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Cory Doctorow at 12:05 pm • • 
Etsy seller sheepcreeknc makes major deluxe-o custom Star Wars felted mobiles to order. At $380, they're not cheap, but if you owe someone a major baby gift, this might be just the thing.
The pictured mobile is a piece I recently made as a custom order. It features a Naboo Starfighter, Tie Fighter, X-Wing, Millenium Falcon, Star Destroyer, Republic Attack Gunship, 8 orange and white planets and 1 Death Star.
This listing is for a Star Wars mobile with the same basic structure as the mobile pictured (choose up to 6 Star Wars figures or ships and 9 planets/balls). For additional figures/ships/planets please contact me for a price quote.
STAR WARS 6 Ships Baby Mobile, Customizable Star Wars Mobile, Made to Order (via Neatorama)
Cory Doctorow at 6:10 pm • •
Etsy seller Rockets and Rainbows makes clever jewelry out of Star Wars and My Little Pony toys, including the Snow Speeder ring shown here. But you can't buy that one, because I just bought it as a surprise for my wife. Don't tell her, OK?
Cory Doctorow at 12:05 pm • •
The "Gold Metal Man Dress" by Etsy seller GeekyU1 is a pretty good stab at a C3PO frock. Made to order for $200.
Cory Doctorow at 4:31 pm • •
Todd Blatt and the fun-loving weirdos at the Baltimore Node hackerspace froze a Tickle-Me-Elmo in carbonite because of (awesome) reasons:
I was at my hackerspace one evening and we got to talking about crazy ideas, like normal. We have a full size Han Solo in Carbonite at the space, and someone mentioned that it'd be funny to encase old toys in a smaller carbonite box. So I did. I used the ShopBot CNC router at the MIT FablLab at CCBC in Catonsville, MD to cut the box, an arduino to copy code to an attiny85 to run the randomization script for the LED lights, and my MakerBot to 3d print the side panels I'd previously designed for a different project. The side panels are posted here on Thingiverse and I just drilled out holes for the lights.
Tickle-Me-Elmo in Carbonite (Thanks, Todd)
Cory Doctorow at 7:34 am • •
A Long Time Ago, Gib Van Ert's memoir about growing up with Star Wars became news last Christmas, when it disappeared from Amazon following a bogus trademark question. It's been back for months now, and has been in my to-read pile for much longer, and I've finally had the pure pleasure of reading it.
A Long Time Ago is a thoughtful, funny, and beautifully written story of the role that Star Wars played in Van Ert's life, shaping his destiny as he was raised by a USMC-deserting draft dodger and a runaway Texas beauty queen in small town British Colombia. Like me, Van Ert saw the first movie as a small boy, and thereafter principally experienced it through toys, records and merchandising tie-ins. His critiques of the Kenner action figures are both scathingly hilarious and bang on, and that's pretty much a microcosm for the whole book.
By Van Ert's own admission, he's not the biggest Star Wars fan that ever lived. But Star Wars was a gateway into other nerdy pastimes -- comic collecting, Atari home systems, coin-op video games, Dungeons and Dragons -- and he does an excellent job of tracing the curious ways that the specific nerdiness of his (and my generation) shaped his intellectual and personal pursuits.
He explains how he fell away from Star Wars fandom after the third movie, forgot about it until the "special editions," and experienced his first rumblings of anxiety about the destiny of his nearly forgotten but warmly remembered passion. He nails the prequels -- fish in a barrel, but still -- and then ties it all into a story of personal development that's sweet, hopeful and wistful.
It's a short book and a quick read, and it rewards the reader with an echo of the excitement, disappointment, anger, delight, and, ultimately, love, that Van Ert feels for the franchise.
Cory Doctorow at 12:22 pm • •
Back in 2005, High Admiral Enchurito posted this great shoop to the Rebelscum forum depicting a Millennium Falcon toilet lid and a lightsaber plunger-handle. The fact that 7 years have gone by without this becoming reality is a sad comment on the state of our society.
Master replicas Sent ME the new falcon prototype! (via Neatorama)
Cory Doctorow at 5:53 pm • •
Avi Solomon popped this patent-drawing for a hypothetical X-Wing fighter patent into the Boing Boing Flickr pool.
Rob Beschizza at 6:45 am • •
Virginia Postrel reports finding this ad in a 1974 issue of Vogue, three years before George Lucas's Star Wars was first released to theaters. Inspiration ... or common descent from a shared ancestor? [Dynamist]
Xeni Jardin at 3:07 pm • •
My 17yo niece Katie Graef cruised the halls of the 2013 Surf Expo in Florida this week, and spotted two particularly Boing-y items: Above and below, boards shaped by Ricky Carroll and airbrushed by Josh DelRocco, of rickycarrollsurfboards.com. R2D2 and The Walking Dead. Oh, and Katie also spotted a bulldog on a skateboard.
Cory Doctorow at 4:34 pm • •
Marlene sez, "I have knit my son a tres chic R2D2 hat. It is based on a pattern I found on the Ravelry website by Carissa Browning. I'm very pleased with how it has turned out."
Cory Doctorow at 2:48 pm • •
Tauntr's "Star Wars Taxidermy" is inspired photoshoppery, but it'd be even better as a series of physical installations. I would hang these guys in my office in a SECOND.
Star Wars Taxidermy (via Neatorama)
David Pescovitz at 12:23 pm • •
Andrew DeGraff created a series of excellent story maps for the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films. Above, "Paths of Hope." The work is currently hanging at Gallery1988: Melrose in Los Angeles and viewable online and available for purchase (originals and limited prints). "Gallery1988: Andrew DeGraff & Bennett Slater"
