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Star Wars Revisited

Last weekend, Spike showed all the Star Wars Movies. Although I've seen all of them, I'd never seen then all in order right straight through, so I recorded them and watched the first three on Monday, and the second trilogy on Tuesday.

This took me down memory lane to just before the first Star Wars movie came out. I can't ever remember Star Wars without thinking about my friend, John. You can see a picture of him here on the tall ship that we went on with the whole WSFA crew.

I met John at the first August Party I ever went to. We were introduced by Jackie Lichtenberg, and at the end of the con, he asked me out.

August Party was a long-running Star Trek convention. Each year that the original Star Trek was filmed, they'd finish filming and have a wrap party in August, and that's where the con got it's name. That, and it was in early August each year.

By the time World Con came along that year, John was definitely my boyfriend, and he had been invited to World Con as a guest (all expenses paid). I, however, didn't have the money to go along, and couldn't have gotten a ticket at that late date, anyway.

So, John went off to World Con, and came back with lots of stories about all the fabulous things that happened to him there.

One of them was about how the person who was supposed to be MC for the con was sick or something and couldn't do it. So John was the master of ceremonies for the World Con that year because they couldn't find anyone else who was willing to get up in front of 3,000 people and speak.

One of the people he met because of this was a guy about his age, with blond hair like his, blue eyes like his, and a lot of the same interests. They both liked comic books, stage fighting, acting, and many other things in common. Also, his new friend, Mark Hamill, had been filming a movie, and the studio had sent him to World Con to do some advance publicity for the first Star Wars movie. They had also sent many, many heavy costumes, including ones for storm troopers, Darth Vader, Chewbacca, etc. They also sent a truck and driver, but the driver was only intended to drive, and the costumes were heavy, and Mark couldn't move everything from one presentation to the next without help, so John helped him. And they went to lunch together, and did a bunch of fun stuff at the con.

He came back all excited about Star Wars! This is how John and I came to do some advance publicity for the first Star Wars movie at some science fiction cons. Mostly, John did the publicity and I went along and helped.

While we were doing this, John wanted some drawings of characters from the movies, and he asked me to do some. I did a number of drawings, including the ones here. I had planned to put more  drawings into this post, but my scanner wasn't doing them justice, and there was a lot of PhotoShop clean-up work to do, and it wound up being more time consuming than I had expected. So there are only a few of the many drawings I did at that time. They're just pen-and-ink sketches.

First, I'm sure you'll recognize these Jawas.

Here's Chewie with Han and Luke, who are posing as storm troopers.

Princess Leia

And one more drawing that has a very odd story attached to it.

I did a sketch of Luke and Leia, and I was very annoyed that I didn't make Luke look like Mark. So, I mashed up the drawing and did it again. And it still looked like the first one. So I tossed that one, too, and did another, which came out looking like the other two. After a few tries, I was totally annoyed and frustrated. Just then, John came home and had an interesting story.

He had been trying to contact Mark through the studio for a few days, and wasn't able to get through to him. That particular day, the person he spoke to at the studio told him that he wasn't there because he was visiting his grandmother in Florida. John told the guy that he really was a friend of Mark's and that he knew the guy wasn't telling the truth because his mother in Florida was dead! He also told they guy enough about Mark that they guy finally believed that he knew Mark, and told him the truth.

Mark had signed a contract to be on a show, which I think was Eight is Enough, but I couldn't swear to it. He did the pilot for the show, and then found out what a huge success Star Wars was turning out to be, and wanted to get out of the contract for the show. After an argument about it, Mark went home. But he was angry, and speeding, and went off the road, and smashed his car and himself.

John couldn't talk to him because he was in the hospital. My understanding of all this was that he needed extensive surgery to put him back together. Part of the damage was to his face. I have to say that the plastic surgeon did a great job on his face, but if you look at him in the first and second movies, his face, particularly his upper lip is slightly different.

John said to hold onto the last drawing I did, which I was ready to wad up and throw in the trash.

Eventually, we got to see him on TV, after he was recovered, and found out that I hadn't been drawing him the way he looked in the first movie, but the way he looked after the accident!

I really do strange things sometimes.

Anyway, here's the sketch I did of Luke and Leia.

I hope you're having a wonderful weekend!

It's June!

Happy June, everyone!

I hope you had a great Memorial Day weekend!

I had planned to start watching the whole, complete Star Wars movies, all six movies yesterday, and finish them today. I watched the first three yesterday. Well, sort of.

So far, the first three have been butchered by Comcast, which decided I didn't really want any service from them for at least 20 minutes at about the first third of the way through the second movie!

Yes, that's right. Comcast had no connection to my apartment (or, from what I can tell, to anyone in the area) for 20 minutes on Saturday. Not only was the TV off, so was the internet.

Nada, Zip. Nothing.

My "brand new" just-got-it-on-Friday DVR also decided that "This DVR is not Authorized on this Network" just like the other one did, and turned itself off for about 20 minutes a bit earlier in the day from the power outage! So, the "new" DVR is just as defective as the one I traded in! So, I dumped a bunch of neat stuff to watch so I could get a DVR that is just as bad as the other one!

And as if that wasn't enough, they also weren't answering their phones and didn't have the grace to say "We all took the holiday off, and if you have a problem, we won't be available until Tuesday." I spent an hour and a quarter on the phone trying to tell someone about the long list of problems I have with Comcast. Oh, and the weather channel was off the air for more than a day. Their answer to the weather channel being off was not to check with the local station, which wasn't broadcasting it, but to send out a repairman! I asked how that would help, and was told that it was the only thing they could do. I asked them "If the repairman can fix it, why didn't he do that on Friday when he was out, or on the Wednesday of the previous week?" The phone person didn't have an answer for that.

Maybe the key is to get a repairman out here every week until they actually do something to fix their service?

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In knitting news, the 12th of June is World Wide Knit in Public Day, but you can adjust the actual date you celebrate it. I don't usually get to go to a formal gathering, but if I'm out on WWKIP day, you can bet I'm knitting. In fact if I'm out, I'm probably knitting in public no matter what day it is. I expect to be at the Potomac Celtic Festival that day, and you can bet that I'll be knitting in public!

Yesterday, I finished spinning the blue wool/silk/bamboo roving that I got at the Sheep and Wool Festival. Photos soon. I planned to ply it with some medium blue singles I was spinning before that, but the solid blue is a much warmer blue than the other, and now I'm leaning toward plying it with some natural white Finn wool that I spun a while ago.

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Encore is running Wall-E off and on today. I saw part of it the other day, and really liked it, so I set my DVR to record it later today. Although I enjoyed it, it's a movie that's also suitable for kids. If you liked Finding Nemo, you'll like this, too.

Now that sweeps month is over, there's almost nothing on TV except reruns, and some of the stations aren't showing those because they don't get high enough ratings. In spite of the fact that I, personally would prefer to watch a good rerun rather than some of the dreck they're putting on.

We can expect things to pick up in July, though. Have fun in the meantime!

I hope you had a great Memorial Day Weekend, and will have a wonderful rest-of-the-week!

Happy Memorial Day!

Happy Memorial Day!

Comcast Really HATES it's Customers!

Well, I planned to spend the three days of this weekend doing nothing buy spinning, knitting and watching TV.

Spike is showing the entire Star Wars saga, from beginning to end. In spite of doing advance publicity for the original Star Wars movie along with John Ellis, and watching all of the episodes multiple times, I realized that I've never seen them in order back-to-back with no interruptions before, and I thought that would be a fun thing to do today.

Comcast is obviously against me doing that. It's been off the air, and completely disconnected twice today. No TV, no internet.

For at least 20 minutes each time!

One more time you're off the air, and I'm seriously thinking about canceling getting TV from you!

Thanks for trying so hard to ruin my weekend!

I hope everyone out there is having more fun than Comcast is charging me for!

I Wish I Could Replace Comcast TV with Something that Works!

OK, I know I said something nice about Comcast last week, but I was wrong, wrong, WRONG! They are the worst provider of TV service in the US and possibly the world!

I frequently can't watch one whole minute of TV without the picture breaking up/going to black/freezing, and the sound goes out for a short while at least three times in an hour show, and It has declared "This DVR is not Authorized on this Network" and then turned itself off at least three times in the last three days! Usually, during a recording! It also can't access most of the digital TV guide information, and now often displays what it can with big green hash marks through the listings!

Tomorrow we are going to try again to do what was supposed to happen last week on Wednesday. They were going to replace my DVR, but after six calls to me to be certain that I was going to be there, and that I still wanted the new DVR, plus three hours of waiting for the repairman, nobody showed up!

Last week, they said they'd be here between 2 and 5 pm, but this time they just said "Friday." So, I'm going to be stuck here until they show up. IF they show up, that is!

If they still have them available on the third of June, I'm going to get a TiVo! With a TiVo, maybe at least I'll be able to get the digital TV Guide, which is only possible to get in bits and pieces on my Comcast DVR.

Maybe, when I fast forward through a commercial, the TiVo won't display the picture from one part of the show while giving me the sound from another part. Maybe I'll be able to see the TV guide with some certainty for more than an hour in the future (which I can't do with my DVR).

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On to TV content, which is a much happier subject, although not much, considering that it's Memorial Day Weekend, and most networks seem to have decided not to bother showing anything that anyone would want to watch because they think nobody will be watching over the holiday anyway. I can't help thinking that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy!

Stations that do not think this way include BBC in America, which is showing a lot of Star Trek Next Gen and Doctor Who this weekend, and ABC Family, who are making it a Harry Potter weekend (again). They won't be showing Sorcerer's Stone or Chamber of Secrets, but will be showing Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire, and Order of the Phoenix. You may have seen them before, but if Comcast (by some miracle) actually does arrive and gives me an empty DVR, I wouldn't mind recording them. So, I'm mentioning it.

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For all you knitters out there, I found a fabulous pattern for a shawlette. I like it so much that I'll be putting a link to it in the sidebar. I can't wait to make it!

What a fabulous, easy pattern! It could theoretically be knit in any weight yarn. I love those kinds of patterns!

Have a great Memorial Day weekend! I hope to get out enough to see some of Rolling Thunder this weekend! Have fun!