Spontaneous Scholar: daquell

Everyone from time to time has experienced that tingling feeling, that rising of the hairs on the back of your neck, that creepy realisation that something isn’t right. It’s a psychological happening christened the Red Flag in common language.

You may have had such a feeling today. For instance, who is that creeping up behind you?

Anyway, enough abstract musing. Right before I decided to turn in for the night, I checked on the Tale of Wraith Daquell. The site wasn’t showing its content. That’s just fine: I told it to do that because Aeden discovered some new scrolls and wanted to make sure the codex was correct. Using my super-administrative powers, I got past the maintenance screen and was just checking on the site when… Red Flag. Something wasn’t right. I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then I clicked the link.

Sidebar: Writing a book and web-publishing were made in alternate realities. In book writing, one writes the first page, turns the page, and writes the second page. In web-publishing, one writes the first posting, then the second, then the third. And by that time, the first post is buried beneath its newer brethren. How does one rectify the situation? Two solutions: 1) Write the book backwards, 2) 1337 site hax!

The Tale was displaying half of its pages backwards. Not all of it. Just half. The Red Flag discovered, it was torn down, torn apart, and buried next to a very forlorn rock. And that is why, for my Christmas vacation, I have now compiled quite a sum of sleep debt.

Or, more appropriately, in the dark statistics.

The crew played flashlight tag tonight for the first time in months. I go off to school and come back, and my little flashlight taggers have grown up. We had a good turnout: eight whole people showed up. While not as good as previous years, where we had as many as sixteen kids running around the yard screaming after dark, it was quite good considering KnightGames has been disbanded. A neighbor heard me trying to scare some of the players into blowing their cover; she thought I was a burglar and called my parents (we were playing in our yard, though). After my mom explained to her what was going on, she started laughing really loud (probably relief). Then she came out and said hello to all of us.

Oh, yeah, statistics. We scoffed at our long standing standard of one to one-and-a-half hours for the competition; tonight’s games were two hours long! If I had my software handy, I’d make a perky little graph, but this here box of XP doesn’t have anything like that. So, a list is in order:

• 5 min - first round is under-way. Players are happy and rarin’ to go (+10 excitement).
• 20 min - round two ends. As confident players get more confident, un-confident players get less confident. (+9)
• 50 min - beginning of round 5. Somebody asks for the time. (+6)
• 1:15 min - end of round 7. A long lull follows. Players usually get restless and start a boy-vs-girl wrestling match*. Somebody suggests another game. (+4 for tag, +8 for wrestling or a faster-paced game)
• 1:40 min - beginning of round 8. This will be the last round. Nobody has patience to play. The men usually go on a sacrificial run to allow the ladies to get to base. Someone climbs a tree. (-1 for tag, +7 for stopping or getting a snack)

So, as time progresses, interest in the tag rounds decreases. We’re usually at our best if we end at about one hour. Then, after the wrestling match ensues, we all go home.

*During the wrestling matches, the men do not attack the ladies except for their sisters. Consequently, the men always lose…

go on record for being the latest I’ve stayed up this Christmas break.

And it will not go on record for being a New Year’s trend: 2008, you’re looking at a cured child who goes to bed at decent times instead of programming all night! Except… for a little relapse… every now and again. For old time’s sake.

And by the by: Happy New Year!