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I just had to post this… Remember Grand Prix Legends? It was based on the 1967 F1 season and was developed by the folks I’m working with.

I spent many years racing it and someone has actually managed to get these superb 1951 cars into the sim. Very nice!

The new Simpsons Movie Web site has been launched - and it’s awesome! I’d suggest setting up your avatar first and registering, because then you can walk around the town and see your avatar in Moe’s! Awesome!

Getting through the start of the game…
Do the first few missions in the starting ship. You need the “standing” in order to progress and doing those missions will also give you a little free equipment.

Once you’ve gotten through the first 4 or 5 storyline missions, head to Herron’s Nebula. There is a Space Distillery in Herron’s Nebula and although it sells illegal product, you can sell that product to the Free Argon Trading Station within the same system. You can buy Space Fuel for around 700 (do not buy for more than 1200 or you make no profit!) and sell them for 1252 per unit. You may occasionally get caught by the local police, but the rewards are worth it. When the price raises for Space Fuel (this happens when you have taken all their stock quicker than they can produce it), you can probably make money bringing Energy Cells to the station from the Power Circle system. Once you have around 400,000 credits from trading Space Fuel (or from recovery and sale of the “free objects” listed below), head to Argon Prime and then to the Federal Argon Shipyard where you should buy a Mercury. You should also upgrade the Mercury’s engine and rudder to full capacity and fit it with a Trading System Extension. You should not board the new Mercury or spend the spare 50,000 credits you should have, stay in your starter ship (the Buster).

Now you’re going to be able to fly around the universe in your Buster, doing whatever you want while remotely controlling the Mercury as it continues to trade Space Fuel on your behalf (using the 50,000 credits you didn’t spend to start with). Remotely controlled ships are never scanned by the police, so you’re going to be free of problems. I’d advise you work to try to supply the Space Fuel Distillery with Energy Cells whenever the price of Space Fuel becomes too high. Energy Cells should be bought for no more than 16 credits in Argon space, Power Circle is a good place to start buying.

There are quite a few “free objects” scattered around the universe, I’d suggest you try to recover some of these items early.

Some you will not be able to recover until you’re an experienced player with a powerful ship!

Here is a map of the X3 universe. Note that not all systems have four (north, east, south and west) gates. Also note that in the list above there is a System Coordinate, those numbers count from the top-left system on the map, Kingdom’s End (0, 0).

Once you’ve got enough money I’d advise you setup a Sector Trader. It’s best to start off a Trader in a Mercury (with upgraded engine and rudder) and set him/her loose in Argon Prime, Ore Belt or Paranid Prime. Once those Trader’s reach a skill of 8 you can upgrade them to Universe Trader’s and they’ll trade throughout the entire universe instead of those single system’s.

You can now sit back and watch the money roll in really, though I’d advise you still manually smuggle Space Fuel with your remote controlled Mercury…

I hate how people can explain away their personal problems with their “recognised illness.”

The people who aren’t just fat because they eat more calories than they burn off, but because they have a “medical condition…” The people who even choose to explain away a high sex drive and an inability to control themselves with the words: sex addict.

As American doctors prepare to recognise video game addiction, I have to say that the problem here is the individual…

What is the difference in these two types of people:
A person who buys “game A.” They continue to play it once in a while.
A person who buys “game A.” They continue to play it, all night, every night.

Did you spot it? The difference, is the person. So, where’s the real problem?

If the addicted person is a child, the fault lays at the feet of the parents. If your child dissapears every night, even when truly sick (and not at school) they still manage to play games, there is a real problem. You shape your child’s personality, you shape your child’s limits.

That’s what this is all about, limits. Set them. Enforce them.

This has been on the news a lot here in Illinois. A five year old girl who went missing with her grandfather (who died) in the Kankakee river, south of Chicago, survived. Read about it here.

I went to Lake Katherine today, a gallery will be added at a later date. I thought the sign below was amusing…

I went to see The Fray tonight at Charter One Pavilion in Chicago.

They only really had one song that I liked, everything else seemed a little slow and “sad.” The tickets were free though, Billy (Sheila’s brother) won them at a bookstore.

Excuse me? Actually Britain discovered the small island off the coast of Argentina, before Agentina did - that’s why it isn’t populated by south American’s, it’s populated by white guys sporting an English accent (oh, and sheep).

For the President of Argentina to say that the Falkland Islands will “return” to Argentina? He needs some education…

Just days after the announcement that Maxis won’t be producing the next Sim City title, EA have released a number of screenshots showing “Sim City Societies” in action. You can see them below.

The whole concept of how the new Sim City will “focus on the different social energies that buildings can create, and how these energies shape unique urban societies” sounds just like the concept of City Life, a game that was released back in 2006. Now, is it just me? Doesn’t it sound like a rip-off version of City Life? We shall see!

If you were not aware, the new Sim City will be produced by Tilted Mill (creators of Caesar IV and Children of the Nile).

A dad walks into a market with his young son. The kid is holding a new state quarter. Suddenly, the boy starts choking, going blue in the face. The dad realizes the boy has swallowed the coin and starts panicking, shouting for help.

A well dressed, attractive, but serious looking woman in a blue business suit is sitting at a coffee bar in the market reading her newspaper and sipping a cup of coffee. At the sound of the commotion, she looks up, puts her coffee cup down on the saucer, neatly folds the newspaper and places it on the counter, gets up from her seat and makes her way, unhurried, across the market.

Reaching the boy, the woman carefully takes hold of the boy’s testicles and starts to squeeze, gently at first and then ever more firmly. After a few seconds the boy convulses violently and coughs up the coin, which the woman deftly catches in her free hand. Releasing the boy, the woman hands the coin to the father and walks back to her seat in the coffee bar without saying a word.

As soon as he is sure that his son has suffered no lasting ill effects, the father rushes over to the woman and starts thanking her saying, I’ve never seen anybody do anything like that before, it was fantastic. Are you a doctor?

“No,” the woman replies, “I.R.S.” (That’s a tax collector, for those outside the USA).