Okay, so there’s lots of controversy (or perhaps there was lots of controversy) about the “No Russian” terrorist level of Modern Warfare 2. Some say it’s the most shocking thing games have ever done, others say it’s no big deal. I played through the whole game before writing this, and let me say I’m glad I did, because it completely changed my stance on the thing.

Because “No Russian” actually makes MORE sense out of context.

In case you don’t know, this level is early on in the game, where you play as a CIA infiltrator in a Russian terrorist cell, and you need to at the very least witness (and at the very most participate in) a group of terrorists shooting up an airport full of innocent people. Oh yeah, spoilers.

If you play just the one or two missions leading up to this one, No Russian is shocking, but effective. The great graphics and excellent sound design that I mentioned in the last post about this game heightens the effect to a pretty damn visceral level. It should have more credibility than something like the Grand Theft Auto, Manhunt, or Postal games, because the game makes no qualms about the fact that it’s putting you near bad people and that it will take part of your character’s soul, and it is ostensibly something that is being done for the greater good, whether you believe that’s okay or not.

The most shocking part, for me, was the ending, where the terrorist leader is about to make his triumphant escape and he spins around and unexpectedly shoots you, the player character, and leaves you bleeding to death at the scene. The level is called “No Russian” because they hide their nationality to frame the Americans for this attack. This single event drives the rest of the game, plus it makes the player character’s initial quest completely futile. What a great way to set up one of the game’s villains and kick off the story.

The rest of the game is damn goofy by comparison though.

Just a few levels later, you run through a bombed out Washington DC, complete with busted up White House and the Washington Monument missing large chunks. It becomes so ridiculous that it completely undermines the earlier terrorist level, making you feel like it was indeed just for shock value.

The game is short, and because of that, it feels like it’s stretching believability even more, with all the set pieces so close together. There is another double cross later in the game that more or less repeats the first one, and makes little to no sense by comparison.

“No Russian” should be a topic of discussion, but it shouldn’t be banned or anything of the sort. The game has no concept of how to handle it, but it does show us that games could be intellectually challenging if they knew how to handle themselves. Call of Duty 4 – Modern Warfare 2 is still worth playing though, just for the quick ride that it is.

But just expect a ride.

—

Loving the Craft : A short HP Lovecraft Review – “The Music Of Erich Zann”. FUCK YES this story rules. It’s very short, so I don’t want to spoil it much at all. The lightning fast plot pitch is this: a student goes to a weird apartment building, and his upstairs neighbor plays the strangest music that sounds like it’s almost not of this earth. This tale doesn’t fit into any set of stories, in fact, it can be read completely separately from all of Lovecraft’s other works, and that is one of its strengths. It’s one of my favorite stories of his, and I recommend it to all. Enjoy!

Jag vet inte hur många gånger jag sett det här klippet. Vad tänkte han egentligen, målvakten? Exakt i vilket ögonblick, i vilken nanosekund, är det han tappar konceptet? Hur såg hans liv ut efter detta? Tänk att en människas förnedring kan glädja en annan människa så. Jag står för det. Jag älskar det.

Klippet får mig att tänka på en novell av Bo Widerberg: Anteckningar från en straffpunkt från novellsamlingen Författarnas Fotbollsbok från 1994. Han berättar om hur jobbigt det var att träffa Staffan Tapper på gatan, att han hellre sneddade över till andra sidan för att slippa behöva stanna till och tvingas prata om allt utom det enda han egentligen ville prata om: Den missade straffen mot Polen som innebar sorti för Sverige ur Fotbolls-VM 1974.

I novellen gör han en jämförelse mellan Staffan Tapper och Bo Larsson (som Widerberg och alla andra som såg matchen tyckte skulle lagt straffen). Han skriver: ”Säg mig vad du läser, och jag ska tala om ifall straffen går in eller ej. På Staffan Tappers nattduksbord där nere i Mönchen-Gladbach kan ha legat ”På spaning efter den tid som flytt” eller en Flaubert. På Bos bord låg bergis en Bond. Kanske med risk att avslöja mig som djupt antiintellektuell bekänner jag vid denna skrivmaskin att jag har större förtroende för den straffläggare som läser tre kvarts sida Fleming innan han kvällen före matchen slaggar in än för den som ligger vaken en timme för mycket med Proust.”

I det här klippet är det målvakten som läst en timme för mycket, säkert en semiotikrapport av Umberto Eco. Anfallaren spelade troligen Call of Duty 4.

Se sex sekunders oförklarlighet. Beskåda förvirring när den är som mest underbar.

Well, I was in Mexico for the launch of Modern Warfare 2, but I’ve played through the thing and it’s still within a month of the release, so I’m CURRENT for once!

We’ll talk about the game in this post and the controversial “No Russian” mission in another. Why? Because gameplay matters more, of course.

How’s it play? Quite well. The game follows much of the same format as the previous modern warfare game, but I’d argue it has a greater variety in the level design. Because you aren’t always playing as the same soldier, the game leaps around to all kinds of different locations, with many different styles of missions.

The sound design is particularly excellent. That’s not something I usually mention either. You’ll hear your teammates yell VERY specific things. Instead of “enemy to the east!”, you’ll hear “enemy behind that burger place!”. Seriously, it’s impressive. The AI is also quite good, for both AI and teammates.

The Call of Duty games have always done a good job of conveying a sense of chaos. With the aforementioned yelling and the explosions everywhere and several scripted events, they try really hard to give that cinematic feel. This is the type of thing that’s really cool for newcomers, but if you’ve seen previous games in the franchise, some of the gags might be a little old. The game repeats the “frantically running to a helicopter and JUUUMP” sequence at least twice, which is too bad, because the first modern warfare game had that at least twice as well.

They give you that “set piece” feel from time to time. One example is when you’re walking with your pals through a field and all of a sudden the game goes into slow motion as a bouncing betty flies up in your face and the words “press C to crouch” pop up on the screen like you’re some kind of fool. Some people will love those cinematic moments, others will find them really contrived.

The only real new innovation in the gameplay is breaching, where you set up a breaching charge against a door or wall, and then charge in and shoot things that are inexplicably in slow motion. I don’t know, I found these sequences pretty dumb, why is Call of Duty trying to be a John Woo movie?

My major complaint with the game is the checkpoints. The game saves whenever it feels like it, usually every couple minutes, so that you don’t complain if you’re no good. The thing is, I found myself in several “checkpoint traps”, where the game chose to save after I had been blinded by a flashbang, or seconds before an objective was about to be failed (maybe I’m no good). The game trying to hold your hand actually makes it worse, because you need to restart the level if you’re stuck in one of these situations.

We’ll talk about “No Russian” and the game’s story next time.

—

Loving the craft: A short H.P. Lovecraft Review – “The Unnamable”. This story is the second in the “Randolph Carter” series. I rather like this one. It leads the reader to the assumption that Randolph Carter is simply Lovecraft’s stand in for himself. Carter is a writer of Weird Fiction and he meets with another author to discuss their writing styles. His friend is critical of him using unknowable and indescribable evil in his stories, thinking that it’s a cop out… but of course, there’s a surprise waiting for him. This felt to me like Lovecraft giving the finger to some of his critics, but it made for a good story as well. It advances the Randolph Carter saga as well. Check it out, it’s a pretty good quick read.

You have spawned as one of the terrorists or the Russians on one of the maps in Modern Warfare 2, and you, as a patriotic American man, with two brass, unyielding testicles swinging confidently between your legs, are not going to put up with that garbage. Being a terrorist or a Russian soldier bent on killing American civilians is just not the way shit is going to go down with you. You’ve turned double agent and decided to make those dirty bastards pay. Or maybe you aren’t American and you just want to have a laugh and kill your allies.

Hardcore (NON-RICOCHET) mode in Modern Warfare 2 is the only way you can you can properly exact your vengeance on the unsuspecting members of your own team. Unfortunately, Infinity Ward has taken all of the fun out of teamkilling via shooting a rocket at the ground in Hardcore Search and Destroy (like in CoD4), which would kill virtually your entire team at the beginning of the game. With the release of Modern Warfare 2, they have instituted a “ricochet” rule on Hardcore Search and Destroy, which means that any damage you deal to your teammates is instead visited upon you. Here are some tips on how to effectively annoy, harass, and teamkill your supposed “teammates”, in lieu of this egregious mistake by Infinity Ward.

Pocket Rocket:

The best way of punishing your terrorist scum teammates is by using the Call of Duty 4 favorite, the RPG-7. Put the “Danger Close” perk on for extra damage to your soon-to-be-pissed-off teammates and get to business. The trick is to find two teammates that are camping together (which you can do easily using the map) and fire your RPG-7 directly at their feet. BLAM! 3 people including yourself are now down for the count, and you get to sit back and listen to some serious whining and screaming. One of the best parts about this is that unlike in CoD4, teamkills now count as deaths. That means that with every rocket you fire into your teammates, the worse their kill to death ratio becomes; and trust me people are fucking insane about their kill to death ratios (thus the copious amounts of camping that goes on in each game). For maximum effect, crouch directly in front of your camping teammate and then pull out your RPG before firing it into the ground.

EXTRA TIP: Like in Hardcore Search and Destroy was in COD4, you begin the round of any hardcore team deathmatch in much the same way; in a big clump, all racing towards their camping spots. Use this to your advantage and pull out your RPG-7, and fire that sucker into the ground for 4 or 5 teamkills right off the bat to let people know what they’re in for.

The question is, how do you respond to their taunts, namecalling and general fury? Here are some suggestions:

-I heard underground helicopters!
-Isn’t that how you rocket jump? My friend says that’s how you rocket jump, and I’m going to keep trying until I get it right.
-Hi there, I’m just letting you know that physical activity is important, and you can’t just sit in front of your TV and play videogames all day long. I hope I’m helping you to make the healthy decision to go outside for a bit!

ALLAHU ACKBAR!

The point of this trick is to cook a grenade until it explodes while you are standing next to a teammate, hopefully several. That seems a little mundane, but while you are doing that, you are also screaming “ALLAHU ACKBAR!” and “AIAIAIAIAIAIAIAIAIA!!!” out at the top of your lungs to demonstrate total devotion to your deity. Alternate between blowing yourself up with a grenade and going to the cockpit of the plane in Terminal and asking why you can’t crash it into the building.

Flashbangs/Stun Grenades + Scavenger:

While this isn’t exactly teamkilling, it does fall under the category of team harassment, and is thus fair game for this article. The only problem with throwing flashbangs and stun grenades at your teammates is that there are only 2 of them! Thankfully, there is this awesome perk called “Scavenger” that allows you to replenish all of your ammo and equipment off of dead bodies. Flashbanging and stunning your own teammates often results in your teammate getting killed. See the pattern here? Also, for added effect, flashbang your entire team at the beginning of the game.

Here is the trick: pick a SINGLE teammate. Only one. Follow that guy around and flashbang/stun him over and over again. The point is to provoke him into teamkilling you as many times as possible. If you run out of flashes and stuns, do not be afraid of dying to refresh your precious grenade count.

Choice words:

-Man will you stop whining? There was a guy in front of you.
-It’s not a flashbang, you’re seeing God!

Claymore Confusion:

This is one of the better ways of teamkilling because it is extremely confusing for the person you’re doing it to. I suggest getting Scavenger for this one, because you can refuel your claymores off your victim. The trick is to find an unsuspecting camping teammate, plant a claymore right next to and pointing at them.  Move as far away from them as possible and then shoot the claymore with a silenced gun. The resulting explosion will kill your teammate, and you can act as if nothing even happened, and pretend to be confused yourself.

Also, make sure you kill your teammate’s claymores as often as possible. Loudly announce that you are doing so.

Choice words:
-Man! I’m not even close to you! How could that possibly be my fault?
-ATTENTION SkAtEbOaRdPuNk69, YOUR CLAYMORE IS NOW BEING DESTROYED. YOU ARE NOW VULNERABLE TO ATTACKS FROM THE REAR.

More like "Point towards teammates" amirighthere?

Kill them with Kindness:

This one actually requires that you kill enemy players, but it is by far one of the funniest ways of dispatching a teammate. First, you need to have the “Care Package” killstreak reward activated, and then kill 4 people in a row. Next, find a teammate who is camping outdoors. Throw the signal grenade right where the person is standing (this might take a bit of practice), and then hit them with a stun grenade after about 4-5 seconds to ensure they aren’t going anywhere, even if they notice the signal flare. The care package isn’t guaranteed to land on them, but if they’re prone, it’s much more likely.

I find that you can dissuade their fears by telling them before you throw the signal flare that you’re going to do it. That way, they won’t be concerned when they hear something that sounds like a grenade land near them. I highly reccomend this one, because there is nothing quite like watching a crate land on a teammate. It’s really fantastic.

Choice words:
-Man! What the hell are you thinking? You’re ruining my score dude, get the hell out of the way of my care package drops for fuck’s sakes!

Conclusion:

Well, that’s the article. However, I highly encourage you to try your own teamkilling strategies that are a little more complicated than shooting your teammates in the groin with the sawed-off ranger shotgun. Also, feel free to post any teamkilling strategies that you have found to be most effective at irritating your squad in the comments section below.

Remember Are Story on Microsoft’s Project Phoenix And the rumored X-Engine

Well if not Here’s the Link

And Here’s Some MW2 screen shots using these features!

Tuesday and the last day of classes this week.  I knew today was going to be chaotic and it fulfilled it’s prophecy from beginning to end.  I got up this morning really early because Heather got out of bed around five o’clock this morning and had told me that she couldn’t sleep any more.  So, she decided to go out to the living room to watch the news quietly to try and not disturb me.  What she doesn’t realize is that when she’s not in bed with me, THAT disturbs me as well.  I don’t sleep without my wife in bed.  So already, I was in a sucky mood because I was basically up between four-thirty and five until it was time to go to work.  I took a shower and ate some breakfast with the kids.  We had some pancakes that Heather had pre-cooked last night.  We watched some of the news on “The Early Show” on CBS and then I was off to work while the kids were off to school.

I got to school and set things up for only the second full day I’ve had with my students this quarter.  We had our first official music theory lesson in all my classes.  Most of the classes did well, but I still have that one trying class.  I’m trying to be patient with the students and they seem okay.  But those suspended students are still not around and could potentially change the character of the room once they return.  I had a decent day with my students.  I didn’t have much of a lunch hour.  I played with the band and then the orchestra at lunch which meant I had about six seconds to eat lunch.  Barely enough time to wolf lunch down between rehearsals.  I got done with lunch and took care of some things around the room and sent out some emails that needed to be taken care of.  I then finished my work day, shut everything down and was on my way home.

I got home and helped the kids with a little bit of homework.  I then went downstairs and watched some episodes of “Life According to Jim” and worked on my blog and catching up on doing some computer work that needed to get done.  Heather got home and I helped her make dinner.  We ate dinner and the kids cleaned up  while we watched “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” and “The Office” and then headed out to play rehearsal at the church.  Our rehearsal went okay, but there  is so much “goofing around” going on that I worry about how it’s going to come out in the long run.  It just concerns me that not enough people are taking it seriously.  We got done and got home and I missed the first ten minutes of “V”, so I taped the show and played “Call of Duty 4″ on my PS3 till the show was over and then watched it on tape and then watched “The Good Wife”.  After that, Heather and I watched the news for a little bit and then went to bed.

Okay, so let’s talk about Part 1 of Chapter 19 of “Star Wars – Mestar I:  Battle Surgeons, A Clone Wars Novel” by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry……Chapter 19 (Part 1):  Jos, at times, felt as if he could call a person back from the dead.  Of course it helps when surgerys go well, but there were times when he lost and death won.  It appeared that the Gods were against him in regards to the clone on the table in front of him.  After a  run-in wiht some schrapnel, the clone was repaired in medical terms.  But the heart had stopped beating and he clone stopped breathing despite all attempts to restart the cardiadic rhythm.  But he had saved five others today, including one with massive injuries.  He was frustrated by the fact that the clone with the extreme injuries lived while the clone with minor schrapnel was dying on the table.  Proof that genetically identical clones do not handle stress the same way.  Back when Jos was a new student in med school, he used to frequent a popular Bamasian restaurant that had cheap, spicy food.  The traditional complimentary dessert was a cake ring about he size of a bracelet with a protein circuit that would display a Bamasian saying of wisdom as a holoprojection that would eventually die once the chip dissolved.  One night, after having had a rough day with exams and other things he never thought to see, he broke his ring and it read, “Minimize expectations to avoid being dissapointed”.  He found this wisdom helpful and plugged it into his everyday life from that point forward.  There were times when he was stuck in an operating room where he relished the idea of doing something else with his life.  He headed to the dressing room now and could really go for a bread ring to provide him with solace…..

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If you havent already got, and love FPS then you have to BUY.BUY IT RIGHT NOW. Some good shit

How Lusipurr Feels when Podcasting

Turkey is on the menu as the podcast panel gears up for Thanksgiving, now less than a week away. Nate is hungry and can think only of Turkey, whilst Eric J and Ginia desperately try to distract him from further amateur operatics. Poor Lusipurr!

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!  (in my best trucker’s voice).  I got up this morning REALLY late again.  We slept in until about ten o’clock again and I have to say that it was nice to be able to sleep in late again.  I know I shouldn’t say it too loud as it may jynx me, but a free weekend every now and again is a nice change of pace from my busy, busy weekends.  I got up and casually started to work on some things in the basement.  Mainly, I worked on pulling some more glue out of my Mando bucket and then glueing in the fans again and making sure they still work.  I still believe that by removing the excess glue in the bucket, I will at least gain a half an inch in the helmet which will keep my nose from pressing up against the helmet.  I hate to say it, but I need a new bucket!

I got done working on the helmet and then decided to finish out student videos and then worked on transferring information off of my laptop and onto external hard drives.  Every once in a while I need to purge information that is on my computers because I just download and download and never really take the time to purge and organize.  I did that right up until it was time for football games on T.V.  I started to watch the Buffalo game on CBS, but it was just getting ugly.  In all honestly, Buffalo may need to just throw a grenade into the locker room and start over.  But hey, they’re doing better than the Rams.  1-8?!!  How does any team willfully have a 1-8 season at this point?  It’s pretty bleak for the Rams.  They may just want to move back to L.A.  After watching some of the games, I moved back to working on my clone trooper helmet and started sanding and sanding.  What a task that is going to be!  Besides, as I was sanding, I realized that I’m going to have to do about two to three coats of Bond-O just to make it work.  Why am I doing a clone again?!

I then decided to play “Call of Duty 4″ online on the PS3 again until it was time for dinner.  We had a nice dinner and then I went back downstairs and played more “Call of Duty 4″ until Fox came on at eight o’clock and then I watched “The Simpsons”, “The Cleveland Show”, “Family Guy”, “American Dad”, and “Amazing Race” on tape.  Heather and I then went to bed.Chapter 18 (Part 3):  He wondered if Zan had volunteered adn he would then respect the Zabrack even more.  Zan asked Den about his crusade for truth.  Dhur said it was going well and was about to get better as he has a hot lead on a story.  Den said he thought it would rattle some cages.  Zan then asked him why he was here on Drongar and what calls him to this line of work.  That question took him back and he realized he had not been asked in years.  He could’ve given a stock answer about adventure, but then said that war helps to make the big stories.  Wars help to pull the humanity out of any deep tragedy.  He went on to say that politicians can and will spin lies because they have the time with little to no pressure.  But a commander under fire will tell it like he sees it without concern for consequences.  War strips away the lies and gives the public the ugly truth.  Zan mentioned that he’s seen so much death and that he could be killed himself, but Den said that when he sees Rojo Fever he sees bodies.  But when your time is up, you will die.  They both chuckled and continued eating till Den began a story.  He was sent to cover an insurrection in the middle of the Gordian Reach…..

Well, it’s Saturday and I have to admit that my morning this morning was pretty care-free.  Although, I had put pressure on myself to get some things done.  I got up around ten o’clock this morning.  I haven’t been able to do that in ages and I have to admit that it was rather nice to be able to sleep in a little bit.  Heather, unfortunately, had to take off around seven o’clock this morning for a bus run that she was doing with the Boys’ basketball team for Chenango Valley.  I went downstairs and got right to work on my main project for the day.  I wanted to get all of the music videos from my classroom processed and off of my laptop so that I could clear the hard drive on the laptop.  It’s kind of scary how much space those videos take up.  So, I spent my entire morning in the basement trying to finish those up.  I watched all sorts of TV shows including “The Clone Wars” again and mostly “Flip This House” on A&E.  Around noon, Heather called me and told me she would be home soon.  She said she wanted to go to Wal Mart and wanted to know if I wanted to go with her.

I wanted to go because I needed some things to continue working on my clone trooper helmet with.  So, Heather got home around one o’clock and we took off for Vestal.  We did our shopping at Wal Mart and got some things Heather needed for around the house and I even got a new hot glue gun (since I broke the one I had at the last event).  It’s a pretty cool glue gun.  We also got some odds and ends and I got some sandpaper for my purposes.  We got done shopping and headed over to “Taco Bell” for lunch and then headed over to our “Best Buy” to check out the new store.  I have to admit that it’s nice to have a tech store to take over for the loss of “Circuit City” that left almost six months ago now.  We browsed the store for a little bit and then came home which got us home around three o’clock.  We got home and I went downstairs and started working on the clone helmet some more.  In between working on that I decided to watch the Penn State game.  It was pretty much a runaway from the beginning.

I was then called upstairs for a dinner of leftovers and I had some leftovers Tahoes plate and then went back downstairs and continued processing music videos and then played “Call of Duty 4″ online with my PS3 until it was time to watch “Law and Order SVU” and then Heather and I watched that and then went to bed.

Okay, so let’s talk about Part 2 of Chapter 18 of “Star Wars – Medstar I:  Battle Surgeons, A Clone Wars Novel” by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry……Chapter 18 (Part 2):  Den Dhur sat in the chow hall happy with the fact that he would get cold, hard revenge on Filba the Hutt.  He had found that one thing that the Hutt would not want seen on the evening holonet.  He had found that vengance was now the perfect spice for his food.  No, the food was bland and it had to be local food because soldiers had little room on their transports for the extra luxuries of good food to eat.  Instead, they ate local food or ate RRs – Ready Rations.  They weren’t exactly anything to write home about and that’s why Republic cooks demanded foragers go out the minute a troop transport landed.  Den had been on assignments where the only edible food around were RRs and everyone got thin rather fast.  Luckily, Drongar was full of enough vegetation and animal life that the eating in the chow hall was better than most planets.  He knew anytime he ate something prepared by the military he was eating at his own risk.  Although today, even an RR would taste good since a good story helps to satisfy his appetite to do his job. He looked up and saw Zan going through the line and waved him over.  They talked about Zan’s meal of wrigglers and Zan said that it wasn’t as good as eating at the Manarai on Coruscant.  Dhur was surprised he was able to eat at such a swank establishment and Zan said he came from a family that was fairly well off.  Zan offered him a bite and Den declined as he wondered how a rich man’s son, with a talent as a musicia, would end up in the military……

Well, it’s Friday and I can say TGIF baby!  I got up this morning and was happy and well rested.   I came out and joined the family for breakfast and we had a nice breakfast together.  There wasn’t much for breakfast, but that’s okay the company makes up for the lack of food.  We had a nice breakfast together and talked about our day and our plans for the day and the evening.  Of course my wife would throw a monkey wrench into the works later on.  But she left just after breakfast and I took a shower while the kids finished getting ready.  We then watched “The Early Show” on CBS just because we are simply creatures of habit.  Then I was off to work, while they were off to school.

I got to work and set things up for my classes today.  My sixth graders were watching “American Idol” for the first time, my seventh graders were answering the question, “What is a podcast?” and my eighth graders are reviewing previous years’ music video projects.  It was a decent instructional day.  The kids were fairly well behaved and did a lot of the things I asked of them.  I have pegged my one problem class for the quarter and I have a feeling that the class dynamic isn’t even in full swing because two of those students are currently suspended.  Should be interesting once they get back into class.  I made my way through the work day and was pretty happy with what I was able to accomplish.

I got done with work and came home.  I talked with the kids for a little bit until Heather got home and we were going to have a nice night in.  But Heather decided she needed some things for dinner so I headed to Weis/Giant.  I got the things we needed for dinner and came home.  We made dinner and ate together.  After dinner we decided to watch “Merry Madagascar” and then I played some “Call of Duty 4″ on the PS3 online until “The Clone Wars” came on T.V. and then we watched that as a family.  We got done with all of that and I decided to process some of the videos from my music class last quarter and went to bed fairly late working on the videos till late at night.

Okay, so let’s talk about Part 1 of Chapter 18 of “Star Wars – Medstar I:  Battle Surgeons, A Clone Wars Novel” by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry…..Chapter 18 (Part 1):  Jos usually used the basic technology of a sonic shower to shake off the dirt and grime from Drongar on his body.  Today, however, he stood under a cold shower, but it wasn’t cold enough to take his mind off of the issue with Tolk.  No, she had made her thoughts well known this very morning.  Jos went to go into the changing room to get out of his own surgical suit because of a massive bleeder he had and figured he was safe since the “In Use” sign was not lit.  Instead, he walked into a half-naked Tolk who was changing out of her own surgical suit.  Normally this would not be an issue, but for Jos, who just discovered his attraction to her, it was.  He stared for a minute and then became red with embarassment and turned around and said he was sorry.  Tolk smiled and said she must have forgotten to activate the sign.  He wasn’t as in love with the shadowy shape of Tolk as he was with the smile.  He began to wonder if she really did forget to turn the diode or not.  He spent half the night in the shower and realized he should get out……

Thursday.  I will be so happy when the weekend is here.  Thanks to the Syracuse Heroes Expo being moved back, I will have a weekend free of anything official going on.  I still have a lot planned for the rest of my week, but at least I don’t have somewhere else that I have to be.  I got up this morning and got myself going for the day.  I took a shower while Heather got the kids ready for their day.  As I got out of the shower, Heather left for work and I sat down and ate breakfast with the kids while we watched “The Early Show” on CBS.  They were starting to get excited about not only Thanksgiving coming up, but Christmas as well.  Little do they know that most of them are getting just what they want for Christmas.  It’s  a good thing they can’t read my blog, but Ruth already has a Nintendo DS coming for her (we found one relatively cheap on Ebay) and Austin will be getting all the Star Wars stuff he wants and Tara is getting some Hello Kitty stuff among other things.  I got done eating and then I was off to work while they were off to school.

I got to school and set things up for my day.  My classes are already split in what they are doing thanks to the half day yesterday.  I really don’t like it when we have split days like that because it sets my classes off from each other which means that I have each class in different places which means I have more preps for each day.  I don’t think other teachers and administrators consider that when planning schedules.  I call it tunnel vision.  I made it through my day and many of my classes at least started with their first music history lesson and some didn’t even get that far.  I will be so happy when I finally have a full week of classes to make sure that I can get those things done and we can get underway completing these assignments.  But, that won’t happen till after Thanksgiving, if even then.

I got done with my day and headed home.  I got home and helped the kids with their homework, which ended up being a rather dramatic moment for both Austin and Tara.  They were making things harder than they needed to be in their homework.  I then talked with them about their report cards, including Ruth.  All my kids had a decent start to their classes this year.  Austin and Tara could do a little better, but I can’t complain about how they are doing.  They are starting to catch up on reading skills and I have to say that I’m proud of Austin because he is really getting a lot done and the only bad grade he has is band.  We discovered that he has a bad band grade because he’s afraid of missing important information in the classroom.  I can appreciate that, but I told him that taking and instrument is a responsibility.  We talked about solutions.  We then all ate dinner together.

After dinner, I went downstairs and started to play some more of “Call of Duty 4″ on my PS 3 and have decided that I’m going to work toward a Gold RPDfor the game.  I played for about an hour and a half and then watched my usual shows including “Survivor”, “CSI”, and “Fringe” on tape.

Okay, so let’s talk about Part 3 of Chapter 17 of “Star Wars – Medstar I:  Battle Surgeons, A Clone Wars Novel” by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry……Chapter 17 (Part 3):  I-Five said the assassin stole something from them and they were getting ready to pursue, and then he was suddenly on a spice-smuggling freighter.  I-Five then speculated that Lorn had deactivated him to save him while he saved a female friend of his.  Den said he wished he had been around to tell the story and I-Five said he would not want this story because this Zabrack is far more dangerous than even the Black Sun.  I-Five then said that this story has no end since it’s now a decade later and he had no idea if Lorn Pavan was live or dead and that his entire story was hushed up at some extremely high governmental level.  Den said it sounded interesting and that he would see what he could dig up. I-Five said he was deactivated for about twelve weeks after the incident and that he was part of some barter arrangement.  He was then part of the Kessel Run for six years until he was confiscated and auctioned to a merchant captain.  I-Five said that there are then huge gaps in his memory banks.  Once the war started, I-Five was then sold to The Republic and he ended up working for a Naboo noble family member and said he still wishes he could get drunk.  Den said that the droid’s lucky that he hasn’t had a mind wipe as most people don’t like uppity droids.  I-Five said he’s kept himself in check but that he has been somewhat lonely.  He said that he’s tired of the carnage and tht he thinks a maintenance droid could run The Republic better than it is being run now.  Den pointed out that it’s sedition and I-Five suggested that he should get his disgust damper recharged.  Den pointed out that maybe he should just become organic.  I-Five then sarcastically said tht he must leave and take care of bandages since that is a better use for his computer mind instead of solving Chun’s Theory of Reductional Infinity.  After I-Five left, Zan began to play a melody that matched Den’s mood.  He could not believe a master had granted a droid equal status.  He wasn’t shocked by an emancipated droid, but it gave him another reason to drink.