When it comes to wrong telephone numbers, when I receive the calls, I had originally adopted a policy of blocking the number if I received said call from the same number twice and neither time was left a message. Now, however, with the influx of robocalls, I pretty much just block any number I don’t recognize that doesn’t leave a message. I think I get more robocalls than spam email these days.
C’mon Dustin, you at least have to show up to court
While the majority of these robocalls were scams, and admittedly I’ve called these numbers back and yelled at people for fun, there was a time when I was receiving calls with the caller asking for a Dustin Werner. At the time I had figured these were bill collectors and had given up on the calls ever stopping, because once a debt is sold, the new debt collection company will never stop calling. But on one occasion, someone left a message, and apparently Dustin Werner had missed his court date with the Toledo Municipal Court. This intrigued me.
From 1999-2007 I was a Toledo resident, and my cell phone’s area code is still from Toledo, so I concluded that my phone number was simply in a wrong record somewhere. At the time I received this call, and thereafter having a narrowed range of focus, I Googled this name and found the general profile of a man not terribly versed in contributing to society: something about drugs and theft. Ohio, am I right?
Fast forward to today. Recently I got a rapid batch of robocalls, and this reminded me of good ol’ Dustin. Out of renewed curiosity, I checked Google again. It had been a while, as the articles, courtesy of the Toledo Blade, were dated 2014. Apparently he had been arrested at a Kroger not far from my mom’s house, and has since been sentenced to 4 years 11 months. It looks like I have at least a couple more years before the calls start up again.
Wrong. The parameters of the game were still the masters of my fate, and fate deemed it necessary that I complete the tutorial, which still wasn’t finished. In hindsight, I know that this was a tutorial, and I suspected it was at the time, but the game never actually made that clear until said tutorial was finished. So there was a little bit of confusion on the part of Alpha Pwn at the time.
But my irritations were assuaged when Kur’P Ud Wakk finally got the opportunity to command the Bile Hurk personally. And to mark this momentous occasion, I was tasked with scanning asteroids. Actually I was told to scan some asteroids, and I, unfamiliar with the peculiarities of piloting starships, lurched forward uncontrollably at full impulse. My new first officer, anticipating my novice blunder, stopped the Bile Hurk before it collided catastrophically with the asteroids, then berated me for my idiotic flying.
Even without the tutorial’s onscreen guidance, I deduced that in order to start scanning, I should push “A”. But, no mystery material lay within this batch, which was the game’s clever way of telling me I needed to practice flying a little more, else my first officer fail to save me again, or simply kill me and take command himself.
The problem, is that the navigation commands have a limited set of customization, so after a lengthy experimentation phase, I had to settle on a set of controls that were only slightly more intuitive. Still, I had some more practice under my belt now, and I felt confident I could navigate a ship through space–something inherently almost devoid of obstructions under normal conditions. How hard could it be?
I demonstrated this newfound confidence by orienting the Bile Hurk towards the next set of asteroids, and slightly increasing impulse velocity. But, the impulse drive responds exponentially, and in short order I was once again on a kamikaze run at full impulse. My first officer again stopped the ship, and again told me to stop trying to crash the ship. I think he threatened me that time, too.
But, there’s one thing that I could do well, and that’s push “A”. I scanned those asteroids and found that mystery element. Crappy flying notwithstanding, I had still managed to advance the tutorial. There was dialog, and I skipped it with the magical button “A”. Why? Because I was losing interest and really didn’t care anymore. But then, for reasons unknown because I had skipped the dialogue, there was space battle! And I almost wished that I had paid attention as to why.
No matter. This ship was going down! I closed distance, sighted my enemy, and…targeted him by pushing “A”…or was it the right trigger? Can’t remember. Apparently my crew was firing the disruptors. That made sense, seeing as the Bile Hurk looked like a Bird of Prey. I mean, it has an entire crew, and logic would only follow that they served a purpose beyond providing dialogue which I needed to skip without reading. Still, I had to perform the maneuvers myself, allocate resource priority, and…that’s it, really. And I couldn’t figure out the resource thing. And I sure wish I knew how to launch photon torpedoes. But, this being the first space battle of the tutorial, the ship was defeated as quickly as the Bile Hurk’s former captain. Huzzah!
If there’s no air in space, why are starship concepts always aerodynamic?
Then, two more ships arrived. There was some more dialog, but as a Klingon, the only options I was given were to destroy them, taunt them and destroy them, or really give them a good taunting and destroy them. I defaulted to the first answer, as this only involved me pushing “A”, and for some reason I just didn’t feel it necessary to be a complete asshole to every NPC immediately. The battle proceeded as before, except this time I figured out that ship orientation mattered because the more powerful forward disruptors could only hit things directly towards the front (so aptly named). Maneuvering, therefore, was more important than originally perceived. Also I noticed that shields had sections, so it was important to change orientations as I took fire, while at the same time trying to repeatedly concentrate all my fire on one section of the enemies’ shields. Truth be told, I was finally having fun. But still, I couldn’t figure out how to fire photon torpedoes. And no, it wasn’t “A”. That was the targeting button. Or was it the right trigger? Hrm.
Battle concluded, a large Federation ship warped into the vicinity. I think at this point another Klingon vessel had arrived too–something story-related that would have had more context had I actually read the dialogue. But by this point I had become a chronic “A” button masher.
I didn’t take any more screenshots, so here’s a random promotional image, because everyone loves space babes!
Anyway, this Federation ship wanted something. I was given variations of the three options as before–increasing levels of taunting. The Federation ship taunted back, which I found highly uncharacteristic of those Federation goody-goodies. Then again, this might have been earlier in the timeline, before The Next Generation turned humanity into a band of socially-progressive niceguys, courtesy of 1980s feminism. But the ship appeared to be a Galaxy-class, which wouldn’t fit the earlier timeline. This made me really wonder when exactly in the canon this game fit. Maybe it was an Excelsior-class ship instead? That would have made more sense. In any case, battle ensued, the ship was way stronger than the Bile Hurk, but two more Bird of Prey warped in and together we vanquished the large Federation ship for reasons unknown, because as I’ve mentioned before I wasn’t really paying attention to the story. Oh, and I still didn’t know how to fire photon torpedoes. There was a cloaking device though, rendered of limited use because game-balance prevents using it while in battle, so after I was required to use it to advance the tutorial, haven’t touched it since.
But, admittedly this is where the game shines. Space battles. Now, Kur’P Ud Wakk is a seasoned captain, and he managed it despite driving into two asteroid clouds, and all made possible with the mashing of button “A”.
If I’m going to be feeding the wildlife, then I think it’s only fair that I get to eat it. But nay, the ODNR has restricted when and where I can hunt these voracious little creatures which chew through my garden like a clever simile. And when have rabbits ever been in danger of extinction?
To be fair, I wasn’t planning on eating that kale. Yuck. But it was big and green and happy, and they didn’t have to eat the entire plant. Rabbits just don’t respect sustainable resources.
Down to the nubs
In other news, the thyme plant I grew from seed years ago, having lived in a pot and being the only source of fresh thyme to an apartment-dweller, bloomed. I had never seem thyme bloom before. It would seem that the plant had gotten old enough that it finally had the energy reserves needed to procreate.
All it needed was a little thyme
I wonder if thyme can stand up to foot traffic. The stuff seems to endure through the worst environmental conditions that Ohio can throw at it. It sure would make a nice-smelling replacement for grass.
Continuing the series of good photographs (Part 1), captured through chance, and in the spirit of spring, I have some pretty flowers to share:
Dunno what these are, but I was impressed that they were growing in salty sandA weed? Nay! A creature’s bid at immortalityWhat a clusterSakura sakura…actually I think it’s another crabapple
I enjoy the free Xbox Games With Gold system. It allows me to game noncommittally, freed from an obligation had I actually purchased the game. And, I get to dabble with game genres I wouldn’t normally touch, or experiment with a game that just didn’t look very interesting.
Atari?
So it was that I found myself playing Star Trek Online, although not technically an Xbox Games With Gold freebie, since the developer/publisher had long-since released it under a “free to play” model. Turns out it’s been free to play for over 5 years. Technically, it’s an MMO, and again I’ll mention my general lack of interest for that genre, but it’s difficult to find a fun multiplayer cooperative story-mode game, so when my old college friend Joe (of our informal gaming clan Alpha Pwn) found the game, it sounded like cheap entertainment to accompany an evening of bourbon while Liz was out getting a massage.
Game downloaded, we began. First, though: character creation, the nemesis of impatient gamers everywhere. As I was not impressed with any aspects of the game by this point, and having imbibed a sufficient amount of bourbon as would befit a Friday evening, my normally pretentious gaming demeanor had given way to my Mr. Hyde side and I succumbed to vulgarities. The already-irritating customization screen conjured forth adjectives. Pudwhacker–more of a descriptive noun really–a word whose primary meaning had fallen into obscurity over its adapted use, like douchebag. That would make a fitting name for a dumb character in a dumb game. But, I had chosen to play as a Klingon, and that didn’t sound very Klingon-y. Briefly consulting my memory of silver-screen Klingons, I remembered large violent and ugly humanoids, perpetually angry, constantly spouting loud and hard consonant-laden interjections of discontent, like “Kur-pla!” and “Kodak!”. I therefore adapted Klingon language and mannerisms to Klingon-ize the name, and became Kur’P Ud Wakk!
I also had to name my ship. Again I lapsed into thought, ultimately realizing that when Klingons speak, it sounds like they’re hacking up furballs. As a continuation of this theme, I named my ship the Bile Hurk! I shall be Kur’P Ud Wakk of the Bile Hurk! So let it be written.
The theme for the game now having been set, Joe was obliged to follow suit, and so chose the name Hugh Janus. Together, Kur’P Ud Wakk and Hugh Janus shall seek glorious battle!
But first–the agonizingly lengthy tutorial, which we each had to complete on our own. Okay, so glorious team battle would have to wait. Apparently this game had a story.
[SPOILERS]
I’m not sure how accurate these spoilers will be, since I’m writing them from memory, but there’s your courtesy warning.
I began as the second officer of the Bile Hurk, doing menial second officer things apparently, like activating a terminal so I can learn how to push “A”, then going to the holodeck for simulated battle, i.e. pushing the right trigger. A few disruptor shots later and I was apparently very tired, because I was then told to go to sleep…on the cot in the middle of engineering? Okay, sleepy time.
There was a lot of talking to crew members too, presumably to establish the backstory. It wasn’t riveting storytelling so I don’t remember much (also, bourbon). But then, the Bile Hurk fell under attack! Glory! Fortunately, I had just completed that refresher battle training, so I was well-versed in looking at enemies and pressing the right trigger. We were being boarded without a space battle because of some shenanigans on the captain’s part.
Boarding parties eliminated, I booted up the ship defenses or something, which involved me walking up to a terminal and pushing “A”. Then I had to talk to the wounded crew, also by pushing “A”, because wounded Klingons need a little peptalk too. Thankfully, that was the first training I had received on board the Bile Hurk–pushing “A” at that terminal to transfer crew orders. In times of crisis, one should always fall back on their rigorous military education.
But then it was time to call out the captain for his traitorous actions. I went to the bridge, and discovered that he had killed his first officer for some reason along the lines of “she did stuff I didn’t like”. Sometimes I wish I could really be a Klingon. Anyway, because the captain did stuff I didn’t like (namely, letting boarding parties beam aboard and attack us–something generally uncool), I challenged him to glorious single combat in the ancient right. He accepted, and I immediately defeated him by…you guessed it…pressing the right trigger. He dropped from a single disruptor blast, which in hindsight wasn’t very Klingon-y, but it was the weapon I had equipped at the time. I’ll just tell everyone that he died honorably so his family won’t come after me. You know: Klingon code and all.
Finally, I was captain and the master of my own fate, right?
