GaryK

More likely a bunch of sheep. I remain convinced that Instinct has been the sideshow all along. Something to hold our attention because a story strictly about The Scar and his plans would never be as well received on GA as a story that involves a bunch of handsome young men and a budding romance. Therefore killing off Instinct will not be an issue for CJ. Then LTMP will conclude with whatever happens to The Scar and his scheme to extort billions of dollars from the US government.

The most hyped cliffhanger of Dallas was when the season ended and left us wondering who shot JR. I'm referring to when the producers killed off Bobby Ewing and the ratings took a nosedive. So at the start of the next season Bobby came back and the entire previous season was blamed on a bad dream by a character in the show. [Edit Reason: Spelling error.]

When I Googled that the first result was for cheap motels.

According to my bank that's not a valid account number.

There's been too many technical details about the nuclear stuff for a down and out roadie to see in a dream. I just re-read the first three chapters and there's no mention of this being in the future. However CJ could always pull a "Dallas" on us and spring the dream crap on us at the end of the story.

Are you seriously claiming that 37 is free of cliffhangers?

I'd venture a guess that Brandon's death will qualify as a massive change. The few bumps will be when the downed plane bounces a few times before coming to a rest and bursting into a ball of flames. As I told Drewbie via PM, when CJ first started this story I sort of complained about what appeared to be a side story; The Scar. He told me I really should pay more attention to the "side story". Was that a subtle suggestion that the real story was that of The Scar? [Edit Reason: Spelling correction.]

Come on. Let's be real here! There are at least four missiles streaking toward the plane at supersonic speeds. That means they are mere seconds away from blowing the plane out of the sky. Personally I think Instinct is as good as dead. That means it's up to Joe to do something that will cast suspicion on The Scar. Then the authorities could keep an eye out for him and arrest him on the spot. End of story! Then again this is CJ we're discussing. So it can't really be that simple can it? Regarding the beta-read and editor issue. I think it's fine for the author to leak teasers of what's to come. Anything else is unacceptable. I really don't want this to come across as a personal attack on CJ's team because it's not. I've seen the same thing happen with other stories so my comments are not directed at CJ's team. I think beta-readers and editors should have to sign what amounts to an NDA.

Even though Helen appears to be dying along with the band I still don't like her.

Perhaps a cloud hanger?

Now that we all agree that CJ still holds the #1 spot as the King of Evil Cliffhangers how about we discuss some of the merits of the story? It seems unlikely that Instinct and Helen are going to survive. That means nobody will ever learn what the boys think they know about The Scar. Will there be enough of the plane left for the authorities to realize the plane had been sabotaged prior to being shot down? Or will they fall for the goose ruse? With Instinct and their suspicions out of the way does this mean The Scar is going to get away with his plans? Will he eventually feel the need to kill Dimitri so that nobody is left who knows the full extent of what The Scar has done? What do you think is going to happen next? Where will the next demonstration take place? Will there be a need for another demonstration or will the US cave in and immediately pay The Scar's extortion fee? If so how is The Scar going to collect without being caught? What role will Joe play in all of this? Will he somehow manage to implicate his father?

Is the roast a goose?

Yes, I know it was a joke Drew. See the addition to my previous post. Now that really is worthy of rolling my eyes at!

Quite right. And CJ already wrote: No one on board noticed the missile launches; they had occurred twenty miles to their left. Even had they known, it would have made no difference at all... . ADDED: Just to be clear I know the parachutes were mentioned as a joke. Sometimes my own sense of humor doesn't translate well into writing.

Parachutes?

Really? So maybe the fire in the sky will be the missiles being destroyed? Maybe there's some hope for Instinct after all? Meh, either way it's still an evil cliffhanger! OK, but there's numerous missiles headed for the plane. What's the chance of them all missing their target or the pilot being able to destroy them all in enough time?

That's the part that had me in tears. Not just evil cliffhangers. Truly evil and wicked cliffhangers!

I dare the goat to deny he writes evil cliffhangers!!! Was anyone else crying toward the end of this chapter?

WinME was the kind of OS where it either worked fine or it was totally buggy. There seemed to be no middle ground. I know someone who is still using it and it works fine. As for me I skipped it and waited until Win2K was released.

Congratulations!

It'll be interesting to see the results of this poll. I know how sex works. I don't need anyone to explain it to me. Especially not in graphic detail like the nuclear explosion which I thought was totally cool and exceptionally well-written. The suggestion or mention that something romantic and/or sexual happened is what I like in a well-written story. Leave the details to the reader's imagination. That's CJ's style and I happen to like it a lot. In some ways it makes his stories a bit more mainstream. Possibly worthy of publication. That's my two-cents. [Edit Reason: Clarifications]

As I've stated before I am quite agnostic in terms of what OS others prefer. Whatever works best for you is what you should use. I grew up writing software that ran against MS-DOS so transitioning to Windows seemed reasonable to me. I've made a good living using and selling Microsoft products to end users. For my own personal daily use I like XP Pro. In all the years I've been using it I've never seen a BSOD. Applications have crashed, but the OS has always remained stable. About the only time I reboot is during Patch Tuesday. In terms of servers I very much like Server 2003 and IIS6. Again both have proven themselves to be very reliable. IIS6 in particular is so much easier to use than previous versions. The Application Pools are a godsend. Again, I totally understand why some people prefer Apache. I guess it depends upon what you're used to. I'm used to Windows. I'm beta testing Server 2008 and believe it will be Microsoft's best server OS to date. The whole virtualization architecture is brilliant. I've got seven machines here at home. Two run Server 2003. I use one as a web server and the other for database development and other things related to my business. The third one is my beta-testing machine and it's currently running Server 2008. The fourth and fifth run XP Pro. Those would be my desktop and my lappie. The sixth runs Server 2003 Web Edition which I use to coordinate all the backups I need to do both locally and for all my production websites. The seventh runs Win2K. It's as stable as XP but without all the bells and whistles. I use it for all my multimedia stuff. My phone management software. Trillian. iTunes. Various other things. That's what works best for me. I hope whatever you're using works well for you.

So far CJ has remained firmly rooted in reality. To believe The Scar and Dimitri would be totally safe would require some willing suspension of disbelief. That's why I mentioned that while EMP would not be a problem at 20 miles out, fallout could well be a problem depending upon the prevailing winds and how quickly the two of them got out of the area. Keep in mind these bombs were relatively low-yield and designed to inflict most of their damage via radioactive fallout. Wouldn't it be ironic for The Scar to go through all this only to wind up dying from radiation-induced cancer?

Welcome to GA Lurker. You're right about a high altitude blast. But the greater air density of a ground level nuclear explosion limits EMP to the circumference of the blast. The resultant nuclear fallout might affect a larger area but EMP would not be a factor.