Wednesday, May 30, 2007, 20:30 - Monthly Quote
May's almost done, but before we move into June it's time for the quote of the month! This one's from our favorite physicist:
"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
-Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
In other news, Fedora 7 is coming out TOMORROW! I'm pretty sure you're not nearly as excited as I.
Hope May has treated you well.
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Thursday, May 24, 2007, 16:15 - General
May is winding down a bit, and although I missed the ides (because of extensive and stressfull testing) I won't miss the qoute this month, so watch out for that coming up.Anyway, felt like posting again on thenr because it's been so long. I've got some plans in store for the site this summer. Mainly, KS IV but also, I'm going to brush up on my php and when I release the second installation of Motubu's Mansion, it will surely enough be in php instead of html. "But how will that affect me?" you may say. PHP means that the game can be scripted to be much more interactive, for example, you can pick up objects in the game for use later, your actions in the game will be recorded and will affect the outcome - pretty neat, huh? Wish me luck with that.
Also, on a more personal note, I've been curious about trying out a linux distribution. Fedora 7 is coming out May 31st and I'm thinking of installing it. It's a completely free linux-based operating system. If you use linux and have any tips please feel free to email me or leave a comment, and if you're new to linux and want to learn more like me, then we have much to chat about.
Before I leave you I was just wondering what my viewer(s) thought of KS III! So, please, leave comments about that and also ideas you may have for KS IV. And so far, who's your favorite character? That's always one I wonder about.
That's about it for now, and stay posted for the quote of the month.
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Saturday, May 5, 2007, 15:25 - Top Five
It's been a while, I know, lots of work has been bogging me down. At least I had time to get KS III out and of course post another great picture of a kitty kat.It's the fifth of the May today, so that means two things: Happy Cinco de Mayo, and Top Five! This month's top five shall be showcasing the top five video games. Now, I know that's hard to do, so I will be excluding a lot of games, which you might believe deserve a spot on the top five, given that there are so many games. The following list is in no particular order.
Top Five Video Games
Super Smash Bros. (N64 Version)
FIFA (the year doesn't matter)
Mario Tennis (N64 Version)
Mario Kart (N64 Version)
Call of Duty (whatever version makes you happy)
It's hard to argue with that list, but if you think you want to give it a shot then leave a comment!
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Monday, April 16, 2007, 19:24 - General, Jokes/Humor
Forgive me! I have missed several deadlines in the month of April. But I'll bounce back with a quote of the month. For the past week and a little I was visiting the wonderful capital of the Czech Republic - Prague (or as they spell it in Czech "Praha"). It was a great experience and the city was beautiful, full of history and wonderful architecture right on the banks of the Vltova River - definitely somewhere I recommend. However, mastery of their language is quite difficult, as it poses an array of consonants, tricky accents and other such aberrations.Hopefully I can redeem my missed posts with another raunchy kitten photo (thanks to http://www.dropline.net/cats/ - got a favorite cat pic? email it and it could pop up in the next article):
;)
Enjoy April, currently I am "unearthing" some ancient Kenya Story which means perhaps another short story in the near future.
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Saturday, March 17, 2007, 16:17 - Stories
***This is a fictional story, No offence to Kenya, Kenyans, Reconnaissance, Golden Cashews, Egyptians, and Sailors ***
A Naveed Rabbani Short Story
Chapter 1
It's been smooth sailing now for a little over two weeks, but still we have no bearings as to where we are located. After all, we're bound to wash up somewhere, but until we come into contact with civilization it seems we're on our own.
"Eh, Cap'n!" Shamus fell in from the hatch, leaving his position on deck. "Weather's a pain today, Cap', can't see a thing, the fog's thicker than the water."
"Keep a close eye, and make sure to steer clear of any danger, we're in no conditions to engage into any adventures now." I had to be quite frank. The new ship with which we escaped the island with was no dream, and of course, it came with limited supplies. Times were tough, and we've been rationing food now for the past few days.
I heard a muffled call from deck, my head quickly turned to the blinking radio light.
"We're surrounded!"
More commotion above, as footsteps scurried back and forth. "What do you reckons got into them?" Keiran interjected from the shadowed corner of the room.
I didn't respond.
The hatch opened once again. "Cap'n! Cap'n!" Shamus's familiar call rang through the room, "Cap'n, we're surrounded. The Egyptians! They're all around us. We couldn't tell, the fog was too thick – and, and we just sailed right into the thick of their fleet.
"What do we do, Cap'n?"
Keiran gave me a troubled look; what was I to do? What was I to say? Sailing into the center of an Egyptian armada is no trivial accomplishment.
"Roll up the white flag," I responded solemnly.
"Ay? Go down without a fight?" Keiran rose and came to the center of the room. "I tell you what, I didn't come here with the intentions of surrendering, and I'm not going to work my goddamn arse off at sea just to go down like this. I am not going down without a fight!"
"Roll up the white flag," I reconfirmed, "tell Michael to roll it up."
Keiran shut the hatch in defiance, and ran over to the radio. He loosened the dial and static sounded in and out.
"This is Keiran Furlong of the USS Kenya, do you copy?"
Nothing but static.
"What the bloody hell are you doing? That's an order - raise the flag!" I called out hoarsely, walking in the wake of the defiant Lieutenant Commander.
"I repeat, this is Keiran Furlong of the USS Kenya, do you copy?" Keiran's hope lay in the hands of a single, abandoned radio, as he continued to yell into the receiver.
Static. Outside the guns started, and our ship rocked violently in the shelling. Panic had stricken the crew.
"This is Lieutenant Commander Keiran Furlong, do you copy!"
"Lieutenant Commander?" A worried voice called over the intercom, but it was soon overcome by the static, which was followed by a convincing yell.
"INCOMING!"
Chapter 2
"Ay, keep moving." The Egyptian seaman prodded the crew with bayonets as he led us to our cozy cells aboard the flagship of the adversary's navy.
"Och, this'll only be for a little while," Pat spoke optimistically as his cell door was latched in. They had us divided into groups of two per cell: Michael and Shaun, Patrick and Shamus, and lastly, Keiran and I.
"Captain's gonna want to talk to you fellas soon, so just sit tight." The guard warned us. Keiran made an intrigued face, and the captain entered the scene.
"Keiran, something wrong?" The heat had cooled down a bit since our quarrel on the second USS Kenya. We were bombarded immediately after he radioed base, the ship was torn into ruins, no surrender and no going down with a fight – nobody got their way, and now we were prisoners.
"Nothing, really, just thought I recognized that guy," he responded preoccupied, busy calculating the situation and that's when it struck me, we've been held captive just too many times, Zorgoth wasn't going to cut us a break anytime soon.
"Ah, Welcome aboard, isn't this ship a beaut?" The Captain spoke finally, after patrolling our cell doors for a few rounds. He paced back and forth in an intimidating fashion. "Don't you worry about leaving this place, you'll have a long and pleasant stay in Cairo, I guarantee it." With a smirk the captain left just as quickly as he had come.
"Eh, what a pointless visit," Keiran muttered from the corner of the cell. Why was it that he was always in the corner of the room?
"What makes you say so?" I responded quickly keeping in mind the atrocious stories that made it home about soldiers stuck in the Cairo POW facilities.
"We're getting off this bloody ship."
"Keiran don't be ridiculo—"
"No," he seemed almost offended, "I know that guard; he's going to get us out of here."
Night fell upon the proud Egyptian vessel as we sailed quietly to hell, with not even the faintest clue of our location – at least we made contact with civilization… kind of.
* * * * *
"Psst," Keiran whispered to the only guard on duty at that ungodly hour in the night, the 'super guard' that was apparently going to get us out of here.
The moonlight faintly shimmered past the vertical bars of our confining cells creating a pallid, striped pattern on the wooden deck below us. The crew was more or less asleep or half-conscious, only the mysterious guard seemed to be fully alert and the captain was nowhere in sight. Every once in a while, though, we heard a creak of footsteps from the deck above.
My weary eyes dragged on from the crew, most of them asleep then to Keiran and then focused on the back of the guard's hideous Egyptian uniform – he faced away from us as he spoke.
"Aye?" the guard responded, acknowledging Keiran with a nod.
"You're the one, aren't you?" Keiran spoke back. I didn't know he swung that way. "You're the guard that left the cutlass for me when the other Egyptian ship sunk." Wait, never mind, this wasn't as romantic as I first judged it to be.
"Aye, you've got a good memory. What's your point?" The guard's tone was flat.
"Think you could help us out on this one?" Keiran popped the question.
The guard contemplated the request for a little bit. "Okay, looks like you've got a party of six and there are 4 emergency rowboats on this flagship, each fitting four people. If I help you out this time I'm going to need to come with you though, so four to one boat, and three to another, because this will blow my cover."
"Blow your cover?"
"Aye, Kenyan spy, four years running."
Och, Motubu (The Kenyan Head of Intelligence – KIA) at last got one of our own men in the thick of it. The Kenyan reconnaissance has finally breached the Egyptian ranks – it's about bloody time!
Chapter 3
"C'mon, off your lazy arse, we're getting the hell oota here!" Michael tried his best to wake Shamus, probably drunk out of his wits. The rest of the crew had awoken and assembled ready for instructions from the guard.
Finally, half-dragging Shamus, we crept up on deck, not a soul was stirring above deck and we were safe to escape. From his pocket fell four cashews, an odd thing to keep as a traveling companion, but I respected him and recollected them from the floor, placing them back into his right side pocket.
"Eh, over here!" The guard hustled us into the rowboats: Keiran, Patrick, the guard and I in the first one and Shamus, Shaun, and Michael into the other.
The rowboats sharply disturbed the nighttime silence as they flopped unto the salty abyss of water. Our insignificant, little, wooden boats were enveloped by the vast expanse of the purple colored ocean ahead. The eerie reflection of the moonlight off the slow ripples illuminated the fog above, these made for horrible steering conditions, but auspicious escaping conditions!
"Let's row."
* * * * *
I must have just slipped out of consciousness for a second when I closed my eyes, but our surroundings seemed oddly unfamiliar, of course, it was hard to tell when all you can see for miles is nothing but water.
"We must have covered a lot of ground through the night," I commented, trying my best not to tip the boat as I stretched.
"Och," Patrick inched to consciousness. "Where are the others?" The rest of our crew members were nowhere to be found.
"Aye, the rest of them fell behind, they'll be sure to catch up soon – we're landing on that excuse for an island over there." The guard, who earlier revealed his name to be Sergeant Matthew Gaffing referred to the faint island ahead, poking its hilly head over the horizon.
Land! My Zorgoth, land!
* * * * *
"Hey, what's all this then?" Shaun awoke miles away, disturbed by his surroundings. He hopelessly searched the horizon for any signs of his comrades. "We've lost them completely," he finally muttered depleted, defeated, and depressed.
"We've got to keep rowing," Michael interject, bringing them back to focus. "Shamus," he turned his head, the third crew member was at the ready, rowing with a terrible hangover, "let's move out."
So my comrades continued on straight, I guess we were lucky, because by chance they were shadowing our path.
Chapter 4
"Where are we?" Keiran tugged his legs off the rowboat onto the smooth shoreline of the arriving island. The lone rock was hilly in the center as it tapered off towards the coast into sandy beeches and exotic, fruit-bearing trees.
"A lost island here off of Kenya, the Egyptians never check it – it's where I've set up base." Sgt. Gaffing responded quickly.
"So, you've really thought this through, huh?"
"Oh, yeah." He sounded a bit odd, but I'm guessing it was all the pressure from his reconnaissance.
"You guys stay here, I've gotta run up and check something, but I'll be back soon."
And so just like that, the Sergeant was gone leaving our half of the crew alone. The calming waves crashed quietly against the sandy shoreline and the trees gave us the impression of a tropical getaway.
"What do you reckons happened to the rest of the crew?" I asked, comfortably crouched on the beach.
"I don't think there's any time to worry about that," Keiran pointed towards the hills.
I swear I spotted an intricate system of tunnels, leading from one cave to another in the hills, a complicated headquarters for a Kenyan spy – but we were deceived. Upon the hills was a hostile looking tribe of Natives awaiting us armed with blunt-spears and contradicting, complex gadgets.
Och, 'twas all a hoax.
"Welcome, MacKenna. Welcome to my lair," The tribe swiftly advanced on us, with 'Gaffing' behind them. The guard removed his fake teeth and fully unclothed his disguise. The real man beneath was all too familiar.
I couldn't help but let out a gasp, "Jaysus, Flannigan, you just don't give up."
* * * * *
"Ay! Land ahead!" Shamus called, in the most sober voice of the day.
The other half of the crew rowed vigorously, with land in their site they were rejuvenated with motivation.
"Take a look at that," Michael observed the empty row boat on the island, "looks like the boat MacKenna and crew were on before they rowed ahead of us. But oddly enough it's empty."
After a few moments they landed on the same shore. Michael again, quickly pointed out their comrade's footsteps in the sand: "It looks like they went with a crowd, but this is all too suspicious."
"Aye," Shaun replied quickly calculating the situation, "Shamus, you stay here on guard, Michael and I will scope the perimeter."
"Sure thing, lad."
Chapter 5
"You've reached an all-time low, Flannigan." I spurted out as the tribesmen pushed us into our cave-dwelling cells.
"You don't get it do you, MacKenna?" Flannigan spat back, "I will finish you, and I will find the golden cashew."
I pondered the second part of the sentence – the golden cashew? It rang a bell, the antidote to my 'poisonous' hamburger on the island just a few months back. Did it have any real importance?
"What if you don't succeed?"
"I don't think that will be in an issue." Flannigan shut the cell doors and was almost on his way out.
"Ey!" Keiran called from the corner of his cell, "The golden cashew, what's so great about it?" Keiran wasn't with me when I consumed the 'poisonous' burger, but for some reason his voice implied that he was familiar with the subject.
"What's so great about it?" Flannigan paced back to the cell. "You poor, ignorant seamen; I pity you." He paused, "The golden cashew is none other but the most sought-after jewel in all of Kenya."
Great, a prophecy.
"The one who finds the golden cashew is deemed the 'chosen one' and it all links to these tribesmen's ridiculous cult of Zorgoth. But that doesn't matter, whether you believe in Zorgoth or not, when I find this golden cashew, they will think I'm a god, they will fight bravely for me, and that's enough men to turn this war around, MacKenna. It will be the tide-turner I need for Mother England to finally defeat the Kenyans. Do you understand? I will be immortalized!"
I thought of the situation, the waging war between Egypt, England, Kenya and Ireland was in a delicate equilibrium now. The Egyptians had penetrated the shore, and their forces have been deadlocked outside of Nairobi for months now. The Irish have been losing naval battles to the English and Egyptians, while the Kenyans are just barely holding off the Egyptians on land. Any more momentum in favor of the enemy would quite frankly put this war beyond repair. If Flannigan spoke the truth, it all came down to the golden cashew – whoever could successfully win over the fancy of the islander tribesmen would most definitely win the war.
"You're full of it," Keiran responded coldly, but he turned to me with worried eyes. Did he know about the cashew all along?
"Believe what you must, but I have work to do, turns out Cleopatra's got a hand in the quest for the cashew as well." With that said Flannigan walked away, but quickly added before leaving, "Of course, prior to finding the golden cashew I will have to complete my first mission, which is getting you out of the way, MacKenna."
Only a little while passed when Keiran finally broke the silence, "We need to get out of here and find that cashew before he does. I didn't think others knew about it, but he's right. If he or the Egyptians get it, we're done, the war is over and Kenya will fall."
His apocalyptic prediction was unsettling. What made it all worse was that the Egyptian Queen, Cleopatra, was in the running as well, and she would want nothing more than the fall of Kenya. "What are we supposed to do, what do you expect me to do, Keiran? This is what, the tenth time we've been taken prisoner. I can't do everything."
He rose up, "It was your old arse that got us into this damn problem and it better be your old arse that gets us out, Captain!"
"Och, we need to get mighty lucky but your feuding won't help anyone get anywhere." Patrick quickly called from the cell nearby. It was odd how, although Keiran and I may not always get along, everyone respected Pat.
* * * * *
A little while away Flannigan was preparing a magnificent fire in his headquarters' main room. It was an odd flame set in the middle of a large bamboo structure with his many tribesmen surrounding the proximity. It was as if they revered him like a god.
Chapter 6
"Hey, what's that up there?" Shaun pointed to a faint, dancing light in the distance. He and Michael had reached the top of the hill and down beneath in the center valley of the island was a peculiar bamboo building emitting a yellowish light.
"I don't know, but I think it's important; seems to me the only building on this island." Michael responded, eyeing each cave wondering if perhaps his comrades were in any of them. "Let's go down and see what the deal is."
They climbed cautiously, not wanting to be heard, but the tribesmen personnel was elsewhere; they had nothing to worry about yet.
Quickly and quietly they ran to meet the bamboo building, but cautiously boarded a nearby tree, before going all the way down to the building. Perched above the exotic-fruit bearing tree they observed the pseudo-valley.
"Check that out, shadows in the bamboo building," Michael whispered, he had always been the observant one.
"Aye, and look, those three are moving – reckon it could be them?" Shaun pointed to three familiar shadows. "We've got to move in closer."
Unfortunately, a little while away at the shore an unsuspecting Shamus was soon discovered.
* * * * *
"I like how you've decorated the place," Keiran scoffed as Flannigan led them from their cells into the adorned bamboo palace. A fire was prancing about the center as the walls were lined with tribesmen.
"I'd like you all to witness the greatest sacrifice of the season!" Flannigan placed us all in shackles and lined us up before the fire, with tribesmen marking our every move. "Remember, MacKenna, the cashew fields? Remember the great sacrificial pit? I've recreated it all, my tribesmen think I'm the chosen one and I must quell their God! Zorgoth hungers for blood, yours especially, MacKenna. You've been a royal pain in the arse thus far, but I will never go without finishing an assignment."
I squirmed just a bit.
"Any last words, Captain?" Flannigan's hollow voice echoed against the bamboo balls. From the corner of my eye I caught Keiran staring towards the ceiling with an odd expression. He was last in line, so I figure he hadn't quite grasped the seriousness of the situation. But I couldn't help but wondering what had captured his fascination. Surely enough, in the very corner of the ceiling, I caught the silhouette of a familiar comrade.
"Is that Shaun?" I whispered in awe.
"What?" Flannigan blurted out.
"I," I hesitated, "er said, 'bring it on!'"
Flannigan gave me a nasty look and ordered the tribesmen about in some foreign tongue. They were closing in on us, and my skin sweat from the nearby fire's intense heat.
"Know what I'm gonna do after you've been fried, MacKenna? I'm gonna get me a golden cashew! Ha ha!" Flannigan whipped out a piece of paper, "look at that, I've already got where to start. A little puzzle, but nothing's too hard for Flannigan."
I caught a quick glimpse of the paper, the letters were etched into my eyes, if it was the last thing I did, I would remember that first clue.
KUILE + EANFR = RRONN
ROºEast FºSouth
Chapter 7
In the near distance there was an exchange between tribesmen, a quick dialogue in some foreign tongue, but Shamus was oblivious to it all. Just recently he had discovered a rather aged cashew and along with the sea water it was swimming in the nut had performed a fermenting phenomenon.
"Don't see what harm a little cashew could do," Shamus whispered to himself, sipping the fermented cashew water in his hand, and then going for the cashew itself. Lo and behold, cashews yield some of the most powerful alcohols – enough to make any recovering alcoholic its prisoner.
A handful of tribesmen approached the intoxicated Shamus, yelling at him in some foreign tongue. Shamus was numb.
"You boys just don't seem to shut up," he whispered in a daze, "I've got just the thing that'll calm you down." From his pocket the sailor pulled out three more fermenting cashews, quite a treat. He handed them out to each tribesmen as they shared some confused looks. "Go ahead, this one's on me!"
* * * * *
Michael and Shaun continued to move swiftly towards the bamboo building. There was an odd opening at the top, and a tower sticking from the east side, almost as if the building had an oddly shaped tumor.
"There, that's money right there," Shaun pointed to the tower, "that's our entry point." There was no affirmative response from Michael, and so Shaun turned around to find his partner was no longer with him. His eyes dashed from one side to the other, scoping the forest land. Depending on how long ago Michael had left, there may be no chance of finding him now. Regardless, however, Shaun drew his knife (every INN sailor was equipped with the regulation sized knife).
A faint rustling of leaves echoed in the distance along with a gruesome howling of pain from the bamboo house.
* * * * *
"Bloody hell that smarts!" I let out a gruesome howl of pain.
"Aye, let fire cleans your soul, MacKenna. Let it cleans your damned soul." Flannigan scoffed.
"My arse, Flannigan!"
We three prisoners had been organized now, in some sort of death assembly line. Ahead of us was the fire, continuing to burn with its initial ferocity. It had just reached my attention that this fire, though, was covering up a much deeper ditch below it, our final destination once we were pushed into the flames.
Damnit Shaun where are you…
* * * * *
"Michael!" Shaun whispered. His eyes followed the sound of the rustling leaves and soon caught a glimpse of the swaying tall grass. "You're mine now." He set off in a full sprint, knife first.
Before he knew it, he'd reached the entry point of the bamboo building. Up above in the tower there was some muffled quarrelling. Shaun grabbed the ladder before him and climbed up quickly, letting out the most untamed war-cry.
"Michael get down!" He sprung into the tower and dug his vorpal blade into the first flesh that met him. Wait – that's not flesh.
After a few moments Shaun returned to reality, there he was, standing dumbfounded at the top of a bamboo tower with his knife dug deep into a heavy twig. "What's all this then?" the sailor whimpered.
"I'm glad you could make it," Michael called, pulling Shaun's knife out of the primitive, twig weapon he had found laying auspiciously on the ground. "Thought the tribesmen had gotten to me, eh? Well they would have, but I know how to defend myself," he lifted the club-like, heavy twig in his hand. "This baby's more dangerous than it looks."
"Aye, Zorgoth's with us on this one, isn't he?" Shaun sighed, realizing how close he had come to stabbing his partner. "No time for wasting though, we've got to penetrate this building!"
* * * * *
"Better luck in the next life, MacKenna. Count yourself lucky that you won't be here to watch Nairobi fall." Flannigan continued his campaign of trash talk, as the fire burned through my toes. Despite the hell-like pain, I tried my best to keep a strong face. Surely anything was better than this.
Patrick turned away at every whimper of pain I let out; even he was beginning to lose all hope. But for some reason, Keiran continued to keep his cool. He gave me an assuring nod a moment before I received Flannigan's death penalty.
"Alright boys, I've seen enough of this old man," the British spy pointed with disgust towards me. "You," he signaled to an eager tribesmen, "finish him."
I turned to watch my deliverer, a fiery-eyed, ambitious, young man. Ignorant but loyal, determined but corrupted. In the last few moments of my life it was all I could think about, all I could do was keep my eyes glued on the one who would kill me, just another unknown, unimportant man. He had accelerated to a jog now, his hand half outstretched to deliver my final push into hell. Fancy that, I would go with him, I promised, a thousand crazy thoughts fished through my mind, it was all I could muster up, the last few moments were blurred, slow-motion, and in all of this Keiran flashed me a smile.
Are you insane? I'm two steps away from dying and you smile!
The young man had but one more step to reach me for the final push, when suddenly his face went blank, his arms fell to his side, and his body limped, lost control and keeled over into the fire before me. I caught a quick glimpse of his backside as he fell harmlessly to my right, and found there an INN regulation-sized knife lodged just centimeters from his spine.
"What's this blasphemy?" Flannigan called in a fit of rage.
A moment later, Shaun and Michael rolled in from one of the doorways into the main room, Michael wielding a blunt, rather primitive wooden weapon, and Shaun still marveling over his perfect shot. "The show's over!" Michael called, a smile running across his face.
Quickly the tribesmen advanced on us. In the frenzy of the moment Michael dipped his weapon into the fire, and swung it dangerously near any approaching adversaries. "Sorry, boys, but it's time for us to go." Shaun, wishing he had his knife back, helplessly watched Michael, as he strutted about the bamboo foyer, unarmed.
"Better luck next time, Flannigan!" I called, feeling rejuvenated by my dramatic rescue. The five of us moved towards the back wall, as Michael set it aflame; it was a matter of seconds before we broke through the burning embers of the wall.
"And just to make sure none of you come back, I'm leaving a gift for you all," as everyone sprinted out the hole, Michael tossed his torch-like weapon to the middle of the bamboo floor. Never before had I seen a building burn down so fast, as the magnificent, golden fire enveloped the unsuspecting bamboo dungeon.
* * * * *
We sprinted in unison; this must have been the quickest I've ever run. And in the background we could hear the muffled screams of frustration and failure from Flannigan and his crew. I looked back just in time to watch the whole building behind us collapse in a confusion of ashes and embers. Suddenly, the island went quiet again, with just the calming noise of the hungry flames feeding on the island's foliage.
The shore was nearby, and now the symphony of the fire was joined by another song. The five of us emerged from the bushes unto the sandy coast, just meters away from our boat, and there it was right before us: Shamus and three tribesmen singing hand in hand in what was the most flamboyant violation of Shamus' twelve step alcohol recovery process that I had ever witnessed.
"Good Zorgoth," Michael let out a gasp. The crew quickly cleared the area, as we said our goodbyes to the drunken tribesmen.
"What's this?" Shamus called in a loose, drunken voice, "we're leaving already? But the fun had just begun!"
Some moments passed as the six of us jammed ourselves into the small rowboat, originally meant for four. There was no way we would take two separate boats this time. So once again, we set sail from a foreign island far from home. Naturally, we renamed our rowboat the "USS Kenya III".
"Well where are we off to now, Captain?" Keiran addressed me, squirming between sailors.
"The answer is simple, my friend." I watched the barren rock slowly drift away from us. The moonlight created an eerie reflection across the slow ripples of the calm waters, illuminating the fog above. An odd summertime resort, if you asked me. I had become so accustomed to the sea now, so used to island hopping, that I might have forgotten my true home, and although I longed once again to return to Kenya, I knew what we must do first.
"We've got to skip from island to island until we find the golden cashew, we have no other choice – the fate of Kenya rests upon our shoulders, and although my memory may be dwindling away with my youth, I still vividly remember the first clue, which Flannigan flashed before my eyes." I rested my hand upon Keiran's shoulder, "Are you willing to put up with this 'old arse' of a Captain for just a little longer, Lieutenant Commander Furlong?"
"Aye, it'd be an honour."
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Thursday, March 15, 2007, 21:06 - ASCII Art Gallery
So, we're back in the grove with the animations! This month I've got a special animation for you all. But first, let's take a moment of silence for one of our site's best friends: Julius Caesar. On a lighter note, best of luck to all of you who have participated in bracket contests for March Madness.The following is a tribute to Julius Caesar and March Madness, I call it "Ballin'!":
"Ballin'!"
That thing goes on for a long time, the first to witness the end of the animation wins a golden cashew.
Also, the Kenya Story III is coming out on ST. PATRICK'S DAY! THAT'S IN TWO DAYS! Get psyched.
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Monday, March 5, 2007, 20:12 - News/Politics, Top Five
This month's top five is a little more scholarly and in fact is no longer opinion. Hope you learn something interesting from today's depressing yet true top five deadliest battles - and these ARE in order.Top Five Deadliest Battles
Battle of Stalingrad (1942-3) - WWII Eastern Front - 1,530,000+ killed or wounded
Siege of Leningrad (1941-44) - WWII Eastern Front - 1,500,000 killed
Siege of Betar (135) - Bar Kokhba's revolt - 500,000 casualties
Warsaw Uprising (1944) - WWII Eastern Front - 250,000+ killed
Battle of Berlin (1945) - WWII Eastern Front - 230,000+ killed
SOURCE: wikipedia.org
You can see a WWII Eastern Front pattern, and then of course the usual 100 AD revolt here and there.
I've been extremely busy lately so there has been a halt on the third Kenya Story, but don't worry, there's less than one chapter left!
Enjoy March.
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