REVIEW: Gran Turismo 5

Gran Turismo 5 is a playstation exclusive game that I have been looking forward to for years - I bought the Playstation 3 system for a few games and this definitely was high on my list. After a long 4-5 years, the wait is finally over and their product finally broke out of that delay limbo all GT fans are familiar with. We finally get the game we've been all waiting for with an option of a collectors edition that comes with the following extras: a GT-R model car, keychain, exclusive booklet , and numbered certificate of ownership + 5 bonus in-game cars.

The playstation had released two other games prior to this final release to help feed some of their anxious fans, including myself: Gran Turismo 5 Prologue and Gran Turismo for the PSP. The only thing i remember from playing the "Demo-ish" Prologue version were the very irritating loading times between almost all actions - I'm glad I only borrowed the game from a friend. I own the PSP version and have mixed feelings about the game - it has a lot of cars which is good, but it's like playing Gran Turismo arcade mode only which is not what I was looking forward to. I'd say the prologue was not worth the money since you only get a few cars/maps to play with. The PSP version will force you to try a lot of different cars because of the lack of upgrades. After playing the real GT5, I will not see myself going back to either of these games.

I have played GT5 non-stop for the past 3 days during my Thanksgiving weekend and think I have a pretty good idea of the game and its direction. GT5 has a lot of features that are new to the series, they are mostly geared towards creating a closer community thanks to the internet and the Playstation network. You can view exclusive video content from the GT TV in-game, share your progress with friends, share and take pictures of your dream cars, and of course online multi-player competition. There are probably other features that i've not played with yet and possibly new features with future updates but lets go over the gameplay.

You start off with $20,000 much like in the previous version of GT and this means you start off with an inexpensive car and work your way up. It's not going to be as easy as the previous version because of a new "player level" aspect that grows as you progress through the game. Basically it limits what players can buy depending on their skill level - the game labels all cars with a level requirement and they must be met before you can purchase/use them. You can level up by taking license tests or winning races/challenges. There's a new AI-based gameplay called Spec-B where you act as a manager for a race team and build up a list of drivers that will help drive for you - it's pretty frustrating because the drivers start off as drivers that spin-out, understeer and oversteer; you need to give them commands (controlling their pace) to help them during a race. It's interesting and gives you an alternative way to unlock cars that you might not get in Spec-A (The traditional GT single player mode). Tip - just keep pace in the middle and you'll win a map usually (that white line between the blue/red).

There were a lot of hints that GT5 will have some sort of damage system, and it does but just not as realistic as you would want it to be. The damage system is very subtle and can target two areas: power and handling. For instance, if you abuse your car's engine a lot, you will see a decrease in horsepower after a race. If you damage your car's body you will lose handling performance and notice difficulty around corners. You can make repairs outside of a race but it's quite expensive, so this forces you to become a better driver and think twice about abusing your car to win a race.

The graphics in this game are quite good overall and even better with "premium" cars. The premium cars are cars that have higher quality detail than the "standard" cars; premium cars are all the cars that are shown at the dealerships in the game and possibly other cars you obtain in the game. These premium cars offer that high quality GT5 detail most of us were looking forward to and there is also a Photo Mode to photo-shoot your car at a several different virtual locations. The photo mode also has an "SLR" like feel to it because it allows you to adjust aperture and exposure settings as well as focal length. I've taken pictures of the NSX-R and love the results.

The driving experience is as good as it gets, very serious and simulator-like -- you will need to really use your skills if you want to play this game well. The game, by default, has the racing lines in-game so that you can take it easy and enjoy the game. With the racing lines on, I got to enjoy the advantages of an MR (Mid-engine Rear drive) type car but after turning them off, I also felt difficultly of actually driving an MR car. Tuning cars is also a pretty large element in this game and you get to adjust every suspension detail as you have in the past. This game really does push you to become a better driver and also gives you the opportunity sharpen your suspension/tuning skills.

I bought the collectors edition at first just because I liked the GT-R model car, but the real treat was the booklet it came with. The book is like a car encyclopedia, it contains so much information that it deserves the title of "Ultimate Car Guide". The book goes over everything from how a car is created to how every individual part functions in a car. I found the book helpful because helps illustrate how different tuning adjustments affect your car's handling/power. About 200 pages of this book is general information about cars, tuning and racing advice - the remaining 100 pages contains a listing of all the maps/cars in the game - THIS BOOK IS JUST AWESOME!

There is a lot more to say about this game and after playing it for 3 days i'm sure I haven't tried out everything just yet. So far I am satisfied with the game and would firmly give it 9.0 out of 10 and a perfect 10 if they improved loading times. Loading still takes some time even after the 8GB install, I am considering an SSD hard drive to increase performance on these load times. The multiplayer is working fine but I would also like to see improvements in the future. The single player mode is challenging enough for me and gives a realistic simulation of the actual cars. I believe this game is a must-have for those who like cars or love realistic racing games. This game is probably not too interesting to people who expect something fun because it definitely is not "fun" until you've spent hours sharpening up your driving skills. If you are not prepared to spend a lot of your time perfecting your driving skill, this might not be a good game for you. If you want the best possible car-simulator there is, this is as good as it gets for the PS3 and you should definitely get it.

GUIDE: Thanksgiving Turkey

The day has come again where many will be given the task or the duty to cook the turkey for thanksgiving. I have cooked turkey in the past with many different approaches and I believe this year will be my 6th or 7th time cooking a bird. To me cooking turkey has become fairly simple and there are only a few steps involved. Spend some time reading this guide if you want to learn how to cook a turkey with minimal effort.

Selecting Turkey:
First you need to buy the turkey of course, from my past I have tried: Butterball (frozen+fresh), Foster Farms (fresh), and Safeway (fresh); you will get what you pay for. The Safeway (supermarket) brand was the worst tasting one of the three - I got a fresh one and cooked it the same day because I was curious how well a bargain bird was. The Safeway bird will taste pretty bland; you might think you were eating cardboard for a moment because there is no turkey flavor and you will be focusing on other weird tastes. Most likely these bargain birds have been fed trash or scrap and will unfortunately taste like it. The next bird is from Foster Farms, a more reputable brand, and these are reasonably price and offer decent quality over their supermarket branded ones and i would recommend these if you wanted a cost effective bird. Lastly, the famous Butterball is definitely the winner if you want the best possible results of the three. The butterball turkeys have more fat to help during cooking, also it seems the turkey was much cleaner to work with.

If you buy fresh - make sure you cook it soon or freeze it; frozen ones you should give yourself 2-3 days in advance to thaw it properly.

Seasoning Turkey:
I am no master of this art but what I suggest is just salting the turkey overnight in between the layers of skin. You will need to dig in between the meat and outer skin all around the breast, thigh and legs -- it will sound difficult but it really isn't. Start from the rear cavity and separate the skin from the breast and then move down to the thigh and drumstick. After the bird has been well salted make sure to put it into the fridge overnight and then rinse all that salt off in the morning - fill the water into where you applied the salt. Pat the turkey dry with the towel and oil the bird all around and generously - figure out how you want to flavor the bird -- for me it's just whatever i find in the cabinet. Because we have "salted" the turkey, you don't need to add any more - just focus on your aromatics and herbs. A simple aromatic combination is Chinese 5-spice and Old-Bay seasoning 50/50 mix which will be a combination of many different herbs and spices. Again, I will apply this rub between the skin and also around the oily exterior.

Many traditionalists will argue that using brine will be the most bombproof way to prep the turkey and they might be right. But by just applying salt in between skin and meat, the salt will dissolve and create a more concentrated liquid - which will be much quicker/powerful than the water-based brine, just make sure to rinse the turkey thoroughly once before cooking it.

Cooking:
Make sure you take the turkey outside (room temp) for at least an hour or so to ensure the turkey is not too cold (this will mess with cooking times). Make sure you have your oven preheated to 500F and prepare the "turkey triangle" as Alton Brown refers. Fold a sheet of foil in half (triangle) and mold the foil to cover both sides of the turkey breast. After you have molded the turkey triangle, take it off the turkey and set it aside and re-oil the turkey if necessary. Make sure you have the turkey elevated on the pan/bake-ware you plan to cook it on so that the drippings don't reach the turkey during cooking; also it might be a good idea to get a second tray to catch any splatter. Cook the turkey for 20-30 minutes at 500F to brown the skin. After the turkey is well browned, put the turkey triangle over the breasts. Now close the oven door and lower to 350F and cook the bird until it's done.

To get the best cooking results, do not follow the instructions based on time, instead just spend $15 and get yourself a thermometer probe. This inexpensive gadget can extend out of your oven and allow you to view the temperature of the turkey while it cooks. IT IS IMPORTANT YOU DO NOT OPEN YOUR OVEN DURING THE SECOND COOKING PROCESS. If you do open it.. you will have uneven cooking and you should probably rotate the turkey every hour to make sure it is well cooked all around. I stick my probe into the inner thigh and wait until it reaches 172F and then i take it out of the oven and cover it in foil for an hour or two before attempting to carve it - a great time to start preparing the side dishes.

Gravy:
The drippings you have gained from the cooking the turkey can be used to create wonderful gravy. First thing you should do is skim off all the oil/fat from the droppings into a separate bowl as best as you can. Next, taste the drippings -- and see if it is salty or not... It should be salty because our bird is seasoned very well. Now make a "rue" with liquid fat (butter or the top of drippings) in a pan with 50% fat and 50% flour and mix until you get something that is like wet paste. After you get to the paste form of rue, add some of your skimmed drippings to the mixture and control the saltiness by adding more salt or liquid (water/milk/broth/whatever). For me I use about 1/4 cup of grease and 1/4 cup of flour as the rue - then I will add about 2 cup of the drippings + 1-2 cup of the water. Make sure to keep mixing the gravy and cook it for at least 5 minutes, the sauce will thicken more as you cook it and you can add water/broth to make it thinner. Remember also to taste it before you take it off the pan.

And this concludes how I cook a turkey -- there might be better ways but this is how I will do it this year.

EVENT: SF Bike EXPO 2010

This weekend, I attended the 3rd annual SF Bike Expo - an event that combines a showcase of new bicycle products with the opportunity to shop for used gear as well. The event is held a the Cow Palace in Daly City, California and is held annually around the same each year. I had a lot of fun last year here and had high hopes for the next ones to come.

This year's expo was significantly smaller than I remember, it felt like only half the vendors showed up compared to the previous year's. Although the event was smaller, I did have a decent time attending and just wished I studied the expo a bit more beforehand. I found myself enjoying the EXPO more than the swap meet this year and it gave me an idea of what to expect next year. Swap meets are fun when you have a list of items to hunt down but the Expo can show you products you might need and haven't thought of. As usual, a lot of designer style items were on the Expo side - very trendy shirts and accessories. I was also surprised to see Timbuk2 and Rickshaw Bagworks there selling their bags at almost half price - something I really wanted to own. But recently I have been spending quite a bit and while I was there I've already spent about $120 into items I didn't necessarily need so I had to pass just to control myself.

There wasn't much to photograph either since most swap meets are very similar and have that flea market type feel. I have been to a lot of swap meets before and the SF bike expos this year was a little disappointing because of all the high prices of all the vendors. I felt like parts in general have either gone up or the merchants just wanted to milk as much money as they could. I saw cheap caps selling for double what they were worth and $50 rear derailleurs that I could easily find $20 elsewhere. I guess the cycling world has gotten a lot of attention these days and people are more interested in parts this year. Honestly I couldn't say I spent a lot of time digging this year since I felt I had enough parts and couldn't think of anything to get for myself. After skimming through most of the merchants, what I've found myself purchasing this year was a vintage dura-ace 7400 rear wheel with new spokes and a 7-speed cassette. This wasn't something i was looking for since I had no idea what to purchase at the event but it was one of those items that were difficult to find for the right price. The wheel costed me $80 and another $20 went into a wool jersey recommended by a friend I took along the trip. The other $20 went into an arm warmer - something I thought of looking for when attending this event.

After coming back from the event, I googled at some of the vendors I saw and felt stupid not to prepare for this expo because there were a lot of neat items they were showcasing along with some great prices. Next year hopefully the expo will be larger and I will do my homework to make sure I can scarf up some exclusive deals. Some of the vendors I liked were Timbuk2, Rickshaw, Krieg, Clif Bar, the old man who sold me a wheel, and possibly more vendors if i only had done my research ahead of time. There definitely will be a next time - I'm going to plan on spending more next time I come.

REVIEW: SanDisk SD Plus Flash Card

Ever get tired of finding that memory carder or even the USB cable to transfer the files form your camera to the computer? Well this product will likely change your life; stick around because I am going to review one of my favorite gadgets of all time.

SanDisk has come up with a product that is simply genius and more people should be aware of it - the SD plus flash card. The picture shows two versions of this card, the original on the right and the ducati version in sporty Italian red on the left. The earlier version of the card was released before the SDHC technology was standard - so it was back when a 2GB SD was fairly large and moderately priced. I opted to spend a little more at the time for this one because I was interested in this cool feature of USB and the idea of a faster SD card. At first I thought it was just a neat gimmick but i soon realized this was actually a very practical and versitle product that i have used more often than any other flash drive. It's much smaller than a conventional USB drive and functions almost the same. Also the retail version of the SD plus card comes with a bonus key chain accessory that allows you to sleekly store the SD card when you're not using it (almost like a USB drive).

Because this is also an SD card, it can go directly into whichever device that supports SD such as music players, digital cameras, and digital picture frames just to name a few. Having the USB and SD interface in one card does not sound as cool as it actually is - this combination is actually very strong together and has really affected the way i think about future SD card investments. I don't ever have to use a card reader anymore and also won't need to carry the card reader or USB cable while i travel with my point and shoot camera. I could put it into my pocket with the supplied key chain accessory like i would with any USB drive, but now i have a spare SD card at all times in case i ever need to replace an SD card from any device. There are probably many more ways to show how this card excels past your normal USB or SD flash, but let's focus back to the review.

The older version is labeled an Ultra II and is spec'd to perform fast at the time - when tested it got about 9MB / sec. read speeds. One thing i noticed about the older version of the drive is that it will heat up a bit when plugged into a USB port - although i never had the drive fail on me for years now, it still is something i worry about. There are several versions of this drive: 512MB, 1GB, 2GB (shown), 4GB SDHC, and the rare 8GB SDHC version. The SDHC versions are rated as Class 4 - i have not tested these newer SDHC versions but i'm sure they will be similar, performance-wise, as the one i have with me today. For most people the 9MB/s speed should be plenty and would satisfy most point and shoot cameras. But if you were more professional or shoot in RAW you might need faster speeds to save time between transferring files and also saving photos in burst mode.


For those who are in the need for more speed, there is the special Ducati edition of the SD plus and it is as fast as it sounds. The card was created in cooperation with the Ducati motorsports branding to show their dedication to speed and performance. This card is rated as a Class 6 SDHC card and rated to read/write up to 20MB/s. But all SDHC cards are not created equal and there has been some Class 10 SDHCs that got out performed by slower Class cards such as this one. I've looked online and found a website that had a database of the Read/write speeds of almost all current flash cards on different cameras / card readers and found that the fastest speed obtainable from the Ducati SD plus was around 20MB /sec. with their best card reader. I decided to run my own test and was surprised at the results I got from using the built in USB, 24MB/sec. as shown from the photo.

The price of the ducati version, when it first released, retail was $129 - something very extravagant and never made it on my shopping list. But with SDHC phasing out and card capacities rising - there has been an overstock of these cards and stores are liquidating them at prices similar to regular SD Plus prices. I was able to purchase a pair from overstock.com for under $50 in bulk OEM packaging. I have been a huge fan and decided to just buy it knowing i could of gotten two 16GB SDHC cards for roughly the same price.

This product is really something you just need to experience first hand just to see how awesome it really is. To those who are debating if it is worth the sacrifice in storage, it might not be worth replacing your main card - just keep this one on your key chain in case you need it. I would recommend buying one just because it doubles as a USB drive so it's something that can see daily use vs. something just sitting inside your camera. One thing that i like about it is that it's RED!