MrWolf

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... The Scent of Shadows, by Vickie Pettersson. Not bad for urban 'superhero'/metahuman fantasy, with a Zodiac theme. Not as enjoyable as the Dresden Files, but a bit heavier than "Kitty and the Midnight Hour".

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game Whee! Issue 12 is live!

Re: Order of the Stick Yeah. Same. And I don't cry at much.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Shoot 'Em Up worth seeing? I rather want to go... I liked Owen in Sin City, and then there's Monica Belluci.

Re: The cranky thread Yippee. Stomach flu. Not happy. Did you know you can pass out and vomit if you don't release it voluntarily? I didn't until last night...

Re: The cranky thread Having a cold/flu sucks. At least the presentation for my MBA class yesterday went well, or at least, I'm not going to be self-critical when it felt like I had a freakin' migraine. I did my best, my fellow students thought it was good, and that's all there is to it. Stayed home today though... my organization doesn't mind if you take a sick day occasionally. In fact, if we're contagious, they'd rather we stayed home anyway. And now I can read the 8 freakin' articles for my new class starting Saturday. Nothing like giving us plenty of reading...

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Not a movie, but I caught the new Penn Gilette-hosted game show, Identity... pleasant way to waste a bit of time guessing who's who.

Re: The cranky thread You know, it's funny. The more I read this board sometimes, the more I want to post ... but when all my posts will do is "stir up trouble" by calling someone on something they posted that I vehemently disagree with ... ... the more I just think better of it and keep silent. Makes me wonder sometimes why my Ignore list isn't bigger when I've just been self-editing and just NOT replying to some people that I disagree with. Then again, according to some here: "there's nothing good about liberalism", "liberals shouldn't consider themselves grounded in reality", I have "delusions of intelligence to cover up insecurities", "being against the phrase 'most moral nation on earth, ever!" is anti-American". Never mind, just annoyed today. I quelched a LOT of replies the past couple of days.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Zelazny is always a favorite. I have an oooold copy of Creatures of Light and Darkness - I'm very careful with it. Would love to pick up a later edition. I just finished "Kitty and the Midnight Hour" by Carrie Vaughn (plugged by the author, who frequents Fark.com, which is why I picked it up), yet another modern wolves/vamps fantasy novel - and Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan modern witches/faeries/wolves/vamps/elves novels. The second were the better read, but Kitty was decent. I've read the Anita Blake novels a few times, but unfortunately, while I *like* the sex in the books, they are getting to be a bit excessive. I'm certainly not offended by them. I recently re-read Julian May's metapsychic Galactic Milieu Trilogy (Jack the Bodiless, Diamond Mask, and Magnificat). Decent albeit not as good as her Saga of Pliocene Exile. And I'm working through George R R Martin's latest "A Feast for Crows". Good stuff, but I'm starting to skip over parts that I'm not interested in. Some details are a bit much. Good story though.

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game Well, sure, 6 damage doesn't work as a blaster unless you have Targeting Drone to give you accuracy... or Tactics... although blasters's bonuses to Tactics aren't as good as defenders. 1 acc 5 damage has been standard slotting pretty much since the first month of play, and probably in the beta before that - don't know, I wasn't in the beta. I for one am just getting tired of revising my toons every 3 months. I expect even more nerfs to come, though, after this. I'm just getting very cynical. It's like the fun game I stumbled into in issue 1, 2, 3, 4... well, those were just our "tuning" the game they REALLY wanted us to be playing. Too bad for me that I like the game as it is now. Ah well, the one constant of an MMO is change. And if it's not fun for me after CoV hits, well, I'll have $15 more change in my pocket... actually $30 since we have an account both for me and for my wife. Actually - I'm glad my ar/dev blaster is 50. Sheesh. They REALLY want fights to take forever, since robots have 50% res to smashing and lethal already... and with the new numbers, the best I'll do as ar/dev is 200% damage. Feh.

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game Yeah, I hate to think what this means for my dark/elec/elec defender, my kat/regen scrapper, my fire/axe tank... ... basically, slotting more than 3 SOs in any power of any given type is virtually worthless. My trollers make it out okay, oddly enough. Fire Shield, Plasma Shield, Hasten, Stamina, Dull Pain, nukes, Darkest Night, Radiation Infection (well, that's not AS hard hit since you can go 3 def debuff and 3 tohit debuff)... Fast Healing, Integration, Dark Embrace, Obsidian Shield, Murky Cloud, Temp Invulnerability, Force of Nature, Rain of Fire, the list goes on. And sorry, but scrappers and blasters very much benefited from slotting all damage or acc/5 dam. Faster killing = less damage coming in. And seriously, don't expect any caveats about any powers. The numbers are telling, and they are BAD. I probably shouldn't say what they are yet. Don't count on any caveats. And I had finally gotten happy about my spine/dark's end use in long fights, too. Too bad I've seen reports of how it is ... and it's not looking good for dark armor (again). Why am I not surprised....

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game I'm in the beta - I'm not on too much right now (curse you, part-time evening work that I have to do periodically)... but if you want to hit me up at @Dan Bones (first new toon I rolled, and figured "Mister Bones" would be copyright-problematical)... feel free. Otherwise, I have four level 50s now on Infinity, and I'm slowly working up my other four toons, and not playing too many lowbie alts right now. Feel free to send a tell to Dirtmaster (level 35 earth/storm), Clone Arranger (32 ill/rad), Pink Ronin (37 kat/regen), or Porcupine Paul (38 spine/dark). My friends lists are pretty empty these days, but pick-up groups have wanted me more, and not had too many idiots usually... with 4 toons in the 30s, the 30s are BOOOORING now that I did Croatoa twice (on Clone and then Dirt). Gotta pick one and get to 40 and get back into the Malta/Carnie/Praetorian stuff again. I also have some toons scattered on Champion, Liberty, and Pinnacle. And one level 22 kin/rad on Freedom, I think... who could really use a full set of SOs (yes, I winter lorded that one... shoulda done so with a lot more alts in retrospect, oh well). Oh, and by the way, Verxion's Hero Planner is GREAT GREAT GREAT. I plan ... a lot.

Re: The cranky thread Gah. Stomach viruses suck. I had hoped to go back to work today (we get basically unlimited sick days if we need them, so sick time's not an issue)... but no. The fact that I haven't eaten a decent meal since Monday lunch is not helping, either.

Re: The cranky thread Coulda fooled me if so, Zornwil. Sure didn't feel like an attack on "my ideology" (which is what, exactly, that I wanted to go to grad school and didn't have a problem getting a commercial loan for one year and a government loan for the other? Does that qualify as an ideology?), so much as calling me a thief. But of course, as the target, I'm sure my reaction is biased.

Re: The cranky thread Fair enough. I was going to say "Mentor, you had the right idea to stay out of that thread" on the thread itself, but felt that it was better to just stay out of the thread entirely. So I'll say it here - Mentor, you had the right idea to stay out of that thread! ... It didn't help that Treb never acknowledged my response to his post or my PM about the dept of education thread ... but then, I'm just a f__king thief of his tax dollars in his eyes for even TAKING a government education loan, so why should he care? No reason at all. I must be lower in his eyes than people on welfare. (I'm paying back my loan btw - never missed a payment, never late, and down to only around $5K of 36K borrowed to go. Quite a masterpiece of thievery, that - paying it back with interest... ) Good to know that you don't share that opinion, anyway. I know he's your friend (and still employee?)... so that's all I'll say on the matter. I sure didn't expect to be called a thief (or, alternatively, recipient of stolen property which is certainly no better) for getting a *loan*. /boggle, still.

Re: The cranky thread Things I have learned about myself from this board: Getting a government-sponsored student loan makes me a THIEF. Thanks for pointing that reality of life out, Treb! I sneer at America when I say that "if people want to say that America is the 'most moral nation in the history of Earth EVER', we better damn well act like it." Thanks, Maelstrom! As a registered Democrat, I'm a purveyor of racism in the guise of trying to help minorities. And, my party has an active campaign to brainwash people. Thanks, annoying joke-but-turning-into-how-horrible-the-Dems-are-to-minorities thread! I'm sure there's more things about myself that I never knew until someone on this board told me that was really what I am or think... but those are the only ones I'm annoyed about this morning.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings Now that our consumer debt is gone, I find that my motivation to do part-time work for The Princeton Review is nearly zero... Too bad my work ethic doesn't allow me to abandon classes I've agreed to take on. (More) free time in the evenings, and time to get back into shape, would be really nice right about now. Ah well, it's only a few more weeks.

Re: Champions fans on COH, read up! Fair enough.

Re: Champions fans on COH, read up! Hey Lemming... I don't have any chars on Justice, but I finally found a tanker build I rather like (Ice/Energy)... ... might have to look y'all up.

Re: The cranky thread Y'know, I'm really getting sick of the "liberals are evil, conservatives are evil" thing that goes on. It's just really pissing me off lately, and it's getting incredibly boring.

Re: My House Rules. Comments Welcome Heh... Vorsch... actually, I think that was WM showing restraint. "Tell me how you really feel" isn't contentious at all, for an American like me or WM. It's maybe ironic. I've used it myself a time or three, but I'm not actually sure WHAT kind of communication concept it represents... understatement, or recognition of strong emotion, or something... but it's not contentious. "Frell you"... would be contentious. ... ... although I too, don't entirely buy the "shouldn't buy up DEX, buy skill levels!" argument either, but that particular battle has been fought over, and over, and over, and over, and over... and over... on Hero boards of past and present. Bored now. For my F-to-F campaign... I don't care. Buy more stats, it's fine with me. As long as it doesn't go crazy, it's cool. I.e. bricks don't buy up to a 40 DEX or something equally silly.

I'm not sure if I'm sad, disappointed, relieved, or ... dunno... that lately, a lot of things that I'd have liked to respond to...make me just say "why bother", as I know that my words won't have any effect. I'm sure that could be said about me as well, but... anyway. Reminder: do not reply to this post in this thread! If you wish to reply to this post, do it in the "Musings about Random Musings!" /channeling Old Man.

So... I don't understand. WHY, exactly, would gun registration and gun licensing be only the first step towards inevitably taking them away? Similarly, why shouldn't law enforcement be able to search gun registrations if there is a possibility of criminal activity... but law enforcement is allowed to get medical records to see if women had unlawful abortions / doctors performed unlawful abortions? We license drivers, and well, sure, your drivers license probably will ultimately get taken away... when you're too old, too blind, or otherwise unable to drive. We don't, however, wholesale use it as a way to take away people's cars... We license who can sell alcohol, and we tried making it illegal... didn't work out so well. Where is the "alcohol will inevitably be illegal"? I accept that ultimately taking them away is a *possibility* ... and that without licensing (and thus, knowing who actually has guns) that's harder... but where is the inevitability coming from?

Hmm. A challenge, then. A technologist from the future, who landed in the 19th century and created a steampunk-era battlesuit, then traveled to the present with suit in tow.

I'm trying to come up with some odd villain concepts for a comedy-type adventure, where the villain concepts are just wacky, but surprisingly effective nonetheless. For instance, I've got ideas about: The Iron Chef - a deadly-kitchen-tools multipower, a food-effects based VPP, and ablative armor that looks like an iron coating. (currently being sued by the tv show). "Angry Comic" - a vocals-based mind / emotion controller with the delivery of an angry comic (think Lewis Black) I'm looking for a few more strangely-concepted villains that would work surprisingly well. Any input is welcome. Personality and powers are helpful, too.