Truths About Myself

It's the last day of the month of January and I found another blog post with some posting ideas. I don't feel like doing one a day since I don't want to write about a lot of them so for this post I'm going to take a couple of the days and mash them together in this post. I thought that with it being the last of the month that it would be appropriate, especially since I didn't do any New Year's Resolutions. In this post I'm going to write about Day 1, Day 2, Day 5, and Day 6. Here we go:

Vode An

Kote!

Kandosii sa ka’rta, Vode an.
Coruscanta a’den mhi, Vode an.
Bal kote, darasuum kote,
Jorso’ran kando a tome.
Sa kyr’am Nau tracyn kad, Vode an.

[Bass Vocals]
Motir ca’tra nau tracinya.
Gra’tua cuun hett su dralshy’a.
Aruetyc runi solus cet o’r.

It's a snow day (and if it's not... PRETEND it is). What are you up to?

Reading! Yesterday was a snow day for me as tae kwon do was closed and I spent the whole day reading I Am Number Four, interspersed with playing with my dog. I'm finally finishing up the pile of library books I got out, and I can now start on the last one, Rise Again: A Zombie Thriller. At least until the other three books I'm expecting at the library come in!

Ask me anything

My Plan

In my internet wanderings I found something that looks like fun to go with my blog-verse. A post that discusses things to talk about in posts for 30 days! That should be fun since it has all sorts of ideas for me to talk about the two things I'm really good at talking about: myself and things going on in my life.

I hope that this doesn't chase any of my handful of readers off since there's bound to be plenty of awesome geekiness and scifi stuff in my life. I'm a nerd, remember? It may get a little personal around here, but I hope whoever bothers reading this sticks around to read about all the dorkiness and nerdiness in my life.

I probably won't write about every single post mentioned in the other blog, but I saw quite a few that look like fun to write, so hope you enjoy the randomness!

Doctor Who Promo 2011

Lately I've discovered that BBC America airs re-runs of Doctor Who in the mornings which has become part of my morning routine. Now, of course I could just watch re-runs using my Netflix and without worrying about commercials, but there's something fun about watching them on tv. Plus I then don't get carried away watching ALL the episodes in a season when I really need to be doing other productive type activities. Anyway, there's this really neat promo that BBC America shows and I found it on YouTube so I figured I'd share it, because it really does amuse me.

I can't wait until there's an actual date for the return of new episodes. My sonic and I are ready to go!

This has nothing to do with Star Wars, just as a warning. I'm just laying awake with my dog fast asleep on my legs and finally starting to get excited about my new semester of college and moving to NYC. This is my life.

Clone Wars: Witches of the Mist

Let me start off by saying that I was really excited for these past couple of Clone Wars episodes and have been looking forward to seeing them since August, when they revealed the existence of Savage Oppress at Celebration V. And don't forget, I was really looking forward to seeing these episodes in theaters back in December (I even ranted about it). I'll admit that I didn't watch any of the other two episodes on tv, but I saw the first episode, Nightsisters, on CartoonNetwork.com before Friday's episode. Since I hadn't seen the other two, I wasn't going to bother watching Witches of the Mist until I could somehow watch all three episodes together. (Spoilers ahead: watch out)

Fett's Vette

Cruisin' Mos Espa
In my Delorean
War's over
I'm a peacetime mandalorian

My story has stumped
Star Wars historians
Deep in debate,
Buffet plate at Bennigan's

Rhyme renegade
Sure to penetrate
First and second offense
I won't hesitate

Twitter Conversation

I'm starting to think I spend altogether too much time on Twitter lately. I used to simply use it to 'follow' the people that I liked, such as the Official Star Wars account, Green Day, Matt Nix, Jeff Eastin, Daniel Logan and a few others. Lately, though, I've been using it to collect 'friends' who also like Star Wars. That seemed all well and good for a while, but I think I'm starting to notice that 140 characters is really not enough to get the proper point across to another person. Some people are skilled at it. I'm not. (As I'm sure some of my lengthier posts have proven)

Republic Commando: Order 66

*Note: I wrote this two years ago with the release of Karen Traviss' Republic Commando: Order 66

The other day I hit the halfway point in ORDER 66 and I stopped reading for a moment to marvel at how carefully crafted the book was. Any Star Wars fan who pays half-attention to what’s going on in the SW universe (because I know there are a few ‘fans’ out there who’ve only seen EpIII once or twice or even not at all) has seen Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and sat in that movie theater (or home) and seen that scrolling text go by and thought “holy frak, this is it, the beginning of the end”. When EpIII was first coming out everyone was all uppity about theories about the movie and what was going to happen and how. To me what mattered was that it was over; and I don’t mean the end of all Star Wars movies, because I KNEW George wouldn’t leave us hanging for very long, and anyway there were always the books to keep me going. No, I knew that the Jedi had to be killed, and I knew that Palpatine had to declare himself Emperor, and of course I knew that Obi-Wan and Anakin would have some great face-off and Anakin wasn’t going to be in one piece by the end of it (no pun intended… well, maybe a small one…). However, it was entirely different to sit in that movie theater (at midnight surrounded by a bunch of other crazy nutters who still had to go to work and school the next day) and see the scrolling text start and hit that point in the movie when Palpatine is talking to Anakin and finally reveals he’s a Sith… I don’t know about anyone else but I was sitting there wanting to scream and cry all at the same time. Because at that point it was nearly over. There was nothing anyone could do to change anything because, well, we were watching history. Everything that was going to go wrong already had, we have the Original Trilogy to prove that.

March On

Don’t cry
Open up your eyes and know
There’s someone else out there that feels this way

I’m singing to you
Cause I know what you’ve been through and now
It’s not so long ago I felt the same

Like soldiers
March on
If we can make it through the night will see the sun
March on, march on

Star Wars: Contingency Orders

Order 66: In the event of Jedi officers acting against the interests of the Republic, and after receiving specifc orders verified as coming directly from the Supreme Commander (Chancellor), GAR commanders will remove those officers by lethal force, and command of the GAR will revert to the Supreme Commander (Chancellor) until a new command structure is established.

- Contigency Orders for the Grand Army of the Republic: Order Initiation, Orders 1 Through 150, GAR document CO(CL) 50-95

Star Wars: Republic Commando- Order 66

Karen Traviss

Poll Results

Well, one week later the poll to the side of my blog is finally closed so I figured I'd put up a quick blurb on the results. First of all, I was pretty surprised I managed to get as many votes as I did. Thanks to Twitter and Digg.com for that one!

Anyway, as to the results, well, they came out to be about as I had expected. Here's the results with the percentages:
Firefly: 32 votes or 65%
Stargate SG-1: 6 votes or 12%
Battlestar Galactica: 4 votes or 8%
Stargate Atlantis: 2 votes or 4%
Caprica: 0 votes
Stargate Universe: 5 votes or 10%

I'm not surprised that Firefly came back at the top, even I would have voted to have it back! I had anticipated that Atlantis would have had a few more votes for its return, but I wasn't surprised that SG-1 beat it out. I was surprised, though, that Universe managed to garner just as many votes for its return as SG-1. I hadn't realized it had gotten that popular that quickly, and popular enough to beat out Atlantis. I, for one, was not a fan of Universe or SG-1, but then that's just me. And the least surprising result was that Caprica got no votes. Obviously it wasn't doing that well if SyFy canceled it so quickly that they had a marathon to get the last few episodes out of the way. I can't say I'm sorry to see it go. I was feeling quite a lot of animosity towards the show anyway since Ron Moore ditched Battlestar Galactica to write Caprica.

Well, since the poll seemed fairly successful, I think I'll go ahead and put up another one sometime soon. Hope everyone enjoyed it!

Gears of War books

I'm relatively new to the Gearsverse and the reason for that is because for one thing I'm not that good at first person shooters like Gears of War or Halo and secondly I don't always have the amount of time I'd like to devote to a game that extensive. I received Gears of War 2 for my birthday about two years ago but played for about an hour before getting annoyed and giving up. When I heard on Karen Traviss' website, though, that she was going to be writing the Gears of War books I knew I had to start reading them. I decided to go back and really put in some serious effort to play the game I had, even if that meant using an online guide from ign.com to help me.

It did.

After reaquainting myself with the controls I set out with my trusty guide to beat Gears of War 2. I decided on playing on the easiest difficulty since I have no interest in paying Microsoft an extra $10 a month to play online so I didn't care if I got to be any good or not. I just wanted to play through the story. Which I managed in about three days last summer. I found that once I got into the swing of the game I only used the guide when I had died a few times and wanted suggestions on how to do something differently, or when I got lost and needed to remember where to go and what to do. Once I beat the game I decided I could safely go and read the books. I have yet to bother getting my hands on the first game. Since I've only just started on the books I'm not sure whether I'll regret that decision or not.

I'm starting with Aspho Fields which, as far as I can tell, takes place after the first game but before the second game. If I'm wrong on that someone feel free to correct me. But if I'm right it's cool with me, I haven't hit anything from the first game that I should know about that is hindering my reading. So far the book has held to what I'm used to from Karen Traviss. Nitty gritty ugly war stuff that, unless you've been in war or know someone who has, you might not think of. Lack of supplies, lack of food, hostile environments and what's it's like to rely 100% on the person next to you to watch your back and keep you alive. She makes it seem terrifying and yet sometimes I feel as though she would be one hell of a military recruiter. Not to mention how real she makes the characters. They all have their fears, their worries and especially in the case of Dom, their hopes and dreams.

As I finish the book and make my way on to the other ones (which are fortunately available at my library now) I'll continue to share my thoughts on the books, and I'll try not to drool over Karen Traviss' writing too much.

Hey Now

Hey now, where’d you go?
I see right through and all of this I know
But everything you want doesn’t all come back to you
Lifted off the floor
Off the roof and hold me high above the flames below

Wait

Hey now where’d you go
I see right through and all of this I know
But everything you want doesn’t all come back to you

Time often it’s so strange
Maybe if it’s plated in gold you’d like it more
When the seas and the oceans pull
Feels like we were miles apart
And all these sunny days that we sleep inside
Destiny is calling us home

And I
Hey now, where’d you go?
I see right though and all of this I know
Everything you want doesn’t all come back to you

Hey now rise and fall
I see right through and all of this I know
I think our eyes are falling in love this afternoon
Lifted off the floor
Off the roof and hold me high above the flames below

Wait

- Jesse Glick

So these lyrics are pretty much impossible to find online, so I took a few minutes out of my busy schedule to jot them down, with my mom’s help. We’re as sure as we can be about them, so enjoy!

This song came from the Burn Notice soundtrack, and it’s basically a song they use everytime Michael and Fi have some touching scene. This song is one of my favorites and I thought it was time for me to put it up on this blog since I had it on my other one and it was helpful to people looking for the lyrics. 

Who else is looking forward to the Sam Axe prequel and the start of season 5? I know I am!

What I'm Reading: Wess'har series

While most of the dorky and nerdy things that I do are relating to movies or tv shows, I have recently expanded into 'real' sci-fi books. Note that I'm not counting all the Star Wars books I've read as 'real' sci-fi books since they are only in existence thanks to George Lucas' movies. I, as usual, have a roundabout way that I got introduced to these books. It was (surprise) due to Star Wars. The books I'm reading are the Wess'har series written by my personal favorite, Karen Traviss. And, in case it is not well known, Karen Traviss is my favorite because she wrote the Star Wars: Republic Commando series and a number of the Legacy of the Force books, and a Clone Wars novel or two. Thanks to my love of those Star Wars books I decided to branch out into her other stories and start the Wess'har series.

New Poll

I felt like trying out the poll widget on the side of my blog, so I came up with a random question to try it out. The voting is now open on it, and the question can be found just to the right of the page.

Right over there ----------------------------------------------------->

Since it's my first attempt at a poll I wanted to keep is small and simple, but other polls in the future will have better questions and more answers as necessary.

Keep voting! It closes at 9am EST, January 11.

What I'm Watching: Die Hard

Since it's still Christmas-time in my house with all the trees and decorations still up that means it's still fair game to watch Christmas movies. And what better wholesome Christmas movie is there than Die Hard? The answer is there is none! Die Hard is not only a classic movie, it is a perfect movie that I make sure to watch every Christmas. Or whenever I remember.

Happy New Year!

Well, that's it for 2010, so let's wave goodbye and wave hello to a (hopefully) Star Wars and scifi filled new year!

2010 had its moments, namely Celebration V for those of us lucky to go, but 2011 has promise in the Star Wars geekdom department. After all, it will see more Clone Wars seasons (reserving judgment on that one) and of course the long awaited Star Wars blu-rays and a bunch of awesome new Star Wars books!

So for now let's all celebrate (Yub-nub!) the new year! Hope everyone is spending time with family and friends, I know this time of year is perfect for that for me.


And, because someone's gotta do it...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!