The Goatpocalypse is Now!

November 3rd, 2018

There's something seriously wrong going on here.

One Wonders How One Becomes A Cross-Time Banker

November 2nd, 2018

At this point in my nerdy series about the City of Heroes / City of Villain / Going Rogue game, I've gone on at length about all of my major characters, whether they were heroes, villains, or just a showboating loudmouth of a hooligan. All except for one, that is. The trick, though, is that this last major character wasn't really just one guy - he was, in fact, eleven different characters!

The way the City of Heroes series of games were set up, which is like how most of these massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMO RPG) are, was that there were multiple servers to handle the vast amount of people who might be playing at any given time. Each one had further 'instances' within each, which made the whole thing seem kind of redundant to me, but whatever.

The probm was that you couldn't transfer materials from one server to another, even if you had characters on both. Sure, you could do trades with other players, which were ludicrously limited at first, so moving things from one of your own characters to another required an intermediary. But even then, this was just within a given server. Other servers were, for all intents and purposes, variant earths.

With me indulging in hundreds of character experiments, most of which didn't get far since they, to me, sucked, I played on almost all of the servers in the game - European ones notwithstanding. Annoyed with starting over every time I moved to yet another server, I got the idea of providing a service of sorts, taking resources from one player on one server and giving them back to them on another.

Thus, my Cross-Time Banking Service was born! Banker Bob was built on all eleven game servers, and I would use him to generate influence, the currency of the game, on each. Then, whenever someone wanted to start a character on a server where I had the funds available, they could pass them over to me on their starting server, and then I could return them to their new characters on the next one.

In time, others stole my idea and tried to run with it, to varying degrees of success, but I helped countless folks spread out across the game. In time, the powers that be made it so you could just transfer your characters from one server to another directly, as I did with Firebomb, so Banker Bob was no longer necessary, and alas, his business model crumbled. As did my use of all eleven variations on him. Heh.

But still! Good times, good times.

Note to self: fix that 'probm' link sometime!

Installments in this series:
01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14

That Didn't Last Long

October 29th, 2018

Expression: Applicable.

Over the last month, I have been making use of the black light room at work on my last break of the day. It's been nice and quiet for one thing, and it's been nice and dark for another. I didn't have to listen to tea party turds or maga heads or whatever else you want to call proto-fascists these days, for at least one of my brief moments of respite from the inanity of my job.

However, this all ended last Friday. You see, either someone here has it out for me at work, or my boss does. Every single time I had to utilize the black light room for my job, she was all up in my business about it, and when she followed me from my desk to the room when it was time for break, she melted down on me about how I'm not supposed to be taking my breaks in there.

Which is inexplicable. After all, she was the one who told me to take my breaks on my old bench if I didn't want to listen to the bigoted rants the turds I work with regularly vomit out in the break room - bigoted rants she refuses to do anything about, I might add. So, since both are production areas, I'm not sure why one is okay to take a break in, while the other is not.

Unless the idea is to be able to more easily keep an eye on me.

But, you know, whatever.

Crazy Hate!

October 26th, 2018

While Firebomb may have been my original and most flashy blaster in the City of Heroes game, Crazy Hate was the one I utilized the most, by far. His story was that he was a random man on the street who lost his hands in the alien invasion that was the impetus for the plot of the game at its very beginning. An inventor of sorts, he worked out how to build robotic replacements for those bits, and had them installed.

Once he was a fully functional adult again, the Hate then went further, actualizing numerous other high tech implements that he'd dreamed up while he spent months and months in the hospital. Having constructed numerous oddball devices with which to combat others, he then built his Frankengun ™, a singular firearm that was, in fact, about eight different weapons in one!

He then applied for his hero license, and began gunning down criminals - for justice! Crazy Hate was the second character I managed to work up to level 50, the maximum that players of the game could attain, after Dash Apostrophe, of course. But why did I run with Crazy Hate, when I had a perfectly good blaster in the form of Firebomb / Captain Char, you ask? Well, there's a story there.

You see, back in the day, a lot of one's time in the game was spent sweeping the streets in 'hazard zones'. These were areas devastated during the aforementioned alien invasion, and hadn't quite been rehabilitated for human habitation yet. Knowing this, various criminal organizations had infested the areas, and as such, heroes were asked to go in and dispense some Justice all up in their business.

On one of these trips, I encountered a band of players wreaking havoc, one of which was using the assault rifle / devices power set combination. Liking the early powers those sets provided, as opposed to those granted by using fire blast / fire manipulation, I shelved Captain Char and built me my own gun-toting hero. Once Crazy Hate got rolling, I simply couldn't stop with the bullety fun.

Of course, as it turns out, the combo worked so well because of a highly bugged power in the devices set: the smoke grenade. Apparently, it was only supposed to make it a bit harder for enemies to hit you, not virtually impossible. Thus, you could easily trounce just about anything in your path if you had that power, even though your character was supposed to be a glass cannon, like all blasters.

Naturally, they fixed that, but by then I'd hit level 32, so I at least had most of my major powers. Heh.

Installments in this series:
01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14

(pop)

October 20th, 2018

I blew a gasket at work yesterday.

Fissible Fury.

As if I hadn't been experiencing enough issues revolving around restrooms while at work, I was hassled by my boss' boss on Thursday. You see, unlike most of my coworkers, I make it a point to use the restroom when I have to in close vicinity to my breaks. I do this to minimize the amount of time I'm having to hop up from my desk and tool around the building.

So, towards 1:30, I left my desk a bit early, as I had to go. I only needed a minute to resolve this, as no stall was required, so I thought nothing of it. However, this know-nothing micro-manager proceeded to tell me that it wasn't time for my break yet. I know this, and if she had bothered to note that I was right outside the men's room, she would have realized what was up.

But no. She then complained to my boss about this, and thus, our boss took the time to remind us when our breaks were, and why we shouldn't be going early, during our insipid Friday meeting. I listened to this through a fog, because as my boss droned on about what she knew we knew, but was forced to tell us anyway, my ears filled with cotton, and my vision turned red.

Shuffling to my bench after this boobery, I seethed and simmered, and then hit that point. The one where I slip over the edge, from mere anger and existential rage to what I can only describe as zen fury. Everything was suddenly so clear, and all the usual static clogging up my brain was gone. And, and had any of those overpaid, salaried turds crossed my paths at that moment, oh. Oh, the things I would have said.

Luckily for them, not to mention my continued employment, that didn't happen. But it was amazing. I could actually think without the doubt, without the second-guessing, without the neurotic anxieties plaguing every single thing I ever try to do, muddling things. I wish I could bottle this, to be honest, because then, maybe then, I could completely excise those pesky ethics and morals, and go into business for myself.

And, naturally, not bother feeling bad about doing horrible things to other people to empty their wallets. (I'll fix those links above eventually)

Smash-up

October 19th, 2018

I mentioned committing diabolical crimes within the City a few weeks ago, and I have numerous fond memories of doing so. This was done via City of Villains, which was a complementary game released a few years after the original, City of Heroes MMO. The two took place in the same 'space', and when fighting crime became tiresome, you could log into CoV and literally wreak havoc at your leisure.

The first criminal I built for my misadventures within the Rogue Isles, the setting for CoV, was Smash Apostrophe. This guy was originally a chunk of the regenerating hero, Dash Apostrophe, which somehow grew into a fully formed clone of that hero. A cutting, if you will, which while physically the same, was a bit different in the head. Touched, you see, and bearing an overwhelming disdain for law and order.

Smash was built as a nemesis of sorts for Dash, even though the two could never actually meet - at least, until the Architect system of user-submitted adventures was added to the game. He was a rogue bit of that hero who, despite not having the blade which supercharged his regeneration, carved a small empire for himself out of the Isles. And he did this with the devastating power of twin concussion gloves.

While Dash was a scrapper, a character archetype built to be the flashy solo melee combatant, Smash was a stalker. These guys were essentially assassins, who specialized in ambushes and single-target damage. And Smash was an excellent stalker, because he hit hard even before the damage boost he received when striking from a hidden state. And when hidden beforehand... whoo.

He wasn't quite the mayhem machine you'd get when playing a brute, or capable of generating the sheer bedlam a mastermind can, but stalkers lent themselves to defeating their enemies most satisfyingly. And one could rapidly work their way through the vast, vast majority of missions with a stalker without bothering with most of the fights right before the end, so they could advance through the plot super fast.

While Smash was my first villainous character, he wasn't my favorite. But, the silver lining that came out of his origin is the notion of a nemesis for Dash that was an evil reflection of himself, literally and figuratively. Which, as you can probably guess, is the prime motivator of the plot in that book that I might someday manage to finish. A task that might be easier if I worked on that instead of, say, this site.

Note to self: fix that link to the literature post sometime!

Installments in this series:
01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14

BathroomGate Continues

October 15th, 2018

A few days ago, I told the none of you who follow the Jerk about the incident in one of the men's restrooms at work. I mulled it over for a few days, talking to a couple people at work about it, to gauge their thoughts on the matter. Universally, to my complete lack of surprise, nobody was cool with the events I described. In fact, just about everyone else was similarly disgusted.

Thus, I took my concerns to my union representative. I made him explain to me what my expectation of privacy in the restroom was, and when he indicated what any sensible human being would, I detailed the sequence of events last Thursday that ultimately prompted me to have a little chat with him. I do believe that the proper description of both his expression and his reply was 'mortified'.

As such, he told me he was going to speak with the other union reps, to see if this has happened to anyone else. He said he wanted to do this to ensure that, if it had, he had a more solid case for filing a grievance against the company for the would-be toilet monitor's behavior. He'd have filed it with just my claim, of course, but that would make the offending party realize who was complaining more easily.

Mind you, if the perverted maintenance man could see me as well as I could see him as he made a leisurely, creepy stroll by my stall, he already knows who the aggrieved party was, but I am fine with biding my time. After all, if there's anything you should have picked up about me while reading the Jerk and its predecessors, it's that I can bide my time in the pursuit of vengeance, as long as I ultimately get it.

And I almost always get my revenge in the end.

Hax

October 12th, 2018

One of my earliest characters who saw time in the City of Heroes, Alice Haberdasher was born into a life of heroism, though she didn't know it at first. While in school pursuing a business degree, the insomniac Alice grabbed an axe her mom insisted she hang on the wall of her cheap apartment, and used it to chase off several ne'er do wells who were loitering rather loudly outside her door.

Though she didn't know it, and neither did her family, the axe had been crafted with numerous special powers housed within. The product of an ancestor with technopsionic talent, it made her nigh-invulnerable to conventional, physical damage, and offered a few other bonuses, such as the ability to fly! Suddenly not caring about getting her degree, Alice decided to go into business for herself - as a bounty hunter!

Donning numerous green costumes over the years, some more ostentatious than others, Alice made a career for herself as the super-powerful Hacks. Sure, she's often confused with some sort of computer expert thanks to her code name, but Alice doesn't care. After all, most people seem to think of such experts as physically frail nerds, and if that helps them to underestimate her, so be it!

Of course, being a minor, super-powered celebrity is as much a blessing as it is a curse, and Alice soon found herself serving as a hero. A lot of the job skills required are the same as when hunting down fugitives from justice, after all, though admittedly the pay is a whole lot worse. But Alice takes it all in stride, because she's found that marketing herself more than makes up the financial difference!

Story aside, playing Hacks was rather fun. Sure, she was nerfed all to heck with the 'issue 5' release of the game, which cut her resistances down to mostly bashing and slashing damage, with a bit of energy resistance on the side. Even then, something about the character was satisfying. Another tanker, like my main tank, Crystalline, her damage output wasn't nearly like Dash Apostrophe's, but it was a hoot.

Though slow and unwieldly, the game's axe secondary just felt powerful when you did eventually connect with somebody. And nothing is quite so fun as chopping up bad guys with a double-bladed battle axe... for justice, naturally. Not just because you're having a bad day, and really need to disassemble a body, no sir. That totally wasn't why I took Hacks out for a spin so frequently. Not at all. Honest!

Bonus nerdery: Hacks written up for the nerd game I support on my nerd site. Complete with even more screenshot imagery!

Installments in this series:
01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14

(Sexually?) Harassed

October 11th, 2018

I was doing a few hours of overtime at work tonight, because we could really use the cash, and had been needing to use the restroom for hours. I try not to take care of that particular form of personal business while at work, because the restrooms are generally in a distressing state of cleanliness, and I've always had issues resolving either matter in public - both of which I've expounded upon once or twice.

But matters came to a head, as it were, and the choice was no longer mine. So, waiting until my last break, I went into the upstairs restroom, only to find both stalls full of people texting, a state of affairs which has increased dramatically since the company took us back to the year 1900, and banned cellular telephones in the building. Well, only if you're an hourly employee, and not one of the salaried turds.

So I went to the closest restroom downstairs, and found the same going on there. Leaving that one, I journeyed to the third restroom in my circuit around the building, and found it empty. With nobody else to bother me, I went in and did my business, and was preparing to leave when I heard someone walking around in the restroom. Slowly. Leisurely. As if with an agenda which didn't involve relieving oneself.

Clamping down, I perked my ears and listened to him, and eventually he hit the urinal. And then lingered in front of it for a full two minutes before flushing. He then started shuffling away from that urinal, and looking up just in time, I saw him peering into the stall at me as I waited for him to leave so I could clean up and get back to work. For a few seconds, at that, before he slowly sauntered off.

Already creeped out by anyone being in the same restroom as I, my distress immediately went over the top when I saw this. He lingered long enough, in fact, for me to recognize exactly who he was. It was Tim Werner, our incompetent head of maintenance would-be hall monitor. I'm not sure why he was leering, but whether he wanted to get a peek at my wondrous genitals or anything else, he crossed a line.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about this, but I'm most definitely going to respond. And not just because I hate that steaming turd of a man, either. No, this creepshow made me feel uncomfortable in a way that shook loose a couple old memories, stuff that I thought I'd buried a long, long time ago, and I can't say I liked the feeling. No, I would go so far as to say I hated it.

So the only question here is how I retaliate.

First, but not Foremost

October 5th, 2018

Perhaps the first super-hero character I ever made anywhere, quite possibly for the old Marvel Super Heroes Role Playing Game, was Firebomb. This guy was born with, yes, psionic abilities, but they were more physical than mental in scope. He could either move things or catch them on fire with his brain, sort of a telekinetic / pyrokinetic combo, I suppose. And I dug the character a lot.

Which is probably why he's wound up in most incarnations of most super-heroic things I've written, at least eventually. Strangely enough, I haven't directly plugged him in to my Variant Earth 13 material, though he's actually got a place there, in the form of the Universal Squad team. Yeah, I know, they really need a better name. But, sometimes, I fall flat there. Sorry!

So, naturally, it was a cinch that he wound up being the very first character that I built to roam about in the City of Heroes, back when the game was originally brought online. I mean on its very first day! Oh, sure, I didn't pre-order the thing, so I didn't get to play in its beta, or its pre-release event, but I should have if only to shut people up who thought that a badge of superiority.

Sometimes, I really hate nerds. Anyway, I found that the name I wanted for Firebomb was, in fact, taken. This was a bit of a conundrum, so I wound up calling this fellow Captain Char. The screenshots I took of him way back in the day are pretty awful, and they were taken before I knew how to edit out all the interface bits from the game. Which is why they are zoomed in and so pixely. Sorry about that.

The reason I went with an actual, different name was that one of my biggest pet peeves in this game, or any other online game, or even every single digital community I have ever belonged to, is when people just can't let a name go that someone else has already taken. I absolutely, positively despite seeing a name with random punctuation appended to it, or surrounded by Xs or Os.

You know the type. You'll be wandering around some forum or digital landscape, and you see some guy calling himself Han Solo' or xx Sephiroth xx or -Wolverine or whatever. I always make a point of 'pronouncing' the little extras in their unoriginal names when talking to them, which seems to irk them to no end. I guess unoriginal clods hate having their unoriginality waved in their cloddy faces.

The punch line, here, is that this is where the name for Dash Apostrophe came from. And, being the ultimate showboating loudmouth, everyone on the Infinity server saw his name - and his gibbering - just about everywhere. Thus, people who felt the same about those unoriginal names got a good chuckle, those who didn't were extra butthurt about it, and fun was had by, well, me.

But I digress. As per the norm. In time, I eventually abandoned Captain Char to play Crazy Hate, who had a completely broken power that wasn't nerfed until I had exploited it for all it was worth. I'm awful, I know. But the point is this guy fell by the wayside. I eventually rebuilt an actual Firebomb on a server outside Infinity, the one I created most of my folks on, once the name was freed up on the Freedom server.

Fitting, eh? I powered the revived Firebomb to level 50, and then once his name was freed up on Infinity, I moved him back over there. I guess whoever had it there had since deleted their own. So, I finally came full circle, and this guy once again became my primary blaster - that being a character who excelled in dishing out ranged damage, but was relatiely frail otherwise. The 'glass cannon', as it were.

Installments in this series:
01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14