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newer entries...
03-30-00 Miaka! Tamahome! Miaka! Tamahome!
03-25-00 whine and ye shall receive
03-23-00 blues
03-19-00 "My sister has a tattoo."
03-16-00 what's with this fog? what's with this pole?
03-14-00 I'm being superficial today
03-11-00 animals with taste
03-10-00 something fishy this way comes
03-08-00 dithering
03-06-00 Yes. That is a cow alright.
03-05-00 fired up
03-03-00 delaying tactic
older entries...
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Miaka! Tamahome! Miaka! Tamahome! |
| 03-30-00 |
 I've now seen all of Fushigi Yuugi. Well, not really. Not even close. Just the first DVD collection. One would naturally expect the last episode of the last disc of a boxed set to end a story, particularly considering the rate at which the quest was proceeding. But nooooooooo. Their motto is "Never leave the audience satisfied when you can leave them writhing in agony as they wait for the next US release."
And Steph is laughing about it, I might add. Hmmph.
Ever wish life had an undo option? How about copy-and-paste (with, say, $50 bills)? About all I can manage is drag and drop.
Richard Garriot is leaving OSI. What began as a rumor backed up by email that shouldn't have been publicly shared became, over the course of a handful of hours, solid confirmed fact. Now the rumor says the whole thing is an early April Fool's Day hoax. I don't think so.
Kind of a weird thought, but what are they going to do now that "Lord British" is gone, have Blackthorn take over Brittania? Or how about that guy Rainz who killed him?
I played some more CyberStorm 2 lately. Briefly fun, but I want something new. I doubt they're ever going to make a third in the series after the lackluster reviews and poor sales. Maybe after a few more months of Java classes I'll be able to write my own turn-based mech combat game. Except it'd have no art... hmmm.
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whine and ye shall receive |
| 03-25-00 |
I'm laughing.
Friday morning I just felt too blah and weary to come in to the office. Knowing I had nothing time-critical on my plate at the moment and thinking there'd be no interesting meetings, I took a sick day. I was both wrong and right.
 I dozed and pondered through the morning, then joined Steph in the afternoon to throw Donna from the train. Er, pick her up from the train station I mean. We took her to Yemanja Brasil, a great Brazilian restaurant in a part of St. Louis that seems unlikely at first glance. Great food, great drinks (we had that thing with sugar-cane rum and lots of limes... wow), great music. Just what I needed! Yemanja, aka Yemayá, is the "Mother Whose Children Are The Fish" in the Ifa religion and there's a huge festival for her in Brazil. She's the "mermaid" in the Starbucks logo -- the star on her crown gives it away. Yemanja may or may not have a direct correlation in the Egyptian religion, but if she does it's probably Donna's mother, Aset.
Yemanja Brasil is many things, but fast is not one of them -- we were probably there a little over 2 hours (including the time spent in the lounge waiting for them to open for dinner). My mood had been greatly improved by the Frango Danielle (sort of like really good chicken parmigiana, except it's Brazilian and doesn't have parmesan) and the drink (I think it was a Caparissima?) already, but there was more in store. I wanted to stop by the office on the way back home to feed Moe and let Donna say hi to whoever was there, and that's when I learned I missed a very interesting meeting indeed.
This is another one of those times when the NDA gets in the way, but for now, suffice to say I'll have that "new project to sink my teeth into" and then some. I'm kind of stunned still.
Last night, the Fushigi Yuugi Marathon began. I'm not hooked yet, though the bit with the Emperor was pretty funny. The resident Chichiri Otaku says it really gets going after about the 5th episode though, so I have no doubt my butt will be glued to Jeff's couch today watching it.
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blues |
| 03-23-00 |
I'm in one of those moods. I don't want to get up in the morning and go to work, don't want to eat, don't want to feed the lizards, don't want to play games, don't want to not play games, don't want to go over to Steph and Jeff's to watch Gundam Wing, don't want to sit around the house by myself. I don't even want to write this entry. I feel like I need to do something different or experience something new to break out of it, but I don't want to do anything new!::flail::
So what is it I need... new project to sink my teeth into? Vacation? Drinking binge? Change of career? Tattoo? Girlfriend? New computer? Couple of days to myself to get my head together? Website redesign? A box of one dozen crazed starving weasels?
I started playing StarCraft again a little bit, for variety. Rogue Spear is getting to be almost routine... but I just checked and Sputnik Satellite is up to version 5 now. I'll have to give it a shot, so to speak. Can't wait for Diablo Zwei though.
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"My sister has a tattoo." |
| 03-19-00 |
Our departure from the office for the weekend's airsoft game was serenaded by a chorus of beeping UPS alarms. A truck had hit a utility pole and wiped out a transformer, killing power to Simutronics, a small apartment complex and a large shopping center for a few hours. In the midst of this, David, Erik, Eric (who I'll call Zoha to reduce confusion) Jeff and me bailed out and left the emergency shutdown and recovery to those left in the office, who handled it well.
Zoha's van has something in common with my mom's Grand Am - some combination of comfy seats and the sound of the tires on the road, maybe - that lulls me to sleep. I couldn't keep my eyes open, despite the fact that gaming, dinner, Gundam Wing and reading usually keep me up until 2 AM.
I began to come out of my daze as we neared Kansas City and began the long, arduous search for a motel room. Between a dog show, the Special Olympics, and the fact that it was past midnight, it took a while to find a place with rooms available for less than $70. We finally struck gold though, and I settled down to dreams about driving all over Kansas City looking for a shop that carried airsoft BBs that weren't too expensive or sold out...
 Our destination the next morning was Jaeger's Subsurface Paintball. There's an underground business complex - that's right, underground - called SubTropolis. The area used to be limestone mines, and contrary to the usual image of a mine as a narrow, claustrophobic series of tunnels, these were actually huge rooms with big pillars at regular intervals and lots of ventilation. The perfect place for cheaply constructing offices, cold storage, and, yes, even a paintball park.
It was a bit disappointing when we had to get back in our vehicles and drive up the road (up being the key word) to our area. Maybe in the summer when things get absolutely miserable for surface dwellers, we'll be able to play in the nice cool caves, instead of on top of them.
We had the run of the place though, which included a speedball field; a typical paintball "village" of oil drums, cable spools and plywood shacks; and a mid-sized wooded area with roads, hills, a couple of old barns and lots of thorns. What is it with thorns? These things were up to 3 inches long and just plain evil looking. However, they were mostly confined to trees rather than tangling vines, and much easier to avoid as long as you didn't dive into them. I don't think I got a single one, though Eric was perforated pretty good.
For most of the day, the teams were basically Simu and a couple of guys vs. Team Pride and a couple of guys. We were outclassed, of course, and both my radio and Eric's were freaking out. I was incapacitated by fog problems with my glasses and goggles during the first scenario, which lessened as the day went on. Vision and general physical fitness are my two main problems in this game now, and hopefully I can fix one of those by trying those Sansei screen goggles that Redwolf sells; the other will come with time and practice.
One scenario was spiced up by the inclusion of a spy on each team, chosen by a random drawing; everyone else got challenge phrases so we could recognize the traitor from the other team. Jeff and I were concentrating on some guys on the other side of the ridge when David came walking casually down the road toward us. I figured he'd been "killed" and was going back to the dead pool. Imagine my surprise when I felt a gun barrel in my back and David quietly calling for a surrender! If I'd have yelled a warning to Jeff I assume he'd have shot me and that would have hurt a lot... so he got Jeff too. At that point though, nearly all of our time was in the dead pool about to resurrect, and we let them know who the traitor was. It didn't help much as their base defense was very well placed and every one of our team who got near one of their three flags was lit up from at least two angles.
When you play against Team Pride, when you hear gunfire ahead of you, that means there's already at least two guys behind you. So in a scenario where we had to defend our flag from capture, I knew they were going to come up a certain tree-covered hill way out on the right flank. I found a near-perfect place to hunker down and wait, and sure enough, they came. A combination of luck and skill (or my lack of same) kept the pair of flankers alive as I fired on them. One of them charged up the hill to my left and found cover from which to exchange fire with me, and the other guy just plain disappeared. I was paranoid to say the least, expecting #2 would work his way around me while #1 kept me pinned down in my foxhole. With a radio I might have gotten some support, but it was not to be. #1 finally nailed me, and I never did figure out where #2 was.
 To wrap up the day we played some CQB games in the "village". It was simple, fast, and fun: one team played a group of federal agents, the other played a gang of drug lords holed up in their clandestine drug lab. We split up the teams differently, and my team started off as the bad guys. Rather than taking a position inside a building, I lurked behind one. Nobody reached my position what with all the crossfire, and I nailed one of the "agents" and didn't get eliminated myself. In the second game we were the agents, and when we split up and spread out I put myself in the front line and took the direct approach. I had a choice of standing there exposed or running through lines of fire from several buildings. It was the end of the day and I was tired, so I kept still. I kept one guy's head down, but suppressive fire only works for so long. After a couple of minutes when I'd emptied my clip, he popped up and nailed me.
I sat out the next one but took photos instead. When an agent yelled "DEA, drop your weapons and come out with your hands up!" I yelled "CNN, don't shoot!" Unfortunately I'd left my goggles back at the van at that point, and didn't really get in close enough to take good photos. Plus I kept hitting the power button on David's camera rather than the shutter. Doh!
I think I prefer that kind of action to the running-around-in-the-woods stuff, but I wouldn't want to do it exclusively. Spices are the variety of life, or something.
Overall I'm in less pain than that first MWRAA game I attended. A little sore, and wishing the weekend had another day so I could veg out today and have tommorow to do laundry and stuff like that, but I can stand up and sit down relatively free of agony. That's progress.
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what's with this fog? what's with this pole? |
| 03-16-00 |
 We watched Howard Stern last night (it was on before Gundam Wing), which may or may not explain the headline. If not, don't worry about it, let's just say that there are people in the world even more tasteless than Stern himself. I just kinda found the line funny 'cause the first half sounds like something DR players demand to know when the games bog down. ::whistle::
 Steph found the Gundam Wing image I was looking for to use as wallpaper. The W. Kids Photo Album has a bunch of stuff, including this image to counteract the effects of all those boy pics. Une, Noin, Sally and Relena at the beach. An unlikely meeting, but who cares?
We did lunch at Tachibana and I know we're going to be going back. A lot. If you go at lunchtime (which in their world is before 2 PM, which sadly doesn't coincide with our usual lunch schedule) and don't get sushi, it's cheap. I had nabeyaki udon, which when you get right down to it is chicken noodle soup (but with big square noodles, tempura shrimp, lightly fried egg, and a couple of semi-identifiable veggies). Good stuff, but not as good as the diamond beef... and pretty challenging to eat for a chopstick klutz like me. I bet chopsticks are the reason they use those thick noodles though, 'cause I'd have made a real fool out of myself trying to eat angel hair pasta that way!
That $6 scope doesn't fit my funky nonstandard scope mount. Oh well. I checked the center of gravity of my FAMAS with and without the mount and it actually doesn't make that much difference after all, so I left it off. Looking forward to the MWRAA game this weekend.
Sometimes I wish my NDA didn't get in the way. Somebody asked me the weirdest question of my life yesterday, and all I can say about it here is... earspoons.
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I'm being superficial today |
| 03-14-00 |
 Yes, I'm still playing Rogue Spear. Found a new (to me) mod, Sputnik Satellite's Weapons Mod 4.0, that's on par with Lloyd's. Expect a writeup sometime soon, maybe as part of a review of a few others I've tried, or maybe along the same lines as the LWM guide. By the time I write that though he may have released his next version...!
Honestly though, the game is less thrilling than it used to be -- I've done one (hundred) terrorist hunts too many. There's some challenge in playing without a heartbeat sensor, but when you've taken out 29 out of 30 terrorists finding that last one is a chore. It's like the end of a Starcraft game where the enemy's decisively beaten, but it takes 15 minutes to find that one last inactive spore colony. Still, there's a bit of fun in trying out new weapons, which is why I'm on this mod kick.
I guess The Company is making some progress on the bug hunt... we managed to go the whole weekend without a crash. Since I'm on call this week I really appreciate that.
Took a walk to Wal-Mart for lunch today - yeah, I know, it's not exactly a paragon of fine dining. Lo and behold, they had a Tasco 4x15 scope for $6. I have very little doubt that it's a piece of crap, but the point is it's a six dollar piece of crap. It's just there for looks anyway. Purchasing it was a true personal triumph, especially since I had to overcome the obstacle of being invisible in retail stores. I've missed my calling; I should be a shoplifter. There were two epmloyees sorting fishing lures within biting range and they still both missed the fact that I was alternating between examining a display case full of expensive stuff and glancing meaningfully in their direction. Some people just need verbal cues I guess... and for some reason I'm always reluctant to speak up to get their attention. It's always a big pointless internal struggle. There are worse personality quirks I guess.
 The Mooville Three have been following Gundam Wing since it began on Toonami. I'm enjoying it, though (a) it exhibits a high degree of cheesiness, (b) for a series with giant robots, explosions, spaceships, assasins, bigass guns and energy swords, it sure does seem to be marketed toward teenybopper girls, (c) for some bizarre reason the common Japanese name "Hiro" is spelled "Heero" and there's just something really annoying about that.
 Let's see now. There are five 14-15 year old prettyboys, 4 of whom have dark hair and tough-guy attitudes and the 5th is blond, rich, nature-loving and ambiguously gay. There's a decandently rich guy with long blond hair and too much fashion sense for his own good. There's a guy in a mask who also has long blond Hanson-like hair, who otherwise is admittedly kinda cool.
On the female side there's Relena, Une, and Noin. Relena is, let's face it, a freak. Though she looks pretty good in a uniform, she's got this creepy death wish, and we keep yelling at Heero to just kill her and get it over with. Lady Une is pretty much cruel and loathsome at this point. Noin is more sympathetic than Une but is on the wrong side of the conflict, and seemed really cool for a few minutes right up until the point where she wimped out. Sigh.
It's just not fair. Look at the fan sites out there and you'll see page after page dedicated to the "G-Boys" (gag), two Noin shrines (one of which is shared with Zechs) and none for the other chicks. And let's not even go into what's not available in the desktop wallpaper department.
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animals with taste |
| 03-11-00 |
Gah... the "previous entry" link has been stuck on archive 8 instead of 9 this month. Sorry about that, it's fixed now.
Wednesday night I had to turn on the AC. Last night we got about 6 inches of snow. What's the deal with Missouri anyway?
I wasn't quite sure whether Bruce was kidding when he said it'd snow, but I had a sinking feeling when a cute, friendly, vocal, and collarless grey kitten tried to adopt me as I approached my front door. Reminded me of Sayzor's cat in many ways. I didn't want to risk The Wrath of Landlord, the mutilation of my roommates, and fleas all together... but if it weren't for the lizards I probably would have let the kitten in for at least the night.
I made a list of things to get done today, which was so long that writing it wore me out and I went back to bed. No, not really. But I did finally do the dishes (after a month of neglect) and tax return. I goofed on the first pass and came up with a $1200 refund... after daydreaming which airsoft gun to spend half of it on, I went back over it and found my mistake. Darn. $300.11 back from Uncle Sam, and $7 sent off to Uncles Lewis and Clark. I'm sure in a few months Missouri will refund me $50 again anyway... you've gotta love a state that takes "balanced budget" so literally. Well, no you don't... it'd be better if there were no state income tax in the first place. Or no property tax on vehicles, so I don't have to go 3 different places and pay each of them in order to renew my tag. :P
I have this irrational reaction somewhere between frustration, panic, and anger that hits me whenever it's time to deal with stupid bureaucratic stuff. The IRS and the MO DMV top my $#!+ list right now, though come to think of it, neither of them was nearly as bad as the University of South Florida. Anyway, the $900 mistake lightened the mood a little bit and stopped my teeth from grinding.
Moe digs Apoaclyptica. He was really bopping around there for a bit. I think it's the bass from the subwoofer conducting through the desk, bowl and water and giving him a thrill.
He just plain doesn't like Aqua Culture Betta food nearly as much as freeze-dried bloodworms. I can sometimes fool him into eating the stuff by making it skim across the surface, but after he has a bite of it he gives up on it. Watching a fish eat is not nearly as cool as watching a lizard eat, but I take my cheap thrills where I can get 'em.
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something fishy this way comes |
| 03-10-00 |
 Got my fish. Need to learn how to take fish photos.
These are not two radically different fish you're seeing here, but two shots without flash and one with. Moe Betta (I know it's a lame pun, but I couldn't resist) is I think what would be called an impure light-bodied blue butterfly -- his fins are a nice rich blue at the base and white at the tips, while his body is a mostly salmon/white with a bit of blue/purple patchwork. Pets Plus had so many nice Bettas that it would have been easier picking 3-4 instead of one. Originally I thought I wanted a royal blue or some sort of green, but when this guy flared his fins at me and I saw the incredible blue and white -- which he doesn't seem to want to display often -- I chose him.
Besides, Steph was getting pushy and wanted me to just pick one and go. Pblblblblblt.
I can already predict that Moe will be the first of many Bettas. The main limiting factor will be desk space though, I still need to have room to work and to put stuff. :)
I have discovered the joys of Napster and have been grabbing those rare B-sides, collaborations, and remixes as well as trying out new music. Apocalyptica is neat stuff -- a Finnish cello quartet that mostly does covers of Metallica and other bands, with a few original songs. I'm going to have to buy their CDs. Kittie too. And the music industry thinks Napster is a threat...! On the other hand, it did let me decide definitely not to buy a Tricky album, which I'd thought about doing a year ago.
Still haven't come up with a design for dave.mooville.net, but after a bit of messing around I came up with a tileable cow-spot background I'm happy with (even if it doesn't look natural).
I haven't been playing The Sims at all. Sigh. I've been doing the Rogue Spear thing this whole time. Rumor said that the mission pack, Urban Operations, went gold -- and then Red Storm squashed it. The Nato 3 mod is in closed beta and should be coming soon. Both of those will keep me playing RS for months... at least until Diablo II is released, or maybe Hitman: Code 47 if it's as good as it should be.
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dithering |
| 03-08-00 |
So I stopped by PetSmart again to look into Betta supplies and info, and was pulled over by a cat. She was sitting in a cage, clearly unhappy at not having the run of the place. She said as I passed by, "Mmmmeow?" Translation: I'm just a poor little orphan, but I'm really nice and I promise I won't eat your lizards.* Won't you take me home? She was cute, sort of a reverse version of Jasmine as far as colors and personality go. It was a near thing but I escaped without adding another pet to my menagerie.
 I picked up a book on Bettas at PetCo though... and it seems to be a waste. Unlike reptiles, as long as you're not going to breed them there's not that much you need to know. All those tiny web pages I've found with seemingly little content actually covered the bases pretty well.
Pets Plus (which didn't impress me where it comes to reptiles) has some very nice Bettas. They just didn't have any small-but-not-too-small bowls that I liked. You can keep Bettas in tiny containers but you have to change the water that much more often, but it's a waste to get even a 2 gallon tank since you can only keep one fish in it, so there's a narrow range of good sizes.
For the first time, instead of mooching from Steph and Jeff, I cooked for them last night. I made my unnamed mustardpowder-soysauce-sesame-garlic steak. It turned out okay. Whew.
I'm dithering over the design for dave.mooville.net as well as what I'm actually going to put up there. I'd originally planned on moving the "goodies" section over there and reworking it, as well as a collection of links to random goofiness. I may still do that, or I may not. We'll see.
* unless I decide I really want to
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Yes. That is a cow alright. |
| 03-06-00 |
Mooville.net is now live. I'll be putting something up there shortly, probably moving off my Goodies section. The journal will stay here on seshat.org, probably the message boards too.
 Ha! An entire Lisa Gerrard song just played through without being interrupted by the sounds of Steph screaming in the next cubicle over. She's slipping. Next thing you know she'll be eating fries without ketchup, and joining in airsoft games! Well, not the next one I guess since she's on duty. But we will get her hooked on this thing soon enough, oh yes. We've got Zoha addicted, and though Atrathien wasn't dressed for stomping around in the mud, he got a taste by shooting the AK and FAMAS (as well as the camera). So it's only a matter of time for Steph. Bwahahaha.
We have gone restaurant-crazy this weekend, which is why I'm having half a poor boy sub and a bowl of ramen for lunch. Aside from indulging in the excesses of Babalu's, we took Atrathien to Tachibana, a Japanese place Jeff's eaten at before but the rest of us have always wanted to try. I'm not a sushi kind of guy, but the Diamond Steak rocked my world, and it was cheaper than teppan yaki at Shogun. I'm sure we'll be going back for lunch specials many times in the near future (after payday that is) and I'll finally get to try yaki soba, yakitori, and stuff like that. Whee!
 We stopped by the Asian grocery store, and while Steph bought nori and fish cakes and stuff like that, I bought a bunch of candy and snacks. The rice candy disappeared fast and left me wanting more. I have a big round thing of Pepero (Korean imitation of Pocky) sitting on my desk, and last night I had something that looked like Bugles, tasted like Bugles, and was labeled "Cookies (Crunchy Type American)". Mmmm, cone snackoo!
But they didn't have Kasugai Orange Gummy, my favorite Japanese candy of all. So I put in a $30 order at Pockotaku.com:
- Glico Strawberry Tsubu Tsubu Pocky
- Glico Roast Pretz
- Glico Tomato Pretz
- Kasugai Orange Gummy
- Kasugai Roasted Wasabi Hot Green Peas
- Meiji Choco Strawberry Gummy
- Morinaga Strawberry HiChew
- more Botan Rice Candy
 PetSmart has a shelf of Bettas and their supplies next to the counter where I buy crickets. At first I thought it was terrible that they kept these dejected-looking (and in some cases, dead-looking) fish in tiny cups, but this apparently doesn't bother them as much as it would some critters. I took a closer look the other day and noticed that most of them are very beautiful and brightly colored, kind of amazing actually. Thought about getting one for my desk at work -- a much more practical desktop pet than a bearded dragon! I've been reading up on them a little online and they might not be quite so easy to take care of as I thought, but I'll look for books or magazine articles about 'em before I decide either way.
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fired up |
| 03-05-00 |
Yesterday's airsoft game with B-Company was a blast. A little less organized than the MWRAA game, but a much shorter drive and no field fee. The field was much better than KC Paintball if you ask me -- a little more open, no thorns, but just enough trees and brush for cover. A couple of hills and ridges to hide behind or hold against the opposing team. More mud than I'd have liked, but not enough to get in the way (it was mostly in the wide open areas you didn't want to stand around in anyway). The weather could have been a little bit cooler but it wasn't stifling. I skipped my hat and got a little bit of sunburn, but nothing serious. Best of all, my legs are not killing me this time. Whoo hoo!
David Whatley, Erik Latham, Eric Slick (Zoha) and myself were Simu's fire team. Atrathien didn't bring clothes suitable for muddy combat so he took a whole bunch of photos. Tracy, Melissa and Steph all bowed out for various reasons, and Jeff was on call (occupational hazard of the OSGMs).
B-Company is not well armed yet (one dead M16, a couple of MP5K's and PDW's, a non-upgraded spring sniper rifle and a lot of pistols, vs. our upgraded M4A1's, MP5SD5, FAMAS, and AK47). We also seem to have the tactical edge as well, with better radio communication and coordination. On the other hand, most of them were in better physical shape.
Simu dominated the day, winning every game but one -- coincidentally, the one I had sat out. We'd just done a plane crash scenario where 7 people armed with pistols or MP5Ks tried to escape past a well-armed patrol. I was trying to run while hunching over and taking pot shots with my Beretta at a sniper on the hill, when David nailed me from behind. After that one I definitely started to feel the fatigue!
The hopup on my FAMAS was set too low at first, which cost me one perfect, definite kill and potentially a lot more of the shoot-through-the-trees-and-hope-for-the-best kind. I got only 1-2 kills all day, but I laid down pretty effective suppressive fire in a couple scenarios, contributing to the mass surrender of a group of B-Company guys ducking behind a ridge.
In the final scenario my FAMAS jammed. I managed to bluff a guy hiding behind a log for a while (the gun still made lots of noise and spat BBs a foot or two), but got capped by somebody off to the side. I couldn't clear the jam right then so I re-entered the game with pistol only and managed to sneak around the hill and send a guy running off to his "death" at the hands of David and Eric. After the game, the jam cleared up immediately with the generous application of some silicone spray.
I'm happier with my gun than I was last week -- I'm starting to get used to holding it (as a bullpup rifle there are many positions it can be fired from, but it works best from the hip or in a "short" stance where the stock rests on the crook of your right arm) and to get a better sense of its range and how best to lay down suppressive fire. In most of the scenarios I used much less ammo than I did last week, but I'd still like to find a drum mag if I can.
Still, when looking at other peoples' guns the ones that always catch my eye are the MP5K and PDW. I can't decide between them; everyone recommends the PDW, and people who buy the K often wind up buying the PDW stock for it later -- but the PDW is awkward with the stock folded, the ultra-short K is just so cool and I like going against conventional wisdom. Heh.
Every one of the upgraded M4A1's has failed on us. You can bet GASA's going to have a word with RedWolf about that. It's pretty much convinced me not to upgrade my FAMAS. I might add a scope though. My worst problem in the field is sweat running down the inside of my glasses, which subsequently fogs up my goggles... I want to try one of those wire mesh masks that RedWolf sells. Until I get that solved the scope will just be for looks. ;)
Being in much better shape after this game than last week's, I was ready for a good dinner. I know I spend too much money on food and should be living on ramen and cheap burgers, not going to fancy restaurants -- but I just can't help it. Erik, Atrathien, Steph and I went to Babalu's and had awesome Carribean food. If you're ever in St. Louis (for, say, SimuCon) go find them and try it. The rum and ginger glazed pork chop was incredible. Between the four of us, we ordered six desserts and rotated them around. I loved the Mexican chocolate ice cream and the lemon ginger flan, with the roasted banana ice cream coming in a close third. We all had our favorites and we each had at least one we didn't like (for me it was the key lime cheesecake smothered in berry stuff).
Still fired up and feeling good, I played several hours of Rogue Spear. Changed my mind about some of the weapons listed in the guide so I've updated it, and probably will keep updating it as I go.
I've been playing Unreal Tournament some again lately. New player models, maps and mutators give it a new kick and keep it fresh. Too bad I can't get the Infiltration mod to work though, it sounds cool from what I've heard.
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delaying tactic |
| 03-03-00 |
All week, I couldn't find anything to write. I didn't feel as if I had anything new and exciting that I could share. But now that it's midnight and I have to clean up the place a bit for Atrathien's visit tommorow, suddenly I have something to say. Very suspicious.
I can procrastinate with the best of 'em. Never do now what you can put off indefinitely. Oddly though, I'm usually early to work (or anything else that's scheduled) and always pay my bills either on time or close enough not to get penalized.
I'd list all the things I haven't gotten done, but that can wait until later.
My recovery from last weekend's adventure has been slow and gradual. I'm still a little unsteady but not limping much, and the pain was gone Wednesday morning. Still have tiny thorn particles in my fingers. But I'm ready for Saturday's game against the B-Company. What I've seen and heard of their team so far doesn't thrill me, but I'm trying not to prejudge too harshly. We Simu folks are a ragtag motley crew without much experience yet, and these guys may surprise us. But I do hope we kick their butts, in an honorable and sportsmanlike way of course!
Still not sure what course of action I want to take as far as more airsoft gear goes. The best possible thing would be full satisfaction with my FAMAS. As cool as the MP5K PDW is, the miser in me says it makes more sense to just have one AEG. If Darth Vader were an airsoft player the FAMAS would be his gun of choice. Compared to the Colts and HKs the upgrade and accessory potential is pretty low though -- and I'm a bit leery of getting too creative and winding up with something goofy or non-functional. For instance, I thought about chopping off the upper handle altogether, but some experiments with Paint Shop Pro told me it would look very odd even if I could do a perfect job of it.
Someone on the X-ring board is auctioning an electric FN P90. If there were more details mentioned I might think harder about bidding. But it's a rare beast so it's likely to be expensive, and though I think I like P90's in theory, in practice it may be weird to hold (as the FAMAS is).
Java class continues to be interesting (to me anyway) though we got into some scary math this week. Coordinate transformation and vectors and stuff. Still, we keep edging closer and closer to having an Asteroids-like game. At this point we have asteroids that look like asteroids, a spaceship that looks like a spaceship, and everything moving in its own random direction and rotating freely. Hopefully next week we'll be able to control the ship and make it fire. A little at a time, but we're learning a lot of Java (and some math) as we go. Whee!
I was going to write a lot of deep and personal stuff, or so I thought, but I'm too tired now. Something else to be put off until later!
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