me3dia

The original Jim's Original on Maxwell Street in Chicago. The area was an open air market, selling everything from tube socks to antiques to produce to stereos of dubious origins. Jim's was (and still is, at a new building nearby) open 24 hours, feeding anyone who could scrape up a couple bucks for a polish and fries.

This week Jim's Original announced that it's being pushed out by UIC again, this time to a spot in Pilsen. The university is its landlord at 1250 S. Union Ave., and they've been given until June 30 to vacate the property in advance of a new, as yet unannounced development.

We have a pair of rocks glasses with the Dry Sack logo on them, part of a liquor store gift pack purchased some 25 years ago. I no longer remember how Dry Sack tastes... decent enough, I imagine. It's a blend of sherries, so a little sweet.

No, this was not a Hoth playset released by Kenner, it was actually a “do it yourself” Rebel Base detailed in Woman’s Day magazine in 1980. Their rendition of Hoth was made almost entirely of sheets of plastic foam, which were carefully cut, glued together and then mounted onto a base of corrugated cardboard.  The rear portions of the construction included mock computer banks similar to those seen in some portions of The Empire Strikes Back, as well as a docking bay area complete with shoelaces to simulate maintenance hoses.  Other portions were given over to simulated ice chambers and tunnels, which could serve as either Echo Base corridors or the Wampa’s lair.  Woman’s Day even included a ceiling bracket in one area to allow for action figures to be suspended from their feet as Luke was in the film.  Unfortunately, Kenner didn’t release a Wampa toy until 1982, so I guess you had to use your imagination while utilizing this feature. 

One of my favorite things to as a kid was to use the molded styrofoam packing inserts from various toys as "forts" for my Star Wars and GI Joe figures. They tended to be roughly two stories tall (compared to the figures) with interesting shapes inside of a roughly square or rectangular floorplan, with at least one wall that was thin enough to cut a door or window into, or break a section off to emulate ruins. Perfect for Hoth, but also easy to draw or color on to suit wherever the action was taking place.