So I've been watching the He-Man dvds and it's kind of interesting what I forgot from childhood, and what I'm noticing now that I'm older. For example, the exploding "love beads" Teela keeps in her codpiece:


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First, an update from my last post: that set I won turned out to be a 1:10 scale technic Ferrari racer set, with working pistons and moving steering and such. Not something I really wanted, so I gave it to Tim for his birthday since I remembered him telling me about a similar technic model he had fond memories of when he helped me assemble the Life on Mars sets. The money I saved on purchasing his gift I used to buy a He-Man figure on eBay to replace my old one who's arm had broken off. Win-win situation.

THE MOVE

Packing! I had lots of stuff in boxes at my folks' place long before the move, and kept putting more stuff over there. We booked two U-Hauls, one for Tuesday, June 28, and another for Friday, July 1. We were hoping to get the keys by tuesday morning so we could move in before the end of the month, but that didn't happen. Instead, Russel let us move all of our junk into his living room and we stayed at my folks' place for a couple days. On tuesday Jenn and I had about 5(I think) people helping us, and it took about 5 hours to load the truck, partially due to last minute packing of odds and ends, partially due to divvying up stuff with Kim, partially due to waiting for the freaking elevator. To illustrate the magnitude of these delays, unpacking the truck at Russel's took 45 minutes, with just Russel and me doing it alone. Then I went to my folks' place and cleared out my old room enough for Jenn and I to sleep there for three nights, which took me untill 1am, and at 5am I got up to face a 12 hr shift at work. Needless to say, it sucked. It sucked so much I tracked down my boss and asked to have the next day off for cleaning, which he let me take. So thursday morning Jenn went straight to the old apartment from work, and I came by and took over vacuuming and shampooing. It seemed like I pulled up a beach's worth of sand from the carpet, and couldn't figure out why at first, but I eventually realized that it was just cat litter everywhere. Freaking cat. We got it all done, but the landlord couldn't come that day, so we made an appointment for the next morning. Later on I got a call from the new landlord, he had the keys for me, so I threw some stuff in the car and got the keys. Russel had been offering the use of his trailer on friday, which I was unsure of because of the weather, but it was looking good as I drove out, so I cancelled the second H-Haul and called Russel to take him up on his offer. He phoned me a short while later offering to take the bed over that night while we knew we had good weather, which sounded good to me, so my Dad and I made a trip with a few essentials and got that taken care of. Friday was the big move, which was over in about two to three hours, and it would have taken less time if the landlord hadn't given me one key that didn't work (the other was with Jenn, and I had to retrieve it). Derek showed up to help take in the last couple boxes, and I bought him and Russel lunch at the spaghetti factory for helping. I got Jenn from my folks' place that evening, and bought my family pizza for all their help. With the move done, it was time for unpacking, and the purchasing of things we were missing (wooden spoons, cookie sheets, cordless phone, toilet scrubber and plunger, two futon couches, etc...) thereby eradicating a surplus of dollars from Jenn's tax return. Our first sunday tea was July 16, and we had a mad scramble to get the place clean and assemble my barbecue, but we got everything ship shape without any snags. Tea was a great success and we had one of our new neighbours out, which was cool. After I fired up my grill and drank beer and ate burgers and was a very happy man. Since then, just little tweaks getting things a little homier, putting up Jenn's Welsh flag in the bedroom, reassembling the Star Destroyer*, that kind of thing. We're still needing stuff, but we've settled in enough for now.

THE MOVIE

So I've seen Episode 3 of Star Wars three times now, and that's enough for me untill it hits DVD and I can afford a big expensive box of all six movies. The first time I watched it I was absolutely shocked by how dark it was. I knew George Lucas wanted to make it dark, but I was expecting it to be as dark as Episode 2 was romantic. It confirmed a few theories for me (who killed Dooku, what happens to the droids), and answered a couple questions (exactly how does Obi-Wan get Anakin's lightsaber, how does Anakin take the news of being the chosen one), and also gave me something new (how does Obi-Wan know to join the force in Episode 4 but Vader does not). I still don't believe in comparing the old trilogy to the new one, because they're different movies made in different eras with different values portraying different themes with a different crew, and it can even be argued that George Lucas is a different person, the older, experienced and highly successful artist revisiting an old masterpiece instead of the young visionary flying by the seat of his pants, dodging cancellation by a hair drawing on his favourite classic movies for inspiration. In other words, STOP COMPARING APPLES AND ORANGES PEOPLE! Overall, Episode 6 remains my favourite original movie, even more so now because I felt that Anakin was a pawn of the force and I'm glad to see him redeemed. My favourite prequel movie is Episode 1 (and while I'm not a Jar Jar fan, his frothing-at-the-mouth critics can bite me), because it's so bright and colourful and it has my favourite prequel character, Qui-Gon Jinn (and if I ever buy a Force FX lightsaber, it will be his), although my favourite duel and space battle are both Obi-Wan vs Jango Fett, and my favourite fighter is the Episode 2 Jedi Starfighter. Final verdict: I like Star Wars, but I'm glad the movies are done with and I can geek out about other things like HE-MAN! (October 18th! I'll be at CNL when the doors open, getting my grubby little meat hooks on that DVD!)

THE PAIN

I am now the subject of the four most recent records in the first aid book at work. The first one wasn't a big deal, just nicked my pinky on a sharp piece of metal, put on a bandaid, no big deal. The second one was saturday, July 9, I tripped and fell chest first on a hard edge and bruised some ribs. The doctor said nothing was broken, no internal injuries, all the pain was from inflamation, just take ibuprofein three times a day untill it goes away. Sunday July 24, I lost my patience and put my knife in a pinch point to cut some paper, my right index finger got dragged in and a big flap of skin got torn up when I pulled it out. Again, the doctor said it wasn't too serious, just poly sporin and a bandaid, but I missed the last two hours of work because of it. Today around 10am, I was cutting paper with a retractable knife, when the knife slipped and I stabbed myself on the inside of my left forearm. Blood spurted out, and my skin folded in and I could quite clearly see the fatty tissue I had stabbed right into. This made me nauseous, but I started to feel better once I had it covered with gauze and couldn't see it any more. I took a cab to the clinic, waited an hour, got a tetnus shot, I was told it was really superficial, not a big deal, the laceration was only 2cm long, but he gave it seven stitches anyway just so that I don't have to worry about tearing it again while I'm back at work. I've taken the rest of the day off, although there's no reason why I can't go back on tuesday, so again, it's not that big a deal. The thing is, any one of these things are not that bad, but they're all mental mistakes of just not paying attention or being aware enough to work in a safe fashion, and all three happening in the course of two and a half weeks is not good. When I got back from the clinic the boss called me into his office to ask me if something was wrong that I wanted to talk about, but really my life is pretty good. The only thing I could think that would be causing this are the problems I have getting to sleep at night. Even when I go to bed at 8:30, which I did last night, after being up since 5:00am and working a 12 hour shift, it still took me at least 2 hours to get to sleep, and I just felt mentally and physically sluggish after I woke up, which is probably why I stabbed myself. I had already made the decision to see my doctor tomorrow while I was waiting in the clinic, because I haven't slept well since the move, and when I told the boss this, he was glad that I was aware of my problem and that I was taking the initiative to do something. My appointment is for tomorrow afternoon, hopefully I can get some good advice about my sleeping habits.

*As an aside, I have learned that Mega Bloks is a Canadian company, which makes them suddenly far less evil in my mind. While I have no compulsion to start collecting Mega Bloks (despite how cool the Ninja Turtle sets are), I do want to get the USS Enterprise to go with the Star Destroyer.

HE MAN! THIS FALL! WHOLE FREAKING SERIES! GAAAH!

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=3245

July a top ten episode set is being released, but IN THE FALL SEASON 1 PART 1 COMES OUT! I DON'T CARE WHAT IT COSTS, I MUST OWN IT!!!

Work was uneventful and work-like today. I did, however, remember something from when I was a kid that I haven't thought about for a while. You see, I knew that the people on TV were just actors, I think I knew that the Muppets were puppets, but I didn't realize that cartoon people were just drawings. To this end I had a dream once in which I saw the cast of He-Man backstage (backstage looking exactly like the rancher I was living in at the time). Everone was having some food in between takes, and He-Man and Man at Arms were spying on the sorceress going to the bathroom and snickering. So you see, even though I didn't know the word, I dreamed of voyeurism as a five year old. How messed up is that?