Random stuff…sticker update…shirts?…
For those of you that ordered stickers, I just got word today from my sticker guy that his computer is down and won’t be back up until around Monday of next week. I apologize for the delay but I will try to get you guys your stickers as soon as possible. If you don’t have them and would like to purchase, now is a good time to place your order because I still have time to add however many I want. I’m most likely gonna have a bigger batch made anyway because I gotta send a stack of them over to Japan. So if by some terrible chance that you don’t have $5, I will have some extras to sell later….
On another note, I’ve been thinking about getting a few t-shirts made. Everybody loves t-shirts and maybe some of you guys that really like what I’m doing here will cop some shirts and rep this place at shows, meets, supermarkets, etc….
And if you don’t like them, you can always cut them up and clean your cars with them or wipe baby asses…
I came up with a basic design because I don’t have money to make fancy ass shirts with gold flakes on them or bape colors or whatever. Maybe if these sell well then I will think about making them like Affliction t’s with angel wings and skeletons and shit. Possibly a fire-breathing camel skeleton fighting a centaur that’s reversed with the ass end being human…
After staring at it for awhile, I thought it might be better if I added a colored border like the actual title banner on this page. It makes the shirt more professional looking I guess and not like ironed on at home by my sister. This is of course the most preliminary of the preliminary and nothing is set in stone yet. I’m gonna see what my options are and what I can do without having to charge a ridiculous amount just to break even…
Like always, my mind drifted off into other things and I ended up working on a design for the Hot Stuff International t-shirts also. I’m pretty happy with the way they came out but I think that if we were to do shows and meets outdoors during the summer, it might be easier to just invert everything and print them on white shirts instead. Mikeyyyy has always done white Phaze2 shirts anyways so I’ll have to see what he wants to do with them. The Hot Stuff shirts have so much potential and I can always come up with more off the wall designs. I just don’t know if everyone would be willing to wear them…
While I was looking up stuff on the wakaba/new driver badges, I saw this t-shirt for sale form Zazzle.com…
Then I decided to design a shirt in tribute to that but added the cooler more “JDM” badges that I created yesterday…
Hopefully no one would ever want to wear these…haha…but you never know. I made the Hot Stuff logo as kind of a joke and all of a sudden that shit is blowing up all over the place. I mean, kids are willing to put these new driver badges on their cars and some people hang like fake ball sacks on their trucks….why not rock a yellow/green dick on your back?
An indepth look at horrible ideas…part 3…”new/old driver badges”…
I’ll be perfectly honest, I did alot of shit to my cars back then that by today’s standards would be considered ricey. We all gotta start somewhere….Luckily today, kids officially have a badge to notify everyone how incredibly “JDM” they are not being. Can we stop mounting these every fucking place on your car possible? I’ll admit, the first time I saw it, I thought it was kinda cool…until it spread like the plague. I can’t go to any kind of car meet or show without at least 45 people either mounting one on their window or sporting the magnetic ones on their fenders. These are usually accompanied by either a set of Drag or Rota wheels, and a tow hook that has some sort of stuffed animal hanging from it….
You know how you say that you just bought your wakaba badge as a joke? No the fuck you didn’t. Quit lying. It’s like when you do something stupid unintentionally and you go “Oh I’m just messin around…” and you feel like an asshole inside. I also hear alot of the “Oh I don’t care if it’s JDM or not, I just like the way it looks”. Uhh…what exactly is so cool looking about it? It’s a fucking green and yellow leaf. You know what looks cool? A titty. A hamburger perhaps. Some chicks buttholes. In my hierarchy of what looks good, a plastic leaf is not really high on my list. The worst part about it is that most people nowadays just rock them because everyone else has one or they think that it makes them “JDM”.
This is “JDM”…
…this is “JDM”…
…this…okay, no this asian woman is actually Michael Jackson…so this is not “JDM”…
This also, is NOT “JDM”….
What’s even worse is that these things have caught on so much that they even have their own knock-off versions. You got people making like vinyl sticker versions and even versions that are different color or like have the flag of the Phillipines on there or something. This shit is just getting way outta control…
Oh you’re welcome by the way if you opened this page at work to find an image of what looks to be penises, one short and limp. I’m merely trying to convey to you the embarassment that I feel everytime I spot one of these badges in someone’s car….
A Nostalgic Moment…Vik Deol’s Acura Integra…
Does anyone actually remember this car? I actually met Vik I think around the middle of 2002 or so. Back then, all these wild conversions were the hit of most shows and onlineshowoff.com was the equivalent of Myspace today. It was basically the social network for everyone that was heavily in the scene. I met Vik through a mutual friend that I was doing shows with at the time and I always would say what’s up and chat with Vik a bit during show set-up. I really don’t know what happened to the guy nowadays but I remember his family was loaded and he always had his girl following him around. There’s some interesting stories about what happened to her but I’ll save those for another time…haha…
This integra was built completely themed after Craig Lieberman’s R34 Skyline. For reference, here is the R34…
I don’t really know why he modeled his build after Craig’s car and I really never did ask. At the time all this wild conversion shit was still going on and we kinda just accepted it. Vik was a pretty cool guy to talk to and he would always show us something new that he did. The front and rear skyline conversions were done flawlessly and though it obviously doesn’t look like it belongs there, the quality of work spoke for itself….
This was back in the early 2000s and even though people were doing flares, no one actually had the right wheels to fit it correctly. It didn’t matter to anyone at the time because it was one of the most popular cars of that time. It always won an award at any show that I attended and though the guy was loaded, he had alot of sponsors backing him too…
Of course it was turbocharged and had all the ridiculous snap on chrome dress-up pieces. I can’t say that I actually ever saw the car go real fast but it was a show car. It was rare enough to see these things even drive down the street…
I don’t have a pic of it but Vik was one of the first guys to do like full Bride gradation headliner. Back then it was pretty impressive and everyone would go crazy over it. Looking back now at these pics now, I totally forgot that the dash was painted. Then again, there wasn’t a part of this car that was left untouched…
I wonder what happened to Vik and this Integra. I remember hearing rumors that something happened to him and the car was sold or something but I can’t confirm that. I’ve been doing car shows and stuff since then and the guy kinda just disappeared into obscurity. Hopefully nothing bad happened to him because he was a pretty cool guy to talk to…
I thought it’d be interesting to show you guys this car because it really was one of the impact players of the import show scene at the time. Compared to today’s standards, it would seem a little ridiculous and goofy but this was what a majority of people were doing at the time. It’s pretty funny to think back to the onlineshowoff.com days when everyone was all up on trying to join Vik’s imaginery team “Solo”. I actually think that Team Solo exists today while Vik is long gone. Solo was like an online crew that had members all over the country. I wonder if this Integra is still owned by someone and is being driven around somewhere…
A birthday to remember…
The following is a non-Honda related post. Well, in a sense, if you really want to break it down to specifics, the people involved did own Hondas at one time or another. If you only come here for Honda news, this update is not for you. We will be returning to our regularly scheduled program tomorrow. On with the show….
This is one of the rare times I’m really gonna talk about my car because it’s not really related to what goes on here. I just feel it’s worth mentioning and interesting because it happened on my 27th birthday. I started out just wanting to do something simple and my night ended up anything but uneventful…
As I get older I’ve realized that I’ve basically seen it all. There aren’t too many things I haven’t done or been through so on my 27th, I just wanted to do something simple. I had to go down to SD over the weekend to go kick it with my parents and what not for my bday, and it had been raining like crazy lately so I decided to bring my Q45 down there so I could wash it. I rarely drive the car. Usually it just sits there and collects dust unless I have a meet or event to go to. Then I’ll clean it and take it out for a spin. Other than that, I might occassionally take it to the market or something just to keep the blood flowing so to speak. The last time I checked my tire pressure was probably a month or so ago. Total number of times I driven the car since then….maybe once or twice. Let it be known that the main issue I have with this car is it has bad toe in the rear so the tires do tend to wear more prematurely. I’ve been meaning to get it fixed, but between it being too fuckin low to drive anywhere and my having no money or time, it’s just been sitting. I got tires about a year ago and it had been wearing a little better since I raised the car up abit when I finally put the rest of my Wald kit on…
Anyways, on with the story…I usually have dinner with the same 5 friends (Doods!) that I always do. My bday isn’t that much special so I didn’t really want to bother anyone with coming out. It was last minute so I just called the same 5 peeps I’m always with. So if you guys that know me wonder why I didn’t invite you, it’s just because I didn’t want to trouble you guys because it wasn’t that big of a deal and I know how terrible traffic can get in L.A. Thanks everyone for the bday wishes by the way, it means alot. I ended up deciding to eat at Cheesecake Factory in Pasadena and since my homies Chris and Tony were not too far from me, I told them to just meet up at my place. We played some Street Fighter 4 before we set off to go to dinner. I figure since I never drive my car and I was just gonna park it anyway, I might as well take it out for my bday and use whatever gas was left in it. So we rolled out to Pasadena in the Q. My car is slow as fuck so I usually just kick back and let that shit drive itself. We got to Pasadena without incident and had dinner and what not. I happen to have the SLR with me so we randomly pulled up and attempted to take some pics too. After that, we took off for home….
We were dippin in the 210 eastbound around 10:45 or so and all of a sudden we heard a pop. We couldn’t really figure out what it was and I honestly thought it was part of song that we were listening too. Everything seemed to drive fine and what not so I kept going. I even attempted to replay the song to see if that point of the song had a similar sound. As I was getting on the ramp to merge onto the 605, I noticed that my steering wheel was cocked sideways….I had a flat. When the pop occurred we were actually two or 3 exits away from the 605 so I actually drove for a while before I even got onto the 605 onramp. At that point, I pulled over immediately and basically knew that I was fucked. My once round wheel was gonna be square now and my perfectly mint set of Work Eurolines are no ruined. If you’re wondering, yes I do have stretched tires. It’s a mild stretch but it indeed is stretched. It’s also stretched on Falken Azenis ST115′s, which is not a great idea in itself. I wanna let everyone know now that this really has nothing to do with stretched tires nor does it have anything to do with the dangers of stretching. It’s more my stupidity and ignorance then anything else. I should have checked the tire pressure again after I drove all the way down to SD the night before and at a glance I really didn’t notice that my tires had worn down so much since the last time I looked at it. Again, my ignorance and stupidity caused this, not stretched tires. If you’re on a stretch and you maintain it and are careful about it, you will not run into these problems. The combination of low tire pressure, excessive wear on the inside, and me clipping a reflector or something similar to it caused my tire to tear apart. Now Chris, Tony, and I were stranded on the highway in the middle of nowhere near the onramp where semi-trucks haul ass. I don’t have a spare. I have a stock tire at home but it doesn’t even fit on here at this ride height…The homies I usually go to with these kind of problems were already with me, so I had to bug my friend Billy, who lives all the way out in Chino Hills. Billy is probably the only one that has a wheel that would even fit on this car and lucky for me, he decided to come help. Tony also hit up his friend Andy to come by with some tools to get this car off the shoulder of the 605 freeway….
Believe it or not, their are good people left in this world. Few but they do exist. We actually had a couple modified cars haul ass by us and honk and shit or be assholes. Some kids with turbos even rolled by, slowed down, and blew off just to show off. To those guys, a big “fuck you”. Next time I see you stranded on the road, believe me, you will get your’s. Anyways, some people actually stopped by to see if we were okay while we waited for our homies to show up. One guy like cut across the freeway and braked so hard he almost hit the fuckin guardrail just to see if we needed help. We thought he was gonna rub our asses but he was actually a really nice guy. I was ready to do some chinese jiu jitsu on that ass and break his neck and throw him down the hill. Either that or he woulda took us down the hill and raped us. Both situations presented an unwanted result so I’m blessed that he was a nice guy. The second guy that stopped actually just wanted a cigarette. How fucking addicted could someone be to roll up to a broken down car on a freeway and ask for a smoke…..strange.
An hour or so goes by and Billy rolls up in his Element with an Axis something-or-other wheel that I could use. It was an 18 on a pretty meaty tire so I knew I could roll my car home at least. A couple minutes later, Andy shows up with the tools and we somehow manage to jimmy that floorjack under the car and get the car back on the road. Changing a tire on a thin highway shoulder at midnight and it’s cold as fuck equals the perfect birthday present for me. I just wanted to have a simple dinner and I ended up hanging out on the freeway with some other homies. I babied the car all the way back home and I managed to snap some pics of the wheel…
Warning: The following pics are GRAPHIC. If you’re a fan of wheels and have a weak stomach, please look away.
Here is the damage…
I will vouch for Work Wheels any day of the fucking week. For the distance that I drove, at the speed I was going, damage to the wheel was very, VERY minor. No damage to the wheel itself on the outside and a very small bend on the inside. So small that you might not even notice it unless you looked very closely. A friend of mine had a similar blow-out on a Junction Produce wheel, drove a shorter distance, and his wheel was fuckin square afterwards. I can’t say enough for the quality of these wheels…
Again, this is caused due to my stupidity and me being careless. Had I been more careful, this type of situation would have never presented itself. You can clearly see that there is no damage at all to the front of the wheel. It’s perfect.
My stupid ass was driving on a tire that was balding and I’m very lucky to see so little damage. What makes this more of a stupid decision is that I don’t even have money to fix it. So I’m just gonna park the car for awhile until I have enough cash to fix it along with getting the car aligned properly…
This is what I’m stuck with. Looks like a donut on my Q45 compared to what I had before…I feel like such a retard. Happy birthday 27th jackass, you ended up spending almost 3 hours stranded on a highway and now you got an Axis wheel on your car and a tire that’s shredded to total shit.
File this under “How not to have an uneventful birthday.” It was good to see some friends I haven’t seen in awhile though….
First off thanks to Maybelyn and Ojay and the Doods! for coming out to eat dinner with me for my birthday. Big thanks to Chris Bobadilla and Tony Khamly for standing on the highway and getting honked at like assholes by ricers. Also even bigger thanks to Billy Shea and Andy for saving our asses. Oh if you guys got a call from me, it was because I didn’t have anyone to call at the time and needed help…sorry for calling so late….
Oh this is what the JP wheel looked like after a similar blow-out. Sorry I don’t have a shot of how FUBAR’d it was on the inside…
On a final note…at least my birthday cake was good…
…It’s got six candles on it because that’s how many months it’s gonna take for me to finally decide to fix this mess….
Cali Love and The Junkies BBQ Meet…
I’ll be honest, I had made other plans awhile back before I knew of this meet so I wasn’t sure if I was gonna make it out or not. I ended up having some extra time so I headed over to Rowland Heights to check it out…
I got there around 2:30 or so and a bunch of cars had just left. There were also a couple cops rolling through back and forth but they didn’t really hassle anyone so everyone just went about their business….
Met up with the rest of the Hot Stuff crew and people were huddled up around Mikey’s bB…
Arnel decided to make the haters happy that day and took the rusted hood off. He assures everyone that it’s definitely gonna go back on there though so don’t be surprised….
Saw this sweet DA on SSR’s next to Sid’s DA. I believe I also saw this car at the Streetlightz meet awhile back too. Very clean…
Sid’s DA is nearing completion. He recently put in his Autopower rollbar and will have seats in there soon enough. One thing I never noticed about this DA until it was parked next to another white one is that it’s actually Championship White. Man, I really need to pay attention to my own homies cars…haha….
This was everyone’s reaction to HeyMikeyyyy’s bB because it’s all beat up looking now…
Alex was there but he didn’t say whats up. Dude just drove off and shit…
…If he wasn’t rocking one of these I’d be upset…
I really like this EK that was there. Only thing that bugs me about it is that big ass “Daily Driven” sticker on the front bumper. The car would flow so much better without it. I wonder if he uses it to cover up a scratch or gash or something…
Even though I showed up pretty late, there was still a pretty big crowd….
Norman showed up with a new set of reverse staggered Enkeis. He can’t run a regular stagger because his baby seats would rub…
Big Mike and his Prelude were also there. I don’t know what happened right here but it sounds disgusting…
Spotted this red EK I haven’t seen before. Pretty aggressive stance with what looks to be some 5-lug Dori Meshes…
I was taking a pic of AS1′s RHD DA when Carlos aka Mugen Boy showed up with his daily 4-door…
Turned out great from the first time I saw this thing. I met up with him when I sold him my headunit awhile back and it didn’t have anything on it other then some BBR wheels. What a turnaround….
I see this coupe at alot of meets. It has an older Domani/Integra SJ/Orthia conversion on it and the roof, hood, and trunk are painted black….I can’t say I’m too big of a fan of the conversion but it’s always cool to see something different…
I always spot this coupe also but haven’t really had the chance to take a close look at it. Definitely alot wilder than most that you would see within this crowd. Full carbon front-end, copper-everything, turbo’d B, custom paint, and all Recaro red throughout the interior.
I left a little bit after that and went home and took a nap I think. I would have taken pics of that but I find it pretty difficult to take pictures of myself when I’m sleeping. I would have updated this sooner but I was also busy celebrating my 27 years of greatness….
Smoked Meat Equals Great Meet….
Do you see how I seamlessly meshed BBQ ribs with cars? Well if you’re wondering why there’s actually a BBQ/meet being thrown today by the Cali-Love and Junkies crews. If you’ve got something serious going on today and wanna go hang out with some cool people and check out nice cars, all the while with hot meat in your mouth, then drop buy and kick it….
TIME:9am-SUNSET
PLACE:SCHABARUM PARK
17250 E. Colima Rd.
Rowland Heights Ca. 91748
WHEN: Feb. 21st 2009
I’m not sure if I’m gonna head over today because I already had made plans but if you guys go, take pics…
An indepth look at horrible ideas…Part 2…uh…widebody?
Let me begin by saying that I am a big fan of aftermarket aero parts. I always have been even since the early 2000′s when LJ’s car and other widebody cars were around. Nowadays of course, things are different. We’ve shifted over to more subtle “JDM” OE-styling. Clean bodylines are the way to go now and even as such, there are still cars out there today with modified body panels/fenders, etc. With the influence still heavy from Japan, we’re not limited only to OEM JDM parts but also JDM aftermarket pieces, including widebody kits. The above NSX is what I would consider to be perfect in terms of widebody panels. The lines are similar, everything flows correctly and it looks as if it could have came from the factory looking exactly like that. We’ve all been apart of this community long enough to realize that you have to follow the lines. Even as kids we’re taught to follow the line, whether it be in the cafeteria line or when we’re coloring something with crayons. What I’m about to show you however….well…is not good. It’s almost as if the owner was coloring within the lines and then all of a sudden he went off the page, started coloring on some other kids page and then spin-kicked another child in the back. Like he was standing in the cafeteria line, jumped over the counter, shat on the food and then fed it to the cafeteria lady. Like I said, it’s bad. Sometimes, extreme body mods are okay. On this occassion, the owner took his BB6 Prelude and Joan Rivers’d the shit out of it….
Uhh….What just happened? The first thing that comes to mind when I look at this car is that I am thoroughly confused. I want to ask why the lower section of the front bumper is not there but then I’m distracted and come up with questions for the rest of the car. The lower section of the front doesn’t look like its been broken off or anything and the way the body work is, it looks like it was indeed intentional…
From a side view, I can’t help but wonder if a JGTC-inspired design was intended…
Like this…
…but the end of result of the front fenders resemble the top of a ventilation shaft on a high-rise building in downtown Los Angeles. I’m curious as to who did the bodywork on this Prelude and what materials were used. The rear I’m not sure what happened. It’s so square and sharp that I’m worried that if the passenger got out too fast, they would catch the corner of the quarter panel and break their arm. Do the doors even open all the way?..
Like I said earlier, I have no idea why the lower portion is missing. What I will say though, is that there was definitely a significant amount of money spent on this build. I can’t even begin to imagine how much the bodywork was alone. I am curious though as to how the design concept was developed. Did the owner come up with it? Or did he just take it to the bodyshop and tell the guys over there to “widebody” it….
Crooked exhaust aside, this thing would actually be pretty cool if you took it to a skate park and did tricks on it. You can see the front as a ramp and you can do some grinds on the rear section…I’ve also carefully illustrated this point…
Haha…
Some cars out there get away with looking horrible outside because they have some balls under the hood. The same could be said for this particular Prelude if it weren’t such a total utter wiring nightmare! Shit….What the hell is going on in here. Fire hazard much? Man so much flammable fiberglass and bondo on the outside, I’d be nervous to even drive this thing around….
At the end of the day, I really don’t like to single anyone out. I was actually looking for pics of Mark from Techna’s old Prelude because I wanted to do a nostalgic thread about it but then I accidently stumbled upon this gem. I had to, I really did. The bodywork is so ridiculous that it’s almost laughable. No offense of course. There looks to be a grip of money invested. From the bodywork alone to the turbo kit to the wheels and what not. It even has a Greddy E-Mange unit inside so it must run okay. It would have been nice if it was just a bit more subtle of a widebody and not so goofy. You can’t even make shit up like this really. It’s just one of those once in a lifetime opportunities. It’s like a unicorn, but someone shot it, and then molded an elephant carcass to it. When I found the pics I also saw that it was for sale for about $15k out in Oklahoma somewhere. If anyone currently owns the car, let me know what happened to it…hell maybe someone saw it on the road and got some pics of it…Definitely an interesting build.
I leave you with this…
The update is coming….
For those of you in the morning looking for an update….don’t be disappointed, it’s coming. I hit a snag along the way but it’s coming later today. That snag might have been Street Fighter 4 and the cheesyness of the final boss, but it could also be computer-related….in any case, I invite you to come back and refresh this page as much as you want until you see the update. Either that or I could meet you half way and you can hit the refresh button until it updates. Or maybe you could just come back later.
When you come back, if you could bring me a sandwich that would be great. Thanks. You know what would make that show Parental Control on MTV better? If they fucked. Like if they fucked in front of the parents and significant other and then the whole time they can say their cheesy rehearsed jokes to eachother. Here I’ve illustrated my point in a pie chart…
How’s my sandwich coming along?
Random Stuff today….The Chronicles going international?…
So I logged onto the NWP4Life forums today to check out the recent scammer drama that’s been goin on over there and I get a PM from Takeshi. If you’re not familiar with Takeshi aka “type_K” on the forums, he’s the guy over in Japan that runs Type_K Autosource. Type_K is responsible for brining over USDM parts over to Japan, kind of like the overseas version of a shop like Password:JDM here in the U.S. Turns out that the USDM scene is pretty big over there. Guys over there crave our styling of cars as much as we do with their JDM stuff. Ironic because alot of our styling is reminiscent and certainly inspired by the japanese tuning culture. I guess in the end everyone is inspired by everyone else, no matter the region or border. Their scene is known more as “USDM Jam” and they import alot of stuff I would never expect them to like USDM OE Civic stuff, to Scion parts, even U-Haul trucks. No idea why they would want that stuff but I guess everyone wants to be different and that stuff is definitely stand-out. I bet the guys over in Japan wonder the same shit about Americans over here. That’s just how things work…
The two cars you see pictured in this post are actual USDM-themed builds that are on display at a show over in Japan. Pretty cool to see them use our styling cues and in turn do a better job than we do at our own thing….haha. Oh anyway back to the message. So Takeshi hits me up and informs me that he has a couple customers over there that are interested in getting ahold of some Chronicles stickers. This of course is a shock to me. I’ve barely started to get the word out over here about the site and now I have people from overseas inquiring about my stuff. So I reply to him and let me know how many he needs and I would gladly help get those stickers in their hands.
Now I’ll be honest, the site has picked up alot lately. I’ve made it clear lately that I have been very surprised with the success of this site. I guess I must be doing something right if there are people that are willing to rock my shit on their cars. Man I was sending out some stickers the other day and was already surprised enough that I have people in New York and Virginia buying from me. Now I have people that follow “The Chronicles…” overseas. That’s pretty cool….
I do have to wonder about what the appeal of this site is over in Japan. Like does my candor actually translate over to them or is it because they like how I cover events and what not. Maybe they just like to see everything and not just cars at events. I really don’t know. It could be that they’re starting to see the logo on some Socal guys’ cars and want the sticker to further replicate the style….Takeshi did mention how much he loved the Phaze2xDoods/Hot Stuff International Hondas. In any event, it’s an honor to have people from outside the United States wanting to rep my hardwork. Makes all the late nights staying up typing up this stuff all the more worthwhile. And no, I didn’t forget about you guys in Canada. Even though the majority of your population hates me and doesn’t understand me, guys like Ryan and Danville always take the time to let me know that I’ve got something good here…
Thanks to everyone that’s helping me get the word out. I have unbelieveable friends that are doing a great job pushing this. I can’t even name all of them because they all have pretty much the same names and listing last names would just make this paragraph incredibly long. I’m hoping to revolutionize online toilet reading material…haha. Soon everyone all over the world will be mounting computer monitors in their bathrooms so that they can read “The Chronicles…” (Hovering sarcasm right over this sentence…)
Oh shit, I almost forgot….registration for the annual Eibach meet is now open. Register and get prime spots while you can. With the amount of people that went to the smaller year-opening Eibach gathering in January and the ridiculously huge turn-out at Wek’fest a couple weeks back, I can’t even begin to imagine how huge this year’s Eibach meet will be. It’s definitely going to be a sight to see…
A Nostalgic Moment…L.J. Garcia’s Feel’s Civic…
Hmm…I can’t help but wonder what LJ’s Civic is doing at some county fair sitting on top of a ply wood ramp…but a discussion recently over on the NWP4Life forums lead me to reminisce about L.J.’s hatchback….
Man, it’s hard to believe that it’s been almost 10 years since it debuted on the cover of the 2nd ever Import Tuner magazine. Back then no one had ever even heard of Francine Dee yet and Feel’s Twin Cam was a relative unknown to the U.S. Seems like such a long time ago. Almost reminds me of how long I’ve been involved with this hobby. Then I was still in high school and wasn’t driving anything Honda-related. I was already into the whole hobby though and loved sifting through Turbo magazine and the like, checking out cool rides and what people were doing to them. I actually remember the day that I picked up this issue. I was at a newly opened Albertson’s in Chula Vista, Cali. picking up some groceries with my mom. I wandered off into the magazine section to see what was new and grabbed an issue of Turbo. I don’t remember who was on the cover, I think it might have been a yellow Eclipse or something, but I do remember seeing Viet Lam’s hatchback in there. Anyway, while I was flipping through it, the Import Tuner issue caught my eye and I grabbed it and the issue of Turbo and purchased them before my mom could bitch at me about wasting my money.
I really didn’t know much about Hondas at the time because I had all my attention on Toyotas but the kit on Garcia’s hatch definitely caught my eye. I had never really seen a widebody kit before then and to see a Feel’s widebody kit blew my mind. Actually, I think Francine Dee was the one that made me blow my mind because I remember looking up her name and was linked to the old school 935draggers website and they had a bunch of nudes of her pre-boob job with the blond hair and all. This was before 935 went all commercial with the “gofast-r” campaign or whatever and before they bombarded their site with all that finestmodels garbage. The 935 site back then was just basically their team site and just had a bunch of random pics of naked asian “import models” and what not. I’m sure if you were around that time you were aware of the Francine Dee blond hair pics. Funny thing was I clearly remember looking at the pics and saying “damn, those are some beef curtains down there!” Right-click save. And I think a couple weeks ago I came across a recent Francine pic and I said: “damn, those are some beef curtains down there!” It was at that exact moment that I realized that my young life in the import community had come full circle and was nearing the 10 year mark. Right-click save….
Back to L.J.’s car….I have to say that I liked the car the most in it’s dark blue stage. That was when it was in it’s purist form and before all the 9, 932 sponsors ended up all over that thing. You can say that it’s ricey now, or maybe even back then. But at that time, the term “JDM” had little to no meaning to a majority of the people within the scene and extravagent bodykits were the way of the world. I’m sure you can remember all the colored vinyl interiors and bulky aero. I will say one thing I miss about that era though. Everybody had real deal wheels. None of that knock-off bullshit. You either had some Harts or Volks, occassionally but rarely Work wheels, and sometimes SSR’s. That or you had some Zennetti’s or O.Z.’s. No one had red GT3′s or Drag wheels or whatever. The aero may not meet today’s standards, but the wheels of that time probably exceed it just because of the sheer quantity of fake shit out there today.
L.J. Garcia was probably the first person to introduce a true widebody kit into the U.S. import show scene. Before this hatch came along, the only time you saw this Feel’s kit was in the japanese catalog. After this kit came out, every motherfucker and their cousin had these fenders on their cars. I mean, not just Honda’s,….everything. Toyota Tercels, Ford Escorts, Nissan Sentra, whatever. Everyone wanted to get in on this widebody trend and everyone was willing to make a copy of it and apply it to another car. I think it was almost as popular as the Buddy Club bumper during that time but it just didn’t match Buddy Club numbers because it was too labor-intensive. I also believe that L.J. was the first guy to rock 20-inch wheels on a Honda. But that happened after all the sponsors started pouring in. When it was in it’s cleanest stage it was still rolling on the Racing Hart C5′s….
It’s almost a little strange to see now how the over fenders fit. Most of the time, people that end up using these fenders will mold them to the bumper or at least extend them out to line up with everything. That’s actually the way it was intended to be by Feel’s Twin Cam….
Here’s the Feel’s kit on their own Civic. I honestly wonder what it was like in that room when they came up with this design…I wonder what motivated the guys to design such an aggressive front bumper…
This thing was a true example of a showcar back then. I can’t say I was a big fan of all the yellow, but that was L.J.’s theme and he stuck to it. After the repaint from when it was blue, I kinda stopped following the car as closely because it was just a little too much for me, even back then….
Damn, check that Spoon cluster…haha…
Say what you will about it now but it is definitely a staple in the history of the tuner era. So much so that it’s actually sitting on display today at the Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. Imagine that, a widebody Civic hatchback on air suspension is apart of automotive history…
An indepth look at horrible ideas…Part 1: Stock Wheel Whoring…
I love wheels. I’ll be the first to tell you that. I’ve had the pleasure of owning 2 sets of Volks, a set of Sprint Hart CP-R’s, some Stark Rennsports, a set of Advan RG’s, Regamaster EVO’s, 2 sets of Work wheels, and I’ve even owned a set of Rotas that someone scammed me with back before knock-offs got so popular. Am I rich? Hellllll no. Am I good looking? Definitely. Did I work my ass off, make my money, and manage to find some really good deals? Yes. I wouldn’t call myself a wheel whore, but I’ve definitely owned my fair share of wheels. Aftermarket wheels make or break your car. There’s just something about them that changes the entire look of the build. Sometimes people have beautifully built projects and completely ruin them by putting some ugly and/or cheap ass wheels on there. When I got into this whole hobby, I made a list of wheels that I always strived to have. I only have about two other sets on my list but I think I’ve been pretty fortunate to find the wheels I wanted…
There are also people out there that collect shoes. You know, like shoes for your feet. I never really caught onto it or got into it. One, because I don’t have any money anymore to go out and buy shoes every week, and two, I don’t know what it is about my walking but I can’t even step outside the house without getting my shoes dirty. Shit doesn’t make any sense. Some will say that you collect the shoes just to collect and don’t have to wear them, but I’d rather just spend that money on something I would use.
There’s also a trend that I’ve seen develop over the years where people who don’t have wheels but want to be cool guys and attempt to be wheel whores. How do you not own aftermarket wheels and become a supposed “wheel whore”? You amass a collection of OEM wheels. These people go out and collect or trade OEM wheels to attempt to “whore”. Only one word can describe this trend………….Stupid.
Allow me to throw in a football analogy. If wheel whores are the NFL, then OEM wheel hoarders aren’t even the kickers, they’re like, the practice squad of the import community. You don’t even get to play. You like, put on all the gear and pretend that you do, but you’re not on the team….you catch my drift? I can understand that some people don’t have money to buy high-priced aftermarket or “JDM” wheels. Some don’t even have money for Rotas or other cheap wheel. That’s fine. But what the fuck are you doing wasting money on some OEM wheels that are from the junkyard or something. What purpose does it serve to make your car look like something else that’s in the parking lot already? They put those wheels on everything. “I’m just trying to be unique”….No, you’re not. Let me remind you that you drive a Honda. Alot of motherfuckers drive Hondas, ALOT. I mean, ALOTT…with two T’s for extra emphasis. You’re really gonna go out there and pay for OEM wheels that old ladies and asian honor roll students have already unintentionally whored-out? You can put Fit wheels on a Civic and you know what? They’re still fucking Fit wheels. The only time you go out and buy OEM wheels is if you drive your car into a ditch or something and bend some shit, or you wake up and your car is on blocks. And even then, you can probably get some knock-offs for the same price as some OEM wheels.
Even more annoying about the trend, is the nicknames that people have come up with for these stock wheels….Let’s take a closer look:
These to the casual Honda owner, would be known as wheels off an Acura Integra GSR. What’s the cool trendy name for them? “Fat Fives”. Mostly for the 5 wide spokes. I would probably just call them GSR wheels but what the fuck do I know. I remember when I was in high school kids would put these on their Civics just because and stunt them unknowingly. I never knew that it would become the popular thing to do. People actually steal these things nowadays. Back then people used to rock two in the back and 2 black stocks in the front and that shit would just look stolen…
This particular wheel, is your average Joe Acura Integra wheel. Super trendy name? “Swirlies” or “blades”…..yeah pretty stupid. I saw some people arguing on a forum whether or not this wheel is a “blade” or a “swirly”. I might be wrong about the name but who fucking cares? Stop it already. It’s a goddamn OEM acura wheel, just call it that. I also saw a thread somewhere called “what’s your favorite OEM Honda wheel” and some guy posted a pic of this wheel and put “Pure Sex”. I don’t know about you but when I imagine having sex, I don’t think of anything as mundane as a Acura wheel. But then again, I don’t really think you should be imagining any kind of solid object while having sex. Well, other than the opposite sex, or same sex, whatever. That is, unless you enjoy having sex with machines, which in that case, you would still be fucking up because you’re not paying attention to the machine you’re penetrating and thinking about an Acura wheel. Either way, it just doesn’t make any sense.
We know them as stock LS wheels. Super Trendy name? “Meshies”…..yeah real creative with this one. Obviously mesh wheels, you could even just call them “mesh” wheels. You know what bugs me about this wheel? People love to fuckin paint these things. You know what, you can paint them 19 different buttfucking colors, it’s still an OEM mesh wheel! It’s not gonna make it look like a Work Equip wheel and people aren’t gonna look at it and say “what the fuck wheel is that, it looks incredible?” It’s like if you took a dump, caked it in plaster and let it dry. Then spray painted it and attempted to present it as an art project. Guess what? Everyone is gonna know that it’s a piece of shit. You know what else? They’re gonna wonder why you wasted so much time painting a piece of shit and passing it off as something else.
Ahh, the ever popular Civic Si wheel. Super trendy oem wheel whore name? “Si’s” Yup, nothing really too creative about that. I would imagine you could call it 7-spokies or something or 14dividedby2equals7′s but I guess they didn’t run this wheel through the cool machine. Or sevshies, blade sevens, or mild girth 7′s, something of the sort.
I noticed that their were some OEM wheels that were neglected and never gained popularity like the goth kid at school. So I took the time to give them a trendy oem wheel whore name….
I shall call these….Kaleidoscopshies…because they look like a kaleidoscope of OEM fantasery. Yeah I’m just making up words now.
I will call these….uhh…splitstarfishes. They would look great on your 94 bubble back, with oem bra and even trendier unused bike rack.
Sit back and consider the other wheels in this post and think of what you would clal these….I will attempt to read your mind…..Let me guess….
Narrow Ten’s right? I bet you that you even went and counted the spokes too, twice in fact, because there were so many spokes that it threw you off the first time. Haha….I’m like Criss Angel, Mind Freak…but I don’t dress like a homosexual goth pirate….
What I’m really trying to say is this. Just save your money and get some decent aftermarket wheels. I mean really, with all the money you’re already spending on each set of OEM wheels, you could have gotten yourself some pretty nice wheels by now. Trust me, as long as I’ve been in this hobby, no one has ever huddled up around a car with a set of OEM wheels other than the ones that came on the car and actually was thoroughly impressed by the wheel choice. You can say that you don’t care what people think, but you know you value the opinions of others. Otherwise you wouldn’t be taking 20 poorly angled shots of your car on your new “swirlies” and throwing them up for everyone to see.
Please stop the OEM wheel whoring. To the guy/girl out there that has like 4 or more set of OEM wheels that they stunt regularly, you’re not a wheel whore. You own a junkyard.
Stickers Version 2…
I can’t begin to tell you about the overwhelming amount of support that everyone has shown me since the inception of this site. I had no idea my random rambling and stupid stories would gain so much popularity throughout the country. I must thank you all for constantly keeping up to date with everything that’s going on around here. With that said, above is the new, bigger version of “The Chronicles” sticker. It’s no longer just a black outline and the center is now black with a chrome outline. The original ones were a bit harder to see so hopefully bigger ones curb that issue. I also decided to take the “www” out because it should be obvious by now that it’s not necessary to access this page.
Now that you’ve seen the new version of the stickers, I would like to inform everyone that they are currently sold out and I will have another batch made ASAP. Everyone that ordered them within the past month or so will already be getting the new version of the sticker. When I had them made I really had no idea that so many people wanted to get them so I quickly ran out. If you would like one and want to continue to keep this site going, please go to the “support the chronicles” link above for more info on how you can pick up your very own stickers.
Be back tomorrow with more updates, as I do every week. I’m drained, peace…
Oh, congratulations, you just read two paragraphs about stickers…haha…
Wekfest Weekend…Part 3 1/….okay 4…
Finally….showtime…get ready for some disappointing photography! Haha….
I woke up at around 9 or so and looked at my phone and saw a text message from Mikey. He told me that he and a couple other guys were gonna head down to the venue to set up and asked if I wanted to go. Seeing as how the text message was sent at 8am, I found it impossible to travel back in time while I was half asleep so I just decided to go back to bed and see what happens. With my ability to travel back into the past inhibited by my sleeping, I woke up and realized that I had traveled to the future and it was now 10:15am. So I got up and woke the others and got ready. We checked out and waited outside for Gold Member aka Anthony aka New Kenny to pick us up in the Expedition so we could head back to the venue.
We waited forever for Arnel. The girls were ready before Arnel. Why? I don’t know. And I don’t wanna ask. but we arrived at the venue around 12:30 or so, and that shit was PACKED. Not only was it impossible to find parking, the line also wrapped around the venue.
Luckily all we needed to do was get to the front and get some handstamps and we were good…
This was the scene when I finally got back to where we were set-up. I guess all the internet hype worked and we managed to pull in a pretty consistent crowd throughout the day…
HeyMikeyyyy’s DC of course…
Arnel and his new bay set-up caught alot of attention…
Sid’s DA and the purple bay….I heard alot of people talking about this car all day…
Salem’s TSX….You can see the guy next to Mikey’s DC trying to no-look catch a can of Pringles in the background….
After awhile I finally found Mikey and he was talking to the man of the hours…ATS Kenneth. Big ups to Ken for organizing everything and keeping everything flowing throughout the day…
…Then someone told me to go check out Brian’s RSX. Apparently he had problems on the way up because of a wiring issue so he had to tow the car the rest of the way up from socal. If he felt the need to go to such lengths to get the car up to Wek’Fest, it must have been worth a look. Needless to say, it came out beautifully. I loved everything about it, besides the fact that I would never own it. I also didn’t get any good pics of it…
This was the best shot I could get. Norman was talking, people were walking around me, my hands are shaking, terrible lighting, etc…
The polished s/c on black chrome looks perfect. So perfect that it took me to a serene place, where unicorns hopped around a grassy field and naked women with big boobies were making large deli sandwiches…
…then I was interrupted by this face…
I don’t recall what he was talking about so I moved on…
…then I ran into this car. I don’t know why….just stop asking me questions. At least everything lines up correctly. Also had a K in it too so the owner clearly had a game plan. I can honestly say it doesn’t look too bad…it just kinda throws you off. It’s like the Sixth Sense, you think you know what you’re watching, and then you look at the end and it Bruce Willis’s you and you’re mind is all fucked up.
This of course was the same J’s Integra that I saw the night before…
Man, I fell in like with this Integra. I’ve never been much of a fan of Evo Brites but this sizing on it looks perfect on this DC. I saw it the night before and I kept going back to it to take a look at it. It’s so simple and flows so well…
See, I told you I went back to look at it again….thumbs-up from me…
You’ll notice that I have an abundance of pics of white cars. That’s because they were the only ones that came out correctly in my photos. This CTR is pretty impressive though….K-swap, ITB’s, I wish I could have heard this thing drive…
Next up is Rywire’s new CR-X. I took pics of it but it came out looking like I was running while the car was driving by me. But I did manage to capture some of the cool features in the bay…
Nice touch with the tucked brake booster. Looks to be a custom mount for the master cylinder…
Tucked radiator?… Notice the custom filler neck by the throttle body. Definitely some great detail involved in this build…
I then ran across the MemoryFab booth and caught a look at the hatchback they had on display that was rockin’ some Chevlon’s. I’ve always wanted to see a set of these wheels on a Honda. I’ve actually brought it up to Mikey plenty of times but that fool just kinda changes the subject when I do…
I guess he’s not a fan….Chevlons are pretty pricey though, but it would be cool if someone had a set and refinished them in a different color or something….I love the stance on this hatch though…
At this point I actually left to go eat lunch with my homie from high school that now lives in Norcal, blah, blah, sushi, blah, talked, I’m sure you’re not interested so back to the pics…
I was stumbling around after lunch and ran into Yee’s EK. The infamous J-Blood bumper and all. It’s cool of him and shows true dedication to our hobby to make the drive all the way from Washington….
I always enjoying seeing cars that are outside the norm of what we consider to be “common”. There are a handful of 1st gen. Integras that are worth mentioning and this is definitely one of them….
Saw this Mugen-themed coupe at the end of the row of PlusOne’s fleet. Very nicely done…
This is 408wdy’s EF….I don’t think he likes me very much cuz I always moderate his Dumpedstar’s thread on NWP…haha…oh well, doesn’t change the fact that it’s a nice drop. Probably the lowest non-bagged car at the event….
This is a nice NSX but I pretty much just took this pic because Loi Song from Sportcar Motion asked me to put more pics of chicks on this site. I didn’t feel like climbing over the hordes of people to take pics of “models” so I snapped this pic of Jenny Chu. Normally I don’t really honor requests but Mr. Loi was telling me about how he went to a club the night before in downtown San Fran and he was hit on by a gay dude. I don’t remember the details but I’m sure it was an interesting encounter. I think it has something to do with Loi’s trendy glasses. Those glasses or so hot right now…
Anyways, here’s a nice turbo hatch that was parked next to the entrance ramp. It was a pretty good spot to be parked in I must admit. It probably had the best lighting out of the whole lot and it was right up front where everyone could see it. The lighting was so good that this pic almost came out not blurry…
I returned to our spot where we were parked and the crowd was still pretty consistent. Mikey was being the “Internet Celebrity” and talking to everyone…
These cool guys were kickin back and just hangin out…
Towards the end of the show, alot of random cars just started taking off before the awards ceremony. Some of these cars actually placed and won awards and weren’t even around to collect them. I guess it didn’t matter that much to them…
Really liked this turbo’d Mugen Integra. In the back you can catch a glimpse of Rywire’s CR-X and Big Limpin and Rywire talking…
N1 Concepts brought out that race S2000 and I think it actually ended up winning an award. Redzone also had a full race-prepped TSX that also won something….
Here’s my attempt at taking a nice picture. All the other ones were just for practice and this pic is a culmination of all my hard work that weekend….It’s terrible isn’t it…
That’s pretty much all that was left of the useable pics. I wish I could have been able to capture more as well as getting pics of Big Mike’s Prelude with his big ass Honda Tuning and NWP4LIFE stickers as well as most of the other AS1 cars. I just want to say thank you to Norman and the rest of the AS1 crew for representing and rocking the Chronicles stickers.
After that, the battery died and I didn’t get to capture the awards ceremony. My homie with the Laguna Seca Blue IS300 won Best Lexus, Mikey took home Best Integra, Salem’s TSX won 2nd or 3rd place Acura class, and Big Mike won an award in the Best Honda class. Pretty cool for Socal to take a couple awards home from a huge Norcal show. Overall, the show was really good. The turnout was incredible. I heard they had like 8,000 people walk through the gates or something. That’s ridiculous for an event held inside a parking structure but I guess all these years these shows have gained quite the reputation.
Again I apologize for the pics from the actual show. I’ll try to get some of Loi from Sportcar’s images up on here this weekend. He did a better job of taking pics. There were a lot of great cars at Wek’Fest that I didn’t get a chance to capture or when I did, the pic came out as if I was either falling or drunk while taking them.
The whole trip in all was a success. No one had too many major issues making their way up from Socal and we (the PhazexDoods family) were able to officially debut our new name for the 2009 campaign. If you weren’t there, we are now officially known as….
Haha….gotta love it….until next time folks….
If you want more stuff to look at on your boring workday, feel free to check out the Hot Stuff International Myspace page ….
Here’s a koala getting punched….have a good day…
Wekfest Weekend…Part 3…
PANCAKE ASSES!!!! Everyone keeps asking me about the models this weekend. The usual suspects weren’t there this year, just Jenny Chu from what I saw. I was too busy looking at cars and talking to random people that I didn’t have time to stare at girls. But from what everyone has told me, no Christine Mendoza, no Justene Jaro, Lisa Fleming, etc… so stop asking me. From what I spotted, all I saw were pancake asses. What are pancake asses you ask? Well pancake asses are the flatest asses of the asses. They’re so flat that if you ever wanted to play a game of kick ass with a girl with a pancake ass, you would accidently, and most certainly kick her in her cooch. There were more pancakes at the show then there were at the IHOP I ate at everyday that I was there. Why such a large collection of no-asses at one event? I don’t know. It’s a genetic thing. Either that or the cable car system in Northern California lacks the proper cushioning to support the proper growth of ass meat. Yeah, I said it: Ass Meat. When I say Ass Meat, do you find yourself having a mental image of a dick next to a round ass? Well you do now…gotcha sucka! I bet you it ain’t even your dick either. You’re sick!
I ate at Mel’s once in Hollywood, that place sucks. I wasn’t even drunk that night and I remember my roast beef dip being all dry and shit. Then Chris Brown came in and slapped the sandwich out of my hand and started doing a gay dance. Man that guy is aggressive. Okay, I lied about the last part, but you can clearly see how the Mel’s in Norcal pictured above and the previous sentence helps me smoothly transition into part 3 of Wekfest weekend…
So where were we…..Ah yes. At the Marriott. So we all met up in Mikey’s room to figure out where we were going…
We decided to head out to Fisherman’s Wharf to check out what was going on over there. The last year I came up for J’s, I went to the same spot and went shopping and what not and it’s definitely a spot to visit if you’re not from around there.
It was such a pain in the ass finding parking down there. Especially since it was like $30 or some shit to park anywhere. Mikey somehow managed to find time to threaten to kidnap a white guy inbetween that time but we finally found parking…
I think this was the highlight of Mikey and Tina’s trip. They found this candy store by Pier 39 and went completely apeshits over it…
This guy just wasted no time. He thought it was a buffet or something and just started eating candy without even paying for it. What a menace…
They did end up spending over 20 bucks on candy though….so I guess the store can take the loss on the other 20 bucks worth that Mikey already ate inside.
Then we walked around, stood for awhile, met up with my buddy Billy with the laguna seca blue IS300, and went to go eat before we took off. As we were leaving, Mikey got a call from either Ernesto or Kenneth, I forget who, but they notified us that we were personally invited to roll-in to the venue that night. Only a few were notified to be there so it was quite an honor to be asked. I guess PhazexDoods is doing something right…I mean, most of the time we’re just fucking shit up or breaking car parts, but somewhere along the way something went right…
Don’t be alarmed or at all surprised because the next set of pics are at a totally different time of day. We left around 7 or so and some of the peeps did some shopping before we headed back to hotel. We didn’t even have time to eat dinner because the cars still needed to be washed and prepped before we made our way to the venue…
We found a self-service car wash down the street from the Marriott and everyone got to work on the car scrub-down….
Mikey found time to nap standing up while everyone was hard at work…
Once all the cars were nice and spotless, it was time to head out to Japantown…
The drive was pretty cool. I wish we could have captured it on video. It’s not too often that you get to see some of the most infamous Hondas on the net mobbing together through the streets of northern California. It’s hard enough to get all these guys together to drive around in our own hometown…
Considering all the rain, it was a pretty nice night. It was cold as shit but that’s just how it’s been in Cali lately. Anyways, we made it to the venue without a hitch and made our way into the parking structure where Wek’fest was to take place…
On the way in, we ran into this J’s Racing-themed Integra. It looked real aggressive with the front flares and all the aero so I had to take a closer look at it…
I was pretty impressed with the entire car. Teal all way through the bay and interior, full cage, custom dash…man I probably should have taken pics of all the stuff I just mentioned…
I’m sure most of you know by now that Wek’fest aka formally J’s Gathering is held inside a parking structure. When we rolled up, it was a little past 10pm and sections of the structure were still filled with normal cars because of all the adjacent business that were still open. A couple of other cars showed up that were asked to come early and we walked around and got a chance to check them out…
We hung out for a couple hours there and some of us were getting kind of restless and tired. Everyone had been up early and we also walked all over the wharf and it was starting to catch up to us. The girls were basically knocked out in the cars while the guys were up joking around while also trying to figure out how we were gonna set-up…
I think around 12:30am or so our spots finally opened up where we were to be parked the next day. We lined up and locked-up and hopped back into Mikey’s Expedition and took off back to the hotels for rest. Of course we were hungry and guess where we ate at?……Yup…good ole’ IHOP….
Man, the guy at IHOP hates his life. I’ve never seen someone so disgruntled to work at an IHOP. Aren’t you supposed to be happy as fuck when you serve people pancakes? I would imagine. I’m smiling just thinking about pancakes…and pouring syrup all over them, and then cutting them up into squares and eating them…and then saying “oh I think that’s enough”, and not finishing all of it….
Stayed tuned for part 4 of Wekfest weekend…..it might actually include some coverage of the show….maaaaybe.
Wekfest Weekend…Part 2…
…So we rolled out of bed around 10am and ended up at the IHOP. I forget what I ordered but it involved bacon and eggs of some sort, and pancakes, and whatever else an IHOP meal consists of. After that, I gave HeyMikeyyyy a call to see what he was up to. Apparently on the way up to Norcal, the Phaze2 EG ran into some problems with a c/v axle and they had to head out to find another to replace it. On top of that Cali had been experiencing rain storms during the week that made the drive less than enjoyable. The interior of the EG was flooded with water and Arnel’s feet and pants were soaked in water. I guess you know you’re riding dumped when your car is flooded while you drive…haha…
This was the scene outside the Courtyard Marriott when we arrived. Day before the event, driving all the way to Socal, what did you expect? You gotta do what you gotta do to get the car back on the road…
This is when we first caught a glimpse at Arnel’s freshly painted engine bay. Umm..I guess you can call it a “harlequin” bay? The thing that got me wasn’t even the 4 different shades of the bay, it was actually the white brake booster….definitely an interesting touch.
I know alot of people are gonna hate on it like they did with his rusted hood but Arnel geniunely doesn’t mind. The guy doesn’t even have the internet, nor does he know of this sites existence. He has a Chronicles sticker on his car and he doesn’t even know what this site is. How do I know? He asked me..”what’s the Chronicles?” while staring at the sticker on his back window. The guy is definitely a unique character. He really doesn’t care what people think about his car. I mean, he’s not a dick about it, in fact, he’s a super nice guy….he just really doesn’t care what people think…
Everyone else was busy cleaning things up and doing miscellaneous things to get ready. Mikey finally got his car back from RedZone…
The outside looks basically the same but the guys at RedZone actually made it possible for Mikey to drive his car for more than 25 feet. It sounded pretty good to me so Mikey decided to take me for a spin…
I don’t know what the deal is but I found like a blinker or some shit sitting in the door compartment…
I think we went like 2 feet before the rear wheels started to rub like crazy…
It wasn’t even innocent rubbing like when you accidently graze a girl’s boob with your arm. It was more like a “cry for help” type of rubbing. Like “Michael-Jackson-Neverland-Ranch-Drink-the-Jesus-Juice-Lets-Play-A-Game” kind of rubbing. Yeah it was bad. So we backed up and had to make adjustments…
While Sid was working on that, we decided to walk around and check out the rest of the hotel. You wanna know what the difference is between a $37 a night Travelodge and a $100 a night Marriott? Let me spark your memory if you didn’t read the previous update….This was the view from my room:
And this was their view….
Not much comparison there….I wasn’t gonna stay in my room long enough for it to matter anyway, plus I was sold on the IHOP being next door….that and the bed bugs provided suspense throughout the night.
We made our way back and some other homies showed up to kick it…
Big Mike aka Big Limpin arrived looking hella hyphy hyphy hyphy. I don’t know what kind of camo that it is but I can’t help but think that it would only be effective as a cloaking device if he were to hide in a bag of uninflated balloons…
…It’s almost a little awkward. Like when two chicks wear the same dress to the prom and they run into eachother…
Once we figured out the rubbing issue with Mikey’s DC and everyone got cleaned up, we set off to go explore San Francisco…
The PhazexDoods line-up for Wekfest…oh and this guy…
…who was either sleeping or too busy getting dolled up in his hotel room for the San Francisco natives.
Man, I’m still tired…It’s like what, Wednesday almost, and I still have raccoon eyes from not getting enough rest. My computer sounds like it’s about to explode too…..Second part of this day coming soon….in part 3 of Wekfest weekend….
On a side note, why the fuck is it like 40 degrees outside in Socal? My homie from Chicago told me that it was like 67 degrees over there. And it’s almost snowing and shit over here…
I’m out for now….I’m beat…like Rihanna….yeah I said it. Someone had to….
Wekfest Weekend…Part 1…
Oh man, I suck at taking pictures. You know what else I suck at? Being bad looking. And shitting normal. I finally woke up today at 12:36 pm and got to editing these pictures. If they look terrible, then you’ve been warned in advance. Don’t go: “God, these pictures are awful” like you had some divine revelation. I took the time and documented my entire weekend in Norcal and I tried to get some stuff on the way back but I was too busy driving in heavy rain and wind. Plus the camera was no longer working. Either the battery died or it just got tired of taking shit ass pictures. I’ll tell you what happened though. I pretty much drove for 6 hours and somewhere inbetween there I ate some chicken mcnuggets, got gas, and took a piss. Yes I accidently pee’d on the seat. It happens to everyone. It wasn’t one of those backsplash moments either where you kinda pee to hard and it bounces off the water and ends up on the seat. I pretty much just had bad aim because I was incredibly tired and hopped up on energy drinks. There’s a strong possibility that I shortened my life by 2-3 years because I drank so many energy drinks that night. In any event, I got home safely and I’m here to tell you all about my weekend. Without further ado, I present to you….Wekfest weekend…Day 1…
…The adventure began that Monday when one of our guys was trying to score a spot for Wekfest. It was completely sold out and things were looking incredibly bleak. Then, Thursday night at around 3:30am or so, he goes online and realizes that someone answered his plea and was selling their spot because they could no longer do the show. So that Friday, we were set to take off to Norcal. Sheepey from DPK had been bugging me all week with random stuff like sponsorship proposals and what not and he was wondering when we were taking off. With the rain and all, it was a good idea to make the trek with some other peeps just in case we ended up flying off the road or something. I headed up to the valley to meet up with the homies and wait for Sheepey while he picked up Jimmy and David from DPK. These fools took forever. Eventually we just headed out and met them on the highway. Jimmy drove like a maniac and eventually caught up to us around the 5 North/14 highway area…
We took a piss break somewhere along the way and the heavy rain was all but gone by the time we passed the grapevine…
I was driving the Element and the other two inside were basically KO’d so I hung out in the front while Jimmy molested his cupcake…
I hope Jimmy uploads this pic to his Myspace page because it might possibly be the best picture of him ever…
After they finished eating, we took off and made our way through Pacheco pass and eventually to the 101 freeway. We probably should have gassed up at the gas station because we were close to running out of gas by the time we got up to Norcal and apparently in that area, they don’t believe in gas stations. We were driving around for awhile with the gas light on and no gas station in sight. The GPS on the new google g1 cellphones are garbage. The only gas station it helped us find was an invisible one that was sitting in a pond next to an industrial building. Eventually we found a Shell station and by that time the DPK guys had taken off to go stay at an ATS Garage member’s house….
Oh I forgot to mention that I booked a room the night before we left and I managed to find a deal at the Travelodge in South San Francisco for $37 a night with AAA discount. I don’t really have AAA but they didn’t bother checking. When I went to check-in it was already around 3am and some black lady was standing by the counter with a plastic cup covered in saran wrap. As I told the clerk my name, the woman said: “Don’t do it, they got bed bugs in this place. I’m gettting a refund”. She showed me the cup and I didn’t actually look inside but I guess she captured some bed bugs and was calling another hotel. I took her word for it but it was 3 in the morning and I wasn’t gonna try to book another room. For $37 a night, I would be surprised if the place didn’t have bugs. Did I mention that this place had an IHOP connected to it? Haha. They have like an “IHOP suite”. I guess you can like, sleep inside there or some shit. Or shower in maple syrup.
This is the view from outside our room…
…I know, I totally agree with you, it does look like motel where Martin Luther King was shot. For further comparison, here is an animated graphic of the location where the incident occurred…
The similarities are uncanny. I think the three people above are pointing at James Earl Ray, who was convicted of killing King with a single rifle shot. Did you know that the autopsy revealed that King had the heart of a 60 year old, even though he was only 39? I know! Prrretty crazy. I don’t know who would make an animated picture of that event, but I sure hope it’s not from an old PC game. That would be wek……fest…..yeah.
This is where my night ends. Someone stole the batteries from our TV remote inside the room so we didn’t get to watch much TV. That and there was something wrong with the cable because CBS looked like a scrambled porn channel. I showered and went to sleep. In a couple hours we were supposed to meet up with the rest of the Phaze2xDoods fam….
Part 2 coming tomorrow….
Finally back…
Ughh…finally made it back. I left Wek’Fest right after it ended and drove six+ hours back in the pouring rain and finally made it home at 3:15am or so…
I’m not gonna lie to you, most of the actual pics from the show came out looking like a hot pile of dookie. Because I just don’t know how to use a camera in that sort of environment and I was really tired and more than 6 people were courtesy enough to come up to me and inform me that I looked like shit. Thanks….
Anyways…Got lots of work to do since I basically documented everything from me leaving to Norcal and back…stay tuned..
Thanks to the many MANY people that came up to me also at Wek’Fest and showed support for The Chronicles… It means alot and shows me that I’m not totally wasting my time by writing this stuff…
With that said, I leave you with this….
We penetrated Norcal.
Be on the look out…
Make sure to look out for some of our guys this weekend at Wekfest. Not all of us could make it but we’ll definitely make our presence known withe some new goodies….I’m sure Mikey’s got some new shit, and the other guys as well…
I’m pretty sure I’ll have a new batch of stickers too so if you would like to donate some money or hamburgers.
A Nostalgic Moment…Road to J’s Gathering 2008…
With Wekfest approaching this weekend, I can’t help but think back on the road trip we took last year. We had alot of stuff to finish up last year on Tony’s NSX that we didn’t get to leave for Norcal until a little past 2am. We made a couple of stops but eventually made it to my buddy’s house by 9ish in the morning. The drive wasn’t too bad except towards the end when the roads were all fucked up. Man I have honestly never seen potholes that big on a highway. It looked like craters in the floor. And on my stretched tires, it was not a fun ride. The NSX was also ridiculously low up front and he probably could have fallen into one of the holes…
This was a shot that we took at one of the gas stations on the way up that night. I think that was an entire roll of blue tape in the front. What was funny about the whole drive up there was that Tony had his custom exhaust done by Louie at L-Con earlier that day and had no idea how loud it was gonna be. Dude didn’t even have a working headunit in his car and ended up listening to a loud droning exhaust for over 7 hours…haha. I woulda felt bad for the guy but I was too busy watching tv and napping in my car while driving. Yeah I’m skilled…I also did my laundry and download a bootleg version of the Dark Knight, and that shit wasn’t even out yet….
This was taken after it was all cleaned up in front of my buddy’s house over in Walnut Creek. I think it took use like 2 hours to take all that blue tape off. Have you ever seen Pleasantville? That’s pretty much what people in that neighborhood were like. They were all real pleasant and super nice, but they weren’t black and white. Some white guy who looked alot like a crackhead in a truck also came by and for a split second we thought he was gonna stab us but guess what? He offered to watch our cars over night. And the next morning, the cars were still there. He even waved to us as we drove away while he sat outside in his lawn chair and smoked rocks…
After J’s Gathering, where we won 5 awards I might add, we prepared for the drive home. Oh no, it’s not what you think. The NSX isn’t in the exact same position as the pic before. You can scroll up if you want…I’ll wait…..That’s just how you park when you own an NSX. You live your life dangerously with total disregard for others and just angle your car in the middle of the street. I’m telling you the pic is taken at different times. The garage door is clearly closed in this pic and there’s a huge gold brick behind the NSX…
Here we are on the way back to Socal. You can see my Y33 in this shot. Don’t worry, I’m not going the wrong way. I saw the sign that said “Tracy Stockton” and was intrigued, so I had to meet whoever this woman was. I never did find her….
I’m looking forward to making the trek up there this year. There’s no pressure because I’m not taking my car so I don’t have to worry about bending wheels, shit falling off, shit flying at me, bugs, Tony’s oil leak all over my windshield, etc…I think so far this year I’ve only heard the word “hella” once and I need my fix. Hella excited to go to WekFest this weekend, it’s gonna be hella exciting and I’m hella stoked. The weather channel said that hella rain is expected but we don’t expect to see any h—ail…
Draaaaaama….
I’m sure you’ve seen alot of posts about the NSX-day at the Cars and Coffee meet in Irvine this past weekend. If you haven’t then just scroll down a bit. If you’ve had a chance to catch some of the posts, then you’ve also probably heard of the drama that happened. Basically, it was NSX-day at Cars and Coffee and a fairly large group of S2Ki members decided to show up. The S2k-owners got there super early and ended up taking up a majority of the lot where the exotics and supercars normally park. I guess it was a little overwhelming for the usual older Cars and Coffee crowd and they didn’t like the idea of all the S2000s taking up space inside their lot. Many of the S2000 guys didn’t like the way they were treated and one owner even claimed to have had his car damaged as a result. And the back and forth ensues from each forum and words are exchanged, blah blah, etc.
People love drama. Doesn’t even matter what happens. Like if someone was walking down the street and a rat or some shit got into a fight with another rat or maybe possibly a possum (use your imagination), it doesn’t matter what that person is doing, they will stop to watch the fight. Why? Because people love conflict. And especially love drama. You ever wonder why people always slow down to stare at car accidents and you cuss them out while you’re also staring at the car accident? Because people are wired to gawk at dramatic events.
While the S2000 vs. the Cars and Coffee is anything but exciting, it’s still an interesting read. It’s interesting to see two different groups of enthusiasts interact and see how each individual group views the other. Some felt that the S2000 owners showed up, took up all the space, and only stayed within their group and never even went to enjoy the rest of the meet. Some S2k owners didn’t understand the concept that the meet was tailored for rare exotics and super cars. Who’s right? Seems like more of a misunderstanding between the two groups. But usually when people sit behind a keyboard, they suddenly have a glass of courage beside them and they suddenly feel compelled to express themselves, and usually not in the most courteous way.
In any case, I’ll leave the opinion of who is right and who is wrong to you. I can understand both sides and I would just see both sides go in their own direction so that moments like this no longer occur. At the end of the day we are all enthusiasts and we should do our best to enjoy the company of others. Communication is key in these instances. Maybe someday we can all have a beer together and laugh about it.
Or we can just wait until the new “Fast and Furious” movie comes out and then everyone will hate the import community instead of just the S2000 owners.
NSX-Day at Cars and Coffee…
HT-user Scorp965 was kind enough to share these pics with me from the NSX-day at the weekly Cars and Coffee meet in Irvine, CA. Normally this meet is held for enthusiasts who have exotics or rare super cars (More on this later), and the previous weekend featured over 99 of Honda’s supercar. I’ve never been to one because I can’t get up in time for the life of me so I can’t tell you from personal experience what it’s like, but from all the pics I have seen in the past, it looks like a great meet to go to….
Love this orange NSX with the Marga Hills kit and HRE’s…This thing is complete all the way around. Mirrors, Bride seats, audio set-up, etc…
Top End turbo NSX with black BBS LM wheels…
Comptech widebody NSX…
One of my favorite wheels of all time…one day, I’ll find me a 0-offset set and rock them so hard….
I normally see red and white NSX’s, even yellow…but I didn’t know black was such a popular color choice among NSX owners…
Another set of wheels that I feel is very underrated. Work Meister S2R’s…
Work Rezax Roar’s….not a fan… =P
Credit: scorp965
Oh so I guess it turns out that some considerable drama resulted from a big group of S2000′s that showed up to Cars and Coffee on NSX day. Alot of words were exchanged and there’s been alot of debate going back and forth between the S2Ki and Cars and Coffee forums. Draaaammmaaa…haha…More on this tomorrow….
