French Language Day

Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars had a fantastic morning, with a super funny type of skit we do from time to time.  It's a mad-lib, and there's a whole lot of improv involved, as the audience fills in the blanks of the story with ridiculous words that the cast members do their best to act out.  For example, at one point, the Baker Street Irregulars were doing a dance the audience came up with the title for:  The Sputtering Fat Chinese Boar Dance.  It was certainly an odd dance!  There was a lot of fun to be had with the skit, a little break from our ongoing serials and stories, and something quite ridiculous at points for sure.

It was a long day at church, as after the second service - which went late upstairs - there was an audition for certain parts of the upcoming church production.  We were needing some Roman soldiers and apostles, but we had all kinds of people showing up, and it was an amusing audition at points.  We went to our latest addiction afterwards, a place to get Bubble tea, where both Maddie and I ordered some dragon fruit green, which we both agreed was really good.  We drank that on the way home, and couldn't wait to eat:  Mom had something ready for us.  I had this wonderful pistachio crusted fish dinner today, something Mom makes from time to time that is simply delicious.

I took a little Sunday nap after that while Maddie got a shower.  Soon enough though, Maddie was with her online small group, which of course has now moved to Sundays.  They usually do a game, and since last year, the small group's game has been related to whatever the random holiday was for today.  Well, here's the holiday:

So we had a few French phrases that the small group had to translate, using multiple choice answers.  This game was one of my favorites to put together, as I was laughing the entire time:

I'm not sure who won tonight, but Maddie had a good time with it.  She enjoyed her small group time, and then afterwards, we were continuing our Star Wars marathon with a viewing of "A New Hope," the newer version that features "MacClunky!"  Also, Obi Wan's scream was updated too.  I think there are some other things in there too.  With all the crazy "Legends" back story material going on, I wondered if someone wrote a back story for that rolling black dome robot at the Jawas' sand crawler, and sure enough, the droid has a name and a future.

Meet LIN-V8K.  I'm a Star Wars nerd, and I never thought to look anything up about this random robot.  But here I am now, and you're probably going to be delighted to learn that according to the Star Wars Legends, this robot escaped the Imperial attack on the sand crawler by being rescued by a Squib.

Nothing else is written about this droid.  Other than LIN-V8K is "used for mining operations. He planted explosives on rocks to clear a path in mines. He could see through radiation, fog and even sand and light ground fill. He was found by Jawas on Tatooine at an abandoned military garrison."

What's amazing about this is that every single random character in Star Wars - especially the ones who just randomly run by for about one second of screen time - has a back story.  I'm looking at you Willrow Hood.  Most of these back stories have been removed from canon recently, and are now something called "Legends," so a lot of back stories are still around, but not recognized as canon anymore.  That being said, LIN-V8K has no story at all, which is sad.  

I think there's a lot of potential for an adventure starting LIN-V8K.  Obviously, his vision and explosives are a huge and exciting asset.  One could imagine the Stormtroopers looking into the sand crawler on Tatooine.  It's dark in there, and one by one they're picked off by something in the darkness - something large and rolling around quite fast.  Four troopers are taken out before the others begin to retreat, only to realize too late that in their hasty exit, they are triggering a series of well-placed landmines.  LIN-V8K is by this point rolling over a nearby sand dune, having used explosives to blow a hole in the side of the sand crawler for an easy escape.  But he is not above looking backwards to watch the massive explosion.  The sand crawler is greatly damaged, but several of those stormtroopers were vaporized.  LIN-V8K had inner thoughts that could only be computed as satisfaction, knowing these stormtroopers paid for their attack on those Jawas.  But where to next for this intrepid LIN demolitionmech droid?  Fortunately, LIN-V8K didn't wander too long across the barren landscape before he found what he was scanning for:  an abandoned escape pod that had been previously jettisoned by some CR90 corvette.  Quickly rolling into it and sealing the hatch, LIN-V8K blasted off the planet Tatooine to then resume his career as a highly paid bounty hunter.

Seriously, this is what someone would have written about a black rolling dome.  Later on, of course, LIN-V8K would run into a Ewok friend who left the forest moon of Endor to secretly train to be a jedi, and the two of them would join the Rebellion in battling the Empire in the Battle of the Second Death Star, before falling in love and going on secret missions for Luke Skywalker.  

ANYWAY, we read tonight afterwards, moving on with our newest and final Kingdom Keepers book, and after that we prayed, and rolled off to bed like LIN-V8K.