Archive for the ‘Michiel’ Category

Several years ago, viagra buy I started playing my first MMORPG. I was unemployed, living alone, and had no girlfriend, and thought I would find a game to occupy my time. I got a copy of Ultima Online. For the time it was an amazing game, and I enjoyed the interaction with thousands of other dorks from around the US and the world.

But, like any other MMO out there, there comes a point where you are not always out grinding for XP, you just socialize or find weird ways to have fun. In Ultima Online, when you just sat around and talked to other players, the activity was called “bank sitting” as the bank was where all players came and went at one point or another. It was the place to virtual people watch. You could see all sorts of interesting things at the bank. City guards killing a thief, people buying and selling crafted items, people arguing about who is more uber, … the usual.

I’m not sure what possessed me this one night, but I wanted to do something really interesting and have fun. I had a large audience and plenty of spare time.

I thought it would be funny to march around the bank and protest for gay rights.

I’m not gay. I’m not anti-gay. I’m just a straight guy who thought, “How funny will this be to have a gay pride parade in a medieval/fantasy game?”

So, I rolled a new character, “Gay Blade” and dressed him in the foofiest, pink shirt the game offered, along with a nice Van Dyke for the facial hair and an awesome receding hairline. He looked like half the gay men I have known in my life already. Finally if there was any question about his sexuality, I made him a fencer. Let’s face it fencing is the gayest form of swordplay, so he had to be a fencer.

Since I didn’t really have any friends in the game, and certainly not any I was going to convince to take part in a gay pride parade, I decided to get a horse and name it Gay Pride. The cool thing about having a pet, like a horse was that they would follow you where ever you went and their name showed up on screen as well as your name.

So, when I started, people at the bank saw a guy dressed in pink named Gay Blade, followed by a horse named Gay Pride. We walked in a circle around the bank, while Gay Blade yelled, “We’re here! We’re queer! Get used to it!”

Plenty of people thought it was funny.

“We’re here! We’re queer! Get used to it!”

A few just wanted me to shut up.

“We’re here! We’re queer! Get used to it!”

I even had one guy come up to me and tell me that he was gay and that I was his new hero.

But then I ran into intolerance and bigotry.

There were a couple of guys that were none too happy with me expressing my virtual homosexuality to the world. They tried to give me crap and called me names. Basically they were not thrilled that my horse and I were here or queer and they certainly were not going to get used to it anytime soon.

Finally one of them told me to go to the cemetery just outside of town.

The cemetery was where people often went to duel, as it was outside of town and fighting in the town limits was illegal and the guards would come and kill you. I knew he wanted to fight me. I knew he would beat the crap out of me as my character was about thirty minutes old and had no “skillz” to speak of. But I went anyway because I had a plan that I knew would be funny.

We get to the graveyard, and this guy almost immediately starts to attack me. As he does, I begin to yell, “HATE CRIME! HATE CRIME!”

He kills me and starts to ride back to town, after taking my belongings, including the foofy pink shirt, which just adds to the theory that most homophobes are actually a bit gay themselves.

I’m left standing there as a ghost. But I noticed that my faithful horse, Gay Pride was still alive and following me. That’s when I realize that since I am a ghost I can have my horse follow this guy where ever he goes. It drove him nuts to have this horse just stuck to him in town where everyone can see. No matter where he went, there was Gay Pride following him.

You should have seen him run in circles trying to shake us. I think he was afraid he might “catch the gay” from a virtual queer ghost and his virtual horse.

I made the mistake of following him to the graveyard again, where he killed my horse. So I had no choice but to resurrect and come back. As soon as he saw me, he attacked me. Again I screamed “HATE CRIME! HATE CRIME!” Dead.

Resurrect.

“HATE CRIME! HATE CRIME!” Dead.

Resurrect.

We did this over and over, and I may have even questioned his sexuality based on the intensity of his reaction to me and my horse. He finally ran off or logged out or something. I guess gay bashing becomes tiring when your victim keeps resurrecting and spreading gayness all around you.

It was one of the most fun times I have ever had in any MMO. I would like to think I struck a blow for tolerance that night, but I think all I accomplished was cracking myself up and annoying some homophobic jackass. If that isn’t fun, I don’t know what is.

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Hi. My name is Michiel and I have been a friend of Skippy for about twelve or thirteen years. Basically we knew each other when neither of us had a gut or love handles.

Skippy has been wanting to have some other people contribute to his website, doctor and I am honored to be the first person he asked, check or at least be the first to accept. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Skippy for the chance to either wow or bore thousands of people every week. Not everyone gets that chance. How cool is that?

I wanted to make my first post some cool, cough funny story, but somehow I felt that an introduction is in order. So here is a little bit about me.

I have no interesting military stories. I never served and my dad was in the Air Force, which we all know barely counts as being in the military. At least that is what friends in the other branches of the military have told me, and I have to trust them, because I never served.

I am, however, a geek/nerd/dork or whatever you call it. Allow me to present my credentials.

I am thirty nine years old and remember seeing my first Star Trek rerun when I was about four and still in pre-school. I even remember trying to explain it to my friends the following Monday. Oh, and I prefer the term Trekkie over Trekker.

I was totally into Star Wars and saw it three times in the theater when it originally ran. To say that I was into Star Wars at the time was like saying I like to breathe air. And for the record, I will never refer to the original Star Wars movie as “Episode 4,” or “A New Hope.” It’s STAR WARS! (Do you hear me Lucas! Quit jacking with my childhood mythology! It’s STAR WARS and Greedo did NOT shoot first you bastard!)

At about age eleven or twelve I fell in love with the wonderful world of Dungeons and Dragons, and even dabbled in a couple other games. (Gamma World ring any bells?) My girlfriend thinks it is so cute that I still have the books and dice, but most of all, the little lead figures that I hand painted myself.

Around this same time, (this is early 80’s) I was obviously into video games much like everyone else. But I never had an Atari or an Intellivision. No, I had an Apple IIe. And I had lots of games on that. I bring up the Apple IIe to not only show that I was a nerd, but that I am at least second generation nerd, as this was something my parents chose to buy. I just wanted an Atari. But then again these are the same parents that let me stay up late while I was in pre-school to watch Star Trek. (By the way, the Apple IIe still works, and has a working disk drive, monitor and dot matrix printer, as well as a large game library. I might be willing to entertain offers for the whole package, but my inner dork says not to, even though I don’t use it).

From about age twelve to about seventeen, I collected comic books. I was a Marvel kid. All of you fans of DC and other companies can keep your comments to yourselves, I liked what I liked. If anyone is wondering, my favorite character is the Thing.

I was a major metal head when I was a teenager too. I discovered heavy metal and pot and promptly grew my hair to the middle of my back. Seriously, a couple bong hits, some Iron Maiden and a good comic book, and I was a happy boy.

In college, I majored in Art.

I was a major chess geek for a while and was really into four way chess for several years. If you have never tried four way chess, then you really should. That game will make your brain scream.

I was very much into Paganism for several years. We all know that Paganism, in all of it’s forms, is the nerdiest of religions, as it is the path that most resembles a live action D&D game. It was through paganism, that I met Skippy at a big nekkid pagan campout. (Oh, speaking of live action role playing, I have taken part in a Vampire: The Masquerade LARP, but that is a story for another time).

I carry a Discordian Pope card in my wallet. My Discordian name is Art C. Fartci.

I have done tech support for an ISP and a major computer company. Please hold.

At this point in my life my inner dork expresses itself by playing City of Heroes. I have played other games some, but I like COH and COV. It just picks on too many of my nerd weaknesses. It’s a video game, it’s role playing, and it’s super heroes. WOW can bite me, I can fly and teleport in COH and COV. Until I can fly and teleport in other games, this is the MMORPG for me.

I also have worked in haunted houses for about fourteen to fifteen years. I don’t think it is dorky or geeky or nerdy, but I’m sure it is anyway. The way I see it, why go see zombie movies when you can BE the zombie? Plus any job that will pay me to chase people with a machete and threaten their lives without fear of legal repercussions, that’s the job for me.

Finally, I also do stand up comedy, which is probably one of the nerdiest forms of entertainment out there. Seriously, most comics are social rejects of one sort or another.

So there you go, I am one of you. Love me.

P.S. By the way the only thing worse than fanfic, is furries. Commence flaming, now.

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