The Pewage goes on and on…

Have you ever noticed that when things are going well, you find you have very little to say, yet when things are not going your way, you can’t say enough… well, I aint had a lot to say lately. =]

While things have not gone, in detail, as I would have planned... if one was able to “plan out” the exact interactions between the vast and disparate members of this thing we call EVE... all in all, it has gone sorta as I hoped it would.

I am getting a shot at shooting at, and getting shot at by, moar people and in moar situations than ever before. I have no idea if I am ‘learning’ anything, other than to plan ahead to the moment when I WILL be warpin out in my POD back to the BHQ to reship and prayin I get back in time to get blow up again afore the fight is over!

I have learned to buy 10 of each mod for my Rifter fleet, ‘cause I’m gonna NEED em in the next day or 2…

I have learned how to hotdrop a fit on a ship ASAP… and,

I have learned how to share the sky w/ FLASHIN RED DETH…, and not go all FUKBEANS & BANANNASLIPPERS in da head.

“So, am I all ‘James T’ with my bad self yet?” you ask… uh, no. But after a rocky start… losing in ervy fight and losing quickly... and badly… after runnin my cash reserves to under 100K I$K and wonderin if I made a serious error in judgement by even joinin RvB… after getting my vurra new Drake asploded in a 15-v-me RED BLOBFEST and concurrently (and purportedly accidentally) POD killed (losing full set of +3 “Basic” ‘plants & a full set of +3 Shield Hardwiring ‘plants, 65M I$K current Jita prices) which is STRICTLY against the rules and Verboten, accident or no, after which I did give serious thought to tuckin my tail ‘tween my legs and going back to the hole and HB…

…but I just couldn’t.

I could not just walk away from this. That would be, as I saw it, strike 2… meaning one moar failure to get to at least ‘competent’ at PvP… If I walked away again I would start naming my ships: “Welcome to my Salvage”, “Shields Down for Your Convenience” and “NanoRibbons in a Bare Hull”… I was broke, I was almost out of hulls AND I was out of mods to fit the few ships I had left…  I was depressed.

Now for the Drama…

On top of all of this the RED what podded me had been contacted by the leadership of RvB… they made it very clear they did not care if he meant to pod me or not, it is the one completely inflexible rule of RvB… NO PODDING RvB members, period. He had to apologize and pay compensation. He never contacted me directly. What I heard from RvB leadership was he told them he was sorry and would send me 200 million I$K, then said he had to logoff and get on an alt to access the I$K… we did not see him again that night… go figure huh.

When I finally did hear from him directly the next night it was to offer apologies for the accidental podding and to negotiate what he needed to pay. Hmm…

Now don’t get me wrong, I have no issue w/ negotiating a settlement… but he had already set a price at 200M... and actually the I$K was, for me, not the point… those of you who know me know I do not like charity… but it was now a principal of honor. I told him, “If I ever made such a mistake, the pilot in question will hear from ME, personally AND immediately. Not after loggin off with some story about having to get on an alt to get the ISK.” I said 250M would fix it now… I was mad, not about the podding or lost ‘plants… I wanted to spank the puppy a bit.

Later he wrote, “250 million in the head of a character that is 9 months old, flying in a PVP corp with 3 active war decs? Sorry, that's fishy to me and I'm not going to bite.” plus, “I've dropped corp as that seems to be the outcome that will result in the least drama.”

OK, NP and TY… for those not ingame: “okay, no problem and thank you”)… I felt I was not gonna hear from him again. Uh huh… well, leadership was (1) surprised, said they felt he was an honest and decent player and this did not jibe with his history in RvB and (2) he stood to get permabanned from ever rejoining RvB. That seems to have done it… 1 hour later he transferred 200M to my account. He did take one last shot…

“All this stuff about honor and keeping your word is silly, this is not real life, it's an internet spaceship game that was designed to reward amorality, lying and cheating.” “I did not fail to contact you because I have no game 'honor' - that concept has no weight in a game world, particularly this one.”  and the most telling of all… “Add a load of abusive mails and convos from other Blues and I didn't much feel like making nice.”

I had to respond,

“If, "All this stuff about honor and keeping your word is silly..." then it can't but help make one wonder what in the world prompted the, "...load of abusive mails and convos from other Blues..." I would expect everyone to be LOL'ing w/ you and virtually clappin you on the back...


Guess they just don't get it either....”

End of Drama…

So, here I was still depressed…. but now I was depressed with 200M ISKies in da wallet… strange how that can change a fellows outlook on things.  =]

Plus, add to that the 10 Rifter hulls a friend of mine contracted me after the podding (and no I still dunt like charity… but hulls is hulls and I was broke ATM ok?) So now that I could afford to fit up those hulls I found my depression seemed to be more based on not bein able to “keep up with the Joneses” as it were… I still wanted to get out there and lose ships… just depressed I couldn’t AFFORD to…  LOL

Anyhoo… So, I decided to stay and at least go through the 200M and all the hulls I had already. If that wasn’t enough, then I would accept my fate and go back to the hole and kill NPCs until I was rich enough to come back and try again.

As it turns out, while I do suk atrociously at PvP, I am sukkin a little less each day… mebbe... I finally got a “Laid the Last Blow” killmail of my very own… (I so proud!!) My current stats are (RvB only), 17 kills / 17 losses. Basically 50/50… and I am the “Top Damage Dealer” on 2 of those kills… not too shabby for a pew pew noob.

The funnest thing I have been involved in so far are the FFAs… Free For Alls! Basically, a BC or BS, the Ref, sits at a SS. The rules are, both Red and Blue can join in (Purple Fleet Rules are in force), T1 frigs only, 30KM radius from the Ref. Each man for himself, last man standing wins. Oh, and if you go outside of the 30KM radius… the Ref KEELS YOU, period.  LOL  So we get 10 to 15 frigs together… countdown to 3… and GO! MAN what FUN!!! Winnings are usually 100M to 1^st, 50M to 2^nd. The last one we did we dint have a Director as ref so we each ponied up for the chance to fight, ended up w/ a pot similar to the std pot.

So, I am going to stay a while longer. I even went so far as to get serious about one of my alts at last. I have brought Hiri out to Hakegen (R-Fed Home system) to do some spai and scout work (hmm.. a spai with her name and intent published on the web...?). After I set Tur back up w/ a full set of replacement +3 'plants I stopped all training on 'im and had Hiri spend roughly 30Mil on skill books… and I am cramming em down her throat as fast as I can. Run ALL the L1s then the L2s then L3s etc., etc. … Focused skilling. I want her in a CovOps, an Indy and a BC just as soon as possible.

Other than that… Tur has a nice Rifter fleet… a Stabber and a Drake… now, if you’ll forgive me… I have to go lose them to the Red Menace.  "For The TEAPOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Fly Safe and see you in the Sky  =/|)=

On a side note… (and with all due respect to the friend whom I am tellin on here) I recently saw where a good friend had HIMSELF as one of his own kills… huh? say wha?? Yup… he had “Laid the Final Blow” on hisself… I know not the details, but I do know it had to do with a Bombing run and prolly a bit of the 'ol FUKBEANS & BANANNASLIPPERS...

So far in my time here that has to be the most apropos comment on this whole thing we do than anything else I have read or seen…  =]