Tag: star wars

Still injured 😕

~ e.v. ~ 2 Comments

I’m still injured, which is a bit rubbish. I haven’t run for over a week now. My ankle feels a lot better in general but it’s still achy. I thought it would have been back to normal by now and I’d be tempted to try a test run, but nope. I think I made it worse a few days ago by trying some resistance band exercises. The pain is down the inside and I think it’s the posterior tibial tendon, so I tried doing some inversion and eversion exercises with the bands. The inversion works the muscle, the eversion stretches it. I think it’s the eversion (stretch) that set it off again.

The mechanism of injury seems to be that you overpronate i.e. the ankle collapses inwards too much, leading to the tendon getting repeatedly stretched just a little bit too much. So probably I should be avoiding exercises that stretch it. Maybe I should just focus on inversion exercises to work the muscle and hopefully trigger some healing. Overpronation is always a strange one with me because I have visibly high/strong arches and I tend to put the weight more towards the outside of my foot when I stand, which would make you think more of underpronation. But I really do overpronate when I run (sometimes), which I can see on the wear of my shoes’ insoles and the calluses I get down the inside of my big toes. The physio I saw a couple of years ago thought it was a bit odd but said it was probably my tight calves. So I stretched them a lot and the old wear patterns never formed on new shoes. I wouldn’t say they’re too bad at the moment but my achilles tendon on that leg does feel noticably tighter than the other, so that could be it.

In TV news:

I finished Star Wars Rebels. The first season is a bit rough but by the end I think I was enjoying it more than Clone Wars overall. It really makes me want to see an Ahsoka series (which I think they are making?) to see how it plays out between her and Thrawn. I’m now two episodes into Kenobi and it’s… alright. I mean, a lot of things don’t really make sense, but you don’t watch Star Wars for brilliant writing. I don’t know, ask me again when I finish it. Next up will be Bad Batch and Andor.

I’ve almost finished Orville and Lower Decks. I have to say that neither Orville or Lower Decks, both essentially being parodies, have any business being as good as they are. I’ve enjoyed them far more than serious Discovery (which I gave up on) or Picard (which I didn’t give up on, but wasn’t that great). People say that Strange New Worlds is better but I haven’t seen it yet.

I also watched the last Expanse season a little while ago. If that’s the last one they ever make, then it’s very underwhelming. It peaked around S2-S3, though S4 was still pretty good. S5 started off OK but became a chore and S6 was forgettable. It’s a shame because S2-S3 was very good.

Boba Fett and events

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I have started watching The Book Of Boba Fett…

I’ve seen the first two episodes, and… I like it! I’m not very critical of Star Wars media in general. Most Star Wars is entertaining without being very deep or complicated, because it’s aimed at children. Which is fine. I thought the sequels were nonsense (particularly the third one) but otherwise I like Star Wars. Boba Fett is kind of the same. It’s entertaining and not complicated. I like seeing how the Sand People live. It makes the universe feel a little bit more interesting.

The music is really good. I want to say it’s unique, but actually the main melody keeps making me think it’s going to break out into Pirates Of The Caribbean (He’s a Pirate), so I don’t think it’s quite as unique as maybe it should be. But the whole approach is very unique. The rhythm has a bit of a folky feel and the vocal harmonies are amazing. It’s a very original way to approach film/TV music.

In other news I think the whole Ukraine situation is really sad. I think it’s sad there hasn’t been a stronger response to this. I could write a lot about my perception of Russia because I used to work for a company that employed a lot of Russians in Russia, but maybe another time.

However I do remember that the proposal to remove Russia from the SWIFT banking system was floated back in 2014 when they invaded Ukraine (Crimea) the first time (I remember it, because my employer at the time was concerned that it would stop us paying our Russian employees!). Russia would have expected it to happen this time around and apparently deemed it an acceptable risk. And yet… despite Russia launching a full scale invasion of a European country, we haven’t even managed to hit them with the level of sanctions they anticipated. I think that’s pathetic, and should Russia find success in Ukraine they will feel emboldened to continue west by a toothless response from the Western European nations.

Mobile games

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I started playing a game on my phone called Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes. I didn’t mean to italicise that, it just ended up that way from copying and pasting the name (I couldn’t remember exactly what it was), and now it seems appropriate so I’ll leave it.

I don’t know if I like it. I am pretty sure that it’s the old Knights of the Old Republic engine that’s been ported to mobile. The game is turn based battles, which you complete to unlock new characters. At a snail’s pace. It’s extremely repetitive, but there’s a button to auto-play. Which is what I’m using, because it’s incredibly boring otherwise. I’m not really sure why I’m opening a game up to let it play itself.

I want more characters, but then what am I going to do with them – watch them in battles that play themselves?

Events

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I have written before about the Mandalorian, but I’m going to write again (no spoilers). I enjoyed Season 1. It was good, solid TV. It wasn’t gripping because it was episodic, but it was very good for an episodic program. It feels very quality over quantity. Now I’m up to date (S2E3) and I’m really excited about the rest of Season 2! I’m totally hyped.

I’ve admitted defeat with my hip and have a physio appointment next Friday. It’s been very odd. For example Saturday it was fine for about 7-8k then over the next few km the front/side of my hip started feeling very dull and heavy. Yesterday it felt 100% fine for about 4k then very suddenly the side stiffened up, and I could kind of feel it down at the outside of my knee too. I think those are two different things. I think the front/side is muscular fatigue and the side down to my knee is the IT band, though it’s probably more that my pelvis isn’t stable for whatever reason I haven’t been able to figure out myself.

If I don’t get anywhere with this physio there’s another one that’s not quite so easy to get to which looks more promising, as they have a specialist running clinic that has treated Olympians.

In other news, I talked to a recruiter who’s put me forward for something that on paper looks like a good fit. We’ll see what comes of that. I have a lot of recruitment stuff in my inbox but I don’t really want to be dealing with it every day, so I don’t really know how to manage the time I will need to spend on it. If I respond to all of it I’m going to be snowed under with recruiters wanting to speak to me and then at some point some of those will turn into interviews. I don’t want to end up with more than about one interview a week, so it’s a bit hard to know how much to respond to.

This is a good start anyway.

Disney

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The past two weekends I’ve been watching the Star Wars prequels. This weekend was Attack of the Clones. I never really liked the prequels much when they came out, but after seeing the most recent trilogy I appreciate them better. OK the acting’s a bit rubbish, but if you overlook that they’re not so bad. But also you see things through a different perspective as you get older. When you are younger you just see Anakin not behaving as a jedi should. When you are older you notice that the Jedi aren’t exactly setting him up for success. Maybe Kreia was right.

I thought I should watch them again because I’ve also been watching Clone Wars on Disney+. It was recommended to me a few years ago by someone I worked with. And actually it’s pretty good! The first few episodes are aimed at children but at some point they seem to change it to more young-adult and then slightly less young adult and it picks up quite a bit.

In related news, Disney is trying to get me to watch the new Mulan film for only £20! Well actually it’s £20 on top of the Disney+ subscription, which is £5.99/month. Who’s going to pay £20 to watch Mulan on TV? I hope I’m not out of touch on this. This seems like a ridiculous price to me and I hope this isn’t the future of film.

Disney

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I have recently got a Disney+ subscription and I’ve been watching…

The Simpsons! I started at the beginning and I’m enjoying it. I think this could keep me entertained for a while…

The Mandalorian. I wasn’t sure what to expect with this, but I’m enjoying it. It’s kind of like The Witcher (minus the nudity) meets Clint Eastwood westerns. In the Star Wars universe. I’m sure there’s a conscious spaghetti Western influence. It’s surprisingly minimal in terms of plot and characters, but it works. One of the things I really did like is that when they introduced a female action hero type character, she was believable. Turns out the actress is a 38 year old MMA fighter, which might be why.

And I watched Solo, the Star Wars film yesterday…

I don’t think anyone really wanted a Han Solo film (myself included, hence why it’s taken me this long to see it), but it’s pretty good! The characters are very good, ironically with the exception of the two main characters. I don’t really know how you can replace Harrison Ford’s charisma as Han, and this film doesn’t. I mean, he’s not bad, but he’s just not Harrison Ford. But then that’s kind of the problem with the idea in the first place. Han from the first film works so well because he’s old enough to be cynical and arrogant. That’s his charm. Take away the life experience and I’m not sure there’s much left for an actor to work with. A cynical and arrogant 20 year old is just annoying, but what’s Han Solo without the cynisim? He’s just someone waiting to mature into an interesting character.

His girlfriend is also questionable, but the writing around her character isn’t very strong. It’s “tell” rather than “show” and she’s not really believable as a result.

But all the supporting characters are great. Donald Glover as Lando is especially good, as is Woody Harrelson, and so is Phoebe Waller Bridge (fleabag).

Overall it’s far better than the newest trilogy, but not quite as good as Rogue One.

Today

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Today was supposed to be the day I went for a 15 minute run to see how things are. I’d decided not to do Parkrun because it’s potentially too far just to check things over, but as it turned out, it was cancelled anyway due to ice. I went for a walk to assess the ice, but it was actually quite slippery so I walked and I walked hoping that it would thaw out some more, and my run never happened.

I didn’t go this afternoon because I went to see the new Star Wars film (no spoilers).

So is it going to happen tomorrow? Possibly not, because it’s a Pokemon Go community day at an awkward time (11AM-2PM), and I think I might be coming down with a cold. Colds wouldn’t usually stop me running but since I’m trying to heal an injury, it hardly makes sense to drag myself out if I’m not feeling well.

What’s the plan now? Do I just wait until next weekend or do I go out one lunch time? I don’t know… It’s been three and a half weeks since I last ran, does another week really matter? Well, it does matter because 1. It makes it more likely that my injury really is healed, but 2. My anxiety has definitely increased over the past few weeks without intense exercise (to such a point I’m starting to question whether the Citalopram is still working).

I don’t know…

Maybe I’ll get a short run in tomorrow after all.

Maybe it’s just me getting older, but these new Star Wars films just aren’t doing anything for me. The very first Star Wars film is very simple and easy to follow and it’s kind of magical. This new trilogy, ehhh. Lots of things happen and I don’t understand why. If I went through in detail I’d have a zillion questions to try to understand the plot, but I think the whole point is that so many things get thrown out to go by so quickly that you don’t think much about them and you feel like the plot is moving forward until the next action scene. When you stop and think about it… well, the plot is moving, but I’m not sure the direction is forward.

Rogue One was good though.