Need for Speed™ Carbon

Today, I bought a new gamepad with analog triggers, to cure my lead foot. You could say it's a belated Xmas gift for myself. I've been playing Need for Speed™ Carbon for a while now, and using a digital button for throttle just wasn't cutting it anymore. It was nearly impossible to hit the sweet spot and get a perfect start, or even to accelerate out of a curve. The wheels would just spin like crazy, and my car would end up in a frontal collision with the nearest obstacle.

Still, I think I did pretty well. Above is my first car, an Alfa Brera. The cars in Carbon are divided into three tiers, where tier 1 consists of cars that are merely cool, while tier 3 has the insanely awesome cars. As you play the game, you gain cash rewards and unlock better cars. I decided to scrimp and save on my first car, only spending money on upgrading its performance. The idea was to have lots of money to buy a good tier 2 car. Besides, I really like the look of Alfa Romeos; they're so simple, distinguished and yet slightly terrifying.

The game started out by piquing my interest with some full-motion video. Yes, apparently I missed the return of FMV. It still bears a slightly awkward stigma from the 90s, but it's pretty well executed and I daresay rather engrossing this time around. The intro makes references to the previous game in the series, Most Wanted, which I should admit to not having played. Apparently it too featured FMV with the same stylistic flair, but took place in the daytime, while Carbon only has nighttime levels, much like the Underground parts of the series. Since I didn't understand the references, the plot felt unusually non-patronizing in assuming that I would be smart enough to catch the names of the characters and follow the rapid turn of events. Learning that this is merely a sequel and not an "after the fact" mystery inspired by Agatha Christie was actually somewhat of a disappointment.

As it turned out, I didn't have to save up for a new car; I won the tier 2 car of a defeated boss. The world of Carbon is divided into territories owned by rivaling street racing gangs. The car above is an Aston Martin DB9 that belonged to Wolf, the boss of the TFK gang, until I rolled into town, took over their territory by beating them race by race in their own backyard, and proceeded to defeat their boss in two one-on-one races. To cement your domination over a territory, you first need to win a regular street race against the boss, and then defeat them in a canyon duel. The duels are both frustrating and exhilarating, and involve tailgating the boss as best you can without falling off the canyon, and then trying to shake him off as he tailgates you in the second round.

My third car, a Mazda RX-7, is the result of overtaking Kenji of the Shinobu gang in a canyon duel, a move that leads to a near instant win. The Aston Martin just flew past like a cannon ball; the only problem was actually slowing down and not flying straight down the canyon wall. At this point, I was still using my old Logitech Wingman, and the game felt rather easy; the way I like it. I actually didn't race the Mazda at all. The Aston Martin became my mainstay, and I used it to beat the third gang, 21st Street, and their boss Angie. As you can see above (skip the Mazda), I decided to pimp it by painting it gold chrome. It ended up looking like an autobot about to transform, or maybe the steed of a modern day paladin. Either way, I think it's awesome.

The fourth territory is where I ran into trouble. Suddenly everyone's racing around in tier 3 cars, and you have to beat them to unlock tier 3 and get something raceworthy. Suffice to say that this is where morale takes a big hit. Sure, my golden autosteed looks cool, but it handles like a refrigerator. Was that a curve? Bam. OK, now that's a wall. Lost again.

Luckily, I had already ordered a Thrustmaster with analog triggers and force feedback, and with it I finally managed to unlock a Plymouth Hemi 'Cuda. This is a muscle car, by which they mean something that acts like it has a rocket up its behind and flails wildly all over the road. By racing the muscle car, I miraculously unlocked a tuner, a small Nissan 350Z that has great potential and handles like a god. This car in turn immediately left a few racers in the dust and unlocked the current love of my life.

Behold, the Lamborghini Gallardo. It's an exotic, which means its speakers blare hip-hop (as opposed to the tuner's trance and the muscle's stoner rock), and it's a real racer. It handles really well, although not as well as the Nissan, and it accelerates with a roar. I found a great body for it, and I settled on a dark purple chrome. The only problem now is to keep out of trouble, as the heat is high in the fourth territory. This means there's a lot of police activity, and they keep butting into every race, chasing me around after I've won. I usually shake them off, but even I got busted once, which means my poor Gallardo has incurred an impound strike. Three strikes and the car is lost. The heat is rising and those cops really seem to be after my ride.

Oh well, if they take this one I can always sell my crappy and ridiculously overpriced Plymouth and buy something even better. I must say, this game really got me hooked, and that's not an easy feat.

Wrecking crew

We went to work on the gingerbread house today. It was a tough job to bring the house down, but someone's got to do the dirty work, eh?

We haven't eaten it all yet; it's quite a lot of gingerbread, and the sweetness of the sugar and icing is a bit too much after a few mouthfuls.

Culinary architecture

Gingerbread houses are decorative, they smell good (as edible things tend to do) and they're a sure sign that Christmas is coming. Coming? As you can probably tell, this is a somewhat belated post about the making of gingerbread houses. I've been enjoying my Christmas presents and working on my holiday beauty sleep so much that I simply couldn't find the time to put up these photos. I finally managed to squeeze it into my busy schedule.

First you obviously need to make the parts. We baked these during our gingerbread baking stint the day before Christmas Eve.

Then you glue the parts together. The fact that melted sugar hardens pretty quickly makes it the professional culinary construction worker's favourite choice, and most importantly, I think it's the only kind of glue you're supposed to eat.

The ceremonial gluing of the chimney. It might look a bit sticky and wobbly now, but you can fix (aka hide) that with icing. This teaches us that covering up your flaws can sometimes be not only good, but even delicious.

Et voila!

The day before

The day before Christmas is ablur with activities. Apart from the obvious task of getting the presents ready, you need to prepare all the tasty treats.

Like gingerbread cookies!

Mmm. :)

Knäck!

And finally, marzipan.

Pretty groovy, huh? I made the sushi (lower left corner) and assorted stuff to the left. Two very creative and giggly young ladies made the various animals, vegetables, fruits (and everything in between) that dominate the right-hand three-quarters of the platter.

Off to bed, it's a big day tomorrow. Yes -- in case you didn't know -- we cheat in Scandinavia; Christmas Eve marks the big celebration with all the presents and such.

Fika!

Unbaked "Lucia cats". Simply put, they're saffron seasoned buns, they're yummy, and thus they're an important part of Christmas.

Here they are after baking in the oven.

Today was the 4th Sunday of Advent, which basically means we have fika with four lit candles and some nice saffron buns, ginger bread and julmust .

Xmas market

I went to the Christmas market the other day. It took place at the outdoors museum here in town, where there's a bunch of nice old buildings. As I understand it, they've been moved there piece by piece and arranged to form a small village. It's like walking straight into the past. The market mostly fits the theme of the surrounding buildings, but the occasional anachronism still pops up here and there. It's a market, not a historic reenactment.

Here are some of the more old-timey wares...

...and these ceramic shiny things are a bit out of place, although it did seem like everyone was selling tomtar , what with it being a Christmas market. After all, Santa is basically just a bigger version of these little fellas. The thing that really struck me as being out of place was the kanji 夏, because it's far from summer right now. (If they're both seasons, I'm guessing the other one might say 秋, autumn.)

Apparently honey can cure a cold, according to this salesperson. Well, I don't mind honey.

You could also go inside some of the houses. This tiny old store was kinda crowded; I guess it was built in simpler times when this town was just a tiny village. Here, you could buy old-style candy in a paper cone, and the clerks were dressed up in old-fashioned clothes.

Some final thoughts:

Ponies!

Fire!

All in all, the whole market had a nice atmosphere. It was all fun, except when one of those fire things came loose and almost hit a little girl! Yeah, that was scary, but no one got hurt.

Crazy tree

I found this at a furniture store:

Kinda scary.

Skyltsöndag

One of the most eventful days of the year has come and gone: Shop window Sunday. In Swedish, it's called "skyltsöndag," as "skyltfönster" means "shop window" and "söndag" means "Sunday." (And "skyltfönstersöndag" is too long to say.) Today, all the shops fill their windows with Christmas decorations (as do people at home), so naturally everyone likes to go strolling through town and see it all. This has evolved into quite a festive day, when the town suddenly transforms into a market with all kinds of activities greeting the advent of Christmas. Because that's exactly what this day is; the beginning of Advent .

We started the day by going to the pet store, where they had a small cat exhibit. Of course I don't remember the names of the different cat races, but it was fun to see pure bred cats.

Next, we went to the town square. Funnily enough, one of the first things I noticed had little to do with skyltsöndag. Apparently, the hamburger kitchen that is frequently stationed on our square had a new paintjob.

I like the pixelated trees.

However, there were lots of things much more Christmas related. For example, children waited in line to talk to Santa Claus. He was on his way through town and had camped out on our square with Mrs Claus. The kids must have been very patient, because the line was long, as you can see in the first photo in this post.

Good thing he has a back entrance, in case he needs to get away from all those kids, and it's also a perfect way for me to take a few pictures.

Other activities not depicted here involved buying stuff to support a plethora of causes with different degrees of selfishness (from school trips to animal shelters). I'm guessing the following was one of those money scrounging activities, but it looked fun.

Apparently, they take children for rides in that military vehicle. I saw it driving around later, filled with children who were no doubt having the time of their life.

The highlight of the day was probably the troupe of santas who suddenly came marching across the town square. At first I just planned on keeping up with them for a while, trying to get a few good photos, but then I overheard someone say where they were headed. It sounded ridiculous, so I had to follow them. First note that it was a cold day; my poor fingers were freezing just from taking off my glove to snap these photos. Now watch the weirdos.

Yes, it's clearly on purpose and of their own volition. They're wearing wet suits under their costumes, so I'm guessing it's not as cold as it looks. I don't know why they're doing it though; it's not as if they ever asked for my money. Maybe as a publicity stunt, but since I have no idea who they are it feels kinda like they failed. On the other hand, they hadn't quite got started yet when I had to go. I wanted to hear the Christmas carolers.

This is actually three different choirs. They took turns singing Christmas carols, which made me half expect them to throw down and start a sing-off, heckling the other choirs while they sang. I was a bit disappointed when they applauded each other instead.

After their joint performance, the three choirs split up and went charoling around town. I bumped into one of them repeatedly riding escalators up and down, singing Jingle bells. Quite amusing, especially when hapless escalator passengers were caught up in the middle of the choir.

To round off this post, here's a crowd photo and a couple of shop windows. I almost went the whole skyltsöndag without taking a single shop window photo. Duh.