ACS250721: How To Friends?

I'm probably overthinking something that works best with no thought, but with my recent exposure to some really cool people around my age, I've been made to wonder how exactly it is one goes about making friends, and how to define such a thing.

Interacting with new people, even friendly, cool ones, is a bit puzzling to me. I super struggle to find anything that can sustain a conversation that isn't directly related to work, which I think makes me sound super boring and serious, not to mention I run out of things to say once work is done, and I struggle even harder to find an excuse to initiate a conversation with someone once work ends. I mean, yeah, sure, the obvious things, like food, weather, hobbies, etc., are on the table I suppose. But I can't seem to find a way to ease into the conversation. Wouldn't it be fucking weird if one day you woke up to find that a colleague is asking you about your favourite foods and hobbies?

My past traumas may be playing a part in this, it may not. But it all just strikes me as super creepy and transparently desperate, and I don't think that'll make a good impression.

I do have friends. Two of them I regularly talk to, and whom I trust with my life. I know these are excruciating rarities that I'm beyond lucky to have stumbled ass–backwards into having in this life, but I can't help but to wonder if I can replicate the process of finding people that could mean this much to me, whom I can in turn mean very much to. I know everyone's different, and that there therefore is no fixed "process" to befriend everyone, and thus me saying in the beginning of this post that friendship is something that works best without thought; I'm willing to say with certainty at least that sincerity and truthfulness is paramount in any meaningful friendship, and neither of those two require thought. But as it stands right now, my honest and sincere thoughts and actions are, "I want to get to know you better and hang out more outside of work but I don't know how to ease into it in an appropriate manner that doesn't cross too many boundaries too soon and therefore I will sincerely just sit here like a paralysed statue and hope that you see something in me that piques your interest or goodwill enough to invite me out to a dinner or whatever it is you social butterflies do now that we're in Phase 2 Heightened Alert and can't dine in no more and hopefully then I can leave a better impression on you that you'd invite me out again beyond the first dinner *WHEW*", which I don't think "normal" people will very much get. I mean, if I see a quiet, desolate kid, I'd think he wants to be left the fuck alone, too.

Small talk is a death sentence to me. I brought this up with - once and she offered to role play a new employee who happens to have sat across the table from me during lunchtime, and I think I hit a solid brick wall about four sentences in. It's strangely apropos that I bring - up, because I think a big reason why I struggle with small talk is because I struggle with boundaries. I don't want to talk about the weather. I don't want to talk about food. I want to talk about something I'm interested in, something that can stimulate my brain into working. I want to talk about personal things. Challenges. How you deal with them. How they make you feel. I want to know what you like and dislike, and why those are so. What are your hobbies. What it means to you. I want an insight into you as a person, and fucking food and weather probably isn't going to give me that information about you. But, again, boundaries. Not everyone is willing to divulge that information on the first, second, or even tenth meeting. It's just that the foreplay confuses and bores the shit out of me. Is it really such a weird concept to want to know if I'll click well with a person and want to be their friend in the first meeting, instead of wasting weeks and months of my life trying to read a person and build a profile of them in my head, only to find that they're child molesters and animal abusers?

But that also begs the question, right? "What are friends, exactly?" Again, I have trouble with boundaries and non binary thinking, as noted by -. At the mention of the word, "friends", I think of the two aforementioned guys, whom I consider my brothers, whom I'll entrust my life to without second thought. I think of celebrating their birthdays, helping them out, having heart to hearts, being there for their important occasions, meeting weekly, where we'll have nothing to talk about but end up talking endlessly for hours, etc.. But there are more "levels" to friends than that, I think. Maybe there are friends out there that aren't so tight. With whom you keep contact with but never depend on them on anything super personal or important, or feel guilty to. Maybe there are friends out there who aren't close enough to share every detail of their lives with. And it's these "grey areas" in friendship that I struggle to understand. I mean, why don't we try to get to know each other better, or try to like each other more? If I can't be 100% honest and sincere with you, if I can't let my guard down around you, then you're just draining me mentally. And I don't want that with a casual setting. It makes the occasion feel like a job meeting, wherein I have to be polite, appropriate, dress up, etc.. And if I'm in that "job meeting" mindset, I'd want something done. I'd want a goal. Then it becomes transactional. Then I'm reminded of how useless and worthless I am, being unable to provide of value for anyone aside from a stupid listening ear and a wall upon which to hurl your shit at to be promptly discarded when you're done. Then it becomes stiff. Then it becomes tiring. Then it becomes disingenuine. Then it becomes superficial. And then it becomes everything I dislike about an office job, and urrrgh. What's the point at this point?

I uh... really want to befriend some of my colleagues, but I just don't know how to ask them. My immediate thought was, "hey, can I add you on Facebook?" It gives me a sense of affirmation to be friends on Facebook, as it's visible, lasting proof that we met one day and liked each other enough to want to see what the other person is like in other aspects of their lives, hollow a concept as social media might be. It also lets me know more about a person without having to conversate, which can in turn help me in future conversations (though yes that does make me sound very much like a stalker). Thing is, I'm so out of touch with these young whippersnappers nowadays that I don't even know how they keep in touch with each other. "No one uses Facebook nowadays!", I'm told after mustering up the courage to ask. And hoo boy do I feel like an old geezer holding his back on a rocking chair waiting for death to finally claim him.

Why do I get this feeling that befriending someone is something no one taught in school, yet somehow everyone learned in school? Except me because I'm dumb?

144 Bibian

It's often said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but that had never held true for describing something as dynamic, and perhaps even organic, as a car. There's no such complication or poetry in this week's case however...

...because the 2014 Lamborghini Veneno simply, plainly sucks.

In the 2.7km (1.67mi) I've put on the odometer of my Veneno in my own private practice right before joining this week's lobby, I've overshot, understeered, and crashed this car about 4 times. The Veneno is one of the cars that are so horrendous to drive in this game that you could take one corner, stop the car, and then walk back to the pits in disgust. It understeers so much that it seemingly wants to cut right through The Omega of Big Willow despite my every effort to stop and turn it, even on uprated Sport Soft tyres we were running in this week's meetup (default are Sport Hards; you might as well be driving on bald toilet rolls at that point). It takes forever to slow for a corner too, often requiring braking well before the first distance markers for every corner, some situated 200m before the turn–in. I don't think I've ever driven a car that has asked of me to lift in "The Sweeper", Turn 8, of Big Willow before, but lo and behold, you'll need to lift hard to avoid going into the sand, or even dab the brakes a bit to hold a narrow line to brake in a straight line for Turn 9, the final corner. It's an absolutely abhorrent chore to drive, one that immediately puts a person into a bad mood upon undertaking the task, akin to disputing a BS legal case: The whole thing just feels like an argument wherein both parties try to shout over the other and nothing gets met in the middle nor goes anywhere.

And so after the first race at Big Willow, I spent the rest of the session trying to find cars that could compete against the Veneno, and just like another crappy Italian car we tested not too long ago, the lobby soon descended into "a free-for-all, bring whatever fits into the power/weight limits" battle royal: a sure sign that nobody likes driving the Car of the Week. At one point, we ran America's big three pony cars, all of which are infinitely cheaper, not to mention way more fun. The GT-R Safety Car, despite being of an ancient platform with "only" 6 forward gears and topping out at 324km/h gear limited halfway into the home straight tunnel of Toukyo East, pulls football fields on the Veneno in the straights, so much so that even with a higher drag limited top speed of 377km/h, the Veneno experiences a net time disadvantage on the straight—even when driven by Vic on a track characterised by its never–ending home straight. And don't think for a second that the ultra–fancy Veneno with its appearance and claim of a "aerodynamic efficiency of a racing prototype" can compensate for that in the corners, either, because according to the game, this damn thing has as much front downforce as my Honda Fit: a.k.a. zero.

Yes, I'll admit, all of the aforementioned cars compared against the Veneno were tuned to be as powerful as possible and be as light as possible within our lobby's regulations of 739HP (591kW) and 1,450kg (3,197lbs), the stock power and mass of the Veneno. I usually run comparisons with bone stock cars, but as with most filthy Italian supercars, the listed mass in this game is its dry mass, which makes legitimate comparisons against more ethical, honest, and sensible makes completely impossible, hence why I just made them as competitive as possible within the regulations. God I hate reviewing Italian cars. I really do. It infuriates me to no end. I hate their politics. I have no idea why they're so obsessed with the dry mass of a car. Has no one ever thought, "wait a minute, if we quote the dry mass in a self–proclaimed simulator and if it perchance handles like a constipated dog's stiff, dry poo in said simulator, what does that say about the real world performance of our car?"

There is one car I left completely bone stock aside from a tyre upgrade to Sports Soft to match the Veneno's, however...

Mechanically, I struggle to find much difference between an Aventador LP 750-4 SV and a Veneno. Both have engines producing the exact same power at the exact same rpm. Both are AWD rear mid engined cars. Both have 7 speed automated manual gearboxes. The only minor difference is that the Aventador weighs a slight bit more than the Veneno, at 1,525kg (3,362lbs) and less torque at 690.2N⋅m (509.1lbf⋅ft), in comparison to the Veneno's 720.8N⋅m (531.6lbf⋅ft). The Aventador also exhibits way more body movement than the tauter Veneno, but puzzlingly has less understeer than its more exclusive sister, allowing me to keep up with, and even pester Rick's Veneno on a few occasions around Suzuka despite the Aventador's deficiencies on paper.

Here's the thing, though: not only does the Aventador SV cost roughly a third of the Veneno, but it felt much more like a "proper" Lamborghini to drive. Yes, it still understeers on corner entry, but it was much more cooperative and capable than the Veneno under trail braking, and on exits, the car felt much more lairy and alive, requiring drivers to wrestle the rebellious car under their control, lest its rear end swings out with the more pronounced body roll over the Veneno if you simply gun it, despite being AWD. The Aventador may be lairy and rebellious like its styling suggests, but it can be wrestled into submission to bite an apex or even to have some fun with slides. In fact, it requires you to wrestle it to prove that you are worthy of its cooperation. It has a haughty elitism to it not just in its styling and price tag, but most importantly in a video game, also in its driving dynamics as well, which I've come to associate with a good Lamborghini like the Countach. The Veneno on the other hand, never gave me that sense of drama nor cooperated with me no matter what I tried with it. It isn't a tempting Tsundere with a soft and sweet side you have to prove yourself to see; it's just a bad bitch thorough and through, seemingly just for the sake or appearance of it.

Okay, fine, the Veneno is faster around a track than an Aventador. But by how much? I'd rather attempt to shave my balls with a chainsaw than to hotlap a Veneno, so I'll refer you to Alex P's Nordschleife runs:

2.876 seconds faster apparently... around a 7 minute lap.

Can a lap time advantage of 0.6% justify a price hike of 300%? What are you paying for exactly? The exclusivity? The fact that the Veneno is supposedly the celebration of Lamborghini's 50th Anniversary as a manufacturer? I think that fact beats the dead horse that is the Veneno's case even further, as it brings to mind other cars like the Ferrari F50 and the utterly brilliant Honda S2000 as comparisons, benchmarks, and expectations. Can the Veneno really live up to that sort of hype and expectations? At its core, it's simply a reskinned Aventador with a remapped engine. If you look in the interior of both cars, you'd find that they have the same A and B pillars, the same digital dash, the same air con vents... everything! Yet, for all its similarities to the Aventador, it's difficult to imagine that a simple reskin could result in a product that's so much worse. Perhaps this is what Chris Harris alluded to in his article, "Lamborghinis Are The Perfect Cars For People Who Can't Drive", wherein he describes that no two Aventadors handle the same, and perhaps the Veneno is circumstantial proof of that in Gran Turismo Sport. If the Veneno is supposed to be a symbolic icon of Lamborghini as a brand, then I can only be left to infer that modern day Lamborghinis are style over substance, show over go. And that they handle terrible. Hell, I don't even like the Aventador that much, yet here I am, making it sound like the second coming of your preferred deity just because it's in the same conversation as the Veneno.

If you truly must drive a Veneno over an Aventador for whatever reason, I think Sport Soft tyres are a bare minimum for it to be barely tolerable. Tune it if you can. Otherwise, don't bother with it.

Car of the Week — Week 143: Lancia Stratos '73

If the automotive industry has taught us anything, it's that there's nothing quite as bewitching — and scary — as a pissed off Italian.

The Lancia Stratos won the World Rally Championship three years in a row from 1974. It looks more like a TAMIYA racecar than an actual, road legal, production car. It has a freaking Ferrari engine in it, which sounds like a swarm of enraged mechanical bees when you wring it out. It's shod with bias ply tyres. It has no ABS. And yet somehow, none of the aforementioned are the most outlandish part of the car. No — that distinction would go to its loose rear end, because the Stratos is easily among the most tail happy cars you can drive in this game, and yes, I'm even including air cooled 911s in this comparison.

To be entirely fair, the Stratos' tail happiness isn't unreasonable or unconditional, unlike those of an FC RX-7 or a Honda Beat. There is a logical, logistical flow to driving the thing; it's just that the Stratos has very little tolerance and forgiveness for an unskilled, imprecise driver. With soft springs, stiletto–thin tyres, a rather high cg, and — very puzzlingly for an RMR car — identically sized tyres front and rear, the way a Stratos corners is such that the rear outside tyres are always at the limit of their grip, since they are the limiting factor to how fast it can corner. Any slight twitch of the steering wheel once the car is off neutral having dove into a corner then, be it to adjust an ill–judged line or to correct an overzealous slide, simply causes the rear tyres to overwhelm instantly, sending the car into a spin or an inescapable fishtail. The Stratos is one of those cars that you need to constantly steer to keep straight, and as such, is very choosy with its drivers, demanding that they treat this maliciously moody mistress gently with due understanding and respect and be on top of her at all times, lest they suddenly find most of her svelte, supermodel–shaming 980kg (2,161lbs) body on top of them instead.

That said, for the professional dom who does manage to wrestle the Stratos to bend to their will, the Stratos is a properly quick car even by today's standards. It is pretty much THE N100 car in the game when detuned, and having a 5 speed gearbox in the seventies was a huge deal. The driving experience is so raw and so demanding that it'd make even hardcore 911 fans wince and Lotus purists' faces turn British Racing Green with jealousy. Just like a pissed off Italian supermodel, it's not really my thing. It's best enjoyed when admired from afar, and god help you if you ever get involved with her. And I don't tend to like being in abusive relationships that much.

Car of the Week — Week 142: McLaren F1 GTR - BMW (Kokusai Kaihatsu UK Racing)

The McLaren F1 Road Car is still to this day, the single, undisputed, best car ever produced in history, and the racing version of it that's under the spotlight this week is simply a better version of the best car.

That really could've been the end of the review. But no one's here for that, are they?

History and hyperbole aside, the F1 GTR is a bit of a misfit in Gran Turismo Sport. Originally a car built to GT1 specifications, it sits uncomfortably in between modern day's GT3 and GT500 cars in terms of outright pace, and is dumped by the game into the GT3 equivalent class, Gr.3, with severe crippling to its power and mass via Balance of Performance, such that it produces lap times roughly within the same century of the much more modern GT3, GTE and Gr.3 machinery. For some context, the F1 GTR is by far and away the oldest car in Gr.3, with the second oldest being the 2012 Aston V12.

Not that running at roughly the same pace helps the hypercar from 1995 to stick out any less in Gr.3 however, seeing as the only notable bits the F1 GTR boasts over the road going car externally is a pair of dinky lights on the bonnet, subtly redesigned bumpers, and an adjustable wing on the back. In that sense, the F1 GTR looks almost like an F1 Gr.4 if such a thing existed, and that's exactly how I'd describe the driving dynamics of the F1 GTR, actually: like a Gr.4 car given 600HP. Lacking the black magic of downforce both by design and technological limitations 20 years ago, the F1 GTR simply will not behave or drive like a Gr.3 car, requiring drivers to slow down for turns so much in comparison to everything else in Gr.3 that it's downright dangerous to share a track with them. Even after scrubbing off enough speed, the F1 does have a very strong bias towards understeer, built for a wide open, high speed, bumpy track that is la Sarthe. To give some context on how closely the F1 GTR resembles the road car, the road car can even annoy and harass the race car around la Sarthe when shod with the same racing tyres. Funnily enough, I think the road car is to the GTR, what the GTR is to the rest of Gr.3: fast as hell on the straights, but will sandbag dangerously in the bends.

In spite of all this, the F1 GTR is nonetheless a rather common sight in high level Sport Mode races, simply because, even with a 21% mass increase and 11% power drop as it stands with BoP applied at the time of writing, there is simply no blunting the intent of the Mulsanne Missile that is the F1 GTR when the roads straighten out for a long while, almost as if a car possessed by the will of its engineers. If you've ever had the far fetched fantasy of gapping a competitor of the same class as you in a sanctioned race as they sit in your slipstream, the F1 will grant you that pipe dream even if you didn't know you had that fantasy before, and as such, it's a rather difficult car to overtake in most good overtaking spots on tracks because its completely unethical straight line speed makes getting close to it, let alone lined up alongside it on hard braking zones a very difficult ask. At tracks defined by their cross-country straights then, such as Toukyo East and the aforementioned la Sarthe, only the cream of the crop of Gr.3, such as the Supra, Ford GT, Aston V12, or the GT1 DBR9 can even hope to hang onto the slipstream of the F1 GTR.

Of course, that's a very exacting scenario, one that, while not totally unheard of, is nonetheless not nonexistent. For most other scenarios, better balanced cars with an edge in acceleration, such as the Aston V12, will fit most of your Sport Mode needs regardless of prevailing BoP, meaning that the F1 is a bit of a niche car at best in the context of this game. It's an amazing car, don't get me wrong. It won a race it wasn't "supposed" to win. If that isn't the definition of a Sleeper, then I don't know what is. Sure, it's hard to blame a fish for not being able to walk well on land. But that's just where it finds itself in GT Sport, and it's either waltz or wilt on the racetrack, and, you know, this is a review, not a "gush about the McF1 for two million words" writeup, tempting as that may be. If you can somehow purge all knowledge and expectation that it is a Gr.3 car and simply experience it for what it is with an open mind, it's a pretty solid car. I bought mine the day it was released, just to be a pretty orange garage queen, whom I take out for a spin every now and then and for the occasional photo shoot, and haven't regretted it for a moment. It's why some of the photos in this review are dated all the way back in 2019 if you've noticed.

While it is a complete misfit in Gr.3, I'm very glad that's where it ended up in, nonetheless, instead of being relegated to the dumping ground of Gr.X, because it means that the F1 GTR still has some relevance and use in this game, unlike the P1 GTR. A part of me still wonders if it'd be a better fit into Gr.4 though, if Polyphony Digital had allowed its power to dip that low and mass to rise that high. And I'm very glad that, unlike the Group C cars lumped into Gr.1, the F1 GTR hasn't been given unrealistic aero just because of the category it's in. Plus, being a Gr.3 car, that means it comes priced at 450,000 Credits, which is less than half the million credit asking price of the road going variant (or you can just be sponsored the car without even being required to run one race with it and never return it; your call).

And speaking of Group C cars, I wanted to try pitting another Le Mans winner, the 787B, against the F1 GTR in the rain, seeing as the F1 did beat out purpose built prototypes due to seventeen hours of rain back in 1995's race. Of course, in the simplistic virtual world of Gran Turismo Sport, it's a safe, foregone conclusion that the 787B with its unrealistic aero would blow the brawns out of the F1 through the latter's eardrums, but as per our lobbies' usual restrictions, the 787B has been handicapped to bring it up to the F1 GTR's stock mass of 1,050kg (2,315lbs) and down to its stock power of 600HP (447kW), for a closer fight between the two. And hoo boy, what a close fight I wound up with indeed!

...just not with a McLaren. Instead, a rather fiesty Hyundai appeared to rain on the Le Mans parade:

787B Post Tsunami by Spicy_Nikorasu Livery Link

Car of the Week — Week 141: Jaguar F-type Gr.3

Jaguar is no stranger to motorsports, with extensive success stories ranging from Alpine Rallies to the grueling 24 Hours of Le Mans, to name just a few. Far be it from me to tell you about the brand's grandiose 86-year history, though, seeing as I had to Google both the above factoids just to write this first paragraph. Happily however, the Jaguar F-type Gr.3 racing car is something that needs no introduction or history books to be appreciated, because I'm almost certain the "F" in "F-type" stands for "Fun".

Being one of the only two cars currently in Gr.3 that is supercharged (the other being the Ford GT LM Spec II Test Car), the ferocious feline immediately stands out in its roster of racers, and don't think for a second that it's all meow and no move, either, because the F-type pulls hard on the straights with the aforementioned supercharged 5L V8. Paired to a bespoke, impeccably engineered gearbox that seemingly has a cog for any situation, the entire drivetrain is delightfully instant and linear, pulling hard from any speed, like a cat straight out of a litter box... which is helpful for when you actually find yourself in the sand. In the twisty bits, the Jag has such a wonderful, catlike balance and stability, letting it quickly earn the trust of its driver, while being difficult to upset mid corner, both of which encouraged me to try some braver than usual antics in it despite me showing up to this week's meet late and having no prior experience in the car, a testament to how easy it is to learn the ins and outs of this thing. The Jag's stability was such that it felt right in its habitat hunting game down the demanding downhill switchbacks of Bathurst, where other cars have cower and tiptoe around in fear of spinning out. In exchange however, don't expect this big cat to be as nimble as its mid-engined competition in a meandering chase, as the front end does start to feel rather inert when push comes to shove. Where I think it'd be most happy then, is on a wide open, high speed circuit where it can stretch its legs, and hopefully doesn't have to worry too much about tyres and fuel.

Personally though, if I had to pick a British Gr.3 car, I think I'd rather go with an Aston V12, seeing as it seems to be the straight line king of Gr.3 last I checked, and I oddly find the old, 2012 car much more nimble too. And, hey, it's a V12! But, don't let that dissuade you from giving the F-type a try if one comes lurking around your garage for cat food one day courtesy of the Daily Workout Gift, because it's a very solid, fun car to drive while not lacking in outright pace. It's just a car that is difficult to go wrong in, having all the right bits to be made competitive with another Balance of Performance tweak. And who knows? If you manage to make it purr, one day the gods of BoP might just shine favourably on it, and it might help chase off a Viper from your garage or claim the tongue of a noisy RX-Vision. Until then, you can keep taking cat pictures of it and show them off on the internet for some fame, because it's a superbly photogenic as well. It's a hell of a car, all things considered, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it this week.

Here's the livery link to the livery I used on race day. More photos on my GTPlanet album.

Violet Evergarden F-type Gr3 by Hiyo_chan315 Livery Link