'Oregon Trail' Gen X Nerd

  Image from https://tenor.com/view/reylo-ben-solo-kylo-ren-the-rise-of-skywalker-tros-ben-solo-gif-11375326834185082205 Ben Solo Joy: A Star Wars Experience by Jen Davies, nerd Aug 5, 2026 I feel like we get Ben Solo for about 5 minutes in SW Episode 9: The Rise of Skywalker - apparently we had about 8-10 minutes depending on where you think Kylo Ren goes away, but it wasn't enough. Here is a collection of most of those too-few minutes in case you're not familiar with them (links below). If you ARE familiar with Episodes 7, 8 and 9 you might choose to rewatch these things, and I'd like to encourage you to pay attention to two things that I will talk about more below: a) the incredible shift in body language from actor Adam Driver, who plays the character(s), and b) the musical themes (which return in modified form from earlier in the films). Start where Ben throws Kylo Ren away:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yENbL9YwEg4 Arriving on Exegol Pt 1: https://youtu.be/4zCuOf...

Image from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076740/ Thief, Sorcerer, and being fated to psychological work (not a D&D post) by Jen Davies, nerd July 29, 2026 Like a lot of young people, my early taste in films was influenced (and managed) by my parents, and I'm grateful that I was subjected to a minimum amount of infantalizing TV and film due to the place and time that I grew up. As a result I saw a great many high quality films that young people might not otherwise get to see, just because they were what was available. There were many FEWER choices in the 1980s and 90s. Two films that were highly impactful on me were two films you might not be familiar with, because they did not become any of the masterpieces by the filmmakers. One is Sorcerer, starting Roy Scheider and directed by William Friedkin (most famous for The French Connection), based on the French novel The Wages of Fear. The other is Thief, starting James Caan and written and directed by Michael Mann (prob...

On the value of longstanding traditions by Jen Davies, nerd July 22, 2026 This month my spouse and I are making our annual pilgrimmage to Stratford, Ontario for the theatre festival. It was our honeymoon spot - all we could afford was a long weekend. We chose it because I had such fond memories of going in high school, and because he and I both appreciate literature, especially Shakespeare. To the best of my memory we have done it every year, except of course during COVID but we bought access to the online service launched by the Festival at the time so it feels like we attended, and we went to their open air tent production as soon as that was permitted the next year.  I'm not sentimental. If it were not for other people enjoying traditions, I would probably only recognize birthdays and holidays that have special memories for me like Christmas. I don't like to go to the same place when I travel. I like a weekly routine but it's fine if I don't end up sticking to one, s...

Image from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Love_vs._Hate.jpg Note what's wrong, appreciate what's good (CW: some strong language) by Jen Davies, nerd July 15, 2026 In an era when people earn an income on social media via watches and click-throughs (and ads), I find myself being choosy about what content I engage with because there are lots of such people who aren't interested in truth. They don't feel the need to fairly represent whatever thing they're talking about. Their headlines are typically  clickbait (surprising or controversial) because all they want is to get paid by having you look at their content. And I can tell from the trends in the bylines for all that click-so-I-get-paid content that negative things get more clicks: shitposting, criticism, and tearing down must get views, even though I myself choose not to engage with it. It actually isn't hard to write that stuff either, I don't think, just put your blinders on and get mad, so I rese...

  The soundtrack in the back of my head by Jen Davies, nerd July 8, 2026 Today's blog has a soundtrack! It isn't necessary though. https://youtu.be/cD7MuSTu7ss Ludovico Einaudi: Fox Tracks (Day 3) I have only experienced life in two ways: long periods of time when music is essential to existing day to day, and long periods when my head is too full of ideas to accommodate much music in there. I'm currently in a strange period when I seem to be able to handle both: I'm not as quick to push the ideas out into the world, but I'm still able to do it and make space for music. In fact, with music playing I find it a little easier to sit at my desk (a constant problem: making myself sit down and DO it, so you can imagine how difficult writing my doctoral thesis was). My relationship with music began early, because both my parents loved it and played it pretty much daily. I also grew up in the 1980s and had the benefits of children's television with incredible music, es...

Image from https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/61719320 Making friends as an adult: "THAT one" by Jen Davies, nerd July 1, 2026 Making friends as an adult is a lot harder than making friends as a child. As a child in school, there are typically two dozen kids in a class (and more in the overall school) who might be candidates, and you spend 6 or 7 hours every day with them, forced to interact in class and at recess and on the bus. Kids in the neighbourhood you live in are all often versed in the same set of 5 or 10 games (jump rope, Tag, or Minecraft), so they're all candidates for friendship too. As an adult, you never know what someone is "into" - the range gets a lot broader as we get older and we have different life experiences and develop different interests. We get pickier and more set in our ways, too (that's a different topic for another blog post). Our pool of candidates often gets smaller as well: we aren't surrounded by two-dozen or mo...