C James

Kevin, Shhhhh!!! Remember, Talonrider is our ANONYMOUS beta reader.

I call it a free lunch. Well, as those who know me will attest, my favorite food is anything that's free.

Shadowgod went on beta-reading hiatus months ago, so no conspiracy here. Not that I have anything against a good conspiracy... in fact, I love 'em, but, sorry, no conspiracy this time. I totally agree, it's a fantastic team and I am supremely fortunate to be working with them.

Definitely two different things and two different names, but... very similar pronunciation! Because he'd probably get it wrong. Therefor, we must decide for him. It's the least we can do. ROFL! Yes indeed... I just try to post stuff like this when he's not looking. Definitely no h...

But.... I'm a quiet and shy lurker who almost never posts... Lol... My posting dropped off a lot when I started to prepare for my trip, and then when I got back and had the flu, I hardly posted. I'm also a lot quieter than I used to be. I'm very much looking forward to being passed. ROFL!! Mark just called me.. OLD!!! ARGH!! I'm furious... well, actually, I'm just upset that I didn't think of calling him old first.

Well, at least you don't have to worry about any ongoing (or any kind) of cliffhangers in Changing Lanes, because there aren;t any. Of course not! Brandon was not hanging off a cliff, so no cliffhanger. He was in the air, with nothing to worry about except a bit of gravity. Not true. As you point out, that wasn't at the end of the story, but the penultimate paragraph. So, not a cliffhanger ending. And before anyone bring it up, I will; LTMP 19 was not a cliffhanger; it's true that we did have a member of Instinct falling off a vertical rock surface, and was then reported dead. However, we didn't know which member, and they'd already fallen and hit the ground, so not a cliffhanger. CJ

Due to his newness to the team, I have, unfairly and capriciously, decreed that Talonrider remain anonymous, and labor away in cruel anonymity, unmentioned and unthanked. Talonrider is, therefor, our Anonymous Beta Reader! So, please, welcome our Anonymous Beta Reader, the great Talonrider!

Our story-writing team is pleased and delighted to announce the addition of a new member! We are honored and delighted to have him aboard. He has willingly assumed the duties of beta-reading and, of course, the solemn obligation of all team members to defend the author from accusations of cliffhanger usage. So, please join with me in welcoming him to our team. Welcome aboard! CJ

Thank you, your Frogishness, for providing further proof that "Gram" is the correct pronunciation. Though the page does not give pronunciation, I note that at the bottom, under "see also", it has two listings, "Gram" and "Gramm". Edit to add: AHHA! Here is a link to an article on "Gram flour", which clears up the confusion! So, "Gram" and "Graham" and thus "Graeme" are pronounced "Gram".

I've always pronounced the cracker "Gram cracker" so I fully agree. That's an odd way of pronouncing either the cracker or the Echidna, methinks.

I am referring, of course, to our resident anti-spoiler Echidna, Graeme. This question, "How is Graeme pronounced?", is a puzzler, isn't it? However, rest assured, the definitive answer appears below! Given the spelling, I think it is self-evident that the correct pronunciation is "Graaam" or, for me, "Gra-a-a-ammmm". Now, my own take on this is that Graeme is Australian, so therefor, one must try to pronounce his name with an Australian accent. Just say "G'day, mate" a few times first, while doing your best Paul Hogan imitation. However... Graeme is not just Australian, but is actually in Australia. Therefor, I think that his name can only be authentically pronounced while standing on one's head (Australians, after all, live upside-down). There is also the weather to consider... So, for authenticity, standing outside, in July, shivering in a thick coat might be of help. (Australians not only live upside down, but they insist on having Christmas in the summer, and having it cold in July and august... Their continental Air Conditioning bill must be immense!) Also, the chattering of teeth helps draw out the "a" sound. Now, there are differing (and thus incorrect) opinions on how to pronounce "Graeme", but I think we can all agree on the above. Anyone have any other helpful hints regarding the correct way to pronounce "Graeme"? I would suggest having Vegemite handy, but that could well be interpreted as encouraging people to acquire weapons of mass destruction.. CJ

Well, a bird of prey can be a fierce and powerful ally, a welcome member of the team, defending the poor, innocent author from scurrilous unfounded accusations of cliffhangers! ROFL! But, Dragonfire... surely you know that a goat would never have anything to do with a cliffhanger... right?

ACK! ERic!!! Now, y'all know I don't use cliffhangers... So that can't be true!! I can think of one quadruped who uses cliffhangers: Graeme...

My personal opinion is, first and foremost, don't do anything illegal (hacking into e-mail definitely can be illegal). Personally, I take an extremely dim view of cheaters. If this happened to me, I'd go with the option of joining the list and seeing if I could arrange a "date" with the person, and show up. That way, there would be no defense on their part; they couldn't claim it was someone using their name, etc, etc. My opinion: a cheater is bad news. They are maliciously exposing you to STD's, showing you no regard, etc. Sharing a house complicates things... if you own it together, that's a massive headache. If it's a rental, it depends on who is on the lease, and how. It might cost some money, but getting a cheater out of your life is worth it. Good luck, CJ

Hey now! We all know that I would never have anything to do with a cliff... or a cliffhanger. If you don't believe me, just ask TalonRider.

Totally agreed! What Eric did, though, was he was trying to act very soppy-romantic. It was the "trying to act" part that tripped him up. He's not a good actor, and soppy-romantic isn't him, so it made Jansen crack up. Romantic is fine; it was Eric's bad acting (very cheesy) and trying to act out of character that tripped him up. LoL. However... think of the pressure he's now under to "get it right" next time. I should have shown it better, but Eric was indeed exceedingly cheesy, and that's what made Jansen crack up.

Lol! Well, Eric had to do far less than that to get girls into bed with him; they were groupies, looking to bed a famous rock star, so all he had to do was.. not run away. LoL So, he has zero experience in the arts of romance... as was painfully apparent. ROFL. You're right, I do find sex scenes hard to write, but to my mind, this wasn't one, because they didn't get that far, plue we heard abotu it from their later conversation. I've very recently been dealing with the issue of writing sex scenes.. Now, for fear of the echidna, I dare not say which story or which characters it was for, but a couple of days ago I wrote a rather.. detailed one, that leaves nothing to the imagination. Good point! The way I see Eric, he, per his own words (in LTMP), finds guys hot but girls hotter, physically. To my mind, that makes him bi leaning slightly female. I think, for Eric, the deciding factor wouldn't be just phisical attraction, but how he connects with the person on other levels. Yep, Eric was, for Eric, shockingly tame the last time on tequila. That may, or may not, mean something. There are a few ongoing plans.. Helen's, for the press conference, and The Scar's, for checking in and finding Instinct to get info on the bombs. Plus of course, Jansen's plans to Tequila the Eric. Ummm, when will the provisional declaration become a permanent one? Now the chapter is out, what more is there to decide? What? Me, evil? Awwww... Here I am, getting all the old freinds from LTMP together again, for a nice holiday at a wonderful resort... how could that be evil? Yep, they didn't see the truck outbound, nor did they see where it went. Jerry does think Instinct has something to do with the bombs, and getting information is part of his reason for being there. That photo of Eric in the general's camera, and Instinct staying at a resort on the island where the general took the bombs, made him suspect there was a connection, so he's after both his bombs, and some revenge. Of course, as he likes to say, he has no objection to mixing business with pleasure. Yes, it could be said that being around The Scar in LTMP when he was in a killing mood could be unhealthy. On the other hand, he could be a fun guy to hang around with... He took Instinct shopping once, shared a few drinks with Eric at the pool, etc. Also, in some cases, people got away with angering him. The engineer made Jerry angry a few times, but Jerry didn't fire him, and was even nice enough to let the Engineer watch the first bomb go off.

One enormous difference between the mk-48 and the mk-37 is the fuel; in the -37, it was a battery. In the -48, it's OTTO, a very high-energy-density liquid fuel for a combustion engine. In a "hot run" for a -37, the only possibility it could be jetisoned would be if it was already in a torpedo tube, I think? Most of the torp load is in the racks, and getting a running one into a tube would be difficult, I'd imagine. My personal beleif is that the battery cooked off; they did have a couple in testing that did just that; exploded and caught fire. That would be enough to trigger a low-order explosion of the warhead, overpressurize the torpedo room, and blow off a hatch. Linxe, I have been remiss in not saying so until now, but thank you for your service. Our freedom is given to us by people like you. I've looked into TWA 800 in the past, and I personally never found the missile hit claims likely, for a few reasons. One is that it would make no sense at all to be doing SAM tests near one of the world's busiest airways (though I can see how it would be possible). The second is the eyewitness reports of people "seeing" a missile hit. They are self-discrediting in two ways. The first is the report of seeing a firey trail and then the explosion. Makes zero sense; given the boost phase burnout time of even a STANDARD II, second stage, and certainly any form of MANPAD SAM (terrorists), and the altitude at which TWA-800 was at, it is impossible for a MANPAD portable SAm, and unlikly for a SMII (given the probable distance to launch point) to be still under boost at that altitude. So, even if it was a missle hit, there would be no firey trail. The second point; many of those witnesses said they saw the firey trail, and then saw and heard the explosion. This is patently impossible; given their range, and the speed of sound, there is no way they could have heard the explosion as it occurred. My own theory is that the breakup (with the expeption of proximal cause) was correct as officially described; an explsion on board caused the foward fuselage to seperate. The rear 2/3, including wings and engines, then pitched nose-up (due to the CG shift) and climbed several thousand feet, almost stright up, until a secondary explosion of the wing fuel tanks shattered it in a fireball. I think the post-speratation climb, of a burning object, would be the firey trail so many saw. That brings us to the intimal explosion. I don't buy the missile theory, at all. What I do note, however, is that a month after 9-11, an American Airlines airbus crashed on Long Island after departing the same airport (JFK) under odd circumstances. The official report claims that the horizonatal stabilizer snapped off due to turbulence and excessive control inputs. I don't buy that, at all. It does not explain the glaring anomaly of the engines; (the two engines they impacted close to a mile apart, and not near the main fuselage. Now, a detached horiaonal stabilizer can cause a crash, but what it cannot do, at that airspeed, is cause the plane to explode to such a degree. The mystery is, why did the engines detatch? Aerodynamics do not explain it. However, a bomb in a fuel tank would. Just as it would TWA-800. It would be an easy thing to do for anyone on the ground crew, and I suspect terrorists may have done just that. Cushioned by fuel, the explosion would have had little chance to cause the charactheristic micropitting of metal. Also, due to the mood of the nation at that point, I think that they would not be egar to find terrorisim as a cause of the AA long island crash. A similar thing occured with the Anthrax; with absolutly nothing to go on, they declaired it "Domestic terrorisim" and focused on that angle. Their explanation was preposterous; they claimed it fit a "profile". As a result, they focused on the domestic angle, when the only sane approach is to probe all angles untill hard evidence dictates otherwise. They tried to declair "Case closed" with the suicide of their most recent "Person of interest", but not one shred of evidence has ever been found. Therefor, I think they were looking the wrong way and bungled the case. Therefor, I take official investigations with a huge dose of salt. Another angle on TWA-800; it could indeed have been the inadvertent victim of a military test, but not of a missile. I've always wondered if it could have been a zorch: an electrical charge generated by massive amounts of radar. It's well known that when an Ageis phased-aray is in narrow-beam mode, that it can fry the electronics of nearby aircraft, thanks to putting millions of watts wown one degree of azimuth. So, with a target the size of a 747, with old wiring, what would happen if it was hit by the steered beam of an Ageis that was lighting up the sky? I think it would be enough to create a static discharge: a spark in the wiring. Just my three cents (Should be two, but goats can't count). CJ

ROFL! A very different type of TLC, lol! Nassau? But... in the past, you've always preferred the Caymans for that sort of thing??? ROFL!!! Well, not quite that much... ROFL!! About the only thing I can guarantee is that it will be shorter than LTMP, but I don't know yet by how much. CJ

Happy Birthday, Wizzardly One!! :wizard: :wizard: I hope you have a GREAT day, and an even better year. :music:

I can't say anything about the future <looks around nervously for the Echidna> but... Remember, The Scar only knows (or would recognize) Instinct, Helen, the General, and Felecia. He's never seen Jansen and Keith, and has no idea who they are. Of course, they don't know The Scar, either.... Poor Jansen.. based on the one time he's seen Eric on Tequila, he's assuming that Helen was exaggerating. Poor Jerry, he's looking for his bombs, but now they aren't there. They literally passed right under his nose, and he never knew. I think Mike's post is fine! He's quite right; no tension at all in the chapter. They're all just having fun at the resort, and once Jerry checks in, they'll be neighbors. Who knows.. maybe he just wants to relax (he's too stressed most of the time). For all we know, he knows how to cook and will make them all a friendly breakfast. That makes two cliffhanger-free votes! Yay!!! Ok, on a serious note, I want to mention Eric and Jansen. Eric has never been with a guy before, and in fact has never been in a relationship before, just one night stands. So, I figured that no way, no how, would things go smoothly the first time he tried. Without meaning to, Jansen sure put poor Eric under "performance pressure", LoL! Okay, I think now might be a good time to mention the title of 38: "Fallen". (mainly, so I don't forget again!)

For all we know, The Scar might just want to drop in for a friendly lunch. Why does everyone always think the worst of poor, misunderstood Jerry? :worship: All hail His Amphibiousness! I hereby gratefully accept the Amphibious Declaration of Cliffhanger-free! Yes indeed, just a few little hiccups. Everything is pretty much quiet in the chapter, and all is well. The Scar has tequila'd the Eric in the past, so why not again? Just two old pals, sharing a drink for old time's sake? Keith and Brian's hand grenade scene was written long ago, before Christmas, in fact. It just popped into my head as funny, and I had to write it down. Poor Brian, he was so concerned that Keith might think the lump was something other than a grenade. LoL!

I loved this chapter too.. and WOW, what a reveal! I think Rick does love Drew, as a true freind, BUT.. can Rick make the leap? I could see it going either way.. or even a third or fourth way! And yep, it was Angus they thought might be gay. LoL. Of course, we still have no idea if he is, or isn't. However, I have to say... Rick remained inexplicably oblivious to one glaring possibility regarding what Brandon could be looking at with longing... What was in the direction he was looking? It was mentioned, and Rick looked, but didn't see the obvious: the table! Brandon could well have had a thing for the table... and Rick utterly missed that possibility! Actually, ending a story with a cliffhanger would be taking cliffhangers to a whole new level of evil!!! Graeme has said that the story will end at chapter 19.. BUT... What he hasn't said is if there will be a 18b, 18c, etc, etc. Just tossing that possibility out there... the Echidna is known for his twists, after all! That party was great.. poor Angus, LoL! Kudos to Graeme; he has such a gift for the unexpected character twist. The reveal of Rick being straight was one lulu of plot surprise. I'll be vague because it's a spoiler for another of Graeme's stories, but there was a character in HOTT who bowled me over after a certain reveal. I think one of Graeme's gifts is that he knows how people "fill in the blanks" with assumptions, and then uses those assumptions to whack the unsuspecting reader over the head. That takes a deep and precise understanding of not just the character, but how the reader's mind works.

I can't answer that... But.. let's add up what we know about Francois... He's French, a hardened mercenary, prefers the Cayman Islands for his banking, hrmm, seems to prefer having things all tied up... hrmmm... Let us hope Helen doesn't think of that... They would, at least, be very, very loud. Might violate the local noise ordnances though... Ah, oh... ah.. ar.. um, uhoh... just consider it to be a purely metaphorical truck! Or an artifact of my bad memory! Er, um, ah, ack... I, um, deny any knowledge of any truck, in any way whatsoever!! And if the Echidna should happen to be browsing in the area, please move along, nothing to see here... And fear not... The Scar's ankle, per the text, was merely bruised. Poor, innocent me?

Okay.. I've got a few questions about the chapter, just for fun. First, what about Francois? What do you think of him? Is he the atypical cold-blooded mercenary? One with an interest in tying things up?