i’ve started playing Gran Turismo 4 again recently, a game which i’ve been stuck at 93.1% completion for some time now. i can’t advance past this point because i’m terrible at it and because 6.9% of the game remains unvanquished, there are several prize cars that i have yet to unlock.

enter Beka’s cousin here in Los Angeles who also owns GT4 and, perhaps more importantly, one of those cheating programs for the PlayStation 2. via the cheating device, he has successfully unlocked every single car in the game and has them all stashed away in his in-game garage. since GT4 allows trading between garages, all i had to do was access his save file from mine and then simply buy the cars i didn’t have. some two million in-game dollars later, my collection is complete but my life remains as empty as ever.

just kidding. it’s emptier. Merry Christmas.

perhaps against my better judgment, i’ve been wasting time playing a video game called “Midnight Club” on my girlfriend’s hand-held PlayStation thing. as the title may suggest, most–if not all–of “Midnight Club” takes place at night (or perhaps midnight) and involves people with more money than taste racing supposedly high-powered cars with comically large chrome wheels on city streets.

the graphics are rather ho-hum, the characters are unbearable, the opposing cars have all been modified to look as ugly as possible and the slapstick physics are frustrating but, amazingly, i don’t mind. it’s alright, actually. it might even be fun.

well, it’s fun until you lose the same race for the 28,673th time. then it becomes the focus of all the hostility and bitterness that you didn’t even know you had. i hate this game. i loathe it.

now if you’ll excuse me, i have a Mitsubishi to pimp out.

what worries me most about the increasing levels of realism in video games is that my brain sometimes briefly mistakes real life for simulation. sometimes i’ll catch myself wondering if i could survive a particular jump, steal a particular car or, after a night like tonight, fight the urge to drive home like my hair’s on fire because i had just spent the last few hours sitting behind a leather-wrapped steering wheel, six speed gated shifter, three pedals, and a great big television.

finally got to play Gran Turismo 5 Prologue last night. the eye candy is definitely a step ahead of Gran Turismo 4 with the advanced Playstation 3 hardware and high definition output. also, the new cockpit view makes me very, very, happy.

well, it’s time to start saving up.

because i can.

Nike One 2022 at Cathedral Rocks, Yosemite

teaching an old dog new tricks.