Reading (For Dummies)

Comment Captchas

After receiving Yet Another Bundle of Spam (YABS), I decided to take a little action and install MT-Comment captchas. From now on, comments will require you to type in the number that you see in the box. Apologies to the blind...

Car Woes

My suby-jet has been running really rough lately. It's loped like mad when idling, backfired often during acceleration, and provided generally a lot less power than I've been used to. I figured it was just the extreme cold and short driving distances that have been experienced lately, but it's been warm (above freezing, in fact!) the last two afternoons and it has still run miserably. So ice in the fuel line was out as well.

I popped the hood and not one but two spark plug wires were unseated. Yeah. That's bad. I snapped them back and they seemed to hold, but it started loping again and lo and behold they were off again. I had bought new plugs anyway as I was planning to replace the old ones. So I swapped out the plugs (one of the unfiring even had cracked ceramic for some reason...hm), and crimped the wires and everything seems to be happy now.

The question is, what kind of damage will having two unfiring cylinders do to a horizontally-opposed 4 cylinder engine? The car still feels way underpowered and lopes every now and then when idling -- could I have damaged a valve? And could any of this explain why the ceramic was chipped from the tip of one of the plugs?

I wish I knew more about car engines, but I guess I'll have some opportunity to learn more when I get the motorcycle...

Ozy and Millie

Ozy and Millie has returned after a many-month hiatus. This little comic strip is a true replacement for Bloom County -- socio-political commentary presented by fuzzy little animals.

Violin Fireworks

I decided to become un-Japanese for a night and do some traditionally Western things.

Like Italian food and wine...

Thanks to my mum, who sent some Roselli's frozen lasagna up with my dad last week. Delicious, healthy, and a no-brainer. Definitely my kind of food!

I went to the Symphony again tonight as well.

Special guest Corey Cerovsek

The pieces for tonight were Copland's Tender Land, Corigliano's The Red Violin (yes, from the movie of the same name), Ravel's Tzigane, and Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony. An evening full of joyous and sorrowful music. Henry opted out, claiming that the concert would be too violent. I didn't think so up until the second movement of the Tchaikovsky piece...now I can only nod vaguely in his direction.

Corey is an interesting character though. I don't have much knowledge of classical music yet, but I do know that I could compare his intensity and fervor to Pamela Means -- in fact, his bow was shedding hairs during the Red Violin, reminscent of good old Pam snapping guitar strings left and right.