HAPPY NEW YEA- Oh.

Well, it’s 2013 and we’re all still here. The planet, I mean. Nothing happened, no explosions, no asteroids, no John Cusack in a limo. Nothing. Fucking Mayans.

I realize, what with it being February, that it’s a bit late for me to be making 2012 Apocalypse jokes, but I really don’t care.

Not much has changed since the apocalypse. I am still an ex-Californian living in Minnesota, Justin Bieber remains Canada’s number one export of douchebaggery (sorry, Celine Dion), chimichangas are still great.

That’s not entirely true, some stuff has changed. Like, did you know J.J. Abrams is going to direct Star Wars: Episode VII? Did you even know there was going to be a Star Wars: Episode VII? Of course you did. That’s old news now. But since I haven’t updated this blog since well before both of those tasty tidbits of information floated down the intertubes, I felt a need to post about them.

There. I’ve posted about them. Now we can move on to bigger and better thi- Oh, who the hell am I kidding.

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J.J. Abrams is responsible for two of my favorite TV shows in recent memory, LOST and Fringe, and when speaking of the imaginary “line in the sand” in regards to people who enjoyed his 2009 Star Trek reboot and people who felt insulted by it, I’m on the side of those who thought it was a fun movie. So, all things considered, I have faith in Abrams and I’m looking forward to what he does with the first Star Wars film in almost eight years.

Did I mention Lucasfilm has been sold to Disney? Yeah, Lucasfilm has been sold to Disney. You probably already heard all about that, too.

I’ve already read long winded posts and status updates about how J.J. Abrams is both the best and worst man for the job (but mostly just a lot of lens flare jokes. a lot of them.), but what it boils down to is this simple fact: Fans of the Star Wars franchise just want a good movie. For the most part, no one cares who is directing it, who is writing it, or who is in it. So long as it’s good. There will be a lot of people who will, upon reading that at face value, disagree with it. Loudly and in caps lock. But if they truly think about it, they’ll see what I mean.

The director of any Star Wars film need not be a famous name or someone with a specific style, but rather a person who loves the franchise as much as we do. The person writing it, the same. The people who appear in it, if not playing previously established characters, need only dive into the depths of those characters.

Now in the case of the two standalone films recently announced by Disney, one focusing on the adventures of a young Han Solo (how young, though?) and the other focusing on the rise of Boba Fett to his place as one of the most feared bounty hunters in the universe, things get tricky. Obviously Harrison Ford can no longer play the spry and dapper Solo he once could. So, who? Who, then, could step into the boots of everyone’s favorite intergalactic smuggler? The Huffington Post has some ideas.

Now, that list ranges from a bunch of actors I’ve never heard of, to a few who might be right (I can see Garrett Hedlund, or Taylor Kitsch, even one of the Hemsworth brothers or Zachary “Chuck” Levi), to a few who would be completely wrong (Zac Efron? Shia LaBeouf? Shudder…). But it’s all speculation at this point. There are no scripts, no directors, nothing but the notion of “Hey, let’s make a couple of movies about Han Solo and Boba Fett! People love Han Solo and Boba Fett, right? What could possibly go wrong?!”

I reserve my judgment on most of this until the movies actually come out.

Well, at least I’ll try to reserve my judgment.

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Depeche Mode have a new album, Delta Machine, coming out March 26th. But the first single, entitled Heaven, is already available. Here’s the video:







I love it. It reminds me a lot of something you’d hear on Black Celebration, which is one of my favorite albums, and that’s probably why I dig it so much. If the rest of this new album is anywhere near this first single in tone and content, it’ll be fantastic.

Depeche Mode are currently on their World Tour, the North American dates for which I hope they will be announcing soon. If you can’t already tell, I’m pretty excited about this and would love to see them live.

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As our friends and family to the East recover from Winter Storm Nemo, it seems we here in the MidWest have our own storm to deal with: Winter Storm Orko (Nemo? Orko? Whoever names these storms is a huge fan of Saturday morning cartoons).

See that line between the gray and the pink? That little white line that’s crossing the South Dakota border and entering the state of Minnesota? Yeah, we’re in there. So it seems we’ll get some snow in, well, about a day or two. Exactly how much, it’s hard to tell, but people are preparing around here. Rushing to the store to get their essentials in preparation of being snowed in for a couple of days.

Not unlike this:

We’re fine, for now. If I look outside my window on Monday morning and find over two feet of snow, I will be less fine. Well, no, I’ll still be fine. Just a bit more angry.

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Taxes are done, chimichangas have been eaten, and it’s now time I go and clear some things off the ol’ DVR.

Be nice.

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