Pr3++yG33kyTh1ng

I haven't gamed in forever.
Between NaNoWriMo last month and this month's Ebay frenzy of action figure mayhem, I just haven't had a chance.
That means my EverQuest character has been standing around the Blightfire Moors for about a month, I imagine tapping her clawed foot impatiently and wanting to get back to smashing killer wasps.
I also haven't fired up the PlayStation 2 I drank gallons and gallons of Diet Coke to earn.
Last night Gwynyth asked when we would get to play that fighting game again. I know she just wants another chance to beat me down mercilessly and talk trash.
This is her right, and I regret not letting her exercise that. And her developing geeky thumbs.
She asked last night if she could have one of the action figures not yet on the sale block.
She had her eye on an autographed Mara Jade action figure.
And she asked who Mara Jade is.
I explained that after the Return of the Jedi was released, books and comic books picked up the slack to fill the void in Star Wars stories.
Mara Jade was an assassin who worked for the Emperor before he died. Her final mission was to kill Luke Skywalker.
Of course, she doesn't succeed in this goal. Instead, she embraced the Light side, redeemed herself, and married Luke. I'd have posted a spoiler warning, but the books are decades old now.
Anyway, as she was never in a movie, the logical next question from Gwynyth was, "Who signed the action figure?"
Okay. There was a collectible card game for Star Wars a while after the books where all this happened. And in the collectible card game, stills from the movies were used as art.
Except for Mara Jade's card. Since she wasn't in the movie, they hired a model to stand in as her in front of a generic sci-fi kind of background.
That model signed the card.
Don't feel bad. I think she drifted off in the middle somewhere, too.
Then she changed direction. She wanted a signed Princess Leia action figure.
I explained that Carrie Fisher, who played Princess Leia, doesn't sign action figures. She doesn't sign much of anything, but she is especially bitter about not doing much acting after Star Wars and hates to be reminded. A quick search of Ebay proved my point. No signed Princess Leia figures are listed. Gwynyth understood.
After she went to bed, I pulled more crates of figures out of the attic to assemble more lots for sale. I dug out a few spaceships and uncovered a box full of 12" figures.
I pulled out a few and, upon seeing one, flashed back to the time I acquired it.
I had sat up until midnight, refreshing a web browser and trying desperately to get it into the shopping cart. Extremely limited quantities. Those words are like catnip for nerds.
12:05am, it was in the cart and by 12:07 I was done.
A short time later, the figure arrived and was placed almost directly into storage, forgotten until last night.
There, on the front of a boxed Princess Leia in Hoth gear, scrawled in florescent green paint pen, was the signature "Carrie Fisher".
A lucky alignment of stars had timed a vendor uncovering a box of these 12" figures (and figures of female characters are historically hard to find in the best circumstances) at the same time (I guess) that Carrie Fisher's drug habit had gotten expensive and I had camped out and scored one.
Of course, Gwynyth can't open it. Ever. She can't undo the intricate braids or fire the little projectile launching gun. But she will have her signed Princess Leia in Ugg boots.
Yes. Gwynyth is geeking up nicely. All according to my master plan.