I have never had to deal with this kind of situation. Not in the virtual world which I play in. I’m kind of at a loss for words. Here is what sad news Gawain had to deliver in the forums this morning:

For those of you who were wondering where Marisin has been these last couple months (or even remember he was in the guild) his name was Scott Maddox, and he has been in the hospital with some serious health problems. He died today. I got the call at about 9:30am, and I don’t know the details yet, but there you are.

I really don’t know what to say. Marisin was a great guy. He was one of the few guildies I truly looked forward to talking to online. I didn’t know him that long. But in the time I had to pleasure to know the man, I know that logging in to DAoC now knowing he will not ever be there again to exchange witty comments with; well it saddens me in a way that I just don’t have the words to explain.

Please take a chance to stop by the forum thread. Leave a few kind words. Tell a story about the man named Scott Maddox who you may or may not have known as Marisin. Also if you have the time and you want to know more about the man behind Marisin, stop by Scott’s website. When more info comes my way I will post it here.

This post was more or less a cut and pasted from the AoD Site. Marisin was an in game character for the man named Scott Maddox, who has never been mentioned at Hotelblues.com before. Scott’s website (it’s the one called Chrome Magnum Man) has been over in the quick links over on the right for a while now. I wanted to put this up here as well just to make sure that any guildies who may or may not check this site first sees this message.

I have opened the forum that Gawain’s post is in up so anyone can reply to this thread. But I want to make it very clear that anyone who takes advantage of this and says anything that even in the slightest way comes off like disrespect I will ban you from my website and from the forums. No warning. No second chances. Please have some respect on this subject.

The Beloit Daily News had an article called Durand halts SoBos’ late comeback in last Saturdays paper that I missed. Here is a small bit from that article:

“The kids didn’t let themselves give up,” Martens said.

And I hope they don’t ever give up. I can’t really say more than that.

So I heard from an old AoD Buddy (he also founded the guild). A hell of a nice guy who went by Farooq in Dark Age of Camelot. He’s not playing DAoC anymore, he’s playing Star Wars Galaxies now.

It was good hearing from him. He sent along a couple of screenshots showing off his character. It looks and sounds like he’s having a lot of fun running around the Star Wars world that Sony and Lucasarts has created.

I know I may have had some negative views on SWG, but hearing form Farooq kinda makes me feel like giving it another shot. At the least I may try the one month free trial. I can’t and won’t leave Dark Age of Camelot behind. Not yet, I may say goodbye to Camelot when World of Warcraft comes out. But it will be a while before Blizzard’s mmorpg comes out.

So last year there was a game called Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, which if you can’t tell is a game set in the Star Wars universe. It was pretty good and got me my Star Wars Geek fix. Well now a sequel is on the way to stores and a demo is out for it. The game is called Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy and it improves on last years game in a few areas.

The demo weighs in at a 187mb’s and can be downloaded from a number of sites. Head over to this Blue’s News page for a listing of mirrors.

Graphics more or less are the same as in the last game. You can check out a few screenshots from it here. The biggest addition to the game is how you can tweak your in game character. You can pick different head, torso, and leg models so your guy in game looks sorta unique. You can also choose different saber hilts and whether you use a single saber or duel wielding two sabers. You can also use a double bladed saber if you want to be like Darth Maul.

Homeworld 2 went gold not to long ago. It’s the sequel to one of the great games of 1999. It is an innovative real time strategy in space type game that is totally 3d, both in graphics and in the game world. I’m talking space as it’s meant to be. You really have to play it to appreciate it. As always here are some screenshots:

The demo weighs in at 141mb and it includes one tutorial, two single player missions, and two multiplayer maps, and of course your standard multiplayer options and skirmish’s vs the cpu. Here are the minimum requirements:

Intel Pentium III 833MHz or AMD Athlon 833MHz
256 MB RAM
32 MB OpenGL supported hardware, GeForce or better (with Transform and Lighting), ATI Radeon 7500 or better (with Transform and Lighting).
Requires DirectX 9.0 and a compatible driver.
250 MB Hard Drive space, plus space for DirectX 9.0 Drivers, saved games, and Windows SWAP file.
16X or Faster CD-ROM/DVD drive
Windows compatible sound card
Windows compatible keyboard and mouse.
Required for Multiplayer:
Broadband (DSL, Cable Modem, or faster) for multiplayer online (internet) game.
TCP/IP Compliant Network required for Network Play.

You do need DirectX 9 for the demo to play, so grab it if you don’t have it yet. You can get DirectX 9 right here.

So my “friend” KoldKadavr (see this post) gets around. He also sent me an e-mail. One line, very simple message:

God bless you with discernment, friend. -KK

It appears that this guy makes signing other peoples guestbooks his hobby. I did a google search using the terms KoldKadavr, guestbook, and theautomann@msn.com. Here is what you get. Thats 262 results using those search terms. Dude has gotten around.

I did end up going to his site and I signed his guestbook. My entry was brief and I included the stat info from his ip address. Here is what I said (minus the stat info):

You know it’s funny how you come to my site and you tell me “more important realities await thee. Both God and I want you in the Great Beyond.” Now I’m not a guy who’s in touch with all this god bible stuff. But I find it amusing how you found my site. Interesting search terms there buddy. If people like you are the ones getting in to heaven, then I’ll be more than happy to take my chances on burning in hell. Next time I suggest you learn more about how things on the internet work before you go around preaching to others.

It’s funny how my entry is gone now. I guess the guy doesn’t want his browsing habits to be known. I of course don’t blame him. This guy is just like the Preacher, he doesn’t like people to have their own opinions. A person should be prepared to back up their beliefs. But these kind of closed minded people won’t have any of that. This guy and his ilk give the people who believe in god and yet still respect other peoples beliefs a bad name.

All of this doesn’t really bother me that much. I just wish if the guy is going to continue to spam guestbooks he makes his message a little different each time. I’ve looked at these entries he’s made at these other peoples site’s. They are all the same. Cut and paste is all the guy is doing. And despite what he thinks all he is doing is spamming people. Albeit spam in guestbook form. There ought to be a law against this kind of shit. What can you do?

Here is another “thing you fill out and get a clever something” I saw over at Gawain’s. This one is called What is Your Destiny? My destiny is below:

What is Your Destiny? by Valcion
Name	Turk
Color	Black
Birthday	03/27/1972
Destiny	Legendary Hero
Date when you fulfill your destiny	July 26, 2009
Created with quill18‘s MemeGen!

Legendary Hero? I can live with that. Point your browser over here to find out your destiny.