Jeff Hoy, American
Nothing in particular…

Jeff Hoy, American

About this blog

“It’s all about me.  There’s a special emphasis on my hobbies though.  You’ll find here my opinions on video games, r/c cars, and other hobbies.  Plus, as a bonus, the occasional media or political observation.”

The content I post and the subjects I write about are all over the map.  I write everything from book reviews to comments about youtube videos to the histories of my hobbies and everything in between.  I don’t focus too heavily on one area or another.  I’ve had a big collection of hobbies in my short, meaningless life.  I’ve done card collecting, model building, model railroading, radio controlled cars, paintball, video gaming, fishing, owned a classic muscle car, and many others.  Over the years it’s kind of distilled down to a couple that I really keep up with.  Those are video games and r/c cars.  I’m still interested in the others, but those two have become my passions in life.  I’ve also just recently picked up a new hobby, photography, so this site has also become an outlet for sharing my photographic endeavors.  I’m not an expert on any of my hobbies, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have an opinion.

And just like every good American I freely express my views on all things political, cultural, and religious without holding back, and without fear of persecution or reprisal.

My general posting schedule goes like this:  Monday through Friday, one post at midnight and another at noon.  They are always prewritten and scheduled for those times.  I’m not in the business of trying to stay on top of breaking news.  I don’t post on weekends or holidays.  I consider all the following holidays: Memorial Day, Independence Day, Veteran’s Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, my birthday, Christmas Eve, and Christmas.  Any others I don’t care about.  This schedule isn’t set in stone and sometimes there’s just nothing worth posting about, so I’ll skip one or two days.  I post when I feel like it.

Let me tell you about my experience and you can decide for yourself my level of expertise in the various subjects I blog about.

Video games

I’m hopelessly addicted to video games old and new.  eBay is my best internet friend.  I’ve spent way too much cash building up video game collections that put even the most die-hard of gamers to shame.

I got my start in video games with the Atari 2600 and Bally Astrocade when I was about four years old.  My mom is to blame for it all.  She likes video games too, just not as much as me.

I’ve owned at least one system from every generation of video gaming and usually more than one.  Some of my gaming friends would say that my specialty is buying the “loser” system.  That is the system that’s only going to have limited support and a short life-span, only to drift away into obscurity just a couple years after it’s launch.  Some of my loser systems include the Nintendo Virtual Boy and the Panasonic FZ-1 3DO (Quarantine and Space Hulk FTW!).  They both are still fully functioning.  I’m quite particular about my game systems and most of them are very well taken care of.  And they all still get played from time to time.  No shelf-queens in my collection.

Emulation was a big part of my gaming until I started buying on eBay.  I still follow the emulation scene to a lesser extent, more out of a curiosity for “what will they do next?”  I also like checking out the indie scene as well and I’m ecstatic about the current crop of consoles being so supportive of it.

I’m hardly an expert on video games or it’s history, but I do know a thing or two.  Racing games are my genre, I can beat pretty much anybody at any racing game.  I suck at fighters and console FPSs.

Of the current generation I currently have my money behind the Playstation 3, read my reasoning here.  I hold contempt for what I like to call the “Playstation Generation,”  I.e. the kind of people that say “I only play 3d games.”   That’s a real quote from a friend of mine and there’s more of those types out there than you may think.  I’ve ran into way too many myself.

I was playing video games way before video games were “cool.”

R/C

All of my r/c related writing is now done at the popular r/c blog Big Squid RC.

My r/c experience isn’t as vast as my video game experience.  I got into “serious” r/c by accident.  As a 10 or 11 year old I loved monster trucks.  What 10 year old boy doesn’t.  Well, one day my dad said if I was good he would buy me the monster truck magazine he’d seen on the rack.  I was good enough apparently and got the magazine.  It turned out to be a special issue of R/C Car Action Magazine.  The very first Monster and Racing Trucks special issue to be exact.  I was a bit saddened, but the more I read the more I thought “holy crap, I didn’t know r/c was this cool.”  Up until then my only experience had been with Tyco toys, I had no idea all these high end cars and trucks existed.  So upon seeing all this stuff I immediately started begging my parents for one.  Eventually all the begging and emotional blackmail succeeded and I got my first r/c truck.  It was a Team Losi Junior-T.  Not the top of the line LXT, but it was better than the Tyco Turbo Hammer I had been running.  Not that the Turbo Hammer sucked or anything, I thought it was freaking awesome and I wish Tyco would go back to releasing those types of r/c cars, but still it was just a “toy” compared to the Junior-T.

I loved building my new Junior-T for the first time, there’s nothing quite like tearing open the box of a brand new r/c kit.  I also loved tearing it apart whenever I could just to clean it or look at some part for no real reason at all.  It was awesome, and it was pretty fast too, much faster than any toy I’d had before.  But still I wanted more.  One year, before the football season started, I made a bet with my mom.  I said the Denver Broncos wouldn’t make the playoffs.  If I was right, I’d get an r/c car of my choice, worth up to $250.  Well lo-and-behold I was right.  The Broncos lost, my dad was angry, and my mom made good on the bet.  So I picked out a nitro on-road sedan.  It was the Kyosho PureTen Nostalgia series ’67 Chevy Vette-Stingray.  4WD, nitro power, awesome body, and fast.

I’ve since expanded my collection by quite a bit and also decided to take sea and air by storm with a boat and a helicopter.  My current list of r/c vehicles is:(ordered by how long I’ve had them, longest first)

Brushless? LiPo? Just a sparkle in some engineer’s eye when I got started.

 Photography

Check out my photography at my other site: Jeff Hoy, Photography.