Category: Articles

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Moving

I’ve been busy packing the past couple of weeks. We are lucky in that we have the opportunity to pack and move well in advance. So we are taking the time to organize and go through all our crap.

Crap it is. Besides beds and clothes everything now is in boxes or piles. One for yard sale. One for stuff we’ll keep. The stuff we’ll keep we’ve been going through and tossing away.

It’s amazing how much crap we collect. We have a full box of magic markers and a full box of crayons. We found something like 10 pairs of scissors. Tons of little happy meal and bubble gum machine toys.

The whole thing has made me wonder if we as humans aren’t going about it all wrong. Why do we even have closets? We are wasting a few feet of wall to toss up doors that make it harder to get to our stuff. We hide our stuff in little rooms. We put it in storage.

Closets are just silly. If you came over to my house and noticed an attractive shelving system, nicely organized instead of a closet you’d probably be more impressed.

Lots of silly stuff though. Like it’s amazing how much crap we have for decoration. We have so much of it it isn’t very decorative. We have a half dozen little children’s toys that didn’t work as advertised, and a half dozen adult toys that are the same. Apparently we are addicted to stuffed animals. All of us gave up bags of them.

Old clothes are always going to happen. But did we really need six pairs of winter gloves for the kid? Do I need 32 pairs of socks?

Probably 200 pencils with 100 pens, three scientific calculators and a half dozen pencil sharpeners another half dozen headphones.

I’ve collected tons of computer junk too. Two dozen power cables. A few hundred feet of Ethernet and Coaxial cable. Countless boards and chips.

Yard sale, yard sale. We are having a big one. What doesn’t sell that I know will goes to E-bay. The rest to the local freecycle community. Anything left over to the salvation army. As I’m looking around there is more that needs to sell. You see I plan on using the yard sale money to upgrade. Maybe we should sell all our ratty towels.

I need to get new ones if I’m gonna display them out in the open one day.

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Wolfenstien Enemy Territory – Anti-Noob Guide

For those of you in the dark, Wolfenstein Enemy Territory is a free multi-player online first-person shooter available for Windows, Linux and MacOS X. Just download, install and your on you way. But wait, do you really want to be a newbie? Read on to learn how not to be. Best of all nothing on this list requires any skill except for reading comprehension.

  1. Go completely through the options. You should click every button in the menu with the Play Online button being last.
  2. Be fair, pick the side with less players. When it’s even you get to choose.
  3. Remember your playing with other actual living breathing people. Don’t be silly stupid. Don’t run around killing everything that moves. There is an actual game going on. This is not a free-for-all.
  4. This is not good guys verses bad guys and whoever gets the most kills wins. There is an objective to every map. Try to learn it. If you don’t know what to do, follow others. If the guy you were following gets lost follow another one next time. Learn names and remember who the good ones are. If you really want to learn, go spectator. You can follow every other player, or hit space bar and just fly around. Follow those players you just figured out were good. They know some sneaky cool stuff.
  5. You can pull up that map while playing. You did go through your options didn’t you?
  6. You can click on your gun in the spectator screen to change it. You can click on the 2 beside it to change your second gun. To the left is a map, it’ll look Greek to you for awhile, but look back at it next time around and see if you can’t pick things out. Remember there is an objective.
  7. There are certain weapons that can kill multiple people at a time. Before you know how to use them they are too dangerous to bother with. Don’t be the jackass that just killed your entire team and lost the game. This is essential to prevent teamkills!
  8. There are different classes. Try to learn the basic function of each at the least. Keep the class system in mind as your playing. If there are two medics in an area do they really need a third? Maybe the reason the engineers aren’t getting in is because they don’t have proper support. When you begin to figure out objectives take a look at the limbo menu and see if your team needs something else.
  9. The number keys and scroll wheel change weapons. You should already know that because you went through the options. Learn where and what every weapon for your class is before you fire your first shot. This changes every class.
  10. Don’t block doorways and hallways.
  11. Panzers can be shut off by leaning. Check your options to learn how to lean. This is essential to prevent teamkills!
  12. Don’t go near the front of a motar launching soldier. This is essential to prevent teamkills!
  13. Stay behind Panzer wielding soldiers. This is essential to prevent teamkills!
  14. MG’s (Those big machine guns in tanks and at different spots) are deadly too. Stay out of the way of teammates lying down on the ground with a deployed mobile version.This is essential to prevent teamkills!
  15. Axis wear black clothes, Allies wear brown. Know what team your own and aim for the other color.This is essential to prevent teamkills!
  16. Aren’t machine guns cool? Not only do they fire repeatedly over and over, but they can also fire just a few shots. Don’t pull the trigger unless the enemy is in your cross hairs. Learn how to fire in bursts.This is essential to prevent teamkills!
  17. The compass on the top tells you where your nearby teammates are, what condition their in and other important information. It spins around like crazy because so do your noobish Bambi legs along with everyone else. Stop for a second and figure it out. If your a medic this will tell you exactly where to heal people. As a newbie you can save the day very early on if you are a medic who knows how to read that. Stay behind like a chicken and rescue people as they die. They will beat the level, but it will be because of you.

Have anything to add, feel free to comment.