A New Year

Well another year has come and gone. New year’s time is usually the time to reflect on the past year, but this past year has been pretty uneventful; even bordering on disappointing.  I felt as if I just floated through this year.  Instead, I look at the new year in front of me.  This coming year will bring a close to many things thing in my life and the opening of new things.  I hope this will be the turning point I am looking for.

I wish a happy and prosperous new year for all you out there.  I the new year brings new opportunities and successes to everyone.

Head Crack

We are putting together a new engine for a GDB customer right now. I saw that a brand new set of heads were being fitted to the engine and I inquired how come the customer went with new factory heads.  Our mechanic putting the motor together, Nakazawa-san, told me to take a look at the combustion chamber.

Personally, I rarely work on Subaru engines and engine overhaul customers in Japan are not as common as they used to be. So, I have never seen a crack like this before. Apparently its not uncommon amoung EJ20 engines from what Nakazawa-san says.  You can see that the crack on the rear runs pretty deep into the spark plug hole.  Cylinder 1,2, and 4 are all cracked in this general area.

Japan Xmas Part2

We got the day off for the Emporer’s Bday, so my boss’ family decided to celebrate Xmas on the 23rd instead of the 25th.(No vacation for Xmas in Japan)  I spent most of the day at home and left only to run some errands with the boss.  We came home to this spread. The main part of the meal… Mos chicken. Most people get KFC, but the boss hates KFC so we get Mos Burger chicken instead.  Still grubbing none the less.

And last but not least Xmas cake.  Today’s cake had like a pudding filling.  It was pretty damn good. But if I had to pick between the two, I would go with the first cake with the cream/ strawberry filling.  All in all a chill day.  Thanks to boss’ wife for the great meal.

Japan Xmas 1

For the past couple of days, all I have been hearing about is Xmas cake. My boss’ wife was surprised to hear that in the US there is no Xmas cake. Well we have that gross ass fruit cake thing that nobody eats. Well last night I got a preview of Xmas cake as my boss’ wife received one as a gift.  I thought I was excited, but not as excited as the kids were.

Basically its like really good wedding cake.  White cake with a kind of whipped cream frosting and straberry filling.  Its actually pretty damn good.  Had some milk to go with it.  Lactose intollerant what? This cake is worth it.  Tonight is dinner and 7-11 bought Xmas cake.

Sick of being sick

Being sick sucks.  It sucks even harder when you are away from home.  I don’t have an apartment in Japan anymore, so I stay at my boss’ house when I come.  Its a little better than my apartment.  Well… its alot better with the central heating and stocked fridge. But its still his house. You take for granted the comfort of your own place, especially when you are sick and just want to veg out. I have to isolate myself in my room so that I don’t get his family sick.  What sucks even harder is that its the first few days we have had off and I am stuck in my room feeling like shit. Thank goodness for ipod and Gameboy Advance.

Oh, just when I thought the events were over, we are off to Tsukuba on Friday for Hot Version shoot.  Yay for me.

Jacked

On occasion, I browse through a few message boards that I know people on.  I have been reading more and more posts about how people are getting jacked by sellers either on ebay, craigslist or just on general boards.  I say serves you right.  Harsh, I think not.

You guys take the risk of purchasing shit from internet guys instead of supporting local tuning shops.  Then the shops close down and you are left with no option but to buy parts from some guy, sitting in his room in his underwear.  These guys have next to nothing in overhead and don’t really give a fuck if they jack you.  They just make new identities or new webshops.  Nothing to lose.  At least if you go to a shop there is a face to face interaction.  You know where the guy is.  You know he has to bust his ass to make rent. You know if there are issues you can go there and deal with them face to face.

I say it all the time, big ups to guys running tuning shops.  You are the ones keeping this industry alive. A big fuck you to internet sellers jacking people.  So the next time you are considering buying parts, don’t be a cheap ass and buy from a qualilty shop.

Last Event

We headed out to Tsukuba for the D1 Street Legal event.  D1 asked the top teams to participate in a 5 lap battle during the final event of the year.  What they didn’t tell us is that we wouldn’t have a paddock and woudl have to pit outside.  That is fine, except it was 35degreesF all day and raining.  Rad!

I was over being outdoors, let alone take any photos.  The rain continued to pour until right before the race.  Luckily we had our van and hid out for the good portion of the day.  In the end the race was more of a demo than a race.  Its good to be back in the shop knowing that there are no more events to run until Auto Salon next year.

Writing Practice

I was watching TV the other day and there was a segment on how only in Nagano do student have to practice writing every day. They interviewed the company that makes the books and said that 100% of the books produced are sold to Nagano Prefecture. The best part is that the boss and his family didn’t even know that only students in Nagano do this tedious writing practice.

After he told his kids they were bummed to find out that, in all of Japan, they are the only ones that have to partake in this chore. I am glad I don’t have to go to school in Nagano.

Happy Xmas

I have been in Japan for about a week and a half now and I am really surprise by how into Xmas Japanese people are.  All variety shows and commercials have some sort of winter/ Xmas theme behind it.  I am pretty stoked because I really like Xmas; especially Xmas music.  Its pretty certain that you will hear Last Xmas by Wham! or All I want for Xmas by Mariah Carey at least once a day.

But what really struck me as strange was that there is a Circle K on the way home from the shop, that has a banner hung up with the phrase “Have a Happy Xmas.”  I took it as possibly Japanese English, but I was surprise when the boss laughed at it too.  He said “WTF is Happy Xmas.  It should be Merry Xmas!”  Interesting.

Mega Mac

Went to Tsukuba the other day for Super Lap.  Even though I have been going back and forth to Japan for a while, I always miss the Super Lap.  I am usually at home from Thanksgiving until Xmas so I miss out.  There was honestly not as many cars as I thought would be there.  Seems like there are more cars at Hypermeeting in the spring than there is at Super Lap.  The A group was all super fast: Cyber, Varis, ASM, ATTKD.  We were in the B group, but blew out a brake hose so we had to retire.  We were all pretty bummed out, so I didn’t really take any photos.  I am sure you can find a bunch on Speedhunters.

What I did take a photo of is this:

I have wanted to try this thing since it came out last year.  Don’t get me wrong, I know Mcdonalds is pretty shitty when it comes to nutrition, but damn it tastes good.  One of my guilty pleasures, I used to eat Big Macs on a weekly basis when I was living in Japan.  And yes they tastes just as delicious as the ones in the US.  Back to the Mega Mac, I was stoked when the boss said we are having Mickey D’s for lunch.  What you see here is a Mega Mac combo, Large size.(regular sized for the US, super sized for Japan).

Final verdict.  I was a little bummed out.  They doubled the meat, but didn’t double the cheese.  Maybe its a mistake, but there was only one slice of cheese for 4 slices of meat.  Still you can taste that the meat was seasoned. Can’t really taste that in the US.  Is it worth $8USD? I will probably stick to the regular Big Mac.