Since its release a little over 8 months ago, the PS5 has been a difficult console to find. Stores have been selling out within hours of receiving a shipment, and scalpers have been taking advantage to sell for exorbitant prices as demand has only increased. Slow supply has been part of the issue, but the PS5 has sold more than any other PlayStation based on the same amount of time. 

In general, I was content to wait as there were not many games at launch which I wanted--and I was working on my dissertation. Don't get me wrong, I still wanted one (especially to play the Spider-Man: Miles Morales game in its full glory), but I was willing to bide my time. However, with Horizon Forbidden West's upcoming release and the recent arrivals of Yuffie's short DLC to FF7 Remake and the new Ratchet and Clank: Rifts Apart--not to mention more time to play games--I've been increasingly eager to get one. 

Thus I was happily surprised when Janelle told me that I had to get to the store right away. She had arrived with some extra time at the beginning of her shift and found out that a couple of PS5s (with the disc option, not just the network only version) had arrived. She immediately bought one and had me come and get it. I spent a while setting it up, and its still downloading updates (I really want faster Internet); however, I did get to spend a little bit of time with the Spider-Man game, and it's quite impressive. 

I did not spend a lot of time on it (I actually made substantial progress on my dissertation revisions today). Both Connor and Rowen had the honor of prolonged playtime, and they seem to absolutely love it. They are both particularly impressed with the new controller's haptic feedback. Even more short bit with it showed that we have certainly come a long way from the old Rumble Packs. 

I look forward to playing on it more in the future.

I saw a meme today that was mocking the idea that Anakin Skywalker made it to "Jedi heaven" simply for killing the Emperor (although, it turns out that he was only "mostly" dead) when, as Darth Vader, he had killed the younglings at the Jedi temple. I know that I initially had a problem with that idea; however, I've come to think that Lucas's message, if clumsy, was actually quite profound. Lucas wrote and directed the scene with the newly named Darth Vader killing younglings even though he knew about Anakin's ultimate redemption. Thus, he was intentionally saying that no one, no matter how terrible the acts that they might have committed, is beyond redemption. This is something that my faith teaches, but it's hard to deal with when confronted in this way.

Also, I think that it was also made clear that Anakin's redemption does not occur when he kills (again, temporarily) the Emperor. Rather, it's when he tells Luke to "Take this mask off." Revenge of the Sith clearly demonstrates that Anakin's fall comes when he tries to defy death itself. Even left amputated and burning, he uses the Dark side, channeled through his hatred, to keep himself alive, eventually becoming "... more machine, now, than man ..." in an effort to stave off death. It is his acceptance of death that allows him to join with the Force at the end. When Luke protests, "But you'll die," Anakin replies, "Nothing can stop that now." After seeing the prequels, I realize that this isn't a statement of resignation, but of acceptance.

I'm still not thrilled with how the prequels were handled, but I've really found them more and more meaningful in the past few years. Even the political aspects of it, which I had felt were unrealistic, have turned out to be surprisingly more insightful, and even prescient, concerning our current political world. Regardless, they did a better job than I had appreciated in really bringing Anakin's story together.