Toy Yoda

Some years ago, I came into possession of a small statuette of everyone's favorite diminutive Jedi Master. The base of this figurine has a motion sensor, some memory, and a speaker. When activated, the motion sensor triggers one of the half dozen or so sage (if grammatically challenged) sayings stored in the memory.

At first, I installed the toy on the dashboard of my car, enjoying the advice I received every time I hit a pothole. That was a car ago, however, and, in the rush of clearing things out of that car after I wrapped it around a telephone pole, Yoda was dropped into a storage bin and mostly forgotten until I moved into this apartment.

He came out of storage, and I decided to do something a little different with him this time. I attached a small wad of sticky-tack to the bottom of his base, and stuck him, inverted, to the ceiling of my room. He takes somewhere between 2 and 10 hours to drop from his perch, bounce off the floor (so unlike the floor of the Imperial Senate where he fought the burgeoning Emperor) and dispense his wisdom.

I enjoy several things about this. First, I have always liked having small habits which are quirky and mine. Not necessarily because they are quirky and mine, but because they are odd and I enjoy odd things.

Second, I have always liked the muppet-cum-animated Jedi master. Having a sensei who would occasionally quote him at us in class didn't hurt.

Third, it is a constant reminder of the small amounts of controllable chaos we deal with day-to-day. I know Yoda will fall, but I don't know when, what I'll be doing at the time, or what he'll say. It's a small amount of randomness, but it's controllable and still serves its purpose.

Also, it makes me laugh.