HCP is no longer what it used to be.

I really don't like what I'm seeing on the forums. What happened to people who make sensible posts? All the newbies and adiks want these days is to get their post count up to Level Meow (10,000), and they're willing to ignore the forum rules just for this stupid, meaningless achievement.

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Speaking of Meow, I found out that my friend Angiela's having her first ever bout of bulimia. Apparently this came from a recent breakup from a guy which just had to come from HCP, her stress-buster. Poor girl.
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Since Friday was a holiday due to Eid-al-Fit'r (the end of the Islamic Ramadan month), I decided to invite my thesismates over to my house to work on Chapters 1 and 3 of our thesis. After all, Leia had already invited us over to her house.

It was a surprisingly productive day. Although we weren't all that efficient, we managed to send Doc Nards our draft by 7 pm. Like my other blockmates, my visitors told me my house could pass for a vacation house location in Baguio or Tagaytay because of all the wood. For food we went to Yellow Cab for a couple of calzones and boxes of pasta---decadent but very filling.

I'm just glad they enjoyed their stay.
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After months of not touching a machine, I got behind the wheel of Initial D v.3 again yesterday, using nothing else but my latest car, a dark green Mazda RX-8 with black wheels. It looks so dark and menacing. Not exactly what I wanted, but it's good all the same.

The RX-8 has a lot in common with my old Honda S2000. It's a 6-speeder FR with poor torque down low, but revs to a stratospheric 9500 RPM to unleash its 250 HP, so it needs to be driven a bit differently than more usual cars such as my S14 Silvia Q's. Interesting how none of my cars so far are turbocharged...

In the span of time I was there I conquered Akina Snow, beat Shingo on Myogi (okay, that's very easy), Daiki on Happogahara and Kyoko on Tsuchizaka. Akina Snow took me 4 tries to finish, but that taught me to use less steering lock for the turns and be gentler on the gas.

Looks like I've still got the skills...
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Some stranger got into the Initial D v.3 machine and used a stock Honda S2000 to make mincemeat out of all his opponents. His driving looked rough, but it was undeniably FAST. Maybe there's hope for my fully-modified S2000 after all.