I worry for Doyce

Surely, surely Jackie can talk him out of his City of Heroes addiction, maybe by using these tactics from good ol’ Pat Robertson:

Q: My 18-year-old son is hooked on computer games that have magic spells in them. I’m concerned, but what can I do?

A: Once they are 18, it is tough. Nevertheless, as a mother, sit down with your son and say, ‘We are Christians and love Jesus. This kind of conduct is hurtful to you and damaging. There are demons.’ You need to explain to him the reality of demonic possession. You begin with one of those games and it draws you in. Remember the stuff that happened out there at that tragedy in that high school near Denver when those boys had played a computer game and acted it out to their classmates? These things are dangerous. You need to sit down and talk to him and say, ‘I love you and this is the way it is.’

Bring the biblical verses that show him how these things are wrong. You can find a number of instances. Get a concordance and look up ‘spirits’ and ‘demons’ and look up the ‘devil,’ ‘Lucifer,’ and ‘Satan’ and show that they are not just fun and games. You need to show him the consequences and he will listen. And do a lot of praying that the spells he may be under may be broken, because it is possible for someone to get transfixed like they do with Dungeons & Dragons. They play those roles so much and it takes them over.
Hmmm. Maybe Jackie should talk to him about his addiction to D&D, too. Perhaps an intervention is in order …
(via J-Walk)

“No homages for you!”

Hey, here’s a swift move that will no doubt make Marvel the favorite company of any number of fans and potential fans. Marvel is suing the City of Heroes folks because players of the online game can use its extremely flexible character design to design characters that look and act like … well, Marvel super-heroes.
How … adult of them.
It’s not that CoH has Marvel characters, or knock-offs thereof, inherently in it. It’s just that there’s nothing to stop players from creating big, strong, angry characters with green skin and purple pants. Or agile fighters with claws coming out of their hands and yellow/black/blue costumes. Or … well, you get the idea. And, in fact, players can name their characters … well, whatever they want. Including names that are trademarked by Marvel.
This is, of course, the fault of the software publisher and the company that hosts the game on their servers.
Feh. I think Scott Kurtz’s commentary on the subject is spot on.