Royal wedding

Apparently it coincided with the annual meeting of the Society for Silly Hats. Seriously, do they realize how they look, or do they just not care? This is a wedding, and yet you'd see more sensible headgear at a sci-fi convention than you did in westminster abbey.

Acupuncture

I was reading something about acupuncture, and it was listing conditions that it can treat. It lists some general things. Then it lists some "women's conditions" like irregular menstruation. Then it lists some "mens condition's" and says "importance" :)

It was manually corrected to "impotence" but I think "importance" would be a funny men's condition to treat.

Mechanical elaborated

As per the last post... there are two possible explanations for the difference. One is of course that the dealership is essentially ripping me off, recommending work that doesn't really need to be done, and charging lots for it. The other explanation is that the independent mechanic just did not see the problems, perhaps not knowledgeable enough. I think it's mostly the first case, but maybe a little of the latter case.

For the general mechanical work, things the dealership just happened to notice when snooping around but that independent guy figured looked ok, I figure things are probably fine. The problem is the original reason I took the car in: the check engine light came on. The dealership had said the ECM needed replacing. At least the independent guy showed me the code so I could see it reporting "P0507: Engine idling faster than expected." He said it looked to be idling around the right range, and didn't have much else to say about it, just keep an eye on engine idle speed, if it seems fine, don't worry. The issue with that is that the light turned on, the dealership reset it when I took the car in, but it turned on again about a week later, so the independent guy reset it also. But I don't like the idea that it will keep coming on in the future, even if he thinks it's nothing to worry about. I don't consider the problem solved.

But at least with that engine code I was able to research online. I downloaded the service manual for my car, so I could see how the dealership arrived at the conclusion to replace ECM. Of course, don't know if they really followed that procedure closely. Other people have solved a similar issue by performing an "Idle air volume learning." Hmm, the dealership would have needed to do this when they flashed the ECM as part of a recall a few months ago. Maybe they didn't do it right? Maybe it's temperature dependent? Anyway, the light came on again recently, so, finally I decided to perform that procedure and see what happens. Of course now the light is on, I'll have to get it cleared then can wait to see if it comes back in a couple weeks or if that procedure solved it.

That procedure is interesting in itself though... With the car 'warmed up' and all battery-drawing accessories off, turn the key to off for 10 seconds, then turn to on and wait 3 seconds, then hit the gas pedal fully 5 times within 5 seconds, then wait 7 seconds, then fully depress the gas pedal for about 20 seconds, until the engine light flashes for a while then goes solid, release the pedal within 3 seconds of it going solid, then start the engine and wait. Was weird to see it revving up and down by itself without touching anything, eventually settled at a nice normal idle speed. Revved the engine high a couple more times, and that's about it.

Abs

I have a six-pack. It's very valuable to me. That's why I keep it safe behind some protective cushioning.

Mechanical

Stadium Nissan recommends I do $5279 of work. They charged me $76 to tell me this.
Delta Auto Care & Repair recommends I do $0 of work. They charged me $0 to tell me this. And they gave me some green tea, invited me into the garage as they did the inspection, zip-tied some damaged plastic, and topped up some fluid.

hmmmm.....

Yuri's day

Today was the 50th aniversary of the first human in space. Pretty amazing huh? A half century. Also a little surprising how few people knew this (I happened to hear it on TV), far more people know about the moon landing, simply because it was the single aspect of the whole space race that USA actually won, after losing at everything else.

Anyway, around 10 yrs ago, some people started calling Apr 12 as "Yuri's Night" (cause of Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space).

I was at the university this evening for dragonboat exercise. As I walked through Mac Hall I saw a group of girls in outlandish outfits, silver and glittery and complete with skintight hood. I thought it was a group of astro-buffs having a party and wearing spacey outfits.
So I went up to one and said "Oh celebrating Yuri's Night?"
She said "huh?"
I said "50 yr anniversary of first person in space."
She was like "uh, no, we're here for a dance competition."
I'm sure I had a moment of stunned silence, as I realized I had basically said their dance outfits looked like cheesy movie space-suits! I think I mumbled something about the outfit, tried to recover by asking "oh is that here in the ballroom?" then made my retreat.

I guess I didn't impress anyone with my knowledge of this historic day.

International year of ...

I saw that 2011 is "International Year of the Forest."

Who cares?! Seriously! Does that even mean anything?

I looked at the UN website. Apparently 2011 is also "International Year of Chemistry" and "International Year for People of African Descent." Really. What's the point of these designations.

2009 was "International Year of Natural Fibres," among other things.

The most hardcore was 1982, "International Year of Mobilization for Sanctions Against South Africa." I think that's the only country to ever have a year internationally declared condemning it. Reminds me of the Spitting Image song I can still remember from childhood.

It's not just years though, there are days and weeks and decades. The first week of august is "world breastfeeding week". 2001-2010 was "Decade to Roll Back Malaria in Developing Countries, Particularly in Africa" Roll back malaria? Sounds like a Wal-Mart commercial. A smiley face will float around and cure sick black people.

Sure, in some cases the causes are worthwhile, but naming an international year of something just doesn't seem that meaningful.

Energy

Saw this on TV actually... have you ever looked at the nutritional information of energy drinks? Check out 5 Hour Energy. Yeah... you know... cause sometimes you just need eight thousand percent of something.

This is from a few years ago, but is just as awesome today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRuNxHqwazs

Parking

It was a terrible parking job. As I walked away from my car, I actually felt ashamed. A moment later though, a sudden realization comforted me. It's an asian car, with asian ornamentation, in an asian mall's parking lot. The parking job would probably be considered quite normal and acceptable.
;)