Ten years ago K5 was thriving, and my diaries got popular there. Folks wanted me to make a book out of them, and I promised I would.

I never got around to it, despite people periodically nagging me to. I finally did put together a PDF. I'd excised much of it, thinking it was too long, and emailed copies to those who asked.

Last Fall when I released the hardcover of Nobots I was again chided to get The Paxil Diaries on cellulose.

I'd discovered that no, it wasn't too long at all, and the abridged version was too short. So I redid the whole thing. I've been working on it almost exclusively for months and neglecting Mars, Ho! which I haven't done anything to since fall.

All that's left before publication is making a cover. The cover is the sticking point. It's going to be a photo of downtown Springfield with Betty Boop photoshopped in, and I'm waiting for Springtime to take the photo.

So if you're one of those who have been urging me to release a physical book, I'm projecting sometime in April.

Get it here!

So why did I move the release date up? Readers! Or rather, a reader. A fellow commented "Damn you! I went to see what your book was about and before I knew it I'm on chapter 7 and feel the urge to finish it tonight (otherwise I wont sleep). I've had plans for tonight..."

I'd just gotten my first check for books that had been sold the day before, but comments like that are even better than the check. I mean, I didn't write it to make money, I wrote it to be enjoyed. I walked around with a smile on my face all day and thought "gee, I need to let that poor fellow finish the book." So now you can!

If you're using FireFox to read it, PDF isn't the version to choose since FireFox sucks at rendering PDFs. It is, however, faithful to the printed version. Actually it was used to produce the printed version, and there may be some words in the HTML versions that should be italicized but aren't, I've found and fixed one or two but I'm sure I've missed some. Also, the PDF and printed versions are Gentium Book Basic while the HTML versions are Times New Roman. There is one passage that is Aral and renders funky in the HTML, and later in the book there's a Venusian nursery rhyme that is Comic Sans Serif in the printed and PDF versions.

I haven't posted the e-book version yet because I'm not satisfied with it.

If you select single file HTML (which you can download, of course) the screen will change only slightly, with links to PDF and e-book missing. Links to chapters are internal links.

I hope you folks enjoy it, that's why I wrote it.

Online now.

"Let's go back fifteen years and play some Quake!"

I groaned. "Fifteen years ago this month? NO! Hell, no, dammit Rority. That was a hell of a time. I'd been hosted for two months and lost half my visitors in the move, then my host got hacked and the place kept crashing and just disappeared in a black hole..."

"Oh, sorry," he said. "My bad; GamePlex was a mistake Gumal and I had to fix. But you recovered!"

"Yeah, after being kidnapped and tortured. I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition. No, I'm not going!"

"Your So You Want To Be a Webmaster, too article is gone, but we had nothing to do with that."

"Where did it go?"

"The Vogons destroyed Planet Quake to make way for a new interplanetary bypass. Let's go!"

"No!!!"

"We're going, and that's that."

Desatio frags 100
        Spew #100 came out last night, a live show with people there. Hear Desiato sing for the last time!
        He posts news of his and Yello's new "Arcadia" project- with a live link.
        Of the occasion, Sgt. Hulka said, "Holy giant butt zits Batman!"
        In other web nooze, Evil Avatar redesigned the Weakly Web - again. It has an "Illinois weather" theme; if you don't like it, wait a few minutes and it will change. 2/16/1999

Games can't escape GameSpy's BFG
        Version 2.08 is out- and I can't get it yet; all the ftp servers are full. When I finally do snag the sucker, you can get it here, where the server is never full.
        The GamePlex problem still isn't solved, so until I can access the Get Quake page again I'll have the new GameSpy on the main page... at least, when this REGISTERED USER actually gets a copy!
        UPDATE: It's downloaded, and is uploading as I type. Get the new GameSpy here. 2/17/1999

Yello frags Kneel
        In addition to Grannies, Yello admitted today to kidnapping Kneel Katalystic, and says he may release him. He has also kidnapped YOUR T-shirt, and demands that a ransom of (I think) $25 U.S. for delivery of your shirt be sent to:
Gimme Back my Yello shirt!
26 Claverham Park
Claverham
N.Somerset
BS49 4LR
UK
Yello plans to buy out Planet Quake with the proceeds.
        He also accurately misquotes PQ's "So you wanna be a web guy, huh??? Well think again loser boy!!" article (twice), has some quack 3 screen shots you don't want to miss, and has a GIANT interview. 2/17/1999

Fragfest should have used a smaller gun
        *sigh* I still can't log on; sounds like Flamethrower's troubles with Planet Quake last November. Again, I apologize; but I've at least mirrored the OldStuff page on FamVid's server so I could shorten this one.
        There are new links on the Links page, and a new command on the Commands page, but you'll have to wait until I can access gameperplexed again for the update. 2/19/1999

Kneel frags Yello
        In a stunning move, Kneel escaped from Yello's clutches, wrestled his weapon (a banana, I think) away, and kidnapped Yello. Yello had a backup weapon (a moldy dish rag), and each is keeping the other at bay, argueing about who is kidnapping who (or is that "whom"? Whom cares, anyway?)
        At any rate, the new Kat page may be back as soon as this weekend. Regular contributors are Yello, Kneel, Tron (3D Gamer's Edge), Morgan Parry (TenFour), Desiato (Spew), and Tom Cooney (I think "the Grin Reaper", but I'm not sure). I may contribute something once in a while if I can get my muse to stand still. Kat's new page is big and unfinished, and I have no idea how they're going to pull it off by this weekend. Maybe they'll use Yello's overcooked Puntyum 3 timewarp processor and force hundreds of alternate Ben Siskos to do the work.
        The new page will have, among other stuff: Editorials, Articles, Interviews, Game Reviews, Girl Gamers, Top Ten, Audiocadia (real audio? dunno, the link led to "AOL, er, 404 file not found". I said it wasn't done), Mod Reviews, Cheat Codes (blood 2 was up), Files, free Advertising for us po' folk that can't afford Planet Quake, Links, Give-aways, Stumble Throughs, and a weekly column by the captive Yello, who Kneel now has trapped in a bottle. 2/19/1999

Nacho Extreme joins the game
Nacho Extreme died
        Mail from Nacho- Nacho Extreme ain't gonna happen. Bummer too; it was a good page. He interviewed me, too. 2/18/1999 Update- Nacho Extreme will be here sooner or later; ok, later. Nacho is playing some game and helping to fix Gameplex. 2/19/1999

Hacker frags Gamesmania
        I finally got ICQ working again, and boy, are there a lot of messages! This one was among them: "okay, logins work for sure now. they've been up constantly since i last reset ownership. one of the reasons they were down is because gamesmania got hacked. and i also have heard of other instances of attempted hacks into the gameplex network. so you guys watch your backs. take care." 2/20/1999

Kat frags you
        Update to yesterday's post- The Grin Reaper's page is up, but not yet public. The Grin Reaper is a young Canadian named Brian Griffith who has "a bad habit of designing levels", so I guess when the Kat page is opened to the public, his link will be in the "mods, levels, etc" part.
        They're making great headway on the Kat page, they may just get it done after all! 2/20/1999
        UPDATE: It's finished! I hope they get all those Ben Siskos back to whatever weird dimensions they came from. I also hope he has a use for the ten million copies of Shakespeare's Hamlet all those monkeys wrote.
        See the new Kat page here 2/20/1999 (later)

Fragfest Disconnected
        I got access to Gameplex today, but don't know for how long. There are a few new links, and if you want to witness the Borg assimilating Quake, check out the Humor page (give the .wav a minute to load when you get there). 2/20/1999

Flamethrower joins the game
        Flamethrower, in danger of starting another "ticket to nowhere" contest, updated today, saying "There simply hasn't been ANYTHING that I could give a rats chuff about going on." He also says, "MIDWAY vs GT" - "If anyone (ANYONE) at Midway or GT would PLEASE write in about the spat I'd LOVE to hear from you. SHIT, if *anyone* has *any* rumors or interesting news, please let me [Flamethrower] know!!!"
        He also has a cool new link button. 2/20/1999

PQ Frags Webmasters
        Last week, Planet Quake published "So you want to be a webmaster", an editorial discussed widely over the net. I wrote a rebuttal, and rather than post it, I sent it to Planet Quake, who posted it here. 2/20/1999

Illinois State Government frags Y2K problem
        It seems the State of Illinois has reached Y2K compliance. This email reached my desk this morning:
        "Y2K Date Change Project Status
        "Our staff has completed the 18 months of work on time and on budget. We have gone through every line of code in every program in every system. We have analyzed all databases, all data files, including backups and historic archives, and modified all data to reflect the change. We are proud to report that we have completed the "Y2K" date change mission, and have now implemented all changes to all programs and all data to reflect your new standards:
        "Januark, Februark, March, April, Mak, June, Julk, August, September, October, November, December
        "As well as: Sundak, Mondak, Tuesdak, Wednesdak, Thursdak, Fridak, Saturdak
        "I trust that this is satisfactory, because to be honest, none of this Y to K problem has made any sense to me. But I understand it is a global problem, and our team is glad to help in any way possible. And what does the year 2000 have to do with it? Speaking of which, what do you think we ought to do later this year when the two digit year rolls over from 99 to 00? We'll await your direction." 2/24/1999

Steve frags Arcadia
        When I got home from work last night, a rather large blanket was thrown over my head and I found myself in a large burlap bag, bouncing around as if in a truck. I could hear a pair of giggling, cackling old women, but couldn't make out what they were saying. I feared the bag was on fire, as I smelled something similar to burning burlap, only sweeter. Eventually the jostling stopped, the bag was removed, and there was a blinding light in my eyes. An obviously fake German accent (actually it sounded like a Brit impersonating a Spanard) spoke. I feared it was Todd Porter looking for Flamethrower. "Nya ha ha, we have you now, Meester Frogfast.......... There is no escape............. you WEEEELL tell us what you know..........."
        I tried to tell the voice that I didn't know who Flamethrower really was, but was silenced. I hadn't expected the Spanish Inquisition.
        "Nobody expects the SSSSSSpanish inquisitionnnnn................"
        After being being shown the torture chamber with its devious devices, including a "soft pillow" and a "comfy chair", I relented. And tried to think up some convincing lies, since I didn't have a clue as to the truth.
        It wasn't Porter after all, and he couldn't care less who Flamethrower really was. It was actually Kneel on a "recruiting" mission. Since I have a low tolerance for soft pillows and couldn't bear the thought of the comfy chair, I agreed to his "request". Especially since he was armed with a bowl of raspberries.
        So now you'll see me in a weekly column titled "The Electric Gamer's Weak End Hell Hole" at Arcadia. The first edition of the column may be up by Thursdak (which would be about four days early). 2/24/1999

Asylum frags Old Man Murray
        You might not have noticed this newish site buried in the links section. Maybe it would be more prominant in the Quake Asylum where it probably belongs (still too clean- cuss a little, Marvin).
        Murray claims his site to be the "official game site of the US Postal Service" and says, "Think about it: gun toting maniacs navigating the same tired route over and over again picking up and dropping off items. Have I just described quake players or mailmen?"
        Right now (but maybe not tomorrow, this is the internet) he has a comparison between John Romero and Oscar Romero.
        BTW, Murray says, "How do you like us now that we're pretty much in charge of the post office, Blues? Ignore us now and you get no mail, baby. You and your little friend Redwood."
        I know I'm scared! Uh, wait a minute, I have direct deposit and the bills and junk mail come by... HEY, MURRAY! Ya know what yer momma told me? 2/23/1999
Update: Murray says via email, "We're working to increase the amount of swearing." Since he also says he's working on a links page, he won't have to, since he'll have a button. 2/24/1999
'nother Update: That boy's fast. In his news section today, he not only used every cussword in existance, he even made up a new one! You will now find the old fart in the Quake Asylum, complete with straitjcket. And when he finishes his links page, he gets a front page button. 2/25/1999

Steve frags Webmasters
        I want to again thank all you folks that sent mail about that "webmaster too" article on Planet Quake. It seems I have one more regular visitor, who appears to be replacing a dropout. The rest must be Fragfest regulars, as my visitor count is actually down a bit this week (except Sunday and Monday).
        Of course, Planet Quake is being boycotted again by some of the regulars at Planet Crap.
        Nice timing, guys.
        At the last count, the boycott has made Planet Quake's 100,000 hits per day drop steeply to, oh, about 99,994 per day. Give or take half a dozen.
        Meanwhile, the boycotters' pages counts have risen to an average of a phenominal 9.5 hits per week.
        The boycott stems from Planet Quake's "stealing" a domain they paid for from a site they hosted. It does sound like they aren't being exactly nice to the guy, but wtf, I don't have a domain; why should he? Unless he can afford to blow the price of a Voodoo, in which case he would have had it before PQ hosted him anyway.
        Some people can't stand to see anybody make a buck. Commie bastards. 2/25/1999

Steve can't escape Kneel's... comfy chair?
        The (ouch) interrogation has been (ooh that hurts) completed, and I was allowed to go about my "business". Why anyone would want to read an interview with me is beyond my comprehension, but if you do, there's one over at Arcadia (or will be very soon).
        Also, if you can't get enough of my drivel here, Kneel has posted the first of my weekly "Weak End Gamer's Hell Hole" columns (also at Arcadia), where I actually get to write about something besides Quake and Quake people, places, and things, and don't quite manage to. 2/26/1999

Saved games can't escape Id's shotgun
        A reader has been gently chiding me to provide Quake 2 level cheats, and he's right; I should. Especially since I haven't found anywhere else that does, aside from the sketchy info in the manual. I just want you all to know I'm working on it, but I'm also working on making a living, raising my family, writing articles (see last week's Planet Quake article So you want to be a webmaster, too, and the new weekly column at Arcadia mentioned yesterday), scribbling out some art for Kat Media's Silicone Drive, and perfecting the "left hand mouse, right hand joystick" configuration so I can quit sucking at deathmatch (I've sucked ever since I tried the new config).
        Apologies; please be patient with me! 2/27/1999

Gameplex died
        !!!!! Also when I got home, I found Gameplex completely gone! And so was the page! Until I rebuild the structure over here, the internal links at the top of the page won't work.
        I haven't got a single email from anyone at Gameplex, and everyone on my ICQ list connected with Gameplex is offline. 2/28/1999

Levelord Frags Flamethrower
        Last week Levelord had a rash; actually, (to quote him completely out of context), he said in his Bitchslap page, "There seems to be a rash, yes, a rash"
        He had a bit of a rant against... I couldn't tell who he was bitching about, except it wasn't Old Man Murray or BitchX, since he said, "I love Old Man Murray and Bitch X.". (Hear that, Murray? Your threat of withholding his mail worked!).
        Who was it? Planet Crap? Planet Ho Slap? He refused to say.
        Almost at the end, he says "The absolute depths, though, were reached by publicizing a company's internal email." O.k., He must be talking about Flamethrower.
        I got home tonight from visiting relatives in Missouri, and saw that Flamethrower's column started, "Ooops. Looks like the trippy Levelord has..." and you'll have to surf over to his page to see the rest. 2/28/1999

Online now.

I saw this article about some new robots they're designing, and it looks like they're taking steps to make nobots. These robots are "tiny", 8 x 4.5 inches. They're certainly not nobots yet, not even nano-robots. Not even micro-robots.

The scientists programmed the robots using rules based on the behavior of termite colonies. Acting without human-style intelligence or a central plan, termite swarms comprising millions of insects routinely build mounds up to 42 feet tall. The insects act individually, taking cues from their surroundings and from each other.

In a similar way, the robot swarm can build towers, castles and pyramids out of foam bricks. Acting autonomously, individual robots can even build themselves staircases to reach the higher levels of the structures, adding bricks wherever they are needed, according to the researchers, who also published details of their project in Science.

I saw later that alphadogg submitted it and samzepus accepted it. Excellent submission, IMO.

Meanwhile, I went back fifteen years to play a little Quake with Rority.

Hulka's Search Engine joined the game
        For eight months, Quake players and gamers in general bemoaned the loss of Slipgate Central. Last November Quakeport opened and filled the void. Gestalt said there was something "better than Slipgate" in the works, and Hulka informed me (and I misquoted him) he had "something in the works, too".
        Hulka's search page is now on line, although the Sarge says there are still a few kinks to it yet. Drop by Hulka's Boot Camp and add your gaming page! Quick, before the Planet sits on him. 2/9/1999
        UPDATE: From the Bootcamp page today: "Hulka HQ Opens- [2/10/99] 1:25am Join the Hulka HQ database of cool ass gaming and entertainment sites here! Sure, we're not big yet, but we just opened shop and it's up to you to help build our database of all the cool ass sites you want to share with other members of Hulka's Army, so if you find one, add it NOW!" 2/10/1999

Windows trips on his own grenade
        I've spent the entire day trying to get Windows fixed. The Gameplex problem has been resolved. Sorry for any trouble. 2/12/1999

Fragfest Disconnected
        Oops, it's not resolved. My apologies to all of you.
        Gameplex's net admin informs me he's got a bit of a mess over there; he has my sympathies. Meanwhile, any nooze I find will be at the famvid address for a while. 2/13/1999

Fragfest joins the game
        I'll bet you thought I was going to use that ticket myself! Gameplex has been having some technical problems, so if you don't see an update, go to the old address at http://www2.famvid.com/mcgrew/quake/quake2.htm. Meanwhile, Desiato and Kneel are trying to wrestle the ticket away from me. Desiato is busy (according to his page) getting his ass kicked by his new job. Yello still denies responsibility for Kneel's disappearance, but has kidnaped yet another granny, Desiato's. When questioned, Desiato's bodyguard replied, "Look, mate, I'm responsible for guarding his body and I'm NOT responsible for yours." 2/15/1999

Back in the present...

Damn, but it's been a crappy winter. For everyone, it seems. This is the worst winter I remember seeing in my life. God, but it's been cold. And there has been snow on the ground, lots of it at times, since the beginning of December. Most of North America had a hellish winter.

Meanwhile, in Russia where they need winter for the Olympics, it's been spring all month.

England is drowning in the worst floods since before the US was a country. California is in their worst drought in decades, and surely hope Betteridge was right.

What's it like where it's summer now? I've almost forgotten what summer feels like!

Online now.

"So," Rority said, "Want to go play that silly game?"

"Nah," I replied. "I'm burned out on Quake. Lets go somewhen else. Maybe back to when K5 still was a vibrant, living site rather than the zombie on life support it is now."

"OK," he said, "But Saturday we're playing Quake!"

How to get your story posted to kuro5hin
By mcgrew in Meta
Sat Feb 12, 2005 at 09:36:40 AM EST

Some people have whined that it's just too darned hard to get a story posted, particularly to the front page.

Well, your troubles are over. There is no need for "administrative action" to get your story posted. Indeed, K5's present membership base is far more lenient about what they allow to be published than some of the dearly departed K5 losers who have committed suicide.

Here are ten guidelines to getting enough votes to get your story posted to section, if not the front page. Well, at least to get my vote.

Some of these are guidelines, and some are hard and fast rules. With any creative endeavor, rules can be broken. However, before you break any of them, be sure you thoroughly understand the rules and their reason for existence.

1. Have something to say
Face it, we can't all be localroger. Some of us have been cursed with creativity, and the luckier of you can simply sit back and enjoy our madness. If you have nothing to say, then stop right there, unless you are a very, very good writer.

Do you have a hobby? An area of expertise? If you can make your hobby interesting to us, we'll vote it up. If you make it really, really interesting we'll vote it Front Page.

2. Have a three digit IQ
K5's readership has been traditionally more intelligent than most sites on the web, although there are, of course, exceptions. If you are among the lower 50 percentile mark in reasoning ability (i.e., I.Q.<100), then see guideline #3

3. Be funny
If you can make me laugh, you'll get my vote. And lots of other votes, too.

You don't have to be smart to be funny. In fact, considering the limited reasoning abilities of some clowns, intelligence seems to be a hindrance to humor.

Remember, boys, girls, and spambots, the one thing that makes us different than the other pathetic animals on this planet is our sense of humor. Except you spambots, of course.

4. Read something besides the internet and People Magazine.
I believe you'll find that the most published Kurobots are also the ones who have read the most books. Books - you know, those funny looking square things made out of dead trees. These are always edited, usually by editors who actually know the language.

It's hard to get a story posted when you're only semiliterate. The way to becoming more literate is to read more literature. And I'm not talking about crap on the internet, either.

The more you read, the better you'll write. The better you write the more people will vote for your dumb story.

5. Be controversial
Although I personally voted against this story, it is a good example of how to be controversial by being completely "over the top." If you get a lot of discussion while your story is in the edit que, you'll have some folks voting it up just to preserve the comments.

6. Know what you're talking about
Don't write an article about guitars unless you're a luthier or a guitarist. If you're the co-founder of Wikipedia you would be foolish to write a story about your goldfish. Unless, of course, your goldfish is funny or controversial. Or unless you have a story about how to keep your goldfish alive. Or unless you can write like Stephen King.

You're going to get flak from K5ers if you get posted, and most of this flak will be from people who think they understand, but really have no clue.

7. Don't just slop down the first thing that comes to mind
There are two possible bad consequences to sitting down, rattling off some ill-concieved piece of crap and submitting it. The first is that your story will be dumped unceremoniously in about thirty minutes time. Even worse, they might vote your bad story up, and you'll have to live with the damned thing.

You will find that some of K5's better contributors think about a story for weeks or months, then write.

8. Proofread! And never, ever send a story to vote without the edit queue
You will make typos, unless you're incredibly lucky or you're Isaac Asimov reincarnated. After you've written your article, read it! Ask yourself, if someone else had written it, would I enjoy it? If not, then it is certain to be dumped. Figure out what you don't like about your story and change it.

The edit queue is there for a very good reason. People will point out typos, misspellings, factual errors, non-erroneous facts they think are errors, plus of course they will add some trolling, flaming, bashing, and crapflooding. After all, this is K5.

9. Have a thick skin
Because, you know, you're going to get voted down. Because, well, YOU FAIL IT! ...and so do I. We all do. Believe it or not, we all get voted down. Even our peerless leader.

10. Have 80 nullo dup accounts
How do you think rmg gets posted FP?

Poll
Which rule did mcgrew shatter in this story?
o None of them 2%
o #1 1%
o #2 4%
o #3 8%
o #4 2%
o #5 7%
o #6 2%
o #7 1%
o #8 4%
o #9 0%
o #10 7%
o all of them 18%
o screw this, -1, resection to trash can 37%

Votes: 69

It was a really nasty surprise when I opened slashdot and Beta hit me in the face. Apparently from the backlash, I was not alone. Every story was full of little but "fuck beta" comments. I added my own. There were one or two complaining about "anonymous posters" and the "fuck beta" protest, but most of the protesters were logged in.

The biggest mistake Dice made was releasing barely alpha-quality code to the public, as many have pointed out. The second big mistake was slapping us in the face with it. The straw that broke the camel's back for me was the announcement that the Slashdot Classic interface was going to be gone, and we'd be stuck with this butt-ugly unusable interface.

Meanwhile, someone opened a new site for slashdot beta refugees to flee to, "altslashdot.org". It lasted a few hours before getting slashdotted, it was nearly impossible to get in over the weekend. Yesterday that URL gave a 404; they changed the name to "soylent" something or other, I couldn't find the site last night. Probably just as well, over the weekend they seemed to be trying to handle slashdot sized traffic with a 386 and a 33.3 modem. None of the sites I've run have ever had that problem, but I didn't try to host them on a single desktop using DSL as these guys seem to be doing, I got hosts who had the infrastructure to handle a slashdotting. Guys, I'm paying fifteen bucks a year for my book site! Hosting is dirt cheap.

A boycott of slashdot started yesterday. I intended to join at first; when Classic is gone, slashdot is gone. I intended to only check my mesages this week, and post my normal Wednesday Nobots chapter with a subtle hint that web sites die when not properly cared for; Rority takes me back ten years to a then thriving community that is now a ghost town.

In the messages was an offtopic comment from soulskill, in response to an offtopic comment of mine about Beta and Classic. "Classic isn't going away any time soon." It's pretty obvious to me that they not only hear us, they're in panic mode. They realize their blunder. The protest has been effective. There is no longer any need for a boycott, we have been heard, loud and clear.

That was certain this morning when I opened slashdot at work. I was served Classic, without having to add ?&"nobeta=1" and there were no messages in the header about Beta. It's as if Beta was just a bad dream.

There is no need for a boycott, no more need for "fuck beta" posts. If they slide again, we can resume. But soulskill, at least, has given me hope that maybe, just maybe, Dice won't kill my beloved slashdot.

Online now.

"So," I asked Rority, "who's going to win the superbowl?"

"Who's gonna what the what?"

"I thought you were an expert on us?"

"Yeah, before the wired centuries. You wired weirdos are weird."

"So, how far are we going?"

"Fifteen years."

"No! Drop me at home!"

"It's out of my way. Here we go..."

Kneel died
        The Katalysmic Media page looks like this today: "WE HAVE GONE.... THIS SITE IS NO MORE.....BUT FEAR NOT.......WE SHALL RETURN SOON AT A NEW ADDRESS"
        I hope he didn't move in with crash! 2/8/1999

Gameplex died
        The Game Complex has been missing since last week. This ransom note was finally posted:

Please stand by as Gameplex undergoes reconstruction.
In the weeks to come, we will be able to offer the
latest from the gaming industry, accompanied by
exclusive previews and reviews.

Internet died
        Gameplex is missing; Neil is mising; conspiracy theorists agree something foul is hatching.
        Further investigation finds, however, they've just gotten lost in the gamespyder. 2/9/1999

Yello frags Neil
        Yello, questioned about the disappearance of Neil Katalysmic, denied responsibility. Actually, it was his granny that did the denying, saying "Tsk tsk, that boy's totally irresponsible."
        And regarding disappearances, Tikki was heard to say "Hey, what's with Gameplex, you heard anything?"
        Harry Houdini was dug up for questioning and later released. Police are now looking for a gentleman named "David Copperfield". It is not known if Mr. Copperfield is a suspect in the disappearances. 2/9/1999

Blue Disconnected
        "It is with sincere regret that I announce that the message boards... are no more... some of the few who were using it were using it as a forum for abuse..."
          And here I've been wasting my time at Planet Crap, with "all the news that's fit to whine, bitch, and complain about." 2/10/1999

Internet Disconnected
        The Game Complex, Kneel, Nacho Extreme, Spew's show 100, and clan sites that registered with gamespyder are all still missing. Yello, in possession of some sort of Timewarp substance, amulet, or device, claims he is not responsible. 2/10/1999

Online now. I may release the whole book for free at the end of the month.

But that's not what I wanted to talk about. I want to know why Dice wants slashdot dead? That beta clusterfuck HAS to be engineered to drive people away.

So I'm on a friend's PC (Windows 7, IE 7) while he's making a beer run and I decide to visit slashdot. It comes up... that god damned beta. Shit. So I try the "nobeta=1". Doesn't work.

There's nowhere I can log in. So I post a comment AC offtopically bitching about the god damned beta bullshit and its problems, go to another tab, make an on-topic, insightful comment and "you must wait a little while". GOD DAM IT, SLASHDOT!!

So I read a couple more threads, go back to the "you must wait a little while" and try again to submit the comment. "This resource is no longer valid."

Did Dice have another web site that was competing badly with slashdot, so they bought slashdot to kill it? Because I can think of no other explanation for their recent behavior.

Can anybody point me to another site where one can discuss tech and science? Because slashdot is becoming unusable. When classic is gone, so am I.

Online now.

That was one wild party on Zeta Reticuli. I don't remember very much of it, except the atmosphere there does something weird when you're stratodoobing.

We picked up Rula and Rority, and Rority stopped for beer in 1999, Rority saying something about an old woman who had something for him.

Real Audio frags Quake
        The third Fragfest Quake Real Audio Show is finished, since I seem to have run out of drive space and had to uninstall a couple of games to get the .wav to fit. I should have it in RA format and uploaded in a day or two. There are a couple of musicians whose music you won't hear, since they don't do Quake music; Nooze about the Mystery Page on Gameplex; AND- we hear from "Mr. Desiato's Bodyguard" and some British gentleman who the bodyguard is threatening. Speaking of Desiato, skip the Fragfest show, Spew's coming up on show #100. If my math is right, that ought to be Friday. Don't miss that one. Blue's promised a "Shooters" this weekend as well, the first in a while. Shooters, the show you need a link to find- Plug "shooters" into any search engine, and you get "shooters.com", a gun club page.
        For those of you who feel bad because you're playing Quake instead of keeping abreast of current events (what? you mean there are current events OUTSIDE Quake???), don't miss Sgt. Hulka, cuz YOU BEEN DRAFTED. Now, gimme twenty. Then run this message from Col. Thirtytwo to General Protectionfault. Doubletime, dammit 2/2/1999

AOL does... a.......back............flip in..to......the...........
        There's a fellow right here in Illinois that's having a hell of a time playing deathmatch. I've had quite a few emails back and forth trying to get him connected good. When he first wrote, he couldn't connect at all. He's on, but the lowest ping he can get is 380, and that's connecting through GameSpy. He's out in the sticks (Stonington, a little bitty town thirty miles from nowhere) so he may be stuck with AOL.
        I've heard that AOL really sucks playing Quake. If you're on AOL, I'd appreciate a note letting me know of your experiences with that much maligned ISP. Is it as bad as I've heard? Does it suck for everybody? I'd especially like a note if you can get a decent ping with it. (1998)

A.O.L. frags Y.O.U.
        I got an answer by email about the "does AOL suck for Quake" question, and the answer seems to be a resounding "yes". Lots of people saying it, but only one answer. 2/2/1999

Beach house can't escape Arsonist's Flamethrower
        No, not Flamethrower, who updated today (and you'll be tripping on your own grenade if you don't see it now), A flamethrower.
        Word has reached the Fragfest that an unidentified group of arsonists have hatched a plot to destroy Tikki God's Quake Beach house. The beach house, rumored vacant since November, houses a large store of cordite, TNT, plastique, dynamite, one or two small nuclear devices, and a shambler.
        The authorities have suspected the Beach house of harboring fugitives, but word at the beach house is "Joost hasn't been here since September".
        The mayor has been trying to have the house condemned since its appearance, but can't get the housing inspector past the BFG and shambler. When informed of the plot, the police whipped out a large urn of coffee and several hundred donuts and threw a party.
        I dropped by to ask if the beach house was indeed going to be torched, and why.
[beach house] Who is it, man?
[Fragfest] It's Steve
[beach house] Steve's not here
[fragfest] No, I'm Steve
[beach house] Steve's not here either.
[Fragfest] Hey, Tikki, open up!
[beach house] Tikki's not here.
[Fragfest] Dammit, Nacho, open the fraggin' door!
[beach house] Shambler, get the door, man
so I think I'll drop by tomorrow and use the window instead. 2/4/1999

Gameplex sank like a rock
        Hulka's does a back flip into the lava
        Wow, the internet sucks. Hulka's and Spew, over at Hulka's Army, have been down for a couple of days. And "Gameplex is closed for reconstruction".
        This really sucks. Desiato's coming up on show 100! 2/4/1999

Nacho can't escape Granny's Shotgun
        I met a strange old woman as I was trying to get in to Tikki's beach house (see yesterday's post), a charming elderly British lady who informed me "Those feckers can really burn 'em down. Blimey, I wish me Neil would buy that bloody much!", and I have no idea who she was or what she was talking about. I assume she was selling ordinance, since she said something about how many shot guns Nacho took.
        I didn't see the shot guns, Nacho must have had them in the gun rack already. The smell of lamp oil, candle wax, gunpowder, Incense, and something I couldn't put my finger on hung in the air. I opened a beer.
        It seems the beach house isn't "scheduled" for "demolition" after all. Instead, it will be the 1999 Slipgate Central. On March 9th, a sign will be hung outside proclaiming "Haste does not bring success", and a fireworks display will be set off- inside the beach house. In the ordinance room. Thousands of Quake sites will have a "search for Quake" combo box that will lead to Tikki's "Haste does not bring success" sign.
        Three trucks loaded with frankfurters and marshmallows are scheduled to arrive at the beach house by next month, as well as tankers carrying rum, tequila, and beer.
        Tikki will be moving in to "Nacho Extreme (because all the other pages have extreme in the title)" as a reviewer. Nacho Extreme is the mystery page I referred to, housed in the penthouse of the Game Complex. It's still not done. Nacho says, "Ok, the site will be up eventually. But, being the lazy ass I am, 90% of my time is being taken up by this: If you want, let people know I'm lazy, but have a treat in store for them. Btw, I think tikki is gonna set the beach house on fire.
        "Also, the game I'm playing is getting better. So, I won't be stopping till I finish. =)"
        Volume 3 of the Fragfest Real Audio show has been finished since last weekend. I've kept from putting it up since (a) I mention Nacho's page which was supposed to be done last weekend and (b) Spew is supposed to have show l00 tonight. Desiato (whose bodyguard is heard in the Fragfest's show) said last week show 100 would be something special- and Hulka, his host, has been down all week. So we haven't seen show 99 yet, and 100 may be delayed. But I'm posting show 3 any way. As the old English lady would say, "feck it".

Planet's "spider" frags pages
        Gestalt promised something "better than Slipgate", and it's up. It's Game Spyder. Right now there are 1600+ entries. 108 of them are Quake sites (compared to Quakeport's 800+ Quake sites). I searched for several of my favorite sites at GameSpyder, and could only find one (Planet Quake).
        It is better than Slipgate, because Slipgate died last March.
        It's nowhere near as good as Quakeport. All of my favorite sites are listed in Quakeport, not a single one (except Gamespyder's host) on gamespyder. Plus, when I tried it out, Gamespyder was gawdoffal slow at not finding any of my favorite sites. 2/5/1999

Yello frags grannys Yello There
        I received this ransom note yesterday: "Yet another delightfully strange update.............
        I'm keeping your granny..........
        Neil........."
        And on the subject of Yello grannies, Desiato says he doesn't have a bodyguard, and may have show 100 done by Monday. 2/6/1999

W4r3z3rz frag Steve
        I keep getting email asking me to send full versions of games. I don't really know that these folks are looking for w2r3z, so I always assume they're not. At any rate, Quake 2's 400 megs would make internet w4r3zing impractical at best. Any way, you can get demos and patches from the Get Quake page. If you can't tear yourself away from the computer long enough to drive down and buy Quake 2, you can get a copy from Amazon.com. 2/7/1999

Online now.

Run, rabbit run. Dig that hole, catch the He3. When at last the work is done, wheels go round, it's time to dig another one -- Jade Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon

The long busy day was over, and the rabbit laid down to sleep through the long winter's night. But something was wrong, and Yu Tu didn't know what. Neither did MéilÃn, back on the other world. And the goddess had neglected to bring her elixir of immortality. The poor little rabbit might never wake up again!

I like the rover's name; the same as my favorite Irish band, U-2. Curious, I looked up the moon rabbit and was incredibly surprised. Sixty two years of life reading thousands of books and I had never heard of the rabbit on the moon, and it's a world wide phenomena. The next full moon I'll have to look for it on the moon. Today I looked for it on the internet.

In Chinese folklore, it is often portrayed as a companion of the Moon goddess Chang'e, constantly pounding the elixir of life for her. In Japanese and Korean versions, it is pounding the ingredients for rice cake.

Apparently someone at NASA had heard of it, because just before the first moon landing there was this conversation between Buzz Aldrin and mission control.

Houston: Among the large headlines concerning Apollo this morning, there's one asking that you watch for a lovely girl with a big rabbit. An ancient legend says a beautiful Chinese girl called Chang-o has been living there for 4000 years. It seems she was banished to the Moon because she stole the pill of immortality from her husband. You might also look for her companion, a large Chinese rabbit, who is easy to spot since he is always standing on his hind feet in the shade of a cinnamon tree. The name of the rabbit is not reported.

Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin: Okay. We'll keep a close eye out for the bunny girl.

Ancient storytellers were every bit as imaginative as today's. I suspect that the moon rabbit stories are actually more than fifty thousand years old, because the moon rabbit shows up in Eastern culture, and in ancient Aztec culture and the stories are very similar, as if morphing with repeated retelling. But they don't show up in Europe, Africa, or Australia (if I'm wrong, let me know. I've seen no mention in my admittedly limited searches).

The Chinese poet, Li Bai, in his poem named "The Old Dust" during the Chang dynasty (Chang... wasn't he a Klingon? Wait, no, that's TANG dynasty. Tang? Hmm...) wrote "The rabbit in the Moon pounds the medicine in vain," which is NOT a good omen. Methinks the Chinese would have been better off calling Yutu something else.

The "Jade Rabbit" originated the Han dynasty. Note: not the Han Solo dynasty. During that time it was also called the "Gold Rabbit".

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, the Cree (American native) legend tells a different variation, about a young rabbit who wished to ride the Moon. Only the crane was willing to take him. The trip stretched Crane's legs as the heavy rabbit held them tightly, leaving them elongated as cranes' legs are now. When they reached the Moon Rabbit touched Crane's head with a bleeding paw, leaving the red mark cranes wear to this day. According to the legend, on clear nights, Rabbit can still be seen riding the Moon.

The Aztecs, about as far from China as you can get without leaving the planet, had a slightly different version. The god Quetzalcoatl, then living on Earth as a man, started on a journey and, after walking for a long time, became hungry and tired. With no food or water around, he thought he would die. Then a rabbit grazing nearby offered herself as food to save his life. Quetzalcoatl, moved by the rabbit's noble offering, elevated her to the Moon, then lowered her back to Earth and told her, "You may be just a rabbit, but everyone will remember you; there is your image in light, for all people and for all times."

Another Mesoamerican legend tells of the brave and noble sacrifice of Nanahuatzin during the creation of the fifth sun. Humble Nanahuatzin sacrificed himself in fire to become the new sun, but the wealthy god Tecciztecatl hesitated four times before he finally set himself alight to become the Moon. Due to Tecciztecatl's cowardice, the gods felt that the Moon should not be as bright as the sun, so one of the gods threw a rabbit at his face to diminish his light. It is also said that Tecciztecatl was in the form of a rabbit when he sacrificed himself to become the Moon, casting his shadow there.

In the Buddhist Jataka Tale 316, a monkey, an otter, a jackal, and a rabbit resolved to practice charity on the day of the full Moon (Uposatha), believing a demonstration of great virtue would earn a great reward.

When an old man begged for food, the monkey gathered fruits from the trees and the otter collected fish, while the jackal wrongfully pilfered a lizard and a pot of milk-curd. The rabbit, who knew only how to gather grass, instead offered its own body, throwing itself into a fire the man had built. The rabbit, however, was not burnt. The old man revealed himself to be Sakra and, touched by the rabbit's virtue, drew the likeness of the rabbit on the Moon for all to see. It is said the lunar image is still draped in the smoke that rose when the rabbit cast itself into the fire.

A version of this story can be found in the Japanese anthology Konjaku Monogatarishu, where the rabbit's companions are a fox and a monkey.

When the sun again shines on Yutu, I'll have to look for her.

Meanwhile, as Yutu slept, perhaps never again waking up, so did Pete Seeger, who will certainly never again wake up. He died last night at the age of 94. None of the news outlets mentioned cause of death. All of the news outlets mentioned his liberalism and its causing him to be jailed and blacklisted (and the Snowden revelations surprised you?). They all mentioned songs he wrote, including this one:

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Note that Seeger changed the words a little from the first draft, which comes from the book of Ecclesiastes. None of the news outlets mention this, oddly.

May the singer rest in peace, and may the roving rabbit rise and shine with the sun on the moon.

Online now.

Two weeks later as the Venusian battleship thundered silently through the vacuum of space towards the Earth, ten automated rockets streaked towards it from Earth's L2 Lagrange point, also thundering silently because in space, no one can hear you thunder.

Online now. And Rority's in a hurry, as to why I don't WHOA...

Steve's brain does a back flip in the lava
        Duh. I got the RA show fixed. for some reason, gameplex's server doesn't like RA, and shows the container instead of running its contents. No problem, just put the HTML and container on famvid and the show on gameplex.
        It worked after I fixed a really stupid HTML error I made. SO, show 2 is now on line. Homage is paid to Captain Kevin and Flamethrower, and a dig at "Tadd portley". Again, mostly music, not much talk.
        Patty's not on this one, but says if you have kids to have them get on a Jazz Jackrabbit (Quake for kids; If you're her age, you're too damned young for real Quake) server so she can kick their butts. Tell them to look for "Calie" on the server and "Patty" in the high scores; the nick is her cat's name. Patty tells me the high scores are uploaded to the Jazz server and downloaded to the Jazz clients when you join an internet game. She also says to tell them that when you play CTF you're not supposed to shoot your team members.
        Both shows are on the Quake Music page. 1/22/1999

Newbies frag Steve
        I've finally gotten around to posting the better questions newbies have sent in. Private net servers, cheat problems, and more.
        Also, I added the soundtrack back to the humor page, and pasted in a picture of a dead cowboy.
        I stole the cowboy from some clan on geocities. I'd give them credit but it's been on my hard drive so long I forgot where it came from. They probably stole it from somebody else, anyway. I posted it next to the Planet Quake Mail Bomb, since it looks like it may have once been a PQ "pic of the day". I think it may have originally been an ad for Quaker Oats? 1/23/1999

Evil died
        The Weakly Web will be down for a while while Mr. Avatar "works out a small personal issue" (like improving yer golf swing, dude?)
        Kudos for the Evil one for telling us instead of just letting his page rot. SO, I guess there's a new "Ticket to nowhere" contest on!
        crash, Immy, and all the other permanently dead sites are ineligible. Let your page go without an update longer than Evil Avatar and you may win a no expense paid ticket to absolutely nowhere!
        BitchX is ineligible for two reasons. First, "she" almost never updates anyway, and second, well, she's a bitch.
        Stay tooned.
        Meanwhile, Evil's hosted sites (Flamethrower and LamingInsider) are still open for business. In fact, Flamey updated today. 1/25/1999
UPDATE: Spew hasn't, but I'm sure Desatio will in time to lose the contest. Meanwhile, Yello did. Something. I think. Hey, Kneel, where'd ya hide that damned Fragfest link? Ya want me ta bust yer starvatron again? 1/26/1999

Lew Czar trips on his own grenade
        Posted at Planet Crap yesterday is what appears to be its first "real" article, an interview with joost and some folks from Frag.com and Telefragged. Andy did an excellent job on the interview, which was Planet Crap's longest subject heading ever. Little of the discussion that followed (as of last night) was much more than "nice job, Andy!" (it really was a nice job) and "I like both these guys so I'm not going to comment".
        The heading/article started "You knew this was going to be a subject...", so my first post was a quote from the Fragfest (see Oldstuff 1/25, moved 1/28). Hulka, still pissed that Ross Perot lost the election, posted a Clinton joke.
        Things got interesting when ice boi and iforgotwhatthefraghisnamewas showed up spewing obscenities and talking about joost in Planet Quake like he was the devil in hell. Most of it was pretty incomprehensible (bet I spelt that wrong) and very juvenile, but it got funny. Not "class clown making rude gestures at the teacher behind her back" kind of funny, but "class dwork with his fly down" kind of funny. They were advocating a boycott of Planet Quake- Planet Quake, who has more visitors in a day than any other fifty Quake sites combined. This from the head of Klan l00z3r, who has maybe, what, twelve hits on his counter? I finally figured out what Lew's problem was- joost wouldn't pimp his pathetic page last year, which as of last summer was totally devoid of content! They do have a little content now; some really talentless skins, one of which is a bad ripoff of Evil Bastard's work.
        Planet Crap kicks and bans no one. They don't have to. If you make an ass of yourself over there, the other folks posting (crash, Gestalt, joost, Hulka, Flamethrower, Desiato, to name a few of too many to name) will make you wish you'd stayed on the Barbie Fasion Designer page.
        As for Klan l00z3r, I'm going to put them in the regular links. The link will lead to "LOL file not found". These guys are exactly what everybody in the Quake community are bitching about. If we're all lucky they'll give up Quake and go back to Myst and Deer Hunter. Or better yet, they'll grow up. If they do that and improve their page a little more, I really will give them a link. 1/27/1999

CPU Melted
        If you want to find out how to turn your PC into a really fast space heater, check out BX Boards. 1/27/1999

Toys melted
        If you really want to have some fun with your overclocked PC, put these Quake 2 "action figures" on top! 1/27/1999

Evil and Desatio gib ticket
        Evil Avatar and Desatio, fighting like a cat and dog to keep from winning the ticket, have tied for the ticket to nowhere. Desatio (I'm speling that wrong, ain't I? damn!) Desiato is in Chicago. Being in Illinois, he's already in Nowhere (Springfield is the capital of Nowhere). God knows where Mystery Man Evil is.
        Any way, they tore the ticket to shreds trying to get the hell way from it; both have posted. So I guess I'll have to get a new ticket.
        Desiato has two new shows, one talking about banner ads. He got rid of his (it was a pop-up geocities thing) about the time I got mine. Oh, you haven't seen it? It's WAY down at the bottom of the page. Go ahead and click it, I won't make (or lose) any money on it. I get a gig of space for having it there. Pretty good deal, I think.
        OOPS, gimme back those ticket pieces, boys; Planet Ho Slap wins the no-expense paid ticket to Nowhere. Along with their fabulous no-expense vacation, they also recieve absolutely nothing. Sleek, modern transportation provided by the contest winners. Congratulations, ya hos! 1/27/1999
        UPDATE: Desiato did yet ANOTHER new show last night, and mentioned the fragfest AGAIN! Next time I get to Chicago I'm gonna hafta buy him a beer! For now, I think I'll just post a GREAT BIG Spew logo. 1/28/1999

Hulka frags fragfest
Netscape sank like a rock
        I got a note from the Sarge tonight, who said the "Quake gibs Flamethrower" and "Lew Czar" posts (the part about his Clinton joke) "really cracked me up". I tried to write him back with a "hey, thanks, dude!" and the damned winsock crashed. I tried to resend it, and- it crashed again! Krapola!
        So, Sarge, if you got two replies, sorry again; and if you didn't get one at all, I'm especially sorry.
        And hey, if I'm that good, gimme a link ;)
        UPDATE: He got the mail, and sent news of a new project "better than Slipgate". Sarge- for the sake of poetry, open it March 9th (1st anniversary of Slipgate's closing) 1/28/1999

Internet can't escape internet's super shotgun
        - Almost a year after Slipgate died, Gestalt hinted of "something better than Slipgate" over at Planet Crap.
        - Sgt Hulka's informed me that he also has something better than Slipgate in the works! And HEY he gave me a front page mention over there! Thanks, Sarge! Uh, wait a minute, the post said something about crack...
        And, uh, I looked at that email again, and he's right; HE didn't say his Slipgate was better than Slipgate, Gestalt said HIS Slipgate was better than Slipgate; Sarge said he "had something in the works, too". It must be the coffee and beer (I can't afford crack. I can hardly afford the one I sit on).
        - Quakeport (better than Slipgate, cause it's not dead) has put the Fragfest in its "What's Hot" list. Damned if I know why, it's January in Springfield!
        - If you want to see a sharp page with a ton of well done game reviews, go see Gone Gold, my newest "link buddy".
        OOPs, strike that; Hulka's linkin', too! And he's got about the LOL funniest page on the web!
        - From Blue's: "GotMilk? Interview PlanetStarSiege's GotMilk? Interview talks with Dynamix's Mark Frohnmayer". Think Tadd Portley will loan Yello his lawyer? Why not?
        - Blue also says "Sony Sues Connectix", and Metallica is heard to say, er sing, "SO ****ING WHAT"
        - I didn't spell check this. As Metallica says...
1/29/1999

Gameplex frags new gamer's page
        For the last month I've peen privy to a new page that looks good, and have had to keep under my hat. Last night I was informed via icq that I could mention it, but not give out the url yet (because the real url doesn't work yet). It may be up by tomorrow. If it is, I'll give out the url then.
        Speaking of icq, I was on it quite a bit last night; something has gone wrong with an unknown driver and Quake is hosed on my machine. While I was there, Neil (Yellow) popped by and told me to have a look at the front page of his Katalystic Media page, so I did- Thanks, Neil!
        Unfortunately, it seems to be down right now. Neil told me last night that the internet was messed up all over England. It seems to be a world-wide thing, since some Canadian sites were down yesterday as well.
        I suspect it's Yello's Granny's fault- I think she got him the wrong tube for that starvatron and it's overloading the CIA's big pukatron machine over here in the U.S. 1/29/1999

Moon can't escape Blue's super shotgun
        As Blue pointed out, there's a blue moon out tonight. Look for an update from BitchX.
        Also at Blues, there's mention of WebDog, the service that will let you know BitchX has updated.
        There's another Slipgate that's better than Slipgate (because it still exists) at Game Compass. This one should be to games what Quakeport is to Quake. Unfortunately, it's still l33+ (meaning nobody's heard of it), so its database is still pretty small. Drop by and add your site so I can find it! 1/31/1999

Online now.

OK, guys, here's what Rority told me about time. Uh, don't tell him I told you (he said to say that. I don't know why).

He said Einstein nailed it but few protohumans get what he meant. Rority says the "ten dimension" guys are a joke, that there are four. There are three dimensional axises sliding down the fourth axis, and when it gets to the end the end is the beginning.

I think he's just fucking with my head. So I ask him how far back we're going. Ancient Rome?

He thought that was funny. Maybe it is, I don't speak ancient Roman. So I can only go back fifteen years, but you guys can come along if you're quiet. I wouldn't bother, not much happened.

I'm trying to talk Rority into telling me Saturday's winning lottery number, but he just laughs. He thinks I'm funny.

Rority's weird. I love his stratodoober, though. I wish he'd let me know how they work, but he says I just wouldn't understand.

Oh, he says this is a short trip because he has to get back before... uh, what? Before Kennedy dies? I don't get... oh shit, he pressed the butto

Immy Died
        "Captain Immy" has stopped his Pointless Audio show!
        The poor kid couldn't handle the pressure. Hell, I know I wouldn't have been able to handle it at his age; I never knew how he managed to produce so many shows. He has talent (even if part of it is a talent for pissing people off). He's posted hs reasons at his page.
        A few things he things he didn't mention but I've guessed (and don't know if they are, in fact, true)-
        He's probably got a solid D- in school and a lot of "detention"
        He's probably grounded a lot (he's called both his parents "stupid dicks" on the show, and he mentions ego on the page). For all I know, his parents may have thrown his PC away (or threatened to)
        His girlfriend probably told him "It's me or that damned show"
        Long time Fragfest readers know that my wife, Becky, hates computers ("get off that demned thing!"), but she LIKED Immy's show, and said he sounded like a cross between Second City and Firesign Theatre. Immy WAS funny. Kevin, if you're reading this, I urge you to get those grades up, go to college, and major in broadcasting. You have a talent; don't waste it!
        Here's a fond farewell to the Captain! 1/18/1999

Quake gibs flamethrower
        No, not Flamethrower, flamethrower. The folks at Stroggwar have released the Flamethrower mod, which gives you your very own Flamethrower to use in a game of Quake 2.
        No word as to whether Todd Porter is looking for the true identity of the mod. 1/21/1999

Online now.

Rority loaned me his timeship. He's flabbergasted that a protohuman could drive one, but it's easy. It might be hard if my brain was normally three times as big and got reduced by two thirds... anyway, lets go back fifteen years.

Um... hmmm... what were we doing? Damned stratodoober. Oh! OK, I remember now. Here we go.

Long URL can't escape short URL's bfg
        I hope it's not a bad omen - Yesterday was the first day in a month the Fragfest had fewer visitors than its average, and GamePlex sent login information. I hope it's because so many of you surf in here from school and work, and a good portion of the U.S. was shut down (fingers crossed). Maybe some of the inet was shut down too; my counter's in Canada, and sometimes they get hosed, eh?
        I'm still in the middle of Illinois. I'll have a mirror on my ISP's space for a while, at least until I get everything copied over to Gameplex.
        The only three changes you should see here are a banner at the bottom of the page (which they tell me is a rotational banner that sometimes tells people over on that StarCraft, etc. page about the Fragfest); a shorter URL; and hopefully MORE STUFF. The Game Complex is very generous with server space. I just uploaded the Quake 1 demo, and the Quake 2 demo is coming shortly. If you have some killer skins, maps, mods, etc., send 'em in! I'd especially like a John Lennon skin, a Jimi Hendrix skin, and a Janice Joplin skin. And an Illinois State Capitol complex map so we can all jump on a server and kill some bureaucrats. That's an order, Sarge. Hop to it. Doubletime, dammit, before I give you an article XV!
        My ISP never let me know what my spece limits are here, and I constantly worry about something I've promised being bounced. With Gameplex, I know the limits, and it will be a long time before I come anywhere near filling it up. They're very generous with their space.
        If any other of you hosting services wonder why I chose the Game Complex, it's because they offered. Think WarZone will be pissed at me again like they were when I used Planet Quake's IRC instead of theirs last Halloween?
        To my link buddies; I'll be writing you all shortly, before I replace the mirror here with a "gone fission (boom)" sign. I'll leave a forwarding page here just for you that don't want the hassle of changing the link code, those I don't know are linking, and those of you who don't come by very often. Not to mention the damned search engines! Crap, I've g ot a lot of work to do, by the time I get to play some Quake again I'll be so rusty the newbies will be kicking my ass! I don't know when I'll get to a new Real Audio show.
        Oh, I almost forgot the most important thing- the new URL is [now quite dead and partly at the archive.org graveyard]

Tex Frags LOL Storm
        The last laugh.
        "ION Storm appears to have all it needs for success - top talent, plenty of money, and legions of anxious fans. So why is its future so cloudy?"
        This is a headline from the Dallas Observer. A friend pointed me to this URL via email. "For a number of reasons, the poison pens are already warming up", the article reads. Later in the article, "Porter quickly revealed, however, that his true talent lay not in design but in arrogating [sic] power."
        More quotes from the article: "Porter, especially, had a genius for rubbing others wrong. In one early e-mail exchange, he throws a fit because the company's accountants haven't prepared tax returns quickly enough, and conjectures it's because Wright and Hall owe the government. Hall replies succinctly: 'Yeah, I called Bob up and asked him to delay it...Piss somewhere else, angry boy."
        Mike Wilson is quoted as saying to Porter, ""Pretty much all I've heard from you since I've been here are the reasons why you can't work...you couldn't do a design document without the engine, and then you couldn't do it without art time. Then, all I hear about at our meetings about how to structure the company are concerns about 'what happens to me' when this place all goes to shit...You seem to be focused on meltdown strategies, and protecting the individuals [owners], not the company.
        "[W]e had to wait for a deposition to discover that you've never actually finished much of anything. You bark orders at people like they're a bunch of fucking construction workers...even those not on your team...You consistently try to elevate yourself above the other non-partner, or even 'junior partner' members of this company."
        The article mentions Bitch-X several times. I was wondering why it never mentioned Flamethrower. Perhaps Bitch-X is a Texan? Maybe the Bitch works for the Observer?
        At any rate, to Steve Bauman (who scribbles for some second-rate games magazine in the U.K.) and all the other elitists who were sneering at Flamethrower and all the rest of us with game web pages in the "Flamethrower page pulled" thread at Planet Crap- Read the Fraggin' article! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! 1/15/1999

No nooze frags good nooze
        So far today the closest thing I've found to Quake nooze is an editorial over on Planet Quake, Never Touch the Core.
        The gist of the "balanced" (wishy-washy) article is that you can't have a game that newbies ("casual gamers") and hard core gamers will both like. Actually, it's a pretty good article, and it's well written. Part if its gist seems to me to be inaccurate, at best. The article maintains that hard core gamers play their games forever (Doom, Quake 1) while casual gamers play them for a month or two and then quit. This seems kind of ass-backwards to me.
        I have a three 1/2 year stack of PC Gamer demo CD's, and a whole shelf of full game CD's. Some of the older ones, like Total Distortion, that I bought on a reviewer's word before I wised up and stopped buying games I hadn't demoed onlt got played a few times.
        The casual gamer isn't likely to buy as many games as the hard core gamer, so it seems more likely (s)he'll play what few (s)he has longer.
        That is only a small part of the article, of course, but it seemed to stick out to me.
        What stuck out more is something not touched on in the article, which was written in response to Brian Hook's plan file. That is, the casual gamer doesn't have enough hardware to play cutting edge games like Quake 3! Hell, I can't keep up. My wife won't let me. The casual gamer is Joe Sixpack and his son/daughter, who bought that thing so his kids could keep up at school. There's no way he's going to replace it for Quake 3, let alone tear the damned thing open and put in a new motherboard like I plan to do to mine. I wish Brian and company would make it easier for the casuals- easier to install, better tested (fewer patches), and runable on less than state of the art hardware (while giving those with the cash a reason to have that hardware), like they did with Screamer.
        Too bad it ain't gonna happen. Every time I try to make these points over at Planet Crap, the developers who also haunt that place refuse the clues I offer ("but we have to").
        *sigh* 1/16/1999

Immy Died
        "Captain Immy" has stopped his Pointless Audio show!
        The poor kid couldn't handle the pressure. Hell, I know I wouldn't have been able to handle it at his age; I never knew how he managed to produce so many shows. He has talent (even if part of it is a talent for pissing people off). He's posted hs reasons at his page.
        A few things he things he didn't mention but I've guessed (and don't know if they are, in fact, true)-
        He's probably got a solid D- in school and a lot of "detention"
        He's probably grounded a lot (he's called both his parents "stupid dicks" on the show, and he mentions ego on the page). Far all I know, his parents may have thrown his PC away (or threatened to)
        His girlfriend probably told him "It's me or that damned show"
        Long time Fragfest readers know that my wife, Becky, hates computers ("get off that demned thing!"), but she LIKED Immy's show, and said he sounded like a cross between Second City and Firesign Theatre. Immy WAS funny. Kevin, if you're reading this, I urge you to get those grades up, go to college, and major in broadcasting. You have a talent; don't waste it!
        Here's a fond farewell to the Captain! 1/18/1999

Online now.

If slashdot has covered this, I missed the discussion, but space.com has an interesting article about time travel and Facebook. It seems that astrophysicist Robert Nemiroff at Michigan Technological University in Houghton and his students did a study to find out if time travelers have left traces of their presence in social media. The article says "Perhaps careless time travelers made mention of Pope Francis or Comet ISON on Twitter or Facebook before they were supposed to know about them."

So I asked Rority what he thought about the study. He just laughed. "Poor barely sentient protohumans," he said. "Does this guy think we're stupid??"

"I'm always doing stuff on space and time," Nemiroff was quoted as saying. "This has been a lot of fun."

OK, lets take a fifteen year trip back in Rority's timeship. Try not to fuck up and leave any clues for Nemiroff; remember, you guys are only barely sentient protohumans.

Long URL can't escape short URL's bfg
        I hope it's not a bad omen - Yesterday was the first day in a month the Fragfest had fewer visitors than its average, and GamePlex sent login information. I hope it's because so many of you surf in here from school and work, and a good portion of the U.S. was shut down (fingers crossed). Maybe some of the inet was shut down too; my counter's in Canada, and sometimes they get hosed, eh?
        I'm still in the middle of Illinois. I'll have a mirror on my ISP's space for a while, at least until I get everything copied over to Gameplex.
        The only three changes you should see here are a banner at the bottom of the page (which they tell me is a rotational banner that sometimes tells people over on that StarCraft, etc. page about the Fragfest); a shorter URL; and hopefully MORE STUFF. The Game Complex is very generous with server space. I just uploaded the Quake 1 demo, and the Quake 2 demo is coming shortly. If you have some killer skins, maps, mods, etc., send 'em in! I'd especially like a John Lennon skin, a Jimi Hendrix skin, and a Janice Joplin skin. And an Illinois State Capitol complex map so we can all jump on a server and kill some bureaucrats. That's an order, Sarge. Hop to it. Doubletime, dammit, before I give you an article XV!
        My ISP never let me know what my spece limits are here, and I constantly worry about something I've promised being bounced. With Gameplex, I know the limits, and it will be a long time before I come anywhere near filling it up. They're very generous with their space.
        If any other of you hosting services wonder why I chose the Game Complex, it's because they offered. Think WarZone will be pissed at me again like they were when I used Planet Quake's IRC instead of theirs last Halloween?
        To my link buddies; I'll be writing you all shortly, before I replace the mirror here with a "gone fission (boom)" sign. I'll leave a forwarding page here just for you that don't want the hassle of changing the link code, those I don't know are linking, and those of you who don't come by very often. Not to mention the damned search engines! Crap, I've g ot a lot of work to do, by the time I get to play some Quake again I'll be so rusty the newbies will be kicking my ass! I don't know when I'll get to a new Real Audio show.
        Oh, I almost forgot the most important thing- the new URL is [now quite dead and partly at the archive.org graveyard]

Tex Frags LOL Storm
        The last laugh.
        "ION Storm appears to have all it needs for success - top talent, plenty of money, and legions of anxious fans. So why is its future so cloudy?"
        This is a headline from the Dallas Observer. A friend pointed me to this URL via email. "For a number of reasons, the poison pens are already warming up", the article reads. Later in the article, "Porter quickly revealed, however, that his true talent lay not in design but in arrogating [sic] power."
        More quotes from the article: "Porter, especially, had a genius for rubbing others wrong. In one early e-mail exchange, he throws a fit because the company's accountants haven't prepared tax returns quickly enough, and conjectures it's because Wright and Hall owe the government. Hall replies succinctly: 'Yeah, I called Bob up and asked him to delay it...Piss somewhere else, angry boy."
        Mike Wilson is quoted as saying to Porter, ""Pretty much all I've heard from you since I've been here are the reasons why you can't work...you couldn't do a design document without the engine, and then you couldn't do it without art time. Then, all I hear about at our meetings about how to structure the company are concerns about 'what happens to me' when this place all goes to shit...You seem to be focused on meltdown strategies, and protecting the individuals [owners], not the company.
        "[W]e had to wait for a deposition to discover that you've never actually finished much of anything. You bark orders at people like they're a bunch of fucking construction workers...even those not on your team...You consistently try to elevate yourself above the other non-partner, or even 'junior partner' members of this company."
        The article mentions Bitch-X several times. I was wondering why it never mentioned Flamethrower. Perhaps Bitch-X is a Texan? Maybe the Bitch works for the Observer?
        At any rate, to Steve Bauman (who scribbles for some second-rate games magazine in the U.K.) and all the other elitists who were sneering at Flamethrower and all the rest of us with game web pages in the "Flamethrower page pulled" thread at Planet Crap- Read the Fraggin' article! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! 1/15/1999

No nooze frags good nooze
        So far today the closest thing I've found to Quake nooze is an editorial over on Planet Quake, Never Touch the Core.
        The gist of the "balanced" (wishy-washy) article is that you can't have a game that newbies ("casual gamers") and hard core gamers will both like. Actually, it's a pretty good article, and it's well written. Part if its gist seems to me to be inaccurate, at best. The article maintains that hard core gamers play their games forever (Doom, Quake 1) while casual gamers play them for a month or two and then quit. This seems kind of ass-backwards to me.
        I have a three 1/2 year stack of PC Gamer demo CDs, and a whole shelf of full game CDs. Some of the older ones, like Total Distortion, that I bought on a reviewer's word before I wised up and stopped buying games I hadn't demoed only got played a few times.
        The casual gamer isn't likely to buy as many games as the hard core gamer, so it seems more likely (s)he'll play what few (s)he has longer.
        That is only a small part of the article, of course, but it seemed to stick out to me.
        What stuck out more is something not touched on in the article, which was written in response to Brian Hook's plan file. That is, the casual gamer doesn't have enough hardware to play cutting edge games like Quake 3! Hell, I can't keep up. My wife won't let me. The casual gamer is Joe Sixpack and his son/daughter, who bought that thing so his kids could keep up at school. There's no way he's going to replace it for Quake 3, let alone tear the damned thing open and put in a new motherboard like I plan to do to mine. I wish Brian and company would make it easier for the casuals- easier to install, better tested (fewer patches), and runable on less than state of the art hardware (while giving those with the cash a reason to have that hardware), like they did with Screamer.
        Too bad it ain't gonna happen. Every time I try to make these points over at Planet Crap, the developers who also haunt that place refuse the clues I offer ("but we have to").
        *sigh* 1/16/1999