One of my “borderline” traits is my fascination with numbers, especially numerical readouts (this also partially explains my fascination with pachinko and the like). Some numbers and patterns just mean a lot to me, although my commemoration of odometer milestones I know is at least shared by some of my friends. Some people just don’t get it though – I remember when I stopped my S-13 Silvia on a busy highway median to photograph reaching the 111,111 kilometer mark (sub trip odometer 1,111), the person I was with totally DID NOT understand why I thought it was so special, so I told him to get the fuck out of my car and he immediately got hit by a big truck and died. OK, maybe that last part was just wishful thinking, but what a fucking killjoy, you know?
So with that in mind, I present to you the first big milestone for my new (used) car:
Odometer otakus should note that I have synchronized the sub-trip recorder to within 0.3 meters of the main readout.
This is going to be something special.
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I finally got around to taking a pic of my new audio setup, but I didn’t take it during the right time of day, unfortunately:
I was so happy with the work my guy did, I let him put a sticker on the box – it’s in Comic Sans!
The sub box is located in front of the amp, a simple vented design for a 12″ driver I bought cheaply in Japan and have used for over 5 years now. I can’t recommend the polymer/silicon/carbon substrate construction for speaker cones enough, and it’s a damn shame the only factory making them burned down last year. The speaker points forward, as I tried pointing both forward and back, but due to the dampened trunk lid, excess reverb prevented a rear-pointing layout. Speaking of dampening, the entire rear third of the car has been soundproofed with bitumen sheets. The rest will be done when I have the time.
All I have to say is, I’m lucky to be in Thailand because I could never afford to have all this stuff done in the states or Japan. I just happened to find, through a long string of coincidences, a local workshop whose owner speaks English really well and is more into car audio than I am, which is pretty rare. What’s even more rare is that his shop is A) fast B) cheap and C) extremely competent – it’s like being on a different plane of reality, where shit that isn’t supposed to exist does. I plan to take full advantage of this most advantageous situation.
Category: Photos
Mangosteens and Rambutans
…are in season!
They sell for around 40 cents per pound each at the market; this is apparently a good year.
Probably my favorite fruit in the world. In fact, I can’t think of a close second.
Such an alien-looking fruit. Delicious, though.
Fr007 pr0n!
Bonus trivia (via Wikipedia):
- The mangosteen is known as the “Queen of Fruits” in Asia. (The “King of Fruits” is the durian. If the king and queen ever bear children, I’ll be the first in line to eat them.)
- The exocarp (purple outer layer) of the mangosteen is rich in both nutrients and antioxidants, however, this is generally not the edible part. The inner white fruit is known as the aril and seems to contain, well, uh, delicious juices that aren’t proven to be beneficial in any way, thus proving that anything that’s really healthy for you probably doesn’t taste very good.
- “There is a story, possibly apocryphal, about Queen Victoria offering a cash reward to anyone who could deliver to her the fabled fruit (mangosteen).”
- Thailand is now the world’s largest producer of rambutans.
- Rambutan seeds are poisonous to humans.
Cows in Kalasin
A photo from a road trip to a dam in Kalasin (a neighboring town) last month.
I just had to stop the car to walk among them even though it was 100 degrees outside. In other news, I am still trying to perfect my channel mixing skills – the grass in that field wasn’t actually orange, it was green, but I think it looks better orange.
Khon Kaen University Amphitheatre
(click image to open a larger version in a pop-up window)
No HDR here, just channel mixing. HDR looks like fun, though.
Impossible Fish
Why not ride on the coattails of the Impossible Fish Tank? (See that? That’s how to give credit, bitches…)
We somehow acquired a small fish tank at the house and went out to buy some fish to keep as slaves (not slaves in the sense that they will work our land for a share of the crops, but in the sense that they exist only to amuse us, since freshwater fish make such shitty companions/rescue animals).
We went to the local pet shop and found mostly a bunch of fat, quivering goldfish and mollies, which I detest, as I like my slaves skinny (and preferably, forlorn/amusing). In a tank wedged between the goldfish, however, we found the fish pictured above. Rather than thinking about how I’d never seen fish like these before, or how unnatural their coloring looked, I instead thought about what a stunning resemblance they shared with some fishing lures in my tackle box at home:
So you may understand that I reacted with some surprise when the worker at the pet shop, while scooping these specimens into a bag for us to take home, told us that they had in fact been artificially colored. And I do not mean to say that they were painted or dipped in some kind of dye, either. It was INJECTED into their bodies!
…………..
Fucking third world!
Poor fishies!
I no longer think of them as slaves; they are my babies and I shall care for them tenderly (feeding them processed food pellets once a day) until the time of the Big Flush.
My favorite breakfast joint in Sarakham
Sorry, no time for captions. Maybe no need, either! ; )
(Click on any image below to open a larger version in a pop-up window.)
museumr
Go play, if you have a flickr account.
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Here’s the original:
http://flickr.com/photos/cbuddha/433197026/
And there’s a story behind it: Went fishing in crazy hot weather a few weeks ago on a ghetto pontoon boat; caught a few fish and saw this little guy hit the water and start drowning. Fished him out with my Thai “fish hell” rig just as he stopped struggling. Put him on my finger and blew on his wings, and he came back to life! It was pretty cool.
Nam’s ducky cowboy hat
We came across a roadside vendor selling cowboy hats at the end of last year, and this one just stood out.
In related news, I found a hidden horse ranch on the dirt road behind our house.
Now all I need is a good set of spurs!
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UPDATE (transcribed from Google Talk session with Adam):
me: oh wait i just realized something
it’s not a duck is it
Adam: no
chicken
me: oops
always thought it was a rubber ducky
Adam: nah, dude, its like a chicken in a biscuit
me: godammit
oh well the name stays
this is nam’s ducky hat godammit
Adam: cool
What is this blossom?
Note: This is an update post to What is this tree?.
Click on any of the photos to open an enlarged version in a popup window.
The tree.
The vibrant variation in color is one reason why I call this tree the “super sakura.”
Pistil porn.
Note the fig-shaped buds.
I had to cheat in order to get a good frontal shot since the trees are so tall and the blossoms face upwards.
What is this tree?