I have to crow a little bit about Limelight. I'm in week two of rehearsals and everything is going very well, aside from the fact that we can never get on THE DAMN STAGE! But everyone has been very cooperative and easygoing about practicing in the conference room. It's probably because of the nice chairs.

But seriously, after five years Limelight is just about where I wanted it to be. Most summer theatre groups do one BIG show and shove most everyone into the chorus, but I always wanted to provide multiple shows to give everyone choice and to provide a variety of shows that cater to a wide range of differences. So we have Oklahoma for the musical lovers, Alice in Wonderland for the younger folk, the edgier, more complex Romeo and Juliet for those that like Shakespeare and stuff, and we even have something for the little kids this year.

So all is going well, and we have an amazing group of people working the shows. I am rejuvinated right now, and can't wait to get to rehearsals to work on the show. Some may think this thing we do is silly, but it makes an incredible amount of people happy, and I love that I can provide that forum for them.

Some anniversaries to ponder here at the Bri Site...

10 years ago I graduated college.

15 years ago I graduated high school (on this very day, actually.)

I have known my two oldest friends, Wink and MC, for 25 years now. We, along with others that I randomly keep in contact with, were in the same second grade class way back in the 20th century. There was a cardboard box in the corner where the "bad" kids had to go sit. I believe one kid was sent there for drawing naked pictures of our teacher.

Other interesting events from the past:

20 years ago I moved away from my hometown of Sandwich (as did MC). I lived 2+ miserable years in Florida, until we decided to return back to Sandwich. This was mostly a good thing, but a side effect of it was I built up that small town in my head as the end-all-be-all place to live, a veritable midwest-Bedford Falls, and it took me forever to shake off that little fantasy in my head.

Five years ago I started the Limelight Theatre Company with one show and a dozen kids. Now there are almost a hundred kids signed up for four different shows, including Romeo and Juliet, Alice in Wonderland, and Oklahoma.

Two of my cousins graduated this weekend, as did many of the OHSers I know. The only thing I really remember from graduation day was Mike, Scott, Dave and I sitting in my car in my driveway, after we had driven around to various same-day graduation parties. It was still early, and we had nowhere to go. So we just sat in the car, as the sky grew dark, and we just talked and talked, about nothing in particular, none of us willing to get out and say good night.

You scored as Yoda. Yoda 75% C-3PO 61% Anakin Skywalker 56% Padme Amidala 50% Obi Wan Kenobi 42% R2-D2 33% Darth Vader 33% Clone Trooper 25% Chewbacca 25% General Grievous 25% Mace Windu 25% Emperor Palpatine 11% Which Revenge of the Sith Character are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Yeah, yeah, these are stupid. No one wants to know what kind of Pop-Tart are you? or what kind of fast food restaurant are you?

But I couldn't resist this one. And I was Yoda, so that kicks ass.

Back to Gorgeous George and the Iraq war. Last week he delivered a scathing address to the U.S. Congress, calling 'em a bunch of warmongers and liars, and all of us ant-war, anti-Bush bloggers loved it. (Scroll down to last Friday's post to get the links to what he said.)

But we should always take things with a grain of salt, and be wary, and listen to both sides, right? C from Glasgow, Scotland gave this description of Galloway in the comments:

Ha! It's great to see Mr Galloway becoming world famous. He's got the nickname "Gorgeous" over here - in fact he used to be my MP here in Glasgow before he got kicked out of the Labour party. He's an arrogant arse, and very full of himself but he's always good value.

The government's pissed at him here because he not only bitch slapped his ex-party, he got re-elected in one of their former strongholds. An amazing story & now they've really got it in for him.

Then I wrote TimX from England. Tim writes about British politics quite frequently, and I thought he would have an interesting perspective. Here's what he had to say in his reply to me:

As for George Galloway, I am afraid he is not a nice man, although a very
charismatic speaker. When he came over to address your Senate Committee, it
was with the declared intention of speaking, rather, to the American people
with an anti-war message. And although I didn't read the full text, I heard
several commentators saying that he didn'e actually give full answers to the
questions.

If you take into consideration that when he visited Saddam, he made a public
speech praising Saddams courage, patriotism etc., and later he encouraged
British troops to refuse to fight, then whatever your thoughts on the war
(and I was and am against) Galloway's approach is inconsistent and
unpatriotic.

When he was expelled from the British Labour Party for his actions, he
formed his own anti-war party called 'Respect', and instead of standing for
re-election in his home constituency in Scotland, he searched around for a
constituency with a high proportion of Muslims in the population, and
cynically traded on that to get elected, thus displacing a much respected
and popular black female Member of Parliament. No other member of the
Respect Party succeeded in getting elected. I'm afraid that members of his
London constituency will find that they have made a bad choice.

So although I got some amusement over his barnstorming performance in US, I
felt that a British Committee would have given him a much harder time!

In short, he is a blowhard, and cynical with it, but a very good orator!
Unfortunately, in this age, people are inclined to follow the charismatic
orator rather than the man of substance!

But that is just my opinion!

Best wishes

Tim

Thanks to Tim for allowing me to post his thoughts. He's another blogger I hope to meet, but I don't know if I'll make it all the way down to Cornwall on my travels.

So what's the point of this post? It has to do with the comments made by Pat Tillman's parents earlier this week. About how the U.S. government trumped up Tillman's story and made getting accidentally killed by his fellow soldiers sound a lot more heroic than it really was.

And how Jessica Lynch's story was a lot different than the military and the media made it out to be in the early versions of the tale.

Oh, and lest I forget, don't forget the secret Downing Street memo that stated that U.S. "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" of removing Saddam Hussein from power.

To me, all of this says one thing: no one really knows what the hell is going on.

I believe, and have believed since day one, that the war against Iraq was unnecessary, fixed, and wrong. And more and more evidence is piling up to prove that belief. I believe that what Bush has done is an impeachable offense. Clinton got busted for getting head in the Oval Office; Bush has allowed thousands of people to die needless deaths, all to remove a paper tiger that seems to prefer tighty-whities.

Galloway's comments were right on the money, in my opinion, but how credible is he? He speaks the truth, but we need to hear it from others as well. We need someone deep inside the Bush administration to step out and say what really happened. We need a new Deep Throat.

Because people, I think we've been had.

Even though Newsweek magazine retracted the story about the Koran getting flushed down the john at Guantanamo, that doesn't mean the event never happened. Newsweek just couldn't prove it happened.

Now newly declassified FBI documents are reporting instances of interrogation officals once again using the Koran as an interrogation, and even includes a report of it being flushed down the toilet.

The New York Times' article and the BBC's report of the same story.

Here's FOX New's report as well, to be "fair and balanced."

My 5-second take on all of this? There is some serious shit going down in those prison camps and interrogation rooms, and if 17 people are dead due to the Newsweek story, I don't believe it's the media's fault, even though their reporting may be shoddy at times. I still think the events are happening, which is the fault of the U.S. Government, and those 17 people are just more blood on our hands.

In my opinion, this is just the next step in the discreditation (is that a word?) of the Media by the Government. Charges of liberal bias, faulty reporting, and uncorroborated sources are rampant lately, and yes, much of it is deserved. The Media has lost its way, and this is a wonderful opportunity for the government to get the mass public to stop believing what CNN and Dan Rather says and only believe what the Leaders say.

Which is why good, alternative journalism is more important than ever.

Oh yeah, one more thing: I'm going to write a book this summer. About travel and bloggers and the internet and the world and how all of it is a wonderful thing.

Wait for it.

Goddamn television. We all sat spellbound at Sarah and Nate's house (the most perfect and wonderful house in the world, I might add) and ate pizza and drank beer and margaritas and over Sam's cries and Nate and Drew and me's jokes and watched Arst or Arzt or something get blowed up real good and the whole dynamite bit take too damn long and then the hatch blewed up and Sawyer got shot and Walt got stolen after Aaron (or is it Aron?) got stolen and then the hobbit scored some H and rode the white horse back with Turniphead and delivered it to the Aussie mommy and then suddenly it was over.

And not a goddamn thing was answered.

Lost is great.

Lost sucks.

Goddamn television.

And yeah, that was the longest sentence I've ever written on the blog.

Umm, yeah, it's Wednesday and I haven't posted anything new. End of the year, busy bee, whatnot.

My Zen-like calm is being tested mightily by old crabby teachers.

I've been hearing from quite a few bloggers these days. TimX from Britain and I have been discussion Gorgeous George Galloway. One of these days I'll get a proper post written about all that. So be patient.

Also heard from Just a Girl the other day; she'll be one of the many Amsterdam blogger's I'll be meeting up with come late summer. Should also be able to meet up with Linus in Dublin and C in Glasgow as well.

And while Glen's not a blogger, I heard from him again today. (He's the guy I hung out with a bit while in Galway last year.) He gave me some helpful advice about the rural parts of Dublin and their version of shotgun weddings.

Glen got me drinking Smithwick's last year. Had it yet? It seems to be hitting the U.S. recently. Pronounced "Smitticks," it's a dark beer that goes down easier than Guinness if you're not into the thick stuff.

I'm too lazy to create hyperlinks to all the names from above. You know where to find 'em.

That's all I got. Now go watch the season finale of Lost and obsess over it like I will all summer.

Cheers.

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
Written and Directed by George Lucas

Imagine a dream coming true after 28 years.

When I was a kid I wanted to be a super-hero and have super powers and fly around and save people.

When I was older the dreams usuall involved some hot movie actress and other lewd details.

None of these come true of course, but the experience of watching Revenge of the Sith is, in a way, like a dream come true.

As a kid we all imagined and wondered what that last fight must have been like between Anakin and Obi-Wan. Somehow we knew it had something to do with fire and lava and Anakin getting horribly disfigured.

We knew there used to be many Jedi Knights, but that they were all wiped out by Darth Vader.

We knew the Emperor lived on a faraway planet at the center of the Galaxy where the Empire was strongest.

And we knew that after the Republic died and the Empire rose, the last remaining Jedi went into hiding to wait for another day.

We dreamed about this stuff for 20 years or so, and watching it all finally unfold in front of me with lightsabers and clone troopers and John William's familiar music was like a dream finally coming true.

Episodes I and II were the first glimpses into this Star Wars history, but even though both movies had their moments, it is Episode III that finally took me back to those childhood dreams. Amazingly, Revenge of the Sith ends everything by stretching back in time almost thirty years to those familiar images from the original Star Wars. Even though those are future events for the characters of Episode III, for us they are the distant past, and for most of us die-hards, they are the difference between being a child and being an adult.

It also reminds us of the power and genius of George Lucas, and pushes him above the criticisms and whiny fanboy reactions of "George Lucas raped my childhood!!!"

What struck me most about Sith was how complex of a story Lucas really was telling with the Prequel Trilogy. And how Chancellor (and finally Emperor) Palpatine is one master motherfucker of evil. He is playing everyone here, and is smarter and craftier than anyone else in the universe. While the Jedi lock themselves (almost literally) into their high tower, unable to truly see the horrific destruction heading their way, Palpatine moves everyone about like a master chess player.

Is it secretly about George Bush and the neo-cons? No, not at all. But it is about the devices men use to gain and keep power, and if that's eerily similar to what is happening in our White House, then again Lucas deserves praise for showing us how all stories and events are really the same stories told over and over again.

The fall of Rome, the rise of the Third Reich, the rise of the Galactic Empire.

Beowulf. The Lord of the Rings. The Hidden Fortress. A New Hope.

All stories are the same story. And despite our best efforts, the same shit happens over and over again.

Look closely at the opening duel with Count Dooku, while Palpatine looks on. It's the same damn scene from the end of Return of the Jedi. In both cases, the Emperor is readying a new apprentice by having the older one killed.

Does Lucas do this because he's out of fresh ideas? Of course not. He deliberately repeats images and motifs from one trilogy to another to illustrate how events repeat themselves.

The asteroid battles and the severed hands of our heroes in the middle films. The climactic space battles. Boba and Jango Fett.

And at the end of each trilogy, the Emperor offers a Skywalker a choice: turn to the Dark Side and join me, or be my enemy. Anakin joins him, but his son Luke learns from the sins of the father and refuses, and in the end saves his father through his faith in the Force and the power of good over evil.

* * *

I feel like I should talk more about details from the new film, but I want to be brief for those that haven't seen it yet. A few favorite moments, though (and beware spoilers):

Yoda vs. Darth Sidious. I think I liked this battle better than Anakin vs. Obi-Wan. I just loved watching the Emperor cackling away and ripping apart the Senate chamber, finally able to let loose with his plans to destroy the Jedi and the Old Republic.

Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan. I know Ewan hasn't been too happy with these films, but he should be happy with his final performance as Kenobi.

The opening tracking shot, following one small ship into the most awesome, chaotic space battle ever seen in a film.

The familiar white walls of the blockade runner from A New Hope. And Threepio's "whaaaa?" at the mention of the memory wipe.

The sad bastard quality to General Grievous's hacking cough and hunched, chicken-leg strut.

R2-D2 kicking ass in the hanger.

The Orpheus-like paradox of Anakin's switch to the Dark Side. Just think: if he hadn't made the choice to switch in order to save Padme, she wouldn't have even needed saving.

And finally, the wonderful feeling of completeness and finality that comes with this final film. Yeah, just as they're getting good again, it's over. But that's okay. Many of us need to wrap up this part of our childhood, and there is a wonderful feeling of grace and forgiveness and peace about all of this.

I always joked that I could never commit suicide because that would mean I wouldn't get a chance to see the new Star Wars films. Kind of a morbid thought, but it made sense to me.

And now that they're all over?

It's time to grow up and live our lives.

And May the Force Be With Us All.

Item One, from this morning's Washington Post:

Tillman's Parents Are Critical Of Army
Family Questions Reversal On Cause of Ranger's Death

By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 23, 2005

Former NFL player Pat Tillman's family is lashing out against the Army, saying that the military's investigations into Tillman's friendly-fire death in Afghanistan last year were a sham and that Army efforts to cover up the truth have made it harder f them to deal with their loss.

More than a year after their son was shot several times by his fellow Army Rangers on a craggy hillside near the Pakistani border, Tillman's mother and father said in interviews that they believe the military and the government created a heroic tale about how their son died to foster a patriotic response across the country. They say the Army's "lies" about what happened have made them suspicious, and that they are certain they will never get the full story.

"Pat had high ideals about the country; that's why he did what he did," Mary Tillman said in her first lengthy interview since her son's death. "The military let him down. The administration let him down. It was a sign of disrespect. The fact that he was the ultimate team player and he watched his own men kill him is absolutely heartbreaking and tragic. The fact that they lied about it afterward is disgusting."

Read the article in its entirety by clicking here.

I'll talk about this later. I'm leading up to something.

I'll finish writing about Episode III tomorrow, and then I promise to move on to other topics. And I'll try not to overload you with tales from Romeo and Juliet rehearsals, either. But that's pretty much all I'll be doing for the next five weeks.

I have a gutful of mushroom pasta and the new Van Morrison album awaits.

And I finally found a copy of Clone Wars. My evening is set.

Oh yeah, and the Cubs won today. But the White Sox took the series. Meh. MBA should be happy.

I'm going to be pretty occupied with Romeo and Juliet auditions for the next couple of days, so I probably won't post again until Sunday.

Plus, I need to stop writing about Star Wars. You've all been very kind and very patient as I've let the Inner Geek/Child take over this week. Actually, it's really been a long conversation between myself and a few friends from long ago. We grew up with this stuff, and would have watched the film together if we weren't spread out all over the U.S. right now.

I finally saw the film last night, and I'll write a detailed post about it on Sunday (and then I'll get back to posting about other non-Star Wars related topics...honestly!)

In the meantime, I would like to direct your attention to this post by Tony Pierce;

this post by the Unknown Column;

and this podcast by Bicyclemark.

It's about a certain British MP named George Galloway and the big ole bitch-slap he gave the U.S. Senate earlier this week. If not for the three bloggers mentioned above, I wouldn't have even heard about it. (So much for the mainstream American media.)

I haven't written about politics since the election, because after that, I figuratively threw my hands up in the air and said, "Well, that's what the damn people want, I guess." Plus I have honestly tried to stay positive and look at the bright side of things for a while now.

But it's time I start talking about the bastards again. For those of you that don't agree with me politically, I say "oh well." I've had about all I can stand from the lies and manipulation that are going on every day in this country.

Have a nice weekend, everyone!

Just in case you're one of the few people who doesn't watch Conan O'Brien, this is just about the best thing ever concerned with Star Wars. What would the world be like without Triumph?

This, from Dublin's Linus, is one of the best blog posts to come out of this week's voluminous blogger entries about our childhood experiences with Star Wars.

And for old time's sake....Here is the Star Wars kid.

The period of time between The Empire Strikes Back and the opening of Return of the Jedi seemed to last an eternity, even though there was probably only a year or so that we were really going crazy.

In order to satisfy our extreme hunger for anything Star Wars, Hal 9000 and I turned to the following options:

-Star Wars comic books, which told an entertaining and intricate story about the search for Han Solo.

-The Star Wars Fan Club, which sent us a newsletter named Bantha Tracks, rare iron-on patches (I believe Hal has one with the early Revenge of the Jedi title), and production photos and posters and such.

-At one point, apparently delirious and crazy from the lack of a new Star Wars movie, Hal and I decided to write and film our own Star Wars movie. Based on the above-mentioned comic books, we titled it "The Search for Han Solo" and spent several months adapting scenes, casting our friends in the key roles (I was Luke, he was Vader, MC was Chewbacca because he was the tallest one we knew, or at least the hairiest), and creating silly costumes out of bathrobes and moon boots. What can I say, we were either desperate or frustrated cinematic geniuses.

-We also had Starlog magazine, a crap-ass sci-fi rag that purported to have the entire story for Return of the Jedi laid out in full in one issue. It went like this: Luke runs into Yoda's long-lost brother or cousin or lover named "Adoy" (get it?) and then Adoy leads Luke to this place where Han Solo's carbonite chamber has been stored.

They throw Han in the Space Microwave and there's this big reunion and Leia bitch-slaps Han for just saying "I know" when she finally poured out her heart to him and said "I love you." (Ok, that didn't happen.) But then none of this other made-up shit from Starlog actually happened either.

While they're in the big carbonite warehouse they discover a bunch of other people frozen in carbonite, and Adoy reveals to them that they're all the lost Jedi. Apparently Darth didn't kill them all, he just made them into popsicles.

I can't remember the rest, but I think Luke thaws out all the Jedi and creates this big army and then kicks some Empire ass. The End.

It was complete bullshit but at the time we thought we had the inside scoop, although somewhere in the back of our minds we knew we'd been had.

I should have that issue somewhere in my parents' basement, along with the old Hammerhead action figures and Burger King collectible glasses and Boba Fett Pez dispensers.

Natalie Portman has been showing up at various Star Wars premieres sporting the Sinead O'Connor style. The reason? She shaved her head for the role of Evey in the upcoming film V for Vendetta, based on the Alan Moore comic book from the 1980s.

First she plays Luke and Leia's mother, and now she's playing an Alan Moore heroine. As far as the hearts of geekdom go, it's neck-and-neck between her and Jessica Alba, who's notching up Sin City and Fantastic Four this summer.

Any thoughts as to what's going on in Boba Fett's head right now?

A couple of quick morning links for you all...

Over at the Bicyclemark ranch, you can hear my scary-ass voice on his latest podcast. We were philosophizing over Skype the other night, and it made its way to the Communique. The audio transfer is interesting; I sound like a cross between the Devil, and Jame Gumb from The Silence of the Lambs.

And one of the best bloggers out there, Pops, is devoting the Bucket to the Star Wars geekout that is happening all over this fair earth this week. Make sure you go over and say hello.

Seriously, I don't know how Pops can put out the quality and the quantity of writing that he does every single day. Every post is a laff riot, I gare-un-tee!

Live Long and Prosp---oh wait, dammit. Wrong shit.

This morning I attended a meeting to help plan the First-Day-of-School activities for the returning teachers this coming August. This is where we all gather at the high school and eat crappy doughnuts and listen to our Superintendent discuss all the mighty challenges we've faced and will continue to face this coming year.

It's all pretty boring and most everyone wishes they were either working in their classrooms or simply back home in bed.

This year they asked all of the district's theatre people to come in and help plan the program, probably because they realized that the usual "skits" and presentations they did in year's past had absolutely no theatricality to them whatsoever. In other words they sucked huge donkey balls.

Well of course most of the actual theatre people didn't show up, because let's be honest, there is absolutely no way you can make one of these administrative presentations be in any way shape or form, entertaining. And why would you want to attach your name to something like that after your rousing success with Seussical the Musical?

And since I will be sipping pints in Ireland during that pre-first day week, I was told I didn't have to be a part of it, but could I help with the concepts and planning? Sure.

The theme this year is Everyday Heroes, and after spending ten minutes discussing whether "heroes" had a second "e" or not, we were told that a lovely movie focusing on all the wonderful things the district has done for the less fortunate members of our community would be shown, with inspirational music and everything. Kind of like Extreme Makeover: School District Edition.

Like there was this one family whose house burned down, so then one of the schools had this big clothing and toy drive and got all this great stuff for the poor family who had lost everything. Until they burned their house down again. I don't know if they got as much good stuff the second time around. Maybe they just got some helpful tips on, you know, how to not burn your fucking house down over and over again.

Anyway, as you can see, this presentation is already going to be pretty groan-worthy. Our job was to come up with a funny skit or something to lighten things up. And since the theme had "heroes" (with an "e") in the title, why don't we do something funny with super-heroes? (Let me point out that none of these ideas were mine. My ideas usually don't make a lot of sense to the lovely people I work with, and most likely would have offended Republicans, Christians, Democrats, Jews and Muslims, gays, lesbians, environmentalists, anti-environmentalists, and parents.)

We tossed around some ideas, like the Super-Superintendent of Personnel, who can fire someone faster than a speeding bullet, or Crazy Bitch Receptionist Woman, but the ideas didn't go very far.

Then one of the principals remembered some Power Point presentation where administrators' faces were superimposed onto characters from the Star Wars trilogy (and you thought this post wasn't going to be about Star Wars, didn't you?)

So now the funny skit involves characters called Joel-Joel Binks and Queen Ami-Darla and cheap lightsabers will be waved around and somehow I got stuck narrating this damn thing, because I seemed to know the most about Star Wars. Well, Beth from the junior high knew just as much as me, to her credit, but I had the deeper voice.

But this is one of those things you get stuck doing and you nod your head and smile and say "Sounds great!" when inside you're crying little tears of sadness as you watch a bunch of clueless people deface something cherished from your childhood.

May the Force of Crappitude Be With Me.

P.S. If you read this blog and work for the above-mentioned district, just remember: you know nothing about this fall's convocation. And it's going to be wonderful. That's all you know.

I'm letting the Fanboys take over the blog this week, so expect a lot of geek-talk and inside references about Star Wars. The great monster from my childhood is returning for one final installment, and it seems to be rekindling my love for Lucas and lightsabers.

This was submitted by my buddy Hal, in response to my last post. Hal and I (and MC who often appears in the comments) spent our entire childhoods obsessing over anything Star Wars, and we knew exactly what Kevin Smith meant when he said that Star Wars was our Vietnam. (A glib statement, yes, but we didn't have much else going on in the late-70s and early 80s. Do you think the Carter administration was going to be the most memorable event from our early childhood? Hell no! It was Vader making all those guys choke to death just by flicking out two robotic fingers.)

Anyway, here's the Hal 9000's Best/Worst list for the Star Wars films.


Best Moment in the original Star Wars:

(Tie) 1. The uncomfortable dinner conversation over blue milk and old
ghosts. I agree that Lucas made a bunch of this shit up on the fly, but
that conversation is proof that not everything was made up on the fly.

2. The opening crawl. From the beginning of the film, the written setup,
and the spacecraft lumbering overhead, you knew there was something really
cool about to take place.

Worst moment in Star Wars:

I can't think of one, so Tosche Station will have to do.

Best Moment in The Empire Strikes Back:

(Tie) As you know, I'm big on the moment of revelation, so it's little
wonder the (paternal) climax of the film is my favorite moment. And it
gives the film real legitimacy, in that, to date, it is the only film in the
series where the climactic moment is a plot point/point of character
development instead of a special effect.

Also, I love the moment when the soldiers in the trench whip out the
binoculars, see the AT-ATs and realize just how screwed they are.


Worst Moment, ESB:

Again, hard to pick one, but I'm going to go with the space slug. Nothing
can make me suspend disbelief to that degree.



Best Moment in Jedi:

The fleet drops out of hyperspace, both because of Lando's moment of
revelation regarding the Death Star's defensive shields and because the
battle was seriously joined. Latter day digital space battles are cool, but
somewhere down deep, I long for miniatures, models and old school special
effects.

Worst Moment in Jedi:

The battle above Endor kicked ass, but the battle on the surface sucked
bantha dick. I agree, Ewoks in and of themselves are lame, but I'm going to
have to go with the surface battle on this one. Chaotic and unintelligible,
and it had the added lameness of the tired and overused "close-to-nature
beats science and technology" theme that's been used in everything from
Rocky IV to the Vietnam War. And it was the worst forest battle put to
film since "Battle for the Planet of the Apes."


Best moment in Phantom Menace:

There was one? I suppose Darth Maul vs. the Jedi would count, but that's
it.

Worst moment, TPM:

Jar Jar Binks, podracing, Warwick Davis...where to start? I'll just leave
it at the fact that it was one huge turd, beginning to end.

Seriously, I'd rather have kidney stone surgury than watch this film again.
At least there, I got fentanyl.

(And as an aside, this started the end of midnight shows for me. I swore
Return of the King was it, but I feel the force, and now I'm swearing -
absolutely for the last time - Sith is my absolute last midnight show. I've
been burned once too often, and I'd rather have the sleep.)

Best moment in Attack of the Clones:

One of so very few in the prequels, I love the moment when the battle droids
pour into the arena to face a charging line of Jedi Knights with lightsabers
drawn. Its a scene I had imagined in my own mind, and hoped for, for years.

Worst moment:

"...and sand...it gets everywhere..."

George, you're a rich old ba$tard: hire a script doctor, or even better, a
co-writer. Leigh Brackett could still write better than you, and she's been
dead 20 plus years.


And your review didn't give props to Clone Wars, which is better than the
first two prequels combined:

Best moment, Clone wars:

Clone soldiers take down that gun on Muunilist. Finally, 3 minutes where
stormtroopers act like a real fucking army unit.

Worst moment, Clone Wars:

Hard to pick one, but I'll go with C-3PO's comic relief on Illum. I've
heard there's little in the way of comic relief in Sith, and I hope it stays
that way.

I also hope I get the satisfaction of seeing Jar Jar Binks get his
intestines spilled out, Taun Taun-style. Only time will tell.

And George doesn't get any more money out of me until I get the first three
in their original formats on DVD. You can enhance the color and the sound
all you want, George, but no more money from me until Obi-Wan no longer
lives at Xanadu, Greedo doesn't shoot first, you leave the Jabba scene on
the cutting room floor, reinsert the wolfman, erase the dewbacks, leave the
wampa vague as hell, reinsert Clive Revill, erase that damn scream, return
it to "Bring my ship" instead of "Alert my Star Destroyer to prepare for my
arrival", get rid of the goddamn "musical" number in Jabba's palace, and put
Sebastian Shaw back in the ending.

Best Moment in Star Wars: A New Hope:

Han kills Greedo, version 1.0

Worst Moment in Star Wars: A New Hope:

"But I was going into Tosche Station to pick up some power converters!" (Worst line reading ever, so bad it's now a classic.)

Best Moment in The Empire Strikes Back:

The whole damn thing, really. The tension, a kick-ass performance by Harrison Ford as Han, Yoda, the light-saber battle with Darth, "I am your father," Boba Fett, Vader taking out Admiral Ozzel, but for me it was always watching the Millenium Falcon race through the asteroid belt, pursued by Tie Fighters and Darth Vader (and eventually Boba Fett.)

Worst Moment in the Empire Strikes Back:

Hard to find one, but the Hot Sister-on-Brother Action where Leia lays a big one on Luke is pretty creepy. It's also proof that Lucas had no idea he was going to make Luke and Leia related to each other until he started working on Jedi.

Best Moment in Return of the Jedi:

The speeder bike chase. As an 11-year old kid watching that, it was the most exhilarating thing I had ever seen on film. I'll never look at a forest the same way again.

Worst Moment in Return of the Jedi:

Obvious, isn't it: the Ewoks. Lucas should have stuck to the original plan of having them be Wookies, which would have saved Jedi from it's 3rd-place status on many fans' ranking of the Original Trilogy. It looks like Revenge of the Sith will finally let us see the fuzzballs in some serious action.

Best moment in The Phantom Menace:

The lightsaber duel with Darth Maul, Obi-Wan, and Qui-Gon Jinn. The podrace was pretty cool, too, but it got a little cartoony at times. Lucas always does well when he has Things Go Fast in his films.

Worst moment in The Phantom Menace:

Jar Jar? Maybe. The piss-poor acting style of Jake Lloyd? Close. I think the worst part of Menace is the fact that it's just boring. I can still remember watching it at the premiere midnight show and slowly realizing that it just wasn't a very good movie. I've never been able to do a Midnight Premiere since then.

Best moment in Attack of the Clones:

Tie: Yoda's lightsaber battle with Count Dooku, and Jango Fett. I wanted so much more of Temura Morrison's cool, deadly smirk, and less of that whiny bitch Anakin. (Portman looks pretty good in this one, though.)

Worst moment in Attack of the Clones:

This may be single-handedly the lowest-point of all of the Star Wars films: the weird alien dude who looks like his head has been flattened by a waffle iron in an old Tom and Jerry cartoon. And the beep-bop-blorp-buzzzzzzz Techno Union robot dude, proof that George was letting his kids make up the aliens on this one.


*Note: I'm ignoring the special editions of the Original Trilogy, simply due to the fact that the "enhancements" usually became the Worst Moments.

I am only one of three men that work at one of my schools (I'm the gifted resource teacher for two buildings), and so the men's room in the teacher's lounge is more or less mine.

One of the toilets in the women's restroom isn't working right now, so the women (K being one of them, damn her!) have decided to start using the men's room stall as well. Which usually means the ladies yell out "Brian, we're using the men's room so stay out!" a lot.

Well, I was going to brush my teeth after lunch when I noticed someone was in the men's room stall. And who walks out, but a woman I'll call Large Marge. Instead of getting all embarrassed and freaky, she just casually walks out and yells at K and the other women for not watching the door close enough.

I tried arguing my case and tried to ban the women from using the room clearly labeled "GENTLEMEN", but I'm clearly outnumbered.

Bleah....

Stayed up too late drinking wine and talking on Skype, and woke up late for work. Passed a fella named Big R on the way to work, saw the ex-gal pal at Starbucks, but only made it 5 minutes late. Good thing I shaved with a new razor yesterday.

Wanted to head to Springfield today for what they call a "blizzard day", where educators make their case to the state legislators on things like retirement funding, but I got stuck with yet another meeting today, so no Lincoln House of Wax for me today.

I know there was something significant that I wanted to write about today, but I can't remember it for the life of me. So you get this litany of useless information instead.

Last night I dreamt I was sitting in the back seat of my parents' car, and we were driving home after a night out in the city. Even though we have never lived in Chicago, our home was an apartment on the north side. Mom and Dad (it was one of those dreams where my parents aren't divorced) went up to the apartment, while I remained in the basement parking garage.

A group of young people walked by me, giving me threatening looks. I ignored them, but as I turned away I suddenly felt a sharp pinch at my side. By the time I turned around they were gone, and I discovered that I had been stabbed repeatedly in the abdomen.

I collapsed on the dirty floor of the garage, weakly calling for help, hoping that someone would appear. I could feel the life slowly fading from me as the blood collected in pools around my limp body. I called out K's name, but there was no answer.

Then I woke up.

As I was leaving the parking lot of my local Dominick's yesterday, I noticed a mother duck with several ducklings following behind. I'm not sure where they came from, but they were wandering out from a construction zone and into a busy street. The mother duck kept trying to cross the highway, but cars kept scaring it back to the curb.

I pulled over, hoping the duck would return to the tall grasses of the construction site, but the ducklings couldn't make it up the high curb. So the big duck tried to cross the street again.

Several cars were coming, so I got out of my car and stopped traffic as this little duck family waddled across the street to safety. Well, a sort of safety. They were now in a little grassy area that separated the road from the grocery store parking lot, and the ducklings once again couldn't make it up the curb.

So now I'm following these ducks along the curb, herding them towards a safer spot, and people are stopping their cars to watch. One woman is calling someone for advice; two teenage boys offer me a bottle of water to use, for whatever reason. Some strange girl in a black pickup truck keeps yelling out, "Leave them alone! They're not yours to take!" She apparently was under the impression I was trying to capture these ducks for my own private duck family or something.

The ducks reached the edge of the grassy "safety zone" and once again decided to cross the road, and once again faced the problem of the high curb. They waddled along the curb for a while until they eventually made it over the curb and into safety.

They disappeared into the high grass and I didn't see them again.

Yeah, I know, it's a really sappy story, but the last thing I wanted to see happen was a bunch of ducklings get run over on the road. I wouldn't sleep for a week if I saw that.

Today marks the 60th Anniversary of the German surrender to Allied forces, marking the end of war in Europe.



ACT OF MILITARY SURRENDER

1. We the undersigned, acting by authority of the German High Command, hereby surrender unconditionally to the Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force and simultaneously to the Supreme High Command of the Red Army all forces on land, at sea, and in the air who are at this date under German control.

2. The German High Command will at once issue order to all German military, naval and air authorities and to all forces under German control to cease active operations at 2301 hours Central European time on 8th May 1945, to remain in all positions occupied at that time and to disarm completely, handing over their weapons and equipment to the local allied commanders or officers designated by Representatives of the Allied Supreme Commands. No ship, vessel, or aircraft is to be scuttled, or any damage done to their hull, machinery or equipment, and also to machines of all kinds, armament, apparatus, and all the technical means of prosecution of war in general.

3. The German High Command will at once issue to the appropriate commanders, and ensure the carrying out of any further orders issued by the Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force and by the Supreme Command of the Red Army.

4. This act of military surrender is without prejudice to, and will be superseded by any general instrument of surrender imposed by, or on behalf of the United Nations and applicable to GERMANY and the German armed forces as a whole.

5. In the event of the German High Command or any of the forces under their control failing to act in accordance with this Act of Surrender, the Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force and the Supreme High Command of the Red Army will take such punitive or other action as they deem appropriate.

6. This Act is drawn up in the English, Russian and German languages. The English and Russian are the only authentic texts.

Signed at Berlin on the 8 day of May, 1945

Von Friedeburg Keitel Stumpff


On behalf of the German High Command IN THE PRESENCE OF:

A.W.Tedder On behalf of the Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force

Georgi Zhukov On behalf of the Supreme High Command of the Red Army

At the signing also were present as witnesses:

F. de Lattre-Tassigny General Commanding in Chief First French Army

Carl Spaatz General, Commanding United States Strategic Air Force

General Eisenhower's Proclamation on Germany's Defeat


The BBC's World War II site

Wikipedia's World War II entry

My Photos from the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Northwestern's Gallery of World War II Posters

Oswego, Illinois, the second town in my Town Trifecta (the first being Naperville), had a surprise visitor Friday morning.

Emeril. And Good Morning America.

Emeril showed up to cook breakfast in bed for an Oswegoan named Dan Lyznicki. He was nominated for a Breakfast in Bed contest as part of a Mother's Day promotion.

Yes, he's a guy, and not technically a Mother, but he lost his wife a while back to a rare genetic heart defect, and has since raised his son and four daughters all by himself.

It's a good story, and I won't even think of making fun of it. Yes, the potential is there, with goofy Emeril and ABC's trend of heart-tugging reality drama, but when you see this stuff a little more up-close, it isn't as dumb as you'd think. I was having a beer last night with Dan's niece and she told us all about the family and the story behind the contest and in the end it was a wonderful thing that ABC and McDonald's and Emeril did.

'Nuff Said. Read the rest of the story here.

Now, a bit more about Oswego.

It's located just west of Naperville, and it rests along the Fox River, which runs northward through towns like Aurora and St. Charles.

It occupies the north-east corner of Kendall County, which was just named the second-fastest growing county in the United States. Oswego's current population sits at 18,769, up almost 5,500 people from the 2000 census.

I currently teach in this town and lived in it for a while, and hope to do so again. It has great bike trails and all of my friends live here. Plus it's a short commute to work.

When I started teaching seven years ago we had four elementary schools. This fall we will have eleven. We will add an additional 1,600 students this fall as well.

All this growth is good and bad, of course. For those that want Oswego to retain its small-town charms, they bristle and fight against the rapid growth and the higher taxes and the influx of chain stores and strip malls.


Some of the expansion is a good thing, though. Roads are refurbished, new housing opportunities are available, and beautiful new parks and recreation areas are now dotting Oswego's neighborhoods.

My school district can hardly keep up, opening school after school and (unfortunately for those low-tax proponents) issuing referendum after referendum to keep pace with the demand for new schools and more teachers.

This rapid growth at work has meant lots of stress and excitement all at once. We teachers and administrators are offered the chance to move quickly through the ranks and are offered more opportunities to take different career choices. A teacher in Oswego can easily become a team leader in a few years, and even become a principal in under ten. I taught in a classroom for six years, am now a Gifted resource teacher, and have opportunities to become much more in just a few years.

It's an interesting place to be right now, watching the change come fast and furious. When the dust settles, years from now, will people look back and say that the leaders of Oswego took all the right steps, made all the correct decisions?

Only time will tell.

More pictures at my Buzznet site and my Flickr account.

Dammit! It appears that the iTunes Pepsi promotion is no longer running. One of my favorite ways to occupy my time at work is now finished.

Just got back from celebrating Cinco de Mayo, suburban-style. That's where you go to a Mexican restaurant (chain of course) near a mall and order overpriced margaritas and Coronas. T called me on the way home from work and invited me out, and so I joined her, Prince Fan, the Padawan Learner, and Hot Maria (or was it Sexy Sanchez?) at the restaurant and I ate spinach quesadillas and watched them all get a little tipsy. Sometimes it's nice to work in a profession dominated by gorgeous young women.

None of 'em have blogs so I can't link any of them. T still refuses to read mine. She says her life is so boring, why should she read about anyone else's boring life? (I can't remember if I mentioned that already.)

I'm in the mood to keep going, to really celebrate the Mexican May Five with lots more cerveza and gringas, but I do have to work tomorrow, and I already trimmed this week up a bit on Monday.

I have to remember to pay T twenty bucks tomorrow, since I didn't have any cashola on me tonight.

One final note: Hot Maria/Sexy Sanchez/Anita Sanchez isn't really Hispanic (and sorry, I don't have a picture of her, but she is pretty darn cute.) She's Italian and Polish, so I of course suggested her name should be The Wopolack, but I'm a lover of nations, not a hater. So Hot Maria it is.

Oh, I've also found my favorite form of gambling: buying Diet Pepsis from the vending machine at my school, hoping that it's another free song on iTunes.

And I won again! What shall it be this time? Starland Vocal Band? The Shaggs? Wesley Willis?

Wow, so this is what it feels like to have a good night's sleep. I almost forgot what feeling normal was like.

Had to do some observations over at one of the junior highs, so I had a chance to catch up with some of my former students. The hardest part of being a classroom teacher was sending the kids off to junior high at the end of the year, knowing that I probably won't ever see most of them again.

Fortunately I get to keep up with many that join the theatre program, and from time to time I run into kids here and there. But that closeness you have with a classroom, a group of 25-30 kids for nine months, it's always hard to end that in June.

Most of the blogs on my bloglines won't come up on my computer, so those bastards at tech support may be onto me. I'd better cut down on my blog-reading during my breaks.

Time to go teach anyway. More later, folks.

If you were a regular reader of this blog during the winter months, you will remember quite a few posts about my state of mind and my place in the universe. As I turned 33 I finally started feeling like an adult and decided that it was time to truly take stock of my life and pull myself out of the deep rut I had fallen into.

And so, through a variety of methods, things have gone very well. Figured some things out about all the anger and depression and uncertainty that had plagued me for so long. Spent many hours talking about old friends and old girlfriends and authority figures and why did I let things get to me so much?

A series of disappointments and depressing news, like disease and theatre trouble and job fatigue have hit me lately, but I find that you just adapt to the bad things and try to stay positive.

For the most part, I've noticed that I can look around at my life and say that I'm happy. I've found contentment and joy in the smallest of things, like long stretches of time spent reading good books, spending evenings with wonderful people over beer and trivia, and making connections with faraway people through this things called the blogosphere.

Using a new microphone and a program called Skype I can now talk to Bicyclemark for free any time I want. It was he who used the phrase "making connections" and it stuck in my head. Blogging isn't just about "therapy" or an easy excuse to write about movies I saw anymore, it's also about reaching through the limits of geography and distance to learn more about the world and to "meet" the people out there.

So yeah, I'm happy, but there's this weird indifference that has come along with it. I don't get so heated and fired up about things as much, and I certainly don't worry worry worry and think think think all the time, but there's a price to pay.

Instead of being so overly-passionate about everything, I find myself strangely indifferent to much of it. You know the scene in Office Space where Peter's talking to Jennifer Aniston about his job:

Peter Gibbons:I uh, I don't like my job, and, uh, I don't think I'm gonna go anymore.
Joanna: You're just not gonna go?
Peter Gibbons: Yeah.
Joanna: Won't you get fired?
Peter Gibbons: I don't know, but I really don't like it, and, uh, I'm not gonna go.
Joanna: So you're gonna quit?
Peter Gibbons: Nuh-uh. Not really. Uh... I'm just gonna stop going.
Joanna: When did you decide all that?
Peter Gibbons: About an hour ago.

Right now I'm sitting at home in a bathrobe because I didn't sleep much last night and when I woke up I couldn't find a good enough reason to go to work. So I'm reading books and writing on this blog and it's great to have a three-day weekend, but I didn't really need to do it. I just didn't feel like going.

I think I now understand what Camus meant when he said that Sisyphus is happy while he walks back down the hill, gearing up for another date with the rock.

Maybe that's a good thing, maybe not. I just don't worry about it.

Last night the work friends and I gorged ourselves on buffalo wings and cheap Heinekins, all in celebration of the fact that a guy named Jason is standing strong.

Jason was hired to replace me after my promotion, and after enduring the usual hazing and joshing, settled into his job comfortably, until his leukemia flared up again.

Things have been up and down, but he seems to be doing great, and plans on returning to work this fall after some important summer surgery. I've only gotten to know him a little bit, but he's a great guy and we have a lot in common, and it's incredibly heartening to see him doing so well. So that's a good thing that has happened recently.

Whipped out the camera and started taking pics, which of course elicited the response, "Watch out, he'll put 'em on the blog!" I'm sure many of you photobloggers have heard this as well. It's always so tricky to decide what you should or shouldn't post online. Most of my friends read the blog, and no one seems to have a problem with their picture being sent 'round the world (well, T gripes occasionally) so I throw 'em up from time to time.

It's all part of the story, I suppose. We read about each others' lives and get a little glimpse into what people do for fun far away and who they hang out with on a Saturday night, and it's all so different and yet it's exactly the same. Which is wonderful.