Wednesday 30 June 2010

Forum Signature by Sassy B


The Worm Faction Frigate has been one of my favourite frigates in the game, I just love the drones I guess. To be fair I havent given it much love lately as there are actually better ships available but it still is a pretty sexy beast...


In the spirit of art this week Mr Sassy B has been so kind to make me one of his cool forum sigs;


Legendary stuff! another master-piece, specially as its about me yeah! Check out more of Sassy's stuff here!

Monday 28 June 2010

T'amber and Ships of Eve

I may have a different outlook on life and on EVE than most people. One particular subject most people wil disagree on (after money, woman or religion) is art. Personally I have great respect for people with the skills to produce something original or people that create something that most people can not.

This post could continue talking about the works of Van Gogh or Michelangelo but I guess it would lose readers pretty soon. This post is dedicated to the creator of ShipsOfEve Mr T'amber and the brilliant stuff he has created.

Please note that this is a mere selection of the amazing selection of EVE related art he has created but I had to pick a few to make your jaws drop. There is lots more and I couldn't speak when he started showing me some of his work, but with his permission I present you the following;













Thank you so much for sharing this with us Mr T'amber, I wish you had more time to do more of this as this is truly what inspires us mere EVE plebs.

For those interested, and yes that is all of you, please view the lots and lots of other stuff produced for ShipsOfEve by mr T'amber here.



(ps no, there shall be no re-match between you and me, I have something much better in mind for you sir....)


Watch this space

Sunday 27 June 2010

New Looks

I have given my blog a bit of a facelift and added some videos to the side-bar. A new blog banner is well over-due and the brilliant Rixx Javix is working hard on a new one, cant wait to see what he comes up with!

Hope you like what I have done to the place, leave me a comment!

Friday 25 June 2010

Friends and Family

Friends and Family

Over the past years I have met many different people in EVE and the social aspect of the game has been the driving force behind the Celebrity Death Match project. I still find it interesting hooking up with complete strangers and seeing what the outcome is, some encounters have been excellent and I still keep in touch with a lot of pilots I met over time.

This will only be a very short post as I merely want to draw attention to two guys I met just a few months back but have already had a major impact on my gaming experience. The chaps from Kennsy Fried Chickin Kru live just a couple of jumps from my home system Evati and thus we are practically neighbours.

The kind of neighbours you can borrow a cuppa sugar from but also the kinda neighbours that sneak into your house at night to do unspeakable things to your dog. Both have recently started a blog and I highly recommend you take a few minutes to look over them.

Lady Shaniqua’s blog is the type of blog many of us like to read, combat reports with a hint of humour and class. LS has been a solid guy and we have done some sweet sweet violence on boats when we roamed together, he has been a great help in project Rifter and is a true fitting guru. Friend perhaps but always out for fun and nobody is safe unless fleeted up with this crazy pirate.

The only person that will always be safe is his (one and only) corp mate; Sassy B. Between the two of them their goal is to destroy every ship type in the EVE universe, and take my word for it they are doing pretty well in their quest. Sas has another skill, and what a skill it is, the man is a true artist. Personally I am a big fan of his work now displayed on his blog. Mr Sas is available for commissions; simply eve-mail him or convo him in-game and discuss details with him.

Keep up the good stuff guys, I love your work!

Friday 18 June 2010

100 blog postings



100!
This is my onehundreth post! For some not a mayor achievement perhaps, but for me it is. I had never thought I enjoyed writing to be very honest but August 2009 I started off to give it a try.

Being a big fan of the Capsuleer application on my i-pod, being part of the blog pack was a dream. That dream realised I just hope to post enough readable material to keep me in it.

The beginnings
One of my first projects took off like a rocket. Celebrity Death Match was born the day I fought Shae Tiann and wrote a post about it calling it CDM just for shits and giggles. Piggybacking on the success of others the concept became well known and before I knew it I was renamed; ‘that CDM guy’.

The CDM project is still going but it is increasingly harder to get celebrities to commit and agree a time and place to meet up. The series however remains the back bone of my blog and still gets the most hits when I post a new one.

Just this week #21 has been completed and CDM #20 is still to be posted, I have a few celebrities that have agreed to meet and fight me but more on that soon.

Then what?
Other than the CDM posts I run various other projects; ‘A week in the life of…’ Is a series where I spend a week in a well known corp to see what they get up to and what the pilots are like. ‘A week in the life of the Pythons’ proved to be a huge success and a second one had been planned not long after. I intended to spend a week with the Tuskers but with a Bastard/Tusker alliance now in full effect it seems a little pointless. That and the fact the Tuskers have been getting enough attention lately made me put this one off a little longer…

‘Project Rifter’ has just commenced and seems to be reasonable popular also. I wanted to see what the big deal with the Rifter was and thus skilled 46 days specifically to fly this frigate. The project is in full swing so more on that soon…

Fillers
The all important fillers; in between projects I try to keep my audience entertained with some Pirate related adventures under the posting header ‘Pirates Ahoy!’. In these posts I tell the tales of Bastards and friends and the yarring we get into.

I tried to be clever like Roc Wieler and do a ‘Roc’s Rules’ type thing with the Series called ‘Bio Funnies’, however I have not found this particularly stimulating and have stopped these for the time being.

Another string of posts I started is the Help Desk. Originally I intended to publish self written guides about; D-scanner use, probing, aggression timers etc etc. These have all been done so many times already however and much better than I could do myself. Instead it evolved in to a ship fitting guide with clear disclaimers to avoid too much trolling.

Ramblings is another header I use to post stuff I simply can’t fit in anywhere else, it is indeed filled with ramblings and if I doodle anything this is where it can be found.

Fans?
I don’t know about fans but my blog has 46 followers and I get the occasional shout-out in local. I find it all very flattering and have learned to enjoy it. My goal is to eventually have as many followers as Kirith or Mynxee, go on, stroke my ego and click 'follow'.


Pilots have convo’d me throughout EVE to complement or duel me and I always accept. I don’t mind losing a ship here or there…

I did once get an EVE-mail from an army-chap based in Iraq, who said my post made his days easier, that choked me up a bit…

Stats
I have to admit I am a bit of a pc-noob and thus don’t know how to find out if anybody has subscribed to this blog through Google-reader or such likes. A friend has been so kind to add Google Analytics to my blog and I have been following that every day ever since…

In a game of statistics lets have some statistics, please note that these figures are taken from Google Analytics and thus do not show some RSS feeds and no i-pod capsuleer readers are added to this. God knows how many i-podders read all this rubbish, they never leave a comment =)

Top 5 most viewed posts;
1 A week I the Life of the pythons
2 Help Desk 4; how to fit a drake
3 EPIC Celebrity Death Match #16
4 Celebrity Death Match #19 Prometheus
5 Help Desk 5; how to fit a Vexor

Top 5 reffering sites;
1 Mynxee’s; Life in Low sec
2 Spectre’s; Evenewb (RIP?)
3 Kane Rizzel’s; A pirates perspective
4 Crazy Kinux; Crazy Kinux Musings
5 Kiriths Kodachi’s; Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah

Top 5 Country visits
1 United States
2 United Kingdom
3 Canada
4 Australia
5 Germany
(Blog visited by CCP; 22)

Top 5 strange keywords that apparently land you on my blog
1 ‘celebrity crutch shot’
2 ‘jensius duo’
3 ‘banana alpha’
4 ‘pre-arranged girl fight’
5 ‘eve rifter blog jerk’

And now?
Wow, I don’t know really, we’ll see where all this takes me. I am a proud Bastard and intend to stay there and thus posts will be Bastard related in some way for sure.

As CDM #20 has already happened I shall post CDM statistic next I guess as I try to do them every 5 CDM’s. Other than that I am working on a video to go with the next ‘Project Rifter’ post, desperately trying to get hold of Photoshop so I can work on some more art-work and then there is recruitment again soon too…


Watch this space

Tuesday 15 June 2010

Celebrity Death Match #21; T'amber


Celebrity Death Match #21; T'amber- EVE Lottery Mogul


Chack’Nul
Chack’Nul contacted me several months ago and requested a duel, not something that unusual really, I get these requests rather often since the start of CDM nearly a year ago. Mr Chack’Nul fought me in his ‘Tristan of Doom’ and completely obliterated my ‘Kessy of Doom’. He graciously linked me his fit and I fell in love with it. That was the day I started training for Gallente Vessels and still stock some Tristan’s named in his honour. We did catch up at a later date to test my skills in the sexy Tristan hull, Chack killed me again, his superior skills very clear.

We sporadically stay in touch and one particular conversation he suggested for me to challenge T’amber for a Celebrity Death Match. T’amber? From shipsofeve? Ha! Like as if he’s gonna make time for me. One thing I learned is that celebrities that do not write blogs themselves see me as a nuisance if anything.

A few months later and I received an Eve-mail from Chack, in it was a copied convo between him and T’amber. The convo had Chack describing what I do and T’amber seemed interested however not keen on leaving Jita. But he was interested…

First contact
T’amber has been in my address-book for some time, and he certainly had a spot on the Celebrity Death Match wish list. It never seemed right to speak to him however; I lacked the balls to disturb him. With the initial contact already made for me I made the call…

The conversation took me back to the early days of CDM, I had to explain who I am, what I do and then convince my opponent to agree to a duel. Contacting a fellow blogger is usually easier as they will have heard of CDM or even read it before.

Mr T’amber didn’t make me grovel or beg though and agreed to meet up with me, as long as the duel would take place in Jita. ‘Well’ I mumbled… ‘there is a little issue with the Jita high security status thingy…’. ‘Them’s the stipulations, I live in Jita and don’t leave there’ the lottery mogul continued; ‘Security status is irrelevant’ pointing at his own sec status. Hang on, this dude is a super rich, well know tycoon, lives in Jita and has a -10 sec status?!

‘Yes, of course’ is all I could muster, not sure what to expect from a duel in high sec with a shoot on sight sticker on my back. ‘It will be a time-trial; we will both undock in Jita 4-4 and the pilot alive the longest, wins’. T1 Battleship was to be the flavour of hull type, and as a parting hint he linked a previous BS-loss, lost in the very same way he intended to time-trial-duel me. ‘Crap’, he is an experienced-BS-suicider?

This conversation took some time; his responses were short and sporadic. One of the first questions I ask when speaking to a potential CDM contestant is if they have time to speak, he said he did. Only after speaking to him a few times and spending time in his home solar system do I understand our very first conversation. He did give me all the time and attention he could spare, having 10 different chats on the go at any one time is a quiet time for him I guess…

Preparations
EFT provided some insight in what could possibly be done to max out a buffer for my Dominix. Lag was to be expected, possible so much so that undocking would fill my overview with nothing. Nothing until I would awake again in my home system covered in pod goo. My choice was simple; no active mods, no Invuls, no Damage Control systems, just 1600 plates and large Shield Extenders.

Saturday night after work I undocked my Jovian Egg into the Evati night sky and set course for Jita. My intentions were simply to be ready to do the duel at a moment’s notice on Sunday, the agreed date. I had my sons christening and didn’t know if I would have enough time to fit and prepare my stuff on the day of the duel.

I decided to travel in my pod as it is the safest and quickest way to get into high-sec space. The align time is virtually 0 and thus no pilot would be able to get a lock on me quick enough to stop my progress. ‘Nothing can kill you’ I hummed to myself speeding through system after system. On-route I spammed the request for support on the day of the fight.

‘Nothing can kill you’ I hummed to myself, taking a sip from my 2am coffee. I nearly choked on that coffee when the inside of the Evati Clone Facilities filled the screen.

A large ‘Vehemence’ smart bomb doesn’t require a lock and its favourite food is eggs. I updated the clone and immediately set off again. Less chirpy this time however, I like my implants you know…

Arriving in the system I lost my pod it didn’t take long to find the perpetrators. Pirate Corp ‘Negative ten’ must have had a bad day at the office and were killing indiscriminately with their sizeable BS-heavy fleet. Many roads lead to Jita, I know, but the opportunity for sleep was getting smaller and smaller so I piped up in local, requesting safe passage in return for a fee. Isk and words of honour where exchanged.

Travel was uneventful after that and I docked up in the busiest station in the busiest solar system in the EVE Universe. Jita… god how I hate her... the local channel filled up quicker than one could read, scams, links to contracts, vague snippets of conversations poured through, madness, absolute madness. I purchased a Dominix and fitted it to the spec I prepared earlier, filled the cargo hold with lots of random rubbish, logged off and went to bed.

If I would believe in hell I am sure to be taking a nose-dive into that lava pit some day, I mumbled some stuff in church when my son was christened, wishing to be at home, playing EVE. Dinner with the parents in law couldn’t be over quick enough… From the restaurant I rushed home to get the last of the AT8 action and to get an update on the Dead Terrorist/Bastard fight earlier that day before seeking contact with T’amber.

Unfortunately our date was to be postponed as this CDM’s celebrity was severely ill, taking regular breaks to puke his guts out. Our time trial got rescheduled for the following evening…

On Monday I logged in and had to endure 4 hours of Jita’s insanity. The local chat channel did what it usually does, the two channels in use by T’ambers-shipsofeve were no better however, pandemonium, jokes, singing, links to various pictures, prizes being thrown around, bingo, you name it, it was happening.

It certainly wasn’t the longest wait for a celebrity but it was definitely the most mentally draining. I don’t know how he does it, how could any sane man deal with this kind of mental terrorism? T’amber is made of sturdier brain stuff than me, that’s for sure…

The duel
When my opponent finally found a spare minute to grant me my duel, a final call was made for pilots in Jita to undock and prepare to shoot me or T’amber, or both. The moment I had waited for had come as T’amber counted down from 10..9..8..7..6..5..4..3..2..1 UNDOCK!

‘Rep me quick’ prepared to undock, the overview blacked out, no night sky appeared. For a moment I thought I would simply awake in Evati never knowing what had hit me but the outside of the Jita station finally appeared.

The strategy was pretty simple, undock and watch…

The heavy humming of the stations bowels ceased, with chat channels now minimized everything went quiet. Eerily quiet in fact, as my Dominix-class Battleship gently floated away from the docking bay. Jita Police arrived as the silence broke; many ships now lighting up bright yellow as their targeting systems went live. Here we go… The silence broke properly as Jita opened up its guns on me.

Like thunder and lightning, streams of light from all around me started connecting with my vessel. A full-red-flashy-overview took my shields as if they weren’t even there. I tried to target T’amber and get a volley of to ensure a spot on the kill-mail but the lag was so bad I couldn’t even resolve a lock.

The lag did stand in my favour however as T’amber had 2 active mods on his Dominix and would have serious issues even switching them on…

Alarm bells flared, screaming even over the sound of guns, announcing the inevitable. The Domi erupted in a large bright ball of fire, vomiting out my pod in the process. I don’t know how, but I managed to engage the warp drive and as the tunnel prepared to suck me in, I caught a glimpse of T’amber’s ship exploding.

One of the shipsofeve-volunteers had kept time from when we each undocked (I undocked earlier) and he reluctantly declared me the winner. Perhaps not the greatest way to duel, but this was not about the action more mass entertainment, I guess. It has been a pleasure meeting T’amber and having had a sneaky peak into his EVE life, I cannot imagine what he must put up with.

Spin-dizzy I selected the quickest route home and closed down shipsofeve-channels that continued to pour out more stuff and chatter, faster than the eye could see.


More CDM soon, so watch this space…






Friday 11 June 2010

CDM NEEDS YOU!



CDM #21 has been scheduled for this Sunday! For the more observant readers you may have noticed that there is a CDM missing, number #20 to be exact. This CDM has already taken place however I shall not be posting the result and blurb just yet as there is a little side project to be added to this and this is not completed. It will be done soon however so keep your eyes peeled for that one!



The reason I am giving you the heads up on CDM #21 is because I need your help. The 21st EVE Celebrity Death Match shall be with Mr T’Amber from the well known SHIPS OF EVE LOTTERY. As always the Celebrity makes up the rules for the fights and T’amber has requested a rather strange duel…



We are to undock in Jita 4-4 in Battleships with our -10 sec status and the winner will be the Pilot that stays alive the longest. A time trial CDM first!



Now you may ask; how can I help? The answer to that is pretty simple; bring guns or Remote-Repping ships to Jita this coming Sunday. To shoot T’Amber you will take no Concord or Police aggression and will assist in bringing down my foe quicker. To ensure I live longer I require Remote Repping, however this is only to be done by pilots willing to sacrifice their ship and security status as by assisting notorious outlaw Nashh you will take Concord aggression and will be shot.



The fight will happen Sunday evening in between an Alliance Tournament match, however a time has not been agreed just yet as I have my sons christening to attend to first. Not that I am religious but the wife wants to and she is the boss. It shall therefore take place later in the day and on ‘Jita-Cam’.



So be part of a CDM this Sunday and come to Jita 4-4, bring guns and help obliterate T’Amber or be really brave and bring some Remote Reps for me!



Please leave a comment on this post letting me know if you will be attending and what you’ll be bringing and I shall ensure to mention any supporters in the actual CDM post and buy everyone a beer after the action!



Watch this space…

Wednesday 9 June 2010

Bastard Medals June 2010


A bit late but as the say better than never. With z0de, Arrhi and Raelyf back on a more regular basis the killboard has evened out to a more normal level. Between the 3 of them I had expected them to completely dominate the Kill- and Ransom Board but it appears I did have my say here or there.


The month of June will see less action for me as RL has got a firm grip on my time. That combined with some deadly additions to the corp will mean my efforts to stay in the top 3 of any award this month will be futile.


Anyways without further delay;



Top Killers
1# Raelyf (72)
2# Arrhidaeus (66)
3# z0de (65)

Top Scorers
1# Nashh Kadavr (11232)
2# Raelyf (7068)
3# z0de (6775)

Top Solo Killers
1# Nashh Kadavr (22)
2# Raelyf (21)
2# Arrhidaeus (20)

Top Damage Dealers
1# Raelyf (53)
2# Nashh Kadavr (32)
3# Arrhidaeus (31)

Top Final Blows
1# Raelyf (50)
2# Nashh Kadavr (30)
3# Arrhidaeus (30)

Top Pod Killers
1# Arrhidaeus (9)
2# Nashh Kadavr (9)
3# z0de (8)

Top Griefers
1# z0de (5)
2# lord breathnach (2)
3# Kingzolo (2)

Most Ransoms
1# Nashh Kadavr (4)
2# Zemledok (3)
3# Raelyf (3)

Most Ransoms
1# Raelyf (183.214.286 isk)
2# Kingzolo (176.230.000 isk)
3# Mon Palae (154.290.000 isk)


Kill of the Month

Not decided but we all know who shall be winning this one...

Sunday 6 June 2010

Alliance Tournament 8; CCP Claw Ransomed


We may not have been so lucky in our first match in this tournament but we are not down and out just yet. RL has prohibited me from attending more than 2 training sessions and thus I am sitting it out cheering on the boys from the side-line, handing out refreshing beverage's and providing strippers were required.

I am glued to EVE TV and am watching all the matches, best moment so far is worth a post though, CCP-Claw gets dragged into our Ransom Channel;



EVE System > Channel MOTD:
This is a stick up! You are being ransomed.
Turn off ALL weapons. Prepare your funds for transfer.
Singing ransoms may be demanded.
Read the Bastard Pass for more info on prices


flashfresh > this is a stick up
Arrhidaeus > Singing ransom?
Arrhidaeus > We demand a Haiku
Nashh Kadavr > and a dance
Nashh Kadavr > and a kiss for z0de
Nashh Kadavr > you have 8 seconds
Arrhidaeus > To turn him into a Prince!
Nashh Kadavr > 7
Nashh Kadavr > 6
Nashh Kadavr > 5
Nashh Kadavr > hurry
Nashh Kadavr > 4
Nashh Kadavr > 3
Nashh Kadavr > 2
Nashh Kadavr > 1
Nashh Kadavr > kk kill him boys
CCP Claw > invited to chat / forced to write a quick haiku / is this any good?
Nashh Kadavr > lol
Mr Frog > lols
Mr Frog > nice
flashfresh > nice
Arrhidaeus > Okay, you may go
Mr Frog > bio'd
Raelyf > well played
CCP Claw > o/
Nashh Kadavr > o/