"OK, I spent a lot of doggone money on this college education, and by God, I'm going to use every bit of it!"
That's how I feel sometimes, inserting little trivial tidbits into things -- not just from pop culture, but from that otherwise wasted education of mine. Thus far, I've tributed Melville in one of my Star Wars issues -- and with Knights of the Old Republic #8, now available, we hop around from the medieval Song of Roland to 18th-century ships of the line! (Click the link there to my production notes to see just how tortuously I'll trace a path to an inspiration!)
Not one of these things actually means anything, of course, except that, well, I had to sit through those classes (when I went), and this is the only way to get something out of them...