Today is Camerone Day.

 On April 30, 1863, Captain Jean Danjou of the French Foreign Legion, with two officers and sixty-two legionnaires, faced two thousand Mexican guerrillas  and soldiers at the farmhouse of Camerone.  The legionnaires were tasked with defending a vital supply convoy destined for the seige of Puebla.  Danjou and his troops occupied a farmhouse with a small courtyard and were quickly surrounded by the Mexican force.
 
The battle lasted all day.  The legionnaries had no food or water and their ammunition was low.  Captain Danjou was killed and his place was taken by his second in command, Lieutenant Villian.  Villian went to each of the exhausted legionnaries and asked each one to give him their personal promise that they would not surrender, and would buy every last moment for the fleeing supply convoy to escape.  Shortly after Villian was also killed. By 5:00pm all that was left of Danjou's original command was Lieutenant Clement Maudet and four men. 

Each of Maudet's men had one cartridge, which they loaded in their rifles.  The Mexicans, who had taken the courtyard, offered the legionnaries the opportunity to surrender honorably, in point of fact, they begged them to do so.  In response Maudet ordered each of his four soldiers to fire their last round and charge the nearly two thouseand enemy soldiers with fixed bayonet.  They obeyed. 

Maudet was shot and died instantly, as did another of his men.  The remaining three waded into the mass of enemy troops and were subdued with rifle butt and fist, leaving only two survivors.  The two legionnaries were surrounded by thousands of Mexican troops who stared at them in awe, many of them remarking "These are not men, surely they must be demons."  The commander of the Mexican forces, Colonel Milan once again offered surrender to the two legionnaries, they only accepted under the condition that they be allowed to leave unmolested with their weapons, and with the body of Captain Danjou.  To this request, Milan could only respond "What can I refuse to such men," and accepted their terms. 

To this day, Captian Danjou's wooden hand is kept on display at the Legion barracks in Aubagne France.  If you ever have cause to see it, remember to get drunk on the Legion's cheap French red wine and think on grand ideas like courage, honor and duty.  Just don't claim to understand that this is more than just an old war story to a French Forigen Legionnare.

Deborah told me I should make a birthday post. 

I ate cake. 

I had Japanese food.

I drank alcohol.

My father-in-law and brother-in-law gave me awesome gifts.

Deborah bought me Empire Total War. 

WEEE! 

Happy birthday to my fabulous wife fireriven ! 

I've wished her that many times today already, but one more time won't hurt.

Just finished watching Nostradamus 2012 on the "History" channel. 

Has human reason developed so little over the last 10,000 years that we still believe this drivel?  Are we so little removed from our ancestors who cowered in mud huts and feared incubi coming in to suck out their breath and threw people who could read on fires?  I am flabbergasted by the sheer absurdity of every bit of dreck that my television is spouting at me right now. 

It's not only the absurdity that people think that a French doctor and some Mayans might be able to accurately predict the end of the world.  My brain was bent absolutely backwards by the revisionism in Nostradamian interpretation.  For example, what once was a prediction interpreted to be an asteroid strike in the nebulous future has now been revised to global warming.  Predictions that were intrepreted to be about the great depression (and actually more aptly describe that event) are now apparently about the modern day.  Best of all, a supposed "Lost Book of Nostradamus" apparently predicts the end of the world in 2012, this being the basis for the special.  Never mind the fact that the book WAS NOT WRITTEN BY NOSTRADAMUS and was in fact a book written 300 years before he lived predicting the lives and trials of future Popes. The "History" channel special of course decides to omit this fact, as do all of the crackpots they gave television time on the program.  

These people clearly have no concept or understanding of history either.  One of the crackpots pointed to a "Crusade in Messopotamia" that apparently ends in disaster as having to be the Iraq War, because, in his words "There has never been a crusade that has targeted what is modern day Iraq."  This was significant they say, and predict massive world catyclysm in 2012 because apparently this crusade would meet with defeat in the middle of time of colossal turmoil and worldwide warfare.

Oh ho!  Has there not been a "crusade" into Messopotamia sir?  I think you just MAY be mistaken.  You see, there was this little conflct that occured between 1914-1918 that you might have heard of called World War I (though I prefer The Great War).  In said conflict, the Ottoman Empire was wooed into the Central Powers by Germany.  In an effort to inspire their muslim subjects to fight in this massively unpopular war, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire declared a Jihad against the Allied Powers, making the war an official holy war.  In a response to this, the British Empire cooked up an invasion of the Ottoman Empire from its vulnerable back door, via the Persian Gulf into Iraq.  Now, to those that claim that this was a successful expedition, you aren't looking at the initial invasion in which a force of 31,000 British troops under General Charles Townshend was repulsed from Baghdad, surrounded at the city of Kut and annalhiated by the Turks in December 1915.  A later, much larger invasion took Baghdad from the Ottomans in 1918.   Seriously, didn't these doofuses ever see Lawrence of Arabia?

Of course, Nostradamus' prediction concerned neither of these events, because he was about as clairvoyant as my pet cat. 

The most gargantuan horror is that there are people that are watching this and buying every little thing that's said.  It's like when someone gets a chain mail telling them that they were forced to buy a $50,000 cookie recipe from Sears and they forward it in indignation to all their friends without even making the most insignificant attempt to find out if the mail was actually true.

Now they're talking about Edward Cayce, oh boy, it's going to be a long night.  Amazing Randi, please live forever.

Farewell to 2008, a year in which I married the only woman I've ever truly loved and moved to Georgia.  Other than that, 2008 has not much to reccomend it, but that stuff is monumental enough on its own.  Here's to a productive 2009!

It's funny though, the champagne we were given for the wedding for free was Monet White Star.  That'll amuse at least one reader out there.

Deborah is jumping around squealing like a five year old on Christmas day because she got all A's in her incredibly difficult first semester in grad school. 

I'm making fun of her because that's like being excited that the sun came up in the morning.  It's amusing.

Sometimes it sucks being both a (well researched) Civil War reenactor and a history nut.  Movies like the Good the Bad and the Ugly get hard for me to watch when I see confederate soldiers in grey blanket wool with clean branch of service piping and union soldiers wearing 1870's wool undershirts.  It gets even worse when I see Clint Eastwood (and everyone else) using the pistol I use in reenacting, an 1861 Navy Colt but loading them with brass cartridges.  The brass cartridge conversion for the Colt wasn't available until 1868, the movie is set in 1862.  Still, this is the only movie that contains Sibley's New Mexico campaign, even though it's a total fantasy version of it. 

Oh Crap, Clint is about to use a Henry repeater.  I guess that's not TOO awful, they were available in 1862 for private purchase, but there were only 900 of them and they were all in the north.  

Does any of this make The Good the Bad and the Ugly a bad film?  Nope.  Will these things bother anyone else?  Nope.  Do they bother me?  Yep. 

Oh well, what do you expect from an Italian director making an American western.  Still one of the best movies ever.

In honor of the release of Fallout 3, here are the top ten games I've ever played.  Please note, this is a subjective list, not an attempt at an objective best ever.  Also, for ease games with very similar and improved sequels are lumped together.

10. IL2 Sturmovik/Pacific Battles/IL21946 - Simply the finest Air Combat simulation available.  What's amazing is that this game, made in 2001, holds up perfectly well today both in graphics and gameplay.  This game would never have made the list on initial release, but constant expansion packs that let you fly almost every major aircraft on the Eastern Front and Pacific Theatre in WW2 for every involved side (even minor nations like Finland and Hungary) has made this a game that I refuse to have off my hard drive.  The game also includes a brilliant dynamic campaign that was actually added by the devs in response to fan requests.  Kudos for the designers listening to their fans for a change.
9. Total War Series - I keep going back to these games, over and over.  The latest release, Medieval II is pure historicaly rich crack for me.  The only game I've been looking forward to as much as Fallout 3 is next year's Empire Total War, bringing the series into the age of muskets.  Couple this new release with the fact that modders absolutely obsess over making new expansions for this game and you've got an instant classic.
8. Wargame Construction Set 3: The Age of Rifles - Not many people know of this one, but it was SERIOUS goodness if you were at all into Wargames in the 90's.  Simply put, this was an easy to learn wargame that covered every single major conflict of the 19th Century.  This is toally comprehensive, totally.  No other game has ever allowed you to play battles from the Chilean-Peruvian Pacific War, Sikh Rebellion, Russo-Japanese War, Franco-Austrian War, US-Korean conflict of 1871, Crimean War, among many, many others.  You simply can't run out of stuff to do in this game.  There were no simple hex counters here, battlefields were richly designed and the troops under your command fought in well displayed and historically accurate uniforms of the period.  If these games could take hi-res they'd look better than some wargames released in 2008.  Even better, the editor included was robust and easy to use.  Historical battles appeared from modders at almost a daily pace.
7. X-Com - Wow, you mean I get to shoot down UFO's and investigate them with commandos, then reverse engineer their technology and uncover a vast alien plot to conquer the world?  Wait, and I also get to fully develop a world wide selection of UFO hunting bases, recruit new soldiers, thwart abductions, invest in governments in order to win them over to my side and use psychic powers to actually mind control alien invaders?  Dude, you had me at hello.  Seriously, why the heck aren't there more X-Com games?  I don't know of anyone that didn't love them. What's crazier is, you can still play the original and have a great time, it's seriously that good.  There are few games released even nowadays that are as deep as this thing was over 10 years ago.
6. Knights of the Old Republic  - Somebody finally did a great Star Wars RPG, which would be enough for me right there to list this as a favorite.  What's even better was that this game had a deeper, more engaging story than any of Lucas' prequels, and was a top notch translations of Star Wars D20 to a computer setting.  The plot twist in this, though I kinda saw it coming, was one of the most amazing story turns done in a PC game.  Moreover, being evil in this game was really, truly EVIL.  Where else can you force your wookie slave to beat his beloved best friend to death while you cackle mercilessly?
5. TIE Fighter - Speaking of the dark side, TIE Fighter is in my opinion the best Star Wars game ever made.  The sequel to X-Wing was the very first Star Wars game to be from the viewpoint of the Empire, a plot device that could've been done very poorly if the developers weren't careful.  What they delivered was amazing.  Instead of being on the side of a slimy, totally unsympathetic Empire, you got to see the struggle from the Empire's point of view.  You weren't fighting to give the universe over to the Sith, you were fighting to secure peace and justice in the galaxy against rebel terrorists who were tied to the old, ineffective oligarcy whose indifference had left your home world wrecked in Civil War that only the Empire had the will to end. The darker, more nefarious Imperial activities were kept well out of your view, unless you chose to take on a few optional "side missions" that would eventually lead to you becoming one of the Emperor's personal hit men and a pilot in Vader's own squadron.  Gameplay wise, this was no arcadey shoot em up, rather it was a pretty decent simulation with complex managment of you fighter and very different flight models for each TIE variant you got to pilot.  I seriously would only let myself play a mission a day on this game because I never wanted to be done with it.   
4. Star Control 2 - Unlke most of the world, I actually played Star Control 1, a simple expansion of the first ever game, SpaceWar.  Star Control 2 was about as far from its predecessor as my current computer is away from an abacus.  Taking the one on one skirmish from the previous game and pasting it onto a deep RPG heavily inspired from the classic Starflight series, Star Control 2 was pure electronic genius.  This is another one of those rare games that still holds up today, even though it's now over a decade old.  You can even play a free updated version of it that is every bit as fun as the original.
3. Starflight 1-2 - From the days when your sound card was your PC speaker comes Starflight, a space based RPG from the late 1980's.  This was literally the first PC game I'd ever played, and it wowed me with its incredible immersiveness and feeling of vast size.  Very few games have ever had the feeling of being a real space explorer as Starflight, where you set out into the unknown with just a ship, a map of stars and an empty cargo hold.  Starflight starts out as a sandbox and ends up as a very deep story in which you have the job of saving the entire galaxy.  Starflight 2 was more of the same, just with a bigger universe and more races to interact with.  Starflight inspired many many imitators, including the brilliant Star Control 2 which was a very good refinement of the Star Flight experience.
2. Fallout 1-2 - This was a hard choice for #2, and almost made it to #1.  This was simply the best RPG ever made, and was such a massive sandbox of a game that the sheer number of choices you had while playing are impossible to list here.  The game had the guts to let your choices have REAL consequences.  Actions taken in this game cut off entire sections of gameplay, immensely adding to replay value and putting real weight in your decisions.  You could really play this as an RPG too.  Combat was optional, if you were a Charsima based character with a lot of luck, you could literally talk your way though all of Fallout 1 and most of Fallout 2.  The game had no fear of showing the horrors of post-apocalypse living either.  Drugs, prostitution, murder, slavery, child killing, they all happened in this game and if you were sick enough, you could participate in them.  What other game let you marry a woman and sell her into slavery on the streets of New Reno for a hit of the drug Jet?  I was fortunately a good guy and didn't do that, but the fact that it was a possibility demonstrates how much thought they put into this game.  Also, this game has the best ending ever.  Instead of just getting a simple cutscene with generic baddy dying followed by credits, you actually get to see a long multi-part explanation of how your actions impact history.  This game gives you real satisfaction.  
1. Civilization 1-4 - Best games I've ever played.  I almost put this #2, but I remembered how I've kept the latest incarnation of every Civ game always installed on my hard disk ever since I had Civ 1 back in the stone age.  No other game lets you build an empire from the stone age to the space age in such a fun and intuitive way.  It's really not necessary to explain much further, this one really just speaks for itself.  The series has had its ups and downs, but through it all this is the most addictive game ever played.  If you don't agree, well, my words are backed by nuclear weapons!

Honorable mentions: Half Life 1-2, Deus Ex, Elite 1-2, M1 Tank Platoon, Red Baron 1- 2, Starcraft, Wing Commander 1-4

I slept three hours Friday night.  I should be asleep right now, but sleep won't come.  This isn't pleasant.  If I can't go to sleep soon I'll have managed three hours of sleep in 72 hours or so. 

Weeeee.....

For those of you who play and love Medieval II Total War the way I do, you absolutely MUST check the following link out:
http://www.forkingorcountry.com/
This is a new mod that was finished in REMARKABLE time considering how much work the modders put into it.  It brings Medieval up a hundred years into the age of Pike and Shot and has a full campaign covering the English Civil War.  It's the closest thing to a 30 Years War mod for Medieval II that you're likely to get, so I'd try it out.  The battles run very well and feel very different from the vanilla game, very pleasing.  

Rejoice in the Lord!  Death to King Charles! On for Old Ironsides!