According to NYMag, Harrison Ford told Reddit he could totally beat up Mark Hamill. He also responds to the Most Important SW Question: Who shot first?
No idea how Ford would respond to the news in Grantland:
The almost-70-year-old Peter Mayhew is returning to Star Wars to play Chewbacca in J.J. Abrams’s Episode VII, according to The Hollywood Reporter. This is probably the first in a chain of events in which Harrison Ford gets confirmed (because Chewie without Han? C’mon), then Carrie Fisher (’cause Han without the one he said “I know” to? C’MON), then Mark Hamill (who was never not going to do these new movies). The casting might also explain why Mayhew shared all those nostalgic behind-the-scenes snapshots of the original trilogy in January…
ETA: Benedict Cumberbatch, howevs, says absolutely no way will he be in Episode VII. (Sorry, Crackerdaughter!)
J.Ty
Glad to see that Ford is just as exasperated whenever anybody asks him anything in real life as his characters are in movies.
On the open thread side of things, a boss-thing decided that the usual midnight deadline for code releases was too late, but forgot to tell anybody, so we all horribly failed the code checkin that we didn’t know was at 5. Whee.
JGabriel
Speaking of stars, just went out to check on the lunar eclipse, which, only 25 minutes from umbra, still looks rather impressively identical to a regular full moon.
It’s cloudy, there’s a lot of light pollution in NYC, and I only caught a short (but longer than brief) view in a semi-clear patch between the clouds — so it’s likely that people viewing the moon from a darker area with a less cloudy sky might be able to make out the penumbral line while waiting for a full eclipse, but I couldn’t.
ranchandsyrup
Late night baby photo. M is 6 months old
JasonF
Here’s the AMA if you’d rather read what Ford said directly instead of having it filtered through Vulture.
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/22xh4j/i_am_harrison_harrison_ford_ama/
J.Ty
@JGabriel: Yeah, San Francisco decided that we’d had enough sky for the day and ruined my eclipse. Again.
Steeplejack
With the prequel episodes I–III and the relentless marketing of toys and movie-related junk, George Lucas has almost killed any joy that I ever had in the original movies. Almost. I still have a dim, distant memory of sitting in a movie theater on opening night in 1977 and being blown away by that first awesome scene of that huge spaceship entering the frame and just growing and growing.
JGabriel
Steeplejack:
That was kind of awesome. As movies, I don’t think the original trilogy has held up very well, except for Empire, but that first shot in Star Wars is still pretty nice.
Steeplejack
Just went and checked on the lunar eclipse. Nothing so far. Usually the moon transits across the sky outside my bedroom window. But it’s so dark outside that I can’t tell if the sky is clear or if it’s too cloudy to see anything. It’s almost as if something is blocking the moonlight and making it hard to see.
Steeplejack
@JGabriel:
Yeah, I agree that the original trilogy hasn’t aged very well. But they look like Citizen Kane compared to the prequels.
Suzanne
It’s clear skies here, and the eclipse is underway, but I have to get up and go to work early. FEH.
Scamp Dog
@Steeplejack: I can see it happening from my window. Right now the left side of the moon is disappearing into shadow, and the room doesn’t seem as bright as it was a few minutes ago.
I hadn’t planned on staying up this late, but after some tossing and turning without sleep, I decided to check the time, and realized I could watch. Insomnia isn’t always bad!
JGabriel
Across the street from me are about three townhouses framed on either side by tall buildings.
The moon is hanging right between them, at half umbra, right outside window.
I wish I had a camera – this would make a very cool photo.
Chris
“Who shot first?” There is no “first.” No one BUT Han shot at all.
Steeplejack
@Suzanne:
Thank you! Not for anything you said, but seeing your name just now and knowing that you are an architect—a bona fide, real architect now, congratulations!—knocked loose the title of a book that I have been trying to think of since Saturday. It’s A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction, by Christopher Alexander et al.
A friend and went to have dinner and see a movie at this development in Arlington where they’ve taken a four-block area and made it into a “trendy restaurants and shops” zone, pedestrian-friendly but with car access. We were talking about how it looks really nice and should be a great thing, but every time we go there it feels subtly off, like it’s not quite working. It’s probably breaking a bunch of rules in Alexander’s book, but I could not remember the title to save my life.
I’m going to order it from Amazon and read it again.
Steeplejack
@Scamp Dog:
I just went and looked again, and the moon—well, half of it, anyway—is just starting to come into the upper left corner of my bedroom window. It looks pretty white, not red.
Suzanne
@Steeplejack: THX! It’s actually not totally official yet. I have to mail in a form, and of course, a rather large check. Sigh.
Pattern Language is a great book. I often rail against development like you described, because it is invariably what rich people who grew up in the suburbs think urban life should be like. It’s hipster urbanism. The idea of mixed-use, but IRL the rents are too high for anyone but trust-fund babies to open businesses in places like that. Architects have historically kissed the asses of the 1% in the hopes that one day, our skills will be valued enough that we can make that kind of money, too. I reject that shit. But designers are overwhelmingly upper-middle-class educated white dudes, and their idea of society reflects that.
JGabriel
Either totality has been reached, or the moon has moved out of view from my window, or the cloud cover got too thick, because I can’t see a damn thing re: the moon.
Gonna go outside for a look.
…
And I’m back.
The clouds to the south have a reddish/purplish hue that the clouds to the north lack, so I’m guessing there’s red moon behind them, but that’s all I’ve got.
[shakes fist at sky]
Damn clouds!
Alison
Fucking cloud cover FTMFL moon has totally disappeared :(
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Steeplejack:
The best thing about the prequels- okay, the only good thing- are those YouTube reviews from Red Letter Media.
Steeplejack
@Suzanne:
But, hey, you don’t have to study all weekend to sign a check and send in a form!
Exactly! The theater is pretty convenient and shows a mix of artsy and mainstream movies, and some of the restaurants are really good, so we get psyched about going there, but then every time we actually do go the experience is vaguely effortful in an obscure way that we can’t quite pin down. (I tried to find some pictures on the Google but couldn’t.)
For example, the intersections: I said the area is very pedestrian-friendly—or it seems so—but they maintained easy car access with lots of (parallel) parking, which is always packed. But there aren’t any traffic lights at the intersections, so there is this constant “You? Me? Go? Stop? Yield?” do-si-do thing going on between the drivers and the pedestrians that is maddening.
max
Heh. Christ. The sky is so black from the clouds (and the rain that came throw) that it’s the darkest that it ever gets. When the sky is clear it’s never this dark.
So my one eclipse picture is the disappearing sliver of the moon … as seen through some thick clouds. So I’m disgusted at the clouds, but pleased that going to manual mode, cranking the white balance up to max, pointing the camera in the general direction of the area where the moon had disappeared actually got some actual evidence of the eclipse.
Even if it looks a NASA shot of some dark matter galaxy at the edge of the universe. ;)
max
[‘Well, there are three more in the tetrad…’]
Steeplejack
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Heh, I had forgotten about those. They are good.
NotMax
With the passage of a significant chunk of time, perhaps we’ll be treated to 10 minutes of Luke asking himself “Now where did I put that lightsaber?”
Benedict Cumberbatch as the half-human son of Jar Jar Binks would be awesome. ;)
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
Do not want.
max
Anne, you and Cole look like the only people in the East able to get a view. (Long Island & Conn, Central Mass, one peek in the cloud cover around Wheeling, Florida, Dallas, Phoenix, and that’s about it.)
max
[‘If the satellite cloud cover map is anything to go by.’]
NotMax
@Steelejack
It was purely tongue-in-cheek.
? Martin
Clear skies here. Eclipse looks quite good. Not as red as the photos suggest, but dramatic nevertheless, particularly with Mars hanging right above it.
Steeplejack
@max:
Yeah, I’m hosed too. Just looked again, and the half-moon that was in the corner of my bedroom window a while ago has disappeared. Nothing.
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
Never doubted it.
BillinGlendaleCA
The eclipse looks pretty good here, I’ll try to put up some links to pics once it’s over.
Betty Cracker
@ranchandsyrup: What a cute baby!
Betty Cracker
It’s supposed to be a rainy day today, and earlier it looked as if the clouds would block the eclipse, but I got to see it after all. Pretty cool.
Anne Laurie
@max: Nope, I’m too far east in MA — just came in, and the sky is a uniform milky shade, with a mizzly promise of rain hanging in the air. :{
max
@Anne Laurie: Nope, I’m too far east in MA — just came in, and the sky is a uniform milky shade, with a mizzly promise of rain hanging in the air. :{
Well, it’s ending now. (And this would be the point that I could it from this window. Nothin’. Black rain.
@Steeplejack: Yeah, I’m hosed too. Just looked again, and the half-moon that was in the corner of my bedroom window a while ago has disappeared. Nothing.
Craaaaaappppppppptacular.
max
[‘Sleep.’]
BillinGlendaleCA
@max: Here’s one of my pics:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1p3wfadj2iokpq4/SAM_0614.JPG
BillinGlendaleCA
Here’s the partial eclipse:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ie7y6y7ec341af2/SAM_0585.JPG
and the moon before it started:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/thrglrqdwyvtgtk/SAM_0531.JPG
Amir Khalid
It is April 15 as I type this — the 25th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, which I watched on TV as it happened. Bruce Grobbelaar, the Liverpool goalkeeper at the time, remembers that terrible day.
Schlemizel
@BillinGlendaleCA:
THANKS! It was overcast here so I slept through it. Very nice picture.
raven
@Schlemizel: Hey, did I tell you I went to the inaugural UGA Hockey game held here on the new rink in Athens? It’s a club sport here but it was fun.
raven
@Amir Khalid: ESPN has a 30 on 30 about it. These documentaries are usually very good.
raven
Mornin Joe thinks anyone who calls themselves conservative and supports Bundy IS NOT conservative at all!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Schlemizel: Thanks for the generous comments. I’m still learning how to best use my camera.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: They are great, I had mine all rigged to go but the front washed it out.
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: We got some thin cloud cover towards the middle of the eclipse.
Poopyman
@BillinGlendaleCA: Damn! That’s a nice shot!
Redder than I expected, really. What we really need is a good volcano a few months before an eclipse. The red is the sunlight refracted through earth’s upper atmosphere, and when you throw a lot of particulates up there it reddens eclipses a lot. Also sunsets. Anyone remember sunsets after Pinitubo?
Also too: @ranchandsyrup: Squee!
ETA: Forgot to add we were totally clouded out here in Southern MD, and now a dim dawn is breaking.
Poopyman
@raven: Stopped clock?
Schlemizel
@raven:
It can be a great game, hope you enjoyed it. There has been a huge change in the last 5 years where more and more college players are coming from places you would not expect. The mens side here has a guy from MO and the womens have a player from Sandhill OK! There have been a few from California and Colorado over the years but nothing like what I have seen recently. Its spreading slowly. Thanks for the pic.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Poopyman: It turned out redder than it appeared to the naked eye. It was more of a reddish orange. I think it might be that digital sensors pick up a bit more IR. IR is normally filtered out(the cams have a physical filter in them), but at night the filter may not work as well.
Schlemizel
@BillinGlendaleCA: That is a tough shot and yours turned out gorgeous. If you are just learning you are either darn lucky or better than you think.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Schlemizel: I was initially using shutter speed only. I switched to full manual, but those pics didn’t turn out as well. I also need to lube my 70’s era tripod, which may have accounted for some stability problems.
raven
@Schlemizel: UGA has had a club team for 25 years but they had to go 40 miles to play and practice. This was a sellout with 2,000 people so maybe it will do well here in town. They had a young lady on the team that played and played well. It was a bit long for me, the end of the second was at 9:30 but maybe that was because of some of the pre-game grab ass.
Poopyman
@BillinGlendaleCA: The filter will work the same no matter what the light level. The sensor is no doubt more sensitive to red than the human eye, though. The human eye’s peak sensitivity is in the green and tails off through the red part of the spectrum.
Schlemizel
@raven: Yeah, we can thank Von Braun and the boys for Huntsvilles interest. The gov moved all the kids from Peenemunda there to build rockets for us. They wanted them happy so they got anything they asked for. One of the things they wanted was a place to ice skate so Hunstville got an ice arena. It spread from there I guess
Played a youth team from there one time, it is hilarious to hear common hockey crap with a real deep drawl “GIT HEEM OTTA IN FRONT!”
Aimai
@ranchandsyrup: oh my god those pictures are the most adorable thing ever.
Aimai
@Steeplejack: a pattern language is a great book. You see this kind of faux urbanism in florida. Its better than the surrounding strip malls and gated communities but its like being in a n outdoor mall or theme park. People dont live tbere or work there. Its designed for tour groups and families to “recreate” not to live.
JustRuss
Got lucky with the eclipse. Clouds cleared up just as it started. About 5 minutes after it reached totality, clouds came back. Sat outside with the wife, mom, and my brother visiting from out of state, all bundled up and drinking cinnamon hot toddies. Good times.