Playing With Sharp Objects

I finally took delivery of Little Spark around 4pm on Saturday. As you can see, we even made the supreme effort of completely cleaning out the garage and putting up some shelving and hangers for beach chairs, ladders, and our can’s roof carrier. Our little car can sleep soundly at night in the comfort of its garage, which we haven’t used in the three years of living here. I’ve made a few trips around town all day yesterday and today to make sure I get the feel for driving it. We even made a full trip to the grocery store and back without stalling it at a light. A few pictures are below for your enjoyment.

We’ve been peppered with the Believe campaign and a slew of beverages in the cafeteria case at work, clix figures, and all sorts of other Halo 3 merch (see exhibits a and b). Most notable is the fact that I finally finished Halo 2 for the first time a week ago. This is because, other than those brief strays into finishing Crackdown and most of the way through Saint’s Row, Halo 2 multiplayer totally sucked me in and occupied pretty much all of my Xbox time in those years. When the Beta of Halo 3 came out, we were soooo there. The look of the multiplayer was beautiful and we loved it, but alas it was only here for a few weeks. After milking our money’s worth out of Halo 2 for three years, the final game is here!

I’m only up to Outskirts so far but I’ll definitely give the rest of the game a chance. Our 4 year old made it on as far on easy using his favorite weapon: melee attack. Go figure. My impression of the game so far is that while the look of the game is super fantastic and better than anything that has ever been created for gaming platforms, the brutes have been nerfed, load times take much longer after you’ve died, it’s pretty repetitive and Cortana is REALLY ANNOYING!! So I imagine that I’ll dive right back into the familiar multiplayer with all the cool new maps and I might finish this game up over the next few years, just in time for “Halo 4: The Floodening”.

The car has been built! It’s awaiting its slot on a ship to cross to the states. Not the right color in the generic picture, but the description matches the picture in the previous post.
My new baby is on her way. Off to more stick shift lessons tomorrow.

Below you can see the specs for this machine.

and the interior.

Update 13 Sept 2007: She’s on her way as of today!!

From the mini forums at
http://www.northamericanmotoring.com I have found that “the next K-Line ship will be the Frisia voyage V.147 (K-Line North Atlantic Shuttle Service schedule below). Departs Southampton on 9/13 making Baltimore 9/25 and Charleston 9/27″ which means my mini will probably be in the 9/25 docking and make its way to Priceton Mini about a week later after hitting the distribution center. Hoping it gets here in time for my birthday!!

Update 21 Sept 2007: The ship must have put on a litttle extra steam! My mini has arrived.

Update 22 Sept 2007: Went for the second driving lesson and I nailed the stick perfectly on the first try. We took the demo mini to the warehouse where the car is being finished. Unfortunately I forgot the camera so I did not get shots of her without the extra driving lights or mudflaps or the chrome gas cap. She’s a beautiful machine - the white wheel covers and blue highlighted interior are really nice. The dealer tells me she will be ready for delivery at 7pm Monday, but we have to wait and see if the warehouse finishes her up. I promise photos once I pick her up from the dealer.

Update 24 Sept 2007: No car yet. One of the parts they should have had delivered today did not make it and they’ll need a couple of days to install some of these extras. Tentative pickup date is Sat Sept 29. Meanwhile, I’m making plans to go see the NJ BMW AutoX event on Oct 7 at the Commerce Bank Ballpark in Bridgewater, NJ. Not to race, of course, but for moral support and to bond with my fellow Mini owners.