"The Red Diamond Dragon Club"

“The Red Diamond Dragon Club”

By Sean Quigley

It started out as a normal day for Vladimir. He woke up, looked out the window on the busy urban street, looked at all of the people who were clueless as to their unimportance. But one day, he thought, they would pay for their failure to follow Murdok. He shook his head vigorously, clearing out these thoughts. As he poured his coffee, he strained to remember the events that had taken place at the Red Diamond Dragon Club. A cup of tea, a heated argument with the delegate from the Black Hand of Krok, then- nothing. He had to find the Diamond soon, before the Dragon became angry. Realizing the urgency of the situation, he pulled on his boots, rushing down the stairs and past the landlord, who spoke constantly of some group known as “the Yankees”. As he opened the door, he looked at his watch. 9:30. Right on schedule.

On the street, he strained to make sense out of the chaos surrounding him. There! By the coffee shop, a tall balding man. When he reached to pick up his paper, his sock lifted up, revealing the Black Hand tattooed on his left ankle. An enemy of the Dragon. There was no time to lose. It was imperative that the Secret Cult of Murdok triumphed. Vladimir hurried down the street, tossing his half-empty coffee mug on the ground. The man, the infidel, saw him and turned quickly, vanishing into the crowd. But Vladimir, or Pierre, as his friends called him, had been taught well by Murdok. The Krok would not get away that easily. The pursuer caught up to his bounty about three blocks south of the Hideout. He wiped the hate off of his face and put on an air of complacency. The Disciple of the Evil One looked around shiftily. The last five meters which separated these mortal enemies seemed like miles to the young devotees. Pierre dug deep into his pocket, and the man with the Black Hand on his ankle tensed up, fearing a fight. The ever-cautious Vladimir handed the servant of evil a piece of paper and briskly walked away. The note read, “Murdok surveb Krok Dragon RDDC 10 eb Al”. Surely even an insolent follower of the Black Hand could decode it. Satisfied that he had fulfilled Murdok’s command, he gave the signal to Miguel and Brian. Everything was ready. At last, they would have revenge. Vladimir raised the Kool-aid to his lips, welcoming eternity…

User names and Screen names

OK, I'm thinking about joining Xanga, but I am fresh out of witty/ funny/ provocative/satirical usernames. If you have any ideas for a screen, post a comment. I don't care what it's about, I just need some ideas.

The Post Which Describes the day I just completed

Today has finally come to an end. What a day it was. It started off with Richard and me making jokes about defenestration (Defenestration- the act of throwing someone out of a window) and ended with me eating dinner. Mr. Dan finally decided to let me be the manager of the girls soccer team. When basketball ended, I started work, but soon grew tired of the mindless drudgery of which mandatory cleaning of school buildings consists. Mr. Rhem offered to let me be the other manager of the girl's soccer team, because he wanted me to stay in shape. He said he would let me work out, and I will get to play soccer. It sure beats working. I also discovered today that the trip for the language competition leaves at 6:00 in the morning. But the language competition will be easy because I am pretty much fluent in French. So I'm not worried.

After this refreshing blogging session, I feel rejuvenated and ready to do whatever comes next, which will hopefully be sleep.

LeBron: The new MJ?

With Sports Illustrated putting him on their cover and asking "Best Ever?", The hype over LeBron has never been greater. But is he the next Michael Jordan? Will he ever equal or surpass the Air Jordan? Or, more importantly, is he the man who can become the face of the NBA to the millions of people who don't follow it? Does he have the combination of skill, good looks, and publicity to become a worldwide household name? Some would say he already has. While I was wathcing the Cavaliers lose to Indiana last night, my mom came in. When she saw I was watching basketball, she was clearly uninterested, but then she heard the announcer say, "Cleveland Cavaliers", her face lit up. "LeBron James!" She said. He was a player whom she could identify, and her interest in the game skyrocketed. She still didn't watch it with me, but it proved to me something. She had no idea (and didn't care) that LeBron was having a bad shooting night and didn't yet have a field goal. He was just a player she knew. The only one she knew. For years, this was Micheal Jordan's role: to be an icon of the NBA. LeBron has become a David Beckham-esque figure; he might be the best player, or he might not, but he is the connection point between non-fans and his sport. We must also remember that when Micheal Jordan was in his second year, he wasn't even an All-Star. LeBron's career so far has been more successful than that of Jordan when he was at the same point. Mabye, someday, LeBron will win seven titles, exceeding Jordan and removing all doubt of his greatness.

Shakespeare, adoption, and things like window washing

Well, tonight was the annual Shakespeare play at school. Attendance was mandatory, so I dragged myself down to the theater for what I expected to be a terrible evening. Shakespeare did not dissapoint. It was a pretty bad play, although it was good for Shakespeare, but, as if requiring attendance wasn't enough, they left the lights on! Throughout the whole show! We couldn't even sleep! Preposterous! Today has been terrible. It's like when you wake up and find that a pack of rabid spitting weasels have taken up residence in your nose. You just want to scream and laugh at the absurdity of it all. At the debate today, Henning put me on the con side! I had to argue that gays and lesbians should NOT be allowed to adopt children, even thougb I feel they should. He delibratley split Logan and me up just to spite us. So that made History today about as fun as jumping out of a plane without a parachute. Then, I had to go to work! At my school, if you don't do a sport, you are sold into slavery and you must work tiresome hours for no wages. So I had to wipe windows and vaccuum classrooms that were already clean! At least Mr. Rhem said I can go play soccer with the girls team some days. That will be fun. But right now everything is terrible. Also I think my computer got screwed up by something me and Logan did after school. And then, not only did I have to miss watching the Georgia Tech game because of the idiotic piece of Shakespeare filth, Duke beat us! Duke beat Georgia Tech by four points, dropping us to 6-7 in the ACC. So right now, I'm kinda pissed at those weasels camping out in my nose. I'm about ready for them to leave. OK, I feel better now. Blogging is so soothing. Mabye I will write something else later tonight if I can't sleep. But it will be lighter hearted and completly weasel-free. Promise.

Netscape icons

I've noticed since switching to firefox that most sites have their own little logo where there is just an E on Internet explorer. Obviously this is just a difference between the two browsers. How could I get a logo for my site? Does anyone know this? Please post if you know.

Quote of the day

"The United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion"

-John Adams, founding father.


Just something to think about.

Some random thoughts

School started back today, ending a 4 day long weekend. At convocation I was inducted into the National French Honor Society, which is cool I guess. I got a free t-shirt. I was, I think, the only guy up there. I don't know why, but most guys take Spanish or Latin. oh well.

This week is debate week in Henning's class. It's going to be swell! A whole week of in class, mandatory arguing for a grade! I get to do what I do in class anyway, but now it is encouraged. The only drawback is that Emily won't be there. That's bad because I disagree with her about pretty much everything, so arguing with her is fun. Tomorrow's topic is whether same-sex couples sohould be allowed to adopt children. I fall strongly on the PRO side of this hot topic. Did you know that only 24% of children are raised by both of their biological parents without divorce? Take that, you Fanatical Conservatives! Yes, it would be a shame to corrupt the "American Family Unit" by allowing gays to have children, because right now our families are so pure and righteous. I can't wait for tomorrow.

Right now I'm listening to Flogging Molly, an Irish band. Or at least I think they're Irish. They had a four leaf clover on their CD cover. Not that I bought the CD of course. I'm strongly opposed to that. Get your music for free from your friends!

And the unenlightened one rambles on...

Well, basketball season is officially over, and we lost our last game. But I'm glad that now I will have free time.

Do you have lots of cool images saved on your computer? Do you wish you could hang them up on your wall like full-sized posters without much pixelation? Well I have a site for YOU! Rasterbate your images! No, perverts, get your minds out of the gutter. The Rasterbator takes images and makes them into a huge, printable PDF file. You can adjust how many pages you want it to take up and whatnot. Use it for all of your image-resizing needs! The Rasterbator.

In Henning's class today, Logan and me got into a huge argument. That usually happens in Hennings History, but today it was worse than usual. I don't even remember what it was about, but I was real fired up about it. We were standing up and screaming at each other, and it was so intense that Chris started to keep score. Mr. Henning, of course, didn't inervene until I was in the middle of making an excellent, well thought out remark. It was all in good fun though. Argung with Logan during history is one of my favorite pastimes. I think that the argument was something to do with the Chinese or the Indians or something. Maybe it was about overpopulation. I can't recall. But I think I won it. I remember Logan being mad about it afterwards. But there are no hard feelings; we skipped the first half of English together to go buy Cokes at the Grill, and he lent me 50 cents. English is a pointless class anyway. During our boycott of English, we didn't argue even once. I was proud of us. So now, I leave you with this parting thought: On the other hand, you have different fingers.