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November 1, 2005: Report Twenty-Four </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 Donations -

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- Mr. Calendar -

- The New DSC -

- 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">

Short report this week.

Another normal week passed in the life of the Jac. This week was semi-calm. I didn't have much to do ouside of the normal loads of reading. I need to catch up in my Civil procedure class, but other than that, I'm on the ball.

Went to a halloween party Saturday night. I was too lazy to dress up. So, I went to Target, bought a ten-year-old's Captain America costume and pinned it to my clothes. It was awesome.

I watched Batman Begins for the first time last night. That is one hell of a good movie.

Fun times coming up for me: I have to fill out my application to register for the Bar exam by the 15th. The forms evidentially take about 10 hours to fill out. All sorts of character asessments and the like. Fun fun.

Oh yeah -- I get the new mobo, processor and RAM for my desktop computer today. I may be away for a bit while I put it together.

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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">

Discomfiture

The Dark Brotherhood has always had its ups and downs in activity and progress based on what Real Life gives us (i hate school). There are weeks that we can get a ton of stuff done (last week) and then there are those weeks that it seems like the wheels are moving, but there is no progress (this week?). To people who aren't use to it, this phenomenon can raise a level of discomfiture that is hard to deal with.

I think the cause of the discomfiture is that we all want things right away (yesterday). It gets frustrating when ideas you have can't be implemented (within the minute). It is annoying when there are disctrations that take away from our truly productive time (keep the wife away). We all expect the best out of everything we do (some more than others), and when the best doesn't come, we get annoyed (anger managment anyone?).

When it comes down to it, we all add to our levels of discomifiture. We all make choices daily on what we are going to do and say that will either make progress or deny it (or deny it for other people). We all need to make a conscious effort to look at what we are doing daily and see if we are working to be productive, or are we just going to be frustrated in five days when we look back and see that we wasted time (what the fuck are we fighting about anyway?).

Our work in the DB is never really finished, but progress can always be made to come faster (quit dicking around). Discomfiture with the DB is always a self-curing thing.

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

Now accepting donations!

I've been talking about it for a while, and we finally have a policy posted on our donation process. Basically, donations come to me, I account for everything monthly.

We are going to collect money so that we can start paying for a new BFII server for people to play on. Anything you can give is greatly appreciated.

Please see the donation policy here.

I will need to make a choice on whether to get a public server or a private server first. Please mail me if you have a preference.

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

From last week's report, just in case you missed it:

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 plac to refer to waht'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, tasts, 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 New DSC</li></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="100%" style="border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1;" bordercolor="#FFFFFF" colspan="2" height="5">

At the meting this past Saturday I announced the release of the new Dark Side Compendium. The new version of the Compendium is the first step towards out documentation shift for the Brotherhood. If you haven't read the Summer Projects Report, here's a brief explination:

The DB has traditionally used just the DSC to contain all of our policies, sturcture, and lore. It has been a confusing array of pages that has been hard to keep updated and is harder to find one's way around. To get around this, we are reating three sets of documents, one to handle the Lore, one to handle the Stucture/Policies, and one to handle Training. The Lore aspect of the DB will be covered by the DSC. You won't be going to the DSC anymore to see what you need to put in you r ID line. Instead, you will be reading about the history of the DB, the fictional background of the structures and the lore of the ranks and whatnot. The actual structure will be contained in the Dark Covenant and the associated decrees. The Cov will outline the basics of the DB, and the decrees will go into specifics. To put it all together, a training manual (the Brotherhood Codex) will be used for easy learning. The other documents are in production now.

I think Trev has done a great job so far on this. There are three sections up now, the Intro, History anf Hall of Immortals. Others will be forthcoming. Enjoy!

http://dsc.darkjedibrotherhood.com/

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BIG PROPS

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

<center>- Big Props to Kaek for his AK a few weeks ago! -

• Props to Trev for his DSC work -

• Yaay to Smoke for the SB! -

• Big congrats to Sato on DJK! -

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