Home Field Advantage: Radwood NorCal 2025 @ PayPal Park
Radwood NorCal is the home event for Radwood: most of the event founders hail from the San Francisco Bay Area, and that’s where they the first Radwood was held back in 2017. For me, this 2025 edition was an extra-special home event, because for the first time it was held in my hometown, San Jose.
(more…)Every PS1 Game – 頭文字D aka Initial D
This website started out as a place for me to write about my adventures with cars and put words to my photography. Recently, I decided to expand into my other nerdy obsession, Playstation games. Well, after ten videogame articles on this ostensibly car-themed blog, a pretty obvious question surfaces: where are all the racing games?
Well, so far it’s been a case of decision paralysis. As you might expect, I have quite a few PS1 racing games, from sublime to absolute shite. Which one to focus on first? I waited for the lightning bolt of inspiration to strike, and last weekend, it did: I decided to finally complete the story mode of Initial D.
(more…)An Appropriate Metaphor: Aviation Nation 2025
While standing on the flight line waiting for the Thunderbirds to start, a piece of paper got loose in the wind near the F-16’s. Too amazed to raise my camera, I watched three soldiers chase this flying manuscript until one of them deftly trapped it between his boot and the ground, then bent over to pick it up. High-ranking soldiers in front of over $250 million worth of aircraft, and they’re getting baffled by parchment in a breeze. This was an excellent metaphor for this amazing shit-show of an event which itself was a great metaphor for the state of the USA.
The day’s misfortune started with our own misunderstanding. I was tagging along with my buddy Marcelo, who came to town primarily for this event (that’s him in the middle with the big Canon lens). I asked him if he wanted to show up early, but after a couple late nights in Vegas he said he wanted to sleep in a little. That was fine with me–he’s the plane nerd; I was just there for fun.
(more…)Every PS1 Game – Nightmare Creatures
“Dark Souls from the 90’s” was something I’d heard about Nightmare Creatures before deciding to dig it out of my library recently. I’ve had this game for over 20 years, but I have no recollection of ever playing it. But recently–and you may have noticed this just by reading this site–I’ve been into 3rd person adventure games on the PS1, and Nightmare Creatures is a notable example of that genre. With the comparison to the notoriously hard FromSoftware series providing a bit of intimidation, I finally gave it a shot.
Right from the start, the lush graphics are impressive, especially considering this game is from 1997. The game case says it’s compatible with the analog joystick (SCPH-1110, the one that looks like a dual flight stick), but it does actually work with the analog controller.
(more…)
Star Road 