Hehe Darth Kimball

I was cleaning out my room when I ran across a printout from Corona Coming Attractions. The date was May 23rd 2000. Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones had no title announced and a few drips of information were starting to hit the net. A few of us over at TheForce.net's forum, the Jedi Council, JCers for short, thought it would be funny to pull a fast one on AintItCoolNews, Corona ComingAttractions (now Cinescape), etc.

We wanted something that sounded unbelieveable, but at the sametime wouldn't be immediately dismissed. To this date, there are 529 google hits on "Darth Kimball". Chyren was a JCer that was part of heading up the effort. I pledged to post on Corona Coming Attractions, did so and forgot about it. A week later, I checked the thread we were posting in and it got huge.


This is what Corona printed:

---------------------------------------------------------

May 23, 2000... Okay, put this in the pocket you reserve for wild, freaked out, unsubstantiated rumors. We've received numerous e-mails from a variety of sources stating that the next Sith badass will be named...Darth Kimball. Yeah, I know, we had the same reaction here. One scooper by the name of Joey told us that Kimball was named for a villain in a Japanese fable. And one anonymous scooper laid everything out like this. If he's right, then you're looking at major SPOILER material. If he's wrong, then you can look back on this and be amused. But for right now, grab your salt like he asks and look at this if you dare:

"I really can't tell you how I came about this info without revealing my friends who gave it to me, so you'll just have to take it with a grain of salt, unless you can confirm it yourselves. The name of the next apprentice in Episode 2 and 3 (yes, he will appear in BOTH films) is definitely Darth Kimball. What significance the name has I wasn't told, but designers are working on two drastic looks for this Sith Apprentice. By Episode 3, he will appear more 'monstrous'. This will be due to the effects of his battle with Yoda(!) at the end of Episode 2. He will survive and return in Episode 3 - and this where my sources might have been just speculating - and he will be the one to cause Anakin's injuries that lead to his wearing the suit. This is done out of resentment at being replaced by Anakin as Palpatine's apprentice. Word has it that Kimball strikes down Anakin (and into some kind of pit - lava?) in front of Obi-Wan as he is trying to convince Anakin to renounce the Dark Side. This causes Obi-Wan's guilt of not being to save Anakin, from himself or from Darth Kimball.

"The parts about Episode 3 are speculation on the part of my sources, although they say they have heard Lucas' outlines for 3 as well as 2. But Darth Kimball will be the name of the next apprentice. That much is true."

Now, a couple of thoughts spring to mind. First, we took Joey's notion that Kimball was based on a character from a Japanese fable and we started searching. Nothing. No hits. Granted, we're not exactly scholars in Japanese folklore, so we might not know where to look. But still, it gives one pause.

The other possible explanation for the name might be that it's a "Blue Harvest," i.e. a cover name for the true name of the new apprentice. At this point, we are without clue. Or it could be a rumor that somebody started to be cute and now it's got a bunch of people on board. But we'd be remiss if we didn't let you know that the rumor was out there. Now let's just get some more information, shall we? [Thanks to Joey and a few of his anonymous buddies.]

May 23, 2000...Later... Oh well, that's why we marked the thing as a rumor and asked you guys to help us out. A couple of scoopers were nice enough to come clean and point us to the forums on TheForce.net, where a conglomerate of fans decided to try and dupe various sites, apparently specifically targeting this one. Here's one posting from a "Jedi Knight" known as "dolphin":

"I will be contacting news and entertainment news agencies in the hopes of spreading the false rumor of a 'Darth kimball'. For those who don't know there IS NO Darth Kimball in Ep2 or 3 it is just an attempt at exposing the inaccuracies of the media. We need everyone to email news agencies and carry out the plan. Hopefully no one from those companies will frequent this site."

He then posted the URL to our scoop submission page and recommended us as a site that would bite. In that regard, "dolphin" was right.

While moderately amusing that Darth Kimball turned out to be bogus, and the touch that Joey gave with the Japanese fable bit was quite thoughtful, we'd like to point out that when we know things to be fact--we report them as such. When we're not sure, we tell you that as well. And when we're wrong, we come back and tell you that too. Like right now. Be warned that there were other stages to the disinformation campaign, as one user by the name of "Chyren" was supposedly working on a vidcap of the fake Sith apprentice. See for yourself here. [Thanks to manix27 and Anonymous for setting the record straight.]

--------------------------------------------------

What I thought was amazing is how accurate this crap was. The new sith apprentice was indeed in both movies, he did have a fight with Yoda, he did strike Anakin down, and in some ways was what start Anakin toward the darkside; decapitating Tyranus/Dooku was the first example of that in Episode III.

Anyway, it was a fun trip down memory lane even if the room isn't totally clean. It appears the legend of the mysterious Kimball still lurks the net. 529 hits on google as of this posting...more than six years later.

So if you run across a reference to Darth Kimball you now are in on the joke

--Joey

Photo of the week July 28th 2006

Photo of the week July 28th


This shot was from August of last year in Longboat Key, Florida. The footprints in the foreground are mostly mine as I tried to frame it the way I wanted. We go back to the beach in two weeks, and I will again switch to my whereisjoey blog.

--Joey

Mishmosh

I haven't been posting much lately, in fact, if it weren't for my weekly photo update I would have been silent for almost two weeks. I didn't even have a beer of the week! Mom stumbled on some Spaten Optimator deeply discounted and just trusted the "Brewed in Munich" tag.

I saw Superman Returns a couple weeks back, and it was plenty good. Definitely up there with the first two, but beating out number 3 and the "The Quest for Peace" (possibly the worst movie ever made) isn't saying much.

Speaking of movies, could the greatest TV show of all time be heading to the big screen? Arrested Development was axed last December despite efforts by its ridiculously loyal fanbase to see it live on outside of FOX. Will Arnett who played GOB said that if Mitch Hurwitz signed on they would give it a try. The good news is that I still have 3 episodes I have never seen! Going overseas prevented me from seeing the end. Europe postponed The Final Countdown. The third and final season hit stores August 29th. Despite being off the air it is ranked 11 on Amazon.com. How sweet is that?

With AD off the air, I can now say The Office is the best comedy on television. The show starts back in September but there are weekly webisodes for the impatient. Unfortunately the long form nature of the show doesn't compress well but they are better than nothing.

Democrats are again complaining about the amount of money energy companies are making. So you can bet they have some solutions right? We can look forward to Harry Reid and John Kerry shaking their finger at oil company executives and acting like the children/empty suits they are. In order to lower the price of gas you need to 1.) increase the supply of oil and 2.) lower the demand for it. The Mideast turmoil, maxed out refining capacity, insatiable demand from developing countries and speculation premium are also playing a part.

Free idea for either party. Encourage companies to allow employees to work from home one day a week (maybe Friday) and bada bing we lower our demand 14%.

Speaking of percentages, Neolibertarian.net has an interesting article on Swedish unemployment statistics. I bet that was the first time "interesting" was followed by those five words.

--Joey

Photo of the week July 21st 2006

This was taken in Rothenberg Odt toward the end of March. The town got a facelift, but it feels entirely fake, so if towns frozen in time is your thing, stop by, but consider Bruges in Beligium.

--Joey

Photo of the week (July 14th 2006)

Photo of the week July 14th 2006



This photo was taken in February just outside of the Vatican. At night, St. Peter's Basilica is majestic.

--Joey

Photo of the week (July 7th 2006)

Photo of the week July 7th 2006



The World Cup ends this weekend in Berlin which will disappoint tens of people in the US. Seriously, soccer stinks. Sports should not end in ties (at least not routinely) much less 0 - 0 ties. This photo was outside of Munich's Allianz Stadium which has hosted a few games and the opening ceremonies.

BTW, doesn't seem like the World Cup should be more often than every 4 years since it is "such a big thing"?

--Joey

Math Magic

The Guess The Number Your Thinking Of Gag

http://www.milaadesign.com/wizardy.html

The program asks you to pick a two digit number, you then add the digits
together subtract fro m the original number an d when you see a large screen full
of symbol you will find that it shows you your symbol.

The way this works is this...

Every 9th symbol is the same... why does this matter? Well, because we use base 10

Every two digit number (XY) can be written 10X + Y right?

Now subtract X+Y. This can be written, ```10X + Y - (X+Y) which equals 10X -X + Y - Y which of course is just 9X.

Tada!

--Joey

Beer of the week July 5th 2006

Redhook Sunrye

This is my first rye beer, so I can't compare it to anything other than to say this was good to have with some brats on the 4th of July. Beeradvocate gave it a "Not Recommended" rating but I disagree though I would like to try it on its own. Also, Beer Advocate is launching a monthly magazine which you can subscribe to for $20 until August.

The Tampa Tribune ran an article on the World Beer Cup, held at Four Green Fields (a local Irish pub). They took the 12 beers and 5 others that call themselves beer. There are a couple of things about this article which make me want to write Jeff Houck some hate mail. What beer represents the US? Budweiser.

You may think, "Well they picked the most popular beer of each country."

No, the odds were stacked against the US from the beginning. Worse yet, he missed a wonderful opportunity to expose readers who think beer is Budweiser to the wonderful world of American Craft Beer; I would pit our best against anyone's. The 2nd aggravation is that they are comparing styles that are all over the map. For non-beer drinkers, this would be like saying, which soda is the best? Coke, Pepsi, Sunkist, Sprite, Welch's Grape, Diet Rite, or Yoohoo.

"But Yoohoo isn't really beer..." ... exactly.

If American Beer is Budweiser, German beer should be Beck's, St Pauli Girl, or Lowenbrau not Franziskaner. Belgium should not have Chimay, but Stella. At least they are all Lagers (and light ones at that) and the losses would be definite instead of ridiculous.

Fortunately it looks like several people agree with me. In the poll on tbo portal, for which beer should have been chosen for the USA, among Bud, Miller, Coors, Michelob and Sam Adams... Sam Adams was leading 10:1 over Budwhizzer.

--Joey

Diet Coke and Mentos on the 4th of July

Enjoy!

--Joey