- kudos:

Doing some quick math to compare how old I was when I first watched Star Wars to kiddo’s current age. Also hoping my parents haven’t tossed out the cassettes I got at that age in case I want to hunt down a VHS player and watch it that way.

- kudos:

I have unexpectedly hit a point in my life where I associate the voice of Alec Guinness with George Smiley instead of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

- kudos:

I know I should probably exercise the MST3K Mantra here, but I don’t understand how you can carry a weapon as inherently dangerous as a lightsaber and describe yourself as a “guardian of peace and justice.”

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Victor Wembanyama Star Wars: NBA Rookie Star's Wild Ranking'

- kudos:

I’ve gotten this same vibe from my students: Prequels are okay, and it’s the sequel trilogy that must not be acknowledged. I don’t fully understand this thinking, but to each their own. link to “Victor Wembanyama Star Wars: NBA Rookie Star’s Wild Ranking”

📺 tvblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Ahsoka (Season 1)

- kudos:

The show started off strong, and there are lots of individual details that I liked (including a compelling dark Jedi who made lightsaber duels interesting again). However, by the end, it felt like a mishmash of fanservice, addressing plot threads from a show I haven’t seen, but then setting them up for a future movie instead of actually resolving them. So many decisions seemed to happen for the sake of plot or convenience, and it was kind of a slog to finish the dang thing.

Pete, mint brownies, and two competing visions of Mormonism

- kudos:

Pete and Sarah were mainstays of my Mormon experience growing up. Their oldest—a famously rowdy boy with several rowdy younger brothers—was present on the Sunday when I was introduced in children’s classes as a newcomer to the congregation. When I outgrew children’s classes and made my way to youth Sunday School, Pete was our teacher for a while—the kind of teacher who tried to suppress a giggle (and usually unsuccessfully) whenever the word “ass” (especially “dumb ass”) appeared in the KJV.

📺 tvblog: ❤️❤️🖤🖤🖤 for The Mandalorian (Season 3)

- kudos:

I don’t even remember when this season ended, but it took a while to convince myself to get through it. The first season of this show was near-perfect, but it’s gotten dumber over time, and this season was particularly disappointing. It felt stuffed with fanservice and worldbuilding I didn’t care about, indecisive and self-contradictory, and like everything proceeded on the logic of plot. Makes me miss Andor.

- kudos:

In the spirit of ultra obscure references, I really want to name something “Waughmp Rat,” combining a Homestar Runner onomatopoeia and an unseen Star Wars creature.

- kudos:

My alarm woke me from a dream in which I was trying to recruit Latter-day Saint missionaries as pilots for the Rebel Alliance, and I have a lot of questions about that worldbuilding.

📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Star Wars: Alphabet Squadron, by Alexander Freed

- kudos:

This book took me a while to get into. I gave up on the print version a year or three ago, and even the audiobook wasn’t doing great at capturing my attention for a while—I had to rush to finish this before it was due back to Libby. I’m glad that I stuck it out, though, because I liked what I got. I never read the X-Wing novels from the old EU, but I wanted something like what I imagined they were.

- kudos:

I did not know until today how much I needed an Aardman Animation claymation Wedge Antilles in my life.

📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Star Wars: Heir to the Empire, by Timothy Zahn

- kudos:

This book is one of the mainstays of the old Star Wars EU. I hadn’t read it in years, but after exploring some of the new canon and hearing the news about a likely remixing of it into a Dave Filoni movie, it seemed like a good time to revisit. The audiobook production was great, and even if I’m not planning to finish the trilogy, I enjoyed checking this title out again.

📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Star Wars: Bloodline, by Claudia Gray

- kudos:

I read (and listened to) a lot in the early months of this year and have hit a wall recently. This audiobook was a nice way to get back into reading; I’ve felt a hunger for Star Wars media recently, and this book came recommended on a podcast I’ve sampled. It’s fun to get more into the new canon: I thought this did a good job of setting up some of the Episode VII worldbuilding, and it reminded me of the fun I had reading through the old EU growing up.

- kudos:

It sure looks like Star Wars is heading toward an Heir to the Empire remake, and even though I know it’s fan pandering, I am really excited about it.

- kudos:

I recently finished a relisten of my favorite Star Wars actual play podcast, and now I want to start a Star Wars FATE game.

actual play podcasts worth relistening to

- kudos:

Over the past few days, I’ve been relistening to the One Shot podcast’s October 2018 Kids on Bikes episodes (which starts here). There’s so much to love about this six-episode series. I remembered enjoying the characters and the players, but it wasn’t until this morning that I remembered the perfect moment where one player describes the biblical Jacob as “history’s best angel fighter” and summons him to help a science teacher fight off a terrifying seraphim (which I promise makes sense in context).

all I want for tenure is to be added to the Star Wars bulletin board

- kudos:

This “Don’t Fly Solo” board has been up in the hallway of our building since before I was hired. I took a picture of it back in December 2017, when I was here on a job interview. It was one of the most prominent signs (no pun intended) that this would be a friendly and fun unit to work in, which was one of the biggest considerations on my mind when I decided to accept the job (though the adventure of changing disciplines and the convenience of living closer to family shouldn’t be discounted).

- kudos:

Listening to the NPR audio adaptation of Star Wars emphasizes just how important John Williams and Ben Burtt are to making that universe work.

- kudos:

Besides explaining Star Wars stuff, one of the greatest perks of parenting is pulling out board games I haven’t played in years because kiddo wants to try them.

- kudos:

‘What’s going on in the movie when this [the Imperial March] is playing? Are the Stormtroopers trooping?’

- kudos:

J’ai découvert un podcast sur le jeu de rôle en mileu Star Wars (que j’aime beaucoup) qui est en français canadien (dont j’essaie d’améliorer ma compréhension). Ça tombe bien !

- kudos:

Kiddo believes that Star Wars stormtroopers are robots, so she started singing beeps and boops to the tune of the Imperial March (which she learned from a yoga video??).

🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on '‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ Is a Mashup of the Things That Make Up Star Wars'

- kudos:

I’m interested in this argument about Star Wars feeling like a TTRPG campaign setting. Throughout much of middle and high school, I played the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars TTRPG, and that made even the prequel movies beloved because they became a setting to explore rather than movies to be unsatisfied with. link to ‘‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ Is a Mashup of the Things That Make Up Star Wars’

- kudos:

grad student, immediately after entering my office: “Wow, you really like Star Wars, huh?” me: “Yes, but have you also noticed all my cool train magnets?”

- kudos:

I was made aware of an unexpected generational divide today when one of my first-year students announced that as far as he was concerned, there were only six Star Wars movies.

- kudos:

A Star Wars recap/remix from my house this morning: “The piggy galactic emperor wants to rule space so he can stop astronauts from going into space! But we NEED astronauts so that we can study space!”

- kudos:

The NPR radio adaptation of Star Wars is just as great—and just as terrible—as you would think. Totally worth a listen.

- kudos:

Quick thought post-Mando and pre-TRoS: What Star Wars has given me a world in which to tell stories—not just movies. I played RPG campaigns that made the prequel trilogy look good, because the world held up even when the movies didn’t.

- kudos:

Libraries are beautiful places: I just left one with four volumes of Star Wars/Unbeatable Squirrel Girl comics and a copy of Dr. Wil Gafney’s “Womanist Midrash.”

- kudos:

The Empire Strikes Back soundtrack just came up in iTunes; it’s good to occasionally remind oneself that Star Wars owes as much (if not more) to Williams, Burtt, and McQuarrie as it does to Lucas.

- kudos:

Objects in my office visible from my webcam when I’m having professional teleconferencing meetings: an Axis and Allies board, a model of the Battlestar Galactica, and some Star Wars fan art.

- kudos:

Bought a frame today for a nice piece of The Last Jedi art I received for Christmas. Going to hang it up in my office and start using it as a litmus test for visitors.