Star Wars Parody

Hilarious!

Star Wars Complete Visual Dictionary

DK recently released the first all inclusive Visual Dictionary. It's the first of all the SW dictionaries that covers all six movies. Amazon's selling it for 26.40 (plus S&H), and it seems to be well worth the price according to several reviews I've read on websites and heard on podcasts. This would be a great companion to the Ultimate Visual Guide to Star Wars.

Chilin' with the iPod

Seeing as I'm an iPod girl to the core (it's my favorite gadget), I only use iTunes to find my podcasts. (iTunes just won Best Podcast Directory in the PodCastAwards.) I've been searching for some good Star Wars-related podcasts. There're not too many of them out there. The Secrets of Star Wars is a podcast affiliated with the Catholic Insider (which won Best Mobile Podcast in the PCAs). The guy who heads it up, a Father Something-Or-Other, is doing a chapter by chapter breakdown of the spiritual and philosophical significances of each of the SW movies. He's on Chapters 1-5 of Phantom Menacee. Not exactly my cup of tea. And he hasn't broadcast since 8.6.05. Star Wars en Direct is the official SW podcast (meaning the most respected). But, I gotta say, I didn't like the hosts; they're very intense and, um, nerdy fanboys. Don't get me wrong, I'm a bit nerdy myself, but these guys were on a whole 'nother level. And they haven't put anything up in a while, either. The best one I've heard is Star Wars Action News which is a podcast for the collecting SW fan. Even though I'm not remotely into collecting, I liked this one the best b/c the hosts are great. Maybe it's the estrogen factor (it's a husband/wife team), but they seem to have a lot of fun. And this rubs off on their listeners/callers. I can't hyper link any of these, of course, b/c I found them on iTunes, which isn't downloadable here at work, which is where I'm writing this post.
Anyhoo, my favorite podcast is Mugglenet's Mugglecast. It's a very comprehensive show about all things Harry Potter (a saga I love almost as much as SW) with incredible hosts. Very up-to-date news and theories, innovative and fresh segments, a great cast and thousands of loyal, weekly listeners all helped win this podcast the People's Choice Award at the PCAs. (Fyi, another Potter podcast, Pottercast which is sponsored by the website The Leaky Mug, won the Entertainment award. Both Pottercast and Mugglecast were at the PCAs in Cal. this week to accept their awards and broadcast live in the Leakymug format which is a separate feed. I know, confusing and a lot of info, but I'm enthusiastic about these two groups. ) If you don't have iTunes, both Pottercast, Leakymug and Mugglecast have their own sites were you can subscribe directly.
Whew! Huge post!

Wrapping Up (But Not Really)

I've had a great time participating in Leaning 2.0. I discovered some useful and fun things about the web that I never knew existed and become more familiar and comfortable with some of the tools that I have used before. Thanks to Helen B. for this opportunity.
This has been so much fun that I plan to continue working on this blog. After all, there will always be a Star Wars news to report on and a fandom to commune with.
May the Force be with you!

Learning 2.0: Downloading Audio Books

Ok. I browsed around NetLibrary in search of a good book to listen to; and, I gotta say, I was very disappointed with the selection of titles. Maybe it's because this is a new service, but there was a very small number of the type of books that I like to read (i.e. sci-fi/fantasy). No Star Wars books (not surprising) and no LOTR books (very surprising). I finally found Octavia Butler's Kindred (a great author) and went for it. No problem downloading; instructions were very clear. Then I went to transfer the file to my iPod and.....AAARRRGGGHH!!! No go!! How can the friggin' iPod, the most popular music/audio player in the world, not be a supported devise. I mean, I understand about the different file formats and the DRM and all that crap, but, man, does that suck.

Learning 2.0: Awards List

YouTube is cool, cool, cool!! Definately one of my favorite "time killers." Seeing as I've added several YouTube videos to my blog already, I won't bother with doing that for this exercise. But I did "explore" the site again, all in the name of completing my 2.0 assignment, of course.