#ripmaster

[rabbivole]

sorry i have to ramble about this *somewhere* or i'm going to die. this mysterious ripmaster has a bunch of even the weird shit that was basically made bespoke for a server i played on, so presumably someone i used to know sent him some stuff. (he has a collaborative halloween map a bunch of us submitted houses for and i might literally have a house i made in there.)

i went looking for something on a whim and: he has avbar1. this is the picture he's provided, and the actual bar the map is named for is behind the camera, but this room is the other half of the map:

that's a big working accordion. i had completely forgotten until seeing this, but i am intimately familiar with this room. i have run circles around this room chatting with people i was way too young to be talking to many, many times.

the other thing i remembered upon seeing this was that accordions and polka were sort of a meme (it was the era of weird al, you see) and there was something you could do in this room, some hidden button you could press, to play a polka song. and from the detritus of my brain from 20-odd years ago i'm thinking... john jeski - sailing? definitely jeski and sailing. i can't really remember the song well but i'd know it if i heard it.

i go to youtube and find nothing. i google 'john jeski' as a flailing attempt and find the obituary of John Jeski, the 'Polka Master'. he lived in connecticut and passed away in 2007. he started the John Jeski Band in 1974, apparently performing throughout new england and receiving a congressional plaque. his obituary fondly remembers him as 'one of the best accordionists in the Polish American field'. i dig a little more and i find a raw html 1998-ass page for him on polkas.org, and sure enough, something's labeled Sailing. i somehow remembered this perfectly. and it's only a 30 second clip, but jesus christ, this is it. the map had a much longer excerpt, but this is it, hosted by nancysplaceforpolkas.com. please join me in enjoying 30 seconds of what i can only describe as joyful oompah music that i had forgotten, remember perfectly, and never expected to hear again. (and cursory googling suggests finding the whole song may be tough. hmm.)

it was just this weird polka song that was included in a map that the guy must have heard somewhere and included as a half-joke, the way that meme songs live on beyond being memes because 'well, it's a meme song, but it kinda goes hard, though'. we wouldn't have used any of those words at the time. i probably said it pwns j00.

god, avbar1.bsp is probably old enough to drink. avbar1.bsp can probably fight and die for its country (canada, i think? i think he was canadian)

fuck. this is so much and if i'm able to get even 10% of these running i may have to start thinking about taking pictures of them

ok well. as of like two weeks ago, some absolute fucking hero i don't think i've ever crossed paths with has uploaded a rip of ~5gb of team fortress classic maps. the number of these i remember intimately is fucking insane and i thought a lot of them were lost forever

a) i'm like weirdly emotional about this b) after a quick glance in my old SIERRA folder, i think i have a few things he's missing. so uh i should. probably send this person a message

[elprosstuff]

We'll miss u #legend!! #michellinstar #chef4life #ripmaster #ripjoëlrobuchon https://www.instagram.com/p/BmI-Y3yj_A8sQ6VaMpp7k0EXla0s9ysrSxOCG40/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=znh50wz7bxy4

[trendingprinter]

After discovering ultrarunning, a middle-aged father battling depression attempts his most daunting and dangerous race to date: 1,000 miles, unsupported, across Alaska in winter.

-- Delivered by Feed43 service

[lazylittledude]

“I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardsh

[mindocr]

A Walk On The Wild Side: The Pete Ripmaster Journey

http://dlvr.it/R1BK3k