Source.

My front and rear strut braces came in. The front is some variation on the 3sx brace. The rear is a Cusco. It was cool to see the 'GTO' labeling on the paperwork, though I couldn't read the strangely extensive install instructions.

Luckily the Cusco bolted right on so I was spared having to learn Japanese. The front brace took an unfortunate amount of extra work. The bolt holes were a few millimeters too narrow and had to be filed out. And my battery tie-down required some modification to jive with the new suspension component.

The rear brace didn't too much in the Celica, other than look cool. But there are a few differences here, namely the vr4 rear wheels drive, bear weight, and steer. Oh well, I don't have enough experience with her to really feel if there's a difference anyway.

Next on the agenda is finishing the fiber replacement panels. The m.o. here is not mangling any stock components, so I'm making new pieces to replace those that the rear brace is obstructing. Also replacing the stock stereo with my good ol' Alpine 9833 has left a sizable gap in the dash that will be paneled over.

Bret took his leave of San Diego today. So yesterday we held a small get together.

Source.

Ty downloaded some more tracks for Rock Band. My aspirations of rocking out to War Pigs were at last realized.

I recently made three gentlemanly wagers. The stakes for each was a four pack of Boddingtons.

• The first I won outright, with help from Ted and Curt. I claimed the London underground has a Cockfosters station. Indeed this is the case.
• The second bet is that should he be nominated, Barack's vice presential nominee will be John Edwards. I realize this is contrary to the traditional tactic of pairing dissimilar candidates in order to sway as many voters as possible.
• The third bet is that McCain will be the next president. This is neither an endorsement nor an expression of dissatisfaction, simply the likeliest scenario.

I was reading Thomas Hawk's blog, he's a good photographer with some worthwhile opinions.

I look at my photography like this. When I make an image it belongs to me. It belongs to me while I take the photo. It belongs to me while it sits in my camera. It belongs to me while I process it on my Mac. It belongs to me while I let it sit in an archive folder waiting to be uploaded to the internet.

At the risk of sounding chiding, this is an amusing example of the Apple demographic. So subtle, but so telling that he drops the brand name amidst so many pronouns. He even dismisses the opportunity to drop his Canon/Nikon partisanship.

Great allegory though.

More enjoyable text messages:

Up from a triple sell to a don't buy!

I was close to thinking about finding that marginally amusing, but then stopped and resolved to consider the implications of my crapping on your bed.

I bought Ferrari shoes, yeah, I'm that guy now.

Say goodbye to your tagalongs!

I figured your missed Lost because you were too busy playing Hello Kitty Adventure Island.

Super Smash Bros Brawl is pretty good. At first the game appears to be little different from the previous installment. The controls and mechanics are the same, in fact you can play with a GameCube controller. The canon of characters, moves, and levels has been preserved but with quite a few additions.

I imagine the first thing people look for is motion control, as it is synonymous with the Wii. There is none. And that is as much a relief as it is a disappointment. I dreaded the possibility of a difficult control scheme (and I don't doubt the developers experimented with more than a few) simply to exploit the Wii's trademark feature. I expected something simplistic like shaking the controller to perform an attack, as in Mario Universe. But the controls are 100% old school and that adds some approachability to the game.

Brawl highlights one major drawback to the nunchuk controller scheme; it's difficult to be consistent with the analog stick. The game requires momentary up/up-left/up-right/... thrusts but this is hard to do reliably since the nunchuk is detached. In contrast, the Cube controller is held and steadied with two hands so 'up' is always the same direction. A great many unnecessary falls can be attributed to this, but (for me) not enough to warrant using wired controllers.

The most important gameplay change is that they restored some of the flow that was lost between the original and the sequel. The original Smash Brothers featured slow, fluidic motion. In Melee the character movements became very jerky, perhaps because opponents' movement was very easy to anticipate in the previous game. But this diminished controllability - even a seasoned veteran could accidentally double tap the stick and run off a cliff. Brawl is somewhere between the two, less frustrating than the Cube version, less predictable than the N64 game.

True to the series, most of the game content is unlockable. I was gratified to find that characters, levels, soundtracks, and such could be opened just by playing multiplayer skirmishes. The new unlockable characters include Ike (Fire Emblem), Pit (Kid Icarus), Snake (Metal Gear Solid), and Sonic the Hedgehog (Sonic the Hedgehog). It's a refreshing contrast to the traditional cast of goofy Nintendo creations. If Smash Brothers were a five on the nostalgia-mometer and Melee were a seven, Brawl would be sending glass shards and mercury all over the place. Everything from the characters, items, and levels to soundtrack revivals and remixes is an acid trip to the past. Good memories (except for anything involving Luigi).
Game modes...

• Versus: The fighting game staple. Humans or AIs, online or offline.
• Classic: Haven't played it yet, I'm guessing this is either tournament style or a remake of Melee's platforming segment.
• Subspace Emmissary: An entertaining solo or co-op platformer. Offers some brief and amusing cinemas, varied levels, and a Metroid-style world to explore.
• Events: Lots of brief scenarios for one or two players. Some original content here, not just instances of normal gameplay.
• Level Builder: Haven't tried it yet, but eager.

The visuals are a definite step up from the last game. Sure I'll always wish for the Wii to have hd and better hardware, but it'd be a crime to say the game looks anything short of first rate. The levels are colorful, active, and not nearly as treacherous as in Melee. There seems to be an enormous wealth of detail to every frame.

Source.

Rides (9)

If it were 'Japanese Rides' the score would asymptotically approach a perfect ten, but as it stands, we are left with a lopsided field. The only American entry is a Corvette with a bad custom interior, and I really hoped our evil German would bring his Carrera to the streets of Hong Kong to test the rice, but no such luck.

A few BMWs did show up in the touring series, briefly, before catching fire while sitting in the pits. But if you thought rice was bland, you have spent too much time in US showrooms. On the mean streets Mong Kok with the Limies at the helm, the night was dominated by exotic spices the USDM could only read about in smuggled foreign-language auto mags full of right hand drivers with naked umbrella girls showing off muffler tips and advertisements for chest hair growth potions. But while stateside a right hand drive civic sold for 40k and enthusiasts wondered what the letters GT-R stood for, the Queen's tarmac was falling prey to viscous gangs of Lancers, Supras, FDs, and the odd R-33. Apparently the problem was so bad that a car could be impounded for running an aftermarket cup holder.

Hop across the East China Sea and the Motherland of these gears of hooliganry was pitting them against each other in sanctioned combat. The details of Japanese Touring Car series are not important, only the guest list is. Everything from the Civic up to the Prelude, the Integra and the NSX are on track at the same time. And that's all just one manufacturer. The Skyline races along with the Silvia, the BMWs catch fire next to the wankers (spanning several iterations) and the elusive green-puma-goat (now thought extinct) appears in its only English-translated film known to date.

In short, anyone who can live without chrome superchargers poking out of hood scoops and prancing horses sewn into Italian rawhide (there is a little pasta in the movie, but for Jackie Chan driving exotics see Rumble in the Bronx) the machinery included in this film will not disappoint. - EA

Thunderbolt is a sensuous montage of Pacific all-stars. And though Mitsubishi is the dominant manufacturer, Skylines and Supras are more than window dressing. The Vette and Lambo at least provide a nod to some worldwide contemporaries.

The movie could score very close to perfect were it not for one lamentable production problem. Per imdb, weather forced the race portion to be shot in Malaysia where officials were unwilling to permit a full speed event. And so the movie's scores of real race cars and real drivers were unable to demonstrate the Fine Machinery. To make matters worse, the footage was sped up in post-production to compensate for the unexciting scenes.

Finally, the favoritism bonus points for featuring a GTO are erased by the choice to race the pre-95 model when a perfectly good 95 also sat on the truck. - CR

Ging (7)

JC's love interest, Japanese Savior and Sisters-in-Peril, along with the umbrella girls, are all reminiscent of Apple's industrial design of late that is to say cute, but ultimately bland and lacking substantial features. Not bad though, good for a five or a six. The extra touch is the Cougar's angry girlfriend-lawyer-special agent. I never seem to meet the type of girl who takes the buttons off her clothes for me with the purpose of building an explosive device. But those Royal Police body searches make it hard to sneak anything in otherwise, though they are so nice to watch. It's her devotion to the job that's attractive. Yeah, that's it. - EA

Action (7)

Honestly, I'm sure the car racing scenes were entertaining enough, but I really don't recall any specific car explosion or any rage-a-moonies chase scenes that left a lasting impression. If anything, action award goes to, as expected, to Jackie Chan and his ingenious martial arts MacGyver combo scenes. The one that deserves originality props goes to the fight sequence on the bouncing dangling beach chair (which looked really fun) and the car junkyard sequence where Jackie flips and fights up and down the metal hand rail bars. - CS

The real genius of this movie is that it understands we don't need to know how the maniacal villain or unlikely hero came to be. They're well-defined roles that need no background information (see Collateral). For this reason, Thunderbolt has ample time to combine the rote, yet compelling, worlds of racing, crime, and martial arts.

While the fight scenes and street races are impressive, the aforementioned race segment is eye candy in aggravating fast forward. - CR

Authenticity (7)

There is no doubt that the movie is set and filmed in Hong Kong. The skyline is filled with lights emanating from the sky-rise buildings and glimpses of the Victoria Harbor. The short sequence of the hospital definitely has the look and feel of most Asian country hospitals; very close quarters and limited privacy provided by curtain separators - it is to be expected in a city with loads of peeps living in a small finite amount of space.

In terms of action authenticity, it gets a three. It is highly improbable to see public chaos running amok in the city. Even the Chinese mafia knows how to conceal their pummelings and brutality. Although Thunderbolt is true to most Chinese action movies where the baddies don't have the smarts to end the things quickly by using a thing called a gun. Instead, they must dual to the death with their fists of fury.

And a BMW will not spontaneously explode while idling and getting its tires changed! The absurdity of a beemer getting taken out of a race like that! The authenticity points do get some boost since one can argue that all the stunts are authentic, in that Jackie himself did each and every stunt. No Hollywood glamour or CGI effects were noticed. - CS

Again, the great race that was not to be. But let's examine the major players:

• Protagonist: Considering all the credentials I've created to get into E3, I believe a motivated junkyard owner could fake his way into the Mitsubishi performance driving academy. I also buy Foh going beyond the call of duty to keep a tow contract with the police. Then as extreme trials demand extreme measures, Jackie sells vengeful determination well. But perhaps it's a bit of a stretch for the hero to hold off a cadre of yakuza.
• Antagonist: If Hollywood, history books, and the internet have taught me anything, it's that large Germans with long blond hair are generally psychopaths. So maybe it's not too outlandish to believe that the Cougar would let his nemesis live for a rematch at the only skill in which he was bested. But like Romeo Montague and Joey McCarthy, romantics die young. It seems a feat that the Thunderbolt's very unprofessional villain has survived so long in the difficult vocation of international crime and terrorism.
• Girl: I am highly skeptical that a girl would feign attraction to a guy in order to advance her career, then change her mind in the end. - CR

One Liners (4)

"Are you going to eat, or just talk all night?" I used to enjoy the bad Chinglish dubbing in the JC kung fu movies of the 80s, but the dialog here was good enough to escape quotes sent to engrish.com, while still falling short of making it into street racing lore. - EA

Star Power (8)

Jackie Chan is the biggest of the big stars in the prime time Hong Konglywood scene. His star power is equivalent to a Harrison Ford-Steven Seagal combo in the U.S. Now one may ask, 'How can there be a Ford-Seagal mix?' Jackie has the likable personality of Ford - some humor and boyish innocence. His character also displays the quiet, low key fierceness of Seagal. First impression is that of controlled coolness, but the collected calmness expels an undertone: 'Do not mess with me'.

And, of course, both Seagal and Jackie are real-life martial artists gone into the action-busting movie business. Unfortunately Jackie is the only star in the movie. - CSThe leaderboard updated (ties split by per-category score):

The leaderboard

1. The Fast and the Furious (8): Genre-defining, quotable, unreal.
2. Initial D (7): Cult, riveting, but give us some shine.
3. Days of Thunder(7): Pretty good but not very pretty.
4. Thunderbolt (7): Over the top for better and worse.
5. Mad Max (6): Brutal action, no frills.
6. Redline (6): Fantastic if watched in a foreign language.
7. Driven (5): Succeeds in everything unrelated to cars.

tags:

car movies film movie racing review speed night thunderbolt