--- I may have mentioned in the past that the husband is an aficianado of Star Wars Galaxies.
The husband is a gamer, but he doesn't go in for Playstation or X-Box:
he likes using his PC instead, and plays these Massively Multiplayer
Online Games, or MMPORG, (yeah, I know---they have an adverb describing
a noun. It bugs me, too, but that's what they're called and if I
corrected their grammatical error, the husband would correct me.) like Everquest, although he never did play that one. No, he goes in for Asheron's Call and now Star Wars Galaxies.
He's been playing SWG for almost eight months now. Since we can't
afford to pay for multiple monthly subscriptions, he has to pare his
choices down to one game, and this has been the it game since
late June. Now, I hate this frigging game. I think it's stupid in the
extreme, but, honestly, who am I to judge? I do know that I hate
listening to the John Williams-composed theme when the game cues up. I
hate the blaster sounds. I hate how much frigging time he devotes to
it: hours and hours every night and weekend to the point where I feel
like I'm a SWG widow at times. The whole thing is just annoying, but
the husband likes it. He does his best to ensure that the game doesn't
bother me to the point where I, the mistress of the budget and credit
cards, do not cut him off permanently. There are good points to it: it
keeps him occupied; he's made friends, and I daresay one or two
potential business contacts. It makes him happy, in other words, to
play it. So, I'll suck up my dislike of the game and my general dislike
of George Lucas and John Williams' plagiarism (that man is one big
phony! Can you steal more music? I think not.) and will let him play on
for that reason alone. It's doesn't really bother me, unless I let it,
right? I have control over my dislike. I can decide to let it go or to
take a baseball bat to Gandalf, right? I am the Mistress of My Angst!
With this thought in mind, most times I just push the angst aside, sigh
loudly, and go about my business.
But as much as I dislike the game in general, there has been one thing
I've wanted to do ever since he told me he could travel to the moons of
Endor: I've wanted to kill an Ewok.
I hate Ewoks. Yeah, sure, you say, scoffing, take your
frustration out on the furry little beasts. Well, why the hell not? It
was the Ewoks who RUINED Return of the Jedi. It's all
their fault. George had reproduced by that time and he wanted something
fuzzy and friendly to put in the movie for his kids. He admitted as
much in the interviews he did with Leonard Maltin. He took a perfectly
good dark trilogy about rebelling against fascism in a Galaxy far, far
away and made it all fuzzy and warm! UGH!
The reason that Episodes 4, 5 and 6 are not thought of as movie making
perfection is because George put in the goddamn Ewoks! It was contrived
in the extreme. He wanted to make it "family friendly." I hate to tell
you this, George, but the movies were already "family friendly." Come
on! If the Cake Eater parents took us to see these movies, when they
had reservations about taking us to Tron,
you can't get more family friendly. George miscalculated completely and
ruined the tone he'd so meticulously set up in Episodes 4 and 5. Now,
keep in mind, I'm not really a Star Wars junkie, but I still
liked the movies; I saw all of them in the theater; they were great! I,
too, wanted to grow up and be Princess Leia! Harrison Ford's Han Solo
was my first movie character crush. These movies are as much a part of
my life as anyone else my age. Just because I don't go in for
fanaticism doesn't mean they don't mean quite a lot to me. And George
ruined the damn things by putting in those Ewoks and I can hold a
grudge if needs be.
So, with the chance to finally settle the score burned into my brain, I
told the husband that if he ever got the opportunity to blast an Ewok,
I was going to be in on it---I wanted to take one of those overgrown
rodents down! It would be satisfying in the extreme. And, according to
the husband, I wasn't the only one who wanted to do this. It's
fortunate that Jar-Jar Binks isn't in the game, otherwise he'd be
toast. Months come and go. No Ewok mass murdering opportunities arise.
Ewoks, at the beginning of the game, were a protected species. But
their status at the Endor Wildlife Conservation Department changed a
little while ago: suddenly, it was ok to slaughter Ewoks. The husband
relayed this information to me. I reminded him of his promise to let me
slaughter one. He said ok, he'd let me know the next time he got to
Endor. He got to Endor yesterday. He slaughtered an Ewok. He never told
me he was there, nor did he invite me to be in on the fun! And THEN
he had the gall to email me a screen shot of a dead Ewok. I am livid. I
wanted to kill that overgrown hamster! I wanted to riddle a little Ewok
body with blaster holes. Grrrrrrrr. His excuse for not making me aware
of the Ewok slaughter: I was napping. He knows I hate to be disturbed
while I'm napping. Damnit, this was the one time you could have woken
me up, love o' my life! I wouldn't have minded. Really. I mean that.
Phone calls, no, don't wake me. Ewok slaughtering, yes, wake me the
hell up. You'd better get your ass back to Endor, and soon, or I might
just deauthorize the SWG charges to the checking account. There. Threat
made. We'll see what sort of a reply he comes up with. (And I changed
the password on this blog. He can't hijack it anymore. He'll have to
use his own blog if he wants to reply publicly!)
---Oh, and I promised Mr. H. the end to the "tabs" vs. "tags" debate.
Forgot all about it. Whoops.
I had to renew Nellie's license tags the other day. This was not
something I was looking forward to. We're in the last ten days of the
month: this is the period of time that the State itself warns you is a
bad time to visit them. They're generally overwhelmed with people who
have put the whole business off in the effort to mentally dodge the
fact they have to pay yet another tax to the People's Republic of
Minnesota and the Province of Hennepin. It's expensive to live here. We
have to pay a lot of taxes for the privilege. No small wonder most
people avoid the Hennepin County Service Center like they would the
plague or Ebola. Anyway, I got the job done. It was a pleasant
experience, on the whole. Surprisingly, the place wasn't overflowing
with people. I got in and out within a half hour, which I think is a
record. And after handing over my $39.50, I got new tags to put on
Nellie's plates and I breathed a sigh of relief. Nellie's tags expired
at the end of November: it was past time we got this done. You know, to
avoid the usual pleading when the cops pulled me over for expired tags.
The DMV had sent me a renewal notice in October, announcing once again
I could go online and get this whole thing done that way. I've done
this in the past, but we weren't overdue at that point in time, so
while I knew I actually had to go and renew them in a physical, rather
than temporal sense, I still toyed with the idea of just not driving
the car for a few days while I renewed them online. Where does Mr. H.
come in? you ask. What's this whole debate you've got going on? Make
some sense here, woman! For the love of all that is good and holy, stop
rambling! Well, the debate comes in because Mr. H. laughed at me a
while ago when I used the word "tags" to describe the little stickers
you put on your plates to announce to the world that you're a good
taxpaying citizen. He said true Minnesotans used the word "tabs." I
told him "tabs" was the plural usage of the soda, not the little sticky
things you put on your plates. He disagreed. Hence, a debate ensued.
And I won. Go here and realize I'M FULL OF SHIT AND WILL SEE ONLY WHAT I WANT TO SEE WHEN I'M BLINDED BY SHEER COMPETITIVENESS!

Crap. I lost. I just handed my own ass to myself. How humiliating.

Posted by: Kathy at 01:21 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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