• Damn, I think just by creating this subcategory here on the News page the number of applications I generally receive during a week has doubled. We've got two (count 'em, two) new members to add to the roster today:
  • VioLatoR is from Canada and joins our growing Canadian contingent;
  • Ghost@AU(Neep) (I'm just calling him Neep) is the first SMS from the deep south, hailing from Alabama.

• I visited a great site today, www.campquake.com, a really cool pro-camping/sniping site. It's well worth a look.

• Coat Hanger, a Canadian LPB, has joined our ranks. Woop!

• Real Life^TM has been a real bitch lately, so all that editorial feedback that I promised last time is on hold. Somehow, I suspect everybody will still sleep soundly at night despite this massive setback. :D

• I'd like to welcome Ghostshell, the latest Canadian to join our ranks.

• Our battle with DeW on Saturday....well, could have gone better from our end. The final score was somewhere 'round 408-189 in DeW's favor. To their credit, the DeW guys are gracious winners and I wouldn't doubt that we'll arrange another skirmish again.

• LT Red-Five got some recognition at Blue's News for his insightful Strategy Pages. I've added them to the Links section as well.
• Red-Five is also at the top of the SMS Fragboard, the automated ranking list compiled from our Deathmatch server. (I'm at #346 tonight! Wooop....)
• Yeah, I'm still playing with the look of the News page. Do not adjust your monitor.

• Our newest member is Daft. Again, we poke our heads above the 20-member mark.... :D
• The Qampground - site of all things related to dark perches and crafty Quake playing.

• Promotions
  After a vote held by the ranking members of SMS, the following named individuals have been promoted:
  • PFunk has been promoted to Staff Sergeant due to his contributions to Steel Maelstrom in the fields of training and skin support
  • A-Wal has been promoted to Sergeant due to his contributions to tactics, display of skill and successful lobbying campaign :D
• During the aforementioned vote, a measure to create two battle coordinating positions was passed 4-0 with 2 members abstaining. These positions will be held by ranking members of SMS and are designed to ensure that CTF and DM battles are arranged in an efficient manner in accordance with our requirements and schedules. More specific items, as to the duration of the office and the individuals who shall hold the office, are to be decided soon.
• The Rules & Regulations will be updated soon with these changes.
• I weighed in on the whole Joost Schuur thing; you can find it plugged into the Articles section.
• I also updated the Links page with a couple of goodies.
• Hey...I'm just silly with this updating shit today...I added a IRC know-how requirement to the Joining page. Don't worry, it's not a tough one.
• If you've been following the news today, you may have heard that U.S. Army Sergeant Major Gene McKinney (the highest-ranking enlisted soldier in the U.S. Army) was found guilty of obstruction of justice in his sexual-harassment case (he was found not guilty of the other 17 charges). Now, you may be wondering: what is the pusnishment, the sentence for the man who is supposed to represent the highest standard for enlisted personnel in that branch of the U.S. Armed Forces?

  Well, reduction in rank to a Master Sergeant (one rank) and a probable Honorable Discharge. <SARCASM>Oooh, they really threw the book at him! I'm so glad they set an example!</SARCASM> The prosecution wanted him stripped of his rank down to E-1 ("buck" Private) and six months in prison.

  Christ, I'm soooooo glad I did my 4 years and got out......

• LT MaxMouse was beating me up for not having the Links page perfect, so I modified it a bit.
• Our DM and CTF servers seem to be down this morning. No word from our guru Dr. Nick, but I'm sure he'll have them back up as soon as he is able. He's pretty good about that sort of thing.

  UPDATE:

  I was right....Nick had 'em back up and running by the early afternoon.

• I got in one of those moods and threw together a mish-mash of bile & hate directed towards the ignorant shitheads you and I often have to share Quake servers with. Its in the Articles section.

• CTF battle tonight with Hell's Army. This 3-on-3 (H.A. apparently couldn't come up with a 4th member) is being organized on our end by LT Red-Five and will be the first SMS CTF battle ever. Woop!

  UPDATE:

  Apparently Hell's Army is guarding the food court, as LT RedFive has told me that at least one of their number went to the mall and they have canceled the match tonight. Things are tenatively scheduled for next Saturday (assuming that the Gap doesn't have a sale on shoes or some such shit).

• A couple of inactive members dropped out, bringing our number back down to 18. I've noticed that SMS has four types of members:
  • Long-term members who are heavily involved in the Clan
  • Long-term members who show up on occasion
  • Medium-term members who are heavily involved
  • Short-term members who show up for a couple of practices then hang around on the roster like remoras on a shark but never participate
  For this reason, I'm not even going to bother mentioning the departure of anybody who hasn't been with SMS for less than six months. The turnaround rate in that last subcategory is too high, and the members of that category do little -- if anything -- to deserve recognition. On the other hand, if a familiar face from our crew has to move on, I'll be sure to mention it.
• I cleaned up the initial page and made some minor changes to the Joining and Match Standards pages, as well as added a link to Funk's page to Links.

• We welcome our newest member, McDix. SMS once again hits the 20-member mark! Woop!
• PFunk graciously resigned his LT position, offering it to a member who had more free time to spend on the Clan. Funk will remain with the clan, however, holding his previous rank of Sergeant. PFunk is currently spending a lot of his time as a volunteer fireman. (Insert "big hose" joke here)
• In a FFA battle Saturday night to determine who shall fill the vacant LT spot, A-Wal, SCSI-Terminator and Kreth squared off in three 10-minute rounds across 3 different maps. When the dust settled, SCSI claimed the prize. So here's a congratulations to LT SCSI-Terminator. Ok, now back to the salt mines with ye!
• SGT Funk, who apparently is also going for Sainthood (heh), acquired us a Quake2 skin (20Kb):
  
  (click on thumbnail for larger version)
• I threw together a Female SMS skin (18Kb). It's not as nice as the one PFunk got, but I didn't want the ladies to feel left out...
• I took the ClanLink, ClanRing and Clan Complex hotbuttons off of our main page. Why? Well besides the fact that they just take up too much bandwidth, the Clanlink hadn't been updated since September (you can tell I go there often), Clan Complex has turned into some sort of vague hosting service and ClanRing has us wedged between a nonexistant page and a page for a clan that was dissolved apparently because some guy's dad "is an @ss". The ring was broken, and I don't see much point in advertising a broke-ass ring that has done nothing for us other than cause me to have to re-register SMS every six fucking months.

• Happy Valentine's Day.
• We had a scrimmage two days ago.
• Red-Five's homepage has changed locations; go to Links for the correct URL.
• Kreth has arranged a battle tonight with Clan Liquid Metal. Results will be posted.

• It's Super Bowl day here in the United States, a semi-official holiday celebrated by gathering around a television (the larger, the better) and watching incredibly overproduced and expensive commercials, a third-rate halftime show, and what usually is a blowout game between a powerhouse division and a mediochre division of the National Football League. Enjoy!
• I've also updated the Links page with a hyperlink to Slavemistress' page.
• The SMS CTF server is up and running at 207.236.110.70:27911, running the Loki's Minions CTF mod. To play, you just need to download these skins and place them directly in your Quake2 directory. Hope to see you there!

Also of interest, a few non-Quake related items of note:

• In an effort to slow Micro$oft's gains into the browser market, Netscape announced last week that Netscape Navigator and Netscape Communicator will be given away free (previously sold from $20 - $50 US). The "Professional Edition" of Netscape Communicator (which apparently just has some industrial-strength ties into Netscape server software) will still be sold. However, this is good news for any web developer forced to use Microsoft Internet Explorer simply because it's free. While I like MSIE 4.01 quite a bit, I think having two free browsers out there is probably the best thing for consumers. Just my $0.02.
• Netscape also announced that the source code (!) for Communicator 5.0 will be made available to the public under the GNU Public Licence (like the way Perl is, for instance).
• Speaking of source code, fans of Parallax Software's game, Descent will be interested to note that the source code for that product will also be released. Go here for details.

Items of note:

• Our newest member is Spidey99.
• Real Life^TM has claimed another: SGT Stutter (aka Ulikit) has resigned on good terms from the Clan.
• Our very own LT MaxMouse was playing on Id Software's 100-player DM test server against John Carmack, who was quoted as saying that the Quake2 "point release" is about 1-2 weeks away. This patch is supposed to address most of the multiplayer play shortcomings as well as include built-in support for CTF and brand-new DM levels.
• "How Quake2 Uses DLLs" is an article by LT Reaperman currently appearing at PlanetQuake.
• My hard drive with most of my e-mail and Clan stuff died a few days ago, so I've been struggling to put the pieces back together. Right now I'm at about 85% functionality and not too terribly distressed about the whole affair: it'll give me a chance to start out the new year with a cleaner slate.
• I will be modifying the Membership Requirements a bit today; all future members must posess Quake2 when they apply. SMS will continue to play and support Quake1 until the majority (over 75%) of members own Quake2.
• I've also made minor changes to the Rules & Regulations section, reflecting Red-Five's promotion to Lieutenant last year and Stutter's resignation.
• I also added a link to Kreth's Homeworld on our Links page.
• SMS Executive Officer Ace has informed me that we have a Quake2 server with our name on it thanks to our friend Dr. Nick: it's at 207.236.110.70.