Simple - choose one of your heroes - and use them to tell a joke (the worse, the better.)
"Okay..." Bella rested her head in her hands, trying to decide if the situation warranted tearing out her hear, or banging her head on the desk until the voices told her the world was a sane and calming place.  "I've read the report, what is your side of the story."
"It was just a night dancing."  Jackie admitted.  "Zee Club D was packed.  Zey played zee Twist, so I did the Twist.  They played the Frug, so I did the Frug.  They played Jump Around, so I jumped around."
"You are the soul of innocence."  Bella growled, deciding that incineration may be more therapeutic than concussions or a new hair style.  "Then what happened?"
"Zey played Come on Eileen."  Jackie admitted.  "And I was asked to leave."

New Fenspace Snippet. Needed to get it out of my system.

While I'm working on what I posted earlier I had a bit pop in my head and decided to get it written down. So here's a bit around a semester later with Rhett the accidental catboy. Utterly first draft and unedited.

Quote:Rhett was busy at his cluster of monitors when Jake leaned into the room.
"Darcey and Alice are christening the pizza oven, what would you like?"
Wireframe designs flickered across the six mismatching scavenged monitors for a few seconds before Rhett's chair leaned back, "Pizza?"
"Oven's ready, dough's being spread, time to decide on toppings."
"Cheese, more cheese, and no peppers."
"Your usual, got it. What's all this?"
"My new pet project." A small object suddenly was arcing through the air to James, in the sickly green of the cheap 3D printer filament they'd found. "I'm not making the same mistake again. This time there will be blueprints and manuals and all that."
"And all that?"
Rhett gave a short laugh, "Well, last time around I got in a hurry and just grabbed what I had on hand and well... You know how that worked. Save one really good result."
"Thank you," came Ema's voice from the speakers on the desktop. "I thought I'd need to be upset for a moment."
"Yes, you're definitely the really good result. But clearly that was more luck than planning. And well, look what that did to me."
"Well the girls like the result."
"At least Darcey and Alice will stop petting when I ask. And it's not just the girls, you know what a pain Greg's been."
Jake sighed and went back to examining the model. "Yeah, well he's banned from here and Dwayne's if he starts anything at another Fantastic. What about this? Looks like a flying saucer."
Rhett made a few clicks and a slide show started up on the rightmost screen. "That's exactly what it is. A one man, all electric, flying saucer in need of a good name."
"Split back seat? Oh, right, for your tail."
"Yep, five point harness too and any other safety features I can work out. I'll get some more eyes on it before I build it but I want to do as much as I can on my own first."
"This why you've been talking about learning to weld?"
"Yep. I shouldn't have any trouble with the electronics but it's not like I can go down to the local junkyard and ask if they have any '57 flying saucer bodies sitting around."
"True... oh great, what are you purring about now?"
"I just remembered, there were some built! Whatever happened to the Avrocars? To Google!" A few clicks later the purring stopped. "Ew, no, too big and that fan is where the cockpit should be! What were they thinking!"
"That they didn't have any 'wavium?"
"Bah! Poor excuse!"

Quote:From: NotAButler_7
To: nntp://fen.support.biomods
Time: 13:55 MST (-0700)
Date: September 12, 2015
Subject: Hello out there

Hello out there, your friendly new Earthbound feline biomod here. I had no idea that newsgroups were still a thing or that there was a whole fen hierarchy.

The good news, apparently the local authorities are tired of playing hunt the biomod. The bad news, the paperwork. Oh lord the paperwork. I thought signing up for my first semester of classes involved a lot of paperwork but replacing my drivers license was what felt like a couple dozen pages of forms, hunting down my birth certificate, not yelling at a clerk who claimed there was no such form as the one I handed him, and an hour long meeting with the head of the DMV office in which I filled out yet more paperwork.

All that and I won't even get a drivers license since I'm to small to sit in the driver's seat of any of my friends cars and comfortably work the peddles with a seatbelt on. So just a non-driver's state ID card for me. At least I'm a little taller than the limit for Arizona's booster seat law. Sure it's got an age cut-off but needing to convince people I'm really nineteen is already getting old.

So any advice for a new catboy? Other than guarding my tail from the evil called the bus door, I've learned that one the hard way.

From: NotAButler_7To: nntp://fen.support.biomodsTime: 17:31 MST (-0700)Date: September 16, 2015Subject: Q for other fur-bearing biomods

How the bleep do you keep from getting heat rash when it's hot and humid out? The last two days have been bleeping hell. Summer is always bleeping hot in Arizona but this is insane. All I have to do is step outside and it feels like I'm wearing a lead coat and hat. In an oven. I was born here it shouldn't feel like this. If it's this bad here I'm never going to the south (right, like any sensible catboy would head into the land of dueling banjos. I barely trust that I won't get jumped by crazies here).


From: NotAButler_7To: nntp://fen.support.biomodsTime: 17:44 MST (-0700)Date: September 16, 2015Subject: RE: Q for other fur-bearing biomods

So uh, the bleeps. Apparently a friend who will remain nameless decided my newsreader needed a profanity filter. Assume that by bleep I meant, "Dear lord, it rained last night so now it's humid as a shower and 115 degrees out!" I like living in the desert. Well, I liked living in the desert. If someone warned me I was about to get modded I could have at least tried to get it to be a fennec mod. Surely they don't mind it. That much.

No. Nevermind. They're sensible and live on the night shift. Wish college was that sensible.


From: NotAButler_7To: nntp://fen.soc.biomodsTime: 22:36 MST (-0700)Date: October 31, 2015Subject: Halloween, okay this isn't too bad

I've lost count of how many times I've been complimented on my 'costume'. Only downside is they keep asking J-friend and D-friend how much their 'kid's' costume cost. Or if they know about the costumer's guild they ask them how long it took to make.

I probably could have brought in a good haul of free candy if I'd snuck out trick or treating. But that would have meant missing the local gathering's party which would have been very sucky. At [mumblemumble] House we've been having a grand time. Night unlimited snacks, friends, and B-Movies. We're watching Plan 9 as I write this. Not the worst film I've ever seen but it does have the worst Day For Night scenes I've ever seen.

Anyway, how's Halloween up among the Fen? Must be a fun time for the kinder since you can get away with much more up there than down here. That said, those 'costume' compliments? I think I might let D-friend talk me into one of the cosplay sig's group events. She'd been trying to talk me into a group play of the closing credit version of the characters from Black Cat but she's being so secret about it now I think she's found something else.


From: NotAButler_7To: nntp://fen.rocketscience.amateur
Time: 09:57 MST (-0700)Date: January 10, 2016Subject: Avoiding the FAA's wrath

So, assuming someone had started doodling designs yesterday for a small single seat flying contraption, are there are good howto documents explaining how to avoid bringing down the wrath of the FAA?

So far I've kept everything to paper and 3D modeling software (the learning curve, ow). If I ever get this thing built I'd like to be able to fly it without racking up federal charges and missing any future family reunions that aren't held in Oz. Maybe my Google-Fu will be better after some sleep but all I've been turning up page after page of rants about fen and their flying cars giving air traffic controllers heart attacks. Will they even grant experimental certification to amateur build spacecraft?

So, any M's anyone wants to suggest I RTF? Even if it is probably a pipe-dream to think I can get approval to legally possess and use wavium without a boatload of money for a decent workshop and brib^H^H^H^H processing fee money. But a cat can dream, right?

http://www.krcrtv.com/man-accused-of-fe ... l/28108006
It's like being fed your own kid. Definitely one sick puppy!
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

Interesting... They appear to be adding Epic AT's in CO. Their latest plot arc add beings Dr. Destroyer back from plot oblivion to threaten the world again. And to kick it off, they've added an AT that's only playable if you've got a 40th level character. Sound familiar?
Apparently, according to their blog, they plan on adding more Epic AT's to the game in the future. The current one is a sentient machine with tons of offense, probably minimum defense. Sounds like it might be interesting.
---
Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.

Oh noes! My secret identity, exposed!
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

Definitely worth passing along: 
Artists, fans rally to support cartoonist's ailing wife

Quote:...for the past three years, Sakai has been faced with the greatest challenge of his life: making sure his wife, Sharon, is as comfortable as possible as a brain tumor slowly takes away her ability to live. 
The couple’s East Pasadena home has been transformed into a care unit for Sharon, who is bedridden, blind and deaf as a result of the tumor. The dining room was emptied and now resembles a hospital room, and a nurse is on hand five days a week to provide care. 
“We prefer her at home,” said Sakai, who has lived in the same home with his wife for nearly 40 years. “We’re making the best of it.” 
Sakai’s friends had known about Sharon’s condition for years, and it didn’t take fans long to notice she no longer was attending comic conventions, such as San Diego’s Comic-Con, with her husband. 
Those friends, including members of the Comic Art Professional Society, knew Sakai wouldn’t ask for help – it wasn’t in his nature – even when Sharon’s medical bills began to exceed her health insurance coverage. So six months ago, they took it upon themselves to begin raising money on the Sakais’ behalf.

If you use this link to do it, it'll go towards getting me free stuff.

http://www.transformersuniverse.com/re ... 241de71b1e

I'm going to be honest, right now the game is still in Open Beta with weekly 70ish Mb downloads of the client to get the latest patch (the hot-patcher supposedly works, but is so much slower I just get the whole client download each time) and most of the focus is on PvP with only a single free roam map per faction and two co-op PvE maps shared between them, with a rota of "shoot the wandering enemies," ""heal the generic allies," and/or "collect the widgets" missions appearing with gaps of 5-20 seconds between one finishing and the next beginning on the free roam map. It's not intended to have a wide power progression like an RPG, though there are at least 50 experience levels to climb, but mostly what those do is give you one stat point and ten of the micotransaction currency (each worth half a US cent, with more characters to chose between ranging from 995-3995 currently, though there is also a 25% off sale on Decepticons right now because Autobot players outnumber them 60-40 right now - and yet, the matches ten 57-43 in favor of 'Cons, supposedly due to better teamwork and attracting more of the older players who think in terms of more complex tactics.)

That small edge is still significant when combined with a new player just getting used to how it plays, so my recommendation is to ignore the "Queue for PVP" box that pops up as soon as you get through the min-tutorial, pick a robot (if you don't just stick with the tut's tank) and deploy, instead going out into the free roam map, finding one of the big glowing portals that are in the one or two of the corners (directly ahead of you on Autobot map, diagonally for Deceps) and enter the Crisis map instead. It still says "Queue for PVP" but that is in fact the co-op game mode, where you face hordes of basic enemies, a few tank-types, a midboss and a boss, with no way to "lose" and death/respawn not mattering overall. This will level you up quickly for the first few - Lv5 within 2-3 hours as I recall - to get a few tuning points, a "power core" slot and selection of cores to put in it (minor passive enhancement, dropped as loot,) and most importantly give you a chance to get to know the special attacks and equipment of the available units, and get a good start to picking up the cheap-tier DPS or Tank unit if you want to, both of which are quite good on either side.

You get both an Autobot and Decepticon "commander" (IE your visible username) with a single login account, and each of those can initially pick from three characters each time you deploy form the hangar - my Decepticon is Bottlerocket, and Autobot is WaveConvoy though I will probably change it to something more original and not interCapped later. You may be able to have spaces in the commander name, at least I see people with them on the forums, which use the same two names depending on whether you hit the "play as Autobot" or "play as Decepticon" button at the top of the page.

Robots are designed along the WFC/Transformers Prime lines, which is a half-step between Bayformers and Classic style as best as I can put it.

I only play Crisis (the co-op mentioned above) and usually as a healer, and I'm having fun with it despite usually preferring a DPS focused play style. I will give two last pieces of advice though: If you want the healer to keep you alive, DON'T run around all over the map looking for trouble! The healers and tanks are the same speed and DPS units are usually faster, so he will never catch you and and experienced medic won't even try until you come to him, or at least stop running around like a turbo-chicken with a crashed logic processor. Second, the Terrocon Screamers are popcorn grunts while the bigger guys creep along menacingly with their big hammer, but kill the Screamers first anyway rather than getting focused on the damage sponges. Screamers are fast, have rockets, and like to run away from short-ranged stuff, while the heavies are dirt slow and only have melee attacks.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

My antivirus is about to run out.
I've been using bitdefender, but I'm not fond of it. It keeps asking me to log into their website, and it's got a very annoying habit of flashing large advertisments for itself on the bottom of my screen.
Does anyone have any suggestions for a good, discrete antivirus?

of kidney failure. I did get to hold her until she stopped breathing, though, like I did while Mum tied off the umbilical cord and delivered the other puppies.

I haz a sad.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows