Splinter Cell World Tour, part 2

OK so I've got this idea of visiting the world through the medium of Splinter Cell...actually I've already done that, but I mean using the missions in Splinter Cell as a way of choosing which places in the world I could visit - for more details read my first post, which isn't too far down the page.

After evading Agents with Magnums in one hand and curiously large syringes in the other in Maryland it would make sense to stay in America and visit more locations, and if this thing ever happens that's what I would do, but for now I'll stick to the order they come in the game.

With the fifth game announced and looking incredible this idea is even more exciting, but for now I'll continue with the journey of the Stealth Action game that wowed us all.

Tbilisi

Country: Georgia
Area: 726 km2
Population: 1,480,000
Language: Georgian







In Sam Fisher's first mission for Third Echelon he is sent to Tbilisi, the capital city of Georgia. A covert operative within the government has gone dark and Sam is sent to investigate, the trail leads to dead bodies and a lot of suspicion that opens the doorway into a wider conspiracy.

You tour the city, keeping to the shadows and taking down guards and enemies silently. After the initial investigation you go to the Georgian Defense Ministry in the city to investigate the connection between the country's president and a Russian mercenary. The ministry is an impressive building and possibly worth a visit, but I think I'd settle for the guided tour rather than entering by the roof!













Tbilisi is a city I'd be particularly interested in visiting as it's one that gave me this idea. I would probably not even have heard of Tbilisi if it wasn't for Splinter Cell, and it's the way that it's widened my understanding of the world that would make me very interested in visiting Georgia and it's capital.

Aside from that I know little about Tbilisi, other than the South Ossetia war with Russia of last year. I've briefly learned that it has a democratic government due to one of the largest and most successful non-military coups of recent times in 2003. It also boasts a large amount of architecture some unsanctioned, it will soon host two of the largest skyscrapers in the region and already holds some fascinating buildings like the Roads Ministry Building, which I'd love to see.











And there we are - the second stop on my Splinter Cell tour; where will we go next?










Word of the post: Curry —Idiom

.

curry favor, to seek to advance oneself through flattery or fawning: His fellow workers despised him for currying favor with the boss. curry (v.) c.1290, "to rub down a horse," from Anglo-Fr. curreier "to curry-comb a horse," from O.Fr. correier "put in order, prepare, curry," from con- intens. prefix + reier "arrange," from a Gmc. source. The surviving sense of curry favor is c.1510, altered by folk etymology from curry favel (c.1400) from O.Fr. correier fauvel "to be false, hypocritical," lit. "to curry the chestnut ('fawn-colored') horse," which in medieval Fr. allegories was a symbol of cunning and deceit.

I can't find my quote book!

Right, I am now in possession of both time and a life so expect my return to semi-frequent posting on the blog, as opposed to the very much infrequent posting there has been of late.

I hope all readers are well and I courteously extend an invitation for you all to turn your eyes this way once more and I'll share a thing or two with you.

I don't have anything in particular to relate at this moment, rather I simply announce that I am back on the scene. I don't even have my book do my weekly wuotes, but at the very least I can at least post for you my

Word of the post: Boring –adjective

causing or marked by boredom: a boring discussion; to have a boring time.

She lives!

You might be excused for thinking that this blog is dead but honestly she's not and I have been tapping into the bloggosphere every now and again to read the words of friends and fellow bloggers.

I am at an extremely busy and stressful time in my life, more so than I have ever experienced before. I have a few more weeks and then I will be free to enjoy the sunshine...and when the inevitable thunderstorm breaks I'll be right back to fill your otherwise empty lives with my words and thoughts.

I can't find my quotey book at the moment so I can't even give you one of the quotes, but I'll state some of the things I've been enjoying in the scant free moments that I have:

Halo Wars/ Mass Effect/ Prototype, these video games are great fun and provide that challenge and enjoyment that can fill that half an hour slot when I'm just too tired to do anything else.

The return of Ugly Betty: one of the best shows ever is back on channel 4, why o why do I have to work?!!!

Glastonbury: I checked out the Pendulum gig, which was off the hook, and also got treated to Gaslight Anthem being supported by Bruce Springstein, legendary!! If you can access iPlayer check it out now!!

See you soon I hope

Another Relic

I thought I'd already posted this, but I couldn't see it so I thought I'd share this old time container for media goods from a certain outlet that is sadly no longer with us, leaving one dog based giant controlling the media market. Their stores seem for the moment, untouched, as if no one wants to remove the relic or disturb the memory of happier times. I'm going to hold on to this bag in case the day comes when the signs are torn down and we can no longer reminisce about price comparisons or, if you are old enough, about how Virgin stores used to occupy that space - lamentable times, lamentable times indeed.

I'll commemorate this with a weekly quote

"It's no use; men are the strongest, and if they are cruel and have no feeling, there is nothing that we can do, but just bear it in and on to the end. I wish the end would come." - Black Beauty, Anna Sewell

And for good measure:

Word of the post: Cognizant –adjective
1.
having cognizance; aware (usually fol. by of): He was cognizant of the difficulty.

Another Weekly Quote Double

There may be some free time on the horizon, keep a weather eye...

"It wasn't a person but a principle that I killed! I killed the principle, but I didn't step over it, I remained on this side of it...all I was able to do was to kill. And the way it's turning out, it seems I didn't even manage to do that...the principle?!"

"The more cunning a man is, the simpler the trap he must be caught in" - Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

200

Well I've made it - a landmark in my blogging - 200 posts! For some of my compadres it may be a distant landmark, noting a time so far back on the horizon it's barely worth noting - but it is a landmark nonetheless and one of which I'm proud. I'm impressed that the blog has stayed on this long and has actually grown and developed a bit since I started the project. Weekly Quotes have managed to pad out the content and I hope provided some interesting posts and I have managed to vary the content a bit and not just have sparsely populated long ranty things as I did in the early days.

Well I wasn't sure what to do to commemorate this occasion, I've done a recap of favourite things before and I felt something new was needed, so I decided to let Google do the talking and see what happened when I typed in '200' - here are some of the results I found.

Wikipedia - the year 200 A.D.

Wikipedia - the number 200

WiseGeek - What does 200 calories look like?

The Register - Minnesota want to ban access to 200 gambling sites

Brunel200 - Celebrating 200 years since the birth of Isenbard Kingdom Brunel

Actually some pretty interesting stuff eh?

I'll finish with an apology for lack of content, life is particularly busy at the moment and blogging is unfortunately one thing I don't have much time for I'm afraid to say so you won't hear much from me for the next few weeks. I'm glad we managed to reach this milestone, but I'm not sure how much further we'll progress until life returns to normal - I'll try and keep up with weekly quotes, though I may have to do some double posts like this one...

"We don't become Geisha so our lives will be satisfying. We become Geisha because we have no other choice." - Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden.

"Maybe if things would be different for them, better... Maggie forced herself to believe that things would be better for the children, otherwise what was the point of it all?" - Noughts and Crosses, Malorie Blackman.

And I'll finish with a traditional...

Word of the post: Infinity –noun, plural -ties.

1.	the quality or state of being infinite.

2.	something that is infinite.

3.	infinite space, time, or quantity.

4.	an infinite extent, amount, or number.

5.	an indefinitely great amount or number.

6.	Mathematics. a. the assumed limit of a sequence, series, etc., that increases without bound. b. infinite distance or an infinitely distant part of space.

7.	Photography. a. a distance between a subject and the camera so great that rays of light reflected from the subject may be regarded as parallel. b. a distance setting of the camera lens beyond which everything is in focus.

Weekly Quote - W/E 11/04/09

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I go to, than I have ever known." - A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens.

Splinter Cell World Tour, part 1

I had this kinda random idea of going on a world tour, visiting the locations that come up in the Splinter Cell games. For those that don't know Splinter Cell is a game based on very advanced counter terrorism, particularly in the area of cyber terrorism that takes the her around the world using gadgets, stealth and a good ol' fashioned hunting knife to stop the bad guys and save the world in the very near future. The game features a wide variety of locations, some fictional, but all grounded in realism and I thought it might be fun to visit some of these places that I've only heard of from the game and others I already know about but would like to visit anyway.

It'll probably never happen - certainly not soon so I thought I'd post about them in the meantime, so here's the first one:

Fort Meade, Maryland.












I don't think the location of the training missions is explicitly revealed, and I don't think I'd ever be able to get into whatever top secret techno-bunker they used to train Sam Fisher if it ever did exist so I think going to the National Security Agency Headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland would be the closest thing to that since Third Echelon (the fictional agency Sam works for) are a department of that organization.

I don't know if they give guided tours there or if it's even possible to get past the car park without being shot by spy satellites, but it'd be worth going just to see the place from which one of the most powerful and well equipped agencies in the world runs it's operations. I've always quite fancied a trek to America, but there's a ton of locations to visit on the vast nation it'd be hard to think of which to visit - but this one wouldn't be a bad one to put on the list so I'm thinking this tour might be a good idea, as long as I could squeeze in Central Park and maybe San Diego Comic Con.

There's also a few other American spy based locations on the first game's list and realistically I'd visit them before setting off to anywhere else, but as we're going about this trip virtually so I'll stick to going in chronological order and set out to somewhere interesting next time, but for now I'll leave you with a map of all Fisher's visits so far to give you a hint of where this journey might take us.












Word of the post: Exponential –adjective

1.	of or pertaining to an exponent or exponents.

2.	Mathematics. a. of or pertaining to the constant e. b. (of an equation) having one or more unknown variables in one or more exponents.

–noun

3.	Mathematics. a. the constant e raised to the power equal to a given expression, as e3 x, which is the exponential of 3x. b. any positive constant raised to a power.

Weekly Quote W/E 04/04/09

"I did it all to myself, I have no one else to blame. And I cannot regret one single moment of it." - The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCullough

Weekly Quote W/E 28/03/09

"Only one creature could have duplicated the expressions on their faces and that would be a pidgeon who has heard not only that Lord Nelson has got down off his column but has also been seen buying a 12-bore repeater and a box of cartridges." - Mort, Terry Pratchett

Say hello to my leedle friend

This is a tale of love and friendship.

Buying Christmas presents for people is always awkward, but not quite as awkward as recieving them. When you've sadly passed the stage where a pile of Lego will no longer cut it you have to start thinking of what people might get you that you want, don't already have and is within reasonable price paramaters.

My friend and I were at such a loss last Christmas and in a desperation fueled stupour I decided I wanted a green Elephant which feasted on Jelly Babies...but only the green ones (obviously). Many more such jokey requests were made over the course of the evening with no real solution in sight.

But a few weeks later we had a party and a 'Secret Santa' where we had to buy a cheap novelty present for a random friend. I bought a giant (functional) pen as I recall - and my friend bought/made me this:

















In't that brilliant! I'm liking this random photo with a story behind it stuff - watch out for more

Word of the post: Shuffle - –verb (used without object)

1.
to walk without lifting the feet or with clumsy steps and a shambling gait.

Weekly Quote W/E 14/03/09

"The children jumped over the ditch and walked through the wood, down the paths they knew so well. The wood was full of fairy folk going about their buisness. They took no notice of the children." - The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton

Weekly Quote - W/E 07/03/09

"Think what it would be like if you got back to your island and there was no old man, no girl any more. No mysterious fun and games. The whole place locked up forever. It's finished. Finished. Finished." - The Magus, John Fowles

Custom Status

Well as I quite like posting short, snappy pieces centred around a photo I thought I'd dig out this old thing - probably my earliest attempt at messing around with pictures using Paint, and as you can see I haven't improved a great deal. I felt at the time, and still do, that MSN Messenger was lacking in variety with it's status indicators, missing out key ones such as "having a shower." I thought it would be good if people could set their own and this was one attempt to do this, which I used on MSN for a while.















Any others you could think of - you never know I might even bring back the craft!

Word of the post: Quixotic –adjective
1.
(sometimes initial capital letter) resembling or befitting Don Quixote.
2.
extravagantly chivalrous or romantic; visionary, impractical, or impracticable.
3.
impulsive and often rashly unpredictable.

This Morning I...

Woke up too early, went back to sleep, woke up again

Had Cheerios for breakfast

Watched the last episode of The 4400 series 3 - it was awesome! Watched all the bonus features too.

Went on the internet, spent less than 10 minutes on Facebook, which is good, but also quite sad as an achievement.

Wrote the Weekly Quote

Walked the dog, stopped to watch the ostriches.

Looked at a book for my PDE essay on Inclusion

Watched an episode of Doctor Who with my Uncle

Had lunch

Just in case you were wondering what I'm up to!

Word of the post: Implement – verb (used with object)

4. to fulfill; perform; carry out: Once in office, he failed to implement his campaign promises.
5. to put into effect according to or by means of a definite plan or procedure.

Weekly Quote W/E 28/02/09

"Crowley remembered what heaven was like, and it had quite a few things in common with hell. You couldn't get a decent drink in either of them, for a start." - Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

Key Stage 2, ironically

I just thought I'd let you readers know about some of the things I've been getting up to recently.

As most of you know I'm doing PGCE teacher training, which is a hard slog I tells ya, but there are some perks, such as the opportunity to get creative and have fun with mates. As we do occasionally get to make cool things, especially on the D/T and Art side of things I thought I'd actually share some of the things I've made and done with y'all on here.

















This is actually something I made in Science. we were given a making task, with the brief of designing and making a plant. Above is my result - can you guess what it is? And yes it is finished!

It's grass!

I found a piece of pipe cleaner and some string for the roots and voila - we have a blade of grass, made in about a minute and seen here proudly perched on my Science folder. Despite my laziness and cunning I actually got smartest child in the class award for it because I'd ignored the common preconception that all my colleagues and fallen for and not designed a flower.

Fun eh? I'll try and remember to show you some more stuff soon(ish)

Word of the post: Prolific –adjective

2.
producing in large quantities or with great frequency; highly productive: a prolific writer.
3.
profusely productive or fruitful (often fol. by in or of): a bequest prolific of litigations.
4.
characterized by abundant production

Weekly Quote Double - W/E 21/02/09

Looks like I might have missed one, oh well lucky for you I decided to pick a quote to grace the cover of my English folder so you can have that in addition to the latest book one.

"So now they have made our English tongue a gallimaufry and hodgepodge of all other speeches." - Edmund Spenser

"This is our island. It's a good island. Until the grown-ups come to fetch us we'll have fun." - Lord of the Flies, William Golding

There, honour is satisfied.

Ancient Artifacts

This is a genuine olden days document from a forgotten time, this is history in our hands folks and we should never forget the day the sun closed on an epic era.
















If you're wondering about the aeroplane it's my mouse mat!!

Word of the post: Rarity - –noun, plural -ties.

1.something rare, unusual, or uncommon

Weekly Quote - W/E 07/02/09

"Ah! He wanted to have that scent...to peel it from her skin and make her scent his own..." - Perfume, Patrick Suskind