Messages

16

Quake / Re: Seattle FFA Frag Night In Memory of Pepp

« on: February 08, 2025, 08:52:25 PM »

I first met him around the time I showed up to TS in 2007. Back then I had just joined clan EoM, and he would drop into our weekly FFA meets. Used to spend mornings back in maybe 2015-ish or before playing FFA with him, Travolta, and a few others I can't remember off the top of my head at the moment (he had a regular crew he played with) on the Mutant server, occasionally one of the Xatrix mod servers, or the then recently forgotten Vanilla server which we all tried to promote and keep alive as long as we could. I beat him some, he beat me some, he was fun to play against. In more recent years, we antagonized each other arguing about politics and such, but I definitely still liked the guy and it was all in good fun. He was a cool dude, will miss him.

17

art, music, etc. / Re: Live Performances

« on: February 06, 2025, 04:01:34 PM »

One of my favorite groups from the 1960's...

Blind Faith

...a "supergroup" featuring guitarist Eric Clapton and drummer Ginger Baker from Cream, and Steve Winwood on vocals/keyboard from Spencer Davis Group, as well as Ric Grech on bass who would go on to join Steve Winwood in the band Traffic. Unfortunately they only put out one single album and only ever played a handful of live dates. I wish they could've stayed together long enough to put out a couple more albums. I thought the combo of Steve Winwood on vocals paired with the guitar and drum sounds of Cream was really great.

Here's a solo acoustic performance by Steve Winwood of Can't Find My Way Home. You might think he chose the fireplace as just a photogenic place to perform it, but I think it's more likely that it was a cleverly chosen location that along with the mic selection and placement helped maximize the bass projection of his guitar to make it sound fuller and more dramatic when the verses start over. 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoSn2Y-b6wI&ab_channel=SteveWinwood

18

art, music, etc. / Ozzy Osbourne

« on: February 05, 2025, 03:15:34 PM »

"ONE LAST TIME... THE FINAL SHOW..."

Yeah well... we've all heard that one before. It's always "the last tour"... until the next one happens.

Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath announce final show

At this point, do we even accurately remember when the FIRST TIME that the LAST TIME was supposed to happen? I can't remember if after Randy Rhoads died there was any talk of Ozzy hanging it up. But I do definitely remember that after No More Tears came out in 1991, that tour afterwards was supposed to be his "farewell tour" (the tour itself was called "No More Tours"), which resulted in the 1993 live album Live & Loud, which I thought was a fantastic live album. It really showed just how great of a guitar player Zakk Wylde really was. On the Live & Loud version of Shot in the Dark (originally from The Ultimate Sin, 1986, guitar: Jake E Lee), Zakk played it a tad bit different from Jake E Lee's version, and I always thought Zakk's choice of notes flowed smoother and sounded better.

But then in 1995, he comes out with Ozzmosis. Then the tour after THAT was supposed to be the final tour. Then in 1998 he releases his greatest hits album, Ozzman Cometh, which featured the track that became a hit, Back on Earth. I remember the video got a good amount of play on MTV - the video was a spoof of the old 1922 silent vampire film Nosferatu. The song was actually an unreleased track from the Ozzmosis album, and at the time Ozzman Cometh came out, Zakk Wylde had started his own thing as Black Label Society, so thats when guitarist Joe Holmes joined. I remember seeing Joe Holmes in a live performance Ozzy did on MTV to promote the Ozzman Cometh Greatest Hits album. At that point, Ozzy's voice was GONE. He sounded awful. And I guess they hadn't quite gotten to the point where live digital pitch correction was possible like nowdays, because it sounded BAD. I remember thinking, "God damn, I wish he would've retired, I really don't like remembering him this way."

After that... the 90's were over and I kinda lost interest in Ozzy and lost track of what he was doing. I was a super-duper Ozzy fan in the 90's, collecting all of his albums, listening to them ALL THE TIME. I just looked in my mp3 collection, and I do have the 4 albums that came after Ozzman Cometh (Down to Earth - 2001, Under Cover - 2005, Black Rain - 2007, Scream - 2010), but I honestly couldn't name one single song from any of those albums because I've almost NEVER listened to them.

Part of me wishes he really would've retired for good back in the late 90's. I get why he hasn't. For a musician, music is always there in your head, in your blood, and you can't just turn it off. You can try, but it's still there.

Ozzy ain't getting any younger. He isn't in the best health anymore. Is this "THE LAST" tour, or is this just "the last one... until the next one"... again? I say he'll be back. And this thread is here so that when he does come back, I can point to it and say "Told ya so."

19

art, music, etc. / Re: Cooking

« on: February 03, 2025, 05:19:30 PM »

I made sloppy joes tonight.

I had a really good sloppy joe recipe, but I seem to have lost it. The old way I made them for years was pretty boring and uninspiring...

----------
*1lb ground beef
*1/2 onion diced
Brown the onions, then add the beef, cook, drain the grease in a bowl and colander.
Put it back in the pan (obviously)
Add ketchup and hot sauce. I never had a set amount, I'd just kinda eyeball it.
Simmer til it thickens a little.
--------

See? Boring.

This recipe seemed pretty similar to the newer one that I lost.

-----------------------
*1lb ground beef
*1/2 onion diced
*1 can of your favorite beer, I use Sierra Nevada Pale Ale

- I use big non-stick fry pan, but I sprayed a light layer of canola oil in the bottom so the onions stick less (not entirely necessary).
- Burner on medium or a hair past med. Dump in the diced onions. When the onions start sizzling, make sure to spread them out in a nice even layer.
- Pour some beer in, enough to half-submerge the layer of onions. Let it boil. May need to add splashes as the onions cook. You want the onions a nice golden and carmel brown color with no beer left boiling in the pan when you add the beef. If you burn them a little bit boiling out all the beer, not really a problem, they'll still taste fine.
- Add beef. Cook beef. When beef is fully cooked, drain grease off in bowl and colander.
- Put beef+onions back in pan. Add the following ingredients for the sauce:

*1 15oz. can Red Gold brand tomato sauce (or whatever brand you prefer, just remember, cheap shit makes shitty food)
*1/3 cup Heinz ketchup
*1 tablespoon Lea & Perrins worcestershire sauce
*2 tablespoon Woeber's Sweet & Spicy mustard (or whatever brand of spicy brown mustard you prefer)
*1 teaspoon chili powder
*1 teaspoon Domino light brown sugar

(I'm pretty sure the recipe I had also had some garlic powder and onion powder but I forget the exact amounts. I didn't feel like it was necessary, so this time I only add a sprinkle of garlic powder to the onions as I was browning them.)

- Set your burner back to a tad above medium, stir it all together really well. Continue stirring and cooking for another 10 minutes, not letting it burn. If it's a bit too soupy and watery, adjust your heat to start the mix kinda boiling and keep stirring to keep it from sticking or burning. Once it's at the thickness you want, turn the heat all the way down to low just to keep it warm for serving, or turn it off if you want.

------------------------------------------

Nathan's makes a Kosher Dill Sandwich Slice, they are seasoned pickles sliced length-wise. Usually I have them on the side, sometimes I put one IN the sandwich on top of the meat.

Woeber's Sweet and Spicy mustard - might be hard to find. I'm not really sure how popular it is. I can't find it at Publix, usually I only see it at Ingles, which is an independent Southeast regional grocery store only found in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, and Virginia. I HIGHLY recommend trying it though. It's super good stuff.

Beer boiling the onions: pretty much any recipe where ground beef with onions is the base of it, I do the onions in beer. Makes everything better.

I get these packs of Hebrew National Beef Knockwurst at the store, they're about 7 or 8 bucks a pack, you get 4 links. It's basically a big fat higher quality extra jumbo beef hotdog (like the ones they used to have at baseball games). I'll pan fry those in beer and onions too. They smell like beer battered onion rings - obviously - but still, that's just one of the greatest smells in the world. You plop the knockwurst on a top-sliced bun, add a little layer of the browned onions, add your ketchup and mustard. Better than the ball park.

Beer. It's not just for drinking anymore.

20

art, music, etc. / Re: Live Performances

« on: February 02, 2025, 01:27:51 PM »

Sodom

Used to listen to this band a little back in the 90's. I loved them, and would've listened to them a lot more, but their stuff was pretty hard to find. They were one of the original death metal bands that came about in the mid to late 80's when the genre was forming. They had a super tight thrashy sound, complete with the stereotypical very scooped-out midrange sound to all the guitars. I think they were from Germany.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b87jQQG0moo&ab_channel=DiegoChino

21

Bot Drop / Re: Chacal

« on: January 27, 2025, 05:52:57 AM »

It's a pretty poor piss poor attitude to have to think just because someone has been doing something for a long time they are innocent.

Context is everything. It's even worse to publicly ruin someones reputation without proof. Like I said, you've cried wolf so many times now that no one takes you seriously.

Problem is... if you're sitting there on the servers making rude remarks and accusations at Chacal, everyone else is going to see it, and no doubt one or two of them will begin agreeing with and repeating what you are saying. This exact situation happened to me. One particular person began accusing me of cheating with ZERO PROOF. I challenged them numerous times to post evidence of what they were accusing me of to the forums, and they never would. They just kept repeating the accusation. It didn't bother me at all until I saw 2 or 3 other people on the server start agreeing with him. At that point, I had to ask Quadz to intervene. He had to take time out of his day to join up when this person was on and tell them, "Hey, enough with the hack accusations. This has gone from freedom of speech and normal banter to disruptive libelous slander."

They tried to do the same kind of thing to President Trump. Like I said, context is everything, and when you have the full context of all the facts, it's very obvious that E Jean Carroll who accused President Trump of rape was lying. But when you get a corrupt judge who will agree to try him AGAIN for the charge of "libel" (the libel part = he called her a liar), then it's not too hard for the politically biased media to make the inference that he is indeed a rapist... and then morons like representative Ocasio-Cortez will take to twitter posting "Donald Trump is a rapist", and all the morons who follow her and believe everything she says will repeat it. And then it becomes a normalized perfectly acceptable opinion to express now and forever that "Donald Trump is a rapist" even though there was never any evidence proving it, even though there was always an abundance of circumstantial evidence suggesting that such an accusation was complete horseshit. Doesn't matter. In the words of Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, "A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth."

22

Bot Drop / Re: Chacal

« on: January 25, 2025, 02:09:58 PM »

A full 24 hours later... still says "downloaded 0 times". 

The GIF is a joke at your expense, and you can get offended that this is some kind of a personal insult, but you've done this SO MANY TIMES that I can't be objective about any accusation you make anymore, I instantly assume you're wrong.

That,... taken with the fact that Chacal has played on TS servers for probably longer than I've been around here... means that if Chacal was going to get caught cheating, he would've been caught doing it already by multiple someone elses.

23

Bot Drop / Re: Chacal

« on: January 24, 2025, 09:04:08 PM »

24

/dev/random / Re: Whatcha listening to?

« on: January 20, 2025, 12:01:40 AM »

Never really listened to the The Cure when I was younger. Recently got their greatest hits album and found this one on there. Really cool song with a bit of a story in it. The videos pretty good too.

Lullaby. A nightmare about being eaten alive by a giant spider. You should probably turn on Closed Caption for the lyric subtitles.


https://youtu.be/ijxk-fgcg7c?si=zE93Yn-MJ8rHNbAI

25

/dev/random / Re: Whatcha watchin'/streamin'...

« on: January 15, 2025, 12:37:02 PM »

... Disney animated movies ...

Yeah, I forgot to mention I also had a bunch of Disney animated movies on my to do list. Been slowly working through them, 1 every day or two.

One of the lesser known Disney animated movies that was a pretty bad flop at the time (supposedly it damn near destroyed the company when it failed to make it's budget back at the box office)...

The Black Cauldron (1985)


I never saw this one as a kid, even though it came out when I was 5. Back then the Disney channel used to show all of their animated movies on there a lot. I remember watching Cinderella, Dumbo, Robin Hood, Alice in Wonderland... but they never showed the Black Cauldron at all. I don't remember the movie, commercials about the movie, or even any passing reference to the movie on there.

Yeah, I can see why it flopped. The story is just clunky and awkward. The black cauldron is a magical cauldron that gives its owner the ability to raise an evil undefeatable army of the undead. The evil horned king is looking for it. So far so good, right? The protagonist is a young boy with a pig... but the pig is magic and when it sticks its nose in a bowl of water and you say some hocus pocus magic phrase, it shows you visions in the water, like where to find the black cauldron. And that's where the clunky weirdness starts. A pig? Really? Even kids would be like, "Really? That's so dumb."

Anyway, I won't bore anyone with the WHOLE story. And I mean it's not absolutely terrible, but it's just not on par with what you'd expect from a Disney animated movie considering what all they had put out up to that point.

It's good points:
1.) The voice talent of John Hurt as the evil Horned King.



He was a terrific actor, one of my favorites of all time. He could do ANYTHING, and during his long career, he pretty much DID do just about any type of role you can imagine. And he didn't play villains often, but he knocked this one clean outta the park and over the interstate. He effected a very bass-heavy gravelly tone for this role and it made the villain the scary terrifying monster he should've been. He was THE BEST PART of the movie. It was certainly no fault of the villain character or John Hurt's vocal portrayal that contributed to this movie failing. He was perfect. And sadly, he passed in early 2017 from pancreatic cancer.

2.) The voice talent of Phil Fondacaro as Creeper, the Horned King's little goblin assistant.



He's my favorite dwarf actor. He's been in TONS of stuff, including one of my all-time favorite "bad" horror movies called The Creeps (about Dracula, Mummy, Frankenstein,... except their all dwarfs). He's not an actor the caliber of John Hurt, but he's a swell dude, and I like anything he does.

26

Jokes / Re: Hitler memes

« on: January 14, 2025, 05:24:58 AM »

27

/dev/random / Re: Whatcha watchin'/streamin'...

« on: January 14, 2025, 01:47:16 AM »

I have a list a country mile long of shows I want to binge start to finish. Like I said before, I gotta go back and re-watch all of The Walking Dead since I finally downloaded the last 2 seasons of it... and before that, I'm gonna re-watch all of Yellowstone because I haven't seen the last season of that yet either. And seeing shorty clips of it in my Youtube feed has me also wanting to rewatch all of Breaking Bad and Sons of Anarchy again. At some point last year, I downloaded a few British shows: Absolutely Fabulous, The Young Ones, Bottom, A Bit of Fry & Laurie (Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie - sketch comedy), and The Benny Hill Show. I finished AbFab, Young Ones, and just recently finished off Bottom... so I still have all 58 episodes of the Benny Hill Show (plus 11 more vids included in the additional "Lost Years" and "Extras" part of the collection) as well as Fry & Laurie.

I also downloaded a few kiddie shows I watched as a youngster: PeeWee's Playhouse, Beetlejuice cartoon, and He-Man. Probably not gonna binge those - I don't think I could take that. Maybe take on one at a time, watching 1 episode each morning with breakfast or something.

 

So if I stick to my "to do" list of things to watch, I might be done by next Christmas.

I also got into the habit of watching Louder with Crowder everyday, and thats usually 2 hours a day Monday through Thursday.

Ha! And I also have a bunch of movies I wanna get around to eventually... some old 50's historical/roman/biblical stuff like Quo Vadis, The Robe, Demetrius and the Gladiators... some new ones like Gladiator 2, Thelma, The Exorcism, etc.

And I know what's gonna happen... I'm gonna keep seeing shit I wanna watch and keep adding it to the pile. I think they have a name for it...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_hoarding

And yeah, I'm starting to get to max capacity on my external 3.63TB hard drive. Time to buy more hard drives.

 

28

/dev/random / Re: Whatcha watchin'/streamin'...

« on: January 14, 2025, 12:57:04 AM »

Yonna cuppa, mate?

What a great show. One and only thing I didn't like about it was the fact that there were only 3 seasons of it. The characters were so good with so much potential, it probably could've gone on for another 4 or 5 seasons, I really wish it would've.

29

Trouble Shooting / Re: New monitor font looks like dogshit

« on: January 13, 2025, 12:51:43 PM »

Keep in mind those typefaces were designed for a 640x480 resolution and when you get a better microscope you see details you never noticed before.

I don't think it's any mod, probably just the conchars from a pak he's using.

But yeah, like qwazywabbit said, probably you're using a conchars image that is small and when it's getting magnified to display at 1920x1080, it's magnifying the zig-zaggy look of the edge of the pixels for the smaller image. The solution would be to re-make your conchars image at a bigger resolution... which can be quite a tedious chore. I have custom made upscaled conchars for a couple of my paks before. I spent lots of time making grid-lined templates in photoshop. But even with a grid to see where all the edges of each character can extend to, you have to manually arrange each letter and number, making sure you don't overlap anything, blah blah blah... it's very time consuming, and sometimes the end result looks like crap and probably isn't worth using. It can be frustrating when that happens.

I think the stock Q2 conchars are 128x128. (To upscale, you want to double the number, so 128 times 2 is 256, and 256 times 2 is 512, etc.) I've made some that were 256x256, and some that were 512x512. It's been 3 years or more since I've played around with making stuff for Q2, but from what I remember... I think I found that the 256x256 ones seemed to work better and look smoother in 1920x1080 than 512x512. You'd think that oversizing it and then having the game shrink the display size down would make the edges of the characters look like smoother cleaner lines, but no, unfortunately it doesn't work that way with conchars, at least not on my display.

Here's a site with a bunch of conchars for download:
https://gfx.quakeworld.nu/browse/charsets/

Right side top menu, it breaks it down by size (256, 512, 1024+). You can try different sizes and see what works best for you.

I noticed you said you got a new IPS panel monitor. Was your previous one an old-style TN panel? If so, how does the new one compare? Is there any blurry "ghosting" motion crap with movement in Quake2 or other shooters?

When I got this machine, I bought a TN panel cuz I thought it was the ONLY option for being able to play shooters like Q2 with no motion blurring, but I keep seeing these IPS monitors with .5 latency and 120+hz refresh... I would love to replace this thing with an IPS panel to get better color and clarity, but not if it's not every bit as responsive and blur-free.

30

/dev/random / Re: Whatcha watchin'/streamin'...

« on: January 09, 2025, 12:29:05 PM »

I had never watched Snow White all the way through before even though we had the Disney channel when I was a kid... and back then they actually showed all the old Disney animated stuff, from the old feature length movies to all the Disney character shorts from the 40's/50's/60's, and even the earlier Silly Symphonies and Max Fleisher type stuff.

So I finally got around to downloading Snow White and watching it start to finish. Wow. Maybe it's not all that remarkable to a lot of folks, but if you think about what movies were like at that time (Snow White was released in 1937), Snow White was absolutely AMAZING. All of the action was filmed with live actors and then drawn out by artists frame by frame (the "rotoscope" technique).

As far as Disney animated movies go, Snow White is certainly not my favorite. My favorites are Alice in Wonderland, Sword in the Stone, and Robin Hood... and I guess Lilo and Stitch too, that one's pretty good,... and I think it might've been the last classic cell-style animation movie they did as well although I think technically it was all done on computers.

An interesting video about Lucille La Verne, the terrific actress who was the voice of the evil queen and the witch.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hsi7btQY1Kk&ab_channel=Dizographies