News, rants, verbal assaults from the past...
	04-30

So, who's got the virus of the day?  Haven't these people got anything better to do!  I've received 5 EMail's with the Melissa virus so far, two with W97M.Class strain...  When's it all going to end!?  Norton's AntiVirus Research Centre's been almost impossible to get on (...their FTP and Auto Update Servers are getting pounded!..).  Just be careful what you open, you just can't tell now a days!  Oh yeah, thanks all for the birthday wishes, but you'll have to speak-up and please, use my good ear!  <GriN!>.
 

Wed - Mar 24th - 12:10 pm

The pings continued to suck and there were many packet-losses last night (...Weep!  My poor lost packets!!..) so we placed a call to find out what was what -- As it stands, a major router went down last Saturday (...and you know that's not good!..).  As a result, many head-ends went down / burned-up / died when the router was fixed.  Apparently this has effected most of Ontario.  Although we're up, they say there's still outages happening as they continue to repair the network -- ETA on service restoration is Friday, so you'll have to hang in there.
 

Tue - Mar 23rd - 04:41 pm

Hey, Baby... it's a date!  You bet, we're all set for BTM08.  After exhaustive research and using our complex date picking system (...hope those dart holes in the wall fill easy...) we've decided on May 1st.  So let me clear the chart and we'll start pencilling in the players as they apply!  (...you KNOW there's going to be Quake3 by then...).

And now a quick comment from MeatMan: "What the 5H1T'S going on with Cable!?!" -- Thank-you, had to get that off my chest.  The Abattoir's cable connection has never been anything shy of great, but since last Saturday, our service has been the pits.  I'm just about to connect my 56k!  All we can do is apologize and ride it out till Wave gets the problems fixed.
 

Mon - Mar 22nd - 08:45 am

The date's not been set for BTM08 yet, but we're working on it -- If anyone of you have a weekend coming-up in about 5 or 6 weeks that's occupied but you really want to make the next BTM, now would be a good time to voice it!  Yes, Wave was screwed over the weekend.  You can all stop sending me EMail about the SuperFTP cutting you off (...it has auto-resume anyways!..) and how "I was winning against 13 other LPBs and the Half-Life Server cut me off!!" -- Seems cable modems from Oakville to Stoney Creek were cutting in and out of service all day.  (...must be practising for 2000...).  All's normal now.
 

Fri - Mar 19th - 08:50 am

Thanks for all your letters of encouragement, Jack van den Kieboom sent me a cheer-up letter explaining his "disgust at someone turning vandalistic in the face of your good will", then enclosed a program to cheer me up called "Happy99.exe" -- Jack, "Happy99.exe" is a trojan Worm you dink!  (...just goes to show you!..). Haha...

Abattoir server reload continues, the Cable was out this morning when I left for work, I called Wave to find out what was up, the recording basically said; "Wave is in a black-out till 8am right at the corner of MeatMan's Abattoir." -- Figures!  As I cannot reset the Abattoir SuperFTP remotely, it may or may not come up and be available till after 5:30pm EST.

We expect the Half-Life server back and punchy by 7:00pm tonight (...Oh, and I *will* be on it removing heads BTW...) and we're going to take our best shot at getting the Quake server back!  More on that later...
 

Thu - Mar 18th - 03:55 pm

Guess I've found the next graphic card for the Abattoir -- Due to its outstanding performance while benched on a P3-500 running Quake3:Arena, seems the winner is the Hercules Dynamite TNT/2TM due out late May. Here's the skinny on the card.  Price, unknown, but I can hazard a guess it's going to be over $100 <GriN!>.  Hey, MeatMan's birthday is March 30th, advance orders?
 

Thu - Mar 18th - 09:58 am

You guessed it... we're down for the count.  The Abattoir's main server could not be 'revived' to my satisfaction.  The BIOS has been flashed, the boards have been replaced/moved/smacked, nothing's working 100%, and 100% integrity is all I'll accept.  We've been forced to do a format.  If there's one thing I can't tolerate it's a server that has a glitch.  We're still in the process of reloading so we'll not be back in action till later tonight (...all going well...).

I don't know who or what attacked our server during the BTM LAN Party, but *if* it was a purposeful malicious attack, I'd like to send my thanks to that person, you've really cheered me up.  Again, we apologize for the interruption in service, but it was necessary...  Be advised, there was a virus found in the Quake3 IHV Test (...should have called it the "HIV Test"!..).  If you are an account holder on the Abattoir SuperFTP, you need not re-apply, all will be back to normal with no loss.
 

Tue - Mar 16th - 02:20 pm

There seems to have been a little 'tampering' with the Abattoir's main server, Sgt.Slaughter and myself are now attempting to do the "IRQ - BIOS - Plug'N'Pray - PCI - Limbo" dance as we put forth our best efforts to tell Microsoft's OS that it "doesn't always know what's best".  What does this mean to you?  Not too much, other than MeatMan will be sporting more white hairs at BTM08 (...and don't even THINK about starting to bug me on the Screenshots, or I'll go postal on your ass!..).  The server is up and running fine (...of course...) but will be under testing and reloading later tonight as we try and lock 'er down - so Half-Life and the SuperFTP will not be available for a short period.

In other news, Matrox has blurped-out news on their next toy, with good success on the G200, they're now coming out with (...you guess it, what smart name convensions these companies have...) the G400.  Here are a few highlights:
 

Technical features   0.25-micron fab process (compare to Rage 128 GL, Savage3D, RIVA TNT2…)   AGP 2X & 4X support   256-bit DualBus architecture   Refresh frequencies up to 100Hz @ 1024x768x32 bpp   RAMDAC up to 300MHz   Up to 32MB of on-board memory (SDRAM/SGRAM)   5 Mtri/s (textured, bilinear-filtered, Z-buffered, Gouraud shades, sub-pixel)   Single-pass multitexturing   Environment Bump Mapping   Bilinear, trilinear, and anisotropic filtering   Fogging, Gouraud shading, alpha blending, triple buffering   32-bit rendering   32-bit Z-buffer (with 8-bit stencil buffers)   Textures up to 2048x2048 pixels   Resolutions up to 2048x1536 (2D and 3D)   DualHead technology   Motion video rendering   3DNow! and SSE (KNI) optimizations   DirectX 6 and OpenGL (full ICD) support

But now the burning and all important all consuming question -- "Is it Quake3:Arena compatible?"  Not quite yet! It will have to have OpenGL ICD availability and judging on how long it took Matrox to do that for the G200, well... More on this later  You can take a more indepth peek on this at GA-Source.
 

Mon - Mar 15th - 09:24 am

The Monday after!  A big thanks from Steve and myself to all who made BTM007 a great bash!  The tables have been folded and stored, the chips have been vacuumed up and we're already in the planning for BTM08.  Just a quick note here, the Abattoir's IP has changed (...which always seems to happen after a BTM...) so you'll have to update your records for the SuperFTP server.  We're now at 24.226.78.51  We'll have the screenshots up on the SuperFTP tonight and another update.  Thanks again all!
 

Fri - Mar 12th - 09:21 am

It's Friday, and I'm still getting EMail for reservation requests -- Sorry folks, you've left it a "tad" late!  BTM007 is finally upon us, let's limber-up those fingers, get those eye exercises going and loosen-up that Pizza eating jaw, we're a day away!  As usual, it all starts at noon, so if you're not coming out tonight to set-up, try and be punctual Saturday.  If you've not downloaded Rocket Arena 8 - 'er, "2", don't worry, it's up on the Abattoir SuperFTP -- It's much faster to grab it over the cLANetic-Energy 100Megabit network local, so you may as well hold off.

We'll be answering EMail's tonight, but the Abattoir will go radio-silent later in the evening as we disconnect the "outside world" and switch over to the inhouse network.  Catch you 'Early-Birds' tonight, and see the rest of you Saturday!
 

Thu - Mar 11th - 06:32 pm

Rocket Arena 5...  Umm, er', I'm an idiot!  Well, I guess we'll play Rocket Arena "2", how's that!?  (...Shut-up MeatMan, now stand in the corner like the moron you are...)  =P
 

Thu - Mar 11th - 09:42 am

Been big-time tardy on the UpDates scene...  BTM007 is now a couple days away, once again, the Abattoir's a full house and we're looking forward to hosting another 100MegaBit HubBustin' no hold's barred massacre (...Clan "Hoopa" best be set, cuz LoSt and MeatMan are in a Half-Life killing mood!..).  Please remember, you have the 'Early-Bird' option to set-up Friday night any time after 6:00pm, this makes the morning a little smoother, plus you can take a rocket or two in the side of the head the night before the BTM (...helps you sleep! <GriN!>...).  I'm looking forward to seeing Quake3's IHV Test run, I've yet to see it in action and the anticipation's killing me.  Also...  Please make sure you've downloaded Rocket Arena 5, we're going to give that a shot this BTM.

We've received a number of EMail's from people who are subscribers to the Abattoir Morning Haha!!.  Ever since Microsloth stuck their huge corporate nose into LinkExchanges' world, ListBOT's been very 'temperamental' (...if responsive at all!..)  I've had a hell of a time logging on to send the Haha!! in the mornings, please bear with us, there's little we can do other then pound on ListBOTs server.
 

"The day Quake3 Leaked" Mon - Mar 01st - 06:05 pm

Woah! Quake3's out!! -- Just kiddin'.  Actually the IHV Hardware test has been leaked, it's not the game, it's not even the test, here's a quote from ID Software if you missed it on Blue's News:
 

A version of the IHV (independent hardware vendor) test has been leaked . The leaked version is used for the sole purpose of internal testing and contains no real levels. It serves no purpose other than for hardware vendors to test and optimize features such as multitexture and compiled vertex array implementation. It contains no playable maps. Some maps are specific for testing oversized textures, extreme texture aspect ratios, and high polygon outputs (much higher than normal maps). We hope the public is aware that this leaked test is useless to them and illegal to have in their possession. This material was given under NDA and its sole purpose for distribution was for hardware vendors to test out various features. We're flattered that so many people are interested in getting their hands on the game, but what is out now is not a game, nor is it the test that will be out in about a month. Trying to play the IHV test will only lead to frustration.

From what I've heard so far, the frustration part's true!  Doesn't take news like this long to travel -- I started my ICQ when I got home and within seconds got POUNDED with 3,234 "Oh-oh!"s asking me if I had it yet! -- NO!!  But I'm downloading as I type! :)  Please keep in mind, it's illegal to have this software in your possession (...SuperFTP, Quake3 folder, have fun! <GriN!>...)