"Stella! STELLA!"

Excited big brother

Morgan sleeping away

The baby is born! Nearly 3 weeks ago!

Hello!

For anyone still around that checks my blog (What are you doing? Haven't you given up yet?) A little update: Our second child, Morgan Caleb O'Neil, was born at 11am on April 25th, weighing in at 6lb 10oz. At 19" long, he was a bit smaller than our first son, but with no less appetite. Looking at pictures of little Darb, Morgan appears to be an exact clone. Kind of interesting...hopefully they don't attack. I have posted pictures, so enjoy!

Don't Feed the Fish

Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year!

I don't really have anything to say at the moment, but looking at my blog, I felt it needed something new. So, here is a recent picture I took at the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma, Washington. Also, my wife is quite pregnant now.

New post! Halloween pictures and everything!

Halloween has come and gone, and I had a pretty interesting costume that I thought I would share with you. My group at work had planned on dressing up as Kill Bill characters, so I thought I would join in. Irritatingly, however, it turns out that on the day of costume donning, virtually everyone wussed out and didn't dress up, leaving me and one of my co-workers as a rather strange pair at the party. I was dressed as Pai Mei, the ancient Kung Fu master that trained the assassination squad, and my co-worker was dressed as The Bride, in her wedding dress and covered in blood, with a sweet looking bullet wound to the temple. Perhaps, with some support from others that had promised to dress up, I wouldn't have had to field questions all day like "Who are you supposed to be? Gandalf?" "You are Dumbledor, right?" "Are you father time or something?" I can count on one hand the number of people who actually knew who the heck I was, and that was probably because they were on the initial email telling them to dress like Kill Bill characters. A rather waste of a good costume, in my opinion.

On the other hand, my son was quite convinced of who I was after he got over the shock of having a strange old man in his room with a long beard..."Daddy's dressed like Santa Claus!" He thought it was pretty neat. Anyway, on to the pictures:

"Do not mess with Pai Mei's Eagle's Claw!"

The ACTUAL Pai Mei

The blushing bride, Beatrix Kiddo

Happy Birthday to Me....(cough, wheeze, hack)

Well, I am now the indistinct age of 32. Yesterday, for my birthday, I got to work for eight hours, and be miserably sick all day. As a matter of fact, I have been sick for the last six days, and this illness shows no sign of going away as of yet. I managed to catch it from my wife just as she was getting better, after she had it for some two weeks. And my child has a minor form of it as well, I think, though thankfully not like me. Sore throat, coughing, and congestion rack my aging body. I couldn't have any party, as to not infect my friends. My wife's brother did come by yesterday, though, which was nice. He seems to think he is immune from such petty things as viruses, so I had one visitor for my birthday. We went out to Chang's Mongolian Grill, which I had never experienced. It was pretty unique, and very tasty. Mongolian (or Mexican, I believe is more accurate) cooks manned a huge round grill, where they take a pile of raw items that the consumer chooses and fry it up right in front of everyone.

My wife had her first ultrasound on Friday. The child is doing well, although it was moving around so fast that the doctor had difficulty getting a picture. Apparently, we will be having a tazmanian devil baby. That must be Sandi's genes. :-)

This has been a rather disjointed entry. Forgive me....I feel like dooky.

You MUST SEE Serenity!!!!

I went to the new movie Serenity yesterday. For those of you who don't know what the heck Serentity is or what it is about, basically I can sum it up in one sentence: It is an unbelievably awesome Sci-fi Western combo with expertly written characters, dialog, and plot. It is the continuation of a show that was on Fox back in 2002, called Firefly. This was also a truly awesome thing to watch. Unfortunately, the idiots at Fox stuck the show on Friday nights at 8pm, and then proceeded to screw with the airing time from week to week, never giving it a chance. So it was cancelled, ultimately because not enough people knew about the show. The small following that the program gained, however, (including me) was extremely loyal and extremely pissed off that they cancelled the program. There was massive fervor whipped up, until someone capitulated and created a DVD set of all 14 shows. Then people showed other people, and the fan base for Firefly grew. That is when Universal Studios agreed to get behind a movie. Thus, Serenity was born, and it is now out in theaters. GO SEE IT! It is truly one of the best films I have ever seen in my life. You will love it. I promise.

Summer comes to a close

Hello all -

As I sit here and ponder all that has happened this summer that I have been too lazy to write about, I am melancholy. I had such great aspirations when starting the blog, and now it has come to this. No longer a daily or semi-daily rant about random thoughts and ideas, but rather a super brief monthly glimpse into my life when I get a few extra seconds. Well, so goes life, I guess. Excitement wears off, and updating becomes more of a burden than a cherished event. If you keep checking in periodically, I guess I will keep attempting to periodically update. But this message is the official adieu to the lively blog that once was. Not many blogs get an official farewell message, so this is unique: Farewell blog that was so exciting to update for everyone as often as possible, you have been replaced by stagnant blog that gets updated every once in a while when I have nothing better to do. Don't be too sad, we'll always have April and May, 2005.

Ok, on to more interesting topics. As my last post tried to convey, my wife Sandi is indeed pregnant, a couple months so. Her VERY unofficial due date is May 2, 2006. Very exciting, very exciting. We have discussed things, and I believe we are going to keep the sex a secret. Oh, and we aren't going to find out the sex of the baby, either. (Laugh here)

We recently finished up a week long camping vacation in Oregon. It was very fun to get away from everything for a while, and my grandmother was kind enough to host us for the weekend afterwards to ease back into civilization in Centralia. My friend Scott lent us a HUGE tent, as well as a camp stove and camping coffee pot. That made things very comfy. We went first to a great little rustic campground off of Hwy 26, that connects Portland with the Coastal highway 101. It was called Spruce Run, and didn't have any electricity. It had one bathroom with running (cold) water, and the rest of the facilities were outhouses. It was far removed from anything but trees and a river, so it was quite relaxing. We spent a couple days there, then went to the coast to Fort Stevens campground, on the very NW tip of Oregon. That was less rustic and far more crowded, but was a nice location, being a mile away from Oregon beach and right in between Astoria and Seaside. In all, we camped for 6 days and 5 nights. We met up with my college friend Owen on the first night, who lives in Portland, and we convinced him and his fiance to go camping for a night too. That was pretty neat seeing him. Hadn't done so in about 7 years.

This afternoon was an interesting one. I was talking with my boss at work, when she asked me if I was interested in relocating to New Jersey! Our company is building a large manufacturing facility, and she said they are looking for quality people to staff it. It would come with a promotion and a moving package. Now I've never lived anywhere but Washington, and I haven't even been to the East coast since I was about 3. So this would be a huge change for me. I must say I am considering it though. The potential for career path movement seems greater over there. Also, my wife and I have friends that actually moved to Jersey a year or two ago. It would be nice to see them again. I don't know how far away they are living from where we would be, but I have heard that the state isn't that large. Lots to ponder at any rate.

Finally, I will end with the lie of the week. I told this two my 4 person department on an outing, while we were in the car. Two of them bought it, one immediately assumed I was lying. The one I couldn't fool actually works in my office, so I guess she was on guard. Here it is:

Do you know why they call Seattle the Emerald City? It actually hearkens back to a time when Chief Sealth still lived in the area. It seems he kept a large uncut emerald in his domicile that he dug out of the base of what is now Capital Hill. One day, he got really pissed off at a white man that was arguing with him, and he went and retrieved the emerald. As the guy was walking away, Chief Sealth threw the emerald at him with full force of fury, hitting the white man in the back of the head and killing him on the spot. That's how the city eventually became known as the Emerald City.

I was rather proud of myself that I related the whole story with a stone straight face, without as much as cracking a smirk. For those that know me, you know that is quite difficult for me to do.

Signing off.....

Wow. Almost a month on my blog with nothing.

That is poor updating of me. But I'll make it up to you this very minute:

uhhh....wow.

Back up and running

Update: The new X-box DVD drive arrived Tuesday, and when I returned home from work I immediately set upon my system, tinkering and fiddling with getting the new part in and testing it. The result: SUCCESS! We have working X-box again! I tested the drive out with a couple games and a DVD, but didn't have time for much else. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to completely reassemble the box, and play some significant Halo 2 and Splinter Cell. Boy, playing on an X-box that I've repaired with my own two hands is extra gratifying!

In other news, I am taking myself out to the ballgame tomorrow with coworkers. Mariners vs the Cleveland Indians. Initially my son and wife were coming as well, but because our plan is to drive up to Ferndale this weekend to visit family and go to the vaunted Ferndale Old Settler's Picnic (the big annual small-town event of the city), we figured he needed sleep more than a Mariner's game.

I just realized that I haven't entered anything Star Wars on my blog for a while, and that's just no good! So, Factoid of the Day:

In Episode III, in the beginning scenes when Count Dooku had "kidnapped" Chancellor Palpatine, Palpatine had fed Dooku a plan whereby he was supposed to engage Kenobi and Skywalker, kill Obi Wan, and face Anakin in a one on one duel. Then, Dooku would allow Anakin to defeat him and take him into custody, where Dooku would live out the rest of the fight as a well-cared-for prisoner of war. With Dooku out of the way, the Republic would win the war, and Palpatine would seize control of the government, releasing the Count to serve as a vice-emperor of sorts. So the order to kill Dooku by Palpatine must have been quite shocking to the Count indeed!

Another weekend comes to a close

Hello -

Just an update on goings on, since I can't think of anything really profound to say...

On my busted gaming system:
I went through all the tutorials regarding dismantling the box, getting at the DVD drive, dismantling the drive, and cleaning the lens and mirror of the laser. I had to purchase about $30 worth of tools and accessories to do it (including a cd/dvd cleaning disk that did nothing). I cleaned the appropriate surfaces and 're-mantled' the X-box. Turned it on....still broken. So, after much deliberation with the wife over whether I should try and purchase just a new laser for the dvd player for about $25, or a whole new drive for between $25 and $75 (the difference there being really crappy and cheap DVD drive versus high quality DVD drive), I managed to snag a high quality DVD drive off of Ebay for $35 plus $15 shipping. That is about $20 cheaper than all the other auctions I saw for the same item. I was quite lucky. So....hopefully that will arrive Tuesday, when UPS said it would, and hopefully it will be fully undamaged and functional.

On my son:
Teaching him to use the toilet. He is successful when naked, but accidents abound when he has underwear on. We are now using M&Ms as motivators. And we have bought stock in paper towels.

On my softball team:
Crushing and embarrassing defeat this weekend. Only had 10 people show up, so everyone played, even though a couple players didn't know quite what a softball looked like. It is ok, though, I should be grateful. If they hadn't played, we would have lost by forfeit. Instead, we lost by humiliation. :-) On another note, I was forced into sliding three times in the game. I have concluded that three slides are approximately two slides too many in one game. The first is not so bad. Come up, minor to no pain, just a little scratch maybe. Second slide, same spot on the leg as the first, hurts significantly more. Dirt grinds into small scratch already there, plus more ripping and tearing of leg flesh to open up a healthy wound. Third slide: pure agony. Dirt and rocks embed in the limb, whole wound gets a nice coat of blood/dirt mud mixture. Trying to slide a different way yields a second wound right on the knee cap that is even more raw than the first, due to the fact that there is nothing but skin and bone on the knee. Plus, it hurts that much more if one is called out, as was the case in my third and final slide. Perhaps I should consider wearing pants to the next game, instead of shorts.

On my weekend:
Fairly crappy Saturday. First, the softball game (see above). Then, went to a Texas Hold em tournament and got absolutely awful cards. The kind where you actually think you may have a good hand, but it is just bad enough to lose to someone else at the table. As an example (for those who know the game), I went all-in after the flop, since I had an 8-9 underneath, and the board flopped 10-J-Q, giving me an instant straight. Someone else at the meager 5 person table called, because he had a K-A, giving him the higher straight! The odds of that were ridiculous, especially considering there were only 5 people at the table, but that was the way my evening went. Tournament started at 6pm, I was busted out at 8:30pm. Lost $20. Awful.

Then, after having pretty much a loser Saturday thus far, I decided to go to a coworker's mudwrestling party from the poker fiasco. By the time I arrived, the mudwrestling was over, but I figured I could mingle with some of my drunken coworkers for a while. Unfortunately, there were only a total of three people at the party that I knew, out of about 40 or more. One was the hostess, and two left the party at about 10 pm, leaving me adrift in a sea of unfamiliar faces. The house was just too amazingly cool to leave though, so I stuck around in their fully surround sound theater room and watched some Will Ferrell SNL and a movie. By the time the movie was over (at about 1:15am), I was the only conscious person left in the room. I shut off the equipment, went upstairs, said goodbye to the only conscious person upstairs, and drove home to crawl into bed at 3am.

8am came early this morning, for church. That is all I have to say about that!

My X-Box BROKE!

Angry. So very angry. Wednesday Evening, I decided to play a little Halo 2 online, with the snazzy new map pack I purchased last week. I put my Halo 2 disk in and got the dreaded "Dirty Disk Error", meaning my X-box didn't recognize it as an X-box game.
"Hmmm, that's odd," I thought, not realizing the impending doom that would soon settle upon me. I ejected the disk, then reinserted it. Same message.
"Oh, you better not do this to me, kind Microsoft machine..."
I tried again. Same result.
"YOU FILTHY PIECE OF KAKAPOOPIE....!!"
I put in another X-box game. Same message. I put in a DVD. Same message. I immediately run to the internet. From extensive searching, I have found that this periodically happens to people's boxes, due to cheap components in the system. There are now a set of steps I must follow to attempt to repair it.

Step 1: kick it.
Step 2: Put in a cd/dvd cleaner disk and run it.
Step 3: If that doesn't work, kick again.
Step 4: Unplug and take apart machine, dismantling all until I reach the DVD drive.
Step 5: Take apart the DVD drive, and clean the lens and mirror of the laser manually.
Step 6: Pray.
Step 7: reassemble, test.
Step 8: If it still doesn't work, angrily storm around house in a funk, then purchase a replacement laser.
Step 9: Disassemble once again, and replace laser (this has steps involving removing solder, so I am probably screwed at this point, not having any soldering experience).
Step 10: reassemble, test again, and hopefully everything will be wonderful. If not, go to step 11.
Step 11: Get even ANGRIER.

You see, there is a lot of pitfalls in my plan. If I can avoid them, that will be super. I am mildly interested in seeing the interior of my box. But the fact that it is busted makes the experience less enjoyable. Of course, I suppose if it wasn't broken, I wouldn't be opening it up in the first place.

By the way, for anyone reading that has encountered serious X-Box problems, I found an excellent site that explains all do-it-yourself repairs, as well as sells components. Very philanthropic, since they could easily sell this kind of good info. it is:

www.llamma.com

Doh! I knew I forgot to do something....

SO SORRY!!

I have been terribly lax in updating the blog, and I hope it is not a trend that will continue. There has been SO much that has happened since my last entry, I can't possibly fit it all into one post. So I will create a list of major events, and write about them if time permits.

DARBOS LIST OF MAJOR THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPENED LATELY

1. Went to a Mariner's game with my dad and my son. The Mariners actually won, but in 12 innings, and we left at the end of the 11th.
   
2. Summer bowling resumed between myself and my former boss, Scott. I took the first meeting, winning 2 of 3 games and breaking 200 on the last one.
3. The Dark Side, my vaunted softball team, came in second place out of four teams in the Softball Summer Slam, with a record of 2-1.
4. My friends, Nick and Emily, were admitted to the hospital at a mere 7 months of pregnancy due to questionable test results during one of their numerous doctor visits.
5. Wife went camping with my son for two days, allowing me to revert to my bachelor self. Basically, all I did was go see Revenge of the Sith for the fifth time (but at the Cinerama for the first) one evening, and go out to happy hour with some coworkers for the other. I am apparently a poor bachelor.
   
6. Left work early on Friday (well, that was major for me anyway).
7. My Friends, Nick and Emily, gave birth to a nearly 2 lb son named Kaden. Everyone is currently doing just fine. Kaden will have to be in the hospital most likely until September, when he was due to be born.
8. Played in a Texas Holdem tournament with an old college friend. It lasted from 6pm till after 2am. I got third place and won $32.
9. Eagerly traveled to CompUSA to pick up the Halo 2 expansion multiplayer map pack today. They didn't have it, despite the fact that today was the reported release date. I proceded to travel to FIVE more stores with no luck. Apparently, the release date no longer means that you can purchase the game. Bungie now in my book officially SUCKS. Not only are there nearly a year of delays in the releasing of Halo 2, they expect us to purchase extra maps that should be included with the original game. Then, on top of it all, they advertise a release date for these maps, and don't deliver. I despise them and yet cannot stop purchasing their product.

That was a brief recap of all major things that have happened since my last blog update. If nothing else interesting happens in the next few days, I can expound on some of these things, if anyone is interested....

The evil geniuses of The Dark Side!

Victory for The Dark Side

This past Saturday, The Dark Side had its first scrimmage, against another work team called the Rockers. This matchup was especially anticipated by me, because the coach of the Rockers, a good work friend of mine, is also a big smack talker. Only half of his team (7 players) showed up, while 9 players from my team were there. As a result, each team provided a pitcher for the other side, to field full teams (we also provided a catcher for them). The contest wasn't really even close. At the end of the second inning, it was 7 to 2, and the deficit kept growing. The final score was a resounding 18 to 9, a crushing defeat to the half-present Rockers and a spirit-lifting victory for the overwhelming force known as The Dark Side! I had our team wear their jersies to the scrimmage, while the other team was just in street clothes. I think that helped intimidate the opposition. Our final test will be this Saturday, at the first annual Softball Summer Slam! Four softball games in one day. I hope our endurance holds up. I would ask you to wish us luck, but there is no luck. There is only the force. The DARK side of the force! We will do. Or do not. There is no try.

My Jersey is HERE!

Ok, this is kind of out of the blue, because I haven't really mentioned it here before, but I am the coach of a softball team at my place of employment. There are a total of four teams which will meet in an epic showdown on June 25th, for an inter-company tournament to end all tournaments. There was a nifty draft, where the coaches got to choose their weapons for the field. After rosters were filled, the smack talking commenced around the office and practices were scheduled. I managed to draft the CEO of our company, which so far has been a smart choice. He knows my name now, and thinks I am quite a character, although he hasn't yet made it to a practice. It remains to be seen whether my plan turns into what my co-workers call a CLM (career limiting move). Our last practice is a scrimmage against one of the other teams, this Saturday in Seattle. Hopefully the CEO's schedule will open up enough to come. Our team is The Dark Side (of course!). Not a better team name has been thought of in the history of softball, in my humble opinion. In honor of my team, I grew a mustache and goatee, to become Bizzarro evil Darbo for the duration of the time that the team is together.

But to the big news: Our jersies arrived today!! They look very snappy and ominous; black, with white lettering. I shall try to get a picture of it up tonight, if I get the time. But in any case, now that the team is fully outfitted, 'there will be no one to stop us this time!'

Don't mess with The Dark Side!

Don't look at my bum!

Ok, this one might be a little much...

My face is numb

I have just returned from the dentist. Three cavities filled. That's what I get for seeking out donuts, cookies, and ice cream all day, I guess. Part of me still suspects that dentists try their hardest to find something to drill each time you go in there. Alas...

The upper left side and lower right side of my face are the numb parts. It makes for quite a strange sensation. I don't know why anyone would be interested in reading this. I will stop talking about it.

On another note, boy, I sure am glad I can start sending my kids to Neverland Ranch again! From now on, for any child that is molested by Jackson, the crime falls on the parents. The parents are the ones that should be arrested, if they allow their kids access to that freak. No excuses.

I hear in the media "Oh, Michael's career may never be the same." I think that is crap. People knew the kind of guy he was before this whole thing. If they didn't believe he was a strange, creepy looking kid toucher back in '93, this new episode isn't going to change their minds. So I believe his career is pretty much the same as it was before this trial: Mostly washed up, but with enough idiots out there that think he's a sweetheart to still scrape a decent living from his newer, mediocre music.

To cleanse the palate

Okey Dokey -

After the deep diatribe I just laid down yesterday, I thought I would put up something a little lighter. I had a request for more baby pictures. So, I shall oblige. Let me find something.......there!

"Hmmm....that's interesting, after hitting all those numbers, the phone is speaking japanese at me!" 

Crazy people on the bus

I occasionally spot them when riding Metro, in downtown Seattle, to and from work. Today I heard a couple of unbalanced ladies expounding upon what I can only guess was astrology. They were talking about getting their "Solar Returns" done, or some such thing. I was imagining them getting their taxes audited by the sun...it was quite amusing. They were prattling on about being self taught as opposed to having a tutor, and something about Pluto being in alignment, or out of alignment, or maybe being Mickey's faithful dog. It was hard to keep track, to say the least.

They got me to thinking more generally about the connection between things like astrology and Mormonism (to any Mormons reading, I apologize in advance...you may want to skip this article). I was thinking about how no matter how much doctrine, teachings, and history may be behind a certain philosophy, if the core of the belief is built upon something too preposterous to possibly be true, it follows that NOTHING that comes after it can really be believed. Even if some of the teachings of these ways of thinking happen to be true, the reason for them being so wouldn't branch from the philosophy itself, but be because of some external reason that makes them true or right. Allow me to explain:

The core belief of Astrology contends that each person's behavior and personality can be predicted based on when in the year they were born, because of gravitational forces from planets within the solar system. Now, it takes at a minimum 9 months for our fastest interplanetary ships to travel the 49 million miles to our closest planetary neighbor, Mars. That is our CLOSEST neighbor. Our own moon has a much larger gravitational effect on earth than any of the other planets in the solar system. Astrology would be more believable if it were somehow based on the moon, as opposed to distant rocks that happen to also orbit the sun. I'm sure some of you astrology folks are going to try and tell me that the moon factors into the hocus pocus astrological equations as well, but sorry. Not buying it. A salt shaker across the delivery room from a mother giving birth has more gravitational impact on a new child than Jupiter or Saturn.

So as a result, when someone says, "Oh, you're an Ares. You must be --fill in the blank--", you can logically say, "Oh, you're into astrology. You must be an idiot." Because even if whatever they said happened to be true (which it probably is, since what is most likely said is so generic and flattering that you wish it to be true anyway), it wouldn't be because of astrology that it was so.

Now we come to Mormonism. Now being a Christian, I can appreciate the upright living style of the modern day Mormon. I haven't checked the crime statistics, but I would guess that Utah has some of the lowest crime in the country. Mormons that I have met have been very kind to their fellow man, and tend to stay away from evil vices of most sorts. They are pretty decent folk. That being said, the entire basis of their religion seems in my opinion to be a bad joke gone awry. Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, was a troubled juvenile delinquent who wandered into the woods one day as a young boy, and came back claiming he talked to God. When people started believing him, he then claimed that God showed him a cave where there were a bunch of metal plates buried with ancient writing on them. He said God showed him how to translate them, but wouldn't let anyone down into the cave to have a look for themselves. He also wouldn't bring any of the plates up. He would just go down there alone, for hours, and come back up with some scrawlings of what he claimed were translations. He then put them all together in a book, and published it when he was about 20. That was the start of his church. No miracles, no proof of anything, just a troubled child claiming he had a chat with the Almighty and producing some papers from a cave.

As a result, everything that comes from the religion of Mormonism has to be looked at with the idea that the foundation of the religion comes unsubstantiated from a kid. Sure, Mormonism adopted a lot of what it is from the Bible, to bolster its credibility in my opinion (and probably because making up an entire religion is pretty hard for a youngster), but everything that strays from the Bible has its philosophy founded on good old Joe and his cave for one.

Anyway, that was what was going through my mind today when riding the bus. But I do have a tendency to rant.

Just a quick Star Wars thought...

Interesting that moisture farmers have a "harvest season". Is that the season where the desert provides more water out of the air? And if so, how would that require more farm hands? Is the water physically transported by droids or people from the vaporators to a holding tank? You'd think with their technology, they would at least have some sort of underground pipes that would funnel the water to wherever they would store it.

Tatooine doesn't seem to be a place that would experience much of a change of seasons. Feel free to discuss...

Scanner!

My friend Mike B. moved to Oregon abruptly a couple of weeks ago. On the last evening, during frantic moving truck loading, he offered me some old electronics that he no longer needed. The most exciting thing I got was a Cannon scanner. I had never owned a scanner before, so now a whole new pasttime has opened up to me...scanning old pictures before the advent of digital. I am constantly amazed at how detailed the little scanner captures photos. In honor of my departed friend and my new gadget, here is one of my favorite pictures of my son, taken when he was only 7 weeks old. Enjoy!

What the....I'm falling! FALLLLINNNNGGG! 

Do I or don't I?

I've been considering changing the name of my blog to "Punch it Chewie!" Although I really enjoy the non sequitur of the current title, I haven't really discussed anything Seinfeld on here (where the phrase comes from, fyi). I don't know. I'm torn. Dingo has kind of grown on me. What do you think?

My Rebel Alliance Doorbell is FINALLY up!

Woo Hoo!

Triumphant over many hurdles and problems regarding the attachment of our new doorbell to the side of our place, the long awaited installation of said unit is finally complete! A joint effort by myself and my friend Mike B (mostly Mike), it is completely homemade. I purchased a plain wireless doorbell, removed the chip out of the plastic housing, and then we built a whole new shell for the chip, in the shape of the Star Wars Rebel Alliance Symbol. Check out the pictures!

Alliance Doorbell closeup 

Our Rebellion Doorbell! 

Questions that popped into my mind from Revenge of the Sith

After watching Episode III, there were some nagging questions that I had no answer to. Perhaps I need to read the book, and I plan to, but until then, these questions remain. This contains SERIOUS SPOILERS about the movie, so if you haven't seen it, I would recommend not reading this. As a courtesy, I will attempt to invisiblize the text, so to read it, highlight it.

Question 1: What horrible malady did General Grievous have?

For the whole time that he was on screen, he seemed plagued with fits of coughing that seemed somewhat painful. Did he just have a cold? Maybe some bronchitis? Was he a heavy smoker with Emphysema? Perhaps he just needed a Halls.

Question 2: How come Leia could remember her mother being beautiful yet sad, when Padme keeled over in childbirth?

This was the prime reason I was convinced that Padme was going to live beyond the end of Episode III. Leia had memories of her mother, while Luke had none. Naturally, Padme should have gone to Alderaan with Leia to hide there for a time, before dying when Leia was "very young." Now, the Episode VI dialog doesn't really make sense.

Question 3: Why didn't Obi Wan finish off Anakin at the end of the movie, instead of leaving him there to suffer and presumably smolder to death?

Obi Wan seems especially callous on this one. I can understand him being choked up about killing his friend, but really, he had already lopped both of Anakin's legs off, and he let Anakin slide down to the point where he was engulfed in flames and writhing in pain. The only humane thing left to do was to get down there and finish the job. Of course, then we wouldn't have any Darth Vader, so that wasn't REALLY an option. But perhaps Obi Wan could have been driven off by something or someone, to explain his abandonment of his former friend.

Ok, I know that I have more questions, but I can't think of any right now. So look for an update to this entry when my brain finds me again.

Star Wars Celebration III trip: Monday

Tomorrow marks one month since I returned from my CIII trip, and I still haven't concluded my trip details...I'm a slacker! This one will be quite short, compared to the other days. On to it:

Monday, 9:55am: I had to roll out of bed on Monday before 10am, to take advantage of the continental breakfast. So, 5 minutes before it was all over, I was throwing on clothes and dashing for the lobby.

After my stuff-my-face-with-as-much-free-food-as-I-could-manage meal, I waddled back to my hotel room. It was a pig sty, to put it mildly. I had basically thrown everything onto the bed I wasn't sleeping on, and it was happily hanging out in a huge pile. I had an hour and a half to fit everything into my suitcases. It was close, I tell you (both time-wise and space-wise, see visual proof of this in my photos). But about noon, I had packed everything into my car and headed for checkout. After the rain, thunder, and snow of the past few days, it was pleasantly sunny and in the low 70s. Shocking!

I had called Mike in the morning, to see if we could get together and hang out (my flight didn't leave till 7pm), but he had already woke up, worked for a couple hours finishing the take-down of the convention center, and was on the road toward some other state on the East coast for another show. So it was Indy and I, alone and together, for the day. I had about 5 hours to kill before I had to be back at the airport. I checked out some tourist flyers at the hotel, but they were all for places that were two hour's drive and longer away from the city. So, when all else fails, go downtown!

I drove down near the convention center, since that seemed to be the center of action in Indianapolis. I parked near a huge war memorial in the center of town, which had a turnabout going around it. Very touristy. I snapped quite a few pictures, looked around at the little shops nearby, then found my way to the bar that Mike and I visited on that Thursday night a lifetime ago (4 days). The bartender we met there happened to be working. I asked her, "If you had 3 and a half hours in this city to do anything, before leaving it for the foreseeable future, what would you recommend?"

She said, "Sit down, ya alkie. Have some booze, that ought to shut ya up good."

Well, ok. She didn't exactly say that. She did, however, pass me off to another gal that was working there, as she was about to leave for schooling of some sort. The new bartender told me, "You need to go see 'Forces of Nature' at the IMAX. It is really cool!"

Well, we have an IMAX in Seattle, and I wouldn't be surprised if we in fact have that very movie playing here, but since I had no better ideas, I followed her pointing finger down the street a few blocks and to the Indy museum / IMAX theater. Along the way, I found some cool plaques telling me about Abe Lincoln giving speeches where I was standing. Historical.
I then viewed the impressive 'Forces of Nature', narrated by Kevin Bacon.

After that movie and a trip to TGIFridays, it was time to head for the airport. And here is the conclusion of my happy trip to Celebration 3: I drove to the airport, turned in my rental car, hopped on a plane, and flew home. THE END!

Some facts about my trip:

Total pounds lost due to skipped meals and poor eating habits: 7lbs (its all back, by the way)
Number of Slave Leias spotted at the convention (approx): 10-12
Number of Slave Leias that maybe should have chosen a different costume (approx): 5
Total size of my snapped pictures: 400Mb
Number of times I got lost while driving: 2
Difficulty for a Jedi to ascend and descend stairs in his boots: High
Difficulty for a Jedi to go pee pee while dressed in costume: Very High
Difficulty for a Jedi to do the rest of his business in the restroom: Dang near impossible
Amount of money spent while there (approx): $315
Amount spent on collectibles: $175

I'm sure I have more cool facts, I'll just have to update this as I think of them. Anyway, hope you enjoyed my trip breakdown! Now I can finally let it rest.

A quick update: More Celebration 3 pictures

Hello!

I don't have much time for an update tonight, since the season finale of "24" is on, but I will pass along a link to a website containing a ton more Star Wars Celebration III pictures:

Many MANY pictures

For those just visiting my site for the first time, links to my 250 Celebration III pictures are down below, in previous posts.

Coming soon: Questions I had from seeing Revenge of the Sith!

The Revenge of the Sith experience

Hello everyone!

I have one more short breakdown to write about regarding my Indianapolis trip, but I thought I would take a break to write about my Episode III experience yesterday. Of course, I went to the midnight showing, and spent the whole day in line for it.

I arrived at the new Lowes Alderwood Mall theater at about 10:15am, and found a small group of guys were already there for the wait. It turns out they had actually arrived at 12:01am that morning, for the full 24 hour experience. I was not quite that fanatical, and I thought that a good night's sleep would do me better than an overnight at the theater entrance. The guys were quite cordial, though, and we quickly became line friends. I met two Chads, a Nick, a Garth, and a few other guys who's names escape me at the moment. It was pouring down rain on and off the whole day, so it was good that I arrived at 10:15. I was one of the few that could sit under the building awning instead of out in the elements.

After chatting a while, a couple of the group decided to throw down with a vicious lightsaber duel in front of the theater. That's when we met the matinee manager, who we lovingly nicknamed Jabba. She came out, looking surly and like she just ate a wookie, to yell at the two combatants. "Stop!" she bellowed. "Stop! That's enough. You are in front of my theater, and I won't have you doing that. One of the customers could be hit." Interesting theory, definitely. But I would venture to guess that unless a patron were to actually stick his person into the middle of the fight, a plastic lightsaber duel is fairly contained and free of audience peril. We informed her that this activity had been going on periodically throughout the morning, and no one had yet been taken to the emergency room. She said, "Yeah, well now I saw it, and it is going to stop. I am the manager. Ho Ho Ho, bantha poodoo!"

So, the fun spoiled before I even had a chance to swing the blade, we turned to more benign entertainment. A rousing game of Star Wars Trivial Pursuit. Unfortunately, all of the questions were so blasted easy for true Star Wars fans like ones that would wait 14+ hours in line for a movie, we had to set question answering limits to make the game more bearable for the teams. In the end, my team (me and a Chad) won. We then broke out another version of SW Trivial Pursuit (yes, there are actually two versions), which had decidedly more difficult questions. Example of a great question: "How many times did Luke clash sabers with Vader in the Dagobah cave before Luke cut off his head?" If you don't know the answer, you will just have to go watch Empire Strikes Back again! :-) Anyway, my team (with new members) was ahead again, leading everyone to call me the SW guru, when the game was called on account of boredom. It was about that time that my friend Mike Borg (friend that got screwed out of coming to the Celebration) arrived with lunch! Very tasty, very large lunch. Then the wonderful folks from the Jamba Juice store across the parking lot came over and offered us all free Jamba Juices for waiting in line. They are pretty awesome, those Juicers!

It was about 2:30 or 3pm after I finished lunch. I started to get restless, and wandered around a bit. Jabba hadn't seen fit to let the line into the building yet, and she pretty much had no plan whatsoever for the people that were showing up. Again, thank goodness that I was under the awning! We even saw some lightning once during an afternoon downpour. One of the guys there had gone to Toys R Us and purchased a new Star Wars Stratego game, so Mike and I started putting it together so we could have a game. It was a mighty showdown....light vs dark side. After a mighty battle, the dark side triumphed, when the light side ran out of attackers to throw at the dark.

It was at this point when the evening manager came out to greet us. Apparently, Jabba had gone home without so much as a farewell belch or threat. The evening manager was much nicer, and he actually had a plan for all of us who had supported his theater. He cancelled some evening shows, and was going to let us enter our respective theaters (12:01, 12:10, and 12:20 showings) at 6:30! Not only that, but he waived the "no outside food" rule for us. He rocked. So, we packed up our chairs and games, stowed them away in vehicles, and strolled into the theater at about 6:30 or 6:45. Mike and I got AWESOME center seats about 5 rows back, for our wives and us. The wives showed up at the theater around 7pm or so, and we hung out for a little bit, just relaxing. We watched some aisle lightsaber duels, and saw some guys breaking out Star Wars Monopoly on the floor of the theater. There were a group of high school girls dressed in black with black capes and mascara, etc, as dark jedi. They were having quite the lightsaber battles of their own, and were quite impressed with my Jedi outfit and homemade saber. I got a few pictures of the festivities, which I will hopefully post soon.

So Mike and his wife went to dinner together, and when they got back, Sandi and I went over to the Alderwood Mall food court for dinner. We got back at about 9:45pm, and spent the last hour or so relaxing before the movie. Then, the film!

Holy Shneikies. This film was SO EXCELLENT. It was really sad and depressing. About everything that could go wrong in the film does. It spirals downward into a black abyss of death and mourning. I loved every second of it. It was wonderfully put together, and ties up both trilogies quite nicely. I want to see it again RIGHT NOW. But alas. I have child. Must plan these outings around child. Anyway, I am determined to see it a few more times in the theater if possible. I give it 10 thumbs up. If you are reading this, stop now. Go see it this instant. I MEAN IT! (why are you still reading? go see it already!)

Star Wars Celebration III: Sunday!

Sunday, 6:30am: I roll out of bed fairly exhausted, but forcing myself up. I knew that I had to get to the Celebration by 8am, to bypass the huge store line with my gifted Exhibitor's badge. I bundled up with all the layers of normal clothing that I had brought with me, since I packed for weather in the 70's, and it was still snowing outside. I have a grand plan to get inside without arousing rancor from the people who have been waiting outside all night for early entry into the convention: I will enter through the rear loading dock of the building, marching with a purpose and ready to sway anyone that attempts to confront me. My jedi outfit is still in the trunk, in case I want to change into more festive attire later in the afternoon.

7:55am: I couldn't have timed this better. I arrive at the convention, park, and walk up to the loading dock door. At this point, I am expecting get a shakedown of some sort as to who I am and what I am doing. No one is at the door, so I try it. Unlocked! I walk in, again expecting a discussion with someone. No one is directly around me. So, I just stroll in, walking briskly down the hallway in the empty convention center, and make my way to the front of the store. Unbelievable! No one gave me a second look. In the immortal words of Han Solo, "Back door, huh? Good idea!" If I'd known how easy it was to walk into the Celebration III convention center an hour early, it would have saved me a lot of line waiting grief! But then, of course, I wouldn't have met so many fans forced into the same vicinity as me for extended periods of time, and that would have been unfortunate.

So, I reached the front of the store, to find a line already existing of about 15 people. Most were holders of exhibitor and press badges, like myself, but there was in fact one guy that just had his regular four-day pass, and was waiting there with everyone else. I thought about asking him how he got in, but with the ease that I got in there, the question was really already answered. Curiously, however, the lineup of people at the store were actually not in the line cue for the store, but next to it. Inquiring about this, I was told by a guy in front that there have been people waiting for the store since last night at around midnight, and they waited out there all night in the snow. The security had told our mini line that those people were going to get first dibs at the store line, and that our line would be fed in afterwards. Now I felt for those people, but I had no idea how many of those folks there were, and I started to become concerned. How long will this wait become? Will it be back to four hours? That would be most distressing. Especially since I was supposed to get the exhibitor's badge back to Mark the exhibitor sometime in the morning. So we wait.

8:50: A HUGE stream of people come pouring in from the outside icy tundra. They are quite frozen and quite ornery. I do some quick calculating: it is one fabric line barrier and about 4 feet between me being in this line and me waiting for a few hours for the end of this line. It didn't take the use of my higher math brain cells to say, "Hey...idiot. Slide into this line while you can!" So, I did. At that point, I didn't really need the exhibitor's badge, and as a matter of fact, it would have worked to my detriment (the cantankerous folks were already grumbling about the small line of workers that had formed inside while they waited outside). So I swapped it for my 4 day pass, and quietly stood in line with these poor popsicles that decided that waiting in the snow overnight was worth some overpriced souveniers.

This is when things got interesting. There were a couple of kids about 15 years of age that decided that line cutting with these people might not be the worst mistake they could make. They, however, were wrong. They may have gotten away with it, had it not been for their adolescent minds not clearly thinking through the plan. See, they were dressed in what is commonly known as shorts and no coat, or what this line referred to as "Oh, I know you di'int wait outside in the snow all night in that attire, you line cutting little *#%&*s!!" While they tried to explain away their attire, and bluff their way into keeping their place in line, I sat back and watched the play unfold with some amusement (and with relief that I still had my layers on tight and coat firmly buttoned). These little kids almost got their rear ends handed to them on a plate by an unruly thawing mob. A security guard came along, and several of the crowd spoke up about the two lads. They were promptly escorted to the very back of the line, with much cheering and fanfare by the crowd. I remained utterly silent through the whole ordeal.

Shortly thereafter, the store doors opened, and we filed inside in an orderly mad dash. The wait for me was still around 35 minutes, but very reasonable for the Celebration III store. I was able to get my 3 bulky bags of exclusive Vader figures, and a cool light-up Celebration III hat. I was quite ecstatic, and now weighed down with baggage.

After being released from the store, I was a kind of confused on what I should do. With a backpack and three bags of stuff, I was limited on where I could go. I wasn't sure what to do with Mark's figures, since he wouldn't be back presumably till the afternoon. What I decided was that I would head upstairs to try and catch a presentation with Nick Gillard, the stunt coordinator for the prequel trilogy. He is a martial arts expert, and usually shows some behind the scenes fight sequences that are first rate. Walking the line in front of the Sagamore Ballroom, who do I spot but my gay friends from Friday. They invited me into line with them, bags and all, and we had a pleasant conversation about our Celebration experiences thus far. They were planning on catching all the shows in the Sagamore Ballroom Sunday, and invited me to hang out with them. I politely declined, mentioning that I had to offload the Vaders to the guy that owns them. We did get to see Gillard, however, and his presentation was very impressive. We saw some great choreography for the Anakin / Obi Wan battle, and that duel is going to be SWEET. After the show, I bid them adieu, and never did see them again for the rest of the convention.

I decided at this point that I would not lug these bags around all morning, waiting for Mark to show up. I went to his booth and dropped them off with the guy that was working there in his stead, then walked to my car to drop off my goodies. It was about noon, and I determined to end my Celebration experience the way I began: In full Jedi attire. So I suited up, and with my newfound freedom from my sacks of souveniers, went to find Mike at his Behind the Scenes room. His area was just finishing up a show with Timothy Zahn, the first and in my opinion the best Star Wars expanded universe writer out there. It was ironic...the two people that had the most influence on me becoming a Star Wars fan in the first place were Mike and Tim Zahn, and they were both in the room together! (As a backstory, I was a freshman in college, when Mike came into my room and said "Darb, you've got to read this new book that just came out. It's a Star Wars book! They are continuing the stories of the movie characters in this book!" After reading it, I was hooked.) I was able to get my picture taken with Zahn, which was a thrill, and then told Mike that the only other thing I really wanted to see at the convention was the "Bad Girls of Star Wars," a presentation with some of the actresses playing nefarious female background characters in the movies. He asked where it was playing, and I told him the Sagamore Ballroom. He then offered to get me back up to the A/V booth one last time! Hooray!

I waited around for him to get done in his room, then met up with him at about 2:40, shortly before the show. He took me down a side corridor, where I actually got to see Peter Mayhew, the 7 foot tall shaggy guy that played Chewbacca, walk past me. We went up the stairs (I was in full Jedi costume this time, I only tripped once) and I took my seat in the A/V booth for the duration. I finally had my camera, so I snapped as many pictures as I could. The four gals on the stage were the actresses that played Aurra Sing, Zam Wessel, one of the Tonnika sisters (from the original cantina bar), and Sly Moore, a bald chick who sinisterly hangs out with Palpatine in Episodes II and III. It was a great show. An overweight homely looking Star Wars fan actually asked one of the ladies to go out for dinner with him, much to the amusement of everyone present (and her embarrassment). Just as an FYI, she declined, saying she had someone back home that wouldn't appreciate that.

So, as that final panel drew to a close at 4pm, so did Celebration III. I stopped off in the pop culture room one more time, to watch the final dvd play until it too stopped for good. I melancholily drifted back to Mike's room, hanging out there while the ushers and crowd control hustled everyone else out of the building. I helped Mike break down his room a bit, then he let me come to a special presentation of the Star Wars Spectacular footage that was shown to the workers and volunteers. They actually showed it a couple times, so I got to experience it a wonderful three times during the weekend.

I then went back to Mike's room for a while, till boredom overtook me and I took that long last walk out of the building. I stopped in a few rooms, snapping some pictures of everything being torn down. I finally met up with Mark again as he was packing up, and he had had some plane problems in Chicago. I got some pictures of a half-deconstructed X-Wing that came from Colorado. And then I departed the Indianapolis Convention Center. For the last time.

I headed back to the hotel and got changed. Mike said he would give me a call after his duties were over at the convention, and that we would go out. As I relaxed on my bed, though, watching old movies on TV and periodically calling his phone at around 8pm and on, to no avail, I realized that this evening I would most likely be on my own. So I caught up on sleep.

Star Wars Celebration III: Saturday! (part 2)

So, when we left off last time, it was 10:30am, and I was up in the Crow's Nest watching George Lucas answer fan questions. I had some questions I wanted to ask, but I had a feeling he wouldn't appreciate me yelling from inside the A/V booth. I was also too far away to poke him with a sharp stick, so that wish was unfulfilled as well (See blog entry from April 14). Nevertheless, it was an incredible experience. One of the highlights of my trip. Two George questions and answers I will relay that I thought were pretty cool:

Questioner: "So what is the deal with dark side users having/getting yellow eyes?"
George: "Well, the yellow eyes come about when someone is using the force for especially evil, angry, or malicious uses. After that activity, if the person feels regret about what they have done, their eyes return to normal. So it is not necessarily a permanent thing. But of course, for the emperor, he is always raging, so his eyes are always yellow."

Questioner (little 7 year old child): "Are the stormtroopers really good guys, cause my dad keeps telling me that they are the good guys."
George: -laughing- "Yes, actually they are good guys. They are just given orders by a very bad man."

So, I happily watched till the end of the show, and one of the A/V guys that I didn't know said to me, "If you want to stay up here for the next shows, feel free. But if you leave, the door locks behind you." I thanked him profusely, and decided to stay up there for the next presentation, which was Billy Dee Williams (Lando)! Here is where my restroom desires started to get the better of me. According to Mike via my tagboard today, there was a restroom up in the hallways of the crow's nest. But this is the first I have heard of any facilities up there. I saw an empty plastic bottle in the booth, and contemplated using it, but it wasn't quite enough of an emergency yet. I managed to successfully get through Lando's presentation, albeit with a little brow mopping.

Seeing Billy Dee was cool, but the only thing I really took away from the show was that he was now really old (he walked slowly and with a cane), and he talked really softly. I had to strain to hear what he was saying at times. He was quite frail, which was sad, since you want to think of Lando as being a ladies man forever. After that show, it was 12:30, and I decided that I needed to get food and restroom relief. So I said goodbye to my sweet suite above Sagamore Ballroom, and drifted back downstairs.

I grabbed some grub, then decided to visit my friend Mike in the Behind the Scenes room. He let me sit in the front of a presentaion given by Dan Gregoire, an animator for Lucasfilm. He showed some awesome rendered footage of animation done for Episode III, alongside ILM material of the same shots. I learned some very interesting things about the inner workings of Lucasfilm vs ILM. George Lucas may have started both companies, but they are two completely different entities now. A shot animated by in-house Lucasfilm animators can cost between 2 and 5 thousand dollars to do, while the same shot done by ILM (as a contracted company) could cost 30-50 thousand dollars! So the internal animators have an important job to do, fleshing out scenes before the final shots, in case Lucas needs to cut or re-edit some footage. Interestingly enough, I heard what could be described as contempt or disdain towards ILM on the part of the animator. Apparently, everything doesn't always go smoothly between the two companies. It was pretty amusing, since the company I work for uses contractors as well, and there can definitely be friction between the two groups. I guess wherever you go, business is business.

After that presentation, I wandered around the convention some more, taking pictures and scouting out collectibles prices. I purchased a cool silver clone trooper action figure and case for $9. Then, at about 5pm, I got stopped for more food, and sat in on an interview between Warwick Davis and Jake Lloyd, the kid who played young Anakin in Episode 1. I wasn't really expecting too much out of that interview, since he was only 8 years old at its filming (he is now 16), but it was good food-eating entertainment. In fact, it was more interesting than I thought it would be. But not interesting enough to write any more about here.

I checked the schedule, and saw that John Knoll the special effects guru was giving a presentation in Sagamore ballroom at 6pm. I had wanted to see him earlier, but the line was out of control. Sagamore was a different and larger venue, however, so I hurried up to get in line. It turns out the line was already filed in, and there were still plenty of seats, so I just got to walk in and take a seat. I saw more cool Episode III animation, including animation bloopers (like Yoda's hair with too much repulsion property flying away from his head, and flipping General Grievous having his cape fall in front of his face). It was kind of sad, though, because despite the excellent footage, I was having difficulty staying awake due to my incredibly early morning. So, when John Knoll was done, I went back and met up with my friend Mike. I was considering heading back to the hotel, but then he reminded me of the Celebration at Celebration III party.

Now the Celebration at Celebration III was an afterhours party that required an additional $15 ticket to attend. Participants were strongly encouraged to dress up, and there was actual hard liquor served to those over 21. You could buy food there, drinks, have caricatures made of yourself by artists, get temporary Star Wars tatoos, and dance, among other things. They had a live jazz band there that played pretty cool riffs of Star Wars music. I didn't buy a ticket, because when they were on sale (before they sold out), I was planning on going to the convention with my other friend Mike (Mike B, as opposed to Mike D, who was working A/V), and we were indecisive on whether we wanted to spend the money or the time to go. So, I didn't have a ticket, but Mike (are you confused yet?) managed to get me into the event via a back stage entrance. It was very cool. Unfortunately, Mike had the feeling while there that he was still at work, and couldn't really unwind. He wanted to go out to the local bars. I didn't know anyone else at the event (I briefly met one of my plane friends near the stage, but couldn't locate him again later in the evening), so it was just me all alone at the party with no one to talk to, which wasn't much fun. I did, however, get to have my picture taken back stage with Jay Laga'aia, one of the hosts of Celebration III and the actor that played Captain Typho in Episode II and III. But after that photo op, I basically cruised around the huge hall, taking some pictures of costumes and soaking in the festiveness.

Fairly early in the partying evening I was preparing to leave, when I ran into an exhibitor that Mike had introduced me to earlier. His name was Mark, and he was selling his Star Wars collectibles in the main Exhibition room during the convention. Now Mark is a wheeler and dealer. He was always on the phone, making connections with other folks and trying to get the best turnaround profit for items. He told me that he was driving from Indianapolis to Chicago that very night to sell some of the exclusive Vader figures from this convention. He was hoping to be back tomorrow afternoon sometime. I told him that I hadn't even gotten the chance to get into the store yet, let alone get my hands on any Vader figures. Then he told me something wonderful, that would save my Sunday from line-waiting trudgery: "Well, why don't you take my exhibitor badge, which will get you into the doors of the building an hour before everyone else. You can get right in line, grab your figures (plus a few more for me), and be out of there in no time." He paid me up front for an additional eight Vader figures, gave me his exhibitor badge, and sent me on my way. I thanked him abundantly, and promised to get his badge back to him the next day.

It was now about 10pm, and I finally stepped out of the building for the first time since the morning. What I saw was rather astonishing. It was snowing! The weather folks had forcasted a 30 degree plunge in temperature and a dusting of snow for Saturday night, but I didn't really believe them. After all, it was the end of April, and three days ago, when I arrived, it was in the mid to upper 70s! But there it was, lazily floating from the skies, tiny tiny flakes of snow. It was rather beautiful, actually, if you would allow me to get mushy for a second. No wind, completely dark except for the street lights, hundreds of miniscule flakes drifting as slow as possible from above...Ok, I'm done. Here, to cleanse the palate:

Kill! Kill! Die! I will destroy you!

Ok, that's better. Manhood firmly intact.

Anyway, I drove home in the snow, (which was not sticking, by the way) and went to sleep, sadly realizing that I had only one more day of experiencing the best Star Wars fan event of all time.

Star Wars Celebration III: Saturday! (Part 1)

Ok...before we start Saturday, I have to relay a conversation I had with my friend Mike on Friday evening:
Mike: "Hey. I picked you up a press pass, so if you want to see George (Lucas, who would be there tomorrow), I can probably get you in to see it upstairs in the A/V room crow's nest, above everyone."
Me: "GBBBBSSSTTRB!! --more sputtering-- YEAH!"
Mike: "OK, don't come in your Jedi costume tomorrow. Dress in a black shirt and bluejeans. You will fit in with the rest of the A/V guys, and everyting should go smoothly."
Me: "No problem."
Mike: "Give me a call when you get here tomorrow morning, and we'll hook up."
Me: --More unintelligible sputtering--"THANKS, DUDE!"

On to the Saturday:

I wake up bright and early at 6am. Not having to put on my getup, preparing to head out the door took less time. I grabbed breakfast and shot out the door in my black shirt and jeans, with the Jedi outfit in the trunk in case I wanted to get in it later. I stopped by Walmart, like I had planned yesterday, purchasing an umbrella and a bright blue parka (it was raining pretty steady that morning, and about 45 degrees). I arrive and hop into line at about 7:15 or so. The line seems unusually short, even for this time of the morning. I call Mike....his phone is turned off. Hmm...could this be to good to be true? Did Mike make a promise he couldn't keep? Doubts began creeping up into my mind, but I thought, "No problem, there is plenty of time between now and 8:45, when George was supposed to hit the stage."

Standing in line, alone as I was, gave me the opportunity to just be quiet and listen to other people's conversations in line around me. I learned some interesting things. Apparently, there have been people waiting in line for George Lucas, and seperately for the Celebration 3 store, all night. Since 11pm. That was a might disturbing to me, as I had decided that if something went wrong, and I couldn't hook up with Mike, that I would try my luck at the Celebration 3 store. Lines for this store have for the last two days been somewhat larger than insanity. On Thursday, there were stories of people waiting in line for 5 hours to get in, and on Friday, even though the store was technically open till 8pm, they had to cap the line at 10:30am, and people were waiting for entry for 7 hours! I thought that if I couldn't get in to see George, and had arrived at the convention at 7:15, I would have a shot at not wasting an entire day waiting in line for the store. But if people had been waiting all night....well, my hopes weren't high.

7:45: Called Mike, phone still off. He should be at the convention working now, so I am a little concerned...hopefully, he hasn't forgotten. I get to know a couple of ladies and a guy that are waiting in line with me. We discuss the resurgence of Battlestar Galactica on the Sci-Fi channel, as well as the challenges of trying to stay ignorant of the plotline for Episode III. It rains. A large Chewbacca in line puts a bag on his head to try and keep from being drowned rat Chewbacca.

8:30: Several more calls to Mike with no luck. At this point, I have decided that I have more luck trying to get into the CIII store than I do to see George Lucas, but if Mike calls, I will be prepared to jump out of line and head to the big show.

9:20: I get into the front doors of the convention, and head straight for the store line. I don't have to travel far, since the line is already almost at the entrance. Bad news. But then, the store line suddenly starts moving! It moves through the convention center, down hallways, and almost to the doors of the store, all at speedwalking velocity! I think, "Well, if the line moves like this, I'll be in there in no time!" Then, the line suddenly stops. I didn't know it at the time, but apparently the Celebration III store has the capacity to hold approximately 4 hours worth of line within its very walls. So while I had developed false hope that I was almost to my sweet store front (where they were selling, among other things, the exclusive Darth Vader figure with James Earl Jones' voice recorded specifically for the collectible), the people in front of me in line hadn't really stepped into a black hole, as it seemed, but were still in fact squarely in front of me.

While in line, I get to know a fascinating Duke college senior by the name of Noel. She had apparently waited in line overnight to see George Lucas, then watched his first presentation at 8:45, and run in to get in line for the Celebration 3 store. She told of her overnight travails: Getting in line at 11pm, waiting outside in the pouring rain with an umbrella and a folding chair, being herded with her fellow linemembers into a neighboring hotel for warmth, being yelled at by a hotel employee, being moved to another location, etc. She assured me it was well worth it to see George. I told her of my hope to see him from the A/V booth, but that it was now nearing 10am, and that I had not heard from my friend. At this point, we were inside the CIII store, with countless people behind us and the counter within view. Later I would learn that this was quite misleading, as we were still some 4 hours from the actual counter.

10:15am: Mike Calls!! He says, "Do you still want to see George? Cause if you do, come now!" I, being fooled by the store line mirage, hesitate. "Well, I am actually in the store right now...maybe I should just stay in line..."
Mike: "Are you sure? This is George Lucas!"
Noel: "If you have a chance to see George, you HAVE to take it!!"

That last prodding was all it took. Mike had come through in a big way, and Noel had saved me from an additional 4+ hour wait in line by telling me to get off my rear and go see the creator of this universe that we were all celebrating. I didn't have a chance to thank her, as that was the last time I would see her. I waded my way back through massive crowds, running as fast as I could manage, and met up with Mike. He slipped me the press badge, and told me to walk up the non-working escalator, next to the actual line, and to present the badge to anyone asking. I was to meet his coworker Chad (who I had met at the bar Thursday night), and he would usher me up to the crow's nest. I ran into a little snag at the escalator:
Crowd control bully: "Uh, I can't let you up here."
Me: -Flashes badge, mumbles something about A/V-
CCB: "Sorry. I have been ordered not to let anyone up. If you want, you can talk to that person."
Me, getting my poker face on and thoughts in order, speaking to new guy: "Yeah, I'm with A/V, and I need to get up to the Sagamore Ballroom Crow's Nest."
New Guy: "Yeah, sure. Ok."

Ok, do I feel guilty telling a small untruth? Well, if you think about it, it was sort of the truth...I was with A/V, as in I would be with Chad in a moment, and I did need to get up to the Crow's Nest, if I was going to see the show...so guilt? Nah. It was George Lucas.

So, upstairs, I meet Chad, he takes me up to the A/V booth, and I get an AWESOME view of George Lucas' last presentation! It was very cool. Unfortunately, I was unable to take my bag or camera up there (I was supposed to be A/V, not a fan), so I missed many cool shots. Also, there was no bathroom up there, which would slowly become an issue as the time passed.

I must go to bed now, so this will now be Part 1 of Saturday, while Part 2 will have to be detailed tomorrow. Goodnight!

I'm still here!

To all who have been eagerly awaiting the breakdown of Saturday, I apologize. I must get better at updating my blog on the weekends. My goal is to get Saturday up tonight. Wish me luck!

Star Wars Celebration III: Friday!

Friday, April 22: 6:30am

Hit snooze....several times.

8:15am: Finally fall out of bed in blind stupor.

9:45am: After shower, food, Jedi costume application, and a few wake up slaps to the face, I hit the road. I stopped off at the store to buy bottled water, because I refused to purchase bottled water at the convention for $2.50 each.

10:15am: I am parked and finally in line to enter the Celebration. At this point, the Fan Club line has been filing in for an hour and fifteen minutes, and the general admission line has been filing in for 15 minutes. The end of the fan club line is right on the edge of the roof, so I get a steady stroll right down the stairs and into the front door. Hmm...that wasn't so bad. I overhear someone say, "Yeah, I have been waiting in line since 8am, and just got in 20 minutes ago." It seems I lost 20 minutes of convention time, but gained 2 hours of sleep for it. Fair trade. Especially since the weather Friday morning consisted of pockets of intense rain showers, which made line standing extra fun.

Here I made two mental notes:
1) Before getting in line tomorrow, go to Walmart, get umbrella and poncho.
2) Get into line before 8am!

So now, in the convention, I found a LOT more people attending than on Thursday. Lines were everywhere, and as long as Gandalf's beard (sorry, best I could come up with). Being that it was already after 10:30, I had missed a lot of the early shows, and the later shows had obscene waits to them. Friday was the day of the SW Episode III Spectacular, which along with the Opening Ceremonies, was the other thing to DEFINITELY not miss at the convention. This show consists of Rick McCallum, the producer of the latest trilogy, taking some questions from the audience and then showing an extended 10-15 minute preview of the new movie, with never-before seen footage that would blow everyone away. The footage is basically linked clips with the sound taken out, replaced with intense music from the soundtrack. I had been to the Celebration II Spectacular, and it had shown the extended Yoda lightsaber battle. Imagine seeing that for the first time on a perfectly tweaked digital projector in a room of screaming fans!

Anyway, the first Spectacular was at 11:30, and the second was at 1:00. Then they would just show the footage repeating every half hour or so for the rest of the day. I decided to head straight for that line. Apparently, everyone and their mother had decided that too. This line stretched throughout the entire building, and at the very end of it was a stormtrooper holding a sign that said "This line has been capped." I asked him what the heck he was doing, and he informed me that at this particular point in the line, he couldn't promise that we would get in to see the Spectacular before the end of the day! Disheartened, I wandered around a bit trying to find something I could go to that wouldn't involve me waiting in line for 3+ hours. I finally settled on seeing "Star Wars in 30 Minutes," which was supposed to be another funny rendition of the original trilogy, this time done in 30 minutes with a cast of about 8 actors. Walking down the line I periodically asked people, "Is this still the line for SW in 30?" I got a few yeses, and continued walking. At one point, I asked these two guys in line. They of course said yes, then asked if I was alone. When I said yes, they invited me to join them in line, saving me a load of walking and line waiting! As I got to know them, a couple of chaps from Cleveland and St. Louis (if memory serves me), I slowly came to the realization that they were very gay. They were also very friendly and rather funny, so I just kept that to myself as I was waiting with them.

So we eventually got in to see SW in 30 Mins, and it was extremely funny, as the cast used everyday household items as props. For example, there was one point where a tie fighter went streaking across the stage. This tie fighter consisted of a guy in black holding a couple of square air filters to either side of himself, running around whirring like a banshee. Chewie and Vader were played by the same castmember, which was pretty impressive. And Jabba was played by the largest castmember, in his underwear with a brown blanket over his legs, laying on his side with his tongue lolling out.

After the show, the two guys wanted to go wait in line for the Spectacular. I told them my attempt at that line, but they were determined to try it anyway. So, I followed, still desiring to see the footage if there was any way possible. It seems that the line-capping stormtrooper and his bosses had underestimated the size of the room that the show was playing in, because it was only 1:30, and the line had shortened up considerably. So it looked like we would get to see the Spectacular after all! First, however, we would have to wait in a holding room for about 45 minutes. This was a closed off room, filled with people, with no air conditioning. The temperature was around 80 degrees or so. Very hot for a dude in a Jedi outfit. Luckily, I had my store-bought water with me, and before long, it was time to file in.

The Episode III Spectacular footage did not disappoint! It was, well, spectacular. There was one point in the footage **for those that don't want to know anything about Episode III, even a minor almost non-spoiler, skip down to the next paragraph now** where the Emperor completely surprises Yoda with a huge burst of lightning that hits him square in the face! This energy sends Yoda flying across a huge room, were he smashes full force into a wall and collapses, seemingly unconscious! Lipsmakin' Awesome!

After the show (about 4:30pm), my two new friends and I part ways, as I need to get sustenance. I grab some food and sit down to watch some of the Star Wars Costume pageant, which was most impressive. I got a few blurry shots on the camera, ate my meal, and then spent the next couple hours snapping pictures and checking out the collectibles dealers in the main exhibition hall. I also got to meet Katie Horn from Seattle, who owns an old car she turned into an X-wing. She is part of a group called Road Squadron, who's contributors fix up their cars in some mighty creative Star Wars themes. I also saw the Cingular Wireless Vader Viper, and promptly drooled with envy.

I ended out the evening in the Star Wars in Pop Culture room, a mini theater that has six hours of repeating footage containing Star Wars references and themes from TV through the years, including old toy commercials, excerpts from the Star Wars Holiday Special (with Bea Arthur and Art Carney, seriously), and little snippets of popular shows that reference the trilogy in some way. At about 9pm, I headed for home, because I knew I wanted to be up plenty early for Saturday's festivities.

Stay tuned....Saturday has: George Lucas!

Darbo signing off

Star Wars Celebration III: Thursday!

The Celebration didn't officially begin on Thursday until noon, so I got to sleep in till 7am. I knew it would be a zoo down there, so I wanted to arrive around 9. I rolled out of bed, put on my Jedi costume for the first time this trip, and strolled down to my free Best Western continental breakfast. I was told by my friend that they would have a build your own Belgian Waffle station, so I was sorely disappointed to find the choice of Frosted Flakes or Golden Grahams. I dejectedly grabbed my cereal, sat down at a table, and gingerly began eating. It can be tough for a Jedi to eat Frosted Flakes with milk and not spill on one's tunic! I somehow succeeded, and without even a second look from the foreign front desk worker, I sauntered out to the car and was on my way.

9:30am: Parked and fully cloaked (so to speak), I strolled over to where the Star Wars Fan Club line was (members were special...they got to stand in a much longer line). The organizers decided to run the line up on the roof of the building, switchback Disneyland style, instead of letting the line travel over a mile around a dome the size of the old Kingdome (like at Celebration 2). Climbing to the roof, I made a mental note: Jedi costumes don't lend themselves to easy stair ascension. That must be where the Force would come in handy...

Reaching the end of the line, I prepared for a two and a half hour lonely wait. But lo and behold, one switchback further ahead were my plane buddies! They invited me to come stand with them, which I happily did. I met their friend Mike, and had many smartaleck discussions about the movies and the other folks in line. Together, we met a couple of charming girls from the ISPCE, or the Intergalactic Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Ewoks. For picture reference, one was dressed as an X-wing pilot, and the other was in official beige ISPCE attire complete with baby ewoks hanging off her. Now I have no particular feeling one way or another for ewoks, but the girls' tragic story about orphaned woklings and persecuted furballs has since convinced me to throw out all the extra ewok steaks that were in my freezer. They even gave me a pamphlet, my official first souvenier of the convention!

So yada yada yada, I waited in line, chatted, and finally got into the building at around 1:15pm. My friends and I immediately headed for the first show that was playing, which was, ironically enough, "Mystery Ewok Theater 2005." This was hosted by Warwick Davis, the midget that played Wicket the Ewok. He showed a special film that was made concurrently with Return of the Jedi, a kind of behind the scenes movie that is quite funny. My friend Jenni and I first saw this at Celebration 2, and her favorite part of it was a moment with Darth Vader chasing Wicket through the Death Star, yelling "Come back ewok! COME BACK EWOK!"

After that show, the next stop was the "1-man Star Wars Trilogy." This consists of one man (no, really?) performing a condensed version of the entire trilogy, doing all the voices and pantomime that accompany it, along with some rather amusing commentary. Example:
"The other Yoda spoke of was your twin sister.....for now she will remain safely anonymous"
"Leia! Leia is my sister!"
"Well, she is the only woman in the movie..."
Entertained I entirely was.

Afterward, I stayed in the room for a panel of four actors from the original films. They played Admiral Ozzel ("He is as clumsy as he is stupid" - Vader), Admiral Motti ("Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways Lord Vader"), Biggs Darklighter (Luke's buddy, killed on trench run), and Wes Janson (Rebel pilot, Wedge's gunner on Hoth). They gave some interesting insight into the filming of the original films and how they got the parts. Then they were put through the paces with some Who's Line is it Anyway acting antics by Warwick Davis, the host. Tomfoolery ensued.

After all of that, it was 7pm, and I thought it would be a good time to get in line for the Opening Ceremonies, a grand event that officially kicks off each Celebration. Usually it takes place first thing in the morning on the first day, but this time they decided to have it at 8:30pm. Opening Ceremonies is one of the things definately NOT to miss at the convention, so I was quite dismayed to find the line already stretching through the building, out the doors, and back up onto the roof again! Apparently, some folks had been waiting in line for five hours. Not one to give up, I decided it would be worth the wait to attempt to get in, and began my trudge to the back of the line. But wonderfully, I met up with my plane friends again! They invited me in line (again), and I had a new hope. That is when I received an alarming call. It was from my friend Emily who's camera I borrowed for the trip. Her phone number was taped to the camera, and she received a phone call that the camera had been found in the Warwick Davis hall! Apparently, I thought that the camera was in my backpack the whole time, when it was in fact NEXT to the backpack. So, when I picked up the backpack, no camera. Being that replacing the camera would double the cost of my trip to Indy, and on top of it I would lose all the pictures I would take during the weekend, and would never hear the end of it from my friends for the rest of my life, I had no choice but to abandon my choice place in line and RUN all the way back to the other side of the huge convention center, where I was sent on a goose chase first to the lost and found, and finally back to the hall where I'd lost it and behind the curtain to the stage hand that now had possession of the precious. I recovered the camera and RAN back toward the line, which was now moving into the building to get seated. OH NO! Scampering, scampering.....I found my friends in the nick of time, slipped under the railing, and managed to get a seat with them and see the most excellent opening ceremonies. They had much fan fare, confetti falling from the celing, and marched all of the stars that were at the celebration onto the stage at the end of the show.

So, after the opening ceremonies were over, I bid farewell to my plane friends, not knowing that it was the last time I would spend any significant time with them for the rest of the weekend. It was 9:30, and everything had pretty much shut down. I FINALLY then managed to hook up with my friend Mike, who I learned would be spending the majority of the Celebration in one room, the "Behind the Scenes" room, a smaller venue for authors, animators, sculptors, and the like to give presentations. He walked with me to my car, I changed from Jedi to normal pedestrian, then we went out for a beer at a local pub. And by beer I mean big beer. And by big beer I mean friggin huge 32 oz tankard of beer. I guess when the bartender asked if I wanted the small, medium, or large, I should have said medium. I got to meet Mike's friend Chad, who was also working at the convention, and got a chance to unwind from the busy first day. What an exciting trip this was already turning out to be!

So, long story longer, by the time I got back to the hotel and into bed, it was after 2am. The alarm was going off at 6:30 am. Tune in to see how that worked out...

Star Wars Celebration III: Wednesday!

For all who have been waiting, here is a Celebration III recap:

Day 1: Wed, Apr. 20

The trip started out, predictably enough, on a jet headed to Denver, then another to Indy. It wouldn't be worth mentioning, except for the fact that I was feeling a might lonely, but soon discovered that the guys next to me were also headed to Celebration III (somewhat of a coincidence, since on Frontier airlines one can connect from Denver to anywhere in the country). The two gentlemen were from the Seattle area, and pretty nice guys. They were meeting their friend Mike from LA, which was kind of odd because I was meeting my friend Mike from LA there too! It turned out I was to sit next to them for both legs of the flight. Unfortunately, one of them was a bit overweight, and needed a bit more deodorant (OK, a lot more). He was who I sat next to on the second flight. DOH! Keep smiling, nose toward the window...

I arrived in Indy about 6pm, got my EXTREMELY red Hundai Accent (with only 171 miles on it) and drove around the city looking for my hotel. By this I mean actually around the city, via a freeway that actually circumnavigates Indianapolis. Of course, where I was staying had to be on the exact opposite side from the airport. I soon discovered by looking at my Hertz map that there were about 10-12 different numbered highways in Indy, but where they had number designations on the map, the actual streets themselves weren't labeled with that number at all. For example, my map said that Hwy 31 went North/South through Indy, but the street itself is simply called Meridian, and had no such Hwy 31 markings. Wow, navigation was going to be real fun.

Reached my hotel about 7:15. Immediately noticed that:
1) The faucet, which is not in the bathroom but in the main room, continuously drips. All night. Nonstop. Goody.
2) My television is missing a remote control. This I tried to ignore, hoping that I could rough it and change the channels manually when I needed to. I quickly ran out of breath trying to flip multiple stations, however, and had to call the front desk to get a replacement. Realization strikes that I was much too lazy for my own good. I also decided that that wasn't about to change anytime soon.

I called my friend Mike, who was supposed to meet me for dinner when I arrived. He was reportedly going to take a "short nap" at about 6:30 to get some energy for evening partying. 7:30, no answer. I watch some TV. 8:00, no answer. At this point, I am famished, since all I had to eat besides breakfast was a bag of fritos and a bag of sunchips on the plane. 8:15, no answer. 8:20, no answer. 8:22, no answer....you get the gist. 8:50 rolls around: no answer. I leave a message "Hey punk! I'm frickin starvin over here. If you don't call me by 9pm, I'm going out to eat alone." 9pm, one more call, no answer. I am subconsiously knawing on my suitcase for nourishment. I drag my starving body out the door and to the car, where I drive approximately 1/2 block to a fast food-like Italian joint with cartoon tomato mascots. I eat a tasty chicken alfredo pasta with unlimited breadsticks, all alone at 9:30pm on Wed night.

I return to my hotel, watch some more TV, continue calling Mike to no avail, then finally take a shower in chlorine smelling blisteringly powerful water (the water pressure was fixed at 2.5 million gallons per minute, approx). Midnight, just about to crawl into bed, I receive a call from my friend Mike. "Hey there, I fell asleep longer than I anticipated. But I'm going out for beers now. You coming?" Well, perhaps if I was still in college, but being that I'm 31, midnight before Celebration III has become the time to sleep, not the time for alcoholic merrymaking at the pub. So, politely declining, I told Mike that I would catch up with him in the morning, and the faucet dripped me to sleep.