BoloOfEarth

"In addition, this year I have greatly expanded my ability to creatively hide the bodies of students who failed the exam."
 
NT:  Where is Cancer creatively hiding the bodies?

I've found that the video becomes 50% better if you turn off the speakers.  It becomes 100% better if you also turn off the monitor.

The same thing we do every Christmas Day, Pinky!  Try and take over the world!

Land, Ho, Ho, Ho!

Land, Ho, Ho, Ho!

Work in the retail sector, and have to deal with the Black Friday shoppers.
 
NT:  How is Foxbat going to ensure he gets everything he's looking for on Black Friday?

Work in the retail sector, and have to deal with the Black Friday shoppers.
 
NT:  How is Foxbat going to ensure he gets everything he's looking for on Black Friday?

The sideways hat and French accent were a dead giveaway.  Though the "Ziggy Piggy" sticker was a surprise.
 
NT:  The local radio station has thankfully decided to stop broadcasting the far-too-early Christmas carols and instead inexplicably puts a few "Thanksgiving carols" on the air.  Name them.

Re: Quote of the Week From My Life.
 

 
(Desperately tries but fails to resist the urge to say...)
 
What a coincidence! I met your wife at the RenFaire, too.
 
(Sorry, Doc. I'll take myself out back and have myself shot now.)

Tofu lasagna.  (Though I'm not positive that meets the last criterion.)

Marry a Kardashian.
 
NT:  It's worse than that, he's _______, Jim!

It's worse than that, he's pregnant, Jim!

It's all for me blog, Me jolly, jolly blog! 
It's all for me post counts and comments!
I spent all me day, thinkin' what I'm goin' ta say!
Across the internet I must waaaander!
 
Captain FaceHook slammed back another glass of rum and looked up a the parrot on the perch above his computer.  "Well, Twitter, where d'ye say we aim our cannons today?"
 
The parrot spread its wings.  "Squak!  Unlink 'em, me mateys!  Ahoy!"
 
FaceHook laughed heartily.  "Aye!  LinkedIn, prepare to be boarded!"  He began tapping away at the keyboard, using exploits coded into the professional network's site to gain access to supposedly secure information.  Linking their databases to some of his own drawing on newsfeeds and other social media, FaceHook ran code that mapped connections both direct and indirect between up-and-coming movers and shakers of the business world.  When several intersecting lines flashed gold, he followed the trail to the "X" that marked the spot.
 
Within moments, FaceHook was connected to Black Bart on Skype.  "Avast, Bart!  Looks like we've got a back-room deal brewing between Dew Chemical and MegaMart.  Time to run up the colors and corner the market!"
 
- - - - - -
 
Well, we've had pirates, so of course we need ninjas.  Or zombies.  Heck, why not both? 
 
NT:  The Hand of Undeath is a group of five martial arts masters of the night... the Endless Night.  Yes, these ninjas are all undead.  (No need to restrict ourselves to zombies.  Ghosts, ghouls, wraiths, vampires, werewolves... any may apply!)  Their masters are all dead, so the Hand now works to exact others' revenge.  They don't work for hire, they just seem to find targets worthy of deadly vengeance.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!
 
"Yeah, I used to belong to a fun group. We spent a lot of time pulling pranks and generally clowning around, but all good things end. I was having a little fun in Vegas when it all went down. (That's probably what protected me -- y'know the saying, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.) The way I understand it, some lawyer/writer guy was behind my friends' disappearances, though I still haven't been able to locate them. And every time I try to get my hands on that Long fellow, it seems like every freakin' hero in the universe comes down on me.
 
"Anyway, I used to be called Trump Knight, but people kept associating me with that The Donald tool, so I decided it was time for a change. Got some advice from an independent consultant, he said I should repaint my armor dark gray and add a shield with my new logo. He also suggested a name change, though I'm not 100% sold on it. I mean, what kinda name is Twilight Knight? Sounds like I can't make up my mind whether it's day or night. And then Mr. Consultant starts spreading rumors that I'm secretly a vampire under the armor. Said it'll increase my Q-rating in the 15-25 year old market. That's when I bashed him in the skull with my mace. I'm already starting to regret this whole thing."

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!
 
“This is Jimmy Dugan, following American Protector’s trail as he continues attacking various supervillains. I’m not sure if he’s seeking justice or vengeance, to tell you the truth. Thus far, he has hospitalized Loopy Lou, the Acrobat, Sonic Sara, and Max Millions. Hodag is still missing after his run-in with Protector, and we have reports that a man-sized ‘missile’ which may have actually been Protector, was responsible for Scarlet Hawk’s death outside Salt Lake City. However, we have no confirmation that American Protector is definitively responsible for that death.
 
“I’m reporting now from Reno, Nevada, where Laddie Luck, the Scottish probability-altering supervillain, is attempting to elude American Protector after robbing Harrah’s Casino. While Laddie’s luck powers have kept Protector from grabbing the villain or landing a solid blow, he has managed to force Laddie to drop the stolen money in his haste to escape.
 
“Wait… I’m not sure why, but Protector has just ripped out the massive sign in front of a restaurant… oh! He’s going to use it like a giant flyswatter! But wait… apart from his luck powers, Laddie is a normal person. There’s no way he can survive… Oooooo. Oh, God, I think I’m going to be sick. Oooooo. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope the WSN censors stopped the video feed and you didn’t see that. The blood… I don’t think even Laddie Luck’s powers could have helped him survive that. Oh, no, Protector’s not stopping, he’s hitting the body again, and again, with the sign! Good Lord, it’s horrible, you can’t even tell it’s a body any more…”
 
- - - - - - -
 
(I'm not counting Max Millions as one of the contributions, since all was given for him was a name. So the person to post the final victim in San Francisco can name the next team.)

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!
 
“This is Jimmy Dugan, reporting for WSN, the World Super Network, with an exclusive on a super-battle taking place at Chicago’s O’Hare airport between American Protector and the eccentric supervillain known as Loopy Lou. For those of you who don’t know this obscure villain, his attacks and defenses, as well as the targets of all his crimes, involve rings or circles.
 
“Details are sketchy, but Loopy Lou was reportedly trying to steal the Borgia Signet, a ring reputed to have belonged to 15th century aristocrat Cesare Borgia, upon its arrival in Chicago bound for display at the Field Museum. American Protector apparently learned of this crime and came to stop it.
 
“I don’t know if you’re seeing this, but Lou finally managed to ensnare Protector with his amazing shrinking rings, but to no avail. Protector has broken free and… yes! Protector flew up and disarmed Loopy Lou, and is now turning the villain’s own shrink-ring projector against him. Looks like he’ll have Lou wrapped up and turned over to the police in no time.
 
“Wait! In addition to wrapping Loopy Lou’s arms and legs in rings, Protector has begun targeting the villain’s head with the shrink-ring projector. Oh, my god, it must be some kind of mistake on Protector’s part, but he’s gotten a trio of rings around Lou’s throat, and you can see them shrinking, cutting off his oxygen! Apparently, American Protector hasn’t noticed this, because he’s just flying away after crushing the weapon in his bare hands. Police are rushing to the downed villain, I hope they can reach him in time before he chokes to death!”
 
- - - - - - - -
 
Loopy Lou survived the attack, though it was very close and his neck was severely damaged both by the shrinking rings themselves as well as police efforts to remove the rings. His larynx was crushed and his vocal cords damaged beyond repair, so Loopy Lou can’t talk any more. The incident terrified Lou, to the point that he now curls into a fetal position at the sight of anything circular. He has spent the last 17 years in a mental institution, eating off square plates, drinking from square glasses, and getting therapy to even be able to hear the word “round” without throwing a fit.

(My homage to a one-shot Spider-Man villain. The names have been changed because, well, it's been years since I read that particular comic issue.)
 
The villain known as Buzz Kill is a mercenary, Mickey Tannen, who stole the inventions of a frustrated entomologist named Dr. Frank Driscoll. Driscoll had discovered that certain insect noises, when greatly amplified, could cause not only distraction, but also disorientation, deafness, physical damage, and in some cases even fatal injuries. Dr. Driscoll had used his amplifier and recorded insect noises to attempt robberies after learning that none of his research grants were being renewed, but was stopped (rather easily) by a solo superhero. Tannen learned about the battle, and broke into the police evidence locker to steal Driscoll's equipment. He upgraded the gear (for one thing, having digital recordings on an MP3 player worked much better than the cassette tapes Driscoll used), mounted it in a stolen flying battlesuit, and went into business as an assassin. He joined Hive because frankly, his defenses aren't up to concerted attacks by superheroes.

Your project is dressing cows in Doctor Doom armor. (Udderly Doomed! Get it? Oh, I slay me!)
 
And now, in honor of Cabrera getting thrown out of last evening's Tigers baseball game:
 
NT: Things to say to the umpire if you really want to get thrown out of the game.

The "L." in "L. Marcus" actually stands for "Liberace."
 
NT: The shocking villain in the next superhero movie (and name the superhero too).

Agent 34 is James Niven, a smooth-talking Brit with a pencil-thin mustache and a ready smile. He fancies himself a master of disguise -- as long as the person he's masquerading as happens to be a thin Brit with a pencil-thin mustache.

"Hey, you kids! Get offa my lawn!"
 
Richard Rathbone shook his cane as the elementary school kids ran away laughing, then the old man trudged back inside to watch more TV. He was feeling every one of his seventy-three years, from his aching feet to his long-bald head. Gosh-darn those brats, he thought as the TV news blared out the latest doom-and-gloom. Let them try living on a fixed pension and social security. Bet they wouldn't be laughing.
 
Movement outside his window caught Rathbone's eye, and he saw a kid, about 15 years old, approaching Rathbone's front porch with something in his hand. Rathbone got up from his arm chair and moved as quietly as possible to his front door. Throwing it open, he almost knocked the kid from the porch. As it is, the kid dropped the lighter before he could put a flame to the paper bag he had placed in the center of Rathbone's "not-so-welcome" mat.
 
"Flaming dog poo!" Rathbone glared at the kid. "I'll show you flaming dog poo!" He swung his cane, and the kid was caught off guard and unable to dodge it. As the silvery handle touched the kid's chest, there was a sudden chill in the air and a loud moan, seemingly out of nowhere. Both Rathbone and the kid were shocked to see the cane pass through the now-desolidified teen. The kid screamed and began to run.
 
"And take your bag o' poo with you!" With a swing that would have done Arnold Palmer proud, Rathbone's cane sent the paper bag and its disgusting contents (also now desolid) flying through the air and passing harmlessly through the front fence.
 
Rathbone looked at his cane, and the bag-o-poo, and the fleeing teen in shock. "What the Sam blazes is going on here?!"
 
A little experimentation revealed that the cane (found at and taken from a nursing home Rathbone had spent a hellish three months at while recovering from hip surgery) could turn anything and anyone it touched desolid for a long period of time. (Exactly how long depended upon the mass of the object or person. The bag-o-poo is probably still desolidified, and that was over six months ago.) He could also desolidify himself, though he becomes instantly solid if somehow separated from his cane.
 
Deciding that the world "owed" him for all the indignities heaped upon him in his life, Rathbone took to a life of crime and became Old Man Wrath, a crotchety, near-sighted, hard-of-hearing old grump. His specialty is bank robbery, often walking through bank vault doors after hours to make some big "withdrawls." He's no relation at all to either Wrath or Kid Wrath, and resents being associated in any way with either one. Well, to be honest, he resents pretty much the whole world. Except maybe prunes.
 

Dice. Lots and lots of dice. And if you're lucky, they're all 6-sided and not those... other kind of dice.
 
Oh, you meant within the adventure! In that case, Argaiv's little purple pills of Enhanced Virility. (Yes, I have that type of gaming group.)

Bobby Newcombe always wanted to be a superhero, or at least a sidekick. After his mother's death (when Bobby was only five), the young boy was raised by his father. Dr. Richard Newcombe may be a brilliant scientist-inventor and a shrewd (and wealthy) businessman, but as a parent he was rather inattentive. He let Bobby have whatever he wanted and do whatever he wished. He was rather happy that Bobby seemed to have inherited his sharp analytical abilities, and Bobby’s home lab is comparable to some high-end research labs.
 
At age 12, Bobby set out to become a sidekick for his personal hero, Sunburn. Okay, so Sunburn was already working as a journalist for SNN instead of fighting crime, but Bobby was sure that once he saw Bobby’s SunSuit (patent pending), the former hero would end his retirement and return to the hero biz. Unfortunately, Bobby caught Sunburn at a bad time and the former superhero not only turned Bobby down flat – he was also very rude about it. Bobby went home, tore down all his posters of Sunburn, and angrily vowed to aid his former idol’s enemies.
 
After getting turned down by Master Blaster, Dark Sun, and Thermal over the next three years (mostly for being too short and scrawny), Bobby approached the Milk Mustache. The anti-dairy villain was amused with the teen’s persistence (and frankly, was pleased that anybody was willing to idolize him) and proposed to advise Bobby as he showed his mettle as a solo villain (Half-n-Half). Bobby created an arsenal of dairy-themed attacks and devices (such as a Cottage Cheese Bomb that entangles opponents, a Sour Milk spray that blinds and sickens the enemy, and a String Cheese swingline). But his two most feared weapons are his Homogenizer Beam (which robs mutants and many genetically-altered individuals of their powers) and his namesake Half-n-Half Ray which shrinks people and objects to half their current size. (He can fire the Half-n-Half Ray repeatedly at the same target, causing it to shrink further and further, down to 1/32 its original size.)

“Okay, kid, here’s the suit. It’s configured for your height and body type, so don’t go adding a lot of weight or going through a growth spurt or anything.”
 
Max Turner gritted his teeth. I’m 20 years old, he thought, not some dumb teenager. But he didn’t say anything, fearing that dexniJ would take the battlesuit back and give it to somebody else. Max was really looking forward to being a supervillain. Power! Money! Prestige! Man, the chicks’ll be banging down the door to throw themselves at me!
 
The elder supervillain handed over a Kindle. “I’ve loaded the instructions for operating the battlesuit onto this e-reader. It can generate radiant heat, light, microwaves, radiation – all up and down the spectrum. With a little time, you can even create three-dimensional models for generating complex holographic images. And, of course, the suit can alter the visible light around it to become invisible.”
 
 
Max took the proffered e-reader and tossed it onto his bed. It bounced off and landed in his basket of dirty clothes. “Wow, some of that sounds like Master Blaster’s gig… hey, wait, is this one of his old suits?” Max ran his fingers across a part of the batttlesuit’s chestplate. “Yeah, it is! I can feel where you painted over his old ‘MB’ logo, right here!”
 
dexniJ looked uncomfortable and mumbled something about ‘using a prior version as a template but greatly enhancing its capabilities’ but Max didn’t care. “Hey, that’s cool, man, no prob. I’ll show him who’s boss. When I hit the streets, people won’t be talking about Master Blaster, they’ll be running in fear from Master Disaster!” He paused, then shook his head. “Naw, forget that. I’ll be the Demolisher! Yeah! I’ll demolish anybody that gets in my way, even if Sunny-boy starts a new MetaGuard group!”
 
- - - - - - - -
 
As you might have picked up, Demolisher isn’t exactly master supervillain material. He’s a brash, self-centered, kinda jerky guy with way more power at his disposal than is really wise or safe. Max never did read the instructions (e-readers don’t do so well in the rinse cycle), so he doesn’t use the battlesuit to its full capabilities, and he’s often discovering something ‘new’ that it can do.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...
 
After an aborted attempt to penetrate the heart of the mysterious black cloud of flies menacing the small African nation of Kinyasa, the Champions brainstorm, trying to think of a way to disrupt it, distract it, or otherwise it prevent it from consuming the small city of Koba.
 
Blink Dog: "We could kill a bunch of cows and drop them in it's path, maybe it would attack them instead."
 
Aresenal: "It's a force of evil Blink, not a force of stupid."
 
---
 
An Out of Game quote as well:
 
Sharron (Champion Girl) discussing Nick's character (Blink Dog): "You know, your character is kind of an asshole."
 
Ken (GM & Nick's housemate): "It's not just his character."
 
Eric (Aresenal): "Boom tish!"