Zombies with Swords, Flag Duty and Hammers

THE RUN DOWN

Usually, I focus on my academic studies and my reading and my writing on this blog. Today is a different sort of day. On Friday night, I played in a HALO 3 LAN party at the dorm with all my friends. My head almost exploded it was so amazing.

ZOMBIES WITH SWORDS

There's a game type called Infection, which simulates a zombie invasion. One member of your party is a zombie and everyone is human. Every time the zombie kills a human, that human then becomes part of the zombie's team. So the numbers of the team - originally 5 vs. 1 - becomes 1 vs. 5. This goes on until there's only one human left. Poor guy. We realized we had to follow familiar anti-zombie strategies if we wanted to live (see Exhibits A-D).

1. Don't get in a car (Exhibit A).
2. Use heavy artillery (Exhibit B).
3. Stay together (Exhibit C).
4. Put backs to the wall on high ground with clear visibility, preferably near a large store of ammunition and supplies (Exhibit D).

Exhibit A

As you can see, my friends (referred to in their gamer names) Ezra, the guy in white, and Mike, the guy in green, took a vehicle and Mike is about to be cannibalized, courtesy of me, as a zombie.
Exhibit B and C
Staying together is a brilliant strategy for anyone who wants to survive an undead apocalypse as seen in this image of Ezra and myself, armed respectively with an Battle Rifle and a heavy machine gun turret.
Exhibit D
As you can see, Mr. Bear as Covenant in green, Ezra and myself stationed ourselves according to protocol. We gained high ground, put our backs to the wall and unloaded heavy artillery on the zombie hoards.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FLAG DUTY

The other game we played on Friday night was Capture the Flag. The concept is for one team to steal the flag and get it back to their base before the other team can stop them.

Long Live the Blues

I can be seen below, guarding the Blue Flag (LONG LIVE THE BLUES!) with a grenade launcher. Isn't our flag pretty?

Running Like a Little Girl

When we were on Offense, I grabbed the Reds' flag and ran...I ran like a scared little girl. I ran like hell and got the hell out of there. I was Cloaked - invisible - and you can see the grenade behind me, rippling my shield and making me visible. Mr. Bear remained behind me, to the left and died giving me time to get out of the Red Base.

Making a Clean Get-Away

Outside, Ezra (now in Blue), was waiting with a Mongoose to take me down to the beach to deliver the flag and claim victory. Ezra and I had practiced this maneuver for a few hours before, him driving at full speed and me jumping on the back with a flag. He hit me a few times, but we got to the point where, under fire in battle, we could pull it off.

Viva la Bleu

Because of that...we claimed Victory for the Blues. Viva la Bleu!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

OTHER HAPPY FUN-TIMES
The rest of these are funtimes we had in free-for-all Slayer matches, where the goal was to get as many kills as possible.

Mike with a Hammer
Here is Mike (the one I cannibalized) wielding a Gravity Hammer. He's white here because of the light from its explosion. Usually he's in green.

The Result of Mike with a Hammer
He got a kill. Isn't that sweet? And by "sweet," I mean "completely awesome."
Communism in HALO 3

Mr. Bear ran Ezra and me over with a Banshee - a giant airplane-esque thing. Here we are dying. We look like we're dancing like Russians...and singing, "Moscow! Moscow!"

Viva la HALO!
So say we all.
Bri

Friday Snippets: Take Me Out

The Friday Snippet this week continues to follow Dell after she escapes the ruin of Columbia, after she breaks the heart of the man who loves her more than anyone on earth. With a nuclear wasteland spreading all around her and an imminent mass migration south, Dell has turned her sights on the little town of Mexico, north of Columbia. Last week, she snuck past a military blockade of tanks on the interstate bridges only to be laid low by a rope strung across on the back country roads. We pick up with Dell, laying in the middle of the county road in the dark.

Copyrighted, do not reproduce, material liable to change. Etc.

Dell tilted the shotgun up and moonlight gleamed down the barrel bright and pure. The person above her stopped cold, the barrel of the gun pressed in hard under their jaw. Dell could feel agony flowering though her chest like a cold fire. The mask hid her face and she didn't care that her face twisted in pain as she moved her arm.

"I'd advise that you step back," she rasped. The figure's eyes shone in the dark, wide and glassy, like dark coins. "I'd advise you to step back before I blow your face off," she said, pressing the barrel up against his pulsing jugular. His eyes slid away and Dell heard footsteps at her head. "One step closer, and he this shotgun will have more brains than he does," she snapped. The footsteps stopped.

"Look," the sneaking man said. His voice was graveled, but still young. The brother, she guess. "Look, we just needed some gas. Don't hurt him. Don't worry Jim, it's alright," he said. "Just don't hurt him. We just needed some gas. We weren't gonna hurt you."

"Like hell," she said. "You sneaking around - get my bike over here. Now." She turned her head, watching the man as he moved in a wide arc around her. She sat slowly, groaning as the pressure forced the breath from her lungs. As she forced the sobbing man back, she saw his face in the dark. He was young. Painfully young. He couldn't have been much older than Matheson on that morning.

Dell managed her feet, trying not to listen as the boy wiped at his snot and tried not to sob any more as she stepped back. As the older wheeled her bike forward, she tilted her head. "Step back," she said. "You said you needed gas - so where's your car?"

"What are you going to do?" he asked.

"What needs to be done," Dell replied. The blood on her knuckles was black in the moonlight. Something in her chest rattled as she breathed.

"Over the ridge, west of here," the older said, stepping between her and the boy. "Why?"

"You and your brother are going to live," she said. "That should be enough."

"What are you going to do?" he asked.

"What needs to be done," Dell replied. The blood on her knuckles was black in the moonlight. Something in her chest rattled as she breathed. But they didn't know that. They didn't even know what she looked like beneath the insect-eyed gasmask.

She lunged, the butt of her shotgun catching the older one in the jaw and spilling him backward into unconsciousness, heavy as a wet sack of sand. The boy fell under his weight. He reached inside his brother's coat. She swung her shotgun to bear and found herself staring down the barrel of an old revolver.

So say we all.
Bri

I Believe in Aardvarks, Spartans and Vampires

I know I haven't been around much lately and you all have my deepest apologies on this. Life has suddenly become insane - more so than I would have thought possible. To address Joely's comment from a week or so back, I want to participate more in the 1,000 Words a Day Club, because I absolutely love the community and I have material I am working through everyday.

I'm starting to look into publication for the Post-Apocalyptic Story and I've revising a short story for a submission to a science fiction mag in two weeks. I still have my work from classes piling up in drifts...and these are the things that are killing my time:

Speaking in the Third Person: Cerebus the Aardvark

A friend loaned me Cerebus, a comic written and drawn entirely by a man named Dave Sim. The story follows a barbarian aardvark named Cerebus on his adventures across Estarcion and the city-state of Iest. With a weird mix of philosophy, feminism and a brief but touching romance, it's a graphic novel I count up there with Jeff Smith's Bone.

I Believe in Master Chief

I've also been swallowed up by the release of HALO 3, Bungie and Microsoft's Official-Slayer-of-All-Useful-Brain-Cells-and-Time. So far the graphics, the tricks you can pull as a 7-ft-tall Spartan and the game play are simply and amazingly lovely. Master Chief, John 117, is of course the hero and the range of weaponry, shields, vehicles and environments is enough to rock your socks right off. Chief has always been one of my favorite characters in a game. This is probably for the simple face that I've never seen his face. He's an Everyman. A rather tall and heavy Everyman, but sympathetic and easy to relate to because of his anonymity.

This Doesn't Bite: Twilight

On the recommendation of a close friend's little sister, I took the book she loaned to me and ate it up in almost two nights. I'm still a little ways from the end and can't get enough. The story focuses on human Bella and vampire Edward and the strange relationship they begin in the depressing gray land of the Northwest coast. Give it a read - it's part one of a trilogy - and it is SO worth it.

I have school work and a social life in here somewhere. I'm sure. But between these three (and a number of other cool things I'm not elaborating on here), I'm desperately trying not to lose touch with all of you! But I find that I sort of like wading through all the cool and discovering new ways to waste time.

So say we all.
Bri

Friday Snippets: Once Upon a Trip to Mexico

Here's the Friday Snippet. So sorry, most humble apologies and all that jazz about it being late. Leave you link! I'll come and see you!

Copyrighted, do not reproduce, material liable to change. Etc.

Under the cover of dark, Dell rode for almost four hours. The fires from the inner city threw her shadow out long on the pavement and to the east and west the sky burned like burnished copper with the the death of St. Louis and Kansas city. She'd slipped past the barricades at midnight, killing the engine and walking the bike, her shotgun within easy reach.

Now, she laid low off the interstate far north of ground zero. As she approached a lower overpass, she slid the bike down into the ditch and flattened herself against the sloping hill near the exit ramp. Two tanks hunched on either side of the bridge like hulking monsters and Dell could hear the low rumble of engines and generators. It was difficult to see through the tinted lenses of the gas mask, but she snaked her way up the incline until she lay within an a few yards of the tank treads. She strained her ears to listen.

"With the power grid down from here to Detroit, they're right to move us south. No lights, no heat - and the radiation's gonna fall out soon. We can't stay here. Jones said he already heard radio chatter. The Guard's tellin' most people to stay put - but the smart ones, they'll come south ahead of the cold."

"The Guard's tellin' most people to stay put - but the smart ones, they'll come south ahead of the cold."

At that moment, Dell heard the wail of high speed aircraft overhead and saw the black silhouette of slender stealth bombers eating the stars as they raged against the sky. Sonic booms bludgeoned the air just a few seconds later and crushed her beneath the roar of sound. When her ears stopped ringing, she lifted her face from the grass and heard the men above her cheering raggedly. They fired their mortars and their guns into the night sky.

Dell slid back down the hill under the flickering barrage and cranked the bike. Keeping the lights dark, she hunkered over the handlebars, rumbling under the deepest shadows of the bridge. She was completely hidden in the open beneath the light and the thunder as the soldiers on the bridge cheered on the Stealths and the bombs sleeping deadly quiet in their metal bellies.

Dell turned off on the side roads, following her memory of the terrain. She would go north, to the little town of Mexico and she would find someone who could tell her what had happened, someone without tanks that crouched on bridges or bombers who brought death on the wind. She never saw the thick rope slung across the road.

It caught her in the chest, bruising her sternum and blasting the air from her lungs. Her grip on the handlebars went nerveless and the bike careened onto its side, screaming in the gravel as it sputtered to a halt. Dell saw sky and earth and sky again and slammed onto her back in the dust. Everything hurt at once and she thought maybe she was dying. Then she felt her fingers twitch and the cold length of Math's shot gun barrel under her left leg. She thumbed back the hammer, when a shadow leaned over her, blotting out the moon.

So say we all.
Bri

On What I Know and When the Snippet is Coming Down

I know I promised a Friday Snippet. I know. I promised. But I was obscenely exhausted and this morning I found myself asleep in full clothing. I plan to post the Snippet Sunday afternoon/night, with any luck.

This is what I know for sure.

My thesis adviser met with me on Friday and took up the seven or eight chapters I completely revised over the summer and a synopsis. We made plans to meet late in October after my GRE, when I'll hand in the next 100 pages. My thesis is a novel under the working title XIII. This summer, I worked down my entire draft from last year and cut the cast from fifteen to eight.

Work at the Writing Center grew exponentially stressful. I agreed to help teach a series of creative writing workshops as well as a crash course on speculative fiction as a genre. The crash courses will last two hours a piece and span three nights early in November.

I was also asked to create a logo for the writing center and a series of flyers promoting the workshops. While I am proficient at graphic design, I am not formally trained and have not taken any graphics classes in college. I do most of my design work for myself, but I agreed to try and help.

My readings for various theory classes have tripled in the past week and I sort of want to chuck the books out of my third story window. I will probably make a post on rhetoric this week, because I've discovered a few very fascinating things in various cross-disciplinary classes.

I need to write up a resume and cover letter for a Tech Writing Class and design a CSS website for a New Tech class. These are both blehch but necessary for the coursework requirement. I understand the need for these classes - truly - but I think the classes should be optional, instead of a required part of a writing degree. Mainly because I've been fairly tech savvy since I was four or five - courtesy of my dad's technical line of work. I'm repeating code and concepts in these classes I learned as a middle-schooler. Oh well.

I may be considering going out of country for my postgraduate work and this thought alone is fairly terrifying and at the same time incredibly wonderful.

And that concludes what I know. I'll post the snippet after dinner. Wonderful Sunday to you all!

So say we all.
Bri