Yes, Paul… I’m sure the people who made The Beatles Rock Band will spare you a free copy of your game. Paul McCartney talks video games, official Beatles MP3s, and this fall’s remastered Beatles catalog in a smashing good interview in a games magazine.
I am up late tonight finishing an overdue article, and it’s hot in Seattle this week–not the worst heat in the world, certainly, but in a land of lackluster ventilation, it’s enough to keep windows open at almost all times. Unfortunately, the freaks fly in at 4 a.m.
As I’m about to log off, a blue-red super-bug with glittering eyes and, I can’t be sure, but I swear a diamond necklace of some kind, buzzes over my head with wings as big as my pinkies. It’s imitating a World War II B-12, accelerating over my head, then slowing while above for dramatic effect. I leap out of my chair to open the door and let him continue his journey, when what do I see but some junior-junior-sized scorpion-bug crawling across. It has antennae on its head as big as the rest of its body; nature’s flair. To top it off, two moths then buzz at me in a cross pattern like perfectly aligned wide receivers.
I turn out my lights, open the bedroom door, and turn on the hallway light whilst cowering in the corner in hopes that the bugs will take the visual bait. Or that I’ll have safe distance in case this infestation is a sign of the coming of the goddamned lizard king.
At this point, my housemate’s cat, Loo Song, comes barreling up the stairs, giddy with the belief that I’ve left my door open so she can hop into my room and OUT THE WINDOW. Loo Song loves to do this, but tonight apparently wasn’t quite right for kitty-kaze, so I grab her and throw her into the hallway, but not before one of the bugs follows her.
Loo Song and I lock eyes. I give her a look as if to say, “You know all those times you’ve hated me for throwing you like a water balloon out of my room? It’s our day of reckoning.” And then she eats the hell out of that bug. She’s kind of evil about it, as I’d expected–holds it to the ground for a second, front paws clasping, and eventually gnashes away with a Chex Mix crunch.
I wasn’t about to kill any of the bugs that got into my room–no point, they weren’t biters. But the immense satisfaction of contributing, in some small way, to the domestic pet circle of life… it’s a great bookend to a great evening. Or at least a rational alternative to that red-brown cat food she vomits on my housemate’s bed.