The night the Star Wars empire almost self-destructed

Today marks an extraordinarily dubious anniversary for the Star Wars saga. Because it was thirty years ago tonight, on November 17th, 1978, that CBS aired the first and last broadcast of The Star Wars Holiday Special.

The two-hour schlockfest is now widely considered by many to be the absolutely worst block of television in the history of anything...

"One of these things is not like the others..."

I'm not even going to try to pretend to make sense of this... thing. If you want to see it, you'll be able to find it all over the 'net and if you don't want to see it well, that's two hours of your life that're your own to spend how you wish. I remember watching this as a way wee lad on the night that it aired, and even then I thought it was pretty terrible. I mean, Harvey Korman as a four-armed alien version of Julia Child?!?

No wonder that George Lucas has strenuously prayed - both privately and publicly - that every copy of The Star Wars Holiday Special might somehow be incinerated. The "special" came to be considered the low point in the careers of everyone involved, including Bea Arthur and Art Carney. Let's not even mention Carrie Fisher singing "What Can You Get A Wookiee For Christmas (When He Already Owns A Comb)?". Or Mark Hamill's post-motorcycle accident "Mannequin Skywalker" plastic-faced visage that reeks of way too much makeup.

Little wonder then that The Star Wars Holiday Special has been branded the worst moment of the entire franchise...

What the hell were they thinking?

But to its credit, The Star Wars Holiday Special did make a few (a few mind ya) decent contributions to the saga. The Wookiee homeworld of Kashyyyk was introduced, though it wouldn't get any more screen time until Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith in 2005. So was Chewbacca's family, which would be cemented in the mythology's canon by way of Expanded Universe literature. And then there is Boba Fett: the most famous bounty hunter in all of fiction made his debut in an animated segment during the special, just in time to whet fans' appetites for more of him a year and a half later when The Empire Strikes Back came out.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the fun that I got to have with The Star Wars Holiday Special when I was Humor editor of TheForce.net: it provided plenty of "bantha poodoo" for the Star Wars Captioning feature, like this one and this one and this one and this one.

For what it's worth, I think The Star Wars Holiday Special stands as a curious fixture of not only a successful legend, but of a cultural mindset as well. Something like this is a unique product of the Seventies: there's no way it would have been sanctioned even a few years later. For that at least, I have to render some faint appreciation for The Star Wars Holiday Special.

Anyhoo, if... if... you want to find out more, check out StarWarsHolidaySpecial.com. And if you just want to see how this fiasco begins, here's the opening courtesy of YouTube...

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Awesome new promo for LOST Season 5!

"Where we going Mommy?"

"We're going on vacation, baby."

And among the other intriguing things in this new promo: Juliet uncovering what looks to be another hatch, Daniel wearing a mining helmet underground, Locke at Jacob's cabin, Sun locked in a room demanding to be let out, and what looks to be the words "DHARMA Initiative" that flashes by very rapidly (don't blink or you might miss seeing it).

DarkUFO has an even better quality version for you to enjoy looking... and guessing... at.

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Soviet-era Buran could replace NASA space shuttle

Twenty years ago yesterday the Buran (shown landing at left), the Soviet Union's answer to the American-made NASA space shuttle system, launched from Kazakhstan for its first test flight. It wound up being its only mission to date. A few years later the fall of communism left the program in limbo. The only flight-worthy Buran was destroyed during a roof collapse at the Baikonur facility in 2002, although a number of others were already in production and one is currently on display in a museum in Germany.

But with the space shuttle fleet due to be retired in less than two years, Russia Today is reporting that interest is being rekindled in the Buran system for use as a service vehicle for the International Space Station and perhaps other purposes as well. Despite its visual similarity to the American space shuttle, the Buran was in many ways the superior vehicle (the feature that its designers were most proud of is that it can be launched and landed un-manned). And the Energia booster system that was developed parallel to the Buran is an absolute beast of a launch vehicle: it's said to be powerful enough to send a payload to Mars. Click here for more comparisons between the American shuttle and the Russian Buran.

I would love to see the Buran finally get some serious use... and achieve the appreciation that I've long thought was due her and her creators. I've been a devout student of the Russian space effort for well over a decade, ever since I made it the topic of my senior history thesis while at Elon (and I ended up presenting my research about it at a national conference in Rochester, New York). In spite of how screwy and completely wrong the the Soviet government was, the scientists and engineers who were forced to live under that regime still had a total passion for technical achievement (often in defiance of how much the Soviet bureaucrats got in their way: do some research on how Kruschev screwed-up a lot of Sergei Korolev's projects). Buran is a terrific vehicle and now at last she has a chance to soar and shine.

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How does Chris spend a Saturday?

In no particular order, today I...

...saw the new James Bond movie Quantum of Solace (it kicks seriously crazy cool boo-tay!!!)

...filmed a lot of footage for a commercial that I'm making for a new client.

...played Classic Battletech and had my derriere handed to me (especially after the legs were shot off my BattleMech).

...was told during rehearsal for the Theatre Guild of Rockingham County's production of Oliver Twist that I had a great British accent and that I was channeling the perfect persona for my role as Mr. Sowerberry.

...got to meet Cecil L. Cline, the project manager for the Saturn V rocket program (he also worked on the Polaris and Poseidon missiles and the C-5A Galaxy transport plane in addition to many other engineering marvels) and received an autographed copy of his book A Soldier's Odyssey.

Not too bad a way to fill up a Saturday, eh? :-)

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Monty Python "Dead Parrot" sketch is 1,600 years old

A Greek scholar has conclusively proven that the classic "Dead Parrot" sketch made famous by Monty Python's John Cleese and Michael Palin actually goes back sixteen hundred years.

Hierocles and Philagrius were the original comedy duo who came up with the concept. Except in their version it wasn't a dead bird, but a deceased slave. One man complains to a friend that the slave he bought from him died not long after purchase. The friend replies "When he was with me, he never did any such thing!"

Also among the 265 jokes found in the Philogelos: The Laugh Addict collection are some poking fun at marriage. One of them goes: "A man tells a well-known wit: 'I had your wife, without paying a penny'. The husband replies: 'It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?'"

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Sign of the times: Spam production can't keep up with demand

The New York Times is reporting that Hormel is pulling out all the stops to keep up with a sudden demand for Spam. The classic "mystery meat in a can" was first introduced over seventy years ago and ever since has become a staple food for hard economic times, having cemented that status during the lean years of World War II. And now as many seriously wonder if we might be on the cusp of another Great Depression...

Hormel declined to cooperate with this article, but several of its workers were interviewed here recently with the help of their union, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 9. Slumped in chairs at the union hall after making 149,950 cans of Spam on the day shift, several workers said they been through boom times before — but nothing like this.

Spam "seems to do well when hard times hit," said Dan Bartel, business agent for the union local. "We'll probably see Spam lines instead of soup lines."

The article further reports that Kraft is another company seeing an upswing in the demand for its "low-budget" products, particularly macaroni and Velveeta.

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IBM using lawsuit to keep Apple from giving you the last iPod you'll ever want?

A few weeks ago Apple hired Mark Papermaster to be its new head of development over the iPod and iPhone lines. All well and good... except that Papermaster was also previously the vice-president of the microprocessor and chip technology at IBM, and there was a "no-compete" clause in his contract with his former employer. Papermaster has countered that he's going to be involved in entertainment devices: something that IBM has never pursued and thus, the clause is invalid in his case. It's now wound up in the courts, where IBM is suing to keep Papermaster from working at Apple.

Now we know why IBM is really interested in locking Papermaster out of the Jobs Mob...

IBM has been developing something called "racetrack" memory and it's afraid that the technology it developed will wind up in the iPod and iPhone. And it's easy to see why Apple could conceivably be interested in implementing it in their own products:

- Racetrack memory could store 500,000 songs, compared to 40,000 in the current 160 gigabyte iPod classic. That is also equivalent to 3,500 full-length movies.

- Racetrack memory uses much less power. A single battery charge would last for weeks (though using the screen in video mode on an iPod with such storage would still drain some juice).

- Racetrack memory would last for decades, and not be subject to wear like hard drives or flash memory.

- Racetrack memory will be much cheaper to produce.

Sounds kewl, eh? The only real obstacle is that IBM still deems racetrack memory to be in the experimental stage, and that we won't be seeing it in products for another decade.

Here's a suggestion: Steve Jobs should direct Apple to buy out IBM. That way his company will have Papermaster's contract lock stock and barrel, and Apple can hustle like nobody's business to get racetrack memory in its toys by no later than 2010 or 2011.

A half-million songs on a single iPod. That would be like the last iPod that I would ever need :-)

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The second WATCHMEN trailer!

It's gonna be so weird to finally see the movie adaptation of Watchmen. Ever since this blog's beginning I've been writing about the efforts to get this film made, and usually it's to share some pessimism about whether it could be done right... or at least done at all. Like yesterday evening I conveyed some concern about Zack Snyder's admitting that the ending of Watchmen, which he's directed, is going to be different from the book.

Funny how things can change in just twenty-four hours.

Yahoo! Movies has the second trailer for Watchmen (including high-def Quicktime). And if there's a single shot in this that's not in the graphic novel, I'm not seeing it...

Okay, I'll say that I again have faith in Snyder. That I believe he will indeed pull off the impossible, regardless of whether the squid is in there. Tonally, this looks completely right. Rorschach's voice is exactly as I imagined it would be when I first read the book in 1990. But the thing I keep thinking about most from this trailer is Jon's voice: Billy Crudup is evoking the right kind of disaffection for a god no longer interested in the world around him. And then his scream of "LEAVE ME ALONE!"...

Think I might have to see Quantum of Solace this weekend, to catch this trailer on the big screen (well also 'cuz I liked Casino Royale too :-)

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First photographs made of extra-solar planets

We've known they were out there for over a decade. Now two groups of astronomers have captured the first photographs of planets orbiting stars far beyond our own solar system. Images of the star HR 8799 turned up three planets, including this first-ever direct photo of an alien world...

And the Hubble Space Telescope has imaged a planet circling Fomalhaut.

In case yer wondering: these are not planets anything like our own Earth. They're believed to be more along the lines of the "gas giants" like Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. But with increasingly refined imaging technology, astronomers tell us that it's no doubt just a matter of time before a world - possibly one that could harbor life - is found waaaaaaaay out there!

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Federal air marshals abusing power, commiting crimes

USA Today is running a story about the high rate of crime among the Transportation Security Administration's federal air marshals. One marshal used his badge and top secret security clearance to smuggle cocaine and drug money. Another attempted to "disappear" his ex-wife via a contract killer (who was another federal air marshal). Still another used his authority to engage in child pornography. There have been dozens of such cases since 9/11, when the number of marshals ballooned from about thirty to more than thirty thousand.

Maybe it's time to reiterate a suggestion that I made over two years ago. During the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks I proposed the creation of "citizen marshals": ordinary American citizens who, after a background check and some training, would be allowed to carry firearms on commercial airlines as a volunteer service to their fellow countrymen.

From my post in 2006:

Such persons will not be affiliated with any law enforcement agency or the government at all. Being appointed "citizen marshals" merely means that they have no outstanding criminal record, that they possess qualities of good character and are otherwise sound and considerate human beings. Being a citizen marshal would be an unpaid position... but then, anyone wanting to be such a marshal for the right reasons would not want any financial compensation anyway.

Citizen marshals would be the only regular civilians who would be allowed to board commercial passenger planes with a firearm, and adequate ammunition. They could even be given a special badge that designates their status for all to see. Ideally, there would be more than one citizen marshal - with guns - aboard each flight.

The thought of becoming a citizen marshal should not be entertained lightly by anyone, and there should be incentives in place to dissuade those who might potentially abuse their appointments. The penalties for doing so - be it from impersonating a licensed citizen marshal to unholstering a firearm aboard a plane in flight without legitimate caues - should be extremely severe. As much or even more than what we expect from police officers who "cross the line".

But... a flight with an armed citizen marshal or two (or three or four) would be the safest possible airline trip in terms of passenger safety outside of technical malfunctions. Even the mere possibility that a jetliner might have a citizen marshal onboard would automatically make that plane a "poison pill" for anyone contemplating a terrorist act.

Ask yourself again: would Mohammed Atta and his fellow terrorists been so quick to pull out the box-cutters on September 11th, 2001 if the slightest thought entered their minds that not only might they not reach the cockpit, but that they would be shot dead the moment they started trying?

Let's face it: Transportation Security Administration has been a colossal farce from the very beginning. I consider it one of George W. Bush's biggest failures. The entire thing has been nothing but "security theatre" on a grand scale. Personally, I can think of at least a dozen ways off the top of my head that TSA's "procedures" could be defeated for a much worse re-enactment of 9/11.

And when I read stories about air marshals out of control, it solidifies that much more my belief that regular American can do some things better than their government.

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Alan Moore is gonna be honked-off angry...

Zack Snyder has confirmed that he has changed the ending for the movie version of Watchmen, which he's directed.

So we will not be getting to see the "alien squid" after all...

In the past few weeks I've found myself wondering what the "squid" might possibly look like translated to screen. And that led me to think that perhaps Guillermo del Toro would have been the "go-to" guy for giving it the appropriate gruesomeness. Now it turns out that the climactic moment of most widely-acclaimed graphic novel has been... altered?!

Snyder did read Watchmen, right? I mean, he knows what the ultimate purpose of the "squid" is, yes?

I am now officially skeptical about how this is going to work. No wonder Alan Moore - the creator of Watchmen - harbors such legendary frustration about film adaptations of his efforts.

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Weird news from overseas

The mayor of Batman, Turkey is suing Warner Brothers and Christopher Nolan over their Batman movie The Dark Knight, claiming that since the movie came out his town has been plagued by a high rate of unsolved murders and skyrocketing numbers of female suicides.

And in Russia, the parish priest of the village of Komarova notified law enforcement officials that he had been robbed. The item in question that has been stolen: the entire village church.

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Are video games becoming a luxury for the rich?

That's the question posed by Matthew Federico on his blog. It's his contention that the rising price of video games (lately hovering around sixty bucks each for games on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3) coupled with the current state of the economy means that only those with plenty of ready cash on hand can fully enjoy the latest slate of games like Gears of War 2 and Fallout 3.

On the flip side of the coin, a few months ago Theodore Beale (writing as Vox Day) on WorldNetDaily offered some suggestions for "living lean" and seriously advised that video games were a sound use of one's entertainment dollar, as opposed to spending it on something like movie tickets.

So are video games for the most part now in the province of those who can most afford them? It may be worth noting that even at the height of the Great Depression people kept flocking to movie theaters. When you figure in for inflation, Gone With The Wind is still the top-grossing film of all time, and it came out at a time when going to a cinema was still considered a high-falootin' expenditure.

What do y'all think?

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Ridley Scott to direct MONOPOLY movie

What the heck is wrong with Hollywood lately? This has been one of the best years for filmmaking in recent memory. But alas! It does not appear as if it was meant to endure. Yesterday word came that a remake of The Karate Kid starring Will Smith's son is in the works, and there's also a redo of Footloose headed our way.

But this next item is something that is certainly... different, in ways most of us weren't expecting: The Hollywood Reporter is breaking the news that a movie based on the board game Monopoly is in development and that none other than Ridley Scott has been attached as producer, and likely will be directing it as well. Scott is looking at the project "with an eye toward giving it a futuristic sheen along the lines of his iconic 'Blade Runner.'"

The story also reports that a movie based on Battleship is also being considered (didn't they already make that a few times, first as The Enemy Below and then The Hunt for Red October?).

Gotta wonder what Monopoly directed by Ridley Scott will be like...

"Do NOT pass Go! Do NOT collect two hundred dollars!"

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This is why a lot of us have been opposing George W. Bush all these years...

President-Elect Barack Obama is likely going to overturn a lot of Bush's policies via the use of executive order and "signing statements".

And here's why Bush's most stubborn supporters had darned well better start worrying up a sweat...

George W. Bush set a horrible precedent with his abuse of executive orders and signing statements (which are how he got around the letter of the law a lot of times, by "interpreting" legislation according to his own whims and declaring that it was his executive privilege to do so). And for most of the past decade, the "Bush-bots" have cheered him on... even when he's grievously violated the Constitution in the process.

And now that very same power is going to land in the hands of Barack Obama.

Can you people who have thought Bush could do no wrong these eight years, possibly be capable of understanding what that means?

I've said it since last week: Barack Obama will not be a good President. But he would not have the potential to wreck so much havoc if George W. Bush had not shown him how to do so in the first place.

In the end, if Obama's tenure as President is a disaster, it will be, quite sincerely, Bush's fault.

And I'm gonna go ahead and tell y'all that beforehand.

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Six new WATCHMEN posters hit the Intertubes

Oh geez... can you imagine all the kids who are now gonna try to "look cool" as they emulate the Comedian lighting up his cigar like this?

Ain't It Cool News has collected the links to the six new character posters just released for Watchmen. Also in the lot are Rorschach posing with his grapple-gun, Laurie/Silk Spectre II, Dr. Manhattan (in a scene that everyone who's read the book will recognize), Adrian at his Antarctic retreat (with Bubastis in the background!), and Daniel with the Owlship.

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HyperMind: Great gaming store serves the Triad area well!

A couple of weeks ago I had to go to Burlington, North Carolina, about thirty minutes away from home here in Reidsville, on a business errand. I wound up with some time to kill and thought I'd drive around my old stompin' grounds, since I lived there for a few years while a student at Elon. The west end of town in particular has grown a lot recently, what with a new Target Supercenter and a Best Buy and a new movie cinema and all kinds of other good places.

Anyway, it was while on south Church Street that I came across HyperMind...

With a name like that, I couldn't resist going in.

It turns out that HyperMind, now at its second and larger location since first opening in 2006, is a game store. And to the best of my recollection, there hasn't been a place like this serving the area since Cosmic Castle on High Point Road in Greensboro, which closed up a number of years ago. I used to go to Cosmic Castle a lot to buy Star Wars Role-Playing Game source books: even though I never played the game itself, I was one of those Star Wars geeks that bought plenty of the background supplements. I'm glad to have now found HyperMind, 'cuz this store has Star Wars RPG stuff out the wazoo!

Or is Dungeons & Dragons - which for years I've called "Bushes & Orcs" since players hardly ever go adventuring into a dungeon or fight a dragon anymore these days - more your speed? HyperMind is amply stocked with the latest Dungeons & Dragons products, from the basic sets on to the advanced campaign settings. Need more of those fancy dice that Dungeons & Dragons and a lot of other pen-and-paper RPGs employ? HyperMind has plenty of those, too! Just about every role-playing game that I've heard of (and plenty that I never knew existed) can be found at HyperMind.

The more traditional board games can be found here also, like Monopoly (including several themed variants, like Transformers and John Deere) and Clue. While I was there I also found a board game version of Starcraft, several zombie-related games (what is it with zombies lately anyway?) and some longstanding classics like Axis & Allies, which if you've never had the pleasure is a game that lets you act out the parts of Patton and Rommel or any other military genius that strikes your fancy, as you re-create the theaters of battle in World War II on your dining room table. The Starcraft game came out a year ago and I'm told that it has an especially strong following

Are you a fan of the HeroClix system games, like Marvel and DC Universe? HyperMind has tons of that also. In fact, when I was there I saw a coupl'a full racks of the DC Universe Arkham Asylum packs, which word on the street is that they're selling out all over the place. HyperMind also carry the Star Wars Miniatures game, which I also haven't had the opportunity to play yet but lots of people tell me it's a very enjoyable pastime. HyperMind also sells Magic: The Gathering and a host of other collectible card games. And if they don't have it in the store, the friendly and knowledgeable sales staff will be more than happy to order it for you, usually delivered in less than a week.

And HyperMind doesn't just provide the games either: toward the back of the store is a large gaming area, set up with lots of tables and chairs. The store is open on several weeknights for people to come in and play their favorite games, be it a card game like Magic: The Gathering or role-playing.

On top of all that fun stuff, HyperMind also features a wide selection of educational games and toys... and I was pleasantly surprised to find some items in the store that I had no idea were still being produced these days, like chemistry sets. And if you're looking for a puzzle to spend some nice leisurely time with or as a gift for someone, HyperMind has you covered there as well.

So what did I get while I was there?

We used to play BattleTech (now known as Classic BattleTech) a lot at the nearby community college when I was getting my associates degree. I've always loved this game and its fictional universe, and now it's growing in popularity even more. So I got the latest version: the Classic BattleTech Introductory Box Set. If anybody reading this is up for a game, write me at theknightshift@gmail.com and we'll work something out! And it's a good thing that HyperMind has lots of miniatures (for BattleTech but also for games like Warhammer 40,000) on sale: I'll probably need 'em as I resupply my Inner Sphere mercenary company :-)

Family-owned and operated, HyperMind (click here for its website) is located at 3396 South Church Street in Burlington, North Carolina. It's practically across the street from West End Cinema, among that group of stores if you're familiar with the Burlington area. I would absolutely recommend checking out HyperMind if you're from anywhere like Raleigh and Winston-Salem and all points in-between. I don't know if there's ever been a place quite like this ever around here: HyperMind is well worth giving your patronage!

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