Monday, September 23, 2002

A Postmortem   Well, it wasn't the night I would have chosen. But it could have been worse. The rundown:   5:00PM Yay! Yime to go. I roust Mike and George from their cubes, and we head to the Aston Martin. Fred calls shotgun. Some sort of pseudo-legal wrangling ensues based on myriad details of shotgun calling. After an excruciating interlude, a 20 sided die is rolled and the matter is resolved, with Fred retaining shotgun priviledges. I query the troops on proposed destinations. "Food" appears to be the unanimous choice, which I quickly veto. No alcohol buffers allowed. I use the word "troops" to denote my desire for total control over these nancy boys for the evening. When I say "Drink!", these bastards better say "How much?"   5:18PM First stop: Liquor Mart! The take: three Pabst 40s' and a fifth of Old Crow. As we speed away, Mike spills some PBR on the Aston Martin's baby sealskin seat covers. I scream at him "You bastard. I hope you realize that another baby seal will have to be killed to replace that cover. That's no different than if you had killed the seal yourself, Bilbo." While Mike is comfortable with slaughtering hordes of orcs, the seal thing shuts him up for a bit. I, on the other hand, happily whistle a jaunty tune.   5:34PM Second stop: Bar number one. We sit outside the bar for a bit, downing the PBR's. A word on the group dynamic. Mike is clearly the leader of this little twosome and seems to derive his powerful charisma from his overwhelming adherance to the geek sterotype. He's not just socially inept, he seems to believe that being an asshole is the key to acceptance in the D&D community. I hear him deride other's of his tribe for inferior knowledge of Bardic Lore, for example. As for a physical description, Overpowered reader The Raven is pretty much spot on when he writes: "(the leader) will be big, often over 200lbs, and have the sort of facial hair that should be removed." To that I'd like to add "with a guillotine".    George on the other hand, is a nice guy. The sort of inoffensive gump, to whom "nice" is applied, not because it's really descriptive, but because any other adjective is a little too colorful. This guy needs to get away from Mike and go do something. Become a rodeo clown or something. Get a life.     Conversation seems inhibited by my prohibition of work or RPG's as topics. I try to push the conversation to cool stuff like explosives and drugs, you know fun stuff, but these boys ain't having it. I console myself by inventing a drinking game that, without using any exotic die, involves me drinking and swearing as much as possible. It's damn fun.     8:02PM Third stop: Bar number two. By this time, the troops are sporting a fairly decent wobble factor. We've put away a few shots of the Old Crow on the way over and it's working. The dungeon twins are facinated by the sight of women with discernable waists. Now we've moved on to the "why don't women like me?" phase of the evening. Mike and George are in agreement that if only women could understand them, they'd be sure to have girlfriends. That's the only possible reason they don't have girlfriends. As gently as possible, and with the barest minimum of profanity, I inform them that the reason they don't have girlfriends is precisly because women understand them completely. This seems to sober them up.   Shit.   I try to cheer them up with a round of Wild Turkey shots, but that only cheers me up. Hmm. This could be a long night.   9:17PM Fourth stop: Bar number three. The twins are entranced by a delectable young woman up by the bar. It's kinda like Jarod the Subway guy would stare at a cheese covered ham after hitting a bong for the better part of a week. Now, it must be said that this is one yummy treat we're talking about. A veritiable bagatelle. Decked out in leather pants and a top that reveals a breast enhancement of such quality that local plastic surgeons refer to it as "The Pre-nup Disposer". I'm doing a bit of staring myself. But not like the RPG twins. My suggestion that Mike buy her a drink is treated with derision. Probably a wise choice on his part.     The twins are finally starting to loosen up. Perhaps the mescaline has done the trick. Maybe the Crow. Whatever it is, they're starting to have fun.   11:22PM Fifth stop: Bar number four. The twins are loaded. Nary a word can pass their lips without a giggle storm erupting. George is talking to a girl. I'm thinking that things are going pretty well, so I head to the Aston to finish off the rest of the Crow. Upon the my return, I realize that something has gone horribly wrong. A bouncer has Mike's hands tied up over his head, and George has a distinctly post-vomit look about him. It turns out that George has decided that rather than discretely slip away to the bathroom to throw up, as any Overpowered reader would do, that the better choice would be to throw up on the girl he was talking to, along with her former Golden Gloves winning boyfriend. While I cannot but admire the audacity of this manuever, George neglected to develop an exit strategy while he was in the pre-vomit phase of execution. A common mistake, and a painful one. Off we go.   Addendum: Our night on the town was the hot topic of conversation at the day job. Apparently this was the best night the twins have had. Ever. They want to go out next weekend. No fucking way. I'm sorry, but that wasn't even a good night for a Tuesday. My helping days are done. From now on, it's all about me. 8:38:13 PM    comment []

Fine, I've changed the damn font. Now go bother someone else. 6:50:22 PM    comment []

Thursday, September 19, 2002

The +2 sword of Virginity I was sitting in my cube at the day job, and heard the guys in the next cube talking about role-playing. Naturally I stopped mixing my Tanqueray and tonic and listened in, as I thought I might be regaled by tales of someone's girlfriend dressed up as a BDSM housemaid or something, but no such luck. Apparently they were discussing the internal dynamics of something called "Neverwinter Nights". As I continued to listen (some might say eavesdrop, but those people don't have the responsibility of being the Overpowered Executive Editor hanging over their heads) I gathered that this is some computer game where a player pretends to be a gnome, or an elf, or a unicorn wrangler, or a toll booth collector, and runs around killing imaginary creatures while spouting off in middle english. That was about a month ago. Since then I've: 1) stopped listening, 2) upped the vital Tanqueray and tonic per hour ratio (henceforth to be referred to as the TTPH), and 3) started to feel really bad for these guys. Normally I'd just sit back and heckle, but perhaps I've mellowed out a bit, or possibly I'm just drunker than I thought. Either way I've decided to help these guys. God forgive me, I've gone all soft.     Mike (not his real name) is really into ninjas. I mean really into ninjas. Every Halloween he dresses up like a ninja at work. I get the feeling that he'd dress up like a ninja at all times if it were socially acceptable. This is not socially acceptable of course, even by his lowered standards.  (An aside: When's the last time you saw a ninja kick anyone's ass? It seems like 6 ninjas are always sneaking up on some guy and then getting their asses kicked. I wager that Betty White could take out 3 ninjas, no problem.) He is, no doubt, just hoping that someday he'll meet a smart, pretty girl who also really likes ninjas. He won't, and even if he did, she'd want nothing to do with him. In fact she'd probably cut his head off with her ninja sword, and go home to check out the latest Sex in the City. I suspect that in his darkest times, right before he falls alseep at night, he knows he'll never meet this ethereal dream ninja babe. It can't be a comforting thing. Target number 1.     George is into renaissance fairs. A lot. He owns tunics. Multiple tunics. 'Nuff said. Target number 2.      So now it's a project to drag these guys into the real world. I'm going to take these guys out for a night on the town! Whoopee! Really load 'em up on Pabst Blue Ribbon and mescaline. I will, of course, be toting a stale baguette which I shall whap them with if I hear any talk of magical daggers of ennui or anything. The best case scenario will be if I manage to hook them up with a couple of undiscerning young tramps, who are interested enough in their wallets that they can ingore the "My barbarian dwarf defeated the Mage of Involuntary Celibacy and all I got was this t-shirt" clothes and complexions only slightly less pale than ill fed maggots. A really thorough humping might be just what these guys need to break the cycle.      I don't really hold out hope that the night will go that well of course. If I had to lay bets, I'd guess that I'll be upping the TTPH at a positively astonishing rate, while my sartorially challenged sidekicks debate the merits of flaming polearms of sexual frustration or whatsit. Assuming this happens, I'll likely suck up the rest of the mescaline, and play KnightRider in the Overpowered company Aston Martin whilst finishing off the PBR's. After all, I tried to help. 10:00:05 PM    comment []

Wednesday, September 18, 2002

Elizabeth Hurley - Overpowered Girl Mmmmmmmmm. Liz Hurley. Liz is the ultimate Overpowered girl. Here's a brief rundown of why Liz is better than you in every conceivable way: 1)She's hot Oh man. She is so hot. Just looking at her picture makes me want to hump her. Her humpability is just astonishing. I mean, she's like 50 years old, yet she's soo hot. 2)She's rich While the Overpowered team has no problem with hot poor girls (see yesterday's update), hot rich girls are just better. 'Cause they can buy me drugs and Aston Martins. And blimps. And blimp docks. And monkeys. 3)She's English Or British, I don't know which. And before any of you nincompoops send me any emails informing me that Britain includes England, Wales, and some damn island nobody has ever heard of, my ignorance on this matter is entirely by choice. I don't care what the difference between English and British is. Anyways, to an American, a hot chick with an English accent is super hot. Now I imagine that if I were to spend any time in England, or possibly even in Britain, that accent probably would get annoying, along with the English themselves. But since I don't hear it that often, it's charming. 4)She's horny I was talking to my friend Jordy, and he told me that Liz was totally horny. And I was like, how do you know? And he's all "you know she has a baby, right? You know how they make babies, right?" So I puched him wicked hard. But then I though about it and he's right. She must be totally horny. Man, I want to hump her. 7:23:56 AM    comment []

Tuesday, September 17, 2002

Response to a reader complaint Sept 17th - The Overpowered Gebirgslair     Recently the Overpowered Customer Service Department let me know about a common complaint from our viewers. It seems that some of you don't like the font used in the stories posted here on Overpowered. That some of you so called 'readers' have to squint to read the stories due to the size of the font.     To me, this means one of two things. You're old, and can't see very well. Or, you're poor, and can't afford a decent monitor. Either way, we here at Overpowered don't care. Now I imagine that some of you won't be all that thrilled with this explanation. So let me expand upon this.     The Marketing and Propaganda department here at Overpowered is continually involved in extensive market research. Animal testing, 'Trading Places' style hijinks, and other ingenious marketing techniques. And all of our market research points to two inescapable facts: Old people are icky and poor people don't matter.     That old people are icky should come as no surprise to anyone. They just are. They're all wrinkly and they eat at Bill Knapps and they drive Grand Marquis and they watch "Diagnosis Murder". We don't want any part of that.     On to the poor. We here at Overpowered like to think that we're one of life's finer things. Like snorting a line of coke off the full grain walnut dash board of one of the company Aston Martins. But in order to convince you, the reader, that Overpowered really has that certain cache, we need to exclude people. Excluding people just exudes class. And poor people are the obvious choice. Because they don't have any money. I mean, come on, if you can't afford a 19" monitor, how the hell are you going to keep me flush with angel dust and Ferraris?     Now, the Overpowered editorial staff doesn't hate all poor people. Actually, we don't hate any poor people. We just don't want to be like them. In fact, some of our favorite hot chicks are poor hot chicks. But poor hot chicks have an advantage over the rest of you shlubs, they don't have to be poor. Unlike you people, they always have the option of pulling an Anna Nicole. All they have to do to enter the Overpowered demographic is to drop a pencil in front of some Dick Cheney look a like while he's on the way to his cardiologist, and bang, they jump 17 tax brackets. So if you're poor, but hot, Overpowered would like to specifically include you in the Overpowered club. We respect your future earnings potential. Perhaps we'll start a "Poor but Hot" gallery just to give these girls the attention they crave, and access to our rich and morally compromised readers, thus helping to expand the Overpowered demographic and helping our nation's troubled economy. So send in those pics if you want to be in the club. If you're hot. But if you're old or poor (but not hot), we've got nothing for you here. Go to some other site that uses a bigger font. 6:57:01 PM    comment []

Tuesday, August 27, 2002

It takes a nation of millions to come up with an idea this bad It has come to my attention that on 2-18-1990 the episode of "Life Goes On" titled "Corky Rebels" was originally aired. "Life Goes On" was the horrible family drama that convinced the world the Down's Syndrome and early prime time TV do not go together. What was special about this particular episode you ask? Corky apparently sang a version of Public Enemy's "Fight the Power". I have thus far been unable to find a version of this, but one can hope. The mind reels at the story ideas that must have been turned down for this episode. "I know, Becca and Corky can do a duet of G.G. Allen's greatest hits followed by a threesome with Becca, Corky, and Gil Gerard". And people say I'm cynical... 6:52:25 PM    comment []

Monday, August 26, 2002

Yet another true story My roommate casually mentioned to me today that when he was younger he had spent a year in Australia. Apparently he was out camping with some friends when the coolest thing ever happened. They were cooking up some sausages on the grill when dingos stole his bratwurst. Sorry, perhaps this update was not quite as charming as promised, I'm currently in a Buffy induced haze. I'll try harder, I promise. 11:58:18 PM    comment []

Sunday, August 25, 2002

Squishy Brain Sorry, I've been on vacation for a week so no updates. Tomorrow I'll post something charming, I'm sure.  10:18:26 PM    comment []

Thursday, August 15, 2002

Fantoccini The following story is true, although as usual the names have been changed: I'm in the HR meeting a couple of days ago, and we're asked to introduce ourselves and provide a little known fact about ourselves. So Fred, who's an all around cool guy and a bit of a jokester, introduces himself and tells the assembled resources that a little known fact about himself is that he grew up in a family of travelling puppeteers. Hysterics ensue on my part. Explosive giggling. The entire geometry of my face is slightly distorted due to the pressure of these giggles, much the way that the earth slightly bulges around its equator. If you listen closely, you can hear the blood vessels in my eyes bursting. I'm thinking that this is one of the best meeting performances I've ever seen. We've always enjoyed messing with the HR folks, but Fred's really raised the bar with this.     Fred, while laughing a bit himself, says no, he's not kidding. He also mentions that these were Christian travelling puppeteers. Round 2. Teams of US Geological Engineers are puzzled by anomalous data on their seismographs. Small mammals for a 20 mile radius are acting nervous. My bicuspids are embedded in the the wall after being shot across the room at a sizeable fraction of the speed of sound by one particularly violent set of giggles. After what seems like a fortnight, I manage to compose myself. Mostly.     Later that day, Fred shows me his parent's web site. The following is a direct quote:  "Together, Michael and Susan have over 20 years of experience in puppet ministry". Ooohoo ho ho hee hee ho ho. Why does this matter? "I'm sorry, we're really looking for someone who has had at least 3 years of experience with marionettes and Leviticus." Apparently Fred and family lived a semi-vagabond existence, like a rogue group of puppeteer outlaws, from which Fred escaped when he went off to college. It sounded a bit like "Turn the Page" crossed with Sesame Street. Oh boy. I don't want to put the link in here, because these are likely decent people and don't deserve a bunch of grief. But man, that was a meeting. 6:06:30 PM    comment []

Wednesday, August 14, 2002

Laszlo This is an actual email sent out to our entire company. Some names have been changed to protect my job. >To: All_Users > Subject: RE: Welcome XXXX XXXXXXX > > Dear all, > > I apologize for the typo that I referred "XXXX" as "Laszlo" in my previous email.  XXXX is attending an engineering  seminar today but will be back to the office tomorrow.  Please drop by to welcome him. > > Thank you, > XXXXX XXXXXXXX I'm not quite sure why I find this so amusing, but I've been calling everyone I meet Lazlo for quite awhile now. 10:36:03 PM    comment []

Tuesday, August 13, 2002

Why I hate the name "Chuck" OK, I've gotten a bit of grief over the last few days on my self confessed loathing of the name "Chuck". Aparently there is a small but active group of ChuckHuggers out there who have taken issue with my stance. Polite yet disturbingly insistent emails have found their way to my inbox letting me know that "Chuck" isn't so bad, and anyways it the person that matters isn't it? While I may agree with the second part of that statement conceptually, the problem is that the person CHOSE to be called "Chuck". Except in the rare case of hick parents who went with "Chuck" as a legal name while deep in a Yoohoo and Robitussin induced haze, "Chuck" was someone's preferred diminutive of "Charles". Can you imagine what the world must look like to a person who thought their best choice was "Chuck"? Yipes. Vacation next week. Yippie! 11:20:04 PM    comment []