Friday, May 03, 2019

In a Galaxy Far, Far Away...

Started off a quick morning with breakfast and The Dick Van Dyke Show. Rob's proud to be named "Father of the Week" at Richie's kindergarten. Richie's far less so. He's worried that his daddy's job as a comedy writer won't be interesting for his classmates. Rob comes into the classroom to give a speech about his job, and ends up showing the kids how much fun creating comedy can be.

Headed to work shortly after the episode ended, dropping off my rent next-door as I left. Work was on-and-off busy. The first weekend in May is always crazy. First of all, it's the beginning of the month. The Kentucky Derby is this weekend; Cinco Del Mayo is Sunday. Most local farm markets, including the big one in Collingswood, open this week as well. I'd try to get outside to gather carts or do returns, only to get called up to take a register because we were just so low on help. I ended up spending the last hour going in for the cashiers' breaks and going crazy.

Mixed feelings on my schedule next week. Only two days off, but at least they're spread out, and most of the days I work are early or late enough to get a lot of things done. A lot more hours, too. I'll be able to finish the heavy-duty spring cleaning, work on writing and job hunting, and get to check out Haddon Township's Town-Wide Yard Sale next Saturday.

Did my grocery shopping right after work. I had on and offline coupons for the Choboni yogurt, and the Eggland's Best eggs, strawberries, blueberries, and the vine tomatoes were on good sales, too. Picked up soft taco wraps and a small container of spinach from the salad bar for my Cinco Del Mayo dinner on Sunday night. Found French cream-filled pastries on the rack that I thought I'd try. Restocked canned pineapple, skim milk, mandarin oranges, canned diced tomatoes, butter, canned black beans, cheese, sugar, olive oil, pears, bananas, and breakfast cookies.

Went right home...and of course, my bike fell over on that short stand the second I got off it. Three eggs were crush. I put them aside for dinner, then put everything away. Made scrambled eggs with spinach, cheese, and tomatoes while finishing out one of the hour-long Backyardigans specials. Robots never break down in futuristic Mega City, to the dismay of robot repairman Austin. But when the other kids' droids go on a "Robot Rampage," he's the only one who can fix them and stop Professor Bug (Pablo) from taking over all the robots in the city!

Played Lego Star Wars while I ate dinner. I didn't do nearly as well with the remaining three rounds of Empire as I did with some of the earlier ones. Probably the best was "Falcon Flight," the trip through the asteroids. Despite constantly hitting asteroids, I did manage to get True Jedi and half the pieces. "Dagobah" is long and meandering and takes forever to get through. I lost too many studs from bat attacks and falling into swampy water to get True Jedi, and I could only find two pieces. Got more pieces on "Escape from Cloudy City," but got shot a few too many times for True Jedi.

Finished the night with the original Star Wars: A New Hope in honor of the late Peter Mayhew and to kick off my Star Wars Day a bit early. Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) is a farmer on a dull desert planet. He's thrilled when he finds two droids with a message from a beautiful princess in distress (Carrie Fisher) that could mean an adventure away from the farm. He gets a lot more action than he bargained for when the droids lead him to former Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi (Sir Alec Guinness), and then to the Death Star and the evil Darth Vader (voice of James Earl Jones). Along for the ride are smuggler Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and his furry Wookie buddy Chewbacca (Mayhew), who agreed to get them off-planet for a price. Now they have to rescue the sassy Princess Leia, then find away to keep Vader, the Empire, and the Death Star from blowing them all to the other side of the galaxy.

I know this is the original one that a lot of people still love, but...while I like it a lot and it's fun, it's not my favorite Original Trilogy movie. Maybe it's because I didn't grow up with this one quite in the way that I did the later two. We recorded Return of the Jedi in 1985 and Empire in 1987, but wouldn't get New Hope until 1990. To its credit, it moves a lot faster than most of the other movies in this series, and I've always loved Princess Leia's rescue, which is hilarious. The trench run does nothing for me, though. I tend to tune out after they arrive at Yavin 4.

Even with the above caveats, this is pretty much necessary viewing for fans of sci-fi, fantasy, or Star Wars in general as the movie that started them all and just a pretty darn enjoyable adventure.

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