Better Than Life Day

Weekend Assignment #60: Recount an interesting moment in your life that somehow involves Star Wars. It can be deeply tangential -- it doesn't have to have happened at a Star Wars movie, for example. But let's face it -- for the last 28 years Star Wars has been part of the common culture. Surely there's an interesting moment in your life in that time, in which Star Wars, its characters or its merchandise has been a part of it.

Extra Credit: Ewoks: Cute or Evil? Explain.

I have three brief anecdotes for you:

The Unofficial Soundtrack of Clarion '77

Star Wars was first making waves in popular culture about the time I attended the Clarion Writer's Workshop at Michigan State in 1977.  (This is, of course, where I met John, whom I married just under two years later.) All of the Clarionites roomed on the same floor of the same dorm, and one of them had the Star Wars soundtrack LP.  I got to know that music pretty well that summer, because whoever-it-was played it at least once a day.  At least, that's how I remember it.

Silly Stuff from Taco Bell: Rare, or Just the Usual?

When Episode One came out, I collected a bunch of stuff (well, maybe not a bunch, but some stuff) from Taco Bell and (I think) KFC.  One of the premiums I got was not displayed in the stores with the other stuff.  I honestly don't remember which one it was, maybe the moon that opened up.  I always figured that either they changed what premiums would be offered between the design of the in-store display and the actual promotion, or there were too many different ones to display them all, or maybe, just maybe, a few were made of a toy that they later decided not to use, and some of those went to a Tucson location and were given out anyway.  Whichever supposition is correct, the fact remains that I've got one of whatever-it-is, somewhere.  I only found three of these items in this box of stuff that came home from my office, but I haven't finished unpacking.  Besides, I may have brought the other ones home years ago.


Boba Fett in the eBay Room

John picked up this Boba Fett figure a long time ago, probably at a swap meet or yard sale, or possibly from a thrift shop.  When we were doing the yard saling-and-eBay thing, a year or two after eBay launched, Boba became part of our "eBay Room" inventory.  He's still there, along with a bunch of other stuff we never got around to listing.  There are other items that we did list, but never got bids on, or that we got bids on, but no payment for.  Eventually we both reached the burnout point, at which all the hassles of tracking and shipping the stuff wasn't worth the spotty results.  But Boba is still available for the right price--whatever that may be.

Incidentally, Boba and his two roomies, Bart and Bugs, have more in common that you might think.  They're all troublemakers!  'Course, Bugs could give Mr. Fett a lesson or two in survival.

Extra Credit:

To be honest, I always kinda liked the Ewoks.  They're a lot more engaging than Wookies on Life Day, let me tell you!  I believed that those guys could do what they did and succeed--with the right help from Our Heroes.

Coming up later:

My instant review of the 1005 PM showing of Episode 3.

TTYL!

Later:

Um, it was good, but I'm very tired now.  Tell you about it tomorrow night.

Karen

P.S. Work went well today. I was less clueless (more clueful?) about the stuff from yesterday, and around noon I was pulled off that task to do a large payroll-related task on an emergency basis. Result: I felt that I really contributed today. Everyone seems to be very nice, and it's a convivial atmossphere, full of hard-working but not overworked professionals. Nevertheless, I didn't take a lunch, relying instead on chili and chips from S's birthday feast. - K

Tags: Weekend Assignment, StarWars