The Night Drive

A friend of mine waited until 7:00 pm or 8:00 pm for the traffic to calm down along Katipunan. It is always traffic because aside from the rush of college students and some primary and secondary students going home late, Katipunan is a major route for people going home from work. Which means that around 5:00 to 7:00 pm, the traffic is heavy. Much more worrying for me who goes beyond Katipunan and reaches the junction that connects Tandang Sora and the way to Capitol Hills and that street who’s name is quite difficult to pronounce or spell “Zuzuaregi”. Both ways can bring me to Commonwealth and new traffic problems arise from there.

So last Friday, all Christmas parties squeezed in and I asked permission to bring the machine so that I will not bother my parents for fetching me late at night. Rest assured, the 12 o’clock rule will be followed. That rule means you have to be home before 12 midnight. 😀 (Sounds weird for someone who’s out of college but come to think of it, I am still living under their roof so technically, I cannot complain. 😀 Despite the car.. :D) So they let me bring the car for Friday and joy of joys, it was also my cleanup day and I can place all my things in the car with no problem, including the bike I borrowed from my brother.

Then the parties started! Almost all of the venues were inside the campus except one: AECES Christmas party. I went there just to check what is going on because I am sure, alcohol will be involved. 🙂 And yeah, there is alcohol when I went there and a lot of people who recognized me tried sharing drinks with me and were denied. I said, I will be driving tonight, I cannot afford shattering one of the headlights. Being the senior among them, they cannot force me. 🙂 So after some meeting with other people I know, my batch mate who is a teacher of these people, decided to go home at quarter to ten.

Driving alone sure is a bit lonely, especially during the night. Not even music from stereo can help as I even consider it as distraction. I was able to escape Katipunan traffic due to late driving but I was not able to escape the terror from the junction though it was moving quite at a considerable speed but still many vehicles. One thing I have noticed with driving at night is that it did not make me wonder why a lot of accidents happen during late times. The dark environment with flashy lights is the main contributor. Much more difficult in my case as my car is fully tinted as if I have super ugly face that I do not want people seeing it. Another is that vehicles tend to move faster as authorities also sleep with the night and that the only people awake are the medics and some police just waiting for emergency calls but anticipating authorities on the road, nah.

What is nice about driving at night is that, at certain parts of the route home, there are vacant roads or at least only few cars around which makes you relax a bit and because of the silence of driving alone, it can make you realize that it could be a time to think, time to work stuff out. 🙂

That is why that night, I had quite a fruitful conversation with someone. 🙂 and I am happy with it. My 2012 can end well. 🙂

My desire is going back

I stumbled on this while browsing through TAMIYA’s Japanese website:

I actually cannot afford this hobby but I’d be happy just to get one. YES! Just one unit and that would be fine. After getting one, I’ll focus on tuning. XD But to get it, I have to shave off Php 15,000 at least.

I already stopped dreaming about this expensive 1/10 scale Radio Controlled car but when this drift version of the Nissan GT-R came out, I suddenly want to get one. Especially it comes in Gun Metal Gray Color.. 😀 If only I can just get one. Just the car itself first since this comes in bits and pieces, doesn’t come as an RTR (Ready-To-Run). I really like to get one. Hohoho! This car then must cost at around Php 6K so I think I should start saving now if I still want to get this before I graduate. It’s gonna be a long term project, though. 😀

Nissan Dealership Diorama Project – Test Vehicle shots. :D

It’s been a while since I’ve focused on a hobby. Yes, I picked a new one and it’s building small-scale replicas of buildings called dioramas. I decided to build a Nissan Dealership and therefore required Nissan vehicles. The first vehicle I bought, just to see whether the scale can accomodate the market-sold car replicas, was the Nissan GT-R. 😀

As you can see, it’s far larger than the Q-steer/Choro-Q. Plus the Q-steer looks as if it’s not as serious wherein taking a Tomica would make the dealership look more realistic.The detail is also quite good despite being a Tomica on par with the matchbox and hotwheels. It’s not one of those Tomica Limited Versions that had better detailing but this cheapest line is still awesome as the important details are retained. Such as that GT-R logo on the grille.

I’m planning to get the Nissan Elgrand as well as the Nissan 370Z for the showroom area. Then I might get another set of those cars, preferably more GT-Rs and have them repainted. 😀

I’m a Tomica Collector when I was a kid and I know how nice it is to get it in this kind of packaging compared to the other competitors. It just looks rewarding. 😀

Shell-Ferrari Model Cars with real Engine sounds

Yup, I have them all~! Here’s the new set of model cars recently released by Shell. 😀

Fiddling with Photoshop

The header is already an example. 😀 😀
By the way, I now have a new header and I made it! The previous one was made by my brother, credits to him. I still have the old header. I want to retain it but it says “2008” and I cannot see the PSD file around so I have to change it since it’s 2009 already.

I’m fiddling with Adobe Photoshop for a while now and I’ve learned a lot from the basics that my brother taught me before. Now I am making designs that are quite difficult to understand (for me) from the tutorials present in the intarwebz. My favorite now are silhouettes. 😀 (as you can see from the header). But it is not a simple silhouette like black shadows, the typical ones. I was fascinated by the silhouette design used for the game “Burnout Paradise”. 😀 Now, I’m making several ones, similar to Burnout’s design. It may not be exactly the same as I am using captured images while the design in Burnout seemed to be made directly from the computer. (Weird, I can’t seem to put it in better words.) Anyhoo, here are the designs I made so far:

Need For Speed Undecover – PlayStation Portable Review

Need for Speed Undercover is the latest installment of EA’s racing chain. This time, an undercover job (obviously) will be in your hands and you shall play as a wheelman to know where the smuggled cars went. You will be under Chase Linh which is Maggie Q and plainly all she will do is talk to you. For this review, I will chop it into bits so that I will be able to cover most of the game’s aspects and I will be using the Nissan GT-R most of the time.

THE GAME ITSELF

It’s pretty much the same as Need for Speed Most Wanted because most of the time, cops will try to take you down even though you’re not speeding. What amazes me is that the cops recognize you when they see you around again. Although the cop thing is not gonna help with the race, I think the cops in this game were sharper than before. Unlike MW, the cops here appear and run opposite your car, making you stop if you don’t notice them because they will crash head on to you. Which is pretty annoying for some of us because we hate repeating and repeating the race. Other than that, rechargeable Nitrous, speedbreaker and heat levels were shifted back.

NEW STUFF

There are new stuff in the game although it might not be appreciated that much. The game itself has the largest EA world created with several highway links to three different places. In the race types, new ones were highway battle, Cop escape, Cost to state and outrun. In Highway Battle, it’s the same as a Sprint but it is “Wangan” straight with minimal traffic which makes it nice to drive around that thrash your opponent easily. Cop escape is also similar to MW except that the whole city is open for you to hide somewhere unlike in MW where you should keep on outrunning cops in one circuit. Cost to State makes you damage anything in front of you, beches, signs, cars and even cops. You’ll have to damage enough to get through to this type of race. In Outrun, you play cat and mouse with one opponent with, again, the whole city or world open to you, much like Tokyo Xtreme Racer or old Wangan Midnight games.

There’s also a new feature which Maggie Q called “In the Zone”. She said that when you are “IN the ZOnE”, your speedbreaker and nitrous will refill quicker than normal. This will also create a nitrous brake light beam effect from the back of your car and glows your tach when you are in the zone. That feature will be gone once you hit any barrier of wall. You will get the feature when you do a lot of stuff like airtime and near miss.

Another new thing is that this time, the AI is using a real life cop car which is the Nissan GT-R. Also, cops are using choppers so that it will take time before you shake them off.

Yup, definitely a GT-R. Run!

NO NEW CARS, NO NEW GRAPHICS

Yep, I think most of the cars there are apparent in previous titles and if ever there’s a new one, it is not that good although I would like to make it a point that the new Nissan 370Z is an exception, makes me wonder this car might have a bias. The Nissan GT-R and the 911 GT2 were there while there are cars being removed such as Subaru Impreza. Even though the environment has changed, the graphics didn’t. When I saw the game, I preferred the new graphics that the Need For Speed ProStreet had. It’s was back to rubbish wheel designs and reflective roads. Although there is a new type of bodykit which is named “Integrated” which makes the car look better. It might compensate to the rubbish designs of the old era but I don’t think it will compensate that much.

That’s integrated bodykit for you. (whut?!)

BAD GAME PHYSICS

It’s also the same as MW when turning. At some point you will be forced to use the speed breaker in order not to let your opponent pass you when you turn in like a stupid person because you’ll crash on a wall. I hate using speed breaker because it interrupts me looking for another button to press so that it can make me corner better. The cars tend to slide badly when you encounter jumps which is pretty annoying. It may be good because it really happens in real life but sometimes the slides were too exaggerated.

RANTS~!

The game itself is not even gonna reach satisfactory rating. One because it’s like a repeat of the MW. Another, the new features may be good but they’re not gonna lift the game up the ranks. Cars may be accessed with ease but tuning all cars will not be necessary. For example, once I got my hands in the Nissan GT-R, I tuned it up and used it all the way. I did tune the Zonda and the Porsche but I did not use them. Once you’ve tuned the high end cars, most of them have the same specs. That is why in this review, I’m just using a GT-R. The graphics suck because they kept on repeating the same design. I was expecting it to be more like the Prostreet. Prostreet cars have better reflections compared to this one. The new bodykit series is really great, I admit, it made the Evo X look better unlike the exaggerated wide bodykit for Race.

When I read reviews for NFS on PSP, I always optimistic towards the game. Like the Prostreet, I liked the damage modelling and wondered why is it not included in the latest. Why are the improvements not implemented on the new installement? I’m really an NFS fan but it seems that the interest is fading away. Right now I have NFS Prostreet because I enjoy the physics of the game and the online feature. If I played Undercover online, it will be no challenge. really.

This game is nice, in terms of its story. I admit, I liked the story more rather than the game. The story made me continue the game because I’m always interested on what will happen next. Other than than, it felt like I was back in Most wanted but this time on the side of the cops being a puppy to them. 😀

Gallery:

My Barkada’s Gift

Yep, two Choro-Qs were given to me as Christmas presents from my beloved barkada during the famous UP Lantern Parade. It was a Bayside Blue Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 and a Silver Honda NSX-R. I was planning on modifying them so that I will be able to mount them on the R/C Chassis Q-steer but I think the sentimental value of these cars led me to a conclusion not to do so. Thank you guys, I love these. Merry Christmas!

New Gallery~!

Remember my review about this collection? I was not satisfied much with the pictures I used because they were shot using Nokia N80. The new pictures were taken using Canon 400D. Jump to Hangar to find the gallery~!

New Q-steer released~!

These are now released internationally and now available at online stores. HLJ.com is now selling the QSRS series, the two Super GT GT-Rs and a new One Mat Circuit Xanavi Nismo GT-R.

Takara-Tomy Aero R/C Drift Package Light

Aero R/C was Takara-Tomy’s attempt to make an R/C in which owners can assemble and modify it themselves. However, not all countries liked it much. In the Philippines, products were pulled in and out several times just to see whether people will buy it. Now, they have produced this “D-spec” version of the Aero R/C and it is called “Drift Package Light”. It was developed with “Yokomo”, an R/C drifting specialist company. The chassis now has drifting tires, camber adjusted wheels and four wheel drive for drifting. Just a bit of information, R/C needs 4WD for drifting unlike the one in real life. This was actually a big hit that even Philippine Micro R/C enthusiasts chase after this drift version series. One vehicle costs around Php 2000 and if you’re after the realistic series where two vehicles are currently available, an Ae86 trueno and Re Amemiya’s RX-7 D1GP, a reasonable addition of Php 200-300 pesos would be added. Sounds interesting as many hobbyists are really into dissecting this piece of excellent work. 😀