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

Online now.

I saw Art at Felbers, who came up and said "I'm reading your book. That's a cool book!"

The notice of copyright registration came today. Finally, I registered it in August. Of course, it was delivered by the USPS... OK, I kid. When you register they send an email and tell you the printed document will take six months but you can start suing right away.

Not much else is happening so since Rority's here we'll take a trip back in time. Again. Fifteen years back.

Fragfest frags the illiterate reader
        Planet Quake gets all the good letters, like the one they let me repost in the Humor section.

        Yeah, people write "this is a dumb question" and "you're going to laugh but..." but it's then followed by a perfectly intelligent question, usually one that should have been addressed in Quake's manual but wasn't. Planet Quake seems to get all the morons. I want some, too.

        So, I got a Real Audio encoder. Saturday (I hope) I'll have a Real Audio show, "Quake for the Illiterate" posted. This will be, as far as I know, the only Quake-only real audio show on the internet. Since I've been getting some good internet connections lately, I've bribed my daughter to do the first show while I play a little Quake. Besides, if it sucks, I can blame her! This one's more of a "test show", with just a little "nooze" for the illiterate, and some Quake music.

        The bribe was that I'd help her with a Jazz Jackrabbit page for kids. So she's getting the best of the deal.

        It doesn't usually take much to do a daily update of the page (unless I'm covering a murder trial or something), but I get the feeling a Real Audio show may take a little more work, so I can't say how often the RA shows will be. I'm thinking weekly but shooting for monthly.

        Rudolph the parasite doesn't get along with shamblers very well (but you know they're like cats and dogs, anyway), but Tikki asked if he could keep his last shambler in the Fragfest Garage until he gets his cardboard box at Tripod prettied up. If that damned shambler pees on the car I'm feeding him to Rudolph. The car's fifteen years old, a little shambler pee would probably melt it. Tikki's also sending a review of some game that isn't Quake I told him I'd let him post on the garage wall. Hell, if Rock House can stay in the garage, there's no reason Tikki and his shambler can't, at least for a little while. If he sends the post as a .wav file, I'll stick it in the Real Audio show.

        The show's being done for a 28.8 modem, so the quality may be really crappy, but it's guaranteed to work on any PC that will play Quake 2 over the internet, as long as you have a real audio player.

        You can count on next year's Christmas carols to be done in Real Audio forinat, along with the printed lyrics and midis you had a few weeks ago. 1/4/1999

Garage can't escape Shambler's BFG
        What a mess! Not only did we get two feet of snow and the temperature is twenty below zero (that's so cold it's the same temperature in both Celsius and Farenheight), but there's a pregnant shambler camping in the garage. Of course, Rudolph and the shambler look at each other like you look at a piece of Grandma's pie, both making noises like "camper", "100z3r", and "usuk". If Major Futcup shows up he'll write me up for sure. Anyway, Tikki sent a review of Half-Life, presumably in honor of the pregnant shambler. No word on how the renovations in the cardboard box at Tripod are coming. However, it looks like when the beach house exploded, it took the Arsonists with it. Let this be a lesson, kids: Shambler pee and gunpowder don't mix.

        If you haven't been to Flamethrower's Place, He's been on petrol in the Ion Storm warz. Sorry, I can't resist a really bad intercontinental pun. 1/5/1999

Defrag Died
        Also over at the Weakly Web, Defrag is conspicuous by his absence in the "hosted sites" column. Wha' happened, dude? Oh, and it seems Pile wins the ticket to nowhere; he still hasn't updated. Careful, Tikki got a little shambler pee on it before I wrestled it back. 1/6/1999

Friends rail internet
        Tons o' mail today. An online friend who will remain nameless for now is starting a new Quake page. More news when Mr. Nameless lets me post.

        Another online friend, the Omnipotent Tikki God, found a rune in the ashes of the Quake Beach house that allowed the beach house's ashes to reconstruct themselves into the old Beach House, which Tikki says he'll update as soon as he gets his FTP working right.

        Also, believe it or not, a newbie alerted me that I missed a real important server command; I went to look for it in the Server page and it (blush) wasn't there. This will be fixed, like, right NOW!

        As well as more than the usual number of suggestions and compliments. Anybody who says the Quake community is dead needs to put that hash pipe away for a while. 1/7/1999

Webmasters can't escape puke's BFG
        Yello's had the flu for a few daze, pop by there and wish him well (or at least have a chuckle from his page). Poor guy's so sick Kat Media lost all those pretty link butto... HEY! WAIT A MINUTE!!!

        Desatio's on-his-ass drunk, and should be losing his lunch shortly. Drop by and wish the old fart a happy birthday!

        And- I'm sure Flamethrower's pretty sick of ION's asshole by now. Drop by and offer him some support. If you have a good lawyer, go public and badmouth Todd "Smith" for all of us. 1/11/1999

Fragfest can't escape Game Complex's shotgun
        It looks like I'll be joining the web Gypsies. Seems the Game Complex wants a unique Quake page, and have had their eyes on this one, according to Nacho, who wants me to move over there. It would be nice not having a "url from hell", as Flamethrower put it. There are one or two negatives; there are all those folks with links to here ("WHAT? I'm still linked to that damned Fragfest? WTF, I'm fixing that RIGHT NOW"). All in all, it seems like a good deal. I'll keep a "doorway" here for you folks who have bookmarked so I won't just drop off the face of the internet like Captain Immy, Lag City, and the other web Gypsies did when they moved. Here's a thanks to Nacho and the Game Complex for wanting the Fragfest! 1/12/1999

Online now.

Other than that absolutely nothing whatever has been happening, it's just too cold to go outside. So I'll leave you with a fifteen year old rerun from my old Quake site from New Years Day 1999 you may find amusing.

        Community Died

        "Oh my God! You killed Community! You bastards!"

        Yello says he's both in better spirits and British. He didn't say what was bugging him, but I realized what the problem was when I saw his page yesterday- "dust and ashes", about the Christmas wake/funeral/murder trial over at Planet Crap. I should have known, since I was there, too. My apologies, but I was too jubilant over the birth of a ton of newbies (I think Quake 2 outsold Ferbies at Christmas) and was having too much fun drinking and talking with the murder victim to realize he was dead, and that Yello was distraught over Community's death.

        This was the strangest trial in the history of trials. It seems the Quake community was brutally murdered sometime in the last three years, but the forensic specialists were all too drunk to determine time of death any more closely or whether the victim was, in fact, dead. There were between 50 and 200 jurors, even though there was only one juror, the murder victim. There was no judge, unless you count Morn and Andy, and they weren't being nearly as judgmental as the jury. The sketch artists were Salvador Dali and Andy Warhol. Since both are dead and neither showed up, there were no pictures.

        The only witness called was the murder victim, who spoke at great length about the travesty and injustice of his murder, although he wasn't sure when he died or what he died from. The corpse cried out not only for justice, but plain assed revenge. Actually, most of the trial centered on whether the victim was actually dead. WTF??

        There was more than one suspect. The first suspect called to the stand was Planet Quake, who was accused of poisoning the victim with the deadly drug, commercialism. Planet testified that not only was the victim not dead, they were only out getting high and no malice was intended; that if the victim overdosed, it was accidental. Blue, who didn't show up at the trial, was charged as a co-conspiritor in the poisoning.

        Flamethrower, on trial in another courtroom for arson (he got off after his hanging), showed up to condemn Planet for his choice of what drug he was pushing, and said you could get a better high from the Fragfest or Spew (who also testified) anyway, and not have to worry about overdosing. He then excused himself, saying something about "petrol", which I believe may be some sort of flammable substance the British use for motor fuel, very similar to American gasoline only more expensive.

        More witnesses were called, who accused Id of killing Community by forcing him to conceive and give birth to himself, and gave the time of death as December, 1997. Id did not appear at the trial, but instead sent his lawyer Activision from the firm Activision, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, who argued that not only was Community not dead, he had been born twice. Some witnesses for the prosecution (the prosecutor was also the defense attorney and victim) testified, "I knew Community would die when Quake 2 came out, and if he's not dead, he might as well be because he just hasn't been himself lately". Another witness added "Yeh, thar's jest no spirit in the ol' boy any more. Why, I remember when I wuz yer age we had to walk to our deathmatches, draggin' a 486, in the snow, uphill, both ways. These young whippersnappers jest don't know what the ol' boy was like when he wuz young. Why, he'd take all you young punks blindfolded. He'd even prolly do purty good if you took off yer blindfolds."

        Yello testified, "Look at him.......................He's breathing...................look how big he's gotten........................." Yello was pretty choked up about Community's death, as you could see.

        For my testimony, I did a little cut-and-paste from a posting I made here at the Fragfest last October from my deposition in the Slipgate Central murder trial held at the Beach House. Speaking of the Beach House, Tikki still needs a host or he'll be back in that cardboard box at Tripod again. Seems he's locked himself out or his roommate didn't pay the rent or something, and his shamblers are getting surly from being left out in the rain. I'd let him stay here for a while, but there's just not much room in this little shack.

        Of course, he could do what crash did, just walk away and start living at Planet Crap. But I digress...

        Any way, back to the murder trial. More witnesses were called accusing Newbies of killing Community. Newbies didn't appear, since he not only didn't know the victim very well, he didn't know the trial was even being held. There has been a warrant issued for Newbies' arrest. Newbies was accused of aggravating Community's heart condition with his use of incivility, causing Community to die of a coronary. The rocket launcher and BFG Community always carried around was not accused. Newbies was quoted as saying "L00z3rz, kewl", but the testimony was thrown out as being hearsay or heresy or something.

        Newbies not only is wanted for the murder of Community, he's also wanted for swimming in the lava when the "no swimming" sign is clearly posted, vagrancy (camping without a permit), and cratering.

        Sgt. Hulka showed up and demanded that the victim "gimme twenty", and seemed somehow to implicate Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky in the murder.

        Planet Quake was accused again of killing community by kidnapping Joost Shuur, whose trial was at the Beach House last September (Joost was acquitted of Slipgate Central's still unsolved murder). Another witness (heh, it might have been me) testified that Community had a new foster parent, Quakeport, and was old enough to be out on his own, anyway.

        In the end, Community was convicted of his own murder and sentenced to death. So now you know why Yello was so blue. He thanks you all for the kind card and letter.

        To nearly quote Samuel Clemmons (also dead), "the reports of Community's death have been greatly exaggerated".

        Overheard in a different courtroom at the Planet Crap bar and jail: "You couldn't get a Clue if you were standing naked in a field of Clues during Clue mating season, rubbing Clue musk oil on your body while whistling the Clue mating call and dancing the Clue mating dance."

Now online.

I'm on vacation, so it's still the New Year holiday for me. So I thought I'd post some stuff that was fifteen years old last month from my old Quake site.

Inner City can't escape Redneck's shotgun
Them folks frum Xactriks- ya know, the ones thet made Redneck Rampage, wall, they're makin' a new game with the Quake 2 injun. I caint remember what its called, but my cousin Billy Bob sez It's a Ghetto game whar ya shoot "gangstas". Hell, sounds like a hoot to me. My only quastion is, why didn't they call it- oh, that's right, them ghetto boyz has thick skins, an' aint got the sense 'o hoomer us country folk got. YEEE HAA! Saddle up, boys, we're gonna go Quakin' in the city!

Mouselook can't escape John Baase's railgun
When I first started playing Quake, I wanted to use the joystick, like I did in Doom. I thought at first it was my old joystick, which works fine in DOS but not too good in Windows was the problem. When I got Quake 2, I decided the way to go was look up and down with the mouse, and move with the stick. No amount of control fiddling seemed to work, so I started my quest for console commands. I found tons on the internet, and a large portion of them were incorrect, wrong, and some downright dangerous. So, I made a list and tested them one by one, and eventually made the Console pages.

I never did find out how to look with the mouse and move with the stick, until late last month when I got an email from a reader, John Baase. I've been testing his configuration in single player, and it works!

With a little tweaking, I've even got the joystick to move acceptably. The drawback is, I'm not used to mousing left handed, so the first few times I try it in deathmatch I'm sure to get trounced royally. For a while at least, you can call me "Kenny".

I'll have the answer in the Newbies page in a week or so. I imagine I'm not the only one who was looking for this since he was a newbie!

Planet Quake frags Springfield Fragfest
Gestalt (who has seen the Fragfest) has renamed part of the Planet Quake Mailbag's "Shut the F* up" section "The Asylum".

The sincerest form of flattery! John- I'm honored!

And there's ANOTHER "noo" site called 'UGN 3D' that's got an asylum, too. I'm NOT honored. Hey, Planet Quake let me use one of the "shut the f* up" letters; published something I sent them; and Flamethrower, hosted by them, pimped the Fragfest on his RA show. Besides that, PQ is an old, very good, respectable and well respected site. UGN3D is an upstart, and have ripped off trademarked and copyrighted cartoons from Fox and South Park. It's obvious from the writing style that they've been here before (hint- listen to your English teacher, not me). UGN guys- I'm glad you've been to the Fragfest, now acknowledge it.

In return, I'm ripping off some of their bandwidth. That illegal Eric picture is sitting on their server. :p

Hard drive can't escape spy's BFG
Microsoft has patched the Internet Explorer hole that lets Big Brother (and little sister) peek into your hard drive- again.

The hard part is probably coming up with a patch that keeps the Justice Department out while letting Bill Gates' spys in.

Changes frag Quake
It's been reported by Blues, Planet Quake, and Scary's, among other places, that the 3.20 patch is the final patch. Maybe now I'll get past the fifteenth level without having to start over! At any rate, true or not, we can be pretty sure that once Quake 3 comes out there won't be any more Quake 2 upgrades. Speculation is it will be Spring when it comes out, maybe I'll get it and a new motherboard and Voodoo to run it for my birthday (hint, hint).

I've uploaded the full "newbie patch" along with the "short" (not so short any more) patch, and I'll probably delete the short patch sometime next month. Those needing the short patch will surely have gotten it by then, and at any rate, you could probably download the full patch from here faster than the short patch from Id or CDROM.

Speaking of hints, the one thing that would make me want to get the Fragfest hosted would be to get more visitors. I'd have to quadruple the count to make it worth an ad banner, and I'm not sure any host could do that. If you're hosting and think you can offer a win/win situation, drop me a line and let me know what you have to offer. Weakly Web

Other Quake changes: The final (?) Evil Avatar "patch" was released; I guess that brown paint was just primer. At any rate, the Weakly Web's redesign looks killer; it has my Stamp of Approval(tm). His new logo is downright wicked, I'd like to shake the artist's hand.

After painting Spew, Desatio has announced over there that he's moving. Four good reasons for moving- first, a "URL from Hell", as Flamethrower put it referring to the Fragfest, even worse than mine; a slow connection, making the Real Audio choppy; that "refreshes every two minutes" window; and a 10 meg limit on content. No word to where. Unlike the Quaker Refuge move, I don't have any inside info, so I'll speculate- Sgt. Hulka's is my first guess, as "Part of the Hulka Army" is pasted next to his link there, but Hulka has his own RA show. It could be over at the Weakly Web Apartment complex (renovation recently completed), but again, Flamethrower's there already, but he hasn't done a Real Audio show in a while. I doubt he's going to Warzone, since they already have Immortal and their server is slow as hell, and I doubt he wants to move somewhere almost as slow as GeoCities. Planet Quake has recently gained bandwidth and lost Real Audio, so he could be moving over there. We'll have to wait and see.

Now watch, he'll announce before I can get this posted.

UPDATE: I fraggen' KNEW it, he sent an email just as I was posting. He's going to Hulka's.

Springfield Fragfest can't escape Planet Quake's BFG
PQ fragged the Fragfest Monday and I somehow didn't see it, I must have looked right through it. I wondered why there were about 20% more of you; That explains it! A thanks to John over at the Planet for posting the item I sent, and an asterisk next to the Planet Quake link in the Fragfest Links section (even though I doubt it will have much effect on their hit counter). And to you new folks he sent by, thanks for visiting!

I may not affect Planet Quake's hit counter much, but there's a young fellow over at 5assedmonkey with a site named The Heap. He runs a "classified ads for Quake". This guy is doing a service for the Quake community, even though not many people have discovered it yet. Drop by and tell him Steve from the Springfield Fragfest sent you. If you're trying to get rid of that old shambler that keeps chewing up your shoes and crapping on the floor, maybe you can place a free ad and get rid of the beast.

Kenny Died
Those Bastards! I finally pried myself away from Quake long enough to look at PC Gamer's South Park game article. I was all set to write "All Right! Quake in South Park! Kick ass!"

Instead, I'm PISSED (folks in the U.K., that's "very angry" over here in the U.S., not "drunk"). All I can say is, WTF?!! PC Gamer's article says that it should be "acceptable" on a 266 with a first generation Voodoo card. They take a deliberately cheesy 2d cartoon and make a game out of it. The "artists" complain that the creators want them to stay with 16 colors so it remains true to the show. So we have a 16 color 2d game stuffed into the third dimension ("perspective", for those of you that get it) that needs twice the hardware as Quake 2, which was bleeding edge just a year ago!

I've been searching for more info all over the net, and can't find any. Shiploads are written about the game, but PC Gamer's hardcopy article (written in October and published this month) has the only info about requirements, and it's possibly only speculation.

"Godammit" (as Cartman would say), this is CRAP. This stupid game should run on a 286 in EGA. If ever there was proof that game developers were stupid and game programmers lazy, this is it.

I may be writing "Steve does a back flip into the lava" tomorrow if it turns out the PC Gamer article was wrong.

Webmeisters disconnected
Flamethrower is still "twisting in the wind" (Chubby Checker after beans?) Tikki God's Quake Beach House has been out of tequila since November, and Quaker Refuge hasn't updated since earlier this month; its webmaster, in the U.S. Navy, is probably lugging a BFG to Iraq to kick Saddam's ass with.

This means the "no post" contest is back on. Last one to post wins. The winner receives- First prize: A vacation to beautiful downtown nowhere. No expenses are spared- or paid. Second prize: A brand new cherry red 1999 convertible swift kick in the ass! Third prize: a rasperry ;p. Fourth prize, provided we get another entry: Absolutely nothing!

Crash, Slipgate, and other permanently dead sites are ineligible. Void where prohibited or otherwise inconvenient. Taxes, shipping, and all other costs are the responsibilities of the winners. Keep out of reach of children. Close cover before striking. Contents under pressure.

So root for your favorite non-posted site today; you may win a pound of fresh content!

If you own one of the abovementioned sites, tomorrow's poll is "how often should the Fragfest be updated"; 'cause I'm thinking about sitting on my ass for awhile; why should you have all the fun?

Update: Quaker Refuge updated 12/18. So far Tikki's winning; no update in over a fraggin' month. And- Nacho couldn't get the RA going, so that new RA show won't be. There are a few other new shows linked, though.

PMS Frags Real
Evil frags Christmas Rocks
If you've been wondering since Halloween when Aurora was going to do that RA show, wonder no longer; it's in the links section. The last one got Paul Steed (my last interview got "some guy from Geocoties"; see the Humor section)

Meanwhile, Evil Avatar has decked his page in red and mostly green... and a download of Asteroids. Drop by the links page and pay him a visit!

And bug Pile, now in the contest, to update his page.

UPDATE and speaking of Quake ladies, according to an article on Game Girlz, some of you boyz have been acting like total morons. Oh, you weren't acting?

It's that time of year again. The time of year when everyone and their dog waxes nostalgic about all the shit nobody cares about from the year past, and stupidly predicts the next year in the grim knowlege that when the next New Year comes along nobody will remember that the dumbass predicted a bunch of foolish shit that turned out to be complete and utter balderdash. I might as well, too. Just like I did last year (yes, a lot of this was pasted from last year's final chapter). But first, the yearly index:

Journals:
the Paxil Diaries
A Paxil Diary Christmas Story
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012

2013
If I wanted to be nagged I'd get married...
The rogue animal
An Open Letter to Google
Beam me up, Scotty!
John thinks I'm a space alien
Why does McDonalds want to make me fat?
The phone
What a wonderous thing I have in my pocket!

Sci-Fi:
Last year I predicted I'd get the book out, and damned if that one wasn't accurate! I gots balls of crystal. It's selling like hotcakes!

You know the hotcakes I'm talking about, the ones in the dumpster behind iHop that they couldn't sell. But hell, I didn't write it to make money, I wrote it so people would read it.

But nobody's following the links to the book. Guys, you saw a preliminary sketch at slashdot, the book is the painting. Maybe you're all waiting until the whole thing is posted... I hope.

I also started another sci-fi book, this one about ferrying crackwhores to Mars. The working title: Mars, Ho! Here's what's sketched out so far, although I haven't worked on it in quite a while:
Whores in Space
More of the new book
Uh, three?
The Eyedropper On Board
Fire!
A routine inspection. With a hangover.
Bill's crippled boat
Um, what chapter is this?
Tammy's book

Last years' stupid predictions:
100% accuracy!
Someone will die. Not necessarily anybody I know...
SETI will find no sign of intelligent life. Not even on Earth.
The Pirate Party won't make inroads in the US. I hope I'm wrong about that one.
US politicians will continue to be wholly owned by the corporations.
I'll still be a nerd.
You'll still be a nerd.
technophobic fashionista jocks will troll slashdot.
Slashdot will be rife with dupes.
Many FPs will be poorly edited.
I'll finally get that book in paper form

Nailed it! Here's one to replace it, as I'll just keep the same list: I'll retire and/or die. Actually, I retire at the end of February. I'll have a lot more time, maybe I'll get all the editions of Nobots formatted, The Paxil Diaries in print, and the Mars book finished. Maybe.

Happy New Year! Ready for another trip around the sun?

Online now.

A lot of people have the flu around here. Leila's sick, so we won't be having lunch today. Ruthie, the bartender at Felbers, had it last week. I dropped by there after work last night.

"Hi, Steve!" Ruthie said. "Sell any more books?"

"Not in a while," I replied. Billy's ex girlfriend, whose name I can never remember, was sitting on the other side of the extremely obese young woman sitting to my right. She said "You wrote a book?"

"Yeah. A science fiction novel."

"I love to read. That's why I have such a big purse, I read on the bus. There's four books in it right now. I'd like to read it."

"There's a copy here, just ask Ruthie. You can read it here."

Ruthie got the book for her. Someone asked "What's that?" Ruthie answered "It's the Felbers book!"

"Felbers book?" the obese woman asked.

"Yeah," I said. "I wrote part of it here."

Billy's old girlfriend complained that she couldn't concentrate in the bar, and finally talked me into loaning her a copy. "just leave it with Ruthie or Rachel," she said.

I drank a couple of beers and went home and put in a science fiction Christmas move I'd forgotten to watch, The Life of Brian. I think I fell asleep before the outer space scene with the weird aliens.

Like I said... OK, that aside. I was wondering why I can't watch over the air TV on my phone? I mean. it has a radio.

Then I realized -- not enough room for the antenna. Microwave antenna are tiny, TV antennas range from six inches to a meter depending o if UHF or VHF. Duh!

Then a couple years later KSHE is advertising this NextRadio app that lets you hear local FM radio without streaming. Huh? How did they do that? FM is right between channels 6 and7 on the VHF band. that's at least a meter's wavelength (I haven't done the math). How the hell?

It seems they use the ear bud or audio cable wire as an antenna. I'm impressed! Now, the next phone I buy can I watch channel four on it?

Actually it was posted Saturday and I never got around to journaling. I'll post the next chapter today or tomorrow.

I was at Felbers yesterday, and who should come in but Tammy Seger, who I haven't seen in the couple of years since I broke up with her; She's the one known as "Skinny Tammy". I'd broken it off because she'd gotten into some business I wanted nothing to do with, and she said a lot had happened. She'd been in the hospital a couple of times and everything was different with her.

She wound up spending the night.

I didn't get much sleep.

We got up early, she had to return the car she'd borrowed, I had to give her a ride home, about 30 miles away, and Leila and I had planned on traveling down to Belleville to visit family on this Christmas Eve.

It was hellishly cold this morning, two degrees with a -10 wind chill. That's -17 for those of you in the civilized world, with a wind chill of -23.

My car wouldn't start. Damned battery was probably frozen solid. W decided I'd roll my car into the street so she could jump me. No sooner than I had the flashers on a cop came by. I told her we were jumping it and it would only take a minute.

The trunk was frozen shut. I couldn't get to the jumpers. I told the cop I have roadside assistance through my insurance and would call them. "It's only 6:30," she said. "There won't be anyone there."

"Yes there will be," I said. "They're staffed 24/7." She was dubious and asked again what tow truck I would like to come. "I have them on the line," I said.

The insurance lady said it would be two hours. "But," I protested," I can't wait two hours, it's blocking traffic and the police are parked behind it."

"Oh dear, let me call again." Shortly after I was able to report to the cop "twenty minutes." Twenty minutes later the mechanic had trouble getting it to turn over, but it started. The radio wasn't working and the CD changer's lights were flashing in a weird pattern, the ABS light was lit, the brake light was lit. I backed it into the driveway and went inside to warm up.

I felt downright ill when I got inside. Damn, gettin' old, I guess.

The trip to Edinberg was a nightmare, driving straight into the sun. I mentioned I was retiring in February. "That's great!" she said. "What are you going to do?"

I grinned. "Any damned thing I want!"

"You're going to get bored."

"No I won't."

"There's only so much TV you can watch until you're sick of it."

"I've been writing."

"Oh, yeah, you told me about your book. That's an accomplishment! I'd like to read it some time."

"You should have said something, we could have brought a copy."

"I thought you only had the one."

We finally made it to Edinberg and she thanked me, said she loved me, and went inside.

The trip home was fine, with the sun behind me. I called Leila and Mom, picked up my notebook and started typing this journal...

Online now.

I went out and cleaned the snow off of the lights and windows and drove off. It was really slick. I cashed a check, drove home and called the cleaning lady. "I'm not making you go out in that," I said. "You get a paid vacation today, I'll give you thirty next week." She works an hour on Saturday mornings. She's been here to clean once and the house is a lot better.

Princess staggered out of Patty's bedroom. "Princess? Are you OK?" It was pretty obvious that she wasn't. I'd have to take her to the vet Monday.

Leila called, and I told her we'd have lunch the next day when it was less slick. Actually, she suggested it. I asked if I could borrow her cat carrier, telling her Princess was sick. She said I could pick it up when I saw her.

The next day Princess seemed normal but I was going to take her to the vet, anyway. I took Leila to lunch -- and we both completely forgot the carrier. I went by Felbers on the way home. Not much going on there, but there was someone with pot. I was glad I could get some, it's been scarce and I was almost out.

I couldn't get Princess in until Tuesday afternoon. I went to get Leila's cat carrier, came home and got Princess. I picked her up, and she's lost a lot of weight. I was worried.

That carrier was completely necessary, as I found out last year when she had the ingrown toenail. She doesn't like the outside at all. She'd started howling and clawing as soon as we went through the door. I still have scars from the clawing.

The vet had very bad news; sixteen year old Princess wasn't sick, she was dying. She had no diseases but all her organs were shutting down; she was literally dying of old age. I went ahead and had them do bloodwork and inject plasma because she was severely dehydrated.

I started crying in the vet's office. At least, a tear or two left my eye despite my efforts to keep those damned tears in. "I can't even bury her," I said. "The ground is frozen solid."

There was pained empathy on the doctor's face. "We have cremation facilities," she said. "Talk to your daughter and see if she wants euthanasia." She had some fancy cat food that was for cats that refused to eat, and some appetite stimulation pills. "Don't get your hopes up," she said. I got Princess to lick at the food once, but that was it.

I'd tried to call Patty from the vet's but had gotten no answer, probably at work or in class, I thought. My pocket buzzed against my leg on the way home. I took Princess inside and checked my phone.

It had been Patty calling me back. I called her back. Phone tag. I made Princess comfortable on the couch next to me. Little One came up, jealous. I tried to explain to the silly little cat that Princess was dying and needed me, and started crying hard. Uncontrollably.

The phone rang. It was Patty. "H-hello?"

"Dad? Are you ok?"

I sobbed some more, powerless to stop. Princess was Calie's kitten, the last surviving one in the litter. Patty's been in Ohio for almost ten years but her cats stayed here. I was losing an old friend. No, an old family member. I was probably crying as much for Patty as for myself.

I told Patty about the vet visit, how Princess had no disease but was just too old to stay alive much longer. "Like Bill last year," she said. He was my step father, "Grandpa Bill" to Patty who had known him all her life.

Getting old sucks. The worst thing about it is everybody dying all around you. My dad is next, he's dying of liver cancer thanks to whoever manufactured all that polychlorinated biphenyl transformer oil he was exposed to in his career as electrical lineman.

At least I have a valid reason for the blues now. Happy lights won't help, just time. Ironically, Princess is beside me right now, and healing won't start until she's gone.

But no more pets. When Little One is gone that's it. It just hurts too damned bad when they die.