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| FD3S autox runJust something I found on the interwebs. The guy's got insane control.
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| My Day In the SunI went to my first autocross event on Sunday with my friends D & R. It was a blast!
First off, the makeup of the contestants was interesting. There were a couple rare cars: an Elise, a 1960's AC Cobra, and a Caterham. Then you had respectable, contemporary cars like 911's, WRX's, EVo's, RX8's, BMW's, and a VW R32. There were heavily modified cars--a slew of Civic Hatchbacks from the late 80's, CRX's, a Porsche 935 (think Jazz from transformers). Lastly, you had flat-outridiculous cars like a 1970's Toyota Starberk (sp?), stock Mustangs, a dodge Neon, and, most infamous of all, the 1990's era Camy so popular among Bay Area Asian mother. It was just a lot of fun seeing all these very different kind of cars doing laps on the same track.
Secondly, the people are there are pretty cool. Everybody was around my age or older, generally sensible, and pretty good drivers. My friend D is a pretty good driver and he had one of the slowest lap times Granted, that was because his rear tires were failing but I don't think he'd have eked out better than a 72s lap time which still be on the slow end of the distribution. Just to give you an example, the Camry and the Starberk both lapped ~68s.
Most surprising car for me was the RX8. All 3 8's posted good times, one posted a top 5, maybe even top 3 time. Fastest time for the day was 64s, set by the Porsche 935 (which was modified like f*ck. Thing was louder than an airplane). The GT3 followed and then either a Miata or the 8. Go Mazda! The Lotus and Caterham did decent but not as well as I'd hoped. I think it was the drivers.
I didn't get to race. I didn't have a helmet and, b/c my new ECU and boost controller are not installed, so I blew an inlet line into my intercooler. It was a cheap fix (free! haha) but I had to wait til Monday for the replacement part. I'm definitely going again, though. $50 for a day of fun.
I'll post pics of the race and of my FD soon. Just got my 99 spec bumper and wing installed. After I replace the ecu and boost controller, I'm pretty much done. New engine, new turbos, new suspension, new brakes, RE-11 tires, and an updated, modern body. All told, I've probably sunk $30k into this car which is about what I expected. Took longer than I thought but I'm way more happy with it than with any other car I would have got with the same price. Watching the $30k luxury sports cars and the Rx8's run at the track reinforced that. BMW's were D class cars, 8's were B class. FD's are SS class, meaning I'm grouped with Lotuses and C06 vettes and 911 GT3's. Winning that division may be unrealistic, but I think the categorizations tell a lot about what the car is capable of.
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| It kind of makes me laugh how people are just writing off the Rockets and presuming LA is going to win this series. Just saw an ESPN interview of Magic Johnson and his take is the Lakers embarassed themselves. This is a series they OUGHT to be winning and the solution is for derek fisher and kobe bryant to show more leadership. LMFAO.
The Rockets are better without Yao, at least against the Lakers. Yao was decent in game 1 when they didn't front him but he was pretty useless in games 2 and 3. His +/- in game 2 was -29, the worst of any Rocket player. He simply could not get good position, Gasol usually beating him to his spots. If Yao can't establish himself in the paint, it's better for both the Rockets offense and defense to have another player who can move.
I really like the Rockets roleplayers. They're all athletic, strong, and have high basketball IQ. That combination allows them to have a defensive structure that is incredibly hard to penetrate. On offense, they have stupdendous ball movement and all the players (except maybe Artest) exercise excellent judgement when it comes to shot selection.
I'm reminded of the Mavs Warriors series of '07. Houston is just a really bad matchup for the Lakers and it's going to take more than "leadership" to win the series. On offense, Ron Artest commands a double team, they can't guard Brooks, and Scola is just manhandling Odom. Magic Johson talked about the Lakers having better talent and how Gasol & Odom should be salivating at the opportunity to play against a Yao-less rocket team but the Rockets have Chuck Hayes and Scola. Again, Scola owns Odom and Hayes is more than enough to guard Gasol who's really a PF anyways, not a true center. Magic thinks they ought to be abusing the Rockets at the center and PF position but he has no idea how good some of these unheralded names are. Then, there's Kobe. B/t Artest and Battier, the Rockets have two of the premier wing defenders in the game. They are not going to stop him but they can force him to shoot highly ineffient shots. Even in game 2, where he shot 12-20, those were all crazy trick shots from that outside. The law of averages tells us he can't keep that up. Hence the 7-17 performance tonight.
I really love the Rockets not b/c I'm Chinese and am a diehard Yao fan but b/c Daryl Morey is like the awesomest GM ever. Using statistical analysis, he's assembled a bunch of roleplayers from late first rounders that are good enough to challenge championship caliber teams. Imagine how good the Rockets would be if they had both a healthy TMAC and Yao. It is insane.
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| Yesterday, I suffered through Sisters of the Traveling Pants. One of the downsides to having a weekly movie night and a female roommate is more often than not the female roommate picks the movie we're going to watch. One of the things I've realized after we got through it is I am seriously tired of that talky Gilmore Girls/Sex and the City-like banter females seem to be so fond of these days. I mean, seriously, do you really think those writers are as clever as they think they are? To me they're just fucking annoying.
Thank God for Friday Night Lights. I'm finally caught up on Season 3. Man, what a show. If you're not watching it, you should be b/c it's the best damn show on television and unless more people tune in, I'm pretty sure it's going to get canceled. Everything about it is not just great but extraordinary. The actors, the cinematography, the music, and, most of all, the writing--it's all top notch. I mean take season 1 for example. Jason Street, the star quarterback is paralyzed during the first episode. You think it's just to make way for Matt Saracen's coming of age story but Street doesn't disappear. They focus on his life as an invalid. That in itself is unique but then you realize life as a parapelgic is pretty fucking depressing and you wonder, two episodes in, why you're still watching something that makes you want to kill yourself. Well, you do keep watching b/c you're sucked in by a combination of how Scott Porter's uncanny charisma and the brutally honest, cogent dialogue that, not for one instance, comes across as contrived. There are less ambitious writing forays like Coach Taylor's relationship with his wife, Tammy. I enjoy that relationship--a lot. Neither of them gets cancer. Coach Taylor doesn't bang some hot underage girl. The most life changing thing they did in season 3 was talk about buying a house--but that duo is so much more interesting than the couples in tjpse other shows whose relationship is founded purely on the plot cliches whose only purpose is to heighten romantic tension. I've said before but there is beauty in the ordinary and writer Jason Katims captures it perfectly on paper. Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton, with their phenomenonal chemistry, release it from the page to you and me.
All in all, there's this freshness to the show, this novelty about it that I really enjoy. I'm not banging my head, bitching about cliched dialogue, cliched characters, cliched plot threads (unlike, say, Sisters of the Traveling Pants). There's a depth to each of those elements that I've not seen anywhere else on TV today and I love it. It feels so much like life--dizzyingly beautiful at times and terrifyingly, depressingly, empty at others. It is just a great show.
Last thing thing I'll say though it probably should have been the first thing--the show is about football but it's not really about football. What I mean by that is the football elements are definitely important (and well done) but they are only important insofar as how affect they affect this community that has made the sport its religion. I'd be wrong to claim the show wasn't about texan, high school football but it's EVEN MORE about the people who invest so much of their lives, derive so much of their worth from it. It's truly interesting watching these kids grow up in a town where their life is supposed to peak senior year of high school. It's interesting watching adults who've bought into that idea that their best lives are behind them. Last of all, it's interesting watching this coach who's under a lot of pressure to win games but also inevitably finds himself being a surrogate father to his players. That fine line b/t watching out for yourself and doing what you ought to do, doing the right thing--aren't those the choices we're faced with every day? Aren't those the small battlegrounds where the war for our own souls take place? Isn't it time we got a show that not only talks about those things but inspires us to do the right thing? That's what Friday Night Lights is.
And btw Minka Kelly is hot. 8.9/10 | | |
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