Geeky Catholic Dad

This past weekend, I finished a project that's been in the works for over a year: a custom box for The Han Solo Card Game (referred to within the Star Wars universe as Sabacc). I've written in the past about my love for tabletop games . Occasionally, that hobby has inspired me to dip my toes into the DIY world. I made a few custom inserts for some of our board games (one for Legendary: A Marvel Deck-Building Game and one for Killer Bunnies). But this project was by far the most extensive. So if you'd like to see how I did it, just keep reading.

Back in December of 2017, The Greatest Showman was released in theaters. At the time, I paid very little attention to it (because I was busy watching, rewatching, and digesting Star Wars: The Last Jedi ). Fast forward six months to June of 2018, when I finally had the chance to see it. And it blew me away. I’ve been thinking about it ever since, and listening to the soundtrack over and over again. It got me wondering - what was it about this movie that grabbed me? How was it able to deliver such a sense of joy?

Rian Johnson's Star Wars: The Last Jedi has been out for a few weeks now, and fans are divided. There are those (like myself) who loved the film. (See my review here. ) But a lot of fans have issues with the film, ranging from minor nitpicks to huge disagreements about the tone, the direction the story took, or the motivations of characters. As a result, a multitude of discussions are taking place across social media. The trolls of the internet resort to hyperbole and ad hominem attacks. Fortunately, most of what I've seen has been civil, even when fans have fundamental problems with what they saw on the screen. I will be addressing one of the many topics of discussion I've seen come up: Why was Luke on Ahch-To, the site of the original Jedi Temple, if he didn't even want to be a Jedi anymore?

Stories with happy endings aren't realistic. The real world doesn't work that way. So what value can a fairy tale like The Princess Bride possibly offer? A lot, actually. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up:

I will conclude my trilogy of Firefly -related posts with a board game review of Firefly: The Game. After I started getting into tabletop games (see my post Adventures in Tabletop Gaming ), I started listening to a board game podcast called Meeple Nation (find out more at their website ). One of the board games they mentioned frequently, and featured on one of their episodes, was Firefly: The Game. As a huge fan of all things Firefly (see my reviews of Firefly and Serenity ), and a growing fan of board games, this game sounded right up my alley. I added it to my Amazon wish list, but didn't think I would necessarily buy it any time soon. One day, I saw it being sold for less than half the retail price, so I quickly ordered a copy. I'm glad I did.

Back at the end of February, I published a post about the TV show Firefly - a space western that was tragically canceled before its time. As I mentioned in the post, the strength and loyalty of the show's fandom was such that Universal Studios green-lit a movie to continue the story, and that movie was called Serenity . In today's post, I'll take a look at that movie.

I was introduced to a lot of new things in college. Oh sure, I gained a new appreciation for my faith, and I learned how electricity worked, and I met my future bride. But I'm not going to write about those things today. Thanks to a Netflix account and some fellow geeky engineering students, I discovered a show called Firefly . Between the show, the movie Serenity , and a Firefly board game my wife and I have greatly enjoyed, there's too much for me to write about to fit it all in one post. Today's post will focus chiefly on the television series, and I'll cover the other material in subsequent posts.