No sense bothering with an intelligent introduction; let’s just jump right in. “http://www.granturismoworld.com/” target=”gt4″>Gran Turismo 4 is super. After making it home yesterday, i took just a moment to switch cars (it was only appropriate to drive the Z to the mall to pick up the quintessential racing game – plus it was 60 degrees and i’m getting started on my tan early this season) and raced (not quite literally) to the mall to rescue my preordered copy from the confines of EB Games’ locked display case. In keeping with the theme of today’s blather, i took yet another second on the way out the door to stuff the GBA in my pocket – playing Mario Cart while waiting in line helped keep me in a driving state of mind.

Despite boring Danielle – she was over for the evening – i of course had to pop in the GT4 disc right away. Some small snafus finding enough space on a memory card for the new game save, but once that hassle was behind me, the ooh’s and aah’s could begin. The game is very pretty, and sounds very nice, and is just generally about as shiny and appealing as a Porsche showroom dipped in chocolate sauce. 700 cars, beautiful scenery, and so much realism to the tuning and tweaking of your cars that it makes my head spin.

Now although the online play feature didn’t make it into the release, there is a LAN play feature that would let you play against another PS2 in your home network. Neat, you say. But what if your home network were to, say, span the entire globe? Do tell. Sounds crazy but totally possible, thanks to XLink Kai, some crazy brits that are experts at network routing trickery and the foolery of console LAN games. Not to leave anyone out, their software will support XBox and GameCube networking, too – and even the PSP (for the true early adopters). It basically uses your computer as a software router and grants you access to an international group of, in this case, fellow GT4 release-day junkies. Def going to try that out. Oh, and as all good things to be found on the internet are either ridiculously expensive or free… this is free.

In between retina-burning marathons behind the wheel of my highly-modified green 89 virtual 300ZX 2+0, sometimes it’s good to work something out on paper. Like maybe an artisitic interpretation of 8-bit Super Mario created with post-it notes in honor of Engineering Week. Very cool, kudos to those kids at UCSC, and to 3M for making black post-its for just such an occasion. For my celebration, i’ll be giving my opponens pollicis a heavy workout.

Just trying to keep myself entertained here… if i accidentally waste some of your time, too, well, bonus for you! Yes, it’s another exciting saturday at work; 12 hours of talking to myself, clicking reload on Gmail and my RSS feeds, and otherwise suffering from social withdrawal. The busy days go by pretty quickly, but busy saturdays are really not that frequent, and since i do this every week i’m at least getting better at finding things to amuse myself.

Sometimes the best way to deal with something is to look at it in a different way. It gets very claustrophobic in here sometimes, in a room saturated with white noise and lacking even reflected sunlight, much less a live window to the rest of the world. As i can’t really leave the building, either, it becomes quite a steel-and-carpet prison. Today i decided to explore my cage and focus not on the walls and key-card doors that hold me in, but on the vantage those 5 floors of cinderblocks provide me over the byways below. As such, i’ve composed a small photo gallery of a sunny saturday afternoon as seen out the (apparently infrequently cleaned) windows of my office building, at least from the vantage points i could negotiate via conference rooms, hallways, and the like.

I am not always in the mood to approach things so poetically. Sometimes it’s nice just to throw money at your problems and see if that makes them go away. Enter, the GBA. ‘Member, we talked about this last week? Well, ebay is both my deliverance and my defeat… one impulse buy and 7 days later, and i’m holding a blue Game Boy Advanced SP. Used, of course – my powers of rationalization have their limits. My first impressions are that it’s awesome, and that it’s teeny-tiny and so very portable. It’s going to fit right in with the other toys that find themselves crammed in my pockets. A small selection of used games will keep me happy for awhile (notice my classy game case there, too?) and so far it has eased the passing of time quite remarkably today, and will – i predict – earn a permanent spot on my top-ten-things-to-pack for trips of pretty much any length, be they cross-continent or simply to ghetto Albertsons for cookies.

As is nearly always the case, the camera-to-computer data offload produced a few images i’d forgotten about, so here’s a bonus shot from monday the 14th of snow falling out my front door. I was all excited, hoping it marked the beginning of a major weather pattern change. Perhaps it was a Valentines Day present from mother nature? Alas, it was a cruel tease; it melted faster than Micheal Jackson’s nose in a tanning booth. Any affections i may have held for mother nature are completely withdrawn; we are so totally on a break.

Well, i guess that all depends, doesn’t it? On what you’ve hugged… and what you consider art. I like to think my definition of art is pretty broad, including things that you can hear, touch, see, smell and even taste. But since we’re on the internet here, you’re not going to be smelling any art today, unless you’re already holding a particularly fragrant cup of coffee or your office is also in Pioneer Square (i didn’t say it was *good* smelling art). Same goes for tasting any art over the internet… although that may not be too far away. And let me tell you, when they perfect tiramisu-flavored paper and chocolate ink… well, i might just have to invest in a printer. But no, today you’re just gonna see some art. Yes, i totally skipped hearing in there… but i try not to browse noisy sites at work, so i’m not going to inflict any on you.

Let’s start with something classic, something timeless… like MC Escher. You all had the poster in your room… or was i the only mathelete? Hmm… well, they were in your geometry book regardless, usually in black and white. I think they look pretty good spiced up in color, especially in one of my all-time-favorite artistic mediums, legos. This isn’t just a fluke – this dedicated Lipson gentlement has reproduced several works in cheery yellow-faced legoland. Quite the treat for the eye… and the mind! Also, makes me want to go browse the diminutive bricks aisle at Target; legos have gotten so cool!

Legos aren’t the only toys from my childhood that i’d happily regress to playing with if i could only find a way to make money doing it. Remember Transformers? Sigh… wish i had kept them. I had the original Optimus Prime, man! Anyway, i think they’re neato… but this wacko artistic guy built himself transformable wearable halloween costumes to mimic his favorite interchangeable plastic car-men. Next time you’re going to make fun of me for my binary digits clock… just think about all the things i *don’t* do with my free time… yeah.

Lest you think i’m engrossed only by math and plastic toys, let’s delve into some cute, fuzzy art over at the Infinite Cat Project. The idea here is a random one; this guy had a picture of his cat on his computer, right? And he caught his cat looking at said picture on the monitor, and took a picture of the curious furball. So it’s a picture of his cat, looking at a computer featuring a picture of a cat. And then he gets all crazy and artistic and starts building a recursive tunnel of cats looking at this picture… just go look at it, rather than wait for me to explain it.

And then there’s some art that just makes you sick. Not cause it’s bad or anything… just cause that’s what it does. The internet is full of this sort of thing – i’m not sure if it’s the digital medium or the mentality of the online masses that makes it so pervasive, but nausea-art seems to definitely have taken a rise thanks to the good ‘ol www. Okay, i’m warning you… plant both feet firmly, sit straight in your chair, and set down the gin and tonic for just a moment. If you’re already shaky on your drug of choice today… you might want to save this one for later. Okay… click.

Well, i need some fresh air after that. Oh, i almost forgot, we still haven’t discussed some art that you can touch. Feel free to rest your head against the monitor as you click on that last one again… or just thump your head on the glass. Your choice. :)

Didn’t think i had anything interesting to say today… i got all logged in and typed nothing for a couple hours, then gave up. I mean, i guess i could have lamented how completely lame our weather has been, granting us absolutely zero snow and keeping the Summit closed with a whopping 12″ of base. Suck. Yeah, i guess i could have talked about that. But’s it’s just all too depressing.

But then, i found something to get me all excited… a way to rationalize buying a Gameboy. No, not one of the new DS (dual screen) models – not that i’d reject it if the UPS driver left it on my door – but one of the older, more affordable GBA‘s. See, i can be realistic…

I mean, it’s not like there aren’t already hundreds of reasons to get a GBA – 1000 actually – but i just found a new and semi-useful one. TurboXs has a kit – cartridge, special cable, velcro(?) – that turns a GBA into an auto tuning tool and multi-gage. How totally cool. It’s called the TXS DTEC and they’re creating plugins for fuel management as well as every engine gauge you can think of. And when i’m not tweaking with the car, it doesn’t affect the GBA’s potential for entertainment, either – it will still work just like normal so i can pretend it’s winter playing SSX Tricky or SSX 3, or simply take out my frustration at our disheartening weather by stealing some cars and blowing them up. Now if only that tax return would hurry up and get here, so i could start looking for Gameboys on ebay…

So, i was all set to order a set of rims next week… Kazera KZ-A’s, with Kumho rubber. They’re nice rims, OK weight (22lb for 18/8.5 on the front, 25lb for 18/9.5 on the rear). The silver finish is pretty good, polished lip. Overall, a pretty nice set of wheels, with the cheapest rubber i can live with, so my Z will look sexy for the summer. Here’s some visual aids:

Nice looking rims, right? Clean, simple look, quality reports have been good. And once i file my taxes next week, i should be able to afford them (almost – but only a month or two on the CC and they’d be legit). Or (heaven forbid) i could even wait the month or two and buy them with cash (huh? wha? i’m confused… how does that work?) Tirerack has them in stock, and they’d even mount and balance them for me (for free). So, what’s the problem??

This is the problem:

The SSR (Speed Star Racing) Professor SP-1
Just a moment while i wipe up the drool, before it ruins my keyboard.

I could get 18/18.5′s in the front, and 18/10′s in the back. (That’s hot.) They’re real 3-piece, so pretty much whatever offset i want (translation: huge sexy dish and they’ll still clear the brakes). They’re crazy light: about 18 lbs on the front, about 21 in the back. That’s on a 10″ wide 18 people! The hypersilver (also called super black chrome) finish pictured above is absolutely beautiful. If you recall the ADR’s i sold to Clint, you know the finish i’m talking about. Mile-deep shine. My mouth is watering again just thinking about it. They are hot, too hot. I drool over them. I lust after them.

They are $1000 more than the Kazera’s – literally twice the price.

SSR filed for bankruptcy protection this week. Although that means different things for a Japanese company than a US one (the govt will likely bail them out) it does shed some doubt on their future… ie: could i still get these rims in a year? Maybe not. No one sells them used. Apparently they take them to the grave, or something. I know i would.

Okay, so we’ve established that the SSR’s are the clear choice for the straight-pimpin, deep-dish-flashin, five-spoke-lovin brand whore such as yours truly. Where does that leave me? I either need to marry into money… or i need to make more myself. Which brings us to my topic (finally, i know). If i want to roll with the big boys this summer, i need a side job. Prostitution is not an option, as we all know i already troll north aurora on weekend nights trying to get picked up by strangers, and so far that has not made me rich (although it has left me with lots of funny stories and a few scary flashbacks). I currently work wed-thurs-fri-sat. They are 12 hour shifts, so moonlighting is out. I really think i need sundays off (plus sundays are autocross day ;). So that leaves monday and tuesday. Options…

1 – temp work. I’m going to talk with some agencies next week, but i’m not sure if they’ll have mon-tues-only gigs very often.

2 – contract work. Believe me, i’m bleeding this turnip as dry as i can, but everyone i know is gagging for tech work, so the referral mill is not really churning them out.

3 – part time job. Might be a good idea to do something that makes me money twice. That is, that saves me money on something i already buy, plus pays me. Like Starbucks. Or Schucks. I did the grocery store thing, but they always wanted me late at night, and that eventually ruined me for my day job. Plus the discount didn’t work on beer. Where else do i spend a lot of money?…. uh… Sno county PUD? Haha. Open to suggestions. Who hires people to only work mondays and tuesdays?

4 – scams and sleazy things. I’m talking the multilevel marketing, the “get rich at home licking envelopes”, the free-ipod (if you sign 10 of your friends up for a lifetime of spam)… I’m not sure there is any emperical evidence (unless you count that guy on tv with the suit covered in question marks) that there is money to be made here, unless i sold the free ipod. Which i think i’d have a hard time doing, cause if i actually did manage to betray enough friends’ privacy to get one, i’d want to keep it, since mine is all busted and stuff.

5 – sell something. I’m gonna do this anyway, but i don’t think it’s gonna make or break the deal. Anyone interested in a VG30DETT engine block? It’s only slightly used…

6 – sell myself. I mean figurately here: marketing research studies, medical experimentation… wasn’t there that ad in the paper in college where they’d pay you 200 dollars to walk on crutches for three weeks? You know, for science? I could do that. I mean, if it was for science… and 200 dollars. I wonder if i could test more than one thing at once, and come out ahead? Like video games and eyedrops? Or red wine and stain remover? Or espresso and toilet paper? Ok, we’ll just stop there.

As an added bonus to all of this, once i’ve paid for my completely sexy new wheels, i can use the extra money i make working the off-days to pay off bills, travel, or just hang out with all the new friends i’ll make rolling around with SSR’s. Really, the only downside is i won’t have as much time at home to play Gran Turismo 4 when it comes out in 19 more days… but just thinking about 10″ wide SSR’s gives me a warm fuzzy feeling that a video game cannot compare to.