Well I wonder what it’s like to be a superhero
I wonder where I’d go if I could fly around downtown
from some other planet I get this funky high from a yellow sun
and boy I bet my friends would all be stunned
they’re stunned

Saturday January 24 2004

I wish the real world would just stop hasslin’ me

Despite the above header, I’m having a good day… so far, anyway. Dawn is due any time, and that will be a downer, but for the moment, I’m just enjoying my reality.

This is mostly going to be about clix, so skip down to yesterday’s entry if that bores you.

Scott showed up in the early afternoon today and offered to drive me to the flea market so I could spend the pathetic extra $21 or so I have on clix… or, rather, on clix and gas for his car getting me there, since he said he’d only do it for $5 ‘gas money’ (the quotes are there because, basically, Scott didn’t have any money to spend on clix and he wasn’t spending his gas driving me over someplace where I could unless I gave him the wherewithal to buy a booster pack too… which is fair, I suppose).

So, off we went. Upon arrival, I picked out a DC Starter Set from the three hanging on the pegs there, and Scott spoke up, asking me if I wanted him to pick out which box I’d get instead. Scott has phenomenal luck at random choices like that, and has pulled many primo clicks from boosters in the past. I wasn’t sure his luck would translate to me, but I said ‘sure’, so he had me put the box I’d chosen back and indicated that he had a good feeling about another one. So I picked it up, along with a rookie Quicksilver from the singles table (the one I got off Pat a while back has one arm broken off, and Pat has evinced absolutely no interest in doing anything about that, so fuck it, I spent a buck on another one). After paying for my selections, I opened the starter set right there and pulled out its contents.

Apparently they pack these things with the good stuff in the bottom. The first pieces I pulled out were generic thug types… a Checkmate Agent and an Intergang Operative. The next one I pulled out, though, was nice… a Veteran T.O. Morrow, which I’d been thinking of getting off the singles table but hadn’t wanted to spend $3 on.

Further down I found two different revs of the same character, Clayface III… an Experienced and a Vet. Not bad, but still, there had to be something better in there, right?

Next down in the box was something in a solid white plastic holder, wrapped in translucent plastic. I pulled it out and peered at it. I had a hard time recognizing it; it was some piece with shoulder length dark hair clad in some kind of skin tight black body stocking with a silver chest symbol. I glanced at the stand to see what the character was named, and noticed the grey ring around it…

I’d pulled a Unique Superman. Granted, it’s one I’ll never play, since it’s the weakest version of Superman in the game and it represents a storytelling era of the character I despise. But still… I’d pulled a Unique, for the very first time, from a random box.

Even nicer, in some ways, was the next click I pulled out, this one in a blue plastic case… an Experienced Superman. Now, I already have an Experienced Superman (a gift from the ever generous Mike Norton) and I play him often; he’s a good straightforward kick ass piece whose Team Ability is wonderful for wild card clicks to copy. (If you didn’t understand a word of the last half of that sentence, don’t worry about it; suffice to say, the Experienced Superman is an excellent game piece.) Two weeks ago, that Superman piece was the envy of all the other guys in our little local group, although since then, pretty much everyone except Paul has ordered one from online somewhere (Scott has no less than three Supermen, a rookie, an experienced, and a vet, coming from an E-Bay auction, and Pat picked up a Unique Superman of his own… not this version… from a website for $20). So I got a spare a week or so too late… but still. A Unique Superman, and a spare Experienced Superman, are nothing to sneeze at.

The best part… and this will sound shallow and childish, but still, it’s part of the fun of being involved in a collective game like this… is that my pulling that Unique just drove Scott crazy. And it’s poetic justice, and sweet revenge, because a month ago, Paul and I had four boxes of a discontinued expansion come in from my comics shop, and I’d traded Scott one of my boxes for a Daredevil he’d picked up for me a few days before… and out of that box, which should have been mine, Scott pulled a Unique Medusa… a piece I would have treasured (she’s a Silver Age character, a personal favorite of mine, and a one time member of the Fantastic Four).

Because she was a Unique, Scott refused to trade her to me, and eventually he simply sold her at a comics shop in exchange for a few more boosters, the fucker. MEDUSA. WITH THE FANTASTIC FOUR TA ON HER BASE. OUT OF MY GODDAM BOOSTER.

Anyway, I’ve been mildly pissed off about that ever since, but today, I got some of my own back, because Scott fumed and sputtered the whole drive home about me pulling that Unique out of a pack that HE’D picked for me.

The piece means little to me other than the pleasure I got from pulling a Unique; I’ll never play it and in fact, I haven’t taken it or the other Superman piece out of their wrapping yet. I may just see if Mike Norton can auction them off on E-bay for me as a set. (Unless Mike wants it, in which case, given how generous he’s been with me, I’ll just give it to him.) But it was worth it to see the look on Scott’s face when I got my first Unique, and then refused to trade it to him.

So far he’s offered me a Batman and a Hulk for it, which is a reasonably good deal as far as I’m concerned, since I’d play both of those pieces, and I especially covet a Batman (which are very hard to find down here). However, I’m having way too much fun refusing to trade it to him, and after the way he dealt with MY GODDAM MEDUSA, it would serve him right if I just auctioned it off to some stranger.

Paul and I also played a game today, and Paul had the worst luck with dice I have ever seen, so eventually he just conceded. His team wasn’t particularly well put together, and I’d put some thought into what kind of team I wanted to play, after losing a game to Scott last night. (That was a fun game, though, without a lot of annoying crap in it, just some interesting tactics, and I think I could have won if I’d had one or two more turns.)

I did trade my Vet Firestorm to Scott last night for a Veteran Troia and a Veteran Hepzibah, so I need to go in and update my HeroClix List yet again.

That’s about it, and yes, it was all annoyingly clix related, but still, given all the moping lately, I thought folks might enjoy reading about a relatively good day here.

Oh, yes, our landlord showed up this morning and collected $275 from us, and barring disaster, Paul and I should be able to pay our full rent next week and for once, we’ll be current. That’s a nice feeling, too, although it means we’ll be broke for another two weeks at least.

I grocery shopped at Dollar General and Sav-A-Lot yesterday, getting a week’s worth of food (more or less) for $20
Okay. I just had about a ten minute panic attack. I got up and walked out to say something to Paul… I don’t remember what… and he wasn’t out in the living room (I’m listening to music, so I didn’t hear him go out).

Now, Paul does go in and out, but usually only when Jeff is home next door, to go over and hang out there. So I stepped outside, figuring Jeff must be home and I’d go gloat a little about my great clix day, but Jeff’s apartment was totally dark. Looking around the apartment a little, I noticed Paul’s jacket (my old jacket) was gone, but his cigarettes were still here… and Paul, like all heavy smokers, never goes anywhere without his cigarettes.

So now I’m worried… where would Paul go with his jacket, but without his cigarettes? Had Dawn shown up and the two of them gone out somewhere? But she smokes too, she’d remind him to get his cigs… and anyway, I’d have heard her if she’d come in, she’s not exactly quiet as a mouse.

Anyway, about ten minutes after I noticed him missing, he came back in. At first he just said he’d gone for a walk, but then he immediately owned up that he’d thought of going over to Dawn’s place to invite her over for a while. Dawn had called earlier when we were in the middle of the game, and judging from Paul’s end of the conversation, she hadn’t been happy that Paul wouldn’t spend just as much time paying attention to her on the phone as she wanted him to, because he was in the middle of doing something with someone else (me). I guess she guilt tripped Paul a little over that… but at some point, he came somewhat to his senses and I guess realized, if only a slightly, that going over to his married girlfriend’s house and knocking on the door might not be the brightest idea in the world.

So now he’s out there, obviously rather depressed and bored, and hey, I’ve been there… a new relationship is, in many ways, like a drug, and when they start up, you tend to forget, immediately and completely, how you got along when you were single.

I can’t help him with that, though, other than by refraining from pointing out that Dawn making Paul feel good is only ever going to be a temporary thing, while her making him feel bad is going to be much more frequent for however long their unhealthy relationship lasts, and will eventually turn permanent (probably fairly soon).

However, I’ve come to the conclusion that Paul is just self-destructive and simply going to seek out unhealthy relationships… if he wanted something that would work, he’d go out and sing karioke more. Paul’s young, thin, good looking, affable and pleasant, steadily employed, and sings like an angel; there’s no reason in the world he can’t have a healthy relationship with a nice girl who’d be good for him… except on some level, he doesn’t want that. He stayed single until just the right combination of potential emotional trauma walked up and sat in his lap… and I just wish to hell I wasn’t living here.

Since I am, though, I hope this thing doesn’t blow up in his face for another month… but I don’t think there’s much chance of that.

::sigh:: Anybody got a guest bedroom they aren’t using?

Friday January 23 2004

I think somebody better put out the big light

Paul’s… whatever she is… romantic interest, lover, whatever… I don’t know if it’s appropriate to call a married woman a ‘girlfriend’ of someone she’s not married to, since I think of a ‘girlfriend’ as someone one is monogamously involved with, and that seems right out in this situation… is apparently determined to win me over. She and Paul just went out for food, and despite the fact that Paul asked if I wanted anything, and I told him no, apparently she insisted on getting me a couple of roast beef sandwiches. I’m trying to walk a thin line between embracing her (which would be hypocritical, since I don’t like her and don’t think she’ll be good for Paul at all) and being outright rude to her (since I have to live with Paul for at least the next month, maybe longer) and on this occasion, that seems to call for me eating roast beef sandwiches and curly fries, so… ::shrug:: I’m a practical man.

But I don’t like her.

I will not mention that to Paul, however, or venture any other opinion on his personal life, until I’ve managed to retreat to minimum safe distance.

Today I got my first paycheck at Accent. Ah, but wait. First, let me note that I did not get a 100 on my test on Thursday, I got a 96. I missed two questions. They were hard, complex questions, and I missed them because of something I genuinely did not know how regarding the difficult, complicated system for rating international calls, and now I know how to do it (I think) so missing the questions was worth it (I guess).

Let me further note that Monica Kazinski is an outrageously generous person. Despite me urging her (reluctantly, with the voice of my own greedy inner self calling me an idiot the whole time) to sell those valuable Unique HeroClix she’s somehow obtained for me on E-bay because they are an extremely expensive gift to proffer a fellow she’s never met, she insists that she obtained them for me and I shall have them. I can only acquiesce without further protest, while noting, again and publicly, that Tammy is an outrageously generous person and I deeply appreciate her altruistic nature.

I’d list the stuff she’s sending me so far, but some of it is just total wet dream territory and I have a hard time believing it’s real and I’m afraid if I talk about it too much I’ll fall out of bed and wake up. When I actually get a box in the mail and have kicked the Christ out of Scott and Paul at least once with my new Martian Manhunter, Captain Marvel, Enchantress and Thanos clicks at least once, I’ll print a complete list of my new goodies here, along with appropriate public grovelings towards Tammy.

Now, I got my first paycheck from Accent today, so my direct deposit, as I expected, did not go through. Hopefully it will by my next check, in two weeks. Pleasantly, I got about twelve dollars more than I’d expected (I’d calculated I’d get about $209, I wound up with $221) and that extra $12 means a lot in as cash strapped a month as this is turning out to be. If someone is driving over to the flea market this weekend, I may foolishly spend the extra $20 I now have (above and beyond getting the rent paid) on clicks. If not, I’ll just keep it for lunches and Pepsis during the upcoming work week, which would be better, but still, given the chance, I’ll go blow it on a couple of boosters or a DC Starter Set, if they still have one. (I’m as certain as I can be, however, that if I finally get over there with enough money to buy one, there will be none available. DC Starter Sets have been elusive down here so far.)

I’ve been horribly lax in not expressing my gratitude to Chad and Melanie, who bought a new computer recently and gave me their old monitor, which is much larger than my previous one. The previous one, which I had had to superglue the POWER button down on in order to keep it activated, is now out on the front porch in a box of computer parts meant for salvage, where it had been up until I broke my previous monitor by beating the shit out of it in order to get the red tones to reappear when they would intermittently vanish. This monitor is vastly superior to the other one… or any other one I’ve owned… in too many ways to list, but suffice to say, I’m deeply grateful to Chad and Mel for thinking of me in reference to their surplus computer equipment.

Speaking of cousins, I got a very pleasant email from my cousin Ashley this morning, which was a fine way to start a Friday.

There’s really not much to report from the snake pit that is Accent. Side by sides have gone somewhat better since that miserable Tuesday when one rep asked me sweetly to please never come back and double jack with her again; since then everyone I’ve sat with has been very pleasant. I’m still not looking forward to hitting the floor at all, but, well, that’s life. I’m not at all worried about being able to do the job; I AM very fretful about the notion of having to act like a team player and evince a good attitude for at least 90 days until I can bid on some other sort of job. I am not a team player and I don’t have a good attitude (from a corporate viewpoint) and I have great trouble consistently pretending to be anything I’m not.

Our generally civil class did kind of go to pieces today for fifteen minutes after Vivian left to pick up our paychecks. What started out as a discussion regarding this idiotic graduation pot luck dinner we’re supposed to be doing next Friday degenerated into a screaming match between several people, which was stressful to me because one of those people was one of the girls I sit with, who is one of the few people I like in the class, and she was acting in a rather embarrassingly childish fashion. I was troubled for two reasons: first, I don’t like it when people I like act like assholes, and second, I tend to want to take the side of my friends, but since she was acting like an asshole, I just stayed quiet, which made me feel kind of disloyal. However, I long ago learned that there’s no point in acting like an idiot simply because someone chooses to act like an idiot towards you. So I just sat there, and then afterward, I tried to counsel Mel (my sort of friend) on the folly of letting young, irascible folk piss her off so much that she behaved in an immoderate fashion. Mel has a pretty quick temper, though, and I’m afraid she isn’t going to last long out on the floor.

This will be a horribly short entry, but there honestly isn’t that much else to say.

Oh, wait. Tony Collett has listed me on his blogroll, so it’s time for me to reciprocate. Check out Mah Two Cents at that link right there. He writes about politics far more than I do, but hey, he also reads comics and likes HeroClix, so he can’t be all that bad. ::grin::

Honest to God, I’d like to post more here… I know my few, very sad and demented readers actually like me to put up very long posts and are disappointed when I’m (rarely) as brief as most other bloggers are all the time… but I really don’t have much to say this time around.

I mentioned my recent out of the ordinary email… the silly fellow who feels my opinions on Heinlein should be subjected to a Negro mandate, the lovely surprise of a note from my cousin Ash, and the ongoing pleasantry of daily correspondence with Mike Norton and Monica Kazinski. We haven’t gotten much of interest in the mail lately since I got Mike’s box and that book from JoeBobBriggs.com. Hmmm… I’m probably going to finish up THE DARK LORD fairly soon and then either start reading LEGENDS II or re-reading (for the first time in probably decades) WILD CARDS I. I need to do a quick review of the ‘new’ Heinlein for my editor at Joe Bob Briggs, and may toss off a fast couple of paragraphs regarding the OATH OF EMPIRE series to keep him sweet while I’m at it.

I also need to finish and upload at least one porn story for the Website Which Must Not Be Named this weekend, since my next porn check will probably help to substantially defray moving expenses, and I need to get the hell out of this place before something gives. Paul and I had been snapping at each other fairly often before things got serious between him and his new paramour; since then we’ve been being very careful around each other… he didn’t even tell me they were sleeping together, that was something Scott let slip.

Speaking of Paul’s new paramour yet again, she wanted to borrow one of my books earlier tonight and I took great pleasure in telling her no. I generally don’t loan my books out… like all bibliophiles, I’ve had bad experiences in the past with loaning books out and not getting them back… and I’m damned if I’m going to bend a pretty strong rule for someone I don’t like and who is inevitably going to royally screw up my baby brother’s life. (It’s his life, yes it is, and there are parallel universes where the resident alternate Darren has or is currently making exactly the same mistake with Jess as Paul is making her with That Woman. I know that. However, the fact that in similar circumstances I’d be just as stupid as Paul is currently being doesn’t make it any easier to watch him being stupid… and anyway, screwed up though Jess is, she doesn’t smoke, she doesn’t use drugs, she doesn’t have a drinking problem, and if she ever got involved with me romantically or sexually, she has enough depth of character that it would have to mean something to her other than a casual distraction from marital boredom, which is, I’m fairly sure, all this dalliance with Paul means to The Chick Currently Sitting On The Couch With My Baby Brother.)

Bah. That’s enough out of me for now.