The Comic

I know, I know, it doesn’t have a punchline. And it’s about a year late. So sue me.

This particular comic relates to an event Jamesoven, Thronos, and Alynne witnessed happening to me while we were playing Star Trek Online yesterday. I probably could have come up with a way to actually make this comic funny, but it was laugh-out-loud funny when it happened and I wanted to record it (even in condensed form) before I forgot it.

Basically, we were wandering around on Starbase Sierra (a public shard of shops and mission-givers) when a random high-ranking (read: high-level) PC came up and asked me the rather curious questions of “who are you looking for?” and “why are you looking at these people?”

At first, I didn’t even notice these questions were directed at me (despite my screen name appearing before them), and when I asked him why it mattered to him who I clicked on or looked at, I was told that it was suspicious behavior. After all, he said, he was security for Starfleet Canada’s HQ, and since they had claimed this public starbase as their personal purview, this was something he would be watching very closely.

I don’t know what kind of games you, the readers, play, but apparently clicking on other PCs is awfully suspicious, so get your mouse cursor off of those people before they report you to Starfleet Canada’s Security.

The Living

Jobs are scarce where I live (as they likely are where you live), so life’s been someone sedate while the waiting for job openings continues. If I were willing to move to another part of the country, I could probably find a job in my field, but as it stands I’m stuck waiting.

One thing I am looking forward to is the new Futurama episodes that start airing in June. I’ve been watching the movie DVDs and episode DVDs non-stop for about three weeks, driving everyone in my household batty.

It’s been worth it.

The Gaming

Lots of good games have come out since I last pontificated from my lonely forum.

• Call of Duty 2: Modern Warfare gets a lot of credit for holding my attention for over a hundred hours of game-play over the last several months.
• I haven’t started (but intend to get) Mass Effect 2–and yes, I do still have my saved game from the first one to continue the story.
• I had really high hopes for Dragon Age: Origins, and while the storyline is extremely engaging, the game-play (party control) is reminiscent of Final Fantasy XII–and I don’t like that style all that much. I think I’ve played around 12 hours of it since I got it near Christmas.
• Borderlands gets a big ol’ double-thumbs up from me. Get some friends and play it, if you haven’t. I can’t wait to re-visit it with some friends when the current game-set is over.
• I own Left 4 Dead 2, but I owe someone a first play-through and until we can arrange it I won’t play it. I may be a zombie by the time I get around to it, but I suspect I’ll still enjoy it.

The big enchilada for me right now is Star Trek Online. It’s exactly what I wanted it to be, and probably not what many people wanted it to be. I intend to give more details on that in the future. For now, my only advice if you’re curious is this: wait for the demo on May 7th.

–Evhelm

The Comic
Oy vey! I spent the better part of the day today working on this comic across two sketch books, two computers, and a very tired little jump drive. I’m not entirely happy with the end result, but it was still a lot of fun to put together. Someday, I’ll be a skilled artist and can spend less time to do better work.

Anyway, this comic was inspired by AzureFire discovering a Star Trek Exhibition in Philadelphia. I took a few liberties with the dialogue and the setting of the comic itself, but it is modeled on a real conversation between Thronos and me. The imaginings in the second half of the comic are similarly drawn from that conversation.

The Living
I’ve been “rubber-stamped.” A few more days of paperwork and one more class-day in a school and I’ll be where I need to be.

In other news, I’m really looking forward to seeing the new Star Trek movie. I had originally planned to see it tonight or tomorrow, but I think it might have to wait a bit. I have a cousin graduating from college this weekend, and there is still paperwork to do, after all.

The Gaming
AstroEmpires has been entertaining; I feel somewhat sorry for the Grey Knights and I definitely feel the pain of the Seven Samurai. Both groups were hard hit by the Canisius Fusion Federation this week. You might say we had a blast.

For all of you interested in such things, Blizzard has set all sane gamers abuzz with the announcement that Starcraft 2 is going into the beta stage of development very soon, and that Blizzard game owners can opt-in to the beta.

–Evhelm

My apologies to all those Star Trek: The Next Generation fans for whom I have just ruined the character Deanna Troi. I simply couldn’t help myself. (Also, apologies to all of those Futurama fans for whom I have runied Hedonism-Bot!)

The most amusing part of this observation is that it can be applied universally to anything the good Counselor says!

Step 1: Listen to Troi deliver any line.
Step 2: Imagine how Hedonism-Bot would say the same line.
Step 3: Hilarity ensues!

For a special treat, I recommend the episode where Lt. Barclay is fleshed out for the first time as someone who enjoys using the holodeck too much. His re-creation of the Counselor lends itself to this particular form of depraved debauchery.

It was Alynne’s birthday yesterday (yes, I know, another pseudonym!). I should probably have attempted to make reference to First Contact, but something a family member said made me think of the relationship between candles and birthdays instead.

As it stands, the tradition holds that we get one candle for every year we’ve been alive–maybe a few more from other wishing traditions. Small children get a few candles. Teenagers get their due. But once we’re past the teenage years we get lazy! People get an ill-defined, “large” amount of candles–or perhaps just a few, depending on the importance of birthdays within each particular family. By the time we’re octogenarians we get a few candles which we can (only feebly) blow out.

Shouldn’t this work in reverse? When I’m ancient, I don’t think I’ll care that much how many candles I’ve got but I will want to blow out however many candles I get. Similarly, children get a boat-load of fun out of blowing out candles, so why do we give them so few?

I decree that each person should be given a number of candles equal to 100 minus his or her age!

–Evhelm

Ladies and gentlemen of the internet, by way of apology for taking so long to get a new comic up I have spruced up the normal routine with a color comic!
Enjoy.

–Evhelm