Trina's page of Blogginess

not that I needed another...

Today I received an email from iTunes saying that I'd received a gift from a friend. Turns out that Pete had bought me a copy of the "Star Wars Theme / Cantina Band (12" Disco Mix) off of "The Best of Meco" Album.

OMG! I remember when this song first came out (obviously soon after the movie) and I LOVED it! It's got it all: the main theme, R2D2 beeps, the cantina music (all disco-ed up) and jawas, all rolled up into 3 minutes, 48 seconds of disco goodness.

I'm a happy geek. :)

Labels: friends, Star Wars

Trina winning!
(The force is strong with this one)

Labels: Star Wars

At the airport.
Dick playing

Labels: dick, Star Wars

While were were on our tour of ILM on Friday our guide let us (me) do some shopping at the company store.

Before we got to the store, our guide mentioned that they got a really good discount on their Lucas Arts video games. I thought that would be a great thing for me to bring home for Dick and I to play together.

I was really happy when I saw that they had the Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy game for the Xbox. I remember seeing this in stores when it first came out, but wasn't sure if it was something I'd want to spend much money on. (what was I thinking? Star Wars plus Legos!)

As it turned out, they were out of stock on the Xbox 360 version, but they had plenty for the original Xbox. The price was right (on sale for $12!) so I bought one hoping it would still be compatible with my Xbox 360 console.

I popped in the game this afternoon, and well, Dick and played it for hours! It was SO MUCH FUN! The game is a riot - we finished the entire segment for Episode IV: A New Hope. We were laughing the entire time. I don't think I missed out on anything by not being able to purchase the Xbox 360 version. I can't imagine that the graphics would look any better on a 360 game because, well, they are lego characters, after all.

The game takes you through all 3 original trilogy films - it has all of the major scenes. There are moments where they have cut scenes which show full scenes from the movie, animated with the lego characters. The music is perfect, the "scenes" are great (lots of little touches that make them funny) but one of the funniest parts is that there is no actual dialog. The lego characters just make mimic-like noises, kind of like the adults from a Peanuts cartoon.

If you are a Star Wars fan, and have a video game console (Xbox, Playstation, etc.,) I highly recommend it. It's tons of fun. It supports multi-player for 2 people, which is a ton of fun, but isn't meant for group play.

We're looking forward to playing the rest of the game! Hours and hours of Star Wars/lego fun!

I LOVE this game!

Labels: Star Wars, xbox

geek heaven

My Dad and Mom won an auction item at my niece's (my cousin's daughters) school auction a few weeks ago.

The auction item was for a tour for of the (relatively) new Industrial Light & Magic complex in the Presidio here in San Francisco.

The tour was given by one of ILM's employee's, who also happens to be a Mom of one of the kids who attends the same school as our nieces. She's a layout artist who has been with the company for about 14 years. She's done work on a long list of movies including the Star Wars franchise, Harry Potter films and the Pirates of the Carribean.

The tour was very cool. We saw the new facilities, along with lots and lots of the original costumes and props. We ate in the cafeteria, and were also allowed to shop at the company store! (um, yep, bought some goodies...)

We were only allowed to take photos in the main lobby, but there were still some pretty cool photo ops:

My parents took my sister, her boyfriend (Graham) and me on the tour with them. Poor Dick was supposed to come, but he couldn't get out of work today.


In front of the ILM building


One of the actual original Boba Fett costumes from The Empire Strikes Back


Dad and Darth (an original costume from the Episode IV)


Dad and Graham duke it out - Jedi-style!

Thanks, Mom & Dad! What a cool treat!

funny tidbit...

When I came home, I received an email from my sister-in-law (and fellow Star Wars lover), Meg.

The subject title was: Why is today (5/4) Yoda's favorite day?

answer: May the Fourth.......

Be with you!

To celebrate the day, Meg and Grace (my 6 year old niece) watched Episode IV together! :)

I definitely married into the right family!

Labels: family, Star Wars

My Mom just called to remind me of the date, and that today was the day that USPS was going to make their Star Wars Announcement.

So, here it is! Star Wars stamps, coming out on May 26, in celebration of the 30th(!) anniversary of the first Star Wars Film.

Cool stamps! You know I'll be getting some!

Labels: Star Wars

My sister-in-law just sent this picture to me:


this cracks me up!

I checked out http://www.uspsjedimaster.com, and there's a teaser up there with a video clip, and a statement saying "On March 28th Two Powerful Forces Will Unite".

I, of course, have to know what it is, so I submitted my email address at the bottom so I can "Be the first on Planet Earth to know why".

I'm such a sucker.

I'm hoping this means that we're going to see a lot of little mailboxes around the country dressed up like R2-D2.

That would be hysterical.

...and as my sister-in-law says, It makes me want to dress up as Leia and go mail something!

Labels: geeks, Star Wars

This weekend (Friday afternoon through Sunday morning), Dick and I attended the 2nd Annual Technical Recognition Event for Dick's work. Last year, it was in Vancouver, this year, it was held in San Francisco!

We stayed at the beautiful Fairmont Hotel in Nob Hill, which was a real treat. The weather couldn't have been nicer, which was a welcome change for about 95% of the people who came from out of the area.

The event was for the high-end tech guys at the company, and their S.O.'s. This is a real treat for me, as I had a chance to meet and talk with some really interesting, and brilliant people who have done some amazing things in their careers. As you can imagine the geek factor was very high.

During dinner last night, the promise of a "special guest speaker" was highly anticipated. We already knew that Bill Gates would be speaking (whom I really enjoyed listening to last year) but no one knew who the other speaker would be.

..and then the time came.

...and the lights dimmed...

...and the Star Wars music came...

Yes, it was George Lucas! After Dick and I saw it was him, we thought it made a lot of sense: he's local to SF, is big into technology, and is interested in the same types of education endeavors as Bill. The two of them talked on stage for about 30 minutes before holding a Q&A with the audience. I have to say, it was pretty cool.

After dinner, Dick and I were both pretty tired, and decided to skip the After Dinner Disco Party. Too bad for me! This morning, as we were checking out, we saw that the attendees of the Disco Party received these really cool light sabers as a gift! What a bummer that we missed out on that! I had coveted them at Costco about a year ago, but they're pricey suckers!

Anyhow, it was a fun and interesting geek-filled event.
This computer/Star Wars geek was very satisfied.


Uncle Bill with Uncle George

Labels: geeks, Star Wars

The name says it all...



Friday morning I got a call from my friend, Cynde. She was in the car, listening to the radio as she was driving to the gallery. She had just heard about a Star Wars theater show, and had to let me know about it.

"Cool!" I said, "I'll have to look into it."

I met my friend Andrew for lunch that day. During our conversation, I mentioned that my Mom had recently digitized my "Story of Star Wars" LP for me.

Andrew said, "Speaking of Star Wars, have you heard about the new show in town?"

I said I had just heard something about it from Cynde, but I didn't know much about it yet, because I hadn't had a chance to look it up yet.

Dick came home from work later that evening. He told me someone on Caltrain had told him about this One Man Star Wars show which was showing at the Post Street Theater.

Clearly, the universe wanted to make sure that I saw this show!

So, we looked it up that night. We found it was showing at the Post Street Theater for just over a week, and decided that we should try to see it this weekend! I didn't read much about it. I figured, the name pretty much says it all, right?

We saw today's matinée performance at 3:00pm.

The theater was pretty full, and what surprised me the most were how many kids were in the audience.

The show did not disappoint. It was exactly what I had expected: one man, reciting lines, and doing sound effects for all three of the first three original Star Wars films. It was an hour long in total. I checked my watch at the end of Star Wars: Episode IV, and it was about 20 minutes in length. Barley taking a few seconds to take a sip of water, he launched straight into The Empire Strikes Back.

I was amazed at the amount of energy and enthusiasm this guy had! He put in just as much energy into "Return of the Jedi" as he did into Episode IV. It's clear that this guy was/is one heck of a Star Wars geek. He nailed the lines, and even nailed the special effects sounds.

If you are a Star Wars fan of any level, you really must see this show.

Here's a clip I found on You Tube showing some highlights of the show.

Labels: Star Wars, theater

This just in from my sister-in-law (and fellow Star Wars Geek)...

So funny!

Labels: Star Wars