Johnny Chimpo's blog: "My random thoughts"

Now everybody who even REMOTELY knows me knows my passion for Star Wars. They know that I love that movie with a geeky and dorky obsession that would rival any fan boy any day of the week. Some people may even know that I've gone to the extreme by naming my daughter after Star Wars. My point to this opening paragraph? I love Star Wars. However, even the great cinematic triumph that is my favorite thing ever put to celluloid has things that cause me to think. See, I was watching A New Hope the other day as I'm inclined to do. It was actually my daughter watching it, but hey, it's on, so I'm watching it too. Anyway, something hit me. So, Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa are twins fathered by one of the most powerful men in the galaxy, who's sense of darkness and evil is only shadowed by his master, Emperor Palpatine. So, in an attempt to keep hope alive that order will one day be returned to the force, Obi-Wan and Yoda decide to seperate the twins and hide them from their evil father, Anakin Skywalker better known as Darth Vader. Okay. Good idea. However, wouldn't you think to at least CHANGE the name of the kid you're trying to hide? Leia's name was changed to Organa, for she went to live with Bail Organa on Alderaan. But you're gonna keep Luke named SKYWALKER? I mean seriously. Unless Skywalker is the Smith of the Star Wars universe, wouldn't you wanna do a better job of hiding him than that? Especially since he was living with Ben and Beru LARS. Why wouldn't you change his name to match theirs, instead of keeping the name of the most powerful juggernaught the galaxy had seen in an eon? Seems to me that would just make him a tad easier to find is all. "HEY, you have the same name as that guy that killed all the jedi." Oh well. Just a thought.

So a friend's daughter had her 3rd year birthday party and invited Mara. So naturally I went, because let's face it. Where she goes I go, and besides, I couldnt pass up the opportunity to go to Chuck E. Cheese's. I mean who could? Really? But I digress. Anyway, so the kid's are running around and playing as I go from game to game in an attempt to score them copious amounts of tickets for the big "Cash out" at the end of the day. As I move from one flashing, noise producing machine to the next, I happen to glance over at a little, grey-haired old lady pumping tokens into a machine and something hits me. A revelation that I'd never really thought of before. A correlation that suddenly made PERFECT sense. I sat there and watched her for a minute and my mind wandered to another place where this kind of thing is an extremely common sight. Where little, silver-haired grandmas sit around with tons of "tokens" in a small plastic cup shoving them, one after the other, into the hungry mouth of a blinking, beeping, and buzzing machine hoping to win a large amount of whatever it is they intend to redeem at the counter before they leave. Only difference was this was just one old lady as opposed to the SEA of old ladies you would normally see there. This was a kid's birthday party playland and the other was freakin Las Vegas. Now that got me thinking. 2 points really. First off, what are we grooming our kids to become? Teaching them the ins and outs and hooking them to the addictive world of slot machines at the tender young ages of 5 - 10. Also, I wonder if Chuck E. Cheese's has ever thought of opening a casino in Vegas. I realize that Vegas is not place for a kid's birthday party, but let's face it. How long have they been around and how many of us have had at least ONE birthday party there? We're already seasoned for it. Let's make a Skee-Ball for dollars. Or a shoot-the-hoops for a brand new Lexus. Anyway, that's my random thought for the day. Take it or leave it.