SB's Confession and Guardian Discussion

Last night I got a text and an IM from Squatting Bear with the simple word "Halo." Once I received said messages, I left work, chased down a bus that just passed me, ran about 2 blocks (felt like 2 miles) finally caught the bus, crammed myself on to it, much to the dismay of the elderly passengers filling up the space by the doors. Twenty minutes later I was off the bus and running into my apartment.

I get into my apartment, turn on the Xbox and anxiously anticipate a night of Halo. Squatting bear is online. Sweet.

We play a game of Team Doubles and get owned on Narrows. "It's okay I think to myself, this is just a warm up game. We have plenty of time to get things going." I think to myself.

"Oh, Shit. Rose just called," says Squatting Bear.

"What? Who cares, just ignore it, let's keep playing," I reply.

"I can't. I need to go. I need to bake with her, I must bake with her, I am nothing without her, I love her, I want to marry her. I am going to ask her to marry me tonight," screams SB as he leaves the game.

So I play a few games with some chap from England, until I finally sign off. Wondering where all my teammates are. Then I get a phone call from Pablito.

We got a good 7 games in last night. 4 Wins 1 Tie and 2 Loses.

Here was the spread:
Me: 86 Kills, 17 Assists, 62 Deaths
Pablito: 58 Kills 29 Assists, 51 Deaths

Not too bad.

KofC Picture of the Day
During last night's games I had this double sniper kill. I certainly didn't see the cloaked (seen somewhat transparent in the foreground. When I was trying to kill the guy hiding behind this wall. It was just an added bonus.

I think this discussion went pretty well yesterday so I figured we should just keep it going.

Guardian

I think we have a lot of this stuff figured out but there are a few things I think we could clarify. Yesterday I took some screenshots of some areas where I think we could be more specific.

Often when we let someone know where others are we are giving general descriptions of the area for a couple reasons. A) by the time we let them know/can get there they have most likley moved and B) We are not exactly sure where they are specifically.

Times when we could be very specific is when they are crouched and hiding around a corner. Nothing can be more rewarding when you can tell one of your teammates exactly where someone is that is camping.

I am not exactly sure what we should call this area. Possibly Blue Room Lift?

I am inclined to call this the Tree Fort or Forrest. And the area where the Bubble Shield is we could call The Stump. Thoughts?

This Could be called the Branch, or Branch Ramp or some variation. (Example: He is on the branch going towards overshield. Or he is on the branch towards the Tree Fort)

This is often called sniper or over shield. I think if there is someone camping around the corner we should be able to describe it. Possibly, top of sniper ramp or bottom of sniper ramp?

Anyways, I think Elevator Room, Blue Room, Shotgun, Cloak, Middle, Hammer are all pretty straight forward. What is your guy's opinion? If this gets worn out/solved I will move on to Snowbound.

(Also, the SB conversation might have been a bit exaggerated, but much of the facts are true.)

Map Confusion and Clarification

I think we have all been there when we wanted to explain to a teammate exactly where someone is. And we have all been there when we couldn't quite explain it.

Pablito and I decided that we should post a couple maps at a time with a grid and have a discussion on what we should call certain parts of the map. I feel like the maps in Halo 1 and 2 were easier to describe where things were. I could be mistaken but I feel like the symmetrical maps don't have as obvious of sides as in previous Halos. For example "The Pit" we are constantly referring to things as what side we spawned on, or on "Snow Bound" we refer to the different maps as what gun spawns there as opposed to blue or red side, or big and little bases like in previous maps.

Some things are more obvious than others, the devastating weapons like rockets and sword are always a good way to describe areas, but confusion can still happen with certain weapons like sniper areas. Does that describe where it spawns or where 99% of people use it like in "Guardian".

Anyways, enough of the explanation. Here are the maps of The Pit and High Ground.

The Pit



I added a couple of weapon spawns there so you can get your bearings. I somewhat arbitrarily decided on a direction which is open for discussion. I think we need to pretty much find a name for almost every 2-4 squares (that might not make sense). For example D2 and E2 can be described as the West Ramp going up to Sword Room, or the West Ramp going down to the Overshield. This might be overkill (no pun intended) but it could really help us working as a team.

UPDATE:
After finding a video walk through of the Pit, I noticed the different sides have different names. or letters I should say. I took some screenshots, they can be seen below. M is the side we originally decided would be West, while K would be East. East Shotgun Room would be M1, while the East Blue Room is M2. I don't think this is any better than East or West but at least we have writing on the wall to help. Just a thought. (Also, any rhyme or reason they went with K and W?)


High Ground

This map is obviously pretty large and might not work well with this small of map, but it might help to get the discussion started.

Anyways, what's your take on the locations within these two maps?

Randomness

Happy Birthday to the KofC Blog. It turned 2 months old yesterday!

Well, I did not receive any emblem ideas so that whole plan might be a bust. I am pretty much down for almost anything and I think so is everyone else (besides Josey) so let me know.

I was looking for cool emblem combos and I came across this contest from a while back. Sure wish I would have seen that at the time, I've got some cool ideas in my head (might post some original ideas later). If you were wondering what emblem won it can be seen here (It was the pirate).

Kind of funny list of things this guy learned while playing Halo 3. The comments are pretty funny as well.

In about a week the map pack gets released. Everyone is buying it we can all play together right?

I just realized on thing. Next time I buy a baseball videogame the first thing I am going to have to do is trade Santana back to the Twins. The only question is, from what team?


Also, is anyone interested in buying a Johan Santana Twins Jersey?

Pablito Neal rearranged his living room this weekend as to improve TV visibility from the kitchen as well as (I assume) reduce any glare for gaming. In a related story, I, The Daymonster also rearranged my living/bed/kitchen/hallway-room but once I moved everything I realized that my Xbox needed to be near my Computer for easy Ethernet-cord switching and had to move everything back. I got about half way done and laid down on the couch and fell asleep.

That's about all I got for today. Let's discuss something good in the comment section. Also, I plan on playing Halo today around 6pm CDT. How does that sound?

Offical KofC Emblem Discussion

Well, some of us (Squatting Bear and I) were thinking about the idea of an Official KofC Emblem. Originally we were not big fans of it, but the more and more we thought about it, the more we liked it.

First, when we play against other clans with the same emblem it could lead to some further trash talking and future set up clan matches, which would be fun. Second, studies have shown that clans with the same emblem get 30% more kills than similar clans with different emblems. And finally, it might be a good way to show support for fellow KofC members.

Anywho, there are two general ways clans have their emblems. Either everyone has the exact same emblem in the clan or everyone has some sort of variation of an emblem where each member can make it their own.

I am not partial to either one of these schools of thought. But, I think I might be getting ahead of myself with all this talk. First we need to decide if we want to even discuss a clan emblem.

But, since I already have all this thought out in my head I am going to go ahead with it as if we thought it would be a good idea to explore the option. But if we all agree it's a bad idea, at least I wasted some time in my day.

First, I suggest everyone check out the Halo 3 Emblem Generator. This is an easy way to try out different combinations without having to be on your Xbox. Also it lets you direct link to the emblems you come up with so we can all see your sweet ideas. I think everyone should come up with some ideas of what they would like either the exact emblem to look like or the basis on which we would develop our clan emblem theme.

For example: I spent a couple minutes at the Generator and came up with this idea.

Obviously the theme is the grey box with the blue background (KofC colors). But everyone is free to use what ever logo they want, (Josey, Wolf. Daymonster, Bad Ass Unicorn. etc.) I haven't see this type of theme used before so I think it's a bit original, but, maybe not.

That's just one idea, I have millions (well maybe not millions, but tens) of ideas. I think we should go with an Official Song style vote. But maybe each person can propose two emblems with a short sentence or two explaining how it would be used and it's reason (example: colors changeable, background changeable, etc.)

You can email me the link to the image that the generator provides and the reasoning for it. If everyone thinks this is lame... screw you guys.

Knights of Columbus: Get to Know 'Em (Unky Eternal)

Please welcome Unky Eternal as the newest member of the prestigious KofC Clan. Welcome him by reading his interview and commenting/making fun in the comments section. Enjoy.


Name: David Olsen

Age: 20

What does Unky Eternal mean? When I started playing Xbox Live last year with Warthog I would always have to sign in as Unky1 because I didn’t have my own name, and that’s where the Unky comes from. I’ve had more than my fair share of chances to get in serious trouble (see Best Drinking Blackout for more info) but somehow I always evade the law. ‘Eternal’ was inspired by my uncanny ability to break the rules and never suffer the consequences.

If you could go out drinking with any 3 people, alive or dead, who would they be? Mel Gibson, Bill Clinton, and John Daly.

Same question, replace drinking with video games: Unky Warthog, Squatting Bear, and Josey Wales. Last time I played with them I ranked up 18 levels.

Halo 1, 2, or 3? Halo 1 will always have a special place in my heart, but after playing Halo 3, I realized how overly powerful the nades and the rockets are, and also the ridiculous amount of spawn kills that occur. I do however hate the halo 3 needler and the beatdown for similar reasons. It’s a close all, but Halo 3 wins. Note: Halo 2’s gameplay sucks.

Why did you finally get an Xbox Live account? Warthog, Josey, and Squatting Bear were sick of playing unranked social matches. While the three of them went out to get some Leeann Chin’s, I was told I had to make an account so we could play ranked team slayer. I used Squatting Bear’s credit card to buy an account because he said he didn’t consider it to be “real money”.

What is your favorite Halo 3 map? Probably High Ground because I get to pwn with my BR and the laser gives me erections. However, nothing is more fun that crushing confused nubs in Damnation on Halo 1 with a constant stream of invisy rocks.

What is your least favorite Halo 3 map? The Pit. There are waaaaay to many goodies for that small of a level, and I’m getting sick of the huge panic race for the rockets and cloak at the beginning of each game.

Preferred Halo 3 weapon? The Battle Rifle because of its versatility and abundance, but the Spartan Laser pleasures me more than tanning pleasures Josey.

Least favorite weapon? Any weapon that nubs can get kills simply by holding down the trigger when their reticule turns red and doesn’t require further aiming. (needler, sword)

Preferred Halo 3 vehicle? A warthog with an M-41 turret on the back driven by me or Warthog.

Least favorite vehicle? The banshee because people camp in it way too hard.

Greatest Halo memory? Accepting and pwning all 1v1 challenges within my cluster at Luther.

Worst? Recently, it was when I went from level 27 with 31 XP and a 1.2 kill ratio down to a 22 with a 1.07 kill ratio because I played on Live when I was nearly blacked out.

What is your favorite beverage? Hawkeye Vodka.

What is your best drinking accomplishment? Coming close to beating the Hawk and also my clutch performance during a boot challenge when I joined Dammer, Josey, and Squatting Bear in the sub 5-minute boot club.

What size and type of TV do you play on? A 56” Samsung DLP HDTV I got from Squatting Bear because he didn’t have enough room for two big screen TVs in his apartment.

What are your halo 3 strengths?Midrange weapons and lasers.

Weaknesses? I am horrible at fighting against nubs with needlers.

What is your best weight lifting accomplishment? Beating Josey in a dip competition as witnessed by Warthog and Squatting. Although Josey has successfully repressed that memory, my accomplishment is probably one of the most amazing things I will ever do.

Did you get the name 'Gay Dave' from pwning Cody? If not, explain how you acquired this name. I never pwnt Cody, I did however laugh really, really hard when Dammer threatened Pete with a garden hoe because Pete put bananas all over Dammer’s room. Dammer thought that Cody was using the bananas as dildos and never told puyo or pete about the fruit he found in order to hide his cheerleader roommate’s advanced level of gayness.

I don’t remember how I got the nickname because I got it during the
notorious jterm ’06, and I don’t remember much from that time of my life.

What is your best drinking memory? Drinking and memory doesn't usually correlate, but it would have to be when I won a bet against Squatting Bear and he had to drink 4 gut-rotting strawberry daiquiris in 15 minutes. Also, the time that Squatting Bear and I ate a bunch of blue magics, allowing us to drink and be drunk for two straight days.

What is your best drinking blackout?
1) I drove all the way to Dennison from Northfield and back one night when I was blacked out. The only reason I knew that I had been to the small, adjacent town was because I received a message on my answering machine from the town’s only gas station saying that I had left my wallet there. All I remember from that night was drinking a lot of liquor, going into the ditch, and my digital speedometer reading 94 mph. I’ve never driven drunk, but I have unintentionally driven blacked out.

2) One night during jterm ’07, the drinking team and I decided we would go to one of the local bars in Decorah, instead of watching beerfest again. I packed up a bunch of beers in my pockets and proceeded to black myself out almost instantly upon arriving at the bar. Warthog called a sober friend to come pick me up, and Josey took me out to the parking lot with the instructions to wait for my ride to come. I was so bombed that I instantly forgot Josey’s commands and attempted to run home. I got a little of course. By the time I became aware of what I was doing, I was running through deep snow on the side of a bluff along the Upper Iowa river. I didn’t know exactly where I was so I decided to keep going until I found a road. After running about 2-3 miles, I found highway 52 and tried to hitchhike. After walking maybe another mile, I flagged a car down and told the driver that I would give him dollars if he drove me back to campus. The person driving the car happened to be a Luther social worker. He wrote me an email regarding my disgusting level of drunkenness and questioned the nature of my friends who let me get that drunk.

What do you like least? Getting needled, desperation-stuck, or spawn-killed? The desperation stick really rots me. Sticky 'nades are the most abundant weapon that kills you in one shot. I miss the days of Halo 1 when we played with only human weapons and didn’t have to worry about getting stuck.

Do you get a lot of chicks playing guitar for them? If so, how much do lessons cost? In my experience, 1 song = 1 BJ. The key to doing this is to make the girl who you want to S your D ask you to play over and over, and only giving in after at least 2 hours of refusal. I never took lessons, so I have no idea how much they cost.

What was it like to get pwned by the Daymonster in wrestling back in the day?It wasn’t too bad, I was secretly relieved that he beat me in a wrestle-off because I don’t know if I could have made it to the 135 weight class. I know it’s hard to imagine the Daymonster at 135 these days, but after cutting that much weight I think he deserves the right to carry a couple of extra lb’s. [Editor's note: I beat you like 3 times.]

What is better Big Bumpin' or Fusion Frenzy? Fusion Frenzy because only one person I know is capable of beating me in Twisted System. Though Big Bumpin’ requires a substantial amount of skill, there is still way to much luck involved for the game to beat out FF.

Best Kings Cup memory? Every six card ever drawn, especially when we researched gay things about each other and coming to the realization of how gay some of us were.

Have you ever taken care of a stray cat? If so, what did you do when you had to get rid of it? Yes. I’m a bio major… I like animals… fuck off!

Thursday's Thoughts

I was hoping to post Unky Eternal's interview but he is undoubtedly too drunk/hung over to answer the questions... ahh, to be young again. I can say things like that because I am currently sitting in my cubicle drinking earl grey tea and an orange juice. While I keep checking my inbox for a response from Eternal I will pass the time with a couple KofC housekeeping issues.

KofC Picture of the Day
Random Screenshot I found while scouring Bungie.net, might be the picture that goes up on the website.

Website
The KofC website is up. I welcome all criticisms and suggestions. If you are viewing it with IE the front page might look goofy, which I will fix soon. But in the mean time just download Firefox, it's way better anyway.

Official Song
I was thinking about the KofC Official Song, and I wanted to add this one to the conversation. Some of you have heard it but maybe someone here hasn't. I like it and so should you. Make sure you listen to the words and the shout outs at the end.


New Google Maps!
I just upgraded to the new google maps for my blackberry. It can tell where you are without using GPS, using the towers to triangulate your location. It's cool because it's faster than GPS and it works indoors but it's not as accurate. I know what you are thinking, Big Brother right? Well, this technology is used everyday and has been used on your phones for years, so I am not worried... yet.

Best Video Game Commercials
You owe to yourself to check out GameGirl's post about the Top 7 best Video Game Commercials. The list should really be the Top 7 funniest commercials, but they are all really good. My favorites are the Zelda one and the Banned Xbox 360 one with the accompanying audition clip. Enjoy.

Shit We Need to Learn How to Do... ASAP

I have tried this stuff over and over again but I can't seem to get it, anyone want oto play around in the maps tonight and try it out?

Clan Matches
We have been challenged by a couple of clans to some Halo 3 matches. The Winged-Warriors Clan and the UK GAMERS clan. I am not going to sugar coat this: The Winged-Warriors are way better than us. Here are some of their stats: Pastemaster, WW Horizon, Phade. But to be fair they are never drunk when they play, so it's really not a fair comparison.

Not much is known of the UK GAMERS except that they are 6 hours ahead of us, that might work for SB and the Unky's but some of us gots to get our sleep.

Essentially, I'll play whoever, it will be very depressing when we lose, but we gotta try to play some other people time. We would need to agree on our 4 people who would play, I would be out probably because we cannot risk someone lagging out in the middle of a close match.

Call Sign Conundrum
Pablito recently changed his call sign to "T08" which is supposed to resemble "TOB", he brought up the idea that we all make our names easy to decipher, I know "S27" and "M84" represent SB and Josey respectfully, but I don't remember anyone elses. It's a thought that there should be some rhyme or reason to the call sign, tonight I'll change mine from "O07" to something different but I am not sure what exactly. Suggestions?

Crossword Answers
Pablito wins the prize for finishing the crossword, he got almost all the questions right, and I am sure he is the only one who tried it so he wins the prize. You can view the answers here. The prize is.... ummm... at any point in any map you can ask me for a weapon I have and I will give it to you. Yeah, that's it. Sorry it's all I could come up with.

YouTube/CNN Republican Presidential Debate
I was so upset last night about getting booted out of two games in a row due to lag, that I actually watched the republican debate on CNN, twice. Almost all the questions and answers can be seen here. It was funny watching Guliani and Mitt going at each other over immigration, and then McCain and Romney going at eachother over Waterboarding (aka torture). But my favorite part had to be when Jay Fox asked a question about gun control.

Anyway, that's about all I got for today. Please people, keep commenting and chatting, today is going to be a long day and I need KofC members to get me through it.

Pollo's Whereabouts?

While typing my Environmental Economics (FWIW, public smoking ordinances seem to have no effect on the revenues of bars and restaurants. So if we were planning to look into smoking policies before buying our bar, there seems to be no need.) paper I engaged in this conversation with Loco:

locopuyo (1:39:17 AM): muahahahahahahahahhaa

biGpaPacRusTer (1:47:07 AM): wut

locopuyo (1:47:41 AM): secrets will be revealed

locopuyo (1:47:45 AM): soonh

biGpaPacRusTer (1:47:52 AM): plz do

locopuyo (1:47:55 AM): in a few days or so

biGpaPacRusTer (1:48:05 AM): will they explain your whereabouts in the past 3 weeks/

locopuyo (1:48:03 AM): muahahahahahaha

locopuyo (1:48:09 AM): mebe

locopuyo (1:48:24 AM): NOM NOM NOM

biGpaPacRusTer (1:48:31 AM): they betta

locopuyo (1:48:31 AM): = clue

Stay tuned.

Crossword Puzzle Challenge 2007!

So, no one seems to be online today and no one is commenting (entertaining me) today. So I took matters into my own hands. I have made a KofC Crossword Puzzle. The first person to complete the crossword puzzle will win a prize, a prize not yet decided. But believe me it will be a good one.

The questions are part; how well do you know your fellow KofC member, part how well do you know Halo 3, and how well can you answer a couple random questions.

Below is the crossword puzzle you can download the image by clicking on it or you can download the word document. Either way complete it, return it to me, and you will win something so valuable and awesome that I cannot even explain it on this blog.

ACROSS
1 Developer of Halo 3
5 Too busy to play from sex.
7 Engaged KofC member.
10 Press X you bitches.
11 Hidden things in campaign.
12 Greatest Halo 3 clan ever.
16 Squatting Bear's favorite Vehicle.
17 Will be the best map once released.
18 Green mist thing that I never use
19 Has a cat.
20 Fourth grenade that has never ever been used.

DOWN
2 Delicious Citrus Cherry Soda.
3 Josey's obstacle in playing Halo (besides school).
4 Goes tanning.
6 Dammer and Daymonster's least favorite Halo 3 weapon.
8 Josey's favorite map
9 What comes before Killtacular.
13 Underused game type for team slayer.
14 Who you want waiting at the back of the base when you have the flag.
15 Kill ten opponents within 4 seconds of each other.

Good luck. (Estimated time before Josey complains about one of the questions, 15 minutes. Starting.... now.)

Halo Madness

"It's called... 'TRASH TALK'"

"Ugly racial slurs, anti-Semitic rhetoric, homophobic chat and sexual innuendo... and guess who's listening? YOUR CHILDREN!!!!"

It's like a 21st century Reefer Madness, well maybe not that ridiculous, but pretty ridiculous none the less. It's your classic over-the-top sensational tabloid style reporting we have come to know and love, not just from Fox news but a majority of the TV news networks. Do you know where else there are swear words, homophobic and racial slurs? The playground, the school bus, TV, movies etc.

The report switches wildly between accusations of racism and warnings of credit card theft, before attempting to terrify parents by suggesting children could be abducted by sex offenders should they play on Xbox Live.

Now that I think of it, we should get some credit card numbers tonight.

Kof C Picture of the DayUnky and friend riding the 'goose together

Downloadable Content Alert!
The Halo Theme MJOLNIR Mix by Martin O'Donnell & Michael Salvatori is available for FREE on the Xbox Live Marketplace. It's actually a pretty fun song to play.

That's all I can think of for today, someone email me some questions for Unky Eternal.

Tuesday Tidbits

Not too much is going on today, at least in my world, so if anyone has anything pressing please feel free to post it or add it to this post.

Amazon's deal of the day is the Halo 3 Legendary Edition for $59.99 with Free Shipping. Essentially you can get your own Master Chief collector's helmet and Halo 3 for 54% of the regular price with out paying tax or shipping... tempting.

KofC Picture of the Day
Dammer's Screenshot of a stick he had on Narrows.

Speaking of Dammer, his shitty Steeler's barely squeeked by the winless Dolphins 3-0. Wow, was watching the MNF game really better than playing halo?

I just completed the replacement program for the Rock Band guitar. As I told you the other day my guitar is broken but fortunately the replacement process seams pretty easy, I just told them the issue I was having, gave them my address and they should send me a new guitar with a prepaid box to send my broken one back in. Until then they put a $125 charge on my credit car to ensure I send back my old one. And they said they weren't selling individual instruments. Liars.

Bahamas is looking more tempting by the minute. My only question is: this place is like a resort, I am worried we can't just walk in and sleep in your room. There might be some restrictions on things like that and the last thing I want is to get down to the Bahamas and not have a place to sleep. Well, it's not exactly the last thing I want, but it wouldn't be as cool as mooching of SB for the week.

As most of you saw from Josey's comment, Target is selling a Def Leppard guitar. I have included a picture and description from Target's website. The only question: is it compatable for Rock Band?


Lastly, we need something to get excited about again, like the Get to Know 'Ems, or the Official K of C Song (which, I believe is "Immigrant Song") anybody got any ideas?