Because we here in the Creative Ideas & Editorial Revision Department at Meaningless Musings believe in continuing with a successful idea until it’s completely run its course (and even quite a bit beyond), we once again proudly present the Name That Quote game!

Standard rules apply – try to name the source and the speaker, no looking up answers. This time the quotes aren’t limited to any particular genre. Some are from TV, some from movies, some from various print media, some are song lyrics. Post your answers in the comments and I’ll update the post with answers as people guess ‘em.

1. “Something snapped inside of him – he was a raging lion” – Correctly identified as being from “Lambert, the Sheepish Lion,” one of Disney’s finest contributions to culture as we know it. It’s a cartoon short that’s (I learned tonight) available in its entirety on YouTube! If you’ve never seen it, I strongly encourage you to click that link.

2. “[name omitted because it would immediately give the source away], there’s a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases.” “Awww – five days? But I’m mad now!” – Correctly, if tentatively, identified as being from “The Simpsons,” and more specifically Homer himself.

3. “Listen – I am your superior officer and when I tell you to maintain radio silence that means you hush!” – Correctly identified as being from “The Dukes of Hazzard,” and therefore obviously (at least I assume obviously) said by Rosco, who for my money combined with Boss Hogg for one of the finest comedy duos in TV history.

4. “Her mother wasn’t nearly so picky.” – Correctly identified as being from “Aladdin,” as the Sultan bemoans Jasmine’s high standards.

5. “Ever since we’ve decided to adopt leaves as standard currency, we are of course all extremely rich.” – Correctly identified as being from Douglas Adams’s The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, in a particularly entertaining scene where the Golgafrinchams (sp?) are trying to work out economic theory on the newly-settled Earth.

6. “You will have eyes to see and for that night you’ll be a bright lamp burning in the darkness.” – Correctly identified as being from Peter Mayer’s Jack-O-Lantern song, John’s Garden.

7. “Kitty kitty kitty kitty kitty!” – Correctly identified as being said by none other than than paragon of virtue and erudism himself, Jay as he bangs on the glass of a pet shop near the beginning of “Mall Rats.”

8. “Bye, trumpet player I don’t know. Now I understand why your music is so sad.” – Correctly identified as being from “Scrubs,” as J.D. sadly moves out of the house he and Turk have shared for almost four seasons and says his goodbyes to a picture of Dizzy Gillespie.

9. “President Andrew Jackson, in the main foyer of his White House, had a big block of cheese.” – Correctly identified as being part of Leo McGarry’s “Big Block of Cheese Day” speech on “The West Wing”

10. “We bears all have one common dream.” – Apparently recognized, but so far not identified.

11. “Superior, it’s said, never gives up her dead.” – Correctly identified as being from Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

12. “I’m so smart it’s almost scary. I guess I’m a child progeny.” – Believe in yourself, Joel. Correctly identified as being from “Calvin and Hobbes” – click here and search for “progeny” to see the source strip.

And that wraps up the game, kids! Seems like these used to take longer… I must be picking easy quotes. Thanks for playing, happy Wednesday, etc., etc.

I first worked at EWALU back in the summer of 1993, motivated as much by the fact that I needed a summer job as by any deep commitment to the place. I’d been a camper for four summers and had some fine times (including, but certainly not limited to, an opportunity to co-referee the 1990 Grand International Trans-Global Canoe Race Extravaganza), but never seriously envisioned myself as a future counselor. I assumed my college summers would be much like my high school ones; late nights at the park across the street, the occasional evening of role-playing games in Kyle’s basement, wistfully remembering the days when Silkworm could still be found in arcades. Immensely nerd-ish stuff, I’ll concede, but I had the sort of group of friends that made it entirely worth missing at college. And miss it I did; my freshman year at Wartburg was at best worth a “meh.”

During the spring of the aforementioned freshman year I started thinking about summer job options. Hy-Vee seemed like the most logical course – most of my friends worked there and didn’t seem to fiercely hate it – but I found it impossible to get excited about that prospect. So I found myself stopping by the EWALU booth on Work At Camp Day in Buhr Lounge one February afternoon and filling out an application. And coming back later to interview (which I apparently did a horrific job of – I was very much a “We need more male counselors” hire that first year) and signing a contract when they sent me one. I still wasn’t sure about the idea of being a counselor, but I never got around to pursuing any other options, so Memorial Day weekend found my dad and I on the way to Strawberry Point, he excited about his boy following in his footsteps as EWALU staff and me terrified and wondering what I’d gotten myself into. I clearly recall telling him I’d changed my mind as he slowed to turn off of Highway 3. No thanks, I’ll work at Hy-Vee after all, this was a mistake, Dad. Thankfully, he was wiser than I and ignored me entirely.

I’m aware it’s sort of melodramatic to say that summer was life-changing, but I stand by it nonetheless. EWALU was the first place I felt like I fit in, like I was contributing and doing the things I was supposed to do well. And those things were vastly important – I was ministering to kids, helping create a safe, fun environment, contributing to a team and being part of a community. I’d be surprised if I was actually all that good at the job that first summer (certainly I didn’t fit all that well into the staff, socially) – I still needed to absorb much of what I was learning – but a tremendous amount of who I am today is built on a foundation laid that summer.

I spent six summers at camp and while they were never again nearly that life-changing (thankfully; that would have gotten exhausting) they comprised 63 of the best weeks of my life. In 1999 not being there felt like walking around sans an arm. Except that I could still clap. Over the years it got less jarring to spend summers not at camp, but I’d always get a bit wistful around Memorial Day weekend. Still, I’d had six summers – more than most people get – and I wasn’t in college anymore. I didn’t think about it much. Until two springs ago, when my friend Adrian decided I should come back for one more summer. He needed a health officer and was convinced I was the man for the job. It was flattering, and I was vastly tempted, but I decided to do the responsible thing and pass. I spent a week at camp as a volunteer (“camp grandpa”) instead, and drove up for several other random weeknights to spend time with the staff. And I found myself getting hooked again.

I found myself back in the midst of a group of friendly, excited, Christian people who were eager to include me in their community and willing to let me be part of their experience. I got to play campfire guitar again, got to hike around woody trails again, got to be part of some of the inside jokes and watch some of the triumphs again. It was fantastic; more recharging than I could have imagined. And I was fairly burned out at both of my real-world jobs – the recharging was entirely welcome.

That fall my friend Jesse was hired as the Program Director and he immediately started petitioning me to come back for another summer. And, fresh on the heels of a summer of being sort of on staff I was much more receptive to the idea than I had been the year before. So I started making sure my finances were in order enough to make it feasible and signed a contract for summer number seven. And, of course, immediately started worrying. Would it be weird to be the old guy? Was I looking at my old summers through rose-colored glasses and creating a standard that couldn’t possibly be met? Could I really afford it?

All of which fears were, of course, groundless. Camp, I’m pleased to report, is every bit as fantastic as camp ever was. More so, even, now that I’m older and more aware of my weaknesses and strengths and especially more so now that I’m comparing it with the real world instead of with Wartburg. It was recharging and empowering and exhilarating and every bit as downright dandy as it had ever been. I wish I was still there. I hope I have another summer in me somewhere down the road. If not, I’ll settle for the occasional retreat (two coming up in October!) or work day (one coming up tomorrow! First time back at camp since the summer ended! Yay!); one takes what one can get, I guess.

It did pretty much kill off blogging, didn’t it? Sorry about that, any of you who might have noticed. I continue to stand by my 12 posts for 2006 goal; we’ll see what happens.

This is the place where I am most wanted,
Where everything I am comes from
–”Boulder River,” Chris Cunningham/John Hermanson

This from the crazy-what-you-can-find-on-the-Internet-isn’t-it files: here’s a site that’ll make a customized map of what countries you’ve been to. Interesting stuff. Here’s mine:

It doesn’t seem like I should be able to claim all that red space for Canada just from a one-week backpacking trip to Banff, and I’m intrigued by how hard it is to tell that there are 6 European countries represented in that little bit of red (those from the WFWCCB’s 1997 Europe tour). It’s interesting to have it graphically illustrated just how well-traveled I’m really not; there’s very little red on that map. It’s sort of fun to look at, though, since it brings back memories of those trips and starts my mind wandering about other parts of the map I might fill in.

The site also has a “what states have you visited?” dealie. This one was harder to fill out; twice I thought I was done adding states and then noticed ones I’d missed (Texas and Illinois, for instance, apparently escaped my memory the first time around). I’m still not sure it’s 100% accurate:

It seems likely to me that at some point in my youth I visited Nebraska and/or New Mexico and/or Louisiana and/or Mississippi, but I don’t clearly remember visiting any of them so they’re on my “I don’t think so…” list and I encourage any readers who know one way or another to chime in with the authoritative word.

Even more so than the world map, this one triggers a pile of memories. My backpacking trip to Montana is right there in the string of red states stretching west from Iowa. That line down to the southeast is band tour to Florida and a road trip to Atlanta with my parents. Heck, just seeing Texas highlighted (once I remember to do so (“have I ever been to Texas? Hmmm…”)) reminds me of my childhood there. Interesting stuff, if flawed for many of the same reasons as the world map (I shouldn’t be able to claim all of Indiana, for instance, and Iowa, Texas, and Kansas should be somehow set apart from Wyoming).

I’d be curious to see what sort of maps other people come up with. Those of you readers with blogs should make your own where-I-been maps and post ‘em (here are the links again – world map, states map). I won’t call it a “meme” because I think “meme” is a silly word and I have no idea how to pronounce it, but I encourage you to nonetheless.

Thanks to those of who who’ve been stopping by Central Standard Blog, by the way. I assume from the average length of stay and from the amount of traffic it’s been getting that it’s not all people looking for this blog and startled by the new link. Feel free to chime in with comments, even if you’re just suggesting something else you’d like Matt and I to write about.

And an especially huge thanks to any of you readers who might have been in Madison on the 18th for Joel’s birthday; that day turned out excellent beyond the planning teams’ wildest hopes and I very much appreciate all the people who turned out for my little baby brother’s birthday festivities.

The days-till-summer-camp timer stands at an even 60. Huzzah and/or hooray!

A brief step back into the old “name that lyric!” game, just in case you were missing it…

So here I am in some new e-digs. Very exciting stuff; I hope I didn’t put you out too much with having to change links or bookmarks. Honestly, I have higher hopes for Central Standard Blog remaining an interesting read than I do for Meaningless Musings – it occurred to me the other day that Matt and I might as well include those interested masses (that’s (hopefully) you) in the band-related e-mail discussions we’ve been having for the last five years.

Anyway – if you don’t mind, I’d like to delve briefly into that lamest of blogging traditions and spend some posting time talking about why I don’t post more often (I know, I know – be still, thy beating heart (I accidentally used that phrase at work (“work” for me being a cardiovascular surgery ward at a hospital) the other day. Awkward!)). I find it difficult to figure out exactly what I want to do with Meaningless Musings. Blogs work best, I think, when they fit some sort of niche – some blogs are wildly entertaining (Mark’s – the one linked there – is actually dangerous to read; I find it often becomes hard to breathe), others are intentionally designed to be windows into the blogger’s life so that they can be means of remaining in contact with people important to the blogger, others are simply mediums for showcasing significant writing ability – a free publication mechanism. Still others are fascinating sources of interesting links that the blogger has already gone to the trouble of finding for you. And, of course, many are combinations of these – the “big” blogs that get thousands and thousands of hit a day particularly, but even among those links I provided (all but one of which are from my blogroll, and I intend to rectify that soon, Kelly) there’s a great deal of crossover; any of those blogs is easily “good enough” and more than good enough to become a wide-circulation blog if it just became more widely known. I’m out of luck there, though – I lack the ability and/or extroversion and/or predilection for wide surfing required. So mostly I post because I enjoy reading so many peoples’ blogs and feel like I should give something back to the Blog-a-Lee community and because enough people seem to read the posts to make it seem somewhat worthwhile. That’s not really a formula for particular motivation, though, and therefore I end up with a post once every month or so. I badly missed my post-a-week goal, but I’ll nonetheless boldly step forth and promise you, Faithful Reader, an average of a post a month – heck, at least a post a month – for 2006!

There isn’t much by way of newsy news from the last month, so I’ll summarize in a series of unconnected sentences for those of you interested in what news there may be from Charlieville: Kenosha (the event, not the town (the event’s in the town, yes, but “Kenosha” as used here is a thing, not a place))’s coming up this weekend; I’ll try to post some sort of recap. I’ve signed a contract to spend another summer in the woods at EWALU this summer, which is simultaneously exciting and terrifying – it feels like my first summer again. Again, I’ll probably write more about that at some point. I’ll hopefully be a Hawkeye again next fall; nothing’s definite yet but indications are positive. Moving day’s coming up again; after four years of not moving I’ll be moving twice in 9 months. Phoo on moving, says I, but I say it without losing sight of how fortunate I am to have a fun bunch of folks to live with (and who seem to be willing to put up with having an old man around the place). The Cajee Brass almost had a reunion concert scheduled but had to cancel for want of trumpets, which goes to show that low brass is not only cooler but more reliable.

Okay, then – content-ful posts to follow (heck, I just laid out themes for a half-dozen posts). A blessed Lent to you whether or not you’re interested in being Lent-ally blessed.

Several weeks ago one of my co-workers was complaining about toe pain. Apparently the big toenail on her left foot was in the early stages of ingrown-dom and was causing her much grief. “My word,” she sort of said (I’m paraphrasing in hopes of keeping this a family-rated blog), “my toe is certainly causing me more than a bit of discomfort. I wish there was an easy way to alleviate said pain.”

Well, one of my other co-workers pointed out, there are doctors who specialize in such things…

“Actually, though I mean no disparagement of the medical profession in general,” she didn’t say but the gist was the same, “I consider doctors to be the sort of people I wish to avoid, as a general policy. In my years working as a registered nurse I’ve oft seen things to leave me somewhat unimpressed.”

Well, said another one of my co-workers (up to this point the only one aware that this blog existed), have you read Charlie’s online dealie about fixing his toenail?

I had hoped, actually, to stay out of the conversation, but there was immediate demand to see said online dealie so I dutifully pulled up this post from my early days of meaningless musing. People read it, there was general consensus that I was a big freak, and we went on with our night’s work.

I never gave it more thought, until a couple of weeks ago when the same co-worker came up to me and said, “Well, I tried your toe-fixing technique.”

I was completely floored – had no idea what she was talking about, at first. But indeed, as she told the story, she’d printed the blog entry out so as not to skip any steps and taken Swiss Army knife and pliers in hand and by heck done a little do-it-yourself podiatry. “It was remarkably discomfort-causing,” she more or less said. “I spent some time thinking back on various events in my life that have caused me physical anguish and this experience certainly ranks high among them.”

But, in the end, she concurred that the short-term discomfort of cutting into her own toe with a camping knife and then ripping part of said toe off with household pliers was absolutely worth it. She said she’d kept a copy of the post in case she ever needed to suggest the therapy to anyone else.

Which makes it seem as if this blog has actually done some good for someone. Which is, to say the least, a daunting concept.

Well hello there and a happy 2006. I hope you all had dandy holidays – I certainly did. I heart family-oriented holidays, and at least in my family there’s no holiday family-er than Christmas.

Looking around Blogistan it looks as if resolution lists are the order of the day, but I’m somewhat disinclined to publish mine (other than, of course, a firm commitment of a post a day for 2006!), so instead I’ll ask for your help with a Jule-ish problem that’s bugged me for the last couple of years.

Specifically, today we’re going to be discussing Christmas carol lyrics. There are two classic Christmas hymns that offer themselves, I think, to different interpretations. Certainly they’ve always caused me some confusion, anyway. Absent any way to actually ask the composer what his intentions were, I’ll do it in the form of a poll (or a “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” Ask The Audience lifeline). I’ll provide the lyric in question and then the various interpretations and you cast your votes. We’ll call the results canonical, so vote carefully. Choice A on each is the way I’ve always interpreted the lyric.

Lyric 1: Hark, the Herald Angels Sing

Hark, the herald angels sing/glory to the newborn king!

Which of these is the most accurate rewrite?

A – A shepherd says, “Hark! Lookit over there at those angels singing! Praise to this king they’re singing about, whomever he may be!”

B – A shepherd says, “Hark! Lookit over there at those angels singing, ‘Glory to the newborn king!’!”

C – Several angels (some of them possibly but not necessarily named Harold) sing “Hark! Glory to the newborn king!”

Lyric Two: The First Noel

The first Noel/The angels did say/Was to certain poor shepherds in fields where they lay

Which of these is the most accurate rewrite?

A – Angels, reminiscing sometime after the first Christmas, talk about how the very first Noel they ever Noeled was to some shepherds.

B – The first Noel the angels said was said to a bunch of lying-down shepherds.

Weigh in, cast your votes, help clarify things for my poor widdle brain! Your opportunity for a little civic service this fine rainy January day.

Tonight at work I’ve been given the inspiring task of sitting in front of a computer from 11 to 7 without falling asleep (ah, government work), so – inspired by my recent reading of How To Watch Revenge of the Sith – I’ve decided to devote another post’s worth of valuable blog space to discussing Star Wars. I think Mr. Yeti makes some good points (although it seems like he should learn how to spell “Anakin,” “Kenobi,” and/or “Lucas” before his career as an Internet Star Wars-ophile can really take off).

The thing about the prequels – and they’ll always be referred to as “prequels,” I think, because they’re obviously dependent on Episodes IV, V, and VI (a point John made very well back when he was still blogging). If they were better movies or if they were more consistent with the original trilogy they might be called “the first three movies” or something similarly inspiring. Unless Lucas puts out another re-cut of the originals that’s tremendously bad in hopes of smoothing out the disparity, though (which would be unsurprising but very very sad), I think they’ll remain “prequels.”

As I was saying, though – the thing about the prequels is that they’re not horrible movies unto themselves. They’ve got very strong premises, stunning visuals, lovely soundtracks, excellent acting (Christiansen and Lloyd notwithstanding, although I think that might have been intentional – Lucas trying to justify Mark Hamill’s stiff acting by presenting the idea that the Skywalkers are just awkward emoters from way back). Set in one of the great settings in the history of fiction, too – I’d say that LAFFA Galaxy ranks with Middle Earth or Narnia as an outstanding place to set a story. There was so much potential for these movies to be great – all they needed was a few good scripts and a good director. Ideally a few great scripts and a brilliant director, but I think “good” would have more than cut it. If Lucas could have let himself turn the reins over just a little – pointed out to himself, perhaps, that the brilliant premise and stunning special effects and very good basic storyline were all his and that he could still have final veto power over anything and that his name was still and would forevermore be inextricably linked to the Star Wars world so maybe it would be okay if someone else was in charge of exactly what the characters said and maybe it would be okay if someone else was in charge of exactly how the movies were put together – then these movies could have been absolutely spectacular. With the basically unlimited budget and the complete resources of ILM available they could have been the Star Wars movies that Lucas wanted to make back in the 70′s and 80′s. And because of that fact – because they danced so close to “incredible” but only reached “okay, maybe good in parts” – they’re almost painful to watch.

Remember back when The Phantom Menace hit the theaters? Remember the immense amount of pre-movie hype? PepsiCo, if memory serves, invested over a billion dollars in advertising – everywhere you looked, it seemed, you saw Obi-Wan or Darth Maul or wee little Anakin. Every entertainment-related magazine published a Star Wars issue. Lucas demanded that theaters be compliant with his new sound system standard so theaters across the country upgraded – Phantom Menace triggered a nationwide theater ticket price hike. Inspired by the memory of what it had been like to see the original trilogy in the theaters a few years before, Star Wars geeks tingled in anticipation of a brand new chapter – especially those of us who’d been either too young or too clueless to be caught up in the magic the first time around. “Remember how AWESOME it was when we saw the digitally remastered (!) X-Wings fighting over the Death Star?!?” we giddily exclaimed. “Remember how cool the new lotsa-aliens Mos Eisley looked!?!?” Occasionally someone would say something like, “Remember how confused and unimpressed you were with digital Jabba? Remember how you couldn’t figure out why on earth Lucas would put that scene in? Remember how it felt like the whole point was to say ‘Hey, lookit what I can do!’?” but those people were categorically snubbed.

The lines were insane for Phantom Menace, but we were sure it was very much worth our time. I sat in the parking lot of the Crossroads 12 Theatres in Waterloo and played 3-handed 500 with Jason and Mark while we waited. There were TV camera crews walking around getting human interest “Hey, you’re a geek, aren’t you!” pieces and people dressed up in costumes despite the summer heat. When the line finally started moving there were people literally hopping up and down with excitement (Mark and I hopped up and down, too, but we were just mocking them). We sat impatiently through the previews, cheered when the “Lucasarts” logo appeared on the screen, cheered even louder when the immensely kick-ass first chord of John Williams’s score rang through the speakers, and settled back into our seats prepared to be blown away as the cool trapezoidal blue text crawl started (some of us quietly reading it aloud, as all blue words must needs be read).

Two hours later, we walked out of the theater confused and underwhelmed. The movie certainly had Star Wars-y elements, but there were so many jarringly weird bits (no pun intended). Why had Lucas gone away from making aliens cool and/or useful to the plot characters and made them all silly instead? Did the movie’s climactic ending really center around Anakin pushing the wrong button in a starship? Why oh why were there no characters in this movie that we were interested in? Where, in a nutshell, was the cool?

Nothing daunted, we decided we must have just missed something and promptly went back into the theater for the second showing (complain though I might about how disappointing these movies were, they were still Star Wars films and I’m still a Star Wars geek – I saw all three prequels twice on opening day). Same result, though; we left feeling like we’d missed something we were supposed to see.

Apparently the feeling was fairly global. Remember when Attack of the Clones came out? There was quite a bit of hooplah, but no more than any other summer blockbuster would receive. Certainly not a This Is The Only Thing Going On In The World Of Cinema-level carpet out-rolling like Phantom Menace received. And Attack of the Clones was better than Phantom Menace but still disappointing. And then Revenge of the Sith came out almost quietly – certainly compared to Menace – and had some parts that were better than AotC but some that were worse and was overall underwhelming again.

And that’s it. No more Star Wars films, and I for one feel like we’re still sort of owed three Star Wars films. They were breathtaking eye candy, but they weren’t sagas or epics or any of the other superlatives that they were darn well supposed to be. Instead they’re three very strong supporting examples of the theory that there’s no more important part of the moviemaking process than the scriptwriter. Sigh.

In keeping with the rant-y theme of this post so far, I’ll go through some specific points of the prequels that annoy me. All of these have probably been covered elsewhere already (some of them probably by me in my last Star Wars post), but here are a few more specific gripes with the three prequels:

>>Why oh why oh why did Lucas decide to introduce midichlorians? Why why why? The Force is possibly the single coolest idea in the entire LAFFA Galaxy setting; I can’t think of another example where fantasy and sci-fi are blended so seamlessly. And there’s already a great explanation of it in Star Wars: An energy field created by all living things which, Ben tells us, surrounds us, penetrates us, binds us all together, and partly controls our actions while still obeying our commands. Very nice indeed – a science-y explanation of magic, basically. Tiny little creatures in our cells? That’s a horrible explanation, and it makes Ben sounds like an idiot when he explains the Force to Luke in Star Wars. Maybe he also thought midichlorians were dumb and thought he’d pretend they didn’t exist by not telling Luke about them.

Seriously, though – I can’t think of a single reason why adding the idea of midichlorians was anything but dumb. Did he want to soften the blow of explaining Anakin’s virgin birth by having tiny little subcellular creatures be responsible instead of a mysterious Force? Did he want a way to quantify Anakin’s Force-ish badassness by letting Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan take a midichlorian count? Or – this is my personal favorite – had he made a bet with Spielberg that he could introduce one really stupid idea into The Phantom Menace and still have the top-grossing film of the summer?

>>I thought Jar-Jar was annoying, but not so much because of how he was characterized as because of the role he was given. All the important, acting-intensive roles in the old trilogy were given to humans. Yoda comes closest to breaking that, but he’s really just a supporting character in the old trilogy; a way for Luke to learn more mad Jedi skillz. There’s a reason for that, and it’s not just because it requires a huge technology investment to make a special effect into a main character. People are used to reading emotion from other people. At best we can read broad emotions from non-humans: the dog is happy to see me. This wasp seems to wish I wasn’t here. When you have a non-human in a major acting role like Lucas tried to do with Jar-Jar it doesn’t work. We the audience see a special effect that’s emoting, not just the emotion. Sure, Jar-Jar was annoying, but Chewie would have been just as intolerable placed in a major role like Jar-Jar’s. Jar-Jar could have been cool (or at least interesting) in a supporting role, but he’s not at all fit to carry a major role.

>>Why did Lucas decide Tatooine was so important? It went from, “If there’s a bright center to the universe, you’e on the planet it’s furthest from,” in Star Wars to being the site of much of the action in the prequels. Almost every time Lucas tried to do a cute nod to the old trilogy it didn’t work. Look, they’re back on Tatooine! That’s neat, huh? Now we can meet Owen and Beru when they were young, even though we hardly met them in Star Wars and we don’t really care about meeting them again! Yippee! That sure does make hiding Luke on Tatooine seem like an idiot idea, though. At least pick a spot other than the hut right by Anakin’s mom’s grave and maybe change Luke’s last name since we’ve established that Anakin Skywalker is a galactic celebrity. Far too high a price in awkward plot mechanics to pay for being able to say “Ooo… Tatooine! I remember that!”

>>While I’m nitpicking, why do you suppose the names of Sith Lords became less subtle between the old trilogy and prequels. In the old trilogy we had Darth Vader, which has a lovely evil sound to it but doesn’t really mean anything. Maybe part of “invader”. We also have the Emperor, but he never uses his Sith title – which we can interpret either as Lucas brilliantly forseeing his desire to have the Palpatine Is Sidious connection be all secretive and startling in the prequels or as Lucas not having thought of the idea of the Sith being ancient enemies of the Jedi and the Emperor being a great Sith Lord as well as a regular old Dark Jedi. But, to stay somewhat on track – we have Vader. Very cool, evil-sounding name. In the prequels, we add Darths Maul, Sidious, and Tyrannus and learn about former Sith Lords Darths Bane and (this one is my favorite – run out of unsubtle “this word sounds bad!” names, George?) Plagueis. Good grief. If the Emperor had successfully turned Luke to the dark side in Return of the Jedi, I think his cool Sith name should have been Darth I’mGoingToGoHurtSomePuppiesNow.

>>I’ve complained about this before, but I can’t understand Lucas’s insistence that having cameo appearances by characters from the old trilogy is cool. I think that meeting Boba Fett as a young kid works fairly well, but only because he’s more of a plot device than a character in the old trilogy. If Lucas had known how he was going to use wee Boba when he made Jedi, he would certainly have had a huge, drawn-out fight between Boba and Luke where Boba expressed his lifelong hatred of Jedi. It would have been silly and a delay in the plot, but by heck it would have been a tie-in back to another movie. The touching moment ‘twixt Yoda and Chewbacca in RotS was perhaps the dumbest moment in all six movies, made even more so by the fact that Lucas felt an entire scene on Kashyyyk was necessary to set it up. Both CGI Jabba appearances (in I and IV) are grating in their lameness; non-CGI Jabba was a very cool character. CGI Jabba was a joke.

Even the non-cameo crossovers were awkward. R2-D2 and C-3PO didn’t need to be in the prequels. They had major roles but were still basically just “hey, I know him!” cameos. I was stunned and unimpressed when I saw them in Phantom Menace and I never changed my mind about it. If Lucas does remake the old trilogy (which I can see him doing – get rid of all the pesky actors and make the whole thing CGI) I hope Artoo at least gets to keep his ability to fly and defeat super battle droids single-handedly and whatnot.

I’m sure I could find more things to list, but this is a pretty long post (especially considering its completely meaningless content) already. If you’re interested in reading further ranting-by-me about Star Wars, feel free to peruse my review of Revenge of the Sith. If I think of more particularly objectionable points I’ll add ‘em to this post later. I certainly encourage feedback. Disagree with me or add to the list – either way, I’d love to hear it.

On a more serious and relevant note, Happy New Year’s to you all and a blessed 2006. You know, just in case I don’t get around to posting again until next December.

Well, then – that was a couple of months of not much blogging from me then, wasn’t it? Sorry about that; it’s a surprisingly easy habit to fall out of. I’d argue that the move and adjusting to the new living environment and my new computer keyboard and the wintry weather threw me off, but nonetheless I suppose I failed to uphold some sort of unspoked blogger-ly commitment to you my readers (both of you).

Specifically to guard against this sort of thing, I set a posting trigger for myself several months ago – a specific criterion that requires me to post when it’s met. And, a few days ago, met it was, so here I am back on the blogosphere. Maybe it’ll be easier to keep posting than it was to start posting again.

Nothing fancy, though. To keep me from having to actually formulate a cohesive entry, I’ll once again lean on the timeless blogger’s crutch of cute little bullet points. And away we go -

• As far as actual news goes, the big event in my life of late is a move back to my old high school stomping grounds. I live not quite two blocks from my old high school home now – my (somewhat lame) wishes that I lived closer to John so as not to have to walk so far have been granted, sort of. If he hadn’t moved away I’d lived quite a bit closer than I used to. It’s odd; certainly a different sort of social setting. It’s nice to be closer to work and fun to be living with a bunch of camp people (all 6 of us (7, if you count Jesse)) are EWALU alums), but I’ve always handled change poorly, so it’s been sort of a weird transition. Mayhap I’ll blog in more detail about it someday.

  My social circle has seen a fair amount of job-getting and child-having of late, too, but I’ll not take away peoples’ chances to share their own news (Matt and Jesse, in particular, certainly have blog-worthy events to share from the last month or so. Updates, gentlemen! You can’t let a blog languish un-updated for weeks at a time; that’s all sorts of uncool).

• As you may have noticed, I’ve admitted defeat in the face of spam commenters (what an odd thing spam is. I assume it’s very cheap to send out spam e-mail but it can’t be free and I have trouble imagining that there’s any sort of return for the spammer – surely no one actually buys the products they claim to be selling. So it makes no financial sense. I’m forced to assume, then, that spam exists merely to annoy. Which is a sad thought, but at least if it’s true then the spammers of the world are succeeding brilliantly; that’s nice for them) and activated the annoying word-verification dealie for comments. Sorry about that – those drive me nuts, too, but I was deleting 4 or 5 spam comments a day. It should be noted that this in no way weakens my position when criticizing Jess for activating the annoying word-verification dealie on her blog.
• A couple of link-ish notes to bring to your attention, too – there’s a new blog linked. I found Sean Meade‘s blog a couple of weeks ago and have enjoyed reading through his archives. Sean’s a fellow Iowa City West/Wartburg man, and from what I can gather he rarely disappoints his readers with long periods of e-silence.

  Also worth noting is that Paul Cantrell has been posting some new audio clips recently. For those of you who haven’t checked out his work yet or who got out of the habit during his summer sabbatical, hie thee to In The Hands and listen. It’s phenomenal stuff; I stand by my earlier comparison of Paul to Vladmir Horowitz in the level of understanding he conveys in his playing. Pure Internet gold.

• Here’s a question I pose to those of you familiar with the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy oeuvre: when you read that the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything was “what do you get when you multiply six by nine?” did you notice how that product isn’t actually 42? I don’t ask that question to be snarky – I’d always assumed that was an intentional bit put in by Douglas Adams, either to illustrate that the question-finding program had been flawed by the Golgafrinchans pushing out the native Earthlings or to poke fun at technology or possibly just to make a silly joke or – my personal favorite explanation – assign a mathematical untruth to the fundamental question of the universe and thus illustrate how fundamentally weird and messed-up the universe is. Whatever the reason, it never occurred to me that it was purely a throw-away bit.

  But then I was sitting around last week after a weekly poker game that I participate in, talking to a couple of the other players. One of them’s a pastor-in-training and he commented that wearing clerical garb tends to inspire people to try to ask supremely profound questions, presumably to impress the garb-wearer. “I get a lot of ‘What’s the meaning of life?’ sorts of questions,” he said. “I usually tell ‘em 42.”

  We all laughed appreciatively (more, I suspect, to make sure people knew we caught the allusion than because it was actually all that funny – I find people do that sort of thing a lot), and I offered the fun fact that six times nine does indeed equal 42 in base-13. I got two blank stares, so I tried to explain the math a little more, but their confusion stemmed from where I was getting “six times nine” in the first place.

  Apparently they’d both read Arthur’s Scrabblic question as “what do you get when you multiply six times seven?” I concede that’s more mathematically logical, but it’s not nearly as clever and it’s not what Douglas Adams wrote – a position I spent the next several minutes trying to defend. They were both sure the book had said 6×7, and I began to think that maybe I was the one who’d misread (it occurred to me too late that that since we’d been playing poker at Greg’s I could have gotten to a copy of the books in about three strides. Or gone and woken up Greg and demanded that he weigh in on the argument in about ten). It was also suggested that perhaps Adams had simply made a math error.

  It’s obviously no sort of big deal in any cosmic sense, but if those of you who’ve read the HHGG books would weigh in as to whether you noticed that the math didn’t work out and – if so – what you thought Adams was trying to say thereby I’d appreciate it.

• I find I almost enjoy the baseball off-season more than the on-season. I’ve spent a lot of time recently following the general managers’ chess game as they trade players and activate players and offer players immense amounts of money. If only there was also some baseball to watch, the off-season would be ideal. If I was the sort of blogger who found myself being frustrated because I wanted to post more often I’d start a baseball blog. This year, of course, the Cubs are a mortal lock for the World Series championship.
• This year, I’m pleased to report, Iowa seems to have finally remembered what December is supposed to be like. Here’s to three more months of snow and sub-zero temperatures! And, hopefully, to our landlord replacing our furnace with one that’s not as inefficient as a furnace is legally allowed to be!

Just in case I fall back into non-posting for another couple of months I’ll say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year’s now. Also happy birthday to my two holiday-birthdayed readers. If you’re not doing anything Friday, stop by the Java Creek Cafe in Cedar Rapids for a Christmas Soul Hug concert. You know you like you some Christmas music.

I was almost struck by lightning once. ‘Twas the summer of 1998 and I was hanging out in the Trail Room late one evening with Jason when the news came over the camp radio that a tornado warning had been issued. My job as a program area coordinator was to make sure the campers and counselors in my program area got to shelter quickly and safely, which was easy enough to do – I walked the fifty yards from the Trail Room to the Outpost where the Night Campers were cooking supper and said, “Hey, Jesse, we gotta go hang out in the basement for a while.”

“Tornado?” asked Jesse.

“Yep,” I replied.

“I told you,” said Jesse (he’d been predicting bad weather since that afternoon), and then proceeded to round up the campers and other counselors and we walked back to the Trail Room. It was very calmly and efficiently handled. No one panicked, no one was driven barefoot down a dark muddy trail by a screaming crazy woman who was telling them they needed to hurry, damn it, did they want to get killed by a tornado? Not every program area could say as much that night, but that’s another story that doesn’t involve me almost getting killed by a huge white bolt of electric death, so I’ll not digress further.

The Night Campers settled in the Trail Room basement and we sent Jason in search of fruity and/or sugary snacks and started making Wizard of Oz jokes and singing campfire tunes. Then the radio crackled and the Explorer coordinator’s voice came over it asking if anyone had gotten her campers out of SITville.

Explorers are campers who’ve just finished third grade; most weeks they’re the youngest kids on camp. Usually they stay in the cabins close to the main lodge (allowing for “close to the lodge” jokes (was that too obscure? Anyone get that?)), but that week they’d been bumped out to the SITville cabins (so named because the Staff-In-Training usually stayed there) so the main cabins could house confirmation campers. The SITville cabins are quite a bit closer to the Trail Room than they are to the main lodge and Lisa, the Explorer coordinator, was calling to inquire if anyone Trail Room-based would be willing to go get her campers. Seemed reasonable to me, and I was generally predisposed to do nice things for Lisa anyway, so I volunteered and set forth with my trusty gray hat into the pouring rain.

To get from the Trail Room to SITville one must walk along the west edge of Pioneer Plains, a large-ish (a couple of football fields, I’d say) open area in the middle of the woods with a campfire ring where the all-camp Sunday campfire is held. I think the lightning hit somewhere in the middle of the field as I was walking along the edge.

I’ve been a nerd pretty much my whole life. I can intelligently discuss the mechanism by which lightning happens and cite uninteresting facts like how a lightning bolt is hotter than the surface of the sun and how that heat energy creates a thunderclap – I’ll bet you all can, too. That’s sixth grade science stuff. It’s one thing to know how it works, though, and another thing entirely to be right next to ground zero. The flash of light was overwhelming and incapacitating by itself – the world was suddenly lit up as if a billion people were all taking my picture at once. I felt the heat wave wash over me, followed immediately by the shock wave which would eventually become a simple thunderclap once it had had more time to dissipate. It was, altogether, very much so the sort of experience for which the poets once coined the phrase “holy crap!” I dove to the ground and lay face-down for a bit in the wet grass, hoping I hadn’t been blinded and trying to convince myself I hadn’t been killed. And, I think, trying to protect myself from the lightning strike, although I’m not sure what sort of aftershock I was expecting.

I lay there for a few minutes until I could see again and my ears had stopped ringing and I was tired of lying in wet grass in pouring rain. Then I walked the rest of the way to SITville and rounded up the Explorers, exactly none of whom had been woken up by the thunderclap from the lightning strike that had almost Crispy Critter-ed me. The air smelled like ozone and I had a weird taste in my mouth – being almost hit by lightning is very much a five-sense experience.

The next day I went back to Pioneer Plains and looked for the giant smoking crater that must have been left behind (yes, yes, I know, lightning isn’t actually a “strike” in any literal sense and the actual bolt is actually going up. Still, it seemed to me that so immense an event would have left some sort of mark), but I didn’t see anything. I told the story of my harrowing incident, but it received a pretty negative response – Lisa thought I was trying to make her feel bad by making my trip to get her campers sound like an ordeal and Jason pointed out the lack of smoking crater and told me he didn’t believe me (just wait ’till he almost gets hit by lightning someday – two can play the Dismissive Unconcern game, li’l buddy…). So I dropped it; I used it as a message point at a couple of Thursday campfires and looked for a crater at Pioneer Plains when I walked by but it quickly faded from my queue of Oft Told Stories. Tonight, though, a similar story brought it back to mind for me.

Tonight a good friend of mine stopped by to show me his new motorcycle, a 2002 Yamaha something-or-other model crotch rocket racing bike (not exactly this one, but the same sort). It was a really impressive machine and we admired it for a bit and I debated taking it for a spin around the block but decided not to since I don’t own a helmet and my motorcycle skills aren’t nearly up to handling such a powerful beast. Motorcycle-admiring apparently having made us hungry, we decided to go grab a bite at Old Chicago. He told me he’d meet me there; he hadn’t taken it out on the interstate yet and was eager to experience a little high-speed riding.

I’d been waiting at Old Chicago for about 15 minutes when my cell phone rang. It was him, and he sounded quite distraught and stressed. “I’ve had a wreck, man; I got run into by a freaking semi!” he informed me, only afterwards also noting that he was okay. I drove out to the crash site and found him on his phone detailing the event to the Coralville police. Apparently he was just off of the exit ramp and heading into Coralville when a semi truck pulled over into his lane – the trailer hit him in the shoulder and pushed him over and he and the bike skidded off the road and into gravel, where they both slid/rolled to a stop. The bike seemed to be mostly okay, although the left side’s badly scraped up. He’s astonishingly-much unhurt; he has a skinned knee and a badly pulled calf muscle and a great deal of general bruising (tomorrow morning’s going to be no fun at all, buddy). His leather jacket’s scraped up and dusty and some of the seams are torn, but it seems to have mostly done its job and taken the brunt of the gravel-sliding. His helmet’s done for – it’s beaten up badly enough that it’ll have to be replaced – and that’s the scariest bit by far. If he hadn’t been wearing it he’d at the very least have a badly cut-up face and more likely be in the hospital right now with people anxiously wondering when he’s going to wake up. Or if he and the bike had slid left instead of right or not crashed right where the road’s curving left they could have been under the wheels of the semi trailer.

We took him home and he took several ibuprofen and iced his calf (frozen french fries work better than frozen vegetables, I learned) and watched him alternate between marveling at how lucky he was to not be more badly hurt and agonizing over over getting 15 minutes of riding time on his new bike.

It’s amazing to me how fragile life really is. So many things – many of them nothing more than simple bad luck – can pop the bubble and just like that you’re done. Whatever plans you might have had, whatever things you might have done, whatever life you may have brought to other people – gone like that because you happened to be standing in a lightning bolt’s way or a semi driver decided to ignore protocol about lane changes. Or a hurricane rolls through your town or a politician ten thousand miles away decides his country needs something that your country has or some of your cells accidentally mutate into super cells and kill off their neighbors or an idiot with a gun decides it will somehow help him feel better to take your life or a million million other things. It’s an immensely sobering thing to think about, and being at work here in the hospital certainly isn’t helping.

So here’s my bloggish advice to you, which you’re welcome to take or to ignore or to roll your eyes at or whatever you like: take a couple of minutes right now and think about some of the things that make your life something that you wouldn’t want to lose. Take some time to really notice them, to really appreciate them, now while you can.

And always wear your helmet.

As you’re all probably already aware, the good folks at babelfish.altavista.com provide a translation service free of charge to those who might wish to have things translated. Simply enter some text, tell the site which language the text is in and in which language you wish it rendered, and the magic little men that live in the Internet pull out their language dictionaries and scribble away until they have a translation for you. It’s remarkable; the sort of thing that we take for granted now but would have seemed like magic twenty years ago.

It’s not perfect, though, and particularly it’s not reversible – translating into another language and then back to the orginal doesn’t yield the original text. Instead, often, it yields mightily more amusing variants of the same text. For your reading enjoyment today, I’ve set the little translating men at altavista.com to work translating a couple of Matt Hibbard’s more popularly received lyrics. Here we see that the genius of poetic composition is still beyond the realms of machines. Plus it’s really funny. Particularly, I find, if you know the tune it’s quite entertaining to try to sing the new lyrics. Enjoy!

Long Way Home – original quote (lyrics from our Electronic Press Kit): “Let’s take the long way home tonight, the road that winds along the river, and let’s leave the windows down. Let’s just take our time tonight, and let the cool September air blow the hair out of our eyes.”

English-Spanish-English:

“Tonight let us take the long home from the way, the way which the winds along the river and let to us leave the windows down leave to right taking our time us tonight, and lets the September air fresh blow the hair outside our eyes.”

English-French-English:

“Let us take this evening the long house in manner, the road that the winds along the river and let to us leave with the windows leave us to the bottom catch right our time this evening, and leave the fresh air September blow the hair out of our eyes.”

English-German-English:

“Let us long way house, the road this evening take, the hoist abandoned along the river and us let the windows leave us down fair taking our time this evening, and you let cool Septembers air the hair from our eyes burn through”

English-Greek-English:

“Take the long-lasting house of ways tonight, the street that winds at length of river and you leave the windows under precisely you take our time tonight, and leave the cool air September to blow trj’ha from our eyes.”

English-Dutch-English:

“The long manner house vanavond, the way take that winds along the river and leave the windows downstairs demand only to our time vanavond, and let the cold air of September it its from our eyes blow.”

English-Dutch-French-Spanish-English:

“The long one if way house, the highway tonight takes that winds along the river and leaves partly lowers the windows only demands of our time tonight, and lets to the cold air of September he his of our eyes blow.”

Fun, huh? Now let’s try a longer quote.

Mwah – original quote (lyrics from my webpage): “I don’t know what to say or do, but I think I’m in love, in love with you. I hope that you really feel it too, I want to spend every minute with you. I know I’ve said it lots before, but I still think I kinda need to settle the score and let you know what all my words are for. Tell me, do you love me, I implore?”

English-Spanish-English:

“I do not know what to say or does, but think I is in love, in love with you the hope of I that you really feel it also, I wishes to spend every minute with you that I know have said he draws for before, but I still think I a little need to place the account and déjele to know for which they are all my words dígame that, you love to me, imploro?”

English-French-English:

“I what with saying or made, but I think I am in the love, in the love with you the hope of I that you really also smell it, I want to spend each minute with you that I know I said it divides into front batches, but I always I must arrange the points a little and do you let think do not know know for what are all my words say to me that, you like me, I beseech?”

English-German-English:

“I do not know, what to say or you do, but I think, I in the love, in the love with you I hope that you really believe it also, I would like each minute with you are to spend, whom I know I have said, forwards drawn by lots it, but I to still think, I the bischen notch to agree have and you inform you which all my words are for, explain you me that, her me dear, flehe I on?”

English-Greek-English:

“I don’t know what in order to I say or, but think that I am in the love, in the love with you I hope that you him I really consider also, I want to pass each thin with you I know i him they have said the parts before, but think still the need kinda I to install the result and you to inform what all my words are for Tell i, me do love, do implore?”

English-Dutch-English:

“I weet to none what say if, but think am I I in love, in love with you I hope that you feel it really also, wants I each minute with you I spend weet I it the parties voordien has said, but thinks I still kindabehoefte of I the score and you to regulate what already my words for Tell knows does me let be, do you love me, do I implore?”

English-Dutch-French-Spanish-English:

“ME weet no what with the purpose of saying if, but it thinks is me in the love, the love with you I hope that siéntaselo truely also, I do not want to pass every minutes with you weet to me the parties I have said it before, but I still think for kindabeho of I the result and to regulating itself what my words for Tell know already I let be, likes me, implora.”

Her me dear, flehe I on indeed. Couldn’t've said it better myself.