Sunday 24 December 2017
Both Kim Jong Un and Yukio Mishima were, to some extent, extreme in their views. I don't know yet about Kim Jong Un, but I guess the Yukio Mishima was somewhat extreme in his life, although anyone who has a delight in Disneyland is hardly likely to be extreme in anything in the real world. maybe this is where Kim Jong Un, Yukio Mishima, and even Donald Trump, actually meet each other...in Disneyland rather than in reality. Now there is a thought.
Why not do something really hard every now and again just for the hell of it? Just to know ourselves a bit more in our fully protected lives here? What are we made of? Paper? The funny life secret is that it doesn't make one bit of damn difference whether you challenge yourself or not in terms of the life value or meaning or outcome. The only value in challenging yourself is in curiosity. To me being curious is very important, and far more important than accepting things, including the self, as they are. Curiosity is a journey in itself. Be careful of curious people, they will undo all untruths, like cats with balls of string. Current morality, current social mores, current social loves and hatreds etc, current good vs evil etc, these are all balls of string...ready for the curious and clawed.
Saturday 2 December 2017
Thanks for notes of advice & understanding regarding the pen repair fiasco. Much appreciated. I guess if my hands were more like fine musician's hands rather than like slabs of boxer's mallets, that would have helped. Anyway, onto cars, and 4WD vehicles...I bought a 2015 last of the line D22 Nissan Navara 4x4 dual cab pick up, or ute, in 2015. I'd always liked them since back in the early 2000s and, apart from an engine, they haven't changed at all, and I like that. Whilst ISIS chose Toyota, because ISIS had more money than I did, I went with the humble Nissan. A good turbo diesel 2.5 common rail engine, heaps of used parts available, and a good long record as a strong vehicle. I kinda bought it as my 'final' car, trading in a 2011 Mazda BT50 2WD single cab one ton alum tray ute. I wasn't sure of the wisdom of this at the time as the Mazda was very good, with a 2.4 common rail diesel engine...but it could only fit 2 people in it, unless the third was an armless and legless Laotian person in the middle. The Nissan has been really quite faultless in the drives around the tropics, the drive down here, 3000km to melbourne, and getting round the Melbourne streets. It is not a city car at all and yet does everything with a simplicity that I like. It features 4 ash trays and an actual cigarette lighter and a 6 stacker CD player...but no other technology per se. The only thing that beeps is the horn, and there is no screen entertainment, just a pretty shitty radio...but everything works simply and is predictable. The Mazda BT50, 4 years older, was somewhat more advanced in some ways but it did always fishtail out on turns and I kept reversing it into poles and other cars due to the cramped vision out the back. Anyway, yesterday's massive downpour here was a great way to see how the Nissan went in absolutely horrid flooded road conditions, and it did so very well. Sure footed and secure and never missed a beat even with a few hundred gallons of water coming into the engine bay. The high engine snorkel seemed, for the first time, a pretty smart choice. I'd recommend to anyone the last of the line 2003-2015 unchanged D22 Navaras...still some of them near new with low mileages...nothing pretty but designed to last a long time. Minor dents and scratches simply add to the truck's appeal...and it pretty well can and will go anywhere. The engine isnt as free-breathing as the Mazda's but then the Mazda was 2WD and so benefited by being lighter...but wow, did it fishtail in the wet...and I was tired of reversing it into cars especially. Very unpopular. The Nissan does give you a higher view of the road and the landscape, and I like that too. The worst car I guess I've ever owned was a Russian Lada Niva constant 4X4, years ago but still it had its strengths and the strength was...its strength. On a country dirt road it stayed on the road and when it hit a cow, as it did once, at 50 miles an hour... no damage to the Lada at all. Poor bloody cow was a mess. Fortunately I was a remote area Director of Nursing at the time so I pumped the cow full of morphine by the side of the road and stayed with it til it left the world. The Russians didn't build a good car, but, fuck it was strong.
Thanks for notes of advice & understanding regarding the pen repair fiasco. Much appreciated. I guess if my hands were more like fine musician's hands rather than like slabs of boxer's mallets, that would have helped.
Anyway, onto cars, and 4WD vehicles...I bought a 2015 last of the line D22 Nissan Navara 4x4 dual cab pick up, or ute, in 2015. I'd always liked them since back in the early 2000s and, apart from an engine, they haven't changed at all, and I like that. Whilst ISIS chose Toyota, because ISIS had more money than I did, I went with the humble Nissan. A good turbo diesel 2.5 common rail engine, heaps of used parts available, and a good long record as a strong vehicle. I kinda bought it as my 'final' car, trading in a 2011 Mazda BT50 2WD single cab one ton alum tray ute. I wasn't sure of the wisdom of this at the time as the Mazda was very good, with a 2.4 common rail diesel engine...but it could only fit 2 people in it, unless the third was an armless and legless Laotian person in the middle.
The Nissan has been really quite faultless in the drives around the tropics, the drive down here, 3000km to melbourne, and getting round the Melbourne streets. It is not a city car at all and yet does everything with a simplicity that I like.
It features 4 ash trays and an actual cigarette lighter and a 6 stacker CD player...but no other technology per se. The only thing that beeps is the horn, and there is no screen entertainment, just a pretty shitty radio...but everything works simply and is predictable.
The Mazda BT50, 4 years older, was somewhat more advanced in some ways but it did always fishtail out on turns and I kept reversing it into poles and other cars due to the cramped vision out the back.
Anyway, yesterday's massive downpour here was a great way to see how the Nissan went in absolutely horrid flooded road conditions, and it did so very well. Sure footed and secure and never missed a beat even with a few hundred gallons of water coming into the engine bay. The high engine snorkel seemed, for the first time, a pretty smart choice.
I'd recommend to anyone the last of the line 2003-2015 unchanged D22 Navaras...still some of them near new with low mileages...nothing pretty but designed to last a long time. Minor dents and scratches simply add to the truck's appeal...and it pretty well can and will go anywhere. The engine isnt as free-breathing as the Mazda's but then the Mazda was 2WD and so benefited by being lighter...but wow, did it fishtail in the wet...and I was tired of reversing it into cars especially. Very unpopular. The Nissan does give you a higher view of the road and the landscape, and I like that too.
The worst car I guess I've ever owned was a Russian Lada Niva constant 4X4, years ago but still it had its strengths and the strength was...its strength. On a country dirt road it stayed on the road and when it hit a cow, as it did once, at 50 miles an hour... no damage to the Lada at all. Poor bloody cow was a mess. Fortunately I was a remote area Director of Nursing at the time so I pumped the cow full of morphine by the side of the road and stayed with it til it left the world. The Russians didn't build a good car, but, fuck it was strong.
Anyway, onto cars, and 4WD vehicles...I bought a 2015 last of the line D22 Nissan Navara 4x4 dual cab pick up, or ute, in 2015. I'd always liked them since back in the early 2000s and, apart from an engine, they haven't changed at all, and I like that. Whilst ISIS chose Toyota, because ISIS had more money than I did, I went with the humble Nissan. A good turbo diesel 2.5 common rail engine, heaps of used parts available, and a good long record as a strong vehicle. I kinda bought it as my 'final' car, trading in a 2011 Mazda BT50 2WD single cab one ton alum tray ute. I wasn't sure of the wisdom of this at the time as the Mazda was very good, with a 2.4 common rail diesel engine...but it could only fit 2 people in it, unless the third was an armless and legless Laotian person in the middle.
The Nissan has been really quite faultless in the drives around the tropics, the drive down here, 3000km to melbourne, and getting round the Melbourne streets. It is not a city car at all and yet does everything with a simplicity that I like.
It features 4 ash trays and an actual cigarette lighter and a 6 stacker CD player...but no other technology per se. The only thing that beeps is the horn, and there is no screen entertainment, just a pretty shitty radio...but everything works simply and is predictable.
The Mazda BT50, 4 years older, was somewhat more advanced in some ways but it did always fishtail out on turns and I kept reversing it into poles and other cars due to the cramped vision out the back.
Anyway, yesterday's massive downpour here was a great way to see how the Nissan went in absolutely horrid flooded road conditions, and it did so very well. Sure footed and secure and never missed a beat even with a few hundred gallons of water coming into the engine bay. The high engine snorkel seemed, for the first time, a pretty smart choice.
I'd recommend to anyone the last of the line 2003-2015 unchanged D22 Navaras...still some of them near new with low mileages...nothing pretty but designed to last a long time. Minor dents and scratches simply add to the truck's appeal...and it pretty well can and will go anywhere. The engine isnt as free-breathing as the Mazda's but then the Mazda was 2WD and so benefited by being lighter...but wow, did it fishtail in the wet...and I was tired of reversing it into cars especially. Very unpopular. The Nissan does give you a higher view of the road and the landscape, and I like that too.
The worst car I guess I've ever owned was a Russian Lada Niva constant 4X4, years ago but still it had its strengths and the strength was...its strength. On a country dirt road it stayed on the road and when it hit a cow, as it did once, at 50 miles an hour... no damage to the Lada at all. Poor bloody cow was a mess. Fortunately I was a remote area Director of Nursing at the time so I pumped the cow full of morphine by the side of the road and stayed with it til it left the world. The Russians didn't build a good car, but, fuck it was strong.
Friday 1 December 2017
LIFE LESSON: Tragic. I love fixing things. Sometimes I fix them well. I fixed the fake UBOAT Italo Fontana wristwatch last night and was so happy, and it gave me the confidence to fix the fountain pen my father in law gave me about a decade ago... Chinese communist party peace treaty signing pen, gold coloured, heavy, huge, blood rubies imbedded in the top, perfect 1950s East German Iridium nib that I dropped and bent awhile back... and anyway, inspired by how well I fixed the watch, I set about fixing the beautiful pen nib and at one point I actually had the binary nib points aligned and signed my name with it...but the two points were, although aligned, still just bent a bit and so I tried to make the nib perfectly straight and...crack...one of the binary points just broke off. Sigh. I doubt I can find an East German pen-smith master from 1950 to make it right, ever. It is actually stuffed. Damn. So I have walked about today calling out Damn! I expect I will continue to call out Damn! occasionally for quite some time because nothing can be done to fix it now. Ever. Damn! It is like the lessons in the Koran. There have been quite a few Damn! occasions in my life. Damn! And yet I know I will still go about trying to fix up important things and half the time I will get it just right....and half the time I will get it just wrong. Damn!
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