The Importance of Being Idle

Day of Decision

Yep, it's General Election day here today! Woohoo! *ahem*
Actually it's not terribly exciting, everyone seems to think it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that we will have another New Labour government, the only questions seem to be about voter turn-out, what size of majority the Labour party will have this time. Interestingly, or at least semi-interestingly, I had my first and only canvasser of the entire campaign today, a nice old bloke who wanted to remind me to vote, and if it wouldn't be too much trouble would I vote for that nice Collins boy, the Conservative candidate... Needless to say I already had voted, and not for them, no.
I intend to stay up and watch the results come in (at least for a bit - say until it's past the stage where it's inevitable that Labour win), so if anything interesting happens there will live commentary, assuming I actually manage to stay awake.
In totally unrelated news, in two weeks it'll all be over. I'll have seen Revenge of the Sith, I'll know all there will ever be to know about Star Wars. That will be a sad day indeed.
I don't know if I've mentioned this before, so I'll just quickly sketch it out: I'm a MASSIVE Star Wars nerd. Seriously, never try to talk Star Wars with me unless you possess quite exceptional powers of geekery, because I can't just have a normal "oh yeah, that was pretty fun" conversation about it. Oh no. I can debate the arrogance of the Jedi, the nature of the Prophecy and how Anakin fulfills it, why Ewoks aren't crap, how Han shooting first in the new editions destroys his entire story arc, why Boba Fett is rubbish compared to his dad and oh so many other sad and pointless things. My favourite Star Wars moment of all? Luke watching the binary suns go down on Tatooine in Episode IV. At least so far, y'see there's this one light-saber duel that I've waited pretty much my entire life to see... I guess that is the real core of my Star Wars addiction, it hit me at exactly the right time as a kid and it's followed me for my whole lifetime. Seeing Episode IV for the first time (before it was Episode IV) is the clearest memory I have from my early childhood, and whenever I see a SW movie now, I am that seven year old again for the two or so hours it's on. That brings with it all sorts of resonances between my childhood and the adulthood I am failing so spectacurlarly at, and it always makes for an emotional experience that the films themselves almost certainly aren't worthy of. Trust me I will cry at some point during Revenge of the Sith, probably at lots of points. Hell everytime I watch Phantom I somehow hope that it'll go differently this time and that Qui-Gonn won't get killed, 'cos he's my favourite Jedi of all time. It's sad that I even have a favourite! Oh my god look what's happened! I'm talking about Star Wars and it's just getting totally out of control and super geeky and I have to stop!
Of course for Stu it's the end of an era on Saturday when he gets to see the movie at a screening attended by George Lucas! I want to wish something awful to happen to him for that, but I can't, I know he would've taken me if he could, and to be honest I don't begrudge him the experience. As long as he brings back cool toys!

posted by BadMonkey @ 8:02 PM