Illegitimi non Carborundum

Haven't even started on the Q&A. You people suck at this. I did put the TF2 preview on a separate page for easy access, thanks Matt. (From now on, just presume that is appended to the end of every sentence on this site.)

Well, I was just talking with some alumni friends of mine and they offhandedly mentioned that phone lines are allowed for those with online businesses. Well, that got the clock ticking and pretty soon I came up with the idea that if I could palm off this webpage as a business (that is, making $ from it) then I would be allowed a phone line.

Judging from previous user enthusiasm regarding ads on this page, every object in the room is bellowing "yeah right!" and I tend to concur. Webpage readers are a notoriously apathetic bunch, and frankly, I'm doing myself a favor by leaving. My risk for heart disease will plummet within a week of departure, and my kidneys will resume functioning on their own. Why would I even consider continuing work on this page? I don't know. I'm not even really clear on why I bring this up, because it will amount to nothing. Though I have an excellent computer (233 MHz laptop w/printer and external 15" monitor, picked it up super-cheap from my dad's office), I couldn't justify getting maybe $10 a week from ads and then paying for the rest out of my own pocket.

Then there's the problem of actually finding a sponsor willing to PAY. If any of you would have ideas, please send them my way. Bracing myself for the deafening rush of silence that will follow.

Finally ... this has slipped my mind many times, but no more. Tonight the slippage stops.

You may have recalled a while back my discussion of the Canalzone Project. Well, it did come to fruitition, and I'd just like to release the address of this piece of work before I go. You may all find the partially completed Canalzone Project at:

http://www.mythias.nu/czone/

We had a lot more in mind for this project, but things got dropped and all we were left with was what you see at the above link. Still, nothing to thumb your nose at -- it's a valuable guide and those unfamiliar with Canalzone should be able to pick it up a bit easier, not to mention have a decided advantage over those who don't take learning maps seriously. Whatever, I needed something striking and catchy to finish that sentence.

I have given Buzz_Litebeer (a fellow Kansan) permission to use the guide as a supplement to his own, located here. Together, these resources should make learning Canalzone a shade of the monumental undertaking it once was.

Billings and I just got out of a late-night one on one AQ battle on coventry, mall2, and lockandload. WOW! You have not truly experienced what this mod is all about until you have had your palms sweat and heart pound every time you hear a footfall or clip popping out of a pistol grip from afar, and knowing that you are listening to the person that will eventually get around to killing you. It is such a huge change from the traditional free for all. I have never had such an adrenaline-pumping Quake session. Ever. The triumph I felt after squeezing off ten rounds and seeing a cascade of blood and the soft crack of lead on bone and brain cannot be compared to anything else I've ever done. Likewise, laughing at myself after a full-body spasm due to my opponent killing me from behind and at close range. It is the thrill of the hunt and the hot poker to the ego which we know as defeat. You are chasing the elusive but furiously bloodthirsty homo sapiens ... the most dangerous game of all. I come from a family where hunting is the number one pastime (at least until I got my paws on this computer), and I've done a lot of heart-pounding stuff -- but it doesn't hold a candle to the game I just played.

Currently there are two 1-1 servers up being run by Doc Caliban. 209.84.136.65 - port 27305 and 27308 - Get over there right now and hang around on the server until somebody shows up.

My demo has been submitted to the AQ l33t455 Demo Contest. Don't bother entering now, as you're just wasting your time. Mine's already in.

For those of you that like to watch deathmatch demos (nothing wrong with that; if you play, then you suck, like me), go to sCary's Shack and download this week's DM demo (the first on the list, for QW 2.3). You never realize how good those top-rated players are until you see a demo like this, even though it's a pickup game. Maybe that's when they really shine -- when they have room for error but still can toss a rocket like nobody's business. There's a spot in there where he snatches the pent right out of a guy's hands and then pins him to the wall with a rocket launcher ... sweet. I'll have to recam that one.

I've got a little gripe against servers that decide to run every single Action Quake map ever released, or even half of them. There are so many horrible maps out that I am puzzled as to why this mod attracts the mapmaking rejects of the rest of the community. What puzzles me even more is that server admins will run these maps in the first place. For lower end machines, they usually lag a lot -- but more importantly, the gameplay is atrocious and even if I did have a pumped up system I wouldn't enjoy these maps anyway. Servers that run maps like coventry, museum, hostage2, kgb, kumanru, genbase, and desert are usually full because players like those maps. Lockandload, quittin, ghetto, cinema, and subway are borderline; they're not lagged much but I find that they're boring and badly constructed. Then there are maps like airport, parkgarage, punwar, and basev28 that just make you want to cry.

I wonder why server admins don't just look around at other servers and see which maps are getting playtime on other servers, and then pick 3 or 4 to rotate. Is anyone else sick of twenty- and thirty-map rotations? What's the point of telling the player what maps the server is running if it will take them six hours to go through the entire rotation? Put up a few that are a) universally liked or b) don't get much playtime on other servers. See the traffic you get and adjust accordingly.

But don't just poop them all out onto the server without even considering what the point of a map rotation is. That's no fun.

Robin tells me that the sentry gun in this screenshot from sCary's preview is not the TF2 gun, but rather one included in Half Life itself. Interesting, since I had no idea there were sentry guns in any game other than TF2. Strange how Robin gave me a straight answer right away, but when I asked Matt, he led me around in this huge meandering circle of a conversation, finally leading me back to where we started and still didn't answer my question. No wonder his message log is about 75% of the 5MB leather-bound Tome O' ICQ messages that resides on my hard drive.

Oh, did I mention that deathmatch sucks? Especially on DM3. At least playing it. Watching a super-skilled LPB do it is great -- but playing it is the equivalent of a Happy Fun Ball straight out of Sheol.

As far as today's headline ("No Q&A without the Q", isn't that cute?), it's true, I'm sorry. Simple mathematical laws, people. It all comes down to that question, "which came first -- the chicken or the egg?" and it's lack of an answer ... so if you just switch things around a bit you get the predicament that I'm having to deal with as I type this. I can't MAKE UP (did I say make up? I meant answer) anything if you don't give me some sort of idea of what you want me to do. They say the best liar always adds a pinch of truth to the poundcake of falsehood; and in this case I couldn't go writing about things that aren't even remotely true (and therefore amusing) without at least basing it on reality. Catch on yet?

So, try and get the word out on this -- so far I have about five questions, only two of which are actually serious. And that's what I need -- serious, open-ended questions so I have a little room to stretch. It's all I ask.

Send them here.

A nice thought just popped into my head. Four months ago, that wild and crazy Floridian was doing everything in his power to get Tato to swear just once on the Sycamore Tree; now it's his Christmas wish to get Ace Ass to go one RA show without swearing.

The world is a crazy place, folks, and there are times when I could take it or leave it, but this is one of those times where you want to kick back, take a big gulp out of your ice cold Dr. Pepper, and stare straight at the sun out of pure joy. Suck the marrow out of life, yessiree.

I download Keygrip, sat down, went through the tutorial, dug up an old AQ demo I had saved, and recammed it. After about three hours (and several borderline coronaries * ) later, I came up with this. 220K demo that's pretty fun.

You non-AQ losers can go read up on a bunch of nice player models (Supermale!) here, link couresty of SliM.

Next time, it's Q&A for you ...

* Is that a heart attack or breed of dog?