News Briefs from 2000
News Briefs from 2001
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01-01-2002
I didn't accomplish what I planned during my break, but I don't care because I enjoyed being lazy. However, I did get a little bit done. The "Species of the Weirdo Zone" looked bad so I fixed it a little bit; I hope to make it much better. A page on the history of the Weirdo Zone from 2000 to 3001 is up; it was based on the sociopolitical situation of 1999-2000 so it may seem a bit dated in its predictions.
The Warhammer 40,000 site revision is getting put off again until I feel like doing it more than anything else.
I designed another 'Mech for my dad's birthday, a revision of the MAD-3R Marauder. It carries twin extended-range particle projector cannon, four medium lasers, lots of armor, a light fusion engine, and the coup d'grace--a rotary autocannon. Hoo-boy, it's gonna shred some stuff when it sees action! It is up on the Battletech Designs page.
01-04-2002
The new MechEngineer download page is ready to go--in addition to the program I've also got a few 'Mech libraries going. A report on Reaver Mind Parasites is up on the Universe Page. The U.S.S. Sacajawea, U.S.S. Hiryu, U.S.S. Repulse, T.S T'Sora, and U.S.S. Mahdi are up on the Federation models page; the D-7M and Khomerex Zha are up on the Klingon models page; and the Z-7 D'Rodex is up on the Romulan models page.
01-12-2002
The "Species of the Weirdo Zone" report on the Universe page has been updated and is now much, much better. The K-44 QuD (Insurrection)-class destroyer is now up in the Models section.
01-19-2002
A story I wrote at GSP and have meant to put on here for the longest time, "I Once Had Wings," is now up in the Deep Stuff section as well as a GSP-related essay about what I learned about human communications.
02-16-2002
Sorry for not updating in a while, but I've been assembling a Crimson Skies addition to the Wargames (yet another excuse to avoid the WH40K bit). The last of my Global Young Leaders Conference pictures have finally been developed, complete with a special little surprise for all of you neophytes and a bittersweet memory for all of you crazy monkeychildren of the Czech Republic.
Hmmm... now how can I motivate myself to fix up WH40K before starting anything new? Well, I'm only going to bring my Ultramarines with me to college, so I should truncate it to Ultramarines. A Battle Reports section will add content (after I get a battle or two), and of course I can always make up stuff (TME to the rescue again!) as well as stats for my insanely powerful Weirdtroopers (which were a counter to Bill's ultra-powerful Most Favored Chaos Exalted Überchampions). Yes, that would be acceptable...
02-20-2002
The GYLC page is done and up in the Projects section. A few trifling errors in the Projects section (speaking of Mechadance in the future conditional, still having a link to a KillerMonk.com that doesn't exist anymore) have been fixed.
I'm aiming to have WH40K reworked by the time I graduate high school, which gives me three and a half months (that little already? How time makes fools of us all!). I was thinking about reworking Angriff but decided that it wasn't really neccessary (tell me otherwise if I'm wrong!).
03-08-2002
Turns out I was wrong. I've disabled the links to Angriff and am giving it a much needed refit currently. WH40K is on the back burner again, thanks to a friend in California.
03-14-2002
Still working on Angriff! and loving it. Lots of research, and some really neat pictures. Anyway, I've also done some more Battletech TME stuff, such as rules for Dropship-Mounted Capital Weapons, Radio-Frequency Flamers, and Weapon Superchargers. Fun fun fun for all the wargamers.
03-23-2002
I have enough of the New and Greatly Improved Angriff!
section done to merit putting it back on the website. Better designed and more
accurate, I wasted--no, wait, uh... spent, yeah, that's it, spent--a great deal of my free
time to make this the best site I could, complete with (gosh) research! Oh my!
It still needs a wee bit of work, basically some pictures of infantry
trays; an essay on armor tactics; and for human-interest Hanz und Fritz, German Motorcycle
Reconnaissance Team; and then it'll be done and I can finally fix up that smegging WH40K
site. After that, I can put up a Crimson Skies section. Then I can...
03-27-2002
I'm off to an undisclosed location for Spring Break, meaning NO work on the website for all of next week. To tide you all over, however, I have put the Culture and Technology Rating System used by the Exploratory Corps up in the Universe section. Enjoy!
04-13-2002
Back from break and with new BattleTech designs, too! The TME-158 Valiant Mk.II, the TME-159 Jove Mk.II, the TME-160 Fox ProtoMech, and the TME-164 Sheridan medium tank are all up on the Designs page (which I redesigned for easier browsing!).
04-20-2002
I've made silouettes for the TME-150 Mortus series, -151 Jove, -152 Caliban, -153 Immolator, -154 Bugbear, -155 Valiant, -157 Barrett, -158 Valiant Mark II, -159 Jove Mark II, and the -160 Fox. On the links page, a few have been added, the "Friends" section has been deleted (although some of the links there have been moved), and the "Sites that should be purged with the Purifying Flame of Redemption" have been deleted outright. No need to advertise trash. I've closed down the WH40K section for refit (finally!) and should have it back up in a couple of weeks, pictures pending.
Those lucky scuzzmonkeys in Integrated Web Design this year are learning how to do Flash animations. I'm jealous. We didn't learn how to make Flash animations last year. ::incoherent grumbling::
05-03-2002
I've made silouettes for the TME-161 Phoenix and added the TME-162 Guerrila series ProtoMechs. I've made decent progress on the WH40K site (which I have only about 3 weeks left to finish on schedule) and written a very important essay, "Tim's Personality," which is a helluvalot more important than "Why Tim Hates to Mow the Lawn" and is suggested reading for anyone I know personally.
05-12-2002
The WH40K site is coming along quite nicely--nicely enough to officially put back up--and I've got more 'Mechs! Whoo-hoo! Speaking of 'Mechs, I've been watching Robotech on DVD and I have to admit that I'm damn proud that I support the Anti-Minmei Propaganda Movement. That ditz is... well... ditzy... TOO DITZY TO LIVE!! Too bad her singing is a major plot device--but even classics aren't perfect.
05-19-2002
I have revised my Moral Construction of the Universe in the Deep Section. It now better reflects the greater implications of my theory. I also have upgraded my 'Mech design software to the Drawing Board V2.1 and am taking this opportunity to revise certain errors in my Battletech Design section. Therefore, the designs section is currently closed.
05-26-2002
Still working on updating and revising ALL of my
Battletech stats (I knew having a hobby like that would jump up and bite me in the...
well, enough whining) but I have found time to put my links in alphabetical order and add
a few new ones.
As it turns out, this website is more popular than I usually think, so
it is possible that a lot of e-mail sent through the Contact button below has been lost to
the mists of fate, thanks to MSN's Inbox "Protector." Just so I don't lose
your stuff, always put "00 WEIRDO ZONE" in big capital letters in the subject
line of your e-mail. That way, when I scan through the spam, I won't skip over your
e-mail to accidentally click on porn-based spam. That would be bad.
06-01-2002
I am now a proud graduate of the Kentucky educational system. Time flows like a river to the sea.
07-13-2002
Sorry for the month-long absence; my life got pretty hectic for a few weeks, slowing my progress on renovating the TME designs section (which is now done!). I've also started posting other people's designs on my site; they have their very own little bit off the Battletech Section.
I've got some more designs to upload, but they can wait. I've written a new short story, "His Most Pious," that I'm going to upload soon, and my first short story set in the Weirdo Zone universe ("Nullification"), dealing with the Reavers, should be put up at about the same time. My very first WH40K game transcript (of a game I lost... *sniff*) should be up eventually.
Because of all the heavy stuff I've done to this site recently, I want you people to tell me about anything that doesn't work. I'll either fix it or simply declare it kibble and eliminate it (depending on the severity of the problem).
07-19-2002
I'm going to start updating this site regularly from now on... anyway, I've got that first WH40K battle report up and, in honor of the completion of my recent Robotech marathon, two TME designs, the TME-169 Wasp II (VF-1S) and the TME-170 Stinger II (VF-1A) are up on the designs section.
07-26-2002
So much for updating the website regularly. Due to... complications in transferring data from my old, clunky, on-the-top-of-Death's-checklist computer to my new one, I'm signing off until I can set up an internet connection at Saint Louis... which will take, approximately, a month.
See you in Saint Louis.
08-23-2002
Greetings and salutations from Saint Louis!
It will take a few weeks to get everything reorganized like I want it, corrupt some new
friends and the like, but so far no major complaints.
What I will have to do is do a few essays, such as the Tech
Support troubles for my new computer (which is doing quite well now). I've been
working on the Reaver language and it seems to be coming along quite well, and while
updates will be sort of uninspiring for some time to come, I'll still have fun with this
'ol site.
I will still try to update the website weekly, but I wasn't able to
even do that all the time with a high school workload--we must wait and see if my college
workload permits me to keep this site as up-to-date as I'd like it to be. I am
thinking of subcontracting the Models section (to be controlled by my dad) but, as I've
already said, we shall see.
08-30-2002
Now I've gotten some real changes on this site.
A wonderful person, Sam W. Sim, found some errors in the Angriff section relating
to British armor machine guns. Those errors have now been fixed. An error
relating to the caliber of the PzKpfw 38(t) (I said it was 47mm, it is actually 37mm) has
also been fixed, thanks to Mr. Sim.
I've also got two new essays up, "The Universe's Conspiracy
Against Tim" and "What Tim Learned About at the Governor's Scholars Program:
Money," both of which are in the Deep Stuff section. Not only that, but
a new BT story, "Battle for Tulagi Spaceport," based on the last game I played
against Anthony is up in the BT Stories From the Front section. I can see that
college will be quite productive in the essay area as I expand my mind.
13 SEP 2002
See the new military-style date? I'm in the
Air Force (for now) and so I figure I better get into practice. Wouldn't do to fill
out the forms wrong. No sir.
If anyone noticed the white-out of my page all last week, I apologize
profusely. I forgot that the registration of my domain name expired, and so I had to
give the wonderful folks at www.namezero.com their
blood money. They've been good to me, though, so I'm not complaining.
I am going to assume that my last update didn't make it up, so I'm
going to leave the "Recent Updates" the way they are. Some additional
updates are the JMY-1D Jimmy by
Gary Fox in the BT Other Designs section and "Fear the Waddling Torso"
in the BT Designs section.
About the AF, I am enrolled in ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps)
but failed my first PFT (Physical Fitness Test). I did all the sit-ups and running
that they wanted, but failed miserably on the pushups. Now sometime around the end
of the month, maybe about 3 to 5 October, I have to retake it and I have been doing
push-ups until I frickin' fall over. I've improved by about 15 in about a week and a
half, so I hope to be able to at least pass the make-up.
Well, we will know in about three weeks. If, three updates from
now, you see me going back to the old dating system, you'll know I blew it. I'm
hoping now that, because my failure would be public and therefore exceedingly humiliating,
it will motivate me to pass the PFT with flying colors.
4 OCT 2002
(Original brief lost; reconstruction complete)
Angelfire screwed me over by reducing its allocated hosting space by 50% without warning me. Damn blackballing bastards.
1 NOV 2002
I got some more TME designs I've been sitting down on up: The TME-167 Huey and -168 Chinook infantry helicopters; the TME-169 Wasp II LAM and -170 Stinger II LAM; the TME-165 Airbus and -166 Macker small craft; the TME-173 Fireball WarShip and -174 Fireball Junior patrol dropship; and rules for medium-range and Thunderbolt Torpedoes.
8 NOV 2002
Well, I've come up with rules for Powerguns (a la David Drake's Hammer's Slammers) and another Other Person's Design is up, the DTK-1D Death Hawk by Gary Fox. I am working on a web-based comic strip called "Happy Kadets" or something like that which I might put up sometime soon.
22 NOV 2002
I took my old Great American Works and Chemistry II projects out of the Projects page; they were of purely academic (i.e. no) interest. In their stead I've put up the first three strips of "Happy Cadets," an autobiographical comic strip showing the humor and oddity of my AFROTC life... and my life in general, maybe. I have also put up Thomas Ebel's Man At Arms Integrated Unit System in the Other People's designs section.
10 DEC 2002
Sorry for not updating recently, but with exams to do and a Detachment Mural I have to paint and some secret projects (cue spooky CIA-spook music) I've been sorta busy. There's a new Happy Cadets up, and this one has neenjas! Well, a neenja. Yes, I am purposely spelling ninja neenja.