An enjoyable, if violent and loud, comic book action flick. Quite watchable and fun.
This is not the greatest comic book movie ever. It will win no Academy Awards. It will not change your life.
But I had a fun time watching it in the theater, and I don’t at all regret paying to do so. It has its flaws, but overall I think it hits the mark. It’s certainly better than the opening weekend reflected.
As we roll credits on that distinctive “Schoolhouse Rock” voice.
Jack Sheldon, jazz musician who lent voice to many Schoolhouse Rock videos of the 1970s, has passed away, age 88.
Two of his most famous hits were “Conjunction Junction” …
… and “I’m Just a Bill” …
He actually played a role in a number of the Schoolhouse Rock videos:
Sheldon was a noteworthy trumpeter, as a number of his other IMDb credits show. He was part of Jack Webb’s stable of actors for Dragnet and Adam-12, and served nearly two decades as Merv Griffin’s music director and “sidekick”.
Thank you, Mr. Sheldon, for your talent and for the many memories you left us, especially those educational earworms.
The MMORPG of my dreams came back (sort of) in 2019.
So in case anyone was wondering (Narrator: “Nobody was wondering”), yes, I have been playing a lot of City of Heroes on the rogue Homecoming server.
Wow.
There’s that old phrase that you can’t go home again, but diving back into CoX has been just gobsmacking fun that feels completely natural. Are the graphics a bit out of date? Sure. But the gameplay is as good as ever, the rich backdrop and fun social aspects are all there, and it’s been a huge treat (and, of course, time suck).
After NCSoft shut down CoX in 2012, apparently some clever folk calling themselves SCoRE (Secret Cabal of Reverse Engineers) backward-engineered a bunch of stuff and got the game running, on a private server accessed by a handful of players. The secret came out this past spring by one of the players finally squeeed too loudly about it and it became openly known — and SCoRE then distributed their code to anyone who wanted it, ensuring it couldn’t be stamped out.
Probably the most widely known of theses servers are running under a common label of “Homecoming,” and that’s where Margie and I are playing (on the Everlasting shard, for those interested). The Homecoming crew has been in negotiations with NCSoft to allow them to continue and not get a cease-and-desist; so far NCSoft has been holding back, almost certainly because they realize that the djinn is out of the bottle and stomping on the “out” servers won’t keep others from loading up the same code in private. In return, the Homecoming folk have been quietly reimposing some of the IP restrictions NCSoft had to keep themselves out of trouble with other companies (so sorry, Wolverclaws dude).
All of this means’ things are precarious. The servers could be shut down a legal order at any instant, zapping all the characters rolled up and played. The servers themselves could be taken down if the money isn’t there to maintain them (though the public donations to cover costs tend to close within a day each month after folks have contributed).
We found out about this in August or so (waves at Lorne), and first I and then Margie hopped on, and it’s become a regular feature of entertainment during the week and weekends.
The development and servers themselves seem reasonably sturdy — occasional glitches but no more (or less) than the old days. There are five Homecoming servers, including one for European time zone. We’re usually on Everlasting (the RP shard, though that’s not why we chose it), and some of the most popular zones (Atlas, PI) occasionally get 2 instances at peak (which, given that zones are now capped at 50 people, says something); a glance right now at the server status shows 200-500 people on each, mostly hero/blue-side. Devs and petitions seem to respond quickly, and the forum has healthy participation.
There are some differences from back in the “Live” NCSoft days, mostly stemming from not being a for-profit endeavor. Here are the main ones:
All those special gifts, tools, VIP awards, purchase-this-expansion temp powers, etc? They are now all available from a vendor in the starting zones, many of them free, others available for Influence. Costume pieces that were expansion-specific, etc., are also all available to everyone, with costume revamp tokens readily available.
Thus, everyone can start with the Nemesis Staff or Blackwand. Everyone can get a sprint aura, and minor super-sprint power. Everyone can get a jump pack. And, once you’re off and running, you can spend influence for temp flying power (starting at 5000 inf/30 minutes), or a Summon the Team, or a Mission Teleporter.
The result is that the lower levels have some serious non-grindy aids for everyone, and you don’t really have to settle on a travel power until much later (though this, too, is not an issue, see below).
Margie and I started playing on “Live” (the old NCSoft days) on Issue 3, so we had all the VIP and expansion goodies. That gave us a big Quality of Life leg up on other players. That’s all equalized now, and it’s a Good Thing.
Everyone hates the grind. Alt-oholics hate it even more, along with having to churn through the same content over and over again.
This problem is solved in two mechanisms.
The Play2Win contact in Atlas (and Mercy) can sell you, for free, “No Influence, just XP” boosts, up to 8 one-hour boosts at a time, in 25%, 50%, and 100% varieties. Assuming you have other tactics to churn up influence in the early game (or higher alts to gift it), it’s easy-peasey to crank up to 100%, so that you get no influence, but double the XP rate. Most people play that way all the way to 50.
Throw in two low-level trials: Death from Below (DFB) for 1-20ish, and Drowning in Blood (DIB) for 15-25. You can almost always find a DFB running, and it’s easy to start one, and they run about 15-20 minutes, and at 100% XP increase, you’ll level 3-4 times per run.
That is to say, with an hour, two tops, you’ll have your shiny starter character up to lvl 15, which is where things start to get fun anyway. Run a (harder) DIB or two, or a couple of Positron TFs before that if you’re old school, and they’ll hit 20 easy. At which point more enjoyable content and still more TFs and Trials are available (including nightly-at-least Rikti Mothership Raids, which I’ll get a 2-6 level boost out of for a 90 minute investment in button mashing).
This is arguably a mixed blessing — I have seen people kvetch that characters are leveling up too fast, good content is being missed, kids are on their lawns, I had to walk to school up-hill both ways in a blizzard, etc.
I can see the argument around content, and as someone who slooooowly ran dozens of characters from the ground up, it definitely sometimes feels like cheating (even if less aesthetically objectionable than AE fire farming).
But it’s undeniably fun, too, and there’s Incarnate stuff to do once you hit 50 or, if you’re like me, a dozen other alts to continue to play, all of which are easily gotten to a “am I really enjoying this build?” quickly enough to feel free to experiment.
All the content is still there. Nobody’s forced to skip anything. Nobody’s compelled to run anything, either. And, to be honest, the rate of reward feels just about right for me.
Another pair of game changers are powers you don’t have to take.
In one of the later issues, the restrictions on travel powers was lifted. Until then, you couldn’t get a major travel power until 14, and as a prereq you had to take a minor power from its pool beforehand. Thus you had a lot of folk with Hover and Combat Jump, etc.
That restriction got removed toward the end of the pay run, and in the current Homecoming game you can take a major travel power at 4, with no pre-req. (Ironically, the P2W items and low-level experience boost mean you can skip getting a travel power to much later, though I find it convenient enough for TFs to take a travel power by the time I finish a DFB cycles set.)
Another time/power saver is that the Fitness pool — Health, Stamina, Swift, Hurdle — all come standard on the character. You have to still buy additional slots (including the ED-driven total of 3 on Stamina), but you don’t have to take those powers as part of a level-up. That’s really significant because most people ended up taking one or more of those in the old days, and had to take them instead of an interesting alternative.
So that’s five power slots freed up for … moar powers!
The only disadvantage to this is that, for some of my alts, I’ve found myself scratching my head as to what the hell to take next. Even with the other and expanding pool powers, epic pools, etc., I’ve found it easy to build out a character to where I want and find other powers superfluous. (If only there were a way to trade in power levels for slot levels!)
But that’s a good problem to have, I think.
For those who remember the Good Old Days, remember running actual mission chains to change costumes? Or the Terra Volta respec trial to change powers?
You still can, but you really don’t need to.
Everyone starts off with 10 costume slots, all of them populated with your original costume. You still have to pay influence to make costume changes, but it’s dead simple to do that. There are missions to get tailor tokens (which don’t have to be used at the tailor) to do the costume changes for free, and more are rewarded with levels, so, combined with all the costume parts from all the expansions available to everyone, it’s easier than ever to play paper dolls. And fun.
Power respecs are similarly fun. You can still do the trial, but you also get them free a couple of times while you are leveling, and I believe you can buy them with influence. Which is all fine — there’s no game-play reason not to be able to say, “Damn, I took a crap power” and fix it.
Supergroup bases were a huge thing in the original CoX, but also a pain — everything cost SG influence, there was a monthly rent, and the utility was pretty limited outside the SG.
The current Homecoming setup has free bases — no cost for decorating or items or power, no rent. Which is nice — it’s less effort without losing anything needful. Again, I’ve heard some folk complaining that it makes it too easy for a 1- or 2-person SG to be created with its own base (essentially a personal base), which in turn reduces the socializing that SGs can do.
There’s some merit in that argument, but the reality is that people who want that sort of socializing and/or RP opportunity can still seek it out (and there’s a lot of RP out there), but those who don’t … now don’t have to.
There’s also a convenient /altinvite command to invite a named alt of yours into your SG. That saves some time, let me tell you.
At present, there’s also a command to enter the base through a passcode, allowing a base teleport button to be created as a macro. (When you exit out you exit in the same place where you entered.) This also means you can share your base easily with others, which can be convenient for transportation on TFs, or allows people to hold events in their SG base for other (I see a lot of both). There’s word that this functionality was not intended for public use, but I hope the devs don’t reel it back.
Because there’s no rent or power consumption, our base is fully stocked with crafting tables and shelves, but, more importantly, teleporters to anywhere. Which leads to …
As I mentioned, back when we first started playing CoH, it was Issue 3. Travel powers weren’t available until a long, grinding level 14. It was back when the Hollows and Perez Park were de rigueur for up and coming heroes to fight through. It was back when sprinting through town was a common thing to do — and a common cause of face-planting in more hazardous city zone. It was a time when knowing where the connections between zones through the War Walls was essential.
Oh, yeah, there was also the tram system. Which was actually two tram systems, for (as I recall) upper and lower level zones, with the double trams in Skyway and Steel (and maybe IP) bridging the difference. Which meant getting from Talos to Atlas was, frankly, a pain in the ass.
Now? Well, the travel power and tram system issues are fixed. People have base transporters (which deposit you in locations in zones of varying convenience), to the extent that some folk just post their base entry codes publicly to let folk come in. There’s also cross-zone passage through the Midnighter Club, through Pocket D, through Ourobous, through the Wentworth travel power, through the TUNNEL system …
The fact is, except in rare circumstances, there is almost always a way from Point A to Point B, often several, and it’s more a matter of optimizing paths or even remembering them than struggling to get there. Which, frankly, does occasionally wrankle when I think of those long, long jogs and how Kids These DaysTM don’t have to suffer like we did … but, much more often, just feels like the right way for things to be.
Most of this was in place before the 2012 shutdown, but some was brand-new and some was more focused on VIP players
On the Homecoming servers we’re already getting new content (a couple of mission arcs) and some powers that were in development when NCSoft pulled the plug. We’ve also gotten the Sentinel archetype (I don’t believe that came out during the original “Live” game), which is a true and enjoyable blapper AT (probably my favorite at the moment). We even have a new zone (Kallisti Wharf, a mixed hero/villain for the 40s level). The game is presently in Issue 26, after having shut down in Issue 24.
One interesting development here is that, as the back-engineered code that Homecoming is using is actually part of a broader community, there are other CoX servers not under the Homecoming banner that have been forking off different development priorities. Which is actually kind of cool, in terms of seeing what works and what’s popular.
Frankly, it all feels good and comfortable. No subscription fee (just donations that I hardly ever get a chance to make because they get what they need to keep the servers running so quickly), no micro-transactions, lots of Quality of Life settings, and so lots of opportunities to play and have fun.
I do a fair amount of solo play, but Margie and I duo regularly (it still remains one of the best games out there for duoing, even without the Level Pact stuff working yet / again / ever). We’ve reestablished the Consortium of Justice on the Everlasting server (I’m @3StarDave, if you’re interested in reaching out), and have some of our old duos back in action — Torchielle and Hildegard dinged 50 a few months back, our highest, but Mighty Psiclone and Amorphau (neither of our original names were available) are out there in their 30s, and we have a few others, too.
For myself, I’ve both rebooted some characters I had before (Al McGordo, Ms Crackle, Saucy Jack), but also a lot of new ones. Blood Charade (a Dual Pistols/Ninjitsu Sentinel) was my first to hit 50, but my Loki-alike[1], Prince Shenanigans (Illusion/Time Controller, badge “Sibling Rivalry”) just hit 50 last night, and Milady Zebra (Martial Arts/Regen Scrapper) is at 46. I have (you will be shocked) another 2-3 dozen alts, at all levels and most ATs[2], so no matter my mood or what TF/radio team mish/etc. is being solicited in the LFG channel, I always have someone suitable.
I’ve been playing steadily since August, and I’m still getting a kick out of seeing things I haven’t seen for while, and discovering new things I’ve never tried.
By having our own SG for the two of us (well, three, since James has a character), it means we don’t socialize quite as much, but we also avoid the drama llamas that we all recall with a shudder. And for my solo characters, there’s a rich RP community on Everlasting, and frequent PUGs for missions and TFs, enough for me to play and socialize to the degree I want.
Will the game continue to improve? Will it get shut down? Will I get tired of it someday?
Maybe. In the meantime, I’m really enjoying it. Here’s hoping for another long run for City of Heroes.
Do you want to know more? The Homecoming Forums
[1] An homage, not a real IP ripoff. No TMed IP is actually used. Honest.
[2] I have yet to make a Stalker, nor have I played with any of the Squiddies or Arachnos types (EATs/VEATs) this time out. Yet.
Some new stuff, a lot of old stuff.
According to Letterboxd, I watched (or at least recorded watching) 33 movies this year, 5 of them in a movie theater.
Of those, the ones I ranked at 5 stars (for what that’s worth) were Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse and a rewatch of Fellowship of the Ring. There were a lot of 4.5 stars, though, and a lot at lower scores that I flagged as being a favorite vs being well-crafted (though the two are sometimes difficult to separate).
Looking forward, the movies I’m most anticipating seeing in the theater in 2020 are Black Widow, No Time to Die, and Wonder Woman 1984 — which probably says all about me you need to know. Other films I might see in theater when they release in 2020 (as currently scheduled): Birds of Prey, New Mutants, Onward, Dolittle, Eternals, and Dune.
Beyond that, I expect much streaming and disc-watching in the New Year.
I read a lot this year.
I don’t know that I read more or less this year than last, but the overall tally looks pretty impressive. Here’s my tally, courtesy of GoodReads (and a lot of work of my own putting the information in).
That shows up (currently) as 100 books read; that includes 50 graphic novels, along with 42 text novels (22 of them re-reads) and 8 audiobooks (non-fiction). Notable series I dove into the first time this year: Novik’s Temeraire series (in progress) and a good chunk of Lee’s Liaden books. Also reread all of Peters’ Cadfael mysteries and Zelazy’s Amber works.
There were also 2-3 virtual longboxes worth of comic books.
On to 2020!
Because movie trailers are half the fun.
We had half an hour of commercials (!) and movie trailers and commercials again before the movie started. Ugh.
Doctor Doolittle: I read the books back when I was a youngling, so I’m primed to like this. That said, it looks like a lot of grimdark being slathered onto the story to make it more exciting for modern audiences. That said, jumping jiminies it has a hella lot of talent, and it looks gorgeous. Not sure if I’ll see it in the theaters but, assuming it doesn’t bomb, I will see it eventually. Maybe even if.
Wonder Woman 1984: There are aspects of this trailer I like — the period feel, plus WW. There are aspects I don’t — Steve Trevor popping back up, and overuse of the lasso. But let’s not kid ourselves: I will definitely be going to the theater to watch this.
Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar: Gods, no.
Free Guy: This looks potentially cute and/or a lot of fun. We’ll see.
Top Gun: Maverick: I feel no need to support Tom Cruise or, more particularly, his religious charity of choice. Especially for a retread / sequel of a movie I didn’t think was all that to begin with.
Tenet: Or, Inception 2: Time Rewind Boogaloo. It looked kind of interesting, but I’ll probably wait to stream it.
Onward: Good to see a trailer for this that doesn’t get bogged down in backstory and setting. Still not sure it’s worth a trip to the movie theater.
Black Widow: Same trailer that’s been around some weeks, albeit at movie theater screen size. I’ll be seeing it.
Mulan: I’m very equivocal on this one. Waiting to get more feedback.
I am quite satisfied with this wrap-up to the Skywalker Saga
Preliminary, non-spoilery notes:
This is by no means a perfect movie. It is not a cinematic classic. It will win no Oscars for writing or acting or directing.
Neither did any other Star Wars movie, I’m pretty sure. And that’s what this is: a Star Wars movie, full of leaps of illogic and crazy adventure and pew-pew and Force magic and melodrama and the whole series is based on Saturday Afternoon Movie Serials, fergoshsakes. We’re not talking high art.
Which is to say that I was entertained, and I thought it was a fine movie for what it was, and I will buy the Blu-Ray, and will feel like I got my money’s worth, and I will debate the details, and I will try not to lose my patience with people who pooh-pooh it because it isn’t artistic cinama or because it doesn’t cause all of their fanboi pleasure centers to fire off they way they demand.
It was a fun movie. I enjoyed watching it. I will watch it again in the future. I think it wrapped up the “Skywalker Saga” just fine, thanks.
Now for spoilers.
Continue reading “Movie Review: “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” (2019) [SPOILERS segregated]”
Seth Rogan’s adaptation of the irreverent comic had great moments, but never quite gelled.
We finally finished (a couple of months after the fact) AMC’s TV adaptation of Garth Ennis’ comic book series, Preacher.
Long story short, the 4-season adaptation is a bit of a hot mess, full of many great moments (quite a few of them, but by no means all, lifted or adapted from the original), but as a coherent story it suffers even more than the original.
Ennis wrote an odd but moving (and arguably insightful) paean to America, using hyperbolic sex and violence and iconoclastic religion to provide a old-style Western romance in modern clothing. Written in 3-6 issue arcs (to allow for trade paperback collection), the tale sometimes felt fragmented, but still progressed along narrative about Jesse Custer, his lethal girlfriend Tulip, and their vampiric and right bastard friend Cassidy.
Seth Rogan (Executive Producer) and company faced an insane challenge to mirror the scope and over-the-topness of the original, coupled with, well, the need to maintain a budget (which, for example, dictated keeping kinda-sorta to a single setting per season).
The result a show that felt like a lot of great parts, cut-and-pasted together — plotlines that meandered, events and narratives that seemed locked into a given season without following through (or following through only weakly) in subsequent seasons, characters that came and went or faded in and out, just …
Well, it didn’t keep me from enjoying what I was watching. The music/sound, the cinematography, and, in particular, the actors were all great. Dominic Cooper, Ruth Negga, and Joe Gilgun owned the roles of Jesse, Tulip, and Cassidy (and kudos to Negga who genuinely made me forget the comic book Tulip was a blond white woman). Graham McTavish as the Saint of Killers, Pip Torrens as Starr, and (massive makeup-sympathy shout-out to) Ian Colletti as Eugene … the casting was all just excellent.
The parts were solid, but the whole … well, in the end, it was never quite clear what the TV series Preacher was about. The perils of absolute power, the dangers of hubris, the negligence (if not malignity) of God, the perversity of the universe, the power of friendship … there’s a palpable effort to make it all seem coherent and meaningful in the last episode, drawing in bits from the original (and some great scenes), but by then it’s too late.
Which is a reason why, though I’ve read the graphic novel series a half-dozen times, I won’t be re-watching the TV series any time soon. It was a fine experience while it lasted, and on an episode-by-episode basis, full of talent and imagination, but it never quite made it as a coherent story.
A tip of the hat, though. I’d have considered the series unmakeable. That we got something as good as this should be considered a triumph for the company. I wish it had been better, but I can imagine so many ways it could have been worse.
Mitch McConnell, the jury foreman in the impeachment trial is admitting that he’s collaborating with defense counsel.
Sure, everyone sort of expected that the GOP Senate would never actually convict Trump in an impeachment trial, and that Mitch McConnell, as Republican Majority Leader in that chamber of congress would make certain it never happened.
On the other hand, it’s kind of shocking that he’d actually, publicly confess / brag that he’s in the bag for Trump.
It's worth noting that Mitch will give this oath: "‘I solemnly swear … that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Donald J. Trump, now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws: So help me God." #GOPerjury https://t.co/iyjyWlX2id
— ***Dave Hill (@Three_Star_Dave) December 13, 2019
Everything I do during this, I’m coordinating with White House Counsel. There will be no difference between the President’s position and our position as to how to handle this … in total coordination with the White House Counsel’s office and the people who represent the President ….
Can I just note how … profoundly wrong this is?
The US Constitution — you know, the thing Mitch (and other federal officials) swore an oath to uphold and defend — the Constitution dictates that the Senate serves as the place for an impeachment trial. The House indicts (with articles of impeachment), and the Senate acts as jurors (with the Chief Justice of the United States serving as judge).
Mitch McConnell, effectively the jury foreman, just proclaimed he’s coordinating with the defense counsel.
And if that oath to uphold and defend the Constitution isn’t enough, there’s an additional oath Mitch will be taking, along with every other Senator.
I solemnly swear … that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Donald J. Trump, now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws: So help me God.
I don’t see how he can possibly do that, if he’s already confessing his coordination with Donald Trump’s counsel.
McConnell’s statements are emblematic of the ultimate corruption of the Republican party, whose sole purpose has become, it seems, to protect and defend the presidency of Donald Trump, regardless of what he says or does.
Given that, it’s unlikely that the impeachment trial will result in a conviction, not because there is (or isn’t) sufficient evidence to convict, but because the GOP majority (as led by Mitch McConnell) simply are disinterested in “impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws.”
Indeed, there are loud rumors that Mitch will simply push through a vote to acquit, without any witnesses being heard (this after the GOP spend the last month or two complaining about not being able to call witnesses, even as the White House forbade any of its people to respond to subpoenas to act as witnesses).
McConnell is urgently trying to get enough senators to sweep this all under the rug without the risk of inconvenient White House witnesses being called. https://t.co/YuVcWoJtSP
— ***Dave Hill (@Three_Star_Dave) December 12, 2019
Through such tactics, they can ensure that Donald Trump won’t be convicted under the articles of impeachment. But history — assuming it is written by Americans — not be kind to their dereliction of duty, and their being forsworn of their oaths.
I started a new job a year ago today.
One year ago, I started at the New Employer.
Working for one company for 30 years, being laid off, finding a new job after nine months, being unemployed again six months later, and going for almost two more years without a job … was not a good experience for me. It had an impact that, even a year later, I’m only beginning to understand. I mean, it gave me an opportunity to do some good things (helping my mom move out to Colorado, doing stuff to help the kid during senior year, etc.), but the weight of Not Working … was a heavy one for me.
But … hey, a year on the new job is a good thing to flush those mental toxins, something to celebrate, and goes a long way to make up for the above. The job has been a good one — not unalloyed, but with plenty of potential for the future, and using (intermittently) the talents I wanted to bring to gainful employment.
The salary coming in has been pretty nice. But working in general — even “losing” that eight hours a day — has been even better.
Onward and upward!
On the decorating of trees and how such decoration needs to be just so. If you ask me.
My family gets a great deal of amusement over my finicky nature about the Christmas tree, and that, even after the tree is decorated, I can still sometimes be found in the living room, rearranging ornaments.
(This is actually something I do during phone calls; it’s a way to occupy parts of my brain that don’t get engaged in aural communication. And, yes, there’s probably a bit of CDO involved, too.)
Contrary to popular belief, I do actually have some internal aesthetic rules I follow in this process; it’s not rearranging for the sake of rearranging.
(And, as a baseline, we have an artificial tree, because live trees don’t work well in Colorado and cut trees don’t last long enough for how long we keep the three up. Your mileage may vary. Ours has integrated lights on it, too. And I’m not a garland guy, but I can understand the appeal.)
Rule the First: Ornaments Hang
Okay, that sounds pretty simple, but you’d be amazed how many ornaments end up draped over lower branches. Or sitting on branches.
One of the reasons to get an artificial tree is that you have some control over the tree branches, so you can get things out of the way, so that ornaments can hang.
Rule the Second: Ornaments face outward
This doesn’t apply to balls and other geometric solids as ornaments, but to figurines, disks, and other things that have a front and back.
You’d be amazed how many ornaments get hung and then, as the hanger turns away, twist and turn (because they are hanging) so that you end up staring at the back of the ornament. Which is probably not the idea.
Fortunately, ornament hangers are usually twistable, so you can adjust them at the branch or the ornament to make the ornament face outward and appeal to the viewer of the tree (who is, after all, probably not climbing up its trunk, unless it’s your cat).
Rule the Third: Be aware of similar ornaments
If you have three blown glass dragons, consider their position to each other. Maybe you put them all together, because you want to compare and contrast. Maybe you want them evenly separated around the tree so that wherever one stands one is visible. You probably don’t want them glommed on wherever.
Ditto for any other potential groupings (balls vs icicles, candy cane ornaments, etc.). The rule here is not specific, but just awareness.
Rule the Fourth: Think in three dimensions
Particularly with an artificial tree, ornaments can be hung toward the center of the tree, to create a depth of decoration. This also helps obscure giant tags to help you plug the electric lights together.
Rule the Fifth: Ornaments and lights interact
Have a transparent or translucent ornament? Consider positioning it (or the lights) so that there’s a light behind the ornament. (A window can be a light as well.) Alternately, with an opaque ornament, having a light in front of it can illuminate it nicely.
Rule the Sixth: Proportionality is pleasing
There should be some level of consistency of ornament density from top to bottom and around the tree (you can probably get away with fewer ornaments at the back of the tree, sure). Big clumps of ornaments and big gaps are probably not a good idea, unless they are, themselves, an intentional artistic arrangement.
Rule the Seventh: You can have too much of a good thing
This one is very subjective, but, basically, just because you have six crates of ornaments doesn’t mean you need to put all of them on the tree. Feel free to be picky — put your favorites up first, whether because they are particularly pretty or particularly sentimental.
(If you like really crowded trees, more power to you. But do it thoughtfully, not because By God I will put up ALL the ornaments!)
If you have ornaments you never get to, donate them to a local charitable thrift store; they really like ornaments, and someone may get a lot of joy from them.
Rule the Eighth: Nothing is ever perfect, so don’t get hung up on it
After all of the above, this one is kind of anti-climactic, but true. That’s why I fiddle with ornaments afterward; because I haven’t (completely) obsessed about getting it right the first time, and looking at something with fresh eyes, in different light, etc., can reveal opportunities for improvement. But …
… it’s a never-ending series of tweaks. If that brings you happiness, as it does me, then go for it. If that’s not your bag, then just slam that stuff up there. I won’t judge.
Well, I will. But I’ll try to do so silently.
(But I won’t rearrange stuff on other people’s trees. That’d just be silly. And, more importantly, rude.)
* * *
Yeah, the above is all a little silly, an attempt to codify my personal aesthetic as a way of explaining why I keep shifting ornaments around. Take it with a grain of salt as hard and fast rules (as is true with any aesthetic judgment); if you find any of it useful advice, then that’s all I could hope for.
It’s a culinary destination location
NOLA has long been on my List Of Place I Want To Visit, but it never quite happened, until our friends Mario and Dirk got married and had one of their celebrations there (where Dirk’s family resides).
Physically, New Orleans reminds me of European cities — broad avenues and narrow streets, streetcars, elegant buildings often gone to seed from disaster or economic upheaval, places trying to find a purpose beyond being a tourist destination.
As a place to go, though, it’s very different from anywhere I’ve traveled. Usually, when I go someplace, there’s things to see. Natural wonders. Historic monuments. Museums.
NOLA has those for the most part. But that’s not why people seem to go there, and not why I’ll be going back.
You go to New Orleans to eat and to drink. (And to party, if one is so inclined. The whole Mardi Gras experience aside, anything is an excuse to party, from the Saints winning a game causing gridlock in the French Quarter (as it did) to a wedding party and a second line parade (which we got to do, too).
But the food and drink and hospitality business is key here.
As we did it at least, a day’s activities consist of:
We did a (wonderful) breakfast at the hotel, but aside from that, we didn’t really do meals per se, just, “Hey, there’s that place we heard about, let’s go in there for a bit,” or, “Wow, my feet are hurting, that place looks intriguing to stop in.”
NOLA has signature cuisines — sea food, Creole food, soul food, Cajun food, lots of shrimp and rice and sausage and roux-based sauces, and bread pudding desserts (but with plenty of alternatives) — and plenty to wash them down with. The cheap bars that line the SW end of Bourbon Street will ply you with daiquiris and margs and cheap beer, but most bars of note will have both old favorites and some interesting signature cocktails. These may be tropical, they may be based on gin or pisco, or, most frequently, they start with bourbon or rye whiskey and go from there.
The Sazerac is the grand elder of cocktails here. I grew to like them, though I tried a variety of others.
NOLA, at least in the French Quarter, allows public consumption of alcohol. That usually means plastic cups and containers of garishly colored booze and beer. People tend not to stroll the avenues (not even Royal Street) with a Pimm’s Cup or Chicory Old Fashioned. (That just means you have to finish it up before toddling onto the next spot to try.)
It’s not, as I indicated all about eating and drinking. It’s also listening to music — live entertainment is all over the place during the evenings, and not hard to find during the day, even discounting the (often very talented) street performers, many of whom actually set up in the street due to the narrow sidewalks.
NOLA is steeped in history, starting its colonial period under the French and Spanish and French again, throwing around dates that make those British settlers on the East Coast sound like Johnny-come-latelies. There’s plenty of later history, from the War of 1812 (thus a legit excuse for Major General Andrew Jackson to have a square named after him, complete with horse) to the Civil War to being a Caribbean hub in the 20s and 30s.
Beyond the buildings and stories and museums about that, NOLA sports a very respectable Museum of Art (NOMA), convenient to the streetcar. It also is the home of the National WWII Museum, which is very US-centric (by mission), but an incredibly rich resource worth visiting.
Getting around is pretty easy; the blocks are relatively small, so hoofing it by foot is always a possibility for most things. The town has a very good bus and famous trolley system (currently hampered by a block of Canal Street being shut down to due to the partial collapse of the new Hard Rock Hotel, yikes). We ended up using all of the above, with Lyft filling in some gaps when we wanted to get someplace quickly(ish).
(I would not recommend renting a car, unless there’s things outside easy radius of foot and bus and streetcar that you really want to get to. NOLA drivers are very polite, remarkably talented at not hitting pedestrians, and somewhat insane, and too many areas are a twist of one-way streets to reliably navigate, even with Google Maps.)
It’s rare I go someplace and not want to go back, to explore new stuff and re-explore the old. To that end, I’d definitely do NOLA again. I can get the food and the drink anywhere, but there’s something kind of magical about the environment there makes it special.
Recommended Places to Eat/Drink:
Other Recommended Places:
Not-Recommended Places:
Sazerac Bar in the Roosevelt Hotel: The drinks were fine, the decor and ambience nifty, the bartender engaging. But those fine drinks were $18/pop. Maybe have one for the experience and move on.
Travel note: A lot of stuff (esp. museums and public buildings) is closed on Monday.
Twenty-five years ago I popped the question.
It was twenty-five years ago today that I proposed marriage to Margie.
I remain gobsmacked (and deeply grateful) that she said yes.
Being without a mobile phone for a week-plus sucks
So every year or so I see an eyerolling article on “I lived for a week without Google” or “I got rid of my Gameboy” or “I turned off my mobile phone and here’s how my life changed.”
Having been without a mobile phone for 9 days, I can tell you … it sucked.
(And, since I have a blog, I can kvetch about it at length. Feel free to ignore it.)
* * *
On Sunday the 9th, I found my phone — a Pixel 1 — was dead. Press a button, get a battery-and-lightning-bolt icon for a few moments. Plug it in, get the logo full-time, but no sign of charging.
Dammit.
It took me a few days to go through all the diagnostics I could on my own. As it seemed to be a power problem, a lot of the recommendations for diagnosis and/or correction had to do with letting things fully discharge, letting things fully recharge (leave it on the charger for some hours), trying something, and, if that fails, try a full (dis)charge again.
By Tuesday, I had tried what I could, had scoured the Google for things to try, and starting to run into real problems with having a dead phone. So Tuesday night, I took it down to the local UBreakIFix where I had gotten a new battery installed back in May (which had been wonderful). The guy there assured me he could take a look at it that evening and have some answers.
Fast forward a couple of days, and multiple calls to the shop to get a status (which was mostly prefaced with “Oh, I was just working on it, I need to do this one more thing”). By Thursday evening, they had given up hope and said the only thing left was a motherboard problem.
Now … I’ve had this phone some years (a 1st Gen Pixel, as I noted, which was introed in 2016, which is like forever ago in phone years). So I wasn’t completely outraged that it had given up the ghost with some mysterious ailment. And I’d done some research in the meantime, and decided I wanted to continue on with a Pixel 4.
(Yes, I’ve read about the problems with the Pixel 4, most of which have to do with battery life. I’ve also read some post-release review saying, hey, y’know, if you’re not running movies and playing chip-burning games 24×7, the battery life is actually perfectly reasonable. Which, since I’m not in that heavy use category, sounded good to me.)
So Thursday evening we picked up my brick, and went over to the Verizon store. We get good discounts through Margie’s employer (who has been working with Verizon so long the company agreement number is a preposterously low value compared to where they are now).
I wanted a Pixel 4XL. And I wanted the 128Gb version.
Oooh, sorry, we are all out of 128s in the 4 and the 4XL. But we can order it and have it shipped to you.
I have been without a mobile for five days, with various dire results. Okay, fine.
Okay, that will be 3-5 business days.
Dammit.
Or, for $13, you can get it delivered at home tomorrow night by 8pm.
Sold.
Until the next day, when we hadn’t gotten any shipping info on the phone (just a receipt for the bill). And, when I contacted Verizon, I was told the order went in too late on Thursday evening, so it would be another business day.
Monday, by 8pm.
Dammit.
I did get them to reverse the damned $13, so that was … mildly less infuriating.
Monday rolls around. FedEx notes it will be delivered by 8pm, but has no more details. Oh, wait, maybe I can get more details, but I have to create a FedEx account which …
… gets validated by a code texted to my mobile. Which I don’t have.
Margie has to take Mom off to the doctor on Monday morning, but, hey, phone is due that night, right?
Well, apparently FedEx believes that “by 8pm” also includes “or eight hours earlier than that,” as we get notification that they tried, really-truly they did, at 11:59 am, but nobody was there.
Dammit.
So I can either accept delivery “by 8pm” on Tuesday (someone stay home and don’t even dare go to the bathroom, by gad!), or go by the FedEx facility after 6:15pm, but no later than 7pm when they close.
Well, it’s been a long day for me, and a longer one for Margie, but we tromp to FedEx because, dammit, I want my phone.
We’re delayed a few minutes in dealing with the fact that the email FedEx sent us with the address of the facility, when the address is clicked, points to (in retrospect) the geographical center of the city it belongs to (complete with turn-by-turn directions), rather than, as Google kept trying to tell us, a facility over near the airport.
Fortunately, we listened to Google, otherwise there would have been violence.
As there almost was when we showed up at 6:30pm at the FedEx facility, and were told by the guy behind the counter that, oh, sorry, that truck isn’t back yet.
Don’t peeve off my wife on customer service matters. She gets frightening.
The guy behind the counter quickly scrambled off into the warehouse and, lo and behold!, the truck was there, it just hadn’t checked in yet. He returned with.
My Phone.
Which I got up and running over the course of the rest of the evening, despite some really annoying aspects to Googles two-factor-authentication which almost kept me from doing the restore because it really, truly, certainly wanted me to confirm my identity logging into the phone by sending a text … to the phone … which it wouldn’t accept … because I wasn’t logged in.
The one advantage to the delays in getting the phone was that it meant the accessories (case, etc.) had plenty of time to arrive.
Anyway, I have my phone and, aside from weirdness on the company security side of things (which took up waaaaay too much of my time today), it is so nice to have my mobile back.
And, yes, this is a classic #FirstWorldProblem, but personally aggravating, regardless.
* * *
So, what were the problems of being without mobile phone?
Here were a few I noted:
Most of these involved either some fancy code generator like Google Authenticator, or else, more simply, “We’re going to text you with a code, so plug the code into this screen to prove you are you.”
That’s all really awesome. Until the device that does all of that — the one you’ve installed an Authenticator on, or the one that has your pre-entered mobile number as the thing to text to — is kaput. Then all that happens is that you can’t get to the Authenticator, and you can’t receive texts …
… and various services who want to prove you are really you, can’t. So they declare you an electronic non-person.
This happened with some of my office application needs (where we use Okta authentication), but I also got picked up in a random check on reality by Twitter. Some applications allow for alternatives (“text you? call you? email you?”), but Twitter just have that one phone number it wants to text you at.
You can change that phone number, of course, but they need to text you to confirm it …
So that’s why I wasn’t on Twitter.
Oh, yeah, no casual (or possibly life-saving) phone calls when not near a land line.
None of this turned turned out to be horrible. No tales of being stuck in the wilderness or attacked by zombies without my mobile. No never-to-be-seen-again photos of my baby’s first steps lost because I didn’t have my mobile working.
But it was annoying, and cropped up as a further annoyance on an ongoing random basis. Way too many moments of, “Oh, let me grab my phone and–” cut short. Way too many “Oh, if we can’t text you a code for us to use to validate your authenticity, we are going to close your account and destroy your life” moments (or what felt like them).
It was illuminating the degree to which we (I, at least) are dependent on mobile phone access, without serious preparation to work around the inconveniences (e.g., when vacationing somewhere with extortionate roaming charges). There are probably some profound lessons there about reliance on technology, and how our tools shape us as much as we use them, and perhaps even a nostalgic call out to a simpler time.
I don’t know about that. I just know that being without a mobile phone for nine days really sucked.
Trump’s betrayal of the Kurds is just another step in dismantling US foreign policy and reputation
And when people ask, “Why do other countries not trust or like the US,” it’s because we pull shit like this.
So, the syntax from the "Press Secretary" reads like a Trump tweet. Which is a horrible thing to do while we're selling out the Kurds to the Turks.
But, hey, great to see Donald is continuing to destroy whatever international reputation the US has left. https://t.co/mACgACC7vJ
— ***Dave Hill (@Three_Star_Dave) October 7, 2019
That’s the US telling Turkey, “Hey, you feel free to go in and attack the Kurds that we convinced to disarm because we would protect them while they helped us fight ISIS, but you guys have always (and not without some reason) considered them terrorists and know that the Kurds have aspired for an independent state for over a century, so, hey, it’s all yours, we’re out of here because nobody’s paying us to be here.”
In the face of people worried about the folk we took under our wing and promised to protect, Donald was right there with a more egomaniacal statement than is normal even for him.
As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!). They must, with Europe and others, watch over…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2019
“In my great and unmatched wisdom.”
Humility has never been one of Donald Trump’s strong points. Though usually even he doesn’t end up writing like one of Kim Jong Un’s publicists.
It’s also a laughable way to try to disarm grave and bipartisan concerns (heck, even Lindsey and Mitch seeming peeved) about his throwing our Kurdish allies once more to the wolves.
(I can imagine the Senate GOP actually using this as a cover to convict on Trump if they need to, even if it’s not one of the Articles of Impeachment. I can also imagine them using it as a cover to say, “How dare you suggest I am a lackey of Donald Trump? Look, I expressed sincere reservations about his Syrian policy, even though I didn’t really do anything about it.”
I’m sure the Trump Tower Istanbul has nothing to do with Trump’s caving to Erdogan’s desires to wipe out the Kurdish areas in Syria. And I’m equally certain Trump’s threat to “totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey” is as empty as … well, when he … did it before? (When was that, precisely, and how long did it take Turkey to recover in the last three years?)
….the captured ISIS fighters and families. The U.S. has done far more than anyone could have ever expected, including the capture of 100% of the ISIS Caliphate. It is time now for others in the region, some of great wealth, to protect their own territory. THE USA IS GREAT!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2019
Trump’s casual assertion that the US “captured 100% of the ISIS Caliphate” would probably irk some of those allies that assisted at great cost, like the Kurds, if they weren’t facing an attack from a Turkey that has longed to destroy their separatist aspirations.
(I’ve been reading a history of the post-WWI Paris Peace Talks, and it’s probably only one of those weird coincidences of history that it was a century ago this year that the West sold out the Kurds to the Turks, too.)
Finally, as Donald takes some well-deserved mockery for the ego, pomposity, and zaniness that is involved in referring to one’s “great and unmatched wisdom” ….
I guarantee, sometime in the next 48 hours, Donald will claim he made the "great and unmatched wisdom" comment to enrage the Dems, and nobody will question whether a tweet (!) about genocide and economic warfare is an appropriate place for that kind of shit. https://t.co/E0rRPzWbiC
— ***Dave Hill (@Three_Star_Dave) October 7, 2019
(Also waiting for the Trump fanatics to say, “Well, you know, he is pretty darned wise!”)
Meanwhile, the one thing Donald is probably not worried about:
Pat Robertson is "appalled" by Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria: "The President of the United States is in great danger of losing the mandate of Heaven if he permits this to happen." pic.twitter.com/YGeNYpbGrF
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) October 7, 2019
He’s not worried because Pat and his Christianist cronies have been more than happy to support Donald up to the gills, regardless of what he’s done, in order to get all the juicy anti-abortion, anti-gay, pro-religious-freedom-trumps-everything laws and regulations and Justice Dept., and they’re not about to actually turn on him now.
Eighteen years ago today …
This is the 18th anniversary of my starting ***Dave Does the Blog, which means, I guess, it’s legal.
It’s also been moribund for a bit. I’ve been very active on Twitter, and those tweets do get drafted over into WordPress, but I’ve not been taking the next step of editing them into posts. Maybe I need a resolution to do that daily each time I get home from work or something.
Anyway, I did rouse from my blogging slumber to post this, so perhaps that’s a good sign. Many thanks to those who have enjoyed my blogging in the past and, I hope, the future.
And now, for some cake!
A fun movie, very Spidey, with some interesting themes layered in
I think this was a great installment in the MCU, Tom Holland continues to be worth his weight in Spidey-Gold; I definitely look forward to what is coming up next for both the hero and the setting.
Overall rating: 
Worth going to see!
Want a more spoilerish review? ‘Spider-Man: Far from Home’ review by Dave Hill • Letterboxd
What is the meaning of July 4? Hint: It’s not about showing off tanks and jets.
When does the United States celebrate on July 4, “Independence Day”? What is it that John Adams wrote would be celebrated?
I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.
Is it the first noteworthy conflict with soldiery of the nation we rebelled against? Nope, would be the Boston Massacre, September 13.
How about the first defined military conflict with the British, at Lexington and Concord? Nope, that’s April 19.
Any other major Revolutionary War battles? Bunker Hill? Crossing of the Delaware and Trenton? Saratoga? Nope, those are June 17, December 26, October 17.
The British surrender at Yorktown? Nope, October 19. The Treaty of Paris, where Great Britain and the United States formally ended the armed conflict, recognizing American independence? Nope, September 4.
Unlike a lot of other countries, we don’t celebrate our national birthday based on a battle or war or even a violent protest. We have different days set aside to celebrate our military (Veterans Day, Memorial Day, etc.). We even have a different day set aside for the patriotic symbol of the US Flag.
Nor is it a date chosen to celebrate great individuals and their accomplishments, even among that generation. Presidents Day (the conglomeration of Washington and Lincoln’s birthdays) shows up in February. Not many still celebrate Thomas Jefferson Day (April 13), though it was once a big thing.
July 4 represents something special, transcendent of any one battle, any one enemy, any assertion of martial power, any one individual. It celebrates the ratification of the Declaration of Independence.
And the Declaration isn’t about the force of arms, but a document — a political document, a philosophical document.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
It declares those human rights and, as a ramification of them, the right of a people to change or throw off a government that commits offenses against them, a government in which the people have no voice, no ability to consent in how they are governed.
It’s an imperfect document, if only for the compromise of removing a clause condemning slavery in order to get the required unanimity from the Southern states. But even that omission does not change the overarching message of human equality and human rights.
The Declaration is not a statement of military might. It is not about how we have the strongest army, the shiniest cannon, the pointiest bayonets, the fiercest soldiers, the most powerful ships of war. It is, instead, about values, about what is important, about the natural rights of human beings. It isn’t a screed against a specific foe so much as it is a statement of principle as to what political truths we stand by, what is important to us, transcending all national boundaries and political divisions.
It could have been a document about military conflict and war. It could have talked about how we’d beaten the British, how we were all taking up arms, how we would fight to the last man. It could have been about Us vs. Them, centering on that as its basis for declaring revolt against the Crown. Instead, it spoke of a higher set of principles, principles that applied no matter who was the strongest, who was the most powerful, indeed, no matter who actually won the conflict already begun.
All honor to Jefferson — to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression.
That’s what we celebrate today. And those who seem obsessed with making it about military power, a display of our our might making us right, about how this day makes is bigger and better and more important than anyone else … it seems to me that they’re not only missing the point of the Declaration of Independence, and the day celebrating its ratification, they’re actively opposing it.
“All the world’s a stage”
Getting ready for "As You Like It" at the @COShakes! pic.twitter.com/C12cggT6VB
— ***Dave Hill (@Three_Star_Dave) June 30, 2019
We went to the Colorado Shakespeare Festival on Sunday afternoon for our second show of the season, As You Like It. It was delightfully goofy rendition, set in an American “pastoral” rural setting, with a cast of eight (doubling and tripling roles) and original music (to Shakespeare’s words) by Sam Misner (of Misner & Smith).
Indeed, my only regret about the evening was that there was no cast soundtrack available, as the music, and performances of it, were lots of fun.
The show continues to run through 10 August, if you happen to be in the Denver / Boulder area. It’s well worth going to see it.
Do you want to know more? As You Like It – CU Presents
The Trump Administration’s “proof” about Iran attacking ships is far from convincing.
Despite Trump and his Administration baldly asserting that Iran is behind the tanker attacks in the Straits of Hormuz this week, there remain far more open, unconfirmed, and even weird questions about attacks and their aftermath. To name just a few …
That last one is key in this. Cui bono?, “To whom the benefit?” is an old Roman legal maxim. When seeking suspects, figure out who gains an advantage, who has a motivation.
Analyzing motivations is by no means foolproof, of course, as it assumes a certain level of rationality, enlightened self-interest, command and control within all the parties involved, and that you have sufficient facts on hand. On the other hand, just making assumptions based on biases toward an end you are seeking is even more of a mook’s game.
So how does Iran benefit by attacking these ships, at this time?
One semi-rational suggestion I’ve read about this (beyond vague “They’re crazy religious fanatics, go figure?”) is that by causing oil prices to surge, Iran’s restricted oil exports are worth more. That seems a very high stakes way for a short term gain.
Another suggestion is that Iran is sending (while denying the attacks for international sensibilities) a veiled signal that it could cause significant economic damage, if it chose to, and if it is in fact attacked by the United States. The risk calculus there still seems dodgy, but the Iranians (among others) might not see it that way.
So, yes, these attacks certainly could be Iranian. That might even be the most likely answer. Or they could be by Iranian proxies, enough at arms length for plausible deniability.
Or, alternately, they could be Saudis or Emirate forces, looking to get the US to attack their regional enemy (and, hey, drive up oil prices, too!). For that matter, I have full faith in the Israelis being able to stage this, should they choose to see this as a way of taking down by proxy what they consider an existential enemy.
And that doesn’t even count the terrible possibility that it was actually perpetrated by US forces under a false flag.
Given US history, and our willingness to rush to war on mistaken or intentionally fabricated facts (the Maine, the Lusitania, the Gulf of Tonkin, the war in Iraq), and given the staggering cost in blood and money that war incurs, we should always question the proof provided as a casus belli, and call for it to be of the highest transparency possible. We need convincing evidence, presented by convincing representatives.
In this case the scanty proof (mostly assertions) given us by a US Administration whose leaders have made it clear they are itching for a reason to take down the Iranians, and whose penchant for dishonesty on matters small and great is staggering, is as yet unconvincing.
Do you want to know more?
![Movie Review: “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” (2019) [SPOILERS segregated]](https://hill-kleerup.org/blog/wp/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/star-wars-9-the-rise-of-skywalker-poster-1200x1777.jpg)
