Dave’s Good Stuff

Not too long ago I saw the Sci-Fi mini-series, Dune. I was quite impressed. I’d never seen the 1984 movie, nor had I read the book, so I was a complete Dune n00b. The mini-series inspired me, however, and I went out, bought the book, and now, two days later, I’m over half-way through it.

Damn, but it’s a good book. I compare it to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings in it’s depth. Both are extraordinarily rich universes, inhabited by people quite unlike ourselves w/o being so alien that we can’t relate to them. Both have a very "human" element that draws you (or at least drew me) completely in and just doesn’t let you go.

In anticipation of the end of the first novel, I’ve already bought the rest, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, Chapterhouse Dune, Dune : House Atreides, and Dune : House Harkonnen.

I don’t know that all are truly good books, but I intend to find out.

Last night I was asked by a member of the Quake III clan esoter1c (down at the moment) (call sign: [e]) to join their ranks. I’ve played in almost daily pickup matches with many of them over the last couple months, and was kinda hoping they’d ask… obviously I accepted. :)

I’ve always liked playing with them, thinking them both good players, and good sports. It’s rather ironic, actually… the member that asked me ([e]supasweet) and I had quite a nasty start brought about by a few careless words on my part. Things got pretty nasty before they got better, but all is well now, and I’m quite glad to be welcomed aboard. :)

Starting Sunday morning, I was unable to connect to any of my favorite Q3 servers. I typically play 1-3 hours a day, so this was quite a shock for me. At first, I thought it was on my end, but after 3 complete reinstalls, I figured my end was ok. So I started browsing around forums. All fingers pointed to Netgear routers, and so, since I’m behind a Netgear, I just sat on my railgun and waited it out.

Now, it looks like it’s most definitely an incompatibility between the latest point release 1.29h and older releases, specifically 1.29f and 1.29g. Since they upgrade the authorization server, even by not upgrading you may be affected.

Now, as more and more servers upgrade to 1.29h, more and more of us unlucky souls will once again, how you say… get our frag on.

With all this Quake, and Root shit, can I just start this week over again?