Kappa Kappa Gremlin Meeting, After Classes, Monday [ 10/04 ].

[daventryprince.livejournal.com]

When the ever so distinguished members of the Kappa Kappa Gremlin filed into the classroom for their meeting today, they would see, laid out before them, a very glorious sight.

How glorious?

Glorious in that sort of way that only a massive tub of vanilla ice cream could possibly be, particularly when it came with all the fixins... And then some.

"Heya, guys!" Zack was doing that bouncing thing again, and he hadn't even gotten into the ice cream yet! "Last week, Ben and I got into a little bit of a discussion about ice cream and what it goes good with, and through the course of the week, it kinda got me thinking... What does it go good with? What ice cream flavors are awesome, and what should we never, ever put on our tongues? And then I thought... Hey, I know a good way to find out!"

Fear. It looked like some of those fixins included crazy-moddable things like pizza pockets and bacon among the usual sprinkles-and-berries fare. It looked as though somebody had just ransacked one of the common rooms for anything edible that happened to be sitting in the cupboards and fridges before heading to the meeting.

It had been way, way too much. "We figured," offered Alexander, "that one thing we could easily do for ourselves and those around us is to explore these ice cream possibilities and remember them for posterity." Yes, that was a very nice way to spin this, Alexander, indeed. "We could perhaps even turn it into a little competition, with Constable Fraser casting the final vote on the most innovative ice cream sundae of them all. Besides, if your weekend was anything like mine, you're a bit in need of something on the lighter, more enjoyable side of things."

"So, everyone grab a spoon and dig in!"


[[ OCD on the way! is up! Ice cream yourself silly ]]

Macro-tactics, Monday

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

"Scaling back from the more obviously practical things," Kerrigan said, eyes darting around the class, challenging anyone to even think of the weekend. "We're going to be starting in on resource management. Because it doesn't matter how much firepower you personally have - if you haven't got money, food, or water, you are SOL. The first thing you're going to need to do if you go to war is figure out exactly how much you're going to be out on food and water, blankets and tents. The more men you employ, the more resources you're going to be out on. Sometimes, that's an argument towards keeping on a smaller, cleverer force."

Or you could just go Zerg and acquire an endless supply of dispensible labour, but... "So that's number one." She wrote it up on the blackboard. "Secondly, what guns do you have at your disposal? How much is it going to cost you to manufacture enough for your entire army? If you have specialist units, how much does their equipment cost? Thirdly, transportation costs - are your guys walking, or do you have some form of transportation that's more effective but costs you more? Fourth - communications. One of the most important resources at your disposal. How much cash are you going to lose on making sure you can stay in contact with all your man? And, of course, everyone's favourite fifth: R&D. Are you going to attempt to create new weapons to more quickly overpower the enemy, or will you be pumping all of your money into your standing forces, and hope simple numbers will overwhelm any attempts at creativity from the other side?"

She tapped the blackboard. "All of these things you have to consider before you go to war," she said. "And all of them define the strategy you're going to use. Think long and hard about what you're good at, and how much money or other resources you've got at your disposal. Nobody wins a war with nothing."

"Now, I want you all to pick a partner. Talk about what makes your people strong, what you'd focus on when engaging in a war. What points would you have to spend on, and what points would you cut at? And remember: bad prep can lose a war. Good prep doesn't necessarily win it. Get to it."

Library, Monday (10/4)

[ancientbschamp.livejournal.com]

If there was a little bit of a sad-puppy look hanging about Gabrielle today, could you really blame her? Yes, it was a relief that the hectic crowds were gone now, but that meant Xena was gone too, and . . .

Sigh. At least she had the books to somewhat console her.

But only somewhat.

Introduction to Personal Weaponry [Monday, second period]

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

This week the first thing most people would notice as they arrived was that one of the walls was covered with targets. Nothing fancy, just big circles with bulls-eyes.

"Using your brilliant observational skills, I'm sure that some of you have already guessed the topic of today's class: throwing things." Max grinned. "As with any fighting technique, there are advantages and disadvantages to throwing things at people."

"Advantage one." Max grabbed a baseball from his desk and sent it sailing toward the wall. He wasn't really aiming, so he was lucky to hit a target at all. "You can hit someone from a pretty fair distance. Farther away than they're going to be able to hit you with a sword or a spear or something for sure."

"Advantage two." This time Max grabbed a... computer printer? He sent that toward the targets as well. "You can throw just about anything. That isn't to say that just anything makes a good weapon for throwing, but it does make it a flexible sort of skill to have."

"The main disadvantages are that anything you throw, you're no longer holding, so if you throw your sword you're suddenly unarmed; no matter how good you are, a thrown weapon never hits with as much power as one you're holding; and throwing stuff takes a lot of practice to get right. A lot of practice. And each different thing you throw requires you to relearn your techniques all over again."

"There are two main ways to throw things, differentiated by which axis they rotate around in the air." Max grabbed a knife and held it up. "Knives are common thrown weapons, and they rotate end-to-end when thrown properly." He tossed the knife upward to let it flip a few times before catching it by the blade. "The trick to throwing this sort of weapon is to get very familiar with the way they fly. You have to learn how to control the rotation so that no matter how far away your target is, the blade hits point-first. Because if you're going to give up your weapon, it better be effective." Max threw the blade hard enough to bury it in the target. "Like that. Not like this." He grabbed another knife and threw it just as hard, but this time it hit sideways and clattered to the floor.

"You use this technique for most small objects," Max explained, grabbing another baseball. "For one thing, most weapons aren't balanced around their center point which makes this more awkward. On top of that, if something gets too big then the time it takes to flip end-for-end gets too long and the chance of you hitting with the pointy end goes down. Also, something the size of a spear would be pretty awkward to throw like this." He hurled the ball at one of the targets.

"Which brings us to the other technique, which is rotating along the longest axis of the weapon." Max grinned and grabbed a spear. "The spear is a pretty classic example of this sort of thing," he explained, hefting it in his hands and spinning it a few times to demonstrate. "But you can actually use this for a number of different things. Like the polearms we looked at last week," Max smirked, "or swords."

To demonstrate, Max grabbed a long sword and shifted his grip so that he was holding it backwards, blade extending out from the bottom of his fist. He drew it up to his ear, holding it like a spear that had lost its shaft, and threw it. It spun as it flew forward, drilling into the target.

"And, finally, I should mention that some weapons are specifically designed to be thrown. Since this involves rebalancing them for smooth and stable flight, it's very rare for a weapon of this type to be as effective when it's not thrown. The perfect balance for throwing is not the perfect balance for fighting."

"Okay, that's enough talking. Today's activity is for each of you to pick a moddable weapon and spend the rest of the period practicing with it. Remember, it takes time to get comfortable with a specific object, so it's going to take some time. You're welcome to ask for help or offer advice to one another, too."

French Study Group. The Library, Late Monday Afternoon.

[icecoldfrost]

"You all survived the weekend," Emma commented, looking over her classmates with a smirk. "Nicely done."

No, there would be no commenting on her weekend, thank you.

"So we're going to take it easy today. France is known for its love of culture, so today we came up with some useful words and phrases, and I brought a few CDs if you want to listen to French music."

"You probably shouldn't sing along," Sookie added helpfully. "At least, not yet."

Not that she had attempted to. Shhh.

"As far as basic phrases go, we've got a little cheat sheet for y'all, too. I like comme ci, comme ça the best, just 'cause it's fun to say."

"So grab a friend and practice, or just enjoy some music," Emma said. "And for those of you that feel adventurous, we have music-related vocabulary, too, and some kid's songs used to teach French to non-speakers."