"Don't make eye contact," Gandalf advised as the bus he and his companions shared edged through colorful streets bordered by questionable buildings. But the Hobbit's curiosity was insatiable.
"Look!" cried Samwise, pointing at an exotic creature. "Is that an Oliphant?"
"No Sam," Aragorn patiently explained. "That's a matte gold 1970 El Camino with hydraulics."
As the Hobbits pressed their noses against the glass, the El Camino bounced up and down on powerful hydraulics. Their little heads followed it up and down, up and down, like kittens watching a tennis ball.
"Great," muttered Gandalf. "You're encouraging them."
Few know that Sauron lives in Weehawken, NJ in real life.
At last they got to their destination, and the Fellowship stepped off of the bus, which roared away and left them in a cloud of exhaust. "Two minutes in Jersey and already I'm Gandalf the Grey again," the old wizard muttered, fluttering his robes and coughing.
"Have you seen Sauron?" Frodo asked, padding along the sidewalk asking people. "Sauron? Big red eyeball? Anywhere? Up here? There? Excuse me -- Sauron? Have you -- oh Sam I think I just stepped in something... Oh ... Oh I gotta start wearing shoes..."
"There!" Gimili cried, pointing up to where an enormous flaming eyeball illuminated a tall tower. "There's the little link dropper! Get him!"
Although the great wooden door barring the way into Sauron's house was formidable, it gave way at the hinges with one meaty kick from Gimli. The Fellowship poured in, knocking over chairs and tables. "Come out you little cheese hog!" roared Gimli. "You can't quit out now!"
They found Sauron next to his computer upstairs. "Oh hey guys, hey, GG, too bad I uh lost connection at the end, hunh? Guess it won't go on the ladder, hunh? GG though! Right?"
"Kick him in the nuts!" squealed Merry and Pippin.
"I'm a giant flaming eyeball, I don't really have nuts per se -- OW! My eye!"
Gandalf poked the giant eye with his staff.
"C'mon guys, I didn't really mean to go link dead right as I obviously lost," whined the flaming eyeball. "I was just, you know, it was my dog chewing on the cable, and, and struck by lightning. During the hurricane. That cut the power. Totally not my fault!"
With a snap of cables, Aragorn ripped Sauron's PC from his desk and then held it out of the tower window, several stories above ground.
"No hey wait! C'mon guys, that's The One PC! Don't drop that guys c'mon -- oh -- oh."
The One PC shattered as it hit the asphalt, spraying nearby cars with busted bits of hard drive and motherboard. The great all-seeing eye of Sauron began to cry little, fiery tears.
"Be glad you don't have nuts or I'd've ripped them off," Gimili growled, poking the eye with the butt of his axe. With a huff, he and the rest of the Fellowship tromped downstairs and outside to the bus stop.
Several moments passed. "Hey since we defeated Sauron shouldn't the movie end?" Samwise asked.
"Naw, not for a while," mumbled Gandalf, opening up a newspaper. "Peter Jackson's got to decide on an ending out of some 200 pages of material after the climax."
"Ah," said the Hobbits, in unison.
Two hours later they found Bill the Pony on 8th Avenue with a parking ticket shoved up his nose and all of his horseshoes stolen.
[PlanetFargo appears every Friday on GameSpy.com, as a sort of poetic ode to being a nerd. Mail Fargo! Then visit the PlanetFargo Archives or the really old PlanetFargo Archives for more.]
