There's only one more exam, but its reasoning skills and I think its going to be rather easy.

 I'm just gonna schpeel a bit on what I REALLY want to blog about, but can't at the moment. First up will be figuring out how our new Toyota Matrix does in the snow. Remember, it's AWD.

 Secondly is my newest toy, a 24" Widescreen LCD monitor. Moving up to a screen that is more than twice the size of my previous monitor has its advantages, and its disadvantages surprisingly.

 My crazy exam schedule is probably worth a mention...add on the fact that I just finished my fifth one in a row!

Oh, and did I forget to mention that my christmas break is really really really close?!?!?!?! IT'S ALMOST HERE!!!!!

One of the things this most recent snowfall has shown is me is how valuable all-wheel-drive is in the snow. After driving just a few days with our AWD Toyota Matrix, I really began to wonder how we made it through all these past winters in rear-wheel drive vehicles.

Accelerating from a stop is no problem at all, Pulling into my un-shoveled driveway with 30 cm of snow and getting all the way to my garage is no problem. Plowing through snow ridges made from snowplows is simple enough and navigating a deep, snow-drifted parking lot is no harder than adding a bit more gas. I could even stop in the middle and crawl out with ease. Its just so amazing that this car never seems to get stuck!

I am yet to get into a situation where the car just won’t move. The coolest thing of all is being able to navigate all the little side roads without any fear of getting stuck, and being able to quickly accelerate from a stop, leaving other 2wd’ers sitting around.

I sat at a stoplight, snickering to myself while I observed a silver Jetta attempt to cross the intersection. The main road that I was on was well plowed but the intersecting road was very much unplowed. Since I was at a stoplight, it was the Jetta’s right of way. The lady driver tried to accelerate into the main road, but just kept spinning her tires. She backed up a bit, then tried to get going again. Just as she seemed to have gotten enough grip, the light changed and she was stuck…again.

Last night started off with a very nice farewell dinner for a few of my exchange-student friends who were going back to their home countries after studying in Windsor for four months. We ate at the Flying Tiger Chinese restaurant and ordered some traditional Chinese food.

The food was great but of course, the best part is always the conversation. This was the coldest its been for all of them, and the most snow that most of them had ever seen. It was funny hearing them talk about how interesting it was to have to push their car out after getting stuck in the snow. Things that us Canadians are quite used to by now. I didn’t tell them, but I had an interesting time in china when the bus I was riding stalled, and the driver asked the passengers to push the bus!

It was also very entertaining listening to the Spanish student talk about shopping on Black Friday, the biggest shopping day in the US. For her, being able to fight for the clothes she wants and running into hundreds of people at the store was like a dream come true! She even bought a total of 10 pairs of shoes during her four month stay in Windsor.

She’s got her ‘New York shoes,’ her ‘Toronto shoes’ and her everyday shoes. I forgot to mention she also has a pair of everyday casual shoes. What’s the difference between everyday shoes and everyday casual shoes?

After dinner, we took a walk down to the river to enjoy a nice view of the Detroit skyline at night. It’s no Hong Kong Skyline, but it’s not bad at all. We made a few snow angels and threw one snowball which somehow made its way down my neck. I was tempted to throw one back but, I actually didn’t know who threw it!

Come to think of it, we were rather crazy to go out at night in -7 Celcius temperature with extreme windchill blowing across the river. But hey, it was fun! By the time my hands started to get numb, everyone else had begun to conclude that it was time to head back to our parked car.

I had parked at the bottom of a rather steep and slippery slope. Going down was easy, but going up was a different story. My friend had an older model Toyota Corolla and I decided to let him attack the slope first just in case he didn’t get up and started sliding backwards. As he was nearing the top, the car slowed to a crawl and all I could see was plumes of exhaust smoke. I was sitting in my car with my friends, watching, wondering…

“What do you think we should do? Should we help?”
-Silence-
“Take a picture?”

I actually wish they did because it was really quite interesting. I parked my car on the side of the parking lot to help him out. After seeing that the road surface was really quite icy, I thought the best thing to do was get behind the wheel myself to back up the car a bit and then accelerate.

It sort of worked, but didn’t quite get the car to the top. After two tries, I decided to back the car all the way down the slope where there was actually some plowed road surface and plant my right foot until I got the car going at a decent speed up the slope. I then had to modulate the throttle so the tires didn’t slip too much, but at the same time, minimize the loss of momentum. After getting my friends car on grippy tarmac and bidding my friend good luck, I proceeded to my AWD machine.

I had absolutely no worries as I stepped into my car. Despite having the added weight of three extra people (which could be considered an advantage), I had all four wheels driving my car. I didn’t even need to get a run up of speed to pull me up. I simply pointed the Matrix up the hill and lightly applied the throttle. No wheel spin, no drama, just pure grip. Behold the power of all wheel drive!

So you must be wondering how in the world this car handles snow when I’m trying to have a bit of fun, considering that I have just moved up from a rear wheel drive vehicle.

First of all, you can’t really slide the car with the same amount of control. When you first apply the throttle, the car will push to the outside of the corner, but because of the way this all wheel drive system works, power will only go to the rear wheels if the front wheels slip. So to get a slide, you have to stay on the throttle and just let the car do the magic. It’s still slightly unpredictable and so I could never quite powerslide with the same amount of accuracy as before. Nonethless, it is really entertaining, being able to perform a neutral slide with zero countersteer.

I’ve been sold on the beauty of AWD. Its advantages are worth more than words could ever express. When you live in Canada and get freak snowstorm, being able to power through the deepest of snow is very assuring, it even makes you look like a star. I’ve already forgot what its like to get stuck! Maybe ‘AWD’ should stand for; ‘Answers for Winter Dilemmas’ Unless of course, an unweary snowplower decides to totally cover our car in iced up snow...

24 Inches can mean a lot of things. It could be a 24" large pizza, it could be a set of 24" rims, or it could be 24" of snow. All of which wouldn't sound too awkward to talk about. I however, will be talking about my newest toy, a 24" Widscreen LCD monitor.

Ever since stumbling across a black Friday deal for a 24" Samsung LCD monitor, I had been on the lookout for something similar. My original plan was actually to go to the USA on Thursday, buy the monitor at full price then go back on Black Friday to claim back the full sale price difference. This plan would ensure that I would get myself a super deal for only $349.99.

Upon coming closer to the actual date, things didn't quite work out. I had a midterm on Friday morning (ensuring that I would not be able to line up in the wee hours of the morning) and the original price was $499.99 which required a mail-in rebate. A US mailing address with my name was nonexistent, and thus my mind was made up. I would go to the store on Black Friday in the afternoon and if they happen to have one of the monitors in stock, I would buy it. If not, then oh well. Come Black Friday...no monitor.

But one thing that I figured out while monitor shopping was that I began to see that my original plan of buying a 22" Widescreen monitor was flawed. It wouldn't be able to play HD video in full Resolution and it really wasn't THAT big of a jump from my Macbook resolution. In other words, it was too small. I had to have something that would transform my desktop landscape.

A few weeks later I decided to casually browse the internet. Lo and behold, Amazon.com pulled through with a monster of a deal on a monster of a monitor. It was an HP w2408 Widescreen 24" monitor. It had height adjustments, it could tilt, pivot, had a built in USB hub and greatest of all, it sported a 92% colour gamut, meaning that it was able to display a wider range of the colour spectrum as opposed to the industry norm of 74%. The crazy deal was $160 off the original price of $599. It was no Black Friday deal, but it was the best price on the internet, anywhere.

I had it shipped to my friend's university in Detroit but since it was so big and expensive, I wanted to get it back across the border without paying Canadian tax. I obviously couldn't ask my friend to smuggle it in for me, so I made a day trip down to her university for a day of study-smuggling.

So as to not raise suspicion I needed to be across the border foe a few hours at least. I also had a slew of excuses for the case of the officer finding out I was transporting a very large monitor. "My friend let me borrow it for the month" or "I just bought it and brought it over to watch some movies" were some of the excuses. I really didn't want to come to that because the possibility of lying badly was very real.

I decided to park at the Renaissance center because it was relatively close, was cheap and most of all, had a 24 hour mobile security service. Although, I would actually be skeptical about what that term really means because as I was walking out, I saw an old burgundy Cadillac with three black guys in bandanas. I know that they weren't there to park and I thought I saw one guy with a shotgun… I didn't want to look too closely!

The Detroit Mercy School of Law (yes, there is a law school in downtown Detroit) was my study area for the morning. It was quite comfortable because I had my laptop with me and the wireless Internet was fully accessible. For once, I didn't fall asleep while studying in a library.

And then the moment came...time to pick up the monitor!
I met my friend around noon and we proceeded to the office to start the escort of the precious cargo. I did wonder a few times if the package really did arrive and whether the online tracker could have been wrong, but the moment I stepped in front of the desk, I saw my 24 inches of widescreen wonder! It was quite entertaining walking around with it because everyone who saw it was commenting on it.
"Oooo...I'll have one of those!" or, "I could use a TV like that"

Before packing it in the car, I had to unpack it from the box to make sure that it looked 'used'. That involved tearing off the packing slip, opening all the bags and untangling the wires. Being in downtown Detroit, I really did not want to walk down to my car holding a large monitor worth a few hundred dollars. They've got Shotguns, I've got pixels. 'nuff said.

I told my friend to wait 7 minutes indoor, then wait by the roadside. I would pull up in my car and escort the precious cargo to its final destination: Canada. I had all the excuses running through my head but luckily the border guy was really friendly to me. I pulled up to the gate and had a nice conversation.
Border patrol - "What's your citizenship?"
Smuggling agent - ‘Canadian’
Border patrol- "Ok, have a good day."

Precious cargo had been delivered.

So what was it like? Well, the first time I placed it on my desk I had step back and say…Wow! You just have absolutely no idea how big a 24” monitor is until you stick it on your desk. Think about it this way, all my life, I’ve been saddled with a tiny little 17” monitor that wasted about half my desk space. Now, I’ve suddenly had a monster of a 24” monitor that is bigger by more than half a foot, has roughly three times the pixel count and takes up a fraction of the desk space. It’s like moving up from a Smart car to a Cadillac Escalade. This will eat lesser monitors for lunch!

Don’t for one second think that I forgot to plug it in while gawking at its grandeur because that’s the best part. I first hooked it up to my Macbook because set up would be ridiculously easy. No drivers, no problems, just plain glory in 1920x1200 pixels.

Upon firing up the screen, I opened up an HD movie. This is where the first disadvantage of my monitor pops up. No, I’m not going to talk about the pixel response time or ghosting, my monitor handles that with aplomb. But, I will talk about escalation.

With a monitor that can display moves at full HD resolution, it would be a waste if I can’t play movies in high definition. Of course, I could download 25gb Blu-ray rips but that would be tedious and totally illegal. The only logical step would be to buy a Blu-ray player. Up-conversion DVD players just won’t cut it.

But a computer monitor is not just about playing movies, its about gaming! Sadly, up comes the next big disadvantage. My Macbook is nowhere close to a gaming machine, and my ‘gaming’ computer is a 7 year old desktop that desperately needs upgrading. The problem is, a simple video card upgrade would not be enough to play the latest games at my monitor’s maximum resolution. I would need to upgrade the processor, the video card, the motherboard, the ram, and just about everything else! I’m talking super computer specs, the F1 of computers.

Finally, the worst disadvantage is actually moving down to a smaller monitor. It’s amazing how a large monitor changes the way you browse the Internet. You can open two full web pages side-by-side so you can browse on one page while the other one loads. Or, you can fill one half of the screen with a webpage and fill the other side with 6 full chat windows or 12 overlapping. I can even view entire page scans and PDF’s at full size! The opportunities are endless. Stepping down to my Macbook screen makes me wonder how I even can manage…don’t even mention going to a 17” monitor because I will go mad.

So if you’re reading this, I have a few tips for you. If you plan on buying a 24” monitor, plan ahead, and think about it very hard because its going to make every other screen in your house inferior (save for HD-TV’s).  You’re also going to have an incessant need to spend more money and you will start to do more things at once on your computer than you ever thought possible. This is not a decision to take lightly. Come to think of it, I’ve only used it for two weeks and its already starting to look a bit too small…

It was a calm and sunny day outside. The thermometer read 5 degrees..not quite optimum, but it would suffice. I strapped on my driving shoes and cinched up behind the wheel. It was time to go driving. This time though I would be piloting a car I've never been able to get close to. It was a virtual car in Gran Turismo 4

I was going to be competing in a 10 race battle with 5 other competitors with the difficulty very near the maximum. I initially was going to enter the competition with a Formula One car but decided against wiping the compassion with my exhaust. I wanted to beat them on a level playing field. Thus, my trusty Race-Spec 2003 Xanavi Nissan Skyline was called into action.

From the first race, it was apparent that winning would be a tough proposition. All of the opposing cars were faster in a straight line. It was in the corners that I would need to make up ground.

Thanks to my many hours of training in the license tests I knew most of the tracks well. Plus, I had a secret weapon; the amazing Logitech G25 Force Feedback Steering wheel. I would be able to feel every bump in the dirt and every crease in the asphalt. It would give me uncanny feel and response. Armed and ready I began to take down the competition.

Having a slower car in Gran Turismo really demands precision and consistently fast driving. One too many mess ups and the emotion-engine controlled drivers will pull away before you even realized you made a mistake.

The first two races were rather easy to take the top step of the podium, but the third race hit home how hard this task would be. It was a very long track with few corners and many long straights. Even with my cornering ability, I was no match for the top placed driver; a Prototype Race-spec Nissan Skyline GT-R

I had to move into damage control mode and took a respectable 2nd. The next two races were also extremely long tracks with extremely long straightaways so I knew I had to change something.

Knowing that increasing horsepower was not an option I turned to tuning the aero and the gearing. I lowered the car as much as possible and used as little downforce as possible. These changes would reduce the drag of my car thereby increasing straight line speed. I also optimized the gear rations so that the wouldn't run out of breath at high speeds. Feeling confident, I stared the race.

It didn't take long to notice that the cars were just too fast. two of them sped away right from the start and never looked back. It was my worst race, finishing a paltry sixth place. Luckily for me though, my main competitor only finished in 3rd.

Next up was a 27 lap race that I had in the bag. The course was extremely small and each lap only took 20 seconds to complete. After being left in the dust for the past few high speed tracks, i was looking to close up the points gap. Yes, I could have raced clean and try to win, but when the computer constantly pushes you off the track I couldn't help but think of a more sinister way of earning points.

At the end of a long sweeping corner is the pit lane entry. If you enter the pit lane, it would lose you about 20 seconds...in this case, one lap. My plan was to enter the corner side by side with the leader and slowly nudge him to the outside of the corner and into the pit lane. It took me a couple of tries, but eventually, I nailed it and he had nowhere else to go. Chuckling to myself I closed the gap by a further 9 points by the end of the race.

Feeling confident, I entered the next race with the intention of repeating my actions from the last race. The race itself was much shorter, 4 laps, but it was one of my favorite tracks and when I like a track, I tend to drive quicker. I knew I had to accomplish my task in the first few laps just so I had a buffer to take the win.

Entering the main straight from a long sweeper, I tried my move. I twitched the steering wheel over but this time, with dire consequences. Somehow, I missed my mark and my car spun completely out of control while my target was unscathed. This all happened at the end of the third lap.

On the last lap, I had a problem. I was 25 seconds behind the 2nd and 3rd drivers with slightly more than 1 lap to go. Not only that, but my 'change oil' light had come on. In Gran Turismo, its more than just a pretty light. It also means that your car loses power... I couldn't afford to lose any more power to the competition! Not only that, but I couldn't change the oil until after the whole competition was over! I had to pull out all the stops and use all the knowledge of the track that I had.

I knew where to cut the curbs, I knew where to brake...but doing all that under pressure is tough. I began to feel the track and became one with the car. Winning the race was now impossible but second place was feasable. I had the pace..I could do it!

I was right on the tail of the second place driver by the last turn. it was a long sweeping corner and I had to bide my time and wait for the best moment. Too soon and I wouldn't have the right line and I would understeer to the outside of the corner. Too late and I wouldn't beat him.

He moved to the outside and I went for it. All the way down to the finish line it was a drag race, neck and neck. I could see his nose on the edge of my screen and my position counter still read '3'. I kept my foot planted and hoped for the best.

2nd.

Yes! I had done it! I turned around an almost impossible situation and made the best out of it. This finish was one of the closest I ever had. I was separated by only .001 of a second.

Going into the final race, I was ahead by only one point. The Winner would take ten points to the second place finisher's 6. Whoever won the last race would take the crown. Lucky for me, it was a twisty street circuit that I knew very well; Monte Carlo. I had only one goal; Winning.

I started the first lap out of seven very well. I passed one car in the first corner and continued to pick off everyone else in the remainder of the lap. By the end of the first lap, I had a 5 second lead over the second place runner. But I couldn't slow down. What if I lost my concentration and smacked into a wall? What if my tires wore faster than expected? What if my car lost more Horsepower as the oil light stayed on? I just continued driving as fast as possible. I began the rhythm...a left, right, then a hairpin. Don't brake too early or you'll lose speed. Don't brake too late or you'll hit the wall. Don't enter the corner too fast or you'll understeer into the wall. I had it all under control. My lap times kept getting faster and faster, setting my fastest time on my second last lap. I had done it. I had won!!

I gladly took the prize of 200,000 credits and a new car that used to be my competition; the Prototype Nissan Skyline GT-R. it was just another day at the racetrack. What's next? Maybe I'll tackle the Nurburgring 24 hour race...