Apparently BMW is joining the night-vision in car fray:

BMW Night-Vision Pictures
Looks like fairly standard night-vision to me. It would have been funny if everyone looked like Luftwaffe officers in the night-vision cam’s display. But maybe that’s just my mean sense of politically-incorrect historical humor.

If you don’t know me, then let me preface this with a little information about a game for the PlayStation2 video game system. It is called Dance Dance Revolution (DDR). This is a game requiring a 3 ft. by 3 ft. special controller called a dance pad. On the dance pad are four arrows, each for each of the cardinal directions.

The object of the game is to step/stomp/jump on the arrows when they reach the top of the screen’s row of arrow-outlines:

I started playing Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) after reading the following article in the New York Times Magazine. If reading the whole article is a strain, the interesting part is the last paragraph:

Playing D.D.R. is, it turns out, part of a healthy lifestyle. Fanatic players report often-significant weight loss resulting from the workout it provides; imagine a Stairmaster powered by quarters. The ddrfreak.com site even includes a page of tips for nonathletic types on how to reduce injury and strain when playing D.D.R. For the past several years, exercise machines have incorporated an increasing number of video-game elements. Now the arcade has begun to reach out in the other direction.

Soon after I had a rather embarassing moment with a DDR machine at the Regal Brandywine Cinema multiplex. Suffice it to say, instructions of the “If you’ve never EVER played this before and have the rhythm of an average cracker, read this quickly” nature would have helped. Aspirations of playing the game were temporarily put on hold. A few weeks to about a month-and-a-half later during a plateau of weight loss at the gym, I bought the DDR Max 2 and a beginner dance pad. After having a thorough understanding of how to play the game due to its excellent Lesson Mode, I started playing. I must have played for an hour easily. As the days passed, I played the game more and more, sometimes playing for three hours at a time. Once I played through the entire wheel of songs. My legs really hurt the next day because it’s a rather high-impact work-out.

Before about three weeks ago, I hadn’t played DDR in well over a year. My friend and co-worker, Maurice, came over to my condo and we must have played DDR on and off for about two and a half hours. Wow, I really missed this game. Since then another friend and co-worker Dan the Mighty and I have also played DDR. The bastard schools me every time! Also, I have managed to introduce Mr. Anderson and The Arena, both co-workers and good friends to this newly-reaquired addiction. Oh yes, the entire company will play this game sooner or later.

That being said Mr. Anderson and I played DDR for around two hours or so, going through about twenty to twenty-five songs. Both of us were beat and our legs were starting to give way. Mr. Anderson left to go home then I did something incredibly Dee Dee Dee, i.e. retarded, playing DDR for another twenty songs. These need to happen in a precise order:

1) Take four ibuprofen tablets (check)
2) Drink lots of water
3) Drink a beer for the muscle relaxing qualities of alcohol because I can feel my legs cramping up, even after stretching.

And all that because I wanted to go play DDR rather than go to the gym and possibly aggravate my Median Carpal nerve. It gets enough aggravation as it is from the ergonomics at work and writing really long blog posts, more isn’t required right? Well, after tonight, I’m going to re-think my position on that and forget about it the next time I have the inclination to play DDR. It’s just a lot of good fun and it’s a superb aerobic work-out.

Oh man, this lady goes batsh** on a telemarketer. She is clearly insane. I hate telemarketers and I felt bad for her. Just wow.

Check it out.

Note: You will need to download the file first. It’s priceless.

There is a Fun Drive and Crab Feast planned by a local member of the BMW CCA. More information on the webpage above or in the message board. Reminder: You do need to register to post. It’s easy and keeps the spam postings at bay.

The Message Board is now accessible. If you don’t see the link on the right-hand side, you can also click here.