Halloween. Some stupid pagan festival intended to ward off evil spirits or some nonsense. In modern times though, it's basically become an excuse for some fat American kids to eat chocolate given to them by the neighbourhood paedophile. For adults, its more about dressing up and getting absolutely hammered. And regardless of your opinion of cultural influences from other countries, you can't really complain about girls in their 20s dressed as Little Red Riding Hood. Unless you are that neighbourhood paedophile, I guess.

So Friday night, in a slight reinterpretation of the Halloween tradition, or more likely completely unrelated, I headed up a nearby mountain with a few of the lads. I hadn't driven the R32 in anger in a long time, probably 12 months. In fact I hadn't really driven it at all. A couple of times around the block, the length of the street, half way out the garage. The new CAS was working wonders, the idle is still a bit rhythmic, and bounces for some reason when the motor is cold. I don't think thats CAS though. There are two major issues with it, one is the amount of oil smoke it produces, the other is the tune. The tune is a problem because for some stupid reason I had a tank of 100 octane fuel in it when it got dialed in on a dyno. All well and good two and bit years ago, but now that fuel is no longer available anywhere in Australia. So every time I start the car I have to add 3 or 4 degrees of retard just to stop the flashing lights on the dash. Annoying. Especially when you realise you haven't done it on a twisty piece of road.

The oil burning issue, well, I'm not sure where its coming from. If its valve stem seals, that's a pain. I don't want to have to do that, pulling a head off is not my idea of a fun weekend. If its turbo oil seals, that's probably worse as it'll cost me a turbo rebuild. I haven't really considered anything else, because things only get more painful from there. My preferred option would be to take the car to a diesel mechanic and just get them to tune it to run on oil properly. As a bonus it'd probably do wonders for my fuel economy.

I wasn't the only one with an oil burning issue though. Dave's Cefiro apparently burns oil at an even faster rate although I find that hard to believe. But following the thing up the hill though is mesmerising. Huge lazy blue flames just bellowing from the exhaust, not at all rushed. There's no bang, no pop. Just this flame. Like a snoring dragon. I don't know if its the oil that's making it do that or if its some odd thing with the fuel mix. Its great to watch regardless. I think the Australian Airforce should purchase a few for when they have to retire the F111s in a few years. Drive one of those things down the Riverside Expressway during Riverfire and everyone will be equally impressed. Then give a clutch kick on an off-ramp for the non-believers.

Matt was there too, with his new diff and no excuses. Marc also, in my second favourite R32. And Cyph, though its impossible to be impressed by an S13 with Drifteks. They pretty much blend into the background in any situation. In fact you would be hard pressed to notice one in the car park of an accountancy firm.

After I'd eaten a disappointly small ham-and-cheese croissant, we headed up the mountain. Matt and Dave throwing their cars around pretty well once we got to the twisty bits. The rest of us just happy to watch. Well, I was anyway. I think Marco was too busy inhaling a cocktail of 5W40 and Optimax to notice the show with me leading him. The most impressive move of which was Matt's spin. I only caught the final 180 degrees of it, but he could have been spinning for minutes for all I could tell. Some how he managed to pirouette on a bit of road barely as wide as the Cefiro is long, which I mention because I was carrying some pace when I came around the corner and barely managed to avoid shortening it. In fact I was that close, Dave began reversing having not noticed me. Oh yeah, and my horn doesn't work.

We then headed down the other (less trafficked) side of the mountain and found this neat little spot which is a tight S-bend on nice slope. Its also two blind corners, but we'll come to that later. Dave and Matt did a bunch of runs. Cyph I think did one before saying something about diff backlash, which I think is another term for a limp wrist. Not that I can talk, but I will anyway. If this blog is nothing else, its a chronicle of consistent hypocrisy.

Me and Marc climbed the hill to get a better view, I tried to film it but my camera lacks 0-LUX mode so failed to capture much else but darkness and ill-informed financial market commentary. Which was a shame because they were both doing pretty well. Matt keeping it together despite one near miss. Dave was showing how its done with angles decidedly on the obtuse end of the scale and using almost as much of the road as the MR2 that passed by during the night. The noise was awesome too and the smoke was well worth the $66 a corner.

At some point, a Boostcruising, uh, cruise, drove through, arriving just in time for Matt's clutch kick at the first bend. A 2-way radio might have been a good idea. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck" doesn't really carry over the sound of an SR20 at full noise. No civics were hurt thankfully. The newly arrived group decided to hang around and watch, at just the same time as Matt and Dave decided to give it a rest. At some point Red appeared in Phil's 4-door, apparently with permission. Though I'm not sure how blank that cheque was.

We headed further down the mountain, where the rest of the randoms were parked. Not sure what they were actually doing other than standing around their cars. Perhaps impressed at each others car's shopping carrying abilities. Someone raced someone else at some point. Not sure what cars they were, but I'm completely sure I wouldn't care if I knew. Everyone did a burn out and we left.

On the way back up the mountain, Matt and Dave did some more sliding through the esses we had been camped at. I had a couple of attempts, but although the R32 has found its balls again, I couldn't. So the majority of the drive back to Brisbane was pretty uneventful. Probably for the best, as I can barely remember how to drive the thing. And I can't crash before Thompson has.


Now Saturday night, while we are talking of memories. Or rather the lack thereof. It was a Halloween party, naturally. (Not a 21st.) The theme, which is normally obvious for a Halloween party, was dress like a someone you might find in a scary movie. I went as Ivan Milat. The occasional gave me a great lead in into Movember and although I was far too drunk to remember who won the best costume award, I'm fairly sure I was the only one to trimmed a moustache up for the occasion. Of some of the other cosumes, the American girl from work went as Bret Michaels from Poison. Me and everyone else at the party decided she went as a gay cowboy, which given the stated theme was a bit homophobic of her. Another girl who I didn't recognise until she spoke, came as a corpse/zombie bride, which while creative made her look very much like Avril Lavigne. Strangely enough, the make up made her look significantly hotter, although I was drinking from Tallies, so my judgement might have been clouded. Or maybe I've got a goth fetish? Another girl came as a skeleton in a freezer. The costume was a technical marvel, but really was pretty stupid. I mean, a freezer would reduce decomposition significantly, it would take years for a body to decompose to that stage. And who would just throw a skeleton into a freezer? It doesn't make any sense.

Later Sing Star got busted out, and from this point my memories are pretty patchy. I know I did Air Supply, and Cutting Crew. Probably more than once each. I've pretty much had to do the Momento thing with my camera phone to work out what happened from there, though that doesn't always help. I know some couple who I'm not sure anyone knew (or even if they knew each other) had sex on the front lawn. Later, if my chronology is correct, two guys vomited there. Sometime later when the party ended with a mass taxi bulk buy, I ended up crashing in my car, as that was probably the place where I was least likely to be vomited or sexed on, or at least not of my own doing.

I then spent Sunday regretting the previous nights beers, replacing a blown headgasket and filling a motor with glass shards and mercury from a fluorescent light. I should have stayed in bed.

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