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munkeymunkey

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Blog Entries posted by munkeymunkey

  1. munkeymunkey
    There are many possible stories to tell from my recent travels down into the rainforests of Central America, but the one that's sticking out in my mind right now has nothing to do with the flora and fauna I was there to see nor the rice and beans that I ate during every single meal on every single day.
     
    One of the many places I stayed was in Tortugero, Costa Rica. It is an hour boat ride to get to this place, which is right along the Caribbean Sea. The housing we slept in had partial walls, but much of the side was actually just screens - screens with holes. There is electricity and plumbing, but as with many weaker septic systems, flushing paper (any paper) is not allowed. Needless to say, this is a good experience for anyone who complains about how far the 20 minute drive to the nearest grocery store is.
     
    Anyway, one of the afternoons in Tortugero, Faren and I were walking along the beach, watching a rather large storm system approaching the Costa Rican coast (yes, that's a little redundant). It was an awesome sight, and we had a blast romping about in the rain as we travelled the half mile back to the lodgings. At this time, it was really starting to get dark (setting sun plus thickening clouds equals lack of light). We escaped to the rooms eventually, ate dinner with our comrades, and enjoyed the rest of the evening.
     
    That night, us two, along with most of the other members of our group were sitting on our beds on the veranda-like walkway of the cabins (our group leader had told us that there were to be no boys in girls' rooms or girls in boys' rooms, so we just brought the furniture to a place that wasn't a room and sat and talked through the night anyway). I also took all of our containers and started to collect water samples. I was actually filling one 350mL glass in 40 seconds. That's incredible for rain (at least from what I'm used to).
     
    Around eleven, however, all of the lights suddenly extinguished and the wind started going horizontal. Needless to say, we were starting to feel a little wet. Fell sounds came from the forest. Some of the girls (and Chris) wanted to go inside. So, in the dark, with light from only iPods and otherwise useless cell phones to guide us, we piled the stuff all into one room to weather out the night. No adults came to check on us, which was a little odd, but then again, most of them were probably already asleep.
     
    A few minutes later, Chris gave out a loud shriek. Something was on him; something. He turned on his flashlight (we were in his room, so he had grabbed the flashlight from his luggage) and saw a decent sized rhinoceros beetle on him. Calmer now, he moved to knock it gently away, but flew to floor instead (at which moment the girls still standing on the floor leapt to beds). Just a beetle, I know, but in the dark, windy, raining, howling night, people get scared.
     
    Soon after, a crash of one of my glasses resonated through the air, giving everyone further fright, but we eventually got to sleep.
     
    The next morning, we had to awake before dawn and pack up to leave for the next station. It was still raining hard, and there was still no power. I grabbed my shampoo and soap and showered in the rain. Alex did, too, but everyone else seemed to find it odd and dirty. I don't see why; it's probably just as clean, if not cleaner, than the rain that falls up here. And heck, we drink from well water up here.
     
    Then it was an hour and a half back to the landing in small, open boats. I actually emerged quite dry, having strategically sat behind a very large woman. Everyone else was soaked to the skin.
     
    I personally enjoyed is episode thoroughly. I felt much closer with nature showering in the rain, even if I was using commercial shampoo from the corporate north.
  2. munkeymunkey
    By the time this is read by anybody, I will probably already driving to the airport for my trip into the rainforests of North America (which are south of the cold place I am currently sitting at). I'll be studying the geography of the area for my own purposes, practicing my Spanish, and exchanging all of my currency for the local currency in order to more safely barter.
     
    The trip is actually through my school, but being an upper-classman, I'll have a certain amount of autonomy that will allow me to explore as I wish at times. Fun stuff.
     
    Of course, this means I'll sadly have to be away from the computer for about ten days, and I'll miss receiving my third-year Huna. Ah well. At least I hit the big 10,000 before year three was up (a long-time goal of mine). Also, interestingly enough, in my fiscal BZP years, I have made more posts in this third year than either my first or second. (I didn't see that happening since I worked much less posting in the summer than my first year, but my steady 50 posts a week during the past five months have tipped the scale.)
     
    Don't trash the place while I'm gone. See you on the other side of February!
  3. munkeymunkey
    So, I was in Physics class in the other day, which means I was sitting on a stool at a lab table pondering what to do next because I had finished the chapter's problem set but most of my classmates were only on problem 40. (I like Physics, but my school's student body as a whole seems to detest it.)
     
    Anyway, I was talking with Sam about some of the more quirky characters in our school (she is the only other person who seems to finish the problems as quick as me - but yes, she still hates Physics). And I suddenly had an idea:
     
    "Wouldn't it be funny if entire school - you know, every student grade seven through twelve - just got plopped somewhere random and had to build a society. Kinda like the plane-crashing-on-a-desert-island complex, but without any notion of anything modern. You know, building a society - like the Dark Ages. IT could be a recently established village in Prussia (or, well, what will become Prussia, anyway) around 700 AD... You know, when Germanic Tribes are settling down."
     
    She thought it was a rather interesting idea, and we started to ponder, "Who would take charge? Who would be the "soldiers," farmers, artisans, etc.? Who would be the town scapegoat who got blamed for everything?"
     
    We ended up with answers for all of those question - and more. After picking out a few characters, I decided that we should write things down. After a few days, we had a slot for almost everyone in this 300-person-strong village, everyone grades 7-12.
     
    There was some help from other people... my sister had some opinions on who would be married and such (I mean, if people don't get married and have babies, the village won't last very long). After a few other Physics students were done with the problems, they had suggestions, too. People were really starting to get excited about this imaginary idea...
     
    On a field trip up to a local artist's museum, I began writing from the point of view of Mitch, the cat breeder. (Yeah, that is one of the more odd choices, but it makes sense if you know Mitch and our school.) I read it allowed to Mitch and a few others, and they were cracking up over it. I read it to my sister, and she immediately wrote her own little account of waking up one morning. The person assigned to "Apothecary" did so as well. My sister started drawing pictures of some of the village members... I made a typed copy of the character list.
     
    This is becoming a school-wide phenomenon (which is actually possible, considering that 10% of the school is only 30 people, and way more than that are already enthralled in the Prussian Village.)
     
    I'll keep this updated, because it is a very fun little project.
  4. munkeymunkey
    I have some of the wierdest experiences with my car. They aren't horrible, immobilizing things, but they're weird. For instance, my car started fine when the temperature was about -30 Centigrade, but on a day when it was -15, I had to perform the old auxiliary trick to get her going.
     
    Anyway, today I arrived home at four thirty (which is exceptionally early, yay!). I'm listening to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, singing along, nice and happy because I was stoked from a six hundred word essay I had just written about Teddy Roosevelt and environmentalism in the Progressive Era of the USA not only in 45 minutes, but also on just one sheet of paper (including my quick outline). Good stuff.
     
    Anyway, I turn off the car and somehow, as I'm taking out the key, it drops out of my hand and falls on top of the steering wheel. But wait! It gets better. Somehow, it managed to fall down underneath the stereo.
     
    I couldn't believe it at first and sat there gaping. I surveyed the area, and then I ran inside to grab some tools. A minute later, I'm removing plastic and steel and even styrofoam to get at that key. I used a drawing compass to try to latch onto the key ring.
     
    It took me fifteen minutes to retrieve my key, but it was worth it. Now I know what that part of a car looks like. The one downside to this escaped was that it's still well below freezing, so my fingers were numb by the time I screwed in the last of those little fasteners. But no real harm was done.
     
    And the moral of the story is:
    Speak softly, and carry a big key chain.
  5. munkeymunkey
    Reaching 10,000 posts is one of the major benchmarks of BZP achievement, and right now, I find myself on the verge of that number. It's just six posts away...
     
    I'm not going to reach it tonight; it's too late, and I've already posted 21 times since I awoke this morning. (That's about three times as much as normal.) However, I can confidently say that I'm set up to achieve 10,000 sometime tomorrow.
     
    The anticipation has been mounting since mid July, when I reached 9,000. One day while in the shower, I started to calculate what it would take to reach 10,000 before my third year here was complete. It was a daunting task... I would have to post at least 15 per day until school began, and then about 8 per day until February 20. I took a deep breath and plunged in. On August 30, the day before I went back to school, I took a new assessment. I happily discovered that I would only need to post 7.03 each day. I posted about 60 that week and brought the "magic number" below seven. From that day forth, I determined that I would always try to post at least seven each day. I have done that, and more so (obviously, seeing as there's more than a month until February 20). Each day, I've crunched numbers on the calculator, especially that "magic number." My friends at school have heard me shout it out to 6 decimal places every day, although they have no idea what it's for. When I return to school next week, there will be no magic number. Ten thousand is going to be reached.
     
    It's been a long time since that snowy February morning in 2004 when I first joined and was so excited that I made over 80 posts in my first week. I've tracked my number of posts each day and have spreadsheets and graphs to show the shifts and flows of my posting.
     
    (For instance, October is my driest month, July my most abundant. The most I've ever posted in a week is 181, the lowest 34. I've only ever posted more than 30 a day twice, and my highest is 40. I posted over 3,700 in my first year, but only about 2,700 in my second. (My third year is shaping up to be about 3,500.) Interestingly enough, if I keep pace until January 20, I will have 6 months in my third year in which I have posted in more than either of my previous two years.)
     
    I can actually track my life by my posts, though. The few times I've been away from a computer for a day or two, there are noticable drops in the weekly post count. During Easter vacation in 2006, I had a major spike as I neared 7,000 and resolved to start posting more again... There is a giant drop-off from summer to cross country season, spikes at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I find it fascinating. My family rolls their eyes at me like and laugh at my intensity.
     
    Last Sunday, I reached 9,900, and I couldn't contain a steady pace any longer. I've posted 94 posts since then, and I'll make it an odd 101 after tomorrow (if not more... who knows what I might encounter in S&T tomorrow). And as much as I'd love to reach the big 10,000 tonight, it's already Sunday where I live, so it will still be the same date.
     
    It's been an incredible journey, and that last major goal of mine here is about to be reached. (My other two were finishing an epic and becoming staff. Those are accomplished.) I'll shoot for 15,000 and 20,000; definitely. But I doubt that I'll make another 10,000 posts in under three years.
     
    Here I come...
  6. munkeymunkey
    Today in the Official Brotherhood of Makuta Topic, I used a little phrase that I want to catalogue for future reference:
    Metru-Makuta
     
    I was answering a question about the ability of Makuta to change Kanohi like Toa and wanted to indicate a specific Makuta (the one that we all know and love). Now, I've used various other descriptions to specify which Makuta I mean ("our Makuta," "The Makuta of Metru Nui," "The Makuta we all know and love," etc.), but I like this latest term because it is terse but still descriptive enough to make its point.
     
    We know that there is a trend of Makuta being "assigned" to certain areas (Artakha, the mainland from which Voya-Nui came, probably Karzahni), so this might be a handy short-hand pattern.
     
    So, the purpose of this mini-entry is to make an official beginning-of-use of this/these term(s) by yours truly. Consider it as close to a copyright as I'm going to get. And yes, this is ridiculous, so just shake your head and move on.
  7. munkeymunkey
    There was a quick little incident today in school that I found hilarious. We had to tell our AP US History teacher that he would only be having over half of his class tomorrow because of a field trip. The class tried to convince him that, being half empty, he would have to go a little lighter on the workload so they wouldn't fall behind.
     
    So, why is this ingrained in my memory like a firebrand on a cowhide? Well, my 6'3" teacher, having stating that "the train doesn't stop moving for anybody in the feel-good room," proceeded to launch himself onto the table and yell like a union protestor, "The class won't be half empty! It will be half full! Half full! Half full! Half full!" This chant continues on for about half a minute, (full or empty, it's your choice) and some of the class joins in (mostly those of us who won't be absent tomorrow).
     
    The clock turns to 1:52, so class is over, but that doesn't stop our vivacious history teacher from lacking out into a hall littered with petrified freshman and sophomores, "Half full! Half full!" The poor children had no clue what he was yelling about, and I'm afraid he may have frightened some of them.
     
    So, what moral can you take from this incident? If you miss class for a field trip, the class won't be the thing that's half empty - your knowledge of the material is what will be lacking. Or at least, that's what I think he was saying in an implicit philosophical sense... Either that or he's just a bit crazy.
  8. munkeymunkey
    Do you ever notice how much people are obsessed with patterns and consistency? I had my own little experience of this today. I turned on the car at 7:20 to get to school, scraped/brushed for three minutes, popped in The Craig Machine, and got moving. I arrive at school a little before 7:30 and move down to my parking place.
     
    My parking spot is the first spot next to an island about three-fourths of the way across the lot. Angel parks her giant, gray, twenty-year-old monster next to mine. Matt's black Dodge pick-up is next. Then there's the light pole, followed my Emily's little white car. (My car is a red Dodge Neon, seeing as I got to describe everyone else's.) Great, right? We always park that way; it's understood. It makes sense too. My car is probably the smallest, so it's easiest for me to maneuver around the curb and angle things right, for example.
     
    But yesterday, there was a problem. A purple sporty-looking Audi was parked in my spot. School doesn't start until 8:05, so by getting there at 7:30, I tend to be earlier than most people. (I'm not a fanatic; I have to turn on machines and cameras and stuff for the school's TV program that runs every morning before school... That's what I get for living so close to school and having my own means of winter transportation.)
     
    So, that means it's probably a teacher. They aren't even supposed to park here, though. This is the second-rate parking lot that is far away from the school entrance. They have their own parking lot with a shorter walk. This was ridiculous. Now, the major problem is that there's also a cruddy looking green hatchback parked in the spot opposite mine, so my only options are to go find another spot (and risk getting verbally assaulted by a very scarey person), park in Angel's spot, park in Matt's spot, etc., or block one of their spots (which is just as useless... it's a one-way lot, so people get cranky if they have to go around). I ended up parking in somebody's spot that I knew would be absent.
     
    But then the problem returned. I went through my same ritual this morning, and right around "Whittlin' Man," I arrived at the parking lot once more only to find the same two cars in the exact same two spots. One of them had obviously been driven, but the other was completely frosted over. This was very annoying, and I couldn’t park in a temporary spot this time. In a moment of decision, I parked in Angel's spot. She parked in Matt's, and so on until somebody was out of a spot.
     
    And that's the horrible thing. One person parking in the wrong spot ruined the entire system. Everyone has his or her unwritten claim to a certain parking place, and now somebody has gone and messed it all up. The hilarious thing is that we are so attached to each spot that we sit there, not moving for two minutes trying to figure out what to do. We're lost when our system is altered.
  9. munkeymunkey
    This is me letting off excitement-steam:
     
    I am an avid fan of Lord of the Rings (in case you didn't know). I'm not only a lover of the books, I'm probably clinically obessessed. I've read LoTR 5 times, the Hobbit 4 times, and the Histories of Middle Earth. I own the the books, the movies, the books on CD, action figures, collectible bookcases, calendars of all sorts, plenty of posters and bookmarks, a rare book that's designed to actually teach Sindarin (one of Tolkien's invented languages), books about the movies, Middle Earth creature, warfare, and plenty of other things. I used to play LotR with my siblings and neighbors all of the time. (And I was always either Merry or Smeagol for some reason.)
     
    Okay, so what's the point? There is one other thing that I am intensely into - tabletop strategy battle games, sepcially Games Workshop's Lord of the Rings. The models are metal, plastic, or a combination, and stand from about an inch to 10 inches in height. And they are awesome.
     
    For Christmas, I received another Kataphrakt, another mounted Knight of Dol Amroth, another Haradrim Raider, Khamul, Suladin, three dwarf warriors, a large Mordor Troll Cheiftan, and Radagast the Brown. Great stuff, really. I can't satisfy myself by collecting just one army; I have to collect tons. I have armies for Harad, Rhun, Mordor, Isenguard, Khazad-Dum, Moria, Gondor, Imladris, and Rohan. Over Christmas Break, I spent about 12 hours pitting a 286-model evil force against a 169-model good force (the good guys still had a better cumlative points value, though). These are 2,000-point forces; the normal is 500 points. So yeah, it was insane.
     
    The good side ended up winning pretty handidly. The Kataphrakts were destroyed by the dwarves and Boromir did a superb job warding off the Mordor Troll until he could get some wizard help. Theoden amazingly survived a trample by a Mumak (this is insane, by the way) and his Rohirrim wre able to flank the Uruk-Hai. Gondor drove a wedge between Mordor and Moria, and the Orcs had to shift a large part of the army toward their right flank since the Esterlings were annihalated by the dwarves (go Gimli!). Radagast was a great addition for the good side, de-horsing Suladin, Khamul, and the other Ringwraith and transfixing the Mordor Troll long enough for Boromir to get a hit in. Good stuff, right there. And although I lost three good heroes in one fell trample by the Mumak, the great beast also took about a few of Harad's infantry, so in the end it didn't ruin the day. The class of the field, though, was Imrahil. He took out Gothmog waaaay too early, smoked a Cave Troll, and even had time to help Aragorn take down the Mumak (finally!).
     
    And that is why I am a complete geek.
     
    Anyway, great news came today: The newest supplement preview (for The Ruin of Arnor) is up and I got to see some sweet new characters. Arnor was the old north kingdom of Numenor/Gondor. Elenedil was the original ruler, followed by Isildur (briefly). Aragorn is of that line. (Hence him being the heir of Isildur and rightful heir to the throne of Gondor.) This supplement focuses on the fall of Arnor to the armies of the Witch King of Angmar (the head Ringwraith). This isn't in the actual Lord of the Rings, but this battle game spreads to Tolkien's other works (even appendicies), too.
     
    So, I'm stoked, and I know what I'm saving my money for (yes, Bionicle sets are a back-burner purchase). And if you made it this far, you might be a little frightened. (Antics are now over.)
  10. munkeymunkey
    So, here's my first little blog entry specifically for BZP.
     
    As many of you have probably realized by now, I like words and forming stories out of words. I actually find essay writing very enjoyable when I'm not strained by deadlines. However, my passion in writing is fiction. I find short stories, novellas, drama, novels, and even history books fasinating.
     
    Writing such works is incredibly difficult. There are so many thigns to consider (from plot line to character arcs to symbolism to perspective to control of the audience to voice to tone to simple diction). Now, I was looking over some of my epics materials for my current project (a BZP Epic called An Insidious Demise) and I thought, "wouldn't it be interesting to give a little insight as to how I persoanlly tackle things?" Maybe somebody will get a kick out of it.
     
    Anyway, when I first started formulating this idea in my head, I was thinking setting. What would BZP be to me if it were actual reality? What if I actually lived in a place called BZP and ran daily life as a participant there? How would forums, posts, members, etc. transform into places, things, people, etc.? How could I possibly make this realistic?
     
    This is when I began to consider the Bionicle World as that link. I have this other storyline to play off of and use to make something rather obscure seem real. This is how the post counts and post ranks translated into access to specific Bionicle tools (such as Kanohi) and powers (and control of those powers). To create a whole society, I couldn't have people only posting. They had to grow food, sustain an economy, and do all of that other good civilization stuff. So, why not borrow most of this from the Bionicle world? Add a layer onto of a human society to make it a unique blend of Bionicle and people (BZPower). I think it ended up working pretty well. The details of all of this thinking can best be seen in their final version: my extensive introduction to the epic.
     
    So, what next? Next came the background information. I took the current staff (July 2006) and split it up into rough sections and "houses." My initial idea was to take a real-time (2006/2007) view of things. I wouldn't use myself as the main character, no... but one of the other staff members. This is how the society and the "Great War" storyline were forged. However, as I started thinking a bit darker and... well, maybe even controversial, I decidced that I needed to detach myself from this time period. This set up my "fifty or so years in the future" idea. One and a half generations later, there are still the same basics, and even some of the same people (Kex, Smeagol, Tufi), but most everybody is dead and gone. Now, everything is open (except for making Kex a girl, apparently).
     
    This is where stuff started to really role. I mapped out a character arc for my main man, whose working name was Leon Trotsky (this eventually stuck because I just sort of like it). It would start out with a basic intro of BZP and his daily routine as an FA. Then, something would happen... something odd. He'd end up going to BZ-Koro, meeting with some higher-ups, and then into the north to confront this mysterious foe. Then things would blow over as he realized that he had been blind to the real plot all along. During all of this, he'd be struggling with some character triats, such as trust, honor, and self-reliance.
     
    But this character arc/plot line is nowhere near what I have now. I can't forsee where my imagination will take me as I begin to write. The major differences between the original outline and the current story are that I have multiple perspectives, many more characters, and a much shorter timespan for everything to take place. Plus, the reader sees a lot more things (partly from the shifting point of view) than in the original. The story is much more global, and I think I'm actually pushing across an overall message (which of course, won't be completely clear until the end). Leon isn't the only guy with problems. Spud's Vahki has problems. Lyle has problems. Ducks has problems. Kex has problems. In fact, most of the characters have some sort of personality issue. Not everyone will change, but everyone, with their varying personalities and opinions, will help push across this message (which should become pretty obvious around Chapter XIII).
     
    I have only hit three of the original nine points of insidence that I had in my original outline. Four will never be hit, and the other two will be very different than originally intended. But that's the beauty of writing an epic. I let the words flow out of me and find the most logical path based on the characters and how they would react. I still can't foresee exactly how this will end up. I could even end up killing off a character whom I was going to leave a victor (for all I know).
     
    So, there's a little insight (okay, it's quite a bit, but I'm long-winded). I hope you enjoyed it.
  11. munkeymunkey
    I'm currently taking an online geography course that's been focusing on global warming and how we're going to combat the resulting problems. It's only one semester, so my final project is due on the 18th of December.
     
    Like a good child, I decided to do the project. (It seemed like the natural thing to do since it's worth about 20% of my grade.) I whipped out my maps of Europe, my world atlas, some ArcGIS data, and Google Earth and started working. Apparently, after a 5 meter rise in sea level (which could result from the melting of just one of the many ice features in Antarctica), not only are places like Venice and the Netherlands going to have a little excess drinking water, but cities like Odesa, Ukraine will also find themselves oddly underwater. My job is to come up with an action plan to deal with a theoretical (and highly exaggerated) 50 meter rise in 50 years. Where 5 meters floods the lower city, 50 meters floods out the whole thing, and this is a city built along the slopes of a hill (which, funny enough, is almost exactly 50 meters at its peak).
     
    So, I start looking for information on the internet about Odesa (or Odessa, if you prefer), and I find that Odesa, England and Odessa, USA are much more popular. In fact, the only websites besides the encyclopedias that seem to care about Odesa, Ukraine are travel websites advertising hotels. That's great, but I really don't care about hotels. I want to know about the industries (Odesa has an institute for eye-diseases, a jute mill, and an oil refinery, among other things) and where they are. If the factory is 40 meters above sea level, then it wouldn't make sense to try to transplant the industry when the institute will flood after only six years.
     
    And of course, with my current streak of luck, there's a naval base at Odesa, so the government is a little touchy with some information, which makes it even more difficult to find any information. If I had the money, I think I'd just go to Odesa myself and find out where everything is. I even know where the best hotels are now. Sadly, that can't happen. The other sad thing is that I can't just say, "Let her sink!" (well... I could, but then I'd fail.)
     
    And overall, this project was rather depressing... After a 50 meter rise, the entire eastern seaboard of North America, from the Yucatan, along the Gulf Coast, all of Florida, through up into Canada until about Labrador. My house would be save, which is a nice thought, but looking at Europe isn't a fun time either. Humans have some sort of tendency to build on water (as if they needed it to live or something). They're attracted to it like flies to a dead carcass.
     
    So, my advice to everyone who reads this: Move to Tibet!
     
    So, five hours later, I decide that I've had enough, and I starting reading Lord of the Rings. That makes me happy. I still can't get over the fact that the Black Gate of Mordor is actually three doors.
  12. munkeymunkey
    I was reading Daniel Webster's Seventh of March Speech today, and I decided that I needed a blog. It wasn't because of the speech so much as I was cold. Anyway, I decided that I had prolonged the inevitable long enough. Time to dive in. This will look pretty ugly until I decide that I'm seriously going to keep it up (which may be a few hours or a few weeks).
     
    So, this morning I wake up and the temperature is about 10 and the wind is howling. The hot water heater broke again, so I can't take a warm shower. I get out of the shower blue and shivering and put on a T-shirt, among other things. I then remember that it isn't 50 degrees out like the day before. My winter coat is still at my cousin's house (because I left it there... why else?), and that makes me unhappy, but I still have to prepare for the worst. I put on my under armor and check the temperature again before I leave: now it's three degrees colder. I walk outside in the wind (the wind chill was about -10... I've had as bad as -50 over here, but it was about 50 last week, so this was a major shock).
     
    I wipe the snow off my car and try to open the door. The handle is frozen and won't budge. I end yanking open the back and crawling through to the front of the car. I turn it on (it took about four revs of the engine to get going) and blast the heating fans. I break through the ice hold the driver's door shut, but the handle is still frozen. I go back inside to let the car warm up. I go back out and it's even windier. I scrape the windshield and windows of ice, crawl back in the car, and drive to school at 7:30 to get there early for the Morning Show (our school's daily news show that broadcasts across the school and county).
     
    At 7:47, 20 minutes before school starts, the fire alarms go off. That wasn't fun. After my name was checked off, I dashed back to my car, crawled back in it, waited for my comrades to enter, locked the doors, and listened to music with a few of my friends until the alarms went off and they let us back in. Apparently, the intense cold and winds had knocked on something in the alarm system and the entire thing went off. I hate irony.
     
    I am still wearing the under armor, and I am still shivering, but at least there won't be any school fire alarms tomorrow.
  13. munkeymunkey
    Some of you may have noticed that the title to the OGD has been changed from "Official Greg Discussion" to "Official GregF Dialogue". OMG, TWGE!
     
    No, the world is not going to end. We can still call it the OGD, and the name is actually an improvement. The word "discussion" has misled some people to believe that they are allowed to post randomly in this topic, crack jokes about Bionicle-related content, and carry on two or three sided conversations while everybody else is searching through the clutter of posts for GregF quotes. If you look at the first post of the topic, it states:

     
    Notice how the only thing that is under the "things to do" list is posting your Q&A. We leave a little wiggle room so that you can make commentary, but theories and questions DO NOT belong in that topic. Extensive commentary is also not allowed.
     
    Therefore, the word "discussion" was misleading. I deleted about 30 posts yesterday that were theorizing or commenting about things, and half of them weren't even directly related to a GregF quote. Electric Turahk and I have both seen a cycle of people getting way too out of hand with this until one of us posts here in bold letters for people to stop doing that. Then people tend to get the message and try to follow the rules, but after awhile this diligence erodes. When half the posts in this topic are discussion instead of GregF quotes, it makes it very cluttered and difficult for people to find quotes. The main function of this topic is to be a depository, not a place for theories. That's what we have the whole S&T forum for.
     
    There was also an interesting critique on my choice of the word "dialogue". Here is the post and my reply:
     

    But this is a dialogue. People ask GregF questions, and GregF answers those questions. That's two people talking: Feste: Good madonna, give me leave to prove you a fool.
    Olivia: Can you do it?
    Feste: Dexteriously, good madonna.
    Olivia: Make your proof.
     
    (Twelfth Night)
     
    Compare that to this:
    Utopia:1) Is it possible for someone to replace Mata Nui? (the Makuta of Metru Nui and the Barraki thought it is, Karzahni also, but is it really?)
    GregF: 1) No
    Utopia: 1. Is the job of maintaining the universe something only Mata Nui could do, or could someone else take up this position?
    GregF: 1) No, someone else can't do it unless they had the power of a Great Spirit.
     
    (Official Mata Nui's Status Topic)
     
    That's a dialogue. The name stays.
     
    If you have any comments, questions, or limericks about the change, please do so here. Do not use the OGD. That's not what the topic is there for.
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