FrankL

An Offer
 
The Mercedes cut through the night, the beams of its headlights reflected off the wet asphalt and disappeared into the dark. Traffic was light, an occasional car or truck passing by with long periods before another was seen. The radio played jazz at a low volume.
 
The eyes of the driver darted to the clock in the dash. He had an appointment to keep. Considering the man he had agreed to meet, and not being given the choice of venue, he wanted to be early. Little chance of that now. A wrong turn thanks to the GPS unit in the car had set him back at least a half hour before he had managed to correct the error.
 
The GPS unit announced his eminent arrival at the same time that his eyes picked out the sign. “Lo 's & Grill”, it read. Slowing the car, the driver pulled over into an unpaved parking lot. Pickup trucks and motorcycles tended to be the vehicles of choice.
 
The Mercedes rolled to a stop and the engine was killed. Glancing through the windshield of the car and through a window inside the building, the driver got the impression that Lou's Bar & Grill was maybe a baby-step above a dive. It reflected his memories of the man he was here to meet.
 
Swinging open the car door, the driver glanced down at a rain puddle. He sighed. Lifting himself clear of the water by way of the door and the roof, he stepped over it. He didn't relish the thought of getting back into his car. At least not with dry shoes. Perhaps if he got in from the passenger side he could avoid soaking his shoes. He closed the door and pressed a button on the key fob. The car chirruped twice in response with a flashing of the lights.
 
The driver smoothed down the front of his suit coat and tie, buttoning it closed. He caught his reflection in a mirror on a pickup. He was a handsome black man. His hair was cropped short and neat, both on top of his head and his beard. He cast a quick glance at his watch, the only apparent piece of jewelry he wore, squared his shoulders and headed for the door.
 
Once inside, his eyes scanned the patrons; bikers, truckers and rednecks. More men than women in attendance. He was overdressed in his business suit. The bartender was burly, bald and bearded. He picked out two others, sitting quietly together, that he figured were bouncers. Sitting alone in a booth in the back, drinking beer from a bottle, was his appointment. He made his way back.
 
“Ace,” he said by way of greeting the black man. His hair was mostly black, but tending towards salt and pepper. His face was hard and rough, with a nose that had been broken at least once.
 
“Dalton,” Ace said. “I see your tastes in bars hasn't improved any.”
 
Dalton gestured towards the seat opposite. “Sit.”
 
Giving the bench seat a look of disgust, Ace unbuttoned his suit coat and slid in. Dalton let out a loud whistle to get the bartender's attention. He held up his bottle by the neck with two fingers raised over it. The bartender nodded and pulled two bottles out, passing them to a serving girl.
 
Looking Ace over, Dalton said, “You look like you've moved up in the world.”
 
“You look like you've moved sideways,” Ace said. “The only thing missing are the sergeant's stripes and olive drab.” Dalton snorted. “You asked. I'm here.” He took another look around the bar, “Wherever 'here' is,” he said.
 
The serving girl set the bottles on the end of the table. “Go away,” Dalton said without looking at her. She retreated to the bar. Quirking a smile at Ace, Dalton said, “Somewhere off the radar. That's all that matters.” He pulled a picture out of the breast pocket of his plaid flannel shirt and laid it on the table. He reached for the two bottles, setting one closer to Ace. “To absent...associates,” he said lifting his bottle in a toast.
 
Ace shot Dalton a look that would burn a hole through the other man. He lifted the bottle in front of him and clacked it against Dalton's. “To absent associates,” he said and took a drink. Dalton did the same.
 
“King is gone.”
 
Raising an eyebrow at the statement, Ace said, “I heard rumors. But I also heard about a run in with one of the Guardians not too long ago.”
 
“Ain't him. Guy I work for got his hands on King's gear. Had a little contest of mercenaries to see who got to wear it. Lots of corpses. Last man standing got it.”
 
Ace put his bottle down and slid it to the side. “What happened to King?”
 
“Got a hunting knife in the neck,” Dalton said. Ace looked surprised. “You remember that cross-country hunting trip of Callahan's a few years back?” Ace nodded. It had been quite the news for a time. “Seems they ran into each other. King ended up with his own knife shoved through his neck.”
 
“One to Longbow,” Ace said quietly. “What about the others?”
 
Dalton belched. The sour smell of beer and cigar annoyed Ace. “Queen is still active. If you want to call it that. Doubt you'd recognize her, though. Seems to be more comfortable in skirts and high heels now, than combat gear. Still good for tossing stuffed shirts that think too highly of themselves around.”
 
Ace laughed. “Karen was always good at that. Like that officer when we were in working out of Korea.”
 
“Shoulda kept his hands off her,” Dalton nodded in agreement. “He was lucky she only scarred his face and left him both eyes. Scary woman.”
 
“You just didn't know her very well, Jack,” Ace said. “What about Ten?”
 
Jack Dalton shrugged. “Off the grid. Probably found a rock to crawl under.”
 
“So what's this about?”
 
Dalton ran his thumb over the photograph of the five of them before picking it up and stuffing it back into his pocket. “Got a job. A stuffed shirt is looking for some people that are willing to not play nice with some other people. Money is good. Got some nice benefits. You'd get to see Karen again.” Dalton lifted a small computer and set it on the table before sliding it closer to Ace. On top of it, Dalton set a small gift box.
 
“What's this?”
 
Dalton tapped the computer. “Consider this your target acquisition gear. You agree, you open it up and it sends a message to the stuffed shirt. When he wants you to go to work, he'll send you a file with the target and any special instructions. This,” he tapped the gift box, “is a token of your position in the ranks.”
 
“What if I don't agree?”
 
Dalton sighed. “That could be rather messy, depending.”
 
“Depending on what?”
 
“Your ninja hoodoo.”
 
Ace smiled. “I thought you didn't believe in ninja magic.”
 
Shrugging, Dalton said, “It don't impress me any. Not what I've seen you do. Not what I've seen White Tiger do.”
 
“You've seen the Tiger?”
 
Dalton nodded slowly. “Seen him. Faced him. Almost killed him.”
 
“Almost? What stopped you?”
 
“The man I work for.”
 
“This stuffed shirt?” Ace asked.
 
Dalton took another swig of beer. “No. Him, I work with. The man I work for is downright scary. He tells you to do something or not to do something, you listen.”
 
“I find it hard to believe that you almost killed Kaneda.”
 
Dalton shrugged again. “Believe it or don't. Makes no difference to me. You in?”
 
He sat and thought for a long moment. His gaze traveled from the computer to Dalton and back. “Pass,” Ace finally said, sliding the pile back across the table. “I am not interested in selling my freedom. Just my skills.” He pulled his bottle back in front of himself. “Although,” he said, reaching into an inner pocket of his coat, “there is this.” He slid a small plastic bag across the table.
 
Picking it up and examining the detonator and Jack of Spades card inside, after a few moments Dalton said, “Copperfield. That was you?” Ace grinned and shrugged. “You cost me two hundred thou on that job.”
 
Ace whistled. “Two hundred thousand to blow her apartment with her in it? Tsk, tsk. Doctor Copperfield was worth five hundred thousand to me alive.”
 
“Five hundred... Who?” Dalton asked, incredulous.
 
“The Warmonger,” Ace said. Dalton dropped the detonator on the table. “He wanted to make use of her skills.”
 
“It seems,” Dalton started to say. “It seems that both of us have been keeping company with some pretty powerful people.” He considered his former associate. “Where you off to now?”
 
“New Orleans.”
 
“For work?”
 
Ace considered before answering. “Yes. I took a contract with a gentleman. It seems someone else with ninja magic is causing him a bit of difficulty.”
 
“Who's your target?”
 
“Grimblade.”
 
Dalton whistled. “Good luck.”
 
Ace tilted his head in acceptance. “Give my regards to Queen,” he said as he rose.

I finished the solo CoC adventure "Alone Against the Flames" and learned some very important things about CoC:
 
1) put points in Spot Hidden. It doesn't matter how you justify it in the backstory, do so! When taking my character's personal skills (not professional), I choose stealth, violin, fighting (brawl), and archeology. Why violin? I wanted Harold to be a little more well-rounded as a person. Forget that! Next run, those 20 points are going into Spot Hidden. Spot was the most common check. I made several spot hidden checks (I passed two and missed two). One of the misses would have been a success if I had taken it before. NOTE: consider playing as a police detective and thus justify Spot Hidden as a professional skill.
 
2) if a crazy, homeless man teaches you a chant "to be used only if all else fails," speaking it is never a good idea, even if all else has failed. I stopped the cultists, but there's a 16-mile diameter barren place in the Connecticut landscape now and "my spirit floats amongst the stars."
 
3) Being a hero takes second place to living (I already knew this one, but it was reinfornced). I rolled back the last bit to try a different escape plan. That worked and I got away from the bonfire, singed and hurt. Without the sacrifice (me), something or things descended on the town. I found a bicycle in an alley and sped away. The book then said this. "You hear screams behind you and what sounds like the rush of wings high above. If you look back at the bonfire, turn to __. If you keep going, turn to __." I said, "I've got 1 HP left. This is no time for heroics. I peddle like crazy!"
 
Even though I plan on running the adventure again, I'm keeping Harold's sheet. I found a book of poetry that gave me 4 points to the Mythos skill. Professor Matthers might have other adventures, and a professor of chemical engineer has great potential. He was on his way to take a seat at Miskatonic U when he got stranded in the village of Emberhead.

When you realize that you've wasted hours because you weren't testing correctly, but you don't care because you finally got postfix to be PCI compliant by disallowing plaintext AUTH on port 25 (but still permitting incoming email).

An engineer, a mathematician, and an economist were out hunting deer. From their blind, they saw a huge buck. They took aim. The engineer shot to the left, the mathematician shot to the right. The economist shouted, "We got it!"

An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar.  The first mathematician orders a beer.  The second orders half a beer, the third orders a quarter of a beer, and the fourth orders an eighth of a beer.  Before the fifth mathematician can order, the bartender stops them and pours two beers.  He then says, "Fellas, you should really know your limits."

I had a different reaction, of eerie familiarity. I think I've read things like this, 30-40 years ago. This kind of piece is not helpful, it provides no insights that the people being complained about might learn from and resolve to become better people or stop something they hadn't recognized was a very common problem. This is an all-Y-are just conflict-oriented jerks puff piece, broad strokes Paint Those People Bad, when what they Really Ought To Do Is Cave In Immediately.
 
Used to be women shut men men down with "insensitive". Happened so often it was a stereotype. One size fits all, play that card and you win the debate, and everyone on your side of the Great Divide nodded and added murmurs of support without having to know anything about the actual personal dynamics of the situation.
 
So (if I have the sense of the complaint right) after two generations, men learned the tactic, found a descriptive word that in a cartoon world globally fit the adversary, and turned the tables on the situation, apparently. Gosh, how unfair and inappropriate You-Must-Stop-That-Immediately.

When my Mom moved into her current residence, she was warned about the crows, and given a list of precautions to prevent them dumping the trash, including having lids that lock down on the cans, spraying the bags with cleaning chemicals, padlocking the utility closet where the can is stored, and so on.
 
She took a different tack: she feeds them. On trash day, her crows will arrive near the back porch, and will wait patiently for her to put out peanut butter sandwiches (cut into fourths). The crows will approach the edge of the porch, bow their heads, and tap a foot. She will tell them that it's okay to take their small square of sandwich, and only then will they approach and take theirs. After a few months of this, the original pair brought along a juvenile, who was presented to her (they called to her, did the greeting above, and then called to "junior" to come forward, which he did). Her trash is never touched, even though she doesn't put the bags into the barrel much anymore. I jokingly tell her that she's paying "protection money" with the sandwiches.
 
The neighbor, on the other hand, frequently has to pick up the mess of strewn trash. Seems one of the folks over there decided to yell at the crows, and throw objects. Crows can really hold grudges.
 
The last wrinkle in this was a bit of "outside muscle" from the coast--a seagull that was blown in on one of the storms a few months ago. The crows seemed to adopt the seagull into their little group, and have somehow "explained the rules" about what trash is off limits and what's fair game. So, now the seagull knocks over the neighbor's trashcan, and sits in their recycling bins (to throw out choice bits), while the crows cheer it on.

I don't know what your point is. That was a bad shoot. No disagreement there. However, you posted it in response to a simple statement of fact, so I don't understand your reasoning.
 
I believe I went over this earlier in this thread, but I'll reiterate: Police have no requirement to warn someone before shooting. It's entirely discretionary and for good reason.
 
Do you remember the Tacoma mall shooting in 2005? Well, Brendan McKown does. He was carrying his concealed weapon and confronted the shooter, ordering him to drop his weapon. McKown is now paralyzed as a result, and the shooter is now happily married in jail. (That last link isn't really germane to the discussion, but included because it's rather odd news.)
 
McKown made two errors in judgment: First, he engaged a long arm with a handgun. Second, he did what we see TV cops doing every night, what we expect from the good guys: He gave fair warning before opening fire. I don't know what made him do the latter, but it cost him dearly.
 
If you require police to give verbal warnings in every case, you put them at risk. It is always better to be the actor than the reactor and issuing commands and waiting for them to be followed puts you into the reactor role. This isn't always a good idea.
 
Police are expected to use good judgment and discretion when applying force. They're expected to use reasonable force. The problem with all of these cases are the officers themselves. The standards of use of deadly force and the use of force continuum that have been commonly been used for decades are both effective tools.
 
The bottom line is we need better men behind the badges.

I refused to give up (but I really, really wanted to). I refused to accept the computer's nonhelpful error messages. I got the program done. I can't say I chokeslammed the orchestrator, but I put it in a sleeper hold until it was out.

An Evangelist, an Ex-President, a Hall of Fame Baseball Player, a Confederate General and a Rapper have nothing in common, but when they come together they make the sweet sounds of soul!
 
Jesse Jackson, Andrew Jackson, Reggie Jackson, Stonewall Jackson and Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson are the Jackson Five!

Oh, for a lot of folks the idea of making 'resisting an arrest' a felony will slide by just fine. That's because they mistakenly believe resisting arrest means some 6foot plus behemoth of a man with tattoos or gang markings threw a punch at a cop when the cuffs were applied. They don't know that the same label can be applied to someone, just like them, asking the police to please clarify charges, or pointing out that they're merely engaged in 1st Amendment activity. The average joe doesn't know that 'resisting arrest' ranks up in the top 5 for 'trumped up charges'.
 
A lot of folks will believe the police in real life are just like the ones on most of the prime time tv shows. White hat vs black hat, good vs evil, that's just how we like it: Thought invites complexity, and that means more thought is required. So many want to keep it simple, even if simple isn't true.

Roll for SAN loss. No wait, just subtract it all.

I got my raise!
Quitting my second job was the right decision!

Some guys at work are running a PathFinder game, my office mate is one of them. The other day, J came in to talk about latest character.
 
J: I'm building a new monk. They just have so many options I want to try! I can do this or this or even this! I'm planning on taking X bonus feats and going down Y path.
 
T: Sounds interesting.
 
J: He'll probably be killed quickly. Then I'll just make another monk. I do that frequently.
 
Me: To quote Belkar Bitterleaf, "It's not my fault your core class is fundamentally broken. So you can attack four times per round? Do any of them actually hit?"

Star Wars with Star Trek.  The main characters of Star Trek take over as the heores in Eps IV-VI
 
 
William Shatner frozen in carbonite.  (this'll mean we end up with Slave Yeoman Rand doesnt it?)
 
With McCoy "I'm a doctor, not a rancor keeper"
 
Note: I'd actually want to see Chekov frozen in carbonite though......and unfrozen......and refrozen.......and reunfrozen........and rerefrozen.......etc.
 
 
2nd Note: Emperor Charlie Evans?  (hopefully not)
 
 
 

Somedays, I stress out over what I'm trying to do at my job. It seems like everything is against me: the clock, the programming language, access rights.
 
It's because of those days that days of several minor victories (like today) make me want to shout out, "I AM A SEXY, SHOELESS GOD OF WAR!"

Somedays, I stress out over what I'm trying to do at my job. It seems like everything is against me: the clock, the programming language, access rights.
 
It's because of those days that days of several minor victories (like today) make me want to shout out, "I AM A SEXY, SHOELESS GOD OF WAR!"

"Old Man, as a potential juror, you will need to be fair and not prejudiced during the proceedings. Since you work in IT, have you experienced any instances of people having preconceptions about you based on your occupation?"
 
"Sure. I think that's true of any occupation. Like for lawyers. "
 
(laughter)
 
"Okay, but have you found those preconceptions to be fair?"
 
"You know, to be blunt, a lot of the time they're spot on. "

See, Pariah? You got him all torqued off. Now he'll force the issue, we'll get a lot more pressure, and the whole thing will develop inertia all to itself.

Camaraderie, mainly. Even though I don't play, I have created many characters in several different systems. And I'm a writer, this place discusses sci-fi, fantasy, and other genres I like. While I can't answer questions about specific rules, I can answer when people ask about creating drama in their setup. And I've asked questions on those lines, too.
 
This place has a whole lot of geeks, and I feel comfortable here.

Camaraderie, mainly. Even though I don't play, I have created many characters in several different systems. And I'm a writer, this place discusses sci-fi, fantasy, and other genres I like. While I can't answer questions about specific rules, I can answer when people ask about creating drama in their setup. And I've asked questions on those lines, too.
 
This place has a whole lot of geeks, and I feel comfortable here.

It does seem shockingly crass.  I suppose we should be happy he didn't forward the jokes to his former girlfriend's family.
 
I've known too many people whose lives were screwed up by alcohol.  I wouldn't expect prohibition to work, but I really don't understand the cultural fixation with drinking.  At all.

Camaraderie, mainly. Even though I don't play, I have created many characters in several different systems. And I'm a writer, this place discusses sci-fi, fantasy, and other genres I like. While I can't answer questions about specific rules, I can answer when people ask about creating drama in their setup. And I've asked questions on those lines, too.
 
This place has a whole lot of geeks, and I feel comfortable here.

Camaraderie, mainly. Even though I don't play, I have created many characters in several different systems. And I'm a writer, this place discusses sci-fi, fantasy, and other genres I like. While I can't answer questions about specific rules, I can answer when people ask about creating drama in their setup. And I've asked questions on those lines, too.
 
This place has a whole lot of geeks, and I feel comfortable here.