Category: club jade

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JadeCon 2009 – Day One on the books

Greetings from downtown Indianapolis, home of JadeCon and, oh yeah, a little gathering called GenCon.

This is our annual gathering of Jaders, so please forgive the lack of real world news as we enjoy each others’ company. And if there are any entries that don’t make sense to you, they do to us. (Or, at least, they did when we posted them under the influence of a Young Obi-Wan.)

Yesterday was the arrival of most of the rest of the group. As usual, there were travel delays and bleary eyes, but much happiness at seeing each other again.

Many of us headed to the gaming tables and did well. Others shopped their wallets out in the dealer’s room. Still others of us headed to the Children’s Museum to see the King Tut exhibit. They also had a small Clone Wars exhibit with macquets and drawings. We got to see George’s infamous OK stamp, as well as the slightly less infamous “Plo kool” stamp of Dave Filoni. Of more excitement to most of us were the real-life costumes for Anakin, Mace, and Padme. Thankfully no small children were injured in the perusal of this exhibit.

Last night was Games Night. A lot of bursts of laughter. A few deep discussions. Then retirement to the suite for hang time.

The suite has this great clear glass ceiling, but this spiral staircase in the middle is destined to become the source of the first JadeCon injury, I’m sure.

Today begins the seminar schedule and, shocker, another party. Life is good.

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Mickey Rocks! Congrats to Club Jade SDCC Masquerade winners

They had a little help from some friends, but we are thrilled for the Club Jaders who helped create and present ‘Bring it On: Rock the Mouse;’ winner of Best Presentation at Comic-Con Masquerade 2009.

Congratulations to Caitlin Shindler (choreographer and costumer extraordinaire).  Other Club Jade participants included Rogue Shindler, Mike Chiesi and Stephanie Chiesi.   Um. You rock?

Io9 has a nice gallery up featuring the cast.

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Meta report: CJ blog on Twitter and Facebook

clubjade@twitter.comSo, the Twitter is pretty smoking, in that there are 300+ postings in the space of about a month and a half. And while most of the stuff over there does make it over here eventually as promised, not all of it does. Consider that a bonus for Twitter users. I am looking into a way to get it on the sidebar of the blog here (it takes a bit of research: there are about a million plugins to do it) but nothing annoyingly Loudtwitter-esque, I promise.

And since so many of you are on Facebook, well, there’s something for you, too: The Networked Blogs app, which lets you ID yourself as a reader of Club Jade, or any other blog you might fancy. Livejournalers, which came #2 in the poll, have long had to friend. All the LJ feeds have been a bit sluggish lately, but they get the job done.

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2008 in review: A lot of Ts

Jade hypocrisy!

StarWars.com has their Best of 2008 up. Of course there’s the obligatory geeking out over the obligatory Big Events like The Force Unleashed and The Clone Wars. All the Expanded Universe stuff is together for easy access (Plus Frames, because it is a book, sort of, so where else can it go?) On the fandom end, Rusty Miller gets a nice chunk and DIYers get a highlight.

As for Club Jade, this was a pretty good year. We had our first JadeCon since 2006 and it was fabulous!

And this was a very good year for the blog. We’ve been doing this long enough that we’ve hit our stride. Big thanks as ever go out to Paula, for her fantastic Gate Geek posts and boundless enthusiasm. JawaJames did a great job on the Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull coverage. Eliz hit it out of the park with her posts and photos covering JadeCon’s Project Runway. Additional thanks to Yav, SirRogue, SithSpit, HollywdLiz, SueD, NanLuz, Blu, and Hlynn!

And also? Our readers. There are a lot more of you this year (hits have doubled!) and a lot more of you commenting. I continue to be amazed by you guys! Thanks also go out to everyone who linked us – StarWars.com, TheForce.net, Wookieepedia, EU Cantina, Jedi News and everyone else!

And just for the hell of it, under the cut are out top ten posts of 2008… Continue reading “2008 in review: A lot of Ts”

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Review: The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia

The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia 2.0After going through practically every holiday since 1999 with some sort of “coffee table book” from the Star Wars franchise, you would think that I’d be mentally prepared for the weight associated with it.  Well, I was fooled again with the latest edition of The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia.  I nearly dropped the blasted thing (all 12 pounds of it — I weighed it) when I tried to pick it up.

Still, this baby’s beautiful! Three hardcover volumes in a shell.  (Which is making it resemble, more and more The Encyclopedia Brittanica.)  That beautiful Empire red and black coloring.  Images subtly glowing out.  Each hardcover has its own different cover design. Each book has its own quote for the dedication page.  A lot of fun! Continue reading “Review: The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia“

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Tartakovsky – How to make friends and influence people

Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of the Clone Wars cartoon (not that one, the first one), spoke at Rhode Island School of Design this past weekend.

Club Jader (and some-day-Pulitzer Prize winner), Caroline Sedano, attended and wrote up this great summary of the event for The Brown Daily Herald.

Club Jade wishes to note that we aren’t the least bit biased about the shining examples of Star Wars reporting done by its members.

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Well, I’m bored. Let’s mock the search referrals!

The news is almost always slow during the holidays; even fandom slows down, as schools and workplaces take breaks and people just find things to do offline. Alas! What’s a bored blogger to do?

Star wars themed strip clubsIn this case, I went to the referrer logs. The sad fact is, all bloggers are obsessed with referral logs: They tell us how many people are looking, what they’re looking at, and how they got here. It’s that last part that’s most fascinating: Sites linking to us, what search results brought them here. In the last week, 20% have come here directly (bookmarks and the like,) 30% from links and a whooping 50% from search engines. Now, I realize this is all pretty boring stuff, but you have to understand: There’s some seriously funny stuff in that 50%. Sure, not in the terms with the biggest numbers (‘robot chicken star wars 2’, ‘club jade’, and ‘fate of the jedi,’ in case you were wondering) but in the little ones. Witness, the most hilarious search engine referrals of November:

  • 80 people searched for fandom trash (thanks, tagline!)
  • 69 people searched for doctor porn. (With an additional 75 specifically looking for doctor who porn. Costume porn also does pretty well with 22 hits. In short, porn porn porn.

The real fun starts when you get into the smaller numbers: That’s where all the most truly bizarre searches are. Get the crème de la crap under the cut. Continue reading “Well, I’m bored. Let’s mock the search referrals!”

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Project Runway: Final Challenge!

Project Runway: Challenge 3

Okay, okay- it’s been a week and I know everyone (who wasn’t at JadeCon) is just dying to know who won Club Jade’s Project Runway!

The third challenge involved a mystery- the teams drew a planet to which their boyz were assigned a mission. The additional challenge was that the audience had to be able to guess what planet the boy was heading for.

The teams were then given a pile of fabric to choose from. The chaos reminded me of the footage shown for bridal gown sales. A few minutes later the teams had their fabrics (or in case of Team Bitca, their minimal materials) and the race was on.

Saturday night was our final runway show. A special thanks to Caitlin as our Heidi for wonderful hosting during all the events! The teams worked hard throughout the day to dress their boyz for the mission. The judges were amazed yet again with the level of determination and dedication to the competition!

I now proudly present the results for Project Runway: Challenge 3!

  • Team My Master Made Me Do It won Best Movie Recreation for their Dagobah entry. There is a R2-D2 in Luke’s backpack recovered from the piñata the picnic. For someone who was forced into participating, Steph did a wonderful job!
  • Team Have Gunn Will Travail won Most Innovative Use of Materials for their Tatooine entry. Yes, that is Yoda in a Slave Leia outfit. The bra was made from foil from the wine tasting earlier in the day.
  • Team Sprockets won Best Workmanship for their Hoth entry! The level of detail was incredible and the judges were very impressed by the cloak. While the judges questioned the use of chaps on the frozen planet of Hoth, Team Sprockets explained that Mace was hot enough on his own. Point taken.
  • Team Quilt won for Best Use of Plaid and a Special Award in Prop Construction for their Kamino entry! Judges were impressed with the Burberry-look raingear and especially the creation of the umbrella. Maybe if Obi-Wan had been so stylish and prepared the first time he met with Jango…
  • Team Bitca won the Jessa’s Go-Go Dancer or the Victoria’s Not-So-Secret Award for their Coruscant entry. The judges appreciated their steadfastness to their minimalist aesthetic but did question if this design would cause additional problems for the mission. Interestingly, the audience guessed the correct planet at first sight. What does this say for the center of government in the GFFA?

Our final two teams tied for the win of Project Runway Challenge Three:

  • Team We Did What? tied with their entry for a mission to the Wookiee planet of Kashyyyk. The judges were impressed by the detail, the fringing, the bandolier, the layers, and how well it would work on Kashyyyk.
  • Team Not Quitting Our Day Jobs also tied with their entry for a mission to Mustafar. The judges were impressed with their innovative use of fleece rubber ducky material to simulate flames, including the flame logo on the reverse side of the jacket. This Obi-Wan wouldn’t need the advantage of higher ground if he was wearing this exciting outfit!

The overall winner of Project Runway was…. Everyone!

Yes, the judges could not come to a decision as to which team should be declared the overall winner as they were just so impressed by all of the entries. Call it what you want, but this means they can all be included in a calendar, to be published in time for 2009.

Thank you to all the teams for participating and really making this such a great event. We look forward to the next season of Club Jade Project Runway!

[Editor’s Note: Come back late Monday for a poll on which CJPR team is your favorite!]