Two Cars that Have Seen Too Much Coverage

The first car that has seen more than its fair share of coverage is the exclusive and limited-production 2011 BMW 1 Series M Coupe. I complain about this in the first place because fewer than 1,000 of these bad boys will ever be produced.

So why cover such a car? To get fans all riled-up? To inspire readers to take standard 1 Series models and convert them to the more aggressive-looking 1 Series M? I plainly don't get the purpose of the media's coverage of the car. Could it be the garish orange that graces almost every model you see the media types driving like they stole it?

Either way, some publications such as Road & Track, Car and Driver and Motor Trend have produced reviews of the car. I find this totally illogical. The chances of you even getting a chance to maybe even see this car are very unlikely. For all the public knows, these cars may be a mythical creation of the media and BMW's PR in order to rejuvenate enthusiasm in the brand.

This car is treated as if anyone could go out and purchase today. Or that they're readily available at BMW dealerships. They're not. They're extremely rare and hard to find. So while making a review for a unicorn is great and all, it's useless.

But don't it look pretty?

Next is the Nissan Juke-R, which isn't even being released, ever. Hence me not assigning it a year. So why are publications like Autocar giving it reviews?! I cannot provide an adequate answer.

In the same way that the 1 Series M takes all the quick bits and pieces from its older brother, the M3, the Juke-R takes the go-fast parts from the Nissan GT-R. So again, like the Bimmer, the Juke goes a lot faster than its platform is intended to. Meaning, the car is extremely impractical.

It is the size of a GT-R. Yet it doesn't look like a GT-R, go like a GT-R, handle like a GT-R, but it eats fuel like a GT-R. So in a sense, Nissan have taken all the good parts, and reduced their inherent goodness, put them into a tiny Juke, and ingeniously incorporated all the bad parts along with it. I'm almost convinced it's wise for Nissan not to release the Juke-R to the public, they couldn't handle its raw power and its lack of handling due to its high center of gravity and worse aerodynamics thanks to the people-carrier intent of the original car.

In fact, the Juke-R weighs 150 pounds more than the GT-R, paired with its worse aero, rendering even worse gas mileage. So it really is a black sheep.

The Fast and the Furious (1955): The Slow and the Cheerful

I recently watched the original The Fast and the Furious film and cannot begin to describe how disappointing it was. For the 2001 film to share the namesake is a travesty in itself.

The acting is dreadful and melodramatic. The cinematography is amateurish and unwieldy. The plot lacks common sense, and one plot line "magically" leads to another.

To give you a gist of the film, a vigorous man, a beautiful, young woman and a generously proportioned man find themselves in a cafe. The larger man offers the vigorous man a ride in his truck. He declines the ride as well as to exchange his name. The lady working at the cafe goes to retrieve the pineapple juice requested by the young woman, and the stern man knocks the fat man out. Suffice to say, the man of the vigorous persuasion goes to take the woman with him on a number of escapades, running from the police.

Throughout the film, it is revealed that the angry man has committed murder which is why he's running. The woman has a race to go to, but the man wants to go to Mexico to run away. Conveniently, the race is near the Mexican border.

But, because this film was produced in 1955, and men of that era had insurmountably large egos, it was concluded, rather logically, that woman could not partake in this race. So the man does driving the woman's car instead. Misogyny at its finest.

This film's plot is so ham-handedly thrown together that I don't care to give much more thought nor effort to describing it.

I had such high expectations for a film that shares the name with my favorite. I suppose Universal Pictures used the name because the public forgot how the horrible film the original was, owned the rights to the name or thought the name was markedly more evokative than any result of a word-combination game their marketing team could come up with using dart boards and post-it notes.

Do not see this film. You will thank me while you are not watching it, and say to yourself, "Wow, almost anything is better than not seeing that horrible movie!"

Porsche 918, Almost Here!

Here is an interesting article of how Porsche seeks to reinvent the supercar using electric technology to supplement combustion engines. This results in better fuel economy, lighter weight, higher performance and better weight distribution. All of which contribute to Porsche's new 918 to improve on the road as well as the race track.

This article notes that the German auto manufacturer will change the face of the automotive industry. The 918 can be selected to run solely on electricity, with only combustion or on electricity in conjunction with combustion power. For the automotive layman, this means better MPGs due to reduced weight. The car is currently in production, as evidenced by the incomplete body panels, and is slated to go on sale on Sep. 18, 2012.

Pardon the absurdly large images. Don't thank me, thank Jalopnik!

Source:

http://jalopnik.com/5894878/a-ride-in-the-worlds-first-plug+in-hybrid-supercar

Car Brake Manufacturers are like Snake Oil Salesmen

I have been on the hunt for the ideal (1) big brake kit, (2) rotor or (3) pad set up for my 1985 BMW 323i track day monster that will feature an S54 engine from a BMW E46 M3. Suffice to say, I need more than the OEM brake set up to deal with the extra (333hp) power.

I tell you, brake manufacturers are like snake oil salespeople.

There is not one definitive answer to be found anywhere. No objective means by which to measure one brake set up versus another. All brakes have to do with are word of mouth, and trusting one brand over another due to a number of factors like advertisement, branding, sponsorships, racing application, etc.

It is a minefield ready to strip you of your precious cash. As a teen, I have little of it to spend.

And as a college student, I have even less time to spend doing all this research.

And what's more, there appears to be no one reliable source by which to rely upon for consumer advice. Here I am, completely befuddled if I go with Brembo, StopTech, Wilwood, AP Racing, PFC, EBC, DBA, Hawk, Baer or Powerslot. Who am I to trust? The brands I've been told to trust? Or the brands I have a gut feeling to trust? It is senseless.

My intended application for these brakes go like this, intense club racing and autocrossing, and occasional street driving from event to event. So that means I need a fade-free pad that does not make excessive noise for road use. I would prefer a slotted rotor, because I hear those dissipate heat more effectively. However, I hear drilled do the same. And yet at the same time, I also hear drilled have a higher tendency to crack. To make matters worse, I have been told on Bimmerforums.com to ditch any worry about it and simply go with blanks. (I really know I should go with slotted because they don't crack and manage heat dissipation best, I mean, they are used by the pros).

Brake manufacturers are like snake oil salesmen because they will stop at nothing to deceive you. They are fully willing to take advantage of you precisely because there is [seemingly] no governing body nor regulation in place to keep companies honest about their products. They must be saying to themselves as they make off with your $1.5k, "Good luck getting them to work, buddy!"

Watch as this fine man tells you pretty lies. He does well, doesn't he?

It is becoming harder and harder to distinguish rip-offs from credible brands as well, which makes finding a good brand harder as well.

I was not expecting this to be a headache and a half.

In fact, I could be well satisfied with likely the most widely trusted brand, Brembo, and call it a day. But I am not. "Why," you ask? For I do not wish to be suckered by the big, name-brand company to shell out $1,500 that may do nothing more than look cool. I reason this because Brembo's primary market is posers who want to enhance the appearance of their car.

After all, I could get away with spending less than half of that on EBC pads, and DBA slotted rotors and perhaps stop even quicker than big-name Brembos or StopTechs.

I know what I need most of all. That is a reliable outlet than can review these products which have otherwise been purchased based on dodgy consumer advice from other message board users. I need experts to go to the track and find out the cream of the crop, no "ifs", "ands" or "buts." They do it for cars already, why can't they for auto parts?!

No advertising BS. I need unadulterated product reviews. There is a clear lack of auto product review sites out there, and somebody could go fill that void and make a killing!

JDM Lowrider Subculture

Recently, a whole subculture of "slammed rides, yo!" has been brought to my attention (in rather a stylish fashion). The once-totally unbeknownst to me hobby of capturing the beauty of cars by emphasizing their colorful paint schemes, their low ride; camber, wheels, and the closeness between tire and wheel arch.

Here are some choice examples of cinematographic glory. (Quality cinematography is one of the few reasons I'm willing to sit through Top Gear USA's drivel).

I'm a sucker for a great camera angle!

Addicted to well-placed lens flares!

Look at that! Man o' man! And listen how well they capture that exhaust note from that E36 M3!

(Above) has to be one of the best videos! I think that's the single one that got me hooked looking from link to link, subscribing to more and more YouTube channels, scouring day-in, day-out... Yes, I'm an addict.

The Saint John's Mentality

It seems the people I went to grade school with continue to hold their prejudices against me. Ten years ago, I transferred to a new grade school called Saint John of the Cross. Right off the bat, my peers were noticeably more snobby than my former, [seemingly] lower-income classmates of the year before. I had never experienced such an uphill battle with meeting friends before. The girls were stuck up, the boys had already formed their impenetrable groups, and there was no way of reconciling either without completely conforming. I was reluctant to do so.

Yet I believe to this day, even if I had attempted to alter my interests to theirs, I never would have received full acceptance. Partly because of my name (it was not Irish, and nor was I), where I lived (which was not in the tiny, encapsulated village of ignorance known as Western Springs), I did not have any older siblings, and I was shy and unfunny. So unsurprisingly, my experience was rocky. Although this flies in the face of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X's pursuits of yesteryear, ethnic discrimination is alive and not well publicized.

I may have never been approached with open arms because I transferred in, and the same goes for my high school experience.

My point then is, incredibly people that attended Saint John of the Cross with me behave just as stiffly as they did over ten years ago. Back then, they would never invite me to their houses, now they never spark up conversation that is more than slightly meaningful in any real way, or invited me to any parties. They are the same, overly privileged suburbanite elite that will ever let more than a few into their highly exclusive social circles.

I'm about to say "screw you" to any reunion with Saint John of the Cross.

What the World is Becoming: According to the Internet

The world is in total disarray. People don't believe in anything anymore. People are growing up skeptics, unhappy hedons who want nothing else but a lower drinking age, to have sex with whomever they may please, legalized drugs, to be removed from any sort of religious or cultural obligations and to access all media free. This emphasis on pleasure will yield unambitious individuals in society and result in a loss of ethical values. Technology will progress in accordance with the law of diminishing returns, and eventually plateau for this betrayal of goal-seeking behaviors.

The only arbiters productivity and advancement of society are those who disdain from said shallow activities. As society gives the norms of yesteryear a greater metaphorical middle finger as time goes on, and deliberately rebels, more are encouraged to join the revolution. And this is for worse. Little do people realize is that when they pursue unethical behaviors, the will go along a downward spiral of mediocrity, never advancing. Aldous Huxley predicted correctly in his novel, Brave New World, only in ours, soma can be equated to drugs, sex, alcohol, and a lack of order. It appears only the destruction of all establishment will satisfy the constantly complaint-laden cesspool of individuals who make up modern society.

Today, people don't live in the moment, they don't live to find love, or live a virtuous life. Rather, they live solely to experience pleasure.

Inspiration: http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Atheist

Do We Want Ditsy Female Hostesses on Video Game TV?

G4TV has essentially been gamers’ only resort for gaming-related programming for nine years now. As far as I can remember, it flew in the face of the corny and overly enthusiastic direction of GamePro TV and the more game show-emphasis of Nick Arcade that predate me.

Even in the early days of G4TV, the station had a vast array of very compelling content, with the late-night trailer reel of Cinematech, the incredible documentary series Icons, Judgment Day with the charismatic Tommy Tallarico and Victor Lucas, X-Play with its brutally-honest reviewing style, and the very informative, but not-so-in-your-face Screen Savers.

All the programming then looked to gamers with a certain degree of reverence and dignity. It was conceived with the understanding that the viewers are “nerds”, “geeks”, or technology enthusiasts in general, that they have habits that the normal human being does not, and that that difference was acceptable in society.

But perhaps that was not enough. Or, the hardcore gamers that viewed G4TV were not numerous enough to produce numbers that would sustain G4 in its current state. Then by 2006, according to Variety magazine, “G4 is evolving into a lifestyle channel, peppered with videogame culture, as opposed to wall-to-wall games." And this was evident, as this shift coincided with G4’s new logo, as well as a whole host of different non-gaming programs, which personally disappointed me. I can recall turning on G4 time and time again, hoping that I just might tune in at the time when something at least vaguely tech related was being aired.

Perusing G4TV.com can reveal the swath of shows that marred G4 for many. These started out with minor changes, but then G4 must have noticed a spike in ratings, and amped up the emphasis on non-gaming programs. These included meat-head shows like Ninja Warrior and Cops at first, but it all went downhill from there and progressively became more and more meat-headed in nature to include “shows” like The International Sexy Ladies Show, Cheaters, Web Soup, It's Effin' Science, That's Tough, Whacked Out Videos, and Wired for Sex.

The station was clearly pandering for viewers and this was to the detriment of their programming and their audience’s respect. Who are they trying to appeal to? Jocks? Bros? Brojocks? Douchebags? It seems the latter is true anyway.

They tried to appeal to too many personalities at once, that is for certain. Maybe this is the result of “jocks” vastly outnumbering “nerds” in society, and thus, an inevitability of mainstream entertainment culture to wholly engulf niche entertainment culture. Or even “nerds” increasingly using the internet as a resource to view content, whereas “jocks”, or at least their similarly shallow adult selves to continue to prefer entertainment on television. All of this is speculation, however, as I’m grossly generalizing “jock” and “nerd” culture, and ignoring any potential interaction or cross-pollination that may occur.

The internet is an important point though, as it appears television programming is a relic that is no longer revered in as high esteem as internet-driven forms of entertainment. I do not doubt that a considerable portion of G4TV’s viewership was lost due to the internet, which in part explains the channel’s current web presence.

So after all this involved self-discourse, I find myself right where I started with my title, “Do We Want Ditsy Female Hostesses on Video Game TV?” I got the idea for this title from watching Attack of the Show, the more in-your-face successor to the much beloved Screen Savers. With the rolling cast of Maxim models, and otherwise meathead heart-throbs, going in and out of AOTS, do we, or for that matter, did we ever come to watch G4TV as what was supposed to be a video game-centric channel to watch generally unintelligent and completely ignorant “babes” deliver news and issue completely anecdotal reviews on technology?

Let me answer that one for you, probably not. G4TV was popular because it was the only channel available that solely focused on video games and the industry. Now, we as gamers have virtually no where to go should we want to watch video game-related programming, unless we are willing to remain beholden to the station’s limited show spots like X-Play, and AOTS to an extent (although the bro-mentality has leaked into AOTS to an extent as well).

Do Candace Bailey, Sara Underwood, Kristin Adams, Olivia Munn, or Layla Kayleigh really have a passion for games? The prospect of this being true seems doubtful. It appears as if they were brought aboard for no other purpose than for their eye-candy value. This, along with the numerous other decisions like to increase the number and length of commercial breaks lost me as a regular viewer. I don’t see why Sarah Lane and Morgan Webb were not enough, and I doubt that they are the only truly tech-savvy female hosts that aren’t an eyesore to look at.

G4TV, why did you drop so many excellent shows, and add so many horrible ones?! There already exists a place for shows like that, and it’s called Spike TV!

Is the “Death of the PC” a Real Question Anymore?

It seems like it was just yesterday that the life of the PC as a viable gaming platform was being challenged. This was all the way back in summer, when all we heard were of rampant studio closings in which piracy was cited as a primary cause of lost sales. But gamers fought with their keyboards, arguing on message boards that they ordinarily would not purchase the given game regardless, even though we know through the numbers of pirated games that it was getting to the point where fans of a series would pirate even their most beloved titles.

Since then all that has been forgotten. All it took was for the consoles to gradually dilapidate in terms of graphical fidelity to the point at which PCs have once again become the preferred system of choice thanks to custom optimizing as well as the constantly evolving nature of the machine.

Now, rather than hearing about another Midway or THQ studio shutting down due to piracy, we hear of how much “better” Battlefield 3 is on PC, or that Skyrim on PC is “the way to go.” It stands to reason that until the next generation of consoles are released, the PC will remain the dominant way to play.

The PC has always had many things going for it, like the mouse and keyboard set up, its overall inexpensiveness, being able to mod at one’s will, free-to-play games, more indie games, Steam, a more mature multiplayer community, LAN gaming, being able to alt+tab out of a game to multi-task, not to mention that the PC makes a hell of a better Word Document machine than does an Xbox 360, and yet the 360 can’t even do half the things the PC can! So why even shell out upwards of $400 for the Xbox 1080 coming in 2013? Kinect 2.0? I think not.

With a PC, you can, for much less, progressively modify it to your specific needs and have a much better, and much more economical experience. (Thanks to Steam’s regular deals and free-to-play games, not piracy, you goon!)

I don’t believe the PC as a gaming platform is being put to question any longer, and for good reason.

Long live the PC!

Infinity Blade II: The Definitive Handheld Game

Infinity Blade II for the iOS platform is a deceivingly hardcore game. From the onset, you are presented with an easy, straight path that makes you wonder what all the fuss is about and why Infinity Blade II costs $6.99. But after completing this, numerous other paths are unlocked, making Infinity Blade II a whole lot more expansive. It doesn’t hurt as well that the enemies at each juncture are constantly being rearranged or new ones are being thrown into the mix.

The gameplay at first seems to be run-of-the-mill hack n’ slash style combat, but after spending some time experimenting with the three different weapon types (sword and shield, heavy, and dual swords), the game’s quality amongst the massive heaps of garbage that grace Apple’s App Store truly reveals itself.

Infinity Blade II has an interesting carrot-stick balance, one that favors the carrot for which may turn off the hardest of “core” gamers. Incentives such as experience points, leveling up, gold, the prospect of new and exciting weapons are things likely to keep players coming back when on the go. The game has many reasons for gamers to continue playing even after they’ve exhausted the purported five hours of playtime available.

Its single player increases in difficulty as your character becomes stronger, you find gold bags scattered around the gorgeous Unreal Engine-powered landscapes, which can be used to purchase new weapons, armor, helmets, shields, and rings. Equipped items can be leveled up and augmented, leading to both experience and strength, defense, health, or magic bonuses. Infinity Blade II, along with being a surprisingly robust action game is also a loot-whoring game, which can provide for a surprisingly exciting gaming experience on-the-go. Fights are short and to the point, and cutscenes between one area and the next can be sped up in case you’re in a hurry.

I played Infinity Blade II on my standard iPhone 4, and it is noticeable it was intended for the iPhone 4S. The occasional hiccup has the possibility of being either slight enough to not terribly reduce framerate, or severe enough to give you the sense that you didn’t get a fair fight and can turn the tides in your enemy’s favor due to your delay in commands. All of which leads to massive frustration, and let me tell you, this game does reach a point at which it becomes very challenging (if you’re reading this, and thought it wasn’t sufficiently hard, try playing with heavy weapons only!). But Infinity Blade II is one to reward you for your persistence, and becomes only more gratifying by getting past its issues.

The block-buster app makes an attempt at providing a story to tie together the chain of enemies, but really, it boils down to generic dialogue unfittingly voiced by what are actually some genuinely menacing enemies. The story, suffice to say, is not Infinity Blade II’s calling card, nor is it the reason anyone will pick it up.

Infinity Blade II combines even more fluid combat that was present in the first game, Gears of War-quality graphics in the palm of your hands, Shadow of the Colossus-level of epic boss fights, with on-the-go gaming practicality. I dare say it is one of the most satisfying and engaging games on iOs to date. Once you play Infinity Blade II for the first time, you will be coming back for more, I assure you.