Ok, so its been a little while since I last wrote. Well, actually, it’s been more than a little. But that’s ok. Better to be too busy to write than not I suppose. Actually, there’s been quite a lot going on. I’ve shot 2 weddings, gone to a hockey game, ordered new computer parts and been involved with my team taking the number one and number two ranks on SquadGames and TeamWarefare respectively.

The weddings were fine for the most part. One was with a really good group of people who just didn’t have anything go their way that night (cake was wrong, band sucked, etc) but it was good for us since we did a little problem solving here and there, they really appreciated our extra effort and they had a positive outlook about the whole thing. The other wedding was pretty run of the mill. Nothing to complicated or involved. I’ve also got another wedding coming up in mid-February that’ll be pretty cool. It’ll be at the Houston Museum of Science in the “Gem” wing. I’ve got to remember to go over and take a look at the location so I can get an idea about how to shoot it. I’ve been told it’s a bit of a “cave” in terms of light and that photos won’t be easy. You know me, nothing comes easy.

The hockey game was fun. The tickets were a belated birthday present from Laurens mom. She let me pick out the game and she bought the tickets and I wanted to wait one of the New England teams to be in town. We caught the Houston Aeros vs. the Worcester IceCats last weekend. Good game. Worcester spanked the crap out of them, not like that’s a huge surprise or anything.

In gaming news, after a long screaming battle over some cheating allegations and false positives from PunkBuster, we were dropped to 15 on the TWL ladder. We had a clan member (newly admitted the week prior) get kicked from a warm-up round before a match. He didn’t even play in the match in question. After we won the other team accused us all of cheating and brought up the matter to the game ladder admins. They responded without even talking to us by banning our new player and dropping our rank. We got the following a few days later directly from Even Balance (makers of PunkBuster):

“We have confirmed that several gamehack violations (#81001-81014) triggered since the prior PB Server update on 12.11.2004 in BF1942 could have been caused by files or memory that were corrupted by non-cheat programs such as virii, adware, no-cd programs, etc. We encourage PB Admins to give players the benefit of the doubt for these violations.”

We of course, did NOT get the “benefit of the doubt” and we’re actually quite mad about it. The TWL admins have their heads quite far up places dark and moist. Regardless, and with huge amount of anger, we marched on. We fought back from #15 all the way to #2 after a victory last night over the team that raised the stink in the first place. Man, that felt good. I’ll say this once and only once. The Texas Combat Crew does not, has never and will never cheat. We do not need to. We’re nationally ranked #1 and #2 and there’s a reason for that. We’re fucking good. If you can’t deal with that and get beat down by us, don’t accuse us of cheating, it’s un-sportsman like.

We defend our number two position this week and challenge up for number one next week. Should be good matches.

Lastly, the new computer is on it’s way! That’s right, Matt finally got enough cash to upgrade the old rig. I waited until HL2 came out to see if it was playable and it was, though only barely. I’ve been told that Battlefield 2, being released late Feb/early March, will be quite the system hog. I just had to up the power. Come the end of this week (because New-Egg ships faster then imaginable), we’ll be rocking with a new Athlon 64 3400+. I paired that with a Ultra XConnect 500W PSU, a MSI K8T Neo-FIS2R mobo, 1G of Cosair, a shiny new Zalman cooler and topped it all off with a MSI Geforce 6600GT. I chose the 6600GT mainly because I didn’t have the extra $300 and because its the highest rated 6600 AGP card and it’s from the same manufacturer as my motherboard, making for maximum compatibility. That and they were one of 2 companies to go above and beyond with the 6600 line and put a non-stock fan/heatsink on it. The other was Gainward and they’re having supply problems and the cards have been sold out for months. I’ll plan on upgrading the card to a 6800GT or Ultra after this summer. I figure I’ll have some serious overtime hours after pageant season.

I’ll be using the rest of my old parts for now but a DVD burner and a 250G hard drive are defiantly on my sale watch list. Oh, and speaking of, Chris, that camera you wanted, it’s on a one-day sale at New-Egg today. Just a heads up.

Lastly, and I know I’ve said this before, I do have a new page design almost ready. I’ve scrapped the one I didn’t put up from last year FYI. If anyone wants it, it’s theirs. I just haven’t had the time lately and things like that get pushed to my already crowded back burner.

Anyway, hope everyone if doing great in the new year. I’m looking forward to turning comments back on. I think Jason set up mysql for me and I’m just waiting on a user name/pswd from him. After that I’ll give wordpress a shot. Chris seems to like it and that’s good enough for me. That’ll be when the new design will go up. Should make life a little easier for everyone and it won’t be…. well… brown.

Matt out.