Jeff and I broke the air-hockey puck at work yesterday. It is a somber air-hockeyless time.

It was a special lightweight triangular puck that was much more exciting to play with than the heavyweight round pucks. Bank shots become unpredictable and, truthfully, randomness is the spice of games.

The puck didn’t break immediately; it was something that occurred over a few days until the final break. We first noticed there was a problem when it sounded different. The way the table we play on is constructed, the goal “buckets” don’t retain the puck very well and, more often than not, the puck flies out of the retrieval hole across the room, rattling and bouncing all the way. We play so regularly, the sound it made as it bounced was just “the sound.” When that sound got low-pitched and hollow on one of its trips across the break room and upon examination, there was a faint crack in the plastic. Not much, but this was the beginning of the end.

We’re not the only two that lpay with this puck either, so when we found the puck yesterday, the sound was worse and there was also a seam in the sticker. The sticker was practically all that was holding it together. As we played, the sound got worse still until Jeff made a shot at my goal and it split in two pieces! The smaller chunk went right in my goal and the larger piece flew off the table.

“You get an eighth of a point! I’m counting it, but that’s all you get.” Jeff tried to protest, but I immediately fetched the larger piece and served it. He scored the rest of point and sent an email to our facilities manager:

Subject: Man Down

Tom,
        I regret to inform you that on this day during an intense match of skill and power we have suffered a casualty in the heat of battle.  I am uncertain of whom is to blame, but I will blame Steve as he is not composing the email and can not currently defend himself.

Tom is a great guy so he immediately came over and gave us hell for it. Jeff and I play nearly everyday at around the same time and Tom catches us in the break room often and jokingly tells us to get back to work. Hopefully that puck will get replaced soon – playing with those ordinary pucks is bland and not really fun.

This post is about human waste, and as such, there’s a page break for the squeamish. I also don’t want it smeared all over my front page. Awww! I did it anyway.

God, this post is awful, don’t read it.

(more…)

It’s weird to run into people from work in the outside world.

…especially when you run into them at Wal-Mart.

…and they’re the executive custodian.

Just sayin’.

I can post again! Well, I always have been able to, but things have settled down considerably at work. I may have mentioned it before, but the call volume has been through the roof for the past 6-7 weeks, and my news queue grew amazingly fast. Everyday and throughout each day I check my RSS feed for Slashdot and add bookmarks for interesting news stories so I can view them on my downtime between calls.  Unfortunately, with little to no downtime, the list only grew. Sure I could knock out a couple on one of my short breaks, but they were comparative drops in the bucket.

But now the list is done, and I don’t know what to do with myself! …almost. Every nerd knows the first thing to do when something happens, no matter how minute, is to alert the Internet! Consider this a klaxon for idle hands, my dear Internets.  Now I can get back to posting regularly, and playing with game design docs!

And to make this post not nearly as content-free as advertised, there was an MPEG Game from eons ago called Silent Steel. You played a submarine captain for a nuclear sub in the mid-Atlantic and provided canned responses in fairly complicated dialogue trees. At some point in the game, you can visit the torpedo loading deck and talk the the chief there (don’t worry this is going somewhere, trust me – and Ame, you’ve heard all about this at least once before).

“Hi Skipper, what brings you down to the Devil’s Workshop?”

At the time I was playing the game, I thought it was a just a really cool name, but it wasn’t until years later I realized it was a pun. Submarines are part of the Navy. In the Navy, the term “all hands on deck” may ring a bell.  Torpedos on a nuclear sub aren’t fired all that often, so the hands manning the station aren’t doing much with their time – idle hands. And we all (should) know “idle hands are the Devil’s workshop.”

*groan*

I know that if you have to explain it, a joke loses its comedy almost instantly, so I’ll leave on another one.

Q: What noise does a human make when he’s crushed by a giant calculator-shaped robot?
A: sqrt

PS: Not one single spelling error! Eat taht that!

Batman has an X-men-like mutant ability. It’s passive and he has no control over it, but he’s got one. See, he got a little Marvel in his D.C. and there’s some pretty good evidence that shows what I’m talking about.

First, we’ll start with Superman. I’m not a huge fan of his, but he’s certainly more than capable of standing on his own as a character. As a Heavy Hitter, his combat is pretty one-dimensional and some of the more exciting Superman moments are when he squares off with another Heavy Hitter and he’s the underdog. Of course he’s Superman and more often than not he wins because he’s the protagonist. Even when he’s in a situation in which he must outwit his opponent, he wins. Superman is a smart guy to say the least.

Batman is at his core (other than a tortured soul) a detective – the greatest detective the world will ever know and R’as al Ghul especially knows it. Batman can outsmart anyone, period. As a member of the Justice League, he has detailed files on every member, including himself, with strengths and weaknesses as a contingency plan should they run amok. This level of wisdom and intelligence he possesses can count as his Superpower, just as Tony Stark (and even Batman himself) claims his near-infinite supply of money as his.

Batman’s mutant ability manifests when he and Superman team up together.  Superman becomes outright moronic in Batman’s presence. Look at the times they have teamed up together. Superman doesn’t get like The Incredible Hulk, but he just doesn’t have that smug, smarmy, “checkmate” attitude about himself – he’s simply a big brute that can hit things really, really, hard. Batman on the other hand becomes even morecalculating and thoughtful, if that were possible, and many more moves ahead in the game than usual. Batman has stolen Superman’s intelligence!

This explains Robin too! Robin, in any of his incarnations, is pretty capable on his own. Sometimes the plot will get him caught or kidnapped, but he’s just a kid; kids in comics get kidnapped, and I can’t really hold it against him and he’s a smart kid. Pair him with Batman though?

“HURRRRRRRR!”
-Robin

Instant M.R.

Batman’s intelligence stealing ability is passive and similar of the Brains from Futurama. Like gravity, the amount of vampiric brain-drain is inversely proportional to distance and I’m sure there’s a geometric regression for how dumb one gets depending on how long one remains within Batman’s stupefication field. He may or may not be aware of this field, but because he is so intelligent, he understands

1. He cannot control it or wield this ability consciously
2. He can strategically create situations in which he can take advantage of its effects
3. He gains no benefit by acting like the playboy billionaire goof that is Bruce Wayne

A note on that third point though, Bruce Wayne’s clumsiness may be an after-effect or a hangover of having sucked in too much IQ from others. Evidence shows that Batman as Bruce Wayne is just as capable and smart though, so that gets tossed out

To be honest, this is not an original observation of mine. This originally came from Rich, my old coworker, and I hadn’t had a chance to really expound on the idea, but I really like it just the same.