For the third time in as many days I've just finished shoveling out a canyon through which (I hope) my car will fit, so that I may hit the road tonight.
The car hasn't left the driveway in a week.

I figured, what the hell, it's Christmas, right? If you aren't having a white one and want it, print this out and stick it over your window.



(That white lump with the line of blue tarp peeking out underneath is my boat. The other white lump is my car. O_o. This is facing just west of due south
from my front porch.)

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs

Twas the night before Christmas,

And all through the base

Was the resounding echo of Gen

Stuffing her face.

Oblivious to the season

She had found quite a feast

Pies, cakes and sugarplums

And of course, roast beast.

As she licked the plates clean,

Mag popped inside,

As he started angrily screaming,

Gen, confused, ran to hide.

"That was for Christmas," Mag sputtered

"Christmas, a time for joy!"

As the other members filed in,

All sighed a resounding "Oh boy..."

Gen saw what she had done

And felt very very sad.

She didn't want the Legendary to think

That she was bad.

She left the base, her mind a twitter

And paced outside in thought.

How to repair the damage

Her stomach had wrought?

She smiled and grinned

As an idea unfurled

With a beat of her wings

Into the sky she hurtled

She searched high and low

Trying to find

The perfect thing to repair

A ruined Christmas time.

And at the base,

The Legendary were cleaning

Bits of food Gen had got

On the floors and ceiling.

"Don't worry Mag," they all said

"She's not a bad lizard,"

"She just has hollow legs"

"And can't fill her gizzard..."

When from the base portal

Arose such a clatter

All the members ran over

To see what was the matter.

There was Gen, her arms loaded with stuff!

Ham, pies, cakes, rolls, a feast!

A spread fit for a king,

To say the least.

The main course, a little unsettling -

Gen had gone hunting, so it seemed

For she had brought a brace of Rikti Monkeys

Their faces locked in a silent scream.

Gen herself cooked up the dinner

And much to everyone's surprise,

Her cooking skills were impeccable!

And tears filled everyone's eyes.

Even the Rikti Monkey roast

Was eaten with delight

"A little tough, but now we see,"

"Why you eat these guys every night!"

The feasting went on for hours

And merriment and mirth were had

Their bellies filled with her food,

Indeed, everyone was glad!

As laughter filled the air

Gen simply smiled and said,

"Merry Christmas to all!"

And took herself to bed.

"I serve the Darkness and the Darkness serves me. How may this one be of assistance tonight?"

darkness's peon is a level 50 dark/dark/soul corrupter and if I had to describe her would be as a dark Healer or a dark Defender trapped on the Villain
side. She is a support build, a D^3 as it were. Shock, horror. Yes, this is not using the corrupter archetype to the full potential, but dp was around before
the Pain domination set, and before Thermals took off, and filled a niche. She was a healer in a land with no healers. She kept teams on their feet and rolling
- dp had a large heal that almost never missed. Teams loved the green numbers, and with Shadow Fall and Hover/Fly running she could stand beside almost anyone
and fire off a heal. Funny thing was, as soon as she fell, the team fell shortly there after. dp was built before I got into Mids, and yes, I know, she does
focus on support powers over offense powers. Apart from the Patron arc, Aura, costume and other missions like that, dp has taken only about 6-10 mission
herself, and soloed even less. She really only discovered that she had any sort of offensive 'teeth' in the early 40s. When she got going ('let the
stops out') in i11, at level 50, while her end held up she could tear anything apart in PvE and in PvP would stalemate anything and even once beat a regen
scrapper when they missed a click in Siren's. She was a Terror (capital T) to fight against.

All that being said, it was recently put forward, that I should make a PvP build of dp.

Problems with dp? There are a few problems with dp. Her current build is not finished as in not fully slotted with IOs. Below is the ideal IO build as it
currently stands. She has nothing in Nightfall, Health is just level 30 Health IOs, Blackstar is 1 Acc, 3 x Dam, and Dark Embrace is just plain resist IOs.
Those are just a few of the sets missing.

I've also posted some of the ideas I've had while fiddling around with Mids.

Now as I was saying: Problems with dp - she eats end and lots of it. When she gets going her end drops quite rapidly. When she's in support mode, its
fairly stable but still fluctuates.

Lack of damage - as a support build dp has little or no offense.

Now dp is quite happy as a support build for her primary build... if only it wasn't soo tiring. And as regards PvP, i12 has changed things so that she
can't stalemate as well anymore, and doesn't have a hope of really winning given her poor damage.

Can you help improve her normal build? Please? Or make her a PvP build?

Budget wise - dp is by far the richest of my redside toons, 26mil on hand, but just say unlimited as things can be bartered, earned, farmed, or obtained via
merits.

Primary build: Improve her end, don't really worry about increasing damage. There's rp reasons why she's not damage first.

PvP build: RP reasons go out the window - Increase end, Increase Damage, Increase Acc. (Rebuild mah toon!)

Shader

...mainly of our friend Ronni, now long out of contact, who was and probably still is a huge Thundercats fan:

(Gag) trailer for a live-action
Thundercats.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

So, a day after getting back to the folks place for break (19 Dec 08), my laptop fan has been vibrating and buzzing rather badly sounding. Today the system
finally realized that the fan is dead/dying and refuses to boot. Luckily I have a old spare tower here for backup with an even older CRT monitor.(I'll have
to load up CoH on here before I can do anything much with it.) Hopefully come next week there'll be someone in at the warranty repair place at the Uni
wherein my dad works, so I may have everything back up and running before break is over here.

...So, don't be surprised/worried if I'm absent for awhile, gotta get the backup back up to speed.
---

The Master said: "It is all in vain! I have never yet seen a man who can perceive his own faults and bring the charge home against himself."

>Analects: Book V, Chaper XXVI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JhAPkkLgtI

-----------------

Epsilon

It's official, fanfiction has been replaced.

"The two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a big fat white guy who is threatened by change."

-- Seth MacFarlane
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin

Have you seen the mistletoe?  It fills the night with kisses.
Have you seen the bright blue star? It fills your heart with wishes.
Have you seen the candlelight?  It shines from every window.
Have you seen the moon above?  It lights the sky in silver.

Green is in the mistletoe and red is in the holly.
Silver in the stars above that shine on everybody.
Gold is in the candlelight and crimson in the embers.
White is in the winter night that everyone remembers.

Have you heard the boys all sigh, when all the girls are skating?
Have you heard the sweetheart's cry, for all this time they're waiting?

Green is in the mistletoe and red is in the holly.
Silver in the stars above that shine on everybody.
Gold is in the candlelight and crimson in the embers.
White is in the winter night that everyone remembers.

Have you seen the children playing? Tiny hands are frozen!
Have you seen them hurry home, when suddenly it's snowing?

Green is in the mistletoe and red is in the holly.
Silver in the stars above that shine on everybody.
Gold is in the candlelight and crimson in the embers.
White is in the winter night that everyone remembers.

Have you heard that bells are ringing, ringing out their story?
Have you heard the choir singing Glory, Glory Glory!
-- Enya, White Is In The Winter Night

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

http://www.ncsoft.net/global/ir/quarterly.aspx
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

So work finally interviewed a bunch of people, picked one, indicated to the guy that we'd like to hire him and could he please come in the next day and
sign some forms so we could get the paperwork started...

And later that day the administration announced a mandatory campus-wide hiring freeze, effective immediately and lasting until July 1, 2009, when it
would be reviewed and hopefully lifted. Now I could say a lot about our Kaiser-Provost (like Kaiser-Ghidorah, but... well, the Provost instead of a
three-headed kaiju) and his Moses on the mountain style of management--but I'd be mixing metaphors like a drunken, mixing monkey after a nine hour
"Will It Blend?" marathon. And I'd probably never get around to telling the rest of the story.

Yeah, there's more.

We asked for an exemption to the policy, request denied, no surprise there. But they're going to go ahead and remodel and move our faculty into the new
(well, less old) building, AND go ahead with the first building rollout for their 'Next Generation Network' for which we will be the lab rats. So I get
to do a complete reconfig on our labs and tutoring center. Again. (5th time in 8 years.) Into a smaller space. And we're going to do it mid-semester. And
simultaneously migrate to a new network architecture. But obviously, we can't hire someone. That would be irresponsible.

If you thought you caught the brimstone stench of university politics in that statement, you were not mistaken. The College has its own aggressively expanding
IT shop that considers us to be an unruly "satellite" they'd like to bring firmly under their control. The Schools of Engineering and Business,
meanwhile, want to take our undergraduate math-for-engineers/business courses (and millions of dollars in tuition annually) for themselves--my position/budget
and our tutoring center is an almost incidental fraction of that money, but a substantial part of the case for math being taught by the Mathematics Department.
And who makes these decisions? Kaiser-Provost, formerly the Dean of Engineering and driving force behind the last unsuccessful attempt to steal those
classes... and the College Dean, the Provost's under-qualified creature, appointed primarily for his ability to Know His Place. Which is at the side of his
dark master.

We aren't just caught between a rock and a hard place. The rock and the hard place are conspiring against us.

This would be the point where, if we were having this conversation face to face, you would ask me why I'm smiling. Imagine it's an evil grin, if you
will. Sanguine. Like Dr. Horrible, I need to work on my evil laugh.

I have another job offer. Not right away, the position won't open up for a few months, and the benefits aren't as nice, but hey, it's a way out if
things do go south. I'm not DOOMED. And meanwhile... if I quit, they couldn't even hire my replacement and they know it. Suddenly, my schedule is
flexible again and I'm no longer expected to work so much overtime. Not being taken for granted so much now. It takes some of the edge off the stress. And
the College tech who has been assigned to help us seems to know his stuff.

Side effect of all this; I hope to be around a bit more.