Well, that was a pretty painless upgrade. Will it fix my problems? Will I post more? Only the future will tell. Here we go. Pressing the Publish button in 3…2…1…
Quick update: I hit the save button, but had to manually publish it for the changes to be seen. *sigh*. At least I didn’t get the errors when I tried to ping the blogging sites that told them I had just posted.

If you can’t seem to navigate around the Zone, it’s because of the fact that I’m upgrading to Moveable Type 4.12. I’ve been having some problems with posting, so this ought to fix them. If not, I might have to move over to a new program.
Wish me luck, I’m diving into the program. Hopefully the style of the page won’t change.

Randy Pausch died today. He was dreading this day for a long time. He’s had over a year knowing he was going to die from inoperable pancreatic cancer.
What makes this man notable is the fact that he has been giving his “last lecture” all this time. It’s kind of like a bucket list, the things you want to do before you kick the bucket. It is a theoretical last lecture you would give, knowing you were going to die in the near future.
I present his last lecture for your consumption. Take heed of its lessons. Remember, the walls in your way are not there to keep you away from your dreams, but are a measure of how badly you want to achieve those dreams.

All I can say is W-O-W. It’s taken me this long to recover from The Big Waaagh! Eleven games over three days, I was burned out but happy.
First of all, the games started Friday night with the 40k doubles tournament. My friend John and I took our Orks/Ultramarines combination and did our best.
First of all, all of these scenarios were designed by the HAAWGS (The Huntsville Alabama Area Wargamers Society) around a Southern Theme, with four objectives, worth 6, 5, 5 and 4 points respectively. We registered ourselves as “The Real Redshirts,” simply because we were both wearing our red Adeptus Memphis club shirts. It was also a jab at Games Workshop, since all of their regular sales staff wear red shirts. It turns out we should have referenced the original Star Trek.
The first doubles scenario was Fight Klub, where we had two models fight it out in the center of the board to determine which side went first. It went badly, and we lost against Team Awesome.
Second battle was against the Sissy Boys, and the scenario was Deliverance. Yes, that Deliverance. You had a “Mountain Man” and a “Bobby” model, and if either one died, you had to shout something particular. We managed to win this one, but not by much.
Third and final doubles battle was Pulp Fiction, where you had to secure objectives AND terrain pieces. This one we lost by a single point.
After the points were tallied, the Real Redshirts ended up in next-to-last place. Oh, well, somebody had to be there. Maybe next year.
Saturday morning dawned early, with the first three games of the Grand Tournament. Here’s the army that I brought to the battle:

My first battle was against Jessie and his Space Marines. The scenario was “Smoky and The Bandit” where you had to grab a six-pack of Coors beer in the center of the board and get it off the table. I managed to grab it, but couldn’t get it off the board.I managed to get 14 out of 20 points by wiping them totally out.
Next came “The Dukes of Hazard” against John and his Space Marines again. This one had all terrain as difficult AND dangerous, which meant that you had to roll for each model moving within the terrain. If you rolled a ‘1′, a model died or a vehicle became immobilized. Every time one of your units had to take one of these tests, it was called a ’stupid act’ (as in, “Hold my beer and watch this”) and you kept track of them. I managed to pull off 6 stupid acts, which was way more than my opponent. I managed to get 9 points to his 6, carrying off another win. I was getting pretty confident by now.
Third was “Forrest Gump.” I faced off against Joe and his Orks. I used “Fear of the Darkness” (A psychic power that can literally scare your opponent off the board) several times to devastating effect. Unfortunately, I managed to give him 5 scenario points on the first turn by accidentally killing his “Lt. Dan.” We drew, only because I forgot how much the objectives were worth. I should have killed my own Lt. Dan, but I left him behind to guard a terrain objective. Had I run him off the board, it would have been a 11-10 win, instead of a 10-10 tie.
Then came the Battlefleet Gothic tournament. These scenarios weren’t as colorful as the 40k ones, but they followed the same 20 point scale. Here’s one of the tables:



I spanked Chris and his Necrons with a 15-5 win. Not too much to say about it, other than the fact that I wiped him out to a ship.
The second battle was against Micah and his Eldar. I hate Eldar. They get all kind of special rules. This one was a 5-4 win, only because his ships move in both the Movement and Ordinance phases. He moved his ships first, then moved his ordinance, which meant he was shot in the rear by his own torpedoes. This proved crucial, as the cruiser in question that took a hit I was able to destroy just before it made if off the board with the objective. I managed to cripple it, which cut his speed by 5 cm, which left him only 4cm away from the board edge and victory.
By now it was very late. My third battle was against Robby and his Ultramarine force. Since I was also Ultramarines, we decided to call this a “fleet exercise” since we really weren’t supposed to be shooting at each other for real. It was a bloody battle, at one point my five Strike Cruisers drove right between his Strike Cruisers and his Battle Barge, and unloadaed on each. This once came out as a draw, as we both had 9 points. I had one of the 5 point objectives, and he had the other 5 point objective, plus the 4 from the 4th objective for both of us.
The result? I was in front with a strong lead, but a last minute 20 point massacre boosted another guy into a 7 point lead over me. Missed winning by *that* much. Literally -><- that much.
I knew I had no chance with the 40k tournament, but I had high hopes for the BFG. I really had my heart set on winning that one.
Sunday came too early, as I didn't get to bed until 1am. The day started off on a sour note, as I had to play Eldar. Did I mention that I hate Eldar? The scenario was "Clerks," and I lost this game either 10 or 15 to 5. All I managed to do was kill his Avatar and one Heavy Support unit of Marine killing weapons.
The last game left bitter ashes in my mouth. I faced Chris (the one that I spanked the night before with his Necron fleet in BFG) and his Dark Eldar army. Did I mention that I hate Eldar? I *really* hate Dark Eldar. He proceeds to spank me with not a balanced list, but one tuned specifically to kill Marines. The scenario was “Apocalypse Now” and you had to kill your opponents “Col. Kurtz.” He managed to kill himself with combat drugs, so I got 6 points out of that. Since his HQ died, I could order an airstrike. I did, since I had nothing left to lose. I managed to kill a bunch of his troops, including 6 of the squad that was in close combat with my Col. Kurtz. That allowed me to survive, and I only lost 9 to 6. I was not a happy camper during most of the battle, as he was going through me like a lawnmower goes through grass. What made me madder was I at least gave him an 8 out of 10 on his sportsmanship, and he gave me a 5. Remind me to beat him in a back alley next time I see him.
So, I ended up with approximately 44 points out of a possible maximum of 100. I just hope to have finished in the top half. I didn’t win any awards, nor did anyone I knew. Maybe next year.
Eleven games, three days. It’s a lot like Midsouthcon, but more intense. I can’t wait for next year. A lot of those armys will be neutered because the new 5th edition of Warhammer 40k is now out, and only Troops selections will be able to hold objectives. A lot of these powergamers run an absolute minimum of Troops so they could take a maximum amount of the more powerful Elite and Heavy Support units. You can’t do that anymore.
I almost forgot! They had a couple of Apocalypse battles, featuring a Warlord titan and a dry ice volcano. Here’s some pictures.






See you later.

Such is the battle cry for those who charge into close combat in the Warhammer 40k universe.
I am off to The Big WAAAGH!, being held right here in Memphis, at the Cook Convention Center. I’ll be playing 11 games over the next three days. Three games of doubles 40k tonight, three of five games of solo 40k, three games of BFG ending at 12:30am, followed by two more games of solo 40k on Sunday. I’ll need Monday just to recuperate.
I’ll be happy to finish in the top half of the 40k Grand Tournament, John and I have a shot at the Doubles, but I’m really aiming to win the BFG tournament.
Wish me luck. I’m going in.

I happened across this article while reading my forums: Calif. diving program helps anchor ex-inmates.
I like this because it takes non-violent felons and giving them training to be productive citizens to avoid recidivism. According to the article, untrained parolees reoffend around 70% of the time. Parolees who go through this training have reoffended at the rate of 6%.
I think this is great. This is a great program, no doubt about it. But I do have a problem with it. Our schools turn out stupid adults. Adults who are unqualified for real life. So what do these untrained failures do? Anything to provide an income. Which mainly includes committing crimes. Which leads to jail time.
What do you think would happen, how much public money could we save, if we instilled a positive work ethic in our youth, showing them that nothing worth having is ever obtained easily. We need to do this when they are young. Show them how to be responsible with money, responsible for themselves, and then give them the positive feedback they need to succeed. Not the phony self-esteem building that our schools do today, but really giving them what we called in the Navy, “Attaboys” and “Awshits.”
We need to help our children to be proud of their accomplishments, and learn from their failures. We must be able to fail, because that is when the real learning is administered. If you are never allowed to fail because it would “damage your self-esteem,” what are we really teaching our children?
Let’s invest our money on the front end, rather than the back end. It is much more cost-effective to do it that way.

I’ve often said if you do the wrong thing, or even the right thing for the wrong reasons, it will come back and bite you in the ass when you least expect it.
Well, I had heard about some nasty comments about Tony Snow’s passing on Daily Kos’s blog. I found this instead: Court rules strip-search of 13-year old for ibuprofen unconstitutional.
It’s the story about a girl who was strip searched on the accusation that she had ibuprofen. She was forced to strip to her underwear, then stretch her bra and panties out to show that she was not hiding anything.
What’s the point that I am trying to make? Who is responsible for the “Zero-tolerance” policy that our schools have? Liberals. They don’t trust anybody to make decisions for themselves, so let’s rule out everything, including over-the-counter medications. It is this same mindset that caused schools to be “gun-free” zones, leading to the bloody path from Columbine to Virginia Tech and beyond.
When people have their rights taken away, bad things happen.
Just to hear about the hypocrisy, here’s some of what they had to say:

We do not need our school to be made into mini prisons. I am sick to death of everyone is a criminal approach that seems to be pervasive in our society now…
If that was my child they would have had to arrest me to keep from knocking the crap out of whoever violated my child that way. Very few things set me off towards violence – that would be one of them.

This only strengthens the old axiom “A Conservative is a Liberal who was mugged.”

Tony Snow died yesterday of cancer. But there is a lot more to say than just that. In my eyes, he was the ultimate Conservative, second only to Ronald Reagan. Strong in belief, ethics and integrity, he was a force to be reckoned with. But he was a force of good cheer, positive outlook and good humor.
Susan Estrich writes:

The opening line of the news story this morning was that Tony “lost his fight with cancer.” But that’s all wrong. If cancer were a fair fight, Tony would have won. Losing implies that you could have won, might have won, had you done something more or different, had you been stronger or better. That’s not how it works. Cancer is. Jerks sometimes survive it. Decent and honorable people sometimes are felled by it. It’s not a fight; it’s a plague.

God be with ye, Mr. Snow. We hardly knew you.