Yet another excuse to drink beer

You know, I couldn’t go, and I feel bad.

If you didn’t go, you should feel bad, too.

4th Annual Line Party & Anniversary

On May 31, 2003, Chicago Force held its 4th Annual Line Party & Anniversary at Father & Sons Pizza. The turn-out was good, the food plentiful, and fun was had by all.

Besides the food, we played games, watched a wonderful video all about us that was filmed and put together by the wonderful Trisha, and had a raffle where everyone left with a prize.

If you missed it, well…your loss. You should really show up next time. (C’mon! You know you want to)

Just to prove that we were first

When you think of Chicago Force, you probably think of die-hard Star Wars fans who, while being good natured and charitable, let nothing (including George Lucas) stand in their way when it comes to enjoying all things Star Wars. From con room parties to charity drives to the many clubs, we do nothing half-way.

So it should come as no surprise to you that we were first to be in line for Episode III, whatever it will be called. May 9, 2003 marked the beginning of the official Chicago Force Line Up for potentially the last Star Wars movie.

Don’t believe me? Check it out for yourself:

Whirylball makes its CF debut

March 16, 2003 marked the first-ever Chicago Force Whirlyball outing. You say you have never played whirlyball? Well, neither had we.

Whirlyball starts with those plastic scoops you played with as a kid. You know, the ones where you would scoop up a ball and fling it at someone. They would try and catch it with their scoop and fling it back at you. OK, now add a court and basketball-style goals. Now put everyone in bumper cars. That is Whirlyball.

If you didn’t make it out, you missed quite an event. Everyone had a blast, and we played with the abandon of those who have no idea what they are doing and know they look silly, but don’t care because, well, everyone else looked silly too.

Tragedy in Nal-Ottawa

Organized crime was struck a blow today when noted gangster and crime lord Jabba the Hutt passed away. Details are yet unknown, but so far officials have released the following information:

Jabba was captured and taken into custody Sunday morning by CF officials just outside the core world of Chicagoscant. He had erected a smaller yet accurate copy of his Tattooine throne room on the upscale planet of R-Lingtin Hites and was, according to authorities, holding some sort of celebratory gathering.

Due to the size and nature of the Hutt, the Force had to call in their Hazardous Materials truck (Hazmatt) to provide transportation. Jabba was loaded into the vehicle and secured with a gray covering and a rope-like substance.

The Hazmatt vehicle left Chicagoscant and headed south on Imperial highway Fifty-Five (I-55), maintaining a constant speed of 55 MPH (moles per hectare? Hey, if Han can travel a distance in less than 12 parsecs….and have you tried going 55 on the Stevenson? That is the posted limit, but people normally do 80). The trip progressed without incident until they reached Imperial highway Eighty.

Upon turning west onto I-80, the unit was faced with a 35 MPH headwind. This combined with their ground speed of 55 MPH to give a combined airspeed of 90 MPH. The gray covering holding Jabba the Hutt from escape was not designed for such velocities, and it was not long before one of the supporting grommets tore from its fabric and revealed the Huttese crime-lord to the elements.

A word of explanation here for our loyal readers: it is not common knowledge, but Jabba has a rather large indentation in the back of his cranium (watch the movie again, you’ll see it). Also, his skin is very thin and fragile at this point. When the protective tarpaulin was removed, the gale-force air current set up a vortex action between the vehicle and Jabba, causing dire effects. One dismembered arm was caught in the maelstrom and impacted the rear window where it, according to one witness, “stuck there, plaintive and sad, like it was trying to hold on, then it was gone.”

The rush of atmosphere continued its path of destruction. An exposed flap of skin caught in the current and peeled back, exposing the viscera of the great slug. The transport operators immediately brought the vehicle to a stop, but it was too late, the damage had been done. Unable to repair the damage, even to find any of the violently removed pieces, they continued on to the penal colony of Nal-Ottawa.

The remainder of the trip was not kind Jabba’s corpse. Now fully exposed to the wind, small bits and pieces felt free to detach themselves and spread over a large stretch of road. When the transport arrived at its destination, little remained of the once great piece of slime-ridden filth. One of the pilots, who had grown quite close to Jabba during their time together, was taken by his emotions and weeped openly at the sight, causing one passerby to exclaim, “Jeez, Matthew, you’re such a freak. Why did I even marry you in the first place?”

While Jabba is no longer with us, and his time on this plane of existence was brief, we have the comfort that he was laid to rest with the full honors of a crime-lord befitting his stature–in empty dumpster behind an anonymous car wash.

CapriCon 2003

On February 8, 2003, Chicago Force descended upon the annual CapriCon Convention in Arlington Heights, IL and hosted yet another of their themed room parties.

CF room parties have, over the years, generally progressed in an escalating manner. There has been the simple “Club Sith” to “Dagobah” to the horror that was styrofoam packing peanuts and “Hoth”. This year we decided to do “Jabba the Hutt’s Throne Room” from “Return of the Jedi”. To facilitate this, the convention had donated a 25’x45′ conference room on the main floor, a dance floor, and any furniture that we required.

Planning for this party started months prior and involved many, many people. Those that were there can attest to the success (or lack there of) of this endeavour. Not all of our plans made it to the end, but here is what we did have when the night arrived:


Green-skinned Gammorrean Guard at the door
Blast door and TT-8L droid
Life-sized Jabba the Hutt, tail lovingly wrapped around Salacious Crumb
Full-sized, three-dimensional Han Solo, frozen in Carbonite
Max Rebo and a live band
R2-D2 serving drinks in the corner
Red, blue, and green-skinned Twi’lek slave girls, dancing for Jabba’s (and everyone else’s) pleasure
Yarna, with all six breasts
Boba Fett
Luke Skywalker (where’d he get the beard, though?)


Sound like a party? It was.

Standing guard at the door, I got to witness a lot of people’s first reaction to seeing the room. Almost every one would stop at the door, not quite believing what they saw. 85 percent of them uttered some sort of expletive in awe. I don’t think I saw anyone visit just once. People would leave for a few minutes, only to return to where they knew the party was.

I could spend several more paragraphs listing all the compliments that people gave us, so it was a little disappointing when we didn’t pick up the award for Best Party. After the award was given, though, the con staff spent a few moments giving us a special mention, using phrases like “just awesome” and “I’m speechless”.

So many people contributed to the making of this event that any list is bound to leave someone out, but I am going to try:

Shauna, Heather, Thom, Caroline for making the best all-time party prop ever: a life-sized Jabba the Hutt. It’s a shame he didn’t make it home. Han in Carbonite got some compliments, so I’ll thank myself for that. Heather and Le Penguin for Max Rebo; seeing the blue DJ really added credibility to the whole thing. Caroline, Danielle, and Loree for being such delicious slave girls, and braving the oogling of every male in sight. Jason and Erica for the R2-D2 cooler, and lastly, but certainly not least of all, everyone that helped put this thing together Saturday afternoon: Matt, Dave, Heather, Shauna, Carrie, Ginna, Danielle, Caroline, Erica, Jeff, Bob, Phil, Thom, Ray, Patrick, Trisha, and anyone else whom I might have forgotten….this was certainly a team effort, and was only made possible by everyone pitching in and doing their part. Thank you all, it was a night to remember.

And here I am, babbling along, and all you really want to see is the pictures, right? Well, the wait is over…

Finally, an event I don’t have to drive 2 hours to get to

…as seen by Matthew “Hazmatt” Callison



Well, the 2002 Chicago Force DVD/Christmas Party is in the past. We had almost 20 people show up, and everyone had a good time.

Somehow, we ended up not actually watching the Episode II movie. We did watch the Deleted Scenes and Humorous Outtakes, though. Other video fare included the tape from the 2002 Video Scavenger Hunt, clips from TV news programs around the time Episode II was released, and pretty much the entire movie X-Men. We also viewed “The Skywalkers”, which was a Fan Film made with the help of Chicago Force members Amber-Eyes and Brother Suess. It is a parody of the TV show “The Osbournes” using Anakin, Padme, Luke and Leia as the family. It was very funny, and recently won “Best Movie” at the 2002 FilmCon convention in Madison, Wisconsin.

Thanks go out to 501st troopers Louis, Darth Goat, Duffy, and Emily for coming down and hanging out with us. You fine folks are always welcome, and perk up any party you attend.

But who am I kidding, you don’t want to hear about that. You want pictures!

Chicago Force views AOTC on the big screen…and we mean big!

In November 2002, “Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones” was released nationwide in IMAX theaters. IMAX film is a high-definition format, where the film is literally twice as big as the film used in normal theaters (70mm instead of 35mm). The result is a picture that is bigger, sharper, and more colorful than is found in regular theaters.

As “Attack of the Clones” was the first movie to be filmed, processed, and distributed entirely on a digital format, it presented the IMAX theaters with a unique opportunity to create a 70mm film print that was far superior to anything they had done before. Although they had to remove 23 minutes of film to fit the picture on the projectors, the two hours of movie they were able to convert was truly amazing. Most people who viewed the movie on the 6-story Navy Pier screen knew they were in for a treat as soon as they saw the 20th Century logo.

Navy Pier IMAX was very generous in donating 150 tickets to Chicago Force for an 8 AM showing on the morning of release. Chicago Force in turn donated 80 of our tickets to the Metropolitan Boys Academy, to let some children see the movie that may otherwise not been able to.

It’s not easy getting people out to a movie at 8 o’clock on a Friday morning, but by the time Obi-Wan and Anakin were assigned to protect Senator Amidala, the theater was mostly full.

Here are picture from the first midnight show, and the 8 AM show the next morning:

Chicago Force rocks WindyCon!

On November 9, 2002, Chicago Force put on a room party at the 2002 WindyCon Convention, held in the Schaumberg Hyatt in, well, Schaumberg. The theme for this party was “Death Star Trash Compactor“, and the room was decorated appropriately. Guests entering the room were met by the dianoga, several large pieces (to brace the walls with, perhaps?), and of course, trash.

To say that the party was a success would be an understatement. We kicked it off at about 9:30 PM, and went until the wee hours of the morning, some how managing to esacpe the wrath of the elderly couple staying next door. The room was beautifully decorated due to the diligent work put in by the Chicago Force crew. Matt, Dave, Hazmatt, Thom, Phil, Ray, Heather, Shauna and even Devon from Milwaukee were all on hand to transform a tasteful hotel room into a pit of refuse. It was surprisingly a lot of work.

All that hard work paid of, though, when people came to visit. Practically everyone that ventured into our domain complimented us on our decor and attitude and although there was no official competition for Best Party, our exit polls indicated we would have won by a landslide.

But don’t take my word for it. See for yourself…

Annoying people with camcorders

Chicago Force had their First Annual Video Scavenger Hunt on October 19, 2002. The primary goal, as always, is to get together with like-minded people and have fun. The secondary goal is to place people in embarrassing situations so we can laugh at them later. Both goals met with spectacular success.

The tasks took the teams all over the city, and ranged from giving speeches in public places to interviewing strangers to trying to get members of law enforcement to participate in skits.

After the video taping, we met up at Bootlegger’s to wind down and watch the videos. The event was well attended, and I think it’s safe to say that everyone involved had a great time.