Creaghorn

4000 posts? wow, and i was proud of my 1000th post. that's like having 6 victories, thinking what helluvan ace you are, and then MvR is coming to visit your squadron with his 67+ kills. you suddenly feel like a worm. congrats old chap

usually i don't comment in political threads or similar. but this time i'm in the mood . every year hundreds of people die because of viruses, flu's, contaminated food etc. give the same virus or whatever a name, mention it in the news that here and there some people died, then you have panic. every year people die because of influenza. name the influenza pig flu, then you have panic. good example is mad cow desease. statistics showed that in europe more children died in a year because they have emptied a bottle of toxic liquid than people suffered from mad cow desease in three years. that's ridiculous. some weeks ago i was sick because i had the chicken pox (with 33 lol), which is not undangerous for adults. was about 2 weeks feverish in bed etc. put it into the news and call it pigeon disease, then you would have the same panic . BTW. the paranoid german behaviour of completely shutting down all nuclear powerplants with scary twitching hands is for sure going to make it safer if one day a tsunami or earthquake hits germany lol. and if all neighbouring countries like france etc. would ever have a fallout, than the cloud is going to stop at the german border of course. and for the "we are always against everything" german green party: the cucumbers could only get contaminated by touching cow-s**t. so that means obviously those bio-hype farms, where cucumberfields and cows are side by side are dangerous for people. why don't they cry for stopping immediately bio-farms?

reason is that the deutsche reinheitsgebot never existed. it's only a marketing thing. only thing what existed for real and still does is the bayerische reinheitsgebot. and bavarian beer, which is considered as the best beer, is really brewed as the old rules say. so if you see deutsches reinheitsgebot on the bottle, you know it means nothing. if you see bayerisches reinheitsgebot, then you'll know it's the real rule and it's made like it should.

welcome huginn, phase 3 is exactly BHaH and HiTR is an expansion pack which is not needed to play BHH, but a must have because it offers more features and improvements and more aircraft and squads etc. phase 4 will be a standalone payware according to the developers. so no upgrades from phase 3 there is no release date, yet. not even estimated. they are deep in developement and i think that a release might be this year, might be next year or even longer. nobody knows. IOW you can buy and enjoy BHaH. cheers creaghorn

i have the complete dvd boxes with every episode which was ever aired. i remember the episode. from the top of my head it is one of the very earliest episodes which took place during ww2. (yes, the early episodes are really old). jerry was kind of soldier who had to defend a shed or something. i think this episode you won't see anymore in normal tv because it's kind of banned, at least in germany. in this episode tom explodes or something and for a moment looks like hitler with his small mustashe and haircut. and also in this episode he kind of flies something and drops some kind of bombs. although there are more episodes where he flies something. at least in germany nowadays many episodes are banned or cut. like when he explodes and looks like an african or something or he got smashed into a lamp and looks like the cliche of a chinese etc. everythinkg has to be politically correct to german standarts. i grew up with tom &jerry and i love them still to this day. great humour and weigh beyond it's time. it was rather for adults than for children. the later seasons from 70ies on have been more and more ridiculous and children apropriate, but no more funny. one of my favourite episodes is e.G. texas tom. or where the injuries keep going the whole episodes instead of the instant healing as usually, like when he burned his head and the whole episode wears a red toupet. there are many i simply love. but mostly from the first two or three seasons. and there are indeed some episodes where tom is winning

sorry for those who are not familiar with baseball. but for those who are it's kind of a comical feat. we had a game the other day where we won 7:2. i had 5 RBI's without having a single official at bat. at my three first plate appearences i had a sacrifice fly each. then i drew a bases loaded walk and at the last plate appearence i had a bases loaded hit by pitch. it's quite cool to get 5 RBI's and additionally not having done anything to spoil my batting average .

my choice is saitek cyborg evo force. maybe there is meanwhile a newer model of them, i don't know. but they are great and you can switch it for both hands. btw. some months ago we all here found out how many disproportionate lefthanders we have here, me included (strangely just in sports i'm righthanded). so in real all of us southpaws would have a tough time to fly a crate with the cockpit as it is, as long as the throttle etc. isen't mirrored.

besides james mccudden and his gogo-gadgeto-se5a's

in european leagues there are all nationals of countries of the EU allowed as mixed as they want. non-EU players, like japanese, americans, cubans (or ahem, croatians) etc. are only two for each game allowed. there are countries where baseball is quite big, like italy or netherlands, but mostly it's a niche sport and mainly overshadowed by soccer. maybe comparable to volleyball. there are indeed some former major league players involved as coaches, but mostly the nationalteams. e.G. robert eenhorn coaching the netherlands, mike piazza the italians. there is mike hartley coaching a german club. i used to play e.G. with dan rohrmeyer, rob mattson (a big knuckleball pitcher in japan), manabu kuramochi, and some others. there are many minor league players who didn't have a shot in the bigs and instead went to europe to play. currently there are some german players in the minors who will maybe get a shot in the majors. like kai gronauer or donald lutz for example. we will see. @HPW i would have invited you some years ago when i played first division. but in the 4th league you wouldn't be very impressed i'm afraid. you would see a young old catcher with a chip on his shoulder, often jumping into his mates faces because of their lollygagging style to play and unprofessional attitude because they don't know any different.

yes, there are things with more priorities in life than sports (e.G. over flanders fields ), although i'm still playing competitive and i would still play first or maybe second division if there would be a club near my home where i can have family and work and sports together, but since the nearest first division clubs are around munich i'm out of options.

i'm sure you are using your best talent for your living (writing etc.), and that's the best thing a one can achieve. but unfortunately the story with your father is a good example how stressing sports or lot of travelling etc. can be for a marriage. especially that's the case with baseball. that floyd patterson was your godfather is simply amazing. i imagine you as a kid getting into trouble with the schoolbully, and you tell him who your godfather is. really intimidating :yes: .

oh no. i played the last decade in first german division, so called baseball bundesliga. the level of the first division is maybe comparable to some lower a-ball. depending of how good or bad the team is, some have maybe "just" college level. there are lot of minor leaguers and even some former major leaguers and j-leaguers playing, but i'm not playing in this league anymore since a while. also there are not too many players who can make a living just with playing. most of them have also at least parttime jobs. in germany, as in any other sports league the last teams in the standings drop into the second division and the first teams of the second division rise into the first division. unlike in the us where a team can be really bad on last place and still remains in the league. some years ago the team i played in went into the playoffs and reached the finals, which we lost. after that year we reached the playoffs again. so we regurlarly played rather on the upper half for winning the championsship. suddenly the sponsorship broke apart, the club couldn't efford the salaries anymore, the best players went to other teams and just a few members and a lot of rookies left. i also left and the club dropped into the second division. the year after the club fell into third division. then i got married and i had offers to get a shot to play for one of the first division teams in munich because their catcher was good, but quite young without any leadership. so they wanted me to be his mentor and to be a teamleader. but since i have a fulltime job, and i also have a baby now, there is no more space anymore to live my life how baseball dictates, but vice versa. that means now i'm playing for a local 4th division team (still a good level though), trying to rise into the third division. so currently i'm a little bit bigger fish in a small pond. the glory days are gone. but although i'm still not old, i'm also not young anymore and don't have the possibility to switch teams and towns as i wish. now there are more important things in my life.

i love stories like that, thanks for sharing. one can't imagine how hughe generally big leaguers are. one is used to see them on tv, see them playing the game looking easy etc. but if you play yourself, maybe even in a decent league, and you see permanently people with decent arms and batting ability and power or good defensive skills, also minorleaguers, you think how good the players are you play with or against. but if you then see a big league game in real, then you'll realize how good the major league players really are. what really a rocket arm is, what unbelievable batspeed and power they have. what amazing skills they have and that it is indeed a league of their own high above anything else. like a whole geschwader filled with hundred richthofen clones. and then there are those century players like mantle or dimaggio who stand even above that. a little story fell to my mind, although i can't confirm it if it's true or not. a fellow catcher i played with some years ago once was in some springtraining organisation with the baltimore orioles. and he told me what B.J. Surhoff, the catcher of the orioles in those days has told him. cal ripken, who is holding the record of playing the most consecutive games without missing a game, once almost broke his series by coming weigh too late to a homegame. they tried to delay the homegame as good as they could, by switching off the stadiumlights, pretending to have a current issue etc. desperately waiting for him to finally arrive. otherwise they would have to start the game without him and his series would be snapped. ripken arrived just in time to be in the starting lineup. reason why he came too late was that he found his wife in bed with kevin costner, and so he grabbed him and beat the sh..t out of him, as i said, don't know if true, but a nice story

yes. you are definitely right. it is as in hockey. fists and nothing else. usually you don't see that often with somebody coming with a bat. that happens maybe once a century. although, i played once with a pitcher who in wintertime went to southafrica to play ball and he said that there it happened they run on the field with knives. but i think it was an onetime experience and not the rule. but usually you won't ever see anybody armed in brawls. mostly it's similar. maybe somebody was hitting a dinger and was showing off the pitcher or somebody tried to take a glimpse on my signs i'm giving or sometimes simply because one is 5 for 5 every time you play against him etc. then of course you plunk or bean him just to make him think more at the plate. and vice versa. and if there is a retaliation the next inning, then it might start. sometimes after the retaliation of the retaliation. sometimes nothing at all happens. but mostly you know can feel it pretty soon if some brawl is in the air. cool your dad played in the minors. didn't know that. how about you? usually the talent is something which can continue with the children

yes, and mostly for the same stupid reasons as usual. high spiking, plunking somebody hard and therfore you have to retaliate to show presence, unnecessary hard tags, exchangin words etc. usually you know before the game something like that might happen because something else happened the game before etc. although the different thing is, the umpires in germany usually doesn't warn both benches immediately but let the heat go up a while until something happens. the other thing is that punches are relatively rare thrown because the suspensions are very tough compared to the us. then you migh be suspended for 10+ games and high fees etc. so usually it's not so dramatic. mostly changing words and pushing, and of course then both teams have to show presence on the field.

@thank you all . thanks HPW. not at all. hit me on my left forearm with a hanging and off slider and didn't hurt at all. but the next game i got hit between the numbers with a fastball. that hurt much more but of course there is no rubbing or showing of any pain . but it wasn't intentional so no benches cleared or something. actually in the last two games there was also in each a bang bang collision at the plate which made me a bit dizzy (of course also no showing any sign of pain ). similar to this pic but you are right. with catchers it's similar as with umpires. the better they are, the less often you'll notice them. although on my last defensive performance i was making notice of myself with having 3 steals against me with one throwing error to third base causing a run. usually after a game i look about this. getting slowly old for that stuff p.s. as you mentioned things you have never seen in a ballgame yet. some years ago with rather dull weather one guy hit a catchers popfly. me starting the catcher popfly dance as usual. i looked up, saw the ball and was astonished how towering the ball was hit. just a small dot in the sky. i placed myself where i supposed the ball is going to come back. i was waiting and wondering why the heck the ball doesn't come back. suddenly i noticed something falling some feet away from me to the ground. what the...i looked up again and then i realized i was mixing up a very high balloon with the hit ball. that's a way for one to look foolish

atta boy

tch, comparing baseball with cricket. that's like comparing rugby with soccer

hm. how to explain it. of course no real comparison, but just to make a bit more understandable. imagine you are in a sortie with full gunload. and imagine it would have been really important how high your shooting accuracy is. and you hunt an enemy, but you realize your guns are jammed. and so you are on his six and outmanouver him in such a way that he lands in enemy territory and giving up and getting in prison, although you haven't fired a single shot at him. so you didn't spoil your shooting percentage, but have nonetheless a victory more on your list. .

the other day was quite cloudy with partially snippets of blue sky and hughe cumulus clouds with forecasted rain. when i was looking at the scenerie above i noticed one thing. the pics of p4 doesn't look at all like in real. no, it's vice versa. the real sky scenerie looked exactly like in the p4 pics. like the real sky is trying to emulate p4. i was wondering what anti aliasing setting the real skies had .

what a big loss. my condolences to his family. blue skies mr abbott

i would go to jesus and witness his last days first hand. but i would then need 3 days instead of 2 days because i would also love to be there at his resurrection

my pilot had 40+ hours and no kills. very cool. 90% i was always flying for the german side before. he is flying for RFC60 with Nieport 17_lewis version and now it's february 1917. main reason for not having any kills yet is invisible bullets, and i hit s**t+c for changing drums. so if i wasted about 97+- bullets i level out, change the drums and chase them again. mostly the try to get behind me or just flee to the deck so my vicitim is gone. since i'm often over enemy lines, i don't chase them to the deck. when attacking two seaters i'm very very cautios because if they hit my engine, then i'm over enemy lines and will fall into captivity. that's great and makes fun. it's easier to survive in the nieuport because no german plane can keep me in his sights for too long, but the harder thing on british campaign is often beeing over enemy lines, so that's about equal. unfortunately my nieuport lost a wing due stress and i lost him. but it is indeed fun and a different world than german campaigns.

on the pic you mentioned on the right half next to the AC, there is even rain visible on the horizon. at least in real it looks like that when you see raining clouds in the distance.

did anybody of you notice the improved cloud and sky scenerie? in p4 it is like in real. if it's overcast and grey, and you break through the clouds high enough, then you'll have blue sky above. in p3 even if you break through high clouds the above sky is grey. a great improvement .