I skipped my first class today. The weather was so bad. The walk is a drag. I got home from Ft. Worth with the Stealth just in time to be about 5 minutes late to class. I stepped in from the rain, saw my couch and my clean apartment and my nice computer. I started moving at triple time to get ready for the run to class in the rain. Halfway through I said... "screw it". The teacher said attendance is not that important. I don't even have that textbook yet. It's only one class. I was tired. The apartment looked so inviting and warm. So I played hooky, and boy, staying home and lounging around feels SOO much better when you're supposed to be doing something else. At least for me, because I didn't feel the least bit guilty. Oh, I plan to learn alot in that class. I payed alot for that class! I will be getting the most out of it. But that will start this weekend when I read over what I missed in the book.

I got the Stealth back. As it happens, the clutch was not the problem. Rather, the ignition system was thoroughly screwed up. Well, I got all-new NGK Platinum plugs and an all-new ignition system. Let me tell you, there is seemingly no limit to what the engine can do now. The turbos spool up to 14 psi in a flash and just stay there with no complaints! I haven't redlined it or even hit it real hard yet. The acceleration on the highway, in any gear, is nearly effortless, as long as you know how to spool the turbos up. You do have to be in the right gear more so than in the RX-7, but part of that is the tall gearing (which gives it a top speed of 160). It redefines passing. Now, passing is something where you JUMP ahead of the car beside you. Needless to say, I was pleased.

I also had them retune the suspension, and it is much more normal now. It's still taut, but it resembles a normal street-going sports car now, not an F1 racing car. It exhibits some body roll now and I'm sure it's alot slower around a race track, but there were some roads in Denton that would have been dangerous before. When they were examining the clutch, they came to the conclusion that something was wrong with it too, but not because of the way the car balked at high throttle (which was the ignition); they thought the incredibly high effort required was a problem. And really, they're right. I couldn't imagine having to drive that in a long traffic jam. My foot would seriously cramp up. The effort is just stunning until you get used to it. You can push it down somewhat and then you encounter lots of resistance so you think that's as far as it goes. But it turns out you haven't even done anything. You have to push it down to the floor for it to do anything, which takes serious muscle. And the engagement is like 1 inch.

Well, they changed it. They altered the Centerforce and springs or something. It's kind of like the suspension, it's still a heavy clutch to push, but I found it much easier to launch the car and now heavy traffic is actually doable.

Best of all, my father paid for the ignition stuff! That's a good thing, because I'm running on empty as far as my bank account.

This weekend I'm finally heading out to Plano to ride the GS500. Next weekend I'll be in Ft. Worth--Dyno Day for the Corvette on Saturday, and the Superbowl on Sunday. My buds are heading to a restaurant to watch the game but I can just imagine how crowded it will be and I'd rather watch in comfort at my father's.

In politics, John Ashcroft is being grilled by Democrats. He's up for Attorney General, and he'll probably be confirmed, but it might be Florida-close. On the other hand, Powell, for Secretary of State, is expected to be confirmed by unanimous decision.

Yesterday I emailed the admin of Gamespy Speakeasy CTF about maybe changing the map rotation... today I booted up UT and found that he had added 4 maps. I was pleased. |AoC|Irix wants me to join his clan and head their new Domination effort, since that was the game I practiced and theorized about for a long time. It's tempting!! I'd be able to take some really good, proven players and make a stab at the DOM ladder on PG. |AoC| is great because they have a proven track record, their own server, street cred, their own chat channel, and their own website, + they have Ineffectual, the woman who won the recent PuF all-stars DM 1vs1 tournament (although she's a defensive player on CTF, so it's unlikely she'd play Domination). Anyway, he's trying to woo my right now with that...