Hi all. Last night after 'working' at my dads store I stayed for diner and we had a fish gourmet for diner. And I mean a lot of fish. Butterfish to be exact, allthough I'm not sure if that's a good translation ... Boy I ate a lot of that fishy folks, maybe just a little too much. When I woke up just now ... ugh ... We had a total of one and a half kilograms of that butterfish and I estimate I did about half of it and dad and Margot the other half together. And with that the accompanying breads, salads, and so on. The thing with these gourmets is that you eat too much because the tempo you eat in is a lot slower. (Better even?) Maybe next time I'll remember this and take it a bit easier, because this was a over the limit. Also I think I'm not used to this type of food. For myself I cook reasonably simple, usually pasta's or rice meals. Mainly because I like them of course but another great bonus is that they are easy to do and take up little time. Not that I terribly mind cooking, but my evenings are quite short as it is anyway so every minute gained is a good thing. And as cooking this way is pretty light on the stomach I think I've gotten used to that and anything a tad more greasy means there's hell to pay the next morning. And that's ... euhm ... now ...

Hi all. Last night we had snooker competition again, but it has seldom looked as messy as these couple of frames. We won, but to say we did so in a very convincing way ... nah. It still is quite a mystery to me how I was able to win my three frames, as it sure was no where near BBC material. Trust me, I was there and looked at it very carefully :-)

Hi all. Well I'm starting to warm up to that circuit of Spa folks, I tell you. This weekend I kind of expected Bas to call me and claim the weekend for racing, so in order not to let him down I asked my dad if I could have the Saturday off. That was no problem, as it rarely is when asked, so I was available for the entire weekend :-) And Bas did call, however not to make an appointment for the weekend but to tell me his back was telling him it wasn't a very good idea to go racing. So I was on my own for the entire weekend. I decided it was time to do a couple of serious races on Spa, as we're still in the middle of training for the 24 hours race with GTR. The beauty of GTR is that it has 4 phases the track goes through when doing a 24 hour race. This means when you start the race you begin in daylight, then turn to dusk, night, dawn and daylight again. The switching between those phases is not that brilliant, but I'll tell you more about that later ;-) The daylight version of the track was already known by us, as it was included in the demo but when it switched to dusk mode ... boy oh boy ... d*mn this looks good people, and I mean really, really good. We now have a total of five versions of Spa in our GTR game: plain Spa, the 24 hour of Spa, the dusk, night and dawn version. The thing is that when you select the 24 hours circuit of Spa you can also set how long one hundred percent of the race will take. So when I for example set it to six hours, I will have a complete 24 hours race packed in that six hours. So every one and a half hour the track changes to the next mode. And this is where one of the biggest down sides of GTR comes in: changing from one mode to the next. The point is that the 3D engine on which GTR is build doesn't support a smooth transformation from day to night and back, hence the 4 different versions of the track. So what happens when we're moving on is that the game briefly displays a message telling us drivers that a track change is on it's way (and that message last a whole whopping second it seems ...) and then starts reloading just about the entire game, after pausing the whole thing. This does not necessarily need to cause any problems, but unfortunately in many cases it does. When you're for example just emerging uphill in Eau Rouge, flooring the throttle in fifth gear, at a speed of just about two hundred and fifty kilometers an hour and the game freezes for that track reload, it can take up to half a minute for it to return and hand the car over to you in the exact state you where in when the transformation begins ... It's almost impossible to maintain the exact steering rate and throttle position so the odds of you crashing out at that moment are a whole lot bigger than you winning the lottery. In single player mode you get an option screen when the track returns enabling you to choose whether you want to quit the race (and that could well be the best choice after all ;-), or save the race or hand the car over to AI, stuff like that. As I have yet to run my first long race on-line I'm not sure what happens with the track changes then. Now my first choice was to simply continue the race. At that time I was in the middle of the Blanchimont turn (yes I had to look that up, as I'm not that great with remembering turn names) and just about zero point seven seconds later I was in the tire barrier, wondering what the h*ll just happened. Now I'm pretty easy going by nature so why not simply try again and see what happens, after all it could well have been a glitch (which happens when they change something :-) ... So there I was again, at it again, driving to the best of my ability and eagerly awaiting the change of day. And there it was. The message flashed through the picture and the track started reloading. This time I thought it might be a smart idea to choose for the option to let AI take over and let him/her/it figure out what to do then the picture returned. So I did and that were pretty much the last couple of meters my Gulf Saleen drove that race. I mean what a mess. The AI driver I trusted my million dollar race car simply drove the d*mn thing for about five meters and then slammed the brakes harder than anything I'd ever seen slamming brakes before ... The result was catastrophic, to say the least. I'll need to check the replay to see what happened exactly but when the smoke cleared just about the entire straight after the bus stop chicane was filled with car parts. In all seven cars crashed, first into mine and after that into one another. Like I said I have no clue how this works on-line so we can only hope for the best and see what happens I guess.

Hi all. The quickest answer to that short question would be 'my mood'. Way up even ... To say the least this wasn't one of Biek's best days. At all. And it's not for the first time over the past couple of weeks too. It's no ones fault I guess, so I'll just sit it out and hope for better times :-| To start with some bad luck. You know that feeling when you twist and turn for ages before you finally decide you want to have something, right? It takes you quite some time to simply say 'yes' and go ahead to place the order. And then after your decision you can't wait for it to arrive and get your hands to it and for all you care it could get delivered yesterday. Right. Well that's the same here. After some careful consideration I ordered GT Racing, two of them to be precise, one for Bas too. And after waiting for what seemed like forever I finally got the message that the postman had tried to deliver the package with the two copies of GT Racing 2004 to my home. Unfortunately I have to work every day so yesterday morning I phoned the post-office and asked them if they could maybe deliver it to my neighbor instead, something they were glad to do. However when I got home yesterday evening there was again a note in on my doorstep telling me they had tried to deliver the package and again hadn't found me at home so now I could pick it up at the post office ... some people ... Because I'm normally working six days a week this means it now can take some time before I'm finally able to go and get it. So tomorrow morning I'll see how soon they open and just scoop a couple of minutes of time to go over and get it there as I'm definitely not waiting until after the weekend to get my hands on GT Racing. I need to practice for the 24 hours of Spa race for crying out loud, those people at the post-office have no idea what they are putting me through here! Aarrgghh!! Sorry about that, but I do feel a bit better now ... thanks :-) The good news was today at lunch. Normally I can get quite grumpy when it comes to paying for my lunch. Now don't get me wrong, I think paying for lunch is a quite acceptable happening. It's the amount of money the caterer at my work dares to ask for their food that's ticking me off. When I do my best and try to not to let it get too expensive I'm on about three Euro's per lunch. Today however I had a bit more, knowing already that when I get home I'm not going to be in the mood to do much cooking and will go with a simple bread meal. (This is how good I now know myself ;-) So when it came to paying for the whole deal again the register read a little over four and a half Euro. Like I was planning on buying the entire building or something, geez! I have no clue how they can charge that kind of money without laughing ... The surprise however came when I got my change for giving ten Euro's: eleven Euro twenty five! This was of course perfectly acceptable and I took the money with a big smile. That should teach them, puh! 'Enjoy your lunch Sir' the woman behind the register said ... And I did. Very much :-)

Hi all. It's been a couple of days since I've posted, I know. And normally this would mean that I was busy or not at home or something like that. But it doesn't. I was at home the entire weekend, including the Monday and did ... well ... nothing really. I just had weekend for a change. And it's something I should do more often. Taking it easy, cleaning the house a bit, doing the washes, getting my hours of sleep. You know, the normal basic daily things. I might do this more often, who knows ... so if you see a gap in posts I probably had a day off again :-) Yesterday evening we played snooker competition again and won with a quite convincing six to three frames. My own three frames went pretty good and I relatively easy won all of them, Bas did so too and Jaap unfortunately just didn't seem to have his day. That's no problem of course, after all in the end it is a team effort and the team effort brought us six frames to three so I doubt that we'll fire him anytime soon LOL Besides it was good fun and that's what counts.

Hi all. Boy I had a lot of fun with the race yesterday. For starters it was held on the circuit of Monza, one of my all time favorites. No matter with what sim or whatever car I'm driving there, it's always good. I just love that track. So mentally it was okay, even the slightly present headache couldn't spoil the fun for me. I had a clean start and due to some people's lack of patience (a couple of drivers ran each other off the road in the first few turns of the race) I could move up to the eighth position quite easily. Then I noticed I was behind the very same driver I was behind on Mosport and for some time I was able to follow him around that track. Monza however is a very different type of track but here too I could follow the guy reasonably well. On the straights I could close the gap a bit while in the turns he was a bit quicker. I was on his tail for quite a number of laps and we raced very sportively. True racing style, it almost seemed as of I could do this for real ;-) Unfortunately for me when he was warmed up his speed was a little to much for me. It was just irresponsible for me to try and follow him so I had to let go of him. He gained a bit every lap from then on, but this wasn't the biggest problem. The problem was behind me, and gaining too. Each time I passed the pit-board I saw a name that I couldn't place until it hit me a couple of laps later: it was our race director himself, trailing me and closing the gap. I realized that if we would continue with these speeds things could get quite 'ugly' a couple of laps before the end so I was trying to think up some way of going round just that little faster. Then all of a sudden the gap had gained about ten seconds between us so I had some rest again. He wasn't able to close it again before the end and I finished in a nice tenth position scoring another very important competition point for our team, the GPRT. I'd settle for races like this for the rest of the season, it was just that good.

Hi all. Well unfortunately I'm not referring to the peoples reactions on my lap at Le Mans anymore since someone (who's name shall remain a secret but he runs in the same on-line racing competition I do for crying out loud! Congratulations of course Ruud, nice lap ;-) already beat my lap time and did so in a quite convincing way I'm afraid. No with the title I meant the time it took the next World Record holder to come along and take my first place away from me. Of course there never was any doubt in my mind that my lap time would eventually get beaten, it was merely a matter of 'when' instead of 'if' ... I just hoped it would have lasted a little longer that's all. Nonetheless I had a World Record to my name and it lasted about eight straight hours and who can still say that these days :-) Add to that our eight frames to one defeat with snooker competition last night and you might understand why I have had not the best of sleeps and why right now my head hurts like crazy ... Yeah I'm sad. But in time I'll get over it, no worries.

Hi all. D*mn I'm good! Okay okay, I'm (a tiny bit) sorry for the bragging stuff. But I am pretty proud about myself. Remember yesterday? You don't ... hm, well just read that post then if you please, I'll hang around a bit until you're done ... ... Ah, you're back? And read it? Right. So I was on second position on Le Mans with my Porsche GT-3. Well that's history now because I just ran that little orange bugger around the track for a couple more laps and guess what? A new Word Record baby! Yeah! And this is not going to be the end of it at all. When I passed the second sector marker I was two point three seconds faster than the lap before that one but I messed up the chicanes before start / finish straight, the part that comes after the Porsche curves and almost completely gave away that huge lead. I saved about point two seconds of it so now the current World Record on Le Mans with the NGT's is a four minute ten second and seven hundredths of a second. Beat that if you can! LOL I'm going to play snooker now, so I have to go. Maybe I'll see you guys later :-)

Hi all. Now that I know I want to be part of the first 24 hours of Spa race with GTR Racing I need to do a lot (and that's a whole lot ...) of practicing to improve both lap times and race consistency. It still proves to be rather difficult to go really fast with the two GT cars I drive but you can bet I'll die before I give up on these beasts. I just love driving them too d*mn much ... Yesterday my brother in law pointed out that with my lap times I'm currently in quite a couple of World Record top ten times which of course is very cool. You can check it out yourself by going over to GT Rank and click on World Records in the left column. As I'm writing this you'll find me listed with the following tracks: Lemans with GT's in seventh place Lemans with NGT's in second place! Nordschleife with GT's in eighth place Nordschleife with NGT's in fourth place Trust me when I tell you this is a huge motivational boost people, this is just so incredibly cool. However I think it also shows that not a lot of people like or drive the longer tracks (yet?) so we'll have to see how long I'm going to be listed up there. But for now I'm pretty pleased I am. Hey you'll have to agree it's not bad for someone who officially hasn't even got the GTR Racing sim yet ... ;-) So big thanks to Stefan (Thanks Bro!) who pointed this out to me, great to see him taking care of the GPRT numbers and results LOL After all he was the one who kicked AI butt with the Formula One Manager game so I guess he's like a fish in the water with these things *grin*

Hi all. You may be wondering what's going on with Biek. Well ... nothing really. I've been sleeping mostly. For hours in a row, it's just unbelievable how many hours I've been sleeping this week. Take yesterday for example. The night before I was in bed at a reasonable time yet I didn't wake up until the moment when my brother in law called me at about half past two in the afternoon. This morning is the first of the week where I haven't slept for more than eight hours ... Somewhere I must have needed it I guess ... So you're not missing a thing actually, it's just me sleeping ;-)

Hi all. What did you do in the first days of the new year? Well my racing friend Bas and me decided it was only appropriate to begin this freshly started year two thousand and five with a race weekend. After all we had the entire weekend at our disposal so why not, eh? We started with a practice and race with Grand Prix Legends on the circuit of Mosport, because our next S.NL competition race is held there. The qualifying went okay I guess, Bas took pole I was in fourth place. Trouble with racing AI is that their starting technique is far better than ours so before we knew it he was in fourth and I was in ninth position, even before we had driven a entire lap. Numerous laps, a couple of crashes and truckloads of frustration later we finished it with the both of us way lower on the charts than we had expected judging the starting order. Looking at it that way racing human opponents is easier. Mainly because they can be forced into making small mistakes whereas the AI drivers usually won't bother with what you do and simply keep their line, sometimes even knocking you off the track or leaving too little room to maneuver. We'll just hope it goes better with the real opponents next Thursday. And next to GPL we also did quite a number of laps with GTR, the new racing sim in town. Both armed to the teeth with a nicely setup Saleen S7 we charged the tracks and made kilometer after kilometer having lot's of fun. These things are not even that far apart from the way we have to race the GPL cars, which makes them quite a hand full to keep between the white lines. The sound of that seven liter V8 engine in the back makes up for all the hard work we have to put in. Just mash the throttle and you'll be smiling in no time :-) Roaring thunder is what first jumps to mind. Very cool. We have been seriously thinking about entering the 24 hours of Spa race, that will be held anytime soon after the world wide release of GTR. This means lots and lots (and then some more ;-) of training on that circuit to get a balanced setup that's no too slow but still reasonably controllable. A faster car is normally quite nervous to drive so you don't have to do a whole lot wrong to end up on the side of the track. So currently we're in the process of building the setup just right for the both of us to drive with. Whish us luck because we sure are going to need it :-)

Hi all. Happy new year people, and lets make it a good one shall we? Stay safe when you're doing fireworks and make sure you're still able to do that ten finger typing thing in the upcoming year you hear ;-) I whish you, your friends and family all the best for 2005!