DIY Pirate Costume

The company's having a costume party soon, and I don't really want to buy or rent a costume that I'll only use once. What to do? When in doubt, DIY. The theme this year is Pirates of the Caribbean. I'm not going to fashion my own hat, eye patch, fake beard, dirty clothes, etc., so I opted to come to the party as a music pirate. All I need is a customized shirt. The front will have a picture of a skull-and-crossbones wearing headphones. At the back of the shirt are the words MUSIC PIRATE in bold white. Put on a pair of real headphones and an mp3 player to complete the look. Neat, huh? Hopefully, there are no RIAA agents at the party.

Horsley Park Half-Lunch and Civic Centre Half-Salute!

It's a day of halves today. I was supposed to have lunch at a friend's house at Horsley Park around noon. Had a badminton session at Homebush from 11am till 12 noon, so by the time I left the house it's already 12. The TomTom application on my E65 tells me Horsley Park is only half an hour away. It probably didn't factor in normal road traffic because I got there 45 minutes late. From Horsley Park, it's another half-hour to Chatswood where I'm supposed to attend a farewell concert by the Willoughby Symphony Orchestra and Choir starting at 2pm. Again, the TomTom didn't factor in the fact that I left the concert ticket at home, so I had to abort a nice vegetarian lunch, drive all the way home, then drive (quite fast) to Chatswood.

The concert, entitled Civic Centre Salute, promises to be a grand one. After 35 years of being home to the Willoughby Symphony, Willoughby Civic Centre is transforming into the Chatswood Civic Place, and this is going to be the orchestra's last concert in this venue.

By the time I got to the Civic Centre, people were just coming out for the intermission. That's half of the concert gone already. Apparently, I have missed Rossini's La Gazza Ladra Overture, Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, and a few others. The rest of the concert is worth all the hassle though. The second set opened with Handel's Hallelujah Chorus. Then we had the Willoughby March. The host gave us this bit of trivia about the piece: it was composed in 1969 by Albert Keats, the first Musical Director of the Willoughby Municipal Symphony Orchestra, and first performed on-site by the orchestra on Feb. 28, 1972. Next we had Mozart's Requiem and Tchaikovsky's third movement from Symphony No. 6. The highlight for me was when the choir sang the O Fortuna chorus from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. Chief conductor Nicholas Milton borrowed a violin and started playing the opening bars of Hungarian Rhapsody No. 5 (very slowly), then the whole orchestra joined in - playing fast then slow depending on the conductor's whim. We also had Verdi's Anvil Chorus from Il Trovatore, and a few others. For the finale, the orchestra played Strauss Sr.'s Radetzky March, and everyone started clapping along. Reminded me so much of the Vienna New Year concerts that I used to watch on TV. I was sitting along the second row, so the music's really loud and you can see clearly how the music is being created. Very nice.

New Radioblog, Old Songs

Found out recently that radio.blog has a new version out (v3.1.8). I've stuck with v2.5 for quite some time because one, it works, and two, I'm not too sure if the new version works in the non-PHP mode. Only one way to find out. There's a few UI enhancements like new layout and support for playlists. Still the same old songs though. Ripway is only giving me 30MB of online storage space and 150MB of bandwidth per day, so I can't really put up more songs.

I guess it's also time to look for a better webhosting service. When I first set up my radio.blog, the best I can find is Ripway. This time, I found ZendURL, which gives you 100MB of space, gigs of bandwidth, PHP/Perl/CGI/SSI/MySQL support, FTP, POP, etc. All for free. My only complaint so far is that it's a bit buggy and tend to be offline from time to time. I've already integrated the new radio.blog to Blogger, though it might not show up if ZendURL is down. If you prefer the old player, go here:

http://aching.50webs.com

Roasted Duck, Smokeless Star City

So nice to have a free hotel lunch now and then. My colleague received a $30 lunch voucher from Star City, so the three of us went to make good use of it.

First thing I noticed when I first stepped into the casino is the clean, clear air. My colleague tells me that a total smoking ban went into effect in NSW starting July. That would explain why there's a lack of cigarette smoke and punters on the tables. The Trophies Food Court is packed though. Love that roast duck rice and the $6.50 meals (including soft drinks).

So Many Toys, So Little Time

First was the Microsoft Xbox. A few hacks and modifications later, it became a full-fledged multimedia center. During my recent trip to Manila, I came back with a Magic Sing karaoke system. You gotta give it to those Koreans. Literally thousands of songs (actually MIDIs) built right into the microphone. When my sisters came back from Manila, they brought with them an MP4 player with karaoke functions. Works quite well with the MP4 DVDs I brought before. Chalk one up for good compression codecs - thousands of minus-one videos on one DVD. Our latest acquisition? A Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) PC game complete with a Topway dance pad. Sure brings back memories of weekends at the arcade (watching, not dancing).

Asian Cup 2007: Australia vs. Japan in Little Portugal

Went to Little Portugal along Marrickville Road for dinner to celebrate my sister's birthday this week. We got there 5 minutes into extra time of the Australia-Japan match in the Asian Cup 2007. The actual game played out yesterday night in Hanoi, but since I haven't read the news, it's still an exciting game to watch.

After 30 minutes of extra-time play, the score is still tied at 1-1. Japan could've closed off the match with some promising attempts, but Mark Schwarzer managed to block the balls. The game went into penalty shootout. Japanese goalkeeper Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi turned out to be the better man, denying Harry Kewell's and Lucas Neill's penalty kicks. Despite Schwarzer's valiant attempts, Japan won the game on penalties 4-3 to move on to the semi-finals. Such a sorry ending, but the food was great though.

From the street, Little Portugal looks like a take-away shop. Don't mind that, just walk straight in and you'll find the (small) dining area. We ordered a whole Portuguese chicken and large chips, which were served almost immediately (after the complimentary bread and butter). My first time to try Portuguese chicken - quite a distinctive taste. And the chips is at par with McDonald's. (That's a compliment.) Our other dishes took a while to come out, so they must be freshly prepared. We had diced pork with potato chunks and pipis and another dish called Bifina (beef steak, bacon and egg, served with wafer thin potato chips, pickles and rice). The servings were so generous we didn't get to finish everything. So no dessert or coffee for us.

Bankstown Bites and Badminton

Bankstown Council is again hosting Bankstown Bites for the third year. This year's highlight are cooking demonstrations and book signings from celebrity chef Iain 'Huey' Hewitson. There are also eight food tours to choose from running at 10:30am, 12:30pm, and 2:30pm.

I got to the Bankstown City Plaza around 10am. Since I'm relatively early, I get a free shopping bag filled with brochures and other goodies. The food tours have interesting names such as Wok It Up, European Eats, Tantalizing Tea, Sweet Treats, Little Lebanon, Know Your Noodle, etc.

I'm a sucker for desserts, so I signed up my friend and me for the Sweet Treats tour. First stop is a Lebanese sweets shop a few block from the town center. The place is basically one long gallery of all kinds of sweets. They also make their own ice cream. The shop owner is pretty generous - everyone gets 2-3 scoops of ice cream and 2-3 kinds of sweets of your choice. We moved on to the cake shop on the next block. There's free hot chocolate for everyone, pastries, and a mini-takeaway package for everyone. Back at the town centre, we visited two more Chinese bakeries where they just plied us with cakes and cookies and pastries. My friend already gave up after the cake shop.

We loitered around and watched Huey do a cooking demonstration. Had a quick lunch of fried rice and Filipino BBQ, then off to badminton.

Want a Charge with That?

Seems like selected outlets of Burger King in Manila are offering customers free charging of their mobile phones with every order. This being in the Philippines, I'm pretty sure people will be standing beside the charging station munching on their burgers and fries while waiting for the phones to charge up. If you're not careful and blink your eyes, you'll lose your phone.

(Just looking at the picture, it's obvious that Nokia is the market leader. Go, Nokia!)

Update: A colleague wrote in to say that mobile charging stations can also be found in selected McDonald's and Wendy's outlets and Ayala Cinemas.

Rail Jam at Harbour Bridge, Inferno at Broadway

The one day when I have to meet up with a friend in Burwood and have a nice dinner. Right around 4:30pm, I got an internal email saying that there are problems with the North Shore line on the Harbour Bridge, and people are advised to seek alternative means of transport if going to the city. I figured I'll leave the office (relatively) early at 5pm and just take the many buses going to the city. Wrong. I went down to the North Sydney station to check things out and found a huge throng of people still confused as to why no trains are coming. Outside the station, there's people everywhere waiting for buses and flagging taxis. There's not even a proper queue anymore. A CityRail officer came by with a megaphone and announced that there are buses waiting along Walker Street. I rushed off to find this long long queue going around the corner and stretching all the way down the road. It's a cold winter night and the wind is blowing hard. Not a good time to wait for buses. Took me an hour to reach the head of the line;15 minutes to get to the Circular Quay by bus.

Good thing my friend is nice enough to offer to drive to the city and meet me at the Sydney Entertainment Centre. Still, that's a long walk from Circular Quay to Chinatown, I tell you. To get away from the cold, we ducked into Broadway Shopping Centre and had pizza and calamari at Inferno Cafe, then hot chocolate at Gloria Jean's to cap a long day.

Hacked!

Just yesterday, my laptop got infected with some malware and trojans. Serves me right. That's what you get for downloading cracked S60v3 applications for your E65. Who would've thought that a self-extracting archive will also come with a batch file that auto-runs, executing all the trojans inside? The trojans are pretty sneaky, too. My PC started slowing down and disk activity started picking up. First thing I thought of is to disconnect from the Internet. Not easy when you're using Wi-Fi. I pressed the key combination to disable Wi-Fi. Nothing happens. Sneaky malware - I'm sure it's their doing. I had to manually walk over to the cable modem to turn it off. Hopefully, the spyware agent didn't have enough time to extract my passwords and bank details and send them off to its master.

Now, this is the first time I personally encountered trojans in my many years on the Internet. A quick look at the Task Manager showed some unfamiliar processes. Not surprising. Spybot - Search & Destroy came up with a few minor culprits, but not the ones I'm sure slowing are down my system. Symantec's real-time scanner popped up a few warnings, but wasn't able to do anything. At the risk of the trojan sending off more data, I re-connected to the Internet to get Kaspersky to scan my system. After downloading an ActiveX control, plus a 7MB signature database, the scan found 5 infected executables. (Kaspersky scans, but does not remove.) I immediately deleted them all after killing them via Task Manager. Of course, I cleaned up their entries in the registry, too. HijackThis identified a few rouge DLLs that are registered as BHOs (browser helper objects) and associated with critical services like explorer.exe and winlogon.exe. You can't simply delete those DLLs because they're in use. Deleting their registry entries and deleting them with FileASSASSIN and HijackThis' "delete on reboot" function didn't work. They just kept on coming back. Killing explorer and winlogon in order to delete the DLLs also didn't work because Windows would've frozen up by then. I also tried booting from a Linux live CD, hoping to delete the rouge DLLs while they're dormant. No such luck. Pointsec encryption is so good, my Linux can't find any NTFS partitions.

So finally, this is how I licked the problem. I figured that since the bad registry entries keep being re-generated after every reboot, then they must be being injected during logoff. Using FileASSASSIN, I flagged the bad DLLs for deletion upon next reboot. Then, I took out the battery pack of the laptop for an instant shutdown. No more proper logoff. Next time I booted up, the DLLs are gone. Problem solved.

PLAY! at the Opera House

It's a good thing that after weeks of raining, it didn't tonight. Would be bad if I had to walk from Circular Quay all the way to the Opera House in the rain. Got to the concert hall with minutes to spare.First thing I noticed is the presence of three huge screens onstage. One in the middle, just below the organ, and a smaller one on each side. The concert hall is almost at full capacity. Interestingly, the concert website is still offering an online special offer of $44 for all tickets for today and tomorrow.

Grammy Award-winning conductor Arnie Roth walks on stage and the concert opens with a light fanfare composed by Nobuo Uematsu specially for the PLAY! concert. A few opening remarks from the Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Chicagoland Pops, then the orchestra played the familiar and much-beloved Mario Brothers theme. A bit slower than LSO's version, but still very nice nonetheless. While the orchestra plays, visuals from different versions of Mario Bros. are projected on the big screens. See below for the programme (as I remembered it):

• Mario Brothers - Gave me goosebumps when the orchestra played the opening bars.
• Shenmue - Got the Xbox version. Played it a couple of times. Thought it (the game) was a bit dragging.
• Lost Oddyssey - New game from Nobue?
• Sonic the Hedgehog - Knew the character, never played the games. Great visuals, very very nice soundtrack.
• Metal Gear Solid
• Blue Dragon
• Kingdom Hearts - Arranged by Mr. Roth himself. The Cantillation choir provided the vocal backing.
• Final Fantasy VI (Dancing Mad) - Another big number with the full orchestra, choir, and the pipe organ all playing at the same time.
• INTERMISSION
• Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
• Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross
• World of Warcraft
• Silent Hill 2 (Theme of Laura) - Composer Akira Yamaoka flew in specially to play this piece on his electric guitar. Electrifying performance.
• Halo - Another familiar score as I've been playing this for months on the Xbox. Still stuck at the last stage where my warthog is supposed to jump over a chasm.
• Castlevania - And the pipe organ's back.
• Zelda - Another classic.
• Final Fantasy VII (One-Winged Angel) - As the encore piece. Seems to be very popular with the gamers in the audience. New to me.

We're Going to PLAY! W00T!

PLAY! A Video Game Symphony comes to Australia. Saw the announcement from one of the mailing lists I subscribe to. Went to the Opera House's website, and there it was. June 19-23 at the Concert Hall. I quote: "Performed by the Sydney Symphony, conducted by Arnie Roth and backed by choral sensation Cantillation, PLAY! brings to life the award-winning music of the biggest and best games around – while massive screens, suspended over the orchestra, capture stunning gameplay sequences."

Better still, the organizers are having a special weekend web offer. Instead of the regular ticket prices of $49, $59, or $69, you pay only $44 if you book your tickets during the weekend. I really wanted to buy the tickets, but the procrastinator in me forgot all about it till Monday morning. As I feared, the special offer is gone. Not one to give up easily, I searched around the Internet until I hit paydirt.

Acting on a tip I picked up from the Atomic forums, I found out that there's a special last-minute offer for the concert. 500 tickets at $45 each - good only from Tuesday till Thursday. Simply quote 'GAMER' and you're on. (Booking fee of $7.50 applies.) Called up the box office immediately, and got my tickets.

$99 Target Bike

On an ipluse, I bought a mountain bike at the Target store in Westfield Burwood 3 months ago. I don't really ride bikes, and the last time I rode on one was like decades ago. Yet, it's such a good deal I had to buy it - Northern Star, 65cm. (26"), 15-speed, dual suspension. Original price is $199; selling price is $99.

Hauled it back home. Spent a whole morning assembling it. Parked it in my room; has been sitting there ever since. Anyone wants to buy a fully-assembled, brand-new mountain bike for only $199?

RadioBlog 2007.05.31

After months of listening to BoA, I've gotten a bit tired of her songs already. So, I'm swapping her out with some of my favourites. Left a few good ones though:

• BoA - Feel the Same
• BoA - Goodbye
• BoA - Meri Kuri
• BoA - Pit-A-Pat
• Aled Jones - Count Your Blessings
• Bic Runga - When I See Your Smile
• Carly Simon - I've Got a Crush on You
• Diana Krall - S'Wonderful
• Eagle Eye Cherry - Burning Up
• Gotan Project - Last Tango in Paris
• Hayley Westenra - Pokarekare Ana
• Lesley Garett - I Want to Be A Prima Donna (from The Enchantress)
• Kathy Troccoli - If I'm Not in Love with You
• Katie Melua - The Closest Thing to Crazy
• Kevyn Lettau - Sunlight
• Lani Misalucha - Ang Iibigin Ay Ikaw
• Lighthouse Family - Lifted
• Lisa Keith - None Better than You
• Lou Pardini - What Might Have Been
• Meja - All about the Money
• Morten Harket - Can't Take My Eyes off of You
• Paul Jackson, Jr. - If I Go Away
• Robbie Williams - Rock DJ
• Robbie Williams - Somethin' Stupid
• Sarah McLachlan - When SheLoved Me
• Shanice & Jon Secada - If I Never Knew
• Simply Red - Stars
• The CompanY - Baka Ikaw
• Vonda Shepard - Hidden Persuasion
• Wet Wet Wet - Goodnight Girl
• Wet Wet Wet - Shed a Tear

Like the songs? Head over to http://aching.50webs.com

Books, Photos, and a Hot Chocolate

Today is a good day. The local library is having a Monster Book Sale. It's my first time to join one, so I'm pretty excited. I got there around 10am, and the sale area is packed with people already. At 50 cents per book and 20 cents per magazine, it's no wonder. These guys came prepared, unlike me. They brought with them backpacks, empty boxes, grocery bags, trolleys, shopping carts, prams, etc. Me, I had to make multiple trips to the car. I must admit I now have more books than I can finish reading for years to come. Then again, if I need more space, I can always donate some of the books to other libraries.

Afternoon, I went to the State Library of NSW with a friend to see the World Press Photo exhibition. I've seen the exhibit for three years in a row, so it's becoming something of a custom for me. I see it as a way for me to improve my picture-taking skills. The only downside is that I tend to get a bit depressed after seeing all those pictures of grief, tragedy, pain, and helplessness.

What better way to lighten up than having a cup of (free!) hot chocolate and an interesting conversation?

The Queen and the Lawnmower

Went to Hurstville Civic Theater to watch The Queen. The movie runs for an hour and a half, but it feels much shorter than that because of the fairly straightforward plot. The movie is set in 1997 right after Tony Blair's election as the first Labour Prime Minister in 18 years. Jump to a few months later when Diana and her friend Dodi Al-Fayed figured in a car crash in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris while being chased by paparazzi on motorcycles, which resulted in their deaths. People all over the world, especially the British public, were shocked. People came in droves to Buckingham Palace, leaving flowers and gifts at the gate. Blair read the pulse of his constituents pretty accurately. He immediately issued a statement, calling Diana "the people's princess, beloved by the world." He got lots of brownie points for that one. Meanwhile, the Queen and the royal family were holed up in Balmoral Estate - far from the madding crowd. Following protocol, the Queen didn't issue a statement. No half-mast flag at Buckingham Palace. No public funeral as Diana's not HRH anymore after the divorce.

Things took a turn for the worse. Day and night, more and more people came to Buckingham Palace to express their grief, and they're starting to get disgruntled with the Queen's indifference. Some even starting calling for the abolition of the monarchy. Alarmed, Tony Blair makes an appeal to the Queen to reconsider. The Queen is caught in a bind - on one hand, Prince Philip and the Queen Mum have been telling her to stick to her guns and stand her ground no matter what the public says; on the other hand, she feels she's getting out of touch with the times and her people, and this might be her last chance to set things right again. Left with no choice, she followed Tony Blair's advice and came down to London with the family. A royal funeral was also arranged for Diana - patterned after Operation Taye Bridge, which is supposedly planned for the Queen Mum. Of course, Queen Elizabeth's not too happy about that. The Queen appears on live TV and gives a speech praising Diana's many contributions to the world. At the end of the day, all is well again in the kingdom.

Very authentic portrayal of the Queen by Dame Helen Mirren, even though I've never seen much of the Queen myself. If ever the royal family needs someone to stand in for the Queen for some boring social event, they definitely should give her a call.

I went home after the movie to find the front lawn nicely mowed and the thick grass under the metal fencing neatly trimmed. Turns out the neighbor saw the sad state of our front lawn and asked my mom where I was and if she needed help with the mowing. Before she could answer, he went to get his gear, came back, and did the work. It was all finished by the time I got home. Thanks, neighbor. I owe you one.

Out in the Open

A truly joyous day. I finally got a copy of Out in the Open, which I've been searching for for years. I used to have a tape of the song, but lost it somehow. The last time I went to Manila, I checked out all the major record stores, but they don't carry it anymore. Nothing on the P2P networks, too. Fortunately, after searching long and deep on Google, I was able to find a reference to the composer, and he was gracious enough to send me a copy. Thanks, Adel! Sure brings back some good memories.

First time I heard the song was during the 1996 Metropop Festival on GMA7. The original songfest ran from 1977 till 1985, but it stopped for a while. It was revived in 1996, and lots of excellent entries made it to the finals. First song to open the competition was Out in the Open, interpreted by Zebedee Zuniga (brother of Nonoy) and Angelika. Written by Adel Gabot and Bobby Serrano (of The Tux), it is a light upbeat song with the couple openly declaring their love for each other. Story goes that the then-unknown Lani Misalucha (now Asia's Nightingale) auditioned for the song, but the songwriters thought her voice wass too strong, so they turned her down.

Interestingly enough, Lani Misalucha was still part of show, interpreting Jimmy Borja's haunting Ang Iibigin Ay Ikaw. During the interview segment, Jimmy was saying that he saw Lani perform at this bar a couple of times. He was so impressed by her singing prowess that he wrote this song specifically with her in mind. More trivia: Lani used to record karaoke/multiplex tapes, so she was very skilled in mimicking the voices of Whitney Houston, Barbra Streissand, Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, etc. Well, there was no mimicking when she sang Ang Iibigan Ay Ikaw that night. Her passionate, heartfelt performance blew me away. If you think she's good on the Metropop CD, she's 10x better during the competition.

Other notables are Trina Belamide's Shine, interpreted by Ima Castro. Trina Belamide is the prolific songwriter behind such hits as Now that I Have You by The Company, You've Made Me Stronger by Regine Velasquez, Tell the World of His Love - official theme song of World Youth Day '95, May Pag-Ibig Pa Kaya by South Border, etc. Shine won second prize in the competition.

First prize goes to Sometimes You Just Know by Danny Tan, interpreted by Jaya. Many consider this to be her breakout performance. Whereas before she's known only as the daughter of comedienne-singer Elizabeth Ramsey, now she's known as the Soul Diva. Personally, I would've liked Lani Misalucha to win, but Jaya really deserved that 1st place.

Other songs I remember are Bagong Umaga by Bayang Barrios, Now and Hereafter by Nonoy Tan (interpreted by Arthur Manutag and Ella Mae Sayson, one sung by Rico J. Puno, and more. If someone out there has the complete track listing, please send me a copy. Email me the songs, too, if you don't mind (adching / at / gmail [dot] com).

The Great Outdoors in North Sydney

All this time I've been working in North Sydney, I always go out for a short walk after lunch. Lots of things to see/visit around the area. Just beside the office is the Greenwood Plaza with its shops, foodcourt and restaurants. Within Greenwood Plaza are some small patches of grass where people can sit and soak up some sunshine. Across the street is the Northpoint Plaza. If you head down Blues Point Road and turn right at Union Street, you end up at the Graythwaite Victorian estate. Back at Blues Point Road, if you turn left at Lavender Street, you'll pass by Watt Park and Clark Park. Further down Blues Point Road, make a left at King George Street, follow the narrow footpath, and you'll end up at Lavender Bay. Magnificent view of the Harbour Bridge, Opera House and Luna Park. If you follow the shoreline, I think you can go all the way to Luna Park. If you follow Blues Point Road to the end, you'll reach Blues Point Reserve for an even better view of the Bridge and the Opera House.

I've only started to explore the north side of North Sydney this week. There's the myriad of shops and restaurants along Miller Street. There's the Mary MacKillop Chapel on Mount Street and the museum beside it. Best find so far is the Stanton Library further down Miller Street, just after the North Sydney Council Chambers. Three levels of books and magazines and a HUGE collection of classical CDs. Membership is free, and you can borrow up to 30 items at any one time for three weeks. Lunch breaks were never this fun!

Top Gear - Revved Up

I don't know why, but the guys in the office absolutely love Top Gear. The weekly show at SBS on Saturday nights is apparently not enough for them, so they go scouring for Top Gear videos on YouTube, and send each other the links. I watch Top Gear myself, though I can't see what's the fuss about. I like sleek and fast cars; the show's challenges are original (though sometimes childish); the hosts have genuine chemistry and sometimes funny; but that's about it. If you don't want to sit through whole seasons of Top Gear just for the good bits, then get this DVD.

Top Gear - Revved Up is a collection of the best and most requested segments of Top Gear's seasons 3, 4, and 5. We start off with Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond duking it out on the beach of Pendine Sands with a Porsche, a Jaguar and the new BMW 6 series. If they didn't use doubles while sliding and drifting their cars on the wet sand, then I must say they're quite good. In DB9 vs. Train, the guys race each other to reach Monte Carlo - James and Richard commuting and eventually riding the 200mph TGV, while Jeremy drives an Aston Martin DB9. Guess who won? How about a Mitsubishi Evo racing against a bobsled with no brakes down the mountains? Or an Apache helicopter trying to get a missile lock on a sub-1 ton 200hp Lotus Exige?

In one of their stunts, Jemery tried his hardest to destroy a Toyota Hilux to no avail. The pickup was driven down a flight of stairs, bashed around industrial Bristol, left to drown in the sea, blown up on top of a tower block, bashed with a wrecking ball, and torched. Despite all this, the Hilux lives to drive another day. In another challenge, the guys were give 1,500 pounds each to buy a Porsche, which they have to drive to Brighton in one piece. Then they were told to sell the Porsches again and see how much they can make. Funniest segment? Hammond starts a people carrier race series, featuring two Renault Espaces, a Toyota Previa, a Toyota Spacecruiser, a Mitsubishi Space Wagon, and a Nissan Serena in the inaugural race. After much bumping and crashing among the champion drivers, the Espaces win the race with a 1-2 finish.