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Can’t sleep.. so decided to photochop some cars.. No cheaper way to mod =p

Here’s a progression of more and more mods which I’d like to do to my car. They’re all OEM parts from VW.. since the MKV jetta and golfs use the same base chassis, they can share a lot of parts.. however, they vary a lot around the world.. so it’s possible to mix and match various parts. I haven’t seen this exact combination.. which I think looks sweet yet still clean.

Ignore the ugly fake ontario plate.. I needed to add it because most of the US cars dont need front plates so they look very different. I can’t decide between the last two photos.. the second last one with more honeycomb makes it look a bit more.. OEM. The last one makes the top honeycomb a little out of place.. since the whole bottom is horizontal vents.. the last one looks the most aggressive too.. but sometimes i look at it and think its almost a bit much.

P.S. I hate the second set of photos with the addons… how its so close it makes the nose look big and puts the whole thing out of proportion compared to the first stock picture.

Granted I do feel a little dirty, feeling like I “sold out”, but I’m too old to be a specific console fanboy anymore. And being a Mac fanboy is more than enough.

Viva Pinata has an actual playable demo now on Xbox Live, I think I’ll try it out tonight.

Halo Wars looks interesting.. but RTS on a console seems even worse than a FPS on a console. Although I read I can just plug a KB in for typing aspects of the 360, maybe Halo Wars will support that.

Fable 2 looks pretty sweet.. but may be too long and “free-roaming” for me to spend time wandering around.

EA’s Army of Two, “Coming 2007”, a third person shooter with emphasis on always having two guys. All based on cooperative play, can’t imagine just playing this with an AI partner.

Army of Two

Second impression: I tried them last night side by side with the Grados powered by the Powerbook. Wow! It was very very different than here at work. Which is strange, cause I used a G4 tower here at work so I assumed the quality would be pretty good.

The 7506’s are quite astounding, far and away better than the PX100’s when listened to on the powerbook. Much easier to compare with the SR80s and while distinctively different sounds, you can instantly tell they’re in the same ballpark.

The SR80’s, due to their openness, definitely have the edge on a bigger soundstage. For my initial rough comparison using only two songs, I found the SR80’s had more presence, a brighter high end and tighter low end. The presence really brings the music to you and it’s more intense and in your face.

The 7506s I would describe as smooth, the bass is definitely more prominent than in the SR80’s (which I thought wouldn’t be the case after trying them at work). The detail is all there, you don’t miss any high end detail, but it’s much less in your face. Like all the reviews read, it’s very much flat and nothing very prominent.

This comparison was done with a flat EQ in iTunes.

Very initial impression: These are not your regular cans. I can’t tell if they suck or if they’re really good.

One thing I can say is, these are not your typical headphones. I only have the PX100s to compare to (since I’m at work) but one thing I can say is they have a very different sound from anything I’ve listened to. I don’t know if I would use these for regular casual listening.

At first it seemed like there was no bass, and very sterile, but afterwards I realize the sound is better described as flat. These cans seem ridiculously brutal. You can hear everything. Nothing is over-emphasized. It also responds very well to EQ settings. I think this is what “studio” and “reference” are all about. If you want bass, you turn up the lower range on your EQ. You can turn up anywhere on the EQ and none of it sounds bad.. it just sounds “honest”. The bass isn’t in your face, but you can hear all the bass detail quite easily.

If I could make a preliminary comparison to the Grados, I’d say they have more emphasis on the mid-range than the SR80s’ more V-shaped sound (deep bass and crisp highs). I think the Grados sound better, but in regards to the production side of it I would say that if you can get your mix sounding good in the 7506, it’ll for sure sound good in the SR80s. Rather than monitoring it in the SR80s and then having it sound not so great in the 7506’s.

They definitely take getting used to.. after all the bass-heavy speakers and headphones. Music doesn’t sound as in-your-face with these. I’m listening to You are Good right now and I can hear everything across the range but it doesn’t feel as “intense” as when listening in the px100’s.

So as you know, I’ve been expecting a delivery (which shipped last monday), so last night I came home and saw the Canada Post delivery notification and thought to myself, “sweet. I guess I can pick it up tomorrow before work”… what a lazy delivery guy though.. got the address wrong, didn’t put in any info if it was a letter/parcel or what. It was to “Jonny G” at “38 Grand Oak Drive”..

Ah I wrote it off to him being lazy/unable to read. After all.. Jonny G is kinda at least close to Jonathan C.. and 38 is only one number off from 48! Went into the post office this morning.. and hand over the delivery notice, and she starts looking through the letter drawer and I’m like.. err… isn’t it.. a.. package? She pulls out some 407 URGENT payment envelope.. and I’m like what!

Ahh.. turns out some guy named Jonny G lives at 38 Grand Oak Drive.. and I get pwned. But on the bright side, the tracking for the real one says it got to the “Foreign Delivery Unit” yesterday morning.. so hopefully I can pick it up tomorrow.

Check out this Bioshock video, the beginning is fairly generic (but pretty).. but wait till the middle/end, when he pits the two enemies against each other and starts whipping out the telekinetic stuff.

Bioshock gameplay trailer

I always thought I was an “RPG” player and fanboy.. but I find I have less time to devote to trundling through long stories and prefer just to relieve some stress. I would say my favourite genres right now, in no particular order are: First-person shooters (Counter-strike, Call of Duty), Third-person shooters (Metal Gear Solid, Gears) and Action RPG’s. Action RPG’s encompass a slightly wider scope of games but generally qualify if they still have some sort of real-time fighting system such as Zelda, or Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. I’m definitely not a fanboy, having owned systems by Sega, Sony, Nintendo and now Microsoft..

First I had the Wii (which I still have but am debating on whether or not its worth keeping or selling while the value is still high) and I would make arguments like.. ahh even though it looks like its a N64 game, its still fun because the actions kinda make it more interesting. And now with the X-box 360, I’ve decided I would easily trade that arm-waving action for some really good graphics. That being said, it shows while the graphics are a weak point, there’s still many hours of fun to be had beating up people.

I think the systems really cater to competely different things. There’s just no imagining playing Assasin’s Creed or Lost Planet on a Wii.. while on the flip side, there’s no Cooking Mama or Tennis on the 360.

The 360 vs the PS3 is a whole different matter though, they’re both essentially made up of: one part personal computer and one part graphics card, and are much more directly in competition. Which wins out? At THIS level I think I could say graphics are a non-factor in the comparison. I am perfectly happy with the level of graphics of the 360. I personally think PS3 has the edge on technology (although Gears of War would beg to differ) but now it really comes down to the games. The following is a list of games which I like, look cool or I wanna play:

Slideshow of a few 360 games I wanna play.
(These are ALL in-game shots. The only one I’m not sure about is Battlefield: Bad Company because its from the teaser trailer. But the bottom of the trailer says its the in-game engine)