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November 10, 2005: Report Twenty-Five </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="5"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="50%" valign="top"> <center>

- The Jim Report -

- The Word -

- The Donation Update -

- The Dark Voice Stuff -

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- The Use of Mr. Calendar -

- The Games List -

- The Codex -

- The Props -

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--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The Jim Report</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

Been an up and down week in Jacville. A lot of random occurrences since my last report -- it feels like I've been all over the place this week.

My parents came in town this weekend to visit my niece. Of course, I had to partake in seeing them even though I just saw them like a month ago. What a pain in the ass family visits can be. "How's Law School?" ..."uh, it's the same as the last time you asked me on the phone...two days ago"

Follow that with a visit from my best friend and his fiance. They came in from Atlanta where he works now and wanted to go out for the night. I have been dreading it for weeks. My friend is awesome, but his fiance is a complete and total succubus. Seriously -- she drains the life out of him and everyone around. She's self-centered, annoying and worst of all, she's smart enough to be argumentative. Drives me nuts. At one point, she started bragging about how my friend's parents bought them a hotel in Hawaii for their honeymoon. If would have been ok, but she talked about it for 20 minutes on a number of different occasions. First of all, no one gives a shit. Second of all, Even when people do get gifts like that (which I did) that doesn't necessitate the need to flaunt it in everyone's face like you are better than them (which I didn't) just because your fiance's parents have a shitload of Marriott points (yippie).

The high point of the night was getting to go home.

Anyway -- on other fronts, I've been hunkering down with school some. I had to get caught up in some of my classes and try to get some outlining done. I have exams coming up starting immediately after Thanksgiving. Exams are very weird for me -- it's extreme ins and outs of activity. I'll be very available the day after the exam, but the two days following, I'll be swamped. I'll keep you all up to date on my schedule.

Quiet weekend coming up. It will be nice.

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--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The Word</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

Speaking of exams, that brings us to today's word:

Indefatigable

Every November and December we get the same hits: exams and holidays (god damn school). It's a very hard time of year. People's commitments get more involved in RL and the DB sometimes has to take a back seat to our other needs (gotta be nice to mom so I get that stereo I wanted). Every time exams come it happens. I've seen it over and over again, no matter what people say they will be able to get done (more than normal, normally), they simply can't operate at the output level that they were previous to exams (unless they previously set the activity bar low). Rightly so, however -- Real Life always takes a precedent over the DB (cough*bullshit*cough).

I think one of the things that also happens though is that our exam times make us a bit lazier (yay procrastination). There are a lot of us that when we are confronted with a boatload (shitload) of work, we simply cave and go watch TV (simspons reruns). So instead of studying, we cut into the time that we would normally have to do the things that we should be doing (<s>more studying</s> DB work). We get tired, frustrated, and just want to quit (god damn school).

In this we should all strive this year to up our indefatigability -- stay strong and keep from giving in. We must refuse to let the tiredness after endless hours of school (torture) bring us down. We must work to become indefatigable, staving off fatigue in the name of getting shit done (get 'er done!). Procrastination is the death of productivity -- we all must try out best to avoid it so that the DB can still move forward over the next two months (I'm selfish -- screw your grades).

Your indefatigability comes in with holidays too (god damn). I just talked about how my weekend sucked with my parents and my friends coming in; it will only get worse when thanksgiving and Christmas hit. I need to not do what I did this past weekend. I need to make sure my tiredness does not cut into my productivity. When we have the free time, we must make sure that we are using it wisely (god damn simpsons).

But remember, it's ok to take a break if you need one. Getting burnt out is never good. So, if you do feel that your fatigue is keeping you from being an indefatigable person, then be sure to use your typery and tell us. Otherwise, discomfiture towards your situation will definitely set in around you.

And that's the word.

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--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The Donation Update</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

THANK YOU!

That goes out to those of you who have donated money to the BFII server fund. We have had some very generous donations from Anshar, Dalthid, Duga, Kaiann, Khobai, Smoke20 and Spears. In total, those individuals have contributed $234.73 -- an amount that will do VERY well in getting us started. The server search is still going on -- some places have said it will take them another week or two to get their servers set up -- we're going to give it some more time to make a decision.

In related news, I have made some minor updates to the Donation Policy. The main one is that I have had to make two separate PayPal accounts for different transactions. PayPal forces you to upgrade to a premium account to accept Credit Card donations -- and then they charge you 3% per transaction. I didn't want the transaction charge on checking account transfers so we did the following:

Paypal account and checking account donations are being accepted through [Log in to view e-mail addresses]

Credit Card donations are being accepted through [Log in to view e-mail addresses]

Further -- we are talking about getting a dedicated server for our use. The problem is that for a decent one, we need to get a cash flow of at least $60 a month. I don't want to make the purchase until I am sure that the donation policy will bring in that much. Hopefully we will be able to get there in a few months.

Again, please see the donation policy here.

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--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The Dark Voice Update</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

As Trev announced last week, Oberst has chosen to leave the position of Praetor to the Oracle. As such, we are in the need of an Editor for the Dark Voice. Trev made an announcement about it. You can see the requirements here. I encourage you to apply if you are at all interested. It's a great way to get involved in a very important part of the DB.

The Dark Voice is still on schedule to be released on December 1st, regardless of whether an Editor is in place or not. Please remember that all articles should be sent to [Log in to view e-mail addresses] by November 17th. It's a great way to earn DSSs!

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--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The Use of Mr. Calendar</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

This is directed to the DB's leadership: Start using Mr. Calendar!

I am dead serious when I say I will judge your activity based on what is documented on the Calendar. If you didn't mark down a task, unless you told me about it in a report, I have no way of really knowing it was done. Submitting it to Mr. Calendar is the BEST way of letting me know what you are up to as well as letting the DB see a record of your accomplishments. I am disappointed that more people have not registered for it and that only a few have been using it.

A big thanks goes out to Telona and Arania who have been the two main users other than myself. I want to see more like them.

If you missed the info, I've pasted my blurb from my last report again here:

Something I started last May was the use of an excel spreadsheet as the DB projects calendar. I've been using the sheet to keep track of what was going on in the DC, to give people a place to refer to what's going on and to keep track of the many daily tasks that I have. Lately, it's been more of a tool for me to keep track of what I have on my to-do list. That's because there was an access problem; I was the only one who could make change.

All of that now changes. I am proud to introduce to you: Mr. Calendar!

http://calendar.darkjedibrotherhood.com/

I found this application on source forge and installed it a few days ago on the server. It has a very sturdy code base that allows for a lot of customization. I've already added the functionality that lets us mark events as complete, finished early or overdue and change the display to mark them as crossed off, boxed, and red respectively.

One of the cool things about this is the category feature. I have assigned a category to each member who was present on the old calendar and one for each clan. Those members can assign themselves tasks on the calendar in their category and by just clicking on the category link we can see everything that a single person has done. In the future, I hope to build some reporting off of this so we can see what is outstanding, etc etc.

Anyone can post to the calendar -- competitions, tasks, anything. There are some groups (like the Dark Council) that can post straight to the calendar...everyone else is moderated by me. If you want to submit an event or project, simply register as a user and fill out the event form. I will be adding some test to the form as instructions. The main three rules are: Put the person or unit's name in the title of the event, choose the category that corresponds to the person or unit, and if there is no category, put it in the general one.

I hope that a lot of use comes out of this. I'm glad to have the change, myself.

A huge thanks goes out to Quejo. He is assisting me by inputting all of the data from the old calendar into this online version so we have it to keep track of. That's a huge job, and I appreciate the help.

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--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The Games List</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

Just a quick note: I've updated the Games Ownership list to include a BFII option. You can now go to your dossier and indicate that you own BFII. Unfortunately, I had to eliminate Unreal Tournament -- sorry.

You can view everyone that has marked their ownership of BFII under the games statistics or just follow this link.

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--> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan="2" height="20"> <><li>The Codex</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

As I mentioned in past reports, the DSC has undergone a facelift and that left us in a little bit of a paradox with the old DSC still sitting around for members to see. I will be updating the old DSC shortly to reflect its new name "The Codex." Yeah yeah yeah -- Codex is probably overused, but it fits and we like it, so bite me.

The Codex will gradually transform into a basic training and reference manual that will give a newcomer a way around the Covenant and DSC. It will fit in well with the Three Cs program that we are developing.

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BIG PROPS

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<center>- Big Props to Trev for his AK! -

• Congrats to Panzerus on getting DJK! -

• Big thanks to the New Donors! -

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