| Name: | Keith Harrison |
| WarBirds ID: | wicked |
| Born: |
12/25/73 That's right, I'm a Christmas baby and I get screeeeewed on the presents.:) In case you can't do the math, I'll be a 26 year old adolescent. |
| Place of birth: | NYC |
| Current Residence: | I was smart and moved from NY when I was 6 months old out here to the San Francisco Bay Area. Lived here ever since. |
| Social status: | Dysfunctional |
| Employment: | I work as a Master Control Operator for the local NBC affiliate in San Francisco. Ok, imagine Homer Simpson but at a TV station instead of a Nuclear Power Plant and no donuts. :) |
My first introduction to computers was about 15-16 years ago when my dad brought home a funny little box and hooked it up to the TV. It was called a Commodore Vic-20. It came with a manual about a foot thick and I proceeded to program two games straight out of the book. One was a text based adventure and the other was an ascii based Star Trek game. Next came the computer of the future, what was supposed to be the iMac of the day, an ADAM. I broke it playing BurgerTime for 6 hours straight. :) After that we got an Apple IIe. I loved that computer. I guess you could say my very first flight-sim was F15-Eagle. I then moved up to Sub Logic's Flight Simulator 1.0, which of course had a little WWI game that you could play. The best game I had for it was called Dambusters. It was straight from the movie and you got to fly a Lancaster over the English channel, over the Rhineland, and finally make your way to a dam and blow it up using your spotlights and barrel bomb. All the way you had to avoid dangers like attacking fighters(you manned the guns of several positions), searchlights, and barrage balloons. This game was the reason I got my very first joystick.
By now the Macintosh revolution was in full swing and next came an LCII. 25Mhz processor, 80MB HD, and 4MB of RAM. It was good enough to play Eric Parker's Hellcats over the Pacific. And play it I did. Several Macs, Parsoft and GSC games later I happened upon a free open beta for AW. By this time I was up to a 14.4 modem(lightening fast) I flew there for a while under different handles, but mostly Ajax or Jax. All the while I kept hearing about this game called Warbirds. So I downloaded it, ignoring the fact that the minimum req. were an 040 processor and I only had an 030. I distinctly remember the very first time I logged in. I sat facing the wall of a revetment and tried to make sense of the radio. I was getting about 2fps and couldn't even move. So I logged off and went back to AW.
It wasn't until I got my first PowerPC sometime early 1996 that I tried WBs again. This time it worked beautifully. I think it was up to version 1.10 or so at that time. I had to create an account this time and choose an ID. I kept trying a lot of different ones that were already taken(Ajax was one). I then tried to think of something clever to do with 4 characters and finally came up with UB86. Unfortunately, I cannot recall my first kill or first death, just a lot of flying around trying to figure out what was going on. Then one day ICI came out with an interesting new arena called the HA(Historical Arena) I started flying in there a lot. It was much different than the HA we have now. For one, the icons were much more limited. I met a few people in there and started flying with them on a regular basis. Yak, Fooo, Ford to name a few. One day Yak mentioned that he was in a Squad called The Pale Horses now being led by Wol4. So I joined my very first squad.
Then 2.0 came out and hence forth the Great Split. All of us Mac guys stayed behind and played for free in the old arena. It was about Spring 1998 that I finally switched over to a PC. I was tired of waiting for Mac releases and 3D. With 2.0 came the ID change as well and I could no longer use the numbers in my handle. I thought a while about a new ID and Wicked just came to me. I figured it fit me pretty well has I have a wicked sense of humor. :)
I first met Sickboy at a little Warbirds meet(can't remember where) and then he later invited a bunch of us over to his apartment in the Haight. Among us were Stiglr, Kdoc, DAO(?) and a few others. I brought my own computer and we had a lot of fun flying together. One thing we noticed was how great it was to be able to talk to the person you were flying with. Birth of RW Sick? :)
That summer marked my first Warbirds Con. I roomed with Sick and Pnus, who I met for the first time...little did I know. :) The Con was a blast. Pnus beat me up with a pillow in the middle of the night. FLASHBACK! :) I was hooked and made the Con this year in Palm Springs. It was there that I really found out about the 487th Lil' Bastards. When I got back I just kept flying with these guys all the time. Finally one day I was persuaded to join(The bastards have this effect), but I said in the HA only(still with the Pale Horses and all). But that didn't last very long and they brainwashed me completely and got their hooks on me in the MA too. :p
I've been a card carrying member for about 2-3 months now and am having the best time I have ever had in Warbirds. I am also flying better than I ever have before and I love the Pony with a much deeper passion.
Currently, I am working on planning a Mini-Con for the San Francisco Bay Area. If it all works out it will be the first of its kind here and hopefully not the last. For now, I continue to fly as much as possible. I am really looking forward to WWIIOL, due out next year.
Wicked
