| Oh, so maybe you were just saying to yourselves "HA, Matt messed up, he said Return of the Jedi, instead of twisting it into one of his usual witty plays on words, what a loser!" Well, fooled you (not about the loser part of course, I mean, look at me, I'm up at 2 in the morning writing e-mails about water fights to people that for the most part don't even respond to me, hint hint) You see, we are water Jedis. Huh, huh? No, wait. That's really stupid, and not at all amusing. Wow was that a really dumb joke. On to less embarrassing matters, there are several angles to this week's LDR. First up, a little something I hosted Wednesday night that I like to call "badass lessons". What I did was sit down and think about what we were lacking most when we went out on LDs, and I decided that it was a sense of style and a sophisticated air of "don't-screw-with-us-or-we'll-blow-your-freakin-heads-off-with-a-high-powered- water-stream". So I set about planning ways to remedy this mistake, and came up with the perfect solution. To become better badasses, we must study the masters. And since I don't personal know Mr. T and Mr. A was unable to make an appearance, I settled for the next most badassity filled thing, watching Tombstone. Most of you are aware that this movie is one of the greatest of all times, and if you aren't, you should be drug out into the street for a shootout, Doc Holiday style. Because the tuberculosis inflicted Doc Holiday, played by val kilmer, is the quintessential(you can tell Ms. Ivey I used a vocab word) badass. With this solution firmly in mind, I set out the ask, beg, plead, cajole, harass, and threaten my hall mates until I got Chris to give me a ride to Blockbuster. It was there that I struck another of moviedoms classics, one that I had forgotten about, and one that all of you except for Bradley have most likely not seen. That's right, I'm talking about that most famous of famous Australian porno comedies, Welcome to Woop Woop. That's right, the name is Welcome to Woop Woop, and I can't even begin to describe it. Rent it if you can (they've got it at hollywood video) and prepare to have your mind boggled by the sheer genius of this cinematic accomplishment (in all honesty, it is one of the worst movies I've ever seen, but that's what makes it so great). Well, after I had the videos, I printed up some fliers for the hall announcing the so-called badass lessons and then sat back and let the news spread like wildfire............so on Wednesday night, the five of us that showed up (I later found out that only four were there for the badass part, the other one thought it was porn night) watched the movies and had a great time. At which point comes in the second part to my tale, my preparation for tonight. I had decided that instead of going tanked up and fully loaded, I wanted to attempt a more stealthy and mobile approach.(Hey, how do you like that, I put in a separation between ideas, made actual paragraphs, I'm moving on up. No one can say I don't take criticism from my readers, when they send it to me, hint hint) For this I would need something lighter than my backpack rig, but I couldn't just go with my gun, because I have to carry my spare tank for my triplecharge. So I set about making a few modifications to the harness that comes with the gun (all of you super soaker connoisseurs out there know what I'm talking about). The most major thing was actually inspired by Tombstone, which by yesterday I had already watched 3 times. I wanted to be able to quick draw my 3C, which requires that I have a holster. So I made one. Out of coat hangars and ducttape. I must say, I've outdone myself. This holster is without question the most magnificently ugly waste of tape I have ever had the distinct pleasure of viewing. But the most important thing is, it works. Once I had a holster, I modified a spare tank holder to put on the belt, and I was ready to go. Allright, bear with me, we're on the third and final leg of this particularly lengthy account, this part being the actual LD rundown. At about ten I was up in Isaac's room psyching myself up and playing vagrant story on playstation (any of you that like rpgs, get this game, you won't regret it, it's awesome) when Sleepy came up with some insider info. It seems that the Battenfeld wusses had stopped sitting on their butts in their AC'd hall watching their cable television, and were going to attempt to ambush us. They had a water balloon launcher, and were going to sit on their fire escape and bombard us. Well, we couldn't have them dishonoring us like that, so I started putting together an attack plan. At a quarter till 12 that night, I split our guys in to two groups, the assault group and the decoys. The assault group consisted of Sleepy, Isaac, and myself, dressed to kill (literally) in the best black clothes we could find. Sleepy was wearing all black (start fashion show music at this point), with trendy water resistant ski pants and accessorised with an empty back pack worn out front for armor, my borrowed ninja mask, and chic black goggles. Isaac, going with a ghetto goth hoodlum motif, was decked head to toe in black longsleeves and pants, topped off with a stylish black trenchcoat that simply screams psychopathic killer. I rounded out the trio in my sophisticated black turtleneck, gun harness, and my old work pants, once more finding a way to get in to mischief. (note to self: find out who came up with that last fashion sequence joke, and have him killed) As for armament, we forgoed the water balloons this week, opting for straight up guns: Sleepy with his SS of a model I am not familiar with, Isaac with his xp310, and myself going dual gun style with my 3C and my cps1200. Now that the stage is set, back to the plan. The idea was for the three of us to go around above and behind Battenfeld (remember, everything here is on a hill) and then sneak up on their fire escape to lay ambush. I put Chris in charge of leading our decoys, who were to go out into the street as we usually do, but to stay in the open to invite the BF's out for a clear shot. Here is how it actual went. My trio left at t-minus 10 minutes, and took the back way out of the hall and up the side street to put us behind BF. From here we could see the back of their hall, and realized a mistake. BF actual has two fire escapes on either end, and we didn't know which they were using. To make it worse, one faced the front of our hall where our guys would be setting up, but the other faced Pearson, where our guys would have normally ended up. This meant if they were on #2, our decoys would never draw them out. To further scout the situation, the three of us went farther around and double back on the hall, where we found to our dismay that they were on #2. About this time Pearson started the yells, and momentarily LD had officially begun. Unfortunately we were spotted by the BF's outside (stupidly attired all attired in white t-shirts, but I guess our black didn't do us much good anyway, could have something to do with our FLUORESCENT WATER GUNS!!) We fell back as they started coming up to throw at us. At this point we realized that BF guys are even worse aims than Pearsonites, and we zig and zagged among them dispensing watery doom. They soon retreated, our only casualties being a bit of splash back on Isaac's shoe and me getting pegged in the neck (which didn't make the balloon pop, thanks to my Dolph Lungrinesque neck muscles). Apparently our decoys heard the action, because at this point they charged up the hill and laid waste to BF as they headed back to their hall. Other than a few tentative peeks out the door, this was the last we saw of Batenfeld tonight. Amateurs. With that potential threat to our reputation out of the way, we turned our attentions to Pearson, who had once more adopted different tactics. Instead of coming out in the street to engage us like men, they chose to sit back on the third floor of their fire escape like sissy girls and bombard with us water balloons, of which they apparently had three thousand. It was for the most part a standoff after we determined their effective range, at which we could sit and taunt in relative safety. speaking of taunts, I forgot to mention that this entire time a steady stream of expletive littered insults was issuing forth from our fire escape. In an improvement on the earlier speaker microphone idea, they simply used a megaphone a Stephenson resident had "borrowed" from the security office he worked at. The following is an example of one such insult (Merry, don't read the next few lines, it may scar you): "HEY PEARSON, IT SEEMS WE'VE HAD A FOOD SHIPMENT MISTAKE. FOR SOME REASON WE WERE DELIVERED TWENTY-FIVE BOXES OF LABELED "EATIN' DICK." WE KNOW WE'RE NOT GOING TO USE THEM, WE FIGURED YOU'D WANT EM." That was one of my personal favorites, original, yet effective. Back to the fight, as I said it was a stalemate, since all we had to do was sit back and avoid their throws. They didn't, however, show any tendency to come down in fight if we stayed back, so I decided to provoke them. I pumped up my cps-1200, which I knew could reach three floors, and charged in next to their escape to shoot at them. For future reference, this is not among my better ideas in life, in fact it is right up there with snorting pixie stix and attempting to drive two blocks at 30 mph in reverse. I was immediately attacked by the Pearsonites, who, although poor shots at a distance, tend to be very precise when you stand RIGHT BENEATH THEM! I still fired at them, and for my second bad idea of the night I looked up to aim. FYI: if ever in a situation where you have a choice between taking several high speed water balloons to the eyes and not taking several high speed water balloons to the eyes, I highly recommend the later. After I stumbled back out of range and regained my ability to see, four minutes later, I determined that direct assault was not the way to go. Seeing my current state of concussion, my comrades were obliged to agree. As an alternative, I sent Sleepy back to the hall to rally together our best WB shots and to have them start filling balloons. In the meantime, we had the good fortune of a few Pearson guys coming out to fight. This usually took the form of a runby raid from their front door around to their fire escape, in which they would throw a few balloons and attempt to soak with a bucket or two. This plan backfired, though, when two raiders tried to go back in the front door, realizing belatedly that the door had closed behind them and it was programmed to automatically lock after midnight. There is nothing more amusing then watching two guys under a torrent of SS fire trying to figure out the passcode to their door. After they launched several of these raids, I began posting guys near the doors, so that we would have warning when they came out. This still didn't stop them, they simply took up the annoying practice of running out throwing a few balloons, and then darted back through the front door. This went on for about fifteen minutes, and my guys were unable to lay down sufficient fire to prevent these attacks, so I made a new tactic. The next time they darted out, I ran behind them and kicked their screen door shut (they had a guy inside usually holding it and the front door open to prevent lockage) then I stood right in front of it and hosed them when they started back. Realizing their escape was blocked, they had to run around the side and sustained quite a bit more fire. this tactic would not work in the long run, though, because I very easily foresaw the guy holding the door shut getting soaked through the screan by guys inside. That was when we found a way to put a stop to it. Derek ran back to the hall and filled a cleaning bucket with water. Then he went over to stand next to the door and out of sight. The next time the raiders started out, Derek swiveled out and caught the first one with a face full of water which flew past him and all over the guys behind him. I also though I heard a thump and figured he hit the guy in the head with the bucket, but Derek swears it didn't hit him (i think he's afraid of getting in trouble, he doesn't realize we'd give him a medal for doing it) the raiders turned right around, closed the dorr, and didn't come out again that night. That merely left the problem of the guys on the third floor. About this time our water balloon grenadiers showed up. There were four of them and each had about five baseball sized balloons. We sat them back out of range, and each of them aimed at the wall behind the Pearsonites, so they'd get caught in the backsplash. They let loose, and scored quite a few hits, driving all but 4 guys back inside. These four maintained the platform, however, and kept a steady supply of balloons and buckets ready in the event of an attack. With no effective way to attack them, and no evidence that there would be anymore ground fighting, we decided to call it a night and end champions. As one last form of petty victory, we formed up at the edge of their range, let forth a group wide "SUCK IT!!!" and then marched back to our hall. As I sit in front of this computer, reflecting on the events of the evening and sipping my cup of cocoa with hot milk (no laughs, even us fierce water warriors have to treat ourselves every now and them) I've found the glaring weakness in the SUCIT force to be our lack of any long range attacks. True, our SS's give us an advatage over bucket wielders and bad shots with WB's, but as you saw tonight we have no way to engage an enemy at a higher altitude without immense casualties. That is why I am sending out a request to all of you faithful LD fans. Whenever you go shopping, be it in Cookeville, Nashville, or on one of the various A-team trips, keep an eye out for water balloon launchers. I've seen them before, they're basically big slingshots, but I haven't been able to find any around here. We desperately need this so they we can continue to one up our opponents and reveal them for the little pansies they are. (Begin playing "over there" in the background) In this way, those of you back at home can help out the troops on the frontlines, who every week sacrafice their lives to make this world a safer place (Note: that's the last straw, that patriotism joke utterly sucked. Whoever is making these up is going to be tortured and killed by rabid wombats. I assure you, this imbecil will not be allowed to work on this publication again.) (Note: that last note joke also blew, that's it, the entire joke team is canned, put out ad for new joke team(sorry to steal your gag, Jonathon, and especially since i don't do it as well as you)) So please let me know if you think you can be of aid in this matter. Until next week, I bid you adieu. "Over there, Over there, Over there over there over.........." Matt ps hey, I like it when you guys give me feedback so I can make this better, hint hint. pss if, for any reason, this you found this LDR to be incoherent and unammusing, do not fault your self, the blame lays fully on my shoulders and on my fever induced and robatussin intoxicated state. I've been a smidge under the weather lately, and frankly I myself hardly understand what I'm saying. my apologies for any inconvenience. oh, and write me, hint hint. |