Lightsabers, Living and March For Our Lives

The word of the week is dearth.

March 19 - Snapback

Sometimes - more often of late - I wonder what I'm accomplishing?

There's a mental image I use for this sort of thinking: a rubber band.

Much like life, you can stretch a rubber band to encompass all sorts of things, but not too many at a time: if you try that, some of those things are going to slip away.

Today, I felt like my rubber band was stretched too far, almost brittle. I wrote about it when I got home, which is an exercise I'm making myself do whenever these sorts of moods hit me: it's a form of externalization, and it does help. You can read what I wrote here, as I didn't feel it was worthwhile turning into a full post-section all by itself, but still worth mentioning as it's an honest reflection of what I'm feeling at this point in my life regarding my self-worth as tied to my work/career and my 'accomplishments' as such.

Treading water will keep you breathing, but you're going to get tired, and the shore doesn't get any closer while you're just surviving. Still, better to swim than float, because at least that way you get to choose a direction instead of being swepy along willy-nilly by the currents...

March 20 - Cosplay

While I didn't get out to the local con this year in Victoria, word has it that it was a spectacular success( and a crowded one too, glad I didn't go... )so we should see it again in 2019, as I've read the organizers have already booked space here. There was a nice

In the meantime, here's a brief glimpse of the happy-crazy crowds:

Capital City -

As well, Emerald City Comicon in Seattle is on my radar for a visit, maybe as early as next year - we'll see. In the meantime, there's plenty of imageryfrom 2018's convention, which has some excellent cosplay, one of my fave things about cons!

March 21 - Stephen and Stephen

The world lost Stephen Hawking last week, as I noted in my previous blog post: a giant of science, he will be long-remembered by the world for his contributions, as well as his indomitable spirit.

I'd also like to remember a smaller Steven, a friend I'd never met, who passed away March 7th 2017... and who deserves not to be forgotten. From my March 2017 posting:

He had cystic fibrosis, succumbing after a courageous battle to this vile disease only a few months after he was diagnosed around Christmas time. He was hopeful to last that a lung transplant would bring things around again, and to see him just vanish was utterly shocking.

I first met Steven online, playing Neverwinter Nights, around 11 years ago. I got to know him through his characters, one of whom, a warrior named Jade, spending quite a bit of time with my own character creation, Nichneven. Through our regular character interactions over the years, I came to count him as a friend.

I am saddened that I did not get to know Steven as well as I could have, though I was fortunate enough to become a FBook friend years ago. He always posted images of beautiful landscapes, had a fondness for funny memes, Star Wars and Star Trek, and from our too-few interactions had a lovely, contemplative soul. He also had an oddly endearing love of squirrels, as well as Disney's Tinkerbell.

I hope that wherever they are now, both Steven and Stephen get a chance to hang out; I think they'd like each other.

March 22 - Jabba's Sail Barge

Hasbro's trying something different: crowdfunding!

In an effort to appeal directly to Star Wars collectors, the newly-formed Haslabs has come up with a 'kickstarter' of sorts, to fund the creation of the largest Star Wars toy... er, 'collectible' ever created: the sail barge from The Return Of The Jedi! Check out this amazing set of images and video:

Click for details - it's stunning!

They're about 70 percent funded, with 3635 out of the 5000 backers needed to turn the sail barge into a reality as of today:

 While I'd love to have one for, um, display purposes, the $500 USD price tag is *way* out of my league, sadly. It's going to end up being one of those 'holy grail' collector pieces that everyone wants, but only a few manage to find as the years pass and one or two show up on eBay for exorbitant prices, just like all the Star Wars Lego toys. Some of those are going for ten times their original prices, depending on rarity and the market, which actually makes them a pretty good investment...

But only if you keep them unopened in the box, darn it!

March 23 - Biases

How biased are your sources of information?

It's shocking how many people take what their favourite media sources say for granted, to the point where they don't question the bias of stories they consume. This is often attributable to confirmation bias, where people tend to look for information that confirms their preexisting beliefs.

Just this week I ran across the handy chart below from this site, which is being regularly updated by its creator. It visually shows how biased various news sources are, which is quite handy to determine where on the Left/Right and Accurate/False scales each rests:

Click image for the VERY LARGE version to save for your reference!

Bonus: if you're using Chrome, you can use a handy-dandy plugin that will perform much the same function, via MediaBiasFactCheck.com to check out the biases of a source. That particular website is gold for pointing out to someone how solid( or not )their sources are, which may shake up their preconceptions and( hopefully )make them THINK about what they're saying.

As you always should.

March 24 - March For Our Lives

It was a huge day today in the USA for gun control activists!

The March For Our Lives turnout in Washington DC alone was estimated to be a million people, showing stunning support for the reform of gun laws in America:

Millions of people turned out elsewhere across the country:

The video coverage was equally massive, and the speeches were tragic, heartfelt and moving:

Support for gun reform has continued to build after the Parkland high school shootings, with many celebrities chiming in to lend their weight to the cause:

Hellboy's on their side!

Yet there continues to be strong opposition from gun-rights advocates, including the NRA, who have their own supporters, many of whom are nothing more than scum, who TRASH-TALK the Parkland survivors, or alter IMAGES of the teens to push lies to discredit their courageous stand. This is an image one such scumbag posted online, that I've blurred out because it makes me sick to see such viciousness directed at teenagers by cowardly grown men who love their guns more than the lives of the innocent:

I don't have the words for how disgusting this kind of image is...

I'm actively involved online in highlighting the efforts of those who are pushing for gun reform in the USA, because I believe they need every bit of support they can get. They're fighting against an organized, well-funded opposition who continue to do all they can to discredit, distract and defuse the efforts of the Parkland teens along with their supporters. I would love to see a safer, saner America in the near future, one I can visit with far less trepidation regarding random gun violence, like the victims of the LA shooting in late 2017: right now, anyone is vulnerable, and I don't feel like ending up a statistic.

I especially don't want anyone I love dying the same way.

Just like those who are marching this weekend for gun control in the USA.

March 25 - Luke's Lightsaber!

Well, this was a surprise!

Last week, my friend Kevin did me the kindness of visiting the Science World exhibit in Vancouver, where he took many photos of Luke Skywalker's original lightsaber which was on display:

Click to read the full-size image, the text is quite interesting!

Purchased by Ripley's in July 2017 for the princely sum of $450K USD, it has been traveling around for the last few months to drum up interest in Ripley's, which is fine by me, though there was no way I could get to Vancouver to see it.

Yet amazingly, the lightsaber traveled over to Langford THIS WEEKEND ONLY to go on display at the Save-On Foods, of all places:

I found out about it on FBook, of all places, as one of the local Victoria photographers, Doug Clement Photography, had snapped a few photos of the display( while he was in Vancouver, ironically )and mentioned in the captions it was coming HERE - huzzah! So today in the early-morning-ish, my lady and I headed to Langford, and were pleasantly surprised that here was NO lineup as of 9am! We walked right up to the display and had all the time I liked to take some of these amazing photos:

Click to enlarge, there's some great snaps in there!

I was pretty chuffed; as I told my lady, this was as close as I will likely ever get to Star Wars, in the way of what I saw on the screen being THERE right in front of me. It's like I reached into the fantasy world of the movie and plucked out this one iconic item, to place it under the lights to shine with the bright silver sheen of solid reality.

A pretty damned good day, I'd say!

I had a pretty decent weekend all in all, with my lady and I spending good chunks of Friday, Saturday AND Sunday together: always good for my state of mind, and hopefully hers as well! Going into this coming week, I've again got little on my plate save my usual projects, so it's again a slow burn towards some kind of success this spring!

And as a bonus, I've completed my blog WAY early, to spend the evening as needed: writing, relaxing, reading a few comics( crossovers are great - more on that next week )and give over the main living area to my sister to use so SHE can relax - it's all about balance...