Monday January 3, 2005

Woke up, got out of bed

Well, football season is officially over for me. The Bucs concluded their most dismal season in ten years with a stumbling, inept, spastic loss to the near-equally bungling Arizona Cardinals yesterday. Both teams played a great deal like the Washington Capitols in desperate search for a Harlem Globetrotters they could make look good, and both ended up disappointing each other, and all 12 of us who watched the game, terribly.

Worse, the Bills got edged out by a Pittsburgh Steelers team that had absolutely nothing to gain, and while the Jets were kind enough to lose in overtime to the loathed St. Louis Rams, the Broncos had the temerity to rise up righteous and smite the equally loathed Indianapolis Colts, meaning no play offs for Buffalo.

The teams who are in the play offs this year I either despise wholeheartedly or simply couldn’t care less about. I idly hope that if Philadelphia manages to get to the Super Bowl, they get destroyed by whichever AFC team ends up there, and I also more or less apathetically wish that out of the wretched field of AFC contenders in the play offs this year, the Steelers make it to the top, since they’ve played so well. But in all honesty, unless it’s a Steelers-Eagles Super Bowl, I doubt I’ll bother to watch it this year.

When the Bucs went to the Super Bowl, it was the first season since Buffalo’s repeated, failed Super Bowl campaigns that I cared at all, and since the Super Bowl tends to go late, and it has clearly attained the status of a national holiday for much of the nation, I was grousing that year that we should all have the Monday after the Super Bowl off. This year I will have the Monday after it off… and the Tuesday after it, for that matter (barring completely unforeseen circumstances, of course), and I most likely won’t watch the damned thing. Ah, well…

It’s sad to be a football fan, even as lackadaisical a one as I am, and get to the play offs without your team being included. Still, it happens to most of us, every year. There’s little hope the Bucs will do any better next year, as they are about to have major salary cap headaches and can’t hope to recruit enough good free agents to plug up all their holes, nor is it likely they’ll draft as well next year as they did this year with Michael Clayton. And of course, Gruden and Allen have a tough quarterback decision to make with the choice between Simms and Griese, each of which have notable things in the plus and the minus column. It seems fairly certain, though, that snakebit as Tampa Bay obviously is, whichever choice Gruden makes will be the wrong one.

The Bills may be on the way back up again, though. If McGahee stays healthy, Bledsoe stays sharp, and they can tweak their defense just a tiny little bit, they could be a serious contender. Of course, it’s hard to watch Bills games when you live outside Tampa. But I’m only a lucky lottery ticket away from no longer having to dwell in purgatory…

I was hoping to get a package of comics from Steve Tice in the mail today, but nothin’ doin’. Maybe tomorrow. The UPS tracking number he gave me is ominously not tracking anything, though, and that never bodes well.

I was also hoping to get a pile of clothes that need minor repairs and alterations over to a little tailoring shop a few blocks from my house today. On arriving there, though, I discovered they are now closed, which just sucks. I never miss one of my ex girlfriends in particular more than when I need some sewing done, as she was a wonderful seamstress… but I guess that’s just life. I can barely thread a needle, and on the few occasions I’ve tried to do my own sewing, the results have been disastrous. Juan Rico may have learned to tailor his own uniforms with style and panache when he needed to, but I don’t have a Mobile Infantry D.I. threatening me with a nightstick, either. So I guess my pants will remain uncuffed and the buttons that are missing will remain missing.

Yes, all told it’s been an exciting Monday indeed here on the Satellite of Love.

My answering machine went off a little earlier today, about 4:15. There’s this guy where I work who plays HeroClix and who is always very friendly to me at work; he and his girlfriend actually brought me a plate of Christmas cookies right before the holidays two weeks ago, which was nice, as he hadn’t done that for anyone else there. He and I got together a few times several months ago, when I first got onto the e-mail team back there; once we went to a couple of gaming stores and I took him and his girlfriend out to dinner; another time he and I went to a nearby flea market and picked up some comics, and we played a brief game of HeroClix using my house rules. Since then he’s been saying he’s going to come over again, but it never actually happens. Recently, in fact, he said he was going to make a real effort to get over and play a game with me ‘after Christmas’, and, well, here it is after Christmas.

So, you know, when the answering machine went off, I kind of hoped it might be him, calling from work, as his shift ends at 4:30. But, whoever it was hung up without leaving a message.

I’m pretty sure he found me boring and annoying last time we got together, and he seemed to find my HeroClix house rules confusing and exasperating. He buys and sells individual HeroClix on E-bay, and I’ve bought a few Uniques and LEs from him to add to my clix collection. And he’s always, as I say, very friendly to me at work.

But, you know, everything is contextual. At work there are only a few guys who play HeroClix, and, frankly, there are a very few people who can carry on an intelligent, literate, reasonably knowledgeable conversation on anything. This guy and I have a lot of interests in common, so I know he enjoys talking to me at work. Outside work, though… well, he’s got other stuff to do, I’m sure.

The thing of it is, work friendships, no matter how close they seem, are not real. Going to work is not voluntary, it is compulsory. It’s nice if you find people on your job site you can get along with well, but if they do not choose to hang around with you during their free time, then they are not your friends.

I keep renewing the invitation to come over to this guy, every once in a while (mostly by agreeing that ‘that would be cool’ whenever he mentions, as he repeatedly does, that he’s going to ‘try to get over sometime’). And it never happens, and I have to assume it’s because he really just doesn’t enjoy hanging out with me enough that he wants to do it when he isn’t being paid to be there anyway.

Well, this is turning into a morose entry.

In all honesty, my life really isn’t all that bad. A four day weekend always feels good, and I have accumulated enough wisdom over the course of my 43 years that I can remind myself just how much worse things can be, and, in fact, have been, not just 20 years ago when I did a 13 week season in hell called Basic Training (I’m hearing Bob Seger singing “twenty years… where’d they go…” in my head right now, although I was never particularly like a rock), but much more recently. Last year at this time I was sharing a tiny apartment with my baby brother Paul and ready to kill someone as his absolute inability to deal with any of the problems in his life kept piling a murderous level of stress on me. A few weeks prior to that, I had all that stuff, plus, I was washing dishes at the Village Inn. And just this last August, I went through three separate occasions where I spent a day or more without power, at the height of sub-tropical summer, after four different fucking hurricanes used my neighborhood for an off ramp.

Things have been better, too… I still miss my apartment in Tampa, especially the swimming pool… but I don’t miss the City Clerk’s office, or the friend of mine who made me miserable the whole time we were supposedly friends there, and who then… but never mind. I’d like to live in Tampa again, if I can’t just move back up north, but I certainly don’t miss where I was working or some of the people I was hanging around with there.

In all honesty, depressing though solitude can be, it’s something I’m accustomed to, and to a large extent, it’s something I need in my life at this point. And as long as the power is on and I am in control of my own living space, life can’t really be too bad.

And, hey… got a TV with a DVD player and a VCR in the bedroom now. There have been times in my life when that would have been a hopeless dream of avarice.

Plus, I have a Chromium Silver Surfer! Life can’t be too bad when you got one of those…

Now if I were still living with my little brother, one of his friends could steal it, sell it, then get it back, cut it up with a knife, and leave it in the side yard for me to find, while ardently and vehemently denying doing any such thing, ever….

Ah, yes. Life could definitely be, and has definitely been, worse.

I think I’ll go do my Defenders vs. Avengers HeroClix battle. (More on that below. You’ve been warned.)

Fantastic Funk

Ever since I got my Silver Surfer, I’ve been play-testing him. This has led me to a conclusion:

Mr. Fantastic sucks.

Oh, not Reed himself, but his 1” high, plastic incarnation on a HeroClix dial is truly a waste of resins. Leaving aside the fact that his fig is one of the most poorly sculpted and generally ridiculous looking WizKids’ creations ever, his dial just blows.

The Veteran Mr. Fantastic… the one closest to being playable, his Rookie and Experienced Versions are even more useless… is a gigantic 113 point hole on the map. He starts with a 10 Speed and the power Plasticity, a 10 Attack, a 15 defense combined with Toughness, and a damage of 2. He has an 8 range with one target. And this is his best click as far as stats go; the instant he takes a hit, his numbers drop off precipitously.

A 10 movement sounds impressive, and for a normal person who can’t stretch his body across Manhattan quickly enough to snatch a falling body a hundred feet away out of the air before it hits the ground at terminal velocity, it would be a pretty good number. But Mr. Fantastic can literally whip himself around like a rubber band. He should have at least a 12 speed on his opening click, more likely a 14.

Plasticity, like Super Strength, sounds a lot more impressive than it is. As nearly all of the other power effects of super-stretching are or can be simulated by other powers within the HeroClix system, all Plasticity does is make it extremely easy for a character to get out of close combat, and extremely hard for other characters to get out of close combat with them. This makes Mr. Fantastic a good piece for tying up an opponent for a few rounds, and that’s fine, since that is one of the many things he’s good at in the comics… but combined with his relatively low stats, and his lack of other powers, well, he’s a poor representation of the Fantastic Four’s mastermind.

A 10 attack IS impressive, and if Mr. F kept it for a few clicks, and had a useful Power on those clicks as well, he’d be a much more effective fig, and a much more accurate reflection of how the character functions in the comics. But his attack drops to an 8 on his second click, and gets much worse from there, and he doesn’t pick up anything really useful (like Incapacitate or Outwit) until his third click, when his attack is down to a 7 and he’s just not going to hit anything without getting really, really lucky.

The combination of no useful attack powers, an attack value that drops off fast, and a starting damage of 2 that also drops down to 1 really fast, means that Mr. F is completely useless against any fig with Invulnerability. This is utterly false to fact; Mr. F might not be able to actually do much to hurt Thor or the Hulk, but he can keep them confused and off balance while avoiding their own attempts to hurt him, and he can generally do that sort of thing all day long… in the comics. As a HeroClix figure, well, yeah, he can engage Thor and keep him tied up for a while, but Thor is going to beat him into a great big pile of Silly Putty in two or three rounds, and that’s because (a) Mr. F doesn’t get Incapacitate until his third click, when he can’t hit anyone with it, and more importantly,
(b) his defense sucks out loud. A 15 Defense is nothing. Aunt May can hit it. Mr. F should have a MUCH higher Defense, as he is much much harder to hit than his click values indicate.

You can’t run a Fantastic Four team without Mr. Fantastic, of course, so if you want to run the FF… and they are among my favorite characters ever, so of course I do… you have to spend a heap of points on him, and in general, he’s just useless.

The FF is also screwed by how the Invisible Girl has been defined. Nobody ever plays with the Experienced or Veteran versions, for one good reason… she doesn’t start out with an 18 Defense and Defend, and she doesn’t GET an 18 Defense with Defend, ever, at any point on her dial. The Experienced version gets a nearly unhittable 19 Defense with Toughness, and the Vet gets that same 19 defense with Invulnerability… but that doesn’t help Sue’s TEAM any. And by the time either of these figs get Defend up, it’s three or four clicks into their dial, and they’ve dropped down to a 17 defense.

Now, I grant you, Sue’s Experienced and Vet versions are much more useful in other ways… they both fly (which is silly, Sue doesn’t) so they can carry someone around (although under my House Rules, as they don’t have SuperStrength, HyperSonic Speed, or damage values of 3, they can only carry someone else half their Speed value, which isn’t high to start with), and they both have range attacks, which is useful. But, again, neither of them have useful attack powers and they only do 2 damage, so their range strikes are pretty much useless. Stealth lets Sue hide, of course, but her damage resistance powers are only really useful if she’s going to mix it up…which she is not designed to do, and generally doesn’t do, in the comics.

This is the major problem with how the Fantastic Four is defined by HeroClix. Jack Kirby is a master of the team of balance, and his FF design is one of his finest. The Thing and the Human Torch basically play offense, while Sue and Reed are supposed to play defense. In HeroClix, however, only the rookie Invisible Girl is any good at playing Defense, and she’s a one trick pony. It’s a good trick… good enough to keep people from wasting points on her higher levels, which are still largely ineffective… but when her teammates get knocked down, she’s not good for much.

To make the FF truly effective, here’s what needs to be done:

Give Reed’s Veteran version Incapacitate on every click, and two targets. This lets him tie up opponents much more effectively without getting immediately hammered into glue. Let him keep his 10 attack for at least two clicks, and for God’s sake, raise his Defense on at least his first three clicks… I’d much rather see Reed with a 17 Defense for two clicks and no Toughness or Invulnerability than the other way around. Give him Willpower on those first two clicks so he won’t push himself off them. Raise his Speed as well, so he can get around faster, and give him some Running Shot on his first two clicks, so he can move AND Incapacitate people. This is how he fights in the comics. Give him Plasticity so he can tie opponents up and bog them down starting with his third click, at which point you could give him a click or two of Invulnerability or even Impervious, as he’s almost impossible to kill. Then he’ll be useful. He should have at least one click of Leadership and then go immediately to Outwit, too.

The rookie Sue is fine. The Experienced and Veteran versions should be solid improvements, though, not just half assed, incompetent attackers. Raise her Defense to a 19 and a 20, respectively, with opening clicks of Defend so she can still shield her teammates. Give her the range strikes, and also give her Incapacitate, so she can immobilize people by throwing force fields in front of and around them. After two clicks, her Experienced and Vet versions should go to Barrier, while her Defense drops a point each click, as well. She should keep incapacitate so she has a choice between attacking and defending. Get rid of the flight stands; Sue can’t fly and doesn’t use her force field to carry her teammates into combat often enough to justify it. She certainly doesn’t EVER need Energy Explosion as a power, and I’m baffled why she gets it. Her opening attack click should be higher as well on her Experienced and Vet versions, since it’s hard to dodge a missile made out of invisible force.

Do all that, and the FF will be a Formidable Force to put on the board, as there is nothing wrong with how the Thing and the Human Torch are defined in their plastic incarnations. As things stand, though, they just get kicked around a lot, by nearly anyone… and they shouldn’t.

Of course, the Silver Surfer is really poorly defined, too. You get a much more accurate representation of the vast range of his powers by sticking a Surfer figure on an Amazo dial than you get from his own, and you save 5 points, too. Properly defined, the Surfer should be the Marvel version of Amazo, starting with a few clicks of HyperSonic Speed and then running through pretty much every power in the WizKids playbook over the course of his dial.

What I find most annoying about the Surfer, now that I have him (one version of him, anyway) is that the Power Cosmic TA makes him immune to push damage… and his attack gets better when he takes a few clicks, as does his damage. But you CAN’T push him off his first click, you have to wait for someone to hit him, which is aggravating. He also has very few powers, and none of them augment his movement, his attack, or his damage. His numbers can get pretty impressive, but essentially, all he is, is a flying laser cannon. The Silver Surfer should be a whole lot more than that. Especially for the points.

No one should take this as meaning that I in any way don’t love and adore my Silver Surfer, or, for that matter, my Reed and Sue figs, because I do, uncategorically. I love owning a complete FF set, as far as having them in my collection. I just wish they were more accurately defined, which would make them more playable. The Fantastic Four should be something people cringe away from when they see you put them on the board, they way folks do now when they see an Amazo or a Kingdom Come Superman hit the table. As it is, people just kind of roll their eyes and chuckle as they envision the pounding they’re going to hand out to this poor unrealistic dreamer who hasn’t yet learned the difference between comix and clix.

As long as I’m babbling about HeroClix, I will mention that I’ve finally fixed the links leading to my HeroClix my collection list, as well as my HeroClix house rules, and I’ve also updated both of them. The HeroClix collection list should now be up to date, at least, until I order some more from Gathering Ground or until Legacy comes out in March. (I do have a few singles I want, from Mutant Mayhem and from a few other expansions, and I may place an order some time soon, but for the most part, my next big influx won’t come until Legacy).

My HeroClix house rules have new additions as follows: I’ve redefined Power Actions (actually, they don’t exist in my house rules), a few powers (Probability Control, HyperSonic Speed, Exploit Weakness, Outwit, Super Strength), and the Skrulls TA. I’ve also made one minor revision to WizKids’ Giant Figure rules, and I may have done one or two other things I can’t remember right now.

Beyond all that, I think I’m going to do a Defenders/Avengers match before my long weekend is up. I have the Experienced Wonder Man subbing in for Namor (the way his stats drop, then come back up at the end of his dial, seems a good simulation for Namor drying out and then getting one last dunking before the end) and the Veteran Arclight subbing for Valkyrie (as her powers generally seem to work out; Valkyrie really shouldn’t get Blades/Claws/Fangs because she always hits people with the flat of her sword, and she rarely uses her super strength to pick up objects as she always has her sword in her hand… therefore, Arclight seems a good fit, and her costume is somewhat similar to Val’s later gold foil one, as well).

On the Avengers side, I have a veteran Lady Shiva as Mantis and a Veteran Blade (from Mutant Mayhem) as the Swordsman. The new Blade has a range strike, which is necessary to properly simulate ol’ Swordie, and his stats and powers seem a decent fit (Swordsman is actually pretty sneaky, from all that time he spent as a crook and a two bit thief), while Lady Shiva’s Super Senses make a good fit for Mantis’ mystic senses, and her Incapacitate will double well for Mantis’ Strange Grip (which she once used to stop THOR in his tracks, for God’s sake).

Shiva isn’t a good fit other ways; she’s got a range strike, which Mantis never had, and she’s also got Stealth, something else Mantis never displayed any ability for. So I may use the Veteran Catwoman instead. Mantis couldn’t Outwit a doorknob, I grant you, but, well, under my Outwit rules, she’d only be able to do it out to a range of 4 anyway.

Substituting Selina for Mantis is probably a good idea, but the Avengers are already dominating the Defenders by over 100 points, and that will just make it worse. I suppose I can make up for it by passing out feat cards to the Defenders and giving none to the Avengers (the Hulk, for one, really rocks when you put Pounce, Haymaker, and Passenger on him, and Dr. Strange could be very effective with Trick Shot). And it’s occurring to me that Cheshire might make the best Mantis of all… no Super Senses, but Combat Reflexes should do for her… but it’s hard to justify that Poison click… nah. I’ll stick with the Vet Catwoman. Mantis should at the least have Incapacitate.

Put an Automatic Regeneration and a Haymaker on the Surfer, a Trick Shot and a Taunt on Hawkeye (not that I really want to make people attack him, but, well, it’s in character; it would be more useful on the Surfer, but he’d never do it) and a Rip It Up out, and I think I can make up that 100+ point deficit pretty handily. Of course, it’s sad to deny Feat Cards to the Avengers, but, well, they’re Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. They’ll get over it.

Actually, on further thought, I’ve decided to use the Vet Hellcat as a Mantis fig. Yeah, she’s got Leap/Climb, which Mantis never showed any capacity for (in fact, she nearly died once when Zodiac blasted her off the top of the World Trade Center, and doesn’t THAT story hold a tragic little zing of the heartstrings in it for any American who rereads it nowadays?), but she also has Super Senses, which I think Mantis should have, and she has a high attack and does a lot of damage… 4 clicks to start with from RCE, then going to a d6 when she gets out her Blade/Claws/Fangs. Mantis, of course, doesn’t have Blades/Claws/Fangs, but the range of damage seems appropriate to an expert martial artist who can even stun THOR if she has to.

Also, Hellcat doesn’t have a range strike (although she should; she’s had one in all her incarnations and not giving her one is a clear mistake on WizKids’ part, on a par with not putting the rookie Wonder Man on a flight stand when his first appearance clearly depicts him having the rocket belt), and Mantis doesn’t have one either, so that works.

Additionally, it cuts down a little bit on the discrepancy in the team points.

I also like Hellcat for plugging into an Avengers/Defenders clash because she’s both. The rookie has the Avengers TA, while the vet has the Defenders. It’s ironic I’m using the Vet as a substitute Avenger, but still, it seems destined. So I’m not going to fight it.

RULES OF THE ROAD

In one of his many invaluable essays on life in Hollywood, Mark Evanier described his first meeting with legendary TV comic and icon Milton Berle. Upon being introduced to Uncle Miltie and shaking hands with him, Mark, who is a pretty witty guy, blurted out without even thinking about it, "Wow, I didn't recognize you in men's clothing". According to Mark, this soured Uncle Miltie on him from that point forward, because Mark had broken Rule Number One When Hanging With Milton Berle, namely, Never Be Funnier Than Milton Berle.

I'm reminded of that anecdote now.

Recent experiences at Electrolite being pretty much entirely similar if not completely identical to my previous experiences at Uppity-Negro.com and TampaTantrum.com, I thought I'd take the time to extrapolate whatever wisdom there is to find in the whole mess. Here's The Deal, as far as I can see:

If you want to make friends and influence people when you head out onto the blogging trail, at least, as regards your posting comments on other people's blogs, you MUST NOT:

Rule E comes mostly out of my experiences with Aaron Hawkin's Uppity-Negro blog. He gets a lot of female posters and like any of us male geeks would be in that admirable position, he is thoroughly whipped by them. If a new reader comes along and does anything whatsoever to offend the babes on Aaron's blog, that new reader can expect a cold shoulder from Aaron roughly the size of the Greenland glacier. I don't really blame Aaron for this; for a male geek, positive female attention is a jewel beyond price, and if I ever had any women posting to my blog who weren't related to me by marriage, I'd most likely dance and sing like a puppet on a string when they cracked the lash, too.

I should add to this that I've learned, from Electrolite, that one Must Not Be Whimsical, Oblique, or Overly Geeky When Posting To A Big Important Political Marketplace of Ideas Type Blog, because those guys just have no time for Theodore Marley Brooks or Cornelus van Lunt references, regardless of how amusing or entertaining you and some others may find them.

Now, I am posting this to point out that while these may be the universal Rules of the Road on other blogs (and as far as I can see, they are, indeed, pretty much universal) you can ignore them here. I don't care if you:

Oh, and I like geeky references and would just adore whimsical, cleverly elliptical posts to my comment threads, although I suspect I'd get annoyed if someone started posting a whole lot of Harry Potter-speak here, just for one example.

If there is a universal rule on this blog, it is quite simply, Do Not Be A Bigger Asshole Than The Blogger. In fact, if you can avoid it (and most of my small number of regular posters avoid it with style and panache) Don't Be An Asshole At All. I am quite a big enough asshole myself to supply all the assholiness necessary for any blog, and I will continue to keep this blog well furnished with stupid remarks, doltish mistakes, whiney rationalizations, and defensive recriminations by the ton lot, there can be no doubt. You need bring none of your own asshole nature with you, I have plenty and am always willing to share.

THE INEVITABLE DISCLAIMER

By generally accepted social standards, I'm not a likable guy. I'm not saying that to get cheap reassurances. It's simply the truth. I regard many social conventions in radically different ways than most people do, I have many many controversial opinions, and I tend to state them pretty forthrightly. This is not a formula for popularity in any social continuum I've ever experienced.

In my prior blogs, I took the fairly standard attitude: if you don't like my opinions or my blog, don't read the fucking thing.

Having given that some more thought, though, I'm not going to say that this time around, because I've realized that what this is basically saying is, 'if you don't like what I have to say, tough, I don't want to hear it, don't even bother to tell me, just go away'.

And that's actually a pretty worthless attitude. It's basically saying, 'I don't want to hear anything except unconditional agreement and approval'. And that's nonsense. This is still a free country... for a little while longer, anyway... and if you really feel you just gotta send me a flame, or post one on my comment threads (assuming they actually work, which I cannot in any way guarantee) then by all means, knock yourself out.

Unless your flame is exceptionally cogent, witty, or stylish, though, I will most likely ignore it. You do have a right to say anything you want (although I'm not sure that's a right when you're doing it in my comment threads, but hey, you can certainly send all the emails you want). However, I have an equal right not to read anything I don't feel like reading... and I'm really quick with the delete key... as various angry folks have found in the past, when they decided they just had to do their absolute level best to make me as miserable as possible.

So, if you don't like my opinions, feel free to say so. However, if I find absolutely nothing worthwhile in your commentary, I will almost certainly not respond to it in any way.

Stupidity, ignorance, intolerance... these things are only worth my time and attention if they're entertaining. So unless you can be stupid, ignorant, and/or intolerant with enough wit, style, and/or panache to amuse me... try to be smart, informed, and broad minded when you write me.