How Dev0n's Tower Got Its Name

I logged on to Eve earlier than usual last night, and got a special treat. Dev0n was on, staying up late while putting up a POS in our null-sec space. The POS was intended for his personal use, researching blueprints and manufacturing ships.

Dev0n loves to sing on Teamspeak, and, I presume, just in life generally. Since I have been gone on my cruise for a while, and hadn't talked to him for a while before that, I was greeted with his rendition of "Celebrate". "Celebrate good times, come on!"

"Hi Dev0n, it's good to hear from you," I said.

"You're lucky, because I'm up late. I couldn't sleep, I'm having a problem with my pain meds," said Dev0n. Dev0n lives in Sweden, so even though it was about 5pm my time, it was 2am for Dev0n.

"Pain meds? What happened?" I said. It's the polite thing to do right? I swear on my mother's grave that the thought, "Hey, I bet there's an entertaining story here" never crossed my mind.

"Oh, I shot myself with a nail gun. In the hand," replied Dev0n. This is the point where "Hey, I bet there's an entertaining story here" crossed my mind, you see.

"Wow, that's gotta hurt! You know it's best to keep your hands behind the gun at all times," I say. If that sounds unsympathetic to you, this is what passes for sympathy with this crew.

He said, "Well, I had a smaller nail gun, so it didn't have all the safety stuff on it. I wasn't even nailing something, just walking with the gun and suddenly I felt a BAM! I wasn't even sure what had happened until I looked down and saw a nail in my hand, which had gone through the bone. I pulled the nail out and went to the emergency room where they yelled at me for pulling the nail out because I might have got bone marrow poisoning."

"Yeah, you should never pull something like that out, just go to the ER and let them do it," I said, benefiting from having a nurse and first responder as a spouse.

There were several other conversational threads that evening. In one, Dev0n and Riotmaker were teasing each other. Dev0n was teasing Riot about being an "emo kid" (Dev0n is an "old man" at 25. Hah!) and making disparaging comments about "lazy mexicans at the POS" or some such, knowing full well that Riot has some Mexican-American heritage. This was the first I'd heard of it, but Riot's ability with the Spanish language was to become important.

For his part, Riotmaker was threatening to leave our corp and join Morsus Mihi if Dev0n didn't treat him better. Most of this was going on in voice chat, but bits of it spilled into corp text chat, confusing poor gwnorth into thinking the whole thing was real. I'll confess that I wasn't sure at first, since both of them have a very good deadpan.

But soon, in between bitching about how long it takes to anchor and online everything in his POS, Dev0n is singing another favorite, "I Feel Pretty". It's always a favorite of his, And he sings the first line.

I feel pretty, oh so pretty, so pretty and witty and gay.

The man has no shame whatsoever, I think. But before the homophobic banter can kick in, Shawn breaks in to finish the verse in a clear, agile baritone:

And I pity any girl who isn't me today.

I feel charming, oh so charming

It's alarming how charming I feel.

And so pretty that I hardly can believe I'm real.

Very well done, Shawn, by the way.

By then Dev0n has anchored and onlined his tower and is soliciting opinions for what to call it.

"I think you should call it 'I feel pretty'," says I. Dev0n says he loves the idea, but wants to use Spanish.

"How would I say that in Spanish," he says.

My Spanish is very very rusty, so I grope, typing in text chat, "Yo se bonito?"

"Yo soy bonito," Riotmaker corrects me.

"Doh. Well, I know pretty, too." I'm slightly embarrassed, but we're rolling now.

"No, tell me how to say, 'you are pretty'," says Dev0n.

"Well, use 'que tan bonito'," says Riotmaker. Google translates this as "how nice", but I think there's some idiom at work.

UPDATE: Magson informs in comments that "Que tan, Bonito?" is idiomatic for "How goes it, hottie?" Or as some might say, "How are you doing?"

And so it was done. I went down there and took a peek when I finished doing my PI deliveries. This is what I saw.



Did you guys want some time alone?