Here's another really well done Star Wars short courtesy of Captain Hesperus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bopKelOLZZg&feature=related

Cheers,
-Jason

There is, of course, another Jedi power I could wildly abuse: the Jedi Mind Trick.

The basic problem though is that I’m not really mean enough to really abuse it. I would do silly things like order a Big Mac meal and then Jedi Mind Trick the cashier into giving me a Super Size for free. Actually, I probably wouldn’t even do that, as it might get the cashier in trouble. I’ve worked food service. The people behind the counter don’t need any more grief.
Which begs the question, what would I use it for?

(insert hand wave)
“No, Officer, I’m pretty sure I was going 35.”
“You want to poop in the litterbox.” (to my cat)
“Go read Wayfarer’s Moon and vote for it daily. And read the blog. And join the forum and post. And buy a t-shirt.”

However, my number one use for the Jedi Mind Trick would be as follows:

Me: “Hi, would you like to go out Friday?”
Hot Girl: “Uhhhh, no. I have to wash my hair.”
Me: (hand wave) “Your hair looks fine.”
Hot Girl: “Oh. Sorry, I need to vacuum.”
Me: (hand wave) “Do it later.”
Hot Girl: “Yeah. Ummm, I have to fly to Venezuela.”
Me: (hand waves self) “She’s not interested, move along.”

Granted, if I had Jedi Powers, other people would surely have them as well, so the above conversation would probably go like this instead:

Me: “Hi, would you like to go out Friday?”
Hot Girl: “Uhhhh, no. I have to wash my hair.”
Me: (hand wave) “Your hair looks fine. You should go out with me”
Hot Girl: (hand wave) “This is not the hottie you are looking for. Move along.”
Me: “You are not the hottie I am looking for. Moving along.”

Later: Part 3

So, in the forums (which I urge everyone to go, read, and post abundantly), a conversation started about Jedi powers. Several people, myself included, maintained that we would only use our powers for good.

But then I realized I was completely lying. I would use my Jedi powers for whatever the hell I wanted.

Oh, I’m not saying I would go Sith and force choke the lady at the DMV or decapitate a line of people at the supermarket with a shopping cart so I wouldn’t have to wait, but I would definitely abuse them all the time.

Telekinesis
I would never get up from the couch. I would change channels, pet the cat, get a drink, and if I could figure out how, pee from there too. My apartment would be a virtual hailstorm of items, foodstuffs, and if possible, cheerleaders. I would be sitting happily in the center, trying to see if I could telekinetically throw a corn chip through the wall.

Actually, strike that. I would get up from the couch. I would get up like there was no tomorrow.

I would enter the World Strongman Competition. You know, the one with massive men with names like Magnus ver Magnusson who routinely do things like carrying a Volkswagen Bug full of inebriated goats while performing the ‘Arabesque’ from the Nutcracker Suite (note: that comment is the sum total of everything I know about ballet).

I would be the out-of-shape nerd calmly carrying an 800-pound ice sculpture of a duck with one hand. It would rock, at least until the other competitors beat me to death with 400-pound scale models of Finland.

Tomorrow: Part 2

So, like many other nerds, Leigh, his lovely wife Laura, and I all went to see Iron Man yesterday.

It rocked.

Robert Downey, Jr. pretty much makes the film, with his breezy irreverence and the supporting cast of Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges, and Terrence Howard all give solid performances.

One aspect of the film that I thought was handled extremely well was the villain. In most superhero movies, the hero exists in a void apart from the regular comic universe, so there is always a need to somehow create a villain to match the hero. The X-Men franchise was one of the few to get around this (and Daredevil, oddly enough) as they established from the beginning that there were lots of mutants, thus giving the heroes plenty of people to fight.

In Iron Man, the villain came about fairly naturally and I never felt that it was forced. Unlike, many other super hero movies I could mention.

Overall, Iron Man moved along briskly, with a lot of fun sequences highlighting the creation of the armor and Downey’s very fun portrayal of Tony Stark.

However, the biggest surprise was the ending. No, not the ending ending, but the bit at the end of the credits (the post-ending?). Samuel L. Jackson shows up as Nick Fury, straight out of the Ultimates, suggesting a possible Avengers movie. Which would absolutely rock.

Overall, Iron Man is well worth an afternoon. I give it 6.98 Wombats of out of a possible 7.119.

EDIT: Leigh just sent me this: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/news/1647345/, so apparently, yes, a live-action Avengers is in the works. Geeks and nerds rejoice!

Cheers,
-Jason

It occurred to me the other day that I did not know the etymology of the word ‘ketchup.’ This glaring hole in my personal development could not go unchecked, so being a 10th level nerd (a Nerd Lord), I immediately consulted the internet.

Short answer: No one knows for sure where it originated from. We all could be routinely saying ‘monkey boogers’ in ancient Sumerian.

Long answer: The word may have originated in Asia, where ancient folklore holds that a small village was plagued by an incursion of giant, carnivorous wombats. When the wombats attacked, the people would shout something in their language that vaguely resembles ‘ketchup,’ but which meant ‘run for your lives, lest you be consumed by the giant, man-eating, wombats!’ The folktales go on to say that eventually a great hero arose and slew them all (the wombats, not the villagers), which is why there are no more wombats outside Australia. However, the villagers, being unable to farm because of the wombats would soon starve. The simple solution, of course, was to eat the newly deceased wombats. Thus, ‘ketchup’ came to mean ‘feasting on the remains of wombats.’ How this word came to mean ‘tomato sauce’ is a mystery.

Boring answer: It may come from the Malay word ‘kechap’ which means ‘fish sauce.’ Sailors brought the sauce back to Europe where it was made with local ingredients and eventually tomatoes. And viola, ketchup.

Cheers,
-Jason