let's be honest, perhaps this little ride is too much for even you to bear

[08:40] Sxxxx Rxxxxx: and yes, it's nearly time for our monthly bug update. I wonder if we'll have more than "we've acknowledged and are working on" this time? I did look up some information earlier to learn how fast a glacier moves. Most move typically 1 foot per day, though one did 80 feet in a day. Faster than CommerceTeam Linden
[08:41] Axxx Dxxxxxxxxx: ohsnap

Pretty much, yes. And that's still where things stand with the Marketplace bugs: moving less than glacially, inch by inch. Even bet at this point, things won't be fixed before 2013.

IF then.

Something I'm going to be bookmarking for later: there's now an avatar databank of mesh avatar objects pulled from Second Life for designers to work with:

To solve this problem we extracted the actual meshes from the Second Life® client so it would be possible to paint clothing with the correct UV coordinates. We have provided these meshes on this site as AC3D and OBJ format data files. We have also provided just the texture templates in PNG format for those of you who don't work with 3D applications.

And I'm pretty sure all painting programs can either convert .png files to whatever else is needed, or just use the files as is.

More Help channel mayhem. In the midst of a conversation about hissing doctors came this:

[Help] KING OF USA: I AM HERE TO HELP.
[Help] Crimson Rook: Can you do something about the voles?
[Help] Blackes Magic: Sounds like a Nemesis plot to me
[Help] KING OF USA: ARE THEY TERRORISTS, COMMUNISTS, OR DIRTY HIPPIES

I admit, this got a lot of our attention.

[Help] Crimson Rook: they are small mammals that are eating up my garden
[Help] lssues: Voles are common in the Jeffries Tubes. :P
[Help] KING OF USA: IF SO MY MEATY RIPPLING AMERICA-STRUTS OF PUNISHING JUSTICE SHALL TEACH THEM THE ERROR OF THEIR WAYS
[Help] Darkwater Bloom: I don't know, but maybe if you STOP SHOUTING we can find out.

I really had no response to "meaty rippling America-struts" that wasn't profane.

[Help] Crimson Rook: they might be communists though...seeing as how they want to share my crops
[Help] KING OF USA: CAPS ARE THE MOST PATRIOTIC LETTERS.
[Help] Blackes Magic: Yup, definitely Nemesis.....or his....lesser known brother

For those not in the know, Nemesis is kind of a running gag in City of Heroes. He's got two loading screens all his own (one says "It's all a Nemesis plot" while the other says "Not everything is a Nemesis plot"), and while the serious version of his history is pretty damned dire indeed, there's an amusing bit on TVTropes referencing Nemesis (try not to get lost; there's a LOT of info there, most of it really funny; you're looking for a listing for "The Chessmaster", though) which goes into how much of the game Nemesis (and his faction) can be tied to.

He looks like this:

(from the Games album)

though this is a more amusing look for him, and as you can tell by the preponderance of gears and brass, he (and his entire faction) are pretty much the Steampunk Brigade. It helps that he pops up all over the place as a diversion; I think it's also helpful from a humor angle that many of the mid-level soldiers in Nemesis' army use a weapon that looks like a cross between a blunderbuss and an extended trombone.

Thing is, they're incredibly tough and hard to kill, regardless of how much gold bullion they have on their uniforms, or how outdated they look. Anyway, KING OF AMERICA was spouting nonsense:

[Help] Marcus Blackhawk: and im pretty sure they dont have jobs
[Help] Huo Niao: freedom is the only way, YEAH
[Help] lssues: =.=
[Help] KING OF USA: YES.
[Help] Crimson Rook: So hippie communist voles

I guess. I get the definite feeling, some nights, that people just behave this oddly to behave this oddly. Which, I suppose, is fair; I've had my high-surreality evenings...fairly frequently, actually, so I don't really have a leg to stand on here.

[Help] Crimson Rook: I MIGHT LOSE MY WHOLE CROP!
[Help] Tomb Princess: That's not the king of the USA, its Liberty Prime in disguise
[Help] lssues: Haha
[Help] KING OF USA: I WILL LIBERATE THEIR COUNTRY WITH MY LIBERTY AND FREEDOM POLARIS-CLASS FIREWORK PACKAGES.

Oh dear. You can imagine how well this went down. So to speak.

[Help] Blackes Magic: So you're gonna liberate us with your package?
[Help] KING OF USA: THE KING OF USA BOWS BEFORE NO MAN.
[Help] lssues: I thought the job of King was outsourced?
[Help] Chirality: bows before none, yet is ignored by many
[Help] KING OF USA: YES. MY MIGHTY SHINING PACKAGE OF LIBERTY, JUSTICE, AND LIBERUSTICE
[Help] Marcus Blackhawk: must be shining because he polishes it so much
[Help] Crimson Rook: Nudge nudge wink wink
[Help] Darkwater Bloom: Liberustice?

Because seriously. That's not even a word.

[Help] Blackes Magic: That must make it chaff
[Help] KING OF USA: I POLISH IT DAILY WITH THE BLOOD OF PATRIOTS.
[Help] Crimson Rook: Ok so ewww.

Seconded. And then we returned to the original point again:

[Help] Celes Blackheart: king of usa, stop shouting
[Help] KING OF USA: I AM NOT SHOUTING. I AM UTILIZING THE GOD GIVEN RIGHT OF CAPS LOCK.
[Help] Goremadon: see in merica we don't have kings. we grab our shutup guns and git em cause they take our jerbs!
[Help] lssues: Thought it was 'murrica?
[Help] KING OF USA: MERZERICKA
[Help] KING OF USA: THAT IS LIES AND SLANDER
[Help] lssues: About as loud as a used car salesman.
[Help] Blackes Magic: Indeed Issues
[Help] Darth-Killer: is it just me, or has some specific players been talking in caps for quite some time now ? Time to fill in my blacklist!

Which seemed to be the general consensus. A joke's a joke, but now he was beating the dead horse with another dead horse.

[Help] great reptile: Happy 4th of july
[Help] KING OF USA: I WILL SEND SO MUCH LIBERTY YOUR WAY YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO HANDLE IT EVEN IF YOU WERE A 200 FOOT TALL ROBOT SHAPED LIKE THE WHITE HOUSE DESIGNED TO CARRY LIBERTY AND JUSTICE
[Help] Blackes Magic: It's a sign of "intelligence"
[Help] KING OF USA: I AM FILLING OUT MY AMERICA LIST DARTH. YOU ARE NOT ON IT
[Help] lssues: Happy 'blow stuff up' day. Because if there was anything the founding fathers loved it was explosions. :P
[Help] KING OF USA: WISE WORDS. WISE WORDS INDEED!

Then Sparrow got involved (this becomes relevant later):

[Help] Sparrow.: KING OF USA IS MY BEST FRIEND

Oh, brother. Please don't encourage him, Sparrow. Oh, excuse me, "Sparrow." Because "Sparrow" as a name was apparently taken, and this person just couldn't live without that spelling of the name, so had to add an entirely ridiculous end period. Joy.

[Help] Blackes Magic: I bought some bootleg Chinese fireworks. Because I'm a commie
[Help] Celes Blackheart: if u put someone on ignore, does messages in any channel appear in chat
[Help] Darth-Killer: aaah so much better with ignore list working... :)
[Help] KING OF USA: YOU MUST BAPTIZE THEM IN A SHOWER OF LIBERTY
[Help] Goremadon: no it shouldn't
[Help] Dr. Cornwallis: I DISSAGREE
[Help] Dr. Cornwallis: FOR I AM WISE BEYOND MY YEARS

Save you spelled "disagree" wrong.

[Help] Darth-Killer: Celes : no, the game will hide to you any message coming from said player
[Help] Darth-Killer: And you can only ignore a global name, even when you try to ignore just a toon
[Help] Chirality: biggest problem with ignore is that you still see everyone responding to the ignored person
[Help] Darth-Killer: Charity : that's how all ignore list feature work. :)
[Help] Darth-Killer: Still, sometimes it's better than the alternative
[Help] Blackes Magic: Killing them?
[Help] Blackes Magic: oops I mean...reporting them

This is true. (Not the killing part, the ignoring part.) Plus, unlike many games, both the "ignore player" and the "ignore as spammer" features don't seem to have a cap limit. (Like, when I was still playing Runes of Magic, it had an upper ignore limit of 15, which later was expanded to 25. 25 still wasn't enough, so someone invented a little mod patch which would automatically toss out the top five on the ignore list to make room for new additions. It was an okay solution, but far from perfect.)

[Help] KING OF USA: AND LET US SUPPOSE, MAYHAPS, YOU IGNORED A PERSON WHO IS OTHERWISE A PERFECTLY CAPABLE MEMBER OF THE COMMUNITY BUT THINKS HAVING A GIANT MUSCLED EAGLEMAN WHO YELLS ALL THE TIME IS FUNNY AS HELL.
[Help] lssues applauds.

And while that is true, it was around this point that I think a lot of us started seeing KING OF USA as trollbait, not an actual "capable member" of the community.

[Help] KING OF USA: NOT THAT SUCH ISSUES CONCERN ME.
[Help] Dr. Cornwallis: It just proves that americans are stupid
[Help] KING OF USA: PRECI---WAIT WHAT.
[Help] KING OF USA: STUPID WITH LIBERTY
[Help] Dr. Cornwallis: Excuse me sir, I am wise beyond my years. Do not question me.
[Help] Tomb Princess: Stupid with Liberty and a lot of other things
[Help] Darth-Killer: Dr Cornwallis : they are not, but all populations have their ratio of stupid ones...
[Help] KING OF USA: I AM WISE BEYOND ANY RIVERS.

Wait, where did that come from?!?

[Help] Tomb Princess: I've never known rivers to be particularly wise
[Help] KING OF USA: WHAT IF THEY HAVE A RIVERBOAT WITH MARK TWAIN IN IT ON THEM
[Help] KING OF USA: THEN THEY ARE VERY WISE
[Help] KING OF USA: RIVERS.

...okay.

No, I still don't understand.

Thankfully, that seemed to be the end of it, and conversation turned to other topics...oh, wait:

[Help] Sparrow.: Hi guys
[Help] Sparrow.: I am Mondo

Remember "Sparrow."? Yeah, that's why I mentioned "Sparrow." up there.

Conversation continued to flow (specifically on the value of starting characters in Praetoria if you're mostly interested in soloing, versus villain-side or hero-side), until this:

[Help] Sparrow.: hey guys I'm Mondo

A few more lines went past, on leveling and NPC groups to kill, and "Sparrow." tried again:

[Help] Sparrow.: hi guys. I am @MondoCool
[Help] Kommando Kobold: Okay, Sparrow, you are Mondo. What do you need?
[Help] Malachi Van Horn: He isn't MondoCool, Mondo is offline.
[Help] Sparrow.: Nope
[Help] Anna Maris: As his associate I can fully testify he is mondo
[Help] Goremadon: he was mondo.... he changed a while back to moon dog
[Help] Sparrow.: I AM MONDO

Here we go again.