I've been playing a game recently called Battlefield: 1942, but with a modification called Desert Combat that modifies the WW2 game for modern combat.

What is Desert Combat?

Desert Combat is a modern day military modification to the popular war game BattleField:1942 from EA Games. It is focused on conflicts in the middle-east within the last decade between the various nations, from Desert Storm to Somalia. Currently, only the Desert Storm campaign - featuring Coalition and Iraqi forces - is available. This war game is a total conversion for Battlefield:1942 and is based on the same principles of a FPS (first person shooter) and arcade style vehicle sim. It will be focused around multiplayer online gameplay...

So why am I telling you about it? Mainly to share my enjoyment of it. Here's what I like about it:

1. Multiplayer game. Up to 60 players get online onto a server (where a game is hosted - and there's hundreds of game servers out there), and they join American or Iraqi teams and go to war against each other. If it moves in the game, it's being controlled by another person, somewhere in the world. And they're either trying to kill you (and you're trying to kill them) or they're on your side and you're working together to kill the other team.

2. All vehicles can be controlled. There's a seamless integration between running around as a soldier and jumping into a vehicle and driving it around. Vehicles can be jeeps, trucks, armoured personnel carriers, Humvees, tanks, rocket batteries, anti-aircraft vehicles, planes, jets, helicopters, boats, ships, submarines, etc, etc. Each of them carries one or more players, and apart from the driver, other players can also fill gun positions in a vehicle.

For example, one player can jump into a tank and act as the driver and gunner, and so he drives the tank around and uses his mouse to aim and fire the turret cannon. A second player jumps into the tank and fills the remaining position of machine gunner, sticking his head out of the top of the tank and manning the machine gun. (Usually a target for snipers...)

In an AC-130 plane, there can be a pilot, and other players can take other gun positions. The AC-130 has a number of machine guns and cannons on it, all of which can be manned by players. They're shooting at players flying other planes or helicopters, or at the ground, where even more players are running around or driving tanks or other vehicles. Remember, if it's moving, it's being controlled by a player.

3. There are a number of 'character classes' that allow you to do different things. You can be a sniper, which also acts as a scout and can call in artillery strikes on enemy positions. You can be an assault trooper, who runs around with a machine gun and grenades. You can be a medic, who can heal injured players. You can be an engineer, who can go around placing landmines and explosives, and repairing vehicles. And you can be an anti-tank soldier, who obviously runs around with a big anti-tank weapon. Anyone can use any vehicle (but obviously with varying degrees of skill, according to the experience of the player).

4. It's hard to play, and that's where the exciting challenge is.

It's a game I played last year as well, but ended up drifting away from. I've now drifted back into it, and have forgotten how to be good at it, so I'm learning all over again.

Millions of people play this game all over the world. Many of them are very good at it. Then along comes me, who can spend most of a game running around trying not to be killed and trying to kill others. At the moment, I'm averaging about 10 deaths of myself to every kill I make. My goal is to average 1 death of myself to every 10 kills I make. It's a long, hard struggle, but I'm sure I'll get there, 'cause it's so much fun along the way!

Here's some examples of what happens in the game. I'll use last night for the example. Each game probably lasts half an hour, approximately, before one team beats the other.

Example 1: This game was based around an Iraqi oil field. I was an Iraqi sniper choosing to hang around and look after the oil field. Most of my other team members were somewhere else around the map, hunting down Americans or attacking the American base/s. So I was laying down on top of a catwalk about 30 feet above the ground. I was laying there, turning circles, scanning the oil field and huge tanks. I saw the flash of desert coloured combat fatigues running in between the large oil tanks, and knew the Americans had arrived. I zoomed in on the area with my sniper scope, and was looking for someone to shoot. I couldn't see anyone, so I zoomed back out. I turned around again and... whoah! Where'd he come from! 10 feet in front of me, on the catwalk, was an American with his back to me, scanning the oil field as well. I quickly zoomed in on his head and pulled the trigger. The crack of the rifle echoed through the oil field, and he fell over the edge. Phew! I looked around again, seeing if anyone else was around. I couldn't see anyone, so I crawled to a different area of the catwalk. I waited some more. Then an American tank arrived, and I tried to stay hidden. It was going up and down the rows of oil tanks, looking for people like me. Maybe even looking for me? Then I heard the roar of a jet from behind me (yes, I was wearing stereo headphones) and I looked around. There was an Iraqi jet coming down the valley and it fired a volley of missiles and machine gun cannons at the tank, which exploded in a huge fireball. Woohoo! But then I died, as the American who came up behind me in the excitement stabbed me to death. *sigh*

Example 2: I was an American sniper, and I jumped into a helicopter that someone was piloting as it took off from the aircraft carrier we were on. It rose slightly and then began falling again. Doh! We got us a useless pilot! I jumped out onto the flight deck of the carrier and watched the helicopter go over the side, exploding as it tried to regain height but flew into the side of the ship instead. Tosser. I don't know how to fly, so I don't. Others should do the same. Another helicopter appeared, and I jumped into that and we had a competent pilot this time, who flew a bunch of us to the oil rig we were to attack. The helicopter pad was under Iraqi control though, so the pilot ordered us to bail out, so there's 4 of us parachuting down onto this oil rig. I zoom in to scan for Iraqis, and see one firing at us as we're parachuting down, so I shoot him. I miss the head and hit him in the chest, and he stumbles and then runs around behind some cover. (2 shots in the body killes, while one injures, and 1 shot in the head kills.) We reach the oil rig and I drop to the ground and crawl to the edge, scanning for anyone to shoot. I can't see anyone, so I jump up and run to a ladder, to climb higher and get a better range. I get to the top of what I was climbing, and an Iraqi is crouching there - he shoots me with his pistol as I climb over the edge. *sigh*

That'll do with the examples. But basically I find it a great distraction at the moment after a day's work, to compete in something like this with a bunch of other people who are doing exactly the same as me.

What is the problem with so many people in this world, whose powers of awareness and common sense are seriously lacking?

I was walking to work this morning after getting off the bus in the city. I get off at the bus stop, walk around a corner, walk up a road for a block, around another corner and there's work. This morning I walked around the corner and up the road, and there was a huge truck sitting there with its right-hand indicator on. I had one of those thoughts, 'hmm, he's obviously not turning right, 'cause he's stopped too far back from the intersection, so he must be parked but forgot to put on his hazard lights.' I didn't think anything more of it, but then as I got closer to the end, this woman pulled up behind it, with her indicator showing she wanted to turn right.

Now, what made this woman stoopid was the fact that the back doors of the truck were wide open, and there was a guy grabbing an office chair from inside the truck. The woman waited. The guy got to the doors and lowered the chair down to the ground. The woman raised her hands at him in a gesture that said, 'what are you doing?'

He gave her a strange look and went back into the depths of the truck for another office chair. She sat there waiting, and then with a disgusted look, reversed and went around him.

I was fascinated by the scene, so I was stopping by the side of the road watching it.

1) As she drove up, she would have seen that the back doors of the truck container were open and there was a man inside it fishing around for something. Anyone with any common sense related to awareness would have known what was happening.

2) As she drove up, she would have seen that there was about 6 car lengths in front of the truck that didn't have any cars waiting to turn at the intersection.

3) As she drove up, she should have realised she's too stupid to drive and just given up and started walking.

I see small things like this every day, people who have no situational awareness related to their driving, and make stupid mistakes when they don't need to.

I think my experience as a driving instructor in 1998-99 helped me be a more sensible driver myself. I also had a car accident in 1996, only 4 years after I got my licence, that also opened my eyes to situational awareness (I was the 3rd care in a 3-car pile-up. Luckily it was peak hour, and the circumstances were such that the police knew I wasn't at fault - to an extent. The extent was that I ran up someone's backside. So they gave me a ticket for the event but there was no fine and no points lost. Cool.)

I was once asked why I kept looking into the rear vision mirrors as I drove. I explained it to them: if you know at all times where the cars are behind you and around you, it helps you drive better and safer.

I also choose 'the path of least resistance'. If you're driving on a multi-laned road, and the lane you're in is travellling slower than what you're travelling, then you choose the lane that has the least traffic in it ahead of you. Therefore, you overtake all the slow cars who are sticking to the left because they're too timid to take control, and you avoid any potential accidents that might happen. I don't know how many times I've avoided harsh braking or slowdowns in the left lane because I've been cruising by in the right.

It amazes me when I see so many people do silly things, when they don't need to if they simply thought about their surroundings and the 'path of least resistance'.

A few weeks ago Eve (my cat) went into heat for the first time, at about 9 months old. She's growing up! But oh, what a racket!

Very strange noises, sounding like, 'rrrrrraaaaaarrrrrrrgggaaaaahhhhh!' You sort of get used to it after a while - except when you go to bed. It just doesn't stop! So she was locked into the lounge room, which gave us some relief. It lasted for almost a week and then stopped, and the vet told me that I'd have to wait a couple weeks after it stopped before I could get her de-sexed.

So I got it done Friday last week.

De-sexed. There's another politically correct term that tries to hide the reality of what actually happens. They cut her open and rip her inside bits out! Isn't 'de-sexed' or 'speyed' really just words to prevent sensitive cat owners from thinking about the torture their cat is experiencing?

Yeh, yeh, I know. It's got a healthy purpose - it prevents the owners from throttling their cats! And last but not least, it prevents the cats themselves from bringing into this world MORE cats!

Sure, they're all cute and cuddly when they're born, but then THEY make those noises too! And the pain just starts all over again!

Not to mention that we really have to think about what kind of world we're bringing them into. Crime, violence, dangerous cars, guns... and that's just what cats worry about!

De-sexed. The answer to the problems of the world. The human problems. With cats. Isn't it funny how there's this huge encouragement for people to have pets, but there's an even bigger encouragement for them to be desexed.

What does it mean? Of course, it means to prevent them from getting pregnant or causing pregnancy.

But what it REALLY means is that there's a conspiracy to DESTROY all the cats of the world! Make them extinct! How can they breed and continue the family line when they're de-sexed!

Cats are a dying species, and we're killing them off, all in the name of caring for them.

What a world we live in, hey?

I'm just happy I don't have that noise in the house any more.

I'm having an online conversation with Zhenzhen's husband (now ex-husband) at the moment, and learning some interesting things. He's been open about why she left him, telling me about how he was seeing this Thai girl at the same time as he was married to ZZ. So I've been fishing for more information. Turns out that she'd been talking to this guy since October, a month before I met her. She met him in January and then again in February, when he asked her to marry him.

Apparently she was not only seeing him while seeing me, but she was seeing others while she was married to him. This doesn't surprise me, if it's true. And I suspect it is true, 'cause she had been conducting some kind of relationship with him while she was seeing me.

It helps me realise I've moved on from even wanting to be her friend. I haven't even thought about her over the past couple of weeks, since she contacted me but told me she couldn't come back to Wellington, and was only reminded of her by her loser ex wanting to talk to me today.


Speaking of moving on, 'princess' and I are moving on. I realised a week or so ago that the problems we were having with our relationship was partly my fault, because the more I tried encouraging her out of her negativity, the more she tried to fight my help. Maybe she felt I was lecturing her and as a result she needed to defend herself and justify her actions. I don't know. I just know I wasn't feeling worthwhile to her any more, and felt the only solution was to take a big step backwards and help her regain the positive attitude she used to have, by not being involved so closely and intimately with her.

So we've had a bit of a break, but will also still see each other casually, more as friends, but also occasionally dating. The idea is for us not to be so close, thus removing the pressure of 'relationship', and see where we end up in the future.

Personally, I hope that things turn out well, that she can find her own happiness and confidence again, rather than being afraid of how things will turn out for her and us.

I'm having an online conversation with Zhenzhen's husband (now ex-husband) at the moment, and learning some interesting things. He's been open about why she left him, telling me about how he was seeing this Thai girl at the same time as he was married to ZZ. So I've been fishing for more information. Turns out that she'd been talking to this guy since October, a month before I met her. She met him in January and then again in February, when he asked her to marry him.

Apparently she was not only seeing him while seeing me, but she was seeing others while she was married to him. This doesn't surprise me, if it's true. And I suspect it is true, 'cause she had been conducting some kind of relationship with him while she was seeing me.

It helps me realise I've moved on from even wanting to be her friend. I haven't even thought about her over the past couple of weeks, since she contacted me but told me she couldn't come back to Wellington, and was only reminded of her by her loser ex wanting to talk to me today.


Speaking of moving on, 'princess' and I are moving on. I realised a week or so ago that the problems we were having with our relationship was partly my fault, because the more I tried encouraging her out of her negativity, the more she tried to fight my help. Maybe she felt I was lecturing her and as a result she needed to defend herself and justify her actions. I don't know. I just know I wasn't feeling worthwhile to her any more, and felt the only solution was to take a big step backwards and help her regain the positive attitude she used to have, by not being involved so closely and intimately with her.

So we've had a bit of a break, but will also still see each other casually, more as friends, but also occasionally dating. The idea is for us not to be so close, thus removing the pressure of 'relationship', and see where we end up in the future.

Personally, I hope that things turn out well, that she can find her own happiness and confidence again, rather than being afraid of how things will turn out for her and us.