You when it's the day before school, it's late at night, and you'd rather go to sleep then do homework? Especially when you thought you had it all done and you had the whole LONG WEEKEND to yourself, only to realize at the last minute you had seven science problems left. The problems that take twenty minutes each to solve and show your work, I'm talkin' 'bout.
Well, there comes a time when that poor fellow must take these steps:
1) Take a deep breath...
2) Get out the pencil
3) Get out the paper / Electronic Device
4) Check the text messages
5) Open up Facebook
6) Triple check your Email
And finally...
7) Write a Blog Post
After you have taken those steps, you should find that key you left in your front right pocket, unlock the door to success, and walk through the halls of motivation before reaching the place of rest, where you can sleep until you have to procrastinate the weekend away all over again next week.
2.20.2012
2.06.2012
Black or White Stripes?
The zebra is an interesting animal because of it unique pattern of stripes. To my own understanding, there has always been a debate about whether the creature has black or white stripes, but I believe I have the truth. The real truth is that no absoultely CARES!!!!!!! Want to know why no one cares? Because everyhting likes pandas more than zebras. Personally, I believe that zebras have orange skin that is covered up by the white and black stripes, but then again no cares....
2.04.2012
The Cloud
Two children lay in the grass atop the largest hill either of them could find. The wind gently wafted over the grass, enough to ruffle both of their clothes. The sky seemed to stretch on until the end of the earth, and was colored in the clear blue reserved especially for a summer’s sky.
“Which cloud is your favorite?” The girl inquired of her companion, in a similar laying position beside her on the grass. “Mine is that one,” She pointed up to indicate her decision. “It looks like an elephant. Come on,” She prompted, nudging the boy. He wrinkled his brow in thought. After a moment he lifted his hand and pointed at his choice, a small, unremarkable, puffy cloud.
“Why?” The girl asked of him, “It’s so small and little. Mine’s bigger than yours.”
“That’s exactly why I picked it. All the other clouds are big, but it carries on and doesn’t let them get it down. It just calmly journeys across the sky.”
And the clouds moved slowly along in their journey across the sky.
***
The cloud, in fact the very cloud that the boy enjoyed, drifted lazily onward, over countless fields, forests, hills, and lives. The wind eventually happened across an area of exceedingly low precipitation and equally low humidity, an area called, by the fragile creatures below, a desert. The cloud slowly fell and evaporated, the water making it up dissipating and being absorbed fruitlessly by the air around it. The wind in turn bore aloft the water molecules, scattering them hither and yon, sending them to seep into the ocean, flow through a river, become more clouds, or freeze into ice. The molecules condensed into life-giving water, nourishing and cleansing. The death of the cloud gave new life to many, the home for fish, the hydration of animals, and the rain for plants. The molecules of water were, and are, destined to cycle over and over, becoming clouds, rain, rivers, oceans, and clouds again, in the ever-repeating cycle of water.
***
However, nothing is permanent. Eventually, the end of days will come. Long after any self-important primates walked upright upon the blue planet, thinking themselves to be the center of everything, long after even the greatest of their accomplishments are wiped from the face of the earth, their life-giving star will begin to die. Slowly at first, after using its hydrogen, but faster and faster as it annihilates heavier and heavier elements. It then will expand outward, absorbing all of the planets in its path, Mercury, and then Venus, then Earth will fall to the dying sun. Everything man has ever done in the entirety of its history, every leader, artist, kind parents, and wayward travelers, all trace of all they have done extinguished, a candle snuffed by the hand of time. A nova is then created, a celestial explosion of matter. The sun, rather what is left of it, throbs at the center, a pale shadow of its former self. Our life giving orb, a mere cluster of charged particles, will be trapped at the center of the dust of its corpse. Without the necessary gravity, the outermost planets move slowly along in their journey across the universe.
***
The sun will leave behind a wonderful nova, a cloud of energized gas and dust drifting in space. Many would find the cloak of the dead star to be saddening, a mournful epitaph to the former solar system. However, the cloud will serve another purpose: a stellar nursery. The dust slowly begins to form together, as the lump of dust gets more and more mass, its gravity attracts more dust, and gradually it becomes bigger, asteroid-sized, and soon planet-sized, then on to the size of a small star. When it gains enough mass, it will collapse in on itself into a furnace of fusion, annihilating hydrogen and creating heavier atoms and energy. Thus a new star is born, a fire burning for four billion years or more. The death of the sun, giving stars new life, and solar systems of their own, rising from the ashes of the sun and the earth.
***
Novae are not the only way a star can die. If a star is large enough, when it burns its last, it collapses in on itself into a gravitational singularity. This is commonly known as a black hole. Eventually, long after the sun’s stellar nursery drifts into particulate atoms spread across the universe, much of the matter in the universe will be contained inside black holes. The stars will wink out one by one, being eaten by the monsters of the deep, or collapsing and becoming sinister wells themselves. The universe will begin to go black, all of creation, all anyone has ever done in the whole of time. No matter, no light, no joy, no pain. Everything reduced to spinning balls of compressed matter, moving slowly along in their journey across what is left of the universe.
***
Gravity wells, all that is left of the universe, spin gradually around a common point of gravity. Ever dropping inward, orbiting faster and faster, spinning down into a massive singularity. Every last bit of matter condenses down into the center of everything. All of the matter of the universe packed into less than a teaspoon of space. Some inhabitants of the planet that they called Earth predicted this event, and called it The Big Crunch. Soon, in the cosmic measure of time, the energy released by the crushing of matter by gravity builds up, and becomes too great. The singularity explodes in a brilliant flash of noiseless everything. Color, light, matter, energy, an entire new universe created in less than a millisecond. The matter cools, the matter congeals, and the matter creates planets and galaxies, solar systems and new life. A new universe is created from the death of the old. More Earths, more suns, stars in the sky, ready to live, die, and create again.
***
And thus the endless cycle begins, ends, and begins again. Everything dies so everything may live. A perfect, beautiful harmony lives in all things forever. Philosophers from one iterate, on a mote of dust covered in water, call this Yin and Yang, life and death in harmony. The cloud disperses so that rain may fall across the land, and rivers and streams may flow. The sun dies so stars may live, and the whole of creation dies so that a new creation may live anew. This is the universe, enjoy moving slowly along in the grand journey across it.
2.02.2012
Man on a Ledge review
As I first saw the commercial for "Man on a Ledge", directed by Asger Leth, I knew I wanted to see it. Although, unlike most trailers, it didn't give away what it was about, the idea seemed like something I could definately be interested in. After a few weeks of commercials, I figured I would take the initiative, one which commonly lies with one of my friends, to plan a movie night.
As we got into the theater, I watched the other trailers with anticipation, just waiting for the movie to start. This is where I start spewing out spoilers, so stop reading now if you don't want the plotline given away. When the movie began, I had already previously read a small paragraph reviewing the film on the Internet Movie Data Base (http://imdb.com), so I knew that Nick Cassidy (Sam Worthington) was an ex-con. As I saw him walking, well dressed, through the urban streets of New York City, what I didn't know is that he wasn't quite an ex-con yet. Then came a hard cut, flashing back to his cell block, showing scenes of him getting into fights, and telling the audience that his dad was near death, and had finally died. What intrigued me most was the funeral. As the movie cuts to the burial of Cassidy's father, you see Nick in his orange prison clothes, watched over by two armed guards. Joey Cassidy (Jamie Bell), Nick's brother, then strolls across the graveyard and soon gets in to a fight with Nick, forcing the policement to get involved. Unbeknownst to the viewers, Joey, Joey's girlfriend, Angie (Genesis Rodriguez), and Nick had been planning this. As the fight continued on, Nick was able to steal a cop's gun and force both police and his brother onto the ground for his gettaway.
Then back to the skyscrapers and traffic of New York, where Nick Cassidy is buying a room in the Roosevelt Hotel under a false name. He proceeds to climb onto the ledge outside the Hotel, getting investigators onto his floor. After they learn his true identity, he threatens to jump to convince them to help him prove his innocence in a case that he wasn't involved in: the theft of a $40,000,000 diamond, owned by David Englander (Ed Harris). It was said that he had destroyed the diamond, but Cassidy claims that Englander framed him. throughout these many, enthralling scenes, the setting switches back and forth between Joey and Angie trying to steal the diamond (to prove that it's in one piece), and Nick talking to investigators. Finally, after getting the diamond off of Englander himself, it gets passed off through a hotel valet, into the hands of Nick Cassidy. At this point, Nick has gotten away from the Roosevelt because tactical had come down to catch him. As Cassidy runs with the diamond, trying to escape, he gets caught and is forced to give Englander the diamond. Then, after a fight, and the assumed death of Cassidy's old cop partner, Cassidy jumps onto the inflatable meant to catch him if he jumped. Instantly after dismounting the inflatable, he runs after the nearly escaped Englander, attacks him, and steals back the entirely intact diamond, proving his innocence, and having a disgruntled Englander carried away by the policemen. The movie ends with a jolly bar scene with the proposal of Joey to Angie, and the knowledge that the valet is actually Frank Cassidy, Nick and Joey's father, who was never in any danger.
Throughout the movie, I was intrigued, scene after scene, with the amazing acting and enthralling story. As Joey and Angie get through the building, using high-tech gadgets to get through security, I enjoyed getting to know the characters, and their emotions, according to each situation. And of course, when it goes back to the ledge, the determination shown by Nick, and the thrill given to the audience, instead of watching the movie, I experienced it. So, through the amazing acting shown by every lead, and the intensity felt throughout the film, I could rate this movie nothing but 5 out of 5.
As we got into the theater, I watched the other trailers with anticipation, just waiting for the movie to start. This is where I start spewing out spoilers, so stop reading now if you don't want the plotline given away. When the movie began, I had already previously read a small paragraph reviewing the film on the Internet Movie Data Base (http://imdb.com), so I knew that Nick Cassidy (Sam Worthington) was an ex-con. As I saw him walking, well dressed, through the urban streets of New York City, what I didn't know is that he wasn't quite an ex-con yet. Then came a hard cut, flashing back to his cell block, showing scenes of him getting into fights, and telling the audience that his dad was near death, and had finally died. What intrigued me most was the funeral. As the movie cuts to the burial of Cassidy's father, you see Nick in his orange prison clothes, watched over by two armed guards. Joey Cassidy (Jamie Bell), Nick's brother, then strolls across the graveyard and soon gets in to a fight with Nick, forcing the policement to get involved. Unbeknownst to the viewers, Joey, Joey's girlfriend, Angie (Genesis Rodriguez), and Nick had been planning this. As the fight continued on, Nick was able to steal a cop's gun and force both police and his brother onto the ground for his gettaway.
Then back to the skyscrapers and traffic of New York, where Nick Cassidy is buying a room in the Roosevelt Hotel under a false name. He proceeds to climb onto the ledge outside the Hotel, getting investigators onto his floor. After they learn his true identity, he threatens to jump to convince them to help him prove his innocence in a case that he wasn't involved in: the theft of a $40,000,000 diamond, owned by David Englander (Ed Harris). It was said that he had destroyed the diamond, but Cassidy claims that Englander framed him. throughout these many, enthralling scenes, the setting switches back and forth between Joey and Angie trying to steal the diamond (to prove that it's in one piece), and Nick talking to investigators. Finally, after getting the diamond off of Englander himself, it gets passed off through a hotel valet, into the hands of Nick Cassidy. At this point, Nick has gotten away from the Roosevelt because tactical had come down to catch him. As Cassidy runs with the diamond, trying to escape, he gets caught and is forced to give Englander the diamond. Then, after a fight, and the assumed death of Cassidy's old cop partner, Cassidy jumps onto the inflatable meant to catch him if he jumped. Instantly after dismounting the inflatable, he runs after the nearly escaped Englander, attacks him, and steals back the entirely intact diamond, proving his innocence, and having a disgruntled Englander carried away by the policemen. The movie ends with a jolly bar scene with the proposal of Joey to Angie, and the knowledge that the valet is actually Frank Cassidy, Nick and Joey's father, who was never in any danger.
Throughout the movie, I was intrigued, scene after scene, with the amazing acting and enthralling story. As Joey and Angie get through the building, using high-tech gadgets to get through security, I enjoyed getting to know the characters, and their emotions, according to each situation. And of course, when it goes back to the ledge, the determination shown by Nick, and the thrill given to the audience, instead of watching the movie, I experienced it. So, through the amazing acting shown by every lead, and the intensity felt throughout the film, I could rate this movie nothing but 5 out of 5.
The Once Great George Lucas
Time for an Opinion. In my calm and sincere opinion, George Lucas has screwed up big time. Yes, they are re-releasing all of the Star Wars movies in 3D, and I will see the re-release of The Phantom Menace when it comes out on February 10th, but it's still a disappointment to look back on the last few years of George Lucas' career. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Pardon my bluntness, but what was that crap? Did George Lucas and Steven Spielberg have some extreme desire to completely ruin an already immortalized trilogy? Or did they simply want to make another billion dollars off of the American movie-goers? The answer to this question is probably the latter, but that is my opinion. Furthermore, why couldn't they have hired a real Russian person to play the evil Russian Socialist? It was obvious enough that she was an American, but then she had to go and butcher the accent. Mistakes like these have also been made in the edited editions of the Star Wars Saga, specifically the Blu Ray collection. The last I checked, Darth vader wasn't a little girl who randomly screamed, "NOOOOO!!!" after being shocked and throwing the Emperor into the main power system. Instead, in the original trilogy, he took it like the invincible robot he truly is. The last problem I have with George Lucas late 90's to mid 2000's career is that he did a terrible job of creating a legible segway from Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader. The Phantom Menace, though a great movie (entirely because of Liam Neeson, Ewan Mcgregor, and Darth Maul), gave the audiences the opinion that Anakin was a wimpy little kid who could get beaten up by a Jawa. Not to mention the enthralling dialogue, "Now this is podracing!" The only thing I can say with regards to that line is
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Ending without a bang
Each and every one of us has a large part of our heart apportioned to the Harry Potter series of books. The wonderful magic, epic stories, fantastic battles, and feeling of growing up with the characters. After the books, the movies lived with us, each one as astonishing as the next (Well, except for "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", but I will get into that another time). The movies bring us a glimpse at the astonishing work of J.K. Rowling. John Williams's breathtaking "Hedwig's Theme" brings me back to the series as much as anything. Unfortunately, the series ended without a bang. After reading the epilogue to "The Deathly Hallows" I was questioning Rowling's ability to write; as fans of the "Twilight Saga" questioned Meyer's ability to write after just the first book. I did not lose all hope in Rowling because she had written thousands of pages full of masterpieces. "The Deathly Hallows", in my opinion, would have ended better without an epilogue. In my absolute favorite movie, "Inception", it ended with a cliff hanger. This cliff hanger was a thousand times more powerful than a cheesy-happy-slap-clap-joy-yay-whoopy-doop-calamapoo ending. Christopher Nolan did eloquent work with this; he ended the epic movie with absolutely no intentions of a sequel. "Inception" would be completely ruined with a sequel. Just as "Harry Potter" was ruined with the addition of the epilogue; it inexplicably frustrated me that everything worked out like it should have. No good story magically (teehee) has many years of time elapse where there is no conflict. Not only that, but it was so cheesy what Harry and Ginny named their kid 'Albus Severus Potter', a discombobulation of the names of characters in the books. He might as well have been named ' Viktor He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named Nearly-Headless-Nick Moaning-Myrtle Potter' for all I care. The epilogue in this book was not well written, and very cliche.
2.01.2012
Minecraft Pointers
This will be my first blog posted in "Authors of the Round Table". If you've read any of my co-bloggers' works, you will probably realize that we take great joy in the limitless expanse of the world of Minecraft. Although I won't always blog about Minecraft, it will be a topic I believe I will come back to commonly. This blog is just me giving some pointers on playing in single-player mode,
ore (Minecraft pun) on a multi-player server.
In single-player mode on Minecraft, unless playing in Creative Mode, you will start off with nothing. If you are first starting, which, if you are reading this blog you probably are, you will want to press "esc" and change the game settings to "peaceful". This will just make sure you aren't attacked when you are still learning. After this simple task, you should cut down as many trees as possible because, unknown to me during my first approximately 20 minutes of gameplay, the first tools you make will be made out of the wooden planks and sticks you gather from trees. These will then allow you to get cobblestone tools, then bumping you up to iron tools, which can then lead you to gold tools and diamond tools. Back on topic, you want to make sure, in order to keep your tools intact as long as possible, to use shovels for dirt, sand, and gravel; use axes for wood ONLY; use pickaxes for materials such as ores and stone; use hoes for making dirt usable for farming, and use swords for killing animals and monsters (animals and monsters are also known as "mobs"). The other thing you should do with the wood planks you get is make a crafting table, which allows you to make the tools previously mentioned. It also alows you to make an uneeded, but critical object: a chest. Because at the beginning of the game you don't have much spare stuff to store in the chest, instead, what you want to store is tool materials, and precious ores and materials. This will guarantee that if you die, you will still have materials left after respawning, because you lose everything you are holding when you die (you can still recover what you lost, but it disappears entirely after 5 minutes). Another important thing to create that commonly goes along with a crafting table and chests in a house is a stove. A stove can be used to make raw, inedible food edible. They can also be used to turn unusable ores into raw materials, and susceptible cobblestone into blast resistant smooth stone. Once you have gotten all items established so far, it is time to make a house. A house requires nothing fancy. In fact, mine is just big enough to fit my door, tunnel hole, stove, crafting table, chest, and one of my two small farms (it seems like a lot, but it really isn't). This leads me to my next point: animals are an extremely unreliable food source, and should only be used in situations of dire need. Instead, gather seeds from grass (or other plants later on), use a hoe to make the dirt usable for farming, and plant the seeds to make a farm. In order to keep the soil good, make an iron bucket and bring water from anywhere possible to put in a one-by-one hole in your farm. Also, most plants need light, so keep torches lighting the room at all times. One other small pointer is that if you put a bed in your house, you will always spawn there, instead of that level's initial spawn. Finally, dig your tunnel to its full potential, and try to find the materials needed to make what you want. Remember that you can always look up how to make things by searching "Minecraft 'object you want to make'". This is about all you'll need to know about single-player games, now on to multi-player servers.
Aside from single-player games, there are also multi-player servers where you can play with people around the world, or just get some friends online. There are many types of multi-player servers, including build servers, and war type servers. In a build server, all you really need to do is get some food and build a house. Of course, you can also build other buildings or structures, but these servers are meant for people to show creativity, not to have specific objectives. What I really want to talk about is how to survive in war servers. If you play a war server and have friends who play Minecraft, get them on the server and make a group. This will work best if you and your friends have Skype, so you can do a multi-person voice call. Otherwise, just use the chat box. If your friends don't play Minecraft, just type that you want to join a group in the chat box of the server. Someone will probably invite you to theirs. They can now be considered your "army buddies". With friends, or strangers, if your group doesn't already have a base, gather materials quickly to build a base with room for later expansion. You should make it either hard to get to, or hard to find, because there are ways to get back to your base that enemies can't use, by setting a "home" point. Immediately after the base is finished, if not during the making, create a source of food, whether it be farming or raising livestock. Then, all that is really necessary is getting materials and making things that are important...that is, until you are attacked, or want to attack. Between the time you build your base, and the time when you attack somebody, or are attacked, you should begin to reinforce your base, and make some sort of hard to find safehouse, in case the attackers get into your base. If the enemy wins, gather your leftover recources from chests and your destroyed base (after they're gone), and move out. Otherwise you will likely be found within a short period of time, in which, you won't have recovered. Then, just repeat: keep getting weapons and armor, and try to "attack proof" your base with water to block TNT, or harder materials such as smooth stone for blast resistant walls.
So, throughout both Minecraft game types, there are very different strategies. In
single-player, you have to survive against the wild, whilst establishing a house, and attaining rare materials. On the other hand, in multi-player servers, there's build servers which are more of a blank canvas for the creative crafter, opposed to war servers where your only objectives are to survive and attack. Even so, remember, the basics always apply: have tools, a crafting table, a stove, chests, and most importantly if not on peaceful mode, food. I sincerely hope that you will take this information, and it will help you start your very first game of Minecraft.
ore (Minecraft pun) on a multi-player server.
In single-player mode on Minecraft, unless playing in Creative Mode, you will start off with nothing. If you are first starting, which, if you are reading this blog you probably are, you will want to press "esc" and change the game settings to "peaceful". This will just make sure you aren't attacked when you are still learning. After this simple task, you should cut down as many trees as possible because, unknown to me during my first approximately 20 minutes of gameplay, the first tools you make will be made out of the wooden planks and sticks you gather from trees. These will then allow you to get cobblestone tools, then bumping you up to iron tools, which can then lead you to gold tools and diamond tools. Back on topic, you want to make sure, in order to keep your tools intact as long as possible, to use shovels for dirt, sand, and gravel; use axes for wood ONLY; use pickaxes for materials such as ores and stone; use hoes for making dirt usable for farming, and use swords for killing animals and monsters (animals and monsters are also known as "mobs"). The other thing you should do with the wood planks you get is make a crafting table, which allows you to make the tools previously mentioned. It also alows you to make an uneeded, but critical object: a chest. Because at the beginning of the game you don't have much spare stuff to store in the chest, instead, what you want to store is tool materials, and precious ores and materials. This will guarantee that if you die, you will still have materials left after respawning, because you lose everything you are holding when you die (you can still recover what you lost, but it disappears entirely after 5 minutes). Another important thing to create that commonly goes along with a crafting table and chests in a house is a stove. A stove can be used to make raw, inedible food edible. They can also be used to turn unusable ores into raw materials, and susceptible cobblestone into blast resistant smooth stone. Once you have gotten all items established so far, it is time to make a house. A house requires nothing fancy. In fact, mine is just big enough to fit my door, tunnel hole, stove, crafting table, chest, and one of my two small farms (it seems like a lot, but it really isn't). This leads me to my next point: animals are an extremely unreliable food source, and should only be used in situations of dire need. Instead, gather seeds from grass (or other plants later on), use a hoe to make the dirt usable for farming, and plant the seeds to make a farm. In order to keep the soil good, make an iron bucket and bring water from anywhere possible to put in a one-by-one hole in your farm. Also, most plants need light, so keep torches lighting the room at all times. One other small pointer is that if you put a bed in your house, you will always spawn there, instead of that level's initial spawn. Finally, dig your tunnel to its full potential, and try to find the materials needed to make what you want. Remember that you can always look up how to make things by searching "Minecraft 'object you want to make'". This is about all you'll need to know about single-player games, now on to multi-player servers.
Aside from single-player games, there are also multi-player servers where you can play with people around the world, or just get some friends online. There are many types of multi-player servers, including build servers, and war type servers. In a build server, all you really need to do is get some food and build a house. Of course, you can also build other buildings or structures, but these servers are meant for people to show creativity, not to have specific objectives. What I really want to talk about is how to survive in war servers. If you play a war server and have friends who play Minecraft, get them on the server and make a group. This will work best if you and your friends have Skype, so you can do a multi-person voice call. Otherwise, just use the chat box. If your friends don't play Minecraft, just type that you want to join a group in the chat box of the server. Someone will probably invite you to theirs. They can now be considered your "army buddies". With friends, or strangers, if your group doesn't already have a base, gather materials quickly to build a base with room for later expansion. You should make it either hard to get to, or hard to find, because there are ways to get back to your base that enemies can't use, by setting a "home" point. Immediately after the base is finished, if not during the making, create a source of food, whether it be farming or raising livestock. Then, all that is really necessary is getting materials and making things that are important...that is, until you are attacked, or want to attack. Between the time you build your base, and the time when you attack somebody, or are attacked, you should begin to reinforce your base, and make some sort of hard to find safehouse, in case the attackers get into your base. If the enemy wins, gather your leftover recources from chests and your destroyed base (after they're gone), and move out. Otherwise you will likely be found within a short period of time, in which, you won't have recovered. Then, just repeat: keep getting weapons and armor, and try to "attack proof" your base with water to block TNT, or harder materials such as smooth stone for blast resistant walls.
So, throughout both Minecraft game types, there are very different strategies. In
single-player, you have to survive against the wild, whilst establishing a house, and attaining rare materials. On the other hand, in multi-player servers, there's build servers which are more of a blank canvas for the creative crafter, opposed to war servers where your only objectives are to survive and attack. Even so, remember, the basics always apply: have tools, a crafting table, a stove, chests, and most importantly if not on peaceful mode, food. I sincerely hope that you will take this information, and it will help you start your very first game of Minecraft.
Man of the City
Up and down the streets the apparition walked. A casual observer might find it odd to see such purpose in a man of the night, as only drunkards could be seen at the ungodly hour this man was walking. But to the residents of the district in which the lone walker performed his vigil, this was a constant and dependable figure. He was as much part of the dim and foggy street as the lamppost or the concrete colossi flanking the street. Up this street at nine, down this one by midnight, every night the same worn path. Nothing would stop him in his walk, save for a few stops to light his cigarette. Every night upon the corner of fifth and penn, he would lean against the lamppost and bring his hands to his mouth, and a light would flare against his badge. If the weather was bad, often it was, he would duck into a covered alleyway. It was during these times when people began to wonder why, in such adverse conditions, would the man continue to walk? Why did he not just punch in and stay in the station instead of walking the dim and soggy streets of San Francisco? The spark that kept this lone man walking was not money nor dedication to family, but a belief. This man was a policeman, a man of the city. In this district he was the law. Every street needed its law. He couldn't survive off the street, as there was a constant itch of crime being committed at the back of his mind. So he took solace in the beat. The "polis" needed him, needed the cleansing of murderers and thieves. When he first started the beat, there were many times of adventure. Midnight chases, bursting in doors, his truncheon became worn and dented. No criminal could hide from him, no injustice could be covered up. He never relented. Some people, mostly criminals, called him ruthless. Many adored him, calling him a hero. What mattered to him was that crime in his district became nearly nonexistent. Word spread of him in the way words do, and he became a legend. Newspapers wished to interview him, but he declined. Content to continue his beat, he kept the law and gradually made his small slice of his city safe. Less and less often were the adventures of the night. But ever he was vigilant, this man of the city. Every night was the beat, lamppost to street corner, up and down. The small voice of crime still whispered in his ear, whispering of people being wronged, of injustice being carried out. This dragged him from his bed and out into the street every night, and paraded him around his pride and joy. Every night, up and down, up and down, ever a man of the city.
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