5-Minute Review GT5: Prologue (PS3)

I will mince no words in saying I am a fan of the Gran Tourismo franchise. Played GT2, GT3 and 4 heavily and now comes the precursor to the full version, GT5: Prologue.

Let's look at things that are fun, easy to navigate menus, fairly quick load times (mostly owing to the game data being installed on the HDD versus run purely off BRD). Environments feel much more immersive and subtle touches like lighting/shadow and vehicle detail are are times nearly photorealistic. Car response in terms of steering and control feel a little bit easier to manage, particularly when trying to draft the AI cars. Some of this however is due to the longer throws of the analog sticks on the Sixaxis/DualShock 3.

The downside. Let's face it, as games go Prologue is a preview. Granted one that I'm paying for, but hey I'm a nut. I think it provides a good initial feel for the type of handling and graphics you'll find in the full release in 2009 (Painful I know) but many areas need to be optimized. Lag during online gameplay (though truth be told I had similar lag issues on Forza 2), occasional stutter with reflection rendering, lack of tuning and damage physics give you that slightly less than true GT feel and gives an edge to the likes of Forza.

Overall if you just want some slightly different tracks or, like myself am a GT fan, I think the $40 price tag isn't great, but not horrible. Visually stunning, fairly good handling and enjoyable track variation and environs bode well for this teaser release and hopefully results in a better final product in GT5.

Final Score 7.9/10

Epic Fail: Vraxx + Sick = Fail

OK so I confess that at times I am a workaholic. Not because I love work, but I hate trying to scramble to fix things later. That and I don't find myself particularly efficient. So Friday was miserable, body aches, previous day had been 15 hours long, I was supposed to be on sick leave but I remembered that I promised a coworker we'd do some triage testing in the lab. So off I went figuring "Ha I'm tough enough"... Bad, bad, bad idea. The weekend was mostly OK, I did chores, I read, but I realized I was still feeling woozy and food was not my friend.

So here it is Monday, I no longer have a fever but I'm coughing up my spleen... and what do I do? I STILL try to do work. Logged into a system with documentation opened up to try to configure something. After a bit of of frustration I realize why it's not working. I just spent 2 minutes trying to click the buttons on a screenshot... with that ladies and gents, I am not going to be doing anymore work today...

Vraxxism of the Day: It feels so good to be bad...

Addison: somehow i feel wrong and dirty loading an open source DB on a windows box
like the box is looking at me going "what? no MS SQL... for shame..."
then again the wrong and dirty part is probably why it feels so good :P

For reference, I was installing PostgreSQL on a Windows box for some testing since I didn't feel running with the MSDE. And I admit, it does feel good ^_^

And people wonder why US folks don't want these jobs

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/12/25/india.outsourcing.ap/index.html

Now far be it for me to begrudge India for their outsourcing but I've got news for you. US laborers faced similar issues with health, work/life balance and everything else mentioned in TFA. I just find it amusing that they're only NOW realizing it's impact on their own workforce.

Let's face it support centers are one of the weirdest jobs out there, you're expected to know everything, solve a problem remotely and above all do so with a chipper attitude and in a completely professional manner. In the US the quality of these centers often went to pot simply because nobody wanted such a raw deal job. Now that the economy is worse we bitch about not having the option. Hopefully Indian call centers will be used as "part" of the support infrastructure and now the entire infrastructure.

I'll close by commenting, yes I have worked a support hotline as one of my first jobs in the IT industry and while it was a grueling start I think it also helped me develop into the analyst I am today.

Nice Example of How I See the World (Colorblindness)

http://critiquewall.com/2007/12/10/blindness?printable

Found this while combing through Digg and thought it was a great example of how some of us colorblind folks actually perceive he world. My case isn't as severe as some of these examples show but I do sometimes have problems distinguishing when red/green are adjacent.

Hot Import Nights 2007 -- Or How Vraxx Is Bringing Sexy Back One Frame At A Time

Gallery at:
http://vraxx.smugmug.com/gallery/3923139/

OK OK long ass title sorry. Dec 1, 2007 I went to capture footage at the Hot Import Nights 2007 car show/tuner event here in Hawaii. It's been more than 10 years since I really shot stuff at a car show and I admit, it brought about memories of being at the raceway park, being around pure gearhead action and the copious amounts of eye candy. Guests included Tera Patrick who served as an MC and guest DJ. Deal or No Deal model Ursula Mayes and several other HIN mainland models who flew down for the one night show. Where some of the dancers get there energy is a mystery to me but they need to bottle that and sell it at the show. Lot of the shots are soft on the focus since half the time I was just bursting like mad :P Enjoy and share with your friends. I need the hits ^_^

Some highlight shots:

A Word About Gamer Maturity

Let's face it when it comes to the movers and shakers of the world, I don't know that gamers are viewed with much respect. Between nut jobs like Jack Thompson and equally inept gamers like this MENSA candidate
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2789073.ece the world of gaming probably strikes outsiders as completely helter skelter. Not only has the 'guy living in the basement' gotten more fiscal clout but he's no longer afraid to be adamant about ssatiating his addiction (Take the case of the boy who decked his own mother while playing Halo 3). I don't propose to tell you all that I'm any smarter, but it seems as though the more mainstream gaming has become the worse the overall community has become.

Part of me wonders what the root cause is. Is it the increasingly competitive nature of gaming? Is it the bragging rights that go along with things like Xbox (All rights reserved, Microsoft Corporation) Live's Achievements? Could it be the simple need for escapism which people are drawn to? As I've gotten older (much older it feels) I've realized that the fun of online gaming often doesn't match up the tangible fun I can have with my more 'analog' hobbies (photography, movies, anime, hiking). Sure a lot of my hobbies eventually cross paths with my digital age components but it's good to just get the heck away from the PC or my consoles and detach.

Part of me worries that as we've become more and more a digital community we're going to find the dregs of society creeping up the interaction ladder. Hopefully I missed that degree of addiction by a hairs breath, but who knows...

Where's the time go?!

Seriously guys I'm alive, don't worry. On the other hand I have absolutely no idea where my free time has gone. It isn't like I'm a very active guy... I mean hell I mostly just lounge around but somehow between the lounging, photo stuff, general internet geekdom I seem to have little to no time to do anything all that interesting or creative.

As my work situation is slowly getting back to a steady pattern I'm hoping that I'll get to play more games now and then to unwind and expand my photography to more events and macro shooting. All in all time to get cracking on this whole time management thing... (uugh)