Not about anything, really, at all
Yesterday the Escape Pod was towed.
The Escape Pod, for those of you not familiar with the vehicle in question, is a green 1996 Saturn SC1, which is a designation signifying "Saturn wishes to fool you into thinking that this is a sports car". It certainly looks sporty, yet has the horsepower of your average French automobile.
At least it doesn't smell of Gauloises.
So, I had gone to see a movie (Batman Begins, which is now the best Batman movie made so far) and was returning to the car when I noted that it was no longer there. This posed a bit of a difficulty. After tracking down where, exactly, the car now was, I quickly walked from near to the high-point of Nob Hill to approximately where 101 dumps into San Francisco. There, after being stripped of a not insiginficant amount of money and my pride, the Escape Pod was returned.
So then I bought another car today. Not that I was unhappy with the Escape Pod, as if the unfortunate incident of the previous day could even be attributed to an inanimate (although charming) object when the fault lay entirely at the feet of the driver. Rather, with Sarah starting her new (and shiny!) job next Tuesday, we were in need of a new car. Thankfully, bulkor's dad was looking to sell a car and we took advantage of this coincidence.
The device used to un/lock the car as well as open the trunk, all from the safety and comfort of an appropriate distance away is intriguing. Fortunately, my work is far enough away from the Ugly Seagull (our current residence) that my childish prodding of the device does not actually result in the car sitting there with an open trunk, making that 'chirp-chirp' noise repeatedly.
The next step is to learn how to drive it.
Yes, I bought a car that I don't really know how to drive.
Stop laughing.
The key, as I understand it, is learning. I've always had issues with doing something that has a (fairly) steep learning curve. I succumb easily to frustration, throwing up my hands in self-disgust and moving on to whatever easier alternative presents itself. This is probably why I never learned how to drive a car in the first place, at least when most people learn how to drive cars.
New work nicknames: 'Ryback' for the guy who wears a beanie all the time (I'd say to search IMDB for it; they don't appear to have made character names searchable yet. Try Google.), except when he wears his black utility vest, in which case he becomes 'Special Ops'. Actually, thinking about the IMDB issue, they really should let you search by character name. After all, seeing who all the actors are who have played 'Satan' over the years would be pretty interesting, not to mention other well-to-lesser-known characters like Wong Fei Hung.
Eating popcorn is more frustration than it's worth. First, it's not that good. It's cardboard, essentially, that you have to liven up with butter and salt. If there's butter and salt involved, you might as well be eating something like lobster, something where the seasonings are supposed to accentuate the taste, rather than something that becomes a carrier for the taste of the seasonings. Secondly, although a well-popped kernel can be satisfyingly crunchy, rarely is popcorn rendered in a uniformily-enjoyable state. Instead, you get the ones that are too damp and squishy and the kernels that never really popped, surprising you with a molar-rattling crunch. Worst of all are the kernel husks, those devilish filaments that can cling to any surface of your mouth, pinching and cutting while being damn-impossible to remove without forcing your own mouth open, with both hand, grasping and pulling and grunting like an aphyxiating hippo.
Satan, thy name is Popcorn.
Plus, dumbshits will burn the microwave popcorn and make the entire office smell of burnt popcorn for hours on end. Thanks a lot, Orville. You bastard.
I might as well talk about videogames, down here, where nobody's reading.
I've decided that the Sega Ages remake of Outrun is the finest version of Outrun ever made.
There are some holes to this. I've never played the Genesis version. My experience with the arcade version is limited at best, the same is true for the Master System version. Outrun 2 is a marvelous game, easily the best racing game that I've played on the current generation of machines. I have a feeling that people will object that Outrun is not really a 'racing game' per se. They may be right. I'll modify my statement as such: Outrun 2 is the finest game involving driving a car that I've played on the current generation of machines. It's a good game, a real good game. It still isn't as good as the Sega Ages remake.
One reason is that Outrun 2 is a little too forgiving. Hitting cars doesn't carry the same sort of catastrophic results that it should. Instead of training the player to weave untouched through heavy traffic, Outrun 2 encourages a bit of Gran Turismo-style sloppy driving such as using other cars to cushion your momentum on turns. Then there's the Mission Mode. Mission Mode? In Outrun? It doesn't fit. It doesn't work. Worse, playing through it is required if you want to unlock cars and music. Cars and music are what Outrun is all about and having immediate access is also what Outrun is all about. That Outrun 2 locks content away is bad enough, making the player go through arbitrary 'levels' to do so is even worse.
In comparison, Outrun Ages gives you everything you want. And what you want is to jump in the (actually very ugly) car and whip around turns while listening to a soundtrack selected on a dial, with your best girl by your side. Remember that frustration I talked about earlier? That happens a lot with videogames as well. It takes something that I really want to do well in to make move past that initial period of aggravation. I sat and played Outrun Ages for hours on end, learning how to tap the brake and D-pad at the same time to slip around cars, the best strategies for when to overtake your Rivals, playing the game for score and eventually, just playing the game to feel the sensation of playing the game.
It's pretty simple as to how it works. The rules are simple: Don't hit the other cars. Don't go off the road. Don't run out of time. Figure out how to go around the other cars and that's really the entire game. Learn that and it becomes strategy, knowing when and where openings will occur.
I think 'Passing Breeze' is my favorite soundtrack. Not to say that I don't enjoy 'Magical Sound Shower' or 'Splash Wave'. There's just something carefree and relaxing about 'Breeze' that fits with how I play Outrun now, detatched from the action. In junior high school, my science teacher, a black belt veteran of the Korean War, taught us how to meditate on our chakras during lunch hour. I don't remember all the locations and colors of the chakras; I do remember that it worked, that my body would be at once relaxed and firm afterward, my mind clear, yet focused. I stopped doing it when we moved on to crystal meditation, it also probably had something to do with realizing that there were people I could play touch football with instead. I know that you'll think it's some kind of bullshit for me to tie this into Outrun. "You're reading too much into this", they'll say, and after all, how can we compare something spiritual, mystical, with something mundane like playing a videogame. Well, can't we? Why not? All I know is that I have the same kind of feeling, the same kind of serenity, even if I'm sitting within sight of the checkpoint, my best girl clumsily beating my shoulder.
Oh yeah, E3 pictures coming, eventually. Note: do not contain booth babes. Not a one. That I'm aware of.
The Escape Pod, for those of you not familiar with the vehicle in question, is a green 1996 Saturn SC1, which is a designation signifying "Saturn wishes to fool you into thinking that this is a sports car". It certainly looks sporty, yet has the horsepower of your average French automobile.
At least it doesn't smell of Gauloises.
So, I had gone to see a movie (Batman Begins, which is now the best Batman movie made so far) and was returning to the car when I noted that it was no longer there. This posed a bit of a difficulty. After tracking down where, exactly, the car now was, I quickly walked from near to the high-point of Nob Hill to approximately where 101 dumps into San Francisco. There, after being stripped of a not insiginficant amount of money and my pride, the Escape Pod was returned.
So then I bought another car today. Not that I was unhappy with the Escape Pod, as if the unfortunate incident of the previous day could even be attributed to an inanimate (although charming) object when the fault lay entirely at the feet of the driver. Rather, with Sarah starting her new (and shiny!) job next Tuesday, we were in need of a new car. Thankfully, bulkor's dad was looking to sell a car and we took advantage of this coincidence.
The device used to un/lock the car as well as open the trunk, all from the safety and comfort of an appropriate distance away is intriguing. Fortunately, my work is far enough away from the Ugly Seagull (our current residence) that my childish prodding of the device does not actually result in the car sitting there with an open trunk, making that 'chirp-chirp' noise repeatedly.
The next step is to learn how to drive it.
Yes, I bought a car that I don't really know how to drive.
Stop laughing.
The key, as I understand it, is learning. I've always had issues with doing something that has a (fairly) steep learning curve. I succumb easily to frustration, throwing up my hands in self-disgust and moving on to whatever easier alternative presents itself. This is probably why I never learned how to drive a car in the first place, at least when most people learn how to drive cars.
New work nicknames: 'Ryback' for the guy who wears a beanie all the time (I'd say to search IMDB for it; they don't appear to have made character names searchable yet. Try Google.), except when he wears his black utility vest, in which case he becomes 'Special Ops'. Actually, thinking about the IMDB issue, they really should let you search by character name. After all, seeing who all the actors are who have played 'Satan' over the years would be pretty interesting, not to mention other well-to-lesser-known characters like Wong Fei Hung.
Eating popcorn is more frustration than it's worth. First, it's not that good. It's cardboard, essentially, that you have to liven up with butter and salt. If there's butter and salt involved, you might as well be eating something like lobster, something where the seasonings are supposed to accentuate the taste, rather than something that becomes a carrier for the taste of the seasonings. Secondly, although a well-popped kernel can be satisfyingly crunchy, rarely is popcorn rendered in a uniformily-enjoyable state. Instead, you get the ones that are too damp and squishy and the kernels that never really popped, surprising you with a molar-rattling crunch. Worst of all are the kernel husks, those devilish filaments that can cling to any surface of your mouth, pinching and cutting while being damn-impossible to remove without forcing your own mouth open, with both hand, grasping and pulling and grunting like an aphyxiating hippo.
Satan, thy name is Popcorn.
Plus, dumbshits will burn the microwave popcorn and make the entire office smell of burnt popcorn for hours on end. Thanks a lot, Orville. You bastard.
I might as well talk about videogames, down here, where nobody's reading.
I've decided that the Sega Ages remake of Outrun is the finest version of Outrun ever made.
There are some holes to this. I've never played the Genesis version. My experience with the arcade version is limited at best, the same is true for the Master System version. Outrun 2 is a marvelous game, easily the best racing game that I've played on the current generation of machines. I have a feeling that people will object that Outrun is not really a 'racing game' per se. They may be right. I'll modify my statement as such: Outrun 2 is the finest game involving driving a car that I've played on the current generation of machines. It's a good game, a real good game. It still isn't as good as the Sega Ages remake.
One reason is that Outrun 2 is a little too forgiving. Hitting cars doesn't carry the same sort of catastrophic results that it should. Instead of training the player to weave untouched through heavy traffic, Outrun 2 encourages a bit of Gran Turismo-style sloppy driving such as using other cars to cushion your momentum on turns. Then there's the Mission Mode. Mission Mode? In Outrun? It doesn't fit. It doesn't work. Worse, playing through it is required if you want to unlock cars and music. Cars and music are what Outrun is all about and having immediate access is also what Outrun is all about. That Outrun 2 locks content away is bad enough, making the player go through arbitrary 'levels' to do so is even worse.
In comparison, Outrun Ages gives you everything you want. And what you want is to jump in the (actually very ugly) car and whip around turns while listening to a soundtrack selected on a dial, with your best girl by your side. Remember that frustration I talked about earlier? That happens a lot with videogames as well. It takes something that I really want to do well in to make move past that initial period of aggravation. I sat and played Outrun Ages for hours on end, learning how to tap the brake and D-pad at the same time to slip around cars, the best strategies for when to overtake your Rivals, playing the game for score and eventually, just playing the game to feel the sensation of playing the game.
It's pretty simple as to how it works. The rules are simple: Don't hit the other cars. Don't go off the road. Don't run out of time. Figure out how to go around the other cars and that's really the entire game. Learn that and it becomes strategy, knowing when and where openings will occur.
I think 'Passing Breeze' is my favorite soundtrack. Not to say that I don't enjoy 'Magical Sound Shower' or 'Splash Wave'. There's just something carefree and relaxing about 'Breeze' that fits with how I play Outrun now, detatched from the action. In junior high school, my science teacher, a black belt veteran of the Korean War, taught us how to meditate on our chakras during lunch hour. I don't remember all the locations and colors of the chakras; I do remember that it worked, that my body would be at once relaxed and firm afterward, my mind clear, yet focused. I stopped doing it when we moved on to crystal meditation, it also probably had something to do with realizing that there were people I could play touch football with instead. I know that you'll think it's some kind of bullshit for me to tie this into Outrun. "You're reading too much into this", they'll say, and after all, how can we compare something spiritual, mystical, with something mundane like playing a videogame. Well, can't we? Why not? All I know is that I have the same kind of feeling, the same kind of serenity, even if I'm sitting within sight of the checkpoint, my best girl clumsily beating my shoulder.
Oh yeah, E3 pictures coming, eventually. Note: do not contain booth babes. Not a one. That I'm aware of.