Mr. Wake

Are you understand?

Name:
Location: Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan

Friday, May 19, 2006

Mr. Bluebird

There is a cross beam in your car that runs side to side right behind the dashboard. It's called a steering member. It has a complex array of brackets that hook up to the steering column, the radio, glove box, airbags and such. Some parts a spot welded on tight, and others are bolted on so that they will give in a controlled way in the event of an accident.

So at the hospital where Wife had the baby about a month ago (Did you hear? We had a baby.) there was this particularly narrow passage on the parking lot. Wife and child were there for a week after the big event, and I was going there every day. So it was only a matter of time before I tweaked the post that defined one end of this gap. I popped off part of the passenger door handle and scraped off the little rubber button that unlocks the door.

The first day back at work some of the guys were razing me about busting my nice car. I asked them if they could just jump into the factory and whip me up a new door handle. They said it would be no problem as long as I wanted 10,000 of them.

A few days later the accountant that I used to sit next to, the one with the abacus and cash box, asked about the car ding and then wanted to make a copy of my driver's license.

A few days after that Mr. Abacus asked exactly how I roughed up the door. I told him, and he said, "No. I mean exactly." So I went out side and talked him through it.

The next day a guy from Nissan shows up at the factory to take my car away to be repaired. He left me with a temp car, the Nissan Sylphy Bluebird. Or Bluebird Sylphy, I don't know which way it goes.

This is a steering member for a Sylphy.

This is a lot of them.


This is where the hard working gents and robots put the Sylphy steering members together. It makes them blue to think of Sylphys out there without steering members, so they crank these babies out all the live-long day. And not just for Sylphys. Notes, Cubes, Wingroads, Safaris, and Tiidas, too.


And here is some rad robot Sylphy steering member shiznit.



BTW, wear protective eyewear when viewing this video.

Sunday, May 14, 2006

What Kind of Fish is This Again?

It's always fun to see what happens when Western products are chewed up in the mill of Japanese culture. You get things like the McTeriyaki burger and California Cola ("#1 in the USA!"). But it doesn't go the other way as often. Actually, it probably does, but we are too clueless to recognize it. Well, I spotted this little gem on a recent trip to Newcastle, UK.



Now, it wouldn't be Japanese unless it was slathered in mayonnaise...



mmmmmm...