Ferrari Challenge for Wii

Just picked this up yesterday at Sam's Club. Fortunately we only paid about $15. I was very excited to pick this up. I really enjoy racing games, but this game suffers from a few problems that others mention. You can read the reviews online from others, but suffice it to say - the in-car camera is like being inside a tunnel, and the controls are difficult to manage. I have quite a few racing games from those that are very arcade - "Mario Kart" to several versions of "Need for Speed". Some are better than others, and with the Wii controls there are certainly much better ways to control the car. The nunchuck controls are the only ones I have even come close to mastering. Sound and graphics were cool, but they should have focused more on playability.

Knowing - enough not to waste your time

Last night we decided to rent a movie. We chose Knowing - with Nicolas Cage. What you will see from this image is - he is the only reason to watch it.

In general I like him as an actor - but I think he made a mistake when choosing to do this role.
Warning this contains spoilers - if you want to watch this movie do not read any further - just know that it is stupid and you will be disappointed.

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The movie starts out interestingly enough. We see some kids working in their school room and a teacher talking about a time capsule. Makes sense - the trailer talks about knowing about impending disasters and what would you do. There were several places where it seemed like there were opportunities to do so much more with the movie and the mysterious number sequences he uncovers, however the movie seems to miss every opportunity at suspense and settle for cheap every chance they can. Here's a few details:

Cage plays an MIT astro-physicist although he never lives up to this potential. Throughout the movie he does a surprising amount of stupid things.

Random stupidity - the kids sing "This little light of mine!" a children's Christian gospel song - being sung at a public school in Massachusetts - the most liberal state in the union and nobody was there from the ACLU taking exception

There is a plane crash that happens just after he makes an interesting discovery regarding the number sequence, and he attempts in vain to save several burning passengers. Eventually the first responders tell him to go away - which he does with little discussion or drama.

We spend untold minutes of screentime wandering around in the dark with diver quality flashlights ala X-files.

Cage's kid has some wild dream that, as near as I could tell, was a test of the special effects crew's capabilities but little else.

At one point he makes a call to the FBI to warn them of what will happen instead of stating: "I am an MIT professor, please listen to me when I tell you something" which could have led to all manner of intrigue and discussion regarding the number sequences, what had happened, what will happen, etc. instead, he yells into a random pay-phone "something will happen at location X tomorrow - get everyone away or they will die" which would clearly put him on the terrorist watch list.

Later in the sequence he walks up to a random cop and asks why they haven't cleared the area - surprise all law enforcement starts chasing him

When chasing and being chased in the subway he is cornered by several cops, he states rather bluntly: "you should arrest him" and points to the person he is chasing, they instantly unfocus on Cage and focus on the other guy.

He frequently abandons the children in his charge to go investigate random things.

The end of the movie was off scale high on the stupid meter. With about 20 minutes left in the movie and no realistic ending, we throw in a random car chase where a woman essentially kidnaps his son and in the middle of the chase Cage pauses in his pursuit of his CHILD to spend a few minutes with the now dead woman he has known for 36 hours, this enables him to see an intriguing black rock

Finally, we go completely implausible with an ending involving aliens rescuing mere earthlings from impending disaster and over the top stupid dialog between Cage and his son.

We also have a token reference to Noah - 2x2 animals and some (I think) reference to "The Matrix" with two white rabbits.

Finally, while the entire movie is set in and around Boston, when disaster strikes big time - New York City is what we see - hello continuity department where are you? Poor New York City- always the place to destroy - Independence Day, Armageddon, Sudden Impact, The Day After Tomorrow, I'm sure there many others.
I'm sure there are more specific stupid things - but that's all I can think of right now.

Another Fun NHRA SuperNationals

Yesterday marked our third journey to Englishtown NJ and the 2009 SuperNationals. As always it was great fun. A few notes:

• Early rain delayed the start of the day's events, which allowed for more viewing of cars in pits, playing games, and such.
• The the DHL Top Fuel Funny Car did a solo pass in honor of Scott Kalitta who died at this event last year.
• In response to Scott's accident NHRA has shortened Top Fuel finish line to 1000 ft from 1,320 ft.
• Interesting that the article above notes that it will still allow fans to see cars at near 300 mph speeds.
• Ashley Force and a few of the TF-Dragsters still managed to go over 300MPH.
• Honestly, the sound, the flames, the speed, it doesn't matter if you go to 1,320 or not, it's great.
• They closed the track a little earlier this year so the night qualifying was not quite as late as last year.
• Still watched some flaming action when the top fuel cars lined up after 7pm local time.

Full slide show of mostly racing.

New camera made for some really nice action photos - able to snap off 30 frames. Here's a full set of a side-by-side Top Fuel Funny Car race from start, until the camera reached buffer max.

Futuristic Car Ads

I was browsing through the paper today and turned to the back cover. As usual it was filled with car ads. I found this regular looking ad.
Now I ask you - if you had managed the spectacular task of transporting the cars from the year 2099 back to our time, wouldn't you do a little more than just put a little ad in the newspaper?

Racing Dream Day

Well Sunday is the day. What a great day for a race fan. Monaco F1 Grand Prix @ 8am EDT. Indy 500 at 1pm and Coca-Cola 600 at 5:45pm. It will be nearly 10 hours of racing from sun up to sun down. Thankfully there are a few breaks in there. Watched qualifying again for the F1 race. Lewis planted it in the wall, so he's starting 16th - not a very good location for him. Button on pole, Kimi alongside, with Rubens in 3rd - the Brawn GP team is continuing the pace. Should be a good race.

weather.com is ad-noying to the max

Today I was reminded why I never use weather.com. First - it never simply accepts what I want. Example I type in: Detroit, MI. It comes back and gives me two choices: Detroit Michigan and Detroit Wayne County Airport. Now I ask you - if I type Detroit, MI don't you think I want Detroit, Michigan? Also - how different could weather possibly be between the airport and downtown. So I choose Detroit and am presented with a very nice banner at the top of the screen allowing me to search for more stuff, and an advertisement off to the right for water, or something. It tells me what the temperature is right now - which is actually useful data. I need to scroll down to find out what the next 36 hours may bring, I won't even go into the scrolling feature of web sites, far too much information is buried down below instant visibility for my taste, but that is an entire other rant. I count a total of 7 ads on this page alone, not counting the software push to have weather on my desktop. I am therefore an avid user of wunderground.com - although they too are slipping into ad nonsense.

Fun day in Shanghai

What started as a near wash out with the first dozen or so laps run behind the safety car turned into a decent race. Everyone stayed on full wets the entire race, but there was enough off/on action and Lewis provided adventure by, as the commentators noted, "needing to pass each person two or three times" to make it stick as he would frequently misjudge traction and do a pirouette and cycle back a few spots. Vettel came up aces on the pole, and rode it through to victory. The kid seems to have the right metal - now he just needs to keep it up. Driver standings look a bit like someone gave them the old switcheroo - Timo Glock in 4th!?!?!? Team standings are even more bizzaro - Ferrari tied with mighty Force India-Mercedes after three races. Red Bull found the juice in the wet. Next week will likely be very dry - but could be just as dry as the sands blow across the track in Bahrain.

FIA - Ferrari Intervention Association

Well not really - but they certainly seem to be very anti-McLaren. Then again, perhaps the boys in black and orange deserve it. Certainly wasn't very sporting to be telling misleading tales regarding passing and encouraging passing while behind the safety car.

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Well two races down and many more to go. We'll see how long it takes for the other teams to adopt the better diffuser and get the big boost of speed that Brawn GP has. Quite an interesting season so far - team standings shows STR-Ferrari has more points than the factory team, and Toyota pulling in more points than they have collected in the past five seasons combined (well not literally but it sure seems like it). Still amounts to whopping $5M-$7M per point for them, pretty hefty outlay for a company being pounded by the global recession.

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Next week China - BTW - The Official Formula One Site is quite a bit less attractive and useful than it was a few years ago. I don't like that I have to scroll down to see how long until the next race and am inundated with video and ads as the "main thing" I see when I connect.

More 2009 F1 Cars

• Renault and Williams - Williams isn't horrific, maybe because livery is black and you can't see it so well. Renault is closer to horrific than elegant
• Ferrari - horrific

F1 has gone - SICK!

Ok - so they switched to slick tires, great. Why is it we need to be pushing around a snow plow on the front of the car. What is it we're trying to develop!?!?!?

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F1 going slick

Cost reduction is everywhere. Honda was forced to drop out, and in continuing response to escalating costs F1 is responding. One of the changes that I think will be interesting will be the return to slick tyres. Although I must say - I do like seeing the grooves on the tyres, curious to see how they let us know hard vs. soft for the "topic of discussion" to remain just that.

There are a lot of other proposals coming as well, same engines, same transmissions, etc. to go along with the same tyres, they now all run. I fear that we may be headed for an IROC series - how uncool would that be.

Well this season was good - let's hope the future ones will be as well.

Steelers Football - I am a fan

Well I must now confess, I think that I have become a Steelers fan. I have always eschewed allegiance to the team even though I lived there for 25 years. My wife Rhoda is an avid fan, and gets rather upset when they do poorly and excited when they do well. Watching the game today - Big Ben Rothlisberger started out early with a delay of game penalty. Throughout the game so far - he has come close a few more times - which is very frustrating. He also is frequently being pressured in the pocket and rushing his passes, the line just isn't protecting him well. Also - for reasons I can't explain the Steelers have had bad special teams coverage, especially on kick-offs and punts for what seems like the last 10 years.

Given my ability to rattle off all of this information, as well as the very real frustration I felt when Ben took the penalty, I can no longer stand upon the "I am not a fan" rock.

Computing has become needlessly complex

Over the past year I have been thinking a lot about how needlessly complex computing has become. In addition to being so complex it is often causing people a lot of aggravation and anxiety in trying to manage it, and accomplish what they want. I've started a new blog to try to capture observations about things that have progressed, but perhaps have not gotten better.

More on the Indiana taxi situation

So today I landed at the bright shiny new airport in Indianapolis Indiana. I landed at 9a after a 2 hour flight from Newark. Seems nice - except nobody told the taxi drivers where the new airport was located. They were few and far between. The poor young girl trying to get them to appear kept pushing the call button to no avail. This city is nice but someone really needs to step into this taxi situation before the Superbowl arrives - people will absolutely not tolerate this. The line is 12 people deep and its the middle of the week.

Worst Taxi Cab Drivers

Last week I was in Indianapolis. We were a few blocks from the office. It was fairly cold so we decided to take a cab to the office rather than walk. On 2 of 3 days upon telling the cabbie our destination, Monument Circle, we were asked: "Where is that?". Now one may understand it a little, except for the fact that we were asking to be taken to the absolute dead center of the city, containing the most notable landmark, and tallest building in the city. One trip, the driver never pulled the flag, one trip he was unable to change a $20 (I know us crazy New Yorkers with our big bills and high falutin' ways). Overall a very nice city - but they need to monitor cab drivers perhaps just a little bit.

Crusoe

Today I stopped in my office in mid-town for a conference call and series of meetings. Outside our office was this TV set. Don't know what its all about - seems quite strange. When I walked by at lunch time the guy appeared to be sleeping. Can this possibly be a show?

Seinfeld - "The Foundation"

Those who know me - know I love Seinfeld. I can relate most everything to it. This episode starts season 8. The intertwining of the story is extraordinary. As the episode starts Susan's stone is put up. George claims to be done mourning her loss. Jerry's inspirational words from "The Wrath of Khan" cause them to create a foundation in her name. Jerry gets back with Dolores aka Mulva. Elaine takes over the catalog when Peterman has a nervous breakdown and runs off to Myanmar. Closes with two men bemoaning the urban sombrero that Elaine put on the cover of the catalog. There are a wealth of great quotes.

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George: "What was that line you told the Ross', something about a way, and a light" Jerry: "No, its she's not really dead if we find a way to remember her." George: "That's it, that was the line that destroyed my life!"

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George: "I was free and clear, I was living the dream, I was stripped to the waist eating a block of cheese the size of a car battery!"

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Jerry (commenting on Elaine's trip to Mexico to find ideas for the catalog): "Anything you couldn' get rippin' open a bag of Doritos and watching viva sipada?"

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Dolores: "When I heard you got engaged - I thought maybe you had matured, but obviously there's no growth here" Jerry: "Well I can't argue with that"

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Kids from karate class: "Now we finish it!" - clearly a reference to "Highlander".

Belgian Grand Prix Results

A great and exciting race. Last 2 laps with rain starting proved to be extremely exciting. Quite a few passes up and down the grid, with Kimi and Lewis swapping back and forth 2, 3 or was it 4 times. Finally, Kimi spun and hit the wall putting Lewis in the lead for good. All the while, with Steve Matchett hollaring you couldn't go in for intermediate tyres. Turns out he was quite wrong. Nick Heidfeld went in for a change of tyers, came out and went from 7th to 3rd. Well now it turns out that Lewis has now been penalized 25 seconds - bumping him back to 3rd giving Massa the win. Next week - Monza.

Another Formula One Weekend

As semi-frequent readers of this blog know - I am a big Formula One racing fan. I've always been a fan of racing and over the past 5 or so years have ramped up my following of F1. The push for F1 started when I met Chris Watson about 6 years ago and he whad a trip planned to Indianapolis for USGP. The following year 2003, I joined him in Indy for the race and we went again in 2005. Alas, the future of F1 in US is unknown, so for now watching a lot is required. Tried to organize a group to go to Montreal but have yet to make it happen. This week SPA - Belgian Grand Prix. A racer favorite. Ferraris are fast in practice, but Kimi did spin and back into the wall yesterday. Qualifying is just starting as I type this, so we'll have to see how the weekend shapes up.

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F1 weekends on Speed are fun. Weekend is Friday practice, Saturday knock-out qualifying and Sunday race day. With limited in timezone races, I usuaully wake up early and watch the European stuff live, and the Asian stuff on DVR. This gives me my racing fix early, then I can spend the rest of the day doing whatever. This morning I was up very early so clicked on the DVR to catch Friday practice. The fun thing about Friday practice - compared to some other race shows is that we get to see cars on track virtually all the time while getting commentary about the track, the personalities, the rivalries and all other stuff that is mildly interesting, but the presenters are humorous. They have an ex-mechanic, an ex-driver, and are well respected by F1 overall - with one of their commentators being the official post-race interviewer. They seem to genuinely enjoy each others company and poking fun at each other whenever appropriate. Such as when Peter Windsor used the phrase appices to describe the monster 4-apex turn in Turkey. They were all over him about that word. Another fun one was when they found some old footage of David Hobbs doing commercials for pants and quoting it was a "jolly good price" they were classic 70s plaid polyester - they claimed he still had them in his closet. Saturday morning qualifying is fun - I also get excited when I hear Bob Varsha say: "Qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix starts now", then we get the music, and we hear Steve Matchett hollar as the music starts: "Right now boys, Right now" One of the things I've enjoyed is learning the British slang that will occassionally creep into the commentary - moreso on race day, but also on practice and qualifying day.

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Some of my favorite quotes - some similar to US quotes, some not.

• He looks like a one armed paper hanger in a gale
• Look how close to the wall they are - not even enough room for a fag-paper - that one caused a follow-up comment to describe that in UK fags are cigarettes
• Look at the damage to the Red Bull - he hit that curb and now his car is completely knackered
• Kerrrr-blammo
- That's one of my all time favorites - for when an engine blows and dumps a huge white smoke plume all over the track.
Here's a few pics of Kimi's engine going Kerrrr-blammo in Valencia.

Defining Bureaucracy

To all who follow this blog - and I know there really aren't that many - this post refers back to my accident in my 5-Series BMW in January of 2006. Today I think I have found a very good definition of a bureaucratic nightmare. I received in the mail a copy of the accident report from January 2006, from the Port Authority of New York, along with my uncashed check for $10. The report is dates 01/27/06, Two Years, Seven Months and 3 Days ago. I am quite curious as to the person who sent it, it makes you wonder - did they pull it out of some file, look at it and send it, or did they just send it. In fact I no longer even have the car, having ditched it for a 2006 C280.