Trinity and I, at long last, finally made it to the pool yesterday. The cloud cover cleared off around 1230 hours and from then on out we had perfect blue skies until we left at 1630 hours for dinner.
The pool in question is The Springs north of Zona Rosa off I-29. It features a water park element and a proper Olympic sized swimming pool. A first class facility if you ask me. The only fly in the ointment is that we failed to use the proper sunscreen and thus today we are crispy in the worst possible way. Even Trinity is burned which is unusual given her mixed Latina heritage.
So no workout for today. The plan is to return to the pool tomorrow, the gym on Wednesday.
The Writing Front: Maternal Soldier
I got a response back on Maternal Soldier yesterday which gave perhaps the best feedback yet. I got high marks for tactics, extrapolation of military hardware and the like but the problem stems with the protag's central conflict.
Or lack of one. The Editor was very clear that "The Choice" had been made by a character related to the Protag and thus there was very little to do about the lack of interpersonal conflict.
My mom (yes, my mom reads my stuff, so does my girlfriend for that matter) has a solution but unfortunately I do not agree with it. Yes, it works in terms of resolving the problem within the story but here is the problem.
I do not believe the protag would utilize the option of leaving the Army to solve their problems. Consider it, agonize over it, worry about it, feel guilty about it, sure. But actually leave the Army?
No. And because I always knew that the protag wasn't getting out of the Army (even if the protag wasn't sure) that is probably part of the problem.
If I can rectify this, then I think this story might work. And I can see, years later, what happened. I spent a great deal of time working over the tactics, the hardware, the unit in question without putting so much into the conflict. Yes, I know a great deal about the characters but I didn't know THE RIGHT information.
So it goes on that score.
The Writing Front: Joint Writing Project-02, In the Early Morning Rain
Berry Henderson sent me back his latest mods to this project, which is an alternate history piece. It is something I have wanted to work on for quite sometime but I never felt I had the cultural chops to handle it from the perspective I had in mind.
I may have created the concept but rest assured, Berry gave this project her soul.
I printed out a copy of the latest draft for marking up and revisions. Hopefully by this weekend I'll have something sent back.
The Teaching Front: Test Day
I've got a stack of thirty exams that I am working my way through. They are breaking out into two general groups.
Pretty good and pretty bad.
I'm slowly getting through the stack. I should have them graded by tomorrow but I'll hold off on returning them until Thursday. I've got some make up students floating around out there who still need to take their tests.
The XBox 360 Front
I've been asked which games I have. They are as follows, with brief commentary on them:
Battlefield 2: Modern Warfare. Trinity got me this game with the XBox. I'm not sure what I think of it yet. Gritty with realistic dialogue, I find the campaign mode a bit frustrating. From time to time one must drive vehicles but dismounting the vehicles is not intuitive at all. Further, the vehicles seem to have limited utility in terms of actually achieving one's goals.
Bullet drop is apparently something to keep in mind as well. Compensating for it on a 19 inch analog TV set is a bit dicey. In fact, more often than not, if I can get a sniper rifle or a fairly accurate infantry rifle, I find that I prefer to stick with that.
I am not a spray and pray type shooter in these games.
Gears of War: This is a used copy. I like the backstory, which I read about a couple of years back. I like the visuals. I also like the dialogue, which feels gritty and realistic enough.
On the other hand, this thing is definitely a rip of the Warhammer 40K's Imperial Guard.
I do not like the combat system. This game's strength is very much a matter of spray and pray. There is no way to take aimed shots that I have detected thus far. Yes, there is the chainsaw bayonet but I think that is a bit silly myself.
So I'm not so hot on this one.
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 2: I have played this game at demo stations around town when it was out a couple of years back. Of all of my games, I think this one is probably the most realistic. Aimed shots are preferrred to spray and pray, accuracy of fire over volume of fire. You are placed behind the shooter which compenstates for the lack of true periperhal vision.
I suspect the game's major downfall is that it can seem a bit too slow for someone who wants more frenetic, Hollywood like action sequences. But then again, that is what I consider to be realistic about the game. Sometimes you have to take your time approaching an objective. Sometimes you have to wait for the best opportunity. Sometimes you have to actually AIM the fucking weapon before taking the shot.
We got Call of Duty 4 but the disk isn't working so back to Game Stop it goes.
On the list of things to obtain is Red Dead Redemption. I'm interested in trying this one out.
So it goes.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
8 hours ago