"Well, do you?"

"No, sorry, forgot mine in the car. Would you excuse me while I go grab it?"

So all of a sudden all these "Soul Inside" T-shirts start showing up, and there's little signs and chalked letters on sidewalks and things saying "Do you have a soul?" and such as that. Funny how I don't notice this until Suzanne mentions it the other day, but I'm me, I guess. Best I can make out, this is part of the Vast Christian Conspiricy to Convert the Masses. Which, when you get right down to it, is fairly offensive. Not just in the religious sense, either. I mean I get pissed whenever I see anything spammed to that degree. It's actually sort of sad when it's religion, because it seems to me that it demeans the beliefs of the believers to have to advertise in such a manner. OTOH, it's sort of a step below the Jehovah's Witnesses coming to the door every week. Annoying in either case. Which isn't to say I'm against advertising the faith, just I'd rather it was done nonintrusively. Oh well.

Enough on the Advertising Front. On the Academic Front, socialist competition has led the shock brigades to make great strides in achieving perfection. Or rather, I sat down last night, read 300 pages of Soviet propaganda from the 1930s, and wrote a paper on it this morning. Very tired and in need of nap now.

Just 'cause I've always wanted to do this.

Nothing, nothing, nothing but the one thing

Someone said my words are out of balance
nothing to say, you've got nothing to say
dying words I bury every day
nothing to say, I've got nothing to say
nothing but the one thing

you've got nothing, nothing to say
nothing but the one thing

big bad word, spell it with four letters
nothing to say, you've got nothing to say
Oh my God, your words are out of balance
nothing to say, you've got nothing to say
nothing but the one thing

nothing, nothing

You've got nothing, nothing to say
nothing but the one thing

nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing

And there you have it. And that one thing is, Soundgarden rules.

So I'm doing a fighter sweep mission in a P-47D. These usually mean kill 4 random Fw-190s and go home. I run into 4 Fw-190s, watch my wingmen cut them down because I can't fight Fw-190s for shit. And I'm thinking "Hey, I've got tons of fuel left, and I've still got a full bomb load. Extra credit, dude."

An unsuspecting German flotilla just so happened to be right there. So we start bombing the hell out of destroyers and cargo ships. About halfway through, 4 Bf-109s show up, so I kill 3 of them, and my wingmen kill the other, then I go back to sinking stuff. ALMOST through with that, 4 MORE Fw-190s show up. This time I manage to get one, while flunkies take the other 3. The last ship dies, and I'm like "Yeah. Intense mission. Now I can go home." Hit the warp button. "Why am I going towards France?" Those first Fw-190s weren't the droids I was looking for? No, it appears, as 4 Bf-109s show up, and we're having intense dogfights in the middle of German AA flak.

So I'm diving after this -109, and I'm going so fast I exceed max design speed, and I'm like a pinprick from blacking out, and I'm going straight towards the water at intense speed thinking "Oh. Shit." I manage to pull up TEN FEET before slamming into the water. As they say at RBCiv, it's sometimes better to be lucky than good. In the end, I end up taking 3 of the -109s by myself. Then I went home, and got back with 10% fuel left. Still on adrenaline from that.

And on another note, in an earlier mission I was dogfighting with a Fw-190, and I cut one way and he cut the other, and the next thing I know I'm out of control. I bail out, and notice that his wing went right through my tail, cutting it off. He died, I lived. The fact that my tail actually flew off was excellent, though.

Yay for CNN.

"Mohammed Imran, Mohammed Hanif, Mohammed Sharib, Mohammed Ashraf were named in the indictment."

The joke has the ring of truth, as it were. Everyone really DOES have the same name. ;)

Well, that's that. A not-quite-3-page summary of an article entitled Soviet Perceptions of U.S. "Positions-of-Strength" Diplomacy in the 1970s. 25 pages. Serious stuff, though sort of...dated at 1979. At any rate, it was a sort of hard assignment, but not as hard as she made it out to be. OTOH, I haven't got a grade on it yet... It seems, though, that if one reads with an eye to the main points, it's not all that difficult. Could just be me.

At any rate, it's 4:30 in the morning, and I'm starting to lose the effects of the massive caffiene ingestion. I may sleep yet. All I know is, if I never see the interior of MS Word again, it'll be too soon.

And so, after having class for 3 hours just now, and 1.5 earlier, I now need to read a fairly large journal article and write a summary on it, which is harder than it may sound, all by tomorrow. I have yet to start. And I'm way way tired. Argh.

So on a whim I was up last night until like 2am reading Civ 3 SG reports. So now I'm exceedingly tired today, and I have to read 30 pages and write a precis summary of it 'cause it's due tomorrow. Had two midterms Monday/Tuesday, ruled over them. Got my paper back from Friday, turns out I wrote on the wrong topic, didn't do it in the exact style he wanted, and he gave me a B- anyway. Rule.

And MS Combat Flight Sim 3 is fun, even if I suck at it harshly. Then, I haven't played a flight sim since, oh, F-15 Strike Eagle III in like, 1993. Didn't REALLY play em after F-15 II and Their Finest Hour back in like, 1991. Those were the days. Oh yes they were.

*yawn*

So I randomly fell asleep last night at 9pm. Woke up at 12. Then I proceeded to catch up on homework until like 4:30. Accomplished what I thought would take two days in like 4 hours. I rock. I'm tired, but I rock.

Easter ruled. Got food, got candy, hung out with the parental types. All the good stuff.

And we all know about the keyboard entertainment now. *grin*

Friday was, uh...yeah. Fun, of course, since Suzanne and I DO have a good time together, and I did finally get her over here on her own initiative. How I feel about this exactly is something I'm still trying to figure out.

And along those lines, I do believe I've run out of girls I know who haven't seen Bourne Identity. Tali, Suzanne, Mom, they've all seen it now. *snicker*

And way on the plus side, Suzanne hooked me up with like all of Led Zeppelin. Score.

We come from the land of the ice and snow...

as_does_typing_with_character_map.stupid_pop_spill.RRG!

So he does this of his own free will. And I quote:

Whir plays with barbies.

Hey Dwip
where you going with that gun in your hand?
Hey Dwip
where you going with that gun in your hand?

I'm going down to shoot my paper, yeah.

(what? I'm high on caffiene, tired, and Whir gave me all these Hey Joe covers. And my paper is still on page 2.)

So it's 10:49 here, and I just got back from getting myself some more Cherry Coke to keep running. I shouldn't drink it, but I know I will, and I'll keep gorging myself on brownies, despite feeling both way too full and way too sick. Food is...useful though. Killing myself like this is all part of the paper-writing process. Measly little 5 pager on Stalin. I can write it all on my head, but not on paper, but I need to do it, 'cause it's due tomorrow. Four years of undergraduate academic papers has yet to teach me how to not stress out over even the smallest paper, sort of like how it has yet to beat out of me my own overcleverness, which is why my report cards are a strange dichotomy of B+s, As, Ds, and Fs, with the Bs and As in exceedingly hard classes and the Ds and Fs in pathetic core classes.

I hate this part of school.

So I'm sitting here, with my modern armors racing through the ruins of Greece's cities in the Middle East and into North Africa, and Queen is blaring in the background, and I'm having this weird vision like something out of Three Kings: The Sequel. It's like this: Column of M1A2s racing through the desert, cloud of dust behind them, big American flag flying on one of em, and in the background We Will Rock You is playing. And somewhere in there is some bullshit thing like, yknow, the C4 football shooting scene or something.

The mind is a funny object.

Buddy you're a boy
make a big noise playing in the street
gonna be a big man someday
you got mud on your face, big disgrace
kicking your can all over the place, singing

we will we will rock you
we will we will rock you

Buddy you're a young man
a hard man shouting in the street
going to take on the world someday
you got blood on your face, big disgrace
waving your banner all over the place

we will we will rock you
sing it!
we will we will rock you

Buddy you're an old man, poor man
pleading with your eyes gonna your peace someday
got mud on your face, big disgrace
somebody better put you back into your place

We will we will rock you
sing it!
we will we will rock you
everybody
we will we will rock you
we will we will rock you

And this has what to do with anything? It's like this. Civ 3. Kal-el's world map, 8 civs. I'm Chinese with China, India, and SE Asia. The Spanish are exiled to Japan from Korea, the Japanese are in England, the English own South America, the Americans own North America after the merciless slaughter of the Aztecs, the French used to own North Africa, and Greece, well, Greece owns Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Persia, and a fair chunk of Mongolia and Korea taken from the Spanish. They're the second-runners in tech after me, but they've got a seriously huge 200-infantry army, plus flunkies.

Or they did. I've been waiting for years, after the Second War of Greek Aggression clear back in the Middle Ages, that Greece Was Coming Back. So I got ready. I got all kinds of ready. I got so ready that when the 25 Greek cavalry came running over the hill to start the Third War, I met them with 10 modern armor, and they went down hard. And then Korea went back to the Spanish by my hand. Their Himalayan rail line went down hard. Persia is next. I own.

Whir is no longer afk.

Whir chats 'We're generally known as AFKMUD for a very good reason. :P'

Whir is now afk.

Guess the reference, win a point.

So I sat down tonight, decided "Yeah, need to be playing some more D2X here." And I'm thinking that no, don't really want to play Heraclius, my Nightmare-level Paladin who's been stuck on the Mount Arreat bosses that I ranted about. So maybe I'll play Theodora, the assassin I started last night. Get her through Act II or something.

I clicked Heraclius. I said to myself, "No self, those bastards die. Tonight." I said this to Whir, too, but as he was not actually involved in any way shape or form, he doesn't count.

They died. I ran around in a lot of circles, drank a lot of heals, and shot a lot of bolts, but they died. And the 3.5 levels I gained were well worth the effort. So then I sort of glide through the entire Worldstone Keep, and I'm thinking "Hey, this isn't bad. I think I'll kill Baal, and top Nightmare."

So I did. I came, I saw, I shot a lot of bolts, drank a lot of potions, and died a couple times, but then Baal went down down down. And now it's on to Hell difficulty.

Oh will it. Just walked all the way accross campus in pouring rain. So wet that I'm forming an honest to God puddle on the floor. Time to go take a shower and dry off.

Die, fucker. Only had to plink you to death over the course of half an hour. No big deal. No, the +21% all resistances/+1 dex crown shield, the super mana potions, and the 2 super heal potions weren't worth it, particularly. Didn't even pay for the merc ressurect. But the way is clear, now.

So Act V D2X isn't all that bad after all - sort of. There are some very long levels, filled with some very hard monsters, and it's actually pretty challenging. I like it. Except there are these Evil Urns all over the place, right? They pop goodies, but also spawn a boss pack most of the time. As it happens, they pretty much always spawn Hell Lord boss packs.

And it's like this. One Hell Lord, maybe 2, I can handle. Anything above that is insane, simply because they do so much damage I can't really cope with it. Bosses are pretty much one-shot kills on me, never mind my poor merc.

So I resolve to myself, after a particularly nasty Urn that drops a nigh-unkillable shock-enchanted Hell Lord boss right on the enterance to one of the essential areas, which I need to go through, and which takes me like 6 or 7 kamakaze runs (they didn't TRY to be, but one shot kills, remember), and I'm thinking "No more! No more Urns!" Yeah self, good plan. *click*

So now I'm chasing down another aura enchanted instakill Hell Lord boss. One day, I will learn. One day.

One day, I will also stop posting solely about D2X. However, everything in my life right now is very very boring or very very unconversationworthy. Well, except that Rolos rule. We all must bow before the goodness that are Rolos.

As much as one can possibly have said to kick ass with 6 deaths, 4 inventory loads of greater healing potions consumed, and two quivers of bolts consumed, and an hour and a half spent on the killing. Diablo is the reason why I ask myself WHY I keep playing Diablo II. Simply put, Diablo II itself is pretty fun. Diablo himself is not fun at all. Why? How about how he can shoot you with fire from outside the screen area, so you can't see it coming and can't avoid it? How about how he can shoot this insanely damaging fire stuff, so if you don't move fast enough, you'll die? How about how he shoots lightning that isn't quite as bad, but is still fearsome? All of this adds up to make it almost impossible to get to the bastard, let alone kill him. It turns into a game of run in, whack him twice, MAYBE get a hit, run like mad, gulp two potions. Rinse and repeat. It's not all that entertaining. It's hard, certainly, but it's not fun.

And now I'm on Act 5. I HATE Act 5.

Hard. Or rather, I died like 6 times getting my paladin through the last level. I blew like 500k on merc ressurections. And then, Diablo leaped out, and my computer lagged like mad. Like almost locked up lag. Like "it's taking Diablo 10 seconds to cross the screen while running" lag. And then the game crashed. And I really don't care to play anymore, which is just as well.

Also, some bastard pulled the fire alarm at 12:30 last night, thus forcing us to go camp out in the Wilson Hall lounge for half an hour. Whoever did it will rot in hell for eternity. I don't normally believe in hell, but for this sort of thing, I make exceptions.

And life was good. Went out with Tali and Laura, watched Spaceballs, ate some kickass pizza, and played with the cat. Cats rule. I wish I had a cat. And now there shall be some serious Diablo II playing.

Those of you waiting for updates, well, the week is exhausting. Why? Schoolwork. Exhaustion. The usual reasons. The week for me involved going to class, coming home, mindlessly websurfing, and then doing homework until bedtime. And that looks to be the way of my term. It will suck. But there's always the weekend.

Nothing to say, really. Sort of tired, since I was stressed and insomniac last night for no apparent reason. That's not supposed to happen until LATER in the term, dammit. Too much freaking about the workload, I suppose.

My classes are pretty cool, so far. Hellenistic Greece and Stalin are both really cool, even if I have to write like mad to keep up in my notes. It's worth it though. My Peoples of East Asia class will maybe or maybe not suck. It's an anth class, which means it probably will, but it's talking about North Korea, so it might not. Dunno. Historiography will likely be cool, as it's covering an awful lot of stuff that I've been asking myself about the study of history. The workload, however, will suck. And my little 1 credit Careers in History class, which I went to today, sounds pretty good. I wish I had taken it a year or two ago, which he said is what they're doing now. It's going to be a lot of speakers talking about different fields majors can go into, and it was pretty fun the first day, so we'll see.

And I'm playing Diablo II again. My Fanatacism Paladin is currently roaming around Act 2 Nightmare sucking a lot because his weapon has been in use since like Act 3 normal. Why I continue to play this game, I don't know. It's not that good of a game, but it's at least got mindless violence going for it.

For those of you who don't listen to me at Tonto, and have no idea where I am on the whole Iraq thing (that's you, Samson), this thread ought to fix that. The Marius posts are me.

First there was Joan of Orc.

Then there was Orcsama bin Laden.

Then came Orcsef Stalin, Saddam Orcsein, Georc W. Bush, Bill Clintorc, Jaques Chirorc, Mao Zeorc, Adorc Hitler, and Winston Churchorc.

Cole, this is all your fault. Rumors of my coming up with everything but Joan of Orc are a vicious lie. So are the rumors about my having way too much free time.

In all seriousness though, what free time? Tonight's homework:

Stalin Book #1: pgs 1-7
Stalin Book #2: pgs xviii-49
And as much of
3xPlutarch's Lives
Greece Book #1: pgs 162-219, 346-386
as I can get done.

And that's just the first day. And that's not counting the 40 pages worth of papers or the work for tomorrow night for the other two classes. Welcome to college, boys and girls.