Nightcrawler_Bamff Beats Back The Blob

[Nightcrawler_Bamff]

Nightcrawler_Bamff Beats Back The Blob!

 

 

 

"Professor?  Professor!  We need backup!  Professor!"

The cry came over loudspeakers placed invisibly throughout the facility.  Nightcrawler flew off a bar high overhead, flipping, and landing silently next to the professor.

"Scott!  What is it?"

"We're engaged with the Brotherhood, but Blob is missing.  I just overheard the police radio that he is across town robbing a bank.  I think the rest of the Brotherhood are just the distraction, but it is taking all of us to keep the civilians safe.  We cant get over there."

Professor Xavier turned to Nightcrawler.  

"Kurt, I know you just got here and have yet to make a decision about staying with us, but I must ask for your help.  I have no one else I can send to stop The Blob."

"Heir Professor, I owe you my life.  I will help you in this and make my decision later."

Charles leads Kurt to a nearby TV screen and turned on the news, where a man larger than any Kurt has ever seen is standing outside a bank with bags of money in each hand.  The police have him surrounded and were firing their weapons, but the bullets never penetrated his massive belly.

"Mein Gott!"

"Fred Dukes' mutant ability allows him to distort his own gravitational field, making him essentially immovable and allows his girth to stop nearly any projectile, as you can see."

"How far is zis?"

"It is quite close.  I believe this is why the rest of the Brotherhood are causing mayhem on the other side of town; to draw the X-Men as far away as they could.  This bank is only about one mile from here."

BAMF!

With a puff of smoke, Nightcrawler disappears from Professor X's side and appears facing The Blob.

"Well arent you cute!  Xavier sent me a pet!"

"Zis does not need to get any uglier zan it already is, mein freund.  Put ze money down and ve can all go home."

"Show me what you got, furball!  Nobody moves The Blob!"

 

 

Challenge 9

Our hero is up against his first true villain!  I felt Blob was an appropriate adversary choice for a fitness challenge!  Haha!  I set this challenge up a little differently than I've done in the past, so may end up needing some tweaking once we get going.  Inspiration taken from previous mini-challenges!

 

Main Goal:

Gymnastics!  Aerials have been feeling good fairly consistently.  Seems mostly at this point that I need to get over the mental block and stop putting my hands down!  Also working on back handspring passes.  Lost my round off-back handspring-back-handspring-back tuck on the tumble track a few weeks ago and am working to get that back.  Also lost my round off-back handsprings on the floor, so working those again too.

 

Quest:

Beat The Blob!  

Blob's HP bar has 150 hit points.

Each exercise point earned using the Weight Watchers program deals one point of damage.  To encourage real workouts instead of walking the mall all the time, true workouts (which will be subjective deciding what that consists of) will be worth an additional two points of damage.  Gymnastics workouts do not get this addition because I don't need that as motivation to go!

 

Don't Feed The Blob!

The "crash diet" I did for the first half of last challenge gave me good results and was not nearly as difficult as I had anticipated.  I will repeat this for this challenge, with some tweaks.

Six WW points allowed per meal

One WW point allowed for snack once daily (the rest will be fruit/vegetables, which are free on the program)

This makes up to 19 points allowed per day. 

Each point over these allowances, The Blob is healed for one hit point.  

I have several events planned during the span of this challenge, so this will happen more than once, and will be allowed!  Though I will have to work harder to defeat The Blob!

 

Splits:

Still working the splits.  Again, I will be doing one stretching session each work day and two on my days off.  Each missed session will heal Blob one hit point.

 

Life:

Busy again!!

1.  Volunteering with United Heroes for Hope

2.  American Sign Language Interpreter Program application due next month

3.  Emerald City Comic Con is also next month

4.  Continue working on Gambit costume - before July, I plan to have armor boots, a homemade spandex body suit, and an extendable bo staff.

5.  Start working on Star Wars costume if I have time - will need to be completed by July.

[raptron]

Always so busy! Excited to see your progress this challenge! Those splits are going DOWN (literally)!

[SymphonicDan]

Good luck! Following for gymnastics, and to see whether it's possible for an adult male to conquer the splits

[Nightcrawler_Bamff]

I WILL get this!!!!! Haha

[Nightcrawler_Bamff]

Soooo...

 

Day 1:  Went for a run!  Got a decent start on whittling down Blob's health bar

 

Day 2:  ...May have healed him for more HP than my run yesterday dealt...Lunch meeting at work in which there was a lot of free food...my weakness!  Haha!  I'll just have to be more diligent the next few days!

[raptron]

Damn you, free food! Destroyer of willpower everywhere!

 

Is there a reason your returning to the strong pre-con crash cut from last challenge? You were looking super svelte at the end of the last challenge! Is it mostly for prep for your costume at the next con?

[Nightcrawler_Bamff]

Damn you, free food! Destroyer of willpower everywhere!

 

Is there a reason your returning to the strong pre-con crash cut from last challenge? You were looking super svelte at the end of the last challenge! Is it mostly for prep for your costume at the next con?

 

So very true!

 

Aww!  Well thank you!  Definitely less strict this time around - last time was basically lunch and supper were kind of required to be salads, with a maximum point allowance of six.  This time around I'm allowed to make those six points be basically whatever I want.  I am allowed to go over this allowance, but will need to work out more to make up for it.  

 

Several reasons I'm going back to it:

1.  Great results

2.  Not as hard as I had expected, though still challenging

3.  I wanted this challenge to be challenging

4.  I MAY have gained a lot of it back during that last week of last challenge and the week between plans...

5.  Slightly as a punishment for gaining it all back

6.  Comic Con next month

7.  Volunteering with United Heroes for Hope, so need to be costume ready at any time now!

8.  Super exciting reason that deserves its own post...

[Nightcrawler_Bamff]

 

 

WE GOT TICKETS!!!!!!!

 

 

 

Day One is ON my birthday!  It was like a sign!!  The only day that was sold out when we got in was Saturday!  So we will be there Thursday, Friday, AND Sunday!!!!

[Nightcrawler_Bamff]

Week 1 review:

Not as strong as I would have liked, but successful anyway!

Gymnastics:

Accomplished an undershoot on uneven bars on Wednesday! An actual swinging move on the bars! It's almost like I'm a real gymnast! Haha! On Friday I several passes on floor with RO-BHS-BHS and they felt really good! Little work on aerials, they're still alluding me.

Blob's health bar:

This is where the not so strong part came in. Several issues with free food at work an a going away party yesterday ended up dropping my progress to only 90%. Gonna have to step it up to accomplish this feat. On a positive note, I did two real (though short) workouts (videos on YouTube) on top of gymnastics, so that's an accomplishment!

Splits:

Only missed yesterday for stretching sessions - was at work 8-6ish, ran home to shower and change, then going away party from 6:30-after midnight...went home and crashed without even thinking about stretching.

[raptron]

Yay for tumbling! You're in it to win it this week! Rah rah rah!

[Nightcrawler_Bamff]

Sooooo...you see what happened was...Monday started really strong! So motivated! Went for a run: 7 damage! Walked the mall: 7 more damage! Theeeeeen got asked to go to a movie...ate a bucket of popcorn...negated ALL of the exercise of the day! But soooo delicious! Ate well yesterday, walking now, gymnastics tonight, pita pit salad for supper! Back on track!

[Nightcrawler_Bamff]

Aaaand I'm sick And right at the start of five 12 hour days in a row :( On a good note, gymnastics Wednesday was great! Landed my second ever aerial!!!! Only landed the one during the class period, but was still very excited! Made my quota for the month apparently haha! Trampoline place for two hours Thursday, left super sore and continued through Friday, so kind of a subdued gymnastics class on Friday - had a sub too, who was easier on is during the workout too.

[SymphonicDan]

Ahh get well soon! Recover in a hardcore way even if you can't do much else in such a hardcore way

[raptron]

Aww noooo! Drink all the tea, get all the sleep, eat all the soup! Grats on your 2nd aerial though!!

[SymphonicDan]

How's it going Nightcrawler? You've been off the forums for 10 days Hope you recovered well from your sickness and onslaught of work!

[Nightcrawler_Bamff]

Thanks for checking up! Illness is 100% resolved, but still trying to catch up on everything over the past two weeks! I'll do a 2 week update...hopefully tomorrow night after work, but I make no promises...but soon for sure!!! That I'll promise!!

[Nightcrawler_Bamff]

Combined weeks 2, 3, and 4 review (FINALLY!!):

Ok...so week two started my new, almost set schedule, in which I work Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. It has proved difficult to shift my routine for my NF updates to that. Part of that difficulty has been: five work days in a row (of twelve hour days - 60 hours in a row!) which started with getting sick the night before day one and not being able to sleep for two nights, then one day off, then another 12 hour day, then two days off which were busy and didn't feel like days off, but started feeling better, then four in a row, three days off (again, busy), and today started another three in a row...the busy-ness will be expanded on in the "life" section below.

Food/exercise: Did better during week two than week one. dealing 25 points of damage, not quite as good during week 3, with 20 points, then that illness and my work schedule kicked my ass! Only 5 damage so far, still planning to walk a bit tonight and probably do a short ab workout to try and pick that up a little..

Splits: I don't even remember how many sessions I missed...but did lose a point of damage for each miss...they're still feeling...ok...

Gymnastics: few passes of RO-BHS on the floor again, so that was exciting...lost them for a while...friend started drills for an Arabian an I joined in with her...those feel really awkward and did not accomplish much with it haha

Life:

1. Cake: Made a cake for a coworker's going away party - no pictures because it turned out AWEFUL! Cake was crumbling while I was trying to frost it, crumb coat wouldn't dry (cuz it was canned frosting by her request), so crumbs all over in the frosting layer, ran out of frosting and had to buy more, but it was too late to go buy more so had to wait until the next day, came home after work the next day to find a chunk of cake had fallen off, slapped it back on the best I could (but it still fell off again on the way to the party), and it was super dry....later figured out ALL of the issues were likely cuz I don't think I doubled the water when I doubled the boxes, oil, and eggs (she wanted boxed cake...)...oops! That mistake was probably cuz I was EXHAUSTED from illness, work, and not being able to sleep.

2. Going away party: See above for cake details an all I wanted to do after work was go to bed, but was fun anyway...I told her the cake represented an I-owe-you cuz it was so bad haha. Good food, good company, bowled a game and did really well.

3. Interpreting program application: Revised my essay, found class work from a class I took a while back that they said the department head has to review to see if they will accept it as a transfer, filled out the actual application, mailed it in, got a coworker, my old manager, and two veterinarians to write me a reference for the program (they require 1 deaf person and one hearing person, but two of my old deaf instructors didn't contact me back and one had actually died a couple years ago, so hoping 4 hearing references will suffice....), scheduled an assessment to see if they will require me to retake any classes since all my credits are transferred, studied for said assessment, went in and took the assessment (and didn't do as well as I should have could have gone into so much more detail), was told I need to retake one class (which that school breaks into two classes because they do quarters instead of semesters...and is about what I expected, but not what I was hoping for or think I could have done), and signed up for that class...which starts next week!!!

4. Costume planning: spent the night at my friends' place who are going to San Diego comic con with me so we could plan out and have me help them figure out how to make certain pieces and how to get it all together, then went shopping for materials the next day. Ended up at a Goodwill outlet store...those things are, at the same time amazing, exciting, hilarious, and absolutely disgusting haha! It's all the stuff from the normal stores that haven't been bought that are then piled in bins and sold by the pound! I'm pretty sure the virus that causes the zombie apocalypse will start at one of those, haha! But so cheap to find things made of leather for costume making!! Friends got a leather recliner for $15 that will be perfect material for belts and holsters and such and will be more than enough for all of our costumes! I'm actually quite excited to go back! HAHA!!

5. Clean: Had been a while, but was hosting a small party so finally had the reason to actually do it...amazing how much stress it relieves just to have a clean apartment!

6. Party: One of my coworkers states she doesn't like to drink because she doesn't like the taste of alcohol...her experiences were shots of tequila and dry red wine...so...I had a party with her and her fiancée and played a pokemon drinking game I found on Pinterest a while back and I made her some fruity drinks! So much fun! We all had a good time and will be doing it again at some point.

This week will likely not be any less busy...Emerald city comic con in Seattle is next weekend, planning to head up there Thursday night after work...so I new to get all my stuff together and get/repair a few things...

[raptron]

An update! MIRACULOUS!

 

Arabian drills are SO awkward, but it'll be so cool to be able to do them. Booo for boxed cake + canned frosting! That stuff is cursed! I am not surprised it betrayed you -- it could probably tell that you are accustomed to much greater baking endeavors. 

 

Good luck staying sane with the crazy work weeks you have been having!

[raptron]

This could be helpful for your splits practice: 

 

[Nightcrawler_Bamff]

Awesome thanks!! I'll have to give those a shot!

[Nightcrawler_Bamff]

Convention Weekend Review:

And I'm back after my whirlwind of a weekend up in Seattle for Emerald City Comic Con! Had a blast!! My friends dressed up as street clothes Cyclops and vampire Jubilee! Cyclops is still a little hesitant to go full costume, but had fun with taking pictures and looking around. Jubilee's costume was perfect!

Here we are getting ready to head to the convention Saturday morning in the best way...shots!

Favorite pictures Cyclops took of us at the park outside the convention center:

Favorite costumes:

I really loved my friend's vampire Jubilee! She pulled off the look perfectly! See above for pictures.

Hope summers was perfect!

By far, though, my favorite was this little Dark Phoenix! She was amazing and so into it! It was her first convention and so excited! She grabbed us multiple times to get more pictures, which we were more than happy to oblige! I told her she was my favorite and she BEAMED! Most of the time, kids at true conventions get excited to see the superheroes, but are shy or hesitant to get their pictures taken (especially when I have the full sclera contacts in haha), but this girl was so excited! I loved her!!

So now on to business...

Week 5 (right...?) review:

Gymnastics: closed for spring break Didn't get to go at all. I did do another one handed cartwheel while as gambit at the convention though...

Splits: consistent until Wednesday (ok so that means I stretched Monday and Tuesday but it sounds better that way!). Wednesday was spent packing and making costume repairs I had forgotten about, Thursday I worked 7am-7pm then paled everything in my car and drove the three hours to Seattle, and spent the rest of the weekend getting up early to get ready and spending the day at the convention and hanging out with friends till late.

Blob fight: here's where things get a bit complicated. I ate bad for me food all weekend, but still managed to lose a little weight over the weekend, so so I feel I didn't do too horribly. Well...ok...pizza twice, Chinese, sushi, doughnuts, chocolate kettle corn from the movie theater (so wonderful!!), and several shots before the convention Saturday...but then spent ALL DAY walking around. For the weekend, I earned 80 activity points! Since I lost weight, I'm going to let myself have half of those towards my damage goal for the challenge. Unfortunately, I don't think it's quite enough to give me a chance of succeeding in achieving that goal though.

Life: see comic con review! So much fun!! Still recovering and trying to catch up on things.

Next step is to go through other NF challenges to see what I missed!

[raptron]

The pictures are awesome! Looks like you guys had a ton of fun.

 

Also I just saw your interview in the assassin forum -- niceee!

[Nightcrawler_Bamff]

Week 6 Review:

Bad week for the plan

Instead of thinking "Wow!  I have 45 more points of damage I need to do this week!" I thought "well...theres no way I'm going to be able to pull that off, so might as well cheat..."

 

Gymnastics:  Two weeks off was really evident  Tried floor for a while, but couldnt get myself to actually try a back handspring and dont feel I would have been able to land it if I had.  Couple runs on the tumble track of RO-BHS-BHS-BT, but even those werent as consistent as they should have been.  Did a couple aerials onto a mat in the foam pit that felt pretty good, though.  

 

Blob damage:  ...7...and that was with cheating...so probably actually should have subtracted points...

 

Splits:  Didnt really work on these much this week either.  I think the only time I actually stretched for these was at gymnastics wednesday and friday.

 

Life:  Here is where I am going to make my excuses (even though a lot of the problem this week was food, rather than time to exercise, though that definitely played a role as well.).

1.  FIRST WEEK OF CLASSES!  SO MUCH HOMEWORK!!!  AND IM ONLY TAKING TWO CLASSES!!!  They are going to be a lot of fun, though and I'm really excited!  "Introduction to Interpreting" and "American Sign Language 202."  Intro to interpreting class instructor is super passionate about linguistics and the stuff she's teaching and it is very evident in the way she is teaching!  ASL teacher is HILARIOUS!  

2.  Cut out the pattern and the fabric for my Star Wars costume shirt.  I decided on Kyle Katarn (who I had never heard of, but is apparently Luke Skywalker's apprentice after the events of the movies.).  Should be pretty simple...hopefully...

3.  I GOT INTO THE OTHER COSPLAY VOLUNTEER GROUP!!  Submitted pictures from Emerald City Comic Con and they accepted me the next day!!  They will be at Cherry City Comic Con (super small con in Salem...only it's second year) next weekend and I am excited to meet people and start working with them!

[Nightcrawler_Bamff]

The pictures are awesome! Looks like you guys had a ton of fun.

 

Also I just saw your interview in the assassin forum -- niceee!

Thanks!  It was a blast!!

 

Haha!  Reading that was the first I hear of it being posted!  Hope I didnt make a fool of myself!  Haha!

[Nightcrawler_Bamff]

Nightcrawler_Bamff Beats Back The Blob!

 

 

 

Using his skills as an acrobat and his teleporting ability, Nightcrawler easily evades Blob's powerful, but slow attacks.  With each punch Blob throws and misses, Nightcrawler lands several.  Blob, however, is not showing any signs of fatigue, while Kurt is already having to push himself.  

Mein God!  I dont know how much longer I can keep this up.  He only needs to land one punch and I will be out!

After several more minutes of exchanging blows, Blob's breathing finally begins to start quickening and beads of sweat begin appearing on his forehead.  Nightcrawler's moral raises, thinking he may actually have a chance!

Blob swings toward Nightcrawler's head.  The blow narrowly misses as Nightcrawler teleports away and the punch travels harmlessly through the cloud of black and purple smoke left behind.  He reappears directly behind his adversary, ready to deliver another volley of attacks, but this time Blob is ready for that tactic and has already changed the momentum of his punch.

BAM!  The blow connects!  The world starts spinning as Nightcrawler is slammed against the brick wall of the bank.  

"I was expecting that this time, elf!  Hahahaha!  Nothing moves the Blob!"

And the world goes black as Nightcawler loses consciousness.

 

 

Challenge 9 Review

I failed to achieve my goal of 150 hit points against the Blob.  I learned that I think I need a more rigid structure to my challenges, otherwise I dont stick to them.  "I have all challenge to get this done!  I dont need to work on this today!" was a common thought during the beginning, haha.

Even though I am considering the challenge failed, I still learned a lot and got a lot accomplished, though nothing really on the fitness side of things.  

 

Main Goal:

Gymnastics:  Landed an aerial, started going to another class on occasion on Thursdays (though cant anymore because I have a class during that time...).  Not a whole lot of improvement here.

 

Quest:

Beat The Blob!  

Blob's HP bar has 150 hit points.

Each exercise point earned using the Weight Watchers program deals one point of damage.  To encourage real workouts instead of walking the mall all the time, true workouts (which will be subjective deciding what that consists of) will be worth an additional two points of damage.  Gymnastics workouts do not get this addition because I don't need that as motivation to go!

Exercise-wise, I surpassed this goal!  Because of the guidelines set for food, however, I only ended up with 112 points of damage instead of 150.  Just walking around the convention for the three days earned me EIGHTY points!!  I think the fact that it is not a set in stone "you must do this on all these days" actually was a hindrance to my success.  Next challenge, I will make more set-in-stone goals.

 

Don't Feed The Blob!

The "crash diet" I did for the first half of last challenge gave me good results and was not nearly as difficult as I had anticipated.  I will repeat this for this challenge, with some tweaks.

Six WW points allowed per meal

One WW point allowed for snack once daily (the rest will be fruit/vegetables, which are free on the program)

This makes up to 19 points allowed per day. 

Each point over these allowances, The Blob is healed for one hit point.  

I have several events planned during the span of this challenge, so this will happen more than once, and will be allowed!  Though I will have to work harder to defeat The Blob!

It was really these constraints that led to the failed goal of the challenge.  Part of it could have been the "crash diet" part of it leading to losing the drive and motivation to make it to the end.  I think for next challenge I will stick to staying within Weight Watchers points allowance (which will give me an extra 10 points per day and an extra 45 per week to use or not use as I please, plus activity points that I earn from exercise.).  I also think the ability to eat what I want but subtract damage points was the big problem, though.  I think if I did not put that stipulation in the challenge goals, I could have stuck to things easier.  Im too much of an all-or-nothing type person that when I decided I could eat something that would take me outside the parameters of the challenge, I just kept going with it.  I may play with this in the future.

 

Splits:

Still working the splits.  Again, I will be doing one stretching session each work day and two on my days off.  Each missed session will heal Blob one hit point.

Meh...so-so.  I dont think I've lost any flexibility, but dont think I've made any improvements either.

 

Life:

Busy again!!

1.  Volunteering with United Heroes for Hope

Went to one event and had fun.  Just got into the Portland Superheroes Coalition as well!  Very excited to start working with them!

2.  American Sign Language Interpreter Program application due next month

Turned in my application, got several coworkers and bosses to fill out recommendation forms, did an assessment with a deaf instructor, who recommended repeating one set of classes, started those classes this last week!  There is already a ton of homework from just two classes!!  

I have been trying to apply to this program for the past three years, but something always came up that I ran out of time or didnt have something completed, or wasnt able to contact someone, etc.  FINALLY started the process!

3.  Emerald City Comic Con is also next month

It was AWESOME!  In case you missed pictures, check out page two of my challenge page!

4.  Continue working on Gambit costume - before July, I plan to have armor boots, a homemade spandex body suit, and an extendable bo staff.

Didnt get anything completed on this  Tried for quite a while on the collapsible staff, but that didnt end up working out.  I have a lead on another option that I will be doing some research into here soon.  

5.  Start working on Star Wars costume if I have time - will need to be completed by July.

Figured out which character to cosplay, found reference pictures, shopped Goodwill Outlet stores for anything made of leather to use for the costume, got fabric and a pattern for the shirt, cut out the pattern and fabric, and transferred all the markings from the pattern to the fabric.  Still have a lot to get done here.