The Three Wizards OOC

Still alive!

2008-07-27T20:27:00.000-07:00

Hey all... or anyone who may still happen across this place. I'll keep this nice and short for you!

I've been recruited into working on another site, and hope you all will check out all that we have to offer over there.

Always Go Right is a site that celebrates all things geeky. So take a peek, show your friends, and keep on reading there! We'd love to have you as our reader!

Oh my

2006-12-28T18:16:00.000-08:00

Back from my extended stay in Storm Lake for the holiday, and still about five days of not having to work ahead of me.
Joy!

I picked me up some new Virtual Console games on my Wii on christmas, Super Mario Brothers (it's a classic, I just had to) and R-Type. I now remember how very very bad I am at playing R-Type. But still fun as ever. One of those games where you mess up and get very angry at yourself and the game, but can't stop playing anyway.

Got a little bit of Wii Sports action in with the family around, but everyone had to take off around noon on Monday (having arrived Saturday night for christmas at grandma's), so not a whole lot. Seems like Jess got hooked... and I still beat her in tennis! I only wish I had a picture of her trying to serve the ball with her free-of-a-Wiimote left hand.

I'm really impressed with Nintendo for creating a system that non-gamers have so much fun with. Kudos.

Oh, and Jess.. by the time I get up there for a visit I'm sure you'll have your own Wii!

Anyway, to the end of this somewhat "normal" post. If any other family members discover me here... don't expect too many posts that make any sense!

Wow!

2006-12-18T06:24:00.000-08:00

It's kind of weird, but I just found out the other day that my buddy Karnatos actually found AggroMe from my Three Wizards blog! Or at least.. so he says. That's pretty neat, considering I started these things because of Aggro...

Anyway, news like this: I decided to go ahead and get a second account. The idea was to be able to play two at the same time. Well I don't exactly have another computer at the moment that can play EQ2. Oh well, it's all beside the point. The crew at Aggro Forums decided to start up with EQ2 again (after our latest kick with CoV died out and we kind of just stopped playing stuff) with the release of Echoes of Faydwer. We made characters on Crushbone (where the majority of them already play anyway) and I have been having a blast. I think it has something to do with... actually having something to do, and fun people around to just chew the fat with. We even got Aggro himself to start up a new character with us. Apparently he got away from the girls just long enough to say hi in-game!

Well enough of that. It's good to actually be somewhat excited about the game again, rather than log in, see no one I really know/people who talk to me are on.. then log out.

In Real Life® news........ nothing! The holiday break is coming up (end of this week) and I get some 1.5 weeks off with pay. Not bad, I guess. When I come back I'll finally be working the hours I was hired for: 12-8:30 or 10-8:30 (if I decide to do four 10 hour days, which is probably going to happen).
Looking forward to going back to the parents' place with my Wii when more people are around. They had so much fun with Wii Sports last time, but now we'll have the rest of the family there as well!

Goodbye Best Buy, Hello AIB

2006-11-10T07:58:00.000-08:00

Well, here it is. My last week working for the Best Buy Geek Squad. It's been a great time with a great boss, great co-workers, and tons of great stories from rude/obnoxious/crying/angry/etc., etc. customers. I got a job offer from the college I attended (and also worked at as a student worker), and decided to take it. The hours are a little messed up though, noon to 8pm, so as much as I wanted to stay part-time at the Geek Squad, I simply cannot. I'm going to miss my discount... oh.. and the people too, yeah.. the people.
Oh well, obviously a step in the right direction other than just a service bench. Not that it wasn't fun, it's just not really in line with um... anything I really worked for. For whatever reason, a degree in computer network administration didn't really do much good back at Best Buy. Sure, I was the self-proclaimed master of networking there, but anything I was going to explain to any customer would have been way over their head. Geeze, they just want to connect their laptop to the internet where ever they are. It says it's wireless, why doesn't it work in the parking lot?! (seriously we had someone buy a laptop and bring it back within 20 minutes because they couldn't get online on the road). That is one thing I will miss, for sure - all the stories! I'll miss watching my boss talk to customers because he tells them how it is and doesn't take any shit from them.

ANYWAY. Back to the IT department, back to a place where I can actually put my networking knowledge to use... ect.
And I start Monday morning!

Agent Anski, M.D.

2006-10-16T09:30:00.000-07:00

So, my girlfriend bought season one of House on DVD. We've been watching it a lot lately.

And then I came to realize something...

Working in a Geek Squad precinct is like being on that show... only we work with computers and not humans.

Now, I understand some people may be questioning this. How can you compare two seemingly completely different things together?
Well, it's like this: House is a show about a doctor in a hospital. A hospital that gets tons of patients all the time with the mundane things, treated, released... except those few that come in that has everyone scratching their heads.
Now, back to my job... we get a multitube of sick computers in every day. The majority are the easy, mundane things. But every once in a while... I think you get my point.

Just yesterday (Sunday) I spent nearly my entire shift (between dealing with all the stupid people that came in, but that is another story) working on one computer that was one of those special cases. The customer needed it by Monday, and no one really had any idea what was causing the issues (bluescreening, ect... I won't get into details because it doesn't really matter). The customer had also approved over $350 of work on this one computer. The agents that worked on it before me came to the conclusion that it was a software problem, we did a restore on it. Yess.. it work good. Wait.. nope! It's dying again! Bad harddrive, even though it tested fine? Swap it out with a test drive and reload it! Working fine, working fine... dead again. Okay.. old harddrive back in. But, I finally know what is causing it (by killing it a few times I obviously deduced what was causing it). It all traced back to faulty WLAN hardware. Since the customer needs it tomorrow, I call her up, tell her what it is, and how to not make it happen (I left the drivers off so that nothing would try to access the hardware). Recommend she brings it back in when she has time so it can go to our service center (unfortunately we aren't equiped to do internal laptop repair in-store).

Anyway, you can sort of get a taste of the similarities... the misdiagnose, the treatment, the situation getting worse - but with new clues... and finally.. proper treatment.

At least I thought it was interesting.

Sometimes I get bored at work

2006-09-16T22:01:00.000-07:00

So, sometimes I do.
Okay, a lot of the time I do.

Woah

2006-03-14T11:21:00.000-08:00

Alright. I know I haven't written much lately, but that is going to change, especially since now I have stuff to write about.

I refuse to call it KoS... seriously!

2006-02-06T07:10:00.000-08:00

Anyway, I am really looking forward to Kingdom of Sky I plan on not being lazy like I was when Desert of Flames was released, and actually get on leveling right away. Now that I am in a guild that 1) Actually has people my level, 2) actually has people that log on, and 3) has more than seven people in it, I'll be motivated!

Motivation for the win!

I'm excited.. and can't wait.

Also, I've decided to move Anskiere to Freeport whenever they let high leveled people switch sides. The only problem is that I own a mansion in Qeynos.. and I don't know if I want to spend the money to buy another one in Freeport, much less move ALL the items over... so I'll probably just.. buy a small house in Freeport until I get some more cash and status again. And convice Jai to move over too so she can help pay for it...

EQOA

2006-01-18T13:33:00.000-08:00

Well, I finally got my copy of EQOA yesterday. I didn't play as much as I wanted to... but it still felt nice to be back in there. Was surprised (though I guess it makes sense) that there aren't many servers left.. *shrug*

I decided not to join my old server (glad to see it is still there) because I don't remember the account name of the account I used to use to play.. and that server just so happens to have my favourite names already in use (by me.. on that account I don't know the name to). The one I joined (can't remember off the top of my head) had no one in Neriak! ahhh! .. well, it has been a few years since it was released. Also makes sense, but kind of sad. But hey, I still ... kind of.. remembered my way around Neriak (okay, I got lost going back IN, but I could find my way OUT just fine).

Anyway.. I hope I can find out my old account name because I have some free days to play on it, and maybe I can uh.. sell my stuff.. or something.. before I delete my characters to remake them.

Well, what I miss the most about it is just exploring. EQOA had such a rich environment, just WANTING to be explored. Rawwrrr. And I miss my runs from Neriak to Tethelin/Fayspire... to the wasp hive outside of Teth.. I ran that wasp queen around so much... :P

I miss killing the guards in that village that was just south of Halas.. and running off the edge of the cliff, hitting that little lip in the cliffside just right and getting mucho air time (thank you no falling damage!)

I miss trying to get a peek into the Great Unknown (Oggok area) and Lavastorm (both opened in Frontiers)

Sooo muucchh nastalgia... *sigh*

Level 60 and other stuff

2006-01-13T06:18:00.000-08:00

Been level 60 for a while now (got it on Christmas day). Been kinda busy to post.. sorta. Had a bunch of computer problems, and if you are interested you can ask me (since I don't feel like typing it all out right now. Uhmm... I guess not much else to say. Finally decided to buy Star Ocean 3 while my computer was down, but didn't really play it too much. Ordered a copy of EQOA for about $5 the other day, and it should be here tomorrow (I hope!). I'll have to go get some more memory cards... but looking forward to playing again (and have something else I want to do with it after a few months..)

Tah tah for now!

Shadow of the Colossus, part 2

2005-10-29T08:32:00.000-07:00

Well well.. here we are again talking about Shadow of the Colossus (just as I promised!) I finished the game two days ago, and I just have to say.. the ending is.. interesting. It actually has a good bit of emotion in it (at least -I- felt it). I would almost venture to say that the ending it worth it.. though I'm strange and some may find it lacking or whatnot. A lot of what I liked about it is that throughout the entire game, there is no backstory. It leaves almost everything up to the imagination of the player, and I really appreciate that. To me, it feels like just a small story in an epic tale. I would almost like to see another game that takes place before Shadow of the Colossus, though I would imagine such game to be more of an RPG type adventure, one with a story that leads up to the events in Shadow of the Colossus.

Speaking of epic, I have to hand it to the developers of the battles. They ARE epic incarnite, and I've never seen any game get me close to the feelings I have when I am fighting the colossi. Every time I am hanging onto one of those things and raising my sword for a strike, I tense up until I actually plunge my sword in. Battles that involve the use of your horse, Agro, are my favourite. It's something I can't really exlain, a sense of wonder at the size and speed of these things, while riding your horse hard in front of them or alongside them just gets me deep down, and I love it. (the animated gif included with my previous post is my favourite battle ever!)

And remember I was questioning the replay value of this game? Well.. as I said I finished the game two days ago. I haven't been able to put it down yet (I forced myself to yesterday, and played a little EQ2). Once you finish the game you unlock two things: time attack mode and hard mode. Hard mode is just restarting the game only this time you take more damage and deal less damage (I would like ot imagine it would be more realistic, considering the sheer size and power of these things compaired to the young man you play to slay them), and also the vital points on most of the colossi are moved around. Time attack mode lets you challenege any colossus to a battle against the clock. Every two you defeat you get an item to use when you play through the game (you can't use the items in time attack mode). The items range from cloaks and masks to make you stronger, to swords, and items that help you find lizards and fruit trees in the world (something they don't tell you about - lizards increase your stamina and fruit increases your health). There is also a cloak you can get that will make you invisible to colossi, handy!

Overall, one of the best games I have played. I love it. And I retract my statment from last time about "at least being a good rent" and change it to "you must get this game."

Shadow of the Colossus

2005-10-26T08:21:00.000-07:00

I mentioned over at the Aggro forums a game called Shadow of the Colossus. Well, I ended up buying it last night. Basically the game is a series of boss fights. There is no leveling, no upgrading armor and weapons, no skills to learn. It is just you, your sword and bow, and your horse named Agro. You start off by bringing what we can only assume to be the main character's dead love interest to a templed "at the ends of the world" to try to bring her back to life. Some sort of deity then talks to you and tells you that there may be a chance for it to help you bring her back to life, but there is a catch of course. It wants you to destroy the Colossi of the world.

Sound fun?

So you set out on your journey to slay these enormous beasts. So far, they have been fairly easy to find (though I have only killed five of them so far). You raise your sword in the air and beams of light point you in the right direction. The real fun begins when you actually find the Colossus. Some stand on two legs. Some are four-legged beasts. My favourite so far has been the one that flies (though I know there are more flying ones, I have only gotten to one so far).
Now, you think, "cool I'm going to kill a three hundred foot monster composed of fleshy meaty stuff and weird stone implants!" (they are literally made of stone and flesh). But.. it isn't quite as easy as it sounds. You don't just hack at it's legs and it falls over dead when it's HP reaches zero.

You have to climb up on top of the beast to hit it where it hurts.

So the main part of the battle is figuring out how to get on the things. Sometimes you have to just hop on, sometimes you have to bring the thing to it's knees to climb on it, and sometimes you use the monster's own weapon to get ahold of it. And they don't just let you climb all over them with impunity.. they will often shake violently to try and get you off. There is a gauge that tells you how much longer you can hang on before you lose your grip, and the harder the Colossus shakes, the faster the gauge goes down.

The fight, however, is quickly ended. The "soft spots" on these things are the very definition of soft spots.. a few sword thrusts and you can bring the beast down.

So what do I think? So far, I am loving it. It is a game that, if you were so inclined, you could just pick up and go. Meaning you can put it down for an extended period of time and pick it up again without having to relearn how to play, as is often the case with RPGs and the like. I myself don't see putting it down to be an option. I find it pretty addicting. My only worry is the replay value - the fact that once you figure out how to actually get on the Colossus and get to it's soft spots, the battle that first took you thirty or fourty minutes turns into a ten minute deal. I have heard that they have things to do even after you finish the game (but don't know for sure), so here is to hoping.

I do have to say that at times the camera angles/controls can be a bit frustrating. But I also have to say, that even in spite of this, I don't find it to be that big of a deal. Yeah, I'll bitch about it when it happens, but the truth is the way they made the camera move makes the game so beautiful, that I honestly don't mind (in retrospect). It has a VERY cinematic look to it and the visuals just blow me away when you are engaged in combat with these things.

Overall, a great game so far. I'll be sure to at least post again when I have finished it. I highly reccomend this to anyone, at least just for a great rent if you don't want to shell out the money for it.

And I didn't even know about this game until two days ago when I read this comic at GU.

It's been a while..

2005-09-23T07:45:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I just haven't really been in the mood to post or something. I got really busy with the start of this latest quarter..term.. semester.. whatever the hell my school is calling them now, and haven't had a lot of time with classes and work and just wanting to hang out in EQ2 afterwards.

I'm still not level 51.. I meant to get that the weekend that DoF came out, but I'm slow. Or.. un-motivated. I hate playing alone even though the solo xp in the sinking sands has seemed really good. I hate waiting to find a group. There are only two other people in my guild high enough leveled to adventure with me, and I hardly have any friends outside the guild to go with. So pickup groups.. yeah. I dunno, I just don't have teh drive yet like I did when I was getting close to 50. It comes in waves :)

Otherwise things have been going good. I got promoted to full guide a couple of weeks ago, and moved off the training server to my new permanent server. One I requested because I know a guide there. They are lucky, because another guide that I trained with also went there by luck of the draw, so they got two new guides :)

The "live event" if you can even call it that, is kind of lame.. we just point players to an npc that gives a quest. Though you do get something good out of it if you get a guide to give you their quest for it.. so be on the lookout for some Gnome pirates :P And yeah, at least we get to play pirates! Arr!

Going home this weekend to help my friend back there get the updates for EQ2.. he has been out of order since DoF launched since he is still on dial-up. Apparently there is one single file that takes 7 hours, but his connection doesn't stay up that long and so he is stuck on this one file.. at least that is the story he gives me :)
Though secretly maybe I don't want him to start playing again yet, because he will probably pass me in levels now that the cap is 60. He leveled like a fiend to get to 44 to group with me and actually be useful, so.. yeah. Oh well, I like having him around. We used to kick so much ass together in EQ1 ;)

Anywho.. I'll try to post in these more. Karnatos just needs to motivate me more :)

2005-08-29T10:56:00.000-07:00

Here is a post! Just for Mage, weeeee!

Jai must be more powerful, YES! Everyone's catching up to her and it makes me mad 'cause I'm not the best game-person and I work so hard! *whine*

I need to come up with some neet RP plot for Jai or something. Just something to be amusing.. or something. Something!

I also need the female uber-dress. Jai would be so hot in it, hehe. Maybe I should go join HA for a bit, harrr.

Just a few things

2005-08-17T07:17:00.000-07:00

Holy crap. I just found out that you can download EQMac for free. It says it is a 15 day trial with any station account, but I already have all-access.. so I wonder.. Not that I would play it a lot, but I always did want to try it. So I am going to!

Uhm.. I guess that is my few things. Work is boring.

Level 50

2005-08-16T07:17:00.000-07:00

I hit level 50 a few days ago. Pretty exciting, I was in Harclave and wasn't even paying attention to my XP bar and got it about five fights from the end guy.

For me, level 50 is pretty anti-climactic. I'm not in a raiding guild, and my girlfriend and I are the only ones in the guild that are above level 40 (she is 43 now).

One is close at 39 but the rest are .. uhh.. 36 and below. Or something like that. And not many of them are on at any given time.

I would really like to raid but I don't want to leave my guild. Though I won't say that the idea hasn't come close to being reality, however. I've even pondered on the idea of transferring Anskiere to another server. But, I've been busy with work and classes pretty much all day (7am to 9pm) every weekday, it's kind of a downer.
Oh, and that little thing that has to do with wtf I am going to do with the rest of my life. I'm not going into that here though.

So I think we need to work on recruiting more people. I want to work on it, I mean, I have ..nothing else to do at level 50 besides tradeskill (which I can only stand for so long even with my awesome music) and play alts.

Maybe Halcyon Affinity will take me along to get my prismatic ;)

Wiiizzzaaarrd?

2005-07-28T05:36:00.000-07:00

I recently found some people to adventure with while I play as Anskiere, but go figure I kind of lose touch with him(ansk) for a while as I go off and play alts. I want to get him to 50, I reaaallly do.. and I'm so close!, but I started a guardian and have been working on my monk and shadowknight also. I seem to be spending the most time on the guardian, and I think that will probably be my next favourite character.
Even though I have a hard time RPing it. Her (yeah, my guardian is a female Iksar) personality is... different than mine, to say the least. She likes to protect everyone around (especially a little Dark Elf) no matter what. To set an example for everyone, or something.
I on the other hand.. can be happy and yaay whee woo one moment and a complete mean bastard the next. Anskiere and I have the same personality :)

Each of my characters that I RP normally kind of represent a part of me:

Rassi (little Gnome Monk): my happy bouncy character!

Faeryl (Dark Elf Shadowknight): Only cares about one person, and the rest of the world can go f itself for all she cares (yeah, another female)

Atrux (the Guardian): Wants to help everyone out, because it makes her feel good to do good things.

And of course, Anskiere: Happy, mean, loving, cold, and everything else all mixed into one. And volitile :)

But anyway, back on track, Anskiere has full vitality now so I really need to start XPing again, and will hopefully be 49 by the end of the weekend. Wish me luck!

Fourty-Eight!

2005-07-19T05:33:00.000-07:00

I decided I would get 48 on Saturday, but.. I didn't. Because I am lazy and stuff. But I got it last night instead! .. Soloed about 97% of of the level too, made some good cash (hurray for those solo goblins in LS). Anyway, hurrray! *party*

visions

2005-07-14T18:00:00.000-07:00

I started Anskiere's visions, finally. I had been planning this for a while but never got around to it. It may or may not turn out to be what I want in the end, but only time will tell. Oh yeah, and Anskiere isn't used to writing things like this (IE feelings or personal thoughts) so don't except him to write very elegantly. Besides, it is just his ramblings and trying to sort out what happened. :)

Minor update

2005-07-14T11:14:00.000-07:00

I got my beta version of Jak X Racing in the mail today, yippy. I never played any of the Jak games personally, but have watched my friend play Jak3, and (if I am thinking of the right game) the driving portion(s) looked pretty fun, so maybe this game provide a little fun. Just a Mario Kart for PS2 though, I'm sure. I just like to beta whatever I can, though, because it's oh-so-fun!

So I'm begining to think more and more I can skip out on work tomorrow, since it is going to be some IT Breakout session with some businesses in the area. So more EQ2 time for me, which is what I like to have :)

Speaking of EQ, I was looking through my old EQ1 screenshots.. and wow, I miss those days. Made me think about how playing a wizard has changed from the two games (which I rant about somewhere in Aggro's forums,so I won't go into any detail here). Lets just say I wish some of the aspects of EQ1 wizards came through to EQ2. Oh well, what can you do. I'm really starting to get a sense of being powerful when I play Anskiere now. Still pushin' for that big five-o.

I've seen a 50 wizard running around doing the same writs that I am doing in LS, and Ice Comet looks a little dissapointing (visually). Just a ball of ice that shoots out from you like our other fireball spells? Honestly, if that is what it is, boo on SOE. I want my ball of ice from the sky shattering on the head of my enemy (ala EQ1). Or I could have been too far away/seeing the wrong thing/something.. can anyone confirm if it is indeed how I thought I saw it? But I guess, even if it is, there are always graphic upgrades that may one day, when the spell is totally outdated, make it look good. Here's to hoping!

Grosser's Weekend Goal

2005-07-14T09:28:00.000-07:00

Alrighty then, my goal to reach by Sunday at 11 pm is to reach level 26. If I'm doing well, I might try to attain level 27. But as for right now, I can only see me reaching 26, since I work a lot this weekend. Oh well, that's what night time is for. I will buy a lot of caffinated drinks for the weekend.

47 and still truckin'

2005-07-14T08:45:00.000-07:00

I hit 47 a few days ago (don't remember the exact date, too lazy to look it up at the moment). I also decided to start doing writs, and found that the ones the concordium is giving me are easily soloable. Which is a big plus. And there is another big plus, each time I come back from doing a writ, I bring back somewhere between 6 and 15 gold. Whats even better? It only takes about 30 minutes to do a writ. There is one downside... the writs are in lavastorm. And I can't buy a ticket directly to LS. Not that I would if I could, because it would be over 1g just to get there, and I am cheap (so I just pay the 60 to go to EL and run there). I've made over a plat and I actually feel like I did something other than farm money, which I did. Guild status AND it's great solo xp for me at 47, even without vitality (I ran out getting to 47) I've already solo'd 20% of my level, and hardly broke a sweat nor even minded it, like I usually do when I go solo for xp. This way I am doing three things at once - writs, money, and getting xp. It makes me feel good, and seeing how well I do even without vitality makes me want to just keep going. I don't think I have to work tomorrow, so all day will be writs writs writs.. and hopefully I can level in there somewhere. Oh, for the record, I'm the 95th level 47 wizard on my server, so I am still pushing under 100. That is my goal, being less than the 100th wizard to reach 50. Exciting for me, seeing as though I spent so long not leveling at all...

KaBOOM.

2005-07-14T07:45:00.000-07:00

A few rambles:

Mike's userpicture thing looks funny. Is he bald? o_O
Nice plugs for yourself in the links, honey!
Hohum.

I dunno.
Bye guys.

EQ2 and BF2

2005-07-08T13:55:00.000-07:00

I don't really have anything to update. Not much happened last night or today.

I tried playing EQ2 for a while with the intent of getting xp with Anskiere. No-go, couldn't find any groups. On to Atrux.. no-go.. no groups. So I logged off. I installed F/A-18 Hornet OIF again, but can't find my cd booklet that had the keyboard layout, so I couldn't really set up my joystick since I can't remember them off the top of my head. Looked on the net a bit for the layout, to no avail, before deathdemon (pal from the Vanu Rangers in Planetside) sent me a message on x-fire asking if I wanted to play BF2 with his. I of course did, and spent most of the rest of the night playing that. He's a pretty good sniper.. I think. At least he played as a sniper the most, I'm not sure how good he actually was. None of my gunners were on so I spent most of my time just flying around without a gunner working on my l33t moves.

Oh, I guess we installed computers in the accounting department where we pulled cable to yesterday, thats about it. Spent the rest of my time reading EverQuest lore and other tidbits. Like the EQ2 astronamy. If you are interested, read this. Warning: it is long and very techincal, but I found it very interesting.

So.. I'm all lore'd up again and kind of feel like playing EQ2. I'm sure my enthusiasm will be quickly offset when I log in and can't get a group for three hours and when I finally do the group sucks and.. you know the rest.

Just wish it wasn't such a hassle to solo a wizard at 45...

EDIT: We just got in three new blade servers about three minutes after I posted. horray. I don't remember what we are going to use them for, though.

Bored at work

2005-07-07T13:54:00.000-07:00

I played some Falcon last night for a little bit, and I wasn't really.. impressed. Probably because I have no clue how to do anything in the Falcon besides fly and fire the gun (yes, just the gun). So far radar targeting eludes me, but I haven't looked much into the actual keys for everything anyway (each key on the keyboard has four or more uses).
The Falcon seems sluggish, which I know shouldn't be the case. It is a nimble fighter. It rolls very fast, but my pitch control is sluggish as hell. It annoys me, but it is probably just my joystick setting, which I haven't messed with. I think it really bothers me that I see no difference at all between a full speed turn and a corner velocity turn. There should be a difference even if my stick is messed up. I miss my Hornet. I knew how to fly that :(
I might have spent more time trying to figure out Falcon, but some [OA] (Battlefield 2 clan) guys were on and playing, so I joined them and racked up some points on the ranked servers. Got promoted to Lance Corporal, and unlocked the spec-ops weapon. G36K, hurray, it works well for the little time I spend on the ground.

Anyway, I actually did some work today. Ghosted some older computers with a Win98 image for resale, though.. 98.. pain. Pulled some cable into the accounting department. I think I did some other things but I can't really remember.
Aggro Me posted my name wrong on his blog, but quickly corrected it ;)
I spent a little time trying to find any traces of the VMFA-268 WidowMakers (my old Hornet squadron) on the net, but google gave me only one link to a site that was no longer there. This saddens me. I did find that the MaG League (Macintosh Gaming League) is still out there, though really dying. Nice to see it again though.
I'm thinking I might start posting more regularly.. since I usually have nothing/not much to do at work, I can spend some time writing up a daily summary or something. It made me feel warm and fuzzy inside when I thought of it, anyway.

Hornet Woes

2005-07-06T13:42:00.000-07:00

Today in realizing that the Falcon 4.0 game I just downloaded the other day is actually a recent(as in about a week ago) release (much to my surprise, I had no idea. I might have to go buy it now.), I spent the majority.. no, all of my time at work reading about.. flight stuff. I started reading about helicopter flight, controls, aerodynamics, ect., and moving on to more specialized things about the AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter. Fun stuff in all of that reading. I understand helicopter flight, horray.
So then I moved on to specifications for the F-16.. since that is what I'll be flying, much to my DISMAY. I just don't really have a love for the tiny Falcon. I think it has something to do with the fact that it isn't a Navy jet.. and it just isn't sexy like the F/A-18 is. But, it's the newest sim out there, and it's about time I give Falcon a try.
So the first thing I was looking at was weight, thrust, range, maximum speed, and of course the all-important corner velocity, which is a definate must to know for all those fast-paced dogfights.
So moving on from that I got sidetracked by many upon many pages of BFM and ACM goodies (Basic Fighter Maneuvers and Air Combat Maneuvers). And read those for a very very long time.
Then I couldn't resist going and reading about my favourite jet of all time.. the F/A-18 Hornet. And.. I spent the rest of the day reading about the history and future of the Hornet. Found a great read in there with a guy that actually got to fly one at a demonstration. Talks about the handling and everything about the Hornet - radar, computer software..
Then time for work is coming close, so I decided to write this (because I know I wouldn't do it once I got back to my room).
Oh yeah, interesting factoid - Did you know that almost all of the US's current avionics computers installed on fighters have PowerPC processors? Hmmm...