One Happy Team…

Day: November 10, 2026

  • Hatsukokoro Hayabusa Aogami Super Bunka

    There are two reasons I decided to buy it. First, I don’t have any Aogami Super knives. I have VG10/VGMAX, I have SG2/MC63, but Aogami Super is even harder steel, at 64 rockwell, that should provide decent stain resistance. And this was one of the cheapest options to get Aogami Super.
    And I don’t have bunkas at all. Santokus, gyotos, european chef knife, but no bunka or nakiri (as I returned the only nakiri I had).
    At 150g, it’s lighter than Shun Premier 8″ gyoto that’s around 210g, but maybe because of the balance, feels much heavier.
    Now to see edge retention and how much maintenance it requires.

  • SMSL RAW-MDA 1

    I decided I want a new DAC. Had my Creative AE9 long enough, and by modern standards, it isn’t such a good DAC anyway.
    Main benefit of an external DAC is that you don’t need to find a PCI-E slot or mess with power supply cables, as nowadays, the only acceptable power consumer in a PC is a GPU. The main disadvantage is that now it takes another socket.
    I was picking between SMSL RAW MDA-1 and Topping DX5 II. Started with SMSL RAW MDA-1, because I didn’t need the XLR output Topping DX5 II provides. But when I tried to connect it over USB-C, it acted strangely, then Windows stopped detecting it entirely. After a lot of head scratching turned out that USB-C wasn’t soldered properly, and it just came off the motherboard and rattling somewhere inside. So SMSL had to be sent back.

    Unfortunately, I bought it in the US, and had to return it from the UK. But after pestering Amazon for hours, I managed to secure DHL shipping back for free.

  • Wailing (2016)

    It’s fascinating and confusing at the same time.
    When we watch movies about vampires or zombies we have some context: like markings on the neck or how decease spreads, things like that. We have no such context for Korean mythology. So when a family member develops sores across their body and kills everyone in the house, we don’t go “ah, it’s a vampire!”. And there’s also what I guess some kind of folk believes or just puns, like the bizarre episode when the poacher is struck by a lightning. Or when shaman gets bird poop on his car.
    In addition, there’s no separation between dream and reality I could notice. The policeman meets the vagrant girl, makes a call, turns the corner, meets the Japanese “vampire” and wakes up. But the call was real.
    At the end, I felt like there’s not even cause-and-effect than one might expect with a curse, when one family member does something bad, and other family members get punished, but instead, they get punished even before “sin” has happened.

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