Category: Personal

I was quite a fan of Battlestar Galactica when it was running, but stopped watching early in Season 3 because I was on my way to DC every other week to see Bitter and couldn’t keep up. This weekend, I finally finished out the series. Now I see why the ending was controversial. I did not really hate the ending, because frankly, after Lost, it didn’t seem that bad. There were far fewer loose ends at the end of BSG than there were at the end of Lost.

I should issue a spoiler warning right here. If you don’t want to know, don’t keep reading.

The ending was pretty classic Deus ex Machina. The entire thing was wrapped up too quickly, and the ending created a number of plot issues. For one, the names of the Greek gods, and the names of constellations, being the same as we have today. No language or culture survived from 150,000 years ago. The creators of BSG have suggested that information was transmitted through a “collective unconscious,” or more Deus ex Machina, in other words. This seems weak as a way to connect the colonials to ourselves.

The colonials said they would pass on the best of themselves, but we know for a fact nothing survives from 150,000 years ago. Everything was lost; their art, their culture, technology and language. Hera we know died as a young woman, after having enough female offspring to become mother to all mankind, which suggests that she and the other colonials probably lived a short, brutal existence as primitives. It’s hard to see how this is a happy ending.

What the hell was Kara Thrace? We know the Hybrids said she was the harbinger of death, and would lead the human race to its end. I can sort of live with this plot resolution, since it can be taken to mean she was a harbinger of death to the Cylons, and did, in fact, lead the human race to its end, in a manner of speaking. But she was supposedly some kind of Angel sent by God? More Deus ex Machina.

Now let’s talk about the whole giving up technology thing. What’s shocking is that everyone agreed with it. Lee said “Yeah, let’s just forget this whole technology thing and fling the fleet into the sun,” and everyone just goes along? This was a fleet that argued about everything. It would seem to me if you landed in Middle Pleistocene Tanzania, complete with large saber tooth predatory cats, man eating wild pigs, and giant hyaenas, you’d think at least someone might pipe up “Have you lost your frakkin mind, Lee?” when he suggests living as primitives. As much as the thought of facing a large cat armed only with a Beretta Storm doesn’t thrill me, it sure as hell beats chucking a spear at it. At the very least, after weeks of eating algae, I’d be up for shooting a few grass eating herbivores before we buried the guns. Now I accept it’s quite possible that the colonials thought the planet was all gazelles, flamingos and rainbow farting unicorns, and then only after they destroyed the guns did they find the man eating wild boars, and giant hyenas. “Thanks a lot Lee, frakker!”

The show’s producers have suggested that the reason for abandoning the technology is because the natives would worship them as gods, and the whole cycle would start anew. I think that’s a chance I’m going to be willing to take if my alternative is wiping my ass with leaves. “This is my boomstick! Now chop down that tree so I can make some frakkin toilet paper.” I mean seriously, what do you think that natives are going to do when you show up in their village and inform them that, in the name of your god(s), you need to interbreed with their women?

There’s no way the ending really works as a happy one if you think about it. Not even really for us. What is our connection to them? Greek gods, names of constellations, and a propensity to make a race of killer robots? Sounds great to me.

Getting off to a slow start this morning. We were spared the brunt of the ice, and I actually managed to make it into the office. Unfortunately, my e-mail is out due to power outages at my colocation site, at least I’m guessing. None of the servers are working there.

This time of year, I sure do miss the bright sun. The snow’s been coming down often enough I’m running out of places to pile it next to the driveway. This past snow was about a foot, and heavy. I had to give it a good heave to get it behind the current pile. Perhaps for this reason I’ve had this song stuck in my head:

Below are the lyrics, both in the original Neapolitan language, and the English translation.

Neapolitan lyrics Che bella cosa e’ na jurnata ‘e sole n’aria serena doppo na tempesta! Pe’ ll’aria fresca pare già na festa Che bella cosa e’ na jurnata ‘e sole Ma n’atu sole, cchiù bello, oje ne’ ‘O sole mio sta ‘nfronte a te! ‘O sole, ‘o sole mio sta ‘nfronte a te! sta ‘nfronte a te! Quanno fa notte e ‘o sole se ne scenne, me vene quase ‘na malincunia; sotto ‘a fenesta toia restarria quanno fa notte e ‘o sole se ne scenne. Ma n’atu sole, cchiù bello, oje ne’ ‘O sole mio sta ‘nfronte a te! ‘O sole, ‘o sole mio sta ‘nfronte a te! sta ‘nfronte a te!

English translation What a beautiful thing is a sunny day, The air is serene after a storm The air’s so fresh it already feels like a celebration What a beautiful thing is a sunny day But another sun, that’s brighter still It’s my own sun that’s upon your face! The sun, my own sun It’s upon your face! It’s upon your face! When night comes and the sun has gone down, I almost start feeling melancholy; I’d stay below your window When night comes and the sun has gone down. But another sun, that’s brighter still It’s my own sun that’s upon your face! The sun, my own sun It’s upon your face! It’s upon your face!

We spent the weekend in DC, and I learned a few things that I thought you might be interested in knowing. You know all that eliminationist rhetoric many on the left are condemning? Well, their first stop should be the Smithsonian. Protest loudly, my friends.

I also noted some interesting observations about pro-life activists who were in town for the March for Life. I have a few messages for them: 1) Your teenagers are slightly less annoying than other teens. Your teens are also reasonably polite. 2) Parents, on the other hand, are rude. If you’re going to act like a snotty brat, don’t wear your cause on your t-shirt unless you want people to hate you. 3) Your bus drivers should stop trying to kill pedestrians if you’re really pro-life.

Nuns break traffic laws. But they smile a lot, so it makes it kinda okay. Because when else will you see nuns running and laughing across the streets of DC.

I don’t know if the Smithsonian is trying to be ironic or send a message about energy consumption, but a large chunk of the lights were burned out in the “Lighting a Revolution” exhibit.

Wretchard the Cat notes in the comments at the Belmont Club:

But back when society was more village-like, for want of a better term, people minded each other more. They knew when you were sick, physically or mentally, and other stuff besides. Nowadays that is less true. One of the prices that may have to be paid for privacy and the dissolution of community is that when you go nuts you are on your own. You face a cliff function with no gradient. One moment everybody’s humoring you. The next moment the SWAT team’s there.

It’s definitely less true. Growing up I knew all the neighbors. We even had neighbors over for dinner, to chat, and would go over there to play. I knew, for instance, about the neighbor next door who’s son had come down with mental illness, probably schizophrenia, though I never heard a diagnosis on that count. He was not a paranoid, I don’t think, and not a problem in the neighborhood. He struggled with it for several years until, unable to take it anymore, he blew a hole in his chest with his dad’s 12 gauge. Needless to say he did not survive.

I was also aware of the mental illness of another neighbor, who through drugs and alcohol, ended up getting hauled off by the police after shooting at Japanese planes he was certain were circling overhead. Somehow back then they managed to pull an armed man out of his attic without the use of a SWAT team too. The police knew of him before the incident, and were trying to convince the realtors that managed that house to evict the family, so they’d become someone else’s problem. Despite the availability of prosecuting him for buying guns illegally, to the best of my knowledge, that never happened. He did not talk to neighbors, except to remind them that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, just in case they weren’t aware, but the neighborhood certainly talked about him.

Today I barely know my neighbors. I know their names, but I don’t know their business, and they don’t know mine. Even as little as 20 years ago we knew our neighbor’s business, because everybody talked to each other. I’m not sure what happened, or what’s been happening, but I am as much a part of the phenomena as anyone else. It’s not like I’ve made an effort to get to know neighbors. Perhaps we put, for some reason, less value on the idea of neighborhood as we used to, at least beyond good school districts and stable housing values. Does moving next to someone mean you should be friends with them? What made that idea go away?

Bitter: “Why do I hear screams of a child coming from the kitchen?”

Me: “How do you like that chicken quesadilla? Taste like chicken?”

Bitter: “I didn’t think were cooking children! I figured someone might have bought their kid for some reason.”

You never know what they are putting in the quesadillas. But it turns out there was a party of screaming kids in the other section of the restaurant, that was resonating through the doorway that leads to the kitchen from the section were were in. I was surprised, because usually if there’s screaming kids in a restaurant, we somehow manage to get seated next to them.

Typically, a business model for success involves offering a product or service people want to buy, taking their money, and enjoying your profits. That’s not a terribly hard concept, but it is one that still seems to be over the heads of most entertainment companies.

I wrote a post on December 2 about why supposed copyright laws are getting in the way of my ability to give the music companies the price they seek for the products they are trying to sell. You’d think, in this modern era of digital music and hundreds of daily flights between the UK and US, that I would have the products by now. You would be wrong.

We have received the DVD, as well as one cd. I’m still missing two cds, and now one of those may not be shipped out at all. Amazon.co.uk sold out of their stock, though they still have an affiliate selling. Unfortunately, said affiliate doesn’t want to sell to the US, and Amazon’s UK store doesn’t know if they will get it back in stock. Dear music companies: If it’s selling out, it is popular to warrant offering as, at the very least, a digital download. And our damn yankee money should line your pockets just as easily as the pounds & Euros you’ll take from other countries. (The only redeeming element of this story is that Amazon’s UK store has offered us free shipping if they ever get the other disk back in stock. Oh yeah, and there’s one more disc from this artist that we’d like to buy, but again, none of the smaller retailers through Amazon want to deal with an international order.)

On the other side of the pond, we have Amazon.com willing to sell a cd single for a song from the concert encore directly to US consumers. Yay! Only it should have arrived by today. Instead, it has not shipped. The only thing I can deduce from their sudden re-listing of the status of the cd recently is that they are having trouble getting copies here in the US.

Seriously, music executives, I want to buy your product. You can even mark it up at ridiculous rates and it’s likely I will still buy it. Why won’t you take our money? And more importantly, why are music company investors not firing all of your executives for refusing to sell products that make a profit?

Holiday time is over, so back to the normal work schedule. I had a list of things to post about today, but I forgot to save it to MobileMe so it shows up on my other machine. I will remedy this situation as soon as I can. I have a system for everything, but it’s amazing how much getting out of your routine even for a week and a half can screw things up.

Time to start thinking about the end of the year. Not sorry to see 2010 go, since much like every year since 2008, it’s mostly sucked. A lousy economy where I worry daily about my job, and to top off the whole soggy ice cream cone, no mission to Jupiter. We did have the McDonald win, followed by the election win, so that was something, at least. But I’m happy to say goodbye to 2010, and here’s hoping to avoiding unemployment in 2011!

We’re celebrating tonight with some Navy Bean Soup I’m making out of the ham bone and ham I have leftover from Christmas. On top of that, we’ll be making a two cheese swiss fondue, along with a variety of dippers. For drinks we have Manhattans, Mimosas and some sparkling wine for ringing in 2011 at midnight. I also have some Kirschwasser leftover from the fondue recipe, which is a brandy made from distilled cherries. It’s not like cherry brandy, which is just regular brandy (distilled from grapes) with cherry flavor thrown in. It’s more like a cherry derived liquor you could probably run your car on if you tried. It has a certain knock you on your ass quality that regular brandy lacks.

What’s on your New Year’s Eve Agenda?

Some things I’m enjoying being on vacation:

• Waking up when I feel like it.
• When I do check into the office, I can do it in my underwear.
• Mimosas. I generally don’t drink before dinner, but Bitter made Mimosas on Christmas, and we’re making them again tomorrow for New Years Eve. Starting the day with a buzz is a good way to start the day!
• Time to think about the house, something I normally don’t have time to do. I’m determined to get a working master bath before January is over. I’m looking at a Neo-Round model from MAXX, their economy Advanta neo round base and walls, plus the Intuition doors. I figure I can do the installation, and Bitter can do the finish work.
• Not paying as much attention to blog matters. I’m definitely on vacation this week. That’s why it’s all been Google alerts and not anything I’ve had to think about.

One of these days I’ll have time to get back into shooting again. I’m still trying to hit a match at least once a month, but lately that’s about all I have time for, considering I also have officer duties at the club too. We’ll get back to regularly scheduled programming when I’m back at work and the holidays are over, and we have a new fun Republican Congress to hate on.