Grace Hopper, Lord of Cobol

Grace Hopper, Lord of Cobol
Grace Hopper, Lord of Cobol

I’m a fan of Dr. Admiral Hopper. Funny, with all my years of enjoying Battlestar Galactica and Dr. Hopper, I’m surprised that I never connected “Cobol”, Dr. Hopper and the Lords of Cobol.

So, here’s a bit of fun whipped out in Photoshop.

Below is a brief history of Cobol. A critically important programming language.

A Star Wars Fan Montage You Need To See

Star Wars Logo

As a long time fan of Star Wars, I delight in my discovery of this video. A fan montage, it really does a great job of taking the “The greatest teacher failure is” phrase of Yoda’s and reinforce it well. It really adds some interesting insights into The Last Jedi.

I appreciate considering the importance of failure, not only in the lives of fictional characters but also in ours.

Politics, The Death Star, And The Place Of Memes

Saw this thread today:

My mind immediately pictured the scene in A New Hope where Obi-Wan senses the destruction of Alderaan. Doesn’t seem like a positive message about a candidate to me. Anyway, I whipped out this meme in response.

Obi-Wan & Alderaan
Obi-Wan & Alderaan

A little cheesy and amateurish, but thought “what the hell”. I might regret it as there possibly will be an explosion of crankiness. Or maybe not. Might be one person who likes it and it fades into oblivion. In the end, I thought this silly little meme sums up my feelings succinctly.

May the Force be with you All.

A Behind The Scenes Look At The Clone Wars: The Phantom Apprentice

I have really enjoyed the final season of Star Wars: Clone Wars. The animation is amazing, and the stories, well, for me at least, perfect. I’ve reconnected with the characters enough that it’s going to hurt when Order 66 goes down.

Last week’s episode, The Phantom Apprentice, was powerful. Part of that was bringing back Ray Park, who performed Maul in the Phantom Menance, and an exceptional martial artist. The team used motion capture to create this dynamic, engaging piece of film (can I call it film if it’s only digital?).

Below is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the episode. Well worth watching if you’re fascinated by the production of movies and tv.

The Matrix 4? Some Thoughts From A Geek

Ok, so in geek circles, this is one of the biggest bits of news in ages. Perhaps only dwarfed by Spiderman getting removed from the MCU. Perhaps I’ll touch on that later.

Anyway, there are several things I want to unpack. However, if you’re not up-to-date on this turn, give Looper’s look at this 4 minutes of your time.

So, that being said, and with a dearth of plot details, here’s what I have to say.

First, as Neo and Trinity both die in Matrix: Revolutions and there is a solid messianic theme to the series, I wonder if they we’ll take on the Christian concept of resurrection. I’m not too sure how else to handle this. I have seen (and it’s mentioned in Looper’s video) that there’s some talk of a younger actor playing Morpheus. I don’t see how they’d play that out with the contemporarily aged Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss. I guess we could play out some time-travel thing, but that could be too much of a stretch.

Personally, I’d like to see some deeper exploration of the Merovingian and Persephone, the Key Maker, and the residents of Zion. But especially the Merovingian and Persephone. There’s so much laden within there. Persephone, kidnapped daughter of Demeter, harbinger of spring. Merovingian, the name of a ruling family of 5th to 7th century Franks. And, for characters like this, the name meaning tells us a great deal.

So, what do you hope/wish this movie will cover? Or do you wish the whole thing would be done? Let me know!

A #StarWars #Haiku

So much Star Wars on

This event in Chicago

One of my life’s great joys


Star Wars has long been a key part of my life. The films are a central part of my personal mythology. I’ve written a few other poems about the films, and I expect I’ll write more.

With Star Wars Celebration going on in Chicago this weekend, I’ve been delighted to watch video footage of the happenings. I’ve long been inspired by the universe, and delighted as we keep moving forward. I felt a desire to communicate a bit of what it feels like to watch what’s happening to these characters I love. I hope I did it justice.