Mmmm, new car goodness...

Well, after a 5 or 6 day hiatus, I have finally found the time once again to resume my blog. What have I been up to for the last week? Well, I finally have a brand new car! I have never actually owned a brand new car thinking that only rich people and drug dealers were awarded that honor. It is with great thrill then that I present my 2004 Honda Civic Si.

The process of buying a brand new car is somewhat intimidating. Obviously car salesmen are amongst the most high pressure salesmen to walk the earth. You must buy this car and you must buy it now. If you don't buy it now, that fellow standing behind you will most definitely buy it instead and then you will never be able to buy a car ever again, mwahahahaha. The negotiations then turn to what kind of value you are getting. You want $2000 off the car? Well, it comes with power everything, and a fancy warranty, and rear mud guards, and a block heater, and free oil changes, and bla bla bla.

Then, after some mighty intense negotiations, you finally decide to purchase the car. That is all fine and dandy and they give you a price quote along with your monthly payments (if, like us, you are financing). So we came to put in our down payment and all of a sudden the number on the screen doesn't match. Why are our payments higher all of a sudden? Oh, you also need the full rust protection which is 800 dollars (and you ABSOLUTELY need it, especially in Calgary...), and then you definitely need the insurance coverage in case you get injured and are unable to work. All of a sudden the monthly payments shoot up $50!

After all the paper work is FINALLY finished, it is time for one final inspection of the car and then off to the races. Sadly, upon inspection a fair number of scratches and flaws are found upon the body of the car. Naturally, Honda assures us that they will be fixed. But now I have to bring in my new baby to be fixed today!

All in all, a very tiring but ultimately rewarding process. Since our car was driven for 11000 km as a "demo" car (meaning it was driven by a Honda executive for a few months), we received about 2000 dollars off of the price plus a bunch of nice upgrades (including a shiny new spoiler ;)). On top of that we got 2.8% financing which is very nice and a very nice warranty.

Driving the car is like a dream. A comfy, cozy dream where you just float along peacefully. I swear sometimes that if I let go of the wheel, the car would just drive itself, but Dianne gets upset with me everytime I try that...Speaking of Dianne, here are some new pics of her:

Dianne and the Civic

Dianne and a Tree

Comments (14) | Permalink | Lee Babin | 9.27.2004

Ooooo, Shiny!

When the PS One was released, I thought it was pretty cool looking (and surprisingly portable) but I had no need for it as my original PSX and PS2 were still in perfect working order. I find it interesting that the PS Two is being released while my PS2 is suffering from Disc Read Errors of doom and the PS3 is yet but a twinkle in Sony's eye.

I can't help but wonder if the PS Two is an attempt to capture the market of those like me who are stuck with a malfunctioning PS2. The PS2 hardware didn't make it long enough to reach the next generation of consoles and therefore rather than having to initiate a price drop on the PS2 hardware, Sony opted to release a "New" and "Improved" version.

In any case, I think the new PS Two looks pretty sweet (though I have no idea how the hard drive will connect to it), perhaps I will pick one up if the price goes down slightly. Until then I will keep myself occupied with my buggy first generation PS2 and the upcoming Nintendo DS (which is set to retail at the same price as the PS Two), a system I know will last through its expected life cycle and more!

Comments (0) | Permalink | Lee Babin | 9.21.2004

Connectivity

So, after about a 5 month hiatus from playing Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles I finally got around to spending an entire Sunday wandering through it's lush environments. While my previous attempts at working my way through FFCC were always enjoyable, they were never to the point of ecstacy. Yesterday I ended up having far more fun than normal however. The battles are finally getting to the point where team work is most definitely required and simple hack and slashing is not going to get the job done.

For instance, we played through a boss fight (some sort of a mean looking Lich fellow) where we had to continually hit certain lamps with magic to lower his shield then continue to pummel him for the brief time he is shieldless. The interesting part of the battle was that I had not managed to find any healing magic of any sort and so the battle went with me and my partner cruising from one side of the battle field to the next with my partner healing the whole way and getting in licks whenever he could, while I was blasting out magic to kill the lamps and hacking away at the boss.

The whole experience was great as true teamwork was involved and it really felt frantic attempting to finally deliver the finishing blow to the Lich.

What am I getting at here? I am not trying to persuade anyone into thinking that multiplayer connectivity is fun. Let's face it, it is! The problem is Nintendo's complete lack of support for the whole online experience. The reason I have not been able to play a decent game of multiplayer FFCC for so long is not because I have a complete lack of time to game (well, I do, but not that bad). It is because I have no one to play these here games with.

Being 25 myself, I sometimes find it an effort to find someone amongst my friends who has the time and willingness to play something called Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. Heck, with my friends, it is interesting to hear them simply say the name of the title without breaking out in laughter. Now, amongst my friends, try finding one who actually has a GBA plus the GC connector. I have to face the facts that there simply is no one (luckily, I have one friend who will play and an extra GBA left over from before I received my SP).

In any case, wise up Nintendo! You are losing out on a seriously huge user base. I am the kind of guy who would love to play FFCC or Zelda - 4 Swords online. I have expendable income (or sometimes do), I have a GBA SP and connector cables. I just don't know anyone else who does. I can't be the only one in this boat!

In the future I hope that Nintendo realizes that not all their clientelle is under 18 with easy access to friends packing GBAs. I also hope the price of GBA SPs goes down even further so I can finish furnishing a 4 player setup so that I can more easily convince my buddies that multiplayer can be fun, regardless of the name of the title...

Comments (1) | Permalink | Lee Babin | 9.20.2004

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