Mostly the same as Left 4 Dead 1, which is not a bad thing at all.  Shoot zombies!  Great pacing.

If anybody wants to join me in a game, I’m joedelta1 on Steam.  I think.

WUMP. And another one hit the ground.

“Come quick! Sadana has it too!” shouted a female voice.

The whole class got up to go see what was going on. They clustered around the girl who had just hit the ground.

“Excuse me,” said Mrs. Rung, pushing through the circle of middle school children. She knelt down and felt the unconscious girl’s forehead. “Her fever is even worse than Stanley’s. Alan, Travis, come carry her to the office.”

Both of the boys had been gawking at the unconscious Sadana, and they reluctantly hefted her up, then dropped her on the ground.

“OOF!” they called out in unison. “She’s HEAVY!”

Mrs. Rung looked around. The class usually only had eleven kids, and Jake, Janet, and Stanley were already gone. Stanley had also collapsed from the strange illness that had infected the school, and Janet and Jake had helped carry him to the office. Nearly a quarter of the students had been sent home in just that day, all of them with the same symptoms: high fever, pale faces, and unconsciousness.

“Is there anyone else who will help them?” Mrs. Rung said in a pleading tone. “Recess is in five minutes and I have yard duty.”

Daniel stepped forward with a sigh and grabbed Sadana. The boys heaved her off the ground. Myrtle and Seriah had offered their help earlier, but weren’t strong enough to lift anyone, and Courtney had helped Cayley down to the office on her own. None of the ones who had left had come back.

“OW!” shouted Travis. He let go of Sadana’s arms and she landed with a thump.

“Careful, she’s a human being, you know!” scolded Mrs. Rung.

“She cut me!” protested Travis. He held up his hand, where there was a bleeding cut in the shape of a fingernail.

“Go get a band-aid,” Mrs. Rung replied wearily, as she got up to get an aspirin.

Suddenly, she screamed. Sadana’s eyes had opened. And they were blood red.

Everything happened in an instant. Sadana opened her eyes, reached out with a hand whose fingernails had grown into claws, and dug them into Mrs. Rung’s ankle. At the same time, Travis hit the ground. Myrtle screamed. Mrs. Rung screamed. Daniel screamed as Sadana’s other clawed hand left a bleeding scratch down his leg. Sadana stood up and looked around the classroom. Her eyes were filled with hatred and scorn. She smirked and chuckled, revealing a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth. Mrs. Rung fainted, from either the disease or pure terror. Screams came from the direction of the office, then abruptly stopped. Sadana grinned. Myrtle was paralyzed with fear, but Seriah reached into her desk and pulled out the heaviest book she could find.

“No, Seriah!” Myrtle whispered. “It’s still Sadana. Maybe she can be cured.”

“Don’t worry,” replied Seriah, but she looked pretty worried herself. “I’m just gonna knock her out.”

But Sadana heard them. She growled savagely. Seriah raised both hands and smiled.

“It’s okay, Sadana,” she said in a slow, calm voice. “We’re not gonna-”

Without warning, she leaped forward and smashed Sadana on the head with th book. Sadana fell to the ground, but continued growling and scratching at Seriah. Myrtle pushed Seriah out of the way and threw a stapler at Sadana’s head, which knocked her out. Myrtle looked warily at all the sick people on the ground.

“We need to get to the lab. It’s secure,” said Myrtle.

Seriah nodded. The lab was both a science and a computer lab. It was built out of metal and also served as a safehouse during earthquakes.

Myrtle gasped. “Where’s Alan?” she exclaimed. “And Daniel?”

“Alan ran out the door while we weren’t looking, and Daniel’s on the floor. But he probably won’t be there long.”

“What are we waiting for? Let’s get out of here!”

Seriah grabbed a dictionary and handed one to Myrtle. They stepped around the people lying on the ground and each grabbed an umbrella as a shield and weapon before hurrying out the door.

Sick kids were everywhere with blood red eyes, many of them their friends. Students and teachers lay unconscious on the ground. The path to the lab was completely filled with infected people.

“What should we do?” Myrtle whispered hopelessly.

“What we have to,” Seriah replied.

Myrtle nodded, then managed a smile. “Charge?”

And that’s just what they did.

The run to the lab was a flurry of fear and adrenaline. All around them was a fate worse than death, so they ran, whacking with dictionaries, shielding with instantly battered and beaten umbrellas. Several times a claw ripped through the umbrella, coming only inches away from their skin. But after what seemed like both forever and no time at all, they arrived at the metal door of the lab. Seriah flung it open as Myrtle held off the infected with her umbrella. They darted in and slammed the door and locked the deadbolt.

“We made it,” said Seriah with immense relief.

Myrtle looked up with pure horror. “I didn’t,” she replied, pointing to a bleeding mark on her leg. “Seriah, you’ll have to find a cure alone. I’ve got to get away before I transform. Good luck. ”

“I’ll need it,” said Seriah as she turned to the lab and started grabbing chemicals.

Myrtle gave her one last sad look, murmured a farewell, then flung herself out the door. It slammed shut behind her. A scream came through the door. Then, silence. Seriah winced.

“What just happened?” said a voice. Seriah spun around.

“Mr. Funger?” Seriah said with disbelief in her voice. “What are you doing here? And why were you quiet this whole time?”

“My entire class was sent home. We had a huge outbreak, so the principal sent me here to write alternative math tests. Then, I heard screaming from outside, so I called the police and hid.”

“Then why wasn’t the door locked?” said Seriah.

“Oh. Well, err…I suppose I forgot. I guess I just got lucky and none of them tried the door.”

“You called the police?”

“Yes. But the man there was being attacked by something. He told me to stay hidden in a secure space, and he said something about pie.”

“Pie?” Seriah said. “There is some horrible epidemic that might wipe out humanity, and he was talking about pie? Wait a minute,” she said. “Maybe pie is the cure. Mr. Funger, do you have any pie?”

“I already tried that. I had some blueberry pie in my lunch, but throwing it at them didn’t help.”

Seriah was becoming hysterical.

“Well, what ELSE could it be?”

“Wait, I have an idea,” he replied. “Maybe he meant pi.”

“Well, of COURSE he meant pie! That’s what you just said!”

“No, no, I mean 3.14159 pi.”

“Oh,” Seriah replied simply. “But how could we cure them using that?”

“Well, maybe just hearing it will cure them. It’s worth a shot.”

Seriah nodded. Then, she opened the door. Hundreds of infected came swarming towards them.

“Three point one four one five nine!” called Mr. Funger.

“Nothing’s happening!” shouted Seriah above the roar of the infected. Seriah and Mr. Funger were having quite a time keeping them back with only torn umbrellas.

“Two six five three!” he called. This time the infected put their hands to their heads, but then kept coming. Mr. Funger went on and on. With each digit, they were weakened. They were having trouble, some reeling and falling down. But suddenly, Mr. Funger stopped.

“Keep going!” shouted Seriah.

“I don’t know any more!” Suddenly, a claw ripped through Mr. Funger’s umbrella and scratched his arm.

Seriah, at that moment, gave up hope. She didn’t know pi very well. There was only one more thing she could do.

“Et cetera!” she screamed. Silence. The infected stopped roaring, then fell to the ground. Seriah fainted. She woke up moments later to find that everyone was waking up. Nobody could remember being infected. Seriah began sobbing with joy. Everyone was saved.

Seriah found Myrtle, and they went to the computer lab to make a recording of pi. Mr. Funger drove them to a nearby news station, playing the recording full blast all the way. Once it was on TV and radio, they were able to tell the uninfected what to do. Eventually, everyone was cured, easy as… you know.

So my Wii repair is $75, +$10 shipping, + $8.29 salex tax?!  There’s no sales tax on repairs.  There’s no sales tax on shipping.  And sales tax, outrageously high as it is (8.75% in CA?) isn’t that high (11%).  I’m feeling even more ripped off.

So we’ve been having a great time rocking out with The Beatles on the Wii for a couple of months, but my Wii stopped reading discs.

I’ve always hated CD-based games.  The CDs tend to get scratched over the years (especially if strangers and kids handle them), and they become unreadable, and the players themselves tend to fail after 2-3 years, too.  My 20 year old Super Nintendo still works fine, as do 100% of its carts.  The same could not be said for either of my Gamecubes, my XBox, or my PS2.

Knowing the high failure rate of videogame systems, I actually got the extended warranty on the Wii.  About six months later, sure enough, it failed, and it was nice to just bring it to Best Buy and swap it out.  Those extended warranty things are almost always a giant ripoff, but not this time.

So now it failed again, and it’s still under warranty.  Hooray!  But it turns out that the downloadable content — like all the Beatles songs I paid extra for — is nontransferable to my replacement Wii.  Lame!  If I do the “free” replacement, I have to re-buy all my software?  Yikes!  So I’m going to end up paying $93.29 to repair my old Wii, just so I can keep my data?

Makes me wish I’d just pirated it.

Why can’t the Coen brothers come up with an ending for their movies any more?  No Country for Old Men (****) and Burn After Reading (****) were both delightful films, but both just kind of stopped.  (I found it more tolerable in Burn After Reading.)

Sure, they’re good movies anyway, but I want them to be great movies.

I paid my property taxes today.  (About $2000.)  There was an option to pay it online.  Convenient!

Alas, after going through all the steps (but before actually paying), they note that there will be a “convenience fee” of $56.  They must think licking a stamp is pretty darned inconvenient.  I aborted and paid the $0.44.