The BTM weekend is upon us once again and the Abattoir.BBs is a buzz with anticipation...  For many weeks now the Abattoir crew have been working weekends and evenings to ready LAN Central for our 50th LAN bash -- all network connections have been tested, all servers have been serviced (...many upgraded...) and we've even added a new router and gigabit switch to the mix.  The Arcade Room has been completely emptied out, cleaned and wired, truck loads of computer equipment have been moved out to clear the clutter, the carpets have all been steam cleaned to assure a fresh and comfortable sleeping surface and the cat's been washed; we're good to go!  There have been a few players who've been forced to back out, so please be sure to check the Reservation Page if you were on the Waiting List to see if you've made it in.  This BTM will be a structured tournament -- I know we've said it in the past and it still turns out to be a free-for-all slaughter-fest (...which is fine too...) but we're posting game times on all the walls so there's no question as to which game's up and when.  Please check the forums for the game list and their play times -- make sure you're machine's loaded and ready, it's almost time to rumble!

That magical time of the year is here, where all the men rush down to the corner Irish pub to get some head -- Happy St. Patricks' Day to all our Irish readers and indeed to everyone who basically becomes Irish for the day (...can't let them drink all the Guinness...)  Be sure you hoist a pint of the nectar in honour of Irelands national holiday, hug a leprechaun, pick a clover and hope you're not green in the morning.  Have a great weekend and please don't drink and drive (...do it the Irish way and just sleep on the pub floor if you can find a dry spot...)  Cheers!

Last month the Abattoir's traffic exceeded the million-hit-mark...  Normally one would be rather elated that their web site is somewhat popular, until you read the fine-print.  After reviewing the access logs of the Abattoir, once again we're forced to make a 'public service announcement' to try and educate the vast number of morons out there in Internet Land who seem to be devoid of basic Netiquette.  When you cruise the Abattoir, see a cool image that you like and then decide to steal it, you're a theift...  Hotlinking takes it a step further.  Hotlinking is when you see a cool image on the Abattoir, copy it's shortcut and paste it into your crappy little "blog-wanna'-be" on services like Myspace.com -- this is not only image theft, it's also bandwidth theft.  Every time that cool image you stole is displayed on YOUR site, MY server and bandwidth are being used to feed it; when someone else on your "blog-wanna'-be" site sees the image you stole and decides to steal it too, there's two hits per show on my server -- and so on, and so on.  Next thing I know, my server access logs are filled to the brim with access hits from Myspace.com as these idiots rip-off my images and steal my bandwidth.  People, this is a morally bankrupt practice -- if you want to use an image off the Abattoir, ask us for permission; when we say "Sure, you have our permission to use that..." copy the image to your own hard drive and host it yourself.  Hotlink protection has been turned back on again, anyone linking directly to an image off the Abattoir networks will not like the image that actually gets fed to their site (unless you enjoy viewing 70 year-old homosexual group sex acts)  Hope your Mother enjoys reading your blog now.

Over the weekend Battlefield 2 fans fought to nail their copy of the Battlefield 1.21 patch which many have waited for after the disastrous 1.2 release back on Valentine's Day in hopes that EA Games and Dice Canada have fixed the many issues 1.2 caused (...including many users not being able to even play the game anymore, nice patch!..)  We thought we would help-out a little; most will need the Incremental Patch (13.9meg) which will bring your 1.20 to 1.21, if you just bought a copy of Battlepatch 2 you'll need the Full Patch (367.5meg) -- See our new BTM50.com site (under construction) for all your patch, maps, demos, skins, MODs and BTM Media needs.  After patching, if you find you still can't connect -- don't worry about it, it's going to be 20°c in parts of southern Ontario today...  Go out and get some fresh air.

We continue to fill, even though we're full; so it's with a heavy heart that I throw more fuel on the fire -- it is our 50th BTM so I suppose we need a door prize, we're going to random draw this Acer AL1916Wb 19" 16:10 WXGA+ Wide Screen LCD, it's a native 1440x900 and sports ultra fast 8ms refresh making it FPS friendly -- It's also very quiet and smooth.  Other features include a lit power button we're pretty sure sports a few colours and a cool power cable, smells nice too...  The winner of this unit will also appreciate the fine wood-fibre briefcase that will be included -- both protective and functional, it will carry the entire display unit with all necessary cables in one package, nice plastic handle too.  It's plug & play (LOL!)  Anyway, there you go...  Captain Kaos already won a Toaster and the BTM hasn't started yet.

I would like to draw your attention to a new addition in the Abattoir family (of World domination) No, it's not another birth; with the growing popularity of Battlefield 2 among the BTM'ers, not only can you hit our dedicated public server at 216.191.146.122, you can now hit our official Online Gaming Crew site (OGC) and poke around, there's a schedule there, buttons and stuff, all sorts of things...  Cam (CorpsE) Smith orchestrated the entire site and it's become the stomping ground of the [MA] [AB] Clan (...yeah, MeatMan's Abattoir still haunts the servers...)  I don't want to mention BTM50.com at this time because it's not online, but we'll let you know when it goes there.  Now, before you laugh because those links might be broken at the time this was posted, it's due to our grossly underpowered Web Server which is being sent to charity and our new Server's going in (work in progress) give us a few hours...