Indeed, we will corner the global bottled water market. Once our fiercest competitor's products are under the Norwegian umbrealla, no one will dare challenge us.

Furthermore, we expect a 75% increase in our exports of cubed ice.

Thanks for the concern, Compton - do realize, though, I'm not going to dissappear come 17th of August, I just expect access to be a little bit more sporadic and limited.

I was just expecting 2 months of boot camp with no access, then there will be the Airborne Rangers training-
“Death from Above!”

Lets see, oh yes, the Norway version of Seal training, where you otter down the snowy slopes on your tummy, picking off the enemy with a sniper rifle. That training site is remote indeed.

Then you get a comfy position guarding some chateau where the Norwegian snow volleyball team works out in bikinis and hot tub their stress away…

Okay, If you think you will still be able to log in from time to time, that would be great! I was just expecting serious chunks of time without access. Still, the plan I outlined above is in effect. I would like to see those come up first.

Got to get packing...

Too bad Iain can't pretend to be Chorro!
"No, no! The event was moved to my Private Hotel room at the La Quinta!"
Heh-heh!

Guy's supposed to be a high-strung prima donna type, right? What if somebody calls him: "Mr. Rousseau? This is Jack Smith, Mr. Chorro's new assistant. I'm afraid we have to change the conditions of our arrangement. You'll work with our staff, and Mr. Chorro will be choosing each night's menus personally. Also, you'll be working under Mr. Teague. You may remember him from Iron Chef."

Oh... get him to quit the job?

Exactly.

Or skip the Iron Chef thing and say it's to be some cultural theme, like Traditional Southern Barbeque (or Crawfish boil) and he's to work under some no name/expert from Louisianna.

Okay, we will advance the game time a few days. During that time mirror research has been going on. Pieran has a good start on crafting a replica of the mirror frame based on the eBay pictures. A background search on the chef has come up with his cookbook and a video tape that will show some of his mannerisms. And a shopping excursion for Mike could have occurred to the local mall, since Alex offered. Mike has not yet received a credit card, but Hornsby has passed word that one is being processed and should arrive in a week.

Anyone that wants to post a scene of their activities for the past couple of days can do so.

Have we decided on how to keep the real chef away? I liked each suggestion and they all could work nicely. Pick one and we will make it happen.

Hey everybody! Hi from St. Louis! I just spent part of my day in the Arch. It still looks great, tall, shine and strong. Funny, it didn’t have any sign of the battle you all had there. ;-)

I have had some issues connecting the past couple of days. But I will be home soon and back to my stable connection.

Last chance to post any montage scene of your research or prep work for the last couple of days.

Johnny, go ahead and post the background you found on Mike in the game thread. Thanks.

I'm sorry to inform everyone I'm going away on Thursday, and I'll be on the road for much of August, until the 20th, at least. Nothing ominous, just a bit of an ad hoc vacation with my dad. I'm going to get online as often as possible while I'm gone, but it won't be regular and quite likely it won't be daily.

I just have time to report to say I'm either really busy or without any net access this whole week. Good news is I'm going LARP'ing, bad news is I've got so much to do with group meetings and sewing costumes and learning and writing music for the event that I simply can't participate here at the moment. I hope to be back in action on Monday.

 - Sincere apologies,
Resident gambler

_{As part of my excuses, I will submit pictures of myself with my hair braided. That ought to appease the masses.}

I think I will delay the river boat recon until Mike gets to a more stable place on his walk-about. We pick up at the Manor in Dren’s room….

Hey everybody, I'm still alive. I'm currently in New Orleans, it's pretty cool. I should be able to post a time or two later this week; after that we start back and I'm not sure what my schedule will be. I'll be back home and to my regular schedule on the 1st.

Found this recent article on the web. It is so timely it’s spooky. We all know why this has happened. And you all worked together to fix it.  ;-)

http://www.wwl.com/Article.asp?id=263890&spid=

P.S. Mike should be back to regular posting by the end of the week.
P.S.S. Johnny, I hope the military is treating you right!

After about an hour of waiting, I finally got hold of an actual internet connection. Short version is, I'm doing fine, but am far more busy than I would have thought, and the local computer room doesn't have any internet at the moment. I expect to be able to actually participate by the end of this month. I'll be promoted from recruit to private, and actually have both freedom to do what I want and some actual spare time.

Hope all of you are having a good time as well.

Johnny, Congrats on passing basic training. It gets better, bit by bit. Hope you get your privileges upgraded soon! Keep at it. Just remember, they can make you do a lot of things, but they can’t take away your birthday!

Well Tropical Storm Ernesto packed a lot more punch then anyone predicted. We got some wind and a ton of rain that flooded streets all around me. My home weathered it well with only a few small branches down. But we lost power early and it stayed off for two full days. We are back on the grid now. All in all, it wasn’t too bad. The withdrawal shudders are subsiding.   :-)

Sorry I've been so quiet folks; I've just been applying to/running about like a madwoman because of/preparing to enter a degree course in radiography at my local university.  Induction week is (finally) over, run with the usual fine administrative skills of academics, so hopefully my posting will pick up now I'm more or less settled.

In unrelated news, I just got my driving license, just over eight months after finally removing the suture from my second corneal transplant. I'm now officially a 00 agent :P

Oh, wait, they took the license to kill from the 00 guys a few years ago, didn't they?

That's great - the Radiology! Exciting field with cool toys.
"Kids, this is your brain...
This is your brain on drugs...
This is a 3D model of our brain that we got by scanning the electromagnetic information given off by each individual cell making up your brain."

But if I'm not mistaken you're going to be pretty busy (so I hope I'm mistaken). Not sure about the set up in your area but when I was looking into a class here in Houston, TX they said I'd spend about 20-25 a week in class, and about 20 hours a week in "lab" or hospital settings and I'd still have take home assignments. I'd basicly have to quit my job ironically (which I would have needed to pay for the schooling as I already had $20K in student loans as it was) and live off my finacee of a couple of years (which I didn't want to do, hence the interest in Radiology) so needless to say I did not continue in my pursuits of being an MRI technician. All in all, I hope the medical schools in this town are just brutal.

I think so, Iain.

How it works over here is we do 9:30-3:00 during college placement, and 9:00-5:30 during clinical placement.  We spend about 8 weeks at one, then switch to the other; the idea being we learn the theory and then are let loose on unwitting patients.  We will have assignments to do, but I'm hoping this should all be manageable.  Finance-wise, being an "Allied Health Professional", the NHS pay my tutition fees and give me a bursary to live on, but I think I shall have to try and take out a student loan as well, because the bursary is quite small.

As for what I'm doing - I'm training in the therapeutic aspect, not the diagnostic, so my training will focus around Oncology and the technologies used in that field.  No MRIs for me, only whopping great simulation and treatment Linacs.

Congrats to Iain! I am so happy your eyes work so well! Being on the severe side of near-sighted myself, I feel for you.

Congrats to Alex! It sounds like you have a lot of work ahead, but it sounds very rewarding. It sounds like an intense course of study.

I am looking to wrap this scene. I will give it a day for any final comments. I feel the actual signing of contracts and the nickel tour can be done off camera. Details of that off camera stuff will be provide.

I will be in Atlantic City this week on business. I had planned to try to move the game forward this week but, I just found out that I will not have any internet access. If I have time, I may try to find an internet café and see what I can do, but right now you probably shouldn’t count on it. The next scene was going to be a group meeting so you could compare notes about what Pieran, Mike, and Alex found out with their recon and perhaps put together a plan. Unfortunately, I don’t have time right now to send them the details of what they learned. If you want, go ahead and make posts about arriving and gathering for the meeting. I’ll do my best to get the details sent as soon as I can so you can go over them together and figure out how you want to pull this caper off. Sorry for the delay. My plan is to jump forward to the night of the game as soon as this meeting scene is over.

Once again in totally unrelated news, I almost got myself killed a few times today in my first trip out of town with my new car, which is now sporting a brand-new white line on its front-right side :P

I knew I couldn't quite drive decently, I just hadn't realized to what extent :P

That sucks, Ian.  What do you think is the reason for that?