May 15, 2006

Dust Mites=1, Bonnie=0

While I was working an article Friday night, I had TV playing in the background and a show called 'Can't Get a Date" caught my eye. The episode focused on a guy who was pretty cute but he had zero self esteem, zero game and appartently a crammed/cluttered/messy apartment. When they brought in someone to help him organize his apartment -- and priorities -- the organizer said one of the reasons his apartment is always cluttered and messy is because he purposely leaves it that way because he's afraid that if his external life is on track -- his apartment, his wardrobe, his overall outlook -- then he'll have nothing holding him back from being a success. And he's afraid of following his dreams to see if he can succeed.

The point to this is...well...my place looks worse than his. So what does that say about me? Granted, I'm not really interested in dating anyone right now. But wow -- my apartment is in dire need of a good decluttering. I got up on Sunday and got started on Operation Cleanup. I made three signs: Trash, Donate and Sell. My trash pile consisted mostly of magazines and papers. The Sell pile had Star Wars collectibles, snowglobes, purses and various items that are probably worth something to someone. The largest pile was the Donate section. This was a huge pile of clothes, jackets, toys, games, books, picture frames, computer equipment, a mannequin, throw pillows, etc. I'll be getting rid of a huge desk, and mostly likely a kitchen table I never use anymore because I live in a New York sized closet of an apartment.

Of course, while I was doing all this it kicked up a ton of dust which I inhaled most of the day. Which means this week, I REALLY need to double vacuum the place and dust like I'm the Princess of Pledge. Where's those helpful cleaning elves when you need them?

I guess besides the obvious reasons of why I needed to declutter and clean my apartment, I wanted to do this to see if that organizer expert was right. Maybe I am keeping my place cluttered so I don't have to concentrate on meeting bigger goals that might actually yank me out of my rut and on my way to reaching my potential. I may not have done this to get a date with Mr. Right, but to tell you the truth, I'd rather hang out with Mr. Clean.

May 12, 2006

DIY Faux Felucia Flowers

As the surreal landscape where Jedi Knight Aayla Secura bravely fought for the last time in Revenge of the Sith, Felucia is shown as a planet full of weird fungal lifeforms and gigantic, colorful plants. Many of the plants populating Felucia are partially or completely translucent, so when the sunlight hits their blooms the colors give off a beautiful glow. Now you can make your own unique plantlife with this craft project on Faux Felucia Flowers.

The cool part of creating these fake flowers is that you can make them from almost any material like craft tissue paper, felt, fabric, colorful shopping bags, origami paper, and so on. For big, lush flower blooms use brightly-colored plastic shopping bags. For smaller, denser flowers try using felt. And for fluffy and light blossoms use craft tissue paper.

Check out the instructions here:
Faux Felucia Flowers

May 7, 2006

Mission: "Lost" in Star Wars

Hello, my name is Bonnie and I'm a "Lost"-aholic.

It's true. Every Wednesday I'm glued to my TV set watching the latest episode of "Lost" and then I hit the blogs and boards and yammer on and on about all my theories about "The Others," the hatch, the airplane crash, and the moles planted among the castaways.

So when I heard that BOTH the show's creator and head writer -- J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof respectively -- were huge HUGE fans of Star Wars, I thought they'd be a perfect feature in our Star Wars Rocks section of starwars.com. I chatted with them about how a Bantha Tracks t-shirt made them become fast friends, why they like to sprinkle Star Wars references between Hurly, Sawyer, Michael and Jin, and how the island of "Lost" has it's own Force powers -- in a way.

"Lost" fanatics and Star Wars fans alike should get something out of it -- and J.J. chats a little about working with ILM on his big screen directorial debut of Mission Impossible 3.

Sample quotes from the article:

"The Star Wars movies really defined my entire generation of storytellers," Lindelof explains. "For most of us, A New Hope was the first movie we remember seeing and unlike other movies and TV shows, we saw it over and over and over again. The trilogy was a cultural event and a great story, so when one of our characters uses a Star Wars reference everyone in the audience knows what they're talking about."

Out of the multitude of references to the films, it's the wisecracking conman James "Sawyer" Ford's comments that entertain the creative duo the most. "I personally love that Sawyer refers to Jin as Chewie because he and Michael speak different languages, but somehow understand each other," Lindelof says.

"I agree with Damon," Abrams says. "That moment when Sawyer called him Chewie, it was obviously about this lack of communication but it was also classic Sawyer because he is an absolute hideous bigot and racist who believes that anyone who doesn't speak his language is some type of alien creature."

Read the full 4-page article here:
Mission: "Lost" in Star Wars -- J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof