Last Service in GladstonejawaproWed 17/09/2008 10:37 PM
An end of yet another era.
In the far North East of Tasmania is a small town called Gladstone.
Not much special to say about Gladstone, other than the fact that it's the last town before Ansons Bay, where we have often camped at Chrissie time and my Grandmother owns a shack.
It also has been a preaching outpost for our church. Once a month, someone would go up there and take a service - but sadly that has proven un-feasible lately. These days the only people who attend seem to be people who drive up from Launceston, so it was decided to close the doors there. Not an easy decision, but the only practical one.
As I've been there many times on holidays, I felt a bit of a connection to the church and Gladstone itself, so I wanted to go along to the final service. Turkey was originally planning to go home the day before, but decided he wanted to come too, so organized to stay the extra day. My sister Emma also decided she wanted to come, so bussed up from Hobart (after trying three times to miss the bus) and caught a lift home with Turkey that evening. Probably a good thing too - Turkey got lost a couple of times while he was up here and could have done with a navigator.
It was a good road-trip and a good service, but a somewhat sad end of an era for Gladstone.
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Speed Racer Crashes OutjawaproWed 17/09/2008 10:35 PM
Every now and then, a movie comes along that's so bad that you just have to bag it out.
Speed Racer is one of those.
Imagine someone filming a pinball game, and then adding in a story written by Jar Jar Binks. Well - that would probably make a better movie.
The main character is called Speed Racer. As in Mr Racer - first name Speed. Duh! Things don't improve from that either.
But hey - apparently it's based on a Anime tv series - so what can you expect?
Now if only someone would turn HoverCar Racer (which admittedly is almost as corny a name) into a movie, people would see what this sort of movie could be. Until then, don't waste your time.
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Big Burger Is Watching You...jawaproTue 16/09/2008 10:01 PM
Well - Turkey has gone home (he left on Sunday arvo) but here are some photos from last week.
Hungry Jacks made headlines around the country a bit over a week ago when they released a Quad Stacker Buger. Why did it make the news? Apparently it's too big, too unhealthy, and should be banned.
So of course, Turkey and I had to try one.
2 bits of bun, 4 burgers, 4 bits of cheese, 2 bits of bacon, and some sauce. Not bad - but nothing like the monster it was made out to be.
Rather tame actually.
Here's a link to one of the many news stories:
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,24291311-2682,00.html
Probably sold more burgers than anything the HJ marketing department could ever have dreamed up.
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The Road to RaidersjawaproSat 13/09/2008 06:12 PM
The most epic game I’ve played. Worthy of a long post (which you can skip if you want).
Ok - so we failed 2 nights in a row, but we had not given up. I had Friday off work, so we decided to focus the day on completing the Road to Raiders.
For those who came in late, the Road to Raiders is a map for Farcry. Unlike most maps for Farcry, the idea is not to shoot your opponent, but to drive the vehicles and try and complete a massively epic road. Well, when I say road - I don’t mean a normal road. This is a totally insane piece to track.
So here we are - standing by our characters, ready to begin.
That’s me (Headless Moron) and my mate Turkeybrain.
We also had a third computer running a guy called Claudio who was our photographer. We needed him to get shots like this with both of us. With no one to actually play as him, the idea was to put him in the passenger seat of a car and see how far we could drive him. This only lasted about 5 minutes, as Turkey said the extra weight slowed his car down too much.
So with 999 minutes on the time (the max time for a Farcry server) we set out.
Unfortunately we started really badly. We both died a few times within the first couple of minutes. That’s a really bad sign, considering we knew this part of the track fairly well by now. Fortunately we did improve.
Traveling in convoy is definitely the most fun way to drive the road - but it can be heartbreaking to watch your friend drive off the cliff in a moment of distraction. Then you have to stop and wait for him - which can be rather annoying.
Henry (who made the map) very thoughtfully wishes us Good Luck shortly after the road starts.
Eventually we reached the Rest Stop - where we had lunch.
As in - we stopped here while we made lunch.
This is known as the rest stop because we’ve had to stop here a few times and wait for the other player to catch up.
After yet more time, we finally reached the Hang Gliders - the drop is just too big to try and jump in a car.
This was where I died the first night - I’d crashed my hang glider.
We both managed to fly down and land safely (although Turkey went close to not managing it).
And then it was back in some cars and continuing on.
Through the seemly endless canyons,
A collection of jumps.
Locations such as the Lillypads, [where Rob pushed me down the hill into the water. Fortunately I survived, and he stuffed his decent too. Only he died... Serves him right! --turkeybrain]
The Corkscrew (nasty).
Very nasty actually...
Yet more canyons (which Turkey liked to crash on).
Crazy bridges
Past odd deserted research locations.
Giant crashed helicopters that the road actually goes through.
And this dreaded location. I parked here while I went to check tea or lunch or something (yes, this game lasted past two meals) and Turkey decided to have some fun and blow up one of the spare cars - which I was parked besides.
He killed me - and as punishment, he had to drive me back from the start to this location (about 40 minutes worth) while I went and watched some TV. [Actually, I volunteered... --turkeybrain]
Turkey wasn’t just good at killing me though - he killed himself too.
This photo was just before he drove off the side.
Just past this point, my car got blown up, and there weren’t any spares nearby, and I was stuck somewhere that you couldn’t pass on foot. So I once again had to wait for Turkey to restart and catch up so he could give me a lift.
Together we drove past Stone Henge,
And a bridge that looks really nasty - but actually has a clear surface to make it look nasty when it’s not (which we discovered by accident).
And along the extremely scary spine-crawls.
Yes, it can be scary. If you fall off - that’s a few hours work to redo.
And then came this jump. This is the jump that killed Turkey for the final time.
As Turkey puts it - flat out isn’t fast enough to make this jump.
I missed on my first attempt too - but I survived the fall and managed to get back on the track we’d passed only about 10 minutes earlier.
My second attempt made it across, but only just.
After hours and hours, I finally reached Flaming Monkey Mountain.
Turkey had made it this far earlier - but this was the first time I’d made it.
Turns out Turkey had been only minutes away from finishing when he crashed the first night.
After hours and hours - I saw this sight.
The FINISH!
Or more to the point, the start.
Past that arrow and down that bridge lies the start line (those two red lines on the ground).
I had made it!
Almost.
My car got stuck mere meters from the end - and I had to complete the journey on foot.
Down there - at the end of the road (also the beginning) stood Turkey.
I had done it. The third person in recorded history - I had survived Henry’s road.
I jumped down, crossed the lines, celebrated a little - and then Turkey killed me [headshot with the sniper I was using for a zoom for the photography... Man it felt good. --turkeybrain].
It didn’t matter - I’d completed the road.
519 minutes remained on the timer. Out of 999! True, we had taken some breaks when it had gotten too much - but that’s still a very long time. 8 hours! Plus the earlier runs on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Now Turkey has a LAN all lined up with some of his friends, where he will try and complete the road, while introducing his friends to the sheer insanity that is The Road to Raiders.
I’ll upload the map shortly if Henry gives me permission.
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The Turkey has landed...jawaproWed 10/09/2008 08:47 AM
Sorry about the lack of updates. This week has been busy and fun - as my mate Turkeybrain is up for the week. He's on holidays, and has decided (like Emma and Klutz before him) that my place is a great place to relax and do nothing.
Sadly I still have to go to work, but the evenings have been fun.
Last night I decided to show Turkey a map for Farcry I got from a friend. It's called Henry's Rally XXX. Imagine a very long very difficult road where you spend most of your time trying not to fall off cliff faces - that's about what this road is.
Farcry is a shooter, and normally you try and kill each other, but on this map the idea is to try and survive the road. I'm not sure anyone has ever made it yet - including Henry - who made it. This is epic!
If you fall off the road, chances are that you'll have to start again from the begining - which takes AGES.
Turkey blew his car up (while he was still in it) so I waited for him to start again and catch up - which took long enough that I was able to go and cook tea. Later on I fell off a cliff, which gave Turkey time to do the dishes while I caught up. Half an hour later, I crashed a hang-glider (one part of the road is a hang gliding challenge) and after that I gave up - it was too late at night to restart again. Turkey kept going for a lot longer, until he finally killed himself. 3 hours in, and we still haven't finished the road.
I think that's our challenge for tonight - try and make it to the finish.
Stay tuned....
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