IndyCar at Infineon Raceway 2009

This year marked the first time since its inception that Victoria and I didn’t get to go to the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma. My brother’s wedding in Germany was a tad bit more important Through a DVR glitch (okay, I just forgot to set the recording) we didn’t get to see the telecast, either, but I dug up the final few laps on YouTube. And damn, this actually looked like a fun race! A year after a sleep-inducing pole -> victory lane routine by Helio Castroneves, this race actually had some drama and fun racing action! If you didn’t look towards the very front, that is… Dario Franchitti, uhm, won the race from the pole. Still, a step in the right direction, and a lot better than any Formula 1 racing I’ve seen recently. The “overtake button” adds some much needed action.

While we’re at it, here’s the web trailer I created for the raceway a few weeks before the event. Click to see the 720p version.

State of the Union

When I visited home last week, my dad (of all people) scoffed “Your page isn’t about anything but cars these days, is it?” Touché! There hasn’t really been a lot of content lately that didn’t revolve around Infineon Raceway, which is usually cheap content. You may have noticed some recent signs of life, but it’s been a while since I updated regularly. So I think a quick “state of the union” post might be a good idea. What’s up with me and the webpage?

The short answer is that life has been busy in the last few months. I don’t work for Factor 5 anymore, and I am taking some time to figure out what I want to do with my professional career for the next few years. That status puts me in a weird state; on the one hand, I have tons of time to do whatever I want to do, including blog posts. On the other hand, I’m busy figuring out Life, the Universe and Everything, which doesn’t leave much time for the webpage, at all.

But I want to get back into blogging soon. I’ve been thinking about a whole bunch of stuff, much of which would make for good web content. I’m a game designer at heart, and I want to make that topic the focus of this blog again. Hopefully, I’ll arrive at at least one actual posts per week on that subject, on top of a the recurring themes that were running earlier this year. Speaking of which, what’s up with…

• Beyond Belief 2008? Don’t remind me. The short answer is that the level is pretty much done, but hasn’t progressed much from the state that it was in for my beta test back in March. It still needs difficulty settings, a bunch of tweaks based on the testers’ feedback, and a complete VIS pass. Which takes roughly three days on a quad core pentium, a computer I don’t have access to right now. With everything else going on, I don’t see this being released anytime soon. But I do plan on releasing it! This level is getting comfortably close to “cannot finish something” territory, and I have never let that happen… In the meantime, I’ll send the beta version to anybody who would like to play. Just drop me a note!
• The monthly hike series? My knee happened. It’s been broken since I was 15, with recurring periods of bustedness in between. And almost 4 months ago, one of those periods started when I twisted the knee out of its socket while sleeping during the night. I pretty much wasn’t able to walk for 3+ months, let alone hike. So there haven’t been any hike posts. I did my first short hike after all this time just today, though, and as soon as I get back in shape enough Victoria and I will try to pick up the series.
• The Silent Reviews? Well, the page doesn’t look very attractive when it’s the only content appearing for several weeks, for one. And honestly, I was just running out of stuff to “review”. I’ll probably go back to the monthly snapshot posts instead.

I think that’s about it for now. Thanks for visiting, or still having me in your RSS reader! I’ll try to be more interesting again soon. Before I do that, I have at least one more racing post to get out my system, though

Winterwood Investment

Very amusing. Look at the email I found in my Gmail inbox today (it’s an obvious scam, of course):

Winterwood Investment
32 Newman Street
London ,United Kingdom
E-mail: winterwinfo@gmail.com

RE: Employment Opportunities At Winterwood Investment

My name is Bishop Gate I work with Winterwood Investment we came about your email address and your brief profile through an email listing affiliated with the US Chamber of Commerce.

This is to seek your employment as a representative to this honorable company Winterwood Investment we take delight in supplying of products such as Building materials, Toys, Amusement equipments world wide.

Presently we are experiencing difficulties in receiving payment from our overseas customers in Australia, Canada and USA. However if you are the type that like or prefer working from the house you can grab this opportunity by becoming one of our privilege directors.

Your duty will be base on clearing and receiving our due payments in your location have it noted that for every transfer to your account that is cleared or payment receive by you, you will be entitle to 10 percentage of the total sum.

If this part time employment invitation meets your acceptance indicate your interest by furnishing this office with the understated information’s:

Full Name:
Full Address:( not p.o.box):
City:
State:
Zip code:
Phone Number(s):
Fax number:
Age:
Sex:
Current job:
Email Address:

Note that your responsibility is to receive payment from our customers in Australia, Canada and USA in your account and deduct your payment of 10% and you send the balance.

Do email the above information via this email address: winterwinfo@gmail.com

Thanks as we look towards a positive response.

Sincerely,
Mr. Bishop Gate
For: Winterwood Investment

Looks like the Nigerian kings and governments are extending their business relationships into the United Kingdom and have created Winterwood Investment, an “honorable company” that “take delight in supplying of products such as Building materials, Toys, Amusement equipments world wide”. Good to know that…

• the US Chamber of Commerce maintains a huge database of Gmail addresses, including mine!
• “Mr. Bishop Gate” doesn’t have a firm grip of correct punctuation, capitalization and or basic spelling, but still wants my help.
• the official company email is on Gmail. Really, no top level domain? Maybe that’s how they got my Gmail account when signing up at the US Chamber of Commerce themselves!
• I can “grab this opportunity by becoming one of our privilege directors” if I am “the type that like or prefer working from the house”. A privilege director? Sounds important! Where do I sign up? Oh…
• there’s no request for my bank account information? I have to wait for a reply from your email address to be scammed? That sounds like too much work, to be honest.

I halfway tempted to reply to the email with some fake information, just to see what the next steps would be. But I’m too busy washing my hair today…

C64 Assembly

When I visited Germany this year I found that my mom had dug up a few of my really old computer books. The original Amiga manuals hold marginal interest to me now, but there was one book that stirs some seriously cool memories: “Commodore 64&128 – Maschinensprache für Einsteiger”. It’s a book about programming the C64 In 6502 assembly, and that’s how I spent most of 1988!

Even though I never turned into a professional programmer, my first real contact with the computer (other playing than games, of course) was programming the C64. My dad had bought the system under the usual pretense; we were going to use it for bookkeeping and other useful tasks, of course, and he even took a BASIC programming course. But in the end, it was I who got the most use out of the machine, and I used his coursework to program various simple games in BASIC myself. This all happened when I was only 9 or 10 years old, so the programs were simple. But the first ever English words that I ever learned were “if”, “then” and “print”.

A couple of years later I had met an older neighbor kid who had a few connections to the local cracker scene. That’s how I learned about this newly released book, “Maschinensprache für Einsteiger”, advertised as the ultimate way of learning to program the C64 at its core level, Assembly. My friend was all over it; so I saved my allowance, bought the book, and found myself programming C64 assembly when I was about 12 years old. The young age was very much reflected in the complexity of the programs I wrote – apart from pushing various register values around and creating loops, the most I ever got onto the screen where simple raster loops that created 16-color rainbows. And after a while, I moved on to different things… probably the Amiga.

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Essen, die Einkaufshalle?

Der Essener Innenstadt eine kulturelle Neigung andichten zu wollen waere wahrscheinlich vermessen. Es war schon immer eine Konsummetropole – “Essen, die Einkaufsstadt”. Essen, das aus Polen und Holland ganze Reisebusse voller kauffreudiger Nachbarn anzieht. Aber irgendwie hatte die Innenstadt immer einen Reiz fuer mich. Hatte. Man mag mein Nasenrumpfen verzeihen – ich bin mit der Stadt aufgewachsen – aber der Reiz geht so langsam aber sicher floeten.

Heutzutage scheint Essen ja vor allem durch seine Geschaeftszentren glaenzen zu wollen. Erst kam das Essener City Center, die ueberdachte Einkaufsstrasse mit Geschaeften im Einheitslook  – welcher ja jetzt schon wieder geupdated und renoviert wird, damit auch ja alles konkurrenzfaehig bleibt. Und jetzt also der neue Limbecker Platz, das Mega-Einkaufszentrum, das ich zwar schon halbfertig im letzten Winter zu Gesicht bekam, aber dessen ganze Sterilitaet sich mir erst heute im sommerlichen Sonnenschein offenbarte.

Ich verstehe ja, woher die Anstrengungen ruehren. Erst kam das CentrO und drohte, den Essener Einkaufsplatzhirsch abzuschiessen; dann erwachte sogar das altehrwuerdige RheinRuhrZentrum aus seinem 70er-Jahre-Schlaf und putzte sich nochmal halbwegs fein heraus. Aber das sind Zentren, amerikanische “Malls”, die in der Mitte vom Nirgendwo stehen. Essen ist eine Stadt, und sie verliert zielstrebig ihre Identitaet als solche. Nicht, dass vor 10 Jahren noch jedes Geschaeft aus dem Anfang des Jahrhunderts stammte und in historischen Gebaueden mit mittelalterlichen Aussenverzierungen untergebracht gewesen waeren. Das waren schon immer grosse Kaufhaueser, die zu grossen Kaufhausketten gehoerten. Aber gegen die luftige Langeweile des neuen Karstadt Geschaeftes im Limbecker Platz war das alte, “historische” Gebaeude doch geradezu eine Offenbarung. Frueher waren die Geschaefte halt nicht so konzentriert, man konnte noch einen Trip von der HöLe bis zum Cinemaxx planen, und waehrend der Stippvisite bei Roskothen fand man tatsaechlich noch einen alten Spielzeugladen, anstatt billigen 1 Euro Ramsch. Und wenn ich mit dem Auto bei Horten oder an der Lichtburg vorbeifahren wollte, ja verdammt nochmal, dann konnte ich das auch!

Nunja, Ablagen “Grumpy Old Men” und “Frueher War Alles Besser”. Wahrscheinlich reagiere ich so empfindlich aus die Neuerungen, weil mich das alles zu sehr an die USA erinnert. Wie soll ich meiner amerikanischen Frau da noch den Unterschied zum traditionellen Europa zeigen? Das Prinzip “Mall” kriegt man doch auch “da drueben” alle paar Kilometer um die Ohren geballert – mit dem Unterschied, dass die Amis hoechstens ueber einen alten Indianerfriedhof zementierten, nicht aber gedenken, baldmoeglichst das ganze Geschaeftsviertel einer alten Ruhrpott Stadt ueberdacht zu haben. Scheint zumindest so…

“Essen das Konsumparadies”? Der Name mag durchaus noch zutreffen. Aber aus “Essen der Einkaufsstadt” wird irgendwie immer weniger.

NASCAR at Infineon Raceway 2009

I have more time on my hands now, so it’s time to catch up on a bunch of photos I meant to post months ago. Victoria and I visited the Toyota/Savemart 350 again this year, the big difference this year being my blown out knee. I couldn’t walk around a lot, and consequently didn’t film any footage. But we did take a few pictures again – a lot more touristy this year, but I wanted to post them anyway. Enjoy!