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Yeah I was thinking about this thread today, wondering if there were any updates with that land rover.  <-- *cough* Evenwolf, this is where you jump in buddy.

Think of the germs on that bill! :o

Or cocaine.

I drive 120 km's a day    There's no way I'm getting a truck.

The Pontiac Vibe is the only car/hatchback that I'm aware of that can tow my seadoo's and trailer around (in my price range and fuel economy).  I've been researching this car extensively.  I won't be towing everyday, just in the summer time once a week, about 4 months.  I'd probably have to get a tranny cooler just to keep things in order.

My friend drives an old 1993 Dodge Spirit, 4 cylinder.  It's got a carburator (from what I hear, that is worse than fuel injected for performance and what-not) and he towed the trailer and seadoo's all summer last year.

I don't know.  I'm still looking--everyday for that matter.  Perhaps I'll just get a Dodge Charger with a hemi just for shits and giggles.  I'd love that car, I was just trying to avoid the huge gas bill that would go with it.

I'm surprised that I haven't heard of half of those cars there.
I was looking at the engine size and the maximum towing capacity and it doesn't look like any of those cars will make it (towing capacity of 1000lbs to 1500lbs - with around 100lb tongue weight).

If only there was a website that sorted this crap out.  Autotrader.ca is pretty useless for searching for 'types' of cars.  You either have to know the actual name of the car you're looking for, or you'll have hours and hours and hours of searching through just one type of car company.

I'm thinking of emailing autotrader to ask them to modify their website for user convenience.  It's pretty bad.

[huge]

Aren't manual transmissions and fuel economy illegal in the US?

I wouldn't doubt it.  Those damn americans and their huge SUV's and Trucks.

I live in Canada.  These gas prices are getting quite hefty lately.  This is why I want a smaller vehicle and because my current vehicle is ready to blow up (the transmission is getting really skippy and sluggish).  I either go car shopping soon, or one day soon I'll be walking the rest of the way to work or home.

Well if the guy can throw in some super big tires for my jetski trailer, why not!? 

Okay.  For the last few months I've been searching around for a good used hatchback that is somewhere in the price range of $5k-10k (CAN/USD). 

Most importantly I want something that is not only decent on gas but can also tow a double trailer with two seadoo's (jetski's).  I can't see my two seadoo's and a trailer weighing anymore than 1200lbs.

I've owned 3 cars now and I'm starting to get sick of the useless trunk.  I want a hatchback now.  You can store more items in a hatchback and access them from inside the car (I know there are fold down seats, but how practical are they really?  I've also had a car with fold down seats and I wasn't that impressed.  Laying them down still only gives you so little clearance for large items.).

I was also hoping to get it with manual transmission.  I've never driven a car with manual transmission for longer than an hour--but it was pretty easy--, nor have I towed a trailer with a manual.  No idea if it's best to be avoided since I'll be towing; but not too often, around once a week in the summer.


I've been interested in the Pontiac Vibe for some odd reason.  Was never a big fan of Pontiac before until I started looking around the internet at some Vibe's.

If anyone knows of any good quality economical hatchbacks capable of towing, don't be shy.  I would like to widen my search.



Yay, I finally bought a car.  2004 Pontiac Vibe.

Don't give the guy the damn money unless it really belongs to him.
Tell him you Really want to give him the money but unless he gives you receipts there is nothing you can do.  Your description of the event is a little vague though.  So it's hard to know exactly what is going on here.

Like if this 'company' isn't yours, you can always go with: "I don't want to lose my job.  Take it up with my boss because there isn't anything else I can do for you. I'm sorry."
This works great if you don't like your boss.  You'll send the starving pit bull into his direction.

My problem when I was younger, (6 years ago) when I worked at a grocery store, was that I didn't stand my ground.  Sometimes the customer IS wrong, and sometimes they want to take that humiliating feeling out on you by making you look bad.  Or sometimes they are just liars and pricks.
I can recall this one moment.  I was actually working on the cash register scanning people's items and handling the dough.  This one customer came in and bought a whole buggy worth of groceries.  It came to around $130.  He wanted to pay with a cheque (at that time people could pay with them only if their phone number was local).
I punched the number into the computer and it came up beeping.  Saying something weird and unknown, something like 'invalid. error'.  So I assumed that his phone number was black listed (meaning his cheques were made of rubber and his bank account held a Zero status) -- that was the first time I had seen that message.
He gave me some spiel about how he had talked to the Manager and she said she was going to take care of it (used her name and everything. I think I even recognized him from school but couldn't tell you who he was).  I weighing out the alternatives; either I put all his groceries and the frozen foods back to where they belong or I take his word for it.

Turns out a week later I was told that his cheque didn't come through.  Because I believed him (and I was lazy), I accepted the $130 debt to the company.

This doesn't really relate.  Kind of, but not really.  All I'm saying is that some people lie to employees of a company to get money, because they know the money isn't the employees.

Yeah, I'll have to agree.  I barely notice whats going on with this.  The only way I can see the backgrounds are when I stand up.

EDIT: Alright, I've adjusted my monitor (from 50 to 65 - out of 100).  I've always hated it this bright because Black shows up as a dark gray.  I remember the last time I adjusted my lcd monitor was for the game FEAR, so that the dark scenes in the game would show up the way the designer intended (not as if it were a fully lit room).

You should probably have a start up screen with a bar of gray scales.  Telling the player to adjust their monitor so that the Darkest of grays will be separate from the black.  It's the only way I can see you getting each and every player submerged into your game the way you intended.

Anyway, I like the idea of your game.  I can see you taking advantage of this 'darkness' in so many ways.  Should be fun.

My only problem was that my eye was having a problem judging whether that object running along the mountain was a space ship or something sitting on the mountain.

I made it a lot brighter just to see what difference it would make.  Hmm.  Not sure if it worked out for better or worse.

EDIT:  Oh and yes.  I love the image.  That sign welcoming people to the city is almost a little boring and out of place.  But I love the work you did on the mountains and the flat cliff thing the city is on.

Besides, I don't think SSH's blog could handle too much Hitchhiker paraphernalia and what-not.

Your perspectives are an eye sore.  And the tiles give me this sick wavy ground sensation do to the fact that none of the tiles are up to scale.

The tiles should be bigger at the front and smaller at the back.  But you have them going from big, to small, to big, to small, over and over.

The perspectives are killer on the stairs and the 2 front tables.  It totally doesn't make sense.  I don't understand how you couldn't use the lines on the floor to guide you with perspective.  Looking at the front table and the lines of the tiles, you should notice Right away that the table is skewed against any hopes of being a rectangle desk.

Out of this whole background, the only thing I like are your books and the back wall bricks.
Mostly just because you're using an untamed method of filters and effects that just isn't working for you.
You should probably consider working at smaller resolutions like 320x240 or 640x480.  And apply much much less filtering and effects.

But yes, your new background is much of an improvement versus your old blurry lines of a background (the black smith house)

Radiant, don't lie buddy!

YOU STILL OWE ME $50!

Now you'll be paying out of the toilet bowl (with your head in it of course).



But no, seriously.  I wouldn't worry about me him.  Just mention that you're doing your job right.
(Don't forget to come back here and show us the before and after pictures of your face... haha  Nah he won't touch you.)

Actually something I just noticed.  Your water horizon isn't the same level from right to left.  It actually gets about 6 pixels higher on the left and the center is 2 pixels higher.

I really like what you've done here. But doesn't the sky usually get brighter the nearer it's to the horizon? Is it possible the other way around?

Yeah, if a storm was on it's way.  You're right though, it's brighter at the horizon.

Big big improvement with the strictly MS-Paint look.

Since it's night, I would darken the red color of the building.

Perhaps a canopy over the door.

I also liked your windows with no lights on inside, being as dark as they were in the first background.  Since it's night time, your colors are a touch too bright.

Actually in Canada (no idea if it's only Ontario or all the provinces), we passed a law not too long ago (and it's now in effect already - 1st of June) that where any pack of smokes are visibly stored there must be a cover hiding it from customers.  So any variety store, or grocery store, or wherever you may see smokes, we have cupboard doors over the fancy shelving those stores used to have.  Now if the customer wants to see what you have in inventory, he is handed a magazine where he flips through to see what interests him.

Now when it comes to the employee grabbing the smokes, he/she must keep it out of sight.  Either by putting it in a grocery bag before handing it to the customer, or just by concealing it with your hands (so I was told).  Also when I said they have cupboard doors, they aren't allowed to be large cupboard doors.  Because if it were large and you opened it, every customer could see the smokes.

I don't smoke and I think it's almost too much.  We're treating smoking, here in Canada, as if it were an illegal drug.  "Shhh!  Keep quiet.  Don't tell anyone you bought this from me."

I understand the 'out-of-sight--out-of-mind' philosophy, but it's ALMOST too far.

I don't like the door to the 'basement' or where ever it takes you (the green door).  It kinda looks like it's JUST a door laying on the hill.  If it weren't for the path leading to it, I would have just assumed it was a door laying down.  It needs a little bit of wall that goes through the grassy hill, to show where it's going and what the door is connected to.

The blue door is really dark compared to that bright yellow handle.  Almost can't see it.

I would definitely be removing the smoke, like Tube had mentioned, and apply it to the game background as a sprite.  That way you can also add transparency.

Your clouds look insane.. good job.
And that boat laying on it's side will add an incredible feeling to the game.  I'm hoping you've got some really cool stuff inside of that boat.  And I would love to see 'skylights' in the boat (which would be the portholes that were once windows -- of course not on this background but on the inside background.).

I'm looking forward to more backgrounds.

The door on the right is overly large.  Since you're looking almost straight down the wall, that door would be like 8' wide.  Other than that, your new background looks great.  Although if you are still going for that abandoned or mistreated hotel look, I would love to see some cracks on the stucco walls, the support pillars, and|or the curb/sidewalk.


Is there a reason the white shirt on the painting is so white and bright?  If you stare at the center of the background your eyes are drawn to the white shirt more than anything else in the room.

I guess I used the wrong wording for 'core'.  I realize the core of the earth is incredibly dense beyond anything we can comprehend.  I think that horrible movie The Core has desensitized my interpretation of the word 'core'. 



Also!  This guy at my work was arguing with me that he believes every Element in the known universe is already on our Periodic Table of Elements.  I  told him he was dead wrong.  Anything on our table of elements is anything that our little plastic shovels can collect in this little sand box surrounding the Earth.  We haven't even scratched the surface of the Elements on our own planet, let alone the rest of the universe.  (this of course isn't a proven theory, it's my theory.  I have no idea what kind of elements are left on our planet to discover.).
When was the last addition to the table anyway?