The Lollipop Guild

There are many things that I will always remember about my wedding day. My beautiful bride-to-be, all my friends and family. How sunny and nice it was (maybe a bit on the warm side, it was August and I was wearing a tux). That I got "my own" chocolate cake.

And of course, the betrayal of my closest friends.

Ok, so that's a bit overboard. It's actually quite funny, and has given us two great stories. The first is "Cake's Day Out", which will have to wait for another time. This is the story of the Lollipops.

Every groom should fully expect to be pranked I guess. I should have been more alert and vigilant. But my friends were sneaky, determined, and feeling very playful I guess.

I expected the car decorations. Everyone does that, it's practically a required part of the marriage ritual. But I did not expect to find all those lollipops in my hotel room.

Rewinding a bit...

The culprits were Travis and Stephanie Noe, Aaron Janssen, Shannon Dyer, and my own little sister Katie (Hamborg at the time). I don't know who's idea it was, but they all played their roles. One of them (Steph, I believe) went into Carma's purse to find our room key. I think I may have told Aaron which hotel we were staying at, clearly without thinking or being suspicious.

However, when the crew arrived at the hotel, they were unable to get the room number from the front desk, much to their frustration. They started to estimate how many hotel rooms there were...it was well over a hundred. Then, walking around the building, they realized there was a whole other wing they hadn't accounted for. The odds were stacked against them, and they didn't have a whole lot of time.

Not wanting to give up, Travis entered the hotel via an end door, and thought to try the key on a few doors on each floor just to see if he would get lucky. He didn't get very far (only three doors tried, I think) before one surprised him and turned green. They had found our room.

So, they put about 50 lollipops everywhere in the room. In the towels, the pillowcases and sheets, and in our suitcase. I must admit here they could have done much worse, for which I'm grateful they didn't.

Later on, they made a "confession" tape describing these events for posterity. I hope I still have that somewhere.

So, Carma and I discovered a bunch of lollipops. The next day we were to have our gift opening, at which would be our friends yearning to know how well the lollipop gig went over (and dying to tell us their story as well). However, we decided to concoct a little tale for them that went something like this:

"You guys will never believe what happened last night! When we got to the hotel (in full wedding garb), they decided to upgrade us their "Honeymoon Suite"! It had a jacuzzi and everything! Very awesome!"

To which they looked rather surprised and taken aback. I could see the thoughts, "Oh no! Someone else will find all the lollipops!" It was great. But then of course I had to let them off the hook.

"Or, I could just tell you instead that we found a crapload of lollipops everywhere."

******

Fortunately, that's not quite the end of the story. You see, Aaron got married a couple years later. Carma and I certainly wanted a shot at revenge, and Aaron knew it. He was very careful not to tell ANYONE where he was staying that night, and took all sorts of precautions.

Which was fine, we were determined, and even better, we knew where he lived. We got his house keys from his brother, and Trav and Steph joined us for a bit of Lollipopping. We had over 100 lollipops, and we spread them all throughout the house. In the closets, in the washing machine, the freezer, garage, couch cushions, and anywhere else that seemed like a good idea at the time. Then in his basement, we filmed "The Denial". With lollipops in our mouths, sitting in his basement, we claimed to the video camera to have had no involvement whatsoever. I'm sure we were convincing.

We returned to the wedding festivities, with lollipops in our mouths. For some reason, this made Aaron nervous and ask "What did you do?" We told him he'd find out soon enough.

I think he was still finding lollipops over a year later. It may have taken Holly awhile to forgive us.

Return of the Jedi

Ok, so this post was started by watching the most recent episode of Lost, "Some Like it Hoth". A mild spoiler: in the episode Hurley disses the ewoks in Return of the Jedi. I had the gall to agree with the idea that the ewoks were lame on Facebook. Banter ensued. And now I must resurrect my blog to state my case.

When Return of the Jedi came out, I was 9. Of course I loved it at the time. What kid didn't? My own sons like it the best of the movies as well. But for me, it hasn't held up well over time. The original Star Wars was ground-breaking, entertaining, and enjoyable. The Empire Strikes Back still remains a pinnacle of the genre, a well-done character driven story set in a rich universe.

But Return of the Jedi? It is a so-so film with poor dialog, wooden acting, and ewoks. Let's detail some of these faults of the film and its divergences from its predecessors.

1) The neutering of Han Solo. Han Solo in the original Star Wars was a smuggler, a borderline guy who had his back up against the wall, shot first (originally), trusted only Chewie, and was only in it for the money, until the end. In Empire, he's still relatively consistent in character, and his growing care and love for Leia is one of the main storylines. In Jedi, literally he does nothing to progress the story, and is essentially a cardboard cut-out of a character that shoots a few one-liners. Granted, part of this may be Harrison Ford's fault for not wanting to really be the character anymore, but who could blame him with this awful script? He might as well be wearing a t-shirt saying "I'd rather be filming Indiana Jones".

2) All those who hate Jar-Jar, raise your hands. Now, blame the ewoks. They were the first shot fired in the "Dang! I can print my own money selling toys!" war against the movie patron. Seriously, the ewoks are probably the first-ever mass introduction of a commercial product into what was supposed to be a feature film. Legend has it that the original concept was to have a planet of Wookies- Chewbacca's home planet (much later introduced in Episode 3). But Wookies weren't new, cuddly, and loved by children under the age of 8 that had parents with decent disposable incomes. No, instead we got ewoks. And the Ewok Special. And cartoons, toys, plush ewoks, lunch boxes, playsets, Underoos, and "comic relief". (And the awful, awful "Yub-nub!" song.)

Consider this tidbit of information: the word "ewok" is not in the movie. Anywhere.

3) Carrie Fisher was clearly stoned out of her mind during the filming of this movie. Not that it really detracted from her "acting" skills. This isn't really evidence supporting my case, but I'm just feeling bitter.

4) Another reason to hate RotJ: the Death of Boba Fett. Boba Fett was a ruthless bounty hunter, responsible for the capture of Han and the near-capture of Luke, and was the second-most formidable foe next to Darth Vader that the heroes faced. So, what happens to him?

He is killed off in a comical manner to serve up a burp joke.

This travesty is not in keeping with the tone of the movies that had been established. Really, it's a farce. It shows what sort of nonchalance the movie itself was being treated with, and that it was not a creative vehicle, but one motivated by profits alone. Which also serves as a strong condemnation of Episodes 1-3 as well, come to think of it.