BTW: My roommate informs me that he has been adding a lot of content to his site. I haven't looked yet, but supposedly most of the pictures from his tip to Malaysia are now online. If you're into travel, check out his site.

11:51:18 PM | Comments:

Racing

My roommate picked up some Rally racing game for the X-Box yesterday. I'm not much of a rally fan, but it is about the best racing simulation I've ever seen. Gravity is a bit off, but I suspect that is intentional.

I suck at the game, except on the ice tracks. I rule on ice. Low traction, tail swinging action is my favorite thing in games and real life. Have had to cut back in real life because my present car wears very expensive tires...

In general I cannot stand being a spectator in the sport of racing. It doesn't appeal to me in the least, I want to be involved. I was going to run in One Lap of America this year, but the economy has cost me that chance. Last year I almost did it, but backed off because of the logistics (I was still living in Germany, besides costing me a ton of cash it would have resulted in me being in the US more than 35 days, which would have cost me another ton of money in taxes). With a little luck, next year could finally be my year.

I have a very specific modified car that I want to build and run. A few folks have run something similar in concept, and been able to dominate their class, but they've never taken the modifications as far as would be required to compete overall. Based on last year's results, my planned car could own it's class and place in the Top 5 overall with me behind the wheel. A better driver could be a contender for #1.

11:33:48 PM | Comments: | Topics: racing x-box 

Startup.com

I watched this movie on Sundance earlier tonight with my roommate. We tuned in sometime during the scene ahead of the 30 employee mark.

At the end, my roommate asked what I thought.

"It would have been funnier if I hadn't lived through it several times."

I worked for a producer of BBS software, two ISPs, a subscription content company, a large web-hosting company that got snatch up by an ISP consolidator seeking a new strategy, which was later swallowed by a foreign multinational teleco. I was in technology companies ahead of the Netscape IPO and after the Dot Com collapse. Along the way, tech companies were always being wiped out by something. The Internet itself, flat-rate AOL, ISP consolidation, user inertia against paying for content, etc.

Every year during that period, I thought that the technology hype had reached it's maximum level of ridiculousness. And every year, thru 2000, the craziness escalated. VA Linux peaked at $320 on it's IPO. For a while the market valued 10% of Palm higher than all of 3COM, which still held the other 90%. Crazy shit, now both are in the low single-digits.

I'm happy that the world is becoming somewhat rational again.

 

4:55:13 AM | Comments: | Topics: dot_bomb