Darth Plagueis novel WILL be published after all!

James Luceno is a happy man: word came out a few days ago that his long-simmering Star Wars novel about Darth Plagueis is going to be published at last! Release date at the moment: February 28th, 2012.

That's a year and a half from now, but given what we've gone through already to see this book happen, it ain't so bad. Around the same time that Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith was premiering in theaters five years ago, Luceno was talking in interviews about how he wanted to write a novel about Darth Plagueis: the Sith Master of Palpatine AKA Darth Sidious. Specifically, Luceno said at the time that he wanted to explore at length Plagueis' search for the means to immortality (and how what Plagueis wanted differed from the immortality that Qui-Gon Jinn discovered). A year later it was announced that Luceno was writing his Darth Plagueis book with a publishing date in 2008.

Less than a year after that however, the Darth Plagueis book was cancelled by Lucasfilm! The official reason given was that it was "decided that this was not the right time to delve into Palpatine's back story and Plagueis's beginnings..."

Four years later and the time is apparently ripe to at last reveal the history of this enigmatic Sith Lord. I shall certainly be looking forward to it :-)

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Man robs restaurant, calls back to complain about small haul

Crime does not pay. At least it not pay enough for one Atlanta-area robber, who held up a Wendy's and then phoned the restaurant to gripe about how little money he got away with.

From the story at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution...

A man who robbed a Wendy's at gunpoint Saturday night apparently was so upset with his haul that he twice called the restaurant to complain, Atlanta police said.

"Next time there better be more than $586," he said during one call. He made "a similar threat" in the second call, police said.

About 11:15 p.m., a man wearing a ski mask and holding a gun walked up to the drive-through window at the Wendy's at 1940 Piedmont Road, police said. He told an employee to put the cash drawer on the counter.

After grabbing the drawer and running away, the robber discarded the drawer in the bushes at the nearby InTown Suites. Police dusted the drawer for fingerprints. However, the robber was seen wearing yellow gloves at Wendy's.

I've worked in fast food before, and nearly six hundred bucks is quite a lot for one register drawer. How much more was this guy expecting?

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CALVIN AND HOBBES did INCEPTION first!

Props to GeekTyrant for noting that years before Christopher Nolan's cinematic foray into dream country with Inception, that Bill Waterson was already "kick"-ing around the idea in Calvin and Hobbes :-)

Y'know, this would explain some things about Calvin, when you think about it...

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Fred Reed's take on WikiLeaks

The inimitable Fred Reed - who I consider to be the Internet's greatest curmudgeon - has weighed in on the WikiLeaks issue. And as is the case more often than not, he's saying the harsh truth that too many reporters, pundits and professional policy makers would rather the rest of us not think too much about (for our "own good", 'course).

Here's some of Fred's musings on the matter...

Two ways exist of looking at Wikileaks, the site that publicizes secret military documents and videos. The first is held self-interestedly by the Pentagon and by Fox News, the voice of an angry lower-middle class without too much education. These believe that Wikileakers are traitors, haters of America, who give aid and comfort to the enemy and endanger the lives of Our Boys.

Implicit in the Foxian view is a vague idea that the leaks give away important—well, stuff. You know, maybe frequencies of something or other, or locations of ambushes or, well, things. Important things. The Taliban will use this information to kill American soldiers. The notion is vague, as are those who hold it, but emotionally potent.

The other view, held usually by people who have some experience of Washington, is that the Pentagon is worried not about the divulging of tactical secrets, but about public relations. Wikileaks doesn’t endanger soldiers, insists this way of looking at things, but the war itself, and all the juiceful contracts and promotions and so on entailed by wars.

Which is obvious if you look at what the military (the president, remember, is commander-in-chief) actually does. Remember the military’s frantic efforts to suppress the photos of torture at Abu Ghraib, photos of prisoners lying in pools of blood while grinning girl soldiers play with them? These had zero tactical importance. They did however threaten to arouse the Pentagon’s worst enemy.

The American public.

Plenty more at the above link. If you've never had the pleasure of reading a Fred Reed essay, I've been told that it's quite like the literary equivalent to drinking several shots of Jack Daniels. Not that I personally know what that is like, mind ya...

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Severe geological activity about to happen?

I may get called a "kook" from some quarters for writing about this. All I can really say in my own defense is that it's something I'm sincerely curious about and I was told a long time ago that the only wrong question to ask is one that isn't asked at all...

Slashdot is spreading the news this afternoon about a massive ejection of high-energy particles from the the sun. It's headed toward Earth and should reach us sometime tomorrow. Among other things it means that we should be enjoying some lovely aurora, if you're fortunate to live at a high-enough latitude.

Awright well, here's the thing: I've noticed in the past several years that most every time we get hit by a solar flare, that there's usually a massive earthquake that happens not very long afterward.

Considering that the inside of the Earth is a molten piezoelectric dynamo that generates this planet's magnetic field and that the plates of the planet's crust are floating on top of it, it doesn't seem that coincidental a correlation. I mean, if every now and then the sun ejects some highly electromagnetic particles toward us, seems only fitting that there'd be some agitation of the works beneath us.

So... will an earthquake be occurring in the near future? More than one, perhaps?

I decided awhile back that the next time there was a report of this kind of solar weather that I'd make a note of it on this blog, just to see if anything happens. And whether or not it does well, guess this'll be my own lil' contribution to the body of observable data on geological activity :-)

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Greetings to all of y'all at the 2010 National Boy Scout Jamboree!

Tonight I'm sitting in Reidsville... but my heart is at Fort A.P. Hill.

Here's bidding a hearty "hello" to all 45,000 or so of my friends who are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts in style this week :-)

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Question for anyone who's playing STARCRAFT II

Is this game really that good? I'm thinking of getting it.

And should I play the original StarCraft first? Believe it or not, for all of the original's legendary renown, I've yet to play it.

(I'm way behind on my video games. I still need to finish Batman: Arkham Asylum sometime. Not to mention Halo 3: ODST.)

Anyway, StarCraft II looks incredibly promising. Just wondering if it's worth dropping sixty bucks for it, or if I should wait :-)

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