I'm putting together a list of 52 "Must Reads" for 2011. I want to read at least 52 novels (be they adult or young adult) by the end of the year. That said, I do not want to re-read anything I have already spent time on. So this is a list of 52 novels that are completely new to me. I would love to have any suggestions you might want to offer. It may be easier if you look at my Good Reads profile to see what I've read, what's on my list and what I've never touched.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

 

Guess who's camping out for the new Metroid game? Yes, that's right. You'll find me at Gamestop, midnight sharp.

 

Review to come!

Alright, here we go. Before we lose the con by too much, this is the final installment in the SWCV series. A little late, but late is better than never, amirite? The top 5 and a few honorary mentions. Enjoy!

 

Fourth honorary mention goes to: The Jawa

 

 

Third honorary mention goes to: Vader

 

 

Second honorary mention goes to: Predator Trooper

 

 

First honorary mention goes to: Han Solo

 

 

Fifth place: Grevious

 

 

Fourth place: Jason Trooper

 

 

Third place: C3PO and R2-D2

 

 

Second place: Elvis Trooper

 

 

And the coveted first place!: Stop the hate, Jar-Jar

 

 

Me: Where the hell is Link?!

kindigo: Outside, cutting grass. He's busy.

All that fishing to do, you know.

Me: Did he catch 'em all yet?

kindigo: No, but he has beat up Pikachu many a time today.

Me: Well, at least there's that.

kindigo: There's Link.

Mario found him, of all people.

 

 

There's something super awesome about geeky girls, for real. Kindigo, another 20-something gal, has been one of my great friends for a long time. She's an artist, philoshper and genuine genius. Without her witty mind this world would be a dull, dull place. Thanks for keepin' it real, chica.

Stardate 2010.235

As I'll preface all of my reviews the following is nothing more than my opinion. I am not trained in the ways of the film industry. No one pays me to critique or praise the subject of my review. I am nothing more than a lowly, 20-something, girl who likes watching movies a lot. That said.

Sitting at a ridiculously low 38% on Rotten Tomatoes I find that a lot of other reviewers are attacking the characters of this movie. But I pose this question to them in hopes of maybe reaching a greater understanding of their obvious idiocy and overall blindess:

Over the top violence, quotable one-liners, lots and lots of explosives. This is a head nod to every great action movie ever made. It made me want to go back and watch all of the 80s action movies I loved as a child.This was in your face, no hidden layers, no questionable motives, no fancy frills and lace. It was a gorup of mercenaries blowing things up.

I guess my point is if you go into this, knowing what it is, what you're getting yourself into, it will be one of the most entertaining 95 minutes you've spent in a while. If you come back and say, "Well, I would have liked to see a little more emotion, a little more depth," then I will send Terry Crews, and his gun-so-loud-the-whole-theater-plugged-their-ears to tell you what this movie was really all about.

Enjoy!

 

Stardate 2010.262

 

To start, my Leia costume had a bit of a rough night on Friday so I ended up buying a new one and sporting the Padme look for days 3 and 4. That said, I didn't realize how see-through the pants were until about halfway through the day, but there are pictures to show at this point (I'll try to spare you the glaring obviousness going forward, but no guarantess, haha).

 

Day 3 was really when we started to settle in and wrap our heads around what was really going on. We started, bright and early with our day pretty much worked around getting in line for our photo with Mark Hamill. We knew it was going to be a ridiculous line (as we'd seen the one from Friday) and didn't want to find ourselves at the end of it. So about and hour and a half, plus $45.00 later we were being shoved and crammed behind a curtain and THERE HE WAS. He shook our hands as soon as we were in, grabbed me around the waist, looked and Scott and said, "Hey, do you mind if I grope your girlfriend?" We all cracked up. He followed it up with, "No, no, you don't stay married for 31 years by feeling up other women." He joked with us like we were all old friends! Honestly, this is an actor, that 30 years after his stardom, 30 years after settling in with one woman, and 30 years into a franchise that makes billions still appreciates his fans. He smiled with us, shook our hands again and thanked us for being there. We all left feeling like we were on Cloud 9. We gushed about it for hours afterward and checked the printing table every half hour waiting for our photos to show up (which turned out great, though I don't have it scanned in yet). The only thing that really kept us going was knowing that the following morning we'd be seeing him again to get his autograph.

 

For a while we couldn't do anything other than wander around with our jaws on the floor. We'd met Mark Hamill and he was the nicest celebrity on the planet. It wasn't until a guy from LucasFilms approached Scott and I asking if we'd like to participate in an interview involving fan's "Star Wars stories" that we were able to break free from the shock we'd been stumbling around in. Of course, we gladly accepted this invitation. Jack (Blackwell), Scott and I waited about a half hour to get in the interview room, and while we waited we met a family of three (mom, daughter and son). The little girl really took a liking to me and wanted to chat my ear off (which was adorable) and eventually decided she would not only chat, but latch. She crawled up my body like a monkey and clung to me like she was never letting go. Absolutely adroable. I couldn't get her to break free until her mother reminded her we needed to get going. (I'm really glad I got a photo of her (see the gallery below).)

 

The "interview" was more us talking at a camera about how Star Wars has affected us over the years. Jack, Scott and I each had a meaningful memory that brought us back a few years and really helped us evaluate the enormity of what this empire has become. It was Scott's first movie in the movie theater, it's one of the legacies Jack has already begun passing down to his two year old daughter (Skylar, which he chose partly because it sounds like "Skywalker") and it is one of the memories my brother and I will share loving for our entire lives. We had a great time with this and we all hope LucasFilms decides to air at least part of the footage at some point, because if anyone else had stories like ours it would be quite the video to see.

 

The rest of the day went on pretty uneventfully compartively speaking. We missed seeing the main event (Jon Stewart interviewing George Lucas), but we weren't really surprised. There were people that had waited in line for 12 hours plus to see that particular event, and while he would have been great, we didn't want to deny the rest of the con to stand in that line.

 

We wrapped the day up a little earlier than the Thursday and Friday as Jack was going to The Last Tour of Endor and Scott and I had a dinner planned at a nice restaurant in Orlando. (Which, side note, if you ever make it to Orlando, Maggiano's is the only place worth going. Food was amazing, and oddly the service was even better. I wouldn't trust anywhere else, for realz.)

 

But what I thought was going to be a relaxing night out, with a lovely dinner, turned into quite the adventure. Scott decided, around ten at night, that he wanted to try to put together a new costume, so we went to none other than WalMart. Two pairs of soccer shinguards, earth toned wife beaters, tan cargos, leather bracelets, two NERF guns, various paints and clips later, we were headed back to the hotel. But we got lost. Man, it was something else. Midnight rolled around and Scott was spray painting the pieces to his new costume in the hotel room. This  the Star Wars universe. This, my friends, is what fandom is really about. We hit the sack around one, I guess, planning to be up in less than six hours to rendevouz with Mark Hamill once more and wrap up one of the best weekends on our lives. Zzzzz...

 

UP NEXT! The final day! Scott's new costume! Mark Hamill makes a reapparance! Staaaay tuuuuned!

Stardate 2010.261

Day 2 - Friday the 13th - we all went in costume. It was INCREDIBLE. Honestly, the group I was with was pretty small, and while we were walking through the hotel lobby listening to the snickers and, in my case, cat calls, we didn't really care. We knew that in no time we would be wandering through the Orlando Convention Center with a large group of like minded individuals. We didn't realize how right we were.

We looked around the merch aisle, talked to a lot of others who had chosen to come in costume, and even got interview by NASA (see here to read the article in which I was quoted). The whole thing was incredibly overwhelming. Everything was chaotic, but so, so, so much fun.

We ran into a Jason Storm Trooper (who will be shown again on the BEST OF: COSTUMES post, trust me). The guy's sign was hilarious and he couldn't move more than two feet without someone asking him for a photo. There were some outfits that were so great it was almost impossible for the poor people to see the con at all. I didn't feel too badly, though. That's why you do dress up and our group got stopped more than a few times as well (I blame LORD/DARTH BLACKWELL and his mask).

I was caught a little off guard by the characters a lot of people chose to represent. I expected a million Han Solos and at least as many Luke/Jedi/Darth Mauls. But really, the only truly overused costume I saw was Slave Leia. Well, there were a lot of Storm Troopers too, but a lot of them were from the 501st and it made total sense for them to outnumber everyone else. There were a lot of obscure characters and many, many from the "extended universe". Star Wars really has taken on a life of it's own. When we were listening to Lucas being interviewed (and I'll come back to this on day 4) I realized that in this world he's created there are now fans that know more about it than he does if you include the fan made novels, characters, etc. How incredible to be part of something so huge.

The whole of day 2 was spent digesting everything that was going on, the ins and outs of the panels, deciding how we would spend Saturday and Sunday and admiring everything we saw. It was too much to take in in one day so we just sort of lazed about and enjoyed it for what it was.

See you soon!

Stardate 2010:259

Thursday August 12th started the beginning of Star Wars Celebration V. I'll preface this post by saying I've never been to a Celebration. Nor had my man. Jack (aka Blackwell (on the far right)) had attended two days of IV in L.A. last year, though, and he had Scott and I GEEKIN' OUT for WEEKS before hand. I mean, it didn't take much. Four days of nothing but epic Star Wars related activities, costumes and fans? Seriously, that was exactly what life is supposed to be about, especially if you're going with a group that would ALL be cosplaying. Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen. We dressed up like six year olds on Halloween (just wait for the photos).

We spent the first day in street clothes, just chillin' out and checkin' around the Con. We saw some of the most elaborately decorated Storm Trooper helmets (see the attached gallery, though the Ewok has to be my favorite).

COMING SOON: Days 2, 3, 4 and a "BEST OF" Costumes