life is good

[Lance]

.
well, today is one of those days that comes around every year. in a little less than an hour it will be 61 years since i was born. and i'm glad it happened. ;) being is so much more interesting than non-being.
one of those interests and pleasures is Wipeout, a delight that most older folk will never know. mostly due to social expectations of a conventional non-thinking culture that limits itself and its members, but somehow i was not limited that way. anyway, even more than the pleasure of the game, the greater pleasure of wipeout is the sharing of enthusiasm on the WipeoutZone with other enthusiastic funloving, helpful people, who no matter what their age, are civilised, informed, and who share their information and their good wishes with each other from many places in the world. i am proud and thankful to have spent yet another year of my life in this community which provides so much pleasure and entertainment and good humour. i thank all of you, and i wish you well
.

[noah]

Happy birthday Lance http://www.rebelsquadrons.org/bbs/images/icon_smile.gif

[Roger]

Here's to you, Lance. A toast! (gotta go check the cupboard for some booze, think I've got a bottle of mezcal in there...)

[G'Kyl]

All the best wishes to you, Lance (even though I haven't been knowing you for long).
Gosh, and I thought I was old when I just turned 27...! sncr. ;-)

Ben

[zargz]

happy birthday 2u man !
i'll eat a toast 2 selebrate u! 8)

[yuusen]

–
many happy returns, Lance.

may the fat cat of luck shine down on you.
–
Â¥

[Shem]

Ok Lance.....Here it comes! -------

Sto Lat, Sto Lat, Niech Żyje, Żyje Nam, Sto Lat, Sto Lat, Niech Żyje, Żyje Nam, Jeszcze Raz, Jeszcze Raz, NIEECHH ŻYJEE, ŻYJE NAM!!!!! NIEEEECCCHH ŻYYYJEEEE LANCEEEE!!!!! :D
(Polish version Of "Happy Birthday")
Cheers Lance!!!

[yuusen]

–
and for what its worth...

penblwydd hapus si chi!
penblwydd hapus si chi!
penblwydd hapus si Laa-aance!
penblwydd hapus si chi!

... the welsh version.
–
Â¥

[zargz]

'sto lat' is 100years that's all i got fr it! :o 8)

[xEik]

Uhm, this is a record that not even Al can take from you. ;)

[Lance]

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thank you all for the good wishes. and thanks for those amazingly melodic renditions of birthday songs. i am honoured. :D

xEik, oh, i dunno, Al will probably live to be older than Mister Spock, just to hold the record for that, too. ;)
i just got a head start...

[JABBERJAW]

happy birthday lance! just 31 more years you may be the first one to test out the Nx1000 anti gravity vehicle on april 15 2035 in the Nevada desert. Funny thing is, that will be my 65th birthday. Hopefully they will have some anti aging or reverse aging seurum by then for us so we can show them how to fly :D

[Mano]

Happy Birthday!, many more good years for you, ...a 61 years old Wipeout pilot, you know, you would make a great character in the next game, and you have shown you are faster than many way younger pilots. ;)

cheers on your day Lance!.

has anyone posted the spanish happy b day version?... cumpleaños felÃ*z, cumpleaaaaaños feeeelÃ*z.... god, even written you can tell my singing sucks :P:)

[Asayyeah]

Joyeux anniversaire Lance, always young with your Neg-Con. Go on fellow buddie.

[Lance]

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i hope they come up with that serum real soon now.

mano, i'm a character alrighty. [maybe you should try singing in Quechua instead of in Spanish?]

Asayyeah, i'm beginning to think that neGcon can add years to one's career.

'sto lat' is a hundred years. hm.. is that language even Indo-European?

if penblwydd is birthday, then the legendary father of King Arthur would be Uther, born of dragon?[Pendragon]

that fat cat be shinin' when i b XLin

ah, yes. 27. that was a great year. one of my favourites

you're not gonna eat the worm at the bottom of the bottle, are you?

thanks, Noah. love your work on the ark. fine workmanship. that would have been too much chopping for me. give my regards to your Dad. gotta go now, my house is starting to leak. i'm just gonna jump in my Icaras and go over to Home Depot for some materials
.

[Hybrid Divide]

Happy Birthday Lance! :D

[infoxicated]

Wow... congrats, friend :)

It's a milestone I wont reach for another 30 years, and I hope when I get there I'm even half as sharp as you are with a joypad :)

The one thing that always amuses me is when we get new members - especially younger folks still at school or college, and their reaction when they find out how old Lance is! It's always a jaw dropper for them for some reason. If you asked them I bet they'd swear that they'll still have the enthusiasm for games when they're 60 - but how many of them will still have the enthusiasm for putting up with the young guns on a video game fan site? Not many, I bet.

I used to worry about getting old (mostly due to the old dude in Logan's Run - he was really old) but if there's one thing I've learned from Lance, other than patience, it's that age is as much a state of mind as it is a physical condition. And most of the time I think he's in better shape than me :o :lol:

[zargz]

'sto lat' is a hundred years. hm.. is that language even Indo-European? here's 4the lenguage freeks:
it's in the slavic family. that's how i guessed. sto is 100 in bulgarian AND russian
(jugoslavian too) lat in russian = let, in bulgarian liato = summer.
u no b4(looong ago) ppl used 2say: im 23 summers (old) or smthn like that. 8)

[Shem]

ppl use to say this in my country all the time zargz! but instead of summers, the say "springs", but...."lato" = summer "lata" = summers... so STO LAT = 100 SUMMERS.....
I never thought of it that way.....but then again - why do ppl say 'springs' instead of summers? ..... ah whatever.....

[noah]

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thanks, Noah. love your work on the ark. fine workmanship. that would have been too much chopping for me. give my regards to your Dad.


Thanks :) .. though I must say that the rounding up of all the animals was much more difficult than actually constructing the ark. The ark was mostly repetitious woodwork. Animals, however, can be very stubborn, and another problem: I had to get heterosexual couples. This was very hard with the penguins, for instance. And many animals threw eggs at me for discriminating against homosexuals. I pointed out that many species wouldn't survive if they had their way, but they would hear none of it. Sigh. Lot of hard work.

[zargz]

noah: LOL! :D :D

shem: same as animals, b4 most ppl were born in the spring. Why?
think 9 months b4 spring! winter, dark, cold, no tv .. :wink:

[Lance]

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zargz, i was born just a few days into April, pretty much spring, right? which means i would have been conceived in early june. do you realise how hot and bright it is in june in the northern hemisphere? possibly we should rethink the nothing else to do in winter theory. i mean, it's true that my parents didn't have television back in those days, but it wasn't winter. :)

Noah, since homosexuality seems to be either genetic, or due to environmental factors during pregnancy, or a combination of both, then the necessary selection for the ark didn't really eliminate the possibility of continuance, as we can see from the distribution percentages in current populations. not to mention my existence. so i forgive you ;) :D

there's a habit in some local cultures within the english language traditions that uses the ''he was a lad of fifteen summers when he was kicked out of the family home to make his own way'' sort of literary construct. [i'm glad that never happened to me!]

Rob, i seem to have been surprising people my whole life. mostly in a good way that breaks down conventional expectations. i hope.

speaking of hope, i hope that my existence and character make it clear that your spirit and joy don't have to die with age.

Logan's Run was a pretty big deal amongst the science-fiction buffs when it first came out, and even among the general movie-going public. kinda surprising, really. i went to the first showing at the local theater, which was back in the days when movie theaters/theatres only had one screen. and this one was the biggest and best and had a six-channel sound system [back in those ancient days!]. the line of people waiting to get to the ticket box stretched across the entire front and back along the side of the rather large freestanding building. and the movie was worth the wait. even though it now seems a bit tame compared to the big special efx action flicks we've gotten used to. that especially applies when it's seen on an ordinary tv. but it's a movie that relied on ideas, not battles.

thanks, Vagrant :)

[lunar]

Belated Penblwydd Hapus from here too, Lance. :D

I`m still 26 years behind you, and my major worry about getting older is that it will no longer be possible to find functioning playstations and negs to play wipeout on. :o

[Lance]

.
thanks, lunar. PSXs and PS-1s should be available for a good while yet in original and reconditioned form, but neGcons are another thing. having discovered their superiority and their rarity and their having been out of production for so long, i do worry about that one. i could still have fun without one, but not as much, and my times would certainly suffer
.

[lunar]

Without negs I would put 2097 aside and go back to SE. There must be a way of repairing them, though I guess the local engineering shop would charge a few pennies to do so. When mine breaks I will investigate (while playing on with my spare) :wink:

[Asayyeah]

neGcons are another thing. having discovered their superiority and their rarity .
You have entered with all humility the Negcon team, so could you please enhances that pretty dawn controller to my pal :D Stinda , he tryied it when i come but he has returned to his ' old fashionned ' D-pad prehistorical controller :evil: :evil: :evil:
Try to convince him :) for me it's beyond my skill :lol:

Lunar What i hear :roll: you didn't not use your ermm... ' My preeecious ' ...Neg with SE !!! Only with 2097 ... very surprised by that :o

[Lance]

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yeah, i was kinda curious about that choice myself
.

[lunar]

I didn`t own a neg when I was racing SE classic tracks. If I had, then Z and V would have been mostly toasted...... possibly..... or possibly not....... :wink:

Stin: do not underestimate the power of Neg. :wink:

[G'Kyl]

I'm not sure it's exactely on topic, but I also use the neGcon primarily with 2097 and not with 3(SE). Even though that's simply because the neG doesn't have enough buttons to operate all weapon-related functions in single races - and I do only TT in 2097 but SR in 3 (since I haven't yet unlocked all ships in all classes on my new memory card). That's really the only downer with the Neg.

Ben

[Lance]

.
i'm using the neG on both TT and SR of XL [wheeee, alphabet soup!], though it still gives me trouble at times when i try to drop a weapon. i've hardly played WO3 at all since i got the neG, but i've already seen that the need to use yet another button for hyperthrust makes things almost too difficult in SingleRace mode. i've still not found a button configuration i can live with there. maybe with more WO3 practice i can, but not yet
.

[G'Kyl]

Without negs I would put 2097 aside and go back to SE. There must be a way of repairing them, though I guess the local engineering shop would charge a few pennies to do so. When mine breaks I will investigate (while playing on with my spare) :wink:

Hmm, I payed nothing more than 15 Euros for my neGcon on eBay(.de). So I was wondering: People really seem to be afraid of braking their neGs and not being able to find a replacement. Why is that?

And just one more thought on the Negs in general:, I find it almost impossible to play 3(SE) with one of them. Why, just why didn't they add two more shoulder buttons? :( I really can't cope with the idea of having to release the accelerator in order to fire or release a weapon. It's difficult enough already to find a suitable confiuration, because I have to have a much stronger grip on the NeGcon than on the standard pads, which makes it even harder to let go any of the fingers to activate one of the buttons.

Ben

[Lance]

.
oops, fulfilling a request i forgot to respond to earlier:

Stin, try a neGcon for a week. just sit down to a 2 hour session and get into the driving for a bit and you will be breaking your old records. i started breaking even my most recent and best D-pad times on the very first day i had the neGcon. it is that good! use it on 2097 Time Trial first cos that's the easiest button configuration to work out; no hyperthrust or weapons to worry about.
.

[Mano]

Stin, also try to lower your maximum lock to a low value, i use 6 at the moment, in the begining i used 11, this lets me have smooth control over the ship steering and lets me react fast as the twist has a very low travel, allowing me to return quickliy to the neutral spot and/or to the opposite direction; center always on 0, and dead spot i use 6; this makes your ship steady when you want to, if you have a lower value as dead spot you may find it dificult to align you ship.

Also try out different configurations, to me this is the negative aspect of the negcon; its difficulty to be comfortably configured. like Lance said before: in XL TT its perfect, also for XL SR with piranha, SR with any other craft is ok, and on wo3 hyperthrust makes it a bit more uncomfortable, i tried a config based on Al´s (R=gas, II=L airbrake, B=R airbrake, L=hyperthrust), should work on 3se perfectly but i find using the shoulder buttons as airbrakes is more intuitive, besides i dont play 3se much i mostly play XL

[Lance]

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eek! i use 0,45,0!!
.

[Mano]

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eek! i use 0,45,0!!
.

i usually place them in this order maxlock/center/deadzone i think that 45 value you use is for maximum lock... try a lower value it might help you a lot specially on phantom class, also try upping the dead zone value so the ship is teadier, this again, works great on phantom class.

[Asayyeah]

eek! i use 0,45,0!!
Ouch :-? it reminds me at the beginning when i discovered the Neg-con universe :D
It's a major thing :The less you twist ( like Mano perfectly described) the more you can control smoother with faster reaction your ship ( for example actually i put 0,0,and 6 for dead spot with pirahna & 10,0,6 with other ships) i ve noticed with Sleh ( my French wiper friend) that you can control easily the pirahna in phanthom class without twisting at all ( i assure you i won't become mad : it depends on how you use the airbrakes, i give you an example from The only beginning of Sagarmatha with the left and right corner ( an S ) : as the twist has no travel, a single impulse on the left + left airbrake gives you the possibility to enter correctly into the S but immediately you twist right very quickly ( due to the lack of twist-travel) + right airbrake to take the end of the S ( at this moment you can hit the right side of the wall so you absolutely need to twist left+L.A. to be correctly in the middle of the track and also do this immediately. Moreover don't push the airbrakes for a longtime : less than 1 sec ( you just tap it quickly as you can)

[JABBERJAW]

The twist setting is a bit of a lie(so to speak). 6 maximum really isn't 6 degrees. otherwise it would turn almost as bad as a dpad, one little touch and you would turn way too much. I think there is a minimum negcon setting that is not stated, probably 20-30 degrees or so. YOu would figure if you set the negcon to 0 that it should be as sensitive as a dpad, but it still turns smoothly. I don't think wipeout 3 has this problem, but I don't set it for any less than 51(for icarus) anyway.

[Lance]

.
my setting 0,45,0 is for center,maxlock,deadzone. i find that on WO3 less than 45 seems overly sensitive. 45 seems to give especially precise control on WO3, and works well for me on all 4 classes of WO2. more experience may result in changes, but for now it's something i can drive fairly well with, especially as i have a tendency to overcontrol
.

[Mano]

The twist setting is a bit of a lie(so to speak). 6 maximum really isn't 6 degrees. otherwise it would turn almost as bad as a dpad, one little touch and you would turn way too much. I think there is a minimum negcon setting that is not stated, probably 20-30 degrees or so. YOu would figure if you set the negcon to 0 that it should be as sensitive as a dpad, but it still turns smoothly. I don't think wipeout 3 has this problem, but I don't set it for any less than 51(for icarus) anyway.

3se has a (max lock) minimum of 30, cant go any lower than that and like Lance says at that setting its a bit oversensitive, for 3se I used 35-40, what you say about XL is right as you stated a 20-30 range on XL, they may have used the same setting on 3se but that time they actually showed it and locked it at that minimum (i think you have a sensor on your hand, you were right on the range!, which makes me wonder: with your times and now this calculation, do you see numbers and formulas in the air while you play man?, lol, this just made me remember the movie D.A.R.Y.L. when the kid played pole position).

But still theres a difference, and at 6 its easier to react for me and it doesnt loose any of the smoothness that makes the negcon great (for wipeout at least), this matter is very subjective and i may have sent the wrong advice, heres the correct one: Stin, try other settings until you reach one youre comfortable with.

[JABBERJAW]

I see these green funky letters falling from the top of the screen to the bottom, :D I've seen daryl, but don't remember the movie at all.

[Synthetic Consciousness]

ValÃ*mo Nóstare! (Qenya for "Happy Birthday") to both Lance and Al. :D

Man, I haven't been here for awhile...so what did I miss? :P

[Mano]

SC: A LOT!, check the WO XL/2097 forums, also, their time tables ;)

[Lance]

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thanks, Robert

longtime no see. yes, check out the times tables for XL. a result of your gift is evident there. :)

are you working on a new music project?
.

[Synthetic Consciousness]

My latest update was at the beginning of last month. If I can get a couple songs I've been wrestling with to work out, I plan to update again pretty soon. Check out my tracks, and feedback is always appreciated. Enjoy! :)

http://www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?songs=168169&T=903

[Asayyeah]

[ Stinda has tryied Neg-con when i came to scotland but he has returned to his ' old fashionned ' D-pad prehistorical controller :evil: :evil: :evil:
Try to convince him :)

I must say : times are changing..... The Stinda Negy Resurection was tonight : he did 19.6 in rapier TT Talon's 2097 , in only couple of attemps, then he started phanthom and did an excellent 18.8 for his only 2nd attempt , he has reached 404 kph for the first time the symbolic line of 400 is broken for him. Good job, bud :wink: ( i must say i was watching him through messenger during 30 min and it was fun :) )And you know what....it's only the new beginning....

Wanna laugh .... just have a look on his phanthom lap time he puts on the tables :lol: : a strange :o 1.19.2 :o appears for laptime...
If you do that time ( lol) you can easily reach close to 6 minutes on racetime for Talon's...
Even the 540 ° dance turn of Lance , done on each lap , couldn't give you the possibility to acheive that ' massive ' time!! Hey Bud how could you do that ? :lol:

[stin]

Asayyeah You have entered with all humility the Negcon team, so could you please enhances that pretty dawn controller to my pal Stinda , he tryied it when i come but he has returned to his ' old fashionned ' D-pad prehistorical controller
Try to convince him for me it's beyond my skill

Did you say 'D' pad prehistorical controller???????!!! I will sort ye oot man!!! :evil: :wink:

Lunar Stin: do not underestimate the power of Neg.

Lance Stin, try a neGcon for a week. just sit down to a 2 hour session and get into the driving for a bit and you will be breaking your old records. i started breaking even my most recent and best D-pad times on the very first day i had the neGcon. it is that good! use it on 2097 Time Trial first cos that's the easiest button configuration to work out; no hyperthrust or weapons to worry about.

Mano Stin, also try to lower your maximum lock to a low value, i use 6 at the moment, in the begining i used 11, this lets me have smooth control over the ship steering and lets me react fast as the twist has a very low travel, allowing me to return quickliy to the neutral spot and/or to the opposite direction; center always on 0, and dead spot i use 6; this makes your ship steady when you want to, if you have a lower value as dead spot you may find it dificult to align you ship.

Stin, try other settings until you reach one youre comfortable with.


Am I reading this right?!! you all asking me to use the white thingy called Neggy, so I`m not touching that horrible twisting thing!!!. Anyway what is wrong with 'D'pads??

Ok guys you are twisting my arm!! *ouch!* ok ok ok ok I will try again after a good stiff drink :wink: (thanxs Asayyeah :wink: ) Now I decided to try on 2097(XL) Time Trial so I don`t have to shoot anybody but I will need to adapt at first then explore to other tracks to get the hang of it. Then suddenly my times are improving alot and starting to break more records which I had not expected so I decided to try on Talons Reach from Vector to Phantoms level.
To my surprised my steering wise which is alot easier than I thought then Asayyeah taught me how to use airbrakes on blue pads and my scores are improving.

So guys be afraid be very afraid :evil: :evil: :wink: :wink:

stin :D

[stin]

Wanna laugh .... just have a look on his phanthom lap time he puts on the tables :lol: : a strange :o 1.19.2 :o appears for laptime...
If you do that time ( lol) you can easily reach close to 6 minutes on racetime for Talon's...
Even the 540 ° dance turn of Lance , done on each lap , couldn't give you the possibility to acheive that ' massive ' time!! Hey Bud how could you do that ? :lol:

:oops: :oops: :oops: I was soo sure I`m doing a Vodoo dance on Asayyeah! :wink: :wink: then I realised I`m still playing on that game!!! :lol: :lol:

That erm time will go eventually :oops:

stin :wink:

[Lance]

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:)
congratulations on entering a whole new world of Wipeout
.