Return of the Supermen!

So it would appear that our gaming group hasn't flatlined yet!

Nate, Matt, and I all descended on Beau's house last night to play another 2 chapters of our current Marvel campaign. Our superhero team The Hard Corps was a little short handed with the absence of Neal, but we managed alright without him.

In this latest episode, a low-level maggia thug helped free some of our dastardly opponents, including Beetle, Blizzard, Constrictor and Scorch. Spider-Man, Kevlar and Blacklight were able to subdue all of them rather quickly, except for Scorch who fled the scene and escaped somewhere in the concrete jungle of Manhattan.

But our battle was not without incident. During the confrontation, Blacklight was shot by the maggia henchman, then whipped by Constrictor, then webbed up on accident by a dazed and confused Spidey (he must have been D&C to roll as low as he did) and when he managed to take refuge behind our company car (our shiney Humvee all decked out with surveillance equipment that even James Bond would admire it) the bad guys kept at him, destroying our vehicle in the process. Oy.

After 5 game rounds had passed and we had pretty much incapacitated the enemy (Spidey had webbed up the thug, Kevlar stunned Constrictor with a concussive grenade and chased down a fleeing Blizzard) the armored character Guardsman finally showed up and took the villains into custody...hopefully for good this time.



The next chapter was quick and painless. Our heroes met up with a petty criminal named Tack who had been coerced into trying to take us out with a bomb that was strapped to his chest. We tried to calm him down, but our popularity rolls weren't high enough and he pressed the detonation switch. Luckily, there was a delay in the explosion and my character, Kevlar, was able to yank it off the kid and fly up over Chinatown where it exploded without injuring anyone. Thank god for my Monstrous body armor!

All in all, it was a good night of gaming and we're looking forward to finally wrapping up this adventure book.

MUST PLAY THIS GAME!

I saw a full page ad for this game in the latest issue of Maxim magazine.
Then I saw it sitting behind the glass doors in the game section of Wal-Mart.
Then I saw the preview on Windows Media Player this morning.
I'm going ape-shit over this game already and I haven't even played it yet.



Dudes, if you haven't seen this preview yet, bring up your online Windows Media Player and click on the link for this game (you can't miss it - it's got a pic of Supes, Bats, and Martian Manhunter) then sit back and enjoy.

I don't know who I want to play first: Green Lantern or Flash.

I wonder if there's a multi-play option or if it's just for a single player. If there's multi-play, I may have to go out and buy a bigger television.

Check it out!

Death of Supermen

Is our gaming group dying?

Once upon a time, we'd get together to play clix twice a week. Then it became once a week, and now we're lucky if it's once a month.

The suggestion was made, oh, maybe a year ago or so, that we alternate between heroclix and Marvel RPG, which is what we played back in the good old days (you know, High School?). We all agreed that was a decent idea and re-played an old campaign with some kick-ass new characters. Go Hard Corps!

Then that sort of fizzled out too. At least for me anyway. I'm not sure why. I still think Marvel is fun, but it's just taking way too long to get through the damn campaign.

Once upon another time, we'd email each other back and forth NUMEROUS times throughout the day, discussing a little of this and a sampling of that, but usually we focused our thoughts on the random aspects of our geekness (geekocity?) but that has been diminished significantly as well.

This past week for example: I sent out an email on Tuesday morning asking everyone in the group to play on Friday. There were a couple of immediate responses (Beau and Nate with an affirmative, Dustin with a negative and Victor with an ambiguous "maybe".) Nothing from Matt until Friday morning.

We briefly discussed the type of game to play (Marvel or clix) and I tried to take a vote, but that was never really decided.

Then, nothing more was said for the rest of the week until Friday afternoon after I'd already left work for the day.

Sorry fellas, but I need to know if our plans are solid well in advance (by Wednesday preferrably, but by Thursday at the latest) so I can plan accordingly and find someone to watch my kids for me. Friday afternoon simply does me no good.

I know we get busy. I understand that. But are we just getting too busy to keep our gaming group alive?

I guess some of you got together at Neal's last night for...Marvel? Beau called me at home around 6:45 last night asking if I was headed out to Neal's and I said "No, I wasn't sure if we were actually playing tonight, so I didn't make arrangements for a sitter."

Part of this problem is me, and I recognize that. It seems like I'm always the one to try to initiate a game each week and then it's a struggle to plan for it. I'm tired of doing that. Someone else can take the reigns and steer the pack.

Another issue is that I'm afraid we're not getting along as well as we used to. This is just my perspective, but since we don't always agree on things (game related, or not) it's more difficult to spend time with each other. Again, this is probably just one of my own personal hang-ups, but it's affecting my desire to "hang with the guys" lately.

Okay, I've rambled for far too long. Just needed to get some of that shit out there.

Not that any of you read this blog anymore. Just another casualty, I suppose.

Airborne Buddy

For anyone who doesn't know, these are Airborne wings, also called the "parachutist badge."



These can only be earned by members of the armed forces (though primarily those of the Army branch) who attend (and successfully complete) a 3 week course appropriately dubbed "Airborne School" at Fort Benning, Georgia.

I went through the course in June of 1995, immediately following my Basic Training and AIT (Advanced Individual Training) classes on the same Army base. My MOS (Military Occupation Specialty) at the time was 11C (Infantry Mortarman) with an Airborne contract. In other words, I was Airborne Infantry.

Airborne School itself consists of 3 phases, each phase lasting one week.

Week 1 is Ground Week: Mostly running and practicing PLFs (Parachute Landing Falls) in sawdust pits. This is where we're taught how to land without hurting ourselves. We're also taught how to maneuver in our parachutes using what are called "pulling a slip". By pulling down on 1 or 2 of the 4 "risers" you can [somewhat] control which direction you'll drift. We may have practiced exiting the aircraft during this week as well.

Week 2 is Tower Week: More running and PLFs, but this time with the more realistic drills of jumping from the 30 foot towers and for some of us, the 150 foot tower. (And if you hate heights, these drills downright suck because you can SEE THE GROUND RIGHT THERE!) The 30 foot towers are just a mock up of the aircraft and we're taught the proper procedures of exiting the aircraft - step out, tucking your chin to your chest and grasping the reserve 'chute attached at your stomach, and couting to 4 as you slide down a wire to the mound about 50 meters away.

Oh, and just a side note, if anyone "falls out" of a platoon run for any reason, they are automatically ejected from the course.

Week 3 is Jump Week: No more running or sawdust pits or towers, but a lot of the same old drills. This is the week when we're taken up in either a C-130 Hercules or C-141 aircraft and actually get to jump. One of the jumps is a mandatory "night jump" which usually just takes place shortly after dusk so we can get an idea of jumping in the dark. This is the preferred method of troop insertion in real-world missions so it's harder to get shot at by the enemy while airborne.

There are two types of Airborne School graduates: The "5 Jump Chump" who only gets in his or her 5 aircraft jumps in order to earn the coveted wings and get back to their Non-Airborne unit, and the "Career Airborne" troop who, upon completion of the course, is bound for an Airborne unit. I was of the latter.

My first duty assignment was with SETAF (Southern European Task Force), specifically the 3/325 ABCT (Airborne Battalion Combat Team) which was based in Italy...ah, Italy!
I spend my first two years of active duty service there.

My final 13 months of [initial] active duty were spent at Fort Bragg, North Carolina which is home of the mighty 82nd Airborne Division. I was assigned to the 1/504th PIR (Parachute Infantry Regiment) and went from being a mortarman to a TOC (Tactical Operations Center) driver and RTO (Radio Telephone Operator.)

Don't you just love all those acronymns?

All in all, I had around 33 jumps. I lost count after awhile and I don't think my jump record accurately reflects all the jumps I did in my airborne career.

I've jumped from a number of aircraft including the C-130, C-141, C-5, CH-47 Chinook helicopter and the UH-1 Huey. The helicopter jumps were my favorites.

I've landed on several DZs (Drop Zones) with a myriad of terrain from soft sand, to gravel, to the pavement of a runway, to a 6 inch puddle of water (why is it that I'm seeing stars when I look down? Oh shit! It's water!)

But I was lucky. No major parachute malfunctions. No major injuries to speak of (just the one minor static line injury that yanked off my watch and a layer of skin from my wrist).

My father was Airborne, so I wanted to be.

I call my son my "Airborne Buddy" which I hope doesn't force him to think he has to follow in my footsteps.

Airborne Infantry was certainly a worthwhile experience, but I want better things for my children.

Stay out of harms way if you can help it.

Airborne!

Adventures in the Phantom Zone

So I get a phone call from my brother-in-law at about 7:55 last night.

“Are you watching Smallville?” he excitedly asks.

“No, I’m watching The Office.” I reply.

Slight pause.

“Are you recording Smallville?” he inquires. He sounds confused, probably because he knows how much I like this show and can’t understand why I’m not keeping myself up to speed with this season.

“No. I’ve already missed every episode this season so I’ll just have to wait to watch it when it comes out on DVD.” (I had to do the same thing with season 5, which we just finished this past weekend.)



“Oh.”

“Did you have a question about something?” I ask. My brother-in-law likes superheroes, but isn’t as well versed in them as I am (not that I’m an expert or anything, I’ve just been into comics since the 6th grade…I won’t say how long ago that was.)

“Yeah…what’s Green Arrow’s real name?”

Ha! I knew this one! “Oliver Queen. Was he in tonight’s episode?”

“Yeah. They introduced him as an old college roommate of Lex Luthor’s or something.”

“Oh.” (I actually don’t know much about Ollie’s background, so I couldn’t refute this, but I’m sure the Smallville writers used their all-powerful creative license to tweak the character’s origins a bit.)



I considered pressing for more details, but decided I didn’t want anything from this season revealed to me prematurely. When I last visited that world, General Zod had possessed Lex and stood on the brink of conquering Metropolis while Clark floated helplessly away in his window-shard of the Phantom Zone.

Can’t wait to see how Clark returns to kick some evil Kryptonian ass!

Oh, and kudos to Chloe for finally swallowing her pride and planting a soggy goodbye kiss on Clark before he ran off to “save the day.”

Go Chloe! You’re babe-tastic!

Hot Wheels

In my previous post, I mentioned how satisfying it was to introduce the toys and movies of my youth to my own children.

Last night, I realized that the door swings both ways.

A few weeks ago, I'd decided I was tired of listening to the same old movies that our kids watch in the family van (Toy Story and Toy Story 2) and buy a couple new ones I thought they might enjoy. One of them was the animated movie Hot Wheels: World Race.



To listen to it, it's mostly just the sounds of squeeling tires and roaring engines mixed in with a few lines of commentary. I figured it couldn't have much of a storyline or a plot. Being based on the popular toy cars, how could it?

Scott wanted to watch it in the house last night and since I couldn't find anything else to watch on television (we still don't have cable or satellite, so our channel options are severely limited) I said okay and watched it with him. It was actually pretty fun to watch.

The computer animation is very well done and is easy to watch. Some of the characters are a little cheesy, but that can easily be overlooked, especially when most of the emphasis is on the cars and what they can do (there are teams of racers who are assigned cars with special abilities.)

And there's a decent plot! Complete with an evil female mastermind who's after the Wheel of Power (a source of limitless energy) and an army of sleek robot racers!

Scott was kind enough to fill me in on some of the details that I wasn't aware of (such as a well crafted Wheel of Power decoy to fool the drivers) It's always fun to hear a 3 year old's running commentary.

What I really loved though, were all the elements of the toys put into the movie, to include the orange racetrack that the cars run on. Remember those? Piecing together all the segments of track leading from the top of the couch, down into a loop-de-loop and across the front room floor! It's all in the movie!

Anyway, it was a sweet ride, from start to finish.