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Latest News and Blog Posts from Wayne “Pendragon” Owens.
Parents, Who’d have them?
Last week at a festive board there was a discussion on “kids, and the annoying requests they ask of you” The general opinion of the parents present was that in their days if you had a problem, like you broke down, or ran out of petrol you sorted it out yourself, and did not phone your parents expecting them to help. My father was one of the strong voices against annoying kids expecting you to go out of your way to help. This conversation was brought back into my mind yesterday. And as a none-parent I want to point out its not just Children/Grandchildren that are guilty of this.
Yesterday about 7pm I get a call from my mother. Turns out there was family up in the area on a canal boat holiday, and my parents had gone to visit them for a pub lunch. Only after the lunch they decided to travel along the canal for a while to enjoy the day, and my father had always fancied having a go on a canal boat. So at 7 when they decided to call it a day and come home after a day on the canal they realise they are now several miles or more away from where they parked their car.
So pour coffee down sink, take a moment to morn its loss, and jump in car to drive to the middle of nowhere to pick up parents. I arrive at a small car-park near the canal, its miles from the nearest street light so its dark, cold, and abandoned. I am the only person about, so I phone my father to say I am here, and where are they?. “Oh, we had to move on. We’re a couple miles down the canal. We are just mooring up which should take twenty minutes or so, then we’ll walk the mile or so back to where you are. so just wait there”
Right, so I am to wait in a cold, dark, abandoned car park. And I can’t leave the engine running as I’m a bit low on diesel and probably shouldn’t waste it. Now the smarter amongst you are probably thinking . o (err. they were only guests on the boat, and they knew you were on route to collect them, so why did they not leave the boat at the location you were driving to, and wait for you to arrive?) The answer would be, they did not think of it.
About a half hour later I get a call from my father asking was I still there (like where else would I be?) and informing me they stopped off at a pub, so I should drive to pub to meet them. So it was a case of relocate to pub, (OK I did get a pint for my troubles. Not off my parents but of some random friend of the family who I do not know). Then a quick ten minute trip to go drop them off at their car, before I was able to go home.
PARENTS!!!!!!
When is a simple task not a simple task?
Last Friday it was pointed out to me that the sidelight on the drivers side was not working on my car. Now changing the bulbs on a car is a simple task so I pencilled in doing some maintenance at the weekend.
So Saturday afternoon I pop the hood and look at the back of the light fitting to see what kind of bulb I need. Imagine my surprise when I realised the lamp I wanted was behind a bit of metal chassis. OK. Not to worry, I have the owners manual so I’ll check what they say about bulb replacement.
The entry for side lights & indicators was simply “For this task we suggest taking the vehicle to your supplier for them to deal with” WTF?? Since when has replacing a simple sidelight bulb needed the vehicle dealers to do? Pah at them.
So I take a look to see how big a job it is to gain access to the bulb. Right. to gain access to the back of the lighting unit you have to remove the lighting unit. So far so simple. Only the lighting unit is behind the front grill & bodywork. So you have to remove the front of the car to get at the lighting unit, to remove the lighting unit to gain access to the lamp to simply unplug it, and plug a new one in.
How fraking stupid is that design ?
Several hours of major mechanical work just to get access to a 30 second maintenance job.
Needless to say, my side light is still not working.
Doctors 2.1
My case of “Vampire Eye” was not getting any better, in fact it seemed to be getting actually worse, so yesterday I decided to get myself a check-up appointment at the Doctors. I was in luck and managed to get myself a 9am appointment. So not long to wait to get some answers…..right?
9:00 AM Doctor 1:
I’m sat patiently in the waiting room, and by patiently I mean board out of my mind and playing “angry birds” to waste the time. You have to love appointment times, I had a fixed time 9am, I was the first appointment of day, and I still had to wait about twenty minutes before getting seen.
I get in to see the Doc, (Not The Doc, which is a shame cos that would have been really cool), anyway I walk in and sit down. My Doctor looks at me
Doc: “err so the drops I gave you are not helping?“
WO: “No, and my eyes been getting worse the last three days?“
Doc: “err, well I don’t really know much about eyes. But one of the other doctors here is an eye man, he used to be work at the eye clinic, and he really knows his stuff. I’ll make you an appointment to see him.“
WO: . o (WTF? I come in repeatedly with an EYE problem, I keep seeing you who knows nothing about eyes, and you guys had an eye doctor here all the time?) “Cool.“
A new appointment is made with a new doctor for 4pm.
4:00 PM Doctor 2:
I turn up and wait, and wait, I then spot a doctor coming out the room I know is the one I have the appointment in. He walks over to receptionist and hands over a pile of medical notes/records then leaves the building. I just look about wondering if no one told him about the extra person he had to see at the end of the day. I was just planning how to kidnap him in the car park when he came back in.
Now this doctor actually checked my eye, asked me questions, inserted a variety of bits of cardboard and paper into my eye to check things, and various other things. This beat my previous doctors method of going. “oh, you have a blood shot eye, conjunctivitis, take these drops!” He humms, and asks do I mind waiting back in the waiting room for a bit while he phones the eye-clinic. So I wait but I should get some answers……right?
After an hour in and out of the doctors office, I was asked did I mind rushing myself to A&E ASAP, do not pass go & do not collect $200. Well OK, that sounds bad, but the Hospital should give me some answers…..right?
So I shot off to the Hospital with a letter from the Doctor.
5:30 PM Hospital:
I arrive at A&E and give my name and address. The receptionist asks what the issue is, so I hand over my note from my doctor. She opens it and looks at page, turns it over and looks at back, turns it over and looks at the front, and then again the back. She puts it back into the envelope and asks “err so what’s the issue?“. I tell here dodgy eye and she sends me to another waiting room to wait for the triage nurse.
I get called up and sent into a small examination room. The triage nurse and another nurse come in with me and ask what seems to be the problem. Once again I hand over my note and the two of them look at the front, then the back, then the front, then the back. “err ok, I got about 4 words that I could read” says one, “I got part of his DOB” the other one adds. I get the note back and place it safely in my pocket to show my mother at some later date to prove my handwriting on the whole is not that bad.
Before we start I am given a form thing I have to fill in on abuse, bullying, etc. Questions like is anyone in your family physically abusing you, mentally abusing you, etc. And what would you do if someone tried abusing you. I helpfully point out they missing the option “I’d rip out their spleen and wear it as a hat” and the two nurses back out of the room informing me someone will be along soon.
The waiting continues, and continues. The triage nurse pops into the room “Has anyone seen you yet?” “no” “good!” and pops out leaving me shall we say a tad bit confused. Luckily she popped back in to explain that they had got a phone call from one of the doctors from the eye clinic asking was I there, and not to see me because they were coming up to see me.
After a short wait I hear a Russian accent ask “where is he?” and a rather attractive, tall blonde woman in street clothes is standing by entrance to room. The triage nurse walks up to her and points at me, then adds that there is a three year old in A&E with grit in his eye, and they would like her to have quick look at the kid. “No! I am here for him” *slaps paperwork in her hand* “Only Him!“. Woooooo Hoooooooo I think.
So I get examined, she curses loudly in her lovely accent that my doctors are all fools for diagnosing conjunctivitis all the times and giving me anti-biotics’. She informs me that I have in fact got Iriitis, I will have drops to take for next 3 days, and I will see her again on Monday. (Score). It was at this point the nurses explained that pharmacy was closed for the night, so I would not be able to have prescription until the morning.
She looked at me, “One minute” and left the room. From down the corridor I could hear her accent as she informed the A&E doctors and nurses that I would have my prescribed medication tonight, even if one of them had to hand write a prescription and run to the nearest Boots that was open and pick me some up. She walked back into the room to inform me with a smile “you will have your drugs!”
I have to hand it to the A&E staff, they managed to scrounge up enough bits from different places to cover me until the morning when I would be able to come back to get full prescription filled.
Doctors 2.0
Yesterday I gave in to the masses, who had been giving me a hard time for not going to the doctor with my “Vampire Eye“.
So I woke up yesterday, got dressed up in my Ninja Gi, loaded up with all the weapons and tools of the Ninja, and prepared for the dangerous, and arduous task that is trying to book an appointment at my medical centre. And was I in for a surprise.
I get ready with the house phone, my mobile, & a scripted PBX to attempt the impossible first step, actually getting hold of someone. I dial and……. I get an automated welcome message, welcoming me to the medical centre, informing me my call may be recorded for training purposes and telling me i shall have options to pick from. WOW. My Doctors place has got themselves a decent phone system that’s not some old woman sat at a desk moving wires about.
I then get to the menu system of the phone call. “Press one for…..” there then followed a huge list of all the possible reasons you may press option one. Then SILENCE, I waited, and waited, but still there was silence. “OK? so the first part of the menu is press 1 or press 1” I pressed 1, and the phone started ringing and I got a real person. Yes their automated phone messaging system goes. Press 1 and get person. They have managed to add a pointless step in the process of PHONE-RINGS->ANSWER-PHONE.
I get my appointment and dutifully turn up at the surgery on time. Only its all different, its bigger, better, and different. In fact its like they had built a huge new building next to the original, then knocked down the original to make additional car parking spaces. Well the old place had been there for dozens of years, and was a bit small and dingy.
I enter the posh new building to be greeted by a large wall mounted flat screen TV with the word “Welcome” on it in a button like box. I then touched the button on the screen like you do, it changed to two buttons [Male] & [Female] “Wow, they really gone to town on making the patients feel comfortable while waiting, they even supply company for you“. I quickly pressed the [Female] button, it now asked for a D.O.B. “wow. I wonder if they ask for my preferred hair colour and such?” I hit a few random options for a birth date, and waited for my order to arrive.
The screen in front of me said “Welcome Mrs ***** ****** ******, please take a seat in the waiting area.” *SHIT* its a login system, not a online ordering thing. I hit reset, and put my details in, and made my way to sit innocently in the waiting room. Where there was an even bigger flat screen TV informing me that “smoking is bad” “unsafe sex is bad” “yada yada yada” and occasional beeping and telling someone they should go to room **. Modern technology is great, instead of the old yellowing posters telling me everything fun is bad for me, they now get to do it in wide screen, high definition.
After all that, the Doc told me nothing I didn’t already know, and I was in with him for about 3 minutes. This is why I never bother going to see the Doctor.
RTL – From the Bookshelf of a Geek: Shatnerquake
Title: Shatnerquake
Author: Jeff Burk
Published: 2009
Pages: 100
PLOT (Taken from Amazon.com):
It’s Shatner VS Shatners!
William Shatner? William Shatner. WILLIAM SHATNER!!! It’s the first ShatnerCon with William Shatner as the guest of honor! But after a failed terrorist attack by Campbellians, a crazy terrorist cult that worships Bruce Campbell, all of the characters ever played by William Shatner are suddenly sucked into our world. Their mission: hunt down and destroy the real William Shatner.
Featuring: Captain Kirk, TJ Hooker, Denny Crane, Rescue 911 Shatner, Singer Shatner, Shakespearean Shatner, Twilight Zone Shatner, Cartoon Kirk, Esperanto Shatner, Priceline Shatner, SNL Shatner, and – of course – William Shatner!
No costumed con-goer will be spared in their wave of destruction, no redshirt will make it out alive, and not even the Klingons will be able to stand up to a deranged Captain Kirk with a lightsaber. But these Shatner-clones are about to learn a hard lesson…that the real William Shatner doesn’t take crap from anybody. Not even himself.
It’s Shatnertastic!
MY OPINION (Taken from my Mind):
I first heard about this book on @wilw‘s blog, and again later when he posted that the author Jeff Burk was offering it as a one day free PDF Download. So I did what any geek would do, I downloaded it and read it in work :o)
Well ok, the original plan was to just check out the story and read it later that evening. Only I was hooked as soon as Shatner drove past the first Campbellian, I loved the idea of a cult of Campbell, where followers cut off their right hand and change their name to Bruce.
That was it then. There was zero chance of any productivity from me until the book was finished, Luckily its only 100 pages long so does not take long to read.
But that’s 100 pages of pure AWESOME. we are talking about Captain kirk trying to sleep with people cosplaying slave girls, and attacking klingons, not to mention the poor cosplaying red shirts. Theres even one point when Kirk is running around in pure rage armed with a working lightsaber?
MY RECOMMENDATION
I would recommend this book to anyone from a beginner reader, to the kind of hardcore reader who will read war & peace in a sitting.
Its witty, funny, and so very different that you should be able to enjoy it even if you are not a Shatner fan.
It should also be required reading to anyone who visits conventions.
This Article was 1st posted @ rocktheLAN.com
UK hacker fined for personnel database mischief
Once again the Media forces miss appropriate the word “Hacker”. This time in an article posted on the IT based site The Register, the article is titled “UK hacker fined for personnel database mischief” and the full article can be read here.
Now this could be fair I guess, lets see what the guy did. According to the article he “gained unauthorised access to staff contracts containing salary details and emailed this to around 400 workers at his ex-employer” Now, I can see why gaining unauthorised access to digital information could be associated to Hacking, Only lets read some more.
How did he manage to bypass the companies security and gain access? When he was sacked he stole his bosses laptop, and emailed out information he found on there. Yes. That’s right! The Mad 1337 h4x0r skillz this guy used was 1)theft of a object, 2)The ability to send an email. Wow.
The title should be X-employees fined for theft and breaking the Data Protection Act. Only the Media likes its word Hacker.
Just when I thought they couldn’t possibly be any dumber…
…..they go and do something like this… and totally redeem themselves!!
I am a true believer of the phrase “Customers are Idiots“, but sometimes they seem to go out of their way to prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that this phrase is true.
Recently one of our customers RedBack* ceased trading, and a load of their customers were emailed suggesting they move their hosting & emails over to the Insane Asylum. I was given the pleasure of helping a load across to us. Now some came across with little or no problems, where as others caused a variety of problems. And then there was Zoolander*.
So I copy their website and database from the RedBack server that’s shutting down over to one of ours, I change connection strings and paths accordingly and get it up and running. I recreate email accounts on our system and send them all the details with the instructions to change the nameservers over to ours and they will be up and running.
So a couple of weeks go past and I get a phone call from Zoolander that goes a bit like this.
Z: “We’ve changed the nameserver things like you said and now our email has stopped working!”
WO: “Yes, it will since you moved over to us. you need to use the new email details I previosly sent you.”
Z: “I don’t understand, its all technically, can’t you just do it for me?”
WO: “Well you need to change the setting in whatever email client you use on your computers, but if you need our guys can connect to your machine and do it for you.”
Z: “I dont do email on my computer, just my phone. I just go to the webpage and do mail.”
WO: “You only use webmail? Then you just need to use the webmail address I sent you and you’ll be fine”
Z: “what? so my webpages address will change? it wont be on www.zoolander.com* any more?”
WO: “NO. just the address of the webmail you used has changed.“
The following morning I get into the Asylum to find an email from one of the Zoolander’s Directors home gmail account, all urgent and shouty like. I could tell this as it was all written in CAPS! The basic gist of the email was that they had tried logging into the new webmail address i gave them, and their old username/passwords were not working. So I politely resend them the details I sent before the move with the NEW usernames/passwords and point out the NEW system required NEW details.
Two hours later the phone rings. And its Zoolander.
Z: “Hello, We’ve tried using the new details, only we can’t work out what goes where, so could ou talk us through it?”
WO: “no problems, what problem are you having?”
Z: “Well we need to know what to put in the box that says username, and what goes in the one called password?”
WO: “What did you have in the email I sent you?”
Z: “email address followed by my email address, then username followed by a username, then password followed by password. I just don’t know which ones I’m supposed to use.”
WO: “OK. where it asks for your username, type in your username. and put your password in the one asking for password.”
Z: “That seems to have worked. thanks”
WO: *Unplugs phone for rest of the day*
I know there is a stereotype belief that people in the fashion modelling industry are not known for playing with a full set of cards. But at least try people…..
As normal Names changed to protect me from lawsuits!
I mean to protect the innocent!
Missing: General Common Sense.
There are times when I really despair for the Human Race. When I see acts of such stupidity, or people not using the most basic of common sense, and I have to ask myself “Can we survive as the dominant species here on earth” This morning, on my normal commute to the Insane Asylum was one such moment. Let me share with you dear reader.
Part of my route is currently impeded by traffic light controlled road works. They have been there for a few months now, slowly working their way along. It was scary for a while as the light was just behind a speed camera, so when you saw the lights turn AMBER and you were tempted to speed up a bit to catch them before they turned RED you would be speeding into a speed trap. Anyway it currently cover’s a large stretch of road, the length of which is down to single lane.
So driving along and I get stuck behind several cars waiting at the red light, while traffic coming from the other direction get to go. After a while the traffic flow stops, and the lights change to GREEN, so we then proceed to continue our trip. Only half way through the traffic controlled area we are forced to stop by the Bin Wagon parked in front of us blocking the road as bin men load up the bins.
behind the bin wagon are all the other cars that had driven through the GREEN light and had got stuck when the wagon stopped. And now you had another long train of vehicles stopped in front of the wagon. So the single lane of traffic was now blocked by dozens of vehicles trying to dive opposite ways.
Ah.. I know what you are all thinking, and what that guy there is actually saying loudly at the computer screen. Yes YOU. I can see and hear you, Nope, there’s no use looking for the hidden camera, you’ll never find it. You are thinking. “But its their job to collect the bins, there’s not much they could do about it?”
I would agree in principle with you apart from an extra fact I have not imparted to you yet, and that is the bus stop lay-by that was a hundred yards behind the wagon. If they had any common sense and thought, “the lights will change soon and traffic will start coming from the other direction and we will all get stuck!” then they would have pulled their wagon off the road into the bus stop area, letting the cars behind them past, and then the oncoming traffic past until they had collected the bins, and traffic was again flowing in their direction and they could join it without hassle.
But NO. instead they caused chaos. and dozens of drivers had to play the worlds largest game of Tetris with their vehicles, and the binmen had to drive onto the roadworks. It was chaos and people were stuck for a lot longer than they needed to be, all for the sake of some common sense.
P.S. This is not a dig at bin men & women, they do a fantastic job and do not get the thanks they deserve, its a dig at the stupidity of people in general.
Getting More from Your Wii
There are many things you normally do with your Wii. You can play with it, Sing with it, Get fit with it. Lots of things. But have you ever wanted to do MORE. get more fun with your Wii?
This is the kind of questions a “Hacker” will often ask. “How can I do more with X bit of equipment?“.
NOTE: Anyone here looking for water sports, please go away now. Unless you are a Good looking Female with an ENTP personality, who should send me her Photo + CV.
This post is about the Nintendo Wii, and how to get more from it. I got a Wii last weekend. Mainly to get Wii Fit and play the fun looking games with the Balance Board. The only thing is, I have not yet got the board, only the Wii. Within Twenty four hours of receiving the Wii in the post the immortal words were uttered. “Hummmmm! I wonder if I could use this as a media server to stream films/tv from the network?”
After these words were uttered all other projects were dropped and the Wii was studied and hacked/jailbroke/improved. Here’s the process that was used, in case anyone else out there wants to play media files on a Wii.
NOTE: This is only a “soft mod” you do not open the Wii at any point, or do any physical modifications to the device.
For this you will need 1xSD Card. (I used two cards to save time, but you only really need one).
You need your Wii connected to your wireless network. (You can do this with a none networked Wii, But networked is easier)
You will also need to download a few files off the internet and unzip them.
Phase 1: (Getting the Homebrew Channel)
The HomeBrew channel is a Wii channel that lets you run Applications & Software written by third party’s, extra applications, and games that are made available for you to use by people other than Nintendo. It also helps for you launching Linux apps, or distro’s. So before we can have fun we need to get this on the Wii.
FILE Pack 1: Download <=- Files not stored on this Blog.
- Download this pack, and extract the files onto your SD Card. (There should be three folders & four files)
- Place the SD Card into the Wii (The slots under the cover at the front.)
- Click on the SD Card Icon (Bottom Left), You should get a warning screen (Press OK), You get a black screen with disclaimer (Press 1 )
- You now should have a screen with three lines. Homebrew channel, which can be isntalled, DVDx, also can be installed, Bootmii, which possibly will give you an error. Install Homebrew Channel, DVDX. On bootmii option, select “prepare SD card“. After it finishes, install it as boot2 (if possible) or as an IOS.
- When your finished, Remove the SD Card and return to computer.
Phase 2: (Fixing the Nintendo Fix to Stop people doing what were doing)
You see, Nintendo did not like people getting full use of their Wii’s so the put a fake empty bit of code in the area most programmers use, this prevents “Other” code being fully run on the Wii. Well we say “Hack The Planet!” and fix this fix. :0)
FILE Pack 2: Download <=- Files not stored on this Blog.
- Download this pack, format SD Card. and extract the files onto your SD Card.
- Place the SD Card into the Wii
- Go to The Homebrew Channel, Press the Home button and select Bootmii (Some Wii’s auto start Bootmii so you can skip this one)
- Wadmanager should start.(On ios select, select ios36
- Select SD card and (Press A).
- Select ios249 from wad folder and (Press A).
- change the action to “uninstall wad“, (Press A).
- When your finished, Remove the SD Card and return to computer.
Phase 3: (Adding cios)
You need this fix if you want to stream media over the Wii’s WiFi. or if you should want to play “Backup Games”
FILE Pack 3: Download <=- Files not stored on this Blog.
- Download this pack, format SD Card. and extract the files onto your SD Card.
- Place the SD Card into the Wii
- Go to The Homebrew Channel, Press the Home button and select Bootmii (Some Wii’s auto start Bootmii so you can skip this one)
- At the beginning you should see ios249 highlighted. Keep pressing left on the wii pad until you see “Do not reload IOS” at the ios select screen, press A.
- If you have internet connection, select “Network install“, else select “SD card“, (Press A).
- When your finished, Remove the SD Card and return to computer.
Phase 4: (Setting up the final Card)
You are all finished now. You just need to set yourself up for day to day running of Apps. Oh and to add a media player. Basically you can place apps in a folder called apps on the SD Card and they become runnable from the HomeBrew Channel. To get you started :-
Format the SD Card and extract File Pack 1 back onto it. This one has a few applications already on it for Playing Back up Games and fixing a few bugs.
To get a media server on there, Just download and extract to the apps folder. I tried and liked two applications.
1) Geexbox Which is a multi platform media server. The only downside is that it can not access the Wii’s WiFi drivers so will only play of USB harddrives, or using a Wired Network connection. There is a Lite version that can use WiFi.
2)MPlayer CE Which is the one I’m using, It works from the box over the Wii’s WiFi. and plays a good amount of different file formats. And connects to local media, or network media using ftp, Windows Shares, SMB Shares. You do have to edit the smb.conf in the MPlayer_CE folder to add up to 5 network shares (and optional passwords)
And its as easy as that. You can go from Taking a Wii out the box, to having it up and running as a full media server in less than an hour.
Happy Hacking.
P.S. The password for the files listed is: www.wiihacks.com
Captain America: A strange symbol of liberty and justice
Monday night I was in the mood for some good old fashioned cheesy superhero action, so I watched the 1990’s film “Captain America”
Plot Synopsis from IMDB
During World War II, a brave, patriotic American Soldier undergoes experiments to become a new supersoldier, “Captain America.” Racing to Germany to sabotage the rockets of Nazi baddie “Red Skull”, Captain America winds up frozen until the 1990s. He reawakens to find that the Red Skull has changed identities and is now planning to kidnap the President of the United States
Sounds good right. Bit of action with good ole Cap’ the symbol of Liberty & Justice & The American Way? A beacon light to lead the way, an inspiration to generations of Impressionable American Teens? Only. Watching the movie, The Captain was shown in a rather different light, and I wonder how many people saw past the Red, White & Blue and saw the Dark evil beneath?
Let me explain. Film starts with the Nazi’s making a super warrior with augmented strength, speed, agility, intelligence (AKA The Red Skull), The Yanks countered with their own SuperSoldier program and made a Soldier with augmented strength, speed, agility, intelligence (AKA Captain America). Now both are about 18 to 20 years old at the start of the film. They meet up in Germany, get into a fight and Cap is beaten and fixed to a ICBM, just as it fires he grabs the hand of the Red Skull forcing the Skull to cut off his own hand to escape. The missile fires, crashes into an ice field in Alaska and stays there undisturbed for 50 years.
Time moves on, To hide from the forces of good the Red Skull has plastic surgery and changes his name from the give-away name of Red Skull. He is the head of an international organisation of bad guys, and planning on kidnapping the President of the USA and implanting a brain control chip in him. Luckily the good ole boy The Cap is found in Alaska and revives from his frozen sleep. After sever Adventures we come to the climatic end of the film, the fight between the evil Red Skull and the Heroic symbol of all the Good in America, Captain America! The captain beats up the Red Skull, and finishes by smashing him out to his death of the top of a cliff with a full on smash from his shield. Woo Hoo, Chalk up a victory for America!
Only…. There’s something niggling at my mind. You have Captain America, a man of 20 in the peak of his abilities. Abilities which have been expanded by secret techniques. And he is fighting the Red Skull, a man of 70ish, who has only 1 hand. Its not really much of a fair fight is it? The best champion of America fighting to the death against a geriatric amputee?
Come on America, Pick better a better Hero to represent your colours. You’d never catch Captain Britain doing something like that!