• Do you have the FFVII paper available to read online?

• This malady is one that my female family members and friends constantly lament. For all society's posturing on how large breasts are desirable and wonderful, there's a lot of undermining going on. Bras are exorbitantly expensive for the fuller-breasted woman, fashionable clothing is not designed for them, revealing too much is deemed immoral and prurient, the mass of one's bosom is perplexingly linked to brain power and sexual drive. Somewhere in between all the idolizing, society made things harder at the same time.

• Pitch it. Pitch it now.

• I got married.... End of Line

• You can find a draft at heroschains.tumblr.com - link to the start is on the right side.

• I don't mind it, as long as it doesn't distract from the narrative flow too much. I've learned that less is more when it comes to telling a story; you should be able to get your point across with the least amount of redundancies possible. Also, you don't want your reader to be reminded they're reading a book, so a coherent, easy-to-follow narrative helps keep the reader immersed. And a good example of ponderous language: Tolkein. Now THAT'S trying to push your head through Jello. ;)

• I loved the Turbo. "Bonk's Adventure" was the best.

• Ponderous may be generous - I've been told by friends reading it is like pushing ones head through jello.

• Mine is a very in-depth but also very personal “pyrrhic victory” in a very geeky and heartbreaking sense as it involves my Transformer toy collection. I had put in best part of a week in my mind planning this event. I decided I wanted to go all out on this particular play day. I had the animated movie on standby, the soundtrack, the series all waiting to go on in the background. I spent the best part of the day setting up battlefield locations in my room, where bases were to be staged. So much planning and time spent on making everything perfect. (Many characters were justified to coexist in the same timeline/dimension) plus plot twists! The decepticons had previously splintered into 3 factions. One lead by Galvatron consisting of Cyclonus, Scourge, Constructicons, Stunticons, Astrotrain, Blitzwing , Octane and Soundwave, run about and runamok and Trypticon. The second lead by Bludgeon which consisted of  Krok, Octopunch, Skullcruncher, Mindwipe, Weirdwold, Stranglehold, The predacons and Terrorcons, Fangrey, submaruader, quake, slugslinger, triggerhappy, doubledealer, spinister and Scorponok. The third was lead by thunderwing, Starscream, Combaticons, darkwing and dreadwind , stalker, flywheels, battletrap, acidrain, thurst, dirge, ramjet, thundercracker, skywarp and sunstorm and Overlord. Contact was made between Bludgeons and Galvatrons factions for a truce and to reunite, colead and to claim an Autobot planet outpost similar to moonbase one or two but rich in resourches and supplies. The Decepticons wanted to strip down this planet in everyway possible to create a new army and to reclaim cybertron. This planet had peaceful inhabitants (rocklords, gobots, micromasters, various knock off/80s/90s robots from carboots and other toylines etc) The culling of these peacful inhabitants was swift and easy but one had managed to get away, the Autobot Quickswitch who had chosen to go their to live out a peaceful existance after the last great war. Chased by Cyclonus and skywarp, quickswitch managed to make warp jump and crashed landed on earth. Cyclonus and Skywarp followed him in his own warpjump and managed to land without detection. The autobots on earth Optimus Prime, Jazz, Prowl, Springer, Ultra Magnus, Protectobots, Bumblebee, beachcomber, warpath, dinobots, sprocket, gripper, rollout, inferno, sideswipe, seasprey, metroplex, nightbeat, hardhead, chromedome, highbrow broadside, sandstorm, ratchet and rescueforce were constructing a new waste recycling plant to help the humans repair earths ozon layer when a distress call is heard from Cycbertron. Rodimus Prime has had to evacuate the survivors consisting of the arielbots, technobots, kup, blurr, hotrod, hound, cliffjumper, cosmos, blaster, perceptor, streetwise, wheeljack, ironhide, landmine, skyfire and jetfire (two macross figures with different paintjobs so used as brothers) escape on skylynx and omega supreme to get back to earth. A decepticon force had hit them so hard so quickly that the planet fell to decepticon control. The autobots regroup and discuss strategy. Galvatron and Bludgeon get to cybertron to realise Thunderwing and his forces had got there first. A skirmish between the three takes place and Thunderwing gets the upperhand and he and his forces declares that ultimate decepticon glory is at hand. Uniting all three factions they move on to earth. The autobots on earth recieve the survivors from cybertron and repair them as soon as possible going over what had happened. As they were discussing plans of action. The united decepticon forces teleport in and attack autobot city. All hell breaks loose, the battle is hellish and taxing on both sides. the decepticons deploy scorponok, overlord and trypticon as their own decepticon city. For hours the battle is stalemate. Galvatron, Thunderwing and Bludgeon watch from afar at their impending victory until Bludgeon decapitates thunderwing. Galvatron shocked attempts to take out Bludgeon until he is stopped himself by none other than Shockwave. Shockwave explains that there is a new leader and points to the sky. Megatron is decending on the the battlefield with UNICRON behind him. Shockwave explains to galvatron that megatron is the true leader and bludgeon summoned megatron, shockwave and unicron to wipe out the autobots. He then shoots galavatron in the face and kills him. Shockwave and Bludgeon go to join Megatron. The war now is a joke, it’s almost a borderline cataclysm. Theres very little in it for either side. The autobots know that it is only a matter of time. Perceptor, Firstaid, Ractchet, Omega Supreme and the Technobots went to Optimus, believing that each transformers personality is duplicated and stored in vector sigma thus can be reactivated in a newly constucted body, coming to the conclusion that is they can get back to cybertron, activate the plasma energy chamber and activate vector sigma, revive the fallen autobots, they could then secretly refill their ranks, and retake cybertron right under the decepticons noses and overpower unicron. Optimus believes there is some truth in this as the matrix may be the key to restoring cybertron and reviving everyone. Quickswitch appears and finally catches up with the autobots. He offers to fly prime to cybertron personally to achieve this. Everyone else rejoins the battlefield and attempts to keep a stalemate. Prime gets to cybertron and has a back up plan. He then activates the matrix and vector sigma and plasma energy chamber. By doing this he gains the powermaster armour. Alpha trion informs prime that unicron must be defeated first in order for this to work as the unicrons influence prevents the reboot of the transformers. But prime has one final idea. Prime, Apex and Quickswitch head back to earth. Meanwhile almost everyone is dead. There are a handful of survivors left remaining fighting. Grimlock, Jazz, Ultra Magnus and Snarl are fighting Bludgeon, Jazz, Sprocket, Rollout, springer, hound and streetwise are holding Shockwave to a standstill. Quickswitch, Apex and Prime arrive back from cybertron and rejoin the assualt on the last 3 decepticons. Prime and Megatron clash as bludgeon and shockwave take down the remaining autobots. The battle begins to wind down, snarl is left facing bludgeon as Jazz confronts shockwave. Snarl kills bludgeon both shell and tank and succumbs to his own wounds, and jazz commits suicide to take out shockwave by shooting him pointblank in the face with his shoulder mounted rocket launcher. Megatron tries to convince prime to join him and rule together under unicron. Prime simply says no and obliterates megatron. Prime turns his attention to unicron. Picks up grimlocks sword and his own cannon and goes to confront unicron, but as he begins to do so, unicron gathers the remains of megatron and reformats him into nemesis prime. Nemesis confronts Optimus.... a battle of epic proportions. When prime finally slays nemesis prime. Unicron is furious. Optimus prime confronts unicron and mocks him to follow him. Prime then flies back to cybertron with unicron right behind him. Prime gets to the core of the planets and continues to mock unicron until he begins to devour cybertron. Prime lets him do this to a certain point when he detonates the plasma energy chamber and vector sigma and kills unicron whilst destroying cybertron. Leaving prime the last autobot. Prime hopes that by downloading vector sigma earlier on into the  matrix, he can use it the matrix to restore cybertron and the transformer race. I never got to finish the battle or continue it to see if prime was successful. I transformed those who transformed one last time back into vehicle mode. Rearmed everyone and packed them all back into their box for storage at my parents. I moved to Bristol the next day for university. I have not played with them since. This was back in 2005 when I was 22 :.( and to this day they still remain at my parents.

• I used to be a member of a Harry Potter RPG where I made several friends that I’m now very close with. Due to reasons I don’t have enough word count to go into, one of our group defected over to a Mafia RPG site and I felt it was my job to bring her back.   Because y'know, Harry Potter roleplaying > any other roleplaying.   After signing up myself, I quickly found out that our friend had backstabbed her way into becoming the most powerful player in this new game (typical Slyhtherin). I tried talking to her, told her we missed her and wanted her back in the group. She said she had too much going on with her new game, so I schemed my way right after her. 3-4 months of careful planning, subtly written roleplays and IRC politicking finally led to her character’s demise.     When it was done, in a grand reveal I explained all: the plotting, the time taken, the hopes I shared with my Harry Potter pals to bring her back to Hogwarts, waiting with baited breath for her gratitude, apologies and admittance of her errors.   Instead, she used a smiley emoticon, e-hugged me and explaining that she really just preferred roleplaying as a Mafioso as opposed to a Harry Potter character. She even asked me to join her new ‘crew’ as she was planning to get right back up there again.   My response? I'm sorry, I can't. I have my O.W.L. exams, but what would you know since you're a Muggle now.   Clearly my Harry Potter putdown made up for the 3-4 months of my life I'll never get back. Ahem.

• Hmm, not a bad intro. I like your use of diction. The language is a bit ponderous at times, but it doesn't get in the way of what you're conveying. It looks like it might be interesting. If you don't mind sharing the rest, you can email it to me: krazy_tofu@yahoo.com

• ...at least you may have gotten in shape from playing DDR.  Maybe.  Right?

• One of my primary sources was the book, "Grand Theft Childhood" - based on a Congressionally-funded study of the topic.   They found that kids who... 1. Only play video games alone, never with friends, and 2. Play over 14 hours a week ...are more likely to have depression.  However, they have no idea if such patterns cause depression, or are simply a symptom of it; they were looking for links between video games, delinquency, bullying, and other measureable indicators of violence, and found nothing appreciable. Also, kids who  3. Play M-Rated games unsupervised (in middle school) were more likely to be depressed. It's an interesting read.

• I try to keep my blurb down to one sentence. "A pacifistic cyborg who winds up stranded on a post-apocalyptic fantasy Earth."

• I've already switched the names when I wrote it. Also the lead heroes are female. To be honest I think my idea is cool I just need a real professional to revise it into something that would actually sell lol.

• I regret to inform you that Professor Xavier has died of old age...On a plus though I created a Brotherhood house that consist of Magneto (he has a red bike helmet, kind of looks like a mentally challenged old dude), Scarlet Witch, Juggernaut (i made him a toddler "baby jugs" why? because I could), Blob (who now owns a bistro called Blobs Slop Hole), Toad, Sabertooth, Mystique (i found out how to make skin blue, it looks just like her), and Pyro. First thing i did was have Sabertooth and Wolverine fight, they are arch enemies. Next up the Avengers house. I'm putting Vision in simply so he and Scarlet Witch can hook up. Maybe get a house of siMs thing going on.

• Long time ago in the ages of Burning Crusade expansion for World of Warcraft the guild whose member I was contested another Horde guild on the rights to be called the best Horde side raiding guild the Black temple was recently opened and we started raiding it like there was no tomorrow. I got hooked on the competition and was doing my best to prove that I was the best Shaman there was competing with my guild's Shamans (who wanted my raid spot) and making sure that my performance numbers where better than the opposing guild's Shaman. So every free minute I had when I was not sleeping or at work a was grinding for reagents, trading the auction house, reading strategy, tips, hunting for equipment I needed to get + 0,1% increase in efficiency. Well the long story short we beat them to Ilidan, killed the bastard 8 hours later my wife (who, I was mostly ignoring during the contest) informed me that she could not cope with my addiction any more and that she was divorcing me. I think this can be called a Pyrric victory? What do you think?

• I now have a new, deeply profound respect (read: fear) for (of) fangirls.  Thank you for that.

• But you were the smarter psychotic-stalker-chick...

• You should just go ahead and scrap this contest and declare everyone whose ever spent time playing an MMORPG the winner

• When I wanted to date my now-husband, I had to be the one to ask him out, and he was so derpy that even three quarters of the way into the conversation he still didn't realize that's what I was trying to do. I had to come right out and say "Look, I want you to take me to the movies, preferably the drive-in, and maybe if you're good, we can make out in the backseat and everything. Capice?" I did this over the phone, so I missed out on what his expression was.

• Maybe not everybody cares, but that is one damn fine RTS, one which my group of friends are using as our 40k gateway drug.

• Any chance you'd either be able to explain that bit about the play patterns indicating depression, or linking to where we can read about it? I'm actually fairly interested.

• When I was in high school, I had a crazy fangirl crush on Elijah Wood thanks to LOTR. In typical crazy fangirl fashion, I had to make my crush known to others. So, on his birthday one year, I put a sign on my backpack that said, "Elijah Wood is [age] today! Happy Birthday!" with pictures of him/Frodo. (I'm actually relieved to have forgotten the age.) Some girl saw it while I was washing my hands in the restroom and said, "I'm going to marry him. I'm his biggest fan." So I looked at her and said, sweetly, "Oh, really? Do you have a backpack sign?" She just mumbled as she opened the door to leave.  ...And I think anytime you win at being the crazier fangirl, it's a Pyyrhic Victory.

• So I say to them, I sez,  "I won this t-shirt of a robot with rocket-boobs by baring my most embarrassing experiences to a bunch of strangers on the internet, in a forum specifically designed as a safe haven for nerds." Seriously. That's worse than my My Little Pony papercrafts on my shelf, the inexplicable collection of Quafe Ultra and Prostitutes in my EVE Online ship hangar, the Jayne-styled hand-knit beanie that was my best Christmas present ever one year, or any of my other nerdy trophies. Out of context, it's just a nerdy-looking shirt. But when I try to explain that I won it by conceptualizing what it would be like if Heroes came to Jesus - or that I desperately want to win another, no matter the cost - it becomes the source of shame. Except with you people. Because *you* people understand. Because you people have met self-fellating Con-lurkers, and will write shitloads of haiku about Transformers on command, and get misty about Bruce Fucking Campbell yelling at people in a panel because he also did a drive-by wedding proposal, etc etc. I refute the idea, that any of my nerdy victories are Pyrrhic.

• beat me to it. oh well. 

• For around ten years my family had an old avocado green stove from the 1950s. I thought it was great, it looked strange and worked most of the time. It had a display of old silver knobs and counters for the heat controls and timer. Totally pretended it was a TARDIS when my parents weren't around. My Grandma couldn’t stand it, and whenever she would visit she’d comment on how she would get my family a new stove one day. Maybe she couldn’t stand it because she was around when that type of stove was common. I woke up one morning, about 13 years old, to find that a delivery guy from Sears was installing a shiny, new white stove and carting our awesome avocado green one out to the back of our house. I was upset with this and demanded my parents send the new stove back and re-install our old one. They didn’t necessarily want a new stove either, but decided to go along with my grandma’s wishes. About six months later the computerized display on the new stove broke, crippling its heating system, timer and clock. My parents had to pay a couple hundred dollars to get an old-style manual knob installed on our stove. They also have to use a separate timer for cooking. Unfortunately our avocado green stove had already been dismantled.

• I don't consider myself a fanatical trophy hunter when it comes to my PS3 games, but if they seem like something that I have a realistic shot of doing then I'm going to go for 'em. Mass Effect 2 fit the bill as to what draws out the completionist in me - great game, trophies that are totally do-able without huge investments of time, and pretty good replay value to begin with. There were a few trophies I missed the first time through, so when I decided to play through again I made them my goal. One of these trophies is "Insanity", completing the game on the hardest difficulty level. I knew that it would be a challenge but figured it was something I could do, so I imported my Infiltrator from my previous game, set it to Insanity difficulty, and started the adventure. I fought my way through Omega, Horizon, the Collector Vessel, and more, and as I did so, I started to come to a conclusion... I was really, really good at this game. I expected to die often, but my character's build proved to be strong, bringing down my enemies before they could get to me as I sniped them from afar. I felt like I had really hit my stride and that I was awesome as I faced off against the final boss. I expected an epic confrontation that would take a few tries, but I had become so awesome that I defeated him the first time. I set through the ending cinematic and credits with a smile on my face, a feeling of a job well done, and an eagerness to hear the familiar trophy tone. And... nothing. No trophy. There was still one trophy missing from my quest for the elusive Platinum. I was shocked. Why didn't I get it? I quickly reloaded my game. I went into the option menu to double check the difficulty setting... and it was set on "Easy". Apparently at some point while fiddling with the settings I accidentally changed the difficulty. All that work for nothing. No trophy. No way to get it without starting from the beginning again. 20-30 hours down the drain. And perhaps worst of all, the realization that I wasn't anywhere near as good as my ego wanted to believe.

• Aww I should totally make a parody episode with my hoard in Skyrim ^_^  It's nowhere near as large, but I'm sure I can do it again.  My in-game wife won't be pleased, though...but I think it will be funny to watch her move around in the piles.

•  Can you EVER have too many handmaidens?

• me too.... and I'm a good editor... so... feel free to send me a (and only one please  :) ) email at jacenokelly at gmail if you want me to read/feedback.

• But the 3 new guys were from outside our division.

• When Mechwarrior was a popular clix based game, I went to a national qualifying competition. The prize was a ticket to nationals, the journey 5 miles on streets during an snowstorm that had closed my state down. I wrecked my car but walked the rest of the way to the tournament beating the 2 other people that came. I then realized as Im towing my car from the ditch it was in how destroyed it was and that I would be unable to go to nationals after winning the damn qualifier, and I had to shell out a few hundred dollars for a new car.

• The DM was  MM and the rest of our players were ABs.

• Yeah; that's what I was asking- seems only the tech people played that game. I'm guessing that the guy you toasted was a Fire Control Tech/ Aviation Fire Control Tech. Just guessin'...

• Science fiction, military, first person auto-biography about a mapping expedition to the Cat's Eye Nebula. After much editing it became titled Cat's Eye Corridor  Here's the blurb, and yes the whole thing reads much like this: “This recounting begins early in the year twenty-one fifteen when I first became enmeshed in the events, well after the initial sparks that ignited it, and my tale ends about the time that these events first became public knowledge. “Since this story focuses on my personal experiences I shall begin by introducing myself, and here I shall not dwell on the present instead I shall instead introduce myself as I was. At the point in my life in which these events unfold I held no titles beyond that of a middling rank crewman, Crewman Second Grade T Collins, Terran Concordance Defense Forces, Bureau of the Navy.I am aware that those contemporary to this work’s recording have strong opinions on me, either in my fame or my infamy earned in the latter era of my life and if not, well… no matter, fame is a fleeting thing and you may set those opinions aside. I do not seek to glorify myself, or my role in these events, I do not seek any fame or notoriety other than that which life has already inflicted upon me. What heroism you may find recorded here is nothing more than that to be found within all people unfortunate enough to find themselves trapped in situations so extraordinary as to require such. This is no tale of heroic larger than life events or daring cinematic deeds. “I have expended great effort in the interest of preserving accuracy and sources include my painfully sharp memories, a declassified copy of the ship’s log and certain items that I have kept safely with me all these many years. Much of what I have written has been reconstructed from the personal journal I kept during that time. Thinking back on how and when I managed the feat of posting entries on a regular basis at all is something that eludes me. That the journals were kept to begin with is wholly to the credit of my upbringing. “It is my goal that through imparting to you my first hand experiences you may better understand the people and activities that surrounded and shaped the events that took place at and in route to Cat’s Eye. Because I was there, on the decks, throughout the whole incident I have written from that point of view, and this should help create a starting place for you to find your own truth. I believe (and hope) I am possessed of enough natural cynicism to offer a relatively unbiased account of events as they unfolded from my perspective and should I fail in this endeavor in any way I shall seek forgiveness from a higher source than my critics.“Those things in our lives that we take for granted, when we are no longer afforded the luxury of ignoring them, settle quickly into the well-defined hierarchy of survival. How rapidly we abandon the luxuries of ethics and morality in favor of a marginally higher probability of survival, and inversely how readily we wager our survival to preserve our arbitrary social values, these are the things which define us as individuals in fundamental and inviolable ways. What we place above survival, and what we do not, forges the brand that labels us villain or champion, hero or coward.” - T Collins

• I won a tshirt for this entry, but lost all respect for TR. 

• I was an EM, worked all the electrical systems for the catapults and arresting gear. If that's what you are asking.

• Thank you for the lesson by example, kieslowskifan1.  To all the young nerds who may be reading this, the best response for a situation like this is the get a confused/naive look on your face and say "Well, doesn't everyone know that?"  You lose no real cred, and you didn't even have to lie.

• Were you ETs, FCs , or DSs? Just askin'.

• <i>*High-fives Ford_Thundercougarfalconbird*</i>

• my pyrric vitory involves trying to prove to a friend the existance of the films rock and rule and sword of the Valient . for so long i have looked for copies of these two films only to wind up with getting close only to be denied . finaly getting them both but the price being that after finaly showing my friend the proof that these films are real i came off as a little bit cocky and also broke an agreement to watch these films together victory achieved but breaking my world in the process not to mention the hunt for these  films boarding on obesssion

• Sounds better than when I tried building the X-Mansion in Sims 1...Xavier just spent his time drinking himself into a stupor and sobbing all day. (I...think I may have slightly underestimated his social needs.)

• Just change the title and the character names, and pitch it as an adaptation of an unrelated property. Believe me, it'll sell.

• I honestly can't remember a single one of my Pyrrhic victories, even though it probably happens frequently. I guess the closest thing to a nerdy Pyrrhic victory that I can remember is that time that I went and spell/grammar checked My Immortal for no reason other than I felt like it. Oh god, there's something wrong with me.

• Maybe you could sew it to the back of a flight jacket, like a Flying Tigers blood chit? ...what? It's technically an option!

• Five lengthy paragraphs, huh? So...how YOU doin'? ;)

• Yes.

• that explains it. (I'm an 80s kid, had to say it.)

• And I'm a '90s kid! :'(

• Very similar to Rob's. I wrote two 80 page essays concerning two different political issues with the Galactic Empire for my government class in high school. The first was simply a more eloquent version of the "private contractors on the Death Star" debate from Clerks. The other was a lengthy, in-depth analysis of the legal and ethical implications of Palpatine using both the Republic and the separatists as either a means to further his political career, or to finally bring peace to the galaxy. I finished both essays, and was going to turn them in for extra credit. Unfortunately, my government teacher got sick and took leave for the rest of the semester. I never got that extra credit, but I did get two weeks of not hanging with my friends or the girl that would eventually become my girlfriend all so I could write two of the nerdiest extra credit essays in my school's history.

• I showed this to my friend, a Doctor in the field, and he simply nodded his head solemnly.

• Is it more or less nerdy that I know the answer because of Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country?

• Your teacher makes me weep for your generation.

• .... Yeah. Yeah you do.

• I'm generally the "never win anything"  type.. save for the time that I entered a contest to win a brand new video game and won.   the game?  Duke Nukem: planet of the babes. FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

• That doesn't answer the question, though, Overlord.

• When I was in third grade, my family moved to a new area and I ended up in a new school. Being the nerdy borderline Aspergers kid that I was, I was not so much into the fairer sex at the time. I was far more interested in my denim jacket with sewn on Nintendo patches and my gameboy holster that held a gameboy and 6 games which fit perfectly on to my belt. I remember this vividly, first day of school, I am trying to play my gameboy on the playground when this female comes up to me and tells me she "likes" me.  I decide instantly that I want nothing to do with this girl and need to get her to leave me alone immediately. My prepubescent genius brain comes up with the following plan... PICK NOSE AND WIPE ON HER.   VICTORY!   She went away. skip to middle school....... people still remember this single incident....awesome. I attribute all my later failings in the social realm to this individual moment.

• A group?

• Super Pedantic Nerd away! AHEM. Technically it seems that the only instances of time travel erasure that occur in Back to the Future happen when the individual's life ends before he makes the time travel trip. Time travellers themselves are somewhat immune to the effects of an altered time stream (hence why Marty was disapering when he prevented his own birth, yet retained all his memories of an unaltered Hill Valley where his Dad was a loser). According to BttF II's commentary by the director and writer, Old Biff WAS in the middle of disapering when he returned to 2015. But not because he erased his own existence, it was instead because Lorraine shot his Evil Tycoon timeline self to death in the year 1996 of the evil timeline. His time jump made his younger self rich, but he aborted himself from the timeline in much the same way Marty almost did in the first film. So technically your husband was correct, but I'd phrase that to him that you were BOTH equally wrong. ... Sweet Jesus I need to talk to get out more. Maybe go to a bar, talk to a real girl, ANYTHING.

• I did that once, excpet I knew the monster from a Castlevania game. Wisely I lied my ass off and said I read about it in a book of Greek mythology.

• Not being much of an MtG player my husband taught me to play because he thought it would be "fun" if we could play together. I should point out that I am a ridiculously poor sport.  After using his decks, and one he made for me, and being beaten repeatedly I decided to make my own. I went with all black fear/deathtouch. Since it wasn't for tournaments, I bought every card from every set I could find and play tested until it was perfect.  Finally we played the big debut match, and my deck kicked the crap out of his, with me smack talking the whole time like. I was so excited to finally win I jumped up, did a victory dance and proceeded to be the least gracious winner of all time. This pretty much happened every time we played and I used that deck, with more smack talk and dancing added. I built a kick ass magic deck with very little experience and was damn proud of it. My husband now blatantly refuses to play against it and because of my inability to contain myself is pretty hesitant to play any sort of game with me now. 

• In 1999, I was in grade 8 and I broke my collar bone. It was a really bad break so I had to stay home from school for a few days and all I did was watch The Matrix over and over again. I thought I knew more about that movie than anyone else in my class and to prove that I did, I made a point of re-enacting every scene from the movie. However, since I couldn't play every character at once (obviously) I acted it all out using toy cars as the characters. All of this done from memory. There is a VHS tape somewhere in my house with a pretty damn accurate version of The Matrix starring toy cars.

• I have a similar story in this vein. Due to multiple playthroughs of the Silver and Yellow versions (not to mention a friend who hacked Celebi and Mew into his game to trade with me), I almost had a complete Pokedex on Pokemon Gold for the GBC. The game clock logged something like 380 hours (I used to STINK at viedogames), but I had almost achieved the unachievable. I'd encounterd every single pokemon, I had to but capture the last two legendary cats, and then I would know true glory. Then one day, I go out training, save game, restart, and try to load my file. It was gone. After an hour of frantic screaming which turned eventually to big, blubbery tears of true sadness, I google search and find out about the limited battery life of the Gold and Silver games. My complete Pokemon Yellow file remains intact to this day, but that 99.2% Gold file is lost to the sands of time... I SPENT OVER TEN ACTUAL DAYS OF MY LIFE ALMOST BEATING A VIDEOGAME, AND I DON'T EVEN HAVE CONCRETE PROOF OF MY NEAR VICTORY. So close, and yet so far away.

• Only in the 1980's could you see a movie where the main character sleeping with his Aunt had exactly NO negative repecussions. "Sometimes the good guys finish first" indeed...

• This makes me think of a now-infamous argument I once had with my husband over Old Biff's death in Back to the Future II. My husband seemed to think that once Old Biff handed Young Biff the almanac, he should have immediately disappeared, because it negated his existence, and therefore would never have been able to drive the time machine back to 2015. I argued that he didn't disappear because Young Biff hadn't actually used it yet, which was the whole point of Doc and Marty stealing it from him in the first place, and that he wouldn't even disappear at all because Old Biff created an alternate timeline, one separate from the one he inhabits, so it wouldn't make sense for that to happen. He countered that Old Biff was in the process of disappearing when he arrived at 2015, but I argued that he had punched himself in the chest while trying to retrieve his cane, and that's why he was dying. We literally argued about this for three freaking hours, until my husband finally says: "Fine. You're right." He wouldn't have sex with me for three months afterwards.

• My Pyrrhic nerd victory was actually seeing fox news in your previous article and reading it. I feel superior to the idiots... but every time I read about fox news and their stupidity I die a little inside. Plus I've always liked marvel better.

• What's it about? I'm always up for a new read.

• To Favius Blazen! *drinks tankard of seltzer water heartily*

• And this is why I requested a men's XL. The women's sizes never take into account that I have monstrous mommy zeppelins.

• Reminds me of the time my 11th Grade Field Biology teacher told us that hummingbirds don't have feet. The whole class was like "Really? Wow! I never knew that!" I hesitantly raised my hand and said, "Um? Yes they do. My father rescued one after it flew into a tree outside our house, and it perched on his finger." She argued with me until we fired up Google on her laptop, and she saw that hummingbirds do in fact have feet. The incident still boggles my mind.

• I think the only Pyrrhic victory I've had, which ended in complete disaster, was my first playthrough of Mass Effect 2. There's no denying I was a total noob when it came to making sure I had all character loyalties, and assigning each teammate to his or her appropriate duty for the suicide mission. I had worked hard on the game itself, even making sure I had completed side quests, which I had failed to do so in the first game. I did what I was supposed to, all except mining planets for their resources and using them for ship upgrades, like a better cannon and shields and things. I thought I had done pretty well through my gameplay, but my team was completely slaughtered at the end. I watched in horror as my team was reduced one by one. We defeated the Collectors, only to be left with four members of the original team, including my femShep. Also, I have six days off from work during which I plan on playing a shitload of Skyrim, but no matter how much gold I receive in-game, I won't be getting paid a dime in the real world.

• Back in college in the mid-90s, I was taking an upper-level course in modern poetry. At this point in the semester, we were examining Seamus Heaney's poems, one of which was "Undine." Our professor asked the class "so what is an undine?" I apply my memory of D&D monsters and without skipping a beat, say "it's a water spirit." The rest of the class was rather surprised by the swiftness of the response (keep in mind that this was before the era of google/wikipedia quick research) and my professor asked "how did you know that?" Instead of lying, I sheepishly answered "It's a monster in Dungeons & Dragons." I could feel the whole classroom turning from awe at arcane knowledge towards a highly judgmental "what a loser" vibe. Even today when I teach in front of a classroom, this experience still haunts me and I have to hide some of  my full-nerd persona.

•  This is actually quite amazing.

• This is a pyrrhic, though I'm still not sure who "won". I kinda think I lost.  Even though I have been and shall always be a nerd, I was usually careful to cultivate my image around school to seem only semi-nerdy. There were .... incidents ... of which I shall never speak, that did betray that on occasion, but I generally was accepted by most of the cliques.   The one major flaw was my core group of friends. They weren't apologetic about their nerdiness, and wore it proudly (one is now a furry.... *shudder*).  The one thing that I wouldn't give in on was RPGs, especially D&D.  I always thought they seemed boring as hell, especially D&D. I've long hated anything fantasy (mostly thanks to them), and toss in my ultra-conservative Christian upbringing that said D&D was a tool of the devil, and I had a repulsion to the game.  Finally, one Saturday in my Sr year of high school, they talked me into it. I agreed to play AD&D with them. They helped me create my character sheet (human fighter), loaned me some dice, prepped me with the rules, etc.  After an hour or so we were ready to play.   About 10 minutes into the game a dragon came out of the shadows of a dungeon and ate me. That was it. My character was dead. I was then told that I had to sit there and wait until the end of the game because, "you might get reborn". 2 hours later I went home.  I never played D&D again.  I think this was a pyrrhic draw. They won because they got me to play. I won because I knew it was a stupid, boring game and I wouldn't have any fun.  The next week I went to a cool party. That's right, with the drama club! High-Five!

• It would almost HAVE to be cooler than you are making it sound.

• I'd like to point out that this entry is where my likes finally caught up to all of my imported comments. It's importantly only to me, but for some stupid reason, it actually is important.

• I shouldn't do this, but I can't help myself. It's not so much my pyrrhic victory, but one I joyfully caused. I was introduced to D&D, right after I got out of boot camp in San Diego. This was in Feb of 1980. I eventually ended up on the USS Enterprise, were I ended up gaming with a pretty tight knit group of 6 gamers. We eventually ended up adding 3 new guys, about a year later. These 3 guys had obviously been gaming together, to make their characters as bad ass as possible. Monty Haul was an understatement. Their ring leader was a smug lil' prick. He and I, ended up getting in to it one evening. I was so angry with these guys, and the way they tried to get over on the game. I told them I'd take the 3 of them on, their 2 best PCs ea. against one monster. They eagerly accepted the challenge. We also agreed that our current DM would approve the PCs and my monster, and he  would run the battle. I choose an ancient red dragon, with maximum stats and abilities. Due to their horrid die rolling, and the hot streak I hit. I managed to off 2 of their characters, and almost kill a 3rd, before I even  left the lair. After leaving the lair, I had them down to 2 PCs. 1 being the douchebag's most beloved character. This dudes so frothing at the mouth angry, and his fave PC is going to die and he knows it. In a last act of defiance he attempts to destroy a magic item, and crits. it. Back then we made our own critical hit tables to add spice. His critical hit, basically nukes the entire area destroying everything. I took all 6 character sheets and tore them up in front of them. Turned on the smug asshole voice and said "That was fun we should do it again sometime." I got up and walked out. The dude never played with us again, but his 2 friends did.

• Guess I can be added to the "Winning a TR Shirt IS a Pyrrhic Victory" club. Explaining people that I got this shirt from a nerdy website by making up pick-up lines for cartoon, videogame, toy and comic book characters is the easy part. Explaining what the site is about on a Friday... Also where are the pics of Rob dressed as various characters using my pick up lines? "And for the most consistent match of quality and quantity, it's gotta be Sum Ellis Ock. Seriously, his entries make me want to dress up like these characters and use his lines, that's how awesome they are." -Rob

• Thank you so much for the kind words!

• We don't call them clawmaidens for nothing!

• I'll read it.

• When I was around 7 years old and my brother was 5 we got the original Nintendo Entertainment System for Hanukkah one night.  We were given specific instructions that this was a gift for the both of us and we were to be nice and share.  Well that did not happen.  We argued for what seemed like hours for who got the right to play it first.  It got to the point where my parents were about to box the thing back up and return it, they were so tired of listening to us.  Finally I convinced my younger brother that as the older brother I had the right to go first and he should back down and live with.  So we finally stopped fighting and my dad setup the NES on the basement TV.  I was so excited, I couldn't contain myself.  We turned on Super Mario Brothers and I made sure I was first player.  I walked right into the first goomba of the game, killing myself instantly.  My brother went on to play Luigi for 30 minutes after seeing my stupid mistake.  All that fighting and I only got to play for 10 seconds.

• Bless your heart.  I've had to be cornered a number of times myself, once even literally.

•  I was in 6th grade, and Pokemon cards were at the peak of their popularity. We were on the way back from a field trip, and I had my cards with me. Some people asked to see them, so I passed a few around. One of the cards was a Dratini, not one of the rarest cards, but still somewhat difficult to come by. I asked for all my cards back, but I was still missing the Dratini. The last person who had it was my class' resident douche-bag. I knew he had it. So I just told him to give it back. He of course denied it. This went back and forth for a bit, until I kind of gave up, very frustrated with the whole ordeal. Then I overheard him bragging to another student about stealing it. During recess, I confronted him alone, telling him I overheard his conversation, and I wanted it back. He smugly asked what I was going to do about it. The I punched him in the stomach. I have never really been in a fight in my life, and have almost never struck another person in anger, but I was so pissed that he just blatantly stole from me. After he regained his breath, he started crying. He threw the card on the ground and angrily screamed that I could have it back. I got detention, and when my parents found out they grounded me for a week. When I was grounded, I remember just sitting in my room and looking at the card. Less than a year later I sold all my Pokemon cards to a kid down the street for thirteen bucks. 

• I've got plenty of extras if you ever feel the need to get those 6 cards.

• That actually is a really good story. I'm glad things worked out for you.

• Flavius Blazen!

• With hypo-Ventilation comes hypo-Responsibility.

• New Year's Eve, 2011, I went to a party at a friend's house.  I'm in my 30s with kids, so I don't get many opportunities to get out and get crazy with my friends.  My wife was pregnant at the time and just wanted to stay home and sleep, leaving me to get smashed with my friends, virtually unsupervised.  Another fellow at the party is a tattoo artist, and he is notorious for doing free tattoos once his supplies are paid for. I'm sure you can see where this is going.  I got drunk and got a tattoo from a nearly equally drunk artist.  Kind of a cool story, actually, except it's a tattoo of Underdog, rolling his sleeve up to punch out some villain.  Considering the artist's state, it's really a pretty good tattoo.  I have literally never gotten a compliment on it, though, except from my 4 year old son.  I also got just a little vertical line below Underdog, from where the artist's hand slipped while he was watching a zombified Jenna Jameson shoot pool balls out of her coochie on a 55" flat screen.

• Flavius Blazen! Skoal!

• When I was in high school I was introduced to Magic: The Gathering by a couple of cute girls.  I was never popular with ladies and playing a nerdy game with them helped me overcome my awkwardness.  Although I introduced the game to my buddies I would still find time to play a three-way match with these girls.  Winter break came and my friends and I would play all the time, so much so that when I came back to school I challenged the girls to play to impress them by my new skills. --- Now a couple of notes 1) Over 3 months the girls had never gotten more than starter decks, so they were not serious players.  2) I was a 17 year-old gamer nerd.  I spent long hours arguing the finer points of Final Fantasy, played Risk for 12 hours straight to determine an absolute winner, and had shouting matches over cocked-dice, basically camaraderie between my friends was expressed by nitpicking and quarrelling. --- When I played the girls I crushed them and I did it in the most dick-ish way too.  I had a blue deck filled with Counter Magics and Control Magics, I either shut down what they tried to throw out or I stole their creatures and artifacts and used them against their owners.  When all was said and done, I had scored an amazing victory (not a life-point lost) but they never played with me again, the game was no longer fun for them and they thought I was a jerk.  I had won the game but lost my chance with them and it would be awhile before I connected another nerdy girl.  Luckily by then I learned a lesson - that winning isn’t everything if you lose the people willing to play with you.

• I got my bachelors in Communication Studies.

• Early MSDOS PCs had a tool called "Debug". Magazines (remember them?) featured machine language coding that you could type in, compile, and save using DEBUG. I found a utility that would slow the clock to a crawl. Put it on the office computer. Played Tetris (pausing frequently) until the wee hours Friday night. All day Saturday. A long day Sunday. Showed up early Monday morning; finished up and posted a high score nearly triple what anyone else had accomplished. Only took about 40 hours. I deleted the ap; admitted it was a fluke- and rested on my laurels. Monday afternoon my supervisor sat down at the machine at quitting time. When I came in the next morning she had the high score. Also third and fourth. Took her about 6 hours. I hate people with good eye-hand coordination. A couple days later the computer tech rep showed up and scored all ten of the high scores. Took him less than an hour. He showed me how to get into Tetris' "High Scores" database and write whatever values you want. <B><I>Really</B></I> hate people with easier ways to cheat.

• Video games are an important source of entertainment.  When planning our family, I wanted to be sure my children would be exposed to games that were appropriate and without disrupting the rest of their lives.  They get a 30 minute game turn in the morning and evening four days a week.  Four of them are old enough to play and never miss a turn.  Now, I'm lucky to play more than a couple times a month.

• At a job interview (for a promotion) I was dealing with a panel of my seniors. Didn't matter what question was asked: my answer was greeted by at least two people who were ballistically confrontational. I defended my position. Different question- two or three different angry interviewers. Finally, I said "Well; I really didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition!". Almost in unison several of my interviewers responded; "NO ONE expects the Spanish Inquisition". I was in. That job sucked.

• Listen carefully- I will say this only once: Yo' momma is so experienced she <i><b>totally</b></i> knows what to do with wet celery. And Jabba.

• I'm a bass player in a cover band with my best friend. He is the lead singer and rhythm guitarist. I have been pestering him for years to cover at least one "Weird Al" song. I finally got him to agree to "CNR"(Charles Nelson Reilly), a style parody of "The White Stripes". Unfortunately we are no longer playing and I'm pretty sure he has hung up the guitar for good this time. If this wasn't bad enough, the song itself doesn't have much of (or possibly any) bass line. To make matters worse, I have just gone through the process of buying all the equipment for our band and I don't know if I'll ever get to use it again.  

• My divorce. It was the sixth strike against my husband when he decided to go play cowboys and Indians (an airsoft tournament) with his friends after paying zero attention to me all month, again. I was absolutely fed-up with being ignored and disregarded (EverQuest was his mistress). So I decided to leave him that weekend. He came home early as I was packing my things, and he went into the bathroom and cried rather talk about it. Being extremely uncomfortable, I grabbed what I could and left the rest to him, including the following: a Boba Fett bust, a three-foot Jabba the Hutt statue, a giant rancor statue, and the only gaming award I ever won for design and layout of MechForce Quarterly Magazine (I was also head of the fanclub). When the divorce was final, we were still friends (we were young and probably shouldn't have been married in the first place), but the Force was definitely with him, not me.

• I thought it was the hallmark of being male?

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