Month: November 2009

a few days ago i got a pipe i had ordered. it’s a savinelli “dry system” rustic, i think a 3/4 bent (perhaps a full bent, although it’s not really fully bent). i generally prefer 1/2 bents and smooth bowls, so i intentionally tried to push myself out of my comfort zone a bit. i haven’t started breaking the pipe in yet. it’s just sitting there. here’s a pic:

while i was taking pictures, i also went ahead and took some pics of the black and chrome vertigo pipeline lighter i got:

to use it, you flip the chrome bar piece up (as pictured in the second frame), then push your thumb along the rolling striker piece and chrome roller. the flame comes out at a 45 degree angle (as pictured in the third frame). the “pipeline” bit actually holds the flint and keeps it pushed against the striker. the images aren’t very high quality, but the iphone 3g isn’t that good of a camera at close range (and i didn’t feel like getting out my real camera). i also didn’t spend any time with lighting or reflections or such. deal.
a while back i posted i went by taurian on westheimer and the place was empty. well, after some sleuthing online i was able to determine they’d moved. (i think they were out of commission for a few months while they moved.) they’re now on nance in north downtown (near the last concert cafe) and sharing space with epoch tattoos. i was supposed to stretch my ears up to 4 gauge in june, but i put it off because i thought there might be reason for me not to need to do it. but that was of course wishful thinking, and i should have just gone ahead and done it anyway. so i went by the new location friday evening and talked with byriah and placed an order. he had told me before putting on 4 gauge captive hoops is a pain, but i don’t like the double ball barbells look — so i went with a hoop that has one screw-on ball on one side and nothing on the other, but the single ball almost closes the loop by itself. they’re making them for me, should be a couple of weeks.
i recently broke down and installed a bit torrent client. i chose transmission. i then proceeded to gum up my internet connection. i don’t think my modem/router handles torrent traffic very well. but it worked…just slowly.
i didn’t hear anything from the mechanic about my belair this week.
i recently read neil gaiman’s the graveyard book. it was a fairly fast, simple read — but a good story.
“[he] stared at [her] as she walked away, hoping that she would turn and look back, that she would smile or just look at him without fear in her eyes. but [she] did not turn. she simply walked away.” –from the graveyard book by neil gaiman

i went ahead and ordered one of the lighters i was looking for. it’s the black and chrome vector pipeline lighter. (vector is made by lotus.) it looks/works like the oldboy and corona lighters, but is much cheaper. i went ahead and ordered a couple of lotus butane refills while i was at it. the lighter is interesting. i’m not sure if i like it or not as far as the functionality of the general design, but it’s a somewhat unique style and pretty cool.
this past week i was in training at work. i’m not sure exactly why they put me in, other than to perhaps try and get me more involved in the windows/exchange side of mailflow. i volunteered to start doing windows stuff (lcs/ocs, ad, exchange, pki, etc.) a while back, but nothing ever really came from it.
i upgraded my apple tv to the 3.0 software a few days ago. i like the redesign. i also really like that they have an interface for internet radio now. also, after the upgrade the device seems to be functioning properly. i’m not sure why, but i hope it lasts. i’ve even done some mucking around to try and get some content on it. (although i still have yet to buy or rent anything from itunes. why would i? the prices are too expensive, and i have access to netflix streaming via my blu-ray player.) they don’t have automatic support for boxee with 3.0 as of yet, although it appears some people have written a new version of launcher (3.2, was alpha, now beta) that works with 3.0 and there are some ways to get xbmc and boxee working. unfortunately, me using the atv-usb creator to install ssh and such always seems to somehow mess up the networking for some reason. which means i then have to do a factory restore (2.0.2 for me), then upgrade to the latest version again. not fun.
i think i ordered the last of the things the mechanic needed to be able to move forward with the new engine. i ordered an autogage 3-gauge cluster (water temperature, oil pressure, and voltage) and a set of spark plugs. since i knew he was waiting on these last things, i went ahead and had them shipped overnight. when i talked to him on friday he’d gotten this order, as well as everything else i’d ordered. he also said he’d already fixed the driver’s side seat. so maybe it’ll be done within the week or so.
saturday of course was halloween. i wore my normal clothes, but added a skull mask. i wore some reflective goggles underneath the mask, then my nanini cruiser goggles over the mask. i rode around like that. i went over to the potts for a few hours (where simcha was terrified of me), then went over to chris and mary’s for their halloween party. i never took my mask off at the party (except for a short time near the end), and didn’t talk much. i drank with a straw through the mask, and i even smoked my pipe through the mask. finally not long before i left i took my mask off for someone who asked because she was freaked out by me all night. (i’m pretty sure she wasn’t the only one.)
on the way home, which was around 2am (which then became 1am), there were a lot of people walking around in outfits along westheimer and shepherd. (someone in front of numbers took my picture.) a lot of the ladies were wearing the expected slutty outfits. what a fun way of being reminded i’m quite single right now.
today i wanted to ride around some since the weather was nice, so i decided to go to sylvia’s. i took the longish way, going down 59 to alt 90 and then up 6 to westheimer. but when i got there, they were closed. they’re not open on sundays. i’m not sure if i already new that or not, but the sign on the window said “new hours”. *sigh*
i’m still waiting to post that story related to going to the bank a couple of weeks ago. unfortunately, i’m not yet able to because i’m waiting on a loose end to take care of business. if they don’t take care of it soon, i’ll have to take care of it for them though.