Understanding the Ricer Culture

I define a Ricer as one who uses cosmetic and mechanical modifications to a vehicle, particularly those manufactured by Honda, Nissan, Toyota, and Hyundai but even domestic models are getting the treatment lately.

Here is a quick rundown on what might make one a ricer.

Thing is, I understand the ricer culture. As a kid we used to get old beaters like 1970 Chevrolet Camaro’s and 1967 Pontiac GTO’s and hop them up, put wild paint jobs on and then take out and wreck them shortly thereafter. Only so many telephone poles you can wrap a car around I suppose.

Just look around at stock manufacturer models today. They all pretty much look the same. There isn’t anything unique about mass produced models. This has been the theme since the first Model T rolled off the production line. So it isn’t any surprise that people want to modify their vehicles to express their individuality.

I suppose you can only beat a dead horse so many time, probably why Bryan’s Rice-Boy page hasn’t been truly update since 2001. But it is still up there for all to see.

But then there’s Joe’s Riced Rides page. Not quite as extreme as Bryan’s page it’s amusing none the less.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that I just don’t understand all the haters out there. As a lapsed gear head, I really don’t get it. I guess we looked at mechanical first and cosmetic second. The 1967 GTO referenced above was primer white and primer black. But that car could move.

It’s nice to see the Ricer community starting to tumble to true performance mods. But it isn’t easy on newer vehicles. I’m a tech guy and understand the underpinnings of that makes an IC engine tick along with an understand of the electronics necessary to make them meet performance and emisssions standards. But modifying a new car would scare the crap out of me.

But it isn’t me alone. Friend of mine bought a brand new Expidition back in 1999, with the 4.5L engine. Curious thing was that on cornering the engine would stall.

We found out that it was a flaw in the engine control firmware. Apparently what was happening was that the fuel injectors on drop to idle weren’t supplying enough fuel to keep the engine running.

Ford’s solution was to give him a new Expidition with the 5.4L engine which didn’t ahve that particular problem.

Ok, enough rambling.

Whoa – The Electric Company on DVD

Now I can share this with Dominick, the 8 year old we watch on Saturday mornings. I used to love this show when I was a kid. And how about Zoom – anyone remember that one?

Oh the weird and wonderful 70’s and 80’s.

On that note I was thinking about having visited NYC in the 70’s and 80’s. Back then it was a vibrant place to visit. Now it’s like a theme park for adults. Some things change for the worse.

New Music in my digital collection

Got John Legend’s “Get Lifted” (Actually in reality, the SO bought the disc, I ripped it to digital for my MP3 player.)

Nice to see R&B is making a comeback. He’s got a very distinctive voice. I guess the signature track is Ordinary People. Very nice track.

Actually its interesting but artists that have endured pain seem to have the lock on producing very good quality music.

The other disc is Jamie Foxx’s “Unpredictable”. Used to love him on In Living Color but who knew he could sing. First heard him on “Golddigger”. Haven’t listened to the whole disc yet but I think it’ll be good.

Now I’m off to order Eric Roberson’s “The Vault 1.5”, Platinum Pied Pipers, and some other goodies I’ve found on last.fm

If only I could locate digital copies of Lou Busch’s “The Wild Ones”.

Traveling near the speed of light.

In posts elsewhere I’ve posited that even at 5% the speed of light we’d be doing well. Found this little gem on /.

But Dr. Franklin Felber has given me a gift that I thought would never happen. He’s worked out Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity to exploit anti-gravity in order to comfortably accelerate large masses, including humans.

It solves two problems – how to keep humans intact and how to find the energy necessary to accelerate to 90% the speed of light.

For the uniformed this means we could send humans to our nearest stellar neighbors within a 5 to 10 year journey.

The latent physicist in me is delighted. I would hope that the term “within this century” is closer to this part of the century than the later. I would dearly love to see mankind make it out of the galactic neighborhood in a safe manner.

65 Million Years of Evolution – All for Naught

Wow – first there was the video of the Octopus that knew better to cover it’s tracks when making midnight visits to the crab tank.

And now this – I guess the octopus has now surpassed the shark as top predator of the aquatic world.

I always had the feeling that those tentacled beasts were more intelligent than we gave them credit for. As the video shows, the octopus pretty much had everyone hoodwinked as to why shark carcasses were showing up in the tanks.

Makes me want one for a pet. But then I’d wake one morning and one of two things would happen. Either I’d notice a cat missing or find myself with a face full of octopus.

What is Sedition

What irks me most about this article is that I’m a state employee that has critized Bush, our Governor, and more. I’ve probably been investigated too.

But for those so inclined here is the definition of sedition:

Pronunciation: si-‘di-sh&n
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin sedition-, seditio, literally, separation, from se- apart + ition-, itio act of going, from ire to go — more at SECEDE, ISSUE
: incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority

And ask yourself if you’ve ever committed sedition. I know for certain that I have, calling for certain heads on spikes.

20th Century Warmest in 1200 Years

That’s right. If you view my blog on a regular basis you’ve seen articles and graphs of the increase in temperature over the past two hundred years. But this article goes beyond that.

Suprisingly we don’t see many mentions of this in the MSM. I pulled this for my friends that don’t read Slashdot.

Why Muslims should be stoned

Read this article and tell me why Muslims the world over shouldn’t be stoned.

But then so should Christians. And other monotheists who try to push their religion and religious views on others.

Oh its looking pretty bad for Bush

This is a point by point confirmation of the conspiracy theories attendant to the Bush Administration. Makes all sorts of reference but the main players are Wolfowitz, Cheney and PNAC.

Part I

Part II

A long read, with many, many hyperlinks to other supporting articles. But my favorite is this because even though the articles in The Onion are usually fictional, sometimes they nail it dead on. Truth is definitely stranger than fiction:

In 2001, the Onion ran a satirical inauguration speech, wherein Bush promised to run up the deficit, tear down the wall between church and state, and “engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.” Truth is often stranger than satire, however, and it was later discovered that well before Bush’s selection as president, plans for war in Iraq had been drawn up and were waiting in the wings. “For nearly a decade a group of people exiled from power during the Clinton years had been making plans,” Ed Vulliamy wrote, referring to the cast of characters tied to the Project for a New American Century, whose memos and documents signaled a hunger for battle and foretold a future of wars on multiple fronts. (And possibly even a reinstatement of the draft.)

Science Suffers Again

Seems the Bush Administration is still trying to kill science. After all, Christian Funamentalists would have a coniption if we found other worlds capable of supporting life. What happens to their God then?

The two points that support my argument are these:

• Delayed indefinitely – the Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF), a mission to detect and study Earth-like planets

• Delayed by about three years – the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM), designed to map stars with unprecedented accuracy and search for planets slightly larger than Earth will now launch no earlier than 2015

I do hope that there is still work going on with regard to propulsion. We need to get as close to the speed of light as possible. My greatest disappointment is that we will only get to about 5% the speed of light in my lifetime.

But NASA is still funding it’s FTL group.