Q2 OR#6

eh.. heheheh.... this is late. but its 'kay cuz (heysouljaboiijustgotbackfromthemallguesswhatigot?whatdugetsouljaboi?) AH GOT ME SOME LATE WORK PASS!

ok.

im mad at myself now.

pk if you're reading this im sorry. i deserve whatever punishment u give me.

anyway. IN THE ADVENTURES OF GENGHIS-MAN AND HIS HORSE-RIDING BUDDIES Genghis basically goes across the land of china pillagin cities and WHATNOT. Iggulden didn't focus on anything much that happened in regards to that. for the most part he simply talked about how this Kokchu character worked his way up in power and into the favor of genghis and especially Temuge, Genghis' youngest brother. Kokchu is addicted to opiate and gets temuge hooked as well. he begins to teach Temuge the ways of a shaman and he is constantly thinking to himself about the correct moves to make, corrupt or true to the tribes.

its scandalous.

made from pure scandium.

Q2 OR#5

hokey dokey now kiddies lets git rudy to rumble. or read my blog post.

aight slim jims this here is a post that i wrote without any time to spare due to the awesome homework load of an fully ap/honors schedule. if you will excuse the randomness... well i guess you dont have to if you dont want to but its very much appreciated. is that even proper english? oh forget it im not even capitalizing or puncuation, like that sentence will make a huge difference.

ANYWAY for the last time here is my post

in the next section of the book (that i can remember :/) genghis goes to the kingdom of Xi Xia, a kinda chinese kingdom that isnt in the chin empire. his homiez are like dood time to pwn but then they're like wait what more walls? i hate the bunker map mod, this is dumb. but then the xi xia are like oooooh crap we need help and send ppl off to the chin empire to ask for troops and the like. the response from the emperor was "why should the fighting of two of my enemies concern me?" this is supposed to be shocking cuz they used to be allies but its kinda seen as a futile request cuz the chin empire doesnt fear the mongols at this point. anyway the king of the xi xia capital is like aight aight counterattack fool and sends out some troops to fight the mongols. they're pretty untrained from years of peace and so as a precautionary measure, he throws all these little spikey things into the field. genghis is like aaaaaah grasshoppaaaahh but he acts like he doesnt know so he sends in his cavalry on the tightly packed ranks of pikemen, but they wig out and just stuck by the spikey things and a couple ppl die so the mongols feign a retreat (is feign a vocab? eh, w/e VOCAB FOOL) and the untrained chinese men run after them against the will of their experienced captains. then the mongols turn around and pwn the poop out of the unorganized mob of xi xia infantry and destroy the small number of experienced ppl they had. in the end, the mongols damn up the city's water source and accidentally flood the field surrounding the city but then eventually win the city's surrender and uber tribute. then they go on to pwn lots of smaller cities.

idk i may have just screwed up the plot there major timez by confusing battles... if i did the nerd in me will be mad later when my head stops hurting......... hw is so awesome, really.

Q2 OR#4

oooooookaaayyyyy okay okay okayyyyyyyyyyy....... in sing song style. or staaahl.

AFTAR the last battle of the tribes, Genghis and his AHMEEZ of mongol doodz march marchity march down to the desert and through it with the intent of getting inside the chinese base and killin their doods. but after they reach the end of the desert, they see this big ol wall and they're like waaaaaaat? cheat codez and they got all mad. then a buncha chinese noobscouts were trying to 'nipe all the mongols with their lil crossbows and the mongols were like WHA? UGH! WALLHAX!!! and so genghis is like psh forget this. he sends his bruthaz (literally two of his brothers) with separate armies up the mountains AFTER one kid found a passage through by shankin a chinese guard and followin the guards footsteps. then genghis sent this one mr. nobody who had proved to be smart to the front of the gate with a bunch of other guys and lots of expensive shiny stuff on. they carried wooden shields (like uber huuuge) and ran up to the gate and pounded on the gates with hammers. then they seemed to break and fall back when that wasnt working, and the chinese were like dood woot round won and so they sent out some doods to go loot the dead mongols of their boons (VOCAB) and then one of em opens a big ol box and all these birds fly out. the guy is like wha??? and then his officer is like ITS A TRAP (it was a signal) and the entire main mongol army comes pounding in towards the open gates and the chinese are like we gotta close em! but then all the 'dead' mongol guys who had pounded on the gates and carried the sheilds stood up with all these crossbow bolts stickin out of their uber armorz and started shankin everyone. they kept the gates open and smashed into the chinese ranks beyond the gate. meanwhile the mongols who went over the mountains came down back around and were spotted, and so the chinese sent all their cavalry after them and the mongols were like psh watevs, yo and shooosst'd them up wit their bows real good. then they stole the horses of the dead guys and totally pwnd their way into the back of the chinese ranks and were like LOOLOOLLLLOLOOLOLLLOOOLOLOL IM IN UR BASE KILLIN UR DOODS SHOOP DA SWOOP and TOTALLY i mean TOTALLY pwn'd them chinamen real good. the general fled back to yenking (later peking, later beijing) and though he was supposed to be executed for running, he went and shanked the emperor. and became regent for the emp's lil son.

AH GTG but that was epic, was it not?

OR Q2 #3

ok readahz. i have put myself in a predicament. i went and finished my book. like two days ago. and my first post was pretty late in the book, sooooooooo im gonna go back to the beginning for the rest of my posts and work towards the end.

so in the opening of the book, genghis and all his homedogz (more than half of the mongol tribes) are takin on the last alliance against his unification of the clans. long story short, genghis pwnd with tactics, and lots and lots of tribesman joined him when it was over. Kokchu comes into play here, as he is all AAAGH DONT KILL ME in his head and genghis is like why shoudnlt i keel you? skill set plz. so he shanks himself and it doesnt bleed (for a few seconds) and genghis is like whoa skillz u stay and he becomes the nation's shaman. taaa daaaaaaaaaaaaa.

OR Q2 #2

INNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN MYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY outside reading book, i just read an excerpt in which the khan gets knifed!!!!!! THIS IS SERIOUS BADNESS because if the khan dies then the entire horde has to leave the capital of china (which they have surrounded) and book it back to his homeland on the plains to give him a ceremonial burial. if they leave, then its GAME OVER MAN. this means that they essentially just lose all that they have fought for so far. and i mean he's the freakin main character, that would be crazy to have it end like that, soooooo to the rescue comes the tribe's seer KOKCHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU i know what an ultimate name, right? so he does some intense ritual stuff like making this warrior guy chug charcoal (o. O?) and mumblin' sum mumbo jumbo and being all 'eyyyyy, don' worry 'bout it!' and the scene closes with the khan being led into a ger and being cared for as the women and children wig out and the warriors all get ready to beat down the chinese.

OR Q2 #1

Myyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy book for outside reading will be the book by Conn Iggulden entitled Genghis: Lords of the Bow. This book is the sequel to the book I posted for my recommended novel (Genghis: Birth of an Empire). I chose to read this book because hey, its the sequel and I really liked the first one and Conn Iggulden is an amazing writer. I read the first book while I was on vacation, and its safe to say that it rocked my world. Yes it IS as intense as it sounds.

OR #6

I AM BACK but not in black. I'm wearing grey and blue. And I just used a British spelling. WOOT. yeah, that one was American. ANYWAY buckle in for ONE WILD RIDE while I talk about a library. In an article from startrib online entitled "Hennepin County OKs planetarium plans for library." While it may not be a literary break through, hey, it's an article, it was about something interesting, and I read it. The article (by Mary Jane Smetanka) more or less is summed up in the title. It was finally decided by the Hennepin County commissioners to allow the building of a planetarium atop the Minneapolis Central Library. The money is to be raised by a fundraiser organized and conducted by the Minneapolis Planetarium Society. The article goes on to discuss fiscal policy and the support given by Hennepin and the city if Minneapolis, which as far as we people are concerned, sums up to the planetarium project getting a bunch of dough. Long story short, we're gonna have us a genuine bona fide plan-ee-turreeum. and that's pretty coo' because im a huge nerd with the whole memorizing the star charts and whatnot. alright my work here is done, and hopefully i will have a more exciting topic next time.

OR #4

HEY its me and I'm back without any real vengeance to speak of. But boy oh boy do I have a spiffy new post about a neat article I read, by golly.

This week, I have an interesting topic. I was sitting around in my house, pondering or playing guitar or something AND THEN IT HIT ME. After I was done crying (haha, laugh) I asked myself, hey, could an arrow shot from a bow pierce bullet-resistant body armor? As is the usual case with me, don't ask, just listen. There isn't a method to my madness, but you never know if the knowledge in this article could save your life when that crazy archer guy who lives around here goes hunting for you. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway, I googled 'bow v body armor' and the FIRST HIT (oh I love it when the interwebs work... bloomin' beautiful series of tubes, it is...) was a thread on the Discover Channel's Mythbusters Page. The thread was entitled "Bow and Arrow vs Bullet Proof Vest" and was started by OsaMi99. Although the name is a little unnerving, I had to respect the man's curiousity. Why do I know it's a man? Because what sensible woman would be caught dead on a blog about weapons. ONLY GUYS DO THIS STUFF. WE'RE WEIRD. DON'T ASK. OR AKS. Now let me say this now, I am not the type of person to go in and read random blogs BUT I HAD TO this time. So i read the thread, and with my previous knowledge of this topic and other sources I have long since lost, I came to this conlusion: if the armor worn is standard soft body armor, then NO the arrow would not be stopped, and the person hit by the generic archer serial killer man's projectile would be wounded and probably die. What "bullet-proof" or bullet resistant armor is, is simply layer upon layer of tightly wound man-made fibers. The reason this cloth stops bullets is because when a bullet hits the vest, its going so fast that on impact, it cracks apart and smushes up as the fiber broaden the area hit by the bullet and thus dissappating the shock by dispersing it over a large area. The reason the bullet just slams into the vest instead of cutting through, is because most bullets, besides armor-piercing rounds (which pierce armor =O RLY?) simply try to smash their way into a target rather than the constant applied force of say, a knife stab, or combined with sharp, armor piercing head of an arrow. An arrow moves at MUCH slower speeds than a bullet, and has a sharp point which separates the fibers and therefore penetrates the vest. A knife stab is a similar kind of deal, but the pressure being applied is constant, so the knife simply slices through the vest. Remember, as these vests are made, they are cut with ordinary steel scissors and sewn together with steel needles, so it makes sense that a sharp knife with force behind it will pierce body armor, as well as a steel arrowhead. FYI, most modern broadhead arrow heads are made of steel or like metals. BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!! There IS a way to stop an arrow with bullet resistant armor! If there are ceramic inserts or standard ballistics plate inserts, (basically a sheet of steel or carbon fiber) that will stop an arrow or a knife stab. Yet another way to stop arrows and knives is to have chain mail sewn into the soft body armor, although this still leaves some room for error in the form of oversized needles -- AKA dirks. Unless of course the chain mail is close enough together and the vest is thick enough. This process of intertwining chain mail with soft ballistics armor isn't quite standard, but its far from unusual in prison guard and riot police roles.

WOW this was a nerdy post. Especially because I said w.o.w. btw I hate that game, for the record.

OR #3

ITS INTENSENESS TIME yeah that means numbuh t'ree mon.

ALLLLLLLLLLLLRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHTYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY THEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNuh. For this week's episode, I 'finna' analyze a song I like very much, "New Slang" by The Shins. For the reader's sake, the lyrics will be given so they can form their own opinion and compare it to my own. The video can be found here. I would advise watching the video, because, hey. Its a good song, and it helps you understand the song a little bit better.

--

Gold teeth and a curse for this town were all in my mouth.
Only, i don't know how they got out, dear.
Turn me back into the pet that i was when we met.
I was happier then with no mind-set.

And if you'd 'a took to me like
A gull takes to the wind.
Well, i'd 'a jumped from my tree
And i'd a danced like the king of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.

New slang when you notice the stripes, the dirt in your fries.
Hope it's right when you die, old and bony.
Dawn breaks like a bull through the hall,
Never should have called
But my head's to the wall and i'm lonely.

And if you'd 'a took to me like
A gull takes to the wind.
Well, i'd 'a jumped from my tree
And i'd a danced like the kind of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.

God speed all the bakers at dawn may they all cut their thumbs,
And bleed into their buns 'till they melt away.

I'm looking in on the good life i might be doomed never to find.
Without a trust or flaming fields am i too dumb to refine?
And if you'd 'a took to me like
Well i'd a danced like the queen of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.

--

My views on this songs are kind of all over the place. I think its about growing up in a small town where everything seems dead. Where each day whizzes past until its all just a blur and you've lost your youth and your innocence. With that youth and innocence thing, I think the song reflects on how when you are young and you don't know about all the bad things in the world, not much can get you down, and you really are living the ultimate carefree life that everyone is looking for but can't find. Its in your childhood. In the video, the way the band is separated from the town in a room with paint and decoration suiting a child's room and the fact that the band is giving us this message further enforces that until you become enlightened to how you are wasting away worrying about the world (walking about the town which is in quite a dreary color scheme) you could be opening your eyes (in the brightly colored room). I could go into further detail addressing each verse, but i have other homework to get to, so I'll just touch on a couple lines. The first line, "gold teeth and a curse for this town were all in my mouth" suggests discontent with a small town from someone living there (hence 'this town'). The third and fourth lines have a dual meaning. The lines read, "Turn me back into the pet that i was when we met.
I was happier then with no mind-set." These can mean that the 'singer' (or listener as the case may be) feels stuck in a relationship and it is bringing them down, or that the town and time has turned them into older, more melancholy people than they were in the beginning. So basically how they were before 'this town' got to them.

A'IGHT THAT'S IT FOO'! ... FIGHTERS... they are a good band BTW... btdubs... k im tired.

OR #2

HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY there ALL of my MANY DILIGENT readers... Hi Mrs. B! And Adam! I know you have been waiting ever so patiently and eagerly for my next awesome installment in my montage entitled "OR: Outside Reading." Well, dear readers, the wait is OVER!!!

Yeah, sorry about that. Anyway, this week I read a little article called "Front four makes life miserable for the QBs" (by Judd Zulgad... WHOA THAT IS A SWEET NAME!) which I am sure makes no sense to the reader. The title is simply remarking on the efficiency of the four defensive linemen (the guys trying to get the quarterback) of the Vikings, and that they executed their plan to get the quarterback QUITE NICELY IF I DO SAY SO MYSELF. Long story short, their efforts made it possible for the secondary to do their job of covering the pass QUITE NICELY IF I DO SAY SO MYSELF. Antoine Winfield forced a fumble and ran it in for a touchdown, and the Vikings racked up five sacks and seven hurries, helping the Vikings to win the game (vs. Carolina) 20-10. Kevin Williams and Jared Allen committed the sacks, Williams 2 Allen 1, and combined had five of the seven hurries, Williams 2, Allen 3. The win was Minnesota's first this season, but Allen is optimistic that more will follow. The Vikings are second in North standings, behind the Green Bay Packers, who are at 2-1, not far out of reach. The Vikings hope to knit together the new members of the team with the old to create a solid team to do well this season and go farther the next. AND THAT IS WHAT HAPPENED IN MY LIFE.

OR #1

Earlier today in math class, I read an article from The Chronicle Review entitled "The Russians Are Coming." I will address the entire article, being only seven pages, rather than picking out bits and pieces. It was written by seven journalists, (here we go...) Stephen Kotkin, Nina Khrushcheva, Edward Lucas, Ellen Carnaghan, Marshall Goldman, and Sean Kay. The point of this article was the 'resurgence' of Russia's state of autocracy. Russia has been booming off of its vast oil economy, growing an astounding 7% each year for the past decade (just so you know THAT'S A LOT) and has been dominated by Vladimir Putin as President, and as Prime Minister (right now) because he more or less controls the president. About half of the journalists believed the Russian economy and influence would fall at the end of global oil dependency, but the other half believed Russia was here to stay (that's a good song btw) and here to cause trouble. Russia has time and again said that a strong center to the government is the best answer for the country and that democracy has had its chance, and failed. There has been outright support of the autocratic state of the olden days (MOTHERLAAAAAAAAAAAAAND) by Russian officials, and those interviewed in the article. One thing that could stop Russia from gaining power, which it has been doing by working its way into the top ten economies in the world, is the Russia investments on US soil, which if the US falls, will follow it, bringing down Russia as well. All i can say is that this will certainly be interesting, if not tense.