This ebola thing is already getting warning signs at the local medical establishments. So once I've finished the latest raking of fallen leaves, a daily chore, and my walk around the neighborhood hills, one of the few places in both towns that has continuous sidewalks, and gutters, and is fully paved. A good place to get exercise with a very low chance to be pounced by a cougar, the predatory cat I mean. The aging divorcee type is far more common but I am now past the age of their attentions, thankfully. To my good fortune.
So anyway, once I was tired enough I settle down with my Xbox and picked a car to drive from my digital garage, which is like Jay Leno's garage, only composed of bits and bytes rather than real cars and people to maintain them, in this case a 2004 Audi TT 3.2 turbo, which I've already upgraded with race valves and sticky tires and frame reinforcement. I drove it through various digital race tracks against other drivers, some of them quite mad. And I did well though the last of a dozen races I was getting tired and sloppy. Like anything, to be a really good driver you have to focus. And I'm not as sharp as I used to be.
Still, that car was incredibly good, planted as James May calls it. I could see owning one. Maybe not as quick as an older Evo, like a 6 or 7. Still, damned good. And civilized. It grips the road. There's sometimes tire chirps, but it holds steady in the corners and is difficult to get loose and kill you, unlike the Subaru which seems to let go all at once but not tell you for 20-30 seconds when you're sliding into a wall or tree. You have to appreciate being planted in a place like this, where heavy rains show up suddenly. We're only 5-6 hours from the Pacific here, after all. Storms in the Sierras blow up very suddenly, and those storms, which can turn to blizzards, can kill you if you don't adapt to them fast enough. A car that drives through those storms and is still fast in the dry is a good car to have.
Most of the local Subarus are Foresters, which sound a lot like tractors as they mutter up and down the street. That is not for me. I already have a slow car. I'm looking for something a bit quicker for those times when I want to go fast. I know that a 320i is fantastic, because I had one before they changed their name to "M3". Mine, a couple decades ago, was very quick. And grippy. Even in the wet. I had Pirelli tires. They laughed at rain when others were going round and round. Very important to laugh at rain without going into a tree. My new tires on my Honda are similarly competent, so that's good. Some Firestones are competent. Not all of them. But some.
Yes, that TT was fun. I run into fun cars in the Forza Motorsports simulator and that's a cost effective way to test drive, even if it doesn't show you the interior comforts or ride it will tell you the performance. I've learned that AWD can be quick and fun. There are rear wheel drives, like the M3 that are fun too, if a bit slippy on the throttle. I've learned that mid engine try to kill you, which is why TVR is gone and nobody seems to miss Noble or Lotus, but also that my old trainer car the Acura Integra is still as ridiculously quick as I remember. And you can do nutty things with an overpowered front wheel drive on a mountain road thanks to their grip, including four wheel drift if you're nutty enough with the throttle. I admit to having been a not entirely safe driver in my youth, and I'm very safe now because I feel like I used up my extra lives way back then. Still, I can understand the appeal of something quick but overpriced like the Audi TT. It really is fun.
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