The Tease of Things I Don't Need

Saturday, before the dawn

I woke up just before 2, obviously restless and in need of some more aspirin.

I'm trying to get whatever's happening to my right leg to ease up and back off. It started over the Memorial Day weekend with a sudden stiffness in the back of the knee joint, along the back of the leg. It felt as if someone had removed an inch of muscle or tendon, resected it and waited for me to wake up and watch what I made of it. It's gotten more generally painful and farther reaching as the week's rolled on. I've managed to loosen some of it up as far as cutting down on the discomfort for casual bending, standing and walking, but deep knee bends don't seem quite possible unless I can find some masochist within. Whatever the problem, I'm hoping that carefully putting it more through its paces will help -- it isn't as if I'd strained it in the first place.

Today I'll be headed over to Crypt Leak & Abbygal's to help them clear the remainder of brush, etc. from their yard as next week they're having a fence put up. We're aiming to get it finished in a couple hours - the quicker and earlier the better - after which we'll relax, cool off and find something more entertaining to do. CL's been collecting more obscure video fun from the far reaches of the web, so that's a likely thing to tap into.

We've gotten some rain overnight, and when I checked outside shortly after 2 it was still a little steamy. Hopefully it'll cool completely in the remaining hours before dawn, but I will be anxious to get the work done early, before the day becomes a miserable steam box.

Yesterday was Nick's 15th birthday, and while he managed to get his birthday present out of us weeks early (A PSP and some games) this Sunday we'll do something more formal to mark the occasion.

The school year's rolling rapidly to its close. Finals next week, then a day or two of coming into school to satisfy the bookkeepers, then they're free for the summer. Once more, I'm terribly jealous. Once more, I'll try to impress upon them how they should cherish this time, as adulthood is unlikely to ever afford them such a stretch free of schedule and responsibilities.

A sudden, ridiculously vigorous spambot attacked my comment threads yesterday, placing 27 of the same pseudo-comment before I changed the settings.

In my previous entry I came up to date on info for the next Heroclix set - Avengers. Set to release June 27th, I made the arrangements for the bulk of my buy into it yesterday. Money for a retail-bought brick (20% off, but then hit for PA tax) was given to Mike T., and I found a spot online where a case could be ordered for $125.00 + $8.68 for 2 day UPS Ground; still not as good a deal per piece as what we used to be able to find, but nonetheless much better than I'd feared. (Roughly $1.34 per clix; under the old system it was about $1.15 per.) I'll find out by the end of the month whether or not the vendor's reliable in terms of getting the order out the door quickly. Add to that the brick's worth I'll be buying as far of the Coming of Galactus tournament series in July and that'll amount to 4 bricks - two of the new-style cases. Overkill for this set size, but I get that way about the Marvel sets.

As of Friday, with the 6th sneak peek from the set (7 is one counts the mail-away Mandarin) we've seen one tenth of the set, to mixed reactions. This week's additions, Shang Chi and Wiccan, have generally improved the mood among the Heroclix crowd, making me wonder if there was some pressure on Wizkids from the sales department. It's coming up on the time when the retailers have to finalize their initial orders for the set, after all.

If all goes well with this, I'll have the brick on the 28th and the case by the evening of the 29th, and I'm sure I'll be going on about it ad nauseum at the time.

I still haven't said anything about the new cards coming in the Legion of Superheroes starter set (also debuting June 27th), nor the changes in the accompanying rulebook (Super Strength gets a boost as it will allow someone to destroy walls and objects even without a 3 Damage, but it's apparently simultaneously to be curbed by making the damage applied by Objects in close combat to now fall under the Rule of Three), including a new type of clix: Duo Characters... and I'm still not going to address those things in any detail as yet. Expectations are that the Duo mechanic won't be appearing in Avengers, as they want us to absorb all of the other changes first. Perhaps it'll show up in Justice League, but certainly by Mutations & Monsters in November. Still, for now, here's the text of it from the upcoming rule book:

Duo Characters

A character with the attack symbol is a duo character. Duo characters may not be carried and have the Duo Attack special ability. If a feat used by an opposing character is giving it an edge, try to deal damage to that character or counter its abilities so that it no longer possesses the prerequisites to use the feat!

DUO ATTACK (optional):

Give the character a power action to make a duo attack. It makes two separate attacks against opposing characters as free actions (making two separate attack rolls). These attacks may be close combat attacks, or ranged combat attacks with a single target. Resolve the first attack before making the second; the character’s damage value is modified by –1 for the second attack, to a minimum damage value of 1. If the character is kOd as a result of the first attack in a duo attack, the second attack is not made.

There's already been much discussion of what this will mean, and I'm spent on the issue. I will simply wait until they present us with an example.

Similarly, I'm going to continue to pass on the many, many things going on in the world of late. If they task me sufficiently I'm sure it'll spill out.

For now, though, I'm going to try to catch another couple hours of sleep before swinging into the day.