Visa Wars

After days and weeks of incountable anguish over my wait to figure out when I´d finally see my wife, it seems my torment is finally coming to an end: her Visa cleared up, the new ticket was bought and all the needed elements have been FedExed to her this tuesday. She should be back in Brazil on the 8th of september.

I think this must feel somewhat like a boxer coming out victorious after a hard 12-round long bout: you feel beat, broken, dirty and dizzy - and yet, somehow you feel as if the world is more bright and colorful, and even though your body may hurt, you want to leap out and do everything with broad movements... it´s the feeling Japanese movies and cartoons seem to capture so well in the scenes where the protagonist runs silently. It´s like you become the wind, and you just run free - you don´t need a place to go, you just do. If only I could bottle that...

Though, I want to take this opportunity NOT to thank the Brazilian embassy in Washington for not only taking forever to do this, being a pain in the ass to contact and making absolute sure NOT to let us know her Visa was ready since the August 12, so that I almost lost a few hundred dollars and a few days of sleep.

Link of the Day: More Star Wars for the masses?

EPISODE VII
A CURIOUS MALADY

Soon after the dubiously abrupt collapse of the Empire, the Galaxy finds itself confronting a new threat. Emboldened by their decisive victory at the Battle of Endor, militant EWOKS are wreaking terror on several helpless star systems, whose colossal battleships and armored troops are of no more avail against the Ewoks' invincible logs and pointy sticks than the Empire's Walkers and Stormtroopers proved to be.

To resist the Ewok juggernaut, General HAN SOLO has volunteered to lead the armies of the Foboombah system, but his leadership has not proven valuable, since the Ewoks don't use blasters and he inexplicably refuses to fire the first shot. Nor can LUKE SKYWALKER be of assistance. Not only is he forbidden to instruct a new generation of Jedi, on account of his master's deathbed edict that "the last of the Jedi will [he] be," but he is also battling depression and hallucinations of ghosts who tell him profound-sounding things that usually turn out to be total bull a few years later.

Meanwhile, Princess LEIA SKYWALKER-SOLO-CALRISSIAN is leading a diplomatic mission to Naboo, to ask for assistance from the only race with a military track record that matches that of the undefeated Ewoks; only the GUNGAN arsenal of slingshots and superballs is sufficiently primitive to stand a chance against the Ewoks' own weaponry. And Captain WEDGE ANTILLES prepares to attack the Ewoks on the Forest Moon itself, accompanied by two Jawas and a malfunctioning R2 unit, on the principle that the victory always, without fail, goes to the smallest party involved....