Still preoccupied with 1985

Here's some shit:

Michael E. McDaniel said...

Hi, I'm amazed to see you spend so much time on my list (as I find my work wholly undeserving of such attention). However, I've always known creating lists of this nature is a combustible enterprise, especially when discussing comic book characters. I read your initial response, perused this one as well, and found them both pretty hilarious. I hope none of this turned you off of my serious work in reviewing comics, I’m not sure if you’ve read any of them but in doing so you might see that when I write those Top Ten’s I’m being silly on purpose.

I must say that my article was satire, as I obviously have no wish to say anything definitive (or anything at all really) about manliness, superheroes, or anything in between. My article prefaces with this statement. I should also note that I write these articles with a specific eye towards getting people riled up. I knew putting Batman at 10 would be shocking—thus encapsulating the whole reason I did it. I also tried to capture a sense of ‘manliness’ that Maddox uses that is a ridiculous concept to be celebrated, yet I did for comedic effect. Any and all lists such as these are for fun, I’m never serious when I write them, so understand that I take liberties with the characters often. That’s all; hope you keep reading our little site. May I suggest my other list: the Top Ten Un-Manliest Superheroes. I’m sure you’ll find it as disagreeable as the first.

6:47 PM

Highlander said...

Michael,

Thanks for stopping by.

I had more -- lots more -- but, never mind. I appreciate all my comments, even the condescending ones from alleged writers who feel that "I was only kidding" is an excuse for any offense against language and/or art (such as, for example, creating a list of 'superheroes' when one obviously has no clear idea exactly what a 'superhero' may be, or redefining the word 'manly' repeatedly in the course of an article until said word becomes little more than an arbitrary string of letters one is using to evoke limbic responses in one's audience).

Uh... okay, yeah, that was pretty much what I wanted to say.

I appreciate the link to your other articles; I may read them, but probably not today, as this is my day off and I have a great deal of stuff on the list for it.

But, again, thanks for stopping by. Always good to know other people do ego searches, too.

So, you know, I found that on the blog this morning, under the My Hero entry.

As to that list of stuff I want to get done today --

Well, the beef stew for dinner is in the crock pot simmering away. Here's what I learned doing that -- peeling veggies and chopping them up is a lot harder than SuperFiancee, or any of those inferior wenches on the Cooking Channel like Rachel Rae or Paula Dean or that one drunk blonde, make it look. Wow! Plus, your hands totally smell like onions when you're done.

Now, I need to get the following done today, I hope, before the kids all get home from school and domestic life kicks into high gear once more --

First, my HeroClix House Rules need to be updated. Both Mike Norton and Tony Collette have signed off on the fly-by taxi rules, so they'll get added in. Neither of them mentioned the idea of auto-knockback, and having through it through further, I think WizKids does an okay job already having knockback only occur on doubles. What I will do, though, is make it a further modifier for Super Strength -- take close combat damage from a fig with Super Strength, you take Knockback, too. "Can you fly, Bobby?" You can if Superman punches you in the mouth! BAM!

I'll probably add in some all new, all different Feats, too, like Polymorph, Warp In, and a new one I came up with in a comment thread recently, Sacrifice Play.

I've also been thinking of eliminating WK's long ago mod to how damage is done to multiple targets. Originally, a fig could do full damage to multiple targets with a ranged attack; then they changed that, and now you have to divide damage between targers. I wasn't wild about that when I first heard about it, but grumbled and rolled with it. The more I think about it, though, the less sense it makes -- I mean, seriously, how is that ranged weapons do less damage when fired at more than one target? Do the bullets/arrows/energy bolts get lighter? It's stupid. So I'll probably redo that, too.

That's House Rules stuff. I'm also, in abject emulation of Mike Norton's example, working on a new blog that will just be for my 'occasional firebrand dip into politics', as Opus once put it. And I have to tinker with the format over there, and maybe even whack together some kind of initial article, and then do a group email to the Privileged Few advising them of the link.

In the meantime, SuperFiancee has an awesome Hallowe'en post up, with many adorable pictures of the SuperKids. Once again, you go there, you immediately grasp on the most basic and visceral level how I am the luckiest man in the universe, you are eaten alive with envy, and life is good. Initiate this sequence now.

And Happy Hallowe'en!