Is it wrong to feel this giddy about a new car? Ever since I saw the new 2007 MINI Cooper S at the Seattle Auto Show a few months ago I've been thinking of nothing but. Oh little MINI, why do I love thee?

• Looks & Styling - OK I grew up in Hong Kong riding around in MINIs. For so crowded a city, they were the ideal get-around car... and I loooved their look. They have the rounded bullet curves of the Audi TT, and a playfulness reminiscent of the VW Beetle. Smart looking, without taking yourself too seriously. The new 2007 MINIs are even more fun - check out that interior! Looks like the HUD for a video-game... now why would that appeal to me?
• Performance - OK, I don't think I mentioned this on my blog post, but when I was on the racing track last summer, I got lapped by a MINI Cooper S. That certainly got my attention. The Cooper S has a Turbocharged 16-valve, 4-cylinder engine that delivers 172 HP with a max torque of 177@1600 RPM. In some respects not as powerful as my Audi, but the MINI is a lighter car. In normal mode the turbo delivers a very smooth boost thru the acceleration, drop it into sport mode and the car accelerates much more aggressively. Suffice it to say I think I'm always going to be in sport mode.
• Handling - One thing that was apparent to me last summer is that my Audi Quattro has superb handling at high speeds. Since I wasn't able to take it on a race-track, I still don't know if the MINI will feel quite as stable and responsive. However, the new 2007s come with a lot of handling enhancements from BMW that based on my limited rainy-day test-driving - I feel put it in the same class. The actual features are a real alphabet soup of acronyms (ABS, CBC, DSC, LSD), but the net/net is that when I'm motoring around at high-speed and taking those curves I always felt in control of the car, even in the rain.
• Fuel Efficiency - As I blogged about earlier, I am trying to lead a greener lifestyle. While the MINI is no Smart Car, it's easily 30% more fuel efficient than my current car, getting up to 36 MPG.

This weekend I dropped a deposit on the bad boy pictured above. I'd have possession of it by now if it weren't being used as a showcase car at an Auto Show! :P It feels a little bit like the night before Christmas ... and if that's wrong, I don't want to be right!

Dammmmnnn...

Link to The Only Zelda Wii Case Mod You'll Ever Need - Kotaku

Aside from the fact that she's really attractive? Would you believe she's a CGI image? Yep, damned impressive.

If you're like me you may have found the women in the CGI extravaganza Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within just a tad creepy. That's because they fail the Uncanny Valley test, which posits that as objects obtain human-like qualities people feel more empathic towards them - that is until these objects are just shy of looking like real humans (eg: wax dummies) and then they feel "creepy." There are lots of theories as to why this happens - my favorite is that people are reminded of other things that look exactly like live human beings, but aren't - corpses.

In any case, I don't get that weird vibe at all from looking at this image. Click here for a full story on the making of.

Now that I'm working again, here are some of the most common questions I get asked, along with the answers. The biggest one, "What did you learn?" I'll save for a separate post.

1. Was it worth it? - Hell yes! If you can afford to do it - take a Sabbatical. I realize that it's a bit of a luxury, but the opportunity to travel, spend time with family and clear your head and REALLY figure out want in life is invaluable. Maybe you can't take a year and a half, but even 3 months can make a difference. You'll be surprised at how many assumptions that you've made about yourself and your life are NOT TRUE once you pull yourself out of your working life. Give yourself a month to decompress and "cleanse your palette", and then at least another month to "get honest with yourself." Once you get over the knee-jerk reaction that you "need to work" to feel valuable - you'll have made a HUGE step in your personal development.
2. Were you afraid of "falling off the radar?" - A little bit, but not as much as you might think. These days e-mail, IM and sites like LinkedIn are great for staying in touch with your network. Taking the odd consulting job, or just providing people advice for free keeps the mind limber and the interpersonal skills flowing as well.
3. Did you feel out of touch w/ the industry? - I have a genuine love of the games industry, so for me staying on top of the industry is like reading People magazine. Using Bloglines to get the feeds from Gamasutra and Kotaku gave me a wide breadth of news. Also there's nothing like running a guild of 200 hard-core WoW players to quickly determine what's hot, and what's not.
4. Any Regrets? - Of course, because time and money are not infinite! :D Seriously there are more places I would have liked to travel like the south of France and Australia... oh and Costa Rica, Thailand and Vietnam... the list goes on. But we'll get to them eventually. I wish I'd spent more time with my drawing. Even with no full-time job it was always so much easier to be doing something else... but when I actually did it I loved it. Weird. Lastly, I really really wanted to lose 20 pounds, and I only lost 10 - too much good livin' - if you know what I mean. Still I've found a trainer and a regimen that's working for me and makes me feel like I'm making solid progress so I believe that's in sight too!

That's all for now! Stand by for Part 2!