Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Friday, January 25, 2013

You Have Your Mother's Eyes

(Originally Written for Jedi News)

I spent the last week writing a hard dissertation. It was thoughtful, passionate, hard-hitting…and it stunk. Bad. Like rancid garbage even a Dianoga wouldn’t touch. So at the very last minute I threw it out and wrote this fun fluff piece instead.

Friday, January 18, 2013

Right Lesson, Wrong Message

(Originally Written for Jedi News)

For all of George Lucas’ so-called “tin ear for dialogue,” we forget that he’s also responsible for some classic and thought-provoking phrases. Usually these are put into the mouths of Jedi not named Skywalker.

Monday, January 14, 2013

Clone Wars 5.13: Point of No Return

But...but...what was on the chip? You mean we won't get to see what it was that was so blasted important?

Clone Wars 100th Episode: 5.12: Missing in Action

Interesting choice for 100th episode...

Time Is Nigh, I Must Fly...

So there's this video game called Skyrim that the world has been going completely nuts over the last few years. I'm going to share with you my relationship with it. I know it's not exactly topical, but that's because I'm not the one to jump on a bandwagon for the sake of it. In fact, hype aversion was one of the key sources, but I'm getting ahead of myself here.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Clone Wars Update

Life has been a little rough the last few days. I went back to work, and then Friday, which I planned to check the site to see if the episode was up, I needed to take care of my ailing father, so I couldn't really get into anything I couldn't stop right away. Now I technically have time, but I'm not home alone and I don't have headphones with me. So...Monday I'll be able to get you both last week's and this week's Clone Wars review while I do my blogging for the week. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Friday, January 11, 2013

The Proto-Vader

(Originally Written for Jedi News)

This one has a huge prologue that gives you some insight as to how I write these things, so please bear with me here.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

WW: My First Raids (Kind of)

Well, for the first time in my life I completed a Raid in World of Warcraft. Two of them!

Okay, so I didn't really go all out. Wethrilli (still refusing to level beyond 85) and a friend of mine (with a 90 Pally) two-manned the Level 60 raid Blackwing Lair as well as the level 80 revamp of Onyxia's Lair.

It was still tough, if it weren't for Sparky (Weth's Warp Stalker pet) tanking we probably wouldn't have made it out. Given how easy high-level characters can breeze through similarly low-level content this should give you a hint at just how horribly difficult Raids are in general and why I don't usually aspire to them.

Still, it was nice (if a bit anti-climactic) to finally square off against some of Vanilla WoW's main villains, and I got the Leeroy Jenkins achievement out of it, which is nice. I'm looking forward to more such experiences (still only on Weth; she's the only character who's uncomplicated enough that I can think quickly in such situations).

Monday, January 7, 2013

Calling All Portal Masters!

Okay, so a few weeks ago I ended up picking up a Series 1 Drill Sergeant because I had a buy 1 get 1 free coupon and he was pretty much my only option and...I don't really like the character and want to get rid of him. However, I'm not going to waste the money, so I'm sending out an S.O.S. If anyone out there has any of the following, new or used, I will propose a 1 for 1 trade. The characters I'm looking for currently are (in order of importance):

Series 1 Boomer
Series 1 Voodood
Shroomboom
Series 2 Gill Grunt
Series 2 Flameslinger
Sprocket

If you're interested in a good condition Drill Sergeant (series 1) and have any of the above guys lying around gathering dust, let me know by e-mail (nilbogsstorybookland@gmail.com) and we'll negotiate. Thanks!

MM: Skylanders update/Clone Wars update

Okay, so a couple of things.

First, being Monday I'm doing a pseudo-Mons-Day post regarding my Skylanders grades. I've recently decided to retire the O.W.L. system of grading the 3DS version and will post some revised stats alongside the console stats (which I'm researching on places like IGN and DarkSpyro). I'll also be taking some pictures to go along with these figurine reviews, so I should have the first batch up by...next week?

Secondly, a Clone Wars update. So far, StarWars.com has failed to post the full episode of the returning season that aired on Saturday, so my review of that may take a little longer. Hopefully not too long, though. From my understanding, this is either the 100th episode or the 100th episode is nigh, so I'll have more details on that front soon*

*"soon" is a registered trademark of Blizzard Entertainment and is appears here under fair use.

Saturday, January 5, 2013

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Hayden Christensen

(Originally Written for Jedi News)

Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker is one of my favorite performances in the Star Wars Saga.

There was a time not so long ago where this was far from the case.

I never loathed him as the hatedom does, but for a long time I at least had no real defense when someone brought him up. I agreed that he wasn’t very good.

Oh how I regret that now.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

January Anniversaries!

January is kind of sparse this year, but we have a couple of good ones.

Charlotte's Web (Animated Film)
40 Years Old This Month
My definitive Charlotte's Web experience will always be this one. I loved this movie as a kid, though I haven't seen it in a long time. It always made me tear up a little. I was always drawn to Templeton the Rat more than most of the other characters (played beautifully by Paul Lynde).


Casablanca
70 Years Old This Month
Any time anyone does a Humphrey Bogart impression, it will most likely be from this movie. It also features one of the most often misquoted lines in cinema history (at no point were the words "Play it again, Sam" used in that order"). It's one of those ubiquitous films of old Hollywood, a title casually thrown around by stuffed-shirts talking about golden ages and top film lists. Shoving all that aside, however, it also happens to be a pretty decent flick. I really want to see it again to catch some of the things I missed the first time. It deserves to be talked about and referenced as much as it is.