I’m going crazy this week. My stress level has hit, if not an all time high, then at least a nice peaky sort of thing. It’s mainly centered around The Code Room. We’ve been having some “issues” getting our funding. There’s been some fantastically good news this week about The Code Room as well, but I’m keeping quiet about that until it actually happens.

My inbox has been overflowing. Actually, both inboxes have. While on the subject, I vote that we change the plural to inboxen. I like it better, and I’m feeling impulsive right now.

My phone keeps ringing. I know that that’s what it was designed to do, but sometimes I wish the damn thing would just choke on its own vomit. I know I could turn it off, but that would take away the satisfaction of complaining about it. Plus, it would be harder to play solitaire. My phone has solitaire. It’s awesome.

I haven’t even begun to deal with my “real” mail. Of all the administrative things in life I hate, nothing comes close to bothering me the way the national postal service does. I remember the days when they used to deliver letters. Now the only real customers of the USPS are all the banks trying to send my personal information (disguised as credit card applications) to identity thieves who go through my trash at night. I wish there were an opt-out system that left me out of the equation and sent my credit card applications directly to some identity theft clearinghouse somewhere. That’d be a real load off. Cut out the middleman, I say. Improve productivity while reducing costs and raising customer satisfaction.

Sometimes I wish I could just disappear for a week. Shut everything down, have all incoming email, mail, and telephone calls automatically sent to the binary netherworld of Information Intentionally Lost.

I can’t do that, though.

The one thing I can do at times like this is exercise. Like crazy. Lift heavy things that I would never otherwise want to lift, and then get on a stationary bicycle which has been designed to deliver all the fatigue of a real bike ride without the annoyance of pleasant scenery and fresh air.

When I’m on the bike, I watch stuff. Lately, I’ve been watching a lot of Battlestar Galactica (which was fantastic until the most recent episode, where it took a real dive).

Speaking of things to watch, I’m in Starbucks right now, and there’s a guy sitting next to me who keeps sticking his finger in his ear, twisting it around, pulling it out, and examining it. Each time he pulls it out, he uses his thumb to rub his finger and roll something around. Whatever it is that he’s pulling out of his ear, he’s absolutely mesmerized by it. Not in a show-off way, either. You don’t get the feeling that he’s waiting for someone to come by so that he can share his joy. No; this is a private party which just happens to be taking place three feet from me. Or, I should say, happened. He just left. Probably on his way home right now to make a diary entry about it.

Dear Diary,

You’ll never believe it. I was sipping my coffee in Starbucks today, and, on a whim, I stuck my finger in my ear. I’m not usually so impulsive, but it was like an animal took over. A primal identity buried deep beneath my cerebral cortex, down, way down deep in the darker recesses of the brain, far below what we call Mind, lurking in a shadow world that is controlled by pure instinct. A place where world view is dominated by smell rather than thought, where bloodlust obeys the law of the jungle and knows nothing of the written Laws of Man (oh, how puny they seem now in comparison).

When I pulled my finger from my ear, there was upon it a little fleck, a speck of something Special. I don’t know what it was. I wanted so much from it. I wanted to feel it, to smell it, and, perhaps, to eat it. Is it part of my soul?

I dipped my finger again in that mine of earish gold and brought out another fine specimen. What is happening to me? Why this change? Why now? Has this happened to others? I feel the universe opening up to me.

I think now that I shall become a monk. Retreat to the hills, live a simple life, and pull beautiful things out of my ear. There I will contemplate them, and my place in the world.

Will I find peace? Are there other holes in my body which would yield substances so interesting? I dare not hope for fear of disappointment.

Ah, glorious mystery – I surrender myself to thee.

An alternative theory, and one which is a little more realistic, is that he actually went to get a napkin so he could wipe the earwax off his finger.

Anyway, that’s not the point. I was talking about exercise, and I’d appreciate it if you’d get the hell out of my way and let me finish.

So, as I was saying, when I sweat, I like to watch things. Sometimes I just set up a mirror across the room so that I can watch my glistening body tense and pulse in response to the pumping motions I make with my weights. I’m built like an effin’ gladiatorial god, and watching myself work out is like watching a Men of Steel calendar come alive in my own living room. I’d describe it further, but your brain would probably pop from the excitement.

Jesus. Can I just finish? The title of the post says I’m going to talk about Star Wars (or at least implies it), and I haven’t even been able to get there yet. Stop thinking about my sweat-covered abs for a minute. Let’s keep on track here, people. You’re like Sea Monkeys with ADD. Seriously.

The other day, then, I watched something else – something other than Battlestar Galactica or my own super sexy body (I said drop it! we’ll never get through this if you can’t focus).

That something else was The Empire Strikes Back. And I watched it in French.

I watched it in French because I’ve memorized it in English, and that takes some of the spontaneity out of the experience. In French, it’s like watching a whole new movie. One in which someone who can actually act plays Luke Skywalker. It’s also cool because Harrison Ford’s deep, confident baritone voice was always one of his major drawbacks, and the French, masters of cinema that they are, recognized this and corrected the error by dubbing over his voice with a high-pitched nasally whine that makes him sound like an intense, angry pig who’s been sucking helium.

Atmospheric improvements aside, watching Empire in French made me think a lot more about what I was watching. Because my French is getting rusty, it takes extra effort now for me to understand everything being said, and the result is that I actually paid attention to all the dialogue as well as aspects of the story that I had always ignored.

I’m saving some observations for a later post (perhaps in comic form), but one that really struck me was centered around all this Wookiee business.

Here’s the deal. There’s a “Wookiee” whose name is “Chewbacca” who comes from a planet called “Kashyyyk” where everybody speaks a language called “Shyriiwook” (yes: that was a lot of embarrassing knowledge in one sentence, but it’s necessary (also, does anybody else hate it when fantasy/sci-fi writers add extra vowels and apostrophes in stupid places? what do we need three y’s and two i’s for? makes me want to kiiiick sooomeebody’s aaass)).

Does anybody else see the problem with this?

Think about these four words:

– Wookiee

– Chewbacca

– Kashyyyk

– Shyriiwook

If you can’t figure out what the problem is, then I’ll just spell it out for you: there’s no way in hell a wookiee could pronounce any of ‘em.

Have you ever heard Chewbacca make any of these sounds? It’s ridiculous. He can’t even say his own damn name. He could no sooner make a “chew” sound than he could “b” or “acca” sounds. Everything he says starts with either an “a” or an “r” and is typically followed by a few seconds of oscillation between those two letters.

How did a whole planet get called “Kashyyyk” when trying to pronounce the word would have probably killed the indigenous peoples as they choked on their own tangled fangs and tongues?

WTF? I’m sick of trying to understand life.

I quit.