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“Take her gun!” Bryce ordered Doug. Doug took the pistol from Lulu’s holster and held it dubiously.
“What’s going on?” one of the Protectors demanded, the group keeping guns on them both.
“The enemy has some sort of conspiracy involving the armory,” Bryce explained, “and I was hoping this imposter would lead me to it. I guess you all screwed up that plan.”
“You’re too late!” Lulu said with as much menace as she could as she kept her hands behind her head. “You’re all going to die here!” She added an evil laugh, but Doug judged it a bit forced.
“What do we care about the armory?” a Protector asked. “We’re abandoning this whole place and the letting the stupid Children fight for it.”
“Hey!” Charlene exclaimed.
“Shut up, you,” Bryce told her sharply, and then turned back to the soldiers. “I can’t tell you much about it, but there is an artifact of great importance to Asmod in the armory that unfortunately it seems the enemy has found out about. We need to secure it before leaving. Come on, there’s no time to waste.”
Bryce started leading Lulu away at gunpoint. “Come guard,” he told Doug and then struggled to get his suit jacket off while keeping his gun on Lulu. He tossed the jacket to Charlene. “Carry that for me, Child.”
The Protectors followed as well. “So the enemy might already be in the armory?” one asked.
“Could be. Be prepared for a gunfight,” Bryce said.
“Loch will eat your blood!” Lulu shouted. She then whispered to Bryce, “You don’t think Chen mentioned you?”
“I doubt she would so readily admit she was duped by one of us Last.”
“And what exactly are we doing when we get to the armory?” Charlene asked quietly.
“We’ll figure it out when we get there. No worries.”
Doug still had the pistol in his hand and wasn’t sure what to do with it. He had a bad record with guns from the brief time the government conscripted the Last Children in the military, so he wanted to put it away but didn’t seem to have a holster. He tried shoving it in his pants pocket but it was too big, so he turned to Charlene. “You want to carry the gun and I can carry the coat?”
“Can’t you even pretend to be competent for even a couple minutes?” Charlene shot back under her breath and turned away.
Doug thought of telling her he had been pretending competence for more than ten minutes already, but then he remembered he wasn’t supposed to talk.
They soon reached the armory and stopped by the entrance. “The enemy doesn’t know we’re on to them yet,” Bryce told the six soldiers. “Let’s try to head in quietly and get a look of things. Are you prepared?”
“We can handle it. You have her?”
Bryce patted Lulu on the head. “The little floozy isn’t going to be a problem.”
“You’re going to die,” Lulu added.
The six Protectors slowly made their way in. Bryce turned to his group. “Any ideas for what to do next?”
“The loading dock is just inside.” Charlene said. “I think we should just grab a vehicle and get the hell out of here before they wise up and shoot us all.”
“I’m for that,” Lulu said, her hand still behind her head. “My arms are starting to get tired; I don’t want to be a prisoner anymore.”
“Fine,” Bryce said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ve already loaded one of the trucks up for the evacuation. Let’s just–”
Automatic gunfire erupted from inside. Two Protectors ran out returning fire, one clutching a bloody wound at his side. “They’ve taken it over!” He shouted to Bryce. “They’ve already killed everyone in there! I think they have the artifact!”
It took a moment for Bryce to get over the shock. “Well… that’s… not good.”
More gunfire tore down the two soldiers, and then four angry looking women emerged from the entrance pointing rifles at Doug, Bryce, Lulu, and Charlene. Doug decided to break the no talking rule. “Dude.”
NEXT
Archive of entries posted on 13th March 2008
A Story, Bit by Bit
Rating the Rater **UPDATE**
One of the points of the star rater is that it should work without reloading the site (I know how much you all whine about the site load time). It seems to work fine in Fire Fox, but apparently it doesn’t in IE7. Because I love my readers (unlike many other blog authors who only see readers as things to aim at when urinating), I downloaded IE7 to try and figure that out. I hope you appreciate that given my aversion to Internet Explorer and downloading large updates from Microsoft.
BTW, this stuff is complicated. This rater alone involves Java, PHP, CSS, HTML, and SQL — each of which have their own little idiosyncrasies to keep track of. The problem is most likely in the Java that’s supposed to respond to the click instead of the hyperlink, but it works for IE7 on my test site so I’m having a little trouble tracking down the problem. Anyone have any tips on debugging this stuff beside putting it live and seeing whether it works or not? I really need to better analyze what happens at the click on the rater, but I’m new to web programming and am not sure how to isolate that.
I miss printf.
UPDATE:
With the help of readers Mark, E.T., and others, I think I have it working now. If any of you still find the rater refreshing the page (and you have Javascript enabled), please tell me. I’m new to the web programming, but this seemed a nice way to start to learn it so I can eventually add more features to IMAO and do some research I’ve been meaning to do…
Frank Ideas for Issues Obama Can Realistically Claim to Solve
Since Obama has about as much political experience as the average college Republican, it’s a little much for him to campaign saying he can solve big problem like terrorism and nuclear proliferation. So, I was thinking that what he needs to do is focus on problems he can realistically claim to be able to solve even with his limited experience and ability. Here are some ideas:
* Lack of trendy dog sweaters.
* Uneven M&M color distribution.
* America’s post offices need better decorations.
* Disorganized pantries.
* Bunny rabbits need more hugs.
* American are falling behind in basic whistling skills.
* The unavailability of rock candy.
* Too many honkeys (his pastor can help him with that one).
If the Obama campaign needs more suggestions, I am available (and you’ll get a free t-shirt for hiring me). You all can also put other ideas for problems Obama can tackle in the comments.
Gotta Agree With Ferraro On This One
Geraldine Ferraro, the 1984 Democratic Vice-Failure, said of Barack: “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”
It’s true.
Barack is a handsome, pleasant-voiced, smooth-talker whose charming allure makes you REALLY want to take him up on his attractive offers until you realize – perhaps too late – that there’s a… downside… to what you’re agreeing to.
Since he’s black, he’s a presidential contender for the Democrats.
Were he white, there’s a broader – though less prestigious – range of career opportunities he’d be more likely to engage in:
- Pre-owned vehicle acquisition facilitator.
- Guest on a real estate infomercial fake talk show.
- Leader of a quirky religious movement that invests heavily in rat poison and powdered drink mixes before investing heavily in one-way tickets to a small, South American country.
- Cannibal from Milwaukee.
- Host of a reality TV show who suggests that eating a plateful of raw bull testicles is TOTALLY worth it because you’ll have a 1-in-7 shot of getting a 15-minute phone call home if you do.
- Client 9
- Wraparound shade-wearing leader of a mediocre Irish rock band who touts letting Third World crapholes default on their loans as “a humanitarian invesment opportunity”.
- Right wing political humor blogger offering “free” T-shirts.
- Quarterback of a Massachusetts-based professional football team, leading his team to a “perfect” season.
- Being John Edwards.
Anything else Barack-lite might be doing for a living?
With a Pastor Like That, No Wonder Obama Is Secretly a Muslim
Obama’s book’s title, The Audacity of Hope, came from a sermon of his pastor Jeremiah Wright. I guess he chose another sermon of Wright to base his book on, it would be called Jesus Hates Honkeys.
The existence of Wright offends me as a Christian, but this is supposed to be who Obama got his spiritual teachings from? In fact, secretly being a Muslim might actually be better than taking this guy’s sermons seriously.
Hippy Obama
Is this for real?
He wants to end missile defense, hinder development of better weapons for the military, and actually believes in the fantasy of there being no nuclear weapons? Holy crap.
I’ve especially never gotten idiot liberals’ opposition to missile defense. Other countries have nuclear missiles. We don’t want to get hit by nuclear missiles. So let’s make a defense to nuclear weapons.
No? That would be warmongering? Not wanting to get hit by nuclear weapons is warmongering? Are you retarded?
I thought conservatives were supposed to be anti-science or something, but liberals seem to be quite against the logical progression of technology when it’s, you know, useful.
Anyway, as I’ve said before, I really think Obama is the weaker of the two Democrat candidates.
So anyone have any idea when and where this video comes from?
(hat tip Pork & Beans)
UPDATE:
Here’s the same statement straight from Obama’s campaign. To think I actually gave him the benefit of the doubt that he wasn’t that stupid.
I guess he really hopes we’ll never be attacked, otherwise be prepared for some violent change!
I Say If You Want a Sub One Star Rating, Bad Puns Are the Way to Go
You hear about that new feline rapper?
Continue reading ‘I Say If You Want a Sub One Star Rating, Bad Puns Are the Way to Go’ »