Category: Media

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Celebration Weekend

In a normal world, Nelson and I would probably be heading back to the Bay Area from Anaheim, on the last day of Star Wars Celebration.

Instead, I made a Target run to see if I could get anything from the new Galaxy’s Edge Trading Post items that went on sale today.

I went to one Target and they had no such items out.  I saw another customer with a basket of figures, asking an employee if they had a particular figure in back.  I asked the customer if they had put up their display anywhere, and he said no, he found the figures in the regular Star Wars display in the toy section.  I told him that other Targets had end cap displays for the new stuff.

I then went to the other nearby Target, where I was greeted with this:

That same customer from the other Target came up behind me and asked if this was what I was looking for, and I said yeah.

To be honest, the sight of this made me feel sad that I wasn’t in Anaheim, because I had planned to visit Baatu and Black Spire Outpost and even build my own lightsaber.  But it wasn’t meant to be this year.

I almost bought the cheap Jedi Blade Builders saber that they had, but decided not to.  I’ll build mine at Galaxy’s Edge, someday.

Instead, a porg and a LOTH CAT jumped in my basket.

They brought along a deck of Sabacc-shaped cards to keep themselves busy.

The majority of the other merchandise was rebranded Blade Builders sets, Q’ira’s blaster from Solo rebranded and recolored as a Mandalorian blaster (Double barreled?  No.), droid factory action figures and plush droids, and some masks and books.

And yeah, I’m wearing yet another Star Wars shirt today.

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Stones

So I’ve been nursing a kidney stone at home for the past few days, and yesterday was by far the worst day.

The pain wasn’t as bad as I’ve had in the past, it was just THERE.  Constant.  Throbbing. And no amount of water drinking or ibuprofen seemed to make it go away for more than 1/2 an hour or so.

Because of the pain I was pretty lethargic, trying to fall asleep and nap throughout most of the day.  I think I did manage to nod off a few times, only to wake up with the dull pain still there.

I also watched the pilot episode of The Greatest American Hero on Peacock.  That show hasn’t aged well.  Or at least the pilot didn’t.  That used to be one of our ‘must watch’ shows back in the day.  Dad loved it.

I kept moving from my bedroom to the living room throughout the day to find a comfortable spot to sit or lie down.  I managed to watch both the Red Sox-Mets game and the Padres-Giants game.

I didn’t really eat much during the day, either, just some cottage cheese and Belvita biscuits for breakfast, the last slice of frozen pizza from the night before for lunch, and for dinner, some shredded chicken from the chicken broth I made the night before.  Don’t ask.

I tried to fall asleep after the Giants walk off win over the Padres, but I couldn’t, so I decided to stay up and watch Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. which I probably would have done anyway.

During the episode the pain faded, but came back almost at the end of the episode, so I took another ibuprofen with a cup of milk, and that seemed to do the trick, though I did get up around 2 am to pee.

This morning?  Pain is much more manageable.  I think it’s about to pass, like its about to drop into my bladder.

Here’s hoping.

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Justified: A Celebration

It started with a news article saying that Timothy Olyphant was going to play Cobb Vanth in The Mandalorian, Season 2.  Vanth, according to the Star Wars Aftermath books, is the man who found Boba Fett’s armor some time after Return of the Jedi.

I had heard of Olyphant, but never watched his show, Justified.  My friends on Facebook suggested that I watch as soon as possible, and that I’d love it, and that they couldn’t believe that I had never watched it.

I binge watched it over 8 weeks.

Five years late to the game, but I now consider it one of my all-time favorite television series.

From the first episode, I felt that I related to the main character, Raylan Givens, in a few ways.

Raylan Givens: I guess I never thought of myself as an angry man.

Winona Hawkins: Well, you do a good job of hiding it, and I suppose most folks don’t see it, but honestly, you’re the angriest man I have ever known.

The show itself was well written, with snappy dialogue.  It reminded me of Firefly in some ways, probably because of the music and the fact that Raylan reminded me of Malcolm Reynolds in many situations.

This is a rare show that I can say had few, if any, bad episodes.  That said, season 5 was probably my least favorite, but only because of a weaker plot that other seasons.

Plus, Dewey Crowe is probably the stupidest character on TV in recent history.

How about some top 5(ish) lists?

Favorite Characters:

  1. Raylan Givens
  2. Boyd Crowder
  3. Art Mullen
  4. Rachel Brooks
  5. Tim Gutterson

Favorite Recurring Characters

  1. Ellstin Limehouse
  2. Dickie Bennett
  3. Bob Sweeney
  4. Winn Duffy
  5. Mike “The Hammer” Reardon

Least Favorite Characters

  1. Dewey Crowe
  2. Boon
  3. David Vasquez
  4. Wendy Crowe
  5. Danny Crowe

Yeah, I really didn’t like Season 5…

Favorite Big Bad (Season) Villains

  1. Mags Bennett
  2. Avery Markham
  3. Robert Quarles

The series finale ended the show better than most other series finales.  Better than Game of Thrones, LOST and Battlestar Galactica, even though I enjoyed the last two shows finales.

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Pause

After this next print job is done on my 3D printer, I’m going to try to take a break from printing anything in order to work on the stuff that I HAVE printed already, mainly Poe’s blaster.

And then I’ll work on the Darksaber, which still needs to be reprinted.

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Accomplishments

This is the first Saturday since the Crisis on Earth-Prime began where I feel that I actually accomplished stuff.

  • I cut my own hair.
  • I cleared out and recycled a lot of materials that had been sitting in my closet for about 30 years.
  • I reorganized and stored a bunch of board games sitting around the living room.
  • I organized my Battle Mechs into lances and printed up record sheets for them.
  • I made more Porto’s stuff in the air fryer.
  • I found a much more adorable Baby Yoda plush that the one waiting for me at the office.

And somewhere in between all this I watched The Andromeda Strain.

Overall I think this has been a rough time for everyone.  Like everyone I seem to have good days and bad days.  But I think I’ve learned how to mitigate the days.

And I saw something that was quoted by a couple of folks today:

You are not working from home. You are at home, in a crisis, trying to work.

Which is correct for me for 4 days out of the week.  That fifth day in the office is working at work in a crisis.  Which surprisingly is relaxing.  It’s as close to ‘normal’ that I think I’ll ever see in the near future, despite the lack of coworkers and traffic and places to eat for lunch.

Hang in there, everyone.  We’re in this together, for as long as it takes.

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Picard, Revisited

I swear, if they don’t start moving the Borg artifact story line forward, I’m gonna have to shoot someone.  With a phaser.  Set to wide-angle mangle.

Still crushing on Isa Briones, though.

Seriously, this show has gone from ‘wow, what a great pilot episode!’ to ‘WTF are they doing with the sliding barefoot on the Borg cube?’

And how many episodes until Picard gets his crew together?  Are we done?  Are we going to see a French or Italian or Russian hologram aboard the La Sirena soon?

And what’s up with the pseudo-incestuous Romulan couple?

Dr. Jurati is bordering on Tilly-level annoyance.

All that said, it’s still intriguing enough to pull me back every week.  So far.

I’m just concerned that they may not stick the landing when the series ends.

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Picard

I liked it.  A lot.

I daresay that, IMHO, it’s the best TV Star Trek series since The Next Generation.

It’s no secret that I was never a huge fan of any series that followed TNG.   I thought Deep Space Nine was okay, Voyager was meh, and Enterprise was simply bad TV, except for the Mirror Universe episodes.

Discovery, like Enterprise, was bad TV.

Picard felt like TNG had morphed into something else, as a result of the movies, which technically it had.  It even referenced the Romulan supernova event from the 2009 film.

After one episode, it just feels right to me.  There was enough backstory to bring us up to speed with the state of the universe and how Picard relates to it.  There are some very intriguing characters, and that ending was a surprise, for a first episode.  But not TOO much of a surprise, all things considered.

I recommend it, but be aware of my personal Star Trek tastes.

“Tea, Earl Grey, decaf.”

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Chris Explains Stuff: Be With Me

The fallen Jedi didn’t communicate with Rey at the beginning of The Rise of Skywalker because they all knew that she was a Palpatine.  They were not sure if she could be ‘trusted’.

Once they saw her save Ben and fight off the Emperor’s minions, they deemed her worthy of their help.

Thank you for attending my TED Talk.

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Chatty?

Things kinda went quiet around here between the halfway point of The Mandalorian Season 1 and the premiere of The Rise of Skywalker.

Hmph.

I thoroughly enjoyed both, but felt that The Mandalorian stuck the landing for it’s first season and was better than The Rise of Skywalker.

Heck, it was better than the Sequel AND Prequel trilogies, IMHO.

In fact, The Mandalorian ranks up in my top 5 Star Wars entities, in no particular order:

  • Star Wars
  • Rogue One
  • Rebels
  • The Mandalorian
  • West End Games’ Star Wars The Role Playing Game

The Thrawn Trilogy, Dark Empire, Kenner’s Millennium Falcon playset, my Millennium Falcon keychain and Brian Daley’s Han Solo Trilogy are the next 5 in my list of favorites.

Funny how there’s only two movies in all of Star Wars on my top favorites list.

I’ll still watch them all whenever they play on TV, though.