The Edupocalypse. A short story

The Edupocalypse Part 1:

And there we sat all in our seats. It was the 5th week of second grade. Mr. McDonough looked a little more stressed than usual, we all had our ipads on our desks and were getting ready for our reading exercise when he decided it was time to see how well we were doing with writing our names.

“Ok Class, please take out your pencils for a quick test on writing your names on paper.”

and then the worst possible thing happened. Little Susie raised her hand, Susie never really paid attention and was always somewhere else during class.

“Mr. McDonough, what’s a pencil?”

I’ll never forget the look in his eye, it was as if someone lit a bonfire in his brain. What was our teacher was no more, he was replaced with something else. His posture straightened his face fell flat, and his eyes … his eyes burned with a fire behind the black holes that were now his pupils. He went to respond and instead walked to the wall turned off the lights and left. The next day is when the Pencils came. They started slowly at first but soon enough everything was impaled by pencils, cars, bicycles, tires, the unfortunate squirrel that crossed the high tension lines. That’s when the war began, 20 years ago with my friend Susie raising her hand. Someday they will run out of wood for their pencils but ’til then the war will rage on.


The initial Rain:

” The sunset was beautiful today, the sky was alight with reds, magentas, and yellows. These dreams come to me once in a while remembered from my youth. As I wandered down the road, cares melting from my body as the sun slipped below the horizon, I remember the confusion as I stepped and a black number two pencil bounded off the pavement and off of the side of my leg.
‘Tis odd’ I thought, as I was a child obsessed with old phrases, ‘there isn’t anyone nearby nor a car in the road. Where did this pencil come from?’ I learned that I didn’t want the answer.”


The Council:

“She didn’t know what a pencil was?! WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE CHILDREN?!”
the word children echoed around the domed conclave. Off of the glistening obsidian-esque ceilings to the blood red mahogany that formed the barriers to the outside world. The penultimate meeting had begun. Educators from around the world have gathered for this day, rumors had been spreading. ‘Had students really lost their way so badly? Did we need to reboot society to fix these problems?’ were some of the murmurs spreading around.
A Schwarzenegger-esque Austrian man approached the podium at the head of the ant colony like masses swarming the room.
“My students have begun skipping the physical fitness preparations. They claim that there is no need todue to the drugs coming out soon to keep them healthy! They lack the understanding of discipline and training for the uniting of body and mind! They refuse to reject their sloth laden attitudes.”
“YEAH!” chimed a serious of fitness gurus among the swarm.
Charging the podium came a short woman with an overwhelming presence. “A student in my class continues to refuse to fix her pencil posture, she balances it among her fingers like a drum stick of an off duty marching band member. She refuses to learn to write properly! She shows no respect to the tool! The pencil must be respected!”
More wails of agreement swept the room. As the small woman finished her speech it was as if a small pen light was turned on in the shadows far behind the podium. With each mention of the ‘pencil’ McDonough’s eyes brightened with a fervor not seen in decades. The man in the shadows straightened up as he approached the podium to bring the vote to the council. Before he arrived it was as if Athena herself had taken the podium.
“There must be a better way, we can teach them earlier, we can modify the preschools and kindergartens under cover of night. Not this, please not this”
He was only a few feet away when he withdrew the pencalibur. Sharpened to a point with pure graphene no wider than a few molecules. No one came to her defense, nor would anyone else have stood up to the beast that had been awoken with him had they objected…

Continue reading

Kernel Mods at Dawn

A drinking game for Sysadmins

We each run
“lsmod | cut -d ‘ ‘ -f 1 | shuf | head -n1 | xargs rmmod  ”

until one of our systems crash. For each mod successfully removed you take a drink.
I call it Sysadmin roulette.
Are you game?

Remember Remember the 9th of November (Part 3)

Remember Remember
The 9th of November
The covenant treason and plot
I know of reason
Why the gravemind led treason
Should ever be forgot

Of the apparition?
Gravemind, the beast
The most vile edition
2552 his slumber was ceased
The covenant, with erudition
From his sleep, released

For many years
He slept quite deep
And all of the flood wandered
Like wayward sheep
But with their tools so crude
The covenant did sweep
The contents of Delta
And broke his sleep

Arriving like a friend
To the heroes we knew
But a conniver was he
And away he flew
For he found a chariot
In the sky so high
Aimed at humans and covenant
His conquest was nigh

The questions were many
But the answers were too few
Cortana was captured and
Chief knew what he must do

Gravemind’s mistake was large
Due to a question unsought
About the unbreakable promises of John
And the vengeance t’will be wrought

But where was Cortana?
In the heart she did lie
Behind wave after wave
Of flood who would try
With the face of the grave
To sway the chief’s eye
But nothing would prevent
Him from reaching her si’e

The two reunited
Had a plan to succeed
But first must surmount
A treacherous path to be freed

To the sky they did rise
Into a place from the past
Completing 343’s goal
At last, at last

Fired too early
The ring would be destroyed
Red glows his eye
For Spark’s now annoyed

Friends were lost
Johnson, the crew
A race against time
Before the ring went kablew

In the end they had won
But at what cost?
Gravemind was gone
But they have been lost

I feel they do not mind
For together they will be
And remember what he said:
“Wake me, if you need me”

Part2: The 9th of November
Part1: Remember Remember the 9th of November

Hope everyone enjoyed their Halo Day
And I hope to see you all soon playing Halo CE Anniversary 🙂

A new Beginning and MORE LIVES (Well an ExtraLife)

Hey Spartans,
I know it has been a while But I have returned and boy do I have stories for you all of my travels
but business first: EXTRA LIFE 2011 Raise money for the children
Donate here if you like: goo.gl/wPCVs

I will be playing SWAT and Attempting SLASO (no blind)

so if the children’s hospitals aren’t worth it use it to dull the pain SLASO will inflict on my life

Streams will be posted tomorrow

USTREAM of the game
public google hangout for viewing me and chatting
GAME ON BROTHERS

~SPOSpartan104

again DONATE! 🙂

STREAMS : http://goo.gl/TSoHd ( game-ustream)
PEOPLE: http://t.co/HltHkXOW (Google Hangout)
Team info:The Sanctum
FurySamurai is Forza4’ing all day
and Britton will be experiencing the Trials of Drake’s Uncharted adventures.

My submission for HBO’s I’m too poor for Noble Map Pack

Here goes nothing (Enjoy 🙂 ):

Well you see there I was walking down this long metal corridor holding everything I owned and all of my monetary wealth in this large sack. After going down this winding path for a while I decided to take a random left. I took this left for a few reasons: I was bored of walking straight, there were explosions and alarms going off around me, and there were these weird brownish balloon shaped creatures skittering around the floors. I end up following this path for what feels like a mile until I come to this dead end. Great. But there was this weird creature about 4 feet tall and had this environment suit on that had a point about a foot above his head. He kept grunting and talking about this food nipple. Now I was feeling rather parched and famished so I made a deal with him. We would both meet outside the vessel about a 1.5 to 2 miles away. He offered to even take my bag for me as long as I paid for most of the food. I said yes and he agreed, well grunted a bit I think that was him agreeing. Anyway I leave the bag and begin running back the way I came.

When I get back to the main path this big cat like vehicle comes racing up. I take a risk and run to the other side of the path. I jump and land holding on to the passenger side of the car. There is this giant green man with a gold visor driving. I don’t know who taught him to drive but damn. HE HIT SO MANY OF THOSE BROWN THINGS! (I’ll skip a few boring parts) We get to the end of the drivable area and he begins running towards this ship. SHIT BE BLOWING UP EVERYWHERE. He gets to the ship, and DOESN’T WAIT for me, he just takes off. Good riddance, I still need to find that grunt.

I jump out of the bay window, and sprint towards this person I see in the distance, I think it’s that grunting thing. I get there and the DAMN CREATURE isn’t there, instead I see this sergeant and this tall alien like creature with backward knee-caps having a love in. What. The. Hell.

Next thing I know the vessel explodes and I never see that grunt again. I get knocked out and when I come to everyone and everything is gone. Now I’m floating through space on a random piece of land and have no idea where all my stuff is.

TL;DR: Got swindled by a grunting thing promising everlasting sustenance from a nipple of food, he takes my stuff, never returns it, disappears and a ship detonates sending me careening through space.

This is why you should select me for the noble map pack. What else do I have to do? I’ll just be floating over here, through space, alone.

Thanks,

Fred

The 9th of November

Brothers to the end

Remember, Remember (part 2)

Remember Remember the 9th of November
The Covenant Treason and Plot
I know of no reason why the Covenant Treason
Should ever be forgot

But what of the Eli’e
I know his name was Thel ‘Vadam
and Arbiter was he

In 2552 with blades of blue
The prophets, they would see
Just what he could do

What started out
as an honour so high
Ended by watching
his brothers die, die, die

With vengeance he would fight
for all Sanghelli kind
after a brief meeting
with the flood’s Gravemind

A civil war he would lead
While the covenant divides
With Hunters Unggoy and Sanghelli
All Standing by his side

A Demon in his camp
Gravemind in their vision
The ark’s destruction
was a simple decision

The destruction of the ring
caused one to reminisce
but at the end of this track
was a jump they could not miss

The ship was split
The flood, ablaze
But what of the demon
Left floating in the craze

The memorial service began
the desert winds were breezy
for the death of this demon
Thel thought: “Were it so easy.”

~SPOSpartan104 (11/08/2010)
© SPOSpartan104 😛

Thank you Bungie, Microsoft, 343 Industries, for giving us all the wonder that is Halo 🙂

(Part 1)

It’s nearly that time again :)

Halo day approaches.
Are you ready?! Sadly I may not be able to celebrate like I usually do.
So I leave it up to all of you.Make this november 9th special by destroying as many covenant as possible.

I will be making another post shortly after midnight, with a little surprise. I hope you all enjoy it 🙂

~SPOSpartan104

Extra Life Update

8:23am

Laura: There’s someone behind me cleaning up my mess

8:08am

Laura: Those are chips… You’re a cat

7:20am

Halo 3 coop COMPLETE

Steve:RockBand

Pat,Fred,Laura: Reach Multiplayer

3:50am

4 Player halo 3 coop

3:20am

Fred “finsihes” ODST

Fred Starts RANKED GRIFBALL WEEKEND!:)

Red Team still on halo 2 ( the library)

11:55

Fred(Blue Team) Starts ODST
LCrim continues Reach
Red Team Starts Halo 2

11:40

Blue/Red Finish Halo 2: (Lcrim left, britton sub)
Farragher/LCrim:Reach matchmaking

10:30-ish
RedTeam: “finishes” ODST

8:05

Laura: You’re rascist!
Steve&Pat: Who?
Laura:You
Steve: Who you me?

6:54

Red Team starts ODST

Blue team continues Halo 2

5:50-ish

Halo 2 for blue team

Halo 1 still for red team

5:30

Blue Team Finishes Halo 1
Red Team 2nd to last level (Keyes)
Blue Team Sandwich break Then Halo 2

(Does this vaccuum have a home?)

Pat: It kinda fits, but you have to squeeze it

3:00PM Blue Team is on level 7 Red team still on Level 5

Fred: What would you put on an elevator this size?(library)

Laura: Donuts.

1:00pm

Pat: “Are we supposed to be sneaking in this level?’
Steve: “Haha no, have you noticed I’m in the turret?”

2 levels down for blue team 1.75 levels down for red team

BLUE TEAM REQUIRES ENERGY!

12:00PM

GIVE ME MONEYZ 😛

Halo Reach Complete in ~3hours

Now Halo 1.

🙂 ~SPOSpartan104

Rules for tomorrow

1 person from each 2 person team must be playing at all times.

1 5 minute break allowed per 30 minutes in order to protect health/ sanity.

The breaks can be saved up for one 20 minute break.

We will break for food occasionally, above rules still apply.

HALO WILL HAPPEN

COVENANT WILL DIE

CHILDREN WILL BE HELPED

SOMEONE WILL GET TEAM KILLED

Tune in tomorrow @ 8am to begin the shenanigans

Schedule:

Team Red and Blue
Halo Reach (4 player)
Halo 1 (2 teams of 2)

First team to complete Halo 1 plays Halo 2
Second Team plays Halo ODST

Both Teams meet back up for 4 player Halo 3

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/spospartan104