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Category: Star Wars

Unblogged Bits for Thursday, 30 April 2009

Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….

Unblogged Bits for Saturday, 25 April 2009

Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….

Unblogged Bits for Monday, 06 April 2009

Links that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries …

“And then there’s the famous scene where Obi-wan steps out of the shower …”

Star Wars given Dallas-style opening credits:

 

Also available in this concept is ST:TNG-as-Dallas, Voyager-as-Dallas, Voyager-as-BSG, Dr Who-as-BSG, BSG-as-BtVS, ST:TOS-as-A-Team, ST:TNG-as-Love Boat, DS9-as-B5,  DS9-as-BSG … even New BSG-as-Old BSG (revised).

Wow. This YouTube thing is pretty cool …

Hugo Comics

I was alerted by a note from Kaja Foglio about the comics/graphic novels included in the Hugo nominations this year:

Best Graphic Story
(212 Ballots / Bulletins)

I’ve read all but Schlock Mercenary. It’s a hard call.  Dresden Files and Serenity were both good, but not great. Fables is fabulous (heh), and Y: The Last Man was also excellent. But I’d really be forced to, yes, give the nod to Girl Genius, even if this particular volume is rather more chaotic than usual.

Congrats to all the nominees!

Hits head on wall, repeatedly

Okay, so there are plenty of science fiction aficionados who eschew the term “SciFi” (the most scornful pronouncing it “skiffy” in scorn).

Well, we won’t have “SciFi” to kick around any more. At least, not the SciFi channel. It’s now mysteriously morphing into the phonetic “Syfy.”

No, I am not kidding.

To that end, the 16-year-old network—owned by NBC Universal—plans to announce that Syfy is its new name March 16 at its upfront presentation to advertisers in New York.

“What we love about this is we hopefully get the best of both worlds,” Mr. Howe said. “We’ll get the heritage and the track record of success, and we’ll build off of that to build a broader, more open and accessible and relatable and human-friendly brand.”

It’s not like SciFi is demonstrably being hurt by its name. It’s a top-rated cable network, especially among some key demographics, and showed double-digit earnings increases last quarter. But … but … it’s geeky!

“The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular,” said TV historian Tim Brooks, who helped launch Sci Fi Channel when he worked at USA Network.

“And rather than do our part to combat that image, to the extent it’s actually out there and not just something we joke about at the conference table, we’re going to spend a gazillion dollars on rebranding and tossing aside our current audience.”

Mr. Brooks said that when people who say they don’t like science fiction enjoy a film like “Star Wars,” they don’t think it’s science fiction; they think it’s a good movie.

“We spent a lot of time in the ’90s trying to distance the network from science fiction, which is largely why it’s called Sci Fi,” Mr. Brooks said. “It’s somewhat cooler and better than the name ‘Science Fiction.’ But even the name Sci Fi is limiting.”

Yes. Because horrific (in execution, not in effect) rubber-suit-and-cheap-CG horror-movies-of-the-week are just how you distance yourself from the uncool parts of SF.

Mr. Howe said going to Syfy will make a difference. “It gives us a unique word and it gives us the opportunities to imbue it with the values and the perception that we want it to have,” he said.

Which is why it still rhymes with “SciFi,” right?

“When we tested this new name, the thing that we got back from our 18-to-34 techno-savvy crowd, which is quite a lot of our audience, is actually this is how you’d text it,” Mr. Howe said. “It made us feel much cooler, much more cutting-edge, much more hip, which was kind of bang-on what we wanted to achieve communication-wise.”

I am happy to say that I have never had the word “Syfy” texted to me.

And, dude, when you have to talk about how your name change is making you more cool / hip / cutting-edge, it’s a sign you’re not.

The network plans to make the changeover July 7, when it will launch the new series “Warehouse 13.” The series, about a secret government facility in South Dakota where all mysterious relics and supernatural souvenirs are housed, is emblematic of the channel’s programming direction.

“It is a dramedy and it is set in the here and now. It’s a kind of an Indiana Jones meets ‘Moonlighting’ meets ‘The X-Files,’” Mr. Howe said. “This is a very accessible, relatable, fun show.”

Because, y’know, none of that has anything to do with SciFi or Fantasy.

The issue here, of course, is that the suits at SciFi and NBC and GE really don’t understand, or care for, science fiction and fantasy. They think of it as geeks and dorks and pimply boys living in the basement and playing D&D. Thus, not surprisingly, their focus groups reflect the same things, especially when the channel goes out of its way to not be about science fiction.

I mean, really — aside from Battlestar Galactica (now ending) and Doctor Who (an occasional import) and Stargate (a long-running, now sputtering franchise) and maybe the quirky Eureka, the rest is reruns, low-budget originals, craptastic monster movies, wrestling, reality TV … and that’s about it.

So at least, perhaps, they are being honest about it finally. They don’t care about SciFi, and they’ve certainly been trying to move away from it for a while. If they are changing the name to reflect that, that’s fine, but it’s one more reason for me not to tune to their cable network.

Unblogged Bits for 03/11/09

Links that caught my eye …

Star Wars — as handed down over the generations …

Sort of like a giant Operator game. Or, in this case, someone who’s never sat down and watched the (original) trilogy, but has only seen bits and pieces, and what…

Sort of like a giant Operator game. Or, in this case, someone who’s never sat down and watched the (original) trilogy, but has only seen bits and pieces, and what she’s heard and been told and figured out from cryptic references and so forth … who then tries to tell the tale.


Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn’t seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

Excellent.

(via BoingBoing and Ginny)

Starship vs Star Destroyer

Who would win in this battle of the Star Trek vs Star Wars titans? Just watch …   (via Les)…

Who would win in this battle of the Star Trek vs Star Wars titans? Just watch …

 

(via Les)

Naming Names

It’s the Internet meme that’s … um … rocking the Internet? 1. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names): Walter Marie 2. NASCAR NAME: (first name of your mother’s dad,…

It’s the Internet meme that’s … um … rocking the Internet?

1. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names):
Walter Marie

2. NASCAR NAME: (first name of your mother’s dad, father’s dad):
Mario Harold

3. STAR WARS NAME: (the first 2 letters of your last name, first 4 letters of your first name):
Hi’Davi

4. DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal):
Blue Serval

5. SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you live):
Christopher Centennial

6. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite alcoholic drink, optionally add “THE” to the beginning):
The Purple Martini

7. FLY NAME: (first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name):
Dall

8. GANGSTA NAME: (favorite ice cream flavor, favorite cookie):
Vanilla Snickerdoodle

9. ROCK STAR NAME: (current pet’s name, current street name):
Mist Monaco

10. PORN NAME: (1st pet, street you grew up on):
Ginger Silver Spray

John Williams, a capella and solo

Various John Williams movie tunes. Sung in four-part harmony. [UPDATE: Lip-synced] by one guy. Using various Star Wars lines (or inspirations) as lyrics. As goofy as it sounds. And brilliant….

Various John Williams movie tunes. Sung in four-part harmony. [UPDATE: Lip-synced] by one guy. Using various Star Wars lines (or inspirations) as lyrics.

As goofy as it sounds. And brilliant. And lovely.

 

Lyrics and the MP3 (latter available for purchase) here.

(via Doyce)

Potpourri on a Rainy (!) Monday Evening

I DON’T LIKE THIS Running Out The Clock: Ah, unitary executive power — is there any law you cannot simply ignore. See, also, We Have One Week to Save the…

I DON’T LIKE THIS

  1. Running Out The Clock: Ah, unitary executive power — is there any law you cannot simply ignore. See, also, We Have One Week to Save the Grand Canyon. Freaking idjits. Expect more last-second-orgy-of-executive-self-indulgence over the next few months. You thought Clinton’s flurry of pardons was bad?
  2. Bush administration okays religious discrimination…: See above. “Law, shmaw … who’s gonna prosecute us?”
  3. Financial Crisis: Who is going to bail out the euro?: A very dark schadenfreude courses through me. 
  4. AFA Declares Victory Over McDonald’s: Great, another reason not to eat at McDonald’s.
  5. Homosexuals should carry warning tattoos, says London…: Not My Anglican Church.
  6. Best Buy’s New Tag: How … uninspiring.
  7. David Sirota: Treasury Blacks Out Key Parts of Private…: Transparency through obscurity?
  8. WalMart now says they’ll keep the DRM servers on forever: Or at least until there are fewer people to bitch about it.
  9. Nonviolent Activists Are Now Terrorists: Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
  10. TSA Agent Ripped Off Electronics, Sold Them On eBay: Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Now, where have I heard that before?
  11. Artist Detained: Absolute power corrupts … hey …
  12. NSA enjoys eavesdropping on US soldiers’ phone sex…: Absolute … oh, never mind. 
  13. EA boss on DRM protesters: Half are pirates and the…: Come watch the game industry self-destruct!
  14. American Culture Derails Girl Math Whizzes, Study Finds: Actually it finds we don’t do well with Math Whizzes of either gender, but particularly with girls. Rrg.
  15. Stupid QA tricks: Colossal testing oversights: Okay, no matter how smug I get, I always have to remember my own testing oversights.
  16. The New Pepsi Challenge: Guess the Smile: Pepsi’s changing its logo and all its branding and labeling stuff so as to combat a loss of market share. As opposed to, um, improving their product?
  17. GPS ‘Spoofing’ Could Threaten National Security : Yet another miracle technology ruined by black hats. 
  18. Firefox extension blocks dangerous Web attack:  It also block all sorts of other useful things, like the Note in Reader linklette for Google Reader. 
  19. Airport security theater: I feel more secure, yes indeedy!
  20. Grenades in your luggage? TSA says that’s A-OK!: Absolutely more secure than ever! You betcha!
  21. Airport shoe-scanner device could prevent stupid shoe-removal…: Except we shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.
  22. Won’t Somebody Please Think of the Children!: People terrified by the “bride and bride” license in California. Yumpin’ Yimminy, give me a break.
  23. Christian Morality and Hell: I confess that I am a Universalist in this instance — which would label me, ironically, as heading straight to the Fiery Furnace in some folks’ account.
  24. How’s that novel coming along?: *SIGH*

I DON’T CARE ABOUT THIS ONE WAY OR THE OTHER, BUT IT IS KIND OF INTERESTING

  1. Fringe cancelled downunder after only 5 episodes: I’ve taken Fringe off my DVR rotation. I just wasn’t looking forward to the next episode.
  2. ABC Develops New V: I was only a bit into the original. I suppose there’s room for improvement, though I suspect it will simply be grimmer and grittier.
  3. Newly released British UFO files debunk some sightings,…: Of course, the real Torchwood kind of stuff wouldn’t be in files they’d release, would they?
  4. Goodbye Little Penguin: Berke Breathed Retires Opus: Honestly, I haven’t cared much about Breathed or Opus since, oh, about two years into Bloom County.
  5. ‘Fingerprinting’ Method Tracks Mercury Emissions From…: … particular coal mines. Interesting.
  6. Turbine to launch a LotRO-focused social networking…: I can see cases where this would be of value to some, though I am post-MMO-social-networking.
  7. *HP classic calculator fans* might like the following…: Not that I’m an HP calculator fan, but I recognize a fellow geek tribe.

I DO LIKE THIS

  1. RTD Sets New Ridership Record: That’s me! That’s me!
  2. Full Terminator Season Ordered: Cool. 
  3. Watchmen Footage Sneaked: Sounds very cool, though Will America Watch Watchmen? makes one dubious about its success. 
  4. Associate Email Links With Gmail in Firefox (Natively): Excellent.
  5. Gettyland: I so need to plan a trip to the “old” Getty Museum while out in SoCal over the holidays.

  6. The Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective Terrorists: Look! Sane analysis of the terrorist threat! No wonder nobody’s listening to it.

  7. The official name for Windows 7 will be: “Windows 7″…: Excellent. It’s about time.

  8. Pirates, the Best Target Audience: Some very nice stuff here. I have at least one of these shirts on my wish list. 
  9. Star Wars A to Z: Way too cool.
  10. Tim Burton could direct Johnny Depp in Pirates 4: Which might be the only thing that would make me go out of my way to see it.
  11. Survival of the fittest Playboy Playmate: No, really, I read it for the scientific implications!
  12. London tube map video: Haven’t watched the video yet, but I’ve read enough about the London Tube Map to know it’s a fascinating tale of design, informatics, and politics. 
  13. What are the Japanese up to right now?: It would be extremely cool to have something like this for the US.
  14. Google Says Their Results Will Be RSS-Enabled: Everything is better in RSS.
  15. Death by kisses, an unusual tombstone: And let that be a lesson to you!
  16. Connecticut Supreme Court rules in favor of gay marriage: Huzzah!

Movie Review: The Matrix Trilogy

Taken as a whole, and watched on a single flight back from India.   The Matrix, The Matrix Releaded, The Matrix Revolutions (1999, 2003, 2003)  Overall Story Production Acting  …

Taken as a whole, and watched on a single flight back from India.

 

The Matrix, The Matrix Releaded, The Matrix Revolutions (1999, 2003, 2003) 

Overall Story
Production Acting

 

I’ve watched the first film multiple times, but never caught (due to bad press) the second two. Matrix I was great and self-contained. Matrix II-III (really a single movie) suffers most from an indecision of vision. Is this movie:

  • A big-concept SF action-adventure?
  • A showing-place for new and spiffy CG fx?
  • An examination of the last human refuge, Sion, how an endless war has shaped it, and the final battle between humanity and its mechanized creations?
  • A scientific high-fantasy full of strange conceptual creatures and Neo’s Alice-like encounters with same?
  • Neo’s continued voyage of self-discovery for the meaning of life?
  • The deadly ongoing man-vs-machine duel between Smith and Neo?
  • A religous-philosophical tract on the nature of reality, and the dependence of its parts? Or about what is life and what’s the difference between humans and machines?

There’s multiple movies in there; by trying to make them all into one (well, two), the Wachowski Bros. end up with something that’s too diffuse to make much sense, and dilute most of the characters they bring in to fill in the multitude of roles. We get bits of Terminator movies, Alien movies, Lord of the Rings, Blade Runner, Tron, and Star Wars, and end up with something that doesn’t match any of them (even Tron).

Actingwise, the mysteriously wooden actors of the first installment are replaced by clearly wooden actors in the second two (and, yet, actors that manage to change the direction of their woodenness at various and random intervals). The production values, at least, are up to par through the whole thing — but, honestly, they super-duper-matrixy kung-fu melees of the first movie aren’t improved upon later on, only repeated to increasing tedium.

The second two-thirds of the Matrix Trilogy aren’t awful. They just aren’t very good, esp. compared to the promise and freshness of the first. Watch just The Matrix, and save yourself some time.

Bottom line: A great way to kill about half of a flight from India to the US.

Mumbai Travelogue – Part 2

Not much of interest to report on yesterday. Got up, getting breakfast, then getting all gussied up for the office. Hour and a half to get there, this time in…

Not much of interest to report on yesterday. Got up, getting breakfast, then getting all gussied up for the office. Hour and a half to get there, this time in daylight (which just lets you see more than the night) before getting to the office.

Day full of good meetings, liaising, discussing, meeting, etc.

Travel to the hotel around 5:30p, and an hour-forty-five this time. 

(New Mumbai traffic metaphor: Remember the asteroid chase scene in Empire Strikes Back? Now replace all the ships and asteroids with cars / scooters / lorries / autorickshaws / pedestrians, move them more in the same general direction, and you get the idea. Lanes markings? Obviously there is a great internal debate in India as to whether you go between them, or follow them along, and the Indians, ever polite, are willing to go along with either position at the drop of a hat.)

The boss and a couple of the others had a call at 8p that was supposed to last a half hour, so the rest of us went up and splashed our faces and changed out of the less uncomfortable clothes. We actually met up at 9p (long, bad meeting), then wandered over to the adjoining hotel, the Oldurai, and ate at a traditional (and excellent) Indian restaurant, Kandahar. Yum.

Got back to the room around 11, relaxed for a bit, watched The Catherine Tate Show on BBC Entertainment (like the Tracey Ullman show, only with, um, Catherine Tate), and then eventually hit the sack.

The time zone shift is still sending me a bit for a loop. I’m still groggy in the morning, and at night, with my body running 11.5 hours off its pace.  I have a lot of things that need doing, but the brain hasn’t been quite up to snuff to tackle them in the evening. I have no doubt I’ll be back and adjusted … oh, just about in time to fly home.

Current plan is meetings here at the hotel the next few days. Some going out and/or shopping in the evening mebbe. Friday is touring day, which will probably be more rural than hitting all the big classic Mumbai sites.

Now — off to breakfast.

Potpourri on a TestingThursday Afternoon

SERIOUS STUFF Identity theft targets children – Not surprising — it’s harder to detect and less well protected. A biologist reviews an evolution textbook from the Discover Insitute… – Expectedly, if…

SERIOUS STUFF

  1. Identity theft targets children – Not surprising — it’s harder to detect and less well protected.
  2. A biologist reviews an evolution textbook from the Discover Insitute… – Expectedly, if you think science is full of lies and disortions, your science books will be pretty crappy.
  3. A Most Novel Creationism Argument – No, the problem is not that science doesn’t take into account supernatural causes — it’s that supernatural causes are, by their very nature, not science. Calling them science is like putting lipstick on a unicorn — it’s still a mythical creature.
  4. Connecticut Dems mull censuring Holy Joe – Lieberman’s feigned shock and surprise is maddening. And, no, Joe, it’s not like the Soviet Union — it’s like Norway, and another politician who reached across party lines, name of Quisling …
  5. End of the Anglican crown – 300 year bar to be lifted… – The Brits re-admitting Catholics (and folks married to them) to the throne? And letting girls butt in line ahead of boys based on age? What do they think this is, the Twentieth Century?
  6. Austin Dacey PWNZ my soul – You can respect people and disagree with them. You can even respect people and criticize them, their actions, their beliefs. You can’t respect them and still mock them — but not all disagreement and criticism is mockery. Though some is.

AND ON A LIGHTER NOTE …

  1. Princess Leia Nagel-esque poster (Leia + Nagel = Leigel?) – I used to be a real Nagel fan back in the day. I still love the look.
  2. The Straight Dope: Do emergency sirens have to be changed frequently … – Siren info can be fun! That said, I’ll confess that the biggest problem I have is not with an overly loud radio or anything like that — it’s that cars as a whole are a lot more soundproof than they used to be once upon a time.
  3. Fringe at Two Episodes – I’m giving it one more episode to grab me.
  4. A Glimpse into the Minds of Kids in 1931 America – Very, very cool. 
  5. Mars rovers still roving – When NASA does something right, it continues to thrill. Years into their assignment — after a planned lifespan of a few months — the Mars Rovers are still doing their job. Well done to all the project team.
  6. Ebert pwns bad movie fan – LOL.

Weakest Deaths in SciFi

Via BD, this charming list of the 12 Weakest Deaths in Science Fiction History. My comments: 12. Shepherd Book (Serenity): Aside from being one of my favorite Firefly characters, his…

Via BD, this charming list of the 12 Weakest Deaths in Science Fiction History. My comments:

12. Shepherd Book (Serenity): Aside from being one of my favorite Firefly characters, his death not not only robs Wash’s of impact, but it just comes off as “we didn’t know what to do with him, we only had one day to shoot with him, let’s make him motivate Mal then shift off this mortal coil.” Yes, I know there’s more to it than that, but I would rather have simply not seen him in the movie at all.

11. Marcus Cole (Babylon 5): Actually, it was a freaking fantastic death, spot on in character, driven by all sorts of foreshadowed motivations (and plot devices (literally a device) that had been pooh-poohed back in season 1). It just turned out to be an utter waste when Claudia Christian decided to leave the series the next season for a fabulously better-paying motion picture career.

10. Pantha (Teen Titans / Infinite Crisis): Yeah, yet another in a series of “hey s/he’s a cool comic book character we haven’t seen for a while, so let’s kill him/her off to how how Evil the new Evil Baddy is.” Feh.

9. Carson Beckett (Stargate): Never watched it.

8. The Lone Gunmen (The Lone Gunmen/X-Files): Never watched ’em. Wait, I think I did watch one episode of their show, but never followed up on it.

7. Trinity (Matrix: Revolutions): Never watched any of them after the first one. Nothing I’ve heard has encouraged me to rectify that situation. A pity, I did like Trinity.

6. Hicks (Aliens 3): Yeah, right along with Newt. Because nothing makes one of the best SF Action Flicks Evah (Aliens) better than having made it all meaningless by killing off the people Ripley had saved.

5. Louanne “Kat” Katraine (Battlestar Galactica): Never that fond of her.

4. Judge Giant (Judge Dredd): Never read anything with him.

3. Cyclops (X-Men 3): Yeah … what’s with that? An off-screen death for one of the seminal characters? Of course, the movie has tons of other problems, too, but … My related runner-up: Phoenix, in X-Men #137, which was a great death that was steadily robbed of all meaning and reality by resurrecting Jean Gray and, over the course of two decades, trampling the X-continuity into a muddy mire.

2. The Sixth Doctor (Doctor Who): Never heard this anecdote. Funny. And, yeah, kind of lame.

1. Captain Kirk (Star Trek: Generations): Never saw it.

HONORABLE MENTION: Boba Fett (Return of the Jedi): Yeah. Galaxy’s most kicking-ass bounty hunter (whom we’ve never seen actually do much of anything), and he gets accidentally kicked into a monster’s maw. Terribly, terribly weak.

Any others I would add? Can’t think of any offhand, though commenters included all the Jedi in Revenge of the Sith, and Tasha Yar (yeah, that’s pretty good, save that she was a lame character to begin with).

Potpourri of Happy Things

Taking a minute or three off to pull together a few Shared items. Hopefully this makes up a bit for the paucity of actual posts of late. Calories In -…

Taking a minute or three off to pull together a few Shared items. Hopefully this makes up a bit for the paucity of actual posts of late.

  1. Calories In – Calories Out: By and large, it’s just about that simple.
  2. Giz Explains: The Magic Behind Touchscreens [Giz Explains]: While there’s a long time before it’s altogether true, the touch screen will (IMO) become the dominant physical interface before too long, and having a bunch of buttons, or a “real” keyboard, on the high tech gear will make a lot of SF TV and movies of the past four decades look horribly and laughably dated.
  3. Contact lenses for “anime eyes”: Ooooh … pretttty … Yeah, it’d be creepy if we were talking about actual body mods, but contact lenses? That’s kind of cool.
  4. 7 Reasons Fringe Will Rule TV: Makes a note to put it on the DVR …
  5. Ruling Splits Star Wars Case: So … the copyright on Star Wars designs has lapsed in the UK? Awesome …
  6. Stopping Movable Type eating your database: Making a note of this one. I think I’m okay here, but …
  7. Movable Type Pro to meld blogging and social networking: Urg. 4.2, and I’m still struggling to get around to installing 4.1, let alone update my templates. Urg.
  8. Trek Online Game Developing: On the one hand, the Trek-verse has a huge potential for a shared gaming universe. On the other hand, intentionally pulling it “after” the “current” continuity, such that one won’t interact with any “name” talents, is going to seriously impair its popularity.
  9. Starlost, The: Release Date (The Correct One!), Extras,… : Sorry, as much as I have a perverse desire to see this childhood love (and famous train wreck of a series), I’m not going to pay that much for the privilege.
  10. I am one grain of sand: Hear me roar.
  11. Giant dog turd wreaks havoc at Swiss museum | World…: Oh, Modern Art, is there nothing you cannot do to make us laugh at you?
  12. 303 – World Government Plan: Aliens to Police USA: I don’t see a dot on the map for the underground slave labor camp out at Denver International … so it must be a fake.
  13. Awesome lightning pictures: Lightning is one of the most awesome — and utterly transient — natural phenomina. Coolness.

 

Potpourri from Faerie

Catching up from a bit … The Good Scientific daydream – DOF waxes at length on what scientific education should be, and how to bring it about. Notes from the…

Catching up from a bit …

The Good

  1. Scientific daydream – DOF waxes at length on what scientific education should be, and how to bring it about.
  2. Notes from the Field | Robert X. Cringely® | InfoWorld… – Even the RIAA can’t stand before a few good mothers banding together.
  3. What’s For Lunch? – I knew there was a reason I had my Mom make me PB&Js every day for lunch when was in school.
  4. Star Wars photoshopping contest – Classic (and some not-so-classic) art given a Star Wars theme. Some delightful bits here.
  5. Wherein your host removes all dobut of his royal geekiness… – What other former Companions could the Doctor turn to in times of need?

The Bad

  1. Washington Wire – WSJ.com : Nevada GOP Cancels Convention,… – It’s a bad sign when the delegates just, um, phone it in.
  2. Study finds AMBER Alerts are great drama, but have… – Have lives been saved? Very few. Has the general level of fear in the general populace been ratcheted up a notch? Yup. What’s the trade-off?
  3. DRM Deja Vu: Yahoo! Music shutting down. Any music… – Once again, unless you actually own it, it can be taken away.
  4. Michigan women must pay out of pocket for birth control… – … while Michigan men can get insurance coverage for Viagra. Bzzzzzt!

The Ugly

  1. Ben Stein goes off the deep end. Suggests Obama is… – Ben Stein was fun on Win Ben Stein’s Money. Ben Stein as political commentator the last few years has been a rhetorical train wreck.
  2. Tom Delay says: God made America to spread the Gospel! – It says so right in the Constitution, right?
  3. WSJ op-ed claims “The Dark Night” is actually a homage… – … to George W. Bush? As is, evidently, Lord of the Rings. Riiiiiiight.
  4. CIA memos say ’specific intent’ of ‘pain and suffering’… – Remember, if you weep as you torture them, not only is it not torture, but you get a full remission of your sins.
  5. CNN reporter says bad things about the TSA, gets hassled… – I feel much safer!
  6. Police Infiltrating, Spying on Leftist Groups – Didn’t they learn back in the, oh, 60s? It’s not about the actual useful intel or danger, it’s about justifying a big budget and feeling like J. Edgar Hoover (with or without dress).
  7. An Interactive Guide to Bush Administration Lawbreaking – Can’t tell your players without a program.

Star Tours — it isn’t just for Endor any more

Continuing confirmation that there’s a revamp in the works for Disneyland and Walt Disney World’s Star Tours ride — twenty years after their opening with a promise of regular changes…

Continuing confirmation that there’s a revamp in the works for Disneyland and Walt Disney World’s Star Tours ride — twenty years after their opening with a promise of regular changes to allow riders to visit other locales in the Star Wars universe.

Revolutionary for its time — combining faboo show for the waiting queue with moving shuttle capsules timed with displayed film — Star Tours has fallen on hard times. There’s rarely much of a line whenever I visit, the ride itself has been running for long enough that people can say the lines along with it, the whole place needs a good dusting and cleaning, and the promise of multiple rides in one has never been fulfilled. 

Hopefully the new rapprochement between Lucas and Disney will revitalize what was once an exciting destination ride.

The movie influences on Star Wars

Most of the ones you’ve heard of, plus a few you probably haven’t.  Is it accurate, or is it just folks ascribing significance to coincidence? No idea, but it is interesting….

Most of the ones you’ve heard of, plus a few you probably haven’t.  Is it accurate, or is it just folks ascribing significance to coincidence? No idea, but it is interesting.