Han Solo & Chewbacca: The Crystal Run (Part 2)

Picking up where Part 1 left off . . .

Han has been left for dead, injured and abandoned on a random world. Chewie is locked up on a prison planet. And yet, the heist they were working continues . . . can they heal, escape, reunite, and hit it big?

This one is better than the first part, but only just. There are some interesting moments, and cool tie-ins or references to characters seen in Solo and Episode VII, but the relevance to the wider story is still unclear and conclusion is open-ended and unsatisfying . . . until/unless they tie up loose ends and have some sort of point. 

Rating: C+

Han Solo & Chewbacca: The Crystal Run (Part 1)

In the days before the Rebellion, smuggler Han Solo and his sidekick Chewbacca work for Jabba the Hutt. He sends them (with an old 'friend') on a heist that could yield the payday of a lifetime. But such things are never easy . . . with twists and surprises galore, can our heroes win . . . or even survive?

There was also a one-shot "Life Day" issue at the end of this, where Han and Chewie reflect back on this wookiee holiday through the years.

Meh. It has been nearly four years since I last read a Star Wars graphic novel*. Things like this remind me why. I was at the library yesterday and picked up some graphic novels; this one looked promising. It was . . . uninspiring. The art was fine, the story oh-so-very predictable, and I'm not quite sure what the point was. (That said, I hope to cover part 2 tomorrow to see if there is a satisfying conclusion.)

Aside: in a universe like Star Wars, any tale should either

1) develop the overall story arc in some meaningful way, or

2) explore a side character/event in a meaningful way (that may impact the overall story OR have a message of some sort)

I felt like this graphic novel did neither. 

Rating: C-

*The Force Unleashed II

The War of the Rohirrim

200 years before Bilbo Baggins and a certain ring . . .

Helm Hammerhand rules in Rohan, and trouble is brewing. A Dunlending lord is set on his son (Wulf) marrying Helm's daughter (Hera). Unwilling, Helm fights the lord and banishes Wulf, who swears vengeance. Years later, he'll get his chance . . . and Helm's people will flee to a familiar fortress, the Hornburg, and try to survive the ensuing siege. Will they survive? Or is hope lost?

This movie was a mixed bag for me. It was exciting to see another film set in Middle-Earth. The animation style (anime with realistic backgrounds) was cool if jarring/disorienting at times. The plot was . . . underwhelming and cliche. It also borrowed too heavily from the original Lord of the Rings films, packing in plenty of scenes/plots/phrases as a deliberate homage to that trilogy (in places, it felt like they simply mashed elements from the films together, put them into anime style, and put it on the big screen). The main message was "women are powerful, too," which was fine. It had its moments, but overall, I rate this just above the third Hobbit movie and below everything else (to include Rings of Power). 

Rating: C+

So Begins 2025

image from here

Happy New Year! As is my custom, this post lays out goals for the year. The goals themselves are in italics, with explanation following in regular font.

Spiritual
- Be disciplined in reading/prayer routines (and reduce putzing).

- Do devotionals with the family twice a week.  
- Serve better, but in fewer roles.

- Focus more on others. Figure out balance with competing needs.

I fritter away too much time by 'putzing' (meaning a few minutes web surfing here, a few minutes playing a game there, etc.). In 2025, I want to minimize that and replace it with better routines. A subgoal here is devotionals (books broken into daily readings): I have three I want to read personally in 2025, plus one I want to do with the family.

I am also stretched too thin right now, and there are some big changes coming for my work and my wife's. So I need to step back in a few areas so we can manage everything in a way that glorifies God and blesses others. I don't know what that looks like, but some things need to change.

Nutritional/Fitness
- Get (and keep) weight under 185 lbs.

- Eat more fruit/vegetables. Eat out less.

- Improve gut health.
- Complete 270 workouts; bike 1200 miles.

I want to lose 5-7 lbs, eat more fresh fruit and vegetables, figure out what is going on with my gut, and keep working out consistently. I would love to bike 1200 miles this year.

Reading
- Read 50 books.
- Read 15 works at my American Reading List.
- Minimize my owned-but-unread pile

I've done 50+ books the last few years, and this should be easily reached. My American Reading List is 200 books; I'm about a third done and aim to read 15 more this year. And it is always good to not let unread books accumulate in the home.

Household Management
- Minimize stuff in the home.

- Figure out ideal home organization.

- Buy less/budget better.

I get stressed with all the clutter around the house. I want to find a way to minimize it and keep it out of sight. Part of that is home organization; we have a few areas that we want to re-work to improve their appearance and utility. And buying less is always wise.
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The goals above are not earth-shaking . . . I should be able to hit all of these. To 2025!

The Year in Review

As is my custom, I find it helpful to reflect upon the good and the bad of 2024.  I start the year with goals; this post looks back at some of them and considers other factors we experienced this year.

Spiritual

My goals here:

- Be disciplined in prayer.
- Be intentional/consistent in meeting with others.
- Serve well in the various roles.

Prayer was the same as last year: pretty consistent when in my routine, but easily dropped when 'out of sync' due to illness, vacation or other factors. I need to be better about keeping the first things first, even when the day is abnormal.

I did get to meet with a fair number of people this year, which is always a joy. This one is hard to quantify or limit; it was good, but should always be a priority.

I tried to serve well in various roles and felt they went reasonably, but this year showed me that I have too much on my plate, and that could be overwhelming at times for me (and the family) this year, so I will have to drop something in 2025.

Nutritional/Fitness

My goals here:

- Get (and keep) weight under 185 lbs.
- Complete 240 workouts (run, bike, gym, hikes, etc.).
- Eat less overall, and more fruit/vegetables.

I started the year at 197 lbs and did drop some weight this year; I stand at 192 lbs as of this morning (my low was 188 before the holidays). I did eat more fruit/veg, but ate too many sweets around the holidays in particular. Overall, I am pleased here, but want to keep going. 

I had what I thought were heart problems early in the year; they turned out to be gut-related. Managing my gut health is increasingly apparent as a big part of overall condition; I attribute better care here to some of the weight loss.

On workouts: I'm starting to feel my age; running now consistently messes up my knees for days afterwards. It is now 100% biking or walking for cardio workouts. Other big news: my son now does the bulk of the mowing. Hooray!

Overall, I completed 285 workouts, which is satisfactory. Most workouts were gym, bike rides, and yardwork. Including the past few years' totals for reference:

2022: 38 runs for 91 miles, 113 gym workouts, 68 bike rides for 1061 miles, 7 hikes for 30 miles, 43 mow/yardwork, 5 misc.

2023: 22 runs for 54 miles, 182 gym workouts, 58 bike rides for 623 miles, 15 hikes/walks for 55 miles, 21 mow/yardwork, 113 hours spent working on the basement.

2024: 12 runs for 25 miles, 169 gym workouts, 82 bike rides for 1119 miles, 9 mow/yardwork, 13 'other' (hikes, etc.)

Reading
My goals here:

- Read 50 books.
- Continue chipping away at my American Reading List.
- Revisit King Arthur.
- Find good books on the science/study of humor.

No problem here; I read 60 books, and kept my 'owned but unread' pile at a pleasant number. My post here caps this year's book recommendations. I enjoyed revisiting King Arthur, and made minor progress on my American Reading list. I did not make any progress on humor studies. (But I laughed a lot, if that counts.) Overall, I'm satisfied.

Stuff

My goal here:

- Minimize everything in the home.
- Buy less/budget better.

This went pretty well until July. My boys got into collecting sports cards, and I was caught up in the nostalgia of that; I spent too much in the latter half of the year on my hobbies. Need to reign that in.

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Conclusion
Looking across the categories above, it was a pretty good year. The main thing that stands out as needing improvement are focusing areas of service, nutrition, and personal spending, but more on those tomorrow. Here's to a better 2025. "Never stop starting."

Thus Concludes 2024

Another reading year "in the books." This post recaps the year and presents what I consider the best of the bunch.

I read 60 books this year, totaling 15,271 pages—about 42 pages a day. My average rating was 90.6/100.

Of the 60 books, 0 were audiobooks, 0 were eBooks, and 4 were borrowed from the library or friends. By genre, I read 9 fantasy books, 17 on religion, 11 graphic novels, 5 literature, 12 Arthurian, and a smattering of others.

I chipped away at my 200-book American Reading List (presented in three parts: here, here, here) and read 4 titles on those lists. I revisited Arthurian works, as I intended this year. I looked at a lot of theology books to prepare for a Sunday school class I taught. And I kept my 'owned but unread' pile to a reasonable size.

Here are my top ten reads from this year:

Daniel Nayeri: Everything Sad is Untrue

Marilynne Robinson: Gilead

Michael Kruger: Canon Revisited

John Frame: The Doctrine of the Word of God

Peter Brown: The Wild Robot

Elissa Weichbrodt: Redeeming Vision

F.F. Bruce: The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?

Jason Reynolds: Long Way Down

Howard Pyle: The Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur

C.S. Lewis: The Reading Life

On the whole, this was a good reading year. May 2025 bring further works of excellence. Happy reading!

DC Deck-Building Game (expansions and variants)

Last year, I reviewed the DC Deck-Building Game. That fun experience has produced many expansions and variants over the past few years; this post looks at a few of them.

At present, there are seven 'core' or stand-alone sets, meaning boxes that are the same basic game and include everything you need to play:

- DC Deck-Building Game

- DC Deck-Building Game: Heroes Unite

- DC Deck-Building Game: Forever Evil

- DC Deck-Building Game: Teen Titans

- DC Deck-Building Game: Injustice

- DC Deck-Building Game: Dark Nights: Metal

- DC Deck-Building Game: Justice League Dark

Any of them are great starting points for the game itself, though the first/original release is probably the most basic and best place to begin.

There are a series of Rivals (1v1) and Confrontations (2v2) releases. These take away the common nemesis stack and instead you attack your opponent's main hero (or villain) to win the game.

- DC Deck-Building Game: Rivals—The Flash vs. Reverse-Flash

- DC Deck-Building Game: Rivals—Batman vs. The Joker

- DC Deck-Building Game: Rivals—Green Lantern vs. Sinestro

- DC Deck-Building Game: Rivals—Shazam! vs. Black Adam

- DC Deck-Building Game: Confrontations

Another variant is Rebirth, where you have linked campaigns and characters can move around a 'board' (so position matters).

- DC Deck-Building Game: Rebirth

Finally, there are plenty of expansions. The main categories are crossover, crisis, and expansion packs. These mini-releases must be combined with a stand-alone game. Some of the crisis packs have stated ties to specific stand-alone releases. The crossover and crisis packs can be sold separately or bundled into 'collections' of two or three sets, making for many (confusing) options. I'll try to keep them separate below. I omit promo cards, and I list a few sets coming out in 2025.

- Crisis Pack 1 (intended for the original release)

- Crisis Pack 2 (intended for Heroes Unite)

- Crisis Pack 3 (intended for Forever Evil)

- Crisis Pack 4 (intended for Teen Titans)

- Crisis Pack 5 (intended for Dark Nights) (2025)

- Crossover Pack 1: Justice Society of America

- Crossover Pack 2: Arrow

- Crossover Pack 3: Legion of Superheroes

- Crossover Pack 4: Watchmen

- Crossover Pack 5: The Rogues (intended for Forever Evil)

- Crossover Pack 6: Birds of Prey (intended for Teen Titans)

- Crossover Pack 7: New Gods

- Crossover Pack 8: Batman Ninja

- Crossover Pack 9: DC Bombshells

- Crossover Pack 10: Flashpoint

- Crossover Pack 11: Dark Knights Rising (2025) (intended for Dark Nights)

- Crossover Pack 12: Hush (2025)

- Expansion Pack: Legion of Doom 

- Expansion Pack: Justice Leage Dark

- Expansion Pack: Super-friends (2025)

At this point, we own many of these versions (this game is a favorite of ours). While I won't go into every release above, at a high level, I say the following about them:

- the designers did a good job incorporating unique elements/rules (or focus areas) into each release. One sign of a good game is the ability to alter (or add) a few rules for a completely different experience; they do that well here.

- while it is possible to mix and match releases, doing so can lead to and overwhelmingly large card pool and/or clunky interactions between sets that don't pair well. Ultimately, this lengthens game times.

- as the titles may imply, some of these releases are quite dark. If you are considering this for children, stick to the original release and do your research on specific sets before purchasing.