fodder

I had to take my Lexus IS350 back to the dealership for some more repairs covered under the warranty, and as it would take several days for them to finish the work they gave me another loaner. This time it's an RX350, their smaller SUV. It's pretty nice but not really my kind of ride, the high stance of the car makes me think the thing is going to tip over when I make a turn. The vertically challenged Miss V. seems to enjoy it however -- I know short people like to feel tall sometimes. I have the car until Monday night but I can't wait to get my IS back.

That's not really very blog-worthy in and of itself, so let's switch gears for a moment and talk about food. I love food, and it shows, har har. But sometimes food is more than just nourishment, sometimes it's entertainment! Here are various food photos I took with my phone camera.

I don't know what all the fuss was about when the movie and book for Jurassic Park came out, Asians have been growing dinosaur eggs for a long time now. And I'm not talking about the thousand-year-old eggs either, you can get them fresh.


I had one of these brownies while I was at trial. I don't know what's in them but all of sudden I felt a lot better. :)



Yeah! Let's get Crunky! Rapper Lil' Jon and his homies must like this candy bar.

apparatus

We've got a new gadget to play with -- an HP laptop with 17" screen. I bought it through the HP store online, as I get a discount there. The relevant specs:
- Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo T7500 (2.2GHz/4MB L2Cache)
- 17.0" WXGA+ Ultra BrightView Widescreen (1440x900)
- 2GB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm)
- 511MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS
- Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 4965AGN Network Connection
- 200GB 7200RPM SATA Dual Hard Drive (100GB x 2) running Windows Vista Home Premium.

It's pretty slick but I am still getting used to the new features that come with Vista. All in all though it's pretty similar to Windows XP with some enhancements.

It took me a few hours to get it set up and to uninstall some lame trial software that comes on it, and generally get it configured the way we like it. Still need to install some other applications but we're connected and got the basics running. Hooray for Firefox, woo woo! Stay tuned cuz with this much computer processing firepower we can probably create some pretty cool stuff -- I will probably use it do some video editing and multimedia stuff.

I feel kind of sorry for my old desktop PC which is starting to show its age and pales in comparison to the newcomer. Still it's no slouch, it's a P4 1.7GHz running WinXP. I am thinking of picking up a KVM switch from monoprice.com and being able to switch between the two PCs with one keyboard/monitor/mouse. And it can still serve as a media server, streaming music and videos wirelessly to my PS3 downstairs. So I'm not ready to retire the old machine just yet.

ersatz

So the time came for another oil change for the Lexus, and I made an appointment to drop it off in the morning. I also had a few issues with the driver's seat making creaking noises and with the brake pads making too much dust causing the front wheels to look constantly dirty, and there are actually documented TSBs (Technical Service Bulletins) from the manufacturer on these. You can look them up for your car on a site like Alldata or search the forums on a car enthusiast site like ClubLexus.com. Anyways I dropped it off and because it would take several hours to check those issues out as well as do the oil change, they gave me a loaner car.

I was hoping they'd give me a nice Lexus ES350 or an RX350 (the wifey has been wanting one of those) to play around with, but you can imagine my dismay when they said they were out of Lexus loaners that morning. Instead I found myself behind the wheel of ... a base-model Toyota Camry. A dark red one, to boot. Oh joy. And there was an added bonus: firing up the ignition, the most fantastic music blared out of the MP3 stereo system. Some kind of Pakistani pop-techno mix CD, left behind by the previous occupant. Spectacular. So I set off on my way to work, floating my way onto the highway and putting the pedal to the floor, listening to the 4-cylinder engine's wail as the automatic transmission vaguely hunted around between 3rd, 4th and 5th gear. The beats were bumping, sitars playing, vocalists moaning and chanting to the beat, it was good times. But it got even better, because whoever made the CD just couldn't make up their mind -- it went from Pakistani techno to Chris Daughtry to some hard core rap and hip hop all in the blink of an eye.

In some kind of morbid curiousity I had to keep listening, to see what was going to play next. At lunchtime my coworkers commended me on my music choice, to which I had to respond, I had no idea who it even was. It certainly wasn't music representative of the typical Lexus driver demographic, that's for sure. I got one of the Lexus music CDs they give out, it was all jazz and easy listening. No hip hop or techno there.

At the end of the day I took the Camry back to the dealer and traded it for my beloved IS350, freshly washed and gleaming in the dealer lot. But not before ejecting that crazy MP3 CD -- I'm not gonna miss that Camry at all, but I'm taking the beats with me.

racial

I saw this in the Asian supermarket while I was shopping and it kind of put me off ... for the uninitiated the word "gook" is a derogatory racial slur for Asians used in the Vietnam War and here it is, in some kind of Japanese cracker snack! Unbelievable!

And I'm also not sure how it is characterized as Salad, seeing as it looks a lot like Pocky which is cracker stick coated with chocolate. Maybe the orange flavor makes it a salad??? Anyways, that's messed up, man.