GTAMADDOG

Sorry to hear that news man. I got some news which took me aback today, haven't really processed it yet. Basically my mum has been having trouble with the vision in one of her eyes the last couple of months and it's been getting slightly worse all the time, she went to see a doctor and he couldn't figure out what was wrong so he decided to book my mum into hospital for a scan. Bear in mind she's had scans before for other things. This time the scan revealed a growth. I'm not sure where abouts exactly, it's not in her brain, but it's close enough to some nerves which, if untreated, I was told could leave her deaf and in a wheel chair in a couple of years. Apparently it isn't the big C, but it still needs getting rid of. Apparently there will be no scars because the operation involves access to the area from behind the ear. Radiotherapy is an option but will take months and may not even work. So she's had to cancel her annual holiday to India in September and has been told she needs a minimum of six weeks off work before only going back part time to begin with. Apparently her boss is very understanding and says she can come and go when she wants and can have whatever time off she needs to be comfortable which is good. Don't know what else to say, I'll probably wake up in the morning and it'll hit me hard. My step-dad has been tryin to phone my sister, but due to a previous feud my sister won't speak to him, little does she know how serious it is and I wish she'd stop acting the way she does because she feels she has to be right all the time. She's 24, you'd think she'd be able to forgive and forget something which wasn't even that big a deal in my opinion.

Seriously, how is this thread the first thing I've heard about this game. I must've been living under a rock the last few months. Time to buy a new Xbox.

I was overtaking a few cars (dual carriage way), the first one was a Peugeot 308 SW, he got most of the smoke I think. Most people around here don't seem to care if they get smothered in diesel smoke though :p That's the first time I've ever really given the car some stick, most of the time I just trundle around at under 2,500RPM surfing on the torque.

Car hoovered and washed before 11:30am, hopefully it won't rain before I get some diesel and come back. Now what to do with the rest of my Sunday...

I keep looking at the GoPros, but then I start thinking "When will I ever use it?" and "I've already got enough cameras as it is". With those two things in mind and the cost of the GoPros in the first place I don't think I'll ever get one despite how good the videos look. I keep meaning to do a 30-70MPH video for this thread. Not doing 0-60MPH because 1st gear in my car always renders quick starts a waste of time because as soon as I pull off I've got to change into 2nd anyway, but 30-70 is where it should shine in 3rd gear. Tried it the other day without recording to clear all of the soot out of the system and I wish I had a camera facing behind me. It was one of the biggest diesel smoke screens I've ever seen, I was laughing all the way to work after that. Many, many months of carbon build-up was expelled in those few seconds :p

Lol, I don't really use the mirrors so I just left them as they were because I like how you can look right and then stick your head out the window to look behind, I think that aspect of the game is awesome :p Are the high-beams on another key then? I swear with the old truck simulator games you just pressed the headlight key and it'd go dipped-beam, then high-beam, then off. On here it just switches dipped-beam on and off and I never bothered to look in the controls, for some reason I thought they must've omitted the feature all together. I don't think the trucks go faster than 90km/h, I was desperately trying to get it to go faster by revving the nuts off it and driving down hills, but I fear you're right that there is a speed-limiter on there. I think I need to play around with the settings now you two have brought these points up. I just set the graphics up, set my G25 up to work and left it at that :p

Uploaded this a week ago. Scania Truck Driving Simulator. Just me driving about in the dark which was probably a bad idea because I then decided to go up a road where there were no lights. Don't think I drove too badly considering I could hardly see where I was driving when I was recording it. Made a couple of mistakes like speeding and running a 'pink' traffic light because I was speeding, but I probably made 10,000 other mistakes in the eyes of the people who really take the game seriously. I was actually going to commentate while I played it, but I decided against it. Tried making a commentary video with GTA IV a couple of months ago and I could barely think of anything to say even with all the crazy stuff that goes on in GTA.

Loving this guys gaming commentary videos at the moment. Just went through his videos and randomly chose this one, laughed the whole way through. Contains strong language though so I'll link to it. There's also one where he's playing a game called Octodad and just the games alone, let alone his commentary, made me laugh.

Lol, twin-turbo + supercharger, for a 306. Pretty much just talking about engine bits and pieces, but it's finally running towards the end. Contains the occasional swearie. Ohh, it gives me silly ideas..

Bought these couple of things a few of weeks ago, but I've not had a chance to use them/take photos of them until today. Autosol Metal Polish. Holy crap. I don't usually rate any car cleaning stuff because it all seems to do very similar things in my opinion, but this stuff is fantastic. Used it on my chrome exhaust tip which was once covered in surface oxidisation and black carbon deposits from the diesel smoke coming out of it. Now, with this stuff and very little effort it's like a brand new exhaust tip. I could sit there all day with my wheel brush trying to get that exhaust tip clean and it'd just stay looking very similar to what it was before, but I won't even bother with that any more, I'll just use this Autosol stuff. Autosol Metal Polish by GTAMADDOG, on Flickr I also bought this stuff at the same time. Collinite No. 476S Auto Wax. So-say works for a whole year and just lets any rain water glide off the car like nothing else, but it hasn't rained yet, and I don't want it to rain because I've just washed, polished and waxed the car. But, my God, was it a pain in the arse to buff off. I probably left it on there to haze for too long in the sun in all honesty, but I've never sweat so much in my life trying to get this stuff buffed off :p Collinite No. 476S Auto Wax by GTAMADDOG, on Flickr Those are the only two notable purchases recent(ish)ly.

I'll start the miserable off again. Back from my holiday, although now I'm back I wish I wasn't. Even though while I was there I didn't think much of it, because there wasn't really much to do around where I went, so I thought I was bored. Now I'm back home and I realise that I was just being silly and I wasn't bored. It's now sunk in that I'm back home, its crap and depressing and I've got work on Monday. I really just can't be bothered with it after a nice chilled out week taking in the Welsh coastal scenery. Should've stayed in bed this morning and refused to move. Holiday got off to a poor start really. Two days in and we were going to Haverfordwest to let my mum chill out and do some shopping when we pull away from a set of traffic lights and the front passenger tyre decides to disintergrate on us. Pull over and get the spare wheel out, put that on and inspect the old tyre to find that my step-dad had been driving around on it with an outside edge which was completely bald and an inside edge which was that bald that it had canvas showing on it. He'd been wondering why it was losing air all the time. Got going again and then it clicked that it was Sunday and no tyre garages were open.. then it clicked again that Monday and Tuesday were bank holidays due to the Diamond Jubilee stuff so no tyre fitters would be open then either. So we go do a little shopping and come back on the spare wheel. Monday we leave the car parked up and go for a walk along the coast which was good. Tuesday I think we just looked around the town we stayed in because it was raining, but I can't remember much of Tuesday for some reason. Wednesday we got two new tyres fitted which brought bad news as they found that one of the top mounts was broken so they couldn't do the tracking on the car. Then we went to look at an Audi TT which my mum looked at on Sunday before the tyre blew out. Then we went to Haverfordwest again, then up to Fishgaurd where things started going wrong for the car again. The car had been using water for the last couple of weeks which my step-dad didn't look in to it because it seemed to be alright for the week running up to the holiday, but on the way up to Fishguard the water level light started flashing on the dashboard, so we just topped the car up and carried on, it was fine for the rest of the day. Yesterday was a complete wash-out so we went to Narberth and had a look around before deciding the weather was rediculous and called it a day. Inspected the car yesterday evening to find that a gasket/clip sort of thing which connects the water hose to the engine block had a split in it and as fast as you could pour water into the tank it was leaking out of the split in the connector. So my step-dad tried bodging that and tried sealing it in some way to lessen the water loss. Today we leave to come back home and after only six miles the water level light starts flashing again, so we stop a couple of times and top the car up with a further four more litres of water before calling it quits and parking up in a Tesco car park in Carmarthen and calling the AA. AA man arrives after an hour, spends half an hour trying the seal the leak with some stuff he had in his van before declaring he couldn't bodge it enough to get us home. So he calls out a recovery truck and an hour later it arrives, car goes on the back and we get recovered 110 miles back home in a recovery truck. To rub salt into the wounds the part we needed only cost £12 from a Volkswagen dealership and could've been fitted within 15 minutes, but they couldn't get it in until Tuesday. Can't blame the car though, it's done 192,000 miles and it's owned by someone who will not spend money trying to keep it going. Still enjoyed the holiday though despite the car issues, and the weather, and the dog waking us up at 5am every day. A lot better than being at work anyway. TL;DR: An eventful and wet holiday was had and I don't want to be back home.

You Australians are used to it though :p It was nearing 30C for a few days this week and it just makes me become annoyed at absolutely everything and things start going wrong because I can't concentrate properly. I much prefer cold weather with things like gale force winds and rain/snow (yes, I'm that weird), until it comes to keeping a clean car anyway :p

I bought some Autosol Metal Polish to clean up my exhaust tip and some Collinite 476S wax the other day. Haven't had a chance to try either out yet as I've been at work and I'm off on holiday this week (not using my car but it'll be having a well deserved rest in the garage) but I'll give them a quick try out when I get back. Apparently with the Collinite 476S wax you only need to apply it once year because it's that long lasting and leaves such a good result for the whole time. We'll see. Just hope the weather isn't too bad when I get back. Still yet to buy a machine polisher though.

Haha, I've got this on my mums laptop. I can never work out which routes I'm meant to follow and no-one ever wants to get on my bus, but I don't blame them because I rag it around everywhere at top speed :p I kind of lost interest in it when I stopped using the bus to get everywhere after I passed my driving test though.

Off work until the 11th June now. Unfortunately I'm not just going to be sat around the house being as lazy as possible like I like to be when I have time off work. I'm off to Tenby until next Friday. Staying in a cottage, but it doesn't have internet access so I think I'll be spending a lot of time in the local pubs just for that reason. A good chance to use my 500D again though, and I'm not at work so that's a big bonus. The weather isn't meant to be that good, but it doesn't bother me, I'm definitely not a fan on the sun and 20C+ like we've had for the past week anyway. Heck, it wouldn't be Wales if it wasn't raining, or at least cloudy :p

Car passed its M.O.T. today, so she's all set for another year and roughly another 12,000 miles on the road. Been worrying about it all week because the thing constantly sounds like it's falling apart :p Got an advisory for my exhaust blowing slightly, but I know where and why that is. Handbrake is also just within the efficiency limits, but I cba with that because it works fine as far as I'm concerned, lol. To be honest I couldn't care less about the advisories as long as I didn't get one about a knackered rear axle which the 306s suffer with a lot. If the rear axle went it would be scrap time for the car. Not as good as last year though, it didn't get one advisory last year, but the car was hardly being used back then where as it is doing 50+ miles a day now. Just need to look at the air conditioning because it's never worked and the car is a complete sweat-box in this current weather.

There was one like this for sale around here a month or two ago. Can't remember if it was based on a Supra, but it was based on something Japanese and similar to a Supra at least. This one was in silver and just a standard 'DB9'.

Took the Xbox apart, here are some photos of it with probably the least photographic merit out of the entire thread. Should've at least used the 500D to take the photos, but she's out of power :p http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x104/GTAMADDOG/IMG_0202.jpg http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x104/GTAMADDOG/IMG_0205.jpg http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x104/GTAMADDOG/IMG_0206.jpg I don't know how, but I got her back together with no screws left over and looking exactly the same as she was before. Not a bad job. Bet it still doesn't work though :p

So much want. So little money to satisfy so much want :(

Saw/Sat in an Audi TT-S today. It was previously owned by a famous day-time television presenter. That's about as good as it got. Too many scratches/blemishes and too many miles for its age for my liking. Oh, and I don't fit in the back 'seats', no surprises there though :p Audi Navigation system and interior quality was very nice though, as to be expected.

Same here, but luckily I like it :p I think they played it that many times here that I went from hating it to just growing to liking it. Because I do remember being sat in the car many-a-time when this song came on and thinking "Oh, not this friggin' song again".

Did the shock absorbers today, car was in the garage as it was raining outside. Opened the boot to lower the spare wheel from underneathe the car to gain better access, so in my usual fashion I just let the boot raise up by itself, but obviously the car was on axle stands and therefore higher up than it normally is when parked in the garage. This resulted in the boot, namely the area where the rear Peugeot badge is, hitting the garage door before it had reached the end of its travel. This made my Peugeot badge fall off, no other damage though so I'll just use the industrial strength glue which my mum provided me with to stick the badge back on at some point this weekend. Just a pain in the neck trying to get all of the residue off from the glue that's already on there so when the badge is re-applied it sits better.

Awkward video, but the song has been stuck in my head all week, really catchy for some reason:

Bought these a couple of weeks ago, took that long to get here from Germany for some reason. The bottom rubber bush on one of the old ones was knackered, I might get a photo of it later as it's quite comical how it managed to stay in place despite no longer being joined to the shock absorber itself. So as you should do I replaced both of the rear ones: http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x104/GTAMADDOG/IMG_0870.jpg http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x104/GTAMADDOG/IMG_0871.jpg Actually quite cheap considering they're Bilstein jobbies, but they are just standard ride/height OEM replacements I suppose.

*gets self in trouble for posting Metally screamy stuff*