Episode III

* May contain "spoilers" to the plot. Skip this part of the blog if you have not seen Revenge of the Sith yet.

Based on the recommendation of pretty much everyone I know, I decided to suck it up and watch the latest Star Wars movie this weekend. It's been a long time since I've watched a movie in the theater, and a really long time since I watched a movie in its opening weekend.

Anyways, I liked the movie. As I mentioned before, though, I also liked Episodes I and II when I watched them. Still, this one was definitely the best out of the 3. I heard when George Lucas was writing the story, he had 60% of the story focused on the last movie, and 40% on the first two. That would explain why there's so much crap filler in those, such as the pod racing, or any scene with Jar Jar Binks. And what was really the point of Darth Maul? None of those things really had much significance in the story.

I heard the guy who plays the Senator/Chancellor/Emperor is the same guy from the original movies. If that's true, that's pretty impressive. Now I'm wondering, is that also the same guy who played Grand Moff Tarkin too, in the scene at the end of Episode III?

By far my favorite line from the movie, by Padme to Anakin: "Hold me.... like you did by the lake in Naboo" hahaha so cheesy. Another great moment was at the end when the Emperor tells Darth Vader that he killed Padme, and he goes "NOOOOOOOO!!!!!" and starts shaking his fists.

See, I never really minded the corny dialogue, bad acting, or even the pointless side plots. The one major thing that bugged me in these movies was how the Trade Federation had accents that were blatantly Asian-sounding. I guess people of other ethnic groups also have their complaints about certain characters too, i.e. the Jewish shop owner, Jar Jar Binks, "sand people", and maybe more that I didn't pick up on. Not gonna make me hate Star Wars or anything, but there's no way it could all be an accident or coincidence - you gotta wonder about what George Lucas was thinking when he made these movies.

While I'm talking about Star Wars, I thought I'd throw out some questions I have about the movies (this includes the original trilogy too):

1. What purpose does the Stormtrooper suit serve? It doesn't seem to protect them from lasers, nor did it save them from getting beat by the Ewoks and their rocks. Is it just to make them look cool?

2. I think in Return of the Jedi, Leia tells Luke that she remembers her mother being very beautiful but looked sad. How could she remember this if her mother died shortly after childbirth?

3. When Obi-wan, Yoda, and Qui-Gon die, their bodies disappear. Supposedly this is a part of them gaining immortality? How come when Anakin/Darth Vader dies in Return of the Jedi, his body doesn't disappear? Yet he still gets to be immortal after Luke burns up his body.

*****

Cyclic Redundancy This

Over the past couple weeks, I have been witnessing the rapid deterioration of my laptop's hard drive. It started when some programs stopped working for no reason. Then when I tried copying or deleting some files, it would lock up my computer for a few seconds before giving me an error message. When I tried to scan my hard drive, all these sectors popped up as unreadable, and it took forever to get through the scan.

Eventually I determined the exact problem with my hard drive: something about "cyclic redundancy". What that means, I have no clue. All I know is that it sucks and basically means I need to replace my hard drive with a new one.

So I called up IBM, and the good thing is that I am still under warranty. (The bad thing is that my hard drive is dying in less than a year of owning it and I have no idea how it happened or how to prevent it). They sent me a new hard drive in the mail, and told me to swap it out and send my old one back within 30 days.

The good thing is that they sent me recovery disks along with the hard drive. The bad thing is that they don't seem to include Windows or any sort of operating system. So after spending hours installing 7 CD's worth of stuff, I can't get anywhere after booting up, other than IBM's Rescue and Recovery program.

I guess there wasn't much point to this blog other than telling my sad sad story. Sorry.

Toys

Some friends were talking about buying a Star Wars Lego set for like $500 the other day, which made me think about my own experiences with Legos and other toys when I was little:

1. Legos - As far as Legos go, I don't remember ever having any of those special sets, where they give you all the pieces you need to build a fire truck, X-Wing, or whatever. All we had was a giant bucket of generic rectangular pieces in the basic colors (red, yellow, blue, green, black). Also, you know how they had those little Lego people? Like there were construction workers, firefighters, cops, baseball players, women in dresses, etc. Well, I think all I had was 2 random guys with interchangeable legs and hats.

So that kind of limited the kinds of stuff I could do with my Legos. I think I just built walls all the time and occasionally a square building. Most of the time my walls had at least a few bricks that were a different color than the rest too, because I always ran out of the original color.

2. He-Man - I might've written about this before, but I had a He-Man action figure that was designed with some sort of spring so when you rotated his torso backwards, he would spin forwards in a punching motion. Unfortunately this also meant that at rest, my He-Man action figure was always facing sideways. I hated that thing because of that, but I loved the cartoon, and that was the only figure I had of him, so I had to deal with it.

3. Transformers - Don't think I ever had one. I do remember having something that you could transform, but I'm pretty sure it was one of those copycat brands, cause I remember it being a pretty crappy toy.

4. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - I've written about being Donatello for Halloween before, but I don't think I had any of the Turtle action figures. I remember really wanting the Turtle Van though, it just looked cool. Too bad it cost too much.

Thinking about all these toys I had, seems like the common theme is that there was always something more I wished I had in every situation. Whether it was Lego pieces with actual shapes that had "angles" instead of just blocks, a He-Man that didn't look like he had a severe case of scoliosis, a "real" Transformer instead of a fake one, or the Turtle Van, I was never fully satisfied with the toy I had in my hand.

Maybe that says something about the insatiable forces of human nature. Or maybe that just says that all my toys sucked and I was deprived as a kid. I'm not sure which.

*****

House Hunting

Now that I'm 25, I guess I don't really think about toys anymore. I think about buying a townhouse.

As I've mentioned before, I went looking at townhouses a couple times in the last month or so, but haven't seen anything that really inspires me as being "perfect". Everything is either too old, too far from work, too small, or too expensive.

Problem is, almost all of these places are still being bought pretty fast by other people on the market. It surprises me that there are so many buyers who are willing to pay so much for these townhouses, but I think that also means that I am being too picky in my search.

My original plan was to decide on a place and close by mid-summer. I still plan on meeting that goal, so I guess that means decision time is soon.

It's an exciting time but also more stressful than anything else. The thought of being in hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and possibly having to make mortgage payments every month until I'm in my 50's is hardly a nice thought.

Committing to a house around here also kind of forces me to commit to this job for a long time, at least for a few years I would say. Now, it's not like I hate this job or anything. But I have to admit that throughout throughout the past few years, there have been times when I have thought about just up and quitting to go do something else. Go back to school for a grad degree, become a professional poker player, or start my own business.

If I take out a big mortgage to buy a house right now, that really limits my options for the future. I wouldn't say it's impossible to change my career path, but it will definitely be a lot tougher. I'd have to really think twice before considering any of those things I just mentioned.

It just scares me to picture myself in a few years, feeling trapped in a life that I can't get out of. I don't want to paint myself into a corner, but in some ways that is what this home buying stuff feels like.

At the same time, I know I'm not getting any younger. And if I don't start making some tough decisions now, I might never move forward. As nice and stress free as it might be to continue living where I am now, paying rent so I don't have to commit to anything long term, I know I can't do this forever. To stay would be wasting time, like the Dave Matthews song says, and I don't want that either.