[Spoiler alert, as if I care]
There's too much text on this screen. Here, have a photo or two.


That's my sister Krissie and my brother Evan and me on graduation night.


The Cottage, that sticky little restaurant I wrote about a few days ago.

There, that's better.

I have a confession to make. Last night Phil coaxed me into seeing the new Star Wars at the drive-in since it's so cheap and it's our favorite thing to do. I didn't protest too much. I figured I'd better do my research if I'm going to hate it. Plus I'd heard it was light years (hyuk) better than the other two prequels. I'm happy to report that it sucked even more than I thought it would, and that's saying something.

I don't care if it's your favorite movie of all time — you will never be able to argue that George Lucas is a good writer. On more than one occasion I considered punching holes in my eardrums to end the pain the cardboard dialogue inflicted upon each of my cochleas. I'd like to enter the full script into one of those text calculators (I guess I could do it in Word) to see if it's really written on a fourth-grade level like I expect it might be.

That said, it was fairly entertaining in a sort of mindless, numb way. If you just sat and stared and tried not to pay attention to what was being said, it was probably a decent action flick. You know, lots of things blowing up and zipping across the screen. Lightsaber fights in lava pits. Et cetera. (Incidentally, I wanted to just point out that, despite being clothed in their long-sleeved Jedi outfits, the people fighting in the aforementioned lava pit — lava planet, actually — never seemed to break a sweat. Their shaggy hair never became matted to their heads or anything. Maybe the physics of sweat is different on this lava planet. Maybe it was so hot that their sweat evaporated immediately. Okay, I'll buy that.)

But what about this: How is it that at the end, while Padme is giving birth, they just let her die (and they knew she was going to; that's what the whole movie was about) while, at the same time, the bad guys are using all sorts of technology to keep Darth Vader alive after being almost burned to death in the lava? Are we supposed to believe that only the dark side uses technology to save lives? That totally debunks the argument that the film is an allegory about George W. Bush, since we all know how he feels about stem cells.

Anyway, those aren't my only beefs with the movie. Have the random droids historically been smartasses? I truly don't know since I'm not that familiar with the other movies, but Phil seems to think this is a new behavior for them. It's pretty lame since it's used for comedic effect (as in a droid does something for General Grievous and sarcastically says, "You're WEL-come!"). And the part where Darth Vader learns Padme is dead and he stands and yells, "Noooooooo!" with his fists in the air is pretty hilarious. Only it's supposed to make you cry. And any time Yoda opens his mouth, you can bet you're in for a doozy. You can actually read some fun stuff about Yoda's syntax if you're so inclined. I promise it's more riveting than the movie itself.

There was one remarkably effective scene: when the Darth Vader mask is placed on Anakin. It's sealed, and a puff of smoke later the heavy breathing begins. But, in the words of New York Daily News reviewer Jami Bernard, "It's a reminder that in the Star Wars saga, there are pockets of brilliance, surrounded by the yawning emptiness of space."

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Built to Spill is at the Young Avenue Deli tonight. This will be my first encounter with all the Memphis hipsters. Oh joy.