Food Appreciation [Week 12, Period 4, Mon. 11/22]

[suit-of-awesome.livejournal.com]

This week, there was no strange, slouching professor waiting for the students when they entered the Danger Shop. Instead, they were faced with the most amazing, most spectacularly coiffed, most - dare we say - Awesome Dean of Students known to Fandom. "Never fear," he announced loudly after all had arrived, "my young and impressionable students, Barney Stinson is here!" He enjoyed the fanfare and was all about keeping things interesting. For himself.

"Your normal professor - what's his name? The kid with the silly hair? Whatever, he's not here. Apparently food is better where he's from and rather than deal with getting a portal later in the week, he's already airport-bound. Slacker. So, what am I, your illustrious Dean of Students doing teaching a class?" Barney left the question hanging in the air for a moment. "Yes, I find I'm wondering that myself. Bets are the office minions knew of my excellent taste in Thanksgiving feasts! That's right - our topic today is Thanksgiving. A holiday tradition started by some super old school bros known as Pilgrims who were saved by the attractive Natives of the otherwise hostile lands of...Massachusetts. Anyway, each year the people of America come together to break bread, watch football, and see a little Sunshine together while they discuss exactly what it is they're thankful for. You kids are likely going to be thankful for BUFFETS!"

As programmed, on the word 'buffets' the Danger Shop sprang to life, taking the form of a Thanksgiving themed strip club. It was all very PG-13. "Today you get to sample the cuisine of the pilgrims and the entertainment of my homeland. Lap dances are extra. Oh, and before you join the festivities, you have to tell the class one thing you're thankful for, I'll go first - I, Barnabus Stinson, am thankful not to be Canadian. Good? Now you go!" And he pointed to a student at random to begin.

Kappa Kappa Gremlin Meeting, After Classes, Monday [ 11/22 ].

[daventryprince.livejournal.com]

“I’d like to advise everyone not to fill up too much on the usual snacks,” Alexander started the meeting out with a faint grin. “You’ll see what I mean in a moment, but I think, especially since it’s been a nice, quiet weekend, we should start off with a little bit of business first, and that’s whether or not we’d actually want to do the date auction. It would be a good way to get money for next semester, and if we plan on having it during our last meeting on December 13, that gives us a chance to do something other than exams that week and take a nice lady,” and, there was a slight pause, a clearing of Alexander’s throat, “or gentleman...out before the start of winter break.”

“Unless,” he added, with another small cough, “we’d rather take Peter’s oil wrestling suggestion.”

Alexander looked rather like he’d be very displeased with anyone who’d rather take Peter’s oil wrestling suggestion.

Zack kinda preferred the date auction, himself. Pretty girls! Or guys! He wasn’t going to judge! What was not to love!

“And then when we’re done talking about that, you guys might have noticed that we’ve set out a bunch of cream pies here on this table! There’s a reason for that, and it’s totally not just casual snacking!” He crossed his arms over his chest and he grinned. “Today’s activity? Is a no-hands pie eating contest! Whoever can finish their pie first, with their hands clasped behind their back, totally wins... Uh...”

He actually hadn’t thought that far ahead about the prize.

“Another pie!”

Yeah! Best prize ever!

[[ wait for the OCD is up, please huzzah! ]]

Library, Monday (11/22)

[ancientbschamp.livejournal.com]

Gabrielle had, on her way in to work this morning, entertained notions of wandering off into the stacks and trying to dig up whatever information she could find on Dahak. It was a purely masochistic idea, and an epically bad one, but she was still in just enough of a morose mood to go along with it.

That, luckily, was an idea that got shelved (pun intended) as soon as she arrived, went to make the coffee, and stopped to put her own overly-sugared, steaming mug of caffeine on the desk before embarking on her self-flagellating research mission; a copy of the Mabinogion just happened to be on the desk in prominent view, and despite her recent bad associations with Britannia it caught her attention.

. . . which was how Gabrielle would end up spending large chunks of the rest of her day trying to figure out how to play gwyddbwyll instead. For whatever good that would do -- she was terrible at strategy games.

Introduction to Personal Weaponry [Monday, second period]

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

Today the Danger Shop had been set up with quite a bit more room than usual. There were still targets at the far end of the shooting range, but that far end was quite far indeed.

"Today we're going to focus on the most extreme edge of what might be considered 'personal' weapons," Max explained, reaching down behind his desk and coming up with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. "There is a limit to the size of a weapon someone can carry. You don't see anyone wandering around with catapults or cannons slung over their shoulder for good reason: they can't. The size and weight are just too much, not just to carry, but to handle. Imagine trying to aim a catapult at someone charging you with a sword."

"So we'll be looking at the heaviest and most unwieldy weapons available today, and discussing why they may, in some cases, be worth using." He held the RPG out so that it was easy to see. "There are two broad types of this sort of extremely heavy man-portable weapon. This is the first. Extremely powerful single-shot weapons like the rocket-propelled grenade launcher attempt to pack the maximum amount of power a man can carry into one shot in one weapon. One shot from this can take out an armored vehicle, or a small house. Which is great if you're opponents are inside either of those things." He grinned and set the weapon down on the desk. "On the flip side, trying to hit just one person with a weapon like this is extremely hard. And since it only has one shot and takes so much time to reload, there's a very good chance that you won't have time for a second shot before whoever you're dealing with is right on top of you." And that was bad.

"Which brings us to the other end of the way-too-big weapons spectrum." Max reached behind the desk again and pulled out an M2 Browning machine gun. "Heavy machine guns weigh a lot. This one weighs about 50 pounds," he explained. "So it's not exactly practical for running around with." He set the thing down on the desk with a thump. "But once you get one set up, it's a pretty bad idea for anyone to mess with you." With a few quick movements he managed to deploy the tripod on his desk and settle the gun.

"Weapons this size are often capable of shooting 10 bullets every second, and those bullets are huge." Max held up a hand thoughtfully, then extended his thumb. "The M2 here fires rounds the size of my thumb." And Max had huge thumbs. "Heavy machine guns are designed to shoot lots and lots of people very quickly and make sure they don't get back up. So unlike the RPG, you a single charging guy isn't a huge worry."

He grinned slightly. "Except for one thing. Bullets this big are heavy, and shooting this fast means you need a lot of the things. In fact, most weapons this size are considered to be for two-person teams because the gun itself is plenty heavy and someone has to carry fifty or sixty pounds of ammo."

Max waved toward the back of the room. "I know I say this every week, but seriously people, be careful with these. They pack about as much destruction as can be managed into a weapon a single person can use, so no playing around."

"You know the drill. Get to it."

French Study Group, Monday Afternoon

[icecoldfrost]

Sookie was looking quite a bit better than she'd been feeling, though she was sitting on a desk rather than standing as she usually did, and she lacked some of her normal perkiness. "Bonjour, mes amis," she greeted, waving. "Given the change in weather as we approach winter here, much as I protest, we figured we'd give you a way to complain about the rain and snow and all." Though Sookie could think of one person she knew who wouldn't be complaining one bit about the change in weather, and in fact would probably celebrate. Whatever, he didn't speak French, so ha.

He was also hideously biased on the subject, if you asked Emma.

"We've got your standard vocabulary sheets," Emma agreed. "See if you can figure out what Il fait un froid de canard means."

Macro-Tactics, Monday

[on-her-korhal.livejournal.com]

An itsy, bitsy spider had snuck onto Char, or close enough; minutes before class, Kerrigan had gotten the report on Zeratul's current movements, towards the dead body of the Overmind on her own home base. She, predictably, had feelings on the matter, and those feelings had a great deal to do with the importance of locating the wayward protoss over teaching this class.

So please excuse her if she didn't look entirely interested in you all today, children.

"I've fought with armies that had a minimal amount of manpower, and still managed to do great damage by thinking strategically," she said, "And I've served with armies that had an endless supply of men, and not a single creative thought between the lower ranks." Possibly because they were all mindless flesh-eating monster-bugs, but a la, you try explaining the zerg to anybody. "Before you put in some noble 'clearly the former won' shit, no, they didn't. A lot of the time, manpower will get you bad unless you know how to get some serious firepower otherwise."

A beat.

"That doesn't mean that occasionally, the enemy can't send a rogue entity past your lines, for a scouting method or suchlike, and go undetected. Take today as a case study. What would you recommend if you had an endless supply of disposable labour, and a flea in your pelt that none of them seem to manage to grasp?"

She pointed to the door.

"Or play the flea in the pelt and see how far it gets you."

Well, at least she was a woman with a plan today.