Sunday January 29
Item in Sunday NYT: “Magically Delicious Reading:” A review of
“The Great American Cereal Book,” by Marty Gitlin and Topher Ellis, who clearly had better breakfast experiences growing up than I did. The colorful book, from AbramsImage feature “eye-catching cereal boxes” I was deprived of during our bogus participation in the dental program. “The image of Baron Von Redberry and his counterpart, Sir Grapefellow, were immediate favorites,” according to the reviewer. I’ll bet…
Monday, January 30, 2012
SW again
Catching up with SW
Tuesday January 24: Headline in NYT about a town where even Darth Vader is nice.
Wednesday 25: Ad on TV for “new” SW film
Thursday 26: “Jeopardy” answers involved a toaster that embed an image of Darth Vader. Jon Stewart imagines Newt Gingrich’s campaign pledge to establish a moon base as resembling The Death Star (not much of a leap of imagine required to see in Darth Vader suit…)
Friday 27: Walking down the main street of downtown and the local stationery shop has on display a Darth Vader alarm clock.
Saturday 28: NPR’s “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me” features a segment on racy romance novels and the guest panel starts imagining silly titles like, “The Empire Strokes Back.”
Sunday 29: Driving up to the Bay Area pass the billboard featuring C3PO and the Disneyland upgrade of “Star Tours.” Does this count? Then heading to a party out in a hangar in Alameda we pass the giant shipping container cranes at inspired George Lucas to create the walking tank-like creatures in god-knows which movie (“Empire” again?)
Tuesday January 24: Headline in NYT about a town where even Darth Vader is nice.
Wednesday 25: Ad on TV for “new” SW film
Thursday 26: “Jeopardy” answers involved a toaster that embed an image of Darth Vader. Jon Stewart imagines Newt Gingrich’s campaign pledge to establish a moon base as resembling The Death Star (not much of a leap of imagine required to see in Darth Vader suit…)
Friday 27: Walking down the main street of downtown and the local stationery shop has on display a Darth Vader alarm clock.
Saturday 28: NPR’s “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me” features a segment on racy romance novels and the guest panel starts imagining silly titles like, “The Empire Strokes Back.”
Sunday 29: Driving up to the Bay Area pass the billboard featuring C3PO and the Disneyland upgrade of “Star Tours.” Does this count? Then heading to a party out in a hangar in Alameda we pass the giant shipping container cranes at inspired George Lucas to create the walking tank-like creatures in god-knows which movie (“Empire” again?)
Monday, January 23, 2012
Star Wars addendum to Sunday, January 22, 2012
This is getting out of hand. I’ve started the “L.A. Times Crossword Puzzle” and 51 Down is a four letter word for “Furry moon dweller.” Answer: Ewok. This is the second puzzle I’ve done today and both has SW clues.
Then in the afternoon, the 49ers play the NY Giants. In an ad for Verison, R2D2 makes a guest appearance for the new, improved Droid. Why am I surprised that when showing the screen, the image is a clip from “The Phantom Menace.” Later during the game, after in the game, a full on ad runs for “The Phantom Menace” to be re-released in theaters 3-D. The Niners lose.
Now I open the New York Times Sunday Magazine. There’s a feature story about George Lucas, so it comes as no surprise that there are many SW references contained within. I’ll read the story tomorrow but for now peruse the photographs on the lead pages, which includes a young, rangy Lucas on the set with Mark Hamill in the original “SW”.
Then in the afternoon, the 49ers play the NY Giants. In an ad for Verison, R2D2 makes a guest appearance for the new, improved Droid. Why am I surprised that when showing the screen, the image is a clip from “The Phantom Menace.” Later during the game, after in the game, a full on ad runs for “The Phantom Menace” to be re-released in theaters 3-D. The Niners lose.
Now I open the New York Times Sunday Magazine. There’s a feature story about George Lucas, so it comes as no surprise that there are many SW references contained within. I’ll read the story tomorrow but for now peruse the photographs on the lead pages, which includes a young, rangy Lucas on the set with Mark Hamill in the original “SW”.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
White Cereal Boxes
When I was in second grade, my class was sent home with an application form to give to our parents. The dental school at the local campus of Purdue University was soliciting subjects for a study. Participating families would agree to eat breakfast cereal a set minimum times per week then go to the university for regular dental check ups.
My mother signed us up immediately. Never mind that our family did not qualify. I did not yet have the requisite number of permanent teeth required by the study. My father wore full dentures, top and bottom, so technically he had no teeth at all. The eldest brothers had already left home for college and weren’t around. So this left only my mom and my brother Ed and the minimum requirement was four family members.
My mom must have lied on the application because we were admitted to the program, and have exaggerated
the number of family members because soon huge deliveries of cereal began to arrive at our house. It didn’t take long for the floor-to-ceiling storage cupboards in our mud room to be stockpiled with white cereal boxes, identical but for the plain block lettering on the front of each, including but not limited to “Toasted Wheat,” “Multi-Grain Flakes,” and my personal favorite, “Alphabet Oat Cereal.” No brand name was revealed, nor were the ingredients. I don’t know how she finessed the dental check up portion of the bargain, but I pity the poor grad student who would have attempted to get in the way of my five-foot tall
Italian mother when her mind was set on getting free convenience food.
When my oldest brother would visit on weekends from the University of Chicago, he’d drive back with
his sporty red Volvo stuffed so crammed with white boxes of mystery cereal that he couldn’t see out of the back. At home between semesters from his college in Florida, my middle brother would spend inordinate amounts of time in the kitchen eating bowl after bowl of the stuff (to this day he recalls fondly “the infinite supply” of cereal at our house).
My brothers may have dug it, but I found the white cereal boxes to be one more indignity to be suffered by having been born into this particular family. Other kids got to eat cereal with cool names like Quisp, and follow treasure maps and read comics on the backs of colorful boxes festooned with happy cartoon tigers and sea captains. It was embarrassing when friends would spend the night only to be confronted in the morning by an uninviting Stonehenge of cereal that required explanation.
Eventually the dental experiment came to an end and the deliveries stopped coming. But we had cereal to last several years, and given the amount of preservatives commonly used it made no difference. I ate Alphabet Oat Cereal well into fourth or fifth grade. My best guess is we were a Post cereal family, and I must say we have excellent teeth. My mom lived to be 93 and passed away with all hers intact.
Today’s Star Wars: Working the Premier Crossword Puzzle by Frank A. Longo in the San Francisco Chronicle’s Pink Section. 5 Down, three letter word: Obi __ __ __ Kenobi.
My mother signed us up immediately. Never mind that our family did not qualify. I did not yet have the requisite number of permanent teeth required by the study. My father wore full dentures, top and bottom, so technically he had no teeth at all. The eldest brothers had already left home for college and weren’t around. So this left only my mom and my brother Ed and the minimum requirement was four family members.
My mom must have lied on the application because we were admitted to the program, and have exaggerated
the number of family members because soon huge deliveries of cereal began to arrive at our house. It didn’t take long for the floor-to-ceiling storage cupboards in our mud room to be stockpiled with white cereal boxes, identical but for the plain block lettering on the front of each, including but not limited to “Toasted Wheat,” “Multi-Grain Flakes,” and my personal favorite, “Alphabet Oat Cereal.” No brand name was revealed, nor were the ingredients. I don’t know how she finessed the dental check up portion of the bargain, but I pity the poor grad student who would have attempted to get in the way of my five-foot tall
Italian mother when her mind was set on getting free convenience food.
When my oldest brother would visit on weekends from the University of Chicago, he’d drive back with
his sporty red Volvo stuffed so crammed with white boxes of mystery cereal that he couldn’t see out of the back. At home between semesters from his college in Florida, my middle brother would spend inordinate amounts of time in the kitchen eating bowl after bowl of the stuff (to this day he recalls fondly “the infinite supply” of cereal at our house).
My brothers may have dug it, but I found the white cereal boxes to be one more indignity to be suffered by having been born into this particular family. Other kids got to eat cereal with cool names like Quisp, and follow treasure maps and read comics on the backs of colorful boxes festooned with happy cartoon tigers and sea captains. It was embarrassing when friends would spend the night only to be confronted in the morning by an uninviting Stonehenge of cereal that required explanation.
Eventually the dental experiment came to an end and the deliveries stopped coming. But we had cereal to last several years, and given the amount of preservatives commonly used it made no difference. I ate Alphabet Oat Cereal well into fourth or fifth grade. My best guess is we were a Post cereal family, and I must say we have excellent teeth. My mom lived to be 93 and passed away with all hers intact.
Today’s Star Wars: Working the Premier Crossword Puzzle by Frank A. Longo in the San Francisco Chronicle’s Pink Section. 5 Down, three letter word: Obi __ __ __ Kenobi.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Today's Star Wars
New York Times Business section today features the headline: "A Jedi of Deals Brings His Magic Back to Morgan Stanley." The story is about a former MS dealmaker who left to be a law professor at the University of Virginia has been wooed to return as the chairman of global tech banking, "a homecoming his colleagues have affectionately called 'the return of the Jedi,'" according to the Times, 1/20/12
Star Wars Again
Last night's Star War's reference came from Jon Stewart. The news item was about Newt's second wife (the one who had MS while he was seeing Calista on the side). Apparently Wife Number One had had cancer while Newt was getting it on with #2. Stewart refers to the woman as "The Empire Strikes Back" of Newt's wives, "even better than the original but sadder."
Thursday, January 19, 2012
C3PO Billboard -- Daily "Star Wars" encounter
Didn’t get to post yesterday due to a day trip to The East Bay. On the drive home to Santa Cruz, a billboard featuring C3PO caught my eye somewhere around Fremont. It was an ad for the revamped “Star Tours -- The Adventure Continues” attraction at Disneyland.
Arriving home, my husbnad watch “The Colbert Report, and for the second night in a row he references SW, not once, but twice. First, some intern probably had a blast Photoshopping Yoda ears onto a photograph of some figure in the news, then later playing a clip from “The Empire Strikes Back” with the dialogue altered to comment on a current event.
Arriving home, my husbnad watch “The Colbert Report, and for the second night in a row he references SW, not once, but twice. First, some intern probably had a blast Photoshopping Yoda ears onto a photograph of some figure in the news, then later playing a clip from “The Empire Strikes Back” with the dialogue altered to comment on a current event.
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