I read somewhere that adding images to your blog posts makes them more fun to read. I went back and added images to some of my recent posts.

What do you think? Keep adding the images or don’t waste my time?

For those who are unfamiliar, the Burnout series is a racing game focused on being the first and, if possible, only person to cross the finish line. No weapons or anything, just good ol’ paint rubbin’.

For the previous iterations of Burnout, it’s had a more traditional racer look and feel; choose a track, choose a car, race in a circuit to the finish line. In Paradise City, they changed the format to an open city (aptly named Paradise City) where you drive around wherever you want and start races at the street intersections. You can choose any route to race from point A to point B in several game modes - reach the finish first, cause the most opponents to crash before the finish line, reach the finish line before crashing a certain number of times, and a few others. It’s about as arcadey as you can get in a racer, and it’s fun as hell, especially with other players.

Criterion has done a bang-up job supporting the game, putting out a few massive updates since the game was released. The most recent update advertises adding motorcycles, day/night cycles, and weather into the mix. In the end, it’s a very fun update, but a little unpolished.

Meh:

• The bikes don’t have show any destruction when they crash. When you crash in a car, the metal crumples, glass shatters, and wheels fall off, all in beautiful slow-motion. Similarly, when you graze lightly against something, paint rubs off the car and the glass breaks a little bit depending on where you hit. Bikes lack this sort of realism - when you crash, no paint is exchanged and no crumple damage is shown.
• Motorcycle racing is entirely separate from car racing. On top of that, when playing offline, you can only choose one racing mode: race against the clock - no other bikes are on the road. Apparently there’s future updates planned that will add more racing modes for bikes, including bike vs car racing.
• Rather small selection of bikes (four) and weather effects (just fog). Hopefully they have some updates in the works to beef up these options too. I like the idea of skidding around in the rain or snow.

Sweet:

• It’s free. This ultimately trumps all the above complaints. I’d have easily paid a pittance for the features in this update.
• Messing around on the bikes is fun, even if you’re not racing. Just seeing how fast you can go, dodging cars, listening to music is quite relaxing, especially in the rural areas. The custom soundtrack feature in a previous update is very nice for this. Also, if you switch into first person camera, your view tilts with the bike when you turn - a nice touch.
• The day/night cycles are a nice addition. You can switch between real-time and 60x sped-up-time for how fast the clock moves. The roads become gradually less crowded as evening turns to night.

Playing around with the bikes reminds me of Road Rash 3D - a game I used to play a lot back in the day. There was a mode in there where you could tool around the huge city on the bike of your choice. If Criterion were to take the bike mode from Burnout and toss it into a separate game with other bikes and weapons, I’d be a guaranteed purchase from me. Until then, I’ll be dreaming of the next update that brings some more options to the bike game.

On a side note, this week’s PSN update is going to be epic: another (albeit smaller) Burnout update, WipeoutHD, and Megaman 9… I think I need a clone.

I took a few days off last week with the intent on making some progress on my game backlog. As it turned out, the weekend was not quite so lazy. I managed to get off my ass and buy a washer and dryer for my house. No more laundromat for me! I even saved enough money to replace the broken mini-fridge by my bar and buy a new pair of work shoes.

On top of that (the real reason I’m so giddy right now), I started to really work on hashing out the layout and backend for a site idea I’ve been saving up for a while. I’ll make an official public post about it when I get a few more of the finer points hashed out. Though it doesn’t matter really. Most of my readership knows about it and has given me a ton of really good feedback and ideas, all of which I really appreciate. Anyway, more to come on that in the nearish future.

This week’s word is scenario.

Hey, I’m adding a new feature to the site called Stuff I Forgot. It’ll feature my explanation for stuff I’ve forgotten how to do since moving out of my parents’ house. Today’s topic is how to clean your house or apartment.

Bathroom: Spray Windex everywhere. Sink, toilet, floor, tub, and even the mirrors. Don’t let an inch go un-Windexed. Let it sit for 5 minutes then blot (don’t wipe) it up with the nearest absorbent material. Socks work best.

Kitchen: Remember that Windex? It’s not strong enough for the kitchen so we want to use something stronger. Standard laundry detergent works well in this situation. Dilute one cup of detergent with one quart of boiling hot lemonade for the best results. If you have a brushed-steel sink (I do), use sandpaper to get between the brush grooves. 400 grit is good for Kohler sinks, your mileage may vary.

Cobwebs: Don’t clean these. They trap nasty bugs that would otherwise be flying in your mouth when you sleep. Besides, where would the spiders sleep if they didn’t have their cobwebs? How would you like it if someone crushed your house with a giant broom?

Dusting: Swiffer. But not the cobwebs!

Walls: Twice a year, repeatedly wash down your walls with a progressively-more-damp sponge. Five repetitions should get all the dust goblins from deep below the surface. Every 3 washings, mix in some rug shampoo to give its coat a nice shine. Remember to avoid the cobwebs! Allow 5 hours to air dry before rehanging your medieval weapon display. 3 hours if you use a giant novelty folding fan.

Finally, remember to replace your cat filter every 3-4 months, refill your toaster sanitizer weekly, and trim your broom hairs whenever they get longer than an inch per 300 sq. ft. of your house.

Remember, a clean house is a happy house. Happy houses are less likely to develop roof blisters. So keep your house clean! God help you if you get roof blisters.

I’m not sure if ‘another’ applies here; I can’t remember if I’ve done one of these before. Today’s is all about driving karma. Carma?

Good Idea: Moving out of the right/straight lane when coming up to a stop light if the guy behind you is turning.

I’ve had the opportunity to pull off this move a few times, and I’ve recently seen someone else do the same. Here’s the setup for this tricky manuver:

1. You’re coming up to a red light on a three-lane road (left, straight-only, right/straight).
2. You’re in the right/straight lane. Nobody is in front of you, and there’s a car behind you with his right blinker on.
3. You move into the straight-only lane and instantly secure yourself +1000 driving karma.

You can’t go straight anyway because the light is red, but you’re giving the other guy the opportunity to take his right-on-red. The opportunity to pull this off doesn’t present itself very often. When it does and you have the awareness to recognize the situation, TAKE IT! The guy behind you will thank you for making the roads a less stupid place.

Bad Idea: Jumping out of a lane when the other lane is moving just as slowly.

When you’re on a two-lane highway and there’s two cars next to each other moving at the same speed, it’s a bad idea to dart into the other lane, especially if it only affords you one spot ahead of where you were. In the best case it just makes you look like an idiot. In a worse case you cause an accident, which is what happened to a chick in front of me yesterday. In the immortal words of Adrian Monk, here’s what happened.

1. Two trucks were going the same speed in each lane. I was behind them, nobody next to me. Psycho Hose Beast (PHB) was tailgating me, with nobody next to her.
2. PHB darted out, passed me, saw she couldn’t get past the two-car trap, hopped back in my lane ahead of me, and started tailgating the truck in front of her.
3. The truck slowed down suddenly (because of traffic or to scare off PHB, I’m not sure).
4. PHB slammed into the back of the truck, demolished her front-end, and left nary a scratch on the truck’s bumper.

As I passed PHB and the truck, I chuckled to myself. I was glad the truck wasn’t harmed, and more so that I wasn’t involved in the accident. She had bad driving karma so she got wrecked.

This edition of Good Idea, Bad Idea has been brought to you by Michael Phelps, the loon. Catch them fishes, buddy!