Sympathy for the Jedi

I find your lack of guessing my name disturbing

(to the tune of Sympathy for the Devil, obviously)

Please allow me to introduce myself
I’m a Jedi of speed and haste
I’ve been around for a long long year
Raced many ‘cross the Jundland Wastes

And I was ’round when Sebulba
took a tumble onto the plains
Made sure that Jabba Hutt
had a laugh as he watched th’ race

Search your feelings
You know it to be true
But if I’m really your father,
is what’s puzzling you

I visited Couruscant
When the queen came under an attack
Jumped from cars and stopped a girl
Who Jango shot from his jetpack

I flew tanks
Held a generals rank
When the clone wars raged
and the droids clanked

Search your feelings
You know it to be true
But if I’m really your father,
is what’s puzzling you

I flew with glee
While both the fleets
stood back to back
then shot each other to scrap

I met Duku
and helped him lose his head
When Palpatine
acted oh so mean

Let me please introduce myself
I’m a jedi of great haste
And I helped kill off the Council,
took the temple, and had my first Sith taste

Search your feelings
You know it to be true
But if I’m really your father, oh yeah
is what’s puzzling you

Just as every droid will malfunction
and all flyers fall
As lights go dark
Just call me Darth Vader
’cause my servos give me complaint
So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and do your best
Use all your well-learned saber-skills
Or I’ll lay you down to rest, mm yeah

Search your feelings
You know it to be true
But if I’m really your father,
is what’s puzzling you

Woo, who
Sith lords, come on down
Oh yeah
Oh yeah!
Tell me Jedi, whats my name
Tell me Blue Milk, can ya guess my name
Tell me Naboo, whats my name
I tell you Obi Wan, you’re to blame
Ooo, who
Ooo, who
Ooo, who
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Oh, yeah
Whats me name
Tell me, Yoda, whats my name
Tell me, Tarkin, whats my name
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Ooo, who, who
Oh, yeah

Floppy satchel

I finally found a use for floppy disks that doesn’t involve throwing them at people.

I had to drill some additional holes, but I was able to re-use the lock & HD ones on top.

Add one satchel strap (I’m thinking…  drive ribbon cable) and I’ve got my own Spock satchel.  Did I mention that I was a nerd?

Star Trek:Online

As previously established, I am a huge nerd (<- MASSIVE UNDERSTATEMENT).  This isn’t just a fat joke, though I am also fat, but today I mean it in the sense that someone will say something innocuous like “I’m making a note here” and I’ll finish, uninvited, with “Huge success!” in an enthusiastically robotic tone modeled after the computer from the game Portal.  If I have to explain why this makes me a nerd, then just assume it’s an extraordinarily nerdy and socially awkward thing to do.

Wish I could as cool as these dudes!

So when I read about a Star Trek MMORPG (pronounced “Mumooorpguh”) being made, I responded with cool, collected interest (actually: “Squeeeeeee!”) and began looking forward to seeing how it turned out.

“Finally”, I told myself, rubbing my hands together in anticipation, “I’ll be able to play one of these games and excel at it!”  Worlds of Warcraft, Everquest, and others of the genre had been completely uninteresting to me because I don’t like magic stuff.  Star Wars Galaxies was just, well, boring and was less about Star Wars than it was about killing space rats and casting blaster spells at space Orcs, and I just couldn’t get into that either.  But certainly something like a trek game would have to be done correctly, right?  Right?!

Well…  not entirely right, it seems.  I watched some videos, and it looked…  slow.  Pretty, but slow, as in gameplay not ‘choppy framerate’.  The videos were full of gently swooping ships moving around in front of planets and nebulae and asteroids with fart trails coming out of their space engines for some reason.  The only combat shown was from an outside perspective and seemed to be about ships standing next to each other and shining space flashlights back and forth until one of them spontaneously exploded.

WHEN SUDDENLY, I was chatting with a friend and he mentioned in passing that he had played the beta.  Whaaaaa??!

SUPER ACCURATE CHAT LOG:

Him: So i preordered and am in the beta for star trek online
Me: Neat, I was just bitching about ST:O to someone a few minutes ago!
Me: I am firmly hoping the game is better than the gameplay vids I’ve seen.
Him: It is exactly the same as Pirates of the Burning Seas except kind of fun.
Him: Well ok
Him: That’s not really fair
Him: POTBS was the worst game ever and I actually sort of enjoyed playing STO last nihgt
Me: I am concerned that it’s a mega-grind where you cast phaser spells at people occasionally.
Him: Let’s say that the gameplay is basically like BOTBS except you can do things of consequence while not in your ship like cast blaster spells and jump.
Him: Well
Him: It is a mega grind where you cast phaser spells
Me: I imagine someone will make a mint crafting  photon torpedoes to sell to other players, and that there will be a brisk business of hunting space rats to collect the appropriate amount of meat to build phaser pistols and new uniforms.
Him: in space i casted some photon torpedo spells at orion pirates
Me: Take THAT, Orion pig dogs!
Him: it was groovy
Me: The Federation dialectic demands that your small business be destroyed so that our Utopian vision of galactic communism can be achieved!
Him: Nah it’s fun I suppose, it has a sort of episodic feel to it sort of like doing eve missions where you get a quest/mission then you go to someplace else in your rocket ship and maybe do some stuff there and beam some jerks aboard and maybe beam down to a planet or to another ship and shoot your phaser at things.
Him: You can also do it as a klingon.
Him: I was going to mane my ship the U.S.S. Esses after the ship in that one comedy film but it was taken i guess.
Him: name, that is.
Me: “Hello captain, I have some boxes of SPACE GRAIN that must be transported to SHERMAN’S PLANET.  There may be ONE KLINGON SHIP in the area according to our scans.  Would you like to accept the contract?  Press 1 for yes, 2 for no.  Note: You may only reject two contracts per 24 hour period from any agent.
Me: “The warp coordinates for this arbitrarily precise location we have for them has been loaded into your NaviPuter”.
Me: ZOOM-WARP: “Captain, I’m picking up ONE PIRATE SHIP on scanners!”
Him: Yes basically though so far it has been more like
Him: Admiral: Captain, we need you to go find out what happened to our ship off in some corner of space there’s been pirate activity
Him: me: ok <gets in rocket ship and blasts off into space>
Him: <navigates weird unintuitive warp system to get to the place>
Him: Then i come out of warp, fly towards the ship and OH NOES IT’S WARP CORE IS ALL MESSED UP SOMEHOW AND THEY ARE BEING BOARDED BY PIRATES
Me: What timing!
Him: I shoot a couple of pirate starships and beam over with my away team consisting of me, my tactical officer, who is the only bridge officer i have, and 4 or 5 redshirts named “security”
Me: AKA: Walking Ablative Armor
Him: I easily dispense of the overwhelming pirate force and rescue the injured crew
Him: Ther captain nobly decides to keep trying to fix the warp core so i beam the fuck off the ship
Him: then she can’t do it so i have to beam her off too
Me: Then suddenly DX11 effects appear as the ship explodes, I assume?
Him: well
Me: Kablooey!
Him: I try not to be awfully close when that happens because you take damage from exploding ships
Him: but yeah basically
Me: Was there an expanding space donut coming out of the explosion?
Me: Because that’s how you know it’s a big deal.
Him: No no space donut i’m afraid
Him: then i fly back to earth spacedock and do another one
Me:
Ah.

The conversation sort of petered out after that, I think some LOLcats were exchanged.  The important thing is: I got to talk to someone who had actually played the game, and while he sort of liked it, it seemed to be for the reasons that I hate every other MMORPG.  Oh, le sigh.

As excited as I am about the idea of a game that somehow makes being a Star Trek fan more socially objectionable, I’m beginning to have my doubts about this.  If, as it appears, this merely combines the drudgery of Star Wars:Galaxies with the drudgery of Worlds of Warcraft and pastes a Star Trek skin atop it, then…  well, crap.  Sounds boring.

In closing, this is the part of the post where I’d usually make some witty commentary on the whole thing, maybe take it in a different direction or close out on a cheap joke, but this this has sat in my outbox for almost a week, and at this pace, the fucking game will be published and dead of old age, so I’ll just end on a positive note: C#

WTF Lucas?

What the fuck is a “Jedi Telescope”?  And how can you use the word “science” in conjunction with “Star Wars”?  This is like those Superman action figures (“toys”) that have him wearing missile launchers and rocket packs for some reason.  This isn’t really that super fantastic of a post, just…  really, Lucas?  Seriously?

Happy”Life Day”!

As a fat, sarcastic Star Wars nerd, I’m truly a devil with the ladies.  If, by some odd twist of fate, I haven’t already fully convinced all the women of the world of my unsuitability for extended contact, I’ve written the following poem.  That’s right, a STAR WARS POEM. Take that, self respect!

It chronicles previously unwritten events that took place the night before Luke Skywalker’s climactic confrontation with the Emperor:

For your entertainment:

The Night Before Endor
Twas the night before battle,
and all through the the base.
Not a creature was stirring,
out here in deep space.

The AT-ATs were lying all snug in their bays,
dreaming of crushed rebels in the upcoming days.

When out on the forest moon there arose such a clatter,
I warmed up the main weapon (it’s fueled by hypermatter!)
Away to my throne room I ran with a flash,
ripped open the durasteel shutters with a force slash!

Endor’s light left the metal girders aglow,
and gave the light of midday to the slave work crews below.
When suddenly I saw, faster than force lightnings,
a Corellian freighter in formation with eight X-wings!

It flew so casually beneath those furred forepaws,
I knew at once it could only be Wookie Claus!
More rapid than TIE Interceptors his escorts they came,
and he jinked then broadcast and commanded them by name!

“Raawrr rawwwwr Rawwr!  Rawwr rarrw Purr!  Purr Raarrwwrr and Rrrrrggrhh!
Rararrwrr purr Rrraahgh!  Rrarppr purrrr (howl) Rrpprr!  Rrr Rararg Rrrarrgh and Rggh!
Raawwwrrrr prurrr rargghhgh (bark) rrahghh purr rraggh!
Raarrwrrwrrwrwr purrrr purr purr rawwwr (howl)!”
Just as my Sith apprentices towards filthy Jedi love to run,
these fighters rolled to avoid explosions even looked…  to have fun!
Down to the exhaust trench they flew,
with bays full of torpedoes and Wookie Claus too.

“Ha ha!” I cackled as the corridors they sped betwixt,
“That design flaw you seek, it has been fixed!”
I transmitted this mockingly in the clear,
the better their hopeless cries I might hear.

With a sudden twist, they looped backwards then dove,
deep within the structure of my weapon, then nimbly wove
their way through the guts of my fully functional battle station,
sudden foreboding gripped me and left my twisted face ashen.

“Vader”, I rasped, then remembered he’d left,
his ill-timed vacation had left me bereft.
My crimson robed guards, they stood there all silent,
and I remembered too late that they weren’t all that violent.

Everything up till now had transpired by my design,
the upcoming battle would be far from benign.
But Wookie Claus’s presence I had not foretold,
my vengeance on Kashyyyk would be returned tenfold!

In anger I yelled for my guards to “Leave us!”,
grew briefly nostalgic for Hanukkah Grievous.
His coughing was tiresome, his aim poor in fights,
but his antics were confined to a mere eight crazy nights.
Almost instantly I heard some explosions and blasts,
but near my room, not via broadcasts!
I pulled in my cloak, and was spinning around,
when through the vent duct, Wookie Claus dropped with a bound.

He was covered in fur, from his ears to his foot,
and his holiday clothes were all tarnished with blastmarks and soot.
A bowcaster he’d bound securely to his back,
and he looked like a Toydarian as he opened his pack.

With a thundering roar, he began to speak,
but my Wookie language skills….  well, they were quite weak.
So I pulled out my lightsaber and stood attentively,
he spoke and purred while I watched semi-blankly.

Then he handed me something, I flinched back in fear,
when what to my wondering eyes should appear,
but a gift, a box, a package of goods.
I opened it up and was transported right back to my childhood.

Instead of the thermal detonator I had guessed I’d receive,
it was a statue of my Death Star, just in time for my tree.
I held it in wonder, my eyes they were sparkling,
my plans of galactic domination I began parking.

Perhaps I would wait, and first speak with Vader’s son,
instead of executing him in my dungeon.
I had planned on a death, quick and neat and efficient,
but the glow of the ornament, it was indeed quite brilliant.

“Thank you, Wookie Claus, for the clarity you bring,
this decision to kill Skywalker had left me aching.
His force abilities, were they properly applied,
would fulfill his destiny as he took his father’s place by my side”.

He spoke no more words, but went straight to his work.
He charged up my space chair, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his furred finger aside his huge honkin’ nose,
he barked briefly, then on the turbolift, he rose.

I saw him jump into his freighter, cut in the auxiliaries,
fire up the repulsors, and blast away with his cronies.
But I heard him transmit as he rocketed out of sight,
“Rooarrr rarrwr rawrr purr (bark), rawwrr rarwrr, and to all a good-night!”

Quick product idea

A set of catholic rosaries where the individual beads are each painted with a tiny representation of…  another rosary.  After this, the whole marketing plan practically writes itself!

“Rosary²: It’s like a megaphone to God!” <- Example

Someone, go make a million off this and PayPal me a reasonable fee.

Life's too short to be nice