Brad Warner’s Hardcore Zen blog had a brief mention of a movie called Big Man Japan, and the trailer looks pretty crazy. Sort of a cross between every monster movie ever made, Dave Chappelle’s parody of them, and The Legend of Ricky, a pretty strange flick in its own right. It’s pretty clear that there are some not-subtle visual jokes in pretty typical Japanese style, but with an atypically blown out budget, definitely appears to be a notch up from guys-in-rubber-suits-making-it-up-as-they-go. Without seeing the movie, I’m not sure that’s a good thing now that I think about it.

It’s supposed to be playing in small weird theaters around the country, so if you’re into the cutting edge of wacky Japanese movies, keep an eye out for it. Rumor has it that it’s available as a Torrent, but you know how those rumors work…

A blog that I like called Kicking Tires had a post about a real compact pickup that an Indian company called Mahindra is trying to build in the US and sell here. It’s kinda on that ugly tip, if you know what I mean, but it’s as close to that ’80s mini-truckin’ ideal that I’ve seen in ages. The first model is supposed to have an economical 4 cylinder engine that gets about 35mpg on the highway, and a diesel hybrid with unknown specs is due out after that. It’s small, but if it’s halfway tough, I could use it on my little ranch pretty easily, don’t have to worry much about street cred when you’re hauling alfalfa. (more…)

I keep wanting to upgrade or sidegrade my busted Dodge pickup, and let me tell you, it’s not a great time for someone who thinks like me to buy a car. It’s really hard to find a family vehicle of any shape or size that gets even 30mpg on the highway; I haven’t actually kept a tally, but there probably aren’t even 10 vehicles on the market these days that can do it. When I was 17 years old, 30 or 35mpg was considered decent highway mileage, and the Chevy Sprint was getting close to 50 on the highway even then. So today, a very economical car (if you believe Kia and Toyota commercials) gets, well, 30mpg. 2 decades later, no improvement at all. My pickup has been averaging 15mpg, and there are still people out there who consider that pretty damned good for a truck. And to get close to 1988 Chevy Sprint mileage, you’ve got to cough up thousands of extra dollars for a hybrid and take on the added complexity of maintaining 2 separate drivetrains and whatever long-term liability the batteries impose. To be fair, there hasn’t been much drama about Prius or Civic Hybrid reliability, and to be even more fair, when the new diesel VWs come out this year, they’re rumored to get well into the 50s with just a normal diesel powertrain. But as fast as everything else in the world in every other area of technology is changing, fuel economy remains basically static in the US. (more…)

I’m starting a new WordPress based website, I’ve spent the morning sorting out kinks and bringing old blog posts in from my MySpace page to jump start things. I’m still digging for a theme I like (theme, as in Wordpress theme to control the look of the site, not theme as in “man’s inhumanity to man”), and I’m going to expand it soon with some photos and some music postings and stuff, just have to pull it together. I’m hoping that something like this that’s easy enough to update and all will let me post more stuff more often… If you see anything funny, please let me know, but it’s all pretty thrown-together for now anyway….

For the odd soul that ends up reading this (Hi, self!), expect lots of dramatic changes as I mess with templates and all that.

I bought a pickup last year; it was a brand new 2006 and I bought it well into 2007 so I got a great deal. It gets icy in the winter here, and we’re on dirt roads and hauling stuff for working on the house, so it seemed like a good idea. Only 2 problems: first, I bought it in Colorado, not my own state of New Mexico, and second, it’s a Dodge.   (more…)

I’m a guy, I love beer and kung fu movies and calling out the years of muscle cars that drive by, and talking about “feelings” and “love” is a lot easier when I can follow it up with a punch to the kidneys or something so the awkward, honest moment passes more easily. But it’s also kind of weird to ignore stuff like that in order to be more “guyish” or something, so here goes… (more…)

As people who know me will tell you, I’m kind of a weirdo about technology. I do computer work and actually hate computers at least some of the time. I write electronic music and not totally comfortable with the idea of electronic music. I love drum ‘n bass and all that, but I still have this dumb notion in the back of my mind that real people should be in the same room playing instruments that they’ve worked to learn in order to make “real” music, especially someone like me who has practiced doing just that, it seems almost treasonous to do computer-only stuff. I own a cell phone but I never answer it. I mean, I’m OK at figuring out technology-related problems that arise in my life so some people mistakenly think of me as a “techy.” I’m not. I’m able to just generally figure stuff out because if I don’t fix certain kinds of problems, nobody else is going to do it for me. And if what I need to figure out happens to be on a computer, then I’ll figure it out. But I also figure stuff related to food, music, dogs, parenting, home maintenance, politics, photography, shaving, clothing, reading, writing, and just about anything related to living. Since I wear glasses most of the time, that makes me a “techie” I guess. Whatever. Anway, to those who know my relationship to cell phones and computers, what I say next may shock and amaze you. (more…)