Badger Badger Badger Badger

Ok, no, not that one. This one. Everybody's favorite crime boss from Firefly. He'll be seen soon in that OTHER shaky-cam Sci-Fi Extravaganza, the one with the Rag Tag Fleet on a lonely quest—for a shining planet known as Earth. Wonder if it'll be one that Jane Espenson writes? (No, I'm not going to look for it, there be spoilers!)

Turns out his dad is this fellow here, last seen in The Prestige, previously seen in Star Trek VI and an episode of TNG, as well as Max Headroom.

You Know My Name

Wow. Just so you know, I keep a "temp" file of random text that I jot on when I get a free moment. That way when the moment comes to press "SEND" I have an appreciable amount of pointless blather to keep the blog rolling. Some days more than others.

Well, I have about a page and a half of not quite coherent and unpublishable (even for TGP) rambling about Casino Royale. It comes down to this: There are topics on which I know too much. Investment planning is not one of them. Nor is carpentry or car care. Star Trek is. Firefly is. James Bond definitely is. So I'm going to try and get this down in a few paragraphs without detailing the history of the evolution of the gun barrel titles, the John Barry / Monty Norman dispute, why Timothy Dalton was almost a great Bond, and why George Lazenby sitting next to a skating rink is the greatest scene in the history of the series, and in how many films he does not say "Bond, James Bond". But if you're that foolish, you can ask me.

I liked it much. As I think back on the film, there is a certain sparkle that still seems to be missing that I think Pierce Brosnan brought to the role even through three very uneven movies. But barring that, the film is brave enough to jettison (mostly) the CG effects, the too much is too much gadgetry, and many of the staples of the last twenty James Bond films. You know it right away when they don't start with the James Bond theme and the gun barrel (no, it's not a camera lens). You see people in the cinema looking around at each other whispering "Is this the movie? Didn't we go to see James Bond?" This is the first EON produced Bond movie that doesn't start with it.

Craig isn't exactly Ian Fleming's James Bond but he's really close. This Bond isn't perfect at everything, only a few things. He can be out-run and out-fought, but he can't be out-shot or out-schemed. His skill is getting a situation to play to his skills. He's in a little over his head for much of the film and it works terrifically. I hope they can keep to this style for a few more movies. And guys? Bring Martin Campbell back again, please. He made Goldeneye, he made this. He's your guy. If you make movies that are distinguishable from one another you don't have to change directors every time.

The story runs pretty close to book while filling in the blanks (that weren't necessary during the cold war - Russians, spies, money - got it) at the beginning of the movie. Now that I think on it, the story manages to make "terrorism" the bad guys, without ever showing anyone who looked like a modern terrorist (although they do reference 9/11 explicitly). Of course, as much as everyone thinks of James Bond as cold-warrior extraordinaire, the Soviets weren't the actual bad guys until For Your Eyes Only, in NINETEEN EIGHTY! While the plot in From Russia With Love the novel directly involved the Russians (as did Casino Royale, for that matter) the movie made them the dupes, along with the Brits, of SPECTRE. So, same trick, different bad guys. They manage to keep the three or four most memorable moments from the book. Including the ending, which is very downbeat. (Not On Her Majesty's Secret Service downbeat, but close.)

Judi Dench is still terrific. M (Barbara Mawdsley is her real name, btw) has a choice line about fighting the war in the press. And she still has no compunction about sending a double-oh out to die. But while Brosnan was playing the MI6 golden boy who Dench's M had inherited (much to her dismay), Craig is the new kid on the block who M is trying to groom into something more than a thug. It's an interesting relationship.

The bad guy: They've pulled off having the disfigured crazy Bond villain and having him be a real person. At this stage he seems an honest match for Bond in much the same way that Goldfinger or Blofeld or Largo were. No henchmen as such. There's no Oddjob or Jaws. He has a terrific line where he is bleeding from his tear ducts and assures the man playing cards with him that it is "nothing sinister".

So it's a nice new start for the Bond series. Like Batman Begins, it's a good film but I'm more interested to see what they do next with it.

Whew. That wasn't' so bad after all. Be seeing you.

Finding a Needle in a Haystack Would Be Child's Play

Gadzooks! I just found out that the shuttlecraft Galileo is at CAK (Canton / Akron airport) being restored (again)! The poor girl has had a rough life.

- The shuttle was purchased for $3,000 by a Lynne Miller and she had a special trailer built to haul it. It was brought to the Akron airdock at first and later housed in a hangar in the Akron Canton airport.

- Extensive work needed to be done on the shuttecraft, it is not clear if it was ever finished. It was expensive and time consuming. Time was spent fundraising and restoring.

- The current owner of the Galileo has asked to remain private for the time being.

- As of December 2005, Galileo is 'docked' in Ohio, in safe hands, and almost fully restored.

What a Dick Cheney

I just heard that in a year when the Cheney's made eight million dollars, they gave away six to charity. (Can someone back this up?) Truly he is the ultimate evil.

New Voyages: To Serve All of My Days - Review

No BSG this week, and I can't get my Bond review to make sense, so here we are. I watched the newest episode of New Voyages last night. For those of you that haven't followed, New Voyages is a fan production of Star Trek. They say that they are making Trek's "fourth season". This is their third episode. And they are swinging for the back fence with this one. Having D.C. Fontana as a writer doesn't hurt.

The first two eps were not good. The first I couldn't even get through, the second was cobbled together fanboy junk. "So, DUDE! What if the DOOMSDAY MACHINE could TIME TRAVEL, and it goes back and BLOWS UP the ENTERPRISE when PIKE was captain, so they have to back the GUARDIAN OF FOREVER, and they met MATT DECKER in the TWENTIETH CENTURY and then you have Kirk AND Pike and then the MOVIE ENTERPRISE shows up?! Whooooooaaaaah!" I didn't make any of that up.

So this past week they put out their latest. Guest starring Walter "Chekov" Koenig. I gotta say, I enjoyed it tremendously. I may watch it again. I think Exeter (another, and until now, better fan production) probably re-captures the overall look of the original show a little more faithfully, but this really feels like where Phase II (the proposed second TV series they were going to make in 1976 that turned into Star Trek: The Motion Picture) might have gone (given an unlimited FX budget at the time).

There were some details to the models I wasn't crazy about (gridlines), but I thought the choreography was terrific. The flippy-dippy space fights of the past episodes are gone. (It was like Wiley Coyote on crack.) The nacelle caps looked awesome. (This is a big deal to Original Series nerds. There are entire web pages devoted to this effect. This has been a huge sticking point on the new "remastered" Trek that CBS is doing. We're nerds. It's what we do.) They're mostly TOS, but also kind of their own look. Some of it looks a little video-gamey, but it's really nice video-gamey. And that stupid little shuttlepod (curse you, Next Generation!) isn't going to look good anywhere.

I felt the cinematography was a great improvement over past episodes. Some might not like the hand held look, but it's been a TV staple for over ten years now. They certainly didn't go for Firefly / BSG. It didn't feel like big screen, but it didn't feel quite like video either. The widescreen format serves them well.

This Chekov guy was outstanding (the young one). He's not only got his impression down pat, he's actually got charm and wit and warmth. As for Walter Koenig, I gain new respect for him every time I see him get to do something with some teeth. I'm a little sad that they seem to be backpedaling from the ending (must... not... spoil!). The original interviews I read said that NV was the fourth season of Trek and they were writing as if the movies and TNG hadn't necesarily happened. But they've backed off of this a bit.

Cawley (Kirk) is starting to get it. He's almost there. But not quite. (I've since found out that not only is he an Elvis impersonator in his day job, he's one of the leading Elvii in the world! He's one of three guys that they actually let perform at Graceland.) He needs to stop replicating Shatner's tics and start looking at what he actually DID. Shatner was both happier and more serious. He didn't always have his "FIRE!" face on. Cawley is almost to the point of being able to do the quiet stuff. The last scene with Chekov was actually touching. It would be great to see him improve more.

Spock needs to figure out that he's Spock. Not Data. Spock was cranky. He scowled a lot. Nobody ever sems to get the weight that Spock had. I don't know the history of this actor and I hate to throw stones, but you get the idea he's there because he knows someone (or contributed money). Ok, that's pretty heartless, but there it is.

McCoy - Speaking of "who does this guy know"... Wow. This guy is just taking up space. Sorry.

Scotty - Might almost have a character if he can figure out if he wants to do his own thing or be Doohan. Not so good this time out though.

One of the most interesting things about this story is that they suggest that the Federation has an ECONOMY. And it might be harmful to some and benneficial to others! Gene must be spinning in his grave- er, orbit.

I'm still not NV's biggest fan, but this was pretty darn good. The two marks of highest praise I can give this ep: I meant to watch one act last night and watched the whole thing, and it made me excited about watching Star Trek again. That's saying something. I think NV is finally in the same league as Exeter. Now both of them need to get even better. (Boy, I say that like THAT'S easy.)

Oh, speaking of which, the trailer for the fan film I'M working on is up. It rambles, but it actually has some (unfinished) stuff that I did. The Enterprise stuff was filmed on the New Voyages sets and the NV actors that play Kirk and Spock make cameos.

So say we all. (Oh, that's the other one, isn't it?)

Big Engine - Light Weight Hippy Car

Don't know how many of you've seen this one. The makers of Casino Royale obviously did.

Doug Drexler

TrekPlace has a cool interview with Doug Drexler. (No, Trek and Cool are not polar opposites.) He's an old-timer fanboy from the 70's that made it to the big. He worked on most (all?) modern Trek, and now he's on BSG. A couple of highlights:

Tyler: How did you become involved with the Star Trek Giant Poster Book?

Drexler: Ron Barlow and I ran a strange little store, on the corner of 53rd and Third, in Manhattan. It was called "The Federation Trading Post." It was a Star Trek store at a time when there was no Star Trek, and precious little science fiction.

So it's very possible that we met him. The whole fam drove up to New York from Connecticut one day for probably about $2.00 and bucket of peanut butter sandwiches. My aunt wanted to see the U.N. and I (all of seven years old) wanted to see the World Trade Center. I tell her I can still go see the U.N. Anyway, we bought my first Enterprise model kit there.

Drexler: After that I sketched Star Trek, wrote Star Trek and built Star Trek. The most infamous thing my father ever said to me was, "If you spent half the time on your school work, that you spend on that TV show, you'd be ok!" I tease him about that now -- he loves it.

Heh. That sounds familiar. Well, the first part does...

That's a lot of humbug...

Good heavens. I saw a slide at the movies that claimed that A Christmas Carol had been made into something like 80 movies in the twentieth century. (Or was it 200? I forget.) Well, over at Jim Hill Media, he's reviewing forty of them!

BSG Mon- Tuesday: "Hero"

I sense a great disturbance in the Force. BSG is moving to Sunday nights come January. You know, back in 1978, BSG was on Sunday nights...

"Hero". This is where BSG gets into murky waters. I'm sure there were Season 1 eps like this. I KNOW there were S2s like this. This is a treading water episode. I'm sure they have great epic pivitol moments planned. This just ain't one of them. Sometimes the eps are terrific, like "Final Cut". Sometimes they're (say it with me now) "Black Market".

This also falls into the "lets go back an muck with continuity" hole. I don't think this ep contradicts anything per se, but you never got the impression in the miniseries that BSG-75 was not Adama's ship, or that it was any sort of punishment. I'm all for the "let's find out that we didn't really know what we thought we knew" kind of twists. Alan Moore is the Grand Master of it. But it has to fit, otherwise you don't get that wonderful sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when the TV world unravels around you. This didn't fit. This feels like adding the sister that no one ever mentioned before, without the mostly gratifying supernatural explanation. The technical term is "WTF"?

As (mostly) usual, the show managed to get me ready to stand on my chair and scream at the TV (What do you MEAN, WE started the war?!?) and then calm me down by not doing or saying what it clearly looks like they're going to. But they were tricky this time out, so it didn't quite work. I know, I do a terrible job of divorcing the show from the writers that write it and the world that they live in. Adama is supposed to feel bad because his momentary crossing of the Neutral Zone (to see if there even ARE any cylons, after they have ignored meetings at Armistice Station for FORTY YEARS, btw) set of GENOCIDE? Let's talk DISPROPORTIONATE RESPONSE, guys! "I gave the cylons a reason!" Feh.

And there's NonFatLee backing him up. "NO, Dad, it wasn't you! It was the top brass that, oh, yeah, we swore oaths and stuff to follow, even though we just KNOW that they're a bunch of blood-thirsty war-mongers just WAITING to get back into it with the toasters." Way to make a man feel better about his life's decisions, NFL. Oh, how are those dreams about the Olympic Carrier treating you? You were just following orders then, not your fault at all. I'm all for dramatic tension and tortured self-inspection (I'm an Angel fan after all) but make it make sense! (Unless it's Kara. She doesn't have to make sense. It's part of her charm.)

Laura almost always gets to be the hard cold voice of "That only works on television". And she ALMOST did it. Wild Bill didn't start the war. That's nonsense. (Ahhhh. Heavy sigh of relief.) There were HUNDREDS of ways that WE started the war. Huh? What? Say again? So, the cylons had no responsibility in this? And we did? Are you saying that there's something that should have been done differently Madame President, and THAT would have prevented the attack? I mean, aside from hiring a different defense contractor for your mainframe, and continuing computer security protocols on all of your battlestars and fighters, of course.

I mostly liked the episode. I just didn't like where it started or where it ended. I will be curious what the consequences of this ep will be. (Of course, I'm still thinking that this show always has consequences. We lost that about half-way through S2.) If the cylons know where the fleet is, why are they still playing this cat and mouse junk? Five or six basestars and that's all she wrote, innit? I've always figured that the toasters don't really want to wipe out the fleet. But every time we actually see cylons, when no people are around, they're talking "WE MUST DESTROY THEM ALL OR THEY WILL DESTROY US!" AND THEY HAVE A PLAN. Suuuuuure they do. It's a whole civilization of Starbucks. (The viper pilot, not the coffee shops, of course.)

Oh, and as the Hog of Wart posed the question: Ok, this guy is a tough as nails fighter pilot, and he's just going to go cool his heels at wherever the civvies go these days (since Cloud Nine is cinders)? Because he's emotionally scarred? Good grief, he and Starbuck can be a team! The management of resources in this rag tag fleet, human and otherwise, continues to amaze me.

Any ep that has good EyeTigh work is a bonus as far as I'm concerned, and this one had it. ET seems to be getting back to his old functional disaster self. He's got to be more reliable than "All We Are Saying" Agathon.

Kara got to do stuff, speaking of no consequences. Kara threw that emotional baggage off like an Adama kid throwing off a spare 100 pounds.

We're how many eps in? Eight? We take a week off this week. I figure we'll come back for two, have a heart rending cliff-hanger, and take the Christmas break. The show is still good, but they're not on all cylinders. I attribute this to two reasons: They're not being ruthless with "how would this REALLY go" and they're setting up character threads that they never get back to making work.

On the first point, I imagine they have a problem with a real war time scenario. The first season was a great post-9/11 metaphor. And that was terrific. But unlike the real world where things got back to normal fairly quickly, and if you feel like saying we're at war you can, if you feel like it's all hyped up, you can say that too, these people lost TWELVE PLANETS. They are down to 40,000 human being left anywhere. Attacks are frequent, disasters common place. These folks would harden up pretty quickly. Especially after New Caprica. This would be the remains of a civilization on a 100% war footing. WWII on something-other-than-steroids-cause-I'm-sick-of-the-cliche. But the I don't think the show runners can even imagine a group of people willing and eager to make such sacrifices anymore. Which is too bad, because that would make BSG1 look like a warm-up.

On the second, remember when they juggled The Story of the Week, Laura's cancer AND visions, Boomer and Tyrol, Sharon and Helo, Baltar and Six, and whatever hijinx Lee and Kara were getting up to? With an occasional cut to EyesTigh getting hammered in his bunk? Good times.

Not next ep, but the ep after, is written by Jane "Shindig" Espenson. Wacky fun. No BSG this Friday (and Moore still hasn't posted the podcast!) so see you in two weeks! Boom boom boom.

EDIT: I made sure I wrote this before I read Goldberg's comments. They are here. He nails it better than I do. But he gets paid for it.

Half-Life 2 Ep Delay

From Planet Half-Life:

"According to a recent talk that our friends over at CVG had with Doug Lombardi, Valve will miss their target release of Q1 2007 for the Episode 2 package. The new target release season is the summer of 2007.

No official reason has been given for the delay."

Drat! I mean, can we really WAIT for THIS?



Or THIS?



YES you have to wait for my BSG review. Waiting is good for you. Besides, Ron Moore didn't do his podcast. He's making me WAIT. Grrrr. (Arrgh.)

For the Moment, At Least, There Are Limits

Nice to know our society won't tolerate absolutely everything, yet. (Sadly, Paris Hilton's fifteen minutes continue.)

Then of course, there's this. A few months ago Mel Gibson got into no end of trouble over hateful remarks he made while REALLY REALLY drunk. That was front page news. This is all stuff that was said in public, supposedly while sober. Where's the comparable outrage?

TOO SOON!

I turned on the radio on Friday and heard Christmas music. I LOVE Christmas music. Just not before Thanksgiving. (Mind you, I hadn't quite gotten it into my head that Thanksgiving was only a week away, so that made it even worse.)

One Ring, or Maybe Two

Well this is an interesting development. These sorts of things never end well. Look at Superman II (and ultimately III). Look at Never Say Never Again. (You don't have to, it's an expression.)

I'm not a Jackson fan. Just not. Still haven't seen King Kong, maybe that will change my mind. My problems with LotR can be summed up with the fact that he made Gollum falling into the Cracks of Doom into a laugh moment. On the other hand beneath the mis-steps (in my mind) of the films is the firm conviction that those movies are love letters to the books that they're based on. Even if Jackson and I disagree on how he handled it, and have a (very) different sense of humor, I think he loves the books more than I do.

On the one hand I see a Jacksonless Hobbit as an opportunity. OTOH, I can easily see them going too far to be closer to Jackson's LotR or going too far to distinguish themselves from it. Ah well. Maybe in 50 years I'll get to see new movies of all four books that I love. (I'd be 87. Well, that seems unlikely...)

Honda

Another chance to be amazed at how people can make a living in today's world.

Game Night at the Edwards' House!

Bwahahaha.

Never. Moving. To. California.

" "It's basically a branding program, or a recruiting program for the military," Kelly said before the meeting."

(Pixar? I didn't mean you. You know that, right?)

Wakka wakka wakka!

Lord Voldemort

I don't recall this being my favorite book. I'm sure someone will disagree with me. But hey, the movie looks cool.

The Often Discovered Country

"Death, The undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns" unless you're on Star Trek, then we can't get rid of you!

This has been making the rounds for a few weeks now, but I just watched it. It's not exactly X-Men 3 (where we got to see a much younger Patirck Stewart and Ian McKellen), but then again remember when Forrest Gump was cutting edge? And then two years later Deep Space Nine did them one better on a TV bugdet? I keep saying, we'll see all of these people again in the 21 century. There aren't any movie stars that can replace Harrison Ford (including Harrison Ford). So let's make new movies with Ford '81 (2.0). (What we REALLY need is a Lucas '77. But I may have mentioned this before... Heh - Celebrity Death Match: THX-1139 Lucas vs. Attack of the Clones Lucas. Huzzah!)

The King of the Barbers, the Barber of Kings

Well, this project just gets more and more disturbing. Yes, I'm looking forward to it, that's not the point.

I Suffer, You Suffer

HT: Todd.

A Wooden Leg Named Smith!

Good heavens. Did anyone else know about this?

(Don't you just love obscure in-joke subject titles? I could have said "Yes! Well I don't mind that quite so much. At any rate, it's TRADITIONAL." Well, it made ME laugh. And I love to-- never mind.)

p.s. The editors appologize for the flagrant and obviously intentional non-use of Supercalifraglisticexpialidocious in this post. The writer's nose has been given a tweak and he has been told that he is bad.

Trot still Foxy

Nice to see that Foxtrot is still high-larious after 20 years (ok, 18).

Monday BSG - A Measure of Salvation

(A Measure of Salvation is the title of the episode, and not my feelings towards BSG. If they were all as good as 33 / Kobol's Last Gleaming / Scar / Exodus: Part 2, well then maybe.)

Ok. Here it is, and it came very quickly. This is the Waarthog episode. We have the opportunity to wipe out the Toasters. And almost everyone made the right choice. Nice to have you back, Airlock. Billy A. was a little skwishy, but he knew how to get it done when it came to it. The whole Dark Lee thing is finally starting to pay off a little (even if I had it figured out a long time before he did). Unfortunately the show that managed to convince me that they might actually blow up the title ship and change the name of the show to Battlestar: Pegasus did not for a moment convince me that they might take out the Big Bads. Ah, well.

I will say AGAIN, that I think that wiping out the entire cylon population is a questionable thing and something to be avoided and probably lamented. I think that if the Cols slugged it out over generations, found Earth, built themselves back up to a viable civilization, and found themselves with the power to turn off the bad guys once and for all, then no, I don't think that would be the right choice. If it were then this would be a very boring show and the cylons would be very boring characters. They wouldn't even be on the level of HAL. The fact that the cylons made a CHOICE to wipe out the human race means they have free will and all that implies. They may even have souls. This is science fiction and this is the conceit that we are presented with. Run with it. If they were JUST machines then they wouldn't be hated. Nobody hates the mill that blew up or the mine shaft that collapses. ANYWAY: Back to the We Win the Day and They Must All Die scenario. Well, if we can defend against the cylons then there is no reason to wipe them all out down to every last little mnemonic circuit. "They wiped us out, so we can wipe them out" is a dumb argument. You destroy (methodically and dispassionately) their means to make war against you and you do your level best to make friends. This method worked pretty well after WWII.

BUT that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking just over 40 thousand folks in the human race against an overwhelming force that may or may not insist on our total destruction (what day is it?). There is no margin. If you pass up this opportunity, there may not be another. This was really for all the marbles. Sorry, Carl. You made the right choice at the really really wrong time. Listen to your wife. This isn't a war for territory or even ideology. This is for survival. Act like it. Of course, he even has the line that makes this still a pretty terrific ep: "Let's keep this all about me." They do, and so the ep can be interesting, ask questions, draw some conclusions, and the only real frak up is Helo. Poor guy. Good thing none of those daring young men and women in their flying machines got into trouble (of the burning wreckage and death in the unforgiving blackness of space variety). I'd have liked to have seen the Agathons at THAT funeral. Get EyeTigh back in CiC, thanks.

Remember when Adama overthrew the Colonial government because Laura interfered with a military op? One that was going to take out a SINGLE base star? (Do they still call them basestars, or am I channeling 1978?) Now with Helo he's just going to let it slide. I wonder how the crew talks about Wild Bill Adama? "Ok, you can TOTALLY break regs any way you want, just make sure you're necessary to the crew (not some third level launch deck flunky like Socinus) and whatever you do DON'T do anything that the old man will take personally (unless you've been involved with one or both of his sons)!" Wonder if any of those wacky spunks from Collaborators are still around? I think Helo's little field trip had better stay one of the best kept secrets in the fleet. Come to that, where IS Anders?

Speaking of Anders, Kara's back on flight status??? Guess she didn't tee of Adama THAT bad (see above). Heh, Hot Dog has a Mark VII and Kara has a Mark II. Wonder what Kat's flying? And where is the one-eyed drunken wonder this week? Nice to see ADA in a background shot. So, everyone hears about the discovery of the Lion's Eye (or whatever) AND a deserted toaster ship and THAT'S when they decide to get their hair done? (Airlock, Helo, and Gaeta, in case you missed it.)

The Gauis Baltar show was ok, it got pretty well overshadowed by the Helo story. And they didn't do anything particularly unexpected. When things start to go WELL for GB again, THAT will be surprising. The whole Three / Six / GB triangle is boring before it starts. (The Caprica Six / Chip Six / GB triangle is woefully undershown.) I'm not buying that Three is going to go all mushy over GB just because he said he loves her (under torture). John McCain probably loves her too. (Ouch, sorry.) OTOH, now that I think about it, GBs profession of undying (yet not very reliable) love for Six is always touching in a profoundly damaged kind of way. One really does have to think of how undeniably brilliant Gaius has to be that he was able to function at ALL back in the Colonies before the holocaust. If he ever came up anything like second best he would have been flushed away like the annoying, self-serving, incapable little rat that he is. I'm assuming he was already very successful before Six came along and wrote the Colonial Defense Systems for him and made him into the Colonies' answer to a combination of Stephen Hawking and Mick Jagger.

Still not watching to "next weeks", so I have no idea where we're going, but I'll be here next week with a new review. So say we all.

p.s. I was watching "33" last week and I realized how much longer the Boom Boom Booms were. They really hung on a shot so you could get a really good sense of time and place. Much more spoilery, I can see that. The new ones are much quicker, more punchy. THIS week, SWIMW flatly declared that Athena was going to save them all because she'd seen it in the BBBs. That's why I love them.

p.p.s. On the Blood-Thirsty-War-Monger boards that I read (i.e. conservative, i.e. The Corner) this has been hailed as The Worst Episode Ever. These people must be Clockwork Oranged and made to watch Black Market again.

BSG How Lee Got Fat

SPOILERS! Go get caught up, slackers!



Did this conclude very effectively this season? Not so much. Was a TERRIFIC part of the finale last season. Oh yeah. It was even a really good part of the opening this season. I love seeing muscular and fit Jamie Bamber with Fat Lee's head. It's a hoot.

They Were Drunk!

"The young men "engaged in behavior that they otherwise would not have engaged in," the lawsuit says." Yeah, because that defence worked REAL well for Mel Gibson.

Not Making Me Feel Better

From Over the Hedge today...

With Great Power...

You know the rest. Well, the trailer looks great. Looks like Tobey is still really good a being Peter Parker and that's always a good thing. I'm still a little skitish, I guess because I own Spidey 2 on DVD and I've never watched it all the way through. (I have since watched Spidey 1 a couple of times.) But maybe they'll get it back for this one.

Joe Sweden - Poluting our language since 1997, But Not Much Before

a) Myself, I've been saying Not So Much at least since Mad About You.

2) Most of the screwy way I talk pre-dates Joss Whedon-y goodness like a thing that predates another really pre-dated thing. And that's just shiny.

That's all I'm sayin'.

It Begins

This is what the next two years look like.

Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the expected chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a Democrat-led Senate, said on Wednesday he thought Bolton's nomination was "going nowhere."

I Don't Know, I'm Making This Up As I Go...

I've known about this site for a number of years. And this one (and others like it - the hat is a tricky thing). Never quite managed to drop the hammer and get any of these. Now I find out that Wested is making these too! It's the Rocketeer! Yikes! (Wouldn't mind getting an Indy shirt either...) It's like insanely expensive sports cars. Nice to talk about a lot, but I'll need a new computer some day.

More!

I have discovered the greates ice cream flavor ever!

One Ping Only

Aw, suck. Basil Poledouris is gone. I don't own Conan (not a fan of the movie, but what a score!) so now I'm going to have to play Hunt for Red October a lot today. Maybe I'll go get Conan. Robocop may be some of the best music to play Laser Quest to ever.

Goldsmith, Bernstein, Kamen... It's been a rough couple of years for flim music.

Fun Toy

Here's a neat little thing.

You can do nerdy stuff like this:

I love it when a plan comes together...

BSG has been forever tainted for me. From the illustrious Mr. Riley:

"I was thinking how perfect it would be if one of the remaining five Cylons is Dirk Benedict. Then I realized- the final five must be The A-Team!"

BSG Monday - Torn

Well, it's Monday again. Only 5 more days until another ep of BSG. That might be okay this time around. We need a little recovery time. Believe it or not, BSG has gotten DARKER. Wow. How did SWIMW put it? "I don't feel good about ANYTHING in that episode." Huzzah! At least we're watching something brighter and happier in the meantime: Buffy season 6. I mean... Er... Darn.

The Agathon family: Well, looks like they got hitched after all (Helo calls Sharon Lt. Agathon). Didn't see ADA (Anastasia Dualla-Adama) this week at ALL. Or the former Mr. Starbuck. So Sharon is now "Athena"? Wow, this show reaches out and pulls the strings on the old school Galactica fans when you least expect it. Athena was Adama's daughter and Apollo and Zack's sister on the original BSG. She worked in CiC (although they didn't call it that). So when are they going to introduce Serina? Or Cassiopeia? (Jolly bought it in the mini.) The Sharon hasn't hit the fan yet with the whole "Sorry we lied about your baby" storyline. That will be fun. Racetrack is going to just push the "eject" button the next time they see a Cylon base ship. It never goes well when she's flying with an Eight.

EyeTigh: Still the wacky fun with the Tigh storyline. And now he's in cahoots with Starbuck. THAT'S healthy. Seems to me the Old Man cut him a little more slack than he did Kara.

(which brings us to) Kara "Razor Cut" Thrace: Ahh, she also is in a happy happy place. Although she seems to be trying to pull out by the end of the ep. Always fun when Cat is the rational Viper pilot of the pair. I have to admit, it's interesting to see her and Tigh palling around. Even if they are making their own little hell together and inviting all of their friends.

Bill "YOU'VE DONE A MAN'S JOB, SIR!" Adama: Always a good idea to give Eddie the boiling-just-under-the-surface-run-for-your-lives speech. He'll score the touchdown every time. And he gets to kick Kara's chair. "Leave this room while you still can" indeed. I love how Kara looks like she's thinking of trying something incredibly stupid, but knows that even she's not that crazy or dumb.

Felix G. still needs a haircut. I mean he looks cool as all getout, but it takes me out of our military settings right away. Helo could use a clip too. But it's nice to see Felix becoming the New Baltar (aka Research Guy). Maybe not all the brains, but a lot more credibility. Unless FELIX is a cylon, which seems unlikely.

Lee "How Come My Stories Always Get Cut" Adama: We don't have TIME for anything interesting, so he's skinny again! Bippity boppity boo! And he's a Major. Maybe he'll get more to do than "Black Market" this year. (Eccchhh!) Gosh, wouldn't it be nice to see a story with him and the President again? Wouldn't that be cool? I haven't seen a main character abandoned like this since Xander. But he had more scenes than the wif.

Mr. and Mrs. Tyrol: I heard him yell something AT Cally, but did we actually see her? They're better at keeping all the balls in the air than they were in 2.5, but not as good as 1. I WILL keep harping on this.

The Gaius Baltar show: He's like Capt. Jack Sparrow without the dumb luck. He NEVER makes the right choice and it NEVER goes well for him. His entire character is about making the WRONG choices. He lies not only when he has no reason to, but when it's to his distinct disadvantage to! I can see that they seem to be leading us to the conclusion that GB is a Cylon. Possibly one of the FIVE (who are starting to take on mythic properties). I will be so BORED if that's the case. But I have faith that they'll pull it out. Six looking hurt / annoyed at GB is becoming one of my favorite parts of the show, just because it's so at odds with the Six that lives in his brain. It plays against the "Watch BSG cause it's got GURLS!" vibe that tends to be in all the promo stuff for the show (and why I didn't watch when the show started up). You do have to wonder what the Baltar in her head is saying about all of this. Probably telling her that the real GB being a sniviling, whining, lying bundle of skin (instead of vibrant, charming, and brilliant) is all HER fault. Whee! Cylon guilt!

Karan S'jet has joined the cast of BSG!

Leoben was more interesting when he was being talking about than anything he's done on-screen this season.

Earth has left collectibles! Cool! My best case scenario for this show would be a 4-5 year run (however long it can stay interesting) that actually ENDS. I mean, I know it's not B5 or anything, but still. Hey, didn't the colonials run into a killer virus on the way to Earth (when THEY found Kobol) in the original BSG? So now it's toaster specific. Interesting.

Ahh well, it CAN'T get darker than this, right? (Heh heh heh heh...) 15 eps to go.

p.s. We watched on iTunes, so we didn't even HAVE "Next Week". Bwahahaha!

Cliches Are a Dime a Dozen: Avoid Them Like the Plague

Today is apparently National Cliche day. And this scares me.

STILL haven't tried this...

But this is really a new level, dontcha think?

He Was For the Joke Before He Was Against It

This makes me laugh more than anything I've seen today.




This was Senator John Kerry on Monday (for those of you that missed it):

"You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

Now he's saying that he wasn't talking about the troops, he was making fun of the president. Not sure that makes is MUCH better, but lets take him at his word.

If George Bush gets good grades he can do well, but if George Bush doesn't George Bush ends up in Iraq.

Well, George Bush is not in Iraq, so George Bush must be smart. People IN Iraq on the other hand must be dumber than George Bush. And we KNOW that George Bush is really dumb (right? Sarcasm, guys, sarcasm). Not really helping here Senator. I must be missing the nuance.

John Kerry IS the October surprise.

Of course, never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Duck's Quack

For those of you that read Non-Sequitur I offer this. So it's about as accurate as Wiley's political commentary. (Too bad, he's a really funny guy otherwise.)

70's Kidvid

Ok, this site is just alarming. I'd say I remember about 75% of these shows. Even Run, Joe, Run. I think this was one of Scott's favorites. Shazam! is a treasured part of my childhood I hope never to revisit (although I'm still a huge Captain Marvel fan - they need to make a movie pronto while Adam Balwin gets too old). Ark II was the ultimate in Saturday Morning "We're destroying the environment" (back then it was just "the world") indoctrination. Land of the Lost, of course, is a classic. (For those of you that are afraid of the Sleestak, I direct you here.)