"This will be a day long remembered," he said. He was right!

December 8, 1977. Sound familiar? It should, to any fan of Star Wars who lives, or lived, in South Australia. What was so special? Well...

Uh huh. You guessed. This was the day Star Wars opened in Adelaide -- a long seven months after it opened in the US. That was the way it happened, way back when. Australia might as we have been -- well, Tattooine. 

The tickets had been booked about ten days in advance and picked up about two days before. They were standing on the mantelpiece, just waiting for opening night ... and this was it. On December 8th, just over 1,000 people formed up at the Hoyts Cinema One, in the Regent Arcade, downtown, and ... the rest is history. 

Many people came in costume, looong before the word "cosplay" was invented. Me? No, but I do even remember what I was wearing that night! It was very hot and humid -- as December can be in our neck of the woods. I was 19, plus a few odd weeks, and a movie romance was about to begin that would follow me through the next four decades...

Being 19, I glommed onto Han Solo, of course. The smuggler, the pirate, the gunfighter -- why wouldn't you? It wasn't a question of "not liking" Luke and Leia (which was pronounced Lee-a at the time, remember?), but more about identifying with the powerful "loose cannon" who was (duh) a somewhat more romantic a figure than a farm hand who'd just made it out of the boonies, and a teenage politician.

Sure enough, it didn't take long before Luke and Leia (soon to be pronounced Lay-a ... and make out of that what you will; and people did) were beefed up into full-on action heroes:

Looking back across the years -- and across so many films -- I realize the original Star Wars (not to be known as A New Hope for some time!) was always my real favorite. The others films were not quite what I'd wanted to see as the saga continued. I confess to being somewhat discumknockerated when Return of the Jedi was framed and packaged for fairly young children. I give you a challenge: watch Hope and Jedi back to back, eyes wide open, and focus on Harrison Ford's performance. In Hope, he's acting to adults. In Jedi, he's acting to children. There's a marked difference in the performances; and you'll forgive me if, as an adult, I prefer the Star Wars we enjoyed before it changed direction and was aimed at kids.

So I'll sign off with a bunch of "Snapshots" from behind the scenes, which conjure the distant days when Star Wars was still so new, even the pronunciations were yet to be nailed down ... much less the circumstances of Luke's father! And I do believe I know what I'll be watching tonight...

Of course, there's more (there's always more!), and of course we saw all the other movies, and bought all the DVDs (and before them, the VHS videos, and in future, very likely the Blue-ray disks!), so...

(Copyright stuff on the images: they belong to Lucasfilm Ltd., or possibly even to Disney, these days. I do NOT own them ... I use them here as a celebration of Star Wars, not for personal gain. Call it free advertising for Rogue One, which is imminent. Don't worry, Walt, I won't send the bill. Now, would I do that?!)

Saving the world -- one chocolate bar at a time

Always check out the inside of the wrapper on the chocolate bar. Mostly they're blank, but the really good ones have a story to tell; and it's a game-changer. A "save the planet" story that might not make it into the next Iron Man or Captain America movie, but ... it ain't all that bad. I love this stuff:

Alter Eco oganic chocolate ... the inside story. So cool.

Alter Aco's "Burnt Caramel" flavor ... yum. Seriously.

As I began -- saving the planet, one chocolate bar at a time. I did actually follow their link and touch town on their website. This is really cool stuff, and wouldn't have been imagined back at the millennium. Okay, the product is about a buck more expensive than the usual Nestle, Cadbury, Lindt or Whittacker product, but what the hey? Consider the extra buck a donation -- or even "paying forward" to the future. I'm not so old (yet!) that I don't sometimes wonder if I'll be slipping into a Darth Vader (TM) style breathmask to trundle down to the stores, when I'm as old as Mom is now --

They'll also be making them in pastel shades, tiffany design, paisley embossing, scented with roses and lavender to woo the little old ladies of the day; of whom I shall be one --

Stop laughing.  It's a sobering thought, n'est-ce pas?

LEFT: not the Lady Sith you were thinking of. That's Lady Sif. Somewhat different. And not that I'll expect to look this way at 87, but you get the picture. Just stick a frizzy-perm gray mop on top of this Bright Young Thing and add a walking frame. Better yet, cram the helmet on and leap aboard the scooter ... which will be starlight black with airbrush stormtroopers. Possibly even with a hover mode, with which to frighten the locals, he he he. (I've been hanging out with Dave way too long.)

Or ... we can just save the planet one chocolate bar at a time, and actually be able to breathe in thirty years' time.

Come to think of it, that's not a bad idea. And having said all of the above, I think I'll sign out with Freddie Mercury and Queen, I'm Going Slightly Mad...

Like a movie you've seen too often. Or, just shoot me.

Yes -- exactly, life reaches a point where it seems like a movie you've seen too often. You know the plot and everything about it so well, you doze off ... not so much out of boredom (because Harrison Ford will always be a charmer, no matter how many times you've seen him in this), but with the simple familiarityof the action. It's not that this movie is one iota less than it was the first time you saw it --

Just shoot me. Seriously.
Would it be too droll to add "copyright Lucasfilm"or words along those lines?
Fair usage: call it a free promo for Star Wars. (Don't worry, Walt: I won't bill you, LOL)

-- but there's not enough freshness left to keep you awake and aware for two hours. And the real problem starts when LIFE has reached this same point...

Mom's sick again today. Screen door needs fixing. Shower's not draining properly. Garden needs weeding. I'm tired. I have a headache. This laptop is so getting so slow, I think it's having the cybernetic equivalent of a stroke. Blah, etcetera, blah, so forth, blah, such like.

You can always turn off a movie, but what happens if you turn off LIFE?!

Well, the screen door is booked in for a fix-it session on July 25. I have an appointment for an MRI on the 20th. Dave needs to wiggle the wire "snakes" down the shower drain -- again. Mike and I need to get some fresh air and sunshine, and do some work in the garden -- again. I guess I'll take a nap (again) while I have the chance; and I already took the pills for the headache...uh, again.

What the movie of my life need is a new plot, or new characters!

I listened to a podcast last week: turns out, up to 80% of everything we (think we) see with our physical eyeballs is no more than a memory feed. Your brain is showing you old data; most of the time it's not even taking fresh scans of the house, which is why you can be tearing the place apart, looking for something when in fact it's right in front of you all the time, but you can't see it. You're looking an an old scan, in which you glasses were not sitting in front of the TV, or your coffee cup was not sitting on top of the microwave. We see what we expect to see, and only seem to "come alive" when we travel, and the brain/eyes combination is forced to scan new places, new things, or else walk face-first into a camel.

I guess, Step One would be learning how to actually see every day, even while we're not on vacation.

Of course, if I did that, I'd see I also need to dust and vacuum and wash and scrub and...

Uh, tomorrow. Don't want to see all that dust right now.

And LIFE itself begs the question, what does happen if you turn it off or change the channel? But chasing down those answers will take you out of realms of philosophy and into metaphysics.

I wonder if I'll be cross or just bemused if the answer turns out to be 42.