Tag: Star Wars

I’m an Emotional Mess Today

This week has been rough. I didn’t expect it, but three days of window project turning the house upside down has messed me up in a big way. Being sick on Tuesday didn’t help. Waking up at 2:00am with a stomach ache today and not being able to get to sleep until around 4:00am certainly hasn’t helped either. After eight ounces of water and a protein bar this morning I feel a little better, but the stomach ache is still there, just milder than it was.

It got to Jen too, and both of us being on edge lead to pointless, stupid arguments and I hated it. Hate hate hate it. I can’t apologize enough for being an ass. Then today, after very little sleep last night and very little sleep every night this week and being broken in general for days, I watched the series finale of Star Trek Picard and let’s just say… I’ve been following these characters through TV shows and movies since 1987 when I was 16 years old and watched Encounter at Farpoint with my father… I’m not ashamed to admit it… but I balled my eyes out a few times. I am just an emotional train wreck right now.

Season three of The Mandalorian ended yesterday and it was wonderful. Season three of Picard ended today and it was wonderful times 10. I am just a sucker for story lines about parents loving their children that are designed to violently yank at your heartstrings and I am fine with that.

Then on top of all the other shit going on, both home improvement wise and science fiction wise, I went to punch in to work just now and realized I forgot my friggin’ laptop charger in the office yesterday. FFFFFUUUUUUUUU! Jen bailed me out with a sweet USB C charger so I can get through the day. I just hope when I go to the office after work tonight the charger is still on the desk I sat in yesterday. Cross your fingers, kids. I don’t want to have to buy another charger.

Okay. I am punched in to work now. Everything is well. I’m being added to meetings left and right so it’s starting to look like a busy day. Busy is good. Busy is better than too quiet… sometimes. I guess it depends on what kind of busyness it is, you know?

Right. Work. Post this drivel and get to work, Robert.

Show Episode IX Some Love

After all of the Star Wars Celebration announcements and a couple of killer episodes of The Mandalorian (and one not-so killer episode) I’ve found myself spending a little time on various Star Wars subreddits. I knew that there was a vocal sect of the fandom that doesn’t like episode IX The Rise of Skywalker. I have found the levels of hate pretty staggering though. It goes so far as people who like the movie getting abuse heaped onto them. Verbal attacks… over a friggin’ movie.

In subtle response to such hate, I have decided that I would watch the movie today, and as with all viewings of this particular flick, I am loving every friggin’ second of it. It’s awesome. The movie is awesome, Rey is awesome, Poe is awesome, Fin is awesome, Rose is awesome, Kylo Ren is awesome, hell even Hux is awesome.

All of those folks who spew such hate can kiss my butt. I love this movie.

Last Day Before Windows

The window replacement team is coming tomorrow. Today is the last day to get the house ready for them. Can I get it all done?

You bet your sweet ass I can.

The kitchen, dining room, and living room are all set. The entire exterior of the house is all set too. Today I’ll handle the bathroom, the bedroom, and Jen’s office. Beyond that, all I need to do is go to the pet store and pick up a huge bag of cat food, and maybe go somewhere to replace Jen’s coffee maker. Before I do anything I’ll need to finish breakfast (one serving of Brown and Serve frozen sausages. Yummy. Also, I need to finish watching the final episode of Star Wars Rebels. 19 minutes to go. I am a little embarrassed by how quickly I burned through this four season rewatch. Like… it’s alarming how nerdy I am.

One small change to the music project plan that I hope to work on over the next couple of days. I was going to use my Keeley Super Phat Mod overdrive pedal (which is a clone of a modified Boss Blues Driver) but I was just looking at the little pile of gear next to my desk and I saw my Ibanez Tube Screamer Mini pedal sitting there and I decided to use that puppy instead. I think I am going to use the Gibson SG for all of this too. SG->Tube Screamer->Vox MV50. That’s a signal chain that’s made up of all things that aren’t usual go to’s. Next month will be Les Paul->King of Tone->Deluxe Reverb and that signal chain could be worthy of gigs. We’ll see.

Right. The Rebels finale has reached the Deus Ex Machina moment. I know I’ve watched this before but I have zero memory of it. Weird. It’s almost time to get to work. The bedroom and the office are going to suck, but I’ll get it done.

Windows tomorrow. I’m really looking forward to all of this being finished.

Taxi

Last week’s episode of The Mandalorian included a cameo from Christopher Lloyd. Everyone online made a reference to Doc Brown from Back to the Future being in Star Wars. I didn’t go there. I went to Jim Ignatowski from Taxi.

Then today while driving to Dad’s and back to give him his morning dose of meds I saw five, count ’em, five taxies on the highway.

Five taxies? In the age of Uber and Lyft?

There has to be a connection, right?

Ahsoka Trailer

This show is gonna be awesome… I hope. I read the Heir to the Empire books decades ago and while they were okay at the time, I don’t think they hold up against both the prequels and the sequels. I mean, the prequels showed us that the Jedi weren’t cloned in the clone wars, and that there can only be two Sith at any given time. That sort of removes the plot line of a cloned Sith surviving the Clone War to be Thrawn’s helper, right? I absolutely do not want to see Heir to the Empire brought into cannon. Lets just have a brand spanking new story where Thrawn is a bad ass bad guy and a bad ass ex-Jedi takes him down. I could go for that.

The immediate impact of this trailer is that I have to put my X-Files and Deep Space Nine rewatches on hold while I rewatch Star Wars Rebels. Ezra, Sabine, Hera, Thrawn, and that annoying friggin droid are all making the jump from the animated series to live action. This new show is starting to look like a live action Rebels Season Five. There are 75, 22 minute episodes. I should be through them all in a few days, right?

Friday Things

It’s Friday morning at 8:00am. 9.5 hours from now I should be on the weekend. It can’t get here fast enough. This week has just been… ugh.

First thought, does this work:

Star Wars Celebration is starting today in the UK somewhere and this youtube link should be their live feed. I don’t know if that sort of thing works through an embed, but let’s give it a try, shall we? I have no idea what the agenda is but they are hopefully going to announce plans for future movies and Disney+ TV shows and I want the news, babie. We were supposed to be getting a Damon Lindelof movie (he made The Leftovers and therefore can do no wrong in my book) but he recently announced he left the project after finishing the first draft of the script. Now we just wait and see.

Sunday is Easter. I have two plans. Well… I had one plan but that’s off the books now. My one plan was to just treat it like a normal Sunday and not do anything Eastery. Then I booked an MRI for 4:00pm. So I guess that’s something more than nothing, right? Then we made plans to have lunch with Dad and that is a great idea. I am glad we are doing that. It’s the first holiday without my mother. Next week is Dad’s birthday and it’s the first one without my mother. After that… mother’s day. That’s going to be tough.

Saturday is basically a clean slate. I am hoping the weather cooperates and I’ll get to do some ocean pictures (on both digital and film!) but it depends on the sun and the temperature and on timing. Other than that? Nothing. Maybe some music? Maybe I can talk my beloved bride into going for a drive for no reason with no actual destination. That would be nice. I enjoy spending quality together time with her more than anything in the universe. Let’s see.

As for after work today? Nothing specific. We had our first bad experience with Hello Fresh last night. I think it’s in part because I cooked it myself and I am just not as skilled as Jen. It tasted okay, but the beef was too tough and I had a hard time with it. Jen did too. Tonight is pork. Let’s see how that goes.

That’s about it for now. Cat pictures will come later. Maybe I’ll get a minute around lunch time to go put out the two remaining bird houses, and fill up the bird feeders. Until then… enjoy the start of Star Wars Celebration.

They kicked off Celebration with a trailer for Ahsoka and it has two red light sabers and Grand Admiral Thrawn! Also, half the cast of Rebels! I CAN’T FREAKIN’ WAIT! LET’S GO!!!!! (I’ll post it later)

Oh yeah, and they followed the Ahsoka trailer with an Indiana Jones trailer. That’s all, nothing special. June 30th. I’ll be there.

Long Day

Today has been a long day. Not sure why, it’s just felt stressful.

Tomorrow is going to be rough too. Tomorrow is in the office and, as I mentioned in a post the other day, I want to do a lot of Disney+ TV watching before I head out. I want to have everything packed up and ready, including my lunch, tonight so that I can save time in the morning. I am such a nerd.

Food has been okay today. I had a little stuck stomach feeling while taking my pre-lunch time calcium citrate pills. It cleared after about 10 minutes, but it was uncomfortable. Breakfast and lunch themselves both went off without a hitch. After having three issue-free meals on Sunday, I had two bad experiences on Monday. Lunch was a smidge on the bad side so I just stopped eating before I was finished. I had already eaten all of the protein I had planned so it was okay. Dinner was bad, but it mostly came down to me overcooking the chicken. It was too tough to chew enough and I just got tired. Then I ate a few chunks of potato and I think the skins weren’t breaking down enough and got stuck. We’re having fish and some green veggies tonight. I am sure things will go better. If so, I could have another three good meals day. That would be nice.

I am hoping to mix a song or two tonight in between packing for work tomorrow sessions. I would like to be done with REM (Record Every Month) for March before I sleep tonight. We’ll see how it goes.

Speaking of dinner tonight, we’re giving Hello Fresh another try. We’ve used it a few times before and it’s always been a good experience. The hang up we have is planning meals, ordering the meals, putting the shipment into the fridge and freezer, and then when it comes time to cook we change our mind and do something else. We want to get away from that and stick to the schedule. If we can do that then Hello Fresh is a great option. It’s so much better than me cooking the same thing every night, or ordering out all the time. I foresee success. Just with the added caveat that I have to avoid sugar, so anything we order that has sugar in it, I will have to take a pass on. We can still cook it, and Jen can have it. I’ll just skip that item on the menu. Let’s keep this house a No Dumping Syndrome zone, shall we?

Okay. Time to finish off the work day. The only question I have for the universe is when does Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania come to Disney+? I am not happy about the existence of a Marvel movie that I haven’t seen.

Imminent Star Wars Problem

I’m going to have a problem on Wednesday and I don’t know what to do.

Wednesday is our day to work in the office. I would greatly prefer that we were 100% remote work, but we’re not. Fortunately our nod to hybrid work is just one day a week. I can live with that.

Wednesday is also important for nerds as it is the day Disney+ releases new episodes of Star Wars shows. Currently there are two shows streaming new episodes each week. The Mandalorian, season three, and The Bad Batch, season two. Fortunately for me, my current morning routine involves waking up ridiculously early so I can get my daily exercise in has allowed me to watch the new episodes of both shows before getting ready for work and hitting the road with enough time to drive through 40 miles of gridlock and get to my desk by 9:00am.

This week though… the day after tomorrow to be precise… it’s going to be tough. It’s the season finale of The Bad Batch and they are releasing two episodes to wrap things up. That means there are three new episodes coming out Wednesday, one Mandalorian and two Bad Batch, and I don’t think I’ll have enough time to get through all three before work. Maybe if I get out of bed at 4:30am or so. That might work. Unfortunately, I have enough of a struggle getting up at 5:00 and getting up earlier than that is going to be next to impossible.

So how do I handle this? I will absolutely watch The Mandalorian episode first. The Bad Batch is a decent enough show, but it’s not even in the same stadium as The Mandalorian. That show would be appointment viewing if it aired at a specific time. The question is, do I watch the first of the two Bad Batch episodes and leave myself hanging through the work day, or do I punt on both of them until I get home from work. I honestly don’t know yet. I may not know until the actual moment arrives.

Talk about your 21st century nerd problem, right? Six year old me sitting in the theater watching Star Wars in 1977 had no clue how good things were going to get in the future. No clue at all.

Doctor’s Appointment and More Stomach Fun

Nothing much came of the doctors appointment. I have to make a couple of follow ups and I’ll be getting an MRI at some point. I’ve been crazy busy at work so I haven’t had a chance to make any of the calls I need to make.

I got home with a few minutes to spare before punching into work, but as soon as I did things got crazy busy. I tried to sneak in some lunch and I ate too fast and my stomach rebelled in a big way. It took two hours to calm down but I did get through my lunch. Granted, lunch stretched out almost all the way to dinner time but what can you do.

I’m drastically behind on both my water and protein goals right now. I’ll make it for both today, but I’m annoyed with myself, especially after I had such a good start this morning before going to see the doctor.

Change of subject: I need to do car music. We’re running out of days in March and I have to finish Record Every Month. I have three songs in the pipeline but I’ll probably only get to two. I am planning to do another album in a month this spring, but it depends on guitar gear. I’ve mentioned that I am about to come to the end of the Analog Man King of Tone waiting list. The first full month after I get my mitts on one of those suckers I will do an album in a month using it on every guitar track. That’s the plan at least. Will it be April? Will it be May? Kinda hope it will be April, but that seems highly unlikely.

What else… Star Trek Picard was good today. The whole gang is back on the show. All we need now is Tasha. Good stuff. The show has been fantastic this season. I really need it to keep up the good work and stick the landing. On the other side of the Trek/Wars coin, I started re-watching The Bad Batch over the weekend. I’m still not sure why, but I will finish the first season tonight (I think) and the second season is going to end next Wednesday, I think. Am I right about that? There are two episodes left but they will both be released next week? I head that somewhere.

I’m tired. I’ve had such a stressful week health wise. Between multiple stomach issues and yet another migraine… I need a nap. A long, comfy nap.

Six minutes left until quittin’ time. I’ll make dinner after I finish work, but I will probably be too full from lunch to eat it right away. We’ll see. 16 ounces of liquid left to go. A whopping 37 grams of protein left to go. I’ll make it to both goals, and then some. It’s just going to take some extra time tonight, I think.

Okay. Signing off. I’ll likely post again later. Yesterday was the lowest page view day I’ve had on this page in over four years. I blame the migraines, but I’ll try to write something interesting that will bring the folks by… or not. Probably not.

Ahmed Best: Redeemed

Redeemed isn’t the right word, but it’s sort of right.

Did you see today’s new episode of The Mandalorian? Veteran Star Wars actor Ahmed Best plays a roll. You know who he played before, right? Right. Jar Jar Fucking Binks. The nadir or all Star Wars writing. The nadir of George Lucas’ career. The worst thing about any Star Wars story… Jar Jar Fucking Binks. Ahmed Best did the motion capture acting and the voice acting for Jar Jar in all three prequels.

Jar Jar being terrible was not Ahmed Best’s fault. He did the best he could with the terrible character he was given. I put all the blame on Lucas. Still, Mr Best has taken an ocean of abuse over the roll and it’s all unfairly as far as I can tell. Ahmed Best does not need to be redeemed. Jar Jar does, but shouldn’t ever. Ahmed Best is fine just being himself.

Having said that… his brief appearance in today’s episode gave him the opportunity to KICK ALL KINDS OF ASS. His new character is an utter bad ass. I looked him up online and apparently he’s been playing this character for a long time on a Star Wars themed kids game show. He plays the roll of a teacher teaching kids Jedi skills that they use in competitive games. I have never seen the show. I have never even heard of the show. All I know is that his character made the jump to a dramatic roll in completely heroic fashion.

So welcome back to the flagship, Sir. Welcome back to the Star Wars. Here’s hoping you get more screen time soon. There’s still more story there to be told (no spoilers). Good to have you on the team.