Soul Searchings

I’m just having awesome luck with my 2 month old Yaris. First there was the door ding, and now I have no rear window. What’s most interesting is that all evidence seems to indicate that it wasn’t smashed by anyone, but rather it just exploded on its own. I was parked at work yesterday in the back alley for only about an hour, when the shipping manager called upstairs to let me know my rear window was broken. So I went down to look, and found this:

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Obviously, my first thought was some asshole did this. I quickly surveyed the situation and took a couple pictures and then drove it to the closest ICBC glass express shop. The guy who looked it over told me that there is a real possibility that it wasn’t smashed by anybody or anything, but that it exploded on its own. After that, the more I thought about it, the more likely this seemed to be what happened. I noticed that there was no body damage whatsoever, and nothing appeared to be missing or even touched inside. There was also quite a bit of glass on the ground outside, but no glass inside my car on the back seat.

So the glass shop guy told me to contact the dealership to see if I can actually get it fixed under warranty or whatever as a defect. So I called up my sales rep first, and he told me to bring the car into the dealership service shop so that the service manager could take a look at it. So I drove it over there and pretty much right away, she said Toyota wasn’t going to cover it. She said that Toyota doesn’t have glass problems, and if there was something wrong with the glass, it would only get replaced under warranty within 2 weeks of purchase. She told me I would have to go through ICBC as per the usual process. I wasn’t exactly thrilled about this. I called my sales rep back, because he wanted to know the outcome regardless… and he told me to call up Toyota Canada headquarters to let them know of my situation, so I did that… and now they’re going to review it and in 5-7 days, they’ll decide whether to compensate me or not. In the meantime, I now had to drive back to the glass shop… which was really fun, as going over every bump means more glass crumbling and shattering in the back. So, back at the glass shop, they had some problems allocating the part since the car model is still so new, but eventually they found one in stock locally, and it’s being fixed today. As of now, I’m going to need to shell out the $300 deductible for the ICBC claim though. I sure as hell hope Toyota is going to pay me back, but I have a bad feeling I’m going to need to argue pretty fiercely if that’s ever going to happen.

One thing in my favour is that apparently the same thing happened to a Yaris in Quebec. Just having one other person with this problem is a huge help in making a case that this is actually a defect with the car and/or window itself.

I guess I’m just going to need to wait until Toyota calls me back.

Two nights ago, I had the worst online poker session ever. In a little more than one hour, I managed to lose more than $50 in every way possible playing $25/NL and $25/PL. It was actually quite ridiculous. Several times, I had the absolute nuts, only to get outdrawn to an even bigger hand. One of them, I had JT and flop came AKQ giving me broadway and the absolute nuts. I didn’t slow play it either… I came out betting. And it just so happens, someone with KQ calls me and then ends up landing another K on the turn for the boat. Then there was another one where I had Ad8d and had the absolute nuts with the flush on the turn, and had like 3 people all in, only to lose when the river paired the board to give the person with a set the pot. Against a loose player, I lost with QQ to his K8… and not from him landing a K, but instead from him getting two 8’s on the flop. All in all, it was just sad… and I was tilting the most I had ever been.

I guess playing poker has its ups and downs… because yesterday, I made all of that back and more. In under 3 hours, I managed to win more than $160… easily my best session ever. Things were finally going right, and the difference was I was still getting my money in with the best hand, but more often than not, my hands were holding up. Then there were the few hands were I was simply up against people that just handed me their money… but hey, I’m not going to complain about that. There was one hand where I went up against this girl. I limped in with KT. The flop came KQ3. So I had top pair - not bad. I bet out 50¢ and she just min-raises me to $1, so of course I call. The turn comes an J, now giving me an open ended draw for broadway as well. I think I bet a buck, and she just calls. Now, the river card made things interesting… it was an ace. So the board is showing KQ3JA. There is four to a straight on the board, and of course I had the T to complete broadway, which was the absolute nuts as there was no 3-suited… so I bet out a few bucks. Surprisingly, she raised me like $10. I had to look again just to make sure that in fact I did have the nuts, and I did. So I reraised her another $10. She reraised again all in, and I call. It ended up being a $69.50 pot. At this point, I was thinking we were going to surely split the pot… how else could she be so confident to even call the $10 reraise, nevermind pushing all in? BUT… it turns out, she had pocket rockets, and was only holding on to a set of aces. How she could be so confident with a set of aces when there is four to a straight on board, I’ll never know. Some guy really laid into her afterwards. I commented "Didn’t you see the four straight on the board?" and some guy pipes in "Oh, she seen it. She just thinks her set of aces covers a straight" and she replies "shut up". So slow playing her rockets cost her dearly… but not as much as her recklessness did. Pocket rockets aren’t unbeatable… even if you hit a set with them. You need to look at the whole picture, not just what you’re holding.

I’ve basically finished Mario Kart DS now… got triple stars on all the mirrored 150cc circuits now as well. The opening title screen is different after you do this, and every single character can now use every single one of the 36 karts.

I’ve always loved racing games, and I’ve always been pretty good at them. The first racing game I got to be really good at was RC Pro Am for the NES. I was only like 8 years old at the time, but from what I recall, I was extremely good at it. I think there were only 32 tracks in total, and by the time you get up to that level, the three computer opponents are ridiculously fast… like 1.5x faster than your own car. That means once they go past you, you’re done… there is absolutely no chance of catching up. The only way to win is to keep at least one opponent behind you at all times, by firing rockets or bombs at him throughout the entire race to keep him at bay. I think I made it all the way to around level 60 or something, completely overflowing the trophy screen in the game (don’t think they had planned for anyone to get to such a high level).

In the last several years, I’ve played several arcade racers seriously, and here are my most notable accomplishments:
Rush 2049: #2 in Canada (As far I knew by the online rankings, which no longer exist)
Outrun 2: #1 in North America (Verifiable by the official online rankings)
Ferrari F355 Challenge: #1 in the world (Non-official as not verified by online rankings, but generally accepted as true. I have the world records in the game for Suzuka Short, Monza, Sugo, Suzuka Long, and Long Beach. I do acknowledge that the Japanese, generally the craziest arcade racers in the world, stopped playing this original version and moved on to version 2 of the game, whereas North America never got the newer version, so while they stopped playing the original, I continued with it and eventually beat their records.)

As for other games like Sega Super GT, Daytona USA 2, and Sega Rally 2, I got to be very good at those also, but not quite amongst the world elite. However, for Daytona USA 2, I can finish the reverse expert track while playing with the wheel cam view. =P

I’ve always wished I had a chance to do some real racing and find out if I have what it takes to be a successful racer. I’m not an optimist or a pessimist, but rather consider myself a realist, and I truly believe that I would make a good racer. I don’t know what level I would have been able to make it to, but I’m confident I’d have some success in auto racing. Alas it doesn’t appear as though I’ll ever get the chance to realize that dream.

The original version, Super Mario Kart, which came out in 1992, is definitely on the list of my most favorite games ever. Surprisingly, I actually never did even own the game, although I borrowed it for a period of time. Even though I was still in elementary school then, I got to be very good at it - good enough to finish 150cc Special Cup with all 1st place finishes and no continues - with a SHRUNKEN Donkey Kong Jr. Imagine playing the whole game as if you’ve been zapped with the lightning bolt while all the others are regular sized and can flatten you at any moment. It’s pretty difficult. I remember it was the one game I could routinely beat my older brother in.

The memories all came back when I bought Mario Kart DS a couple weeks ago, especially since it has some of the tracks from the original Super Mario Kart. Mario Kart DS has much more of a nostalgic feel to it than Mario Kart 64. Even though Mario Kart 64 was released in 1997, I actually only bought it like two years ago in 2003 and finally played it. I didn’t really like this version all that much, and played just enough to get the gold cups for all the circuits and engine classes. It’s kind of funny, now that I think about it… I had a Super Nintendo, but never bought the game. I never had a Nintendo64 (Elaine bought one, solely for Pokémon Puzzle League), but bought the game. The same goes for the Nintendo DS, which I also don’t own (also Elaine’s, which she bought for Nintendogs) but purchased the game.

I’ve regained my Mario Kart form of the past now in the DS version. As of now, I’ve finished all the grand prix circuits in every engine class with triple star ratings, except the mirror mode. I haven’t started on those just yet. I’ve also beaten all the staff ghost replays in time trial mode, and have also completed every single mission with triple star ratings. Sadly though, I haven’t yet been able to take advantage of the new Nintendo WiFi feature. While I do have a wireless router at Elaine’s place, unfortunately that particular model isn’t compatible with the Nintendo DS. Someday, I’m sure I’ll get a chance to hop online to play against others. As for now, it’s time to…

3.. 2.. 1.. GO!