Hey, gang.
I'm taking a brief respite to go visit family that I haven't seen in awhile. I'll be back to blogging on June 9th. See you then!
Andromeda
Friday, May 29, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Do superheroes cause more problems than they solve?
The above is from the webcomic, PvP. I think it brings up a valid point in regards to the superhero community. So let's ask you folks: Do superheroes unwittingly cause more trouble than they solve?
I can't help but feel sad today...
Hearing this story just broke my heart. I will be praying for Exodus Tyson (daughter of boxer Mike Tyson) and her family.
However I may feel about Mike Tyson, I can't help but feel sad for him and his loss.
However I may feel about Mike Tyson, I can't help but feel sad for him and his loss.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Memorial Day
Days like today are often viewed as a "right wing" holiday, but I don't see why that should be so. Our soldiers and other military personnel went to fight for our freedoms for everyone in the nation, not just right wingers. This holiday is simply to remember our fallen heroes, and to recall their sacrifices and why they went to fight the battles that they fought.
And before some left winger starts reading me the riot act about how our military has had its share of mistakes, I will be the first to admit that. We are not a perfect nation, and we will never be perfect. However, I do believe that we are still - despite the best efforts of our nation's left wingers - the best country on the planet. We are the realization of a dream of many leaders and philosophers of the past.
In regards to this holiday, I think the quote attributed to Gen. George S. Patton said it best: "It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived." Amen to that.
And before some left winger starts reading me the riot act about how our military has had its share of mistakes, I will be the first to admit that. We are not a perfect nation, and we will never be perfect. However, I do believe that we are still - despite the best efforts of our nation's left wingers - the best country on the planet. We are the realization of a dream of many leaders and philosophers of the past.
In regards to this holiday, I think the quote attributed to Gen. George S. Patton said it best: "It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived." Amen to that.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Q & A: Gender differences in super powers
An excellent follow-up question came after the nutshot one, so I thought I'd go ahead and answer that one here and now.
Q: You mentioned that it is men who are the strongest of those with super strength in your stories. Are there any powers that women have in greater numbers than the men?
A: Yes, there is, and in fact, it might be interesting to you all if I go ahead and tell you how the more common powers divide up along gender lines.
Men dominate in those with super, super strength. Women, however, dominate when it comes to super speed. The fastest speedsters are all women. In fact, it isn't until #19 that a man breaks the top 20, and he is like a snail compared to the fastest woman. Superhuman scientists theorize that this is because women's muscles don't bulk up like men's muscles do, so their super strength can be dedicated to speed.
Women also dominate in telepathic powers related to reading minds. However, men dominate in telepathic powers dedicated to "pushing". It didn't take long to notice the pattern of men having "aggressive" telepathic powers while women had "communication" telepathic powers. So far, there are no telepaths that can both read minds and "push" people to do things that they want them to do. Neither gender seems to dominate in telekinetic powers, as there are too few purely TK wielders to make any accurate assessment of how this power divides among the genders.
Women dominate in super senses related to smell and hearing, while men dominate in super sight. The other two senses are harder to evaluate, so there are no official test results yet on super taste and touch.
Men overwhelmingly dominate in powers related to energy discharge. Superhuman scientists theorize that this is related to the fact that the presence of testosterone has something to do with the quick and massive energy production that is necessary for such energy discharges - and of course, men have testosterone in greater quantities than women. Women who are able to discharge energy are only able to emit a glow of light rather than energy with any strong concussive force.
Female teleporters generally create portals to step through, while men generally teleport by popping out of sight to re-emerge somewhere else. Female teleporters are able to teleport others so long as they are able to keep their portal open, while men can only teleport themselves.
Male flyers are the fastest flyers while female flyers are able to maneuver far better than the men. Most superhuman scientists make the analogy that male flyers are jets while female flyers are helicopters. Most men can't hover in one spot, but nearly all the women can.
When it comes to "sonic screams", women far outnumber the men. The best "sonic screamers" have a pitch so high that it can't be heard, but it can cause your eardrums to rupture and could cause cerebral hemorrhages. Men who can do the very low bass pitch "sonic screams" sound very much like a foghorn and have an eerie effect of rattling you down to your bones.
Men far outnumber women when it comes to "thunder clapping" - that is, slamming their hands together with such force as to create a shock wave. This is easy to explain: Men's hands are bigger and the men are generally stronger. Women can only make "baby booms" when compared to the men's shock waves.
After these basic powers, it breaks down to gender ratios that are not complete yet. That is, there's not enough of each gender of a given power to make the determination of whether it is a male or female dominated ability. For some powers, only one person seems to possess it.
For instance, the super known as Alloy is the only known super who has the ability to merge otherwise unlike substances into one combined substance, such as combining steel and a bolt of cotton into an substance that has the softness of cotton but the durability of steel (and which my costume is made of).
And I am the only known super with multiple powers. I have flight, strength, super senses, speed healing, and super speed. Note that I have these abilities in a lesser degree to those who have the same powers (that is, there are stronger women than me, there are faster women than me, etc.), but none of them have the combination of abilities that I do. There are, so far, no men who have multiple abilities like I do. so it's unknown whether it is men or women who will be more likely to have multiple powers.
As more research is made available, I'll let you all know what they are.
Q: You mentioned that it is men who are the strongest of those with super strength in your stories. Are there any powers that women have in greater numbers than the men?
A: Yes, there is, and in fact, it might be interesting to you all if I go ahead and tell you how the more common powers divide up along gender lines.
Men dominate in those with super, super strength. Women, however, dominate when it comes to super speed. The fastest speedsters are all women. In fact, it isn't until #19 that a man breaks the top 20, and he is like a snail compared to the fastest woman. Superhuman scientists theorize that this is because women's muscles don't bulk up like men's muscles do, so their super strength can be dedicated to speed.
Women also dominate in telepathic powers related to reading minds. However, men dominate in telepathic powers dedicated to "pushing". It didn't take long to notice the pattern of men having "aggressive" telepathic powers while women had "communication" telepathic powers. So far, there are no telepaths that can both read minds and "push" people to do things that they want them to do. Neither gender seems to dominate in telekinetic powers, as there are too few purely TK wielders to make any accurate assessment of how this power divides among the genders.
Women dominate in super senses related to smell and hearing, while men dominate in super sight. The other two senses are harder to evaluate, so there are no official test results yet on super taste and touch.
Men overwhelmingly dominate in powers related to energy discharge. Superhuman scientists theorize that this is related to the fact that the presence of testosterone has something to do with the quick and massive energy production that is necessary for such energy discharges - and of course, men have testosterone in greater quantities than women. Women who are able to discharge energy are only able to emit a glow of light rather than energy with any strong concussive force.
Female teleporters generally create portals to step through, while men generally teleport by popping out of sight to re-emerge somewhere else. Female teleporters are able to teleport others so long as they are able to keep their portal open, while men can only teleport themselves.
Male flyers are the fastest flyers while female flyers are able to maneuver far better than the men. Most superhuman scientists make the analogy that male flyers are jets while female flyers are helicopters. Most men can't hover in one spot, but nearly all the women can.
When it comes to "sonic screams", women far outnumber the men. The best "sonic screamers" have a pitch so high that it can't be heard, but it can cause your eardrums to rupture and could cause cerebral hemorrhages. Men who can do the very low bass pitch "sonic screams" sound very much like a foghorn and have an eerie effect of rattling you down to your bones.
Men far outnumber women when it comes to "thunder clapping" - that is, slamming their hands together with such force as to create a shock wave. This is easy to explain: Men's hands are bigger and the men are generally stronger. Women can only make "baby booms" when compared to the men's shock waves.
After these basic powers, it breaks down to gender ratios that are not complete yet. That is, there's not enough of each gender of a given power to make the determination of whether it is a male or female dominated ability. For some powers, only one person seems to possess it.
For instance, the super known as Alloy is the only known super who has the ability to merge otherwise unlike substances into one combined substance, such as combining steel and a bolt of cotton into an substance that has the softness of cotton but the durability of steel (and which my costume is made of).
And I am the only known super with multiple powers. I have flight, strength, super senses, speed healing, and super speed. Note that I have these abilities in a lesser degree to those who have the same powers (that is, there are stronger women than me, there are faster women than me, etc.), but none of them have the combination of abilities that I do. There are, so far, no men who have multiple abilities like I do. so it's unknown whether it is men or women who will be more likely to have multiple powers.
As more research is made available, I'll let you all know what they are.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Q & A Time: The Nutshot question
Time for a little Q & A! :-D
Q: In the course of your battles with supers, have you ever resorted to kicking the guys in the nuts?
A: This question actually made me laugh out loud! And the answer is yes! The reason is that it works! However, it's never the first thing I do. That actually does very little to take them down for the count. Yes, it hurts them, but some of the strongest ones can actually shake it off pretty fast, no matter how hard I may kick them there. There's two reasons for that:
One, most of them have speed healing like I do - speed healing being something of a necessity for those with super strength due to the strains that such folks put their bodies under lifting the weights that they do. If they didn't heal quickly, then most of them would have serious sprains, strains, hernias, and hyper-extensions each and every time they lifted anything heavy.
Two, and this response is - uh - well, it deals with a fact about the male anatomy of those with super strength. Okay, how to put this discreetly? Let's just say that just because these guys can rival the Hulk in size and bulkiness, it doesn't mean that their male organs are - well, correspondingly bigger. They can have male body parts that would be impressive in a man of a regular size and build, but on someone of the large hulking size - okay, quit your snickering out there! I'm trying to answer this seriously!
Anyway, their extra bulk is mainly in their bones and muscle, and their male body parts has neither bones or muscle, so their parts look smaller by comparison to the surrounding bulky body mass. And because of that, striking them there is actually harder to do than on your regular sized dude. Super ladies who are trained to fight these guys are taught on the first day to not rely on nutshots to bail them out of trouble because it's hard to hit them down there, and even if you do manage to hit them there, they shake it off pretty fast. We are taught to use nutshots mainly for a quick distraction and to hit as hard as we can when we do resort to it.
Even if they shake it off fast, it still hurts, judging by how even the strongest guys will double over. You have to consider that they ARE being kicked by super strength legs! Okay, this blog entry was kinda fun to write. I hope your responses will be just as amusing. :-)
Q: In the course of your battles with supers, have you ever resorted to kicking the guys in the nuts?
A: This question actually made me laugh out loud! And the answer is yes! The reason is that it works! However, it's never the first thing I do. That actually does very little to take them down for the count. Yes, it hurts them, but some of the strongest ones can actually shake it off pretty fast, no matter how hard I may kick them there. There's two reasons for that:
One, most of them have speed healing like I do - speed healing being something of a necessity for those with super strength due to the strains that such folks put their bodies under lifting the weights that they do. If they didn't heal quickly, then most of them would have serious sprains, strains, hernias, and hyper-extensions each and every time they lifted anything heavy.
Two, and this response is - uh - well, it deals with a fact about the male anatomy of those with super strength. Okay, how to put this discreetly? Let's just say that just because these guys can rival the Hulk in size and bulkiness, it doesn't mean that their male organs are - well, correspondingly bigger. They can have male body parts that would be impressive in a man of a regular size and build, but on someone of the large hulking size - okay, quit your snickering out there! I'm trying to answer this seriously!
Anyway, their extra bulk is mainly in their bones and muscle, and their male body parts has neither bones or muscle, so their parts look smaller by comparison to the surrounding bulky body mass. And because of that, striking them there is actually harder to do than on your regular sized dude. Super ladies who are trained to fight these guys are taught on the first day to not rely on nutshots to bail them out of trouble because it's hard to hit them down there, and even if you do manage to hit them there, they shake it off pretty fast. We are taught to use nutshots mainly for a quick distraction and to hit as hard as we can when we do resort to it.
Even if they shake it off fast, it still hurts, judging by how even the strongest guys will double over. You have to consider that they ARE being kicked by super strength legs! Okay, this blog entry was kinda fun to write. I hope your responses will be just as amusing. :-)
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
The Reason The Donald let Miss California keep her crown.
As you may have already heard, Miss California was allowed to keep her crown, this despite her views on gay marriage, and despite the racy pics of her that were posted on the Internet. I picture The Donald thinking about the benefits and drawbacks of allowing Miss California to keep her crown and for taking it away, and about the potential flak that is to come from either act. But I believe that the final determinant in his decision was arrived at when he first laid eyes on her in real life and thought:
"Damn, she's hot."
"Damn, she's hot."
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Oh what the hell... WoW update!
I've been at level 80 for a few weeks now, and in that time I've been getting my gear upgraded by questing in Wintergrasp (or WG, as it is often known as) to accumulate the three forms of currency that can be had there and spent with a vendor in the fort as well as in the capital city of Ogrimmar. It's from my earnings that I've been gearing up to purple level gear for the best non-dungeon stuff that can be had for hunters. For those of you not on WoW, the dungeons tend to produce the top items - they just tend to drop infrequently or even very rarely, so you can't depend on it dropping even if you quest there. And even if it did drop, you are also going to be contending with the other members of your group who also want the same item.
It's also in WG that I've learned the difference that being on the right talent tree can make. For most of my hunter's career, she's been a Beast Master (BM), which means that her pet is her tank - that is, it takes the brunt of the damage that the monsters inflict on her while she concentrates on using her ranged weaponry. That is fine for soloing on quests, but for PvP areas such as WG, it's much better to use the Survival (SV) tree. The reason is this: The BM's main weakness is that when her pet dies, then she is vulnerable - basically a glorified "squishy" (slang for a toon with low armor or poor self-defense skills). However, while the SV may not have the kinds of pets that a BM has, she makes up for it by having much cooler arrows. Under a SV talent tree, she has arrows worthy of DC's Green Arrow (but not the boxing glove arrow, doggonit!). :-D
The differences in hunter talent trees is most clearly demonstrated in my duel-outs with other hunters in WG. I am betting that the vast majority of hunters are BMs, because they believe that it's the best talent tree for a hunter to have - and again, that's normally true in other circumstances - but not in this one. I would say that I have won probably a good 85-90% of my duel-outs with hunters because of the difference in talent trees. Here what nearly always happens with my duel-outs with other hunters.
---------------------------------------------
1.) Hunter spots me, and starts shooting me (hunters tend to be sought-out targets because of our annoying ranged weapon talents that allows us to strike targets from far away while keeping ourselves out of harm's way).
2.) Hunter sends beast to attack me. I command my beast to attack their beast.
3.) Hunter responds by commanding their beast to attack my beast.
Now here is the fatal flaw in their reasoning. By taking their pet away from attacking me, they remove the one thing that could help them win their duel-out with me, because their beast is better than mine. All I was doing with my beast attacking their beast is precisely to lure the other hunter into attacking my beast with their beast. It's amazing how often this tactic works.
4.) With the two beasts fighting each other, it is now down to a duel-out between the hunters, and thus here is when the difference between the talent trees is most stark.
5.) As hunters, we can have the same types of armor, so in theory, we are equally "squishy". However, my arrows are better! I have all types of arrows that a BM does not! So while the other hunter is pelting me with run-of-the-mill arrows, I am pelting them with stuff like - oh, explosive arrows that inflict lots of damage upon impact.
6. ) Even though we can shoot at each other equally fast, my arrows still does more damage to them than their arrows do to me. Still, I do take on a lot of damage, but almost always not as much as they take from me.
7.) Other hunter goes down, and I go collect their insignia as a sign of respect to a fellow hunter - and as a way of saying, "I PWNED ya, pal!"
---------------------------------------------
In addition to WG, there is a new area created since the recent WoW patch in the territory of Icecrown that has jousting tournaments. Cool gear can be had there as well. While I think they are pretty cool, I also can't joust worth crap. In fact, if I did joust worth crap, that'd be an improvement! LOL However, it doesn't mean that I don't enjoy it - I just can't master it! I can throw the shields, I can joust, and I can melee with the shield - I just can't do all of it well enough and fast enough to have at least some semi-consistency to win once in a while. In fact, if it weren't for the other, non-jousting dailies, I'd still be at the lowbie aspirant level!
The benefit of jousting here is that you can now grind rep with some of the other capital cities, and if I can get my reputation with the Undercity up to Exalted, I can finally get their undead horse mount that I've wanted for forever! I'm not so eager to get the orcs' raptor mount or the tauren's kodo mount, but I might work on those as well - but AFTER I get the undead horse! I GOTTA have it! IwantitIwantitIwantit!
I've been told what works in jousting and some swear that their success rate is close to 100%. It's just that the other guy won't cooperate and die already! LOL All I can say is, I'll keep working on it, and then maybe I'll finally get the hang of what I need to do to win jousts on a consistent basis. Right now, though, I'd settle for winning on a semi-consistent basis. :-P
That's it for now, kiddies! Have a great weekend!
It's also in WG that I've learned the difference that being on the right talent tree can make. For most of my hunter's career, she's been a Beast Master (BM), which means that her pet is her tank - that is, it takes the brunt of the damage that the monsters inflict on her while she concentrates on using her ranged weaponry. That is fine for soloing on quests, but for PvP areas such as WG, it's much better to use the Survival (SV) tree. The reason is this: The BM's main weakness is that when her pet dies, then she is vulnerable - basically a glorified "squishy" (slang for a toon with low armor or poor self-defense skills). However, while the SV may not have the kinds of pets that a BM has, she makes up for it by having much cooler arrows. Under a SV talent tree, she has arrows worthy of DC's Green Arrow (but not the boxing glove arrow, doggonit!). :-D
The differences in hunter talent trees is most clearly demonstrated in my duel-outs with other hunters in WG. I am betting that the vast majority of hunters are BMs, because they believe that it's the best talent tree for a hunter to have - and again, that's normally true in other circumstances - but not in this one. I would say that I have won probably a good 85-90% of my duel-outs with hunters because of the difference in talent trees. Here what nearly always happens with my duel-outs with other hunters.
---------------------------------------------
1.) Hunter spots me, and starts shooting me (hunters tend to be sought-out targets because of our annoying ranged weapon talents that allows us to strike targets from far away while keeping ourselves out of harm's way).
2.) Hunter sends beast to attack me. I command my beast to attack their beast.
3.) Hunter responds by commanding their beast to attack my beast.
Now here is the fatal flaw in their reasoning. By taking their pet away from attacking me, they remove the one thing that could help them win their duel-out with me, because their beast is better than mine. All I was doing with my beast attacking their beast is precisely to lure the other hunter into attacking my beast with their beast. It's amazing how often this tactic works.
4.) With the two beasts fighting each other, it is now down to a duel-out between the hunters, and thus here is when the difference between the talent trees is most stark.
5.) As hunters, we can have the same types of armor, so in theory, we are equally "squishy". However, my arrows are better! I have all types of arrows that a BM does not! So while the other hunter is pelting me with run-of-the-mill arrows, I am pelting them with stuff like - oh, explosive arrows that inflict lots of damage upon impact.
6. ) Even though we can shoot at each other equally fast, my arrows still does more damage to them than their arrows do to me. Still, I do take on a lot of damage, but almost always not as much as they take from me.
7.) Other hunter goes down, and I go collect their insignia as a sign of respect to a fellow hunter - and as a way of saying, "I PWNED ya, pal!"
---------------------------------------------
In addition to WG, there is a new area created since the recent WoW patch in the territory of Icecrown that has jousting tournaments. Cool gear can be had there as well. While I think they are pretty cool, I also can't joust worth crap. In fact, if I did joust worth crap, that'd be an improvement! LOL However, it doesn't mean that I don't enjoy it - I just can't master it! I can throw the shields, I can joust, and I can melee with the shield - I just can't do all of it well enough and fast enough to have at least some semi-consistency to win once in a while. In fact, if it weren't for the other, non-jousting dailies, I'd still be at the lowbie aspirant level!
The benefit of jousting here is that you can now grind rep with some of the other capital cities, and if I can get my reputation with the Undercity up to Exalted, I can finally get their undead horse mount that I've wanted for forever! I'm not so eager to get the orcs' raptor mount or the tauren's kodo mount, but I might work on those as well - but AFTER I get the undead horse! I GOTTA have it! IwantitIwantitIwantit!
I've been told what works in jousting and some swear that their success rate is close to 100%. It's just that the other guy won't cooperate and die already! LOL All I can say is, I'll keep working on it, and then maybe I'll finally get the hang of what I need to do to win jousts on a consistent basis. Right now, though, I'd settle for winning on a semi-consistent basis. :-P
That's it for now, kiddies! Have a great weekend!
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Future WoW t-shirts?
The boss asked me to post these here so that his idea for some WoW t-shirts exist SOMEwhere. He plans to present his ideas to Blizzard Entertainment, which runs WoW. He got these ideas because he reads my blog (I would hope so!), and because I talk about Wintergrasp so much in person. Yeah, I'm a WoW chick - but you all know that by now as well. ;-)
Anyway, I love these, and I definitely want one (Horde, of course!) if he ever manages to get them made.
Anyway, I love these, and I definitely want one (Horde, of course!) if he ever manages to get them made.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Today is Free Comic Book Day!
Today is Free Comic Book Day! Go to your local comic shop and pick yours up! My shop let me have more than one, so maybe yours will too!
Friday, May 1, 2009
Cool costume idea for a WoW party
This is SO cool, because I could use these to play a draenei at a WoW costume party! 'Course, they're also going to make me taller than I already am....
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