i've been enjoying watching "The Clone Wars" - the new Star Wars animated series that's been on cartoon network. most of the stories have been enjoyable and entertaining but a few things are holding it back from being truly great...

1. Knowing the outcome - we have most of the principle characters and sides, and since we know how the war ends, and who survives until Episode III, some of the sense of real danger is a bit alleviated. So-and-so isn't going to die because they have to be in Episode III, or in the case of newly-developed characters, should survive at least until the second season, which is already in production, etc.
Which is why the clone-centered episode "Rookies" might have felt stronger because the outcome was not known for any of the characters involved - in short a blank slate for storytelling.

2. Paving over existing continuity. a lot of work was put into previous Clone Wars era continuity of stories (novels, comics, the Genndy Tartakovsky animated series, games, etc.). That timeframe was fairly fleshed out during the time between the release of Ep II and Ep III, but with quite a few holes in it still for future stories. rather than simply fill in those holes, the new series has mushed some things around a bit - most notably when Anakin becomes Knighted (very early in the war, instead of late in the war - so that they can give him a padawan), and when Grievous makes his appearance (now much earlier in the war, and he's coughing from the beginning). while i think there is always wiggle room possible with continuity if it leads to better stories, i think it just ends up confusing a bit to use some of the existing Clone Wars era and then disregard other parts of it... but perhaps they really aren't using much of any of the previous Clone Wars continuity, other than re-using some characters like Asajj.

3. Outcomes. so far it seems that pretty much after each story or story arc, the heroes win and the villains are thwarted and run off and escape. Grievous, supposedly a great leader for the separatists, keeps getting defeated, and escapes like a mustache-twirling villain while his giant spaceship of the week gets destroyed. Asajj gets humbled and threatened for her failures - although she actually gets a mission done from time to time (like rescuing Nute Gunray). for the Sith to seem menacing and not tolerate failure, they have a few top minions who fail quite regularly, mostly because of our Jedi heroes. Grievous is also routinely undone by the stupidity of the battle droids. of course, part of this is set by #1 - most of these main characters in the war have to survive.

4. Reducing the menace factor. Grievous has some bodyguard magna-droids who in Episode III, do a decent job of holding off Anakin and Obi-wan, two of the best lightsaber and combat-trained Jedi. yet it now appears that less experience Jedi can cut them down with ease (Nahdar in the most recent episode) - perhaps later models get better programming and armor? same thing with Grievous -- great killer of Jedi (bye Nahdar!), yet Ahsoka the padawan has fought him and survived... and while Obi-wan had been surprised to find Grievous able to wield 4 lightsabers at once in Episode III... didn't Kit Fisto mention this to the Jedi after he fought Grievous?

Overall, i've been entertained and have been enjoying the series. i just feel a need to nitpick.

so Whitney and I returned yesterday from a little week-plus vacation to the Midwest: Chicago to visit her folks, and going around the town a bit with Chip and Kristina, and seeing their new digs at Purdue, and then Gencon/Jadecon in Indianapolis.

I also managed to mess up my shoulder, probably during a little Sithball on friday.

and we have returned with a bunch of games. =)
the constant theme of the vacation was staying up late, sleeping in, and alcohol.

here's the real quick recap:

Saturday: arrived at Midway, the red line which normally goes up to Whitney's parents' house is temporarily rerouted, and so we end up walking a bit farther on the streets with our luggage. dinner at an italian restaurant that gets gusty in their courtyard. play some mah jong. buy a large flat of blueberries.

Sunday: walk around Lincoln Park Zoo (yay for monkeys!), figure out how to play Mario Kart on the Wii, watch some olympics, i do a little demolition work on their back tool shed, starting to remove the roof, have a barbecue (using my pollo asado recipe)

Monday: go to the Chicago History Museum with Whitney's mom, then whitney and i have dinner on our own at Five Faces (gyros!) and wander down to water tower place and then find a movie theater to watch "The Dark Knight" -- hey look, it was filmed in Chicago!

Tuesday: MarioKart until ckillian and kmkillian arrive in town, and then the four of us head off to the Museum of Science and Industry, where we see the new digs for U-505, and learn about petroleum, farming, automated manufacturing, and the fairy castle! then we have a fun parking adventure on Lasalle Avenue and go over to have dinner with whitney's parents in old town, before heading off to Second City for some comedy and drinks.

Wednesday: we walk down the lakefront to Water Tower Place, and then take a trolley to the Art Institute of Chicago which is going through some renovations and so chunks of the collection are not available. and they secretly swapped out whitney's favorite painting and replaced it with something else. but the giraffe mosaic was still there. after a late lunch of deep dish pizza, we pack up and drive with the Killian's back to West Lafayette, Indiana, and get the quick tour of their house (with paper wasps!), the towns (and a late dinner at a Sonic (San Diego has none, yet we get bombarded by their TV ads on cable) and some games.

Thursday: Kristina takes us to Indianapolis to go to Trader Joes, and take us to GenCon. we get to the hotel, and dump our bags at the suite, get our badges and loot bags, and try out some games (like the upcoming Battlestar Galactica board game). we get into the Star Trek CCG new expansion pre-release tournament, where i go 2-1 before i drop out to go join the Club Jade game night (whitney has already left with sirrogue after the first game). Dan had set up a Star-Wars-ized version of telephone pictionary which had everyone cracking up. Gamorreans are better than squid dogs! then back at the suite for some hanging out, and whitney and i teach Ingenious to some other Jaders. and then we go see a midnight showing of "The Clone Wars"

Friday: i listen in on a session with the Emperor talking about writing: point of view, emotion, etc. then head out on the con floor to demo more games. then the jadecon picnic and games, where i ran like a burning wookiee, and pitched a star destroyer. some project runway presentations, a pinata, some smores and sparklers, and back to the suite for more craziness and watching olympics, and also watching evilbearhunter babysit snarkel.

Saturday: start in Rogue's SW RPG session, though duck out to meet up with jedidajuan and Doug out on the floor. whitney later joins us, right about the time of the moment of silence for Gary Gygax. Dajuan thought she could blast through the segway challenge but gets eliminated for going too slow! whitney and i go out to meet up with her brother matt, and his girlfriend hannah, who are road-tripping through Indy on the way home from an interview in Texas. then back to the suite for hollywdliz's wine tasting session. unfortunately one of our two bottles of malbec ended up being bad.. boo! then i got roped into building a volcano as a decoration for the big party. james does crafts. really. the big club jade party saturday night with filking, food, an anakin fireball, avoiding the phelps-watchers, and some other crazy stuff. though my shoulder was starting to pain up some more. later on, we started playing this new game we got (Backseat Drawing) out in the hall with bunches o' people. it looks to be a hit! since we had a slightly early flight the next day, we said some goodbyeses.

Sunday, a little breakfast with the early risers (or midmorning risers), and then off to the airport, where we learn that the dirt cheap card game we bought that is for 2-5 players is technically playable with 2 players and 2 dummy hands. flight through phoenix without having to change planes. i actually doze off a little on the plane. but mostly keep reading "Spin State". get home, do a little grocery shopping and sack out. shoulder pain and maybe a slight fever. get up in order to readjust to the time zone and watch the assorted Venture Bros, and The Office stored on the tivo, and one Western Tradition, which puts whitney to sleep.