Geth/Quarians get to be orbital BIG GUNS. That looked to be the most strategic asset they could provide. The Geth because they weren’t bound by galactic law about fleet and ship weapon size, and the Quarians because (as the data in the Codex provided) they have the largest fleet in the galaxy with guns on all of them. The Geth could also coordinate space attacks pretty well considering the fact they can communicate directly and instantaneously with each other in real time. Show them all doing their thing on your way in like it is already, but with different ships and cut shots to the pilots and crew so we know who they are.

If you got the pirate factions allied under whats-her-bitch from the bar, show them doing hit and run stuff up in orbit. Or something. This was one of the first factions you get to commit if I remember right. After that two hours of work to get them on your side you have absolutely no reason to ever think of that quest again. Change that. They contribute the way pirates do. Loose fighter squadron running diversions or something. Anything. 5 – 10 seconds of pre-render of directions being shouted from mega-beast asari chick to show who they are.

Intersperse them with the Alliance and Turian ships/fleets.

Now on the planet. Work your way to the forward base and see the Salarians taking care of front lines field hospital duty. Show them taking care of the wounded in a MASH area. That seems to be what the authors have been trying to show them as good at. Show it with wounded soldiers and Solarian doctors taking care of them. Talking fast and working faster.

Show the Krogen storming valiantly and doing massive damage as the tip of the ground force spear. This is what they do. They are disposable ground forces that fuck shit up close range. Show them doing that, and enjoying every minute of it.

Show a Turian behind every tall window with a great big god damn sniper rifle, or manning artillery batteries. They seem to be good with punting big rounds down range right?

The kids that Jack is responsible for can be teamed up with the Asari. The Asari were pretty well fucked back on Thessia so there wouldn’t be too many of them around. Team the biotics together for a front line defensive role. Have Jack fucking shit up and taking a directly responsible posture with the kids she is now in charge of. She gets to be really angry here. Remember back when you picked her up on that prison ship? She was a biotic wrecking ball. Show more of that.

Nobody likes the Batarians so fuck them. Show them getting shot to shit because they are dumb.

Get fucking rid of the entire concept of Galactic Readiness. Multiplayer is a hoot I will grant you, but please kill off the idea of the single player experience ridding on it in any way. The motivations behind the player of each are not compatible. Stop forcing it to try and sell shit like DLC and mobile games. It reeks bad of a cash grab by EA.

Onward to the actual ending sequence. Basically everything above is before you get smacked by the Reaper Shoop-da-whoop. I think this sequence is brilliant to be honest. It very viscerally shows that it is desperation hail marry play time. This is it, and if you don’t press on, nobody will. Even a point blank shot from a Reaper can’t keep you down, although it sure as hell slowed you. Brilliant bit of gaming. Now lets tackle what happens right afterwords:

I like the idea that the Illusive Man and Anderson are facing off on either side of the “path” where it diverges between the three choices. You have your pistol right? So why not resolve the conflict right there using the “tools” you brought with you?

Get rid of the mysterious force that the Illusive Man has that lets him control people. The supporting canon in the story for this sudden super power is weak at best. Very much a Deus Ex Machina solution that feels cheap and poorly thought through. Just show him as his normal collected and calm self. His “power” has always been his charisma, so use it. The Illusive man has a bit of a monolog about how much he has sacrificed to get there. This would need to be pretty damn convincing because up until this point, he has been a pretty big thorn in the side of the galaxy. It would need to be very personal and identifiable for the audience. Like his wife or child or something like that. This would ring well with a renegade Shep, as a lot of dialog for that play style reenforces this line of thinking. Side with him, and you somehow incapacitate Anderson. The Illusive man goes and fondles the machine and takes control of the Reapers and they all bugger off, leaving all of the latent reaper tech behind. So the Relays and the Citadel and all.

On the other hand, we have Anderson. He is convinced that the Illusive Man isn’t thinking clearly because he is a pawn of the Reapers. His dialog is more along the lines of loosing what it means to be alive if all you do is sacrifice everything for survival. Something like “what does it mean to be human if you don’t retain your humanity?” Pop the Illusive Man with your pistol and you blow up all the Reaper tech and synthetics along with. And yes, I include the Relays and Citadel here. Trick is, the races get a chance to bug out back to their homes. Basically a galactic technology reset switch, but you get to survive. Anderson stays behind to push the button while everyone leaves. Remember the dead mans switch from Terminator 2? Something like that where Anderson uses the last of his strength to trigger the explosion. The Normandy is last out because they rescue Shep, hence running just in front of the explosion.

The little ghost kid is all in your head (where he fucking belongs) and represents the compromise where you sacrifice yourself to make everyone “happy”. This option isn’t explicitly stated either. Just have the kid say: “your journey has proven there is another way” and fade away revealing the path to the central gang plank and the tron ending. Ken Burns style epilog with all the races honoring Shep in some way. Statues or something. This would reinforce that the only way to have lasting peace is to compromise. This one needs to be more powerful somehow though. I haven’t thought it through as well. Make sure you show all the races in cooperative celebration in the same place so that you know everyone gets along and still has access to Reaper tech.

The epilog in each shows little snippets of life after the events of the game. And not some bullshit where you tap an astronaut to read a dialog badly. (yeah, that was Buzz Aldrin at the very end with the kid).

Incidentally, I still don’t know why it has to be our planet that is the focus. You never go to Earth before. In fact by the end I felt more attachment to every other planet I landed on in ME3 save the Solarians home (just because I didn’t see much of it besides a science base). I wanted to see the Krogen make Tuchanka back into an awesome place to live again. Same with Rannoch and Thessia. Earth? Who cares. Never been there, and I have spent the last 60 hours deliberately avoiding saving it to help every other moaning shop keeper in the galaxy find their lost dog or artifact or whatever the fuck. So eh. Whatevs on Earth.

Second, I talked with an indie shop about the diapering coolant. He thinks there is a good chance the water pump needs to be replaced. He said it would be about $850 with parts and labor to put a new one in, which is alright since you need to get the car in the air to replace it. It is also one of those parts that is a bit on the weak side on the 986/996 motors, so replacing it after ten years and 85k miles isn’t exactly unheard of. I might have him replace the thermostat and front motor mount at the same time. Replacing them both in tandem makes sense from a labor perspective as the water pump needs to be removed in order to get to the mount, so you are already half way there when you replace one.

So far, better part of $2k to get her running well enough that I can trust her for daily driving duty. But does Bart stop there? Hell no!

Next year I get to replace the clutch, and do an IMS upgrade for another $2k. Anyone who has owned a M96 P-Car will be able to tell you exactly what an IMS is, and why replacing it on that particular motor is warranted. Suffice it to say, it is cheaper to do this work than not and suffer due to the part failing. If an IMS fails, I might as well sell the car as scrap as a replacement motor is worth more than the car is.

I wouldn’t mind doing a freshen job on the suspension either. Replace the stock shocks, springs, bushings, and sway bars with the so-called ROW M030 kit. From all accounts, this would transform her handling, and tighten everything up to better than stock. To use an analogy; it would be like taking a steak knife, and turning it into a surgeons scalpel. If the reports are true, it doesn’t make the car any less comfortable to drive either, just a lot more precise. About another $2k all in for that jobber.

I am starting to think that a lot of this stuff I could do myself, if I had a two post lift in my garage. Along with all the work that might need to be done on Cassandra’s lil’ truck. Perhaps investing in one of those to? Humm… $2k, not including pouring a new thicker concrete slab in the garage for it to bolt to. That’ll do.

I have moved my taste in “wants” up to $2k chunks. Amazing.

Porsche: 85k miles. Pulled off of blocks, charge battery, put air back in tires (32lbs front, 36lbs rear), checked oil level, took her for a rip around the neighborhood.

Triumph: 5k miles. Oil change, tire pressure check (33lbs front, 37lbs rear), top up battery, bolt/nut/screw torque check, bath, quick rip around neighborhood.

Ford: Made room for it in the garage. Nissan now lives outside.

So what has happened this year…

Bit of a story, so hit the link below for the run down

The Porsche is on its way out. A black Ford SportTrac is replacing it. Automatic, and the wife loves it even more than the little red ridding hood. It is a good little truck I think. Has a pretty good “little” motor, a decent locking hub four wheel drive, and a 4.10 limited slip diff in the back, so it could actually tow a trailer if I got a hitch for it. It also has four full size doors and a full size bench seat in the back so it can carry people too. A little bed for lawn care stuff or whatever.

The house has a problem with the septic pump again. That should be awesome to deal with. A full year before something went wrong. Fancy that. Know what I think is wrong? It burned up, because the dumb shit that installed it didn’t follow recommended procedure and make it a three float system. What everything I have ever read has said is that it should work thus: When the bottom float switches on, the pump house is “primed” to start the pump. When the middle float switches on, it activates the pump. The pump doesn’t shut off until the bottom float switches off. The very top float is a warning system that ties to an alarm in the garage. If this last float trips something has gone awry and the system is in danger of backing up into the house. This method of pump management minimizes the amount of time that the pump is actually running, and since the pump has to push such a huge amount of head (both line feet and vertical climb) to get to our drain field, would give the pump a chance to get more of the effluence up there. Instead, the pump switches on when we flush the toilet, and 10 seconds later shuts off. That isn’t enough time for the effluence to make it all the way up to the drain field, so it drains back into the pump house; tripping the float and turning on the pump again. $1500 job ruined a year later because the dipshit contractor cut a corner.

On to other news.

I made more money this year then I honestly thought I would at 32. That is exciting, but it has cost me quite a bit to make, from a personal health point of view. I have gained 30 pounds since my hip surgery. Not proud of that at all. It has all but destroyed my self confidence. Night shift. 12h of being paid to sit in a chair. Dead tired on weekends and forced to keep a night schedule and not get out when the sun shines… Yeah. Barts high paying job is costing him a lot more than anticipated. Seriously wondering if it is all fucking worth it.

Still nicotine free. I drink a lot of coffee, and switched the wife and I to pressed fresh ground, instead of packaged coffee through a drip machine. It is a bit more work, but makes the coffee experience much more fulfilling. It seems to have helped the wife with her coffee/tummy problems at the same time too, so that is quite cool too.

Still have hips-bane; aka Grace; aka the motorcycle, although I didn’t put many miles on her this year. The weather has been really shitty this past year, and the job keeping me on a night schedule has sucked a lot of daytime flexibility and motivation from me.

Playing bunches of Skyrim. What an engrossing game. Buggy as fucking hell though. I have about a hundred “pounds” of crap that I can neither turn in for quest reward, or drop into a box and forget about. There are also about a dozen unfinishable quests in my queue because I did the specific steps out of order. To say it simplistically, I can’t open a door, because I picked up the key before I knew the door existed. The game has a frustrating habit of giving you quests to go do, while not performing a sanity check whether some dependency action has already been done. This is compounded by the above problem where quest items don’t get “turned in” because they were found before the quest was started. Now I have clutter in my inventory that I can’t get rid of, for quests that are impossible to finish.

My first vice-adventurer in the game disa-fucking-ppeared on me too. Lydia. Just up and vanished. Before you say it, no. She didn’t die. I didn’t kill her. I was fucking off in the ass end of nowhere (like you do), and when I fast traveled to town to drop off the hojillion pounds of shit I was packing she didn’t come with me. Where is she? Nowhere. Fucking game.

I think I am going to finish the main plot and be fucking done with it. I found a book towards the end of the game that lets you basically break the leveling system. Through the cunning use of a book shelf you can level to infinity without any work. So that is exactly what I did. Now I punch dragons in the face to death with my bare hands, while wearing armor that would come straight out of a Nazgul cosplay convention. Seriously. I look like death, ride a pitch black horse with glowing red eyes called Shadowmere, and punch dragons to the ground in three hits.

When I actually want to slow down and savor the kill, he makes absolutely no sound, and with daggers do an absolutely staggering amount of damage. Oh, those daggers? I made them. Then I upgraded their base stats to over twice what they started with, then put enchantments to them. So lets do some maths eh? One Daedric knife has a base damage of lets say 12, my skill level ups that base to something silly like 35, then I smith that shit to 88. Then we apply the 30x multiplier from various perks and other equipment to the base damage, and pile on the stats boosting effects to that. OH! I can carry two, one in each hand, so multiply that by two. He is a demonic one man wrecking ball of flesh rending doom, ridding a horse that leaves scorched earth in his passing. My dragonborn sneezes and ends gods. He also a kitty cat named Humphre. While epic and awesome, it makes the game kinda broken.

I am going to blow your fucking mind ok? Every time someone suggests removing a bit of religious influence from our federal government, it is because they want religious practice to continue to be protected.

Blow your load yet? Let me break it down so perhaps you can understand a little better.

Lets tell a little story for a bit. Grab a blanket, some hot chocolate, and join me around the camp fire, cause this shit is gunna be awesome. Get ready catch some serious insight yall. Here it goes.

You live in the mid-west. Bible belt. For the sake of clarity, Idaho. You have beautiful significant other that you go to church every Sunday with. You also have a little boy named Tommy. Tommy is going to public school.

Every day when Tommy comes home you wonder how the school administration can call themselves an education institute when they don’t teach that God created the earth 6,000 years ago. How on earth can this be called education?

And why don’t they let the kids pray anyways? It isn’t hurting anyone is it?

This is the part that is going to blow your dome yall. What if Tommy was named Tej, and you and your wife were Muslim? I know I just melted your mind with that so I am going to give you a sec to put yourself back together.

All better? Pour your mind back into your ear? Good. I want you to do some serious imagination work now. I’m talking about “the method” type shit here. Like, I say you are Michael Keaton and you respond with “I am Batman.”

Ready? Imagine you are Tej. A little kid raised by Muslim parents going to public schools. Every day your parents taught you the wonders of the Qur’an. That submission to God is the only way to be saved. Everything your parents have taught you is awesome! Everything makes perfect sense to you.

Now how do you feel going to a public school with kids that have absolutely no idea about the wonderful stuff in your holy book? My goodness these other kids should know the stuff you know! You are soooo smart because you know stuff the other kids don’t. Smartest kid in the school!

Except not really. They all have their own book. And guess what? The school says this other book is better than yours. But wait… your parents said that all the other books are silly mumblings of old people. Your book is the real holy book. It is the only one that was actually written by God right? Everyone else must be stupid.

And what is this crap with Christmas? Are they talking about the Day of Ashura? Can’t be. Christmas sounds entirely too happy for something like Ashura. More stupid people not understanding anything ever.

Do you get what I am laying down here? What if little Tommy Christian was going to an Islamic school? What kind of madness would he bring home everyday?

Same shit, different point of view.

This is why the separation of Church and State makes sense. Keep that madness out of it. It isn’t to repress any viewpoint. It is to encourage them. It is to keep intangible beliefs out of the school so they can flourish in private, where they belong.

Keeping religious beliefs from being encouraged at school encourages everyone to teach whatever the fuck they want at home without fear of other religious groups.

This same policy can be applied to every form of public supported governance. Removal from currency, school, law, etc etc etc.

Because all I was getting in my inbox were adverts for social games that I had no interest in, inane chain mail that reinforced my theory that Facebook removes individuality and independent thought and replaces it with “me too” group think, the blatant and bold faced disregard for an individuals privacy over and over again, and lack of decent post publishing audience control.

Updates from people that I care about that actually mean anything were very few and far between. Friends and family post pictures with what they are up to, but even that is dwindling to a trickle lately. I am just as guilty as they all are though. A general distaste for sharing anything there. I would rather have my thoughts on my own website. It always felt like I was writing for other people when I posted things on FB. I was never doing it for the sake of doing it. That feeling of obligation gave me just enough apprehension to posting to keep me from doing it.

Another thing is that I was always expecting everyone on my list to respond to me, if they had any interest or not. I took the time and effort to write on Facebook, so obviously everyone on my list should praise my efforts! It is an unreasonable expectation I know, but it was still there, and I couldn’t deny it.

I was never sharing anything for the the sake of sharing it. I was always updating my wall with the expectation of acclaim from the people that may or may not actually care. I was never taking pride in what I shared because I didn’t do it for myself. Just a self serving and selfish desire to have every little word I wrote and shitty picture I shared to earn praise from people that may or may not be honest in the first place.

I am not trying to say that the nice things people posted on my wall aren’t appreciated though. Just the dishonest source of my motivation that preceded each post. Tyler would say that shared social obligation is mutual masturbation, and that is what it started to feel like. You and everyone you know all being locked in the same room, passing wind at the same time, and claiming it smells like fresh baked cookies.

Maybe I am being too cynical. maybe

Well, her intake was so soaked with oil that took an entire roll of paper towels to sop up. If you know this car, you could tell right away why.

If not, here is the scoop. The Porsches of this generation use a device called an Air Oil Separator. It takes a vacuum line from the intake, right after the throttle body, and pipes it to the crank case. This is good thing for most motors, as it helps to pull the piston rings closer to the cylinder walls, and any oil that seeps around the rings gets pulled back into the crank case, and eventually back to the oil pan. If you have done any vacuum forming you will know that putting a fluid with bubbles incorporated under a vacuum pulls the bubbles out of the fluid at the same time. So groovy on that front too.

This is all well and good, and under normal situations works fantastic. It provides better compression, lower emissions because the seeping oil doesn’t get burned in the pistons and hence end up out the tail pipe, and any aerated oil gets sucked into the intake to be burned and taken care of by the catalytic converters in the exhaust.

So what in the world am I on about with this whole thing? Well when someone over-fills this particular car with oil, it escapes over this vacuum line and directly into the intake. The people that designed this car did anticipate this, and built into this vacuum line an oil catch device called an Air Oil Separator. You remember the ads for the cyclonic upright floor vacuum cleaners? It works exactly the same way. It spins the oil out of the incoming flow of gas, slowing it just enough for the solids to drop out and go back into the crank case and be cycled back to the oil pan.

You can probably imagine what happens if this clever little device gets overwhelmed. It fills to the brim with oil and the vacuum line starts to suck oil out of it, pouring into the intake plenum. Oil then starts to soak the MAF sensor, drips into the cylinders, fouls the spark plugs, makes the catalytic converters have to deal with a HUGE amount of unburnt greasy hydrocarbons, and it eventually starts smoking like crazy. This last part is when you see that something is going horribly awry.

It also makes a gigantic mess, if you couldn’t deduce that already.

So that sure is fun to deal with. The good news is that her car doesn’t need seven THOUSAND dollars worth of repairs for a possibly cracked head. Bad news is that we still don’t know where the coolant is going. The car is still leaving puddles on the floor of the garage, so that implies the coolant is just running out somewhere when it gets pressurized.

One problem at a time with this car I think.

I changed the oil in the Breaker of Hip bones. I used Shell Rotella synthetic, and it seems to have done quite well so far. Her shifts are pretty smooth, and her clutch is as good as ever. The oil is marketed as big truck oil, but it has the various oil ratings that are required by Triumph. This oil is also what I want to start using in the Porsche, so trying it out is Grace shouldn’t hurt.

What else have I been up to. Well Cassandra joined me for an afternoon on the motorcycle, to make sure the oil still stays where it should. We went on a pretty lengthy ride in fact. 150 miles, but spread out in some pretty country, and up pretty good bits of pavement.

All told, we spent the better bit of five hours out on the bike. Unfortunately, Cassandra has found her helmet to be unbearable after only ten minutes in it. It fit her well in the store, but it looks like some unforeseen pressure points only make themselves known after a few minutes. Pretty dissapointing, but I suggested she reach out to Shoei and get some feed back from the manufacturer for fit modifications that are possible.

I have been fighting a sinus-throat-lung cold for the past two weeks. It has been really unpleasant, but I got to stay home for a bit longer.

Bentley has been to the doctor. Had some skin problems taken care of. He wasn’t happy about it. We aren’t either, as that Vet visit cost us replacement tires for the Porsche. Damn pets being crazy expensive.