Matthew Wrather hosts with Peter Fenzel and Mark Lee to overthink min-maxing themselves, work outside the square community, and the wedding-industrial complex.
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Further Reading
Min-Maxing on Wikipedia
Orcs on Wikipedia
WAAAGH on YouTube
So, the big thing you guys didn’t touch on with the whole wedding planning thing is Family Politics. You may see the wedding as a nice party to celebrate your friends, but your friends getting married have an older generation to deal with. This generation has a different view of weddings.
So, you guys were talking about planning a party for your friends. You forgot that you’re also planning a party for your families who have pre-ideas of what a wedding should be, how that wedding should actually be about them and not the couple, and god forbid you insult them because you will never. Ever. Hear the end of it.
Also, the couple doesn’t end up planning the wedding. The person with the purse plans the wedding. The family member/friend with the strongest personality plans the wedding.
Planning a wedding is a situation that ends up ramping up the weaker parts of a relationship to the max.
So, just keep in mind that when you plan your wedding, it’s not going to be about you.
Right, I think this is one of those blind spots that has to do with three never-married dudes talking about weddings. We’ve never had a mother or mother-in-law or wealthy grandfather or something whose wedding expectations need to be managed.
Exactly. The year leading up to my wedding (5 weeks ago) were filled with discussions and compromises, with my fiancee, my mother-in-law, the party venue people, my mother. My father didn’t like to interfere (“Just show me part of the bill afterwards, and good luck”).
We did some minmaxing: a Friday wedding gets you the venue and the bridal suite for free, so we could spend more on the menu. No fancy limo, but two professional photographers. No church, but a small ceremony in our garden. Common knowledge around here (Flanders) says a wedding should set you back the price of a nice hatchback car.
While most of the year my fiancee was most preoccupied with the arrangements, cause you know, weddings is for girls, the final week I slept about 2.5 hours per night. The day itself was no less than perfect, but I’m never doing that again.
Weddings in my (very large, very Italian) family spent the past several years in an unfortunate arms race. Several of the female cousins in a row got married, and their mothers all insisted that THEIR daughter’s wedding would be the biggest, fanciest, most over-the-top, and be absolutely better than [previous bride]’s wedding!
My sister ended up eloping. I’ll likely do the same.
My cousin has been engaged for a few years and is absolutely paralyzed when it comes to actually planning the wedding for fear of upsetting family, friends, exes, etc. We keep telling her that we only care about her getting married and happy, not the specifics of the ceremony and reception. I keep recommending a trip to Vegas and getting married by Klingon Elvis but so far it has fallen on deaf ears…
“The Art of Waaagh” already exists. It is called “The Secret”
Fantastic listen, but since I have very little to add to the discussion of weddings I think I’ll just throw out some fun little WarHam things.
Waaaaagh:
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0WA9dX0CHOa
Warhammer song parodies by 4chan:
http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Grimdark_Songwriting
I really hope this doesn’t sound creepy, but I really enjoy your voice, Matthew. It’s probably my favorite voice on the podcast.
I could listen to you talk all day.
/fangirl
Many thanks—I’ll gladly take all compliments! My drama school’s speech teacher will be delighted. And I’ll let you know when I release an audio book.
Matt Wrather Reads the Oxford English Dictionary will be the biggest hit on Audible.com in 2014.
When you are working outside the square community, like, for example, if you are a writer looking for a job during staffing season and you don’t have representation, the notion of a job interview is a thrilling prospect instead of something to be feared. You may even just be happy when somebody returns your e-mails. Hypothetically speaking, of course.
I have nothing to say about weddings, because I haven’t been to one since my early teens and the only vivid memory I have of it is from the reception when I was standing in line for food near the priest who oversaw the ceremony and found it a strange sight indeed. Although, I can totally officiate ceremonies myself, as an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church.
The sitcom trope of the wedding is that it’s the party the bride has been planning for her whole life, and that anyone who really loved her would simply stand aside and indulge her. My impression, from my sisters, cousins, female friends, and even my mom, is that this trope is totally accurate.
I’m waiting for some logistical fan fiction from the Warhammer 40K universe, ala Dockingjay. Specifically: Chaos routine maintenance procedures, the effect of Waaaagh on Ork teamster strikes, and Space Marine off-planet IT call centers.
“All hail the blessed machine spirit, for it is our guiding light and our holy name, this is machine scribe-angelious, the gear-hearted speaking, please be advised this call might be recorded by the omnissiah and the Inquisition for customer service and/or HERESY.
What holy litanies can I help you with today?”
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD
SKULLS FOR HIS SKULL THRONE
42-B FORMS FOR RECQUISITIONING HIS 42-B DURABLE EQUIPMENT!!
A good example of min-maxing is seen in the webcomic Darths and Droids, which applies an undefined role-playing system to the Star Wars saga. Namely, R2-D2 is played by a player who is very much into min-maxing, and he has taken traits like “short” and “mute” to give himself extra skill points, which he’s put into things like computer hacking. Part of the joke is that the GM will occasionally force the R2-D2 player to speak in-character in beeps, but this never lasts long.
So you know there is already a Warhammer based metal band called Bolt Thrower which even got album cover art from Games Workshop:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolt_Thrower