I finally updated clonecommandos.net today. Not a whole lot of new stuff - it always happens that I get a headache when I've set aside some time to work on the site, and don't feel like doing anything - but I added some new info, a new wallpaper, and a minimalist Mando'a page.

Speaking of Mando'a, this makes me very happy and very geeky-feeling, though I now realise it's gonna take me a LONG time before I can speak or understand spoken Mando'a. That's never my strength with languages. I mean, I can write some stuff in Mando'a now (I wrote three original sentences all by myself, and they actually had meaning to my state of mind at the time... see later in the entry), but when I read, I don't "hear" the words in my head. So actually pronouncing them, or understanding them when someone else says them, is like a completely separate skill. Sure, I can sing in Mando'a, but that's almost me just saying random syllables that I've memorised, and I don't get the feeling that I'm communicating when I sing along with the RepCom music. And, well, communication is what language is all about. So we'll have to see how it goes. But still, hearing spoken Mando'a is immensely cool! I don't have many experiences with languages so I can't say what Mando'a sounds like to me, but all I know is it's the best.

Oh, those three sentences I wrote recently? (Translations are approximate and I probably did something wrong, but oh well. I wrote these in my private diary, BTW, and used a couple of them as my MSN Messenger personal message. )
Ures ner burc'yase, ni solus. (Without my friends, I am alone.)
Tion'gar a'den'la ni? (Are you angry with me?)
Ven ni hibira atiniir. (I will learn to endure.)

You can probably tell I've had a slightly depressing week.

So... [to completely change topics]... I've been reading the New Essential Chronology (it's taking me a while because I'm reading three other books at the same time; I have a short attention span nowadays and get bored with one book easily) and I ran across the coolest part. Allow me to quote:
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A separate branch of Palpatine's agents, the Secret Order, consisted mostly of spies. Identified by their hooded cloaks and the Sith tattoos on their forearms, the members of the Secret Order skulked around the bridge of Star Destroyers, giving special assignments to those who had won the Emperor's favor.
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Yay, it's like in TIE Fighter!! The cool mystical "Secret Order" dudes who give you special missions! It's awesome that practical gameplay mechanics can be written into continuity so nicely like that. I love it!

Oh, and as I'm reading, it's always funny because I can usually recognise which parts are game plots. Games, while I love them, often end up with very cheesy plots (the cheesiest of which being Jedi Academy - lol, I still laugh about that with my brother, great game but funny plot), often involving superweapons, an inordinate use of planets seen in the Star Wars movies, many SW cliches, the dead coming back to life, duels between arch-enemies from the movies, and the like. So reading the game plots alongside stories from other sources in the New Essential Chronology can be somewhat amusing sometimes. Though I must say, the book does a VERY good job at tying everything together in a neutral way. Very good reading! And believe it or not, there is a LOT of stuff in this book that I didn't know about. Ok, so I just started reading the comics, but I've read the vast majority of the books and played most of the games, and even so I keep running across things I don't recognise. Very cool, though it makes me feel like my Star Wars knowledge is inadequate.

Speaking of game plots and continuity, I'm still peeved at the treatment of Order 66 in Battlefront II. There's been some debating about it in my previous entry, and I hope to write a big entry on Order 66 here... sometime.

Well, it's almost time for supper, so I'd better stop there. I can't remember if there was something else I wanted to write about... but I guess there's always another entry. If I don't write before then, Merry Christmas and happy holidays, everyone!