And now back to some anime blogging.  Again my power supply for the laptop took a dump so I'm left at work with some time to kill and what better way than to get some anime blogging done while I can.  First up is a short, and by short I mean 4 mini-episodes, series called Houkago no Pleiades.  In total the 4 mini-episodes added up to one normal anime episode.  Houkago no Pleiades was a joint venture between the car maker Subaru and Gainax and is a cute magical girl show. 

When I first heard of this team up I was really hoping for a new car show but what I got was a cute moe magical schoolgirl show that featured a lot of key visuals related to Subaru but no cool WRX STi stuff.  Oh well the show was still a fun little thing to watch. 

Basically the story is that a girl named Subaru likes to look up at the stars and one day witnesses an interesting event in the night sky.  When she returns to school she unlocks the door to the observatory room (with a Subaru car key) and enters into a magical garden with a boy and a butterfly.   After this magical encounter she leaves and trips over an unusual animal and chases it down to another room. 

That magically sealed room houses another group of school girls but they are no ordinary school girls.  They are magical girls who with the President of their club (the unusual animal) they chase after star particles called Engine fragments so that the President can return home.  Subaru wasn't supposed to be able to open the door and because she can the President allows her to join the club much to the dismay of Subaru's friend who doesn't think Subaru can hack being a part of the club. 

As a new member of the club she is given a unique magical staff (complete with rumbling flat 4 engine sounds and Subaru grill) and she sets off with the other girls to collect a special Engine fragment only to face another Alien looking to collect the same Engine Fragments.  A fight ensues of course and the girls end up beating the bad guy thanks to the power of friendship and other typical plot devices.  Nothing to new there really.  And of course all ends well. 

Now whether or not this was a great success by Gainax and Subaru to sell cars I don't know but it's a fun little series that I'm sure will find it's way to an Itasha'd Subaru near you in good time (I'd do it). But I do have to say it was a fun short little series that shouldn't be missed.

Here are the subbed episodes...

What a week. Really what a week. I'd like to say that this was a great week even a good week but honestly it's been far from that. But before we get into all that crap how about a lovely Race Queen. I've ran across a couple other great sites lately featuring the lovely Race Queens of not only Super GT but other Japanese race series as well. So I'll definitely keep up with the lovelies for your weekly enjoyment.

Now for that other stuff. Oh the week at work sucked... epic tons of damn freaking laundry to do. Still wondering about the sale of the hotel but it's looking like we don't need to worry about it but I did hear a rumor that the owner is now living in one of his other hotels and is thinking about going back to just managing one of them full time while this is all sorting it self out. Either case he hasn't been to our hotel in some time. So it's been rather peaceful there for a while minus the insane amounts of laundry and constantly filling the ever leaking pond.

As for the rest of the week I still haven't been able to sell the damn A/C unit and the day to day rain hasn't helped at all either. Yeah it's been raining almost the entire week. The weather we should have had in March and April we are now getting in May with even more on the way. So the weather has been a bit of downer of late. But who says you can't BBQ in the rain which is exactly what I did the other day thanks to my portable shade device that I use for autocross. Well I also used it to help cook up some Hamburgers the other day as well.

The RX8 is still getting parts taken off and the roommate is still scratching his head about just what to do with it all. We are getting closer to getting it all put back together in stock trim. Need to install the clutch plate and transmission onto the new to him motor so that the car and engine can be taken to the dealership and installed correctly in an expedient manner because.... Well he really needs another reliable vehicle at the moment thanks to a mishap in the rain the other day that knocked out the Subaru. First the Starter was acting up again and he went out to pick up a new one but before we could get it installed the Subaru had a bit of a rough day and is awaiting some TLC to put it back together again. So all the plans that were made are now entirely out the window again as he tries to figure out what to do with both cars. Also messes up the rest of the summer plans as well. Oh well life goes on and you just have to pick up the pieces and keep going forward with what ever you gotta do. I'm also strictly forbidden from ever mentioning that "curse" again and I definitely have to agree with that notion.

I did pick up a new shirt this week and I'm really happy with it. Found out that Enkei was selling a T-shirt for their pretty famous racing rims the RPF-01 and I wanted one so I waited until I got my latest paycheck to get one since it was only going to be $20 shipped. Should have waited long because this latest paycheck was damn low and has totally thrown me out budget which is why I really need to sell that damn A/C unit. Oh well life goes on for me as well and I'll figure something out. Just so long as nothing else happens before the next paycheck at least. Now I think I'll go enjoy some little bit of sunshine while it's out and BBQ up some more burgers.

I think I'll leave you with the following video that I found during the week. This is just a messed up crash and a reminder that no matter how much trouble we have with cars at least it's not this bad.

Hey look there it goes...yup that thing that just went by was another week. Lets see what happened last week. Well oddly enough after posting last weeks weekly review it decided to rain again and this time we all jumped into the Subaru Outback and went offroading in the mud. We forgot again to take the mudflaps off (you'd think we would have learned our lesson the first couple of times) so the car didn't get as muddy as it could have and I didn't want to take my camera equipment out in the rain so we didn't get any pictures until we got back home. In any case it was a lot of fun and we didn't get stuck thanks to me going..."NO! that's not a good idea!" anytime we came up to a too big of a mud puddle, sure it would have been fun but I really wasn't looking forward to any extra dirty pushing work for the afternoon.

So that was Sunday the rest of the week well yeah it pretty much sucked after that actually. It was pretty much just work, pack, sleep and repeat toss in just a bit of worrying about were I might live for 7 days in July when we have to move out the rental house and the 1st of the month until the roommate actually takes possession of his house on the 7th. Fun but we are still trying to work out a deal with the landlord the people who have rented the place after we move out and us. Thankfully we both of plans just in case but it's going to be really crazy for the first week in July and there's even a autocross event and car show in the middle of all that. Go figure.

So that just brings us full circle to today and today is Father's Day last year this time we were still working to replace the engine in the roommate's RX-8. So for any fathers reading this Happy Father's Day for any one with a dad don't forget to tell them Happy Father's Day. And of course that brings us to the end of the weekly review and the next couple weeks are just going to be insane so if I don't get around to posting anything for while you know why. Later.

Another weekend autocross event is in the bag videos are uploaded and pictures are posted. This time out the Autocross action was once again held out at the Idaho Center during the Big Boy Toy Expo and was a two day event instead the usual single day event. Thanks to a FUBARed SDHC card I only attended the Saturday event.

Since this was a larger event that was going on during the BBT Expo the autocross event was held in the larger lot and the Saturday course was set up to be a fast high horsepower course due to the rain that was expected during the day. The morning was wet and soggy but the sun eventually came out and dried up the course and burnt my dumbass pretty good. Whoohoo first sunburn of 2009 and I made it all the way to June... OK back to the autocross.

Another difference in this event than the regular events is that they tried to make it more like a prosolo event where everyone in the same group runs with each other for their complete 5 runs at one time so there is little down time between runs and makes things I thought go faster and smoother. It was definitely easier to film it that way than usual. Well it was easier to film but that doesn't mean I did a better job of filming since I decided to find a high spot and film off course only to find out that I would have to do some elevation changes so some of the videos are a bit more herky jerky than I'd like and to me they look a bit more amateurish than usual. I still had fun and even though I had worked the night before I ended up staying there the entire day which probably wasn't a good idea since I was dead the rest of the night and dead the next day as well. But that wasn't the worst part of Sunday.

The worst part about Sunday was when I found out that my 8gig SDHC card decided to shit the bed and toss I/O device errors at me while I was trying to transfer the files from the card to the hdd so that I could go back on Sunday and film some more. It took a lot of work to get all 175 vids off the card and then the rest of Sunday looking for ways to fix the stupid card only to find out there just wasn't anything that I could do to fix it. So it pretty much killed any reason or want to go out on Sunday. Instead I tried fixing the card and working on the pictures until I passed out for a good part of the afternoon.

Lucky for me it's some time before the next autocross event so I have some time before I need to pick up another card. It's also pretty good because we really need to just work on movie at the moment. Of course I have plenty of pictures although a lot less than the last couple of events and you can find them here in this flickr set. I also managed to film some 175 videos and they can be found here on YouTube. Another event and I'll have more than 600 videos. Here is an example and first time outing for the Subaru ForesterSTi.

HOT! Easily sums up how last Sunday's autocross event was. It was the hottest day of the year and the event started at least a good hour later than usual which left me running home at about 3pm to the comfort of A/C.

Thanks to the event from the previous day not cleaning up their crap that was left all over the parking lot it took members of the SRRSCCA a long time to clean up and set up the course which is why the event had to start hours later than normal putting the majority of the event into the hottest part of the day. At least it was still able to happen. Of course I didn't get there until pretty late so wasn't able to walk the course and find a really good place to set up my camera and video gear but my roommate was able to point out a pretty good spot.

It was a good thing that I went out there since there was a good number of different cars that haven't been out before including a nice older Porsche 911 with whaletail. I love those types of 911's but holy hell it was SLOW at least during the first session. Some other interesting cars were a couple of race cars that I haven't seen before and a new EVO X.

The second run group was a bit annoying since it was a bit of a cluster fuck getting the spotter and I ended up with one that liked to chitchat a bit which is OK so long as they don't make any remarks about the cars and drivers but does throw me off my game a little bit and you can see that with the videos.

After getting lunch which was a much needed several glasses of water and a Milkshake we headed back and I decided that I had had enough for the day and didn't want to stay much longer so decided to call it a day after taking some more pictures of the cars out in the parking lot even some that were not out running in the autocross event.

Ended up with a few more than a hundred pictures but only posted 88 of them on flickr and also only ended up with 68 videos (the new ones go to page 4 with the last new video being the Nissan 240SX) since I skipped the second session of the event after lunch. I did go for one ride along in the packed Subaru Outback for a little ride, which was fun. All in all it was fun but damn hot and it's only going to get hotter still.

Here's just a sample video.

Yet another week has just flown by like it was only a day. The days are getting hotter and longer and summer is definitely here even if there are a few breaks here and there like this last week with a couple days of hard rain followed with a mini heat wave. At least this week was fairly interesting had a do or die (get fired) meeting at work and it was about the lamest thing in the world yet again so nothing new there. Applied for a couple jobs just because working is going to be turned into a really lame thing come June 1st and I'd just as soon be gone by then.

This week I received my 10th little lady and my first Figma figure in the form of Makina Hoshimura from Shikabane Hime. She's lovely and I like her little Mac10's with muzzle flash attachments. She also came with an exclusive BLUE handbag which I have no idea what to do with it. And like the two other lil' ladies that I've gotten previously I'll get around to writing and photography them some time in the near future. No really I will I swear.

I wasn't the only one to get something this week as my roommate received his replacement shiftknob from Razo and we went out and installed it right away. Of course it's great that we got the new knob on the car but of course the car is acting up again and over heating. We haven't had a chance to look into why it is doing that just yet.

With the Mazda RX-8 out for this weekends autocross Scott took the Subaru Outback instead. More on that later after I get the videos uploaded and can post about the autocross in full later this week. I also haven't had a chance yet to watch the third round of the Super GT yet and will be hopefully getting to that as well later this week.

With that the week came to an end and since I just feel like it I'm uploading a lovely race queen image again this time around it'll be one of the girls from StudieGlad Racing and Good Smile Racing. The new addition of the Anime Hottie of the day seems to be doing alright gets about as many hits a day as the regular hottie of the day. Since I'm hotlinking to a naughty picture I can't tell how many times it's viewed. So until next week have a good one.

Another weekend err...Sunday of racing and picture/video taking. This time it was held out at the Idaho Center in Nampa. A nice sunny warm Sunday much better than the last event and it showed with I believe a much larger turn out of drivers. Since it was at the Idaho Center I was able to just hang out on the grass without the need of a spotter to film and take pictures. I also brought the umbrella setup along and thank goodness I did. I definitely think it did a lot to keep me out of the sun and a good couple of degrees cooler than just being out under the sun. It may look a little goofy but it rocks like nothing else.

What also rocks is the new camera car mount. I was a little worried to be honest as after attaching it to a car and letting it sit there for a while it seemed to lose just a bit of suction not a lot but enough to make me worry just a bit but all was good and it hung on for three outings on various cars. Oh course one of the videos got messed up some how so only got three on car videos. I did try hard to get at least one video of most of the cars that were out there some I just didn't care for but I'm trying to get every one's car more than just a lot of videos of a handful of cars.

I was also taking still pictures and trying to do the whole motion capture thing so the cars look like they are in motion and all that jazz. Still working on fine tuning that aspect of my photography. I also wasn't in the best place for pictures compared to videos. And speaking of places to be for being in a relatively safe place that black Dodge Neon with a major front end plow problem came damn close on one run.

It was a lot of fun as usual. I managed to hang around all day this time thanks to the umbrella and having the day off. Found out that a lot of people are watching the videos and really enjoy them, which is always a nice thing to hear. I still need to figure out a way to cut down on the wind noise from the on car videos and I think I'll be heading to a music store to look at mic covers. You can the pictures here and the videos are all here.

I missed a good number of spins but I also got a few good ones as well. Like this one from a Corvette engined Datsun 240Z. There was another great one from a Mercedes Benz as well where the driver was able to save it and keep going.

First weekly review of the new year. This week was a bit of a toss up as I changed my schedule so that I could party on New Year's Eve and have some fun. In order to do that I picked up a Saturday shift in the morning. Which meant no anime watching and no blogging since the big boss was even there showing a Japanese couple around. I think it was a guy looking to invest but I really think this would be a hugely bad time to start investing in the Hotel industry unless you are trying to get in cheap and hope that it rebounds soon. Still that's not a wise gamble.

Anyways back to the party. Went to a friends house for the New Years party and took the DSLR and camcorder but didn't take pictures of much (pictures still in camera, been a bit lazy) or video of much and once I looked at them sober honestly they weren't all that great. Had a good time but didn't drink much as I was planning on driving home later in morning when I was sober so just enjoyed watching others make a fool of them selves and the two "gay" guys make out with more girls then the straight guys which is always interesting to watch for the lolz. Of course there was more lolz coming from the annoying guy who even had a girl rather fall face first to the ground than get kissed by him at midnight. Poor thing. When I finally went home (sober of course) I could hear sirens in the distance apparently 33 people were arrested for DUI's that night.

Worked the next day then had another day off then worked that Saturday morning. That was a cluster fuck because the girl who was going to work 3-11 wanted to trade me but then some where in the communications she told be she would get back to me if she didn't want to trade so I ended up being late and not only that but when I came out to my car the stupid tire was flat so had to quickly change that before I could head off to work. It's interesting driving on a donut as every imperfection in the road is found and amplified by that donut making it rather interesting driving. Work was boring as I couldn't do what I normally do at work but at least I was able to make it to the Anime club meeting at relax for a bit. Of course I didn't take my car and took the roommate's Subaru so that he had an excuse to take the Black RX-8 out (after replacing the bunge plug ...tightly) and of course the curse of my car breaks his car breaks and vice verse happened yet again as even he got a flat tire while out driving. At least they're just flat tires and nothing to serious.

And that just brings me to a peaceful ending to the first week of the year. Yes I missed a day but I'm making up for it later by posting again today as I did look at the year end thing but am going to instead wrap up my Best & Wost of 2008 in just one post as I'm getting tired of doing them and I have a ton (well OK about 5) anime reviews to do now. Since I don't have any pictures for this week how about a lovely lady from Moko.cc? How also this weeks theme for Hottie of the day is...Girls in pants and high heels. It's an awesome combination when done right.

Wow what an interesting week for sure. Unfortunately I have no pictures for this week so I'll just have to post some incredibly hot honey to make you all happy. Hmmm who should it be, well we'll come back to that later I guess and tell you that this weeks hottie of the day will feature lovely ladies in Chinadoll dresses also known as a Cheongsam, Qipao and other names. One of the sexiest in my opinions dresses known to man. But anyways on to the weekly review.

The week was mostly the same old same old really nothing too exciting until the weekend when my roommate tried to kill me. We were messing around with the Turbo charged RX8 trying to calibrate the newly installed wideband but it wasn't working so removed it from the car, replacing it with the plug. Only problem is since the car exhaust was rather warm it wasn't tightened down. Then comes the next day and a trip out to the Nissan dealer to see if they had any 370Zs in stock (which they didn't) well on the way home we noticed that there was this really weird vibration coming from the engine bay of the car. Well it was only happening when the gas was applied so it was rather odd. About five minutes later we hear this object hitting the underside of the car (like a rock when you hit it with the tire or something) and the vibration was getting a bit more noticeable. So we figure that is what happened but decide to check on it at the next exit off the freeway.

Yup, sure enough missing plug and a massive exhaust leak right into the engine compartment. Well now what do we just keep going home like that and open the windows (while it's snowing and very much cold) or do we try to get a hold of someone to pick us up so we can go home get the other plug and come back. Of course we drive home giggling like school girls at the sound of a now very much race car sounding car of course the exhaust fumes may have had some effect on our giggling too though. Anyways we made it home safe and sound but smelling just a bit like car exhaust. Now we just need to remember to replace the plug before it goes anywhere but since it really started to snow like crazy that doesn't seem to be any time soon. Anyways a fun little adventure. Before we went for the drive though I had went to my grandma's to pick up her car to get the tires changed over to the studded tires for her and just in the neck of time too as the snow ended up sticking around and accumulating something near 4 or so inches in the last couple of days so that's both good and bad news.

After a quick nap after the adventure in the RX8 I headed off to the weekly Anime meetup to watch some anime with friends. This time it was pretty packed for a change which is a good thing. Watched some anime then headed back out into the now very slick and snowy winter weather conditions. Got home and yet again headed back out to play in the snow with the roommate in the Subaru Outback grabbed the camcorder and off in search of a large parking lot we went. Got a few videos and uploaded them to youtube. The focusing wasn't the best but it was a bit of late night fun anyways. Should of gone in the morning but the roommate had other things to do so I just did laundry instead.

The drive to work wasn't horribly bad and not nearly as bad as I thought it was and by tomorrow afternoon all the roads will be cleared again until the next winter storm blows in. Also only another week before Christmas. So until then have a safe and fun week.

Like I mentioned in the weekly report me and a couple of my friends went out shooting last Saturday for probably the last time this year as the weather is getting too nasty to go outside and shoot. Probably won't keep me from going to the indoor range during the winter though. Since it was the last time I wanted to take everything I had out there and take some pictures for the blog and just have a good time.

I took out the Maverick 88 (cheaper version of the Mossbreg 500) shotgun and this time the flashlight actually survived the outing and stayed attached to the shotgun. If you don't remember the last time I took out the shotgun I had another flashlight attached to the shotgun but after the second or so round the flashlight came flying off of the shotgun. I'm still not that great at shooting the shotgun but getting better. I don't like using the front bead sight and don't exactly know where I'm suposed to aim so might get either a ghost ring sight for it or go with another inexpensive red dot system. Of course that means more work but hey that just sounds like a winter time fun project.

Also along for this journey was the custom hand made 25-06 rifle that my grandpa made for me for the 18th birthday but I received it as a graduation gift. It's a beautiful rifle if I don't say so myself even if it does shoot a bit right of AOP. I took it along mostly because I really wanted to try out my own handloads that I did some time ago. I was shooting 90grain hollowpoints and I think they did pretty good for a first time reloading. I really need to pick up a small portable bench rest though as using the hood of the Subaru isn't all that great of an idea but it work for the day.

A trip out shooting isn't complete without the Ruger 10/22 and boy does it look small in pictures. Nothing really too new about this one as it's almost always coming along thanks to it being a .22 and thankfully still cheap and fun to shoot. The battery is still going strong (now that I remember to take it out of the scope) and the new Tactical Solutions magazine release lever is fantastic even if the fit is a bit off.

Last but not least are the two revolvers the Sig Sauer Mosquito is running much much better now that I know to keep it lubed up like a tight...well you know what I mean. Nothing really new there. New for the Model 15 though is the chance to actually use the speedloader and it was pretty handy and easy to use. I probably haven't mentioned this but I did apply red modelers paint to the top of the front sight and it helps immensely for aiming. Just a little trick I learned from reading and listening to Michael Bane's blog.

Oh yes what a fun afternoon of shooting it was a bit drizzly so didn't end up using the pro-camera even though I took it out there and instead used the handy Canon G6 for these pictures. My friend Nick's SKS only fired one out of 10 rounds and after a quick look at the primers it looked like the firing pin wasn't hitting as hard as it was supposed to so that will need to be looked at.

Because of the light showers though there was a little bit of mud out there and on the drive back we had a little fun off roading the Subaru Outback even though the mudflaps did a good job of keeping the mud off the car it was still fun. Probably one of few actually off roaded Outbacks though. But that was our day out shooting and you can check out the pictures at flickr

While I was writing the first blog about Shakotan Matsuri I realized that it would be way to long if I went on about the cars as I had a lot more to say so I decided to do two blog entries for Shakotan Matsuri with one focusing on the the cars attending the show. While I wish I could tell you all the winners to be honest not only can I not remember them all they gave out names mostly and I don't know who drives what but for a handful of people so you'll have to forgive me on that part. Again here is the link to all the pictures Flickr for your convenience. The easiest way to do this would be to separate the cars into their respective manufactures including subgroups.

I just found a place that posted the official results of the shows winners so you can pretty much disregard my mubblings about who won as I think I got some wrong but I'm to lazy to fix it right now. Tunerzine

Honda/Acura: There was a huge turn out for Hondas and Acuras from run of the mill Accords to a nice black NSX. There were also some RHD Hondas as well. I saw a CRX RHD and a couple Civics that were RHD. I don't know who the runner up was but the winner for Hondas was a local autox'er that I've met before, at the Treasure Valley Mustang and Ford car show where he also took first place, Jonathan with his nicely sorted out Honda S2000. The other Honda S2000 was entered into the Drift category or else it might have been a tougher time judging the Hondas. The NSX left before judging started otherwise it might have won something also. Although I did get a good laugh at the NSX's driver's big toes which were painted with skull and cross bones.

Mazda: The rotary heads were in good form with a nice sampling of Mazda power from one Miata a handful of various generation RX-7 and my roommate's Turbocharged RX-8. Bandon was able to make it there with a borrowed alternator to show off his three rotary RX-7 followed by much joking about the need for milk. However, the car that won the Mazda trophy was a first generation RX-7 with an engine swap. Leo was runner up (with a nice piston trophy too) with his nicely done red RX-7. Maybe next year Scott.

Nissan/Infinity: Probably the second largest group of cars with everything from a very nice looking original Datsun 240Z to the two RHD Skylines (yet again both are for sale) yet for the most part it was various models of the 240sx that were in the majority. Followed by a handful of 350Zs and Infinity G35s followed by the RHD 300ZX which to be honest I really don't like and yet got some award or another. Ok if he would strip the paint and decals and redo it so that it looked cleaner it wouldn't be so bad. The winner for Nissan was the yellow 350Z and the runner up was the Red with carbon fiber hood (pictured) 350Z. I like that one because of the lil' RQ figurine on his dashboard, it's totally JDM. After taking a look for the first time at those Skylines I still have to say they are pretty meh for the prices they demand but they are interesting to look at. They did gather large groups of onlookers though.

Mitsubishi: Handful of EVO's and an Eclipse (well two if you really count the Eagle Talon) were there. Other than the Dealer EVO X MR there was one other EVO X followed by a very nice looking with lots of kit and shiny go fast parts EVO Pedobear...LOL yes another pedobear EVO. I did finally get a picture of the "V-tec this" Eclipse from the North West Motorfest car show. I don't know who won in this category though.

Subaru: Another group that had only a handful of cars entered but the ones that were there looked really nice but I know hardly anything about the cars other than changing their spark plugs are a HUGE pain in the ass. Later that night I did spy a pretty rare, I think, Forester STI sitting outside the show area. They should have entered the show. Again I don't have a clue who won this group either.

Toyota/Lexus/Scion: I find it rather odd that the two VIP style Lexus sedans didn't even enter the VIP category. There was a couple other Lexus cars there but I didn't get any pictures of them or even looked at them all that closely. There was only a handful of Toyotas again with two Supras an older MR2 and an much older Corolla which showed up much later and I didn't photograph. While the "Fast & Furious" Supra won, I honestly have to say I found a much better looking Supra sitting outside the Show area. I would have hoped that if they had entered they would have won instead. As for the Scions well I guess one of them was featured in the latest Scion commercial so that's cool, just not my cup of tea.

I believe that wraps up my small review of the cars that were at Shakotan Matsuri or atleast it's what I remember about it anyways. Yet again I just want to say that I had a good time meeting new people and seeing some different cars that I haven't seen before and here's to a much bigger and better show next year.