A Very Nerdy Christmas

Bishop and I had a very nerdy Christmas this year.

Some years, we don't -- sometimes my mother decides that whatever is on our wishlists is unacceptable for her to purchase and buys me things like a vaccuum cleaner in the futile quest to domesticate me.  Sometimes Bishop's mother buys me all clothes and teaching books and odd-smelling things from Bath and Body Works.  Once upon a time, Bishop bought me jewelry, and I bought him guitar equipment.  

Not this year.  This year, we had a nerd-Christmas, and it was glorious.

Christmas is a weird time in our household.  I'm not a big fan of the holidays, as in my house growing up, holidays meant stress.  They still do, and since Bishop is super nostalgic about all the Hallmark-Christmases he experienced growing up, he is never open to my suggestions that we spend Christmas somewhere with a beach.  I decorate anyway, as I know he loves it, and in moments of quiet, when neither of my parents has called in a few hours and I have yet to hear what fresh hell Bishop's cousins have dreamed up for us to attend, I rather enjoy the look of our Big Bang Theory Soft Kitty and pixelated Nintendo stockings hung above the fireplace.  But most of Christmas is very much 'meh' to me.

Gift-giving and receiving also take on a very unusual feeling, which contributes.  Sometimes I have to restrain from buying really awesome gifts because the receiver would not have a clue what I was giving them, like the time I found Stark Industries t-shirts and had to restrain myself from buying one for my engineer-sister-in-law.  She might be an engineer, but she definitely doesn't know who Tony Stark is -- the beauty of the gift would have been lost.  Browsing through ThinkGeek's store is always fun, but when my other sister-in-law only ever asks for cookbooks or running gear, the fun trickles away.  Instead, it becomes another exercise on Amazon, and the appeal is lost.

Receiving gifts gets even weirder.  It takes on a strange cycle of asking for nerd gifts and getting them, which is great, but also getting made fun of for asking for them in the first place.  The year I put Mass Effect RISK on my wish list, my brother bought it for me without question.  Upon opening this gift, however, I endured piles of teasing that I wanted a video game-themed board game coupled with discussions of just how ridiculous it is that board games are even MADE with video game themes.  The irony of him making fun of me wanting a gift he'd just purchased was lost.  (Although frankly, this all wasn't that bad because I'd mostly tuned out the teasing, being too excited to read about how I got to play as the Reapers in ME RISK.)

But this year, a lot of that mess was conveniently absent.

I don't mean the stress -- what are the holidays without parents fighting over who we spend time with??  And I don't meant buying gifts for non-nerds, as that is a cross I will bear forever.

Instead, this year a lot of the accompanying judgment of Christmas was what was absent, and I have to say, I rather enjoyed it.

This year, I got artwork and video games and books for Christmas.  Bishop got computer equipment and video games and D&D books.  I got to give a Han Solo in Carbonite shower curtain to my dad, a Rubik's cube to my brother, and something called a Life Straw to my sister-in-law, who was excited that she could (if she wanted, the why of which fails me) drink from the Potomac safely if she so desires.  Bishop took care of all the non-nerd gifts in his family, where I got to buy Dragon Age: Origins for my older brother, movie tickets to The Force Awakens for my other brother and his family, and got Star Wars ugly Christmas sweaters in return.  We watched bad sci-fi movies in the evening and made fun of all the cliches a la Mystery Science Theatre, and the next day I got to snuggle up in my Nightmare Before Christmas sweater and play the Firefly Board Game.

The Nerd was strong in my family this year, and though I can't fathom what changed between this year and last, I could not have been happier.  

I don't know what was different this year -- maybe our families have finally accepted who we are, or maybe Star Wars back on the big screen has inspired people to be nicer, less judgmental, about nerds. I shouldn't question my good fortune, and even though I know it's selfish to hope the theme holds for 2016, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

A Very Nerdy Christmas, indeed.  

The Star Wars Experience

Until very recently (as in, about three days ago), I was not a Star Wars fan. 

I bought tickets for the midnight release of The Force Awakens, don’t get me wrong – I am still a nerd after all, and I can appreciate what Star Wars has done for a plethora of art forms and genres, including science fiction, film-making and CGI, and nerd-dom in general. 

But I’ve never been that big of a fan.  Bishop, however, is a HUGE fan, no surprise there.  So in preparation for The Force Awakens, we decided to watch the original trilogy on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before we ventured into true nerd-vana for JJ Abrams’ love letter to the series. 

What follows is the account of my adventures.  (Spoiler Alert: If you’ve never seen the original trilogy, this will definitely spoil some things.  I have not yet seen Force Awakens when writing this, so no worries there.) 

Star Wars: A New Hope

Opening Credits

• Boy, the writing in these opening lines does nothing to remove my perception that the writing in these movies sucks. 

The droids get dumped on Tatooine, R2 heading off in one random direction and C3PO cussing at him under his breath

• Hang on… if Anakin built C3PO in the prequels, wouldn’t he recognize the planet?  
• Bishop: Yes.  The prequels ruined everything.  
• But Lucas wrote them all, it’s his world! Wouldn’t he go, “huh, that wouldn’t work with the original, so I guess I won’t do that!” 
• Bishop: NO! He doesn’t rewatch his movies! 
• WTF??  You don’t get to change things AFTER it’s published!

Jawas pick up the droids and toss them in the holding cell in their giant Sand People ship-thing

• Omg! One of the other droids is made from a trash can!

Luke looks out over the twin suns setting on Tatooine

• Oh! This scene is pretty! I’ve seen this before, I think… isn’t Luke looking off into the horizon famous or something?  
• Bishop: Yeah… this is like one of the most famous scenes in movies, ever.  

Obi-wan saves Luke and the droids from the Tuskan Raiders  

• Seriously, he growls at them? 
• Bishop: He’s using noise/the Force to make himself seem bigger! 
• No babe, he f*cking growled at them. Real cool.

Cantina scene

• Based on all the homages (like Hellboy 2’s troll market) and spoofs and such, I was expecting the cantina scene to be much more active and crowded-looking.  The reality was a bit of a letdown. 

The age-old Question: Who shot first, Han or Greedo?

• WAY back when, when I first saw A New Hope (I think I was 19, having somehow missed the first one despite a minor obsession with Empire Strikes Back when I was a kid), I was ADAMANT that Han shot first.  Duh. Greedo is threatening him, and Han’s very much a ‘scoundrel’ who is out for himself.  Makes perfect sense. 
• This scene came up, and eager to be part of the Star Wars nerd-dom, I went “OH! Han shot first!” Yeah, not anymore – Bishop explained that when Lucas remastered the movies for digital release, he re-did this scene so Greedo shot first, saying that he didn’t want Han to be the kind of guy to shoot someone in cold blood.  Um, hello?? That’s EXACTLY the kind of guy Han was at the beginning of the trilogy.  He had character development, growth! Why destroy that by making a pro-active gunshot into self-defense? That changes Han’s whole tone as a character.  Ugh. Lucas ruined everything. 

Chewy makes some noise and Solo says something very conversational in response

• OMG! It really is like in HIMYM! “That’s a good point, bear!”

Also: I recently saw this picture:

So now every time Chewy or R2 ‘says’ something, I go “Oh shit! I mean, beep boop!” while watching J

Grand Moff Tarkin and Vader look out over the Death Star as they find prisoners (or something)

• What do you think the casting call for this guy looked like? “Does your skull show through your face? We want YOU!”

R2 beep-boops at Luke as they put him in the X-wing for the assault on the Death Star

• How do the humans know what he’s saying? What if Luke’s like “Ready, R2?”  and he’s going “Hey, f*ck you, Luke! I don’t wanna go!” 

Vader vs. Obi-wan on the Death Star as Luke and the gang are trying to escape…

• Obi-wan just LETS Vader kill him?? WTF! Bishop tried to convince me that this serves some larger purpose, but I so don’t see it. 

ALSO: What’s up with Luke mooning all over Leia throughout this movie?  I mean, really. He so obviously has a crush on her, and Lucas KNOWS they are siblings! Why on earth would you write it like that?   And I’ve heard the argument that it will make the dramatic reveal that they are siblings that much more dramatic, but guess what? It doesn’t.  That whole addition feels like Lucas was bored anyway, so it’s not exactly dramatic on its own.  Add the whole crush-on-the-Princess situation, and it’s just gross. 

The writing… oh the writing.  About twenty minutes from the end, it clicks.  It’s not that Star Wars’ writing is really that bad – it’s that it is absolutely RIFE with clichés.  I’m pretty sure C3PO is the only character that isn’t constantly spouting them, actually. 

Last thoughts: on the ceremony at the end of A New Hope

• Han’s been dressed like a basic white girl this whole movie, and NOW he decides to button his top button? It’s like he and Luke switched costumes for this scene.  Nonsense.

Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back

In the opening moments, when Luke gets smacked in the face…

• OMG there’s an abominable snowman in this movie!
  Bishop: it’s a wampa!
• No, it’s the abominable snowman. A yeti, if we want to get technical.

Yoda and Luke fight over lifting the X-wing out of the swamp, and Luke storms off. 

• First: I’m already annoyed because I don’t like that Yoda quote about “there is no try.”  That’s such a negative way to look at the world: that if you don’t succeed, you automatically fail.  That’s too black and white! My world (teaching) doesn’t work in black and white like that.  Ugh, Yoda! Stupid puppet. 
• Second: As soon as I mention that Luke’s being a baby, Bishop gets annoyed because I’ve insulted a great Jedi master and questions, “Don’t you think that you’d be annoyed too? This little tiny guy saying all this stuff about how powerful the Force is and all that, but he never demonstrates it! What if he’s lying?”  and it clicks in place why Bishop used to fight with his teachers all the time. 
• Third: Yoda lifts the X-wing from the swamp, and I am thoroughly unimpressed.  It would be much more remarkable if he cleaned it after he pulled it out.  Bishop is again annoyed with my opinion, but it can’t be that hard, right? Just a sweep of his hand and poof! Clean! THEN I’d be impressed. 

By the time we get to Han being frozen, I’ve really called Lando Calrissian a douche a lot….

Han Solo frozen in carbonite… what an iconic scene!

• And what a misogynistic one too! I mean really – Leia puts herself out there, all “I love you” even when Han has been pestering her all movie, and when he’s ABOUT TO DIE, he just goes, “I know.” And that’s the END OF IT?? WTF?!
• Grumble grumble grumble.
• AND that’s after Leia is such a great female character too! She’s badass and functional and doesn’t NEED Han to really do anything for her.  But she has to be the traditional woman here, all feelings while the guy is like “yeah, that’s right, love me baby”?? Ugh.

All in all, I have less to say about Empire.  As a kid, I always liked Empire better than Return of the Jedi, and I’m pleased to see that holds true even now.  It’s also much better than A New Hope – the writing is better, and the universe is established, which makes everything a little easier.  Bishop and I kept having to pause and have long conversations about the political atmosphere of the galaxy in the first one because they barely explained anything (and of course, the prequels screwed a lot of it up), but by now, everything has really fallen into place. 

I would also like to point out that it took those political conversations during A New Hope for it to click that Star Wars really is nerdy.  It’s easy to assume that, even though people jump to it as the quintessential nerd obsession, it’s not really that nerdy.  After all, it’s pretty mainstream and tons of people have seen it/are fans of it even if they fit little else of nerd culture. 

And then Bishop and I got sidetracked for a good 15 minutes analyzing how the Republic vs. the Empire functions and how Palpatine/Sidious rose to power and all that, and I went, “I bet few non-nerds are talking about Star Wars on this level.” 

I’m now convinced: Star Wars truly is nerdy, regardless of persuasion. 

Anyway, on to Return of the Jedi!

Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

It sure didn’t take long for this movie to get weird…

The droids drop onto Tatooine (for what has to be like the 10^th time in C3PO’s life, though he seems just as confused as always) and head to Jabba’s palace…

• And immediately… why the fuck is Bib Fortuna molesting R2??
• And WTF is up with the weird CGI musical number?  Bishop said it was added with the remaster, but I’m so confused as to why.  First of all, the CGI is REALLY obvious, especially when it’s next to Jabba and his Jim Henson-nightmare pet, both of which are puppets.  The puppet thing has always been one of the coolest parts of Star Wars since it makes everything look real instead of computer-generated, and now with this song/dance thing… ugh.  Second, this song doesn’t seem to serve any purpose! There’s an old trope about movies (and plays, and anything else in that genre) that says that all lines, props, actions, etc., must serve to advance the plot.  The gun on the mantle in Act 1 must be used by Act 3, right?  Well, this scene sure doesn’t do that, and I just don’t get it. 

Boba Fett has like 10 lines…

• I never realized this.  I assumed, based on the fan love for him, that he was a major character.  Guess not. 
• Also, the mystery of Boba Fett = just one more thing the prequels ruined. 

Leia shows up, Chewy in cuffs, to rescue Han Solo!

• Ok, the “I love you”-“I know” moment is totally redeemed by this scene.  Leia is such a badass J and of course the subversion of the “rescue the girl” trope by her bailing Solo out of Jabba’s palace is beautiful.
• … until that curtain pulls back to reveal Jabba and his cronies in all their disgusting glory. Worst surprise party ever.

The drive across Tatooine and the sarlacc pit

• Oh the green screen fun of those ships flying over the sand!  All the things they digitally touched up, and they didn’t go back and pull the green from Chewy’s hair or around Solo’s ears? Dumb.
• Solo’s take-down of Boba Fett is so slap-stick! It’s like watching an old Three Stooges movie. Ugh.
• Also, when did the sarlacc grow a beak?

Back on Dagoba…

• So the conversation between Luke and Obi-wan about Vader, where Obi-wan keeps saying things about a ‘certain point of view,’ is basically just him going “Well, TECHNICALLY I didn’t lie when I said your father was dead…”  I mean, I get it, it would be hard for a kid to find out that not only was he abandoned, but his father is one of the most evil figures in the galaxy.  But nonetheless! Own up to your damn lie, Obi-wan.  Your intentions were good, but now you’re busted.  Own it. 

Endor and the Ewoks.

• Can we talk about the Ewoks for a second?  They are not cute at all.  Like, AT ALL.  They are in fact terrifying.  And they are all played by midgets! What a politically incorrect casting call that must have been… Come on, Lucas!
• And why is everyone in camo EXCEPT the super shiny droids? Because that makes sense.
• Also: as my dad pointed out, every indigenous, ‘prehistoric’-esque culture on the planet has been wiped out when the next level of technological weapons shows up… Native Americans vs. Europeans, Aztecs vs. Cortez, Aborigines vs. the English penal colonies… and yet some stuffed teddy bears throwing rocks and spears wipe out highly trained soldiers?  I get it, the Storm Troopers can’t aim to save their lives (ha!), but seriously?
• The battle on Endor is, frankly, just as dumb as advertised.

The Jedi reassemble from the spirit world…

• … and they have digitally inserted Hayden Christensen, and HE STILL CAN’T ACT! He just smiles creepily at the camera, and I’m just assuming it’s a smile from context clues, as his face doesn’t actually move. 

Verdict: I enjoyed the Star Wars trilogy more this time around than I ever have before, criticisms or no.  Let’s roll those opening credits for Force Awakens and take the next, hopefully awesome, leap into the galaxy. 

Living in the Real World

It's hard to be an adult when the rest of your friends refuse to grow up.

Over the last few years, I've noticed a trend in myself and in my friends.

I have grown up a lot in the last three and a half years (since I got out of college).
I got a job.
I got married.
We bought a house.
We opened retirement savings accounts.
My husband got better and better jobs.
I kept my job.
I went back to school for a second Master's.

These are primarily adult things -- they require responsibility, hard work, dedication, and a lot of time and effort to achieve.

[The only one that doesn't is us getting married, but since we're still married three years later, I'm counting it.  Staying married is what takes the work, and judging from the number of second marriages I see on Facebook in people my age, I'm thinking this is indeed an accomplishment.]

Bishop and I are pretty lucky in all this because we're also pretty happy.  We have enough money to live comfortably and afford all our basic necessities.  We don't go on exotic vacations or own fancy cars, but we have what we want and we like each other.  Our lives are good.

But our friends don't seem to agree.
Sadly, those friends are also the kind who give being a nerd a bad name.  You know, the stereotypes that always follow nerds around: One literally lives in his parents' basement because he can't/won't get a real job.  Another took seven years to graduate college because he transferred schools about 10 times (not exaggerating), and another only talks about how much his life sucks because he can't get a date/laid.
Not one of them has any concept of being an adult -- when your parents support you and you refuse to try at life, when you complain and complain but make no effort to change your life, you aren't an adult.

Now: I realize it would be really easy to read this as my being mean to my friends who are struggling or for a reader to assume that I've done something inadvertently or possibly even on purpose to rub my success into my friends' faces.
I'm here to honestly say that neither is true.
I want my friends to be successful -- I buy art from my struggling artist friends, I shop at places where my friends work, I do all that stuff because I want to be a good friend.
My husband and I live by a pretty strict "live and let live" policy -- I've never questioned my friends' life decisions or been mean to them about what they're passionate about.  I try hard to be a good person and support them, because that's what I expect in return.

But I'm finding that that return is no longer what I'm getting, and instead my friends act like we're all in 8th grade again.
The trend I'm noticing in myself is that, as I've gotten older, I've learned how to balance being an adult with enjoying myself.
The trend I'm noticing in my friends is that not only are they actively fighting against being adults, they will criticize and be downright cruel to people like me, who don't mind growing up a little.

We buy a house? Friends respond by making fun of the decor, the location, criticizing the paint color or the wallpaper in the bathroom.
We invite them over for game night?  They call us losers for the magnets on our fridge, for the number of dry erase boards we have (lots, due to an obsession with working out and a lesson-planning board in my office), for the food we serve.
We attend a con with them?  They harass me over the art I'm buying because they don't like the video game I love, the movie poster I found for my classroom, the model my husband got for his desk at work.

The logical reaction here is to either a) cut ties with them, or b) make fun of them right back.
Making fun of them right back seems like the easier of the two because that's how these friends operate.
So I've tried it.  And you know what happens?  They get even meaner.  They behave like I'm being the cruel one in the room, even if all I've said was, "Hey, this song sucks, can we change it?"  Once, after a friend spent 20 minutes telling me why my current favorite video game, Dragon Age: Inquisition, was the worst game he'd ever played, I jokingly said, "Well, My Chemical Romance (his favorite band) isn't that great anymore either, so let's call it even."
That's all I said, verbatim.  He responded by calling me a bitch for being mean, for making fun of something he loved, for not allowing him to have the things he enjoyed.

See the problem?

My friends treat our relationship like it's a one way street with the added bonus of the attitude of a 13-year-old.

So then, on to option two: cut ties with them.  And that just isn't an option because I feel too guilty about it.  They're struggling; how would it make them feel if their friends suddenly dumped them too?

It's hard to support your friends when all they ever do is tear you down.

I've had it suggested to me by my other, better friends that perhaps this group of friends is simply intimidated by how successful Bishop and I are.
After all, we're quite young to be so stable -- house, good jobs, little debt, and so on.

I would understand this if I wasn't surrounded by ambitious people, including those friends that I'm writing about here.

One friend wants to own his own company someday.  Another is an artist and wants to be famous for his work.  Still another wants to climb the corporate ladder right to the top of his IT department, hot wife by his side.
These are all people who want things out of their lives, but whenever I talk to them about it, they seem unwilling to do the required work to make it happen.

I get that not everyone is ambitious -- not everyone aspires to a PhD someday like I do, or running a tech department like my husband does.  I have no issue with that; every time I give up an evening of watching Breaking Bad to write a paper or read a chapter of some god-awful, boring textbook, I wish I wasn't ambitious.
But I am.

What I don't understand is making life difficult for others instead of pushing your own ambitions.  These friends all have huge dreams, things they desperately want to accomplish in their lives, so why are they spending so much time fucking around in their parents' basements and making fun of my hard work and consequent success??

Maybe this is what it is that really bothers me.

I understand that life is a lot harder for Millenials than any previous generation, but shouldn't that mean that we work harder than any other generation?

When I got out of college -- with a Master's degree, which I finished in about a year -- I put in dozens of job applications.  Of those, I got two phone calls.  Two.   I had worked hard enough during college to be qualified and have enough experience that one of those interviews hired me.
When my husband got a new job about eight months ago, it was on the tail end of almost 100 job applications, of which he got two phone calls for interviews.  Again, two.  That's not very many, but he'd worked his ass off to be qualified and got hired at one of them.
When he got his first IT job about two years ago, after having worked at Radio Shack for several years to support himself while he built his skill set, he put in close to 300 job applications before he got hired.  That time, he got four phone calls.  Four.  Out of 300 applications.

The job market is not a happening place right now, especially not for people around my age and younger, fresh from college.
But it's clear to me that with some work, it can happen.
What's also clear is this: some people are not willing to put in the work to make it happen.

Just because I'm already working my ass off to be successful, and they aren't, is no reason to give me grief.  If they're intimidated because we're successful, jealous that I'm working on a second Master's, whatever it is -- how will making me miserable help them?

The answer is that it won't.  Instead, they're using that most base of psychology to make themselves feel better by putting down my accomplishments.

It's awfully hard to be an adult when the people you surround yourself with are all still kids.

PS -- I'm sorry this is such a downer of an essay.  Some family friends were bitching about Millenials over Thanksgiving dinner this past week, and since Bishop and I are the right age, we got lumped in with the rest of them, despite sharing very little in common.  It's frustrating to hear about how my entire generation sucks when I feel like everything I'm doing is in an effort to rise about that stereotype.  And thus, this essay was born.

N7 Day

It's weird to be a Mass Effect fangirl and share my birthday with N7 Day.

I never even knew there WAS an N7 day until after I got my Mass Effect tattoo -- which of course features the N7 logo straight from my femShep's gear.  When I had it done and people questioned the wisdom of getting a video game tattoo, I just sort of shrugged and went, "Oh, if someday I hate the game, then the tat will just be for my birthday!"

It never occurred to me that Bioware had already appropriated that day for its own purposes.

Then November 2014 rolled around, and the Internet (or, at least the pages I was frequenting), blew up with N7 ads for merch, Gaming Heads statues, and so on.

I felt so lucky.  Now, I have yet another reason to love on Mass Effect.  I had lots -- I follow both Bioware and Mass Effect (and Dragon Age, as if anyone's surprised) on social media, for goodness' sake -- but now I had another! The sales! The promotions! The outpouring of love for my favorite game series!

Of course, I get weird looks when I'm more excited for N7 Day than I am for November 7th, my birthday, but I don't care.

I'm not one of those people who loves their birthday.  Sure, they were a blast when I was a kid, but once I started to grow up, I just didn't have that kind of life that fosters an obsession with the anniversary of the day I was born.  I've never cared that much -- I've spent too many birthdays stressed out over schedules of how many hours I'm spending with each parent so my time is divided equally, per the divorce 'rules,' to get overly excited.  Nor have I, as a blossoming adult, ever found good reason to get too excited when history says that I'm going to be tired, pressured into hanging out with people I don't want to see, and receiving domestic-style gifts (like the memorable instance when, on my 21st birthday, my mom gave me a brownie pan and a recipe book.  Fun.).

Bishop knows all this, and thankfully he's a strong advocate for the "do whatever the fuck you want for your birthday" school of thought.  If I'm stressing out, he cancels plans with my family.  If I'm up for it, he tags along to every single event.  I think that in part, he agreed to getting married in early November just to give me something more exciting to celebrate than my birthday.

If only we'd known that all he had to do was introduce me to Shepard and her story, and I'd have been all over November 7th.

Of course, now that I've discovered Mass Effect, Bishop has taken that love to heart on N7 day, and he spoils me rotten -- mostly by handing over his "Equinox's Birthday Present Budget" to me and letting me go nuts on the Bioware Store's enormous Mass Effect-themed sale.

Come N7 Day 2016, I'll be decked out in ME shit and fit to party with the most hardcore of fans.

I love this day -- there are times when I feel isolated as a ME fan because too many of my fellow nerd friends hate ME3 and have thus abandoned the series.  I've been teased for my Spectre t-shirt in Kaiden Alenko blue and yellow, and despite how cool my to-scale Gaming Heads statue of Garrus is, non-nerds still give me funny looks and eye rolls over how much I was willing to spend to house a model of my favorite turian.

They'll laugh even harder when Tali arrives, I'm sure.

N7 Day gives me the chance to embrace my love of Mass Effect with fans all around the world, and I love it.  I can't wait for the saga to continue next year -- to Andromeda and beyond.

Covert Cosplay

I showed up to a conference this past weekend dressed as The Wizard Howl and no one noticed.  

It’s one of my favorite things to do: throw on a shirt, some jewelry, some little thing that alludes to something I love, and all of a sudden my day has a new twist of covert cosplay.  No one notices, and why should they?  Few of my colleagues are watching much Miyazaki in their free time.  Neither are they binge-watching Attack on Titan, nor trying to save the galaxy from Reapers, nor achievement hunting in Hitman: Absolution, nor fangirling out over the latest Cullen-mance development in the DAI: Trespasser DLC, or anything else that I tend to be doing. 

It doesn’t bother me; I have friends at work and I have friends outside work, and I don’t expect much overlap.  I’d be sorely disappointed if I did, let’s be honest. 

In my life, covert cosplay happens all the time:  I wear my “Paragon” ring, a throw to my morality track in Mass Effect, to school most days, and I’ve even worn it to job interviews.  It never gets a second look – it’s low-profile and simple, like my Shepard, and if an interviewer does notice it, he or she will undoubtedly think, “Hey, Paragon! That means ‘role model,’ right?”  And poof! I’ve just subliminally suggested that I’m an excellent person to hire. 

When a small bronze key rests around my neck, no one asks what it opens.  Keys are a pretty common jewelry choice for women, so I raise exactly zero eyebrows.  If it just happens to be the same key as the one Eren Jaeger wears, the one we are all waiting to find out the secret it unlocks, that’s my little secret. 

The earrings and necklace I made out of an Attack on Titan keychain are pretty obvious though, if someone is in the know.  Occasionally, I do get questions from students about what the shields are supposed to be, or why my earrings are different (the Stationary Guard and the Military Police grace my ears, while the Scouting Division is the pendant).  I never back down – I always feel like I’m a role model (a Paragon, if you will J) for other nerds, for students who love the things I do but keep them quiet for fear of being judged, and I’m open about what my jewelry means.

Some items are more subtle.  Galadriel’s flower ring and the matching necklace I found at a con look like pretty floral jewelry, and Thorin Oakenshield’s belt buckle makes a lovely pendant when I need something simple and elegant for an outfit.  Sure, if I wear the Ring of Barahuir to a concert or in place of my wedding ring, people notice the snakes and the stone, but most of my Lord of the Rings items pass easily under the non-nerd radar. 

Those days, my fellow nerds are likely to find me out, but Lord of the Rings is a love I am always happy to share. 

I also have a matching set of amber jewelry, earrings from the Smithsonian and a necklace I found online, that offer a subtle allusion to Jurassic Park – amber, after all, being an essential part of the Jurassic Park process.  I doubt anyone thinks twice about the teacher wearing amber jewelry those days, but I can smile to myself, knowing the reasons why I purchased them and why I wear them.  

Ed’s alchemy circle from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood in an oft-worn pendant. 

A bracelet that reads “I am the Sword in the Darkness” floats around one wrist. 

And I’m sure there’s more, if only I dug through my jewelry box. 

my own private homage to Jurassic Park

Of all my covert cosplay though, Howl is my favorite.  I adore this movie – it combines all that beautiful fantasy artwork with such a gentle, poignant love story that I melt every time I watch it.  Thankfully, others share my love and Etsy is filled with jewelry options.  When I bought my Howl jewelry – the jade teardrop earrings and the heavy blue pendant – I spent hours online, exploring all my options before I made my choice.  Now, all I have to do is wear a white shirt and black slacks and the look is complete – and no one is ever the wiser. 

Regardless of their subtly or lack thereof, my tastes in jewelry have never been questioned.  I’ve never been stopped by my principals and asked what I’m wearing, and other than the occasional quick compliment, my friends never delve into their deeper meaning.  I’m not bothered; I don’t, after all, interrogate them about their jewelry choices.  Mine are just for me.

Sometimes I wonder if my colleagues are doing the same thing; if I see someone wearing all green stones one day, are they offering homage to the Matrix, or do they just like the color?  If their earrings don’t match, are they inviting me to ask and learn about some fantastic new show, or did they forget to check the mirror this morning?  

I don’t usually ask.  I’ll compliment if I catch the reference, or just in general sometimes, but I go back and forth about assuming on a deeper meaning.  After all, if I see someone wearing amber and I start talking about Jurassic Park, chances are pretty good they are going to back away slowly instead of joining my enthusiasm. 

That’s okay though. 

I love showing off all my interests, and if I’m the only one understands the reference, then I spend the day smiling to myself, enjoying the inside joke that no one else gets.  

The Importance of Visiting Oscar

Visiting a graveyard was not high on my priority list when I first traveled to Paris.  Notre Dame? Yes.  The famous Opera House? Definitely.  But not a graveyard.  Pere Lachaise Cemetery is incredibly famous – its occupants include Jim Morrison and Gertrude Stein, among other luminaries, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at it.  Its high concrete walls and barely-paved path don’t scream “tourist attraction;” instead, they invite those who are already privy to their secrets, and I was happy to be among that number the afternoon I decided to visit. 

The trek to the outskirts of Paris was long and a little sketchy – the only Metro line was in French, which I didn’t speak, and the neighborhood around the cemetery was rough.  But the cemetery itself was surprisingly welcoming: its walls might be high, but its entryway is magnificent, with elaborate wrought-iron gates, and its aisles are filled with tall trees casting graceful shadows across an abundance of headstones. 

The famously lipstick-covered tomb of Oscar Wilde was my quarry on this beautiful afternoon in Paris, my last day in France.  There was no easy path through the cemetery; instead, I wove through gravestones and statues, hoping I wasn’t stepping on anyone important and offering up karmic apologies to the dead as I went.  When his section number emerged from the glare of sunlight, I scoured the landscape for the Byzantine angel that guards Wilde’s grave. 

It wasn’t hard to find. 

It was, in fact, painfully obvious, its wings rising far above the nearby graves and its unusual, blunt style a little out of place of the other Victorian-era pieces that surround it.  I could see where it had been vandalized years before, its magnificent angel ‘package’ destroyed, but one important part seemed to be missing: the lipstick. 

            Wilde’s grave is a pilgrimage for people like me, who love and worship literature and wit.  Part of that journey is to offer him a kiss, leaving a mark behind for all who follow to see.  Apparently, part of that process was also getting your kisses cleaned off, because Wilde’s tomb was clean and polished through the Plexiglas that now guarded it. 

            I was not deterred.  I spent several long minutes with his grave, standing in the quiet and isolated aisle of this foreign place.  I took my time circling the tomb, reading the plaque that discussed its restoration a few years ago and asked visitors to respect the wishes of his descendants. 

            Eventually, I felt ready to pull out the lipstick. 

Pre-Metro journey, I had spent hours stumbling around downtown Paris, desperately seeking a cosmetics store, any cosmetics store, to find a color of lipstick I might actually wear. It wasn’t easy; I don’t like pink, which was apparently the go-to color of French women, but eventually I found a dark purple-maroon that suited me.  I wanted to be a part of this tradition, but I also wanted to be true to myself, as Wilde would advise. 

The kiss I planted on his Plexiglas tomb was big and sloppy, victim of far more lipstick than any self-respecting woman should apply.  But I paused as my lips pressed against his grave, feeling connected to tradition and time through this one little moment. 

When I pulled away, I popped open the tube again and signed my name near my lipstick kiss, a big flourish on the “E” just like I sign it in my classroom.  My students took to calling me “Equinox” and nothing else last semester, no title or anything, and I wanted that immortalized – they are, after all, how I learned to love and admire Oscar Wilde.  I am connected to him through my profession more so than any other way, and I knew I’d be grateful I kissed his tomb the next time I taught The Important of Being Earnest. 

That evening, I left Paris for Italy.  My French adventure was over.  I may never return to France, and I looked back on that with a little sadness.  Before long, my kiss would wash away, just like hundreds, even thousands, before me.  But for that moment, I was a part of something bigger than myself, the legacy of language and wit and life that Wilde breathed into his work.  I had kissed his grave, leaving a mark like the one he’d left on me. 

I drew a heart too, still in that same maroon lipstick.  I think he’d like that.  

**NOTE: My last name is not actually Equinox :) 

Dear HBO GO

Dear HBO GO,

            Your service is shit, let’s face it. 

Nothing loads well the first time, and the second requires a hard reboot.

The servers crash when a new episode of True Detective comes on.

Game of Thrones loses sound at absolutely crucial moments for no discernible reason. 

And I can only get your service through a smart TV or a gaming console!

            Look, HBO.  You already have a monopoly on the only watchable television out there; your only major competitor is Netflix, and they’ll run out of funding on their $8/month far before you ever will.  So why on earth would you not fix these issues so using GO is actually pleasurable??

            You and I both know I paid a lot, I repeat a LOT, of money for my Roku 3.  And yet you refuse to let GO stream on it?? I’m your target audience: nerds who spend a lot of time in front of the TV or on the Internet.  You know I’m going to be buying what you’re selling, so why make it painful for all of us? 

            Don’t get me wrong: I’m super grateful I no longer have to get cable in order to watch HBO stuff.  I gave up cable years ago when Netflix got huge and have never looked back, except to wonder about all the cool stuff I was missing on HBO.  Waiting 8 months to get the next Game of Thrones season from the library, or paying far too much to buy the box set of Sex and the City was bad enough – I was on board with HBO streaming from the start. 

            Until I found out I needed a Smart TV for it to be any good at all. 

            My husband owns just about every gaming console known to nerds, so I can get GO, no worries.  But it’s shit! (As I may have mentioned.) On top of those issues, the hi-def quality is just not there, and the buffering time required for that means that by the time I can get an episode to actually load in 1080p, the spoilers and/or questions about what the fuck, exactly, is happening on this episode of True Detective are already blowing up my phone.   

            I’m not going to run out and buy a Smart TV -- and it has to be an LG one?? Fuck that! -- for a thousand dollars just to watch The Brink – for that kind of money, I’ll suck it up and torrent it, shit quality and all.  So why, when you are losing potential customers, make GO exclusive to certain devices??

            And really: shows that don’t buffer when paused?? Even YouTube does that now; hell, even SchoolTube (the ‘kid friendly’ version of YouTube where you won’t accidentally see a tit or hear someone yelling “die, motherfucker!” in the background) does that now!

            Even worse: What am I supposed to do when said non-buffering app crashes in the middle of someone important’s death? I worship Game of Thrones; each lost second means someone else could die! And I have to scroll all the way through the entire 47 minutes until that point, wait for all that to back-buffer, and then once the video finally shows up again… the sound goes AWOL. 

            Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t buy that Smart TV because there are times I want to throw whatever GO streaming device I’m using out the window. 

            I’d drop your service, but hey, I’m watching it on my in-laws’ subscription anyway, so I guess really I can’t complain.  Or at least, not too loudly.  Really, since I’m not paying for it… why should you care?

            Sincerely,

            Will Never Pay For My Own Subscription 

The Fangirl Freebie Five

My “freebie” list poses pretty much no danger to my husband and I’s relationship.  Lots of people have these lists -- those five people you can sleep with, guilt-free, should the opportunity arise -- and in my experience, most of them seem to be like mine: a fun conversation, but not real in terms of actual sex occurring.  I know I’d be pissed if Bishop slept with anyone else, Scarlett Johansson or otherwise, freebie list or otherwise, and I imagine he’d feel about the same.  

In theory, I supposed he could feel threatened, like I was out trolling for some celebrity, or like I’m trying to suggest he get in better shape or something via a girl trap.  

However, that risk is pretty low considering my list is populated entirely by fictional characters.  

So, thanks to extensive thought and research, I present my “freebie five,” in no particular order. 

1. Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings. 

Ah, Aragorn! I do love this man (and I don’t just mean the Viggo Mortensen version from the movies).  He’s such a great character! So independent and mysterious as Strider, the Ranger from the North, and so dark – his world is quietly adventure-filled, lived in the shadows but dripping with potential for greatness.  And when he starts to take control of his destiny… that hesitation he displays, like he knows what he’s meant for but he’s not sure he can handle it, being Isildur’s Heir, is wonderful.  He’s such a positive, empowering character – he learns to embrace his life, his fate, even as he battles the darkness settling in around (and within) him.

2. Iron Man

Let’s face it, this one is all about Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man, not the comic books.  I just love him, and if he were real, I would gladly be one of those random women he hooks up with, provided he agreed to at least wear the Iron Man mask (the rest might be a little …restrictive).  I’m not normally that kind of person in my real life, but I do adore his self-centered quips and crazy antics. He’s not marriage material – sorry, Pepper Potts! – but just once, for fun? Done. 

3. Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock, love of my fictional life! While Sherlock Holmes in almost any form is on the list here, my top choice would have to be the Benedict Cumberbatch iteration.  Benedict Cumberbatch himself should very possibly be on this list too… hm….

Um... yum. That's all I've got to say. 

4.  Malcolm Reynolds, captain of the Firefly Serenity

I’ve thought about swapping out Mal for the man himself, Nathan Fillion, since I love him as Rick Castle too, but I don’t think there’s a lot of potential there.  I’d be willing to if I thought it was a legit possibility (in as much as any of this is ‘legit’), but I’ve met Nathan Fillion in a haze of glorious nerd-gasms, and sadly, the opportunity did not arise.  So I’m sticking with Mal, because the fictional possibilities are more fun to plunder than the sad reality that it’s not going to happen with Fillion. 

Can we talk about this smirk? Please tell me we can talk about this smirk. 

5. … I had trouble thinking of #5. 

The space was blank for a long time as I pondered the choices. 

My first thought is to put Garrus from Mass Effect on there, or Cullen from Dragon Age: Inquisition, but I absolutely cannot pick between those two, so they’re both out.  Bishop would understand and let me have both, if it came to that :)  

I think he’d understand about Alistair too, so he’s also out.  In fictional terms, I’ve already “done it” with these characters due to how Bioware writes their games, so I guess none of them belong on the list in the first place.  But if I start second-guessing the creation of a freebie list with fictional characters, this is all going to fall apart, so I’m not going to pick at that thread.  

I wondered too if Hellsing’s Alucard belongs on this list, given my desperate love for all his vampire glory. But deep down… Alucard scares the shit outta me.  He is straight-up terrifying, and as much as I love him, I don’t think that’s the way I’d want this “freebie” to go down. 

I’ve already written about how Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is now wildly inappropriate due to our age differences, so I won’t rehash that here. 

I also considered Chris Pine as Captain Kirk in the Star Trek reboot, and I have to say, I almost got stuck there.  He’s a great character, born from decades of backstory and canon to draw upon, and I think Chris Pine doesn’t get nearly the acting credit he deserves either.  His character has so much depth, despite his shield of immaturity and humor, that he is someone I could definitely get behind. Or under, as the case may be ;) 

However, after much deliberation, I have to say that my #5 is actually Thorin Oakenshield, as played exclusively by Richard Armitage.  Just…. Mm, just yum.  I’ve got little else driving this point other than pure lust, seeing as Oakenshield as a character can be rather despicable at times (despite his noble intentions).  But Armitage as him, with that deep thrumming voice, blue eyes, and long hair… that just does things for me. 

Look at the BURN in those eyes… and his hair, oh how I love his hair.

Upon reviewing this list, I’m not sure my husband legitimately has much to worry about.  Say, by some beautiful miracle, all these guys were real and actual possibilities… *long pause while I bask in the amazing of that universe* All these guys have something, some characteristic, in common with my wonderful husband, and so I still have trouble seeing anything really happening. 

Sherlock, Thorin, Mal, and Aragorn all have the dark hair and blue eyes that my husband has.  Mal, Iron Man, and Sherlock all have that touch of humor I love so much about him. Thorin, Mal, and Aragorn all have that insane loyalty that tells me my husband would go to the ends of the earth for me.  Iron Man has that playful edge that makes my husband a perfect fit for me, and Sherlock, though way too smart, has the same kind of crazy intelligence that means my husband and I can argue about pointless theoretical topics for hours at a time, bickering all the while. 

And most of my back-ups have something too – Alucard may be too intense and Elric may be too young, but Kirk is adventurous and just a little bit nuts, Garrus is devoted and sexy to a fault, Alistair is sarcastic and hilarious and snuggle-able, and Cullen is careful and serious and faithful to the cause. 

What it boils down to is that I love my husband for being human, which means that, even though I’d love to mentally play with the possibilities, none of my freebie five could quite measure up.

Alistair does have some serious abs though…. Maybe Bishop can work on that ;)

ANDROMEDA!!!!!

I was watching this trailer for like the 1000th time this morning and realized I hadn't posted it. 

I don't even know where to begin!! A fresh galaxy -- the graphics -- IN ENGINE! -- the new Mako -- the N7 -- and the Johnny Cash SONG, the perfect choice for an exploration-style game!!!

GAAHHHHH I can't even convey how excited I am.

Fall 2016 is SO far away, what am I going to do until then??

*goes to rewatch the Andromeda trailer again.... many more times*

Not Great, Not Terrible: Dragon Age 2

Ok, I get it.  Dragon Age 2 isn't a great game.

The first time I tried to play it, I was so disenchanted with the map set-up that I bailed after like 3-5 hours.  I hated the menus: too dark, too hard to see my character or her abilities, too many things to click.  I didn't like that I couldn't customize my companions' armor.  I felt confined by the city and the re-used dungeons surrounding it.

And I was definitely not on board with my romance options.  I mean: a slutty pirate, a super creepy abomination, the overly-innocent elf, the former and definitely traumatized slave, and ... oh wait, that's it.  And not ONE of them has a sexy voice.  That's a fail, in my book.

Plus it kept doing this:

I mean really.  My computer can run Inquisition --which is brand new still-- on its highest graphics with no issues, and it can't texturize a game from 2011??

So I turned it off.  I'd loved Origins, but felt let down by DA2.

Then, almost a year later, I played Inquisition.

Anyone reading this knows I love Inquisition -- I won't get back up on my soapbox about it.
One of the biggest things I love about Inquisition (aside from Cullen, brief swoon before I refocus) is the world of Thedas: it's not huge, like the Mass Effect universe, but it is so richly imagined that I get sucked in almost instantaneously.

And as I played Inquisition, I started to realize: I was missing something.  Sure, I could figure out the mages vs. the templars war, and Varric and Cassandra's tension combined with Cullen's backstory was enough to piece together what happened in Kirkwall, but I was missing the details -- the details of Dragon Age 2.

I picked it up again.  It was still incredibly hard to play -- none of my former issues with it had vanished, plus now I'd played like 100+ hours of Inquisition, which has a really easy combat system and a combination keyboard/mouse control style that I found very intuitive.  Yeah, that doesn't happen with Dragon Age 2.  

It is difficult to express how much I hate this menu. 

But the more I played/forced myself to play it, the more I started to appreciate DA2.  It's not a great game -- too much weird stuff that I've already bitched about for that.  But it did attempt something new, which was to keep the story running over measurable years, and to keep the main character stable in a city.

In this way, DA2 is more realistic in terms of real life, and I think that's why a lot of people didn't like it.

Think about it: this game covers roughly 7-10 years of time.  It breaks up the storyline with big events, much like a real life.  I can, for example, break up my life according to big events, and most of them aren't within a year of each other -- they're spread out.  So that's realistic of the game.
The other part, the city, is also pretty realistic.  If you live in the same area for almost ten years, you are bound to re-visit some spots.  You'll hit the same bars, explore the same areas, and while you might not be killing dragons or fighting Arishoks, you'll see the same places multiple times.  Again, that's realistic.  Hawke lives in Kirkwall for a long time; it makes sense for her to visit the same market place, the same church, her friends' homes, over and over.

But that level of realism reminds people too much of their actual lives, and thus the reviews for the game suffer.  I understand that, and at times, I agree.  Walking to the top of Sundermount for what feels like the thousandth time gets tiring.  I'm not playing a video game in order to experience that kind of mundane daily event -- I'm playing it to escape that, to explore a different world, to try on a different life! So I get it.

I don't think that inherently makes DA2 a bad game though.  It's a pretty unique concept, and it's executed reasonably well.
What I think actually hurts DA2 is that it is not a plot-driven game.  In that way, again, it's realistic -- few people are set up as the one person who can stand against evil, and I know almost no one who has an actual villain as an active part of their lives.  Instead, events trundle along and occasionally shitty people pop up and must be dealt with.

This is what DA2 has done -- Hawke scrounges up money for a year or so and then heads off into the Deep Roads.  Politics with the qunari in the city gradually bubble over in the course of about three years and then Hawke has to fight the Arishok.  Things are quiet for a few years, and then Anders blows up the Chantry.  There is no one bad guy, no one driving force for the plot that carries throughout the game.

Yes, realistic, but it doesn't not make for great game-play, and that's my biggest argument against Dragon Age 2.

I liked this game.  It's been my experience that I won't play a game for more than a few hours if I'm not enjoying myself, and I played this one for close to 30 hours.  It was entertaining, and it definitely filled in the lore about the world of Thedas that I'd been missing before.

The big question is this: Would I play it again?  Thus far, I've played every Bioware game I've touched at least twice all the way through.  Some, like Mass Effect 2 and 3 and Inquisition, I've even started a third time.  But I don't think I'd play Dragon Age 2 again.

I've enjoyed my time in Kirkwall, but much like Hawke, Varric, and even Cullen by the end, I think I'm done. Once is more than enough.

So it begins...

The Steam Summer Sale is here....

Each progressive sale is rather like this:

I'm of course excited -- here's my chance to finally own Sid Meier's Beyond Earth!!!  But past that, I'm not sure what I'm going to buy yet.

 I need to wait for the lower prices, as Aragorn suggests.  There's gotta be a day when Witcher 3 is, like, 80% off, right? Right??

Also: I'm still riding the Steam Train of games I bought last year and haven't yet played... Maybe I shouldn't bother, maybe I'll wait until the next sale, probably after Christmas, and get new stuff then...

Oh shit, is that Metro Redux? Will my wallet survive??

Game of Thrones: A Musical Like No Other

So I still don't have any idea what "Red Nose Day" is, even after the events of the past few days.  However, in spite of this ignorance of its purpose, I have to be thankful for it because Red Nose Day has provided some of the best entertainment I've discovered lately.

That entertainment of course, like much else this spring, pertains to Game of Thrones.

Now, originally, upon viewing Game of Thrones, I wasn't such a big fan -- too much political intrigue and pickle shots and not nearly enough violence or character development there in the first season.  By the events of the season finale though, I was hooked, and now I'm almost caught up, having just finished season 4 this very evening.

I'm not always thrilled with the changes made between the page and the screen, and I can't say I love the gore that's come about either -- I never wanted to see a man's skull crushed, thank you very much, but I have now.  (It's just as gruesome as you'd expect too; I can't say I recommend it.)

What I've come to love most about this show are its actors and their characters.  Each was chosen perfectly, so true to the books and so much better acted than I ever expected.

Nowhere is this point driven home more effectively than in the short videos released for Red Nose Day, in which some of the actors take their characters into the music studio for a quick lapse into the Game of Thrones Musical.

Hilarity ensues:

I never knew I needed a reggae Khaleesi in my life until this video.

Neither did I expect that Jaime Lannister had such a sense of humor:

The puns! I was so pleased, so very, very pleased.  And also just dying laughing.

Then of course comes the crown jewel of these little teasers, Peter Dinklage's Tyrion Lannister:

Tyrion Lannister has consistently been in my top 3 favorite characters since I read the books, and since Dinklage brings him to like with such sass, I love him on the show too.  This song doesn't disappoint -- as he counts down the characters that have died while he's "still going strong," I was falling out of my seat, I was laughing so hard.

I haven't seen the full musical yet -- I haven't had the time to sit and watch all of it.  Suffice it to say though: if these little teasers are any indication, that full Game of Thrones musical has got to be incredible. I'm looking forward to the laughs.

And also desperately hoping that Baelish and Jon Snow have songs too.

The World Belongs to the Mad

I had never heard of the Mad Max franchise until I saw this trailer:

I loved it.  The violence, car chases, explosions, overlaid with those classical songs lend the trailer a beautiful, twisted irony so necessary in an end of the world movie.  Tom Hardy is always incredible, and the sight of Charlize Theron in all her shaved-head, one-armed glory inspired so much hope that this would, indeed, be a great movie.

I couldn't wait for May 15th.

I really needed a great movie.  It's been a long time -- Age of Ultron was good, don't get me wrong, but I didn't leave that theatre with the same sense of soul-lifting joy that I associate with a great film experience.  I didn't get that bubble in my chest at any point -- hell, I didn't even feel like I would miss anything when I went to pee.

It's been a long time since any of that happened. Kingsman: The Secret Service was probably the last film that came close (Let me pause for a moment to say this: Kingsman was awesome. Absolutely worth your time if you haven't seen it.)

That didn't happen with Ultron, it didn't happen with Days of Future Past or Interstellar, and it definitely didn't happen with The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies or Jupiter Ascending.

But it happened with Max.

I could not look away from the screen.  This movie was incredible -- its absolutely frenetic pace combined with great acting and terrifying stunts made it one of the best movies I have ever seen.

The movie opens with the scene above -- just Max, staring out at the wastelands of this gasoline-obsessed, water-deficient future.  Within minutes, he is grabbed by the war boys, those screaming, ghost-white warriors in the trailer, and a roaring pace is set, one that doesn't let up until the final credits roll.

At its heart, Mad Max is a chase movie -- Charlize Theron as the bad-ass Furiosa steals the leader, Immortan Joe's, harem of young, beautiful wives and sets off for the 'green place,' a potential paradise of life and water.

They pick up Max along the way, but he's almost a side character -- the whole plot revolves around Furiosa's desperate trek across the desert and the war parties of re-made cars, trucks, and explosives that follow them on their quest.

Reading over my quick summary here, I'm seeing that this doesn't sound all that special.  But my words don't do, can't do this movie justice.

I could not look away from the screen -- Bishop got up to pee like 3 times, and each time, he came back asking "What did I miss?"  Each time, I'd have to pause and think about it.  He never missed much dialogue -- Hardy says maybe a few dozen lines in the whole movie, and Theron not much more -- but the action! the acting! There is so much packed into every second.

At one point, I glanced down to adjust my seat, and I looked back up to realize I'd missed yet another incredible stunt that proved essential to the chase:

I had read going in that George Miller estimates they actually did about 80-90% of the stunts in the film -- as in, only about 10-20% of the movie used CGI to make it happen.  I had also heard that the Max franchise was famous for this, which is pretty cool, but I wasn't really convinced.

That lasted until about 15 minutes in, when the scene above happened and I realized that Miller wasn't exaggerating -- they did all this stuff for real.

I don't want to give too many of the major moments away, but there's so much that's real, so much that you can see glimpses of in the trailers only to realize later that it's a real person up there on those poles flying between cars, a real tanker truck driving into a mountainside.  I'm not sure I've ever seen a movie with as much dedication to insanity.

One of my favorite stunts is this guy here: the Doof.  He's a war boy like many others, but his talent lies in guitar shredding, not driving.  Every single thing on his rig is real, and it all works.  Miller found a stunt guitarist, dragged him out into the African desert for a month, strung him up on a truck covered in working amplifiers and bungee cords, and then drove him around at 60 mph while he shredded.

Who DOES stuff like that anymore? In any other movie, with any other director, they would have just CGI'd the shit out of that concept.  Instead, they've worked their asses off to create it for real, and given movie-goers an experience unlike any other.

That flamethrower attachment? Also real.

Some things, like the giant dust storm they drive through early on, are clearly CGI because they have to be -- I imagine it's impossible to fake something that looks like this:

See the trucks down there? 

But other things, like Theron's prosthetic arm, I honestly wonder about.  The moments when the prosthetic is ripped off are clearly fake -- Theron might have shaved her head for the movie, but I suspect she'd draw the line at losing a limb -- but the arm itself, the rig it's attached to, could be real.  It certainly looks and sounds real at times, like when she grabs Max by the leg to keep him from falling out of a speeding truck cab.

That moment, by the way? The one you can see near the end of this trailer, where Max tumbles out only to dangle just about the sand? Also real.  And also Tom Hardy, which is unbelievable and AWESOME.

There is so much bad CGI out there -- and it's not exactly invisible.  The pixelated nature of the Transformers at the end of Age of Extinction, the soft edges and contorted poses of the heroes in the first ten minutes of Age of Ultron: none of these examples are exactly hiding, and neither are they surprising.

It's the reality of stunts, the ingenuity of pulling them off and the truth of seeing them on the screen, that sets movies like Mad Max apart.

This is not a movie for everyone -- I have no qualms about that.

But it is a movie for me, one of the best I've seen in a long while. And I'm looking forward to seeing it again.

What a lovely day indeed.


Also:
Links if you're like me and interested in learning just about everything about this movie:
Tom Hardy's Craziest Stunt
Four Ridiculous Mad Max Stunts
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