The secret is out, and in this week’s Wednesday’s Who’s Who, I am breaking a silence to reveal, he who walks the Calypso plains by day as mild-mannered hunter, and by night, the almighty ... Protector of Palms Corner As self-proclaimed Mayor of Palms Corner, Slick is ever-ready to welcome visitors to this quaint and quiet location that he has come to call home. His obsession with the color yellow will be revealed over the course of this offering, as well as the path that led him to serve and protect as ... Entropia’s BananaMan What's in a name Night Shadow was the first alias Slick used when he first started BBS’ing. He had been introduced to an old radio show by his mother that originally started in the 1930’s regarding a comic book style hero called "The Shadow" that his mother had listened to while growing up. He really liked the character, and especially the tag line "Who Knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!" The name "Slick" comes from a nickname his buddies from high school gave him. His real life first name is Eric, and the nick came from the Rapper Slick Rick whose rapper style was popular in the late 80’s. Another CND Baby Slick had seen an article at CNN.com about Neverdie spending $100K USD to purchase a virtual asteroid. "I was intrigued," he says, "and totally blown away that someone would spend that kind of money on a non-existent item." Slick had done some eBay trades for Diablo2 items, and says, "The concept was clear to me about how PE was set up, and it made perfect sense." He had made up his mind then that he was going to check out Project Entropia, and after registering in November of 2005, he patiently waited for CND to open. When the day arrived on December 19, 2005, he says he was on one of the first flights to make it to CND for exploration, and shares that "it was a fascinating time." The most unique experience he claims he’s had came when he finally met up with Neverdie at CND. Slick was curious about owning some property in the game as well, so was looking to get some advice. "Neverdie was an unbelievably gracious guy to me," says Slick, "and went so far as to give me his cell phone number so that we could chat about a potential apartment purchase." Slick stated that he was still quite nervous about spending a significant amount of cash in a game, and that Neverdie took his own personal time to talk to him about it. "Considering ND had just blown $100K, I wanted to hear his thoughts," says Slick, and, "after a two hour chat (correct me if I’m wrong here ND), I deposited the money and acquired one of the first apartments being offered in the Beta South wing (3G to be precise), but has since been sold." Slick spent the next year almost exclusively at CND and says he "proved that yes, a newbie can make it there with no problem (and have a hell of a lot of fun too)." Mentor was great Prior to the launching of CND, Slick was trying to figure out the whole sweating thing, which was his second day in game. He was at Fort Troy where he had spawned and noticed someone standing in the middle of a lot of other newbies in OJ’s sweating up a storm. It was Gekke Gekke Garrit, who was focusing and healing everyone, and "was unbelievably helpful to all of us," says Slick. Gekke offered mentorship to Slick, and after explaining what it all entailed, he gladly accepted. He says that, "Gekke became my one source of great information and friendship over the first month, and really was about the only reason I stayed (I only managed to sweat a week before I got intensely bored)." Slick shares that, "Gekke is still a great friend 3 years later, and won’t pull him off my Friend List no matter how full it gets." He claims that anyone who spends any amount of time around Twin Peaks will know him well, and "his spontaneous invites to parties." The Soc Circuit Slick’s first society was Slaves to the Machine (SttM) which had been created by Sajinol Suicide Jamison, who is now running a soc called Peaceful Torture. He believes he joined SttM in early December 2005 and got to meet some great people from all over the world. Slick thinks it was late January 2006 when the soc experienced inactivity issues, and eventually, a new soc was formed from the remaining active members and friends of SttM. It was called Seven Lives, and run by an old SttM member, David Passedpawn Karrde. "I enjoyed all of my time in both of these socs," says Slick, "and still have friends going back 3 years, (several of which are now with me in my current soc)." Late in 2006, the same inactivity issues were experienced and the remaining members looked around for another soc with more active players. That’s when Slick ran into Baron Von Steuben of Supremacy Reign HQ. He had heard of the soc, and knew they had a good reputation in game. He doesn’t remember exactly how he and Baron had met up, but eventually they started discussing the possibility of the remaining 7-Lives members joining Supremacy Reign, which was designated as the Cadets soc. There seemed to have been some struggles with the soc at that time according to Slick, and while maintaining a respect for all involved, he offers that he ultimately became Leader of SR, and found himself "rebuilding it from the ground up." According to Slick, "The year plus I spent as General of SR was the most rewarding time I have ever spent in EU, and the most challenging as well." He states that running a soc is tough work, "especially rebuilding it from the ground up," but claims that he has met some of the best people on this planet he could ever ask to call friends. He shares that SR has now grown to four entities – SR HQ, SR, SR Cadets, and SR Inc. "We truly are a family, and I cannot see myself ever leaving this crazy, awesome bunch of people." He has met quite a few SR members in real life, and even several of the UK membership. Slick had opportunity to meet up with the UK bunch as he calls them (and others), during a family vacation to London this past September. After a year in the SR General role, Slick passed on the torch and is happy to spend his time as a Colonel until he graduates into the SR HQ soc. The current General of SR is Egg90. Yellow Obsession Slick’s obsession with yellow started in real life, long before he heard of PE/EU, and as you’ll discover shortly, it carried over into his virtual world. This 32 year old married man lives in Colorado (US) with his lovely wife Katy, and there’s an interesting story about how they met. Seems Slick has another obsession as well, and it’s with Vintage Watercooled Volkswagens, especially the Scirroco. He claims to have owned over 40 different watercooled VW’s. He is currently working on restoring a 1981 Scirocco ‘S’ from the ground up. The relationship with his wife started nine years ago when Slick saw an ad in the paper for the 81 Scirocco. He made the phone call and ended up talking with her mother. He discovered that she lived only 3 miles away in a neighborhood where he grew up. He made the trip to take a look at the car, and ultimately purchased it. He has been working on the restoration ever since. The photo to the right is what it will look like once he has finished the project. And yes, his obsession with yellow even has wheels. It didn’t take that long to capture Katy’s heart though, they have been married for five years and the rest of their immediate family consists of 2 Beagles, and one Bagel (a Beagle/Basset mix). From left to right we have Cabby, Roccit, and Dakota. "Cabby is the Bagel," says Slick. Slick’s real life occupation is Technical Support for large, high-end Unix machines, and keeps him quite busy. Slick’s obsession with yellow carried over into PE/EU, and it began in the early CND era when he decided to take up crafting Pall stools. He had so many of them at one time, that he started a thread entitled Slick’s House of Stools in order to offer them to the community. He was skilling on coloring at the time as well, and colored himself some yellow stools. Even I was the recipient of one of these specially-crafted and yellow-colored stools, and one of the first pieces of furniture I had in my own CND apartment. Slick didn’t just color stools, he would color practically anything that would take color, including clothes, but eventually gave it up and focused on other things. Today, Slick wears clothes that are colored and textured by LeeLoo Faith. However, he shares that he has been skilling on textures and has become her supplier. And, as you can easily guess, the color yellow figures prominently. With regard to an EU profession, Slick says that hunting is his main thing, and his armor of choice of course is Boar, but then I think we already established that at the outset. Even when he’s hunting, he has the option of seeking out even more yellow in the ever popular Scipulor mob. In addition to team hunts on Scipulors, his other favorite mobs to team are Formidon, and Hogglos. If he goes solo, he’s usually engaged with the higher maturity Estophyls and Atroxes. He says that, "I find the loot decent for PEDS spent, good skills, and can reuse the materials in texture crafting." He shares, that with the exception of the beauty profession, he’s tried just about everything else. He admits that he "was never very successful with mining, and found it a bit boring," but despite the boredom, he has found himself doing quite a bit of texture crafting as a result of mining resources. And on that note, he shares that he does his texture crafting at Palms Corner where he hangs out nowadays. "I’ve taken a much more quiet role in EU since my earlier days of CND partying and PK’ing at Twin or the Rig. I just love the feel of the town and its secluded nature. I just wish MindArk would open up the houses there to be sold!" A Mayor's Mansion perhaps? Entropia Reflections After reflecting upon what keeps him involved in EU, he shares that it’s "the challenge of getting to the next level, soloing that next big mob, or getting some rare, big loot." He likes the fact that he can keep an accounting of globals and hofs by utilizing the Entropia Tracker application, but openly admits that he has never had a solo global over 1K PED, which "still itches at me," he says. He attributes another inspiration as being his great friends in the family known as Supremacy Reign, and proudly states, "SR FOR LIFE BABY!" Slick is a little less active these days, but reflects upon that first year at CND and says, "it was just crazy fun, with so many active party people, not to mention quite a few newbies at the time." He and Neverdie had discussed how he could lead a few events and initiatives that would appeal to the CND babies like himself, and as a result, the Riddle Treasure Hunts were invented. There were three in all, and you can get a feel for how much fun these were here, here, and here. Slick would place an item, like a single blaus stone, somewhere on CND, and would create a riddle that revealed coordinates, or a hint to its location. There were prizes geared toward new members who were challenged to gain PED on CND. Prizes included Globlin and Pixie parts, as well as small pistols, and of course PEDs. Several community members donated to the prize pool, which made it that much more valuable. While it was a blast running the riddle treasure hunts, it was the "drunken techno raves that were the most fun of all," says Slick. He shares that, "The social aspects of the game at the time were incredibly fun and immersive, and to be quite honest, I don’t remember half of the parties – lol." However, at this point, his memory is kicking into high gear, and does remember "too many nights goofing off in the Control Room – remember the pyramid-building?" Yes, indeed I do, and the human pyramids and people stacking were not only practiced in the Control Room, but in the main disco as well. In September of 2007, Slick was fortunate enough to be a member on the team that experienced uber results from a 35 PED beacon mission. There were 6 in all on the team, and Slick says, "It wasn’t super tough, and we weren’t expecting much." He got to his boxes first, and upon opening the first one, it produced a 250+ PED global, which turned out to be mostly growth molecules, and added quite a bit of weight to his avatar. After that, "It was just global mayhem as people made it to their boxes." The unfortunate thing was, there were so few in team, and the growth molecules made everyone heavy, so Slick doesn’t think they were able to open all of the boxes. Despite that issue, he says, "We were all very excited, and the grand total was just over 6K PED in TT value." He believes that at the time, it was the biggest total loot from a beacon mission, and he doesn’t think that the record has been broken yet, but does share, that "It was easily the most loot I have seen in one trade window." With regard to Entropia’s progression, "It’s a positive development," says Slick, "and making Planet Calypso a separate entity from MA makes sense to me." He’s looking forward to seeing some finished storylines, as well as the CE2 release. "I don’t believe the change will have any real impact on my play unless another partner planet is opened where my skills and gear could be used, then I might go check it out," he says. Seems that Slick not only has a pension for quirky weapons, like the Silver Fang m.01 Starlight, but also finds himself being consistent with regard to how he chooses his residences. The apartment he had acquired at CND was in the Beta South wing (3G), and his current, planetside apartment is at Omegaton West Habitat, Beta building (3G). However, now that the banana is out of the bag, we know that his most sacred home is Palms Corner, and as Entropia’s Bananaman, he is prepared to defend its hallowed grounds at all cost. I was able to uncover another little known fact about the self-proclaimed Mayor of Palms Corner that reveals even further the association of his real life name Eric with Bananaman lore. It seems, he was quite the hero in his younger school years, and now, in his virtual life, he has stepped up to continue his fight against evil while in the shadows protecting his Palms Corner domain. Oops ... not in the shadows any MORE ... I present to you: "Eric the BananaMan" > Special thanks to ... "Baradur" ... for an assist with some of the graphics!
