Tachstar

R.E.M. -- I Believe

Boston -- Don't Look Back

You can reduce the time/tedium required to get Isolator if you set the Flower Knight mission to +0/x6. Take all the P2W attacks and enhancements, along with the Inner Inspiration thing (you can swap it for something else later) and a booster pet. Take out a few extra Contaminated along the way. Save the big damage and heal inspirations you get from the defeat 4 Contaminated mission for the Flower Knight mission. It doesn't matter what AT you're playing. At that level, the squishy types do just as well (if not better) than the non-squishies. Depending on which map you get, you can come out with 80+ Contaminated defeated. Be sure to wait for the ambush at the end! Anyway, I've been doing Outbreak that way for some time now. It's fun! Make a challenge of it -- if you don't end up in the hospital and Flower Knight survives, you win! Woo hoo! See also: team up and street sweep your way to Isolator glory.

It's my electric/ice tanker's fault. He put experimental magnets made of solidified nitrous oxide and 'some kinda crazy space metal' in the pickups of his 1957 Gibson ES-335 and hit a big old E major chord, which not only gave him his powers but caused a local Dimensional Redaction/Temporal Infarction (depends on who you ask) event type thingee. So in Paragon City (and relevant adjacent areas) time and space are like a sequence of chords repeating infinitely on one of those newfangled looper pedal doohickeys (with an old school spring reverb set on 10), but you can still play new licks along with/over it. Or something. "Like, uh. Hey, man. Sorry 'bout that." ~ Office Rocker

So, I was playing my level 40 SR/MA tanker earlier this evening, running through a seemingly endless story arc centered around Lord Nemesis and those goofy bazooka-sniper guys. She's got a mix of mostly IOs, with a scattering of SOs and a couple of incomplete IO sets. A work in progress, like most of my guys. I was having a pretty good time, slowly but surely closing in on level 41, but some of the missions were getting a little too rinse and repeat-y so I started just running past the bazooka guys (some Council guys, too) whenever convenient to get to the objectives. Pretty easy to do that with SR. Then I got the mission to take down Nosferatu. Cool! I thought. Something different. Shake things up a little. This should be fun! Well. No. Turned out it wasn't. For Nosferatu, maybe. But not for my tanker. Nosferatu was a level 42 EB, which puzzled and perturbed me, because I'd been cruising along at +0/x1. He quickly and with authority folded, spindled, and mutilated my level 40 SR/MA tanker. So I grumbled a bit, loaded up on insps, and tried again. Can you say 'HAH hah'? I knew you could. Loaded up again, fought my way back, leveling up in the process. 41! Heh! You're in trouble now, Nosferatu, old chum! Nope. He wasn't. I hit Pocket D and got some handy dandy envenomed daggers. AV-bane, baby! Nosferatu said, "Yawn." Me being me, I kept on trying, and trying, and trying. And trying! Restarted the mission at -1/x1. He was still level 42. No matter how I mixed up the insps, whether I fought in melee range, or hovered up high spamming the daggers and that magic stick thingee, nothing worked. Got him below half health a couple of times. But invariably, inevitably, he'd heal himself right back up. Many colorful metaphors later, I called up the contact, said "<Double Dumbass On You!>", and auto-completed the mission. Logged out. Had dinner. Came back and finished the arc. Got 40-something merits out of it. Kinda felt robbed. Heh. Made lots of progress towards a debt badge. Lord Nemesis, the Grand Poobah of the whole shebang, was a pushover. Easy peasy. So, anyway, right now I would have to say that the game really IS too easy -- for Nosferatu! That blankety blank blanking OP bastage. Probably decked out with ultra-violet IO sets. But it's most definitely NOT too easy for my work-in-progress level 41 SR/MA tanker. Or me! Because I'm not OP. If anything, I'm more inclined to be PO'd. P'd O? I dunno, I'm going to bed!

My SR/MA, Panda Pink, went from 36 to 40 last night. Woot! Got some IOs slotted beforehand, but I could feel it when she out-leveled the remaining SOs. MOAR Screenies!

Robotech Main Title -- Ulpio Minucci That one part has always reminded me of John Williams' Superman theme.

. . . in the laws of physics, but I'm not sure Sally does. Or maybe she's a ghost, doomed to swim the earth for all eternity after having been done in by years and years of unprovoked 'defeats'. I dunno. Maybe she just needs another cup of coffee. Like me! Or new glasses...

"Oh, hey, here's some Council guys for my 'Defeat 40 Council guys' mission. Cool. Wait! What the hell? 5th Column?!? They killed the Council guys! You bastards!"

I almost always come up with something, even it it's just a quip. Sometimes I know who my guys are right away and it's just a matter of conveying that within the 1023 limit. Aiee! Sometimes it's more of a gradual unfolding over time kinda deal. And sometimes it turns out I had it all wrong and BOOM! Can you say 'retcon'? I knew you could. Hey! It's a time-honored comic book tradition.

Steve Earle & The Dukes -- I Ain't Ever Satisfied

Jerry Reed -- Amos Moses

In no particular order, but The Valley of Gwangi has been my favorite movie since I first saw it back in 1969 -- The Valley of Gwangi Jaws Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House Bringing Up Baby The Big Sleep The Maltese Falcon Casablanca The Princess Bride Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back The Creature From The Black Lagoon The Blob (1958) 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea Pulp Fiction Darby O'Gill And The Little People Destroy All Monsters Iron Man Kung Fu Panda Dang, I keep thinking of more. Like, The Incredible Mr. Limpet and Coraline and... aiee.

Let's Active -- In Little Ways

R.E.M. -- (Don't Go Back To) Rockville

Pete Townshend -- My Baby Gives it Away

That's what they said!

There's nothing quite like it. You can see how much the bad guys enjoy it, too!

Blondie -- Dreaming

Neil Diamond -- I'm A Believer

Go do those crimes! Go get sushi -- and don't pay!

Liver and Onions ranks pretty high in my book. YMMV.

Led Zeppelin -- Poor Tom

Steppenwolf -- Corina, Corina

Maybe, just maybe...