Happy New Year 2021

One last incendiary image for the year, badly drawn on an absorbent paper product.

Our most inflammatory napkin was the pairing of Trump and the Star Wars prequels buffoon, Jar Jar Binks, back in the pre-end times of January 2016.  At the time, I wrote something about how my sons, despite knowing little about politics at the time, had an irrational hatred of Donald Trump, which was possibly only exceeded by their irrational hatred of Jar Jar. 

We had just watched “The Revenge of the Sith,” so I was thinking about the fanboy theory that George Lucas had originally intended for Jar Jar to be revealed at the end of the saga to be the top Sith Lord, the ultimate bad guy. My title for the post was “Could Idiocy Mask an Evil Master Plan?”

There’s definitely been enough idiocy and genuine evil to go around this year, (and the four years that preceded it) but I don’t think the two have been conspiring in quite the way I was suggesting back in 2016. 

As I mentioned, it was definitely our most vehemently protested napkin post. Unsurprisingly, no one spoke up to support Jar Jar. I had not considered that we had many followers who would be so offended by this pairing. One irritated commenter memorably suggested that I needed to draw Barack Obama with Satan to even the score.  

Poor Jar Jar. At least he presumably lives long ago in a galaxy far, far away.....

Here’s to hoping that 2021 will not be so frequently described as a container of burning trash.

Babies Groot and Yoda Celebrate 2020

Happy New Year:

One last Baby Yoda, with his predecessor, Baby Groot.

Not my best effort, but look at those cool glasses! It’s a good year for New Year’s eyewear.

Here’s to better drawing in 2020.

Happy New Year Porg with Ewok Skull

Happy New Year from Ahch-To:

Who is the most popular Star Wars charismatic microfauna now?

I feel pretty much the same way about the Porgs from “The Last Jedi” as I did about the Ewoks.

The Ewoks appeared to be dangerous predators as well as insipid furry eyesores. (They were planning to eat Harrison Ford, remember?) 

It is amusing to imagine that the Porgs might also be threatening. 

No, I don’t dislike Ewoks that much.

I just wanted an opportunity to draw a skull.

New Years Party with Star Wars and Fallout 4

New Year's Eve: an opportunity to reflect on what has been of real importance this year.

I am not proud to say that if you asked our sons today what they value most, they would tell you respectively, Fallout 4 and Star Wars: The Clone Wars. 

Due to what now looks like a lapse in judgement on my part, the older child has been hard at work on the latest iteration of Fallout since Hanukkah.  For our younger son, the recent frenzy around the release of the new Star Wars movie, "The Force Awakens" has oddly translated into a fixation on the earlier Cartoon Network animated series, now inexpensively, but perhaps unfortunately, available in its 6 season entirety on Netflix.

Therefore, as a memento of our obsessions of 2015, we have a napkin image of some of these characters at a New Year's Eve party: From left to right: Anakin Skywalker, predecessor to the latest Star Wars baddie, Kylo Ren, "Dogmeat" the faithful German Shepherd sidekick in Fallout 4, a Supermutant from the game, and Star Wars' Boba Fett.

Looking at this napkin earlier today, my younger son told me that I had "ruined it!" by putting a party hat on Anakin, because, "everyone knows he looks terrible in a hat."

I think there are more significant problems here than Anakin's head being covered.

Stitch, Leroy and Angel Drop the New Year's Ball

Happy New Year from some moderately obscure Disney characters:

We had a pretty low-key New Years eve around here. We acknowledged midnight in Katmandu (10 hours and 45 minutes ahead of New York) because that's where the father of the napkin recipients happened to be at the time. We tried calling him while buying lunch in a convenience store in midtown Manhattan. Unfortunately, he was already asleep, so he missed the opportunity to participate in the kids' lengthy debate of whether 7up or Sprite was superior.

Of course the boys were not awake at midnight New York time either. I unilaterally decided that we would have our official midnight celebration on Ittorqqortoormiit Greenland time. That was the only major city offered up by the iPhone world clock that was a convenient 4 hours ahead. The kids were not entirely convinced by my time logic, but at 8 pm we sipped some Champagne (ok, I admit it was really cheap sparkling wine and not authentic champagne) and wished each other happy new year.

Our younger son spent the rest of the evening arranging his newly acquired Stitch plush with various assortments of toy weapons. He insisted that I post a photo of every arrangement here on the blog. As there were something in excess of ten, I am hoping that I will get away with just the highlights pictured below. 

Due to this burgeoning Stitch obsession, I've become more informed about the franchise than I could ever have dreamed.  Yes, I was previously aware of the first movie, "Lilo and Stitch" from 2002, and had even seen snippets of "Lilo and Stitch: the TV series."  But I was blissfully unaware that there were three additional movies, over 65 episodes of the American TV show, and 86 further episodes of a Japanese version of the show that ran until 2012.  From my perspective, the most memorable thing about the franchise is that Ving Rhames voices a character that looks pretty much exactly like Ving Rhames, but is a social worker named "Cobra Bubbles."  Unfortunately, I do not know if he appears in the anime version.

Despite all my recent Stitch related research, I have not seen the spin off characters pictured on today's napkin in action.  (Leroy is the evil doppelganger, and Angel is, well, the "girlfriend.")

And while I was awake at the time, I also did not watch the Times Square ball drop last night. 
Thus, my apologies for the inaccuracies in both my rendition of the Disney aliens and the crystal ball colors.