Swimming with Lightsabers

It's not like running with scissors.

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Video games say the darndest things!

"You cannot saber hit while swimming." Well, why the heck not? The snake that was attacking me was swimming!

I've gotten some silly in-game messages while playing Star Wars Galaxies, but that is not the silliest by a long shot.

How about this: 'It doesn't look like the corpse is going to respond." DUH!

Or another old favorite, "You cannot do that in your current condition" followed by "You cannot call a companion while dead." I'm betting I can't saber hit while dead, either. Or respond.

I think the all time goofiest message was telling me that I'd depleted a resource, and it was solar energy on Tatooine. LMAO

Make me wonder if Stooge is secretly writing these.

To Each His Own / I Don't Care What You Think

No really, I don't care. I'm beyond caring. More ramblings. Wok your Ewok. Put some clothes on!

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We've all heard it. Only Geeks and Nerds like Science Fiction. Well, I'm here to say that we may be Geeks, but Geeks are smart. Geeks rule the world. Who'd the biggest Geek there is? Bill Gates. Who has more money than Bill Gates? Not me.

Who's another big Geek? Well, it must be George Lucas, and who has more money than George Lucas? Not me, and I bet not any of you either.

I was at a small comic con recently, and I heard all sorts of comments that made me bristle. (I also saw things I'd rather forget, but that's another story.)

A sarcastic twenty-something: "Oooh, they're talking Star Wars in there, whoopee!" Yeah, well I look better in my Jedi costume than you do in your underwear-based anime getup. {snark}

And then there's those fans that can't even agree on 'Star Wars'! "Jedi suck. 'Galaxies' sucks. The prequels suck." For cryin' out loud, it's all Star Wars.

Not everyone likes everything about Star Wars.

While I was disappointed with the storyline of the prequels, I still enjoyed them for what they were. And some of the EU in the prequel era is great.

I was bored with the NJO, but I followed the story to see where it led.

"Ewoks suck." Well, 'what would you like?' Taller monsters? Someone had to help the fight, and just adding more troopers would have been predictable. Besides, as someone at the con pointed out, Ewoks will eat you.

Personally, I hate Mandalorians, and like some other people I think they're the most overrated and useless piece of trash in the Star Wars universe. But I'd never say they 'suck' in public. Oh wait, I just did. Well, not in public where people can hear me.

So, next time someone calls you a Geek, and asks if you live in your mother's basement, tell them they suck (in public). But you don't care!

PS - Spell Check thinks "ewok" should be "wok". Hmmm, stir fried Ewok.

A Reluctant Rebel

Often when I'm playing a Star Wars game, I think about heroes. In "Star Wars Galaxies" I never hesitated about siding with the Rebellion. It's that whole '"good vs. evil" thing.

But in real life? I'm such a coward, I wonder if I'd ever have the courage to join a rebellion, to take a risk like that and live my life on the run, as a wanted criminal. Sounds exciting? I don't think so!

I like living in a house with central heat and air, not a jungle temple or an ice cavern. Not to mention that I require satellite TV, a DVD player and high speed Internet.

The Rebel Alliance was made up of heroes. People who chose to dedicate themselves to fighting for what was right, for freedom.

Live free or die! It doesn't seem like that would wear well over time.

Luke Skywalker was a reluctant rebel. It's not that I like the Empire, I hate it! But there's nothing I can do about it! That would be me, burying my head in the sand of Tatooine.

But Luke was cut loose from his life on the farm, and pushed into heroics by his idealism and his unselfishness, he went on to become the galaxy's greatest hero.

Anakin would like to have been known by that title, but his arrogance and selfishness led to his downfall. Luke, on the other hand, is Anakin's opposite. His modesty turns into self-confidence, rather than over confidence, and he accepts his fate as it unfolds before him. Your destiny lies along a different path, Obi-Wan told him.

And what a path it was. And he followed it willingly.

Fun with Stormtroopers

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I play Star Wars Galaxies. Whoop-tee-do; so do a few hundred thousand other people! But anyway, there are a myriad of things to do in this game. And a hundred thousand players who never use the word "myriad", but I digress!

A good Rebel aligned player can always have fun with stormtroopers, especially the low level ones who hang around Mos Eisley. It's like a routine I have when I'm going off-planet. First I go visit the junk dealer to unload the loot I've taken off dead bodies.

(That's a topic for another blog!) Then as I leave the bazaar plaza, I draw my lightsaber and take a poke at the stormie guarding the place. And I do mean a poke! A single stab of the lightsaber, which almost always hits him in the gut, or if I'm lucky, a few inches lower.

He's usually only level 25-50, so one amazing flourish of so-cho-whatever, and he's history. Then there's one on the way to the spaceport, and one guarding the entrance to the spaceport. I also get to whack these same guys when I come back to Tatooine. It's a habit.

Hey, if I don't attack them, they'll chase me and shoot at me and I have to kill them anyway. Which is good for a chuckle, too. A stormtrooper with a death wish!

I can also walk up behind one and poke him in the butt with the lightsaber, and he'll jump. He'll attack, of course, but none of them stand a chance against a fully trained Jedi Knight.

There are exceptions, though. A level 90 stormie is tough, but not impossible. TWO level 90s are a real challenge, except you can always send one away with a Jedi Mind Clouding trick.

Yesterday, while decorating "Life Day" trees on Talus, a live-player stormtrooper came by and sneezed on me, covering me with snot. So I send him a message that said "Imperial Slime! LOL" and he called me "Rebel Scum" and told me the Empire really didn't lose to the Ewoks, that was just a nasty rumor! LMAO.

All in all, stormtroopers make great targets. And Imperial officers are even better!

Next time maybe I'll write about Gungans and their floppy ears!