Got the Metal Beneath My Skin

Does anybody else think that maybe Johnny Silverhand should not have been allowed to write his own lyrics? /wink

Anyway, as I promised in yesterday's post, here's a character sheet for Cyberpunk 2020. I didn't take a lot of artistic license with this one - it's essentially a facsimile of the official sheet from R. Talsorian, with a little background imagery taken from the first edition rulebook.

I made the sheet for a game in which I was going to be playing. Alas, I only got to play one session of said game - and forgot to print out the new sheet beforehand! (D'oh!) Hence, this sheet has not been play-tested - so please forgive an errors you might find.

. . . . .

The Color of Television, Tuned to a Dead Channel

I remember a time when the idea of a worldwide computer network was visionary, and the prefix "cyber-" wasn't attached to everything under the sun.

The time was the 80's, when computer technology seemed to be expanding at a rate with which human culture could barely keep pace. Look at the movies of the era: Terminator showed us what would be our ultimate fate if we let computers run our military; Wargames brought that vision to the modern day (of the time) and showed us that the future wasn't so far away as we thought; Electric Dreams brought the nightmare of digital mayhem into our very homes. (Alas, poor Moles...)

Of course, this is all typical fare for our entertainment media. Few things sell copy/tickets as well as a good, old-fashioned story of technology run amok and/or the end of the world.

Fortunately, the 80's also introduced us to a few people who realized that expanding technology was good for more than ending life as we know it. These folks realized that, one day, humanity would be embracing all of this new and exciting stuff - and wondered what it would be like if the computers of tomorrow "lived" with us (instead of just ruining our lives in some apocalyptic scenario). Those folks - Gibson, Stephenson, Williams, et al. - took the style and buzz of everyday life in the 80's and instilled into it what at the time was visionary technology. They created "cyberpunk."

Now, you know that something must have been cool when contemporary society embraces aspects of it. In this case, we know cyberpunk was truly cool because nowadays anytime someone wants to make technology sound all spiffy and cutting edge, it's labeled "cyber" this and "cyber" that. But there was a time when "cyber" anything was practically unheard of - and when all of this technology we take for granted was little more than a vision in someone's head, or an experiment running in the basement of a few universities.

From those days emerged what has to be one of my favorite games of all time (it's at least in my personal Top Five): R. Talsorian's Cyberpunk. Bearing the name of the genre of science fiction literature that inspired it, Cyberpunk had it all: a setting full of violence, old-school themes, and new-school technology - all amidst a stylish flare that could only have burst from the loins of the 1980's. It was a game of modern life sitting on the knife edge of tomorrow.

The Cyberpunk system - "Interlok" - was a simple, flexible little gem that seemed to answer any gaming need while still allowing characters all the room to breathe they could possibly require. And it was easy to house rule - perfect for a person like me. Throw in a bus load of Nagel-derivative artwork*, and how could you lose?

Man, I loved that game.

So, anyway, enough gushing over the game. Without further ado, here's my character sheet for the first edition (2013) of Cyberpunk:

For those of you have a thing for the second edition of Cyberpunk - Cyberpunk 2020 - fear not: I shall have a character sheet for you tomorrow. (Warning: my 2020 character sheet is basically a replica of the official sheet with only the slightest modifications; that sheet did its job well, and I saw little need to improve upon it.)

(*I mean, come on - Nagel was the 80's. Between his artwork and Don Johnson's socks-free pastel fashions, you've pretty much covered the defining icons for the decade.)

. . . . .

Good Lord Deliver Us!

And finally, wrapping up this week's trio of terrifying treats, here's a character sheet for another of my favorite horror role-playing games: Kult.

As much as I love classic/gothic and pulp horror, I also love contemporary dark fantasy/horror. I find myself inspired to new heights of imagination by such sources as the stories/novels/movies of Clive Barker, the stories/novels/comics of Neil Gaiman, and other sundry sources, such as DC's "Hellblazer" comic. (NOT the movie! Keanu Reeves as John Constantine? WTF?!) It's only natural, therefore, that a game like Kult should be attractive to me.

I've never had the chance to play a PC in Kult, but I did run an abortive campaign a few years ago. Unfortunately, one of my players found the game to be "too nihilistic," so the campaign ground to an early halt. More's the shame, because I had some great things in store for future games - and a plethora of dysfunctional NPC's: I had waaay too much fun making one "broken" character after another with whom the PC's could interact. (I also made the players' characters for them; the best of the bunch was the PC of the player who shut down the game: Bernie Dexter, a petty thief who suffered from a severe case of eisoptrophobia (fear of mirrors) - mainly because when he looked into a mirror or other reflective surface, he had a good chance of "piercing the veil." What a waste of a cool character...)

As with the other systems I've mentioned in the last two posts, Kult is not a perfect system. In fact, I preferred to use the system from R. Talsorian's Cyberpunk when I ran the game. More on this later. (If there's a perfect system in my world, it's Cyberpunk (2013-version) - with Chaosium's basic role-playing system running a close second. [Edit: An honorable mention should go here to Eden Studios' Unisystem - another solid game system that powers a bunch of really great games and comes close to being my Perfect Game System.] The core system is simple enough to make character creation a breeze, yet complex enough to cover most character actions smoothly. And I can't possibly say enough good things about "Friday Night Firefight.")

So, to satisfy your nihilistic contemporary horror role-playing cravings, here's a character sheet for (the now-defunct) Metropolis' Kult:

. . . . .

And Things That Go Bump in the Night

Rolling right along with the horror theme, here's another character sheet. This one is for the first edition of Palladium's Beyond the Supernatural ("BtS"). If memory serves, this was the first game I played with the folks who would become my game group for over 20 years. (And the session in which I was reintroduced to Terry (aka Theron) - the youngest brother of my best friend from my school years, Brian Z - who would become one of my best friends ever.) That first session was only the second or third horror game in which I played - but it would turn out to be the first of literally countless others. I therefore have a nostalgic fondness for this game. (And I love that Corben cover art!)

BtS is not the perfect game, nor is the Palladium system the perfect system. But it is a fun game - and I can't even begin to count how many hours of enjoyment I've gotten from the Palladium system, via mash-ups of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Ninjas & Superspies, Heroes Unlimited, Nightspawn/-bane (I got the book before the McFarlane hissy fit) and BtS.

Ah, good times...

. . . . .

From Ghoulies and Ghosties and Long-Leggedy Beasties

Although I'm not as big a fan of Mayfair's second edition of Chill as I am of Pacesetter's first edition, I still think it's a good game. (That is, aside from the flaws I mention in the comments section of this post.) I'd consider using it to run a contemporary game in a gothic horror vein, and I'd be more than willing to sit on the player's side of the screen.

Anyway, for those of you who play Chill 2E, here's a simple character sheet:

. . . . .

Welcome to Fright Night

Although 1981 was "The Year" as far as my gaming history is concerned, 1985 was almost as important to that history - and perhaps more important in terms of who I am today.

To fully understand the significance of that year, you'll need a bit of back-story:

I was - by all accounts - a timid kid. I was shy and sensitive, imaginative and introverted - and easily frightened. I can still recall some things from my childhood that terrified me for years: seeing an ad for The Exorcist on TV, with a young girl being thrown around on her bed as she begged her mother to "Please, make it stop!"; watching the TV movie Don't Be Afraid of the Dark - in the dark - in my older sister's room; watching The Skull on "Monster Movie Matinee" and seeing Peter Cushing, the hero of so many Hammer Horror Dracula movies get killed by a floating skull; being taunted by my older siblings with tales of the ghost that they claimed haunted the dark cellar of our old farmhouse. These things, and others, tortured my fevered imagination for years, providing more than enough fuel for the horrible nightmares I experienced almost every night for most of the 1970's.

Because of this, I generally avoided anything having to do with the horror genre. At the same time, though, I was a huge fan of the aforementioned "Monster Movie Matinee" and - to a lesser extent - its later competitor, "Eivom." Mostly, MMM played old 50's sci-fi movies, which I absolutely loved. When they played Hammer or Universal films or movies starring Vincent Price, I didn't mind them so much, but they were usually only mildly scary. I also watched TV's "Night Stalker" and "Night Gallery," but only rarely - these were about as much as I could take, and almost always came back to haunt me (pun possibly intended) in my sleep.

As the 80's replaced the 70's, and Star Wars and Dungeons & Dragons and Atari replaced pretty much everything else, the nightmares began to subside and I began to overcome my childhood terrors. I was still not a fan of the horror genre, but it had less of a deleterious effect on me.

And then came 1985.

In the late spring of 1985, I was 18 years old. I was commuting to college, had my own car, and a job. I'd been playing RPG's for over four years - first D&D, then Top Secret. Up to that time, the only RPG paraphernalia I'd purchased had come from Kay-Bee Toys, Walden Books, or (in one instance) a hobby shop I'd found while vacationing in Massachusetts. But the previous year, some time in the spring, I had heard a radio ad for a local game shop called A&J Hobby. I made a lone trip there, and from the moment I set foot into the store, I was in love with it. Here, at my fingertips, were so many things I'd seen for years in Dragon magazine, and more. Unfortunately, I didn't have much money at the time, so all I walked out with was a game I would come to really love: Villains & Vigilantes.

A&J Hobby - as it turned out - was only about a mile from the college I was attending in 1985, and right on one of the main ways to get home. I wouldn't say I was a frequent visitor, but I stopped fairly regularly to check out their stock.

It was on one of these stops, in late May of '85, when a game in the storefront window caught my attention: It was in a brown box. The cover bore the image of a man clad in early 19th-century dress, standing in the midst of a wind-swept cemetery, being stalked through the moonlit night by creatures only hinted at by a pair of glowing red eyes in the background and a hairy claw in the foreground. The game's title was proclaimed in a cliched-but-not-out-of-place ghostly typeface: Chill.

Like most of us, I've bought plenty of things on impulse. Granted, as the years have piled on, I've become far more jaded and less easily moved to purchase based on pretty packaging - but even today, I can still find myself seriously considering buying a product if the packaging connects with the proper sensory input. What I saw when I walked past that shop window was an image straight out of my youth; an image that conjured up Saturday afternoon in front of the TV, watching the camera dolly over the carefully crafted miniature landscape of MMM, down to the creaky bridge, over the misty swamp, up the jagged steps, and through the doors of Monster Mansion. Watching Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, in all their scenery-chewing glory. Feeling the thrill of being frightened (but now without the fear of the nightmares that would surely follow).

Yessir - I was sold on Chill the second I laid eyes on that Jim Holloway cover.

I still recall getting home that day and breaking out the game: It had started out as a fairly sunny, late-spring day. It was warm, but there was the slightest chill to the breeze. As the day wore on and I arrived home at the old farmhouse with my newfound prize, the clouds moved in. By the time I sat down at the dining room table to read the book, it was dark gray outside the windows, and the slight breeze had given way to utter stillness. It was warm still, and though the skies threatened rain, none came. Then, as I opened the rulebook and began to read, a misty drizzle begn to fall. At that moment, I had not only finally overcome my fear of The Unkown, but I had - that gray day - embraced it.

Less than two months later, I would discover - thanks to my nephew - the works of a weird fantasy/horror author by the name of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Shortly after that, my newfound love of the horror genre would be solidly cemented by the realease of one of my all-time favorite movies, Fright Night. And, before the summer reached its end, I would play my first horror RPG. (Albeit a bastardized mash-up of Chill, Top Secret, and Villains & Vigilantes.)

I'm still a huge fan of the horror genre, in all its forms and media. Since that day, I've probably played more horror games than any other genre, watched more horror movies/TV than any other genre, and read/written more horror fiction than any other genre. Since that day, I have fully explored and come to terms with the sources of my childhood fears, and even though the nightmares I have now are more terrifying by far than any I had as a child, they are - thankfully - few and far between.

In terms of the game itself: Chill isn't the best system ever written. (I've never been a fan of resolution tables.) But it does its job well - the entire system is constructed to foster the theme of the game. And the rules are presented in a package that, IMHO, conveys the game's atmosphere perfectly.

So, in honor of the game that would be the catalyst to set me on a path of self-discovery, here's a character sheet for Pacesetter's Chill:

. . . . .

Scanning Project: Temple of the Moon-Worshippers

I ran some real Monty Haul games back in "The Day," but it seems like I wasn't much better during my mid-90's D&D renaissance - I may have even been worse.

I was glancing through this dungeon while compiling the scans, and I realized just how much the treasure-to-hazard ratio is skewed. Heck, in one room, there's a gem worth 20,000gp and the only thing guarding it is a giant spider. It's practically a giveaway. I almost think I made this dungeon solely to pump up low level characters.

I wouldn't recommend that anyone run this as written - it could use a little beefing up, even if just by adding some really challenging wandering monsters.

Anyway, here's another from my mid-90's Moldvay/Cook D&D campaign: the Temple of the Moon-Worshippers:

. . . . .

Scanning Project: Underdeeps of the Witchlord

So by now, I imagine many of my readers are asking: "Where's the old-school fantasy gone?"

Rest assured, I haven't forgotten the fantasy. I've recently dug more of my D&D materials out of storage and scanned some of the dungeons I created in the mid-90's. This one, Underdeeps of the Witchlord, was a cornerstone dungeon of my campaign of that time. Created by Truan the Witchlord, advisor to the High King of Arisillon and one of the most powerful elf sorcerers to have ever lived, by the PCs' time the Underdeeps had been abandoned and almost forgotten since the Witchlord disappeared over a generation ago while looking for a long-lost family member. (I have a lot of notes regarding the recent - as in last 300 years or so - history of the lands of that campaign world: timelines, historical and mythical stories, bloodlines, etc. Perhaps someday I will compile these into a single document for downloading...)

Most of the dungeons I made during this time were mapped using the random dungeon generation tables in the appendices of the first-edition Dungeon Master's Guide, and stocked using the dungeon-stocking rules of the Moldvay Basic D&D book and the monster encounter tables of the Rules Cyclopedia. They also - although being randomly stocked - usually displayed at least moderate levels of Gygaxian naturalism. Although I haven't closely examined this dungeon recently, I believe Underdeeps is a prime example of this style of creation.

. . . . .

The Hoary Gambrel Roofs of Ancient and Witch-haunted... Winter Creek?

I've been running and playing in the same contemporary horror campaign on and off since around 1989. That's 20 years of (basically) the same bunch of players and characters... wow.

From the very beginning, we'd been basing our campaign in a contemporary version of Lovecraft's "witch-haunted Arkham," starting with Beyond the Supernatural, and progressing through Cthulhu Now, Chill (the Mayfair version - not my beloved Pacesetter edition), a couple of home-brew systems, and - finally - Bureau 13: Stalking the Night Fantastic. By the late 90's, after so many years of basing our adventures in Arkham, I thought it was time for a change of location.

The city had grown so familiar, it was starting to become a bit boring and predictable. I know for some, that's perfectly acceptable. But I'm not one for letting things stagnate; I like change - it keeps things fresh and interesting. And it's especially important, IMHO, to keep things fresh and interesting - and somewhat unfamiliar - when running a horror game. Familiarity brings a sense of comfort, which can be anathema to a spooky game.

So, I decided it was time to leave Arkham behind. Since I'd been making maps of my own fictitious hamlets, villages, and towns for years, it was not an ordeal to come up with yet another. Enter Winter Creek, Vermont, a small New England town richly steeped in American history, home to a prestigious university and private prep school; a civilized village hidden amidst the wilderness of Vermont's Green Mountains.

I gave the village several interesting historical and physical features, and a few noteworthy NPC groups and individuals. I set several games there, in hopes of enticing players into moving their PC's to fresh stomping grounds.

Alas, it was all to no avail. Nobody seemed interested, as I should have expected. They were comfortable with Arkham - too comfortable to let her go. As a result, "witch-haunted" Winter Creek became yet another in a long list of visited locales, rather than the new home for the campaign I had hoped it might become.

So, that's the real-world history of Winter Creek. Now, here's the map:

. . . . .

Bots and Hoops and Seps - Oh My!

Ah, Gamma World - how can you not love a game that has anthropoid rabbits and land sharks?

In the nuclear afterglow of yesterday's post, I got to thinking about the game - specifically, about the RAFM miniatures that inspired my first Gamma World campaign, if only via an ad in Dragon magazine. (You remember that little periodical, don't you?) I did some digging around, and finally found the ad in question. The miniatures were called "The Outcasts," and included such brilliantly named characters as "The Vicar," "Pinky the Eunuch," "Scary Mary," and of course, "Pongo Gutbag." (And given how inexpensive they were, I could kick myself for not sending away for them.)

I spent so much time ogling over these in the mid-80's that when I finally got around to running a GW campaign - albeit a brief one - in the mid-90's, it was only natural that I should include The Outcasts. The first few (and, as it turns out, only) game sessions of the campaign revolved around Pongo Gutbag and his band of flunkies. The PC's were recruited to infiltrate Gutbag's palace and retrieve an artifact. I thought I'd share with you the maps I made for the Massive Overlord's palace.

Page 1: An overview of the palace grounds and immediate environs, complete with mutated rice paddy and nuke-pear orchard:

Page 2: Detail maps of the out-buildings:

Page 3: Detailed map of the main building:

Page 4: The Thing What Lives in the Moat (if the nasty, irradiated water doesn't get you, this certainly will!):

. . . . .

Disco Mutants, Anyone?

Man... does anyone else here miss the 80's?

I mean for more than the over-the-top fashion and New Wave/Post-punk music. From a gamer's point of view, 80's media was chock full of inspiration. I was introduced to D&D in 1981, and I quickly discovered the other TSR boxed games shortly thereafter; most notably, Top Secret and Gamma World. These two games were perfect for the 80's: the Cold War saw to it that there was a plethora of media involving espionage and visions of post-apocalyptic futures. (Check out skankgame.com's "Cinema" section for a great run-down of some of the best - and worst - post-apocalyptic TV shows and movies.)

Sadly, although I indulged in a good number of Top Secret games, I never managed to pull off a Gamma World game back in the day. It wasn't until the mid-90's (early 2000's?) that I was able to get a Gamma World campaign off the ground. Whatever the reason, it didn't prevent me from spending a lot of quality time with the boxed set, or coming up with all kinds material for the game. (Or from wasting far too much time drooling over RAFM's Dragon magazine ad for their awesome post-apocalyptic miniatures. Anybody know how I can get my hands on "Pongo Gutbag on Litter of Doom"?? Or "Pinky the Eunuch"? I wish I'd picked them up when I had the chance. /sigh)

Anyway, in honor of one of my favorite games (reflecting one of my favorite movie/TV genres), here's a character sheet for first-edition Gamma World:


(If you'd like a version without the yellow background, you'll find one here.)

In the spirit of the genre, here are a few of my favorite lines from post-apocalyptic movies/TV shows:

"Daddy would have gotten us Uzis."

"Get a new president."

"That there is Cundalini... and Cundalini wants his hand back."

"Ariel! Ookla! Ride!"

"This was our first encounter with disco mutants. I was sure it wouldn't be our last."

. . . . .

Proving That Even Headless Gugs Are 86% Combat Effective

Stumbled on this bad boy on that site with all the videos... what's it called again? (wink-wink-nudge-nudge)

Look at All This Groovy Stuff

It's a funny thing: when you've been using the same computer long enough, cleaning up your hard drive suddenly becomes like opening a time capsule - or maybe like opening presents on Christmas morning.

I've probably had the same hard drive in this PC for more than six years now. I've accumulated so much stuff on it in those six years that it's finally getting to the point where I have to start getting files off it just to keep the OS running smoothly. Since it's kind of a slow day, that's exactly what I've been doing: virtual spring cleaning, as it were.

In doing so, I've discovered a lot of stuff I forgot I had on here - I've even uncovered some stuff I forgot I had, period. Among the things that I forgot were on here are some of my old 3D renderings. They're nothing amazing, to be sure. Although I've done some professional-level 3D work over the last 12(?!) years, it's been mostly minor stuff - I don't consider myself to be a professional 3D artist by a long shot.

Regardless, creating digital art is something I enjoy doing, when I have the time to indulge myself - and I used to do quite a lot of said indulging. These are a few of my pieces that I was happiest with. They may not be the most polished works of digital art ever seen (they were, after all, created to amuse myself) but I had a lot of fun creating them. I thought that instead of just burning them to a CD and tucking them away where they'd never again see the light of day, I'd post them here.

This is a trio of 3D images I created as Halloween cards some time in the late 90's:

Hope you like!

. . . . .

In Memoriam

Unfortunately, this time it's true - Dave Arneson, co-creator of D&D, has passed away.

RIP

Dave Arneson
1947-2009

. . . . .

Arkham Horror Meets Cthulhu Live(?)

Have I mentioned that I'm a huge fan of the works H.P. Lovecraft?

Oh, yeah, that's right: I have. Twice.

Well, it's probably no surprise then to find out that I'm also a huge fan of Fantasy Flight Games' Arkham Horror board game. And so is everyone else in the family. It's the go-to board game in our household - when we've got the stamina for it. And the space available in which to play it.

I'm also totally enamored of the idea of doing a Lovecraftian LARP (live-action role-playing, for those of you who live under a rock) game, a la Cthulhu Live. I think this concept was something I initially fell in love with upon reading the session reports of the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society's live-action games. While I generally find the idea of a LARP game too "fringe" even for my tastes, I've run a short Lovecraftian LARP game in the past - and have a hankerin' for more.

But I have to admit that, even for my love of both of these things, I'd never considered doing them both together. Until I saw this on BoardGameGeek, that is:


"Arkham Horror Dress Up Night?" Oh, now that's just too cool. I wish I had thought of this. And had friends who would be into doing something like this. Or even had friends who would play Arkham Horror.

/sigh

. . . . .

Keepin' It Real

[Uh-oh - he's getting up on his soapbox again...]

There's been a bit of grumbling about yesterday's Charlie Foxtrot (look it up if you don't know) surrounding the premature reporting of Dave Arneson's passing. Granted, I think most of us feel like boobs (some more than others) for mistakenly posting on this topic, but I've read a few posts and blog comments last night and this morning that either imply or outright state that those involved should be ashamed of themselves for not getting it right.

And I'm sorry, but I think some of these folks need to come back to reality. To that end, here's something to keep in mind (my comment from another blog, excerpted here):

With all due respect, anybody who looks to the blogosphere as a source for "hard news" is barking up the wrong tree - and should be ashamed of it. With a few exceptions, bloggers aren't journalists, have not had journalism education or experience, and their output should not be treated as journalism. The blogosphere is people talking and sharing ideas and information informally, just as they would over a cup of coffee in the break room. I don't know about you, but I don't expect that my co-workers have run down the source of their info and two or three backup sources; I just take it all with a grain of salt, and sometimes it's wrong. Since anyone can start a blog and post to it, the same should be expected of the blogosphere.

This ain't CNN people - it's a blog. And I'm not Wolf Blitzer (although how cool would it be to have that name? I think I'd have to be an action movie hero to properly live up to a name like that). I don't have an editor, nor do I have a fact-checking department. I'm a guy who posts stuff on teh interwebs. So is James over at Grognardia, Chgowiz over at Chgowiz's Old Guy RPG Blog, Jeff over at Jeff's Gameblog, etc.

Let's just keep that in mind for future reference, shall we?

K THX

(Oh, and for anybody who erroneously posted on the topic at hand and still feels bad about it, it's time to move on - unless you're angling for a spanking, in which case, this isn't Castle Anthrax - if you know what I mean.)

[Steps down from soapbox.]

. . . . .

Always Get a Second Opinion

So, it would appear that news of D&D co-creator Dave Arneson's death was premature. Here's the skinny.

. . . . .

Drive-By Posting

I'm way too busy at the moment to write a full post, but I just had to share this gem I came across this morning. Now, it's been a long time since I played with toys (aside from wargaming miniatures, if you include them in that category - and even then it's been a while) but I still thought these custom Dungeons and Dragons action figures were pretty awesome:

Old School Movement Takes It to the Streets

Found this article on CNN this morning:

(CNN) A pack of protesters gathered at the village park in North Hakenslach, Minnesota this morning, braving the frigid weather to stand up for the rights of, as one protester put it, "old school gamers everywhere."

The seven people, each one hailing from different locales such as Texas, Chicago, and even as distant as Ontario, Canada, carried signs, beat a drum, and shouted pro-"old school" slogans to show their solidarity, and to raise awareness for their cause.

"People need to be made aware that there are more of us around than they think," said Jim Grognardi, the group's unofficial spokesperson. "Beneath the thin veneer of today's gaming populace is a much larger, much older foundation of gamers, and we demand that our voices be heard."

Although the protest group consisted of only seven members, Grognardi claimed that many more like-minded individuals had indicated that they would be arriving to join the protest.

"We're expecting about another 130 people," Grognardi maintained.

No residents of North Hakenslach, population 372, could be reached for comment. However, one person in a passing vehicle voiced his dissent to the protesters' loud message:

"Get a life, weirdoes!" he exclaimed as he sped by.