Succinct Review of Star Wars

I've written a lot about Star Wars including in this blog. But it always ends up being overly long to get in all the detail. I'm going to try to do something different. I'm going to try to make it short enough to actually read. Quick Note: I'm ignoring the special editions because the content changes sucked.

Episode 4: A New Hope

Fantastic movie that has me on the edge of my seat for the Trench Run every time even though I've seen the movie 30 or 40 times. My most significant quibble is that the trench run doesn't make sense. Missiles that lock on and then maneuver to the target don't need to be fired at the right time depending on user reflexes. Turning off the targeting computer would mean the missile wouldn't know to turn itself down the shaft. Also, an exhaust port ofr excess heat in space would have to have a medium to carry that heat. So, the exhaust port doesn't make sense. All Lucas had to do is make it into a maintenance tunnel where you can fly maintenance craft into the interior to do work on the power plant in the middle. It's covered by a big door and surrounded by too many defense turrets. Then the rebels need to fly close enough to fire missles such that the missles can't be shot down. They use the Y-Wings first to try to blow the door open, and when they succeed but are shot down for the effort, the X-Wings have to make a desperate effort to get close enough to fire their missiles. Gold squadron tries and fails. Luke ends up being the only one that can evade being shot down well enough to get close enough to fire missiles down the maintenance shaft.

Episode 5: Empire Strikes Back

Fantastic movie that tells a really good set of character growth arcs and shows us that the Empire is actually a threat. My most significant quibble is that the Millennium Falcon's hyperdrive was broken when leaving Hoth and they they travelled to another Star System in some unspecified amount of time that is likely a week to a month... but which shold have taken years. If you're travelling slower than the speed of light, and star systems are usually several light years apart at least... it should have taken them years. What Lucas should have done instead is have Han scan for the imperials that got left behind on Hoth and when he detects them, he realizes he can't land and just finish repairs with all the crap that got left behind. So, he finds a capacitor or something from another system on his ship and jury-rigs it to his hyperdrive. He'd have a line like "I think this will get us one short jump and it won't be at our normal speed. We need to find a place to get real repairs." And that would be it.

Episode 6: Return of the Jedi

This is my favorite of Star Wars. It has the most moving set of scenes in all of Star Wars. The confrontation between Luke and Vader on the second Death Star is the best. Just the best. I don't like using the word perfect, but I have a hard time coming up with something wrong with it. The lightsaber fighting choreography conveys the messages well. It changes to match the moment. When Luke loses control because Vader goads him with a threat to his sister... I am sitting here stimming just thinking about it. I love it. And John Williams is put music to this perfectly. It's still my favorite Star Wars music. But even RotJ did something I am not a fan of. When George Lucas first planned it out, Wookiees were going to be the primitive species on the forest moon, and Lucas couldn't get past the idea of it being a primitive species (and Chewbacca was already a thing). So, he invented Ewoks. And Ewoks SHOULD fail against Stormtroopers. It became too implausible. What Lucas should have done is stick with the story of the Empire using Wookiees as slaves which is how we get the story of Han rescuing Chewbacca. There should have been a huge slave labor force of Wookiees on the Forest Moon doing work for the Death Star in orbit. It would obviously be unsafe to keep them up on the station. So, when the rebels get there, they free the wookiees and give them some gear and then wookiees tear apart imperial troops. Way more believable.

Episode 1: Phantom Menace

What Lucas should have done is follow his pattern that he set up with the Story Obi-Wan told in Episode 4. There should have been no Quigon. Obi-Wan should have been a Jedi that had chosen to participate in the war, and most Jedi should have chosen to stay out of it... a monastic order trying not to abuse their power. The war should have been on-going when Episode 1 started, and it should have been about clone rights. The good guys are trying to make the Galactic Republic make slave cloning illegal, and to try to free the existing clones who were slaves. Then the separatists whose economy depends on the slave clones resist. They pump out a huge army of clone soldiers because they're the ones who have that technology. The good guys are like "oh crap... we need a military", and droids are the quickest way to bulk up a fighting force. So, they have living military forces, but it isn't big enough... living military commands big groups of droids as supplemental forces. Obi-Wan runs into Anakin Skywalker who IS a spice freighter pilot (medical uses only of course), and Obi-Wan notices the crazy piloting and finds out Anakin is strong in the Force. He offers to help Anakin learn the ways of the Force and we get to see Anakin having a conversation with Owen... where Owen gets to say he doesn't think his brother should get invovled. Obi-Wan asks Yoda if he will train Anakin and Yoda says no... having a bad feeling about Anakin. Obi-Wan thinks he might be able to train Anakin as well as Yoda, and he starts Anakin's training. Whatever war effort Obi-Wan was helping with at the beginning of the movie comes to a head and he and Anakin go in and save the day

Clone Wars (animated series)

Since the clones and droids are switched for sides, the series can focus on the clone soldiers that the good guys rescued, deprogrammed, and offered freedom to. They are offered help building a life, or they can join the Galactic Republic military to help rescue their fellow clones. Many choose to fight, and we get to have a bunch of the same basic stories we got. The Jedi aren't a military organization though and they don't command military groups. They are just a rare thing. We see Jedi like Obi-Wan and Anakin helping where they can. Maybe it's even that Obi-Wan and Anakin offer help to a particular clone unit and we follow the grouping. And Obi-Wan is having trouble with the recklessness of his student. An opportunity presents itself when they find Ahsoka. Obi-Wan suggests that Ahsoka be his student rather than Obi-Wan's saying that understanding becomes much deeper when you have to help someone else understand... so it's a way to continue Anakin's training. But really, Obi-Wan is hoping that having responsibility for another person might temper Anakin a bit.

Episode 2: Attack of the Clones

What this should have been... The fighting intensifies in the Clone Wars. There's a world being fought over that is particularly full of casualties. Senator Bail Organa wants to see the front line for himself. He wants a resolution and isn't sure what to push for in the senate. We don't get boring scenes in the senate... we're just told it's there. Bail Organa's personal pilot is Padme Amidala... a Force Sensitive woman who has been able to keep Bail safe in the sky for a long while. Anakin immediately falls for Padme and she is interested in him too. When Anakin asks her to join the small group of Jedi to learn to use her abilities, she's interested, but won't give up her work with the senator. She believes in that work too much as he's trying to affect the war from a high level and it has potential to save a lot of people that way. But during their time there, Anakin and Padme spend a lot of time together. She is learning a few simple things to improve her control, but really it's just fundamentals. The story progresses as the good guys lose that star system to the separatists... so it can act as the effective Empire Strikes Back of the prequel trilogy.

Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith

We see that Anakin is getting frustrated with his slow progress. He's powerful, but not skilled. He's too rash, and not controlling himself well enough. Padme (maybe in a communication) is separating from Anakin emotionally and she doesn't tell him she's pregnant. I haven't fleshed out all the details yet, but this is the movie where the Sith are discovered, and maybe Anakin sees how strong they are giving in to their emotions, and feels a taste of it, and maybe Anakin catches Padme talking to Obi-Wan and he assumes the worst, and maybe he finds out Padme is pregnant and thinks he's been betrayed by his closest friends. Palpatine has heard of Anakin before due to his efforts in the war, and hears rumor of Anakin being emotional... Anakin is already upset and wants more power... Palpatine just has to say that he'll show Anakin a path to power that the Jedi don't understand, and when it works, Anakin goes to confront Obi-Wan... and we get our big fight between the two friends. As the closing details of the movie, Padme is giving birth to Luke and Leia, and she lives through it just fine. That way there is room for Leia to not be making things up when she says in Return of the Jedi that she remembers her mother a little. Maybe we even get another cartoon series between Episode 3 and Episode 4 that gives us a bit of the story of how Luke and Leia get separated in a way that makes sense... like Vader hunting down the Jedi and also occasionally putting his attention pestering Padme. Obi-Wan ends up taking Luke to protect him because he has the stronger connection to the Force already and Vader can more easily sense him. Leia stays with Padme on Alderaan. Luke goes to family on Tatooine which hides his signature in the Force because Vader can't separate it from his own history there. Padme hates being separated from her son, but it seems to be working. Maybe Vader is even involved in Padme's death when Leia is 5 or 6 so she has those memories.

Episode 7: The Force Awakens

Most of the prequels and sequels should be renamed in addition to changing them completely. Anyway, what we should have gotten for Episode 7 is opening with a familiar view of Yavin IV from space, and the obligatory space ship that opens so much of Star Wars. It's the Millennium Falcon, right off the bat. It enters the atmosphere and heads toward a familiar area of ancient temples, but we see that there has been a fair amount of development such that there's a good sized town. The Falcon lands at a pad, and the music carries us to the ramp opening for us to see Leia, Han, and Chewy walking off the ship. Cut to Luke with some new faces on the edge of the Landing pad, and they're all smiling as they start approaching the Falcon and its disembarking passengers. Smiles, hugs, and greetings. We hear Ben Solo saying "hi mom" and "hi dad" to Leia and Han. Rey says "hi uncle Han" and "hi aunt Leia". Mara Jade is there with Luke and she part of the greetings too, but there's no convenient introduction yet. It's a family reunion and we get the impression that Luke and Mara have things running pretty smoothly at the Jedi Academy. We learn that Luke has learned from the past (and from the Force ghosts of Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Anakin) to make the Jedi different than they were before. They're still monastic (as they were in my version of the prequels), but instead of retreating from the galaxy in an effort to avoid abusing their powers, they participate in community (NOT government) to help where there is need. But Leia is there partly to ask Luke if he and the Jedi can help with something. Republic intelligence has discovered a growing threat. Maybe it's Thrawn... just adjusted in time from the original Thrawn trilogy. Thrawn has been working quietly for 20+ years to re-build imperial military strength. Luke seems dubious about pushing any of his Jedi into a military role, but Leia is determined and points out that the Jedi could help stop this from becoming too big a thing if they act now. Rey and Ben are eager to join in. We get our introduction to the new characters. Leia has a team already assembled to check out a lead that might benefit from having a couple Jedi along. Luke picks a couple of his more experienced Jedi Knights and asks Rey and Ben to stay behind. They of course hide away on the ship and come along. The old gang is there mostly to supervise at their age. Whatever planet they head to, to check out the lead, we get our adventure story. Poe is one of the pilots on the team, and we get to see him being an insanely good pilot. Finn can still be a bad guy that wakes up and decides to defect. And we get introduced to a new Sith Order or maybe the Knights of Ren or whatever. They are Force users with the classic Red (and maybe orange and purple) lightsabers. The experienced Jedi Knights likely fall in battle while Rey and Ben escape back to Luke and Leia. Luke and Leia pretty easily scare off the dark Force users and Luke reluctantly says something like, "I think it's time to change your training... dark things are coming... and you'll need to be ready." The awakening of the Force is the return of conflict the Force will play a role in, I guess.

Episode 8: Thrawn's Empire

Yeah, the existing name is and was dumb. Episode 8 is by a good margin the worst of all of Star Wars. Rian Johnson makes me angry. So since I've switched to just saying what they should have done, this should be the episode where the New Republic gets its first taste of an Empire that uses good strategy and tactics instead of sheer size and numbers. Thrawn attacks ship yards and other sources of important resources for the New Republic. He uses old Star Destroyer fleets to make hit and run attacks, and uses troops supplemented with Force users when a finer scalpel is needed. The New Republic has a big military, but it's spread out to protect the various member worlds and doesn't have resources to focus well on Thrawn or to go on the offensive. It's kind a of a reverse of the Rebellion versus the Empire. Luke and the Jedi get more involved, especially in trying to counter the dark Force users. New Republic worlds are getting nervous because Thrawn seems to be having too much success. And as the middle episode, the bad guys are shown to be doing well and to be a genuine threat. Ben Solo and Rey Skywalker are getting more combat oriented training along with the other Jedi. The big battle at the end of this movie might be where New Republic intelligence finds word of Thrawn's next big attack, so they send lots of resources there, and of course it's a trap... Thrawn leaked the information and he very nearly wipes out the entire group the New Republic sent. The main characters along with a few others barely escape.

Episode 9: Legacy of Skywalker

Anakin Skywalker's grandkids feature in this. Since the numbered Star Wars episodes are supposed to be the story of Anakin Skywalker, we'll cap it off with Rey and Ben being the featured players in this endcap of the story. Along with Poe and Finn, the descendents of Anakin Skywalker take on Thrawn in a big climactic encounter. Big space battle, and big melee combat with lightsabers and blasters. Thrawn almost wins, but an act of sheer will from the good guy Force users accomplish something Thrawn couldn't have accounted for in his plans. He acknowledges defeat, and disappears in an explosion or dies calmly on the end of a lightsaber. We get a final scene which is another family reunion. The original trilogy heroes are sitting at a table watching the new generation of people having their own animated and happy conversation off a small way. Han, Chewbacca, Leia, Luke, Mara, and maybe Lando sit there and someone something along the lines of, "I wonder if we'll ever have a time when there's no danger to deal with". Some conversation about how there's always a new danger. Luke gets the final line of the movie and says something like, "We're ready when that next thing shows itself. More importantly, they're ready. The story will go on." Luke is of course nodding toward the kids. It's the indication that the Anakin Skywalker story is done but that there is more new story to tell.

Han Solo: A Star Wars story

This should have been one of the new live action shows. They tried to cram too much story into one movie. There's so much material there. We should have gotten a season or two. It should have started with Han already having joined the Empire. Maybe the first episode is how Han is helping to set up an operating base, and there is Wookiee slave labor. Han can't accept it, and he ends up freeing them, and helping them escape... effectively quitting the Empire. When they get back to Kashyyyk, Chewbacca takes on the burden of the life debt and swears to accompany and protect Han. Han isn't sure what to do, but knows he has to stay away from imperial space. The Wookiees give them a small shuttle, and Han and Chewy take off looking for their path. Looking for work, the series continues with how Han meets Lando and gambles with him. It includes how he got involved with Jabba the Hutt. And the series could end with the episode where Han is trying a big smuggling run for Jabba and gets boarded by an imperial patrol so he has to dump the cargo.

Rogue One: A Star Wars story

This should also have been one of the new live action shows, a lot more like Andor (yes, I know Cassian comes from Rogue One). It should have been the spy-story of rebel leadership learning of the Death Star, and sending people to try to get information about it. The weakness should NOT have been built in intentionally and the engineer shouldn't have relegated his daughter to a suicide mission. Probably a one season show. And it should have included telling us why the information, once obtained, couldn't just be sent by long range transmission. We know they have the bandwidth and speed to do full holographic image and voice communication in real-time between star systems... so... the data should have been sendable. Maybe the data they stole is on a USB drive essentially, but it's proprietary imperial stuff that is encrypted and the storage medium doesn't allow the contents to be copied anywhere without the right code. So, the good guys have this physical thing they need to bring to a rebel base. They successfully steal it midway through the series, and then Vader is assigned to hunt them down. This way, we get some awesome stuff with close calls with Darth Vader AND we get the impression that Vader has been hunting the plans for a while (like they imply in Episode 4). The immediate transition from the actual Rogue One movie of escaping the planet to Vader in pursuit with a Star Destroyer doesn't line up with what is said in Episode. So, this way, the rebel spies who stole the plans get in touch with rebel leadership, and they hatch a plan. If Leia, as a representative in the Senate (at least as a senate aid to her adopted father), goes to some planet in an official diplomatic capacity, the spied can pass off the physical plans to her. She's also given the task of asking Obi-Wan for help and to bring him back to the rebel base if possible. This is the last episode of the show. We end with the hand-off, and Vader realizing the hand-off has occurred, so he chases Leia's ship...

Mando-verse stuff

For me, Mandalorian, Book of Boba Fett, and Ahsoka are about half-good and half-bad. Book of Boba Fett was just terrible. It didn't focus on Boba Fett and didn't come up with a good story for him. It included Luke/Grogu stuff that was awful... just... a terrible choice for Luke's character... he's an overconfident person who makes the same moves as the broken Jedi instead of a person trying hard to learn and do better. Awful. And then for some reason we get more Din Djarin's story without it being support for Boba Fett's story. Just awful flailing. Anyway, the Mandalorian show does okay overall. I like the Grogu character well enough, but it adds needs to the story that I'm a little sad about. Yoda was supposed to be a mystery and have it stay that way. I didn't really want to open that door. It was perfect as-is. But the Grogu/Din relationship is good and told well... so... yeah... I'm okay with Grogu and the Mandalorian story. I feel like later seasons got scattered a bit and didn't know what it wanted to be... but I'm okay with it. Ahsoka... uh... I don't know. Some of the small scale content was cool. But the planning for the story. Why do we need to include other galaxies? It is one of my problems with the Yuzahn Vong... Galaxies are so big... there's no reason to spill over into other galaxies. And this version of Thrawn is okay, but in 8(?) episodes they managed to make very little progress. It feels like they used the Seinfeld approach to a show. A show about nothing. And honestly, Ahsoka is too over-confident too. Her departure from the Jedi Order should have left her questioning everything. Should have made her a person who doesn't assume her stance is the best one. Her characterization in the Mandalorian is the same. Like she thinks she has all the answers. I want to see that hopeful spunky person tempered with uncertainty. She always wanted to be involved and to help people. When Grogu came around, I wanted Ahsoka to react differently. Maybe her reaction and saying she won't help because she doesn't think she is the right person because she doesn't know what she's doing. Less of a confident "the Force tells me Grogu should go find Luke", and more of a "I'm not good enough to be his teacher" kind of reaction. Oh... also... Sabine Wren shouldn't have been made Force-Sensitive at all. She's an awesome character without it. Eh... anyway... I don't have a specific plan in mind for how to change _all_ of this, but I have issues with it.

Andor

I like that this didn't include Force users. I like the deep character story and the extra background on the rebellion forming. I think Cassian's motivations in a few places followed by the choices he made in the story didn't make logical sense, but overall I liked the show. I also really disliked how over-powered the older behind-the-scenes guy who's name I can't recall had a ship that was so powerful. Like... how did that happen? Why can his little ship do so much more than any other ship? Eh.

Kenobi

I really like Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan. Possibly the best thing that came out of the prequels. And I like the Obi-Wan is a bit disillusioned... but... I think it was odd to invent a story about something that happened to Leia. Maybe this could have been better as a story called "The Twins". We get two stories in each episode, one focused on Luke, and one focused on Leia. We see Kenobi in the Luke stories and we see Bail Organa in the Leia stories. And in my version of the prequels, if it's while the kids are 5 or 6 years old... Padme is part of it. So, it's Padme and Leia and we get to see more of Leia's upbringing. And with Obi-Wan and Luke, we see Luke being a farmboy and having run-ins with the Tuskens and we see Owen pushing Ben away... thinking he might be able to save Luke from following Anakin's path. And at the end of the first season, we see Padme pass away and that information is here instead of the other place I put it. Whatever. I liked seeing Kenobi. I just think the framework for the story could have been better.

Wrap-Up

I think that's all I've got for now. Yes... that's succinct compared to the rest I've written.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny's latest artifact

I'll start with the assertion that I liked and enjoyed the movie. It was maybe a little heavy on chase scenes, but overall the movie felt good. I recommend seeing it if you like Indiana Jones movies. That's what I'll say in case you here looking for a movie review.

What this post is about though is my thoughts on the artifact... and more specifically what it can do. If you haven't seen the movie yet and don't want any spoilers, you shouldn't read past this paragraph. Okay. Going to put a break in there and then get on to the stuff I want to write about.

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The Dial of Destiny was thought to be able to calculate the locations of tears in time that essentially act as bridges between two spots in time. I say "spots" because "points" is too precise and these tears last minutes. All you have to do is show up at the right coordinates at either end of the tear in time, and you can pass through and as long as it's open you can pass through back and forth. The one tear we get to see in the movie happens to be up in the air and they had to fly through with planes. Here comes the biggest spoiler: The bad guy in the movie thought he'd be able to find a tear in time that leads to a point he wanted to go back to so that he could change history. But the dial was set up to figure out where to find the right place to find one particular time tear that lead back to where and when it was created. So, the bad guy failed pretty hard.

What do I want to write about then? Time travel. It's used in a lot of sci fi and fantasy. Sometimes I like it (Doctor Who for example). Sometimes I hate it (Avengers: End Game for example). In Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, I like it. They don't make a big deal out of it and aren't using it to cover up lazy writing. It's just a feature in a setting where a holy relic can send ghost-like things out to kill anyone that looks at them and a priest can pull a heart from a person's chest without breaking the flesh and without killing the person... somehow. Oh, and the Holy Grail is real and is capable of keeping a person alive for centuries and healing gunshot wounds in a second.

Part of me is still unhappy because I don't think time-travel is possible except via time dilation and that's forward only. For time travel like what we see in Dial of Destiny to work, multiple points in time would have to exist at the sme time. This could be because the movie is saying that all points in time always exist simultaneously so that there's a place to travel to. I suppose you could say it's handled with multiple realities and each tear is between realities at whatever point in time they happen to be at, but the movie is about using that time travel to change history of that world... so, I'm going with the idea that all points in time exist simultaneously. And that seems implausible in reality, hence one of my dislikes of using time travel in stories. But I can accept it here because it's not used to cover lazy writing... it's used as a tool to tell a good story. And now that I have all that out of the way...

As a ruleset to govern time travel in a setting, I think I really like this one. It's severely limited. You can't just travel back and forth to and from any time you like. There are specific difficulty to predict tears that appear and no one controls them. If you predict one and can get to the place and maybe you can tell if it's moving forward or back and prepare... and if you stay longer than 10ish minutes, you're stuck there unless they also have the knowledge to predict and locate these tears... and you won't ever get back to the same spot you left from unless you're immortal and can simply live until then or the times connected are close together. And it's plausible as a natural phenomenon. Without some pretty crazy effort, this time travel is nearly useless. This might be my favorite rendition of time travel in fiction.

Stress of having to be a grown up

I think I'm operating day to day burnt out. Just... completely burnt out. And I keep doing what I'm doing because my family needs me to. I have twin 5-year-olds. I have a 16-year-old step-son. And I have a pretty amazing wife who is also bearing the burden of stress. We both work full-time jobs, and both of us let the job bleed over into our personal time. We work from home, so there isn't really great cut-off, and that might be the very best argument ever for working from the office. Having some separation between home life and work life might actually help. But working from home has become something of a necessity for us with the twins. Being able to handle it when they have colds/fevers they have to stay from pre-K for is pretty key. But it's things like being able to start a load of dishes or laundry, and take care of the dogs, and run errands if needed during business hours, and more.

I hate my job. I'm not looking to burn bridges, so I'll leave out who I work for in this post. If you figure it out from somewhere else, then congratulations on your hard fought knowledge. When I got hired, I was pretty desperate for work. I had been laid off from my previous job when the pandemic hit and the owners of the previous company didn't want to dip into their profits to be kind to their employees. Ten percent of us had to go. And in the tech industry where demand for online services might go down in a pandemic... they weren't willing to risk their precious comfortable income to protect us. Yes. I'm bitter about rich people who don't understand that their employees are what make their company possible, and choose to keep all the money we generate. Inhumane, inconsiderate, greedy, garbage human beings. Where was I? Oh right...

So, I was desperate for work during the height of unemployment near the beginning of the pandemic. A person at my wife's company on another team was looking to hire someone. It was not the right fit. The technology stack was completely different and the work was less software development and more dev-ops. I was a long time software engineer who could learn, and they were an employer. I took the offer, and have been here for about 2.5 years. The group we work for is the remnants of a company that got bought by a bigger company. And because of management indecision, lack of foresight, lack of care, and lack of understanding the group has been abused pretty much the entire time they've been owned by the big company. Demands for excellent work and customer service with the promise of our product being shut down being made over and over. We get told the product is going away, and then they remember how much their own internal teams use our product and depend on it. And then they try again, and change their minds. And then new people get involved and they try again and still can't make it happen. All the while, the domain knowledge experts keep leaving. The demands to keep the service running are put entirely on their shoulders, and then when things don't go perfectly, they're scape-goated. We get punished when things don't go well, and they won't hire anyone to help us. And they don't understand that losing those domain knowledge experts makes this WAY harder to do. Service incidents occur, and they slap us with a change freeze and make it harder for us to do our jobs. And my favorite recent thing was my current (fairly new) manager telling me what some deadline was on my project and telling me to "act like it"... as though it's my fault the deadline got chosen without any basis in reality and without any consideration for the super long approval processes they imposed.

The current situation is that my job sucks. It sucks for all of us on my team and my wife's team. All the stress of high expectations without even 10% of the resources we need... AND we'll get the blame when things go wrong. What a stupid arrangement. I'm job hunting, but that's not going great. I interviewed at a place that seemed to like me, but then the company decided to cancel the job rec. Pretty much like the company I work for. It feels to me like people are hesitant to hire and spend that money. Guessing it's more rich people that don't want to accept a little less pay for themselves so that their employees can have less stress. Last I checked, the average CEO was paid 361 times what their average employee was paid. So, if the national average for yearly pay is around $50,000, the average CEO would be making $18,050,000. Per year. Assuming they pay any taxes, they easily have 5 million left over. Outright buy a huge freaking house. That's the first year. What other big expenses do they have? What do they need all that other money for? And if they were fired and replaced with someone making a quarter of what they were making, would the company suffer at all? Is that CEO really providing over three hundred times the value of their other employees? Really? The answer is very clearly "no". Losing the CEO wouldn't slow the company down. Losing 300 employess would. And what those people at the top SHOULD do is chop their own salary down. With that average example, if the CEO chopped just their own salary down to 3 million, they could bump 300 employee salaries up by just over 50,000. If they're at the average, that doubles their pay. Suddenly, people don't need to get second job and can actually live their lives.

Okay. Yes. Very bitter at the rich people who run this country for screwing over everyone with less money than them. It's actually a big source of stress for me. It bothers me that rich people are such awful human beings. But (to move on to my next source of stress), it also bothers me how little effort some people make to avoid delusions. Millions of people in this country think Donald Trump is a good person who did good things for them. Obviously to anyone paying attention, Donald Trump is a horrifying human being that did everything in his power to line his own pockets without any care at all about how many people died because of his inept, ignorant, and damaging efforts as president. His business savvy with China lead to a failed trade war where our farmers had to be given 12 billion dollars in tax money to save them financially. Trump is stupid. He's a terrible business man, terrible president, and terrible human. But people believe him over any other information source. Even when he says stupid stuff on live TV about how windmills cause cancer and have a huge carbon footprint. Or that tax evasion makes him smart (which he said during the presidential debate with Clinton). Do his disciples not understand that rich people evading taxes means the burden of taxes is shifted to them? Seriously... we have public school, police, fire departments, the military, road and bridge maintenance, and more that are all tax-funded programs to benefit all of us (socialism). Do people want our government to stop providing those things? Now I can agree that we need to take money out of the military... that thing is ridiculous. We need universal health care and child care. And we could use an organization that helps with situations the police have no idea how to deal with... so... reduce tax money going to the corrupt violent bullies, and give it to people who are actually trying to help. But anyway, yes, our tax money should be spent better, but when super rich people evade taxes, we get to cover their portion. And Trump's supporters think he's brilliant for dodging taxes.

But my point was that almost half the population thinks Trump is good. And with all the information available they went with the conspiracy nuts and for-profit-fear-mongering at Fox News. They are literally delusional and will angrily argue that they are correct about their stance. It's hard for me to accept so many people would support a man who flippantly said he wasn't going to wear a mask, resulting in too many people not being careful, which resulted in so many more people dying than would have without the pandemic. Hundreds of thousands of people. An idiot braggart conman. And so many people not only fell for it, but continue to argue it... like it's their new religion. Another harmful thing based on the lies of a few people who want to stay in power. Do so many humans really need the comfort of an easy lie to deal with life? Does it really help to carry so much hate for people different than you accept your idol will punish those people despite them having done nothing wrong?

I'm stressed about how many people in the society my children are growing up in would consign kids to hell because the gun lobby says gun violence in school is okay; because a kid is trans; because a kid is black; because they think the word socialism is bad without understanding it... I just... what kind of nutty world do we live in where DeSantis can make wearing women's clothing a crime in Florida? Or ban books because there are black kids or trans people represented? Or ban the teaching of actual history because his white pride thinks we can sweep the atrocities against black people under the rug? Or take pride in the idea of smashing the concept of "woke"? So many people supporting him that just don't care that being woke means caring about other people... about being awake to the fact that there are people suffering in what's supposed to be a powerful society. We can be better than DeSantis. That guy is seemingly worse than Trump... a zealot pile of selfishness and hate for anyone not like him. Trump opened the door, and so many people just jumped in line behind him. Ugh... what a terrifying world, and I genuinely hope we're not too late to save the country... I hope enough of us stand against people like Trump and DeSantis to make things better... long enough for the younger generation to take over, because while we might have opened some doors to move things in a better direction, the young generation is going to have to step up and take over. The old pieces of conservative garbage in the political power positions need to be taken to the curb and sent to rest in the dump.

That's the big external stuff. Job, politics, and religion. It all actively causes me anxiety every day. But the sources of stress don't stop there. I want to be a good dad to my kids; a good husband to my wife; a good friend to the people in my life; and to be of some help to people in need. I want to help kids in the foster system. I want to help people of color and LGBTQ+ people. And I don't have the resource to be more than a passive ally to people far outside my life. But I can try to help my kids. I want more than anything to give them a happy and healthy childhood. I know... I know I'm going to mess up some things. I already feel guilty about how much time I spend working and about those times I'm just too tired to play. I feel terrible about those times I lose my temper and yell. I try to apologize and try to remember so next time I won't yell. I'm trying so hard, and I hope I never do or say anything that diminishes the light I see in my children's eyes. I hope they can both be fierce beacons of light as adults. It sounds cheesy even as I type it, but it also feels right. I don't want anything to beat their sense of hope down. I want their spirits to be strong and healthy enough to whether the world should it place as much burden on them as it does to us. Worrying about the well-being of my kids and their futures is on my mind every day too.

I've been running on empty for years. Probably decades. I think I'm clinically depressed. I know I don't feel energy any day. Even on vacation... I had time away from work, but that just relieved the pressure for a little while. But even while on vacation, I didn't feel strong motivation to do anything. I wasn't energetic. It wasn't enough to recover. I'm still burnt out. I'm job hunting, but the market is low and I can't very openly job hunt for fear of my employer finding out I'm trying to leave like so many others. I want to leave but can't. I just have to keep trying to get just enough motivation to do some work. Day after day. The same thing I don't want to be doing because I have to wait until I can find a way out.

I find myself staring out the window a lot. I want to write my book. I want to write table-top role-playing game material. I want to start my own company. I want to open up a little gaming shop with awesome table-top gaming rooms that can be used for LAN parties. I want to travel and see more places than I already have. I don't know. I do know that I'm out of fuel. My engine is running on empty and has managed a surprisingly long time. And I think my situation is probably not unique. Probably most people are worn out. We have to find a way to make the oligarchs of this country fix the problem. Or get out of the way. I think that was my stream of consciousness for today.

Finally watched Star Wars: The Clone Wars

 I'm a big fan of the original trilogy of Star Wars.  I enjoy a fair amount of the Extended Universe novels.  I like what some of the video games bring to the table.  I like The Mandalorian series, and love the season 2 finale.

The Han Solo movie should have been a series.  They crammed way too much of his story into a movie.  It could have easily been a limited series, nicely ending with the story of how Han got in trouble with Jabba.  I guess the movie was okay.  Just disappointing.  And Rogue One... well... it had pretty good characters that made me like them, and I admit I enjoyed seeing Darth Vader cut loose, but the idea that the weakness had to be designed in and that the dad assigned his daughter the task and fate instead of just sending the information to the active rebels is weak.  I also don't like how it bled directly into the beginning of Episode 4.  When you watch Episode 4, the impression they give is that Darth Vader has been hunting the plans for a while... not one day.

I very much dislike the Prequel Trilogy.  I dislike the Sequels too, especially episode 8 which harmed the setting and characters I love.  I dislike the Book of Boba Fett series for having very little to do with Boba Fett and for portraying Luke Skywalker in a stupid way.  I should add too that I don't like how Ahsoka Tano is written in The Mandalorian or Book of Boba Fett.

That's my setting of expectations so you know where I'm coming from in my review of The Clone Wars series.  I don't think I can avoid spoilers, so I'll give the short review quickly here.  There's a lot of illogical junk in the series as well as weird decisions made by the writers in some places, but they do manage to tell some good stories in there.  And they do end it well.  I'm glad I watched the whole thing.