pcpilot

Ya know, its nice realizing I aint the only one thinking like I do. I was thinking just yesterday, that with my parents and brother all dead, life just isnt quite the same. These days Im living right now are some of the happiest days of my life, yet there is this hole, left by their loss, thats only filled with memories. Rarely does a day pass I dont think of them. Chief, I was 10 years old in 1967. I lived in Albuquerque at the time in an old farmhouse at the edge of town. Had a squad of 8 GI Joes, a model of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 on the TV, and was a cubscout with Mom as the den mother. I always managed in the Corps to be home for Christmas. It wasnt till 1977 that I spent my first Holiday away. I was in Navy bootcamp in San Diego. I was RPO1 and my buddies and I were sitting in the company office after the Company commander had left for the day just relaxing and talking about home.

Thanks Chief, you brought back a LOT of good memories as a child. I tell ya, I fell outta the big tree, next to the big field, close to the big ditch more times than I can remember. Mom would always tell me again to be careful and bandage my sore spots yet again. Never once was a lawsuit considered against the property owner. Dad smacked me for not saying sir to him or the neighbors and it never occured to me to go crying to school and sic CPS on him, I loved him too much. Even as a child I knew he was right and I needed to do the right thing, and he was only trying to teach me. I remember how special they made Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas. ...sure was a lot of empty chairs this year at Thanksgiving...I sure miss them...and those days... :(

Good review Fates. It about sums it up. I liked the killcam too, very snazzy. Ought to be in all FPS. I noticed the AI bots can sometimes bunch up in a narrow spot but with a little effort, they seem to move out of the way as you try to advance. I liked the way they sometimes took some of the pressure off me in combat by going thru a door first, etc. Though sometimes you would here a command like "COVERING FIRE!" and no one would shoot. Maybe it was meant for me? I agree the console use to change preferances is a pain. I cant beleive they didnt realize this. There should also be a way to setup a six button mouse like my MS Explorer without me having to reinstall its software, (I dont like it). I can do 4 button settings and thats all. I loved the single player campaign as the Americans, the race in the car was way cool. :D Just started the Brit campaign and so far so good. All and all, I think you are correct, this is an excellent game and should prove to be even better with a aptch or two and some community MODS of the caliber of BF1942 mods. Your score for the game is appropriate.

My freinds who I helped during the fire and I are all going over to their house today to give thanks. The Santa Ana winds are blowing like crazy right now and filling the air with ash and dust from all the burned areas, visibility is about a quarter mile. But we are going to eat in a home that was surrounded by flames and didnt burn, which had flames come right up against the walls and is still there. Families and animals were safely evacuated during the fire, and our meager efforts at firefighting were successful till we were flanked. We managed to escape with only a singed tail-gate on the pickup. No one was hurt in our group. Yes, we are thankful when we think of all the bad things that could have happened to make it a LOT worse. Its like God put a restraining hand on Satan's attempt to harm us and told him "no further than this shall you go..." Thank you Jesus, yet again. :)

This message from William Miller on the NWS Fighting Steel Forum... Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 02:04:09 -0000 From: "wmiller144" <w-miller@sbcglobal.net> Subject: *** FSP 9.21 UPLOADED *** Hello, I have posted the installer for both the English and German-language versions of FSP v9.21, the links to these can be found in the "Links" section of this forum. Issues addressed in this version: a) The new Italian CLs added in 9.2 had a data error which caused a conflict within the game that would cause a CTD in some cases. The data error has been fixed and these ships should cause no more CTD issues. (This was most evident in certain 'Thunder at Sea' generated scenarios that used these ships in larger scenarios...) B) All of the scenario editor fixes since the 9.2 release (the ones with the 5th and 6th Divisions in some scenarios) have been included in this release. The installer is about 45 Mb is size, and is a complete installer. You do NOT need the v9.2 installer, nor do you need to have v9.2 already installed: this installer is a complete replacement for the 9.2 one. (Since the large catalog file had to be replaced we decided to go ahead and make a full installer for this release, as the file size would be about the same...) Note that as the game executable was not changed, the version number of the game shown when the game starts will still read 9.2 . As long as the installer says it is version 9.21 you can rest assured that you will be installing the correct files. Thanks, William Miller Assistant Director\ Projects Developer NWS

Saved the link, will keep an eye on this one. I am trying to decide which file exactly it is that I can download and tryout thier build.

I lived in Tucson 7 years as a teenager. You will LOVE the Pima Air Museum. please post some pics fer shure. It'll be nice to see the place again. Last I saw it that I remember was 1974...I think...been too long. Used to watch the F4 Phantoms heading for Davis-Monthan AB in flights of 4 in a diamond formation mostly. This was during the last years of 'Nam. Occasionally we'd see flights of Air Force A-7's. The last year I was there in Tucson the A-10's came in. One crashed one year on the grounds of the University of Arizona.

You lucky dogs...Ill hafta wait till after the first of the month to get mine... <_<

Actually I was quoting Todds' comment and laughing at it. I found it amusing. I actually always thought the Mirage and Mystere were very nice looking aircraft. Im hoping they will come out one of these days for SFP1.

PG, personally I wouldnt wait for the 64 bit stuff. Its still gonna be awhile before microsoft has a OS that fully utilizes 64 bit. And the same can be said for the software like games. Games will move quickly I think. Its kind of the cutting edge for advances in technology. But you can get into a good 32 bit system for reasonably cheap now, why wait? When more use is made of 64 bit technology and the price for the 64 bit CPU's, their needed RAM, and MoBo's moderates, then maybe go for it. I'd say another 2 years give or take. I dont worry too much personally about being at the cutting edge, I dont have the money. The question you asked above originally is the same thing Im thinking of doing. Im gonna go with a Intel chipset based MoBo, likely from MSI, with an 800mhz FSB, that'll take a 2.4ghz and up CPU. Ive seen them that will start with a slower cpu like 2.4 and take a high end one like 3.2. I like that. I can afford the 2.4's right now, they are cheap. When I can afford the 3.2, Ill get one. The intel chipset isnt the fastest, but its darn reliable and rock solid and can be over-clocked if your into that, which Im not. Throw in the new Sound Blaster Audigy2, a Radeon 9800 pro, a gig of RAM (in two sticks), and a fast Western Digital or Seagate UDMA (7200rpm w/8mb cache) hard drive, and you'll be gaming just as slick as any of these other "go fast" guys... ;) PS. Im not a big AMD guy personally, but I have put together several AMD machines for freinds. Everyone of them are as easy as any pentium based machine to do and are just as reliable. If you want to go that route, they are a bit cheaper, though not much, and are definately faster with the right RAM and MoBo.

Man, that guy is freaky. Gives me the willies just lookin at him. He doesnt look natural...'course, there isnt much natural about Hollywood either.

Since I am a sailor, one of the things that comes naturally to me is telling a story. (Which, by the way, may or may not be entirely accurate. But that is besides the point.) One of my old favorite games has been Fighting Steel which is a WW2 tactical surface gunnery simulator. The original was pretty good but fell a bit flat for several reasons. Well this group of guys at Naval Warfare Simulations has been quietly working on it, making it a whole lot more realistic and accurate with "patches" called the "Fighting Steel Project". They are currently at 9.2! In the process, they have added quite few new 3D ship models to the game. Well, you may have caught my announcement in the Biohaz news about their recent release of an Addon to the game called thunder at Sea. I ordered the addon and have been playing it since. Its taken the game from strictly tactical to operational and even strategic levels encompassing naval operations throughout the world. I am really impressed by it and think you might like to take a look at it too. A good place to start would be my After Action Report of the first scenario called "Rhienebung" which is the scenario depicting the Bismarks' attempted breakout and subsequent destruction by the British navy. There are links there to the NWS and Fighting Steel Project websites. There is also a TAS demo out that requires Fighting Steel. The AAR can be found HERE! or you can find it on my webpage link located below. The link will be on the left of the page called TAS AAR. Please let me know what you think of the AAR. I almost sound like a salesman, but Im actually looking for possible opponents or others interested in the genre.

Hi Nick, I remember you from the SimHQ forums. I see you still having some fun with the cartoons. Good one pal, hehe. Take care.

LOL! I love it...almost makes me want to reenlist just to razz some airdales...notice I said "almost?" ;) :P :D Of course us blackshoes like to lump all aviation, Navy, air farce, etc., into one catagory...its easy...they all fly "united"... B) former BM2...just thought I'd mix the pot a little, hehe. :P

Yes, let us know Todd. Im always interested in hearing the old vets stories. My dad was a tank commander in Europe during the war but I know little else. My uncle was in Italy in the infantry and told me some hair-raising stories. We think we have it hard sometimes...I always appreciated that generations' grit and tenacity to see a job thru.

Ok, Aliens, both of them, were cool. Espesially the little dude that pops out of your chest, hehe. Who ever thought up that one...LOL! If you like pee yur pants scary movies, "Children shouldnt play with dead things" did it for me. Came out back in 1970-71-ish. Rent it and watch it next halloween... Comedies, The Jerk was outstanding..."Im somebody now! Im somebody now!" or "Momma, Ive finally found out what my special purpose is." And how about Kelsy Grammer in Down Periscope..."That boys' absorbed a LOT of voltage..." MJ, did you ever watch History of the world? That was a hoot... :D

The Thunder at Sea addon has been released for sale at the Naval Warfare Fighting Steel webpage. It runs $18 and the disk includes the just released Fighting Steel Project version 9.2. I am currently running ver.9.2 and Im really impressed. Nothing like watching your ship sail thru mountains of Ocean thrown up by the 15inch naval guns of your opponent. Or the satisfaction of finally getting a torpedo hit on a wriggling adversary, hehe. Version 9.2 of FSP includes not only the British, German, US, and Japanese navies, but now also includes some Italian, Netherlands, and French ships. Im not sure but think Russian will be added too soon. If you dont have the game Fighting Steel, it can be had for $10 from The Naval Warfare Store. If you are a squid or former squid, I cant beleive you aint already got this game... :P ;) :D PS. Im trying to get opponents here...hehe.

Tie between The original Blues Brothers, (loved the music espesially), and Toy Story 2. Other favorites are... Raiders of the Lost Ark Saving Private Ryan City Slickers The Cowboy Way..."How would you like your steak sir?" "Well why dont you just lop his horns off, wipe his ass, and chunk him down on the plate right here..."

Ill never forget reporting to MCRD on the bus after dark in the rain on the day of my 18th birthday. Do you know that not one of those sargents said "Happy Birthday Jeff"... Happy Birthday Marine Corps... A HOO... and a RAH!

Hey wait...I dont get it, whats so funny? I lost my 710 too. By the way, Im not blonde, Im bald...

Ordered my Biohaz stein today. No more of this "bottle on the wall" garbage, my stein will have the place of honor...right next to my keyboard... Thanks MJ... ;)

I hear ya fellas...I was in the Navy during the Reagan years, (77-84) and I loved the guy. Now that was a real Navy, 600+ ships with an attitude manned by men, none of this flower power coed crap. Id say that was a real good reason we won the cold war, no thanks to clinton and her filandering husband. grrrrrrrrr... <_<

Wish I could recreate in writing the sound I made when i read snap's post, hehe. The slurred writing was amusing... Be careful my young freind, many an alcoholic got their start in college, that was the easy part, the hard parts stopping... Now after saying that, Im going to go make a new post about the Biohaz stein I just bought...