Star Wars – Page 2 – The Eye of Zatara

[REVIEW] “The Book of Boba Fett” – Season 1, Episode 1

By: “The Watchman”

Boba Fett is back, as the Mandalorian’s first official spin-off begins. Expectations are high among Star Wars fans, including myself, as the Mandalorian and its legacy remain the only legitimate remnant of Star Wars to be born in this new age of haphazard sequel trilogies and “High Republic” nonsense. So, how did it do? How is the first series to focus on one of the biggest bad asses in all of science fiction? Well… in a word? Boring.

[MOSTLY SPOILER FREE REVIEW]

Starting out promising as we literally watch Boba Fett tear his way out of the innards of the Sarlacc following the events of “Return of the Jedi”, the story really goes nowhere after that for the entirety of the show’s first episode. Most of the show is just people walking around, standing around, and other time wasters. This walking and standing around is usually accompanied with no dialogue whatsoever, or with small bursts of untranslated alien mumblings. This air of silence works well with the Mandalorian because he’s usually doing something badass and crazy every couple of minutes. Boba Fett, however… is mostly just being silent. At one point, the episode replaces the characters standing and walking around in the sand with them quietly digging in the sand, and I got so bored that I literally took out my cell phone and started texting my friends asking if they had seen the episode yet (and asking them if it gets any better). And this is coming from a guy who made a Star Wars website when he was 12 that is still on the web if you know where to look for it.

What really irritated me the most about the episode, though, was the total lack of blasters. For some reason, no one uses a blaster in this episode. At all. Not one time. Boba Fett uses a missile or two, but the biggest, meanest, toughest bounty hunter in the entire Star Wars galaxy is apparently not allowed to use guns anymore, or, so it seems, as every battle sequence was just people swinging at each other with swords and sticks, or, worse, doing Power Rangers style kung fu kicks and flips. I think I literally said out loud “What is this shit?” when I started watching a trained sniper assassin (Fennec) start flipping and jumping around like a bad 90’s comic book supervillain to deal with people trying to kill her, instead of… I don’t know… just shooting them? It was utterly absurd.

Boba Fett looks really badass in his armor, I’ll give him that. If he’d keep his helmet on and actually use his blaster once in a while, he’d be pretty intimidating. I want this show to be good, and it still has time to improve. Nothing in the episode ruined the character or the story in a way that can’t recover 100% if things are different starting in Episode 2. However, there is one other issue with the show that’s going to need to change for me to really get on board with it, and that’s the fact that, well… Boba Fett is just way too nice. Like super nice. Nicer than the Mandalorian. Yet he’s supposed to be, in his own words, a “crime lord”. He’s supposed to be a fearless antihero that wants to turn a new leaf, but still sits on the throne of the corrupt and vile criminal underground of Hutt-stamped Tatooine. Instead, he spends the entire episode sparing people who blatantly insult him, unconditionally trusting people that he literally just met and hired, being humble, talking endlessly about loyalty and respect, taking off his protective helmet, and avoiding killing people around him at all costs, even assassins. Oh, and being beaten up, tied up, weak, and wounded. That happens to Boba a lot in this episode, too.

Overall, like I said, the show has a LOT of flaws. Nothing in the show was so bad as to ruin the character of Boba Fett, or stop the potential for the show to completely turn things around. That said, I didn’t enjoy Episode 1 AT ALL. I didn’t completely hate it, but I was both bored and irritated from the very start, and, by the end of the episode, I had almost completely tuned out. I hated the final sequence, and the only real enemy of consequence that Boba Fett encounters in the whole thing is a creature that looked, again, like a monster out of Power Rangers conjured up by Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd. I was almost shocked at the end of the episode to not see Jason David Frank step out from behind a sand dune and shout “It’s Morphin’ Time” as a cliffhanger for Episode 2.

I am still looking forward to the next episode as I honestly and truly hope that The Book of Boba Fett will improve. (I might be a little heartbroken if it doesn’t.) There is absolutely no reason that a show about a badass bounty hunter crime lord who rules over the underworld of a major Star Wars hub of shadiness can’t be anything short of excellent. I am frankly surprised to have had to write such a review, as material like this should be really hard to mess up. Yet, mess it up, they did. A LOT. My final score for Episode 1 is 4/10.

SCORE: 4/10
“Boring and neutered, Boba Fett is not the badass he needs to be for this show to be enjoyable, but there is still plenty of time for that to change completely starting next episode. Here’s hoping.”

[SATIRE] The “Eye of Zatara” Investigates –
THE CUBE EARTH THEORY

[Original Article: Sunday, October 31, 2021]

There are some things about the world around us that we tend not to question, things we believe in and cling to so whole-heartedly, we cannot even imagine them being any different– the color of the sky, for instance, or the taste of fresh apple pie. But what if one of these fundamental truths about our world could be challenged, or even proven wrong? What would we say to these facts? Would we even accept them at all?

The earth is a marvelous place, a sphere with a circumference of over 40,000 kilometers. But what if the earth isn’t a sphere at all? What if the earth, that we all know and love, is actually a cube, a wayward dice cast into our humble little solar system by some great celestial being that got caught in the gravity of our friendly yellow Sun and began a small orbit around it millennia ago? What if everything that our government have ever told us about the nature of the earth was propaganda meant to keep us from finding out we are living on borrowed time, travelers on the side of a cube in a massive galactic game of craps? A game that someday soon will continue… rolling our earth and everything on it into some unknown part of the galaxy again as our macrocosmic benefactor struggles in vain to win their celestial equivalent of casino chips using us. Would you accept that?

Those who gamble often, may acknowledge a fickle mistress known as “Lady Luck” when hoping cards or dice to turn in their favor. Similarly, the spirit of wilderness on our own beloved “planet” is often referred by the maternal monicker, “Mother Nature”. What if these two feminine figures of nature and chance are one and the same, the essence of the unique cube-shaped “world” we call our own? Pablo Picasso, when developing as an artist, started with the style of “realism”, but grew to surpass it, turning to a new style that he himself would pioneer, a style known as “cubism” – as “cubism” is apparently the next step beyond our current concept of “realism”.

We see proof of this in more recent events, as well. Why would NASA have to fake the moon landing, when the moon is so very close to our own dear sweet little planet, and should be easy for us to send a ship up, even with 1960’s technology, and land on? Because NASA did not realize that the moon, like our Earth, is also a six-sided cube, and missed the moon with their Apollo 11 rocket, landing instead on the planet of Mars, and forcing them to send faked footage of Neil Armstrong’s landing to television viewers back home while overlaying this footage with the real audio of Apollo 11’s crew landing on what they thought was the moon… but was actually Mars.

Even in fictional media, we see dice at the center of some of our most prominent thoughts about space and time, with a golden dice hanging from the top of the Millennium Falcon’s cockpit in Star Wars, drawing added attention in more recent entries in the franchise, a dice that… unbeknownst to all but the most hardcore of Star Wars fans… says ‘This Is Earth’ in ancient Corellian across it. How could this completely true and completely unfabricated fact be real if we do not, in fact, live on a planet that is known by some to be a cube?

Here is an experiment that you can try at home that clearly proves that the Earth is not round or flat, but is actually a cube. Find a long, flat table in your house that is capable of supporting your weight and carefully climb on top of it after cleaning off everything else on the table that could otherwise invalidate your experiment. Stand on the very center of the table and begin walking slowly to the table’s edge one step at a time, and then continue walking after you reach the end of the table. You fall down and hurt yourself, right? Well, have you ever fallen down and hurt yourself while walking in a straight line on a mostly flat part of the Earth? No, you haven’t, right? Then, the Earth can’t be flat. Next, find something round like a bean bag chair laying around your house and set it down in the center of the table from before, repeating the experiment while starting, this time, on top of the bean bag chair and walking forward until you fall off the end of the table again. OUCH! The earth can’t be round then! Finally, take a small step ladder and set it down in front of the end of the table to simulate the edge of a cubed planet’s surface and repeat the experiment one more time, but when you get to the edge of the table, walk down the step ladder instead of continuing forward off the edge of the now perpendicular corner of your experimental model of Earth. See? You didn’t get hurt this time, just like in real life! The earth MUST, in fact, be a cube!

Now that you have this knowledge, the question for you then is what to do with it. Many corrupt forces in our world such as the United States government, China, Bigfoot, Facebook, the international “Big Five” companies, Blockbuster Video, and my Great Aunt Gertrude will belittle, insult, or even threaten you if they hear you speaking the truth about our six-sided planet Earth. They may even block you from Facebook or, worse, coerce all your friends into un-Friending you like they did all of mine! (I know it was YOU behind that, Aunt Gertrude, and don’t expect me not to bring it up this Thanksgiving!!!) Knowing that our world is not round (or even flat) like many around you will constantly assert may lead to nothing but trouble for you, maybe even causing you to second guess (or even abandon) your new beliefs so the hatred and mockery you experience will end.

However, I believe there is value in knowing the truth, value that goes beyond “popular” and “unpopular”, beyond “likes” and “dislikes”, beyond even “friends” and “enemies”. The truth is the truth no matter how Facebook, Bigfoot, Blockbuster Video, and your extended family respond to it. And, the truth is, the Earth IS a cube, believe it or not. They may say there are two sides to every story, but there is only one side to truth… and that side says there are six sides… to the truth about Earth. What will you choose to believe?

~The Historian

***

A wonderful article by The Historian! Way better than that stupid one you wrote about wolves a few years back that was so unpopular it forced us to fire you for a while. You might actually last on the payroll a whole year this time! Here’s hoping, old friend!

~The Gatekeeper

***

You talk as if any of us actually get paid for this…

~The Watchman

***

😛

~The Gatekeeper

[SATIRE] Biden Accepts Newest Challenge from Vladimir Putin – “Lightsaber Duel” in Place of Televised Debate

(Original Post: March 22, 2021)

Imperial Palace, Coruscant – Preparations are being hastily made for what is being called a “Duel of the Fates” as Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, escalated his previous challenge to Joe Biden for a televised debate, now requesting a Jedi lightsaber duel in the heart of the Imperial Palace on planet Coruscant, a request which U.S. President Biden has, surprisingly, accepted.

Leaving a spaceport in Moscow clothed entirely in black robes, Vladimir Putin, also known as “Darth Sykkle”, activated the hyperdrive on his small Imperial model shuttlecraft to take him to the Palace on Coruscant ahead of Biden, to await him, lightsaber in hand, ready to show all of America the power of the Communist “red side” of the Force.

It is unclear what the outcome of this battle will be, but video footage supposedly of the battle itself was delivered to the “Eye of Zatara” by an old man in a Hoveround muttering about Benjamin Franklin. The following unconfirmed information is the record of the battle.

“Listen, Buddy, if you wanna… You’re… You’re a knucklehead, you know that? I could… I could kick your one Force pony into next week! You hear me?” President Biden muttered to a house plant hanging on the wall along one side of the duelists’ ring in the heart of the Imperial Palace.

“Mr. Biden, I know you are busy, but, before I cut you down, there is something you must know…” Darth Sykkle smiled beneath the black Sith hood of his robes, igniting the crimson blade of his silver-hilted energy sword.

“Look, if you’re about to say you’re my father, you’re a heck of a lot older than you look.”

“No…” Vladimir Putin answered with an insidious cackle. “I am… CORN POP’S father. I am the reason he went down the wrong path, and threatened you at that pool you used to work at.”

Hearing this, U.S. President Biden’s expression changed in an instant, the once frail-looking leader standing up tall and facing Darth Sykkle with a ferocious look of knowing determination as he activated his own “Luigi Green” colored lightsaber and raised it in challenge like a master fencer’s rapier towards the face of the corrupted Russian dictator.

“Not good enough.” Putin laughed as he waved his hand at Biden, striking him with a burst of Force energy and throwing him down the staircase located directly behind him on the dueling platform. “And, by the way, that’s the SECOND time I’ve thrown you down a staircase with the Force in the last week, Mr. President!”

Putin laughed maniacally, as Biden collapsed pathetically on the staircase.

“It’s over…” Putin smiled as he walked to the top of the staircase and stared down at the once again confused and befuddled American leader.

“It is NOT.” Another voice chimed in from the shadows, as a new weapon activated behind Darth Sykkle, revealing the face of a black and red armored Kamala Harris holding a large, shuriken-like, four-bladed lightsaber ring, each blade on the weapon a shade of red matching exactly the color of freshly spilt blood.

“What?” Putin raised an eyebrow in confusion, turning around to face his new challenger.

“It is said with Sith there are always two – a Master and an Apprentice. This is true.” Vice President Harris showed but the tiniest hint of a smirk as she threw her strange lightsaber at Putin in a blur too fast for his eyes to even track, cutting him down in a single slashing movement without giving him so much as a chance to defend himself against her. “You made the mistake of challenging the Apprentice. Now you fall before the Master…”

“And you have made the same mistake…” another voice echoed in the old duelists’ arena, an odd, unnaturally-colored, orange-skinned right hand reaching down to retrieve the still glowing red lightsaber from the injured Putin’s grasp, a “Luigi Green” saber already shining in his left. “You have slain MY Apprentice – one I picked on the Russia version of my show, The Apprentice. Now, thanks to that, once I finish you, I will control Vanuatu, the United States, Coruscant, AND Russia. Then, I will make the whole GALAXY great again!”

The strange orange alien with a fuzzy, hair-like growth on his head chuckled, wrapped head-to-toe in a red cloak made out of “MAGA” hats overlaid on an awkwardly-drawn American flag with the incorrect number of stars and stripes on it.

“Kamala… or, should I say… Darth Ka-Maula…” former President Trump smiled in the light of his two stolen lightsabers, glowing bright in each of his hands from the fallen Apprentices of the two Dark Lords now facing off against one another at last. “Winning is literally my thing. What chance do you think you have against someone like me?”

“Winning may be something you excel at…” the Vice President spoke calmly, using the Force to bring her lightsaber ring weapon back into hand. “But, if I recall correctly, the only time someone stopped you from winning… it was an election, it was last year, and it was ME.”

Trump’s eyes filled with fury, but he said nothing to his confident opponent.

“What’s wrong? Nothing to say without Twitter to hide behind?” Kamala mocked, raising her weapon in challenge to the 45th President.

“I’m going to beat you so bad even a Dominion voting machine can’t put you back together again…” Trump smiled, charging at Kamala as the two clashed blades in an epic cascade of sparking flashes of light.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the background, a third figure watched over the battle, interlacing her fingers and smiling silently to herself, cloaked in a shadow of the Force so thick that even the Dark Lords clashing before her had no idea she was even there at all.

“Excellent…” Kathleen Kennedy smiled over the battle as Kamala and Trump battled evenly against one another in a tremendous display of swordsmanship and skill. “I’m not sure which of the two of them will win in the end. But, whichever one does… I will make them MY new apprentice…”

A cold chill filled the hearts of everyone in the galaxy.

~The Gatekeeper

[SATIRE] Emperor Palpatine Faces Backlash for Misreporting Alderaan “Weapons Test” Deaths of 2,000,000,000 as “0”

[February 28, 2021]

Imperial City, Coruscant – Tyrannical dictator of the multi-planetary Galactic Empire, Sheev “Darth Sidious” Palpatine, has come under fire by galactic news services after reports came to light that he had miscounted the number of deaths that resulted on the planet Alderaan from an “accidental weapons test” of the Empire’s new “emergency self-defense weapon”, the “Death Star”, from an estimated 0 deaths as originally reported by the Empire last year, to an estimated 2,000,000,000 deaths as revealed by new reports early last week.

“It was an honest miscalculation,” the Emperor explained in a press conference held Friday afternoon from a dark-lit room filled with white armored Stormtroopers pointing laser rifles at the head of the gathered reporters. “Surely, you cannot fault an old man for a simple miscalculation…”

The Emperor smiled beneath his dark hood as but a single intrepid reporter, Michael Hamden-Skywalker, of Space CBC News, shakely rose his hand to ask the undisputed sovereign ruler of galactic space a question about the misreported numbers. The Emperor tried to force the reporter’s hand down with a tug from the Dark Side of the Force, but Hamden-Skywalker’s high midichlorian count allowed him to resist the simple manipulation.

“Yes, my child? What would you like to ask me?” the Emperor’s eyes glowed a fiery yellow as he locked eyes with the rebellious young journalist.

“Yes, my Emperor-ship, I, um… Well, in addition to new reports showing that, in stark contradiction to your previous claims, billions upon billions of people died in the ‘weapons test’ of the ‘self-defense weapon’ you decided to name the ‘Death Star’ for some reason, I have also heard that the Death Star itself has now unexplainably exploded, resulting in another 1,148,309 fatalies, and the loss of Grand Moff Tarkin, one of the highest ranking commanders in the Imperial Fleet. Is there any truth to these rumors, Lord Palpatine?”

The Emperor wrung his hands and frowned. Michael Hamden-Skywalker continued.

“Also, reports have come out from some of the female staff that serve with you in the Imperial Palace that you have been sexually harassing them, asking them to play ‘Strip Sabacc’ and asking if they’ve ever been involved with ‘astronomically older men’. Do you have a comment in response to these allegations?”

“These are not the questions you wish to ask me…” the Emperor whispered while making a strange hand-swiping gesture with the gnarled, snow-white skin of his right claw of a hand. “These are not the rumors you have heard about me. I am doing an excellent job of leading the Galactic Empire, and I am a perfect gentlemen with all of the staff in the Palace.”

“Princess Leia Organa, formerly of the Planet Alderaan that we have mysteriously lost contact with after your weapons test, reports that you have been repeatedly texting her ‘The Dark Side is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.’ with strange pictures of yourself attached.” Hamden-Skywalker continued, unphased by the Emperor’s Jedi mind trick. “And, even Darth Vader, your second-in-command of the Empire, has come out and called you a ‘Bully’, saying you should be stripped of your Imperial powers. Are you afraid of facing a recall from the citizens of the Empire like Governor Sauron of Middle-California?”

“Oh, look, the Rebel Alliance has broken into my press conference and attacked my favorite reporter from Space CBC News with some kind of terrible lightning weapon…” the Emperor lamented loudly as all of the reporters around the clueless Michael Hamden-Skywalker suddenly scattered. “It is such a shame that no one got to hear any of the great questions he had in mind to ask me when I invited him to this press conference today. Truly a great loss for the Empire.”

“I don’t…” Hamden-Skywalker stammered out a confused answer before the first arcs of Force Lightning made everything clear to him. “Wait, no! Don’t tase me, Bro! Gegegegegegegegegege… I HOPE THEY BRING YOU BACK IN ANOTHER STAR WARS SEQUEL MOVIE!”

Despite the disappearance of most of the reporters involved in the Emperor’s press briefing on Friday, the galactic media continued to press harder and harder against the Emperor regarding the various allegations accumulating against him, forcing him to finally give a public statement on the matter to media outlets over the weekend.

“You think I am evil? If you strike me down, you will face something more powerful than you can possibly imagine!” the Emperor hissed threateningly in a brief interview with sympathetic press on NIR, National Imperial Radio, this Sunday evening. “If I go, the Walt Disney Corporation will take over the Galactic Empire in my stead. Then, you shall see the face of true evil!”

Reporters were sent late Sunday evening to the Walt Disney Corporation to request a comment on the remarks made by Emperor Palpatine a few hours earlier, but they have not returned. Rumors suggest they were forcibly made into characters for new Star Wars “The High Republic” novels, and then laughed out of existence due to their poor designs. Michael Hamden-Skywalker’s belongings were found early this morning by Imperial scouts on Tatooine, scarred with lightning and scattered near the edge of a Sarlacc Pit.

In other news, Emperor Palpatine has won an Emmy Award for his charming, reassuring banter with the public during the terrible “Hoth Offensive” instigated by the Rebel Alliance on a distant snow planet.

[SATIRE] Baby Yoda Fired from “The Mandalorian” After Re-Tweeting “Gurgle Gurgle” to Gina Carano Post

[February 14, 2021]

San Francisco, CA – Speculation is rife about Season 3 of LucasFilm’s “The Mandalorian” after yet another actor has been released from their contract due to “abhorrent and unacceptable” posts on their social media accounts. Earlier this week, Gina Carano, who plays the popular Rebel droptrooper Cara Dune, was terminated from LucasFilm after refusing to vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris during the 2020 Presidential elections, which she followed up by posting non-conformist, mildly conservative things on her Instagram and Twitter accounts, such as refusing to identify her pronouns in her Twitter bio and reminding people it is not good to hate someone solely for their political ideology.

This week, Disney-imagineered puppet, “Baby Yoda”, showed support for Cara Dune’s radical statements after re-tweeting one of her more egragious posts to his own social media account with the added caption “*gurgle, gurgle*”, which was said in an “affirmative tone” according to several prominent puppet language experts.

“Some have speculated that Baby Yoda, being a child-like puppet, is not aware how to properly use a smart phone, and may have re-Tweeted Cara Dune’s posts by mistake,” explained high level LucasFilm executive S.P. Alpatine, during a press conference on the little green Mandalorian Star’s firing early Friday afternoon. “They have noticed that in addition to the offensive tweets of Cara Dune, Baby Yoda has also re-Tweeted posts from the social media accounts of Bill Clinton, Barbara Bush, the Twitter account for the monument Mount Rushmore, a Twitter account belonging to a 21 year old College student from Oregon that goes by ‘Travis’ who hasn’t posted in three years, and the Twitter for some truly wicked soul committed to the Dark Side of the Force by the name of Darth Sidious, who is in no way myself under another name.”

“Those of us belonging to The Senate… I mean Lucasfilm,” S.P. Alpatine continued, “Have concluded, however, that all of these re-tweets were intentional. Yes, including the one from Travis about how the card shops that sell Yu-Gi-Oh! cards in his hometown have no selection. Baby Yoda is an avid member of the competitive Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament scene, we are claiming. As a result, we have no choice but to terminate the small green animatronic doll from all future LucasFilm projects, to replace him down the road with… I don’t know… Danny Devito, maybe? His politics are right, at least.”

“When I heard that someone other than Gina was being fired from LucasFilm for their tweets, I kind of freaked out.” explained lead actor for “The Mandalorian”, Pedro Pascal. “After all, I compared Trump supporters to the Civil War Confederate Army and World War II German Nazis a month or so ago. Guess no one noticed those posts. Tough break for the kid, though. I’ll miss working with the little guy.”

“If anyone was going to fire you, it would be for being a part of that terrible Wonder Woman 1984 movie,” S.P. Alpatine responded from the crowd, apparently stalking the actors of The Mandalorian now to ensure further compliance with his “plans”. “Do not worry, however. All is proceeding as I have foreseen it…”

Hashtag #CancelDisneyPlus which has been trending on Twitter since Gina Carano’s cancellation, and may only gain more support with the firing of Baby Yoda. LucasFilm President Kathleen Kennedy was questioned about the firing of Baby Yoda, but refused to officially comment except to say, “While it would be unfortunate, if The Mandalorian collapses, I suppose we could always re-direct the resources to a new Star Wars project… like more ‘High Republic’ novels, a Rey spin-off movie, or maybe… that new sequel trilogy Rian Johnson is just aching for the public to see.”

She then began to cackle and laugh maniacally as her face turned ghost white and lightning crackled powerfully from her fingertips, striking George Lucas’ car outside a nearby Los Angeles restaurant and melting it into the shape of a Sith emblem.

[SATIRE] North Korea Abandons Conventional Arms, Announces “Moon-Sized Space Station with Turbo Laser Technology”

[Original Post: May 4, 2017]

Pyongyang – After several failed missile and nuclear weapon tests have slowed down his efforts for a “Super-Mighty Pre-Emptive Strike” against America, megalomaniacal North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un has reportedly abandoned plans to threaten the rest of the world with conventional weaponry, and is now planning on building some sort of “tremendous moon-sized space station armed with turbo laser technology capable of vaporizing planetoids”. Throwing away their crayon on construction paper drawings for liquid fuel rocket technology, North Korean scientists (all three of them) are hurriedly getting out their tracing paper and colored pencils to begin the first stages of creating what Kim Jong-Un has promised to be “the end of that rotting Old Republic, America, and the birth of a glorious new Empire”.

South Korean officials, concerned about North Korea’s new plans, are already theorizing ways to stop Kim Jong-Un’s military scientists before completion of their new weapon, either by stopping the creation of the massive planet-destroying space station outright, or by subtlely sabotaging it in some way to create an exploitable weakness that can be used to destroy the super weapon in the event that Kim Jong-Un is ever able to successfully complete it, possibly hidden in some sort of minor sub-system that would be easy for North Korean scientists to overlook like waste disposal or thermal exhaust ventilation.

Also troubled by the new development in North Korea, President Trump has announced plans to send over two dozen of the nation’s latest military fighter craft, state-of-the-art new fighter jets developed by Lockheed Martin with a revolutionary “folding wing” design technology, which will aid the South Korean air force in the event of all out war against North Korea’s moon-sized space station. These prototype aircraft, currently bearing the experimental fighter plane designation XW-1-6 “Wingwalker”, are rumored to already be in transit now to an undisclosed South Korean military base on the Yavin Peninsula, to be piloted and deployed sometime next week by South Korea’s legendary air force color guard, the Red and Gold Squadrons.

Naming his new theoretical weapon of mass destruction the “Red Star” (after the large red star in a moon-like field of white on the North Korean flag, an emblem that closely resembles this new weapon), Kim Jong-Un has repeatedly ignored all attempts by the United Nations to stop his plans to apparently destroy the entire planet Earth if it does not submit to him. Also confusing is Jong-Un’s simultaneous ultimatums that the West “destroy all the Jedi”, so that “only the Sith will remain”, puzzling Korean translators who speculate that “Jedi” may be an attempt by Kim Jong-Un to say the America word “jet”, as in jet plane, in the English tongue, and that the North Korean dictator is requesting all air forces worldwide to be dismantled if he is to be expected to stop building the Red Star. “Sith” is believed to be a similar error by the North Korean dictator while attempting to say the word “South” in English, although this translation is debated, as it seems unclear as to why the North Korean dictator would want “only the South [to] remain”. Some speculate he is not only mispronouncing, but incorrectly switching the English words for “North” and “South” while arrogantly attempting to mix two languages into his unstable demands.

Whatever the dictator’s intentions, it seems clear that the world community cannot simply allow him to continue with his plans to build a planet-destroying weapon right under their noses. Already, the North Korean dictator has become furious at the posting of a U.S. aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Alderaan, right off his territorial waters, threatening to make the American aircraft carrier his “first target” immediately after activating the completed Red Star space station. The European Union has already begun probing North Korea for more information about the super weapon, for the first time ever confirming their use of a secret, heavily classified combined European intelligence agency known as the “Bothnian Interest”, named after Scandinavia’s Bothnian Bay rumored to be in close proximity to the hidden location of their underground headquarters, confirming these “Bothnian” agents have already infiltrated and will continue to infiltrate North Korea for more information on their new weapon. In response, Kim Jong-Un threatened the European Union, saying coyly “You want information on my Red Star? Many Bothnians will die to bring you that information.” and “Their mission is not a legal one. It is a criminal one. A Rogue One. I will stop it.”

As Kim Jong-Un moves ahead with his creation of the Red Star super weapon, much of the world is forced to watch and wait, relying on the growing Alliance of nations unwilling to tolerate Kim Jong-Un’s potential domination of our world under threat of total planetary annihilation.

In other news, President of the United Nations General Assembly, Peter Thompson voluntarily stepped down today, being replaced by a new United Nations President more equipped to deal with the growing threat of Darkness posed by nations of North Korea, a quiet and soft-spoken man of mild temperament, Al Patine of the small island nation of Coruscant. The meek but wise Al Patine promised this morning “It is with great reluctance that I have agreed to this calling. Once this crisis has abated, I will lay down the powers you have given me.” He then smiled, slyly, and added, “I love democracy. I love… Earth.” before slinking away into the shadows of the room with a tall man with red body paint on his face, as well as another, more aristocratic looking man who seemed out-of-place as if he had been thrown into the whole situation at the last minute in place of someone else.

[SATIRE] 2016 Brackets – An Objective Analysis

(Original Post: March 29, 2016)

(Click the image above to see a full size version.)

Now that we have reached the “Final Four” of this year’s NCAA tournament, the time for introspection begins. For that purpose, I present my brackets for this year. Here’s my big wins and losses:

*SOUTH: A lot of my First Round picks were correct, including Washington Court House High School J.V. (9) beating Colorado (8) and Guadalajara (11) beating Arizona (6). Unfortunately, my prediction that “Pete Rose Pinch Hits for Hawaii” would win this region sadly ended with their loss to Villanova. My “DOUBLE KO” scenario between Guadalajara and Miami (FL) in the second round also did not come to pass, with Miami (FL) winning that game instead.
Overall Prediction Accuracy: 47%

WEST: My biggest mistake came up right in Round 1 as my choice for region winner, “SUPER SAIYAN Donald Trump” was shutdown after 16th seed Donald Trump’s loss to 1st seed Kansas. The actual region winner, 2nd seed Oklahoma, won against my predictions against their Round 1 opponent, 15th seed Casey Station from Antarctica. This prevented the intervention of Dragon Ball Z’s Son Goku in the tournament, as was otherwise predicted by me during the Round 2 Kansas versus Casey Station game, eliminating the presence of Super Saiyans in March Madness this year.
Overall Prediction Accuracy: 27%

EAST: This one was also way off. My guess that Kentucky would face one of the five Kansas teams in the finals for this region was shot down both by Kentucky’s loss to Indiana in Round 2 (I expected Civil War battlefield team Chickamauga to defeat Indiana before losing to Kentucky) and Kansas’s loss to Wisconsin. North Carolina won the region to my surprise, although I did predict the Bralley F. Austin (14) versus East Virginia (3) upset, which is encouraging. If only Chickamauga had beaten Indiana…
Overall Prediction Accuracy: 33%

MIDWEST: Again, I predicted a fair amount of the upsets here. I called “AR… I’m a Pirate”‘s win against Purdue, Gonzaga’s defeat of Seton Hall, and Dayton Light Service’s win against Dayton. I never imagined Dayton Light Service would make it all the way to the Final Four, however. The big upset of Alderaan in Round 1 by 15th seed Malcolm in the Middle Tennessee threw off my brackets quite a lot, since I was expecting them to win the region before losing to one of the five Kansas teams, my predicted NCAA Tournament winner. On a personal note, I was sad to see that the Gonzaga versus Gonzaga State grudge match did not occur this year, despite only requiring Gonzaga State’s defeat of Utah to have occurred. I’m also not 100% sure if Iowa State beat Iowa or some strange team called “Iona”. I fear the typo on my brackets may have confused me enough to throw off my predictions. Is “Iona” a real thing?
Overall Prediction Accuracy: 27%

My Final Four:

Pete Rose Pinch Hits for Hawaii, SUPER SAIYAN Donald Trump, Kansas (East), Use the Force (Alderaan) – All Wrong

My Total Prediction Accuracy This Year (Including Final Games): 32% (About 1 in 3 Games Correct)