It’s been many moons since I’ve posted here, after what could be generously described as a brief spurt. Being called back to work tends to have that effect, such that with so much less free time, I only post if I’m bored.

Clearly, now is one of those times.

I don’t even have a lot to say that is of any real interest, so as usual, I will fill this space with inane details from my mundane existence.

I’m steadily losing interest in yet another career path. I still like cars, and my co-workers (mostly), but I’m starting to think I don’t have what it takes. Maybe someday I’ll find a career that agrees with me.

I’m going to see Opeth, one of my favourite bands, in about a week. The show is in London, ON, at Centennial Hall on the 21st. I’m pretty pumped about that. It will be my first time back in London since I moved away in December 2006.

Speaking of which, I’m in the process of looking at moving again. Locally this time. We’re considering going in with my Mother-in-law and getting a really giant old house. You know, the kind with all the old trim left. They just don’t make them like they used to. There are a few possibilities, but nothing sure just yet.

I’d like to find a winter beater so I can retire my SVX to summer-only duty. I also want to replace Meghan’s car with something newer and more reliable than a 17-year-old semi-exotic that was temperamental even when new. She’s a little bitter about it. Go figure.

I’m looking at used Mazda Protege5 or Chrysler PT Turbo as options, mostly because I can’t afford another Subaru that isn’t a base model, and Subarus don’t hold my interest unless there’s a turbo involved. Though I also found a used Mazda RX-8 for cheap… but then I’d need TWO winter beaters.

One of my housemates blew up his computer, so after frying my old system with his faulty power supply, we’re replacing it all with the guts from my current system, and I get an upgrade. I’m going from an Athlon X2 BE-2350 (2.1GHz, high efficiency) on a flaky ASUS AMD 690G-based board to an Athlon X2 4850e (2.5GHz, high efficiency) on what is supposed to be a very reliable and versatile Gigabyte AMD 780G-based board. I wanted one of the 790G-based boards, as they have better graphics, but the only micro-ATX board that I could find (DFI Lanparty) costs way too much.

Anyway, what makes even this new Gigabyte board so much better than my old one is that the onboard video is actually good enough to game with, thanks in part to 128MB dedicated GDDR3 onboard memory and a modern, if low-end GPU (ATi HD3200-based). As long as your taste in games is sedate or old (which is the case), the board packs enough punch that you don’t need a power-hungry add-in card. That helps keep temps down, which is key in a low-noise HTPC like mine. An additional upshot is that it will do what they call “Hybrid Crossfire” wherein you can link the onboard GPU to an add-in card and boost performance further. It still won’t be amazing, but then, I don’t play games like Crysis, so I don’t care at all. Basically, it will run everything I play now, or have played, and will continue to play for the forseeable future. As long as I can run Diablo 3 when it comes out, I’ll be happy with it.

I got some higher-end DDR2-1066 memory for this board, which with the CPU I have is overkill (it only supports up to DDR2-800), but if I decide to upgrade in the future to a Phenom-based chip, this setup can handle it. If I had the budget, I would have bought a Phenom 9350e (quad core, 2.0GHz, high efficiency), but by the time I upgrade, perhaps there will be more AM2+ compatible, high efficieny Phenoms to choose from. As of right now, the 9350e is the ONLY one, and at 65W TDP, it’s still more thirsty than either of the chips I have now, and costs twice as much.

I’ve been filling the rest of my time with RPGs, as usual. I’ve been running a Shadowrun campaign for about 9 months now, and I think that’s about to draw to a close before the year is up. I’m getting tired of running it and need a break.

So, after that, one of our group is going to run a 4th Edition game for us. I don’t have high hopes for it. The game might play just fine, and in fact, I’m sure it will, but I will never switch over to it. The terms of the new “GSL” or Game System License are ridiculously draconian, especially compared to the “OGL” or Open Gaming License that 3rd edition was published under. The OGL is like the RPG equivalent of the Open Source software movement, and like any other fiscally responsible, socially retarded company, Wizards of the Coast, under the iron fist of its master, Hasborg, is doing everything they can to close that little Pandora’s Box.

There are no solid plans beyond that. Meghan might run one of her games again. Or I might start a new D&D game. I’m leaning toward using a D&D 3.5-based system called Pathfinder, published under the OGL by Paizo (former publishers of Dungeon, and Dragon magazines). Basically it fixes a bunch of stuff that was wrong with 3.5, and despite the terrible artwork, it has great promise.

Bad art in the books has been an ongoing complaint of mine ever since WotC bought the rights to D&D and re-published the 2nd edition back in 1996. Not that all the chainmail bikini babes and Conan-ish warriors made better subject material than anthropomorphic creatures (whose females all have big tits and silly armour anyway), but the quality of how they were rendered has suffered. It used to be gritty, or glossy, but recognisably fantasy. Now everything looks like either anime or a comic book, and I hate it. Whatever it takes to sell books, I guess.

The only other thing I’ve been up to is expanding my music folder on my computer. I’ve been hunting down material from bands that I meant to catch up on 10 years ago. Some have been like revelations, while others have been an utter waste of bandwidth. That might make an interesting post all on its own…

Posted by Ron as Computers, Fire-in-a-can, Games, Home Sweet Home, Music, Work at 2:04 PM EDT

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I feel compelled to say something here to mark the passing of a man whom, though we’ve never met, changed my life. Yesterday, Ernest Gary Gygax died. He was best known as one of the co-creators of Dungeons & Dragons, and as the Wikipedia article says, is “generally acknowledged as the Father of role-playing games.”

I’d like to think that RPGs have had a positive influence on me over the years. For one thing, I met my wife through D&D, and made many lasting friendships as well. I’ve been playing since I was 8 years old, and have spent probably thousands of hours playing and writing game material, and hope to spend many more; the stuff is fuel for my imagination. It’s like a great book that never needs to end. Maybe I’ll even get my own stuff published one day, who knows. If I do, I should dedicate my first book to Gary.

Over the years, the man made some enemies, even if most didn’t even bother to find out who he was. The genre he helped create, and D&D in particular had its critics, and to those who would denounce it as unhealthy, I have this little story to relate.

I don’t remember how old I was at the time, but if I had to guess, I would say maybe 12-14. Young, in any case. I lived in Blind River at the time, I remember that, and my friends and I were always looking for places to game. Many of my friends’ parents were not fond of the game, for whatever reason. Most just wouldn’t allow us to play at their house, though they didn’t actually try to stop their children from playing, save for one, however, that is a story for another day.

My parents were always willing to let us play at our house, but we lived a short distance outside of town, about 8 km or so, and this created logistics problems. So we thought we’d hit pay dirt when the town built a new arena, and sold the old one to a company that turned it into an amusement hall, complete with arcade games, miniputt, and pool tables. We thought we had found the perfect solution; it was fairly centrally located, they were open late, and sold all kinds of refreshments.

We were wrong. They threw us out for “playing the devil’s game” and told us in no uncertain terms that we were not even permitted to bring the books with us into the building. Something to the effect of, “don’t let me catch you with that shit in here! It’s the devil’s game!”

While we had no choice but to respect their wishes, I did ask them why this was so. All I could get out of them were pseudo-religious proclamations of inherent devilry in the game. So we were forced to continue playing when we could, at my parents’ home, infrequent as it was for my liking. My parents were very tolerant, but even they needed a break from us sometimes too.

I should get to the point. The point is, what did we do on all those nights that we otherwise would have been playing D&D? We got up to no good, that’s what. Mischief. Vandalism. Drinking. Smoking. Perhaps even Fornication for some.

I’d like to close with a quote from Steve Jackson’s eulogy for Gary, “For the last few years, roleplayers have celebrated March 4 as “GM’s Day.” (March Forth, get it? -ed.) And now it’s the day when the best-known GM of all time put down his dice. Going forward, this should also be a particular date on which we recall Gary and his contributions.”

Posted by Ron as Games at 12:30 PM EST

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It’s been a while. Four months. Not as long as some people I know, but hardly regular posting.

The rest of October, and all of November was a pretty busy time, between everyone in Meghan’s family with birthdays (myself included), and sorting out issues with this new computer. December with the manic holiday buying (which, admittedly, I did very little of, so it’s a poor excuse - but that’s what this is about - excuses). At least during the holidays we got together with Luke, Chie, James and Jess. That was quite nice.

January was a little slow at work, so I finally got my car in the shop. I’m still rounding up parts to fix it, but it should be ready for spring. Unfortunately, January being slow has also led me to why I’m blogging at 9:24am on a weekday; I’m laid off. Not that it’s all bad. I get some unemployment enjoyment, and a little vacation, which I haven’t really taken in quite some time. Okay, it hasn’t been that long, but it feels like it has. Maybe I’m a wuss and need more off time than people with a real work ethic.

So I plan to take it easy for a few weeks, and hopefully my boss can score me a temporary position as a parts delivery dude, which would suit me just fine. We’ll see; the success or not, of that will determine if there are more forthcoming updates here, I think.

Still no house pics, Other Luke! :p

And now, in case anyone actually wants to know, the tech section

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Posted by Ron as Computers, Fire-in-a-can, Games, Home Sweet Home, Miscellaneous, Work at 11:21 AM EST

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Saturday, the fifth of May today, and I’ve been at my new job for almost 3 weeks now, and I don’t feel like my doom is impending yet, so that has to be a good sign.

Also, I can’t feel my hands half the time, which is not a good sign. I think it may be the early stages of carpal tunnel syndrome. Strangely in years of working on computers and playing guitar, I never got it this bad, but a couple weeks of this and my hands are toast. I will have to make a decicive, conscious effort to limber up and stretch more often.

We played D&D last night. It was a fantastic session, and unlike last week, I was awake, alert and actively participating. Last week I was so tired, I barely said anything and was only half paying attention. I was going to make a move to reschedule games for Saturdays so that I could actually be awake and functional, but apparently that isn’t necessary.

Now, for some well-earned slacking off…

Posted by Ron as Games, Home Sweet Home, Work at 9:58 AM EDT

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I have a new obsession. I (foolishly) installed Neverwinter Nights last week in a fit of boredom, and now that’s pretty much all I’ve been doing. I knew I shouldn’t have done that.

Posted by Ron as Games at 8:48 AM EDT

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So today is the Vernal Equinox. The weather was not encouraging today; dismal and headache-inducing. But maybe with the spring weather will come some welcome change.

I’ve been back in Sault Ste. Marie for almost 3 full months now, and I have yet to find a job. Somehow I thought it would be different this time. I returned full of confidence, with new skills, a better attitude, and more experience. I guess I should have known better. Last time I lived here, it took me 6 full years of looking (to be fair, it was on-and-off looking) to find something, and that something started at minimum wage.

Sure, there are jobs out there, but everyone around here wants one of two things; they either want someone who will work for next-to-nothing, or someone with 5+ years experience and fully trained. There doesn’t seem to be a happy medium. Call it the “Soo Factor” for lack of a better term. That’s kind of catchy. I think I’ll go with it.

Mind you, it comes off as an excuse, which I suppose it is, but after a search as demoralising as this one has been thus far, I have to tell myself something in order to keep looking.

Since I’ve not been working, I’ve had plenty of spare time, ok, too much spare time. I started that CoC campaign that I mentioned in the last post. First session seemed to go over pretty well. We’ll see how that develops. I’ve also been dumping a lot of time into the D&D campaign that Meghan has been running. It just keeps getting better all the time; defintely a weekly highlight for me. I never realised how much I’d missed gaming until I went without for a year and a half.
Let’s see, what else?

I’ve found out about at least 3 more retarded internet fads this year. The Terrible Secret of Space was pretty amusing; by the same fellow responsible for the silly Zero Wing remix that made the rounds a while ago, and almost as funny. Almost.

Also been linked to a euro DJ putting out CDs under the name Basshunter. Now, I’m not a huge fan of techno usually, especially clubbin’ shit, but this is pretty catchy, pop-y stuff. It’s cute. And from what I’ve heard so far, all of it very nerdy. I guess that’s what makes it endearing. That, and the fact that it’s in Swedish, so I can’t understand how crappy the lyrics are. So far, I’ve heard two tracks, the first one, ‘Boten Anna,’ about a mIRC chat bot called Anna, whom it is discovered, is a real person. The other was about playing in a Warcraft 3 clan on a map called Defense of the Ancients, or DotA for short. Not phenominal, and so campy it hurts, but it was good for a chuckle.

Then there’s the Decemberists. I’ve heard a lot about them in the past year or so, but I never got around to checking them out, until yesterday when Robin Ward posted a link to one of their songs. I figured they’d be overblown, and that was pretty much bang-on. Nothing impressive or special about them, IMHO.

I realise that opinion lacks credibility, because, yeah, I am a nobody, but also because of its juxtaposition immediately following what was essentially a positive review of some cheesy eurotechno. So be it, I guess. I’ll follow it with something equally damaging.

A Shoggoth on the Roof; a musical pardoy of Fiddler on the Roof, based on H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. It’s funny; that’s really all there is to say about it. I’m not otherwise inclined to watch/listen to musicals, but if someone put this on, I’d go. Someone actually tried to, apparently, but were sued into submission. The suit wouldn’t hold up, since parody is clearly fair use, but the company putting it on didn’t have the cash to fight back, so the world loses. Score another one for the tyranny.

What else is there? I guess a hundred little things, but none of them terribly important.

My car is still busted, and Meghan’s is falling apart. The old Dodge is still kicking, but it needs a lot of work before it’s trustworthy again, and I don’t feel like spending the money on it. It needs a new waterpump, which requires taking half the engine apart to get at. It’s a dumb design from that standpoint. I’d contemplated that if the pump ever went critical, I’d just do an engine swap, but at this point, it isn’t even worth it. It’s got some nasty rust starting on one of the rocker panels, and we honestly don’t need three cars. It’s ridiculous, really.

If anything, I want to get rid of two of them and get something newer and more reliable. I’ll keep my Alice, because it would be stupid to sell her after just spending almost $8k on a tranny swap; I’d never recover the investment. Besides, I still like that car, and it’s in decent enough shape. Still needs a new gearbox o-ring and now something is leaking coolant again. I think it might be coming from the lower rad hose, and also from the cap. I guess I’ll try replacing both and see if that helps. Still waiting on new suspension parts, too. I’m trying to time it so that I can have all the major stuff done at once, by Planet Motorsport in Guelph. We’ll see, I guess.

Wow, this post ent up being longer than I expected. I’ll try to post more often. I have no excuse besides laziness, and though valid as any other, it doesn’t make me feel any better about it.

I think the length of this post comes from a growing sense of disconnection from society and a build up of feelings of isolation. Seems odd, since I live with my fiancée and two of my good friends, but there you have it.

Whenever I start feeling like this, I always instinctively reach into my past. I try googling people I knew and find myself wishing that more of them were present and accounted for on the web. I’ve discussed this with Luke before, and he thinks it’s a bit foolish. I can see his reasoning. If they never bothered to keep in touch, then they weren’t good friends in the firstplace. It makes some amount of sense, but at the same time, if that were a universal truth, there wouldn’t be places like classmates and other crap like that. I’ve no intention of falling into that trap, but still.

Maybe this all started again when I called my old friend Trevor, after he called my parents house and left a drunken message on New Years’ Eve. I called him and we made plans; he was coming to the Soo from North Bay and we were going to go for coffee or something, but he never showed and he never called. I know there could be a million reasons for it, considering the nature of his visit here, but still, he could have called. So this is where I’m supposed to just say, “fuck you, I don’t care” or something, right?

I can’t do it though. It’s not like I’d even look for anything meaningful; I just want to know what people are up to. Everyone should keep a blog. Okay, that’s clearly not going to happen, and probably for the best. All it would likely do is make me feel worse about myself. I do, in fact, realise how pitiful that sounds.

Well, before this starts sounding like my young emo cousin’s webpage, I’d better quit writing. Out.

Posted by Ron as Fire-in-a-can, Games, Miscellaneous, Music, Work at 8:05 PM EDT

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March 2007 already. Still no job, though a few prospects here and there. I’ve mostly been keeping to myself, indoors, since there isn’t much else I like to do here. Still doing weekly D&D with Meghan at the helm, and I’m considering starting up a CoC campaign soon. Can you tell that I’m bored?

Posted by Ron as Games, Home Sweet Home, Work at 6:20 PM EST

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Hard to believe it’s been more than a month since my last entry. It’s not like I’m even busy — on the contrary.

But that doesn’t mean that nothing is happening.

I still don’t have my car back, even though it’s been about a month and a half. A transmission swap is not an easy task, made even more difficult when performed on a vehicle never designed for the new one going in, but 6 weeks is a bit excessive. There have been all manner of setbacks; part supply problems, and more recently, the fellows at Planet Motorsport have been spending more time repairing their rally car, after it “blew up bigtime.” I’m not in a hurry, as I don’t need the car urgently, but I’m getting anxious. I was actually supposed to go fetch it today, but it still wasn’t ready. Next week for sure. Or something.

In other news, I’m going to be moving again. Back to Sault Ste Marie this time. It pretty much guarantees my unemployment for many months (or more), but Meghan has landed herself a spot on the Algoma District School Board supply teacher rotation, which is that foot-in-the-door she needs to get a full time post. She’s making decent enough money at it already, and getting called in fairly regularly. I’m still here, milking my current job for all I can before we actually leave town. I’m going to miss the guys, but I might even have another shot at an apprenticeship with my former mechanic in the Soo.

I liked living in London, just not in this building. I like the location, but It’s too small, there are too many immature kids living here on mommy and daddy’s dime, and rent / parking is going up, up, up!

There is also a strong chance that we’ll be bringing some of our Windsorite friends with us. Thinking about going in on renting a big house, trying to practise some form of communism on a modest scale, see how it goes. I know I’ve been warned, and seen the effects of living with friends can have on one’s life and on the friendship itself, but I don’t think we’ll have any of those problems. Nobody ever does, but I really don’t think we will. Dan and James are two of the most upstanding fellows I can think of. Assuming the house is big enough, I don’t think privacy will be that much of an issue either.

This has the lovely side effect of creating a potential RPG “dream team” as I like to call it. Dan and James are both avid roleplayers (in the truest sense of the word), and our friend Rob, who lives in the Soo, is still very much interested in gaming again. So with three of the best roleplayers I can think of, plus Meghan and I, how can we go wrong? I predict much D&D, Call of Cthulhu, and other such good times. Not to mention that every day can be a LAN party.

Anyway, that’s about it for now. I’ll try to update more often, I promise.

Posted by Ron as Fire-in-a-can, Games, Miscellaneous, Work at 8:00 PM EDT

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I write this in case anyone actually wants to hear about it, even though there won’t be much to it

I haven’t been up to much. Unemployment can be pretty dull, though I admit, I really needed a break. My last job was pretty brutal on me, physically, psychologically, and emotionally. I should have blogged the whole thing, as my ‘mentor’ was pretty rotten towards me in the end, and it would have been interesting to track how he grew to be that way. But, I didn’t, so you get the abbreviated version, above.

I’m probably going to go back to my old job, though there is always the possibility that we will be moving again, so who knows. Crap like this is why I’m glad I keep a rainy day fund. You can’t always rely on EI, as in this case, I’ve been fired rather than laid off, so I can’t claim. Actually, half the time when I could, I didn’t bother (like last year).

So, in my boredom, I’ve been playing lots and lots of video games to pass the time. Finally got around to beating Front Mission 4, then promptly started “New Game+” and got about as far as I had before I stopped last time. I’m anxiously awaiting news of the North American localisation of FM5, though not holding my breath.

I also played through a few hacked SNES ROMs; a superb Japanese Super Metroid hack called ‘Legacy’ which completely changes the game map, basically making it a new game entirely. Took 11 hours for me to get through it. I played a few other Super Metroid hacks, but one was a poorly thought out rearranging of the power ups, and the other was an annoyingly hard challenge hack (though it was otherwise well done).

The other major hack I played is a complete redesign of Super Mario World, called Super Demo World, which is essentially a showcase for the capabilities of the author’s own world-editing tool for the game. And when I say complete redesign, I mean it’s almost unrecognisable, just the game engine remains. New worlds, new map, new levels, new items, everything. Oh, and it’s also 12 times larger. Before patching the ROM, you have to expand it from 4 Megabit to 48. Amazing, but also very hard.
Then I went on to play a good chunk of the way through a translation patch for Dragon Quest V, which was never formally released here. Great game so far (I’m about halfway through), much better than DQVII, even though the graphics are a little sub-par for a SNES game. When finished I am also going to have a go at DQVI, which is also supposedly translated to the point of being completely playable, and understandable, in English, as well as being much nicer-looking (think Final Fantasy VI). Of course, all that is doing, is making me want to go buy DQVIII, which is only about 40$ brand new everywhere now.

In the meantime, my sister also bought ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds’ for the Gamecube for 10$ from a clearance bin at the Superstore. Surprisingly good game. It’s a 3rd person 3D beat-em-up style game, which although somewhat held back by the GC graphics capability, still manages to be a lot of fun to play. Most franchise games like that are dreadful, but this one isn’t. Maybe it’s because I like the show. It doesn’t hurt that most of the voice acting is done by the actors from the series, the only exceptions being Willow/Allison Hannigan and Buffy/Sarah Michelle Gellar, though the person that voices Buffy in the game sounds just like her. Can’t say the same for Willow, but even if she doesn’t sound exactly like her, she still talks the same. A for effort.

I’ve also started back into Warcraft III, and polished off another dozen missions or so. It’s a pretty good game, and I particularly enjoy that it has a difficulty setting, making it accessible to casual RTS players, like me, while still providing some challenge to genre veterans. I’m playing it because it’s a good game, not because of any love for the RTS format; I much prefer turn-based strategy.

Also played the demo for Return to Castle Wolfenstein out of sheer boredom. The first level where you actually escape from the castle was awesome. The second level where you must escape the catacombs beneath the castle was stupid. Skeletons and Zombies and Flame Demons, oh my! What a pile of crap. That’s been done before in other games, and done better, in my opinion. Thief: The Dark Project comes immediately to mind. Though the fact that these undead warriors can deflect your bullets back at you with their shields is kind of neat.

I haven’t been just playing games. I watched some movies, too. Last night’s selection was 50 First Dates, which I thought was cute. Odd for me, since I usually find romantic comedies to be vomit-inducing. On that note, I also watched Wedding Crashers recently, and that was pretty hilarious. Also caught Starsky and Hutch, which I thought was mostly lame, though it had its moments.

Two of the movies I recently watched were very similar, which is interesting in that one of them is a huge success and the other, not so much. The two in question are National Treasure and the Da Vinci Code. The plot and pacing of these two movies are very similar. Both were decent enough movies, but the only reason the latter did so much better is because of the hype, though I will admit that there was good enough reason for it; the Da Vinci Code novel is much better than the movie (though I still found it to be contrived, predictable, and factually inaccurate at times, despite claims to the contrary). To the credit of the former, however, I actually much prefer Nicholas Cage to Tom Hanks.

Last, but certainly not least, I watched Grandma’s Boy, which, if you’re a nerd, and you like video games, this ’stoner movie’ may just be one of the funniest things you’ll ever see. So stupid, so funny. Though it is shameless. I will not let my parents watch it. It also features a really, really cool Aphex Twin song called Windowlicker.

So other than that, I’ve just been doing a lot of reading. Luke sent me a nice torrent of a bunch of out-of-print Palladium RPG books for TMNT and Robotech, so that has taken much of my time this weekend.

Oh, and my car got broken into again. This time it was in the parking garage of my apartment building. I don’t even know when it happened; it had been sitting for about two weeks when I discovered the damage. Same car as last time, the Dodge Stratus. Chrysler products are a car thief’s wet dream, though both times the GTA gangsta-wannabe failed. In retribution, they stole the chromed valve stem caps from my tires. It cost 3$ to replace them from Canadian Tire. Talk about pathetic. Oh and they also left their nasty gangsta-approved nike athletic t-shirt, complete with stinky gangsta cologne smell mixed with sweat on the seat. Now the whole car smells like that. Good thing the body shop at Oxford Dodge shampoos the interior when they’re done. In any case, I think I’ll get rid of it for real this time.

Posted by Ron as Fire-in-a-can, Games, Media, Miscellaneous, Music, TV & Movies, Work at 12:20 PM EDT

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I recently grabbed GT4 from the Superstore’s post holiday sale. It was 5-10$ cheaper there than at EBgames, plus there was a 10$ off promo for any regularly priced game, so I snapped it up.

Wow. Leaps and bounds ahead of GT3 in just about every way. This is a milestone like the original was back in its day. I absolutely love B-Spec mode. In fact, the only thing I don’t like is the music playlist of radio tunes during the races (I hated a good 90% of the songs, and the rest were distracting). I would have preferred classier stuff like what plays during the other parts of the game, but oh well. I disabled the playlist during races, so now there is no problem.

Another neat, new feature is Photo mode. It basically lets you snap magazine-like photos of your car collection with breathtaking real-world scenery as background. Behold:

One of the two cars I’ve aquired thus far: a Nissan 240SX fastback. This is the UK version, as it came equipped with an SR20DET, rather than the KA24DE of the North American model. I have it tuned to about 260hp with a full racing intake/exhaust, stage 1 turbo, racing intercooler, semi-racing suspension, short ratio gearbox, soft sports tires, carbon driveshaft, triple-plate clutch, sports flywheel, engine port polishing, performance chip, 1.5-way LSD and lightening level 2. It runs 14.0 seconds in the quarter mile at 169 km/h, with a 0-100km/h time in the 5-6 second range. It tops out at either 237 or 272 km/h, depending on which gearset I’m using.

Posted by Ron as Fire-in-a-can, Games at 3:14 PM EST

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