GTA3 So last night i drove all the way to DaSh's place after watching a great episode of smallville to play some Grand Theft Auto 3, and lemme tell you, it was worth the trip. I had never played it b4, although i did play the first GTA but it was the japanese version so i had no clue what i was doing. contrary to what i expected, the game has the flow of a story built upon missions that get successively more difficult as you try to gain prowess as a bonafide vigilante and earn the respect of the most feared street toughs. i've never had more fun stealing cars and busting people up...i'd find myself stopping my car in the middle of the street in order to run over to the humvee across the way and pull the driver out as i upgrade my ride...really brought out the thug in me...although i now lock my door shut everytime i drive. anyways, i can't imagine how any responsible software developer could make this available to kids, but i'm not gonna say anything :)
So my car has been making this rattling noise recently, and i decide to take it to the dealer to have it checked out. turns out it's the waterpump, and to replace that and the thermostat it would cost me a dandy $750. wow i thought, my nightmare has been realized so suddenly...the warranty on my german car has just run out, i am freshly unemployed, and immediately my car requires maintenance...*sigh*. well, $750 for a waterpump didn't sound right to me, so i consulted the norcal audi club web site and found a little tuner/repair shop outfit in berkeley that specializes in volkswagen, audi and porsche called griffin motorwerke. i remember meeting them at the san francisco auto show where they had a 511hp monster of an s4 on display. anyways, after chitchatting about car part distributors and diabolical dealerships in the bay area, we worked the job down to $400...that's almost half the quote the dealership gave me. funny how they provide absolutely free service for the first 3 years or 50,000 miles of the life of the car, and then proceed to rape you the rest of the way. that said, from now on i will try to avoid dealerships at all costs. the guys at griffin are nice too...they will drop you off at the bart station and pick you up again when your car is ready. if you own a porsche, audi or volkswagen and your warranty has expired, i'd definitely consider these guys as an alternative. oh, and while i'm on the topic of cars, i'm suppose to say something nice bout DaSh's jetta...yeah, you have a nice jetta...with the help of $3k and a visit to the fellas at griffin, your jetta might be able to look like the GLI you've been drooling over.
I learned a couple things from my past weekend trip to tahoe. have u ever seen people walking on the highway away from their car and wondered where they were going? i used to think they were poor folks stuck in the dark ages who didn't have cell phones and were walking to the nearest town to get help. i used to drive past them and think, whoa, it's a long walk to the next exit. well, on the way back from the trip, we happened to run out of gas, so we called AAA to have someone deliver some gas to us. the problem was that none of us were paying attention to the signs on the highway so we couldn't pinpoint our exact location. the truth to why i see people walking the highway finally dawned on me as i found myself jogging down the road, looking for an exit sign so i could figure out our location to let the AAA folks know where to deliver the gas...go figure. the other thing i learned was that i can take a big texan guy that has 35 lbs on me in submission wrestling...not that i'd wanna try again, hehe.
