The Webs Reference

By not-so-popular demand, I'm expounding on the Webs reference. As some know or have suffered through, I've prattled on about Warbirds to various people at various times, usually using hyperbole like it's the best, it's so cool, it's better than sliced bread (not true). Basically, it was this MMO WW2 combat sim in which a bunch of middle-aged guys spent $2 an hour to play a video game where you got to be a combat pilot (because simulating life and death is fun!).

Looking back on this shadowy part of my past, I can't help but shudder at the thought of the small fortune I spent for the opportunity to squint at little dots on a screen surrounded by a crude facsimile of an airplane cockpit. I say that as if I'm above all that now. Hey, have you heard of Planetside? It's this MMO space combat sim. It's the best, it's so cool, it's better than sliced bread!

Any time you get a group of devotees to something, they congregate together. These congregations often stand in opposition to one another, for it's only natural that if you're simulating life and death over the skies of Europe or the Pacific, someone has to be the killer and someone has to be killed. It helps to have friends who are of the killer persuasion if you find yourself to be prey, or friends who are better at being prey than you are so the killers hunt them first. There's a life lesson somewhere in all that.

Our merry little band of Warbirds devotees included people from all over the globe. Webs, or Laurie to people who know him in real life (and I don't), hails from Montreal, Canada. Married, couple of kids, has a thing for hockey (ok, so that's a given) and teaches writing at a university level. I seem to recall he was a reasonably good "pilot," someone more of the killer persuasion, though I suspect he left our group to start his own because he was tired of having me vultch him incessantly during our Sunday "Fox Fights." ;-) Later, we played another game called Diplomacy, an online version of some board game I never heard of. Webs was England, I was Spain, and thinking old squadmates could unite and rule the world, we formed an alliance. However, what I quickly learned was that an alliance with Webs simply meant I would be the first country he stabbed in the back. Bastard! Hence all subsequent references to Webs have been in the form of Webs, Diplomacy Cheat--Bastard! ;-) Then one day I was perusing Wily's blog and followed the link to Webs' (Webs's according to Strunk & White, but that looks so wrong) and saw the cool Last FM widget. I added it to this blog, credited Webs for it, and Webs eventually found my reference, probably while looking through his traffic reports. So, visit Webs at many of his fine blogs and feel free to berate him for being a Diplomacy cheat.

* Speaking of Last FM, I changed my playlist around. Got rid of some of the 80's hard rock in favor of stuff more befitting my advanced age.