Oh, General Grievous, we grieve (ha!) for thee. You had such a great first appearance in the original Star Wars: Clone Wars cartoon, but then you were a cowardly joke in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. All of your much-improved appearances since then are almost a moot point, since most people only know of your hacking and wheezing in the film, don’t they?

For those of you who somehow don’t have a clue as to what I’m babbling about, let me give you a quick recap. General Grievous was created to be the new bad guy for the third Star Wars prequel, Revenge of the Sith. From what we saw in the film, he was a cyborg who controlled the droid armies, had a severe asthma problem, ran away from fights a lot, and ultimately met his demise at the hands of Obi-Wan Kenobi. (This follows the pattern established in the previous two films: introduce a badass new villain, then kill him off in spectacular fashion. Darth Maul and Jango Fett say hello.)

However, outside out of the film, Grievous’ character was much more developed, and thus much more interesting. As I stated earlier, his first appearance was actually in the original Clone Wars cartoon, which predated Revenge of the Sith by over a year. There, he beat the living shit out of a group of powerful Jedi, killed off most of them, and would’ve succeeded in executing the rest if not for the timely arrival of the clone army. A coward he most certainly was not.

Moving forward into the current animated series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Grievous has made a few appearances there, and he’s been just as tough as he was before. He brutally murdered a Jedi by pinning him to the wall and shooting him in the chest, and toyed with Ahsoka the way a cat would toy with its prey. The episode “Lair of Grievous” was especially interesting, as we’re shown a hidden fortress in which Grievous stores a lot of his spare parts along with a medical droid to repair him. (This explains slight differences in his armor across his various appearances.)

Grievous was also meant to bridge the gap between the prequel trilogy and the classic trilogy, as his droid/organic hybrid appearance was the precursor to another famous cyborg: Darth Vader. In fact, it’s been established that upgraded versions of the technology used in Grievous’ armor were integrated into Vader’s life support suit.

I’ll admit it: Grievous was definitely my favorite character from the prequel era, and he’s also one of my favorite characters across the entire saga. That’s why it’s so aggravating that his primary appearance in Revenge of the Sith, the one a majority of people are familiar with, is so lame. I don’t care if purists hate everything in the Expanded Universe; the stories found there, my friends, are what saves General Grievous from the crappy portrayal seen on film.

It’s apparently common knowledge that two of the nation’s largest bookstores, Borders and Barnes & Noble, are in financial trouble. While both stores are still functioning, it would be a dark day indeed if either of those two stores went out of business.

I buy almost all of my books from Borders, simply because they offer a better discount program than B&N. However, I’m not averse to shopping at B&N, especially since they sometimes carry items that Borders does not. But if one of those stores went out of business…then the other would have no longer have a reason to one-up the competition with great sales, discount programs, and so on. The exact same thing happened when Circuit City went under; they were in a running battle with Best Buy as far as sales were concerned, and I’ve noticed Best Buy’s discounts have waned since CC went the way of the dodo.

It would be even worse if both B&N and Borders went under. Then, what option is left to us? Amazon’s great, but not if you only want to buy one book. After shipping’s factored in, you’re going to end up paying more than MSRP! (Obviously, this doesn’t apply to coffee table books and the like where you can often use their “Free Super Saver Shipping” offer.) Sure, you could solve this issue by ordering multiple books, but you shouldn’t have to do that in the first place. When a new book comes out that I want to pick up, I don’t want to feel pressured into buying a few more along with it. Besides, you can only read one book at a time, at least until we’ve evolved an extra pair of eyes. Last but not least, if brick-and-mortar bookstores disappeared…what would be Amazon’s incentive to keep their prices low? It’s the CC/BB problem all over again.

Paying $10+ shipped for a measly paperback had better not become a reality in the near future. Not only that, the loss of physical stores means impulse book purchases will dry up, too. Nothing beats just nabbing a random book at the bookstore, taking it home, and reading it. Let’s hope Borders and B&N get back into the black, otherwise we’re all in trouble.

I’ve bitched before about book publishers printing some novels in trade paperback format in order to boost the price, but now it looks like even manga publishers are getting in on the action.

For example, I recently picked up TokyoPop’s Battlestar Galactica: Echoes of New Caprica. It’s yet another one of their OEL (original English language) manga anthologies, featuring stories from a variety of creators. However, unlike their other manga, for example, the BSG volume is physically larger…and the price is a few dollars higher! Adding insult to injury is the fact that the page count is actually lower than most of their other manga. So now you’re getting less content for a higher price! That’s incredibly irritating. (I should also note that their regular manga volumes have increased in price by a dollar, but that’s unfortunately the reality of the business world.)

Fortunately, I was able to use a 30% off coupon at my local bookstore when I purchased the book, but the point is that I shouldn’t have to. Comic book prices soared into the realm of the ridiculous a long time ago; it’s a shame that some manga publishers are now trying their damnedest to follow suit.

I’m all for using foul language, as this blog proves. However, I also understand that not every form of media is bettered by a generous portion of F-bombs. Sometimes, creators will often use made-up swear words to get their point across without running foul of some uptight moral brigades. Case and point is the recent Battlestar Galactica’s use (and resultant popularization) of the word “frak.” While it was obviously a parallel to the word “fuck,” the new word was never overused, thankfully, and made sense in the show’s universe without seeming cheesy; a very rare feat, indeed. (The original BSG series from the late 1970s also used the term, there spelled “frack,” but in conjunction with absolutely ridiculous euphemisms like “felgercarb,” thus throwing its efficiency out the window. Ugh.)

What gets to me, though, is when fake swearing is overused, and does sound cheesy. My two primary targets for this argument are the British sitcom Red Dwarf and the comic book series Star Wars: Legacy.

I’m not a fan of Red Dwarf at all; I’ve watched a few episodes (thanks to my roommate, who loves the series), but found it to be incredibly cheesy and painful to watch. Hey, that’s just my personal preference, so eat me. Anyway, one of my main complaints was the eye-rollingly bad fake cuss words the creators of the show came up with. Topping the list is “smeg.” The show’s characters used this term much like “frak,” but it was often overused, and to an exponentially ridiculous degree. Granted, the show was supposed to be a comedy to begin with, but that doesn’t mean you can’t swear (or at the very least, create fake swear words that don’t sound like toddler speech).

Star Wars: Legacy, which is actually very good, unfortunately falls prey to the same problem. The Star Wars universe has been peppered with alien slang and curses since its inception, which is fine. Legacy, however, takes things to new heights of ridiculousness by throwing the fake terms around every other page. Look, the characters are supposed to be speaking Basic (read by us as English, of course). So when they’re adding in dumb terms like “stoopa,” “kark,” and “e chu ta,” it just sounds silly. The worst part is that this runs contrary to the dark, serious tone the book is trying convey!

I’ve always been of the mind that if you want to say “fuck,” just say “fuck.” If you can’t, then don’t throw in a fake substitute; use a proper swear word, or don’t say anything at all.

Most people are aware of Twitter, a microblogging system that allows users to post short entries (or “tweets”) of 140 characters or less, similar to text messaging on a cellphone. I use the system myself, as does this blog (via Twitter Tools).

However, as Twitter grows in popularity (even celebrities use the damn thing now!), I’ve noticed that many users have completely missed the point of the system.

Twitter was designed for people to post short entries, hence the 140-character limit. That does not mean someone should spam their Twitter feed with a slew of consecutive entries over the course of a minute or two! If someone has that much to say all at once…that’s what a blog is for.

Spamming their Twitter feed pushes their followers’ list of tweets further down the page, as well, so aside from being counterproductive, it’s also rather rude. What makes them think they’re more important that anyone else? Keep it short, or get a blog. It’s that simple.