Andrew

Gran Turismo 7

Took my car to the mechanic for diagnostics on the alarm and power steering, they couldn't find an issue so it's more than likely the battery. I did buy a battery but haven't put it in yet because it's dark and raining. I did find this neat feature on my car though. Italian music for Italian car. IMG_0423.mov

Gran Turismo 7 (or is it )

Forgot this image. The dashboard is made out of real imitation carbon fibre.

k, I went on a "proper" test drive. Those tyres are garbage. Also not a fan of the very little feedback through the wheel. There's lots of feedback through the chassis though. There's even a tiny amount of torque steer in 1st when you properly yeet it. The fuel economy isn't that good when you yeet it though. I averaged 16.2 MPG (17.4L/100km, 13.5 US MPG). Luckily while driving like a normal person, it gets 38.1 MPG (7.4L/100km, 31.7 US MPG). The car is also almost undrivable in traffic when in Dynamic mode. It changes the turbo map so the boost comes on very quickly at low RPM. Below 1500rpm, it drives normally, but once you hit 1500rpm, it yeets because of the boost. Leaving it in Normal mode makes it far more predictable. (tiny snail :3) This is also the first "performance" turbo car I've driven. I do want to try a really old turbo car from the 80s/early 90s to experience actual turbo lag.

Update: It's broken.

yeet

Update: This one sold, but I found another one that was actually closer. I've put down a deposit and I'm going to go see it in person tomorrow and hopefully end up buying something red and Italian.

Nope, won't be for a while. I was going to fix it over the next few weeks, but then I got an insurance quote. The quotes I was getting back was "no" I wasn't even getting "go away" quotes like insurance companies usually do. So I literally can not legally drive it November next year at the very earliest.

Not going now. Something came up with the person who was supposed to take me and no one else is available today. I can't really go on public transport either because it's a 3 hour trip one way on public transport, but a 35-40 minute drive. I just hope that car is still for sale next weekend. The one I'm looking at getting has to be a very specific trim level and that trim level is pretty rare. To make it worse, the car itself is actually pretty rare as well. There's only about 6000 on the roads with that trim level only having 177 left on the road with a total of 255 being sold.

I made some synonym rolls

It's out of touch Thursday.

Bleeder Burger from GTA.

hopefully going to go look at a car next weekend

You don't need a large area for VR. My VR area is in my chair in front of my computer. If I'm playing something that requires standing up, like HL Alyx, Skyrim, FO4,LA Noire, etc., I simply just move my chair back slightly and stand where my chair was. The area I use is about 1.5x1.5 metres. It would be nice to have a 10x10 metre area for VR, but it's not required.

South Korean certifications do seem like a good place to find new things coming out. Things get certified there before anywhere else in the world for some reason.

I went on the internet and made a list of potential cars that I can go with. I did remove the secret one in case I do end up actually buying it because I want to make a funny meme joke but it won't work if you know what it is. (year, make, model, engine/spec, purchase price, estimated insurance costs, annual tax) Oofies. Also yeah, if the airbags go off, that's pretty much a guaranteed total. Airbags only go off in a crash if there's chassis damage.

Mandatory insurance. What really made it worse, was there was an official petition to the government to cap insurance costs to people without a NCB and they haven't made a claim. The government officially discussed it and said no. Since then, insurance has been slowly creeping up in price, especially for new drivers. Including people who have been driving for many years, have never made a claim but lost their NCB due to them not having an insurance policy for 2 years.

Some personal news: You can call me Chains, because I'm in a pickle right now. I do need a car kind of soonish, and one that both works and won't cost me £8000 a day in fuel. Fortunately, I have found someone who is selling a 2009 Ford Focus for £300, which in the current climate is an absolute bargain. There's nothing wrong with it, but he's willing to sell it to me for that price. However, I just got some insurance quotes. Because of the way insurance works here for some reason that makes absolutely not sense, other than a great way to get more money from someone, no claims bonus discounts are only "active" for 2 years. If you don't have an insurance policy for 2 years, you lose that bonus. Because of this, I'm effectively a new driver as far as insurance companies are concerned. The insurance quotes I got for that Focus starts at £400 a month and goes up to £750 a month. The insurance companies are effectively telling me, even though I've never made a claim in over 10 years, I will completely write this car off 16-30 times in my "first" year driving, or an average of 1.3 to 2.5 times a month. At the prices they're quoting, and I've looked this up. I will be financially better off financing a £28,000 car than outright buying a £300 car. I'm not going to do that though, I have got quotes for cars that no one wants because of the brands history of unreliability and rust which hasn't been true for over 20 years. Insurance companies don't really have that much data on this one specific car I'm looking at, and I can buy it for £1500. I'm getting insurance quotes on that car ranging from £150 a month to £250 a month, so I'll likely end up with one of those. I'm not saying what it is right now :3

I actually just had a look at the phones available from my network provider. I sorted with price being the highest first. These are the top 20: Google - £1749 Samsung - £1749 Samsung - £1479 Sony - £1299 Samsung - £1209 Apple - £1169 Samsung - £1049 Apple - £1019 Samsung - £929 Google - £849 Apple - £829 Motorola - £799 Samsung - £789 Apple - £759 Apple - £729 Apple - £689 Google - £599 Apple - £584 Samsung - £449 Apple - £449 Beyond that, they're all pretty much the same price until you get to the 8 year old Windows Phone Nokias. The top two Android phones are tied at £580 more expensive than the most expensive iPhone and the iPhone doesn't even make it in the top 5 most expensive phones available. The only feature those two have that the iPhones don't have is they can fold, not sure why anyone would want that anyway. Those folding screens are made of plastic and scratch incredibly easily. The £1479 Samsung doesn't fold and doesn't do anything that the £1169 iPhone can't but despite that, it's £310 more expensive.