okay, lets do this shit

12:08a: b got his copy from walmart. it will tell you it takes 20mins to install, but we hung on the last 2 seconds for 5 minutes. install time was 47 minutes. do yourself a favour and skip the opening movie. no one cares about that shit, and it's probably one of the reasons it took so long for the game to be "finished." oh, speaking of finished, no turis game is ever finished. the shit has some issues that let you know that they didn't use any of the past 6 years to polish the game. standard cars look garbage, but still look more realistic than fortza (a game i absolutely love, by the way). with three pointers, i helped b bring his laptime on ss5 down by a considerable margin. he's hooked.

9:30a: i woke up, fed my stupid cats and moved my car so my wife could go to work. turis hasn't been delivered yet. i'm going to get breakfast and run an errand and we'll see if it's here when i get back.

10:36a: i'm playing civ revolution. no game yet, but it is in transit.

12:52p: package has been in transit since 8:15a this morning. from king of prussia. to give you an idea of how close that is, i will be going there for lunch. it's five fucking minutes away. when i get back from lunch, if it's not here, i'm going down to b's place and stealing his (what? you're at work, homey).

1:12p: told you k.o.p. was close. still no turis. however, winding road magazine just sent me an email with the title "gran turismo 5 is here!" first off, no, no it isn't. secondly, how the fuck would they know? they're in michigan.

1:43p: got b's copy from his apt. it's installing now.

1:53p: wheel is set up. i'm not sure of what polyphony's idea of "approximately" is, but it's been cooking for 10mins and it still has "approximately" 20mins to go. fucking clown shoes.

1:58p: hey, does anyone watch "better of ted"? great show. surprisingly funny. i think my favourite line may be "i love they dutch, that's why i hold them to a higher standard." in context, that's comedy gold right there.

2:05p: japanese math is terrible. it's been 22mins and it says i now how 16 minutes left. no wonder we beat them in the war. sheesh!

2:14p: 4mins left. i'm watching this kick-ass documentary about shangri-la on history international. it's narrated by leonard nimoy.

2:21p: okay, done

2:23p: fuck the opening movie. it's car buying time!

2:31p: just changed the options. it takes forever for this game to load. it's almost as bad as fortza 3.

2:41p: bought a white 1st gen miata. i'm going to do a bunch of warm up laps around tsukuba to get used to the game.

2:56p: okay, so the slow load times are because the game never installed to the hard drive. i sat there for however fucking long that was and the game never installed. it's now telling me i have to wait 50 more minutes to play my game if i want to install it. seriously, what the fuck polyphony?

3:09p: the clutch works. it's throwing me off. i like i though. oh, my copy of the game still has not been delivered. i'm never ordering from amazon for a launch day game again.

3:25p: sunday cup-done. i really wish they would have races dependent upon engine size or other rules other than fr/ff/4wd kind of races.

3:51p: i thought the miata understeered a tiny bit when in long sweeps, so i bought a front lip for the car. i was going to just buy the racing suspension and go to town, but i want to enjoy this car as close as stock for as long as i can. it's really well balanced now.

4:03p: world compact car race-done. cape ring track is awesome! it's fairly technical but when you string it together perfectly, you can carry so much speed through sweepers. perfect for a momentum car like the miata. tons of fun like a fat chick.

4:09p: just hit lvl 3. also, my miata needs power, but i don't want to ruin the balance. i guess it's time for tires and suspension too.

4:20p: i ended up ust balancing the engine and upgrading engine management. 130hp, 2068lbs. not bad.

4:25p: my copy just got here. i'm going to install it (for real this time) and take a doosey of a twosey. that should easily kill an hour.

5:38p: i took a look at the datalogger because i'm a big fucking dork, and it's going to be helpful, i just wish you could do more with it. i'll elaborate at a later time. i may even dedicate an entire post to it.

5:51p: carting is very realistic. if you could add the smell, and impact pain, it would be the same experience. the steering wheel is all over the place because of the bumps and the reflexes you need when flying of of curbs is crazy. i may spend more time doing this than playing a spec.

6:17p: unlocked the amateur races by reaching lvl 5. just bought the height/damper adjustable suspension because i was curious about what i could adjust and how those changes would affect handling. also, after the power mods i made, balance was ruined on the car.

6:30p: height/damper adjustable suspension gives you limited "soft" spring rates to play with, height adjustability, 3 way adjustable dampers, and camber adjustment. roll bars are not adjustable but set at 1 f/r with toe defaulting to a non adjustable 0f/.2 in for the rear. i left the ride height alone, set the from springs at 5kg/mm f, 3kg/mm r. dampers i settled on 2f/3r with -2*f/-1.8*r for the camber. it's balanced and pretty quick. i'm not sure if i'll buy the racing suspension for the car or not for this car.

6:47p: don't race in the rain if you've never practiced in it. it's really hard to see, you have more grip than you would think, but things can get ugly in a hurry.

8:24p: ran some errands and then ate dinner, and b came over. he's driving my miata on suzuka as we speak. i ended up dropping the damping front and rear by one because the car was sluggish on turn in. the car handles much better. the balance is now closer to stock (which in the miatas case, is a very good thing) but the levels of grip are much higher, even with the same tires.

8:49p: b is driving my kart around tsukuba. he's so addicted to this game; it's awesome. i think he might drop the loot for a logitec. yes, with the wheel, this game is that fucking good.

10:20p: i bought a vitz (premium version) and it's a real shit show. to make it fast, i will have to sink a ton of money into it, and i don't want to do that. it's acceptable at the moment, but it understeers relentlessly. in the future i might buy a racing suspention for this car as well, and go all out and try to make it like a club car, but right now, i just want to earn some cash so i can buy the an older car so i can beat beginner. oh, and this is the last time i'm posting tonight. live blog is over. thank you b and kev for reading any of it.