Happy Al Capone Day!
I got home from work last night and started cooking some hickory smoked chicken. Once all of the prep was done and I was down to the waiting portion, I flipped on the television and ended up watching what I thought was a freaking hilarious movie. It was called Keeping Mum and is kind of a dark British comedy.
The basic premise is that this sweet and demure lady finds out that her husband is cheating on her during her pregnancy, so she kills both of them, chops them up, stuffs them in a trunk, and goes for a train ride. She gets caught, freely admits what she has done with no regret, and is sent to a psychiatric ward.
Years later, she hires on as the housekeeper for a very disfunctional family. The husband (played by the actor who plays Mr. Bean) is a vicar for a small parish. His wife is an unhappy lady who has a verbal gift for dropping the f-bomb and who is trying to carry on an affair with her golf pro (played by a very aged Patrick Swayze). They have a nymphomaniac 17-year old daughter who pretty much does a different guy every day out front of their house and a young son who is frightened of his own shadow and is constantly picked on at school.
The former young psycho killer turned elderly housekeeper ends up being the mother of the vicar’s wife and she sets about trying to take care of all the problems the family is having by going on a killing spree. The first victim is the neighbor’s dog who barks all night. Then goes the neighbor who catchers her in the act of burying the dog. *WHACK* goes the shovel… and I giggled.
The movie actually got scary for a minute when they showed Patrick Swayze wearing nothing but a banana hammock and I think I will be scarred for life, but the Housekeeping Granny of Justice took care of him by cranking him to death with the iron she had just been using to press some laundry. Finally, she’s winding up to have a go at another annoying neighbor, but that lady is kind enough to die of a heart attack when she sees the frying pan held high overhead.
Towards the end of the movie, with a quiet smile, she gets into a cab and leaves because, “It’s probably all for the best. But, thank you for making this mad, old woman a happier mad, old woman.”
I enjoyed it. Kind of reminded me of an old movie made during the 50’s called Arsenic and Old Lace.
Once I had finished watching Granny Wendy from Hook dish out blunt-force trauma across the parish, I logged into EQ2 all set to get some gaming in. I figured I would take Raynar and Fuzzlewump over to Antonica and work on the Dwarven Work Boots HQ. That is when I realized that I need to work on saying “no.”
It is kind of fun having all of these people I know playing EQ2 now instead of Warcraft, but it definately puts a crimp on my plans. They are all full of questions, requests for aid and requests for other things.
It started out simply enough last night. One of them asked if I minded making some food and drink. Since I can always use the experience on my provo, I logged over to crank out a stack. It went downhill from there though. While I was cranking that out, another asked if I could make him a new bow and some arrows. Then came the quiver and backpack requests. Then came the requests for some armor. Then it was adept scrolls. Finally, it was help with killing.
By the time I finished helping them with their stuff, it was nearly midnight and well past time for me to log off and head off to bed… and I never even got the chance to log on the toons I had meant to play last night.
Tonight, they are on their own. I realize that they have questions and want help and they are definately finding EQ2 to be more complicated than Warcraft… and I do enjoy helping, but geez. I would like to play as well. I even got an invite for my dirge to join a guild Kunark group last night… something unheard of due to my level… and had to turn it down because I was neck deep in crafting requests.
That won’t happen again. I’m going to let them all know today that I don’t mind helping, but that there is going to have to be some consideration here. If they want or need something, they can ask. If I’m busy or have plans, they are just going to have to realize that it has to wait. For large crafting requests, they need to just e-mail me what they want and I will get to it when I have the time.
I certainly don’t mind losing 1 night and if that is all it was, I would just ignore it. The problem is that when I logged off at midnight, it was to a lot of protesting of, “But I still need your help with….” and, “Well, can you at least finish this tomorrow?”
So yeah… nice to be able to help and I definately don’t want to be a dick, but I figure it is best to lay this on the table before it gets out of hand.
