Clean desk

Cleaned off my work desk today.  The way my life has been going for the past while, a clean desk might just help me out.

 

Kind of glad that this summer is coming to an end.  Won’t say that it will go down in my top 10 summers of my life.  Don’t know if it will go down at the bottom just yet, but some learning experiences have come out of it.  Without going into anything, I can say that I have had a learning experience lately, mainly about myself.

 

Still don’t know how I’m going to move this blog to my new site.  Maybe I should just finish up the Star Wars stuff and then close out this thing.  New chapter in my life, new blog.

 

Guess you do have to make the most of the hand you have been dealt.  It may not be perfect, but it is the best you got and you need to remember that.

 

Look at me getting all philosophical.  Need to get back to Star Wars and comic books before you guys start taking me seriously.

 

Afghan elections...

I doubt this election will be as exciting as the Iranian election, but just read about Hamid Karzai’s (you know, the guy who wears the robes and the soda jerk hat) main challenger is a guy Abdullah Abdullah and the only relevant thought that came through my head was what his campaign slogan would be.  I highly doubt that would be something like “A Guy So Nice They Named Him Twice”.

 

You know what grinds my gears?

Chain emails at work.  Especially ones that ask women to walk around naked to root out Muslims, because Muslim men aren’t allowed to look at naked women other than their wives, thus making any man who doesn’t look at them a Muslim and thus a terrorist.

 

Freedom of speech is so over rated.

Things that I get pissed about Star Wars: Episode 2 Jango Fett, the lamest bounty hunter in the galaxy

So, to recap everything so far:

The Trade Federation tried to take over the planet of Naboo because of taxes (think of them as the Tea Baggers of the Star Wars universe).  And they would have gotten away with it too if it wasn’t for those meddling Jedi and their kid named Anakin Skywalker.

Ten years has pasted and the Federation has built a new droid army that contain nothing but droids with wimpy voices.  They have also aligned themselves with a group of separatist systems that want to leave the Republic.  Also, Padme Amidala is now senator from Naboo and some how seems to be just a few years older than Anakin.

That’s pretty much all that is going on with Attack of the Clones.  As I was watching the movie I couldn’t really pick one good thing that pissed me off about it.  Believe me, there is a lot in this film, which I think can sit at the bottom of most Star Wars fans rankings.  All I can remember about after I saw this movie on opening night was that it was only three more years until Episode 3.

But what one thing could I pick that pissed me off the most?  Would it be the love story?  No, too easy.  How about how bad the digital film looked?  Too technical, and I think I should give Lucas a break on that one since he was the first and I like digital film making now.  I was close to picking on the fact that here they used a great digital model for Yoda in this film, but for some reason we haven’t gotten a special edition of Episode 1 that gets rid of that awful Yoda puppet.  No, I’m going to let that slide for now, because as I was watching the battle at the end of the movie I found what was pissing me off about this movie:  Jango Fett is hella lame.

Yes, I know how much of a bad ass Boba becomes, and a lot of it must have been either from seeing his father die at the hands of the Jedi or maybe the stuff he saw as a young man growing up alone during a galactic war in which all of the soldiers for the Republic look like your old man.  The thing is that as bad ass as Boba seems to be (remember, he fell into the Sarlacc Pit, only to survive), Jango just doesn’t seem to be that cool.  I mean, Obi-Wan gets the best of him without his light saber and Mace Windu punks him into getting ran over by that giant bull thing.  You look at all this and it makes you wonder just how much of a genius that Darth Sidious was to use him as the template for the Republic army.  Those battle droids with the wimpy voices shouldn’t have to much of a problem with any body with the same DNA as Jango.

I mean, just go back and watch how Mace kills him.  One swipe with his purple saber (yeah, Jango was killed with a purple sword) and his head was chopped off. 

Jango's Death

What does this tell us.  My son could be the biggest bad ass in the world, since I’m pretty sure I’m as lame as Jango.

Things that I get pissed about Star Wars: Episode 1 Battle Droids, Battle Droids, Battle Droids!!!!

So, this is the first part in a 6 part series on things about the Star Wars saga that I can’t stand. If you know me well enough, you know that I am a die hard Star Wars fan. Hell, just ten years ago I was defending Jar Jar’s existence outside of the theater after the midnight showing of The Phantom Menace. But, I am only human and there is just so much that even I can tolerate.

I’m currently watching the saga with my son for the first time. He’s not yet two, but he loves playing with the toy lightsabers that I bought for my daughter all those years ago (even though he only uses the red saber, which makes me a bit worried).

Well, we started tonight with Episode 1, and as we were watching I started thinking about how Lucas changed the voices of the Trade Federation’s battle droids (the standard battle droids, not the destroyer, or Droidekas, droids). In Episode 1, the battle droids each had a distinct voice and were quite menacing.

From what I could tell is that you didn’t really want to fuck with these guys unless you were a Jedi.

Well, when Episode 2 was released three years later, all of the battle droids became comedic pussies. Hell, a Jawa on PMS could give these guys an issue just by hearing their voices. I think that the Republic could have saved some money on cloning Jango because those droids just weren’t scary enough any more.

Then again, I guess that is why the Trade Federation upgraded to the B2 Super battle droid.

Come back later for part 2 of Thing that I get pissed about Star Wars.

Design to sell…

So, I did a bit of a design project last night for my twitter page.  Not completely finished yet, but I liked it so much that I thought about using the same basic layout for my desktop background and for a possible website design.  Here is what I have for the desktop background:

Pretty simple I think.  Also, I don’t know of too many sites that have their header on the left side.  We’ll have to see how it works out.

 

In the meantime, now that the Michael Jackson memorial service is over, do you think that people can get over their faux caring about him?  Do you really think that before two weeks ago most of these people who are on television taking about how great of an artist he was would give a shit of what he was doing?  I don’t even remember this big of deal being made about his upcoming concerts.

Don’t get me wrong, I did go and download his songs, but I’ve only listened to the record once.  Michael Jackson was the first person I can remember knowing as a musician, so can I not mourn in peace.  I don’t need Nancy Grace shoving it down my throat.

Definition of lame...

Me, listening to Michael Jackson’s Number Ones.

 

Rock with you, all night

Gonna rock the night away…

 

 

 

Oh boy…

 

Oh boy, how times have changed.

Courtesy of The Daily Batman

Twitter findings…

Courtesy of one Chris Hardwick (Nerdist, Web Soup, orginal host of MTV’s Singled Out).  Makes this vegetarian laugh.

Why Toby Keith may ruin my 4th of July…

So, last night marked the beginning of our humble 4th of July celebrations this year.  Normally we would buy a lot of fireworks and have a big cook out here at the house, but since we have just finished a big remodel no body was too enthused on having people over.  Also, we didn’t want to spend any money on fireworks since we weren’t having people over (I shouldn’t say never since the day is almost over with).

The great thing about the 4th is that even if you don’t want to spend money on your own fireworks, there is good shot that you will be able to see a decent, free show.  So, last night on the 3rd, we loaded up the kids and went out to the old Lake Texoma lodge to be part of a tradition around these parts that has been missing for the past couple of years.  I won’t get into the details of it, but the lodge was owned by the state of Oklahoma until this year when it was sold to a private company.  Now that the sale has gone through, the fireworks show could go back on as scheduled.  We went a few times when I was a kid, with the last time being back in 1993.  That was a memberable night since it was also the night that my younger brother and cousin to the rakes from the golf course and threw them into the lake.

Back to the present.  The show was great, but during the presentation a truck behind us has their radio turned to the station that was sponsoring the show.  During the fireworks, the radio station would play patriotic music.  That fine, but the station in question is the local classic rock station and apparently there aren’t a lot of patriotic rock songs out there, so I got an ear full of modern, suck ass country music.  Of course that meant that I got to listen to Toby Keith.

  So, what is it with the ultra patriotism that people get this time of the year?  It’s kind of like when people get overtly religious at Christmas or Easter.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my country, but I know that there are faults with our history that haven’t been reconciled.

Also, why do country artists always come off as douche bags when they try to be overtly patriotic?  A few years ago I ran spot lights for a Trace Adkins show (something I can put on my resume, I know).  He has this song about soldiers and he prefaced the performance by telling the crowd a story about someone that, I guess, was trying to call him out about his faux sincerity wasn’t real.  Well, he told the crowd that he was more patriotic than you and they loved it.  Of course, all of the lights went out on the stage, except for a single spot on Trace, who took his hat off and looked like a total douche.  I’m pretty sure it is the same performance of the song that he gives at every concert.