Tag: rpgs

March Madness – Nerds on Sports – Elite Eight

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The NCAA bracket has excited exactly no one, with top seeds like UNC, Tennessee and Kansas cruising on through. But the Elite Eight at Nerds on Sports continues to surprise!

Blowouts

BatmanGiven past success in defeating Superman, it shocked no one that Batman wiped the floor with Superman’s low-rent Jersey cousin, Mr. Incredible. A complicated series of super-gadgets and martial arts nerve strikes brought the invulnerable bruiser low, though the two superheroes parted as friends. The Operative looked awfully bad-ass, quoting obscure philosophers and wielding a totally cool katana, until Optimus Prime ran him over. Nine or ten times.

Meanwhile, fans were treated to the longest first half of the tournament so far, as Rick Deckard insisted on putting Luke Skywalker through the tedious process of the Voight-Kampff test. Determining with six minutes left in the game that Skywalker was not, in fact, a robot, Deckard seemed at a loss and quickly fell to Skywalker’s lightsaber. ????? ???? ????? “Don’t get cocky, kid,” he warned after the game.

Squeakers

Legolas and Harry Potter traded the lead several times before Legolas slammed one home before the buzzer. Mark Schlabach at ESPN.com had said that Potter’s “keys to the game” included not brooding for hours over consequential choices, advice the boy wizard apparently failed to take. Morpheus and Buffy Summers had an epic kung-fu duel on rain-swept rooftops that went into quintuple-overtime. The terrorist mastermind finally capitalized on the fact that it wasn’t actually air he was breathing and pulled out a win in the end. ???????? Indiana Jones lasted far longer against Wolverine than any of the pundits anticipated, but eventually succumbed.

Upsets

I have extensive files.Fan favorite Jack Bauer broke a lot of hearts – and a lot of brackets – over the weekend, losing to the T-1000. Under the mistaken belief that the shapeshifting robot could turn itself into a bomb, Bauer wasted valuable clock time asking where the bomb was and then trying to defuse it. The T-1000 took on the appearance of Chloe, a trusted coworker of agent Bauer, to close in for the final blow. ????? ????? ??? ????

And all the magical scimitars and panther miniatures in the world couldn’t give Drizz’t Do’urden a win over Captain James T. Kirk. Kirk somehow ended up shirtless and glazed with oil, and he seemed by far the less graceful of the two, but he avoided the dark elf’s whirling blades and beat him with trickery and secular humanist know-how.

The Elite Eight

The final match approaches! Be sure to cast your vote in each of these match-ups!

Hyrule Conference

T-1000 vs. Batman
Morpheus vs. Captain James T. Kirk

Paragon City Conference

Wolverine vs. Optimus Prime
Luke Skywalker vs. Legolas

Voting ends Sunday at Midnight, as usual. Your votes make the difference!

(Remember, you vote by taking this survey, not by leaving comments)

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March Madness – Nerds on Sports – The Sweet Sixteen

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VTech coach Seth Greenberg may be griping about this year’s NCAA men’s basketball bracket – but nobody could complain about the Nerds on Sports Tournament! It’s had its share of triumphs and surprises already, and it’s only a week old!

Blowouts
Luke SkywalkerIn the Paragon City Conference, Wolverine absolutely demolished Bowser, controlling the clock from the start of play and refusing to let up until the buzzer sounded. Coach Koopa suggested Bowser’s all-mushroom regimen in the month before the tournament may not have been a good move. Earlier that day, Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker wiped the floor with commando Solid Snake. Colonel Roy Campbell complained to reporters that Snake should have been higher seeded, to avoid such a disastrous first-round washout. He ended his press conference by shouting, “SNAAAAKE” into the microphone. Also, Curt Schilling injured his shoulder in his 32-6 loss to Harry Potter, a first-year rookie out of Hogwarts Academy.

The Hyrule Conference was more closely matched, the only blowout coming when Batman outwitted legendary swordsman Li Mu Bai. The Caped Crusader’s proficiency with dozens of martial styles overwhelmed Li Mu Bai’s mastery of only one, but for this the use of the right equipment such as an ear guard for jiu jitsu is essential to practice these sports. Neither of the two combatants had any words for the press following the game.

Squeakers
Jack BauerThe Hyrule Conference, however, went down to the wire on far more showings. The T-1000 nearly suffered a humiliating upset against Inigo Montoya, only winning in the 4th quarter when the quixotic Spaniard began to tire. Paul Atredies and Captain James T. Kirk went blow for blow in a truly memorable game. Captain Kirk’s experience in unseating alien gods proved handy in defeating the God Emperor, however, and Muad’Dib fell in the end. And in a match that we refuse to call the “Ultimate Jack-Off,” Jack Bauer narrowly beat Captain Jack Sparrow. Bauer credited his victory to the fact that his sidearm, a Sig Sauer P220, carries more than one cartridge in its magazine and does not take 30 seconds to reload.

Upsets
Rick DeckardOnce again we return to the Paragon City conference, and man is your office pool in trouble! Dr. Indiana Jones turned over the Alien Queen, luring her into a complex network of traps that hinged on obscure Aramaic texts. The Alien Queen, not knowing Aramaic, fell to its death. Many pundits expected Warmech to wipe the floor with harried cop Rick Deckard, given Warmech’s titanium armor and nuclear payload. But these experts forgot that Rick Deckard only has one item on his resume for the last fifteen years and that’s murdering robots.

Back in Hyrule: bulletproof plating didn’t help Master Chief either – he got staked in the chest and kicked in the head by Buffy Summers. After blowing the Marine up with one of his own plasma grenades, Buffy said something that was probably meant to be clever but just came off wordy and weird.

Round Two – The Sweet Sixteen

Hyrule Conference

Jack Bauer vs. T-1000

Batman vs. Mr. Incredible

Buffy Summers vs. Morpheus

Captain James T. Kirk vs. Drizz’t Do’urden

Paragon City Conference

Indiana Jones vs. Wolverine

Optimus Prime vs. The Operative

Rick Deckard vs. Luke Skywalker

Legolas vs. Harry Potter

Your Vote Counts!

Voting ends on midnight Sunday, March 23rd. Choose your side and stay tuned for the results!

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