TMoney

Baldur's Gate 3 I was sick with a summer cold last week and had some time to sink in to this. I have never played Dungeons and Dragons before, but I spent the last few weeks studying up on it in order to be ready for this game. It is not often that less than halfway through something I can already tell it is going to be genre-defining. This is one of the ten best video games I have ever played and I am less than 1/3 of the way through it. Take the rock-solid systems of Dungeons and Dragons polished by years and years of iteration by great game designers as a foundation. Add a truly gigantic world with insane depth and attention to detail. Have every dialog in the game be fully motion captured and voice acted. Oh yeah, and have a PC client that looks truly stunning in HDR with everything cranked and runs smooth as silk. This feels like an all-timer. BG3 is something special and I don't give out this kind of praise lightly.

Wool - Hugh Howey. Fun book. They adapted the first half of this one in to the TV show "Silo". I do enjoy the story archetypes where they drop you in a world with lots of strange stuff where things start happening and you have to keep reading to figure out what the heck is going on.

Happy birthday, Todd!

Happy birthday, HW!

Ooof. Not a great year for Alpine. I don't blame them for changing horses as this is a results-driven sport and the executive team was not producing. A cleaning of house was not unexpected. Also thank you, F1, for putting another crappy Saturday sprint on so I can skip watching it. I just don't know who enjoys these. Compared to a high stakes Saturday Quali there just isn't close to the same intensity.

Happy birthday!

Well this is a new one. I was right about to get on the Golden Gate Bridge on my way to see Paramore (bought the tickets last year) and they cancelled the show... 30 minutes before the doors were supposed to open! Only reason I wasn’t already down there and parked is because I had planned on skipping the openers. Chase Center sits 20,000. I imagine I’m not alone in feeling pretty pissed off. Oh well, shit happens. Hell no I’m not going to the make up date. They can refund me. https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/music/paramore-postpones-chase-center-show-two-hours-before-concert

It is hard to understand what fault lies with the drivers, what with the car, and what with the strategy, but things haven't been going great lately. https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/37994260/daniel-ricciardo-back-f1-alphatauri-nyck-de-vries-out Brent must have had a biscuit today because that clown Ricciardo is back.

Complete disaster for my Alpine boys this weekend. Not only did both cars DNF (Ocon’s car broke, Pierre and Stroll collided), our rivals, McLaren, seem to be back in business. Otmar better get things turned around quick or the guillotines will start coming out!

Threw this back on. Damn this album rocks. We miss you, Grimes! Time for some new music!

Happy birthday, Jose!

Happy birthday, Viking Lord!

Seems like some lap one drama between the Bulls, but otherwise I think this sprint day sucks. Get rid of it. It is just a shittier version of quali and the big race. They are always going to save tires for the big race and try not to take chances. Is it more fun than FP2 and FP3, sure, but I don't like it.

Happy birthday to HC's biggest fencing enthusiast!

Lovely NYT article on the "Dark Side of the Rainbow:" https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/06/21/magazine/dark-side-of-the-rainbow-pink-floyd-wizard-of-oz.html Gonna watch it myself tonight. Thanks, YouTube!

Romain goes stupidly fast in the electric Ford van to set the second fastest time yesterday at Pikes. The straight line speed of this thing is absurd.

$200 for an all day festival pass with a ton of bands? Seems fair to me. I don't know?

Hail to the chief for he is the chief and he needs hailing!

Happy birthday, Kerry!

Looks amazing! Something like that makes a hell of a lot more sense to me after finally getting out on track. My dream track/autocross car would be a used Cayman, but the cost-to-run and amount of aftermarket parts available for the Miatas is hard to argue with. The Spec Miata racer guys are also crazy. I've watched them out on track and their passes are so aggressive! Maybe some day if I move somewhere where I can have a garage.

Amazing author. I am a fan. Blood Meridian is my college roommate's favorite book. RIP.

Yes. Thinking the same thing. The other Macan at the track towed a Miata race car. He may be on to something.

I survived my first HPDE track weekend with the Audi Club up at Thunderhill Raceway. What a cool track. Way out away from the Bay Area but lots of interesting elevation changes. Coming over the hills on some of the blind corners requires guts when you can't see what is ahead of you. My goodness, that was fun. I was so glad to have explored my limits and my car doing autocross before getting out there on the big track with other drivers. Knowing what my tires and brakes can and cannot do helped a lot. Audi Club was really accommodating to us first timers. Only the most advanced drivers and the instructors are allowed to go out solo. Every one else has an instructor riding along in the right seat. I really enjoyed the coaching and we were able to pick up pace each session out there. Unlike autocross, you get a ton of seat time doing HPDE. There were 4 26-minute sessions each day split between the morning and afternoon. 26 minutes goes by in a blink when you are locked in and focused. Driving on a race track at pace... oh my god is it fast. I was very nervous to start and only started to relax after a few sessions. Driving in traffic on track was also new to me. The speeds you can get up to out there are no joke. I hit 130 on the front straight before I started to be a bit more judicious and easy on my brakes by coasting a bit once I hit triple digits. I used to wonder how people memorize all the corners, but after two days on track and a bunch of study time I could recite them from memory with my eyes closed. Lots of fun... also very expensive. I bought a full track day policy just in case, and my tires and brake pads are pretty well used up and will need to be replaced this week. They call them consumables for a reason, but the butchers bill from my mechanic shop is not going to be pretty. Can't wait to get back out there in the fall!

^ When?

Bully - Lucky For You What can I say? I'm a sucker for alt-pop. I dig her sound and I'm excited to dig through her back catalog. I guess I missed my chance to see her on tour as she was opening for the Pixies who I think have already come through town.