• 5 July.  It's been a long time, but Revolver is still a hack.   I called him one a year ago, and it hasn't changed.  Tonight, he entered multiple NH games with a hacked car (it's just wheels!)  Typical hack talk.   Whatever. And, just like days of old, he resorts to infantile response behavior.   I said it a year ago, I'll say it again... Revolver.. GROW UP.

• June.  Been a while- work is getting busy lately, lots of late nights.  Was hoping to get some more i76 in, derelict and paranoid were supposed to be grudge matching, but no shows yet.  Played for a while was like old times, and OLLLD times.  Old times, being that a bunch of 'think they are good' guys show up and smite them.  OLLLD times, cause DM smited me in a different game me like he used to way back when.

• 1 April.  April Fool.  That would be me!  After a long layoff, i decided to forego the warming up Clyde from hell, and get back in the AMZ.   Ouch.  Still had a 2/1 kill/death, but took a beating.

• 25 Jan.  Little Yellow Sissy Hood.  A while back, I met a good player named 'The Hood'- he was learning- and learning quickly.  I enjoyed playing against him.  Recently, I was in a game with him, and killed him.   A lot.  He'd pop up out of the regen, and I'd kill him.  Standard fare- if your engine is on, you're fair game.  He began to suicide whenever I got near him.   That's a no-no.  I thought it might have been a phase, but tonight, I appear in a game, he says, "no Type-Killing", and soon as I get near him... he "doesn't Fear the Reaper."  sissy.  That's the type of player that's really a shame about- they're good, but not 'good enough', if you know what I mean.

• 22 Jan. *sigh*  I've gotten used to there being hacks and lamers in games, but it still frustrates me when players who are above average are whiners.   I fought Orion (an aussie- read: LAG), and we had a good war going- but every time he died, he'd make up some excuse, while taking the praise I gave him for when he killed me.  I tried to explain how lag (and courtesy works both ways, etc., but it was lost to deaf ears.  Sad.

• 11 Jan.  A great night.  Only one hack, one lamer and one vulture.  The rest of the time, we had a great rumble going in the !airbase.   Vampress, Jack, Austin, some MM-ers, et al played for a long time at the airbase.   Damn gunners had my number- I barely broke even after they left- 39 kills, 33 deaths.

• 4 Jan.  Pretty good night- typical, some lamers, some runners (aka sissies), a vulture, some hacks, but a bunch of nice players.  Spider, Sol, Mav and I had a good rumble going.  Fun.   And what a nice change to go against an older crowd.  Average age for that game was... 33! Cool.

• 2 Jan 99.  Did a couple of updates to the lessons page.    If I get bugged enough, I'll finish the whole damn thing. <g>

• 1 Jan 99.  Oh.  My.  Gawd.  A jackass named Fugazi ICQ'd me and asks for a PIRATED VERSION OF NITRO.   He finally says that he used to have Nitro, but he lost it.  Right. FUGAZI IS A THIEF!

• December.  Been playing a bunch of Old, some nitro, and a game that's pretty durn good, and I'm pretty sure what I82 will be based on, BattleZone!

• 27 October.  Wow- Five STPers in one night.  Pretty darn cool.  But something that wasn't cool was a guy who entered one of our games, hung around for a while and ended up being the host.  He didn't offer to resign, nor did he follow the game rules and allowed hacks to enter our game.  Bad.

• 10 October.  It was a good night tonight.  How can you tell?   Because I got killed more than I killed (18/16).  A _bunch_ of quality players showed up: Spider, Genocide, Soulman, Ozone, Cloud (forgot his new name), Sniper, and others.  Surprising for a weekend night.  Pleasantly surprising.

• 6 October.  I'm really disappointed. One of the guys I've been playing on and off for a year is a thief.  Steals software.  Cruiser[SFp], you suck as bad as the hacks.

• 13 September.  Met one of the old guys online.  Gonna get him back.  Grrrr.  You know who you are.

• 30 August Well, you can't keep a good vig down. Since leaving the ladder, I76 has been more fun.  Go figure.  I still start up the !airbase game occasionally.

LAST ENTRY (for a while, anyway)

• 12 August '78.   Other roads becon; the Courcheval has a full tank of gas, I have a six-pack of soda, and an atlas- I'm gonna hit the road for a while. See you on some distant highway- You never know; I might stop by and swap lead and stories.  Toecheese... OUT.

• July-August.  Just haven't been able to play like I've wanted.   Been chasing a national motorcycle racing championship that's eaten all my time- and money.  The STP crowd has slowed down as well- only see the guys occasionally.   I just fought a match with Fugazi- got my tail kicked, but still had fun.   Asked to retire from the Ladder- maybe I'll rejoin it later.

• 01 July.  Phhheeeewww!  Was about to play a match last night, but the lamer was... well, a lamer.  I suspect he's a hack- he got on my ICQ list without authorization and crashed the game once we were about to start.  He also wouldn't give me his IP address for me to see what kind of lag he was putting out.   But, the worst thing is that he couldn't do anything without spewing  epitahs, so the match didn't get played.  Revolver: GROW UP.  You're a disgrace to [K]

• 23 June.  Wow- been a while since an update.  But that's partyly because I started playing a lot more nitro.  The cars are really cool.   The hearse has a double-rear weap setup- if you want to be king camerbert, put on a set of double WPs.  I erased gold- no one played it and it took up huge amounts of space.  I've been doing a lot of racing so that's eating into my time- also got a new game: MM6 that I've been playing a lot also.  I'm still on the ladder so I'll keep playing I76, but I'm getting disheartened- the guys with the worst lag seem to do the best.

• 1 June.  Hey!  Finally got Nitro.  It's cool.   Played with a cool cat named uh, it's rude, but he's in DK.  My buddy Derelo showed up as well.  I have a feeling he'll be a terror of the road soon enough.

• 28 May.  Fought against Mailman- now I know what going postal is about! <g>  I'll get him one day.  Fun night tonight, a lot of old-timers showed up.  Iggy, Z-man, Prowler, etc. made for a good ole' time.

• 27 May.  Had a match against a quality player with, uh, unusual lag.  I had 'lost' the match on purpose so I could challenge up, but he showed up later an beat me anyway.  Remind me not to challenge him again.

• 25 May.  LOL!  F*cking hackers.  I go into a game called r66 recruiting- some lamer I never heard of is making a 'new' gang called r66.   _right_.  I informed him the name has been taken for well over a year.   He tells me he is a mega hacker dewd, and I said, "uh, yeah."  I asked him to convert 33 decimal into hex.  Silence.  hehehe.

• 22 May.  Been playing some gold- saddened because I saw my first real hack in it.  *sigh*.  Trying to teach the proles how to play, but frustrating.

• 20 May.  Been playing quite a bit, had a couple of matches, but lost them.  Darn.  I challenged someone I beat earlier at d25 and they beat me 5-1.  Ain't lag great?  But, it's partially my own fault- I connected at a slower speed than usual.

• 11 May.  Back to basics.  Challenged at d25 and was behind 0-2, but came back to win 5-3.  Fought with a GoM- cool guys, wish they were more active.

• 08 May.  Small cars are not for me.  Fought two d5 matches in a row and lost both of them badly.  I had an interesting car, a lep with flamethrower, but no cups, and got capped each time.  Next time, i'll add more chassis, and find a way to get cups on it.  Been racing the past few weekends.   Crashed in Alabama, but came out okay.  Still leading the region and the nation in a couple of classes so can't complain too much! <g>

• 30 April.  Playing on and off for days.  Just finished a dunlimited match.  Won.  Also just got back from a national weekend.   Didn't win, but got enough points to be first in two classes overall.  Headed to Talladega again this weekend.

• 20 April.  Gold was empty, old was full of hacks.  Wraith and I had a lot of fun doing some big cars at airbase and creeper canyon.  Cruzer showed up after about 7 months off.  He was a bit rusty, but a good play.er.  Late breaking news: X1 gang chickened out of a 2/2 match with paradise and I.  Oh well, just the spectre of STP scares them off.

• 17 April.  Played gold and old.  Revived the old !airbase game and some old-timers showed up.  Nice to see the Wraith.  Played gold and was bored to tears.  Got called a hack because some lamer couldn't kill me.   Sheesh.  Austin Powers[4MH] and Charger[4MH] are on the 'silly children' list.   but, even so, it was nice to see others who played fair and learned quickly.

• 15 April.  Death and Taxes.  Paid a lot of tax, passed out some death.  Gold is empty.  Old is hackland.  Hacks are even hosting NH games.  Sheesh.  But they died just like the rest.

• 12 April.  Lent is over! Hurray!  Played a little gold and got bored with the newbies.  Then played some old and got bored by the hacks.   *sigh*  Played in this one game and was kicking tail, and got called a hack.   Geez, I thought those days were over.  Tried to explain to the lamer the way things are but, limited cranial capacity prevented any progress. 

• 8 April.  Challenged a good player in d25 and got toasted.   Check out the AVA combat page, and my writeup should be there.  If not, look here.  Played some gold and old.  Servers were laggy tonight.

• 5 April.  Won my first national motorcycle race at Talladega.   It was tough.  Next national in Memphis, April 25.

• 30 March.  I lost an AVA fight- it was with a guy I fought earlier and beat.  If you read down, you can probably figure out who it was, but he apologized and proceeded to kick my tail this time.  I screwed up and brought the wrong car and lost the fight, but I don't think it would have mattered.  I need to get sneakier when I'm challenged and come up with some tricky tracks and such. 

• 29 March.  A wacky weekend- I won a race at Roebling Road, but had a lousy weekend overall- crashed my car, my teammates bike blew up, my bike ran out of gas as I was leading a different race, etc.

• 24 March.  Hey, the gang's all here!  Six of the STPers showed up for a rumble.  Just like the old days, total carnage!

• 22 March.  Played some gold today.  Sheesh- newbies, but totally clueless ones.  Mining and Blox and Sissies. Had an AVA match that was total crap- lag city.  Oh well.  (needless to say, I didn't win.)

• 17-20 March.  Been going back and forth between Gold and Old.   All the quality players have gone to Nitro, so it's pretty boring- but having fun playing with Paradise and experimenting with new cars.  In gold, I've gotten rid of my AIM9 and went to firerites.

• 16 Mar.  I finally won a race.  A REAL race that is- www.wera.com, Road Atlanta results.

• 10 Mar.  I just finished a great fight with Vic Ferrari of KW.   It was first one to win 4, and I was ahead 3-zip.  Vic put his head down and had an amazing comeback to win it 4-3.  Wow.  But it's also hard to believe that he's in the same gang as someone else I wrote about recently. :-/  I've got to get ready for the race at Road Atlanta this weekend, so this will be it for me this week.   Drive Offensively- toecheese.

• 08 Mar. Yeeha!  Watched the Daytona200 and The Man Scott Russell won.  AGain.  For the fifth time.  Had a party at my place that was lots of fun.  I also resolved a challenge tonight with another player.  It was a great fight, but WOW what a sore loser!  Sheesh.  Take your licks and get on with it.  Since he challenged me, it's no skin off his arse- he doesn't lose a position.  After all his b*tching, I finally had to say... WHATEVER.

• 06 mar.  Tons of games going on meant slow play on main, and merc was down, but spare was empty.  Paradise, Prak and I had some airbase fun.

• 05 March.  Played a long game before getting host bug. 

• 03 March.  Played a lonnnnggg game of Gold.  It might not be faster (in software) but it is damn sure more stable.  I finally got the host bug, where a guy enters a game and then it says he's entering again right before it hangs hard.   But that was after 48 kills.  the thing about gold is that it is mostly newbies, so it wasn't much of a challenge.  Some loser came in with much cheese to the !stp game and made an arse of himself.  I asked him to get non-cheese and he started cursing. Boot!  He came back and started it again and said, "anycar, anytime"  Told him to get a car and I'd be waiting.  Best of 5.  He got one kill (because I ran over my own fire) but, uh, that was it. :-)  He later apologized for being an arse. :-)

• 02 Mar.  Actually played the gold game.  But, uh, if you don't have it, I can't play with you.  Gold and Old aren't compatible.  So get a copy of gold so we can play- you won't even be able to see my games if you have old and I have gold.  But, I've reinstalled old in a different directory if need be.  Now the news: it's pretty good.  Is it 84MB good? Hmmmm.  Uh, if you have a fast connection, sure.  It seems a little smoother, but the weapon charactistics are different.  The AIM9 Sucks now!  It won't hit a thing.  I might put a Firerite on instead.  Since gold and old aren't compatible, the only guys who are playing gold seem to be the newbies (since the i76ers are probably playing nitro).   It's a newbie lesson game every time now... hopefully people will migrate to gold.

• 01 Mar.  Got the gold patch from Activision.com.  84MB.   Now, I know on their site, they said it wasn't a patch, but, uh, when you installed it, it called it a patch.  Anyway, it doesn't seem that my ATI 3d Rage is a directly supported card, so I don't get the bennies of accellerated hardware graphics.  I'm really curious to see how the hack proofing works.

• 27 Feb.  *sigh* Fought a fight with a guy who was pretty good.   But he died (surprise!) and started whining about lag.  Don't WHINE! Sheesh.   And a big no-no, a VDU player took over a NH game and allowed a hack to enter and wouldn't boot.  Gonna write the VDU guys a note.  The !stp game was up for hours   64 kills, 18 deaths (that's the most I've gotten in a game without a crash) before Z-Man and I decided to call it quits to get the goldpatch.  What's up with the nitro?  I had it in my grubby hands this afternoon, but didnt' buy it.  Wanted to hear the stink from the 'net.  Got an earful.  *crossing fingers* that it is better.  Got a cool message from someone who started in our newbie lessons game, and progressed to !stp games:

"wow cool page you guys are really into it . thanx to you and your friends people like me can play where we know it will stay fair and have a legit chance. tell all the guys that people do apprieciate what you all do thanx again .......rick" 

And *that*, dear reader, is what STP is all about.

• Feb 25.  Lag, Lag, Lag.  And what's the deal with Mercnet being down?  As usual, we had a great game, though Crash was not up to par. 

• Feb 24.  An interesting night- it was dress-up night, as some very good guys came and played under pseudonyms.  Bruiser finally got a web-page. hehehe.

• Feb 23.  Wow, the activision servers were lagged to death.   We even tried the Oklahoma server ags.ionet.net, but even it was slow.  I ended up inviting the gang to the house of toe- pretty fast even with 5 players.   Iggy joined in tonight for some intercontinental rumbling.  Lots of fun.

• Feb 20.  Not bad for a Friday night- only two hax came in and were booted immediately.  Some guys like to kill hacks once they come in a legit game.   Not me- it just encourages them.  keeping with the creed, I quickly explain "No Hax" just before the size 10EEE.  Met a good player tonight, 'Aqulia'.

• Feb 19th.  Well, Fudge.  (and other nice words).  I lost a d25 duel in an AVA match.  Not a big deal, because as the challengee, I don't lose a position.  But, it really irks me because I'm a master of cheese and d25 is extra-cheesy.   I really screwed up by allowing the fight to happen on I76net instead of one of the other servers.  I never got my oppenent even red, while he killed me thrice in a row.  Grrrrrrr.  

• Feb 18th.  Lent.  Oh boy.  Six weeks of fasting and pennance.  No red meat, sweets, alcohol, or soda for me.  If you see me in a game and I seem unusually grumpy, it's probably because I'm thinking about eating a burger, snickersbar, and a coke!  Yeah, I know I'm a week early, but it's a long story.

• Feb 14-15th.  I got two 2nds and two 3rds in the WERA races at Talladega.  No, really, I did.   But, I want to win.  Next race is at Road Atlanta on March 14th.  We'll see.

• 98/02/10 Newbie lessons was a wash. again. *sigh*.  But, Maddog and Prak showed up and we had a good ole' time with some other quality players in the !airbase game.

• 98/02/08 Stardate: typical weekend.  Wow, it's hard to be a 'good guy' and help teach people how to play.  Prak and I decided to fire up !newbie lessons on a Saturday night.  Let's just say, NEVERMORE.  We decided that weekends are the haven for children.  A never ending stream of hackers and little boys pretending to be girls, little boys pretending to be different little boys, etc. Some nights, giving back to I76 is rewarding, but last night was horrid.  The only good player we met was Manfred- who, with our suggestions, got incredibly better through the evening.  No more weekend lessons. Period.

The pre-history of STP!

Somewhere back in the Fall of '97, a group of vigilantees got together- the best that i76net had to offer... This is their story.

How did it happen?  It was apparent pretty darn quickly who plays fair, and who was a clusterf*ck.  Not only that, but a certain level of maturity shows through as well.  When every statement consisted of a curseword or insult, it wasn't hard to guess they were playing on mommy's computer.

Players who sat on hills and threw clusters were named vultures, and shunned.  The same went for clusterboats- the worst would fire their multiple cheesewhiz and run for momma, aka, the regen.  These lamers were named sissies.   And every once in a while, a good player would end up getting beaten- instead of giving his attacker a compliment, he'd start making excuses.  The whiners ended up with the rest of the trash.

What was left were the best players in I76. 

The Strangers to Pain!

STP Rules are pretty simple: play fair and play often. 

NHMVCSW

• No Hax (hax are the worst players- because of their ineptitude, they hack cars instead of learn to play)
• No Mines/Blox (they cause lag)
• No Vultures (sneaking up and clustering 2 guys in a .45 fight, etc.)
• No cheese (cheese is more than 1 mort, more than 2 missles)
• No Sissies (no regen while in a fight. Period.)
• No Whiners (if someone doesn't get a good kill, keep yer yap shut and kill them next time)

We also try to give something back to the I76 community.   Activision did an awesome job on this game- sure there are rough edges, but this game is d*mn fun.  One thing we do is host !newbielessonsNH.  Don't bother entering if you're a hack, or experienced.  this game is for newbies- who have legit copies of the game.  We don't like hacks, and we don't like software piracy.   Some of us write software for a living.  NewbieLessonsNH is the best resource to learn how to play- we give lots of tips from weapon selection to fighting strategies.  The reason we teach is because we hope that the newbie who gets smoked in every game he enters will come to us and learn to play, instead of become a lamer and hack up a car- thinking that's the only way to survive.   

If you enter any of our games, please follow the rules.  We will boot anyone who violates our rules, but only after explaining why.  We also follow the rules of any games we enter.  We're proud to be STP!  We have high standards for ourselves, and those who join us in the best battles in the southwest.

Welcome to STP!