Five minutes before kick off in a galaxy far, far away.

Soccer, Lightsabers and Daft Punk.



Do you really need more incentive to watch the World Cup starting on Friday?

What up son?

I know. Two Star Wars posts in one week.

But the force is absolutely with this kid's little Lego recap:



I know more than a few people who are, as of seeing this, thoroughly jealous of this guy's little Jedi brick collection.

Yub nub, eee chop, yub nub.

It's Saturday night, and people tend go do things on Saturday nights, right?

No plans tonight, you say?

I hear ya man. Picking up power converters at Tosche Station just won't cut it tonight, will it?

Hey, how about some karaoke then?

Well sure, I can help you with that.

You better bone up on your yub nubs though...

Hit the accelerator!

Star Wars rebooted for the short-attention-span fanboy. I love it!



This is clearly a popcorn-worthy train-wreck in the making. I can't wait to see what they come up with.

The Empire Strikes Back

"In the 21st century, nations don't invade nations."

Planetary invasion, though, that's fair game.

Right, John McCain?

Return of the Jedi

On an giant screen in a packed auditorium, this could really rock:



Damn you, George Lucas, for roping me in AGAIN.

Using The Force at Home

Sadly, my Jedi powers will probably be limited to the bastardized Wii version, but the technology behind the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is truly cutting edge. Vanity Fair has a unique preview of the game and the programming genius behind it.


Most video games today are little more than animated Choose-Your-Own-Adventure novels. Moving to the left sends you to page 107, moving to the right to page 95. Each action has a programmed animation as a reaction.

If you ever played the old Dragon's Lair arcade game which relied on actual animated snippets glued together from a laser disc, you can see that while graphics have improved over the years, the basic skeleton of a video game has not changed much. The animation has grown more complex over the years, allowing for sophisticated three dimensional environments, but the core concept has remained the same.

LucasArts is now throwing that concept out the window, making a generational leap in creating virtual environments that react intuitively to each other. Using new state-of-the-artgaming engines, each action reacts virtually, within constraints set by the programmers.

When you play The Force Unleashed this summer, it will be the game itself reacting to your choices, instead of some prefabricated animation. This opens the door for complete virtual environments on a whole different level.

Racers use the force for amazing Mexican food

Three things I'm loving after this weekend...

1) The Amazing Race 12

The Amazing Race is finally back and it's still, by far, the best thing on TV today. While we may soon see a drought of comedies and dramas on TV, rest assured, we have plenty of globe-trotting fun ahead of us still!

Two episodes in, I'm generally liking this batch of bickering travelers. The first few eliminations got rid of deserving teams (the first for being out-jackassed by a real jackass, the second for just not keeping up).

I have no clue who will make it to the million dollar mat. There are plenty of strong teams running around right now trying to catch up to Phil Keoghan.

I'm just glad to be along for the ride. So far they've been to two of my favorite places in Europe, Ireland and the Netherlands. I can't wait to see where the camels come from next week!

Now if only they would hire someone to wipe off the cameras this season when it rains...

2) Centro Latin Kitchen & Refreshment Palace

We took a drive up to Boulder, CO today to wander around the Pearl Street Mall and enjoy a beautiful sunny day. A while back we'd read a review of Centro Latin Kitchen & Refreshment Palace in Westword, so we'd kept it in our back pocket for the next time we trekked in that direction.

The review was right. We only sampled their brunch and lunch offerings, but it's superb Mexican food, with their own twists. We started with and avocado salsa with fresh chips that was a perfect mix of soft avocados with a bit of mild tanginess. I had some garlic shrimp tacos which were absolutely perfect. They came with a Mexican coleslaw which I thought I would hate, and ended up devouring. Others had a chorizo torta, which looked a little heavy, but delicious, and an enormous seafood burrito with fried oysters, shrimp and other things I don't remember. It was like no burrito you have ever seen and it looked mouthwatering.

If you're up on the mall up in Boulder, make a point of checking Centro out.

It's fantastic fresh food, with clear Mexican flavors done in great unique ways.

3) Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga for the Wii

Lego Star Wars has been an ongoing relationship this year. It was love at first sight as we played through it. But the dark side crept in slowly, leading to some serious hate dealing with glitchy Game Cube memory cards and controllers.

In the words of Yoda, "Hate leads to suffering," so, not being gluttons for punishment we put the controllers down for a while, knowing a proper Wii version was on its way.

The wait is over, and the verdict is in: The dark side of the Game Cube is gone. Long live the Wii.

While this new version of the game is just a slightly tweaked combination of the two games that came before it, the Wii Remote and Nunchuk are a significant improvement. It is much more satisfying swashbuckling your way towards the Lego Death Star, than just thumbing it in.

It's not the most complicated game around. It's just plain, make-you-smile fun. The story elements have a wicked sense of humor and there's something sublime about using your light saber to smash Lego's to pieces. Watching C-3PO hop around when a leg pops off? That's just classic.

I hope Super Mario and his galaxy of friends are patient next week, because I think they may have to wait in line a bit while we knock out a Death Star or two.

May the force be with your symphony

In honor of those brilliant fiends at Lucasfilm who deviously came up with a clever way to play with Lego's (that we can't seem to will ourselves to stop playing lately), may I introduce, Maestro Darth Vader and the Imperial Symphony...