Nimon

The wife and I saw it tonight, and we both liked it. Not a lot of surprises, but still a fun ride. Had a hard time catching some of the dialogue, though. --[CoFR]Nimon

Over the years, CoFR (Crusty old Fossil Rockers) has had a number of public, semi-private, and private CS servers. At the height of CS, those servers were an oasis, and the private servers, sheer bliss. Team play was the norm; all skill levels were welcome, with help provided to those who wanted it; corpse tagging, corpse shooting, and other in-your-face moves got you banned, as did accusations of cheating; players swapped with each other to balance teams; when one side was getting trounced, a pistol round was often organized to give them a chance to break the momentum; some players regularly toned down their firepower when winning; and, given that many of us are older and slower than most gamers, playing smart and shooting people in the back was always encouraged. And not only did we have Limeys and Cannucks, but Swedes and Aussies, too. We were an oasis, and a big one, but we weren't the only one. There were several groups out there running servers for mature, cheat-free gaming. And there still are. Unfortunately, it appears that few made the transition to CS:S. Even CoFR, which has a few hundred members, has many more members playing 1.6 than Source--and that wasn't many, as most CoFRs have gravitated toward other games. (There's no accounting for taste.) A few months ago, when I got back into CS (I had stopped playing when 1.6 came out), a fellow CoFR recommended GC's servers. I tried them and thought they were okay. It was mostly run-and-gun, corpse spraying and tagging were epidemic, and the winning team always seemed to have an extra player or three. However, admins were usually on, and they worked hard to keep everyone in line and pointed towards the goal, which is unusual. I continued playing here, but I also wandered through other servers. Finding a semi-reasonable game has never been much of a problem for me, but invariably I'd bookmark a server only to find that the first night was the exception, not the rule. That was not the case with GC. Except for the occasional cheater-with-no-admin-on incident, the level of sportsmanship was usually about the same. I started to play here more and more, and naturally, as I started to recognize names and figure out who's who, it grew on me. Then came that magical night; a Fatty night. (Is anyone surprised?) We had gotten stomped for several rounds when Fatty took control. In one round he turned a hoard of run-and-gun individual gamers into an organized team. We still took a beating, but I didn't mind, because that organization was what I had been missing. That is how team games are meant to be played. Once I found out that some of you agree, I became a regular. It seems I only get to enjoy the organized-team thing a few times a week, but that's okay. It's great when it happens, but the rest of the time you guys still run good servers. I won't pretend the sportsmanship is what I'm accustomed to, but different strokes for different folks; yours are still some of the best servers out there. (And it's the only place I have ever been accused of cheating, which I consider a plus. ) If I knew I'd still have a high-bandwidth connection after moving, I wouldn't hesitate to chip in my $50. Until then, many thanks for letting me ride on your coattails; the servers are appreciated. Amen. --[CoFR]Nimon Edit: just to clarify, by "accusations of cheating" I mean publically accusing someone of cheating got the accuser banned.

Except Will Smith actually had what the bad guys wanted, while TMwORS as spy vs. spy with Tom Hanks was a decoy. Plus EotS had Gene Hackman in one of his more entertaining roles of late. Neither movie is worth me owning, but I did like Hackman's character. Joe Smoe being yanked into spy games is hardly a unique plot.

Batman, I own the first three you mentioned, as well as Notorious, but that's the extent of my Cary Grant collection. I don't care for the others. Charade is my favorite. If you have the opportunity, listen to the commentary on the Criterion Collection DVD. Stanley Donen and Peter Stone have some entertaining things to say 30+ years after the fact, including about Cary Grant.

Forty, which is above the mean age of CoFR, but not by much. There are more of us old gamers than you might think. Once Pong gets in your blood... My son, now 18 and out of the house, has about the same skill level I do, although I think he is more consistent. I got to play online CS with him one time. I was out of town and playing on a friend's machine. There were connection problems, and the server was busy, so I had trouble getting on. My son explained that his dad was trying to connect and asked if someone would be willing to leave. Someone was. The connection only lasted a map, but it was unforgettable. The highlight was the two rounds I sniped while he covered me close in with a colt. I wish I had a demo of it--we took out five of eight one round. Talk about your father-son moments. Later I discovered that he was only able to play because he had lied to his mother about homework. *sigh* Teenagers. --[CoFR]Nimon