishly and began eating cause i really was quite starved not having eaten for the past day and a half. thru the middle of my appetizer she brought me a plate of fried dumplings called mandoo. she still remembered that it was my favorite appetizer. i was shocked and extremely embarrassed cause i hate receiving free food but she insisted. after many thanks i knew there was no way i was gonna finish all of this food. prior to the main course, she brought over all of the side dishes. in authentic korean restaurants u are given many vegetable side dishes that accompanies your meal. typically around 5 side dishes. she brought 7 side dishes and my table was literally covered with food! there were small bowls of seaweed, squash tempura, kimchi, pickled sesame leaves, mochi rice cakes, fish cakes, fish mochi cakes. that is alot of food for 2 people so u can imagine how it looked for a table for 1. lolz. i was very full by the time the dish i ordered arrived. taking a couple of bites i was too full to finish so asked for a to go box. i thanked her again for everything and told her it was nice to see her again. after promising to come again i prepared to leave. the bill was so small compared to the amount of food i received so i left her a 95% tip. don't know if it was the right thing to do or not but like i said, i hate receiving free food. thats one reason why i dont go to a few reataurants where i have friends that works there. same thing with gifts, i hate receiving them. i love giving but am always so embarrassed to receive them. damn i'm weird.well its a rainy sunday so it looks like i'm gonna be stuck in the house again. have a wonderful weekend everyone!
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