aylwin13

"... and you can rent it at Blockbuster."

The Seachickens were so bad CBS didn't even finish showing the game. I'm glad I DVR sports nowadays, so that I can skip through the crap, which was most of this game.

Did anyone adjust for windage?

Hey, has everyone missed me?

Hey, has everyone missed me?

Hey, has everyone missed me?

Didn't I?

Another Dallas touchdown.
 
The last time the Giants looked this bad, I'm pretty sure their star player was named Goliath.

42

The Freakish Four: This foursome of strange-looking heroes were blessed and cursed with power thanks to a mysterious anomaly in space. They consist of:
 
Jackie Frost: A beautiful animate ice statue of a woman, Jackie Frost has powers over cold and frozen water. Despite her powers she’s a fun-loving thrill seeker who wants her sister to “lighten up”. She’s always up for a snowball fight but she’s also a brilliant physicist.
 
Shadow Woman: Jackie Frost’s sister, Susan is the mistress of stealth, able to become a two-dimensional living shadow, take shortcuts through the Darkness Dimension, create animate entities of “solid darkness” and boost her strength in shadows.
 
Claymore: Jackie’s actor boyfriend Ben has become the Face of the team since while his clay monster form is quite frightening his shapeshifting power allows him to regain his cinema-idol good-looks for part of each day and pass for normal. He keeps his misery hidden from the public.
 
Dr. Richard Woodrue: Briefly tried to call himself Doctor Floronic but there was universal agreement that name was unbelievably terrible so he stuck with his actual name. He’s half-man, half plant, and all scientist. Unlike his younger colleague Jackie he’s serious-minded and a bit pompous. Even so he managed to become romantically involved with Susan.
 
The Four have foes of course.  For example
 
Clayshaper: An older actor envious of Claymore’s career, he managed to get his hands on a small sample of Claymore’s body and managed to bond with it, giving himself much more limited shapeshifting powers as well the power to create clay statuettes of people that could influence their minds or large statues that could copy a character’s form and powers.
 
Doctor Terrific: A genius associate of Jackie Frost and Dr. Woodrue he used that genius to develop technology to become a superhero in his own right until a combat injury caused facial disfigurement that he blamed Woodrue for since Woodrue was there and he had always regarded the other man as a rival. Since then he has been secretly creating threats to attack the Freakish Four while still acting as a now grimmer hero in a suit of powered armor. Even so, it is only a matter of time before he becomes known as Doctor Terror.
 
Metalsmith: Another genius, he has uploaded his own mind into a robot body and crafted more robots to challenge the Four, a team that consists of Silver Ghost who can turn intangible, Iron Vulture who can fly and is very strong, Red Mercury who fights with with stretchy semi-liquid tentacles that can drain vitality, Golden Dragon who can fly and breath fire and Galena who can alter her mass and create barriers  

It occurs to me that there are a few official supervillains who are ageless, and have been active for centuries or more. While they have superhuman powers, those would have been much weaker prior to the Walpurgisnacht Working in 1938. Black Mask III could have come up against a couple of female super-thieves, the mutant Heather McGowrie also known as Cateran (Champions Villains Volume Three), and Handrel, one of the Empyreans (described but not statted in Hidden Lands.)  It could be amusing if one or both of them also encountered successive Black Masks.
 
Oh, that gives me another thought for a "giant penny" analogue. Since BM III lived in Philadelphia, one of those thieves could have stolen the Liberty Bell for a wealthy collector, swapping a copy for the real bell. Both of them could have been strong enough to physically carry away the bell. If Black Mask recovered the Liberty Bell, he might have been awarded or purchased the fake one as a souvenir.

I know Dennis a little.  For the 40th Anniversary at Steve Petersen’s house, he brought photos and a portfolio of his work.  All of the cardboard heroes were generated new because they needed front and back views.  The colors were P. H. Martin’s vibrant watercolors.  They were done 150% scale and reduced for printing.  They were originally made for Steve Jackson’s The Fantasy Trip, but Aaron convinced Steve to make sets for Champions.  

A family thing came up; wont be home until tomorrow.  I appreciate the offer, but honestly, it will be just as easy to copy the file to the flash flash drive and drop it in the mail Monday.  It works well,enough: that is how we did Western HERO, Horror HERO, Cyber HERO and the Adventurers Club books, so I have to say that the method is quite well-tested.   
 
 
Oh, and if you are wondering, no: no one is hurt or injured.  I had a chance to pick up a running, low-miles Goldwing engine and gearbox for the sweet price of "come get it," but it had to be gone be today, and it was quite a ways to travel....
 
It is a "family thing" because we all went, just for some together time, so we havent hurried at all.
 
 
 

That is an amazing table.  Where you when we ran our long standing group for Champions?   Did you build it or buy it?
I haven't gamed in a decade since moving, but that table will pull me out of retirement.

But who has 970 years to wait?

We've had a whole generation raised with almost all entertainment media infected with a strong streak of nihilism. Many of them understand no other way to play. The pendulum has started swinging back in the latter part of this millennium, but it will probably be some years before hope and idealism become the trends again at the gaming table.

I've run into quite a few would-be Game Masters wanting to play out their personal issues at the gaming table.

"The Community"
Never intended to become a name, just like the classic name for the Mafia: "La Cosa Nostra" is literally just the phrase "our thing", used to refer obscurely to the crime organisation you're running. In the case of "The Community", it was a case of people involved always providing themselves with plausible deniability and even a veneer of respectability, as they do things on behalf of "The Community".
 
They don't expect you to pay for protection or anything. They simply prefer you to be a generous donor, providing the community with "necessary funding". They don't try to recruit impressionable young mutants or metahumans, to serve as lieutenants of a street gang. No, they simply welcome them to the super-powered community. And if it ends up with them implicated for, or even involved in, some initial crimes, that's just more evidence that the rest of the world is out to get people like us, and only people in The Community really have your back. The super-"heroes"? They're all just sell-outs.

I will let you know as soon as it happens.
 
 
 

 
 
(I have to get started at _some_ point, I suppose....)
 
 

There are not many politicians who burnish their reputation after they leave office.  I think Jimmy Carter drew a poor hand during his presidency but his decency and honesty, especially the honesty, should be a shining example to politicians all over the world seeking legacy.
 
More decency and honesty from our politicians would be VERY welcome.

Very seriously deserving of his commonly granted title, "best ex-president the United States ever had." Carter never rested on his laurels or focused on profiting from his notoriety. He always strove to do more for humanity, in numerous ways. His presidency was decidedly mixed, but that's only a fraction of his legacy.
 
It's sad to already be talking about him in the past tense.

It's very rare these days to find a Republican with a genuine sense of humor, especially about themselves.

Damn, she brought the heat. I think I like this one.
 
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) scorches Washington in brutal roast: 'I love exercising 1st Amendment rights'
 
Some of her best lines, largely at the expense of her fellow Republicans:
“I know everyone thinks Republicans aren’t funny. But if you get a bunch of us together, we can be a real riot.” Re: George Santos: “Really, who lies about playing college volleyball? Who does that? If you’re gonna lie, at least make it about something big, like you actually won the 2020 presidential election.” “There’s one reason I was chosen to be the Republican speaker tonight, and it's because Kevin McCarthy couldn't get the votes ... I haven't seen someone assume that many positions to appease crazy Republicans since Stormy Daniels”. “[W]e all knew that Matt Gaetz would never let the vote get to 18”. “C'mon, George, you give Republicans a bad name. And that's Lauren Boebert's job.” [beat] “Just kidding, Lauren, don’t shoot.”

Of all things to lie about, why that?

Kudos, Maxine Waters!