With no Saints to honor today, we note that today is Star Wars Day! And the Eta Aquarid Meteor Shower is today.
May the 4th is considered an unofficial holiday by Star Wars fans to celebrate Star Wars culture and remember the films. Naturally, I have seen all of the Star Wars movies, starting back in 1977 with the original Star Wars. 1980 brought us Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (allegedly, with “Episode V” in the crawl at the beginning of the movie), and in 1983 I saw Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (again allegedly, with “Episode VI” in the crawl, and almost certainly with Richard, since he and I had met in 1982 and were engaged by that point in time). In 1997 I saw the original Star Wars movie again, in the theater; when the crawl came up with “Episode IV: A New Hope”, the whole theater exploded in laughter (which is why I am almost certain that the Episode crawls were not in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back or in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi). Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace appeared in 1999; Wikipedia states “The release of the first new Star Wars film in 16 years was accompanied by a considerable amount of hype.” 2002 brought us Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith managed to tie up all the loose plot ends to bring us to the beginning of the original Star Wars movie. In October 2012 The Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion and announced that it would produce three new films, with the first film, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (set thirty years after the end of Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi), planned for release in December 2015. Of the six movies (so far) in the franchise, my favorite is Star Wars: Return of the Jedi; gotta love those Ewoks. And some fun trivia for you: the only actors to appear in all six movies are Anthony Daniels (C-3PO) and Kenny Baker (R2-D2). Most of the Stormtroopers are left-handed; the weapon the stormtroopers used was essentially the Sterling L2A3 9mm SMG (sub-machine gun) a military weapon with a curved left entry side mount developed in the late 1940s in the United Kingdom and adopted by the British and Canadian Armies in the 1950s. The Millennium Falcon was originally modeled after a hamburger with an olive next to it. The sound of Darth Vader’s breathing was created by placing a small microphone in the second stage (mouthpiece) of a scuba regulator, and then recording the sound made by breathing through the regulator. And the word “Jedi” is derived from the Japanese words “Jidai Geki” which translates as “period adventure drama,’ which is a Japanese TV soap opera program set in the days of the samurai. And may the Force be with you, my Five or Six Loyal Readers and my Minions of Followers. On another Star Wars front, today is the Eta Aquarid Meteor Shower, best seen in the predawn hours to the southeast.
I did my Bathroom Devotional Reading, posted to Facebook that it was Star Wars Day, and Richard gathered up the trash and put the trash can on the curb. Driving to work, there still appeared to be a short with the interior lights in the truck, and I did my Internet Devotional Reading. We did not look for Eta Aquarid Meteor due to the Full Moon. Once we clocked in at the casino, Richard was on Pai Gow all day except for the last twenty minutes of our Shift when he was on Mini Baccarat. I dealt one hand of Blackjack, went to the second Pai Gow table, closed that table, helped change Blackjack cards, was on the Shoe Blackjack game in our High Stakes area for twenty minutes, then I was on Three Card Poker for the rest of the shift.
After work I picked up my borderline diabetes prescription and my over the counter Sodium Bicarbonate medication. On our way home we stopped at Wal-Mart so that Richard could get some groceries. Once home I set up my new medications and read the morning paper. Richard took the truck down to our auto garage while I took a nap for the rest of the day. (He later told me that the problem was a bad relay switch in the driver’s door; they took out the switch, and ordered a new one.) Richard then mowed the grass ahead of the rain. And I did not do my Daily Update.
Tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo (¡Ole!), a holiday that is observed in Tex-Mex areas much more than in Mexico itself (usually with parties with an overabundance of cheap tequila). And tomorrow is the Midpoint of Spring. On my breaks at work I will do my Daily Update for yesterday, Monday, May 4th, 2015 via WordPress for Android. In the afternoon, after Richard does his laundry, I will go ahead and do mine, and I will call the Lafayette Public Library – Southside Branch to have them hold Yesterday’s Kin by Nancy Kress until I can pick it up tomorrow.
Our Parting Quote this Monday afternoon comes to us from Dom DeLuise, American actor, comedian, film director, television producer, chef, and author. Born as Dominick DeLuise in 1933 in Brooklyn, New York, he graduated from Manhattan’s High School of Performing Arts, and later attended Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. His first acting credit was as a regular performer in the television show The Entertainers in 1964. He generally appeared in comedic parts, although an early appearance (in the movie Fail-Safe (1964) as a nervous enlisted airman) showed a possible broader range. He gained early notice for his supporting turn in the Doris Day film The Glass Bottom Boat (1966). In 1972 TV producer Greg Garrison hired him to appear as a specialty act on The Dean Martin Show. DeLuise ran through his “Dominick the Great” routine, a riotous example of a magic act gone wrong, with host Martin as a bemused volunteer from the audience. Dom’s catch phrase, with an Italian accent, was “No Applause Necessary, Save-a to the End.” The show went so well that DeLuise was soon a regular on Martin’s program for two years, participating in both songs and sketches. In the 1970s and 1980s he often co-starred in movies with Burt Reynolds. Together they appeared in the films The End (1978), Smokey and the Bandit II (1980), The Cannonball Run (1981), The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), Cannonball Run II (1984), and All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989, voice only). DeLuise was the host of the television show Candid Camera from 1991 to 1992. He lent his voice for animated films and was a particular staple of Don Bluth’s features, playing major roles in The Secret of NIMH (1982), An American Tail (1986), the above mentioned All Dogs Go to Heaven(1989), and A Troll in Central Park (1994), along with their respective sequels and spinoff series. He also lent his voice to Fagin in the Walt Disney film Oliver & Company (1988) and made guest appearances on several animated TV series. DeLuise was probably best known as a regular in Mel Brooks’s films. He appeared in The Twelve Chairs (1970), Blazing Saddles (1974), Silent Movie (1976), History of the World, Part I (1981),Spaceballs (Mel Brook’s Star Wars parody; DeLuise was the voice for Pizza the Hut) (1987), and Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993). Brooks’s wife, actress Anne Bancroft, directed Dom in Fatso (1980). He also had a cameo in Johnny Dangerously (1984) as the Pope and in Jim Henson’s The Muppet Movie (1979) as a wayward Hollywood talent agent who comes across Kermit the Frog singing “The Rainbow Connection” in the film’s opening scene. DeLuise exhibited his comedic talents while playing the speaking part of the jailer Frosch in the comedic operetta Die Fledermaus at the Metropolitan Opera, playing the role in four separate revivals of the work at the Met between December 1989 and January 1996. In the production, while the singing was in German, the spoken parts were in English. A lifelong opera fan, he also portrayed the role of L’Opinion Publique in drag for the Los Angeles Opera’s production of Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld. An avid cook and author of several books on cooking, in recent years he appeared as a regular contributor to a syndicated home improvement radio show, On The House with The Carey Brothers, giving listeners tips on culinary topics. He was also a friend and self-proclaimed “look-alike” of famous Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme. He also wrote seven children’s books (died 2009): “When I was 14 years old, I decided I could cook. It was either that or puberty.”
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From The Recamier 