If WWII was an RTS...

(real time strategy game)

*Hitler[AoE] has joined the game.
**Eisenhower has joined the game.
**paTTon has joined the game.
**Churchill has joined the game.
**benny-tow has joined the game.
**T0J0 has joined the game.
**Roosevelt has joined the game.
**Stalin has joined the game.
**deGaulle has joined the game.
*Roosevelt: hey sup
T0J0: y0
Stalin: hi
Churchill: hi
Hitler[AoE]: cool, i start with panzer tanks!
paTTon: lol more like panzy tanks
T0JO: lol
Roosevelt: o this fockin sucks i got a depression!
benny-tow: haha america sux
Stalin: hey hitler you dont fight me i dont fight u, cool?
Hitler[AoE]; sure whatever
Stalin: cool
deGaulle: **** Hitler rushed some1 help
Hitler[AoE]: lol byebye frenchy
Roosevelt: i dont got **** to help, sry
Churchill: wtf the luftwaffle is attacking me
Roosevelt: get antiair guns
Churchill: i cant afford them
benny-tow: u n00bs know what team talk is?
paTTon: stfu
Roosevelt: o yah hit the navajo button guys
deGaulle: eisenhower ur worthless come help me quick
Eisenhower: i cant do **** til rosevelt gives me an army
paTTon: yah hurry the fock up
Churchill: d00d im gettin pounded
deGaulle: this is fockin weak u guys suck
*deGaulle has left the game.*
Roosevelt: im gonna attack the axis k?
benny-tow: with what? ur wheelchair?
benny-tow: lol did u mess up ur legs AND ur head?
Hitler[AoE]: ROFLMAO
T0J0: lol o no america im comin 4 u
Roosevelt: wtf! thats bullsh1t u fags im gunna kick ur asses
T0JO: not without ur harbors u wont! lol
Roosevelt: u little biotch ill get u
Hitler[AoE]: wtf
Hitler[AoE]: america hax, u had depression and now u got a huge fockin army
Hitler[AoE]: thats bullsh1t u hacker
Churchill: lol no more france for u hitler
Hitler[AoE]: tojo help me!
T0J0: wtf u want me to do, im on the other side of the world retard
Hitler[AoE]: fine ill clear you a path
Stalin: WTF u arsshoel! WE HAD A FoCKIN TRUCE
Hitler[AoE]: i changed my mind lol
benny-tow: haha
benny-tow: hey ur losing ur guys in africa im gonna need help in italy soon sum1
T0J0: o **** i cant help u i got my hands full
Hitler[AoE]: im 2 busy 2 help
Roosevelt: yah thats right ***** im comin for ya
Stalin: church help me
Churchill: like u helped me before? sure ill just sit here
Stalin: dont be an arss
Churchill: dont be a commie. oops too late
Eisenhower: LOL
benny-tow: hahahh oh sh1t help
Hitler: o man ur focked
paTTon: oh what now biotch
Roosevelt: whos the cripple now lol
*benny-tow has been eliminated.*
benny-tow: lame
Roosevelt: gj patton
paTTon: thnx
Hitler[AoE]: WTF eisenhower hax hes killing all my sh1t
Hitler[AoE]: quit u hacker so u dont ruin my record
Eisenhower: Nuts!
benny~tow: wtf that mean?
Eisenhower: meant to say nutsack lol finger slipped
paTTon: coming to get u hitler u paper hanging hun cocksocker
Stalin: rofl
T0J0: HAHAHHAA
Hitler[AoE]: u guys are fockin gay
Hitler[AoE]: ur never getting in my city
*Hitler[AoE] has been eliminated.*
benny~tow: OMG u noob you killed yourself
Eisenhower: ROFLOLOLOL
Stalin: OMG LMAO!
Hitler[AoE]: WTF i didnt click there omg this game blows
*Hitler[AoE] has left the game*
paTTon: hahahhah
T0J0: WTF my teammates are n00bs
benny~tow: shut up noob
Roosevelt: haha wut a moron
paTTon: wtf am i gunna do now?
Eisenhower: yah me too
T0J0: why dont u attack me o thats right u dont got no ships lololol
Eisenhower: fock u
paTTon: lemme go thru ur base commie
Stalin: go to hell lol
paTTon: fock this sh1t im goin afk
Eisenhower: yah this is gay
*Roosevelt has left the game.*
Hitler[AoE]: wtf?
Eisenhower: sh1t now we need some1 to join
*tru_m4n has joined the game.*
tru_m4n: hi all
T0J0: hey
Stalin: sup
Churchill: hi
tru_m4n: OMG OMG OMG i got all his stuff!
tru_m4n: NUKES! HOLY **** I GOT NUKES
Stalin: d00d gimmie some plz
tru_m4n: no way i only got like a couple
Stalin: omg dont be gay gimmie nuculer secrets
T0J0: wtf is nukes?
T0J0: holy ****holy****hoyl****!
*T0J0 has been eliminated.*
*The Allied team has won the game!*
Eisenhower: awesome!
Churchill: gg noobs no re
T0J0: thats bull**** u fockin suck
*T0J0 has left the game.*
*Eisenhower has left the game.*
Stalin: next game im not going to be on ur team, u guys didnt help me for ****
Churchill: wutever, we didnt need ur help neway dumbarsstru_m4n: l8r all
benny~tow: bye
Churchill: l8r
Stalin: fock u all
tru_m4n: shut up commie lol
*tru_m4n has left the game.*
benny~tow: lololol u commie
Churchill: ROFL
Churchill: bye commie
*Churchill has left the game.*
*benny~tow has left the game.*
Stalin: i hate u all fags
*Stalin has left the game.*
paTTon: lol no1 is left
paTTon: weeeee i got a jeep
*paTTon has been eliminated.*
paTTon: o sh1t!
*paTTon has left the game.*

English Sense of Humour...

English Sense of Humour,
originally uploaded by The Imp;-).

God Bless 'em.

Regards,

Imp;)

This, That, and the Other Thing...

Just a quick update, as I realize that like most people, the summer is making it really difficult to keep up a day-to-day posting schedule!

I'm a divemaster now, my PADI number is 210902! :-) And I was up in Tobermory, Ontario this weekend working with a very large class of Open Water students. Lots of fun, but definitely exhausting!

I've been interviewing people for the room that I have to let out for rent... nothing yet, though the girl that came by last night looked reasonably promising. We'll see. It's a crap shoot regardless; references are so easy to fake nowadays.

Work is far busier than it should be for being at the end of July; our summers are normally a little slack; these make-work projects are a cast-iron-pain-in-the-ass!

I'm off from Aug. 4-14th in Alberta for the usual summer Recharge-The-Redneck-Batteries trip. A combination of shooting small animals, drinking hideous amounts of beer, and visiting with friends and relatives. As well, it's my 15 year high-school reunion... oy vey.

And that's about it. Hope y'alls summer is going well.

Regards,

Imp;)

About fscking time...

Last night I submitted the paperwork for my PADI Divemaster certification.

Woot!

Regards,

mark :-)

The Waome, Lake Muskoka

Dive Site Map, The Waome,
originally uploaded by The Imp;-).

This past Sunday, I did two dives on the Waome, a single-screw steamer that sunk in a storm on October 6th, 1934. Three souls perished in the sinking, with the remainder of the crew managing to swim to a nearby island.

The water in Lake Muskoka is the colour of strong tea; tannin has leached into the water from the surrounding geography; any dive on the Waome needs to be treated as a night dive; bring your lights!

This map (which I hope is good enough) is for submitting with my Divemaster paperwork; this project one other I have completed. This leaves my medical signoff, two passport photos, and a 400 yrd swim! :-)

All. Most. Finished.

How am I going to celebrate? I would LIKE to stay dry for two weeks, but alas, I'm up to Toby next weekend... ;-)

Regards,

Imp;)

Mother of God, I'm out of shape...

Part of the Divemaster program is to do 800 yards of snorkelling, at full speed, timed and scored. So, mask, fins and snorkel, but jaysus it's not as easy as it sounds. Did this today after work... so it's done.

Friday night, the 400 yard timed free-swim. eeeek.

After THAT, I've only got left three things to get checked off:

• Divemaster conducted programs (ie, dive briefing. piece of cake).
• Mapping of a divesite I've not ever done. Should be easy. Diving the Waome on Sunday. Two dives.
• Medical signoff. Again, shouldn't be an issue; my Dr.'s a scubadiver. He Understands.

It's been almost two months since I started this friggen thing now... if I can get this done this weekend, I'll actually get PAID to do this shit, next weekend! :-)

Regards,

Imp;-)

The Divemaster program is almost done...

... and I really, really mean it this time! ;-)

Two weekends back, I went up to Tobermory, Ontario to do the Internship portion of my Divemaster program. It was a long weekend up here, so I went up early on the Friday in order to get a dive or two in beforehand. There are two dives in Tobermory that are somewhat-famed for the number of divers that do not return to the surface; Forest City and Arabia. *cue the ominous music!*

We loaded up the boat, and off we went; an afternoon charter where the most 'novice' diver had his Rescue certification, and the most senior was a Master Instructor (many times over). To make a long story short, the weather didn't co-operate with the dive on the Arabia; current and a 6 foot chop make for a dicey re-entry onto the dive boat, especially when it was only equipped with a hydraulic lift for getting back on the boat, not a ladder. And so we did two dives over at the Forest City, sheltered in the lee of Bear's Rump Island.
I'm buddied up with "G" and "P", two of my instructors (a divemaster-candidate is, I'm told, properly referred to as "instructor's biatch"), who obviously regard this as a rite-of-passage.
We went deep; it's an advanced dive, and cold too; my computer was beeping at me to pee in the water, on the off chance that the temp would reach up to something higher than 43F. Smart computer. I'm not saying how deep we went; however we didn't go into deco, so it's all good. ;-)

The second dive on Forest City was also uneventful, however during the surface interval, there was a cute little instructress by the name of L.P. who contributed to the weekend's entertainment. Now, her last name doesn't actually start with a P; it describes what she smelled like back on the boat after she had peed in her wetsuit during the first dive. 8-\ With her wetsuit so tight, the pee had nowhere to go, so when she peeled out of her suit back on the boat... we all went, "Eeeewwwww!?!??!" During the surface interval, she was banished to the upper deck, and ruthlessly ribbed the whole weekend.

This brings us to Saturday and Sunday, the actual divemaster internship portion of the weekend.

Saturday, I was with the Open Water divers; that is, scuba divers that had passed their pool work, and academics but not yet done their four certification dives. Sunday, I was with the Advanced Open Water divers; that is, divers whom were already certified as Open Water divers, but wanted to do more advanced training to allow them greater range of diving opportunities.

Saturday dawned clear but cool, and for the first dive, I had shore duty; while the students lounged about, eating breakfast and what nought, I was down at the shore-divesite, ensuring that there were enough parking spots and reserving space on the platform for our group to get geared-up. See the pattern here? A DMIT (divemaster in training) is nothing but an Instructor's Biatch. ;-) However, I only had to freeze for a little bit before the group showed up.
Shore duty consisted of helping people get geared up, collecting log information, and generally being available to help out. Ideally, I would also be suited up in a wetsuit, with Mask, Fins and Snorkel ready to go, in case we needed to do any emergency work. First dive, no problems, though the group beside us was probably not adhering to PADI standards; one of our instructors was going to do something about that discretely.

After dive 1 had ended, I had to rush to the diveshop to get some tanks filled, and then give a student a lift out to the next divesite, Dave's Bay. Nothing much in Dave's Bay... some rocks. A fish or two whom were obviously lost, and a 'young-sand' beach, ie, painfully sized rocks. Dive two, I was in the water, again no major issues, though a couple were having problems with paying attention to the instructor and being properly weighted (if you don't have enough lead on you, or lose your weight belt at depth, basically you become a cork and rocket to the surface, embolizing in the process). This is what you get when you wrap yourself in 1/2 inch of neoprene rubber!

The next dive was a night dive... I'm buddied up with Instructor P, the hmmm... dominant instructor here this weekend (I think it's a pre-requisite to be an Instructor, you must also be a type-A). We're shepherding two buddy pairs from the advanced course, one of which is having no issues, and one of which is obviously in over their heads, pardon the pun.
That's not a big deal really; that's what you do as a DM or Instructor; get people over the hump and comfortable at their new skill level. Water viz is maybe about 20 ft, though the glow from the lights of the instructor and the students ahead is visible for a good 60. However, R & S, the couple that I'm babysitting start Having Issues. She doesn't like to scubadive without holding his hand, and he's got buoyancy issues, so he's dragging her up and down like a yo yo. Later on I found out that without her glasses, she can't see 5 feet in front of her face. Oy friggen vey. So, by the time I get them settled down and comfortable at depth, the light of the instructor and the other two AOW students have disappeared into the murk. Great.
I then spend the next ten minutes trying to find 'em; I'm pretty sure I was seeing a glow towards the end, but that's when the buoyancy issues of R&S show up again, and we end up on the surface for the last time. Frick. And now, R doesn't have enough lead to get down, as he's burned through his tank of air pretty quickly, and probably started about 5 lbs underweight. The air in your full scuba tank is about 5 lbs... so there is no way I'm getting him neutrally buoyant again. :-\ Surface swim back into the shore, reassuring them all the way.

We're back on killer beach (friggen rocks the size of small ponies), trying to gear down in the dark, being eaten alive by mosquitoes and having tonnes of fish flies trying to swim up your nose. Joy.

Back to the motel; I need a beer, a smoke, and a rubdown by a redhead in a bikini. Two out of three is damn near good enough. Sleep of the just.

The next day dawns warmer, sunny and beautiful; things should be better today as I'm diving with the Advanced Open Water group. These guys have training, right? These guys have their OW certs down and probably have done some diving right? They shouldn't have any problem with skills, right? *sob* It doesn't take long at all after breakfast, for R&S (they of the disastrous night dive) to make their escape. I can't say that I blame them; there were issues with skills and with gear, but still it's our job to get them through, and that they left means that we failed. :-\ The rest of the day can only get better right? Ha!

First dive of the day is the King; a tug that went down on a winter's night storm at the start of the 20th century. I'm first in the water, where I put a hang-tank on the mooring line at 15 feet for safety stops... a just-in-case manoeuvre if anyone is running out of air at the end of their dive.
I'm with instructor W, we have four students with us; one buddy pair that is doing decently and another father / son pair that is having issues. The kid (J) is about 13, but has the body mass of a 10 year old I think... definitely too cold for him as it's always hard to find good-fitting exposure suits for smaller children. He has issues equalizing on the way down, and he calls his dive; I sit on the line at 40ft with the other three students while W takes J up to the surface. W comes back, we do the dive down to 65 ft, and then back on board, no other issues, other than the students STILL are having buoyancy issues. :-
The last dive of their weekend is the Niagara II. It's a small freighter that has been purposely sunk as a dive site, and is in very good shape indeed. There are penetration routes all through the ship, but given that we haven't taught a specific penetration course, the students are not to be going down that path... ;-)

Again, I'm first in the water, putting on the hang tank. I also notice that YOU CAN SEE THE FRIGGEN THERMOCLINE FROM THE SURFACE. That's a good indicator that the water below the thermo is going to be so cold that you can forget about having sex for about a week afterwards, it's so friggen cold.

Anyways, same buddy teams as before, with the exception that we buddied the kid (J) up with L.P. ;-) The theory being that if the kid is having issues, then perhaps we should have him with an instructor all by himself, so that he gets the individual attention that he needs.

I'm buddied up with his father, and we're almost the last two guys in the water. We're following the line down, and we're at 26ft when we encounter the kid and Laura doing an ascent up the line. I could see the kid wasn't doing good... he was starting to do short, panicky type movements that usually are an indicator that things are going to hit the fan. Sure enough, he panics. He spits out his regulator, and starts flailing around. He throws his mask off, and then grabs his instructor's reg, ripping it out of her mouth. At this point, her reg starts free-flowing... essentially venting all the air in her tank in a continuous stream, killing any visibility. I grab my alternate regulator, and try and put it in the kids' mouth, but he won't take it. Allright. Time to leave.
I grab his tank valve and start heading to the surface; the instructor is on the other side of him. I'm assuming that she's working on getting some air for herself at this point as well. About 5-10 feet below the surface, the kid just goes limp. I can see his eyes, blank, and staring off into the blue. This is the most freaky thing that I have ever experienced in my life, I'll have you know. We break the surface, I grab the kid's inflator, and get him positively buoyant, and myself as well. I'm towing him like a sunnovabitch towards the boat, while the instructor is telling the captain what to do, ie, call for help. At this point, the kid twitches, and says, "Am I dead?" No, thank god, little buddy.

We get him back on board, wrap him in blankets, and take him through some questions to determine if he's embolized or not... not. Thank god.
The combination of the very low temp and the ill-fitting suit, combined with the low body mass made him panic. Could happen to anyone. But his surfaces still equal his descents by god, so it's all good!

He and his father (who was excellent through the whole thing) have done additional pool work since to brush up on skills. One of the funny parts in this was overhearing the dad tell the son... "I don't know if we should tell your mum about this or not..." lol No kidding. I don't know either. ;-)

Anyways, that was my trip to Tobermory for my Divemaster internship. Alls well that ends well! I'm up there again weekend after next, getting paid for this shit.

Regards,

Imp;)

You might be a Jedi... The Canadian Version

You Might Be A Jedi If...(the “canadian” version)

-You are still in the queue for your cyborg hand.

-You keep voting for the evil emperor because "it's better the devil you know".

-Due to budget cuts, your army now consists of Jar Jar Binks and 3 thermal detonators.

-Chewbacca and Han Solo are legally married.

-You got arrested because you forgot to register your light saber.

-You don't have to worry about Jabba the Hut because he died of mad cow disease.

-You ever heard the phrase, "May the force be with you, eh."

-You have ever used the force to influence hockey games.

-The majority of your fellow Jedi vote "dark side" (especially the Ontario and Toronto ones).

-You think the ice world of Hoth "ain't so cold".

-You can't actually use you light saber because it has to have a saber lock on it at all times and be locked inside a saber safe with the light in a separate locked receptacle.

-All your spacecraft have all been grounded due to the KYOTO agreement.

-You were refused a position on the Jedi council because weren't fluently bilingual.

-Your Ewoks build dams.

-You believe the Death Star is only destroying planets because of its history of poverty, and if you are nice to it, it will go away.

-All pod racing advertising contracts went to friends of the Emperor.

-You have used your lightsaber as a source of heat.

-You have used your lightsaber to cut the blocks of ice for your ice diving... (a minor change here)

-You have sliced open a moose to escape the harsh cold of the average Canadian winter.

-Your lightsaber has a bottle opener on it.

-The storm troopers raiding your home and place of business wear red serge.

Regards,

Imp;-)

If they're going to continue their Jihad, when do we get to go Crusading?

I'm kidding of course... I am civilised enough to realise that this isn't a war on the Christian world; it only feels like it.

What this is though, is the continuation of a war that Islam has been waging ever since the Moors were thrown out of Spain. They have tried to militarily defeat civilisation time and time again... and they know they cannot do it. And so what alternative do they use? They use the moderate factions of Islam to take countries over from within. A case in point here is Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon; all countries that were predominately Christian before being taken over by Islam. How soon shall we reach the point where we are calling that land mass across the Pond Eurabia? Ask the French, Dutch and Belgians if that is a concern for them.

With regards to the terrorism and violence, if the moderates of Islam continue to protest their innocence; that they are indeed a faith of peace, then they must stop being passive in their combating of the islamofascists in their midst. They must take the lead in combating and educating their own; they must move their religion beyond the 6th century, and remove the levers that can be used to degrade their faith into a cult of death. They now remain in danger of all being branded as barbarians, unless they face this truth.

If they do not? At some point, the Western world is going to have no choice but to embrace the Zero-Option. And yes, accept the moral decision that leaves us with an ocean of blood on our hands. It is that, or let Civilisation slide down into the abyss of corruption, blood, bondage and slavery that has become Wahhabinist Islam. To embrace that flavour of Islam is to turn humanity's back on all achievements for the past 1500 years. That is not an option; we shall fight it unto the end of our days.

On another web-board that I read, someone said something very appropriate, I'll reproduce it here, though not entirely verbatim:

My heart goes out to the people of London, and the United Kingdom, in this hour of trial and pain, death and destruction.

My sword goes out to the criminal perpetrators; those cowards who are unable to grasp the concepts of honour, civilisation, tolerance, rationality, and justice.

After WWII, and the death of six million Jews, not a single person who has intelligence and a sense of right and wrong, will not embrace the statement, "We are all now Jews."

After the genocide in Rwanda and the death of 800,000 people there is not a person alive who should not be ready to intervene in a meaningful way; to shield such people from those who would exterminate them; if 800K is not enough, how many are? For allowing that to occur, the UN should be brought down to it's knees; it failed in it's primary mandate, never again means NEVER AGAIN. It then went on to bilk billions from the Iraqui Oil-for-Food program. Parasite.

After 9/11, we have all become Americans; if you had a sense of compassion, justice and honour, you stand with them and support the war on terror; after all, soldiers are always needed to stand against the darkness and kick at it until it bleeds daylight.
Certain western countries have forgotton this; my own has probably not forgotton but chooses the course of Chamberlain because our leaders are spineless and weak, interested only in winning the next election.

After July 7th? We have all become Great Britons; we must become Juggernaut, implacable in our purpose, for the Islamo-fascists merit nothing but death. We must hunt them down to the ends of this earth, eradicate their physical existence, harry their creed, destroy their medieval movement, and salt the very earth which sustains them.

The alternative is not an option.

Regards,

Imp.