May 26th

Forget ranting, it's another week of raves. I'm not sure if it's because I'm so happy at my new Universal job, because I cleaned up my home and feel better, because I'm doing well on goals, or because the weather is warm and that makes me happy, but I'm just in WAY to good of a mood to waste time ranting about anything.

Of course part of the reason that I'm so happy is because I spent basically the entire day at Disney's Hollywood Studios celebrating Star Wars weekends 2012. I realize that today is about raving, but my entire experience was one big ball of complete awesomeness, so I'm just going to outline it for you.

I arrived at the entrance to that park around 6:30am, cause I like to torture myself, and because I wanted to get in line for autograph tickets to meet Ashley Eckstein. It bears mentioning that the park wasn't scheduled to open until 8am, but that didn't stop there from already being a rather large crowd outside the gates when I arrived. The ended up opening around 7:30, but despite waiting an hour I was never bored. There were plenty of people to talk to and the 501st along with Disney did an pretty incredible welcome before they opened the doors.

Once they let us in I ran around to ride the normal Hollywood Studios attractions, starting with Toy Story Midway Mania. That ride is notorious for having an epically long wait and the fastpasses usually run out by noon at the latest. I managed to ride three times in the early morning, which is pretty lucky. Then I rode the Rockin' Rollercoaster and the Tower of Terror. After that it was on to a couple of trips through Star Tours, and all that before 10:30am.

On my way between the rides I took some time to stop off and see some of the character meet & greet spots. I didn't wait in line for anyone, wasn't keen on getting my picture taken, and certainly didn't feel it was worth the wait. That said, I did repeatedly visit those stations all day to make sure I'd gotten video/pictures of all of the characters. I think I did a pretty decent job, but I'll have to go back to make sure. And, naturally, I made a stop at the Star Wars Weekend store (called the Darth Mall) to get the special event pin and a name tag that has my name on it in Aurebesh.

Aside from the meet & greet sessions I also had a chance to go see a couple of special shows. There was a special behind the scenes show about Clone Wars featuring three of the voice actors. I actually have barely watched Clone Wars, but despite that fact I found the show fascinating. It was really interesting to learn about how they film the cartoon and how the voice acting itself works. I've always been fascinated with the way that TV shows and movies are made, so this little trip behind the scenes was incredibly interesting to me. It also made me realize that I really do need to start watching the Clone Wars, so I'll be looking into that before I go to Celebration.

The other show I attended starred James Arnold Taylor (the voice of Obi-Wan in Clone Wars) and was basically a show about his journey and talents voice acting. He talked about how he started to get interested in voice acting watching cartoons when he was young and explained what it is about voices that makes them sound the way they do. He gave tips on becoming a voice actor and working on your own voices. The entire thing was very funny and inspiring. AND he did ALL the different voices in the show which added up to well over 100 different characters. He went through and entire web of celebrity/character impersonations, and I was completely in awe of what I heard come out of his mouth. All of them were SO spot on! I laughed incredibly hard during that show and jumped to my feet when the time for applause finally arrived. After all the voice actor in the tiny padded room with the microphone doesn't get a lot of chances at a standing ovation.

When I had some time to kill I saw the normal Hollywood Studios stunt car show, watched Muppet Vision 3D, tried out for the American Idol Experience (didn't make it) and played in the Honey I Shrunk the Kids set. I also went on a few of the rides again just for the heck of it. The last adventure of the evening was showing up for my autograph from Ashley Eckstein. She is the voice of Ahsoka Tano in the Clone Wars, but more importantly to me she runs Her Universe, which is a site that makes nerdy things for girls. I've always found her incredibly inspiring because she worked her way up and jumped on the opportunities that were presented to her. I was excited to meet her in person and when she turned out to be friendly and lovely I was even happier.

After that I was pretty much wiped out, and decided it was time to head home. I'd already done an incredible amount and felt very happy about the way I spent my day. Even more than the shows or character meets or the merch I bought, what made the day awesome was the people. I met and interacted with a TON of people today, whether I rode rides next to them or waited with them in line for shows or met them as I was running around Honey I Shrunk the kids. Everyone I met was lovely and I had a complete blast just smiling and enjoying life.

May the Force be with you, always.