There are three basic methods for acquiring a takadai: buy, build, or kludge. They’re sufficiently uncommon that the only US retailer has an 18-month waiting list, and the two widely-available construction plans (Owen and Franklin) are for small, portable units. I have both plans, and I don’t like either one. Why not?

"The opening between the lower rails was designed so that a braider with a shoulder width of approximately 15.50 inches is able to work without leaning forward or pulling in the elbows, so that back strain is minimized." --- Carol Franklin

Franklin’s design puts the space between the rails at 18 inches, Owen’s at a bit over 16. My ribcage is 18 inches wide, so using one of these designs as-is would be like flying coach in the middle seat between two football players. It’s not gonna fly.

The two “standard” sizes available in Japan have roughly 22 and 28-inch openings, but they’re designed with a built-in kneeling platform, not a comfortable position for most Westerners. They’re also pretty darn big, with the largest one measuring 110x100cm (43.3x39.4 inches).

I don’t want to spend $650 and wait a year and a half for what is admittedly a piece of fine furniture, but I also don’t want to fly coach, so it’s time to design my own. I learned a lot from the kludged-together Bakadai, and since I can’t use the Owen/Franklin plans directly, I’m free to question every detail of construction. I’m working in OpenSCAD to make the numbers easy to tweak, and my current design (pictured above) is here.

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…that it’s been on the market for at least 10 years.

A few weeks back, Jabrwok mentioned in the comments that he was thinking of making a doweling/loose-tenon jig based on this video. I just watched it (perhaps his most annoyingly-presented video since he rebranded himself), and immediately recognized it as the Rockler Doweling Jig. $20 and better-constructed; wonder why he didn’t mention it…

In honor of my storm-destroyed patio umbrella…

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Soon after I bought my house in Salinas, I had a large, heavy potted plant go flying, because it was near a window, and it can get kind of windy down here. Since all that wind also gives it the cleanest air in California, I generally don’t mind.

Last night and this morning were something that hasn’t happened in the 16 years I’ve lived here. Gusts up to 60 MPH, taking down trees all over the county (including a large one at the end of my street, which admittedly was only planted a few months ago), and since today was trash day in my neighborhood, sending garbage and recyclables everywhere.

Waze estimated at least a 100-minute delay on every feasible route to my office, and when in the afternoon it thought things had cleared up on a back road, it turned out no one had told them about the latest downed tree.

No flooding in my area, at least, but I did lose an 8-foot section of wooden fence that apparently vibrated apart, and my patio umbrella will be the star item in the next visit by Junk King. Its 30-pound base was dragged ten feet before it reached the gravel and fell over, snapping the supports.

The next time someone argues that low-population rural states shouldn’t count as much as densely-populated (ahem) ones, ask if the ~200,000 people evacuated from below the Oroville Dam have been well-represented in Sacramento.

Of course, if they’re the kind of bigot who uses the phrase “voted against their interests” (and yes, everything north of Sacramento is a “red county”), this may not make much of a dent in their worldview, but maybe it will shut them up for a few minutes.

For your 2017 vehicles, it seems you have renamed Jazz Blue to Contusion Blue. This does not inspire confidence in your safety features, even if it is a nice-looking color.

Nothing says Valentine like red hair. A fair number with glasses, too, and in the immortal words of Gracie Law, “Oh, that’s an extra to these people. It’s like leather bucket seats, it’s double the price.”

According to a scientific survey of Gelbooru, anime redheads have trouble keeping their clothes on and their orifices unexplored, which may explain some of their personality quirks. I added a few new negative keywords to cut down on the amount of this stuff I had to skip over. Also, fandoms may come and go, but apparently Ranma is eternal.

[Takanashi sisters come first, because Interviews with Monster Girls is awesome]

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It started out innocently. Well, relatively so, anyway. I was looking for a clean copy of the 80s J-pop song “Sailor Fuku o Nugasanaide!” (for reasons that will become obvious if I ever get around to it), and while there are plenty of videos on Youtube, most of them either have terrible audio quality or an announcer talking over part of the song, or both. And none of the versions on US iTunes are useful.

So I ended up on Amazon Japan, where I found a recent CD collection from Onyanko Club that includes the song. But that wasn’t all that turned up in a search for “セーラー服を脱がさないで”…

It’s a concentration game based on memorizing the color of schoolgirl panties. Pick up a girl, look up her skirt, and try to remember which other girl had the same panties. The partial box cover shows it was released by Bandai in 1987, the year that Onyanko Club disbanded, so it may not have sold well. I’ll have to look for it next time I’m at a flea market in Japan, but I insist that I’d only buy it to find out if the figures were hand-painted, because Japan. :-)

Of course, there were a number of adult videos in the search results as well, and for this young lady (NSFW), losing her sailor suit is the least of her problems.