Decided in order to make the new bits more easily stand out so no one has to reread a lot of text, I included a line break between sections (updates).

3 exceptions to this (such as the 'totems').

I hope this brings entertainment and some amusement for each reader.
If you haven't heard of it before, and haven't seen it, look up "Skippy's list of things he's not allowed to do in the army." It can be absurd and amusing, and can really help give you a laugh during hard stressful times. I know it did for me.


Author's note - December 2023:
'I intended on just removing 2 lines, but didn't want to have this considered a recently updated guide without any new content.... so 3 new lines soon became a new section with at least 20.'

Shephard at the end (V22 Osprey in the void after Gman leaves him there)
*Shephard should be absolutely livid*

Seriously, nothing to do but:

- scratch marks into the wall with his knife
- try to remember how many kills he got, how many allies he watched die
- think about what might be happening back on earth
- what he might do if/when he gets home
- the variety of creative ways he will torture/kill the gman
- Count the grains of sand in his boots/underwear
- remove said grains of sand from said apparel
- make a sand castle
- figure out if there is a pilot flying the V22 osprey or if its even flying itself
- break into the cockpit to see what’s going on and ultimately try the radio (something to do)
- Read any flight documents or manifests (preflight checks, or whatever)
- Try the flight controls and see if they respond.
- after finding out they don't, start making childish airplane noises (despite knowing that its actually a tilt-rotor- helicopter) and gun noises.
- give up cleaning the spit off the plexiglass (from all his airplane noises)
- Figure out which weapons were his favorite
- change out the filter on his gas mask
- question the use of his gas mask given the new location
- keep using the gas mask because it looks cool with the green tinted lens outserts
- remembers his disappointment playing Jurassic Park Trespasser, and prays to god for a remake
- decides after 2 minutes that people dressing dogs in ridiculous and itchy costumes are the real monsters
- Carve cartoon of killing freeman and going home into the side of the aircraft
- Sharpen his knife, for the thirtieth time
- Clean all his weapons from his bottomless storage box, and reinforce them with collected titanite shards

- figure out that gravity still works here
- wonder if he will die (lack of food water)
- wonder about the passage of time in this place
- screaming
- wonder if a remake of HL: Opposing Force will ever happen
- practice voice impressions
- work on singing voice
- stop singing forever
- write fanfiction
- run out of paper, and regret wasting it on fanfiction writing (could have left notes for others should they find the aircraft or his body)
- throwing and catching a grenade like a tennis ball
- clean any remaining wounds
- wonder what happened to everyone else (again)
- wonder who gman is (and how much you want him dead)
- play the game: marry, kill, hate-♥♥♥♥ (options included are severely limited so the game is never played)
- tossing and catching the knife
- bandaging your hand after a few botched catches
- get good at catching the knife
- screaming, again
- take a breath mint
- using his knife, pick off all of the following things which had become plastered to the bottom of his boots: entrails, blood, excrement, science-ooze, toxic ooze (similar to science ooze), blood, bone, ashes, fuel, more sand (yay...), and a few pebbles.
- clean knife from previous cleaning of boots
- make a "Holy hand grenade of Antioch"
- decides to take a nap, but sets claymores where ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ like to teleport in and tell you you're grounded
- has a decent nap
- cleans up a corpse in a suit (kicks it out the door), after cutting the head off (needs to make a totem to warn off any inter-dimensional cannibals)
- finds a spiffy looking briefcase (but only finds lots of Prividin and a crossword), so he dumps it

- bounce quarters off the deck plates to see how far you can get them
- scream at the quarters for letting down the other quarters that were counting on them
- scream at a particular quarter for not being able to stop a penny, and an evil nickel from ruining everything
- cry for the quarter, for the coin has nothing left
- develop PTSD from his 'pocket change & quarters' episode
- invent imaginary squad mates to talk to about his experience with his pocket change

- scream into the void
- brush teeth
- Prays that 343 will not ♥♥♥♥ up Halo 3: ODST PC port for its firefight is all he has left of the Halo Universe (that he cares about)
- Wonder if anyone actually managed to DRIVE out of black Mesa, considered all the closed doors and cave ins
- Wondering if 'Agent Simmons' had a family, and if they would mind that he nicked his wallet off his corpse in the tram tunnels
- Decides that the Long-Glaive is super-boss weapon in Mount and Blade games
- Finds a bottle of vodka behind a 'secret' lose panel in the cockpit, proceeds to play drinking game: every time he blinks, and the rotors are still moving he takes a drink
- after passing out, out of curiosity, he examines the fuel gauge and discovers its actually just a sticker

- Decides that 'Ellen' is the worst and most insufferable of Lesbians, and sorts her into the same 'hate' box as Oprah and Whoopie Goldburg (because of her terrible first name)
- after playing Mount & Blade II BannerLord for hours, is reassured knowing that the Glaive is still 'super boss'
- tries to identify every stain on his urban camo BDU
- annoyed at how most stains are blood and alien blood (successfully identified after removing dirt with a now unusable toothbrush)
- wonders how 'imaginary friends' work (and how they just seem like they would be higher maintenance than a real one, considering you have to do all the work)
- develop an irritation eye twitch
- thanks the Emperor of Man that he is now in a place where terrible 'mainstream music' trash cannot find him

- hopes someone will write a decent fanfiction about him kicking ass in this universe or others (with none of that gay-ass Harry Potter ♥♥♥♥ that clogs fan-fic sites) and forget Freeman!
- doesn't know what a 'Half-Life 3' is, doesn't care that it won't ever exist

- hopes the next nerd with a briefcase that appears won't have severe-Aspergers, or Autism
- wonders why yoyos even exist (can't be blamed on the Greeks this time)
- thinks about reincarnation, and how he would definitely want to be a werewolf- no, a dragon, but not one of those sissy, pansy Chinese dragons, but a fire breathing European dragon
- being a dragon would be awesome: they fly, cook lamb, breath fire and don't pay taxes
- decides that when that nerd with the briefcase shows up again, he will make his 3 wishes (the bastard must be a genie), and if he doesn't, he'll have one more severed head to make a cannibal-keep-away totem
- Wish 1: reincarnate as European dragon
- Wish 2:...... immortality + 'everything-proof-scales' [he's learned well from elementary school]
- Wish 3: Escape from the void.

- Isn't sure where to invade and conquer... (wants it isolated), but decides the nation will be named 'Helgan'
- wonders the reasoning behind briefcase-alien, what his creator had in mind to justify his existence in half-life, aside from a convenient plot device for skipping time and teleporting the main characters when convenient/inconvenient
- decides to keep all the marbles
- decides that the vertibird-osprey-sky-dragon isn't very reliable or that command was really retarded the day they decided to send in an airborne assault without first clearing the airspace and establishing air superiority


- misses the sun, and the rain, but not magpies or grackles (♥♥♥♥ em)
- rigs up a hammock that’s pretty boss (using deflated raft and rope)
- has another nap
- is glad he doesn't have to clean any more corpses (at least decomposition and smell aren't an issue, seeing as time doesn't exist here)
- declares himself the emperor of the osprey

- Thinks "Sven Coop" makes things pretty boss (especially if teammates decide to ....dress up .. as Freeguy and Brief-case so he can work out all that stress and revenge with a wrench or full-metal-jacket wish fulfillment).

- Hopes that Drill Instructor Barnes would hurry up and get here already (Force Ghosts teleport, right...?), and tear the void a new one, so he can escape (hopefully to universe that isn't anime and especially not Warhammer 40k).

- Needs to back home so he can upgrade his PC for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl.

- Still regrets not getting crispy noodles at the Vietnamese restaurant (seeds of doubt within his mind, he will never know which was the right choice for the stir-fry).

- Looks back fondly to the time of Salt & Vinegar Popcorn (liquid dressing, sure it has to use another chemical compound to bind it too, but the flavor was well worth whatever unknown but surely inadequate reason for discontinuing it).

- Still thankful he doesn't have to deal with the relentless scourge of 'Ants'.

- Tries flicking a few worthless pennies that had disappointed his expectations earlier, into the rotor blades. After the third ricochet near-miss, decides it might not be a good idea. Especially with this red Kool-Aid that is leaking from somewhere (why does he feel cold?).

- Feels better after drinking the terrible bargain-brand Kool-Aide with a straw, because that's definitely how that works.

- Is glad he brought his Xbox 360 in his pack. That'll show his squad, giving him odd looks (don't think about how they are all dead by now...), as he can eat hot rations. Who wants to eat cold ration squares like ♥♥♥♥♥♥ pop-tarts when they can have hot Chili?

- Doesn't know how, but still gets Chinese robo-calls from Canada. More bafflement when realized that he doesn’t have a cell phone.

- Thinks that ‘Animes’ is some sort of bacteria by the sound of it, or something contracted.

- Only now starts to question the size of the Black Mesa facility (and how ridiculously over-sized it must be). Decides to ask the Genie-man for a map of the facility footprint when he appears next, not as a wish (not going to fall for leprechaun bu1l-$hit), but as a favor since he’s looking after the Schrödinger cat (himself…).



- wonders when crowbars were first invented (can't look up because the pilot of the Osprey that he never met, also didn't leave the WiFi password...)

- Decides that once he's out he will Hunt Down The Freeman because he killed all his army buddies.... no wait, never did have any friends. One time, in boot camp in the middle of the night he was tied to a chair in the supply closet and force-fed Lunch-ables, the disgusting thing that even MRE's would cringe at if they were sentient (at least they somewhat satisfied certain criteria, unlike a cracker, a small piece of cheese and an inadequate [unidentified butcher-shop discards pile / meat derivative] oh, and a Halloween-sized box of 'Nerds' candy, a nefarious scheme to get children to whine for it in store)..... what was I talking about before? Doesn't matter. Time has no meaning here. My watch and its dead battery told me so.
- If I dig out all the wood splinters from the sh1t show in 'Mesa, and I made what a rather sympathetic art teacher might call a 'christmas tree' will Santa give me a resupply crate and the WiFi password?
- Found one of the pennies from before. Decided against trying to make a shurikken. Too small and of inadequate surface area to work. Also, unless drunk, not worth the expected result: carved up fingers, and a scraped up penny.

- Glad he doesn't have go to work tomorrow
- Sad he can't go to work tomorrow
- Relieved he doesn't have to go to work tomorrow (having to *try* write an 'After Action Report' of whatever the hell happened....)

- wonders if the void has its own universal time-zone or if it has several
- realizes that without time, there is no 'early' or 'late'
- despairs that 'waiting' becomes an impossibility
- Found a DVD set under the seat: "Sharpe's Rifles"
- proceeds to practice making weird shapes by etching the metal hull with his knife
- decides against trying to carve a landscape of a mountain stream when it quickly leads to an embarrassing mess.

- Practices his knife throwing ( and gets 'okay-ish' at it after a near eternity )
- practices his grenade throwing

- wishes he had an axe to take into battle and go out like a bad-ass like in that Reign of Fire movie against the dragon. But unlike the movie, actually getting a few hits in....somehow....
- wonders what dragons taste like
- wonders what a barbecued dragon-steak might taste like
- wonders how much barbecue-sauce might be needed if it doesn't taste great

- finds a liquor bottle in the helicopter's glove compartment (don't be silly, of course it exists)
- drinks too much, reasoning that if time doesn't exist, then neither must hangovers
- realizes flawed logic (vomits alcohol)
- whistle's for his dog, 'Dolf', so he can clean it up ( and to see if he'd get drunk)
- knows he won't see him again in this life, but will see his buddy again in the next one (wearing the custom dog-harness that can hold beer bottles... like the saint Bernard, except more awesome and sanitary).

- tries to figure out his coordinates in the void

skips the coordinates part, but writes a note to place into the now empty bottle:

* to the manufacturer of Absolut ( for only a manufactured beverage could taste so foul) - "narry a shelf low en'off for the swill ye sell. Thy mother be'eth most disappointed in thee. 'th " *

- after dropping the message in the bottle overboard, he eye's the ropes
- decides he still not nearly crazy enough to see if he can rappel down and 'find' the 'bottom' of what must be a CGI'd void. .... with a very advanced green-screen.

- "What is dead may never die". What a stupid line. It's because you're already dead stupid! If you tell yourself that "I don't see snow, so the snow can't see me" so he won't have to defrost the windshield..... or does it?

- Finds it does, and that he doesn't ever want to breaking reality again when it means being cold without a warming fire.

- makes a road-flare campfire (just because, and especially because there's nobody to tell him not to).

- Glad he doesn't have to pay taxes.
- Does he need to pay taxes?
- Worried he might need to pay taxes.
- Doesn't trust that IRS will be understanding, even if they knew.

- Wonders if being "trapped in the void" or wherever the hell this place is would qualify for tax exemption status?

- Doesn't remember the last time he ate, pissed or shat. No longer feels the need to. Probably for the best. That'd be a nightmare..... black coffee + MRE's and periods of intermittent terror and adrenaline. The runs from hell.

- Able to sleep cause he wants. When you don't have any current taskings, you catch sleep.

- Periodically bathes himself using wet wipes from the 'glove box' of the totally-not-a-vertibird.

- Wonders if there could be a "first class" on the whirly-bird, if they are all foldout canvas? Decides its wherever he places the chair cushion he nicked from the copilot's seat.

- Wonders where the pilot went after he and the Osprey VTOL were abducted by 'creepy space lawyers'.

- Wonders how the landing is going to go without a pilot. Decides to dedicate the next 5 minutes to becoming familiar with the basics of the V22 flight control system.... gets distracted watching funny animal videos.

- Wonders if this is still a regular Osprey or if its now a "space-copter". Are the controls any different?

- 6000 page FAQ section of the manual say that the controls are the same, "in the event the helicopter is in space". It was between the section regarding how to "NEVER attempt to pick the crumbs out from between the switches with your knife" and "This aircraft doesn't have a 'horn' and it never will, so stop asking!! - signed aviation mechanic McStevenson

the radio - something about AM/FM stations