Autocross Nov 8, 2009

And with this event the Autocross season for the Snake River Region SCCA group is at a close. No more autocross until the middle of March weather permitting. There will be a lot stuff happening in the back ground though as the group prepares for next year's season. But all that is good for next year what up this autocross event how did the season end. Well with a smile of course.

First of all this event went back out to the huge South Lot of the Idaho Center in Nampa, ID, where a large and fast course could be laid out. While it was long and fast some said it was also just a bit boring to drive as well. Trade offs I guess. I set up again on the grassy area off course for filming duties and since the roommate had gotten back from SEMA with a rented super-wide angle lens I also took that along to do a bit of testing and what not with it some more in the parking lot.

For an end event I was surprised to see a lot of new faces as well as returning regulars as well. One returning regular had something new this time around. Bright yellow and supercar looking I spied for my first time a Noble...er wait what it's been renamed...oh OK so what is it... What was once a Noble M400 has been renamed to Rossion Q1 looks exactly the same and pretty much is but the importer of the Noble renamed it so there it is anyways I was excited to see something new and different but was said to only be able to get it on film once since the driver only stayed for the morning session and left after lunch.

As usual though it was the IMS class that rocked the autocross the hardest. For it's first year out as a local class for drivers who are out of the novice class but not exactly ready to jump into the larger modified classes just yet. It turned into a great class and became extremely competitive and many drivers will be moving out of that class into their respective classes next year.

With the day over it was time for one last go and the day ended with a three run fun run. Pay a dollar and shag your own cones but pretty much any one still hanging around that has done an autocross before could run their car for fun.

The day ended with the sun setting and everyone having a good time. I had fun filming it and working at getting better at taking action shots and of course editing those pictures. Next year I have plans of my own to add some new equipment and some fun stuff so here's looking to the new year and the new autocross season in March. In the mean time you can check out the videos and pictures from this last event at the following links. It took me a lot longer than usual to finish editing the pictures but I think they turned out the best of the entire season thanks to more playing around with photoshop.

VIDEOS
PICTURES

For some in post entertainment here is the only video that I got of the Rossion Q1:

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Blood: The Last Vampire

Well I was thinking of what I should blog about and low and behold I remember that I have as of yet still not blogged about finally watching the Live Action movie version of Blood: The last Vampire. It's been about a week since I've watched it and I can't believe it's taken me this long to blog about it. Actually that should tell you something of what I thought of the movie. Is it good meh yeah it's pretty OK but it sure didn't live up to the hype and anticipation that I initially had of it when I first heard about the updated project many many moons ago.

I was one of those people that absolutely loved the animated short movie and thought that the 50 episode anime take off was really well done so my hopes were high for the movie but like all Hollywood movies they royally FUBARed the crap out the original movie to make up the time. I think everyone would agree that if they kept to the old script and fleshed it out more like a good back story as to what and why Saya is fighting would be great and then to go forward from the last fight of the anime.

Instead they add a lot more to the secret society even going so far as to make them look like bad guys in the end (way to go Hollywood) and then they add the all mighty mom vampire and while that somewhat gives you a handy back story it totally sucks especially when Saya and her mom have to do the big boss battle in some mystic land of all places for the climax. What the crap that was lame. Hello the title says last VAMPIRE not a Vampire and her mommy.

So yeah those are the most terrible parts of the movie what makes up for all this is the fantastic filming. They do a pretty dang good job of taking us back to 1970's Japan and Army base and even the full on monster looks pretty good even if it doesn't look anything like the monsters from the anime. The characters are awesome and it just looks really good for what it is. And while it's by no means Japanese B-movie gory there is a decent amount of blood and guts gore to be seen, just a word to the wise. So honestly I think it's a pretty decent rental choice but I really don't think it's worth purchasing unless you are serious die-hard fan of the series and absolutely have to have every title available.

Check out the trailer below:

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Weekly Review

Hey look it's another end of the week weekly review more on time but with the same boring nothing fun happened attitude. Well actually that's not entirely true some fun did happen but most it's your basic week and because I don't have any interesting pictures of my own once again this post will be accompanied by some lovely Race Queens.

So this week was another eat, sleep and work kinda week with long stretches of photo editing of the last weeks autocross event. It took a lot longer than I thought it would to edit all those pictures but in the process I did find another way to make the red cars look more red and way less crappy orange colored. So that was a good thing.

This week the roommate also came home with CoD MW2 and of course that cut into a lot of the week and aided in making the picture editing take long as I'd get bored of editing pictures and go watch the roommate play the game and then do a few multiplayer matches which usually ended in my getting killed many many times. MW2 is a much improved game of the prior version and allows you to pick a class in multiplayer games as well as online games which I really liked.

Oh and on Friday we actually had our first snow of the season in Boise. Not much snow and it was mostly turned to slush and frozen later in the morning, it's also all gone now as well. So yeah a pretty basic week.

For an interesting video for this week here is the crash of a Bugatti Veyron from this week when the driver was "distracted by a Pelican" and accidentally drove his million dollar supercar into the shallows of a salt marsh. I don't know how long this video will last as an earlier was was copyrighted and taken down.

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Bio Hunter

Wishes do get answered in fansubbed land apparently. After watching another old school 90's anime OVA Pyshco Diver I was hoping that I could find a working torrent of Bio Hunter (I've been looking for the DVD forever to no avail after my VHS copy took a shit) but I hadn't any luck up until this last weekend when a copy appeared out of no where. I grabbed it and watched it and relived that fun gory and naughty OVA style of the 90's anime.

Some times I really wish they would go back to the style of those 90's OVA movies after all I'm sure everyone gets just a little tired of the same ol' same ol' moe moe stuff all the time. Every now and then there's something good that reminds me of the good ol' stuff but it's also nice to find these old ones again and relive that old time fun of violence, sex and rock 'n' roll.

If you've never heard of Bio Hunter well there isn't really much to it really. It's a story of two scientist who are investigating the Demon Virus a virus that causes human mutation that is the true reason behind why there are monsters. One of the scientists is plagued by the virus but somehow his unique genes keep the virus in check and he is able to use the virus as a power to battle other monsters. The story revolves around those two and a mystery serial killer. The two men also get involved with a young woman who is the daughter of a powerful fortune teller. She is being chased by a group of men who work for a powerful political head who is looking to find the fortune teller and kill him.

The reason for this is that the political head is actually a demon possessed person. He's the serial killer and he is looking to keep the fortune teller quiet as well as anyone else in the way. The two scientists, the girl and the old man fortune teller meet up but are separated again when the bad guys find them and kidnap the girl and the old man. The two scientist find the hide out and save the woman and do battle with the demon dude and all is right in the world in the end. I don't want to spoil to much of the fun if you haven't seen it before.

Another oldie but goodie that I would like to find a working BT for is Gunsmith Cats and I'm sure there others that I never got the pleasure to experience when they were first released in the 90's but might be still good.

Interesting enough I did find a working embeddable trailer for Bio Hunter.

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Halo Legends: Babysitter

Remember me posting that Spike exclusive trailer for the upcoming Halo Animation some time ago? Now the full animated short Halo Legends: Babysitter has been released on the HALO Waypoint system and of course that also means that for those without XBOX Live it has been subsequently uploaded every where else as well. As the first of SEVEN animated Halo shorts does the complete short live up to the hype of the trailer?

OH HELL YA! Well OK it's not that exciting or epic but for something like this that is a mashup of Japanese and American influence the entire episode was dang good. The first time I watched it was on Youtube so the quality suffered and looked a bit washed out but I think that has more to do with the media format than the actual animation quality. I'm waiting for the DVD release to really check out the quality.

The story itself is pretty good and from the trailer you pretty much know what is going on for the the most part. The ODST squad is assigned at assist (babysit) a Spartan in a mission to take out a Profit. From the trailer you know that the Spartan gets in a fight with a Brute to save the backup ODST Sniper well in the complete story we see that the Spartan actually ends up saving the ODST Sniper a few times and he's just a bit whiny about the whole thing. So after trouncing around some Japanese-ish ruins they set up to take out the Profit only to be interrupted when the Brute comes back (I think it's the same Brute) and attacks the squad once more. Again the Spartan saves the backup Sniper but ends up taking the full force of the Brute attack to the helmet taking them out of the fight. The ODST squad is able to take out the Brute with a face full of SMG fire but find out that the Spartan is unable to continue the mission. The Spartan orders the backup to take the shot. He does and takes out the Profit without much issue.

The shocker of the story is that this whole time everyone (including the audience) thinks that the Spartan is a guy but the ODST Squad finds out after they remove the Spartan's helmet that the Spartan is actually a beautiful blond female. Wait What? That's right whiny backup sniper realizes he's been bitching about a hottie. Sadly her injuries are to severe and she passes away. Back on he ship the infantry dude from the trailer is back and in trying to chat up the ODST squad makes the big mistake of trying to make fun of the Spartan that died during their mission and finds himself being pelted by apples.

As the opener to Halo Legends I thought it did a good job and lived up to the anticipation of the trailer and what I had hoped for. Now then when are the rest of them coming out dang it. Well you're in luck as they have the release dates up of the first five episodes on the Halo Waypoint website and it looks like the episodes will be released every other Saturday with behind the scenes stuff being released on the opposite Saturdays. The DVD itself will be released on February 9, 2010. I'm looking forward to the remainder of the episodes and will be picking up the DVD as soon as I can.

Again here is the trailer for the first episode.

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