7/19/2004 04:58:33 AM|||Foton|||Grumpy was on hustle-duty a few nights ago at one of the busier starports. It seemed his regularly-scheduled hustler had homework or some school project that night and couldn't log in to SWG. Grumpy considered calling his hustler's mother and pleading his case, but figured she would just hang up on him.

Grumpy doesn't like to be on hustle duty, too many price-checks, requests for schematics from new holo-tects, and entirely too much /hug'ing going on at starports these days. If he's had a few refreshments, the people and pet watching can be rather entertaining, though. Grumpy doesn't like the pets named Forsell; he wants to /shout at them that it's really ForSALE, but figures his obvious command of the English language might be unnerving to the yo yo dawgs.

Grumpy played a few harmless pranks that night: the mouse droid named UrGFIsSleepingAround, bidding 1 cpu for Class 4 chem in incomprehensible Spanish, asking outside the starport where the nearest starport was and /dancing about the area while barking at everyone to make sure they tip the entertainers. But mostly it was business as usual and a quiet night.

Eventually Grumpy tired of the starport nonsense and decided to whack out some more medic experience in the Cantina and headed that way on his Novice Scout-Marksman-Artisan-Brawler-Medic alt. Good news this night, Grumpy was the only medic type so got invited into the entertainer group AND...was made the leader so the holo-tainers could get some much-needed sleep.

One of the holo-tainers had an ANNOYING text in their afk macro, something about..."watch me to heal your wounds", or something. Grumpy thought "W-T-F else are people gonna do? Try to talk to your afk ass?" but just sent a tell suggesting the holo-tainer drop that from his macro before some rich and famous Master Bounty Hunter hunted him down like a dog. Mostly, it was a sleepy night, Grumpy healing occasionally (afk holo-tainers don't do much /flourishing), chatting it up with some of the customers, hauling out the mouse droid named "ImWithStupid" with follow-target on Asshat947.

Then something very curious happened. Grumpy noticed that a new holo-tainer was doing the exact same text "watch me to heal your wounds" in an afk macro. The guy looked exactly the same, human male, bald, wearing a skirt (disturbing), same dance, same text, DIFFERENT name. The tainer group was large, but not so large that Grumpy wouldn't have remembered this name from before, and as Grumpy was the leader, he knew he hadn't invited this dude into the group. Yet, there he was.

There was no way Grumpy was gonna log now before he got to the bottom of this. So he waited and watched. Eventually, the bald dude woke up and ran out of the Cantina, but forgot to disband. All the better for Grumpy to watch his movements. According to the group window, he ran out about 200m, and although Grumpy couldn't see his HAM anymore, Grumpy watched closely for when he might return.

And then it happened again. Right in front of Grumpy's eyes, the bald dude's name changed back to the original afk tainer's name, still about 200m away. Grumpy's not a big believer in mind tricks, but he thought this was a d*mn good one. Even a skeptic like Grumpy did a double-take, rubbed his eyes and thought to himself "well I'll be d*mned". Grumpy asked in /say if anyone knew whether Jedis could change their player names at will; Grumpy hasn't really kept up on what they can do and when or how; no one in the Cantina knew either.

The bald dude (original name) ran back to the Cantina and started his bunny hop dance again. Grumpy sent him a tell and told him that he should probably be more careful about using his tricks in public. The dude just replied "I admit nothing." Whatever that means.

The Cantina continued to doze in the late hours, the bunny hopper continued his annoying text, Grumpy continued to heal the holo-tainers and the momentary excitement was over, except for one small difference.

Grumpy renamed his mouse droid UrGFIsSleepingWithAJedi.

The Grumpy Master Architect ©

|||109023843330624504|||Grumpy and the Jedi (12-16-03)