MPJ

Hmmm, I think I got that title wrong. I wanted to write something catchy, but obviously language puzzles are not really my thing. In the case of Star Wars storytelling backwards in time, this triple 'prequels' looks fine, but again, if I put all the main Jedi characters of various ages in chronological order, i.e., something like this:  Gella > Avar > Anakin > Luke > Rey , then it does look like I missed one more word 'prequel' in it. Or... well... if we consider Rey's story to be the only sequel to the first prequel's main story in this thread, which started with "A New Hope", the very first movie of the franchise that initiated it all... then I could be correct after all. Right? Oh, darn it, let it be... So, let's explore the latest prequel in the galaxy far, far away and long time ago, minus 150 years. Minus 150 years means 150 solar cycles of the Coruscant, capital of the Republic, an entire planet evolved into one giant city bef...

I've always wondered what genre exactly "Star Wars" belongs to. I guess it is safe to say that the entire franchise is one giant space fantasy, or space opera, if you will, genuinely influenced by human history and religiosity wrapped into a futuristic world of (science) fiction. I sincerely admire George Lucas when he began the story fifty years ago, especially how he imagined a spiritual background without the need for the existence of religion we are all familiar with and without the presence of actual deities. The main premise is simply described as the force giving those sensitive to this spiritual energy extraordinary abilities, such as telekinesis, access to the minds of living beings, the potentiality of healing, and what is especially interesting to me, the power of seeing things before they happen. Even though visions and predicting the future seem to be the most fantastic feature of the Force, it is perhaps the only fiction understandable by real science. T...

Coincidentally, around the end of the first three "Star Wars" movies, the time of my high school days began. That meant, among other things, that the distance from my home to the new school building drastically increased, along with my everyday commute time back and forth. If I decided to avoid the bus in the morning, it would take me about 30 minutes of leisurely walking to get there. In regards to today's story, it was half an hour of one-of-a-kind entertainment I was enjoying on more than several occasions. Walking toward the school, I was mounting my state-of-the-art Sony Walkman on my belt loaded with one of my favorite cassettes and listening to audio recordings from the "Star Wars" trilogy. I am not talking about the official movie soundtrack; it was the audio cassette of the entire film only without acting and dialogues. Just two hours of background orchestra coverage created by John Williams and performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. I wrote ...

Couple of months ago, in the middle of December last year, just before "Mayan doomsday" on 21st, my favorite text editor asked me to approve its regular update. I clicked the link to see what's in new package and it immediately redirected me to the page describing new features and fixes. My fellow, software developer of great Notepad++, Don Ho*, conveniently named the update "New release (v6.2.3) - End of the World Edition". It brought series of chuckles to my face that simultaneously morphed into big smile when I read description below the title. Referring to Mayans prophecy, he wrote exactly this "Even though I don't believe this bullshit, I'm not against to reset our shitty world". Well, I don't know what exactly he meant with the word "reset", but certainly there are days when I can completely agree with him and describe our world exactly the same way. Viktor and his 6th Earth Day Anyway, today is another edition of ...