Hello everyone, and welcome to this week's Omega Squadron report. It's been awhile since I wrote one of these, but here we go ...
Squadron News
-----------------------
- TIE Corps homepage standards. FA Priyum Patel recently announced new standards which must be met by the homepages of every squad in the TIE Corps, and that means us too. You might find it funny (I did anyway) that the first reaction to this announcement was for a lot of squads to simply take their homepages down, which is why there is a big announcement on the TC main page that homepages are, in fact, MANDATORY.
The TIE Corps rosters still list our homepage as the one that GN Devin constructed. This is a fine looking page, but since Devin hasn't been a member of the squad for quite awhile now, it hasn't been updated (and it's not really fair to expect him to keep updating it).
We're working with a time limit here, as FA Priyum gave every squad two weeks to have their pages up to snuff. It was announced in the FO report for January 27th, so by my calculations, that gives us until February 10th.
I'm not opposed to simply updating Devin's old page and continuing to use it (assuming he gives us permission to do that), but I'm also not against building a new site. If anyone has any solid web experience and wants to put together a quick prototype page, then let me know. If need be, I can build one from scratch, but I've got moderate skills in HTML only, so it certainly wouldn't be anything fancy.
Also we need to address the issue of hosting the site. I don't think anyone wants to see our site on GeoCities, but it's not really fair to have Devin continue hosting us either. I'm open to suggestions here, if anyone knows of some good, cheap hosting (non-crystaltech, of course) then let me know.
How we handle this is going to depend on your input, so if everyone stays silent for two weeks, you'll have to live with my HTML. You have been warned ;-)
- Congrats to LC Janich, the latest member of Omega to be awarded the Commendation of Loyalty! Good work, Janich.
- More congratulations go out to Captain Night Grue (formerly Commander Night Grue) for his well-earned promotion. Nicely done, Grue.
- All I'm saying is, thank the heavens for automated BSF submission at the TC homepage. Our newest member, LCM Ernest Penfold, had well over 80 battles and free missions to submit. Holy crap! Nice flying, Penfold. Now somebody strap that kid to a chair before there are no Rebels left for the rest of us to kill! ;-)
- SBOTM for January ended on 01/30/03. To my knowledge, Grue was our only participant ... I may be wrong about this though, since I am still getting settled in as Omega CMDR. I've heard some excuses from non-participating members, and I'm not going to say anything because I didn't get to fly it either. Why? Why, you ask? Erm, because a meteorite fell out of the sky and smashed my joystick, and the shock wave sent me into a coma, so I had to telepathically instruct my evil twin to keep sending out emails to everyone. You ever just have one of those days?
But the meteorite has been sent to the Smithsonian, my telepathy has disappeared, and my evil twin has been 'disposed' of. And I bought a new joystick.
I'm ready for the next SBOTM. Are you? I'm looking forward to the surge of pilot files that I KNOW are going to show up in my inbox ...
- Filling out the Ranks. We need to get some pilots into these big, gaping holes in our roster. Omega is open by invitation only, which should give us a huge advantage in hand-picking only the pilots we want. So why do we have open spots? Each of you has friends in the TIE Corps, and odds are that at least one of your friends would be a good addition to the squad. I want to jump-start our recruiting effort by having ALL of you send me an email in which you give me the name of AT LEAST ONE pilot that you think would fit in nicely here in Omega. If you can think of more than one, then great, send all the names you can think of. By this time next week, I want to have a pretty sizable list of possible Omegans. From there, we can all discuss, pick and choose, and whittle the list down to the three people who are going to get an invite to join. Let's get going on this one, guys. We all know that a full roster is a good thing.
- Flight Two Flight Leader. We need to get someone into the FL position for flight two. I want to promote from within the squad, as opposed to having the position go to someone who is transferring in. I already have at least two of you in mind for this. Stay tuned.
- And lastly, there was a bit of a changing of the guard this week as GN Compton stepped down as Omega CMDR. C did a great job during his tenure as Omega CO, and thankfully he will not be retiring fully, but will be stepping down to a Flight Member position as Omega 1-2. Compton remains the fleet's only FM/GN after years of loyalty and service to the EH, having served in many different positions. He is perhaps most well known as former Sector Admiral and second-in-command of the EH.
And he also tends to call people 'monkeys'.
Squadron Orders
-------------------------
- SBOTM for February will be along shortly, AD Proton is due to announce it tomorrow, 02/01/03. Be ready!
- Rat Pack Banner Competition. The Rat Pack flies again, baby! For those of you unfamiliar with the term, the Rat Pack is an unofficial squadron made up of Sovereign Wing Commanders, the SovCom, and a few invited guests. There's a graphics comp going right now to get a banner for the Rat Pack. Here's more from WC/LC Mike :
Here is the new Rat Pack Banner competition! Basically, it a competition
to make the banner for the newly reformed Rat Pack, the squadron made out
of the command staff of the Sov. The only rule we have at this moment is
that it needs to contain a picture of a rat somewhere on it. More rules
might be put in place when and if the pack itself feels there needs to be
some. It says that it's not going to start until the 1st, but I will start
accepting submissions TODAY. When you submit them, send them to me and
Proton. We will be the judges for this competition. Thanks.
So get those entries into LC Mike (suttonboy@ehnet.org) and AD Proton (hullbreach@warpmail.net), along with a CC for yours truly. Deadline is 02/14/03, and there will be a shiny new Gold Ribbon for your Iron Star going out to the winner.
- Fly Something! Let's see where we stand as a squadron. I want every one of you to fly AT LEAST one free mission this week. TIE, XvT, XWA ... it's your choice. No joystick? Use the mouse. Don't laugh, I did it for about a year. Pressed for time? Then crank down the difficulty. I'm not looking for high scores here, I just want to see everyone gain at least one FCHG point this week from flying. The February SBOTM will count, but I don't advise turning the difficulty down if that's how you choose to do this.
Pilots who fail to fly at least one mission this week will be stripped down to their undergarments, then blindfolded and deposited in the Wing I barracks ... hopefully they will be able to make it back to Omega's quarters but ... may God have mercy on your soul, because I don't think it will work out that way. Freaky things happen in Wing I. Pilots from other wings / squadrons who wander over there have a tendency to never come back. And we've all heard the rumors about giant socks and people with no pants.
And no, the CMDR is not exempt from this. And you can bet I'm going to get my butt into a TIE and do some flying because of that!
Activity Reports (01.25.03 -- 01.28.03)
-------------------------------------------------------
CMDR/COL Sasquatch
01.25.03 - Advanced to Omega Squadron Commander
FM/GN Compton
01.25.03 - Steps down as Omega CMDR
01.25.03 - Assigned to Omega 1-2
FM/COL Brian
No Activity
FM/LC Ixion Deathbringer
No Activity
---
FM/LCM Ernest Penfold
01.28.03 - Completed FCHG XvT-BoP 1
01.28.03 - Completed TC XvT-BoP 1
01.28.03 - Completed TC XvT-BoP 2
01.28.03 - Completed TC XvT-BoP 3
01.28.03 - Completed TC XvT-BoP 4
01.28.03 - Completed TC XvT-BoP 5
01.28.03 - Completed TC XvT-BoP 6
01.28.03 - Completed DB TIE 1
01.28.03 - Completed DB TIE 13
01.28.03 - Completed DB TIE 14
01.28.03 - Completed DB TIE 3
01.28.03 - Completed DB TIE 4
01.28.03 - Completed DB TIE 5
01.28.03 - Completed DB TIE 6
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 106
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 107
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 110
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 111
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 113
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 114
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 116
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 118
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 119
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 120
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 122
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 123
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 124
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 126
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 127
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 128
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 129
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 130
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 131
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 132
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 178
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 179
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 180
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 182
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 183
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 184
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 185
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 186
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 187
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 188
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 189
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 190
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 191
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 192
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 193
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 194
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 195
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 196
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 197
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 198
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 199
01.28.03 - Completed FREE TIE 202
01.28.03 - Completed IW TIE 11
01.28.03 - Completed IW TIE 13
01.28.03 - Completed IW TIE 16
01.28.03 - Completed IW TIE 20
01.28.03 - Completed IW TIE 25
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 104
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 107
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 108
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 109
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 111
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 114
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 117
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 118
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 120
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 121
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 127
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 135
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 136
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 137
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 138
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 201
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 47
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 76
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 87
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 89
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 92
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 93
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 95
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 96
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 97
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 99
01.28.03 - Completed TC TIE 126
FM/MAJ Manijak
No Activity
---
FL/CPT Night Grue
01.27.03 - Completed TC TIE 194 For Sov Battle of the Month
01.30.03 - Completed TC CAB 1*
01.30.03 - Completed TC TIE 100*
FM/LC Janich
No Activity
FM/MAJ Brandon
No Activity
[* = Battle Re-submitted]
Miscellaneous
---------------------
- It's been awhile since I've done the CMDR thing, but it's all coming back to me ;-)
- Star Wars Galaxies. 'Nuff said. You've heard about it. If you're planning on buying it at it's release date, I suggest you put a pre-order down on it now. Rumor has it that LucasArts is publishing the first release in extremely limited quantities, so they can ease their servers into the massive load that is going to be required of them. I can't confirm this, but the number that was quoted to me was 1 million copies -- worldwide. That's it until the next release, supposedly. Anyway, better safe than sorry. Get out and put a preorder on this baby if you're planning on getting it.
That's just about it for this week. Fly high and watch your six, everyone.
(*Dusts off the ID line*)
CMDR/COL Sasquatch / Omega / SSSD Sovereign
[GS] [BSx4] [PCx11] [ISMx10] [MoT-GH] [IS-BW-GR] [CoL] [CoB] [LoAx2] [OV-4E]
[IWATS] [CBX] [GFX] [IIC/1] [M/1] [SM/1] [TM] [TT]
M-T/A 'Silhouette' | LT3000 'Sunday Money'
Omega Squadron -- Sentinels of the Fleet Commander
"We Bring Death!"