Will

Yeah I hope you’re right on the testing, it would be really bad if it came out there was some fault in it. Him going out is just mental though, of all the stupid things you could do at the moment that has to rank pretty high. If you can’t go to work in the office that’s one thing, but being an international sports star you’d really think he’d take more care. That’s before you even begin to think about the fact his seat is at high risk for next year.

It looks ridiculous. I’ve been thinking for a while of getting a well specced PC for the living room and this is only adding to my desire to do that. Have a friend who’s really into the series and he’s having a launch party for it - quite looking forward to having a play.

Had totally forgotten that he was feeling under the weather at the last race. If that was Covid it’s kind of worrying as 1. He must have had it the whole weekend, and would have come into contact with a lot of people, and 2. The tests that weekend didn’t pick it up, so are they reliable? It seems as though it’s unrelated but it makes you wonder. Seeing a lot of people saying Hulkenberg will get the seat, which would be cool. Maybe he’ll finally get that podium. It’s likely Perez will be out for more than just one race and I’m not sure anyone would want Gutierrez in their car for too long. I still hope for something a bit more crazy though.

So sorry to hear that, @MindFreak. Hopefully the tests come back with more favorable results and you can move on from this. As everyone else has said, you have our support whenever you need it.

Hopefully he’s OK. The reports so far seem to suggest it’s a relatively symptomless case - fingers crossed that remains the case. I wonder if this will kick off something more crazy than Gutierrez? It gives Racing Point a perfect opportunity to test out options for next year.

Personal gaming tradition I would have joined @Goafer and picked Christmas NiGHTS but I’d already had it earlier on. Instead I’ll go with the one small bit of collecting I regularly do. Starting with my first trip to Japan in 2012 I’ve spent at least one day walking round retro game shops with the target of picking up one or two games for my Gamecube collection. I just love the Japanese boxes. The art, the sleeve, the size - everything about them. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep doing this for many years to come.

Graphics/Art Style There are so many games to pick from with this one. So much focus in development goes to graphics and art style that we're really spoilt for choice. I had many contenders from games I've already picked. In the end I'm going for Feel the Magic by SEGA on the DS. Just love the silhouetted characters and general art style of the game. It fit beautifully with the play style and made for a really great when it first came out.

UI/UX stuff is really quite interesting, it’s there in pretty much everything we do but often overlooked as something that somebody needs to sit down and think about. Finding people that do it well is really difficult and one area I’ve had hiring problems for no matter where I’ve been over the last few years. It’s one of those annoying areas that when it’s good nobody notices it’s there, but when it’s bad it causes an uproar. Very frustrating for the people that do that work.

I’ve done something really weird to my foot. If I stand on my tip toes my heel gets pins and needles. Doesn’t hurt or impact movement, just a bit strange. Sounds like it might be Tarsal tunnel syndrome so need to go and get it checked out soon.

Applied for a passport two months ago and it’s still being processed with no idea when it will actually complete. Need it to sort out some ongoing visa issues so it’s really causing me a hassle right now.

I’ve been playing a fair bit of F1 2020, really very good but a bit strange with it now not really following the current season both in car livery and track list. I’m also finding this years version much harder to increase your online safety rating. With last years version I got it up to the top level quite quickly and online was.a joy to play when everyone is a considerate racer. Being back in these lower leagues with the crash-meisters is testing my patience quite a lot.

Favourite DLC/Expansion This one has to be Christmas NiGHTs for me: I remember when this was announced and nobody really being sure what the rules were to get hold of it. In the end I think my local game gave them out to regular customers when they bought something. Getting the Christmas versions of the levels, presents and a nice amount of extras was something quite new at the time, and it really did feel like a Christmas present. I still play it every year when I go home and have about 5 copies of the game across PAL and Japanese versions somehow - love it!

Have had this on in the background today while working, another great episode I’m enjoying. The Nintendo employee stats are quite interesting. The exec salaries seem low when in the Western context but those are quite insane salaries for Japan. I don’t think many people realize how flat company structures can be and that there isn’t too much of a difference between a junior member of staff and someone quite senior. Someone with Miyamoto’s background would be earning many multiples more in the West, but also probably wouldn’t have had the early career support like he had at Nintendo. The length of employment is also a huge difference. Jobs for life are still a thing in Japan. It’s very common for people to spend their whole career in one company without even considering leaving. I was actually surprised the average length of service wasn’t higher, but it’s probably mostly dragged down by new recruits rather than people actually leaving.

I’ve just re-subscribed to Pro, hoping it will be a vast improvement on the Fox Sports coverage we get here. Had a little play on the last race replay and it’s really cool being able to select two drivers on boards at the same time or the pit lane camera etc. If the stream is stable on race day then it really seems like the best way to watch F1.

The two per customer suggests to me that they’re not too worried about numbers and just want to stop people buying hundreds of the things. I’m not too worried about not getting one at this point. (Watch me be disappointed come pre-order day) It’s not cheap if you go for a full set of things. I’m not going to bother with the dock, just the machine, the game gear adapter and maybe the link cable. I don’t think there’s any point in getting the one from them. Decent phone adapters will be as good or better, all of the USB-C chargers I have are far more powerful.

They have such a long lead time they won’t really be limiting it will they? Should be easy enough for them to manufacture as many as there are orders for and the more they can make the cheaper each is. At least that’s what I’d have assumed. I’ll try and get an order in for the black one, it looks very cool as a device and I’d love to have one of these in my bag when I’m out and about.

It starts in 45 minutes, which actually is only 11pm for me so no issue anyway. Will be at the ready with my credit card.

Wondering whether to stay up for this. Do you guys think it’s likely to be just an announcement or could it be straight into pre-orders?

Favourite NPC For this I’m going to go with Lakitu, mostly for Mario Kart 64 but also good appearances in other titles. Just always loved this guy turning up to help you out or tell you off. I really wished you could control him and fly around on the cloud sorting out race issued for people.

Oh for sure. It would suck for basically everyone if the time worked for me. I’ll definitely try and join when we’re in the UK later in the year though!

Online Multiplayer I think for this one I have to go for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Perfect Mario Kart experience in my opinion. I always want to take part in the league here but timing is just terrible for me. I think I’ve managed to make it to a session about twice.

We do the same thing, something we can just put on as background noise really. The latest one is Friday Night Dinner and we’ve ended up actually binge watching through almost the whole thing. For me it’s the best type of British comedy, a fairly normal setting that through the slight quirks of the characters ends up creating totally crazy and unexpected situations. Have enjoyed it a lot.

It really is shaping up to be a great year, that’s another set of great tracks being added to the calendar. It almost feels weird not having anything this weekend, can’t wait to get back to racing.

We have the 4k plan. They do have quite a fair bit of 4k content and the picture quality is definitely good. I’m not sure if we’d notice too much if we didn’t have the 4k anymore though. It costs $20 a month here and you get access on a lot of devices etc. For me the overall plan is worth it.

My background of living arrangements is something like the following: I’m very happy with my current living situation. We rent a three bedroom apartment in Singapore for myself, wife and son. We have a big living space with nice balcony, one large bedroom we’re currently all sleeping in, one medium bedroom I have set up as an office, and one small bedroom we use as storage and baby changing. The kitchen is a little small but it’s not too much of a problem just yet. We’re next door to a Ghurka army base so can watch those guys training, and also on the air force flight path so gat a cool selection of planes flying over. The facilities we have here are also pretty awesome, a few pictures: All in it’s a pretty nice place to live, expect we’ll be here for another few years then find a slightely larger apartment that fits the family a bit better. I’m very happy with the people I live with but I do miss living alone sometimes.