Journals

Just got my new project car yesterday, this 1988 Ford Escort GT that cost me $400 plus a $200 tow. My last project car was too ambitious/ridiculous (which reflects on all my previous mapping projects), and ended up having to be towed away for scrap.It's got a bad knocking noise (probably piston slap), which will probably require a total engine rebuild or just a new bottom end. Good thing I'm in auto shop.

I wonder what would happen to the mod community if everyone maintained this attitude? More Neil Manke's maybe...

Of course, it's not a fair comparison given his situation, just a thought

Also, anybody else notice there's like five or six people who constantly post journals? Maybe it's just me. Scary.

This Japanese Coke tastes substantially better than American Coke. Maybe it's the metals in the can.

It also has a disposable pull-tab and is dated 2007.

I got a Logitech G5 mouse as a late Christmas present, so here's a long ass review I wrote out of boredom. You'll be in a catatonic stupor by the time you're done reading it.

This mouse is actually the second generation of G5 laser mice on the market. It's apparently been somewhat upgraded from the first generation, which only had one thumb button and a different surface texture design. Other than that I'm not sure if anything's changed.Same generic Logitech packaging as any other mouse they make.There's actually a fair few more doohickies included here than any other mouse I've purchased. You've got your mouse, a case of weights, the weight cartridge, and a driver disc. At first I thought the 50 dollar price tag was a bit much compared to what my old Mx518 cost, but from the looks of things I think I was mistaken.Inside the rather nicely designed padded case are a large collection of weights of either 1.7 or 4.5 grams a piece. I'm not really sure where Logitech came up with a number like 1.7 grams, but there you have it. These small cylindrical weights are to be arranged in a little clear blue cartridge with eight available slots. This offers an insane amount of customization, and honestly I think I'd be happier if there were something like three selectable weights instead of this little case and with sixteen miniscule weights to be lost amongst the clutter on my desk. I highly doubt even a "professional gamer" would notice the difference if they'd used a simplified system, but that's just me.Once the weights are inside the little cartridge, you slide it into a little slot on the bottom of the mouse that holds it in place with a plastic tab. I'm actually not too thrilled with any part of this mechanism. I considered the last Logitech mouse I had, an Mx518, to be damn near indestructible. You wouldn't believe the amount of abuse that thing stood up to, and from its exterior condition it has no right to be operational. I believe its structural integrity stemmed from Logitech's use of very high quality plastics. While the mouse appears to be constructed the same way with the G5, the quality of this plastic slot is highly questionable. It lends a rattling noise to the mouse if you shake it around, and the weight cartridge will actually pop out by itself if you're too rough with it. That doesn't scream of unrivaled durability. In fact, I think Logitech only included this feature to give people a viable reason to upgrade.The cord is a substantial upgrade from any other I've seen. It's coated with some kind of durable fabric material that lends a ropey feel to it. This also makes it extremely stiff and pliable, so once you've unwrapped the cord it won't snake itself back up into a tangle. If you're choosing to go wired, you should do it the right way.The texture atop the G5 is a departure from the norm for me. Whereas my Mx518 was slick, this has a kind of papery scale-like feel to it. It's one of those neat coatings you have to feel to appreciate. The black sides of the mouse also have a grainy coating on them. That's good, because the rubber coating on my Mx518 wore out and started peeling. This new surface actually seems to absorb the sweat on your hands a bit, so instead of getting all slippery it simply improves the grip. The DPI buttons are positioned differently than on my old mouse, so that takes a bit of getting used to. I consider the old button setup more intuitive. The DPI indicator is cool too, though I'd never look at it while in use.

The scroll wheel now has a very annoying side-press button feature which makes pressing the center button quite a chore. Half the time you hit these side-press buttons it's an accident, so I consider them useless. Unfortunately, the addition of this feature required the hole around the scroll wheel to be widened for movement. The very thing that caused problems with my Mx518 was that dirt and dust got jammed in the scroll wheel and caused erratic scrolling behavior. A bigger hole will just promote this.

The G5 has these newfangled Polytetraoverlycomplicatedname feet on it, and it really does glide smooth as silk. I'm using a Black Knight XH mouse pad, and I hardly notice the difference between its surface and my fake woodgrain desktop. The tracking of the new "gaming grade" laser eye is probably a vast technical improvement over the old optical system, but in the real world I can't notice a bit of difference.

I didn't have to install any software for this mouse to work, just plugged it in and everything worked. That was a relief to me, because I absolutely hate software like the included SetPoint to be running in the background.

Overall, what you've got here is a really great Logitech mouse with a couple new features over older, less costly models. I couldn't recommend that anyone upgrade from a functional 518 or 510, but if you're currently working on a crappy old generic optical mouse, it's well worth it to spend the extra ten or fifteen bucks over older models... just as long as you can put up with some slight rattling.

Merry Christmas!

That is all.

Edit: I got a bunch of tools.

I have my typical Christmas Cold right now. It comes around for me the exact same time every year.

Mapping has destroyed my life. That's pushing it of course, but let me explain.

Knowing that I can feasibly create whatever I want in Hammer is more of a heartache than anything. Every couple months, I'll get that sudden urge to start some big new project. It's a nearly uncontrollable burst of inspiration. However, I know that no matter how many projects I start, I will always end up tiring of them before their time has come. My "Mapping Projects" folder is evidence of this.

The result is, I am left with this vast desire for creative fulfillment, as though there is some large task always lingering over me that I have yet to accomplish. I yearn to create something that I know without a doubt will never reach fruition. It's practically an addiction.

Shit sucks, yo.

I got a nasty virus and now I'm having to reinstall Windows. Thank god I'm using like a million partitions, and I'm smart enough to install all my games and important files off of C:\ so I didn't have to do much backing up.

My only concern is that I won't be able to register Windows again.

Edit: great, now I accidentally overwrote my entire movie storage drive with Windows because it reported the drive letters wrong in the setup. And the previous Windows was still intact. That'll ruin your day.

Shit, how long's Oxihosting been down? I didn't notice 'till right now. My profile is in ruins.

Woo, it's my birfday. 16 today.

Yesterday I got my provisional driving permit. Yes, yet another asshole on the road. I'd taken the written test once before and FAILED. Check out the cold blooded killa on my photo ID:It's strange, because even when I don't smile for my ID's I typically don't look like a juvenile delinquent getting his mugshot taken.

If anybody recognizes this guy in my new avatar, I will be thoroughly amazed, and award three whole internets to them.

Oh, and I saw The Dark Knight too.

Woo, moving day. Posting this several minutes before I unhook my computer for a couple days.

No, my house didn't burn down. Had to stay in a high-end hotel suite for two or three nights (pure torture!) but we got back into our home like a week ago. Haven't been around on TWHL for some reason... Here's a photo I took from the top of a nearby hill the day we got back. Enjoy! (Woo high res):In other news: I'm moving in a month to what will be our third house in three and a half years. That's got nothing to do with the fire.

So on Tuesday afternoon, in the mountains above the city where I reside, a forest fire was either intentionally set by some pyromaniac or accidentally started. Don't know, and I don't really care to look into it. But before today, this fire hadn't effected me at all. The ominous (but at the time meager) cloud of ash and dust lurking above the city was just another part of the scenery so far as I was concerned. Today, however the fire has had quite an effect on my life. The day (or at least a portion of it) will now be retold as best as possible through a series of photos. Lucky I held onto my camera tightly. This was a shot taken from the street my house is on at 3:15 PM. Probably about three hours after I woke up. The smoke was just gradually worsening from the previous days, at this point.A couple shots of the sky at my Dad's apartment. Looked kinda neat at the time (6:20 PM.)Here I'm on the road at 6:50, heading over to my house with my Dad to get a movie or something.This shot was taken from my street right in front of our house at 7:00 PM... Between the trees in the center, you can see little bit of the fire on the mountainside, mostly obscured by smoke.At 7:20 PM, after the brief (and for now, last) visit to our house, my Dad drove me to his office, which is on the waterfront. We left the smoke cloud behind us as we got closer to the ocean.At probably 8:30 PM, while we were at the office, we got a call from my mom telling us that our street had been ordered to evacuate. She'd thrown the important stuff that was ready to be packed, along with our cat, into the back of her car. She drove to my Dad's apartment, nearby but far out of the danger zone. After a couple phone calls, I jumped back into the truck with my dad and we began driving back to his apartment. You can get a pretty good view of the fire in the second to last shot. As we got closer to it, the sky began to darken dramatically, and even though it was still light out it might as well have been midnight. And then out of nowhere...... A massive weight came barralling towards us from behind and pulverized the rear of our truck. I was holding my camera in my hands at the time, set to the video mode, and started recording seconds after we were hit. That'll be fun to watch. The little Nissan Hardbody took it like a champ, but wouldn't start up again after the engine was turned off. The other guy in the little GMC Jimmy took out his radiator in the crash, but drove away with it leaking. We, on the other hand, were completely screwed, and had to walk a mile back to the apartment in the pitch black storm of ash. Might've been comparable to smoking a couple packs. That happend at about 8:51.This here's my backup disk. 320 GB if I remember correctly. The entirety of my computer's hard drives are contained within it, and luckily I had the foresight to throw it into the box of stuff to evacuate with before I left the house. No cables, though.

Hopefully, this'll all blow over, and I'll still have a house on the fourth of July. There were quite a few orange groves between our house and that fire, and last I checked those don't burn too great. If not, well... hey, at least I've got that data there. Too bad my real passion is now a stationary hunk of metal, glass, and rubber sitting out in our garage.