The BEATLES “Birthday” song (youtube.com)
Saturday, actually. But today I left my usual volunteer session at the Historical Society to go to my usual beer session at the Darlene Lounge, and walked into this:
Tomorrow we’re having dinner with John Scalzi. Yeah, John Scalzi – Wikipedia. This is an extremely odd timeline.
Bucket list trip coming in September. I’ll keep this updated. Sydney, Ayres Rock, Cairns (glass bottom boat, William. Somehow I don’t see me snorkeling), Melbourne.
No, not the batteries. The whole smoke detector. Yes, all of them.
They’ve got a useful life span of about ten years. Smoke Detector Life Expectancy – Consumer Reports. And unless your house is less than ten years old, you’ve never replaced them.
And you’re supposed to test them once a week. You do test them once a week, right? Yeah; me, either. I replaced six and two of them were completely inoperable.
And they’re inexpensive. The new ones have a ten year battery! Cheap 9-volt batteries are about $2 each; I got six First Alert alarms with ten year battery backup for $62.
Replace your smoke alarms, and save money. And maybe someone’s life.
Some of you might have seen a headline about a Heritage Auction this weekend. Greg Jein, a model designer who created miniatures, died in 2022. They auctioned some of his collectables on Saturday and Sunday.
There were a few cool items that went for a little bit of cash. Like the X-Wing filming miniature for $3.1 million. And other cheaper things like the Storm Trooper costume for $645,000. Or the Starfleet Galileo miniature for $200,000.
These people are nuts. $106,000 for a Batarang? $175,000 for a phaser?
Here’s the story at CNN: Long-lost ‘Star Wars’ X-wing model fetches over $3.1 million at auction | CNN.
But the really interesting thing in that story is the last line.
“A batch of original production scripts meanwhile sold for $27,500.”
That was… us. The Historical Society. I spent the weekend texting with Ryan and Beverly, and we got some pretty cool stuff. Karl Urban and Simon Pegg’s uniforms from 2009 Star Trek. Linda Park (Ensign Sato) from Enterprise. Anthony Rapp (Paul Stamens) from Discovery. Salem the cat from Sabrina.
And those scripts.
Original Production Shooting Scripts from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi with Early File Copy Script for Star Wars (TCF, 1977-83). Vintage collection of (3) scripts including: (1) Production shooting script for Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back, 157 pages as paginated (174 total pages including inserted revision pages), Fifth Draft, dated February 20, 1979 with multi-colored revision pages (some as late as 8/24/79), each page bearing the red inkstamped “SW” with serial production security code to prevent/discourage copies getting out prior to the film’s release. One page bears the handwritten name “Bunny” (Bunny Alsup, producer Gary Kurtz’s assistant). Bound in vintage blue heavy card stock binder. Missing front title page (script begins with page 1) and exhibiting age, with some torn punches and handling.
(1) Production shooting script for Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi, 107 pages as paginated (115 total pages including inserted revision pages), undated, with revisions dated January 4, 1982 through February 25, 1982. Each page bears the red inkstamped “ROJ” with serial production security code to prevent/discourage copies getting out prior to the film’s release. The script exhibits hand-annotations, arrows and underlines, written in an unknown hand, relating to visual effects sequences including, “View out window?” written above establishing shot “Int. Imperial Shuttle” and “Matte Painting” written above establishing shot “Int. Death Star – Main Docking Bay”, and “Add Shot – Shuttle In Space?” written above establishing shot “Int. Stolen Imperial Shuttle – Cockpit”. One page bears the handwritten name of visual effects art director Joe Johnston. Bound in vintage black heavy card stock binder. Missing front title page (script begins with page 1) and exhibiting age, with some torn punches and handling.
(1) Early File Copy Script for Star Wars entitled The Adventures of Luke Starkiller as taken from the “Journal of the Whills” (Saga I) Star Wars, 252 pages, Fourth Draft, January 1, 1976, bound in vintage black heavy stock card stock binder. Exhibiting age, toning with some torn punches and handling. Included are (2) 4″ x 9″ tickets for a preview showing of The Empire Strikes Back at Lakeside Cinema on Tuesday, May 20, 1980. Exhibiting age and handling. Comes with a COA from Heritage Auctions. From the Collection of Greg Jein.
We got a Luke Starkiller script!!
Exhausting, nerve wracking, and ridiculously fun weekend.
Warren Zevon said it best. Enjoy every sandwich. This would have been my 43rd anniversary. Grab the person you love; hold them tight and let them know how much they mean to you. Don’t put it off because you may not get a second chance. Keep them in your heart for a while.
I missed one anniversary. I didn’t want to, but you know, timing and priorities and such. I found this at the bottom of my suitcase. I never missed another. Keep me in your heart for a while.
She was so nervous. She didn’t really want to do a wedding at all. And the church was not a small church. But she survived! And in the back, I was highly amused..
Modern Methods just released the beer that I helped pick hops for a month ago, 7 Frogs. Then two weeks ago, I went down to Noble Creature to pick more hops and brew beer.
WHile we were picking, Ira was brewing a 15 gallon batch outside.
Spent the week at Corolla, NC with my sisters, nieces and nephews. The weather was absolutely perfect – mid 80s and not a single drop of rain. We like to tempt fate and go in early September (at least until the grand-niblings are old enough for school) and we hit it perfectly this time.
We were in one of those huge houses, right on the beach. 18 of us, but the house had nine bedrooms and ten bathrooms. Lots of fish; lots of beer, and even a pinball or two at the Sunset Grille
I came back in one drive, but on my way down stayed in downtown Fredericksburg, VA. Nice town with some really good breweries. Red Dragon was excellent but I think I liked Water’s End best, if only for the name of their flagship beer – Damn Beer. I got to say ‘Gimme a Damn beer!’, and I’m sure I was only the 4,382nd person to do so. This year.
The web site is live at scifimu.org. And yes, all my IT friends, it is not yet redirecting 80 and there is insecure content on 443. We are working on it. But I think the content is gorgeous. The designer is incredibly talented and great to work with.
Today I got up at 5:30AM. I do not believe I’ve seen the ugly side of 8AM since retirement. The Warren-Youngstown Chamber of Commerce had their annual breakfast today, and in order to accommodate the crazy people who still have to work they start it really early. I got there an hour early to help set stuff up. Lots of pushing heavy things around. Down the ramp from the U Haul was OK; up the ramp was… not pleasant.
But it was a great day and went really well. Lots of blinky lights. Story here:
https://www.wkbn.com/news/local-news/l-a-prop-maker-valley-native-donates-work-to-valley/
OPM shoutout: the President of the chamber is named Guy Coviello. My heart skipped a couple of beats when I read that name on the program.
My OPM career has been bookended by RPGs. Skyrim going in; Baldur’s Gate 3 going out. Well, kinda. It’s been more than a year, but I consider it a bookend.
25 years since Baldur’s Gate 2. Three years in early release beta testing. It’s an anti-Bethesda game – 40 hours in; no crashes; no bugs. It’s a wonder.
I’ve been playing these since my first one with Corey. Eye of the Beholder in 1991, by SSI. By ‘these’, I guess I mean D&D games. We did Ultima IV earlier, but that wasn’t D&D rules. And, of course, the grandaddy, Zork, which pre-dated him.
This is the best. I’ve never played a game this engaging; this fun. A game that makes you think like this one does. Do I want to accept a vampire into my group? Should I just kill him now, or make him promise to behave? What will be the repercussions down the road? It follows the rules. And Instead of my usual save scumming I’m letting things happen organically. With a reported 177 hours of cutscenes – I’m not going to be finishing it this year. Hooray!
