We all know a grammar Nazi. I used to be a bit of a grammar Nazi.
But was Postman Pat ever a Grammar Nazi?
BTW Grammar Nazis aren't actually Nazis. IT IS NOT A RACIST JOKE. It's just Grammar Nazi, plain and simple.
"Nach," I said to my aunt on Skype Chat. "No, it's nach" she said, correcting my pronounciation. "Nach?" "Nach." "Nach." "NACH" "Nach" "NACH! "Nach!" "No, softer. Nach." "Na." "NACH" "...I don't think I can speak german."
Some people don't know how Halo works. Yeah, I know, it's strange isn't it? How do you explain something like the Halo series?
We start by asking them to listen to this as they read the post:
The Basics of Halo
Who are you?
Spartan 117. The Master Chief. A Lean Green Killing Machine. You get to play as the last Spartan, who may or may not have a crush on a computer program called Cortana. You fight for the good of Earth and All Her Colonies, and talk in a deep voice radiating awesome.
...Unless you're playing Halo Reach, which is set BEFORE all the other Halo games, in a time when Spartans were as common as rabbits, where you get to play as Noble Six in a team of six soldiers on a dieing world.
...Or if you play Halo 3:ODST, where you play as an ODST, an Orbital-Drop-Shock-Trooper. Basically you're a sort-of-super-soldier who falls from the sky in a neat little pod to fight aliens.
...There are times when you get to play as Elites too.
Why am I killing Aliens?
Despite Halo being a sci-fi game, it doesn't start with the old Alines-Invade-Earth. Instead, the aliens invade a far off planet called Harvest, which had a human colony on it. There was some politics involved, and the Prophets apparently argued on wether or not to befriend the human race. They eventually decided that the humans blocked the Path and then tried to kill us all.
Prophets? Path? What is this?
Well Halo is a story of a Holy War. The first aliens are the Covenant. Various species (from small Grunts wearing triangular methane tanks on their back to looming suits of blue armour encasing worm colonies known as Hunters) all follow the laws of the Prophets, who claim to know the Path. The path leads god knows where, some say it makes everyone into a god, some say it takes them to paradise. Their religion is based on their understanding of artifacts left behind by the Forerunners (we'll get to those later).
There is also The Flood to contend with. Parasitic mushrooms of death which infect human and alien corpses alike to feed the Gravemind (imagine the plant from The Little Shop Of Horrors. Make it 10 times bigger, make it a fungus, and let it speak in doomy rhyme.) Everyone fights the Flood, and the Flood fights everyone.
Why is it called Halo?
Long ago there were some funky dudes called Forerunners. They had elaborate technologies and lived a Godlike existence. Then some evil fungus came along and ruined everything. The dreaded Flood spread from planet to planet in a way only diabolical mushrooms can. After fighting the Flood for centuries some dumb idiot said "Hey, if the Flood eats living things, all we need to do is cut of its feeding supply by KILLING EVERYBODY!"
A decision was reached, and the Forerunners made clones of all the animals on all the planets and put them in space pods to be launched on the detonation of the super weapons. Then they spread the gigantic super weapons all over space, so the Flood couldn't exist ANYWHERE. What did these super weapons look like? Giant metal rings larger than planets. The Halo Rings.
Once the forerunners spread everything out and got the repopulation plan ready, they went to the Arc and detonated all of the Halo Rings, killing themselves, all organic life and the Flood.
Their computer programs, Halos, ancient structures and other things were left behind. The Covenant find these things and think "Huh, these rings will bring about a Great Cleansing... Sounds like what we need for our eternal pilgrimage!" or "Hey, a floating computer thingy... Must be an Oracle!" and it is these misconceptions that make them want to kill humans, and indeed all existing life.
The Games:
Halo, or Halo 1, or Halo Combat Evolved is the first time the humans find a Halo Ring. There's a shiny version of this ancient game which has been made recently.
Halo 2 is the game where you see the Covenant's side of the story through the eyes of The Arbiter (drools) on certain missions, and where the Elites break apart from the Covenant. It's also mankind's first encounter with the Flood.
Halo 3 is the grand finale to the trilogy, The Arbiter and The Chief start off on an epic journey to the place where the Halo rings began to silence the Flood and Coventant once and for all.
Halo 3 ODST: Script writers go to town to tug at your heartstrings with interwoven story plots about the heroic ODSTs.
Halo Reach: Prequel. And epic 'who can die the most tragically' competition, with fantastic multiplayer.
Mcdogface has Assassin's Creed Revelations and I haven't. So, here are two Assassin's Creed related trailers turned into funny songs and three Game Reviews done by someone who uses bad language. VEIWER DISGRESSION ADVISED FOR THE LAST THREE VIDEOS. If you are under the age of Twelve, don't watch them. Unless you really want to.
And yes, I have warned you.
If you don't have time to watch all the videos, I recommend the first Literal Trailer and the second of the game reviews, which recaps Assassin's Creed 1 as well as explains Assassin's Creed 2, and there is a joke at the end of the second Literal Trailer which you wont understand without watching the first one.
Can you do a 'Troll' face? You know, that goofy grin that shows that someone has recently failed by your hand, the face of someone who makes life hard in a funny way?
Actually, the troll face has nothing to do with this post.
I'm talking about trolls. Trolls. There is no specific definition for them, some people say the small con artist Rumplestiltskin was actually a small troll, others say trolls are giants. They live in forests, under kids beds and in the cupboards, underneath a mountain, under the bridge. They lurk in the shadows because sunlight turns them to stone, and that is how you get odd rocks with faces on them, sun-frozen trolls.
They're not scary, they are just monsters that teach children not to wander off the path and under a bridge, and how you can outsmart opponents bigger and tougher than yourself.
But if they were real they'd be terrifying, and there is a nice film about it, 'Troll Hunter'. 'Tis epic, filmed in a 'Blair Witch' style, but not as scary. It's a rather funny awesome film.
The trolls vary hugely, just like the ones in mythology. They are basically monsters, but they have gnarled human-like faces like the trolls in story books. Watch the film, go and borrow it from your nearest 'we have DVDs too' library, or buy it.
Today's post is about nightmares. For over seven months of last year and the first 5 days of this year I had terrible nightmares, one continueing from the last in some diabolical story. And then they stopped. Three days of silence. Bliss. Until last night, when I had another nightmare. But it wasn't like the others; not set in a cave with a creepy dude who eats Souls and enjoys killing people, and I think it was creepier for it. But I still thank my brain for the variety.
So, this is what happened: I woke up this morning because someone turned the light on next to my bed. I was thinking, hell, it's too early to wake up now! and pretended to be still asleep. And then I felt something heavy pressing against my head, and a guy said "Don't move or I'll blow your brains out." I opened my eyes and there was someone right next to the bed wearing one of those white theater masks and a hat and a coat. I was like fffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu because I still thought it was real life. I quickly decided to bluff my way out of it by saying; "Oh yeah? I have a gun too!" He tilted his masked head and peeled back the duvet to see my fingers making a gun-shape under the covers. "No you don't." "Shit." I said, and my insides turned to liquid, because there was no reason for him not to shoot me, and any second was going to be my last. "Now don't move a muscle." He said, and looked in my general direction; I had no idea what he was looking at because of the mask's tiny eyeholes, but I think he was being thoughtful. Because I'm stupid, I decided to push my luck by asking "Can I breathe?" "Yes, you can breathe" He said with a nod. (note about creepy guy's voice: you can't tell if he's happy or sad, but the voice is not devoid of emotion. You feel like you should know what he's feeling, but you can't). So I was completely still, breathing quietly, hoping that he would go away, or that my parents would come in and... Do whatever parents do to intruders; I haven't a clue. But if they hadn't come already then they weren't likely to come at all, and I was at the other end of the house so this silent hat-and-mask guy would go unnoticed. I toyed with the idea of shouting for help, but I was too scared that this guy was going to kill me, or worse, kill whoever came to help. Then he pulled back the sheets and looked at me again, and then pulled my left arm towards him and looked at it, checking the hand and examining the skin. It took all of my willpower to remain still and let him look at my arm. Why did I put up with it?! Oh yes, the gun. Then he said "So you are her." and put my arm back. Not at all explanitary. He had literally looked at my arm and decided I was someone he was looking for. He took the gun away from my head at least. "Sit up." He said. I didn't ask why because he had the gun. I stared at him for a while and he stared at me. After a while he said "So you're the one causing the trouble." "What trouble?" I asked. By now I had worked out that something was not right, and this might possibly by a dream. It still looked, felt and sounded a lot like real life, but what were the chances of a situation like that existing? As an answer he reached up, put his index finger and middle finger below his collar, and then brought them out so that I could see that the tips of those gloved fingers had been dipped in blood. Upon closer inspection, I realised that his head and neck were heavily bandaged. He looked me in the eye and said "You caused this. You brought this curse upon millions, our skin is weak from weeping wounds, from the constant bleeding. You've got it too, soon you'll feel what it's like to have blood seeping out of your skin constantly. It's started, and it's all your fault." I felt a trickle of something running down my neck, but it was probably my imagination. I just stared at him in the way that most teenage girls stare at strange masked people who come in the early hours of the morning to announce your unknown actions of diabolical evil. "How did I...?" And then my bedroom door opened and it was... Orange outside. It was like a nature shot of the savanna, only more orange. And there were curious round houses; not round like round huts, round like spheres. And then he explained something about another world and another civilization, blah blah blah. By this point I realised it was a dream, or it was real life and Shit Just Got Real. I wasn't too sure what to think. Anyhow we had a chat for a while. I'd caused whole civilizations to randomly bleed through their skin, apparently, and those fit enough to walk had to wrapped up like mummies so they couldn't lose all of their blood. "So how do we stop this," at this point I randomly decided to scratch my neck, which I discovered to be wet with blood. Without feeling a cut being made I'd ended up with a flow of red liquid down my neck and left arm, the shoulder of my pyjamas was soaked. Blood was everywhere. I'm not normally squeemish, but this caused a long uncertain "Urhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..." of 'I'm going to puke now'. The man sighed, tilted his head and said "WHAT are we going to do with you?" Then the random orange landscape was shattered with ripples and the dark doorway returned as Sam, our one-eyed ginger cat, ran into the room and jumped on the bed. The masked dude just... dissolved into the air. Creepily. If my brain was a film then there was a lot of money spent on special-effects. Quite shaken, I petted Sam for a while, and then shooed him out of the room (which took some time; this cat doesn't like to budge) closed the door and went back to sleep, which took a long time. When I woke up properly, the blood was gone. But still... That was a freakily realistic dream, except for the doorway-scrying glass and people who bleed alot. Creepy eh? Welcome to my world...
Four Calling Birds,Three French Hens, Two Turtle Doves,
AND A PARTRIDGE IN A PEAR TREE!!!
Ahem. So, anyhow. Why have I got the word 'Eyes' in the title? Well, we all know what an eye is. We perceive the world through them. Ever wandered why human eyes look different from that of nearly every other animal? Why our eyes have smaller irises that our brown-eyed primate relatives or other animals? Nearly ever animal, from golden-eyed owls to dark-eyed mice don't show the whites of their eyes much. So why us? Communication. The most effective body language that is universally understood is that of the eyes. Someone looks over your shoulder, their pupil shrinks and their eyes widen. You know that something's up; that there is an alien or something RIGHT BEHIND YOU. If someone scans the edges of a room, they may be looking for something. If someone's pupils dilate, they are either in dimmer light, or they are getting signals from their adrenal gland. Fight or Flight. Or fall in love. Depends really, doesn't it? So what does Eye Contact mean? When somebody looks from their pupils into somebody else's pupils? Who knows. The problem that I'm having ("Here we go..." says the reader, annoyed. I'm sorry, but in Dark Dragon's world it's all ME ME ME) is that I keep making eye contact with Llamas. (Llamas is a codename. I'm not staring at long necked sheep in the petting zoo. Read teh previous posts! Gawd...). The general rule is when I come out of school I walk down the path, cross the road, and check over my shoulder to the School Side Of The Road and... Well... If you don't have a crush then you don't know why people with crushes go around staring at Hot People. People with crushes don't know why either, it just happens. The past week, every time I look back he's looking at me. Or in my general direction. I don't check; my brain always shuts down... Afterall, there are plenty of things to look at; it's a long pavement. The world doesn't revolve around me, there are a gazillion reasons for him to look across the road. But if he notices me looking at him he might think I'm spying on him or something. Darn Life.
Tenth day of Christmas. So, Mcdogface and I are back at school. For those who are attentive readers of the blog, you'll notice that I've mentioned 'Don't say llamas!' and also that I am a victim of the plague known as teenagegirlitis, an illness which causes unrequited crushes and much silent hyperventilation. There are surprisingly closely connected. Llama is a codeword for the Guy I Have The Mother Of All Crushes On, and being back at school means I see him in the corridor and my brain malfunctions. Which isn't good.
That was a llama song.
So, what have I been up to in these past two days? I've been: At school. On Skyrim. Asleep. Asleep at school. Asleep in the car. Asleep on the bus. Asleep in my bed. Having nightmares. Riding swiftly away from a dragon on Skyrim. Burning corpses on Skyrim. Reading 'How to Steal a Dragon's Sword' by Cressida Cowell (kids book, but still amazing) Reading 'The Eye of the World' by Robert Jordan (book 1 of 13 in The Wheel of Time) Sleeping. Yelling at cats. Petting cats. Petting snake. Failing at learning German. Failing to read Inheritance. Sleeping.
The Dark Dragon greets you after five days of silence. Today is the Seventh Day of Christmas, and the first day of 2012. 'Twenty Twelve'. Not 'Two Thousand and Twelve', which makes me pause for thought. Why two short numbers rather than the usual long one? So, we shall remember 2011 as the year with the huge Japanese Tsunami, the year when the British government got into even deeper shiz, the year full of wars and dead leaders thrown into far off seas, a year when most teenagers were busy with their small lives and couldn't pay attention to the shifting tides of humanity as death and political destruction ruled the Earth. Today is a new day, and a new year, although most of you will read this post AFTER New Year's Day. So, Mcdogface and I are back to school on the third. I have homework which should be done before then but isn't. I believe the school is being unnaturally cruel giving us such a short holiday when others in the county get an extra week.
Change of subject: Cats. I hate my cats. They've peed all over my stuff. Hell, I'm going to swear; pissed all over my stuff. Only my stuff. Cushions, magazines, PE bag, bathroom, paper box, some sketches... And why? GOD KNOWS! These cats have been neutered, and they have a litterbox, and as of last week they've been allowed outside. They have the whole of England to go on, and yet they choose my room, my bathroom and my landing. Damn them.
Calm. Think Calm thoughts. Videos:
There. Skyrim is good. So, New Year's Day. Traditionally my family go to Allen Mouth (a beach) to celebrate, but we all voted that Scotland would be better. At 1:11 (on the 1.1.2012) I was on the A708, and today we went to a pub and then to a huge waterfall called the Grey Mare's Tail... Or the White Mare's Tail. It was named after a horse's tail. Very impressive waterfall, nestled between two steep slopes with public footpaths on which would give English Health and Safety a heart attack. Today I wore the fantastic shirt Mcdogface gave me for Christmas (thankfully NOT a victim of a cat's bladder) which not only depicts a dragon on a pile of skulls, but it GLOWS IN THE DARK. Whooooooooo! I'm easily impressed. It's going on my favourite shirt list, right up there with "You are in the Future, things are very SHINY here,". Well, I aught to be sleeping or homeworking... But I'm more likely to type up more of my story or read my book. "What's that Dark Dragon, you're not reading Inheritance?" No, I'm not. I'm reading a book by Cressida Cowell which is set on New Year's Day. YES, I am aware they are kids books, but they are BRILLIANT kids books. 'How To Steal a Dragon's Sword' is the only book where you'll get the caption 'Flocks of homing sea urchins nesting in shoes' underneath a picture of boots and sandals being invaded by *s.
Also, I'm again scared of sleep. My worst nightmare paid me a visit this morning, and we had an interesting discussion about alarm clocks. Can I just say how creepy this is: I set my alarm clock. It woke me up at 8. Mr. Murderous Nightmare was there. He turned the alarm off. I woke up at 9. The alarm had been diactivated. Of course I did this in my sleep... But it was a bad nightmare anyway. The words "You will NOT forget this, you will NOT forget me, I'll be in your dreams when you are old and crumbling, I'll haunt your mind until the day you die and because you've heard me say this YOU CAN NEVER FORGET!" Always creeps me out in the mornings. Seriously, this is a strange nightmare dude. We also had a chat about fears... And he says there is a pattern to the nightmares. After a while of thinking this through I said he'd said there was a pattern to either scare me because I couldn't work it out, or to make me keep dreaming because I'd want to solve the puzzle. I can't remember the answer. I think I can remember what he said, but unless I know the exact words I wont type it up because there is a chance I'd just fill in the gaps with something that hasn't happened. So... Another video?
Some parts of a good film with good music. Although it does give away the ending. WATCH FRANKLYN. GET IT ON DVD AND WATCH IT AND THEN WATCH IT AGAIN.
