Sometimes I find it amazing to see to what lengths one might go to satisfy one's craving for Star Wars - or anything else, for that matter. It might be standing in line for weeks just to be among the first few admitted into a theater to see a movie, standing in line for hours in the freezing, pouring rain to see The Maker Himself, to shoulder one's way closer to the toy display to procure that rare SW action figure . (I won't even go into the Cabbage Patch doll craze or the fiendish frenzy that accompanied the rush on this past holiday season's Wii and Xbox systems. You know of what I speak.)

Heck, I've been guilty of some behavior that others find questionable (standing in line for hours where SW is concerned; I've never "shouldered my way closer . . ." to anything, though. I'm a rather patient person when it comes to situations like that.).

There are some scenarios, however, where I will put my foot down and either lobby or push for the situation to change - especially where Star Wars is concerned.

Case in point . . .

A couple of years ago, my husband came home from our favorite electronics store with a dvd recorder. He used all the gift cards he had been amassing for this one purchase. There was nothing wrong with the dvd/cd player we had. It just didn't have the "record" feature, so we agreed we would give our then-current model (which was an excellent machine, I must add) to my mom and replace it with a piece of gear that could record television shows.

The day my hubby headed for the store to make the agreed-upon purchase, I could not go. Usually, I will accompany him because, while he is a techno guru, I am really picky when it comes to features and quality. He was eager to add this particular piece of equipment to our home entertainment arsenal, so I said, "sure, go without me. Have fun. Just make sure you come home with a good brand."

How quickly I learned to regret those words.

He got home with his purchase, dismantled what needed disconnecting, and set about hooking up the new player/recorder. He was in heaven (or at least very close to it).

It wasn't long before the problems began. And, around what did the problems revolve but Star Wars?!

When the two "Clone Wars" dvds were released, I was the first one to arrive at one of our local shop to buy them. (I didn't plan it that way; it just happened. ) I got home, wrestled with the wrapping, and popped the first one into the dvd player. I waited and I waited and I waited and I waited. Nothing. I can't remember exactly what the message was that popped up on the television screen, but suffice it to say that the player could not read the information encoded on the disc. I was heartbroken.

Learning long ago that it is important to exhaust all possible scenarios before claiming something does not work, I took the dvds to my two padawans' rooms to try the discs in their combination tv/dvd sets. To my pleasant surprise, "Clone Wars" played in each of those systems. That didn't solve the mystery surrounding the main dvd player, however - especially since it was considerably newer than the systems in my padawans' rooms. And this was Star Wars we were talking about here!

Try as he might, my husband could not get either of those two discs to work in the dvd player/recorder in our Star Wars Room. We called the manufacturer, and were told by an "able-bodied" technical advisor that the "Clone Wars" discs must have some special encoding on them that kept them from working in said machine. When informed the discs worked in the dvd players in our daughters' rooms, he didn't have a response that was satisfactory. His "I can't explain that" was not adequate.

We decided to take the next step, and sent the player/recorder to the manufacturer to have it examined (and, hopefully, repaired). Six months later, we were sent a brand new (they claimed!) machine because they couldn't "fix" the problem. Neither "Clone Wars" dvd would work in the "new" player either. Luke's "What a piece of junk" echoed in my mind. It certainly was not followed by Han's ". . . she's got it where it counts . . ."! Without making this story drag on for much longer, I'll just say that the day after Christmas 2006, that dvd player/recorder was thrown in the trash. Not even a year old, the "new" machine wouldn't even function in its record mode any more.

Well, yesterday my hubby and I (yes, this time I accompanied him!) took a trip to that same electronics store, and came home with a model from a manufacturer that has never let us down before. We hooked it up and gave it its test - seeing if it would play "Cone Wars". (I already had stated - emphatically - that, if the new machine didn't play all our SW dvds, it was going back to the store.) I opened the drawer, placed the dvd onto the surface and depressed the "close" button. The drawer was beckoned back into the machine. I could hear the reader "doing its thing". We waited with bated breath to see if the menu page would appear on our television screen. Lo and behold, it worked! I could hear Anakin crying out, "It's working. It's working" over the roar of his podracer engines. I was just as ecstatic!!! We then popped in TPM for another test (it would have been something, would it not, if "Clone Wars" had worked and our other SW movies didn't! ).

All was right in JMW's galaxy. I now could watch all my Star Wars dvds from the comfort of my "escape pod" chair in our Star Wars Room, er, family room.

I extend to you an open invitation to pop on over to watch any and all of our Star Wars movies/animated series/spoofs with us. You just might want to call before coming so I can straighten up the place first - and so I can make sure we have enough popcorn on hand!

Thanks for spending this time with me.

MTFBWY

JMW