Welcome to the third installment of Quake Nonsense and Babble. You may ask yourself what is the meaning of it all and the answer can only be a blank stare from me. Get a grip on yourself. Go outside and get some air, you freak. Did I mention that opinions expressed here may not and likely do not reflect the opinions of others in the company? I did? w0w. If the web page seems jacked up any given moment, I'm probably working on it as you read this. Now begone. - Time Traveler

Burbank LAN Party ][
All Female Quake Tournament
Burbank LAN Party III

07/07/1997: (I've started adding the year to the individual updates. I have a tendency to forget.) As most who check this page already know, the finals of the upcoming All Female Quake Tournament will be held at Slam.Site Burbank. The roster of players includes many of the well known figures in Quakedom. Don't stay tuned for Time Traveler's picks, because it would probably not be conducive to good health to start picking winners out of such a grip of women wielding boomsticks (and not afraid to use 'em.).

I was asked by a member of Clan Evil Geniuses to talk briefly about the upcoming DMCon in Iowa on July 11th through 13th (The link to the Evil Geniuses homepage has now been fixed - 06/18/1997) It would be a shame if several EG frontment showed up and there wasn't enough quality talent showing up to receive a sound drubbing. So here's your chance to talk trash live to Muppetman, MikeJ, and who knows who else. And remember, Evil Geniuses are still recruiting.



Here's the old LAN party link from late May/early June. Grab the Evil Geniuses vs. Postal demo there.


07/08/1997: Quakeworld vs. NetQuake. Which is better? If you're used to LAN play and you have access to a T1 or better, you tend to stick with the familiar. But what about the poor sobs like myself whose typical connection is a 28.8k modem (and a bad one at that)? Over the months my connection to the internet via my dialup has degraded badly. I'm not entirely positive as to the reason, but I have not seen a sub-300 ping in a game since about Christmas. In fact, my typical pings are in the 400-600 range. I've given up trying to play on servers like Kitty1 or Bone due to this. Even when pings appear stable (at about 350), they tend to push into the 1000+ range the moment I start playing. I play anyway because a)I'm a lunatic and b)I like Quake. But the other night I fired Quakeworld up for the first Time in months. My pings were... poor to say the least, but have a look:

The above pictures tells us several things:

A: Weak players.
B: Lotsa luck on my part.
C: QuakeWorld's strength.

I don't believe that this would have been possible in regular NetQuake. I was actually brutalizing people. I've played a lot of NetQuake on the T1 at Burbank as well as my pathetic modem. QuakeWorld made the game playable. Genuine 500 pings just won't win you games normally. Even QuakeWorld can only do so much. Doesn't matter how good you are. Pings that high just plain suck. So despite my affinity for some of the popular NetQuake servers like kitty1 and such, I will probably end up migrating to QuakeWorld except to watch the occasional game in NQ.

Well, at least until the cablemodem gets installed in 2 months. Then we shall see.


07/14/1997: LAN parties. And plenty of them. Saturday night at slam.site Burbank was filled with the screams of the dying and the bodies of the dead. Or so I was told. Reptile from Clan Postal informs me that members from 311, Postal, Sons of Cheese, and Quad Squad (among others). Apparently the party didn't break up until well into the morning (9:30 by Reptile's account). Despite my own desire to attend the megabash, I was already committed to another LAN party. If you want a list of people who showed up (actually, it's a list of people who were supposed to show up), check this link.

As for the explanation of why I was at another LAN party... Try to follow this. Some old friends with whom I thought I lost touch with tracked me down and informed me of a LAN party being hosted by one of them on the weekend of the 4th of July. Problem was, I was already committed to a camping trip that weekend. So they rescheduled it for Saturday the 12th. This all occurred in late June/early July. Shortly before the camping trip I was informed of the Burbank LAN party. I couldn't possibly ditch my old friends since they actually rescheduled around me. Besides, it was an opportunity to show them some cool Quake stuff they usually don't get to see, like CTF of all things. Sheeesh. :)

My pings, my pings, my poor pathetic pings... In the past week or so, my pings have improved slightly on two occasions of about 30 minutes each. Both Times my pings took a turn for the 'better.' Instead of my usually miserable 400+ my pings actually fluctuated wildly from 250 to 400. Even in battle! WooHoo! I actually managed to squeeze in a couple of decent games at the Kitty1 server before pings once again stabilized at 400+.


07/15/1997: There's a short article in this week's Newsweek (July 21 1997 issue) talking about the All Female Tournament to be held at Slam.Site Burbank. The blurb is under the Cyberscope section of the magazine entitled "No Holds Barred, No Boys Allowed." The section was surprisingly up to date with mentions of Burbank and the fight for charity. NabeO was quoted as saying "We want to show them we can frag them better than most guys." You go girl. There's gonna be more intense competition than you can shake a boomstick at.


07/16/1997: Slam.Site managed a mention in OGR, the Online Gaming Review's news section yesterday. Looks like Slam.Site is finally starting to get some serious recognition. Frag on, rock on.


07/18/1997: Corrected a link. That's all. Now go look elsewhere for today's cheap thrill. Might I recommend this. Or this. Now go away.


07/22/1997: Informed by EG Dakine that the Evil Geniuses homepage is making a final migration. The final link should be eg.gibbed.com. Why not drop by to say hi or issue a challenge to this fine clan.


07/28/1997: Slam.Site La Palma held its final going away LAN party on Friday night. Friends, coworkers and long Time valued customers were crammed into the site as they themselves crammed down free pizza (courtesy of yours truly) and drinks(courtesy of Blackout). Including machines brought in for the event, there were roughly 14 stations running games as well as 2 or 3 Quake servers at any given Time. In one highlight of the night, customers engaged some friends in a Clanring style deathmatch on DM3, 6 on 6. The battle was completely chaotic and very see-saw, but the customers managed to rally at the last minute and won 116 to 101. Later in the evening (or early in the morning, if you will) beatdowns were handed out (courtesy of me again) to those who stuck around until 7:24am. Overall, a good Time was had by everyone (courtesy of the Boss :). A fitting end to Slam.Site's first location and a fond farewell to those we leave behind. Perhaps they will remember the experience and continue their patronage at our other locations. ;)


07/28/1997: Click on this link to get a biased and slightly opinionated editorial on this whole All Female Quake Tournament affair. Also check out Time Traveler's picks as to who is gonna win it all.


07/30/1997: It is a sad day in LBE history. Virtual World Entertainment, which has long been on a decline, has been shutting down its locations over the past year or so. The site closings finally hit close to home when my own home site, VGL Costa Mesa, had its farewell party last night. Having spent hundreds of hours there meeting dozens of distinct personalities that under normal circumstances would never get along, the closing of the site marks yet another dark chapter in the ongoing saga of Location Based Entertainment. No matter where the trends and technologies take us, no matter who rises to the forefront of location entertainment, Virtual World will still be the grand daddy of them all. May it rest in peace.


08/07/1997: Due to the recent moving of the corporate offices from La Palma to Burbank, and due to the lack of an internet connection at the new site, it has been difficult to get an update, er, updated.

A lot of new events have occurred lately. Of course, the corporate relocation would be one of them. Also worth noting, Thresh took Time off of his schedule and stopped by Slam.Site Burbank yesterday. Today was the last day to play against him at Siggraph to try and win ca$h and prizes. Reptile told me that as of yesterday, Kornelia of Clan 311 has done the best so far. An omen of things to come, perhaps.

Finally, Slam.Site Burbank held its third after hours LAN party. On Friday night, August 1st, dozens of Quakers gathered at our location. This one was the biggest yet, so click this link to read the gory details.


Happy Quaking
Time Traveler



Older news stuff:
June 1997AD
May 1997AD

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Keep 'em to yerself. Well, email me anyway and tell me I suck for not wanting to hear questions, comments, and suggestions. If you wanna step up to the plate and play (I'm always on the lookout for a good mugging) please feel free to email:

Time Traveler