Looking back on 2019, and ahead to the new year

Inspired by a dear friend and compatriot in fighting the good fight, here is my year in review and my goals for 2020. This year was one of ups and downs, but I like to think that there were more ups than downs. 1. Found a job that I really enjoy and am thankful for the amazing people I get to work alongside.  2. Was able to get back into regular blogging.  3....

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Star Wars Story Group, you got some 'splainin' to do... (more about Snoke)

A few days ago I became an uncle.  Yaaaay me!  Okay, she was born to my best friend from college but the two of us are "brothers from other mothers" if there ever is such a thing.  I'm still going to be "Uncle Chris" and I plan on playing the eccentric relative bit to the hilt where the little lady is concerned.  What more could a kid possibly want? Anyway,...

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Return of the Deep-Fried Turkey!

Hey gang, hope the holidays have been going well for y'all!  Christmas was rather good on this end.  I wound up with some Star Wars, some LEGO sets (Christmas is NEVER complete for me without Star Wars and LEGO no matter how old I get), some clothing, my mini dachshund Tammy received a bunch of toys.  And one way or another a lot of new cooking stuff came into...

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About Snoke and THE RISE OF SKYWALKER...

WARNING:  This post deals with matters pertaining to Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, which hit theaters less than 48 hours ago.  There WILL be spoilers openly discussed so if you aren't one to have the experience of seeing the movie for yourself ruined for you (take the hint: go see it, now now now!) don't read what I'm about to write.  It is ONLY...

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A brief, non-spoilerish review of STAR WARS EPISODE IX: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER

Now look, I waited decades... decades... to be able to say that I have seen "Episode Nine".  It became like a lifelong hope that someday, as the Plaid One promised in that Reader's Digest article in 1982, there would be nine of the Star Wars movies and I wanted to see all of them.  'Course, Lucas was referring to the core "Skywalker Saga" at the heartmeat...

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Look! Second article at American Thinker in 48 hours! Not kidding!

Just think: a few years later chunks of that wall were being sold at K-Mart.  Friends, I have a secret to tell.  I've waited decades... decades... for the chance to use the word "perestroika" in a written piece.  Not even during college and my senior history thesis - about the Russian space program and how it had tracked with that country's politics since...

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New article at American Thinker: My six months at Amazon

The days after Thanksgiving once signaled training season for Christmas caroling. Recent years have instead heralded the shrieks of entire choruses of Maynard G. Krebs: “Work?!?” The past few weeks have been no different and once again the squalls of disdain have almost invariably diffused from those tan arcologies of Internet commerce: the Amazon Fulfillment Centers. Well,...

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The perfect commentary

Whenever I look at the news lately this image keeps springing into mind: That's from Mel Brooks' woefully under-rated Silent Movie. Then again, real life is looking more and more like a Mel Brooks production.  Isn't ...

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Thanksgiving 2019 Gratitude Post

It's Thanksgiving Day so you know what that means: today we appreciate what we already have, so that tomorrow on Black Friday we will fight for things we don't really need. I have had a love-hate relationship with Thanksgiving, for a complexity of reasons.  It's the materialism that comes afterward that especially disgusts me.  Once upon a time, the day after Thanksgiving...

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Will a forty-year old Atari 2600 work on a modern HDTV?

The notion has been bugging me for a few years now: could my old Atari 2600 - technology that's fully four decades old - be made to work on a high-def television set?  Seemingly no easy task, what with the analog connector and antenna switch box and those screws on the back of the televisions of yesteryear (that had the antenna feed either with those C-shaped ends or...

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Thoughts on the premiere of STAR WARS: THE MANDALORIAN...

My friends, I know of no more proper way to put this: The Mandalorian is the best thing to happen to the Star Wars saga since the original trilogy.  For the first time in a way, waaaaaay long time there was that same sense of broad-brushed wonder that we were assaulted with in Episode IV: A New Hope.  And I started getting that vibe just within the first five minutes...

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The Berlin Wall fell 30 years ago today

Here's my piece of it: The slab of it at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum (photo taken December 21, 2016): Oppression never lasts forever. ...

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Christmas In Your Face!

Awright, c’mon people.  We gotta stop this.  As Barney Fife said, “Nip it in the bud!”  It’s gone on far enough.  If we don’t put an end to it now, in a few years the tinsel will start going up right around when Major League Baseball is having the all-star game. Or maybe once again your friend and humble narrator is on the...

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No, News & Record, most people don't care about the "Greensboro Massacre"

Despite now being a few years and several hundred miles away from my spawning grounds in Reidsville, I still tend to keep an eye on goings-on in north-central North Carolina.  Part and parcel to that is every so often visiting the website of Greensboro's News & Record... even though it's been years since that newspaper bore any semblance of objective reporting.  The...

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JOKER! THE RISE OF SKYWALKER trailer! First post in four months (but I'm getting better...)!

So let's get the obvious out of the way first: YOWZA!!!!  Maybe the greatest Star Wars trailer in all of history.  But ahhhh... will the movie deliver the goods come next month?  No other way to be honest about it: some days I find myself loving The Last Jedi and others, I find it sorely lacking.  There's just more that could have been...

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