Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Star Wars Day - Targeting Computer

So my wife has just informed me that today is Star Wars Day (May the 4th be with you...).  A quick Google search has confirmed this.  That's two sources, it must be true. 

At any rate, in honor of the day, I figured I would reprise a facebook note I wrote about Star Wars.  Those of you who used to read my notes will recognize it, but now I will share it with the world.  I don't know if it is something I should be proud of, but, as Kevin Smith would say, it's pretty fucking funny, at lesat in my own estimation.  

Technically, facebook probably owns this note and I am guessing I am riffing off of Star Wars which is owned by the Emporer himself, Dark Lord Lucas.  So I don't know if its technically legal.  But, since no one is making a cent off this blog (its all for the love of writing so far...), I figure its okay. 

"Luke, you've turned off your targeting computer! What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I'm all right."

Shit. We're seriously fucking screwed, and now we are all going to die.

That is what would have coursed from my mind if I was hanging around the Rebel Alliance command and control center during the first attack on the death star. I mean, seriously, try and place yourself there...

Now unless you are an incredible optimist you gotta figure you are pretty much screwed anyway. We're going to what? Send a bunch of fighters down a trench so they can take some potshots at some exhuast port, that may or may not create a chain reaction that may or may not blow up the Death Star as it targets our little moon base? Is that even possible?

Your friends assure you that yes it is, at least for a targeting computer. And you think to yourself, "Wedge Antilles is the best damn fighter pilot this side of Krylon 5". So when you go to lunch that day in the cafeteria to eat some freedom fries and space pizza maybe there is a little spring in your step. Maybe you think that Wedge and his targeting computer just might pull this thing off.

But then of course everything goes to hell. As wave after wave of fighters attempts to skim the trench --- why do they have to do that anyway? Can't they just enter the trench closer to the ehxuast port and fire away? Oh well, someone above your paygrade made that decision-- you begin biting your nails and wondering what you should do as the minutes tick away. Should you die dutifully at your work station? Should you kneel and pray to...what, the Force? Seems strange. Should you raid the commissary and drink as much space vodka as possible?

But you hang around, becuase there is still one chance. Everyone is watching intently as one last fighter skims the trench. The feed from the targeting computer shows he is getting and closer and closer and then

Nothing.

"Luke, you've turned off your targeting computer, what's wrong?"

Luke? What happened to Wedge? He got hit?!! He's gone?!! Fucking shit. We are toast.

Luke -- what's his name? Star Trotter. No, no...Skywalker. Yeah. You remember him. That country bumpkin from Tatooine that boasted about buzzing wamprats in his T-16 back home. Never mind what a wamprat is, you KNOW the T-16 is a soviet era piece of crap plane. And this dude thinks he can just plunk himself in the cockpit of the X-wing fighter, the most sophisticated fighter of the day, without any flight training, and lead the final attack on this exhuast port that may or may not save everyone's ass.

MAYBE he has a shot with a computer guiding him. But now? He's turned it off. No chance. Gone.

Why did he do it? Some old dead guy told him to do it? He's using the Force? That's great. Absolutely fucking great.

You toss your headphones on the consol and leave for the comissary. You pass an obviously worried Princess Leah...didn't that redneck have a crush on her? That's probably what this is all about. Maybe he thinks that if he can do this without a computer he'll show her he's got balls and then she'll let him into her pants or jumpsuit or whatever it is she's wearing. Like he'd be the first....It's those damn hair earmuffs she's got. You just want to squeeze them.

But that doesn't matter now. Fuck her. And fuck this. You open up a bottle of space vodka and wait for the end to come.

And then something amazing happens. You wake up the next morning in a pool of your own vomit and the light practically splits your brain into two. But as you cough and wheeze and stagger to your feet you realize that you are alive. That kid actually pulled it off.

Of course, you wish you were dead, that's how bad you feel after taking a full bottle of space vodka. And it only gets worse two days later when you get cashiered and demoted for leaving your post during the attack, and you get bundled off to the end of the galaxy, Hoth, where you have to shovel Tauntaun shit for 3 days a week and the rest of the time you are on the line with the grunts, freezing your ass off in the trenches.

Hey, what's that on the horizon.....those big grey things.....

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