Various Star Wars items...

Awright, Forcery should be finished by this afternoon, I think. Had to re-export a few of the projects 'cuz of interlacing issues, on top of the redone sound. I know this is getting perilously close to the deadline of beating Episode III but I'm pretty confident it'll be done in time. Gonna try anyway.

Good news is every time I watch this, it gets funnier and funnier.

A while back on this blog I mentioned how much Revenge of the Sith is a thingly-veiled jab at President Bush. That's starting to get picked up by the established press ever since advance screenings began the other week. I don't think it's a personal thing though: Lucas had this all plotted out thirty years ago and if it wasn't George W. Bush destroying liberty in America, it would probably be somebody else. Lucas is just resonating with a pattern of history. Not that that excuses the person doing most of the destroying at that time in history though and after taking a look at some of the political websites this morning I can't help but grin at how some people - the ones who would defend Bush if he were caught with a dead girl or a live boy - are feeling so offended that Lucas would dare take this kind of immortal shot at Maximum War Leader. Heh-heh-heh, thassright: which one of these is going to be the more beloved years down the line: the man or the movie? My money's on Episode III.

My friends are saying I should go to the midnight showing in my Jedi costume. Personally, I think the Celebration 3 shirt would be more appropos: it's like a mark of pilgrimage, like something a Catholic person would bring back to show that he went to Lourdes. Besides, anyone who endures some of the insanity that happened at Celebration 3 deserves to boast some proof of his or her tenaciousness. And speaking of which I'm planning on finally posting those pics of the thing after finishing Forcery.

I'm hearing good vibes about the Star Wars TV projects that'll be coming out in another year or two. Latest word is that they'll be produced in Australia, where Episodes II and III were filmed for the most part. Still nothing solid about the premise of the live-action one but I'm still hoping for an anthology series that does different stories across different eras and locations in the saga.

Right now on my desk I have the Darth Sidious action figure from Episode I, the Emperor Palpatine with lightsaber and the deluxe Darth Sidious (the one with switching faces) from Episode III on my desk. My friend Brian found me the one of Chancellor Palpatine with lightsaber but that's still in the package and I'm debating whether or not to let him join my lil' Sidious chorus. If anyone knows of any other Palpatine/Sidious action figures (NOT the plain vanilla Senate garbed ones, I mean Palpy/Siddy when he's in full-tilt evil mode) I don't have here, lemme know 'cuz I'm a big fan of Darth Sidious. I also have a Darth Sidious LEGO minifig that I custom-made a few years ago, will try to post a pic of that soon :-)

Okay, back to finishing this film up. Pray it goes well...

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I have an idea for a new bumper sticker slogan...

It sorta came while reading Kyle Williams' new piece at WorldNetDaily this morning. Which reinforced my belief all the more that he and Vox Day are two of the darned few serious Christian intellectuals we have operating in America lately.

Anyhoo, I don't know if anyone else has ever thought of this but I like to think it's pretty clever:

Real Men

Don't Worship

Fake Cowboys

Maybe stick a lil' caricature of Bush wearing an oversized cowboy hat or something.

I don't want any money from suggesting the idea. I just wanted to be the first to suggest it :-)

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Star Trek and Star Wars come to an end within a week of each other

There's a meaning here, I'm sure of it.

I hadn't caught it regularly since the first few episodes, but last night was the series finale of Star Trek: Enterprise, and despite a lot of negative criticism I thought it was a pretty good way to end all things Trek for the forseeable future. This franchise needs a rest though: it's gone to the same well for darn nearly 20 years and a big chunk of that time, there were two separate Star Trek series running at the same time! Don't call me a die-hard Trekkie 'cuz that's never been me, but I did enjoy keeping tabs on whatever was going on in that particular universe, and Enterprise really got me excited during its first season... then it fizzled out. Heard the episodes this past year rocked the house though. But somebody please tell me: did they ever reveal who the Future Guy was? He's not really Dr. Sam Beckett is he? :-P

Anyway, Star Trek comes to its end tonight and a few days from now, Star Wars will do the same. So I'm sorta watching the reaction from our Trek friends for any hints on how to get through the ensuing weeks and months of withdrawal. It will be hard, but I'm sure we will all get through this. And maybe finally find lives of our own ;-)

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"Almost there, almost theeeere..."

The end is finally in sight. This thing is going to beat the deadline by about four days. And this crazy notion I've carried on my back for going on four years now will soon finally be laid down. Hopefully you'll like what it is.

Should have more to report later today.

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Why don't they just nail Bush to a crucifix and get it over with...

This is so damned digusting I can't even come up with words for it. Friend sent me this link tonight. Behold the BushFish:
No joke, it's a real car magnet. Here's how the website pitches it...

Do you believe God belongs in government?
Do you believe President Bush is doing The Lord's Work?

If so, then show your love for God & the USA!

If this country's legislature and judiciary are supposed to reflect the values and beliefs of The People, then send them a message that they are WAY off course!

If you are tired of secularists telling you that The Lord has no place in our government and our public institutions, then show them that you disagree.

This symbol, this site, and this car magnet have been created for the millions of Americans who support the President and his vision for a government that embraces religion, morality, and family values. It shows worship to the Lord, respect for the President, and hope for
all.

Join the millions of Americans who believe that President Bush’s faith-
based administration presents the best hope for America’s future. The future is in your hands. Stand up and be counted!

Order a BushFish for yourself or a loved one today.

God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

This has gotta be the most sacrilegious thing I've ever seen come out of the dominionists' camp. Think about it: the icthus was the very first symbol of Christianity. It's how Christians recognized each other during Nero and Caligula's day: if someone were to draw the fish in some sand nearby, that was the coded signal meaning that person was a Christian. The standard Roman cross didn't come into widespread use until a few hundred years later (and that was mostly Constantine's doing): before then it was actually condemned by some Christians as a pagan symbol. That's not what we hold it to mean these days, 'course...

But treating the icthus like this is something like affixing an effigy of George W. Bush onto a crucifix in place of Jesus Christ. This kind of deification of a mere man would have horrified the early Christians: what if someone was selling these things back then with "NERO" on 'em? And how are they so blind as to believe that Bush is really doing "the Lord's work"? Just because they can deny the fact that he does many things in violation of scripture, doesn't make that fact any less true.

Geez, what the hell is wrong with these people??

About eight years ago I first learned about Christian Reconstructionists during a religion class in college. We laughed at their chances of taking over everything then. Now it looks like they really are hellbent on doing it: this blasphemy and the Bush-worshipping pastor in Waynesville NC are just two examples of their mindset.

And in all honesty it scares the hell out of me.

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Revenge of the Sith made Spielberg cry

I've little doubt that he did either. Have spoken to a couple of people who've seen Star Wars Episode III already and they're warning now to bring Kleenex to the theater. Sheer, unrelenting brutality. If it can possibly go wrong, it goes wrong. If it COULDN'T possibly go wrong, that goes wrong too. Almost nobody gets out alive this time. How bad is Revenge of the Sith? One friend said that "it's more devastating than Titanic."

Man this is going to be the longest week of my life. Three decades of wondering about new Star Wars movies comes to an end in ten days. Whatever shall I do with my life now...? :-)

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Good article by Vox Day today

Over at WorldNetDaily, Day cuts through the smoke and mirrors deluding even the elect and ponders mightily: who is "The Devil's own?"

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Does this mean I'm a big-league blogger now? Baptist Bushiites story spreading fast

It's been awhile since I lived there but some of the contacts I made and cultivated in the curious lil' burg of Asheville paid off bigtime last night. Got to share the thing about East Waynesville Baptist Church and how its pastor excommunicated nine people because they were Democrats, and SEVERAL hours before most newswires picked it up. Granted, WLOS, the ABC affiliate in Asheville was the outlet that first broke the story, but looks like at least mine was one of the first blogs to pass it along.

So it's out there now, the Asheville Citizen-Times just posted a story about the situation and a little while ago WorldNetDaily made it the top story. Meanwhile I'm hearing that this Chan Chandler guy is nowhere in sight but is sending statements defendings his actions as justifiable according to the Bible. Ummmmm ooh-kaaaay...

If no one minds my saying so, that part of the state is... well, strange anyway when it come to spiritual issues. I was a reporter there when the local churches had the big "We Still Pray" rally in 2000 and then a few weeks later at the same high school football stadium when area witches and warlocks held their own "We Still Work Magic" gathering. The Asheville area is one-third New Age mecca and one-third ardent Christian fundamentalist, with the last third being anyone and everyone in between. Can be a helluva fun place to spent a year or so of your life when you're young and adventurous and want to see a lot of nutty stuff happening. Makes me wish I was back there now while this is happening :-)

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WHEN BAPTISTS GO MAD: "support George Bush" or be drummed out of church

Please bear in mind that my wife and I attend an independent Baptist church and we really enjoy the fellowship there. It's like the old saying here in North Carolina: "put two Baptists into an argument and you'll hear three different opinions". They come in all flavors, not all of 'em like the nutcases behind this lil' item...

Heard from a contact in Asheville a little while ago: a church in Waynesville (about 20 miles or so west of Asheville) has excommunicated nine members for - get this - being members of the Democratic party! I'm scanning the websites for the Citizen-Times newspaper and WLOS to get more word on this but apparently this ain't a joke by any stretch. But from what I understand, the pastor of East Waynesville Baptist Church let the nine go because they supported John Kerry or the Democratic party somehow. One former member described on tonight's WLOS broadcast how he and others were told that "if we didn't support George Bush that we needed to resign our position and get out of the church, or go to the altar and repent and agree to vote for George Bush." His exact words, my source noted.

Geez, I don't know where to start on this one folks. This preacher sounds like a neo-pharisee or something.

No, it's worse than that. It's a church telling its members to believe that a mere earthly man is divinely anointed over them. The last time I recall churches doing that, it was shortly before the Russian tanks entered Berlin.

"Repent and agree to vote for George Bush"?! Can't get much more Nazi than that, boyz and goilz.

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The National Day of Prayer: a damned useless gesture if there ever was one

I'm not going to waste a single moment today on the "National Day of Prayer". Because the entire idea of it is a blasphemous joke. It insults my intelligence. It insults the memory of those who fought and died for our freedoms. And worst of all it insults God.

It used to have real meaning, back in the day when the Continental Congress and General George Washington asked their countrymen to pray for wisdom and guidance from divine Providence. Theirs were prayers of humbleness and contrition: those men and women knew where they stood before God. I think that was a far more noble era than today because for the most part, those people weren't afraid or ashamed to admit before all that their lives were meaningless without the grace of God. Nor were they too proud to confess the need for personal communion and fellowship with God to the extent that it had a higher priority than their relationships with others.

And it was considered a far nobler thing to desire that God's will be done, instead of OUR will be done. Look at many of the political and military leaderships of both sides of the Civil War: Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee were on opposite sides, yet both sought counsel from God and were content to let Him judge how the conflict should end. And in the end, General Lee harbored no bitterness toward either God or his conquerors for suffering defeat.

As for Lincoln, he was the first president to proclaim "a National Day of Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer" in 1863. You can read the proclamation yourself at the link. Including this passage from it...

...We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown.

But we have forgotten God.

We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

That's what the National Day of Prayer used to mean: the nation humbling itself and crying to God for His will to be done.

It was not intended to be a platform upon which the nation exalts itself and demands that God allow its own will be done.

I went to the National Day of Prayer's website to see what we're supposed to be praying for today. Starting with the President of the United States and members of Congress, the list of who/what to pray for goes on to mention members of the armed forces, "school authorities", law enforcement agencies, presumably "mainstream" journalists (where the heck are bloggers?!) and families at last.

Now, something that needs to be pointed out here: THERE IS NOT A DAMNED THING IN THIS MISSION PURPOSE THAT HAS TO DO WITH HUMILITY OR FASTING OR REAL PRAYER, AT ALL!!

The "National Day of Prayer" is not an exercise of our freedom to worship and seek out God as we understand Him.

The "National Day of Prayer", rather, is a means of controlling the American people.

I see nothing here but a reassertion of "authority" over the people of this country. As if there were common people and then an elite "priestly caste" of politicians and power-mongers that intercede on our behalf before Almighty God. As if we have no right to discourse with God regarding the state of our national affairs in our life on this Earth.

We're supposed to pray for wisdom for them. But where the Hell do you see it that we are asked to pray to God for wisdom for ourselves?

God didn't put "the government" in authority over America. He never decreed that this country is something only Democrats and Republicans can boast of controlling. Nowhere has it ever been commanded that we are supposed to follow men like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and George W. Bush as if they were anointed apostles of the Almighty without question. Who the *&$# do they think they are, anyway?!

And now we're supposed to pray that they do the right thing, when they have *&$#-ed it up so many times already in spite of our prayers for them?!

No sir. I will not partake in the National Day of Prayer. Because I have chosen to worship God. I will not worship America. Nor will I worship anyone who expects me to believe they have power over America.

Besides, the idea that prayer is a one-day out of the year thing cheapens it. We are told to "pray without ceasing". So instead of following through with what those who expect us to believe have authority over us would have us to do, I will pray in my own fashion. And include among them this petition to God: that He might give ALL of us, as Americans, the wisdom and the strength to govern ourselves in the stewardship He gave us.

Time to quit letting "them" handle things while we run away from it.

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Okay so it's six days later since last time...

I been busy. With lots of good stuff.

Like, REALLY good stuff.

All will be revealed soon. And then, hopefully, you'll smile a bit :-)

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Celebration III pics coming later this evening

I know, they've been promised the last several days but we didn't get Lisa's photos back until yesterday afternoon, and she took 'em with her this morning to show her students before I had a chance to scan some. I'll get to work on that when she returns this evening.

On a related note, call it the "Vader Virus" or "Imperial Influenza" but lots of people who attended the festivities have gotten sick since coming back from Indianapolis. I've been under the weather with some nasty crap myself ever since Monday (we got back very late Sunday night). It's probably weather-related: we went from first-day warm and sunny, to cold and rain Friday and then snow Saturday afternoon and night. Then again with THAT many people from all over the world in one area, with those kinds of conditions, there ain't no telling what hellish microbes might have been bred across four days. Hey who knows, maybe Star Wars Celebration III will forever emblazon a new illness like Legionnaire's disease did. How about "the Sidious Syndrome"?

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Well, tonight pretty much proved that the man is insane...

"Teachers tell me they love No Child Left Behind."

?!?!?!?!?!?????

Okay Mister President: if you can find any teachers that do think that No Child Left Behind is a boon to their efforts, I'll eat my hat.

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"It's not 'intrusive government' when WE do it."

I remember about ten years ago or so when President Clinton was pushing for the "V-chip" to be installed in all newly manufactured television sets. People like Rush Limbaugh, Donald Wildmon and American Spectator magazine called it for what it was: government sticking its nose into something it had no business being in at all.

My, how the times have changed.

I said this then and I'll say this now: there already IS something controlling what children watch on television and the movies... and they're called parents!! And Mom and Dad together should be an adequate enough gatekeeper against what they will deem as objectionable without any help from the federal government. Or either the Democrats or Republicans.

Yes, I'm aware that this bill doesn't mandate any new technology like what Clinton did in pushing the V-chip. But the mindset is the same: that the American people are inherently incapable of taking care of themselves, so they need "authority figures" in government to be asserted over them for their own good.

Screw 'em.

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"Must Flee Tee Vee": Exorcism on NBC tonight!!

Okay, so NBC's Dateline is going to broadcast a real exorcism tonight. Along with a segment on snake-handlers.

For their own reasons, I'm finding both of these items to be hysterically funny.

Parse that as you will...

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"...And not a rubber nipple in sight!" New trailer for Batman Begins online, sorta...

STILL working on photos from Celebration III to post online! Didn't know I took this many and we've still got Lisa's to look forward to once they're back from the photo lab. That should be this afternoon so I'll probably just wait 'til later tonight to get them ALL up.

In the meantime, orient yer peepers at the new Batman Begins trailer at MTV.com. It's a pretty wonky setup to get it to play though: I had to use Internet Explorer instead of Mozilla because of something it does with Microsoft Media Player, and hopefully there'll be a MUCH better Quicktime version out soon. But it's still plenty to get me stoked: Batman Begins is on the VERY short list of movies that I'm looking forward to seeing this summer (the others being Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The War of the Worlds and some little art-house film that George Lucas is supposed to be releasing sometime next month). Looking at this trailer and the others before it makes me darned thankful that I wasn't one of the poor saps walking around wearing a Batman t-shirt back in 1989 when Tim Burton's movie was out. Which I like Tim Burton but his take on Batman... never quite resonated with me. This Gotham City looks and feels real, like someone really could put on a bat costume and with enough military toys would be perfectly believable. Check out the Scarecrow: LOVE it how he's got a simple burlap sack for a mask! No kitschy cartoonyism here kids. No extreme close-ups of molded-rubber crotches or nipples either: looks like someone kept Joel Schumacher a good cattle-prod's distance from this movie. Anyway, go watch it and enjoy a minute or so of madness and mayhem.

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Is repeating video evidence that Idol is rigged?

Over at Drudge Report right now there's a story about an investigative piece ABC is set to run next week alleging that the producers of American Idol on Fox are manipulating the outcome of the show. This hasn't been the first time this season it's been suggested that "the fix is in" on the number-one television show in America, but so far this is the only major media attention given the matter.

I'm not saying that American Idol is rigged. I'm praying it's not. Hoping that there are some ethical standards being adhered to and that EVERYONE is being given their fair shake at going all the way.

That said, there was something on tonight's broadcast of American Idol that I happened to catch, that has been bugging me all night.

The show's now down to six finalists, the theme this evening was songs that have come out since the year 2000. Before each contestant sang there was a brief set of video clips about that performer: where he or she comes from, comments from family and friends, their singing history, etc. The first contestant to perform tonight was Carrie Underwood, the 22-year old farmgirl from Oklahoma and one of the admitted favorites - if not the admitted favorite - to win the competition.

Now, here's what I've been wondering about...

Back in January, during Underwood's first appearance on the show, there was a brief video montage about her then also. One of the clips was of Underwood taking food to animals on her farm. Dunno why I remembered THAT particular clip, but as best as I can recollect, the show's producers had that same clip in Underwood's video segment tonight.

Why would American Idol's producers go to all the time and trouble to collect this kind of footage about Carrie Underwood, when at the time she was, at best, one of the 24 contestants that would be pared down to the final 12? Did all of the 24 contestants receive this kind of attention from the show that early on? And not just Underwood either: I noticed that Constantine Maroulis got much the same sort of "extra attention" from the show.

This isn't meant to "diss" either Underwood or Maroulis at all. Personally, I think they're both excellent singers and they should do well no matter how well American Idol ends up for them. But let's be honest here: how many times did we really see Anwar Robinson or Mikalah Gordon in the pages of People, or in the footage that Idol's producers released for public consumption? Could it be that maybe some contestants just aren't, ummm... "telegenic" enough to warrant equal consideration? Admittedly, Underwood is pretty and the ladies find Maroulis to be hot, but this is supposed to be a singing competition, not a beauty pageant.

Or maybe I'm seeing too much in this one little quirk. That might be fair to say too. But I guess I'm the kind of guy who doesn't like the deck stacked against anybody, no matter how "less appealing" they look in front of the television cameras. And hate to say it but this season of American Idol has tilted too much toward the fair-faced already.

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