Rebels: "Steps Into Shadow -- Part One" (Ep. 3.01)

-- "You wouldn't believe the secrets he knows."

Pre-viewing comment:

I did, of course, know that Thrawn was going to appear in season three, but I didn't know he starts off the season! I'm very excited that Thrawn is now, finally, a canon character. He's an excellent villain. At least, he was in the Zahn novels. I'm hoping they do him justice here.

This episode does not disappoint! Not only do we get the introduction of Grand Admiral Thrawn, but we have Hondo as well! You know it's going to be good when Hondo is around. And, hey, Dr. Who makes a voice appearance! THE Doctor, Tom Baker. How awesome is that? It's very awesome!

Tom Baker is the voice of The Bendu: I'm not sure if that's a race or a name. He's a Force wielder, but he uses some neutral aspect of the Force, something between the Dark and the Light. Baker's listed in five episodes, so I'm sure we'll find out more about what all of this means as he teaches Kanan how to see without his eyes.

So, yeah, Kanan is blind. That happened at the end of season two, so it's only a spoiler if you're not watching. I'm not apologizing.

Also, Ezra has learned to use the Sith holocron he got at the end of season two. He's learning to use his anger to give him power.

And we've jumped ahead enough that Ezra is visibly older. I'm guessing two years, but I don't really know.

It's a good episode; now, leave me alone so I can go watch part two...

"Acting out of anger offers quick results, but it's a trap."

A Thinker's Book of Dangerous Knowledge (a book review post)

Some book reviews are more difficult than others. Which probably goes without saying except that I don't think it does since a "review" for most people amounts to "I loved this!" or "This sucked ass!"
Of course, those hardly qualify as reviews, but that tends to be the state of the world, and there's not a lot in between.

There should be a lot in between.

The stuff in between often requires a lot of thought, though, which is kind of the point of this book.

So let's get it out of the way that I know Peter. Like for real. Like he lives a few blocks away, and we go over to his house sometimes to do things like play Cards Against Humanity. I've known Peter for pretty close to 20 years now.

We like a lot of the same things, so I get all of the jokes and references in the book. However, there are a lot of them. At some points, I would say that there are too many, that the jokes detract from the message. I say that as someone who gets them. If you're not a Monty Python fan or a Doctor Who fan or... well, a fan of any of the other things frequently referred to, then this book isn't going to work for you. You're just going to end up confused by all the things you're not getting. And that's too bad, because there is some worthwhile material in here. But Peter has created his book, probably inadvertently, to appeal to fairly niche audience, most of whom probably don't need a book like this to begin with. The people who need the book are the ones who have the jokes flying over their heads.

Which would be the time to tell you that if you are unfamiliar with Monty Python et al. that you should probably check them out, because everyone should have some kind of passing familiarity with... things, but that reminds me of another thing from the book, because Peter mentions so many times that you should run out and buy... whatever he's referring to at any given moment, like the complete collection of Flying Circus... that you'd think he's getting paid for product placement. Or getting a commission on sales, and I'm pretty sure that's not true. Pretty sure. At any rate, while it's amusing to be told to run out and buy some other author's books once or twice, after a while, you begin to wonder why you're reading the book in your hand.

And that thought isn't helped by how often Peter tells you that you probably shouldn't be reading his book, anyway. Self-deprecating humor only goes so far before you start to believe the person saying it.

All of that aside, it's not a bad book. Despite that it deals with kind of a heavy topic, Peter keeps it light, and it moves along fairly quickly. If you're unfamiliar with more formal thinking strategies, this book could be part of a good introduction. It's the kind of thing that can put you on the right path, though it's not really the path itself.

I could go on about all the whys and wherefors, but in this day and age when the word on any given day consistently has something to do with "fake news," thinking and how to do it and why to do it ought to be something everyone is, well, thinking about. Especially before you forward any news bites. Or, even, before you believe what the President #fakepresident is saying. So the book isn't perfect and could use some shoring up in places (like the section about deductive vs. inductive reasoning), but it's a good start.

A good start which will never be seen or read by the people who need it most, which is, unfortunately, most people. Because most people never move beyond their search for confirmation bias and most people don't read... Hmm... There's probably a connection there.

Clone Wars -- "Secret Weapons" (Ep. 5.9)

-- Humility is the only defense against humiliation.

[Remember, you can sign up to join the Clone Wars Project at any time by clicking this link.]
[Well, actually, considering that we're into season five, now, probably no one new is going to sign up, BUT! Hop over to The Armchair Squid for his take on the current episode.]

"Secret Weapons" is what you might call a fun little episode and, when I say "little," I mean that literally. I can only imagine the idea for this episode happened over a few a beers one night when someone said,"Wait! The general can be a frog!"
And someone responded, "And it can ride around in R2's head!"
That or someone is a big fan of the daleks from Doctor Who.

I don't have much more to say about this episode other than that it's fun. It's not significant in anyway, just a break for a bit of humor. Other than that R2 is in it (and not even in a significant way), there aren't even any established characters in the episode other than to start it off. That said, Dr. Gubacher is hilarious and is worth the whole episode. Or, at least, up to the part that he's in. He's like a cross between Igor and Q, and it makes me want a whole series where he's outfitting Jedi with special gadgets. That, um, actually sounds kind of awesome.



"Some of you might not make it back."
"What? Why's he looking at me?"

Clone Wars -- "A Test of Strength" (Ep. 5.6)

-- The young are often underestimated.

[Remember, you can sign up to join the Clone Wars Project at any time by clicking this link.]
[Well, actually, considering that we're into season five, now, probably no one new is going to sign up, BUT! Hop over to The Armchair Squid for his take on the current episode.]

It's important to remember that Hondo is a pirate. Of course, he's a pirate in the same vein as Han Solo and Lando Calrissian: a charming rogue. It makes it easy to be taken in by him, characters and viewers alike. But, then, he does something every so often to remind us he really is just a pirate. It doesn't matter how "presidential" he sounds during his not-the-state-of-the-union address, he's still gonna cut your throat for profit if he thinks he's going to make some from doing it. There is no, and there never was, doing the right thing. He just fools you into thinking that when he's making money by being nice to you. But it all comes down to, "We all know how much I like to be rich, don't we?"

In the end, it makes Hondo no better, and possibly worse, than Anakin during and after his fall.

And this is how bad it is:
During the conflict when Hondo is obviously and blatantly trying to kill Ahsoka and those under her charge, Ahsoka says to him, "I don't want to hurt you." And she doesn't. Do you know why? She likes Hondo, just like we do, because why? Because he's a charming rogue, and you can't help yourself. Even while he's trying to slit your throat. Hondo's response? "I know." That's not a direct quote, but it's the spirit of it, and it gives Hondo the edge.

Oh, yeah, Honda is in this episode.

And David Tennant, my second favorite Doctor. Oh, no, not him, just his voice, but that's good, too.

Yes, we're still in the same arc started last episode. Let's just say it doesn't end well. You should probably just watch it.


"The lightsaber is a Jedi's only true ally."

Star Wars: A Discussion (Episode IV)

I suppose we're up to the place where we finally start talking about The Force Awakens, but this still isn't a review. Not, yet, anyway.

If you've read the previous posts in this series, it will come as no surprise to you that the lead up to The Force Awakens was a big deal in my household. We had our tickets not long after they started pre-selling them, so something like a month in advance. My oldest son, who is working on a suit of stormtrooper armor so that he can join the 501st, spent the last year pouring over every tiny little detail released about the movie and engaging in all kinds of theories about it.

I pretty much constantly had to tell him not to tell me the stuff he was finding out online, because I wanted to go into the movie with as little knowledge as possible about it. I already knew more than I wanted to know about the general premise of the story because of all of the Star Wars lore I accumulated back in the 90s before Lucas announced that he was going to make the prequels.

My younger son fell somewhere in between us. He wasn't searching out information, but he wasn't opposed to being told things, either.

It's an interesting thing watching an event draw closer for someone who has been highly anticipating it. See, although my oldest son saw all of the prequels in the theater, he didn't really remember doing that. He was only three for Phantom Menace and, although he was old enough to remember going to see Revenge at the theater, all he really remembered of that was all of the people in costume while we were waiting in line to get in. His memories were all about the movies themselves because he'd seen them so many times on DVD; he had no real memories of the experience of going to see them.

That's not like me, I remember the experience of going to see A New Hope the first time I went to see it. I remember everything about it, including how badly I needed to go to the bathroom and being unwilling to do that because I was so enraptured by the movie. But, then, it was a full year before I got to see it again, so I really had to hold onto that one memory very tightly. And I did, too.

Yes, those were the years before, even, VHS players.

But it hasn't been like that with my kids. Their lives have been full of Star Wars pretty much from the start, so all three of them were very much looking forward to going to see a new Star Wars movie while being old enough to be able to remember the experience of going to do that, my oldest son most of all. You could see the tension growing in him as we got closer, especially in that last week. He was both excited and scared, scared that it wouldn't be as good as he hoped.

He's the reason I saw it twice on "opening" night, Thursday, December 17. We already had our tickets for the 7:00 show, but, back at the end of the summer, he picked up a job at a movie theater. They were doing an actual midnight showing for the employees, and he could bring two people: that was me and his brother. Let me just say: Midnight is not a kind time when you got up at 5:00am. Even for Star Wars.

So... We all went to the 7:00 show, and we all really liked it, but... Okay, so, my wife and my daughter just straight up liked the movie. Enough for them to want to see it a second time (which we did, making my third) and for my daughter to want, now, to go see it again. Neither of them are much into re-watching movies. After coming out of the first showing, my sons and I all felt like we needed to see it again before being able to properly evaluate it. Which is not to say that there were any doubts about likability. But the movie is fast. It's really non-stop action, like a roller coaster, which I'm sure is what Disney was striving for, and there's no time during the movie to ever stop and think about what you're seeing.

That was actually what I said to my wife when we came out of the theater, my only mark against it on that initial viewing: It was too fast. That one thing distracted from the Star Wars-ness of the film, much like the new Doctor Who series is also too fast. Don't get me wrong, I really like the new Doctor Who series and David Tennant comes in at second on my favorite Doctor list (though Capaldi is really excellent, too, and has the potential to hit #2), but, sometimes (frequently), I miss the thoughtfulness of the older shows. I miss that problems were solved by thinking, not by running around (the running is a big deal in the new series). [Part of what I like about Capaldi is that he has brought back some of the thoughtfulness.]

There is a lot of running in The Force Awakens.

Okay, so, what I'm going to say right now is that I like the movie. A lot. But it still only comes in at 4 of 7 of the Star Wars movies, maybe 5 of 7. One of the top 3 is one of the prequels. Next post, we'll talk about why.

Metal Art: part 3 (a local color post)

Yeah, you can go back to the previous two Mondays if you missed those posts.

That's all I have for now. There are a few more I know of that I haven't gotten pictures of yet, but they really are scattered around, so I'm sure there are many I haven't found.

Some Christmas

Can you tell how much the tree leans in this picture? Since I turned it so that it is mostly leaning toward the wall, I don't think you can see the full effect.

The dalek invasion of '14.

Based on the bags of coal, they must not have been all that good this year.

Evidently, that was no mere kiss.

She didn't want to be left out.

Tomorrow: She loves it.

And we all stood back.

But, UNEXPECTEDLY, there was the Spanish Inquisition!

And the Empire:

Have a great New Year!

The Empire says so.

Time Enough? (an IWSG post)

"People assume that time is a straight progression of cause to effect but, actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey... stuff."

Of course, what I want to do is get all philosophical about time, about how time is finite, about what it would be like to be able to step outside of time... Except I can't really imagine that. My view of time is kind of like a painting. Or, maybe, a movie. Time only exists within the movie and, if you could only step out of it, you could see the whole thing at once, be in any part of it. That kind of thing. Except, conceptually, as soon as I remove myself from the movie, I put myself in another one, because I still imagine a sequence of events and, without time, there can't be a sequence, so it's not something I can properly imagine.

None of that is what I really want to talk about anyway...

Sometimes, there are events that remind us of the finite-ness of time, that there will be an ending. At least, for us. Well, for all of time, but I expect TIME to go on much for much longer than I will. At any rate, the sudden departure of Tina Downey of Life Is Good from TIME has served as a reminder. Time is, after all, finite. There's a deadline on the things I want to accomplish in life.

I suppose most people have all sorts of things they want to accomplish and that they all feel like they have plenty of time in which to do it. There's always tomorrow, right? But there's not always tomorrow, and, sometimes, tomorrows quit coming sooner than we think they will.

I know that Tina was writing a book. Mostly, though, I think she was working on the writing skills she would need to really write the book. What it means, though, is that I'll never get to read the book. Neither will you. And, you know, maybe it wouldn't have been any good and, in the scheme of things, it doesn't matter, but, maybe, it would have been life-changing. For me. Or for you. Or for someone. That book that really inspired a life and changed its course.

We'll never know.

I have a lot of books like that. Unfinished ones, I mean; I'm not claiming that I'm writing great, life-changing, works of literature. I have PROJECTS! The idea that I could leave TIME with them unfinished... well, it kind of panics me. I don't want to leave things unfinished. Well, I don't want to leave these things unfinished. I'm sure I will always feel that way about whatever projects I have in the works, but other projects are in the future, and I have nothing invested in that stuff yet. These things, these things I have going on now, I know I don't want to leave still in progress. Especially the stuff that relates to The House on the Corner. Too many people ask me when the next when will be finished for me to be okay with just not doing it.

None of this is meant to change the focus from Tina's passing out of TIME, but it was one of the first things I thought of, "I'll never get to read her book." Which, then, has applications for all of us. Not just writers, all people who are doing things. Who have projects of whatever sort. Some of which sit around and sit around and are left abandoned for months or, even, years on end with the thought, "I'll get to it. Sometime." But "sometime" doesn't always come.

So... I am reminded to look at the things I want to do and evaluate them on the basis of what it's okay with me to leave unfinished. Like, I would like to spend time painting, but it won't really bother me if I leave TIME and there are big stack of unpainted miniatures in my garage. It's not like I'm the only one that could paint them. But no one can write the stories that are in my head. Even with notes about them, no one can write them the way I will, so that's the thing I need to get busy with, working on the things that only I can do so that they're not left unfinished should I have to leave.

And that's what I'm going to go do...

Guardians of the Galaxy (a movie review post)

Guardians of the Galaxy is the first of the Marvel movies that I'm coming into with, basically, no background knowledge of. Which is not to say that I don't know the general layout of what's going on, but the Guardians that I used to read back in the 90s

is not the same Guardians that exists today. And the characters that I am familiar with, like Drax, are not quite the same (since Drax is not functioning as a herald of Galactus in this Marvel Universe (because, you know, Galactus is being held captive over at Fox Studios (which is actually pretty scary when you think about it))).

That said, stemming from what Marvel has done with their previous movies, this one picks up the thread and weaves it in seamlessly. But in a completely different way. [And I just want to point out that this is the kind of movie that DC's Green Lantern should have been but failed utterly to be.]  So, yes, this is a departure from the previous super hero Marvel films, but it's not a departure in quality. Though, to be fair, there will be people that won't be able to accept characters like Rocket and Groot even though they were brilliant. [My kids loved Rocket even more than Groot, which is saying a lot.]

What the movie does:

1. Introduces the idea of the Celestials.

2. Gives us a clear view of the wider Marvel Universe

3. Applies the term "Infinity Stone" to the infinity stones for the first time.

4. Gives us a better idea of who and what Thanos is.

Guardians does a good job of sprinkling in humor without ever going over the top with it. It doesn't over balance the action or the seriousness of the situation. And it's spread evenly across the characters so that it's not just a bunch of one liners from Rocket or anything like that. Drax has some great, humorous moments even though he is nothing but serious throughout the film. It's very well done.

The acting is spectacular. Chris Pratt, whom I've been a fan of for quite a while, was amazing and the right pick for Peter Quill. Bradley Cooper was surprisingly good as the voice of Rocket. Surprising in that I couldn't even tell it was Cooper doing the voice. Neither could my wife, which is saying a lot, because she always knows the voices; it's a talent of hers. Cooper gave authenticity to completely realistic looking CGI raccoon. Karen Gillan also stood out as Nebula. It was a complete departure from her role as Amy in Doctor Who.

The short of it is that, really, I was ready to see it again as soon as we walked out of the theater. My kids would agree with that. It was a lot of fun. Most similar to Iron Man in tone because of the humor but handled in a way that kept it from becoming campy. I think I'd say it's like an awesome roller coaster ride, the kind where, as soon as you get off, you want to go back around and get back in line.

"Risk"ing Your Feelings

I have, as long as I can remember, always liked games. Seriously, as far back as I can remember. Like, when I was less than five, my cousin, who was three years older than me, and I walked three miles from my great-grandmother's house to her (mostly unused) house to get Mouse Trap ("You roll your dice, you move your mice; nobody gets hurt."), because that's what we wanted to play. I'm not sure anyone knew where we went, and I'm not sure anyone knew we were gone. But, you know, it was the East Texas countryside, and we were rarely where anyone knew where we were most of any given day.

As it turned out, though, when we got there, we discovered that about half of the pieces to the trap were missing and all of the cheese. So, yeah, we got to walk back empty-handed.

At any rate, well before the age of ten, I began having... issues... finding anyone willing to play anything with me. Except, maybe, Battle. Or War. Or whatever you call it. You know, the card game where you just flip over the top card and the player with the high card wins. That one was pure chance, so I could still get people to play that one with me. Then I discovered Risk.

I was in middle school. I'm not really sure how I got introduced to the game, though it may have been at school or, maybe, it was just a present or something I got for a birthday. At any rate, Risk became the game that people were willing to play with me. My brother and my friends and his friends and such. The reason? They could team up against me. Seriously.

Of course, it didn't just start out that way, but it didn't take long for them to realize that that is what it would take for them to have a chance to beat me, and it became the way every game started. Every game. It was just accepted that everyone started out with the goal of beating me and they would worry about each other later. Actually, it was not uncommon for them to just quit playing once they'd defeated me.

I lost a lot of games that way. BUT I still won games, too. Probably something like 1/3 of them. Sometimes, it was upsetting, the whole thing with having everyone always set against me. It's tough when you're 12 to deal with the fact that everyone wants to see you lose. Actually, it's difficult to deal with that at any age, but middle school is already the worst, and always having everyone team up against me made it the worst of the worst.

And it didn't stop there. I started getting into other strategy games in high school and carried that on into college and, pretty much, that became the routine I had to deal with in any group game. Everyone's goal was always to take me out as quickly as possible. The catch was, and I had known this since middle school, if I wanted to play, I just had to deal with it. And I wanted to play.

And that's the way a lot of things in life are. Not the having everyone team up against you but the balancing of the potential of having your feelings hurt against doing the thing you want to do. That's especially true in writing. You have to know going in that you're going to get your feelings hurt at some point. The question is, "Is it worth the Risk to get to do that thing you want to do?" (Look, another version of Risk!)

So I'm going to focus on the writing part since that's what I do, but you can apply this to, well, anything.

When you set out to be a writer, a published one, you really need to go into it with the mindset of having everyone teamed up against you, everyone wanting to see you lose. Which is not to say that everyone actually wants to see you lose, but everyone is playing their own game, and they are all trying to win, so it's not like anyone is on your side, not in any real sense. You're not part of a team like the guys who always teamed up to make sure that I didn't win. You are on your own.

And, then, there are the reviews. Mostly, it's the lack of reviews, but it's also the negative reviews, and you have to go into it knowing that that's going to happen, so you have to go into it willing to put your feelings aside in exchange for getting to do the thing you want to do: writing. You have to put your feelings at Risk.
(Look! Another version of Risk!)

There was one time in college where we were playing a game of Risk down in the lobby of the dorm, five or six of us. One of the guys was really exhorting everyone to go after me. He started in on it as soon as we were setting up. It's not like anyone needed that much convincing, but he just wouldn't stop going on about it, so I decided I would make sure that he, at least, went out before me and started working on his armies. As I got pushed back, I pushed into his territory and slowly took him out of the game. The more he started to lose, the louder he got about everyone taking me out of the game, right up until I broke his last major stronghold, at which point he flipped out, flipped the board up into the air, thew the table over, and stormed out of the room. Unfortunately, it's not uncommon for authors to act the same way over a bad review.
(And look again, another version of Risk!)

When you act like that, no one will want to play with you anymore. I have to tell you, it pissed me off, because it was my Risk board that he sent flying all over the room, and it took hours to find all of the little army counters. Oh, no, wait a minute, I didn't find all of the army tokens. I never asked him to join a game again and, guess what, no else ever asked him to play any other game with us again. Ever. All it took was that one moment of poor sportsmanship and no one wanted to Risk another explosion on his part.

You make your choices going in, but you have to be willing to take the consequences. You put your feelings aside in order to get to play the game or you explode to find that no one wants to play with you. Or work with you. Or be around you. Or all they want to do is push the big giant button you've shown yourself to have and they spend their time provoking you just because it's fun.

Personally, I wan to play the game, and I've had, I suppose, pretty good training in dealing with situations where I have to fight the odds to win. Of course, when you do win, it makes victory so much better.

By the way, I still love Risk. I don't get to play it very often, but I love the game.

The multiple versions could be a giveaway, I don't know. This isn't even all the versions I own; these were just the ones conveniently accessed. Right now, my kids are lobbying for this one:

Maybe Christmas...

It's a Lego Christmas (with a dose of Doctor Who) -- Part One

We had paper snowflakes up on our window behind the Christmas tree this year (they were not up, yet, in the previous Christmas tree pictures, and I never took pictures of them), some of them shiny, and the cat liked them. A lot. He especially liked this gold, shiny one, so we moved it to give him something to do other than try to jump at the snowflakes near the tree and, potentially, fall into it. He did eventually rip this one up, but it lasted a surprisingly long time.

Anyway...

Everyone got Lego for Christmas this year. That hasn't ever happened before. Usually, it's just the boys, but, evidently, Legoitis is contagious, so everyone got (and built) Lego sets this year. It was actually a lot of fun.

My daughter discovered Lego Friends last year and is quite taken with them.

And this is her putting together her bakery set she got:

The best present award as judged by the reaction of the recipient was

He struggled with whether he should leave it sealed, but, in the end, he caved.

However, the best Christmas quote was about a present my wife received:

"I didn't know measuring spoons came in pretty!"

But the real best present, based on how much it's been used, was the card game Munchkin, which Santa brought for the whole family. We've played it almost everyday since. Awesome, hilarious game.

There have been too many hilarious moments in this game to mention, and this won't make the most sense if you don't know anything about the game, but one of the most hilarious was during our first or second game, before we knew what all the cards are, when my younger son threw a sex change card on me. That was a very "what the heck?" moment. It made me lose my

Oh, I mentioned Doctor Who.
Here's the second best present present reaction:

Yes, I said second best. Unfortunately, the picture of the first best didn't turn out. Here's that present:

And the kids in their Doctor Who clothes (although only two of these are new from Christmas):

There was also a Geek Ball, appropriate for our family:

It says things like:
Epic Fail
File Not Found
404 Error

That might explain why we also got these:

District 7 was the best. Well, that's what I thought, anyway. I'm not sure which one the kids liked.

There's more Lego stuff, but you'll have to wait till next time for that. I'll leave you with this, though, the Lego set my wife got: