Chock full of Galactica spoilers

This entry is made in the spirit that people reading it are watching Battlestar Galactica and have seen the 30 January episode "The Oath". If you have not seen it (or you don't care about this stuff) plz do not read, because you will be spoiled (or bored).

I'm finding it hard to chart exactly how we got to this point from the beginning. Certainly something like this would've happened if we jumped straight from the Mini to series 4.5, but we didn't, and couldn't. It took a bit of thinking, but I think throughout the latter part of series 3 and the first part of series 4, we didn't see the point of view of the common man in the fleet much. In fact, I think we got too good a look at the cylon/cylon sympathiser (cylathiser?) point of view with Baltar being on the Basestar Sonatica, plus Athena's story. The story of the average Fleet denizen wasn't told ... and now it is.

The average fleet denizen ... well, I'd hate to say the average denizen is a racist shit-sucker, but ... on one hand, I'd say that's the case, based on how in favour many ships were of the anti-cylons-boarding legislation. On the other hand, I don't think any of those racist shit-suckers really wanted armed insurrection as a solution, as we saw when Gæta shut off (apparently still) President Roslin's wireless address. These people heard Roslin's voice for the first time in far too long and after comm silence from the Galactica, in itself a disturbing thing, and heard about the armed mutiny to boot, and the chatter is immediately addressed at the President.

Oh, and I hate Gæta for a variety of things: the racism, the betrayal (despite how unintentional it may have been) on New Craaaaaaprica, the huge betrayal of many people he's worked alongside for whatever he said, seven years, the arresting of Hoshi, his FRAKKING BOYFRIEND (hell, I'm gonna say the not-discussing this with his boyfriend - that's one of the first things I do if I have a Grand Plan™, discuss it with my fianceé - maybe he could've talked him out of this FRAKKING RETARDED MANOEUVRE), every single death, including the ones at the hands of Tigh, Tyrol, Adama, Adama, and Thrace, ... yeah, what a dick.

That said, this episode was fantastic and more than makes up for its set-up last week. Adama and Tigh being total action heroes, Kara shooting that assgoblin in the head to save Lee, then shooting the other guy when they didn't IMMEDIATELY believe she meant business (despite all being covered in Assgoblin #1's blood), Tyrol being the best person in history yet again (Tyrol is my hero by any stretch), and the Balcubines being the primary contra force were all highlights. But yes, definitely Old Ass Action Hero moments ... Oh, and if they throw in "I'm getting too old for this shit" in any of the DVDs or future episodes, I will scalp Ron Moore, because that joke was pitiful in Lethal Weapon 1.

This concludes my weekly fanboyish rant.



----------------
Now playing: Beastie Boys - Super Disco Breakin'
via FoxyTunes

Edited to fix the title of the episode.

snow days

Being trapped inside (or at least at home with nowhere to go) tends not to lend itself to writing moods. I prefer to sit around and videogame or watch The Empire Strikes Back. If it's especially pretty out, I'll do photos. This is what I did tonight.

Well, first, we got ready and tried to go grocery shopping. Well, tried to get into the car by chipping away at the ice with the hilt blade of one of my swords, and then I crawled through the boot into the back seat to shove the doors open rather than tug on tiny plastic handles to get the doors open. Oh, and then the fucking thing was stuck in the space, and some people who were stuck this morning at 5:30 came and helped us push the car out of the damn space. Eventually we got out of the car park and onto Green River to go grocery shopping.

That was a stupid idea ... mainly because the grocery store had no power. There were also a lot of people in that no-power-having grocery store. We decided I could just get food tomorrow when I come home from class (because USI WILL be in session tomorrow). That's when my parents rang to offer to take us out to dinner. I guess they didn't want to eat cold tins of soup (they don't have power). Afterwards, we saw one of the trees by the restaurant frozen the hell over. I didn't get that one, but I got quite a few more from around the block of flats.











And, what happens to HDTV during local weather clusterfucks:

WARNING: this post may piss you off.

Goddammit, stupid people, stop breeding!

I mean you, {name deleted} of Fort Wayne, Ind., my future (I shudder to think) sister-in-law.

Let's look at the facts. You have two children by two different men. I don't have a problem with that as such, until there's the part where you don't care for them. That's the part I have a problem with. You're not a mother, you're a baby dispenser (a crude term, but it's becoming more true as time goes on).

The first child is healthy and a joy to be around ... until she got abused, and now she's scared as hell of anything remotely male. While pregnant with the second, you discovered you had a bleeding condition, causing you to need shots multiple times a day, every day. Your child is a special needs child whom you will have no chance of properly raising even if you could manage not to be a shitsucking fuckwit for a few minutes.

Then, you went to prison. You didn't even go for something fun, it was for CHEQUE FRAUD. Somewhere around then, you became a scary preachy evangelical Christian. All you need to do is change your position on Mexicans (that is to say, get off their dicks) and you'd be a dyed-in-the-wool Republican. After you got out of prison, you found out you had a uterine tumour ... of the same kind your sister, my fiancee, gets (except on her vaginal wall). The kind of tumour that feeds off œstrogen, one of the main hormones pregnant women practically shit out of every pore. Somehow, this didn't suggest to you that you should avoid having some tosser shoot his beans up your muff and you got pregnant AGAIN.

I'll admit your surroundings certainly aren't helping you. Your mother wants you to get a hysterectomy after the almost-certainly-doomed hellbaby is born. Perhaps I should've said "born", because there's no way that thing's gonna come out looking remotely human, sharing all that space with the tumours. Regardless, the medically not-fucking-idiotic course would be to get an abortion straight away, followed by the hysterectomy. Naturally, you won't do that, and your mother won't let you, saying she would disown you for an abortion. Never mind that she has no problem with her other daughter with this condition getting an abortion should she become pregnant ... I mean it's the same fucking reason, the same fucking procedure, what's the difference? Your mother wouldn't have to be there for Mrs Lestack's abortion? Or is she really that big a knucklefuck idiot?

Regardless, you'll either miscarry or die in childbirth. I don't think either one would teach you to STOP FUCKING WITHOUT PROTECTION, but just in case, I'm bringing you a gift next time I see you. Normally I would suggest getting you a gift card for a free abortion, but the problem with that is threefold: 1) I'm not sure they have those. 2) You wouldn't use it because you're a total fuckwit. 3) I need the money more than you do. So instead I bring gifts of a twelve-pack of condoms (that should last you a couple days), some RU-486 (same), and a wire coat hanger (that one is reusable).

----------------

Now playing: Opeth - Death Whispered A Lullaby

via FoxyTunes

Frost/Nixon

I just got back from seeing Frost/Nixon. I would have seen it much sooner than now, but no cinema in the area carried it. Milk was the same situation. I figured it would happen with Milk, this being Southern Indiana and thoroughly homophobic, but Frost/Nixon isn't even a divisive issue ... well, not now. Some may claim it's another instance of "liberal Hollywood elitists tarnishing the character of a conservative icon," but only if they haven't seen the film.

Frost/Nixon, based on the stage play that's based on the actual interview (and lead-up to it), gives a documentary-style account of David Frost's hard-hitting interview with ex-President Richard Nixon, only three years after his resignation. It is documentary-style in that the actors who play certain real-life supporting characters give occasional fourth-wall-breaking interview clips to the camera inter-cut with the story proper. Oliver Platt, known (to me at least) from his work on Huff (as Huff's womanising, drug-addicted lawyer) and The West Wing (as the womanising, four-times-divorced head White House Counsel) plays one of the political advisors and research assistants to David Frost in the lead-up. He also does a hilarious Nixon parody, for the record. Sam Rockwell, whom I must say is one of the best actors to grace the screen, plays another researcher, hell-bent on getting Nixon to confess to any (or all) criminal wrongdoing. 

But Frank Langella's portrayal of Richard Nixon is, dare I say it, moving. Langella does what I never thought possible by making Nixon a more sympathetic character than his real-life counterpart ever appeared to be. There is one scene when the interviewers take a break in the filming for Easter, and Frost stays in his hotel to worry about financing, most if not all of which is falling through. He receives an unexpected call from President Nixon, who has had a little too much to drink. Nixon pours his heart out to the man who is supposed to be dead-set on asking hard-hitting questions and finding out the truth from this criminal of an ex-POTUS. Langella's performance in this scene is brilliantly stirring and even makes me feel for the real Richard Nixon, something I have never said before in my life.

Michael Sheen's portrayal of Frost is perhaps overshadowed by Langella's Nixon, but as an American I know more about the former POTUS than I do a still-living, still-working television presenter and interviewer. I have never seen an interview of Frost's, although I was interested to know he interviewed all British Prime Ministers up to 2007 and all US Presidents up to 2008 (I suppose it's a little early to interview President Obama). His acting was quite good from an objective point of view, however; virtually the whole film Frost is trying to get funding for this project and failing most of the time. Sheen's face throughout has a look of someone up against it, but covering it up to present a brave face to the world, something I recognise quite well from everyday life. 

The true star of the film, of course, was Clint Howard. Clint, better known as Ron's Brother, always plays a bit role and does it wonderfully. Several years ago he won an MTV Movie Lifetime Achievement Award, an award that has never been more deserved by anyone than Clint Howard. Seriously, Clint Howard has probably the best career in the world. He is guaranteed camera time on his brother's projects and has been in other works with significant (if significantly minor) roles. Frost/Nixon is yet another impressive entry on an already-impressive CV.

----------------

Now playing: Opeth - Ghost Of Perdition

via FoxyTunes

The twatty t-shirt

Spring is around the corner ... no it frakking isn't, that's ridiculous. Spring is around the corner in the clothing retail world, where I work. Actual spring, however, is still a few months off. But since clothing retailers have to stay ahead of the curve so that people have their spring outfits all ready to wear in the spring (when they go shopping for summer outfits), spring clothes are in stores now, including the shittiest clothing invention of history: the polo shirt.

I wore polo shirts nearly every day for nine years in school, having gone to a Catholic school with those awful not-fetishy-at-all uniforms. As such, I think I can speak with some authority on this topic. Polo shirts are uncomfortable. Universally so. I have never seen, worn, or touched a polo shirt that didn't feel rough and coarse on my skin. Considering I'm intended to wear such a thing, coarse and rough (like sand el oh el star wars) is a bad idea. I prefer to wear clothing that is comfortable, not too tight, and made of fabrics that don't cause itching. Polos fail on nearly every one of those standards. It isn't like they make up for it in appearance. If polos made the ugliest person look like a sex god(dess) I would be able to ignore the awful construction. But no polo ever worn by a human has ever improved anything. They make the wearer look like a complete twat. 

I have to wonder what kind of person would've made polos in the first place. The only answer I come up with is golfers. Golfers already look like fucking morons. They're hitting a small ball with a small stick 300 yards to a tiny hole that you can't even see unless you mark it with a flag. Depending on where you are when you do all this stupid shit, you'll be sweating buckets and unable to use a small electric car to get you from where you hit your ball to where the goddamn thing landed (hint: it won't be near that hole with the flag in). 

But apparently whacking a miniscule ball all over the place doesn't make a person look stupid ENOUGH! No, this is the only sport in which the player wears khakis and a collared shirt. Button down shirts, the only collared shirts that don't look idiotic (by default) aren't the ones though, no, there's a special shirt, for those who can't bother to use ALL the buttons, but just a couple ones at the top. And it won't even be crafted well. We'll make it using the roughest spare fabric we can find, and we'll put it together so loosely you'll think it's mesh. The bonus of it being so loose is the first time you wash it (or step out into humid atmosphere) it shrinks three sizes, so you look like an even bigger douchebag!

Never in my life were polo shirts remotely popular until the past few years. That's when rappers started wearing them and popping the collars. Like many things rappers do, this caused even more people to look retarded. I hadn't thought the polo could look worse on someone than it did on everyone I went to school with until I saw motherfuckers popping their collars. Most of the people I've known throughout my life have been rich white kids, and when rich white kids dress like rappers, it only makes me wish they'd find themselves in the ghetto being shot at. Hell, when people wear polo shirts with popped collars it makes me wish they'd get shot at. 

I think the time has come to remove the polo shirt from the clothing lineup. It does nothing for the wearer, it hurts the eye of the people who have to look at the wearer, and it doesn't even meet the basic clothing function requirements of keeping one warm or keeping one dry. Please, if you claim to have fashion sense, don't wear polo shirts. 

----------------

Now playing: Audra Heaslip, Chuck Cage, Sean O'Hara - GWC Podcast #146: Two Hours With Richard Hatch

via FoxyTunes 

I thought Rick Warren was bad

Rick Warren is an asshole. Also, a boring bastard. Anyone who saw the prayers at the inauguration yesterday could see that. Rick Warren gave an invocation that was utter bullshit, coming from him. Inclusiveness, indeed! Unless it involves gay people having rights (apart from the rights to cookies and water, or whatever stupid fucking excuse he gave for how he loves gay people). Meanwhile, the man who gave the closing prayer, Joseph E Lowery, was fantastic. I know some who've asked exactly what religion has given us: I point to such things as the answer: black rhythmic preaching. Granted, they've also given us the awful, dull, monotonous old-white-man RC/C of E preaching style, but you take the good with the bad. Plus it works great as a soporific.

--

Speaking of religious idiots, there's this story from Oz. This is a story of a Muslim cleric giving a sermon (or whatever they call them in Islam) on "Keys to a successful marriage". One of which was if your wife doesn't do what you tell her to do straight away, kick the bitch's ass. 

Perhaps "kick the bitch's ass" is too strong, actually, as he advised restraint - well, he said the husband cannot make her bruise or bleed. Then again, he certainly didn't draw the line at rape, because he said the woman must fuck her husband the instant he demands it. Now, in civilisation, we have this thing called "not being in the mood" and "choice". Both of them mean nobody HAS to have sex with ANYONE at ANY TIME if they don't want to. This guy is in AUSTRALIA! 

He even comments about how absurd he thinks it is that a man can have sex with his wife without her consent and it is considered rape. Maybe all he needs is a dictionary. Maybe all he needs is a dictionary smashed about his head and neck. That's the very definition of rape: when one is forced to engage in sexual behaviour with another against their will. It doesn't matter if they're married, engaged, have had sex together before, planned to have sex together someday, or anything else. No means no (unless you're doing kinky stuff, in which case "red" means no).

--

Lost is back tonight. I remain one of the few sci-fi nerds who doesn't give a monkey's left ball about it. Don't get me wrong: I watched the first series and thought it was awesome most of the way through it. I enjoyed many of the characters and their stories. I just need a balance of character development and something actually happening.

The first series was something like 75 percent backstory. Now I'm normally fine with a lot of backstory, but frankly, when you have multiple one-character backstory episodes per season, and it's only the same four or five characters, YOU NEED SOMETHING TO HAPPEN SO BAD YOU HAVE NO IDEA. Which brings me to the stuff that DID happen. If you didn't watch Lost season one and want to sometime, stop reading now (all one of you who read this).

They crashed on an island in the South Pacific on the way from Australia to LAX. The plane was ripped in two in mid-air somehow, and there were about forty-something survivors. They kept getting a signal on the radio and eventually found it - it was some French woman. Then they found "The Others" (DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN) who were there much longer. "The Others" stole a baby or something, I'm not really sure. Meanwhile, John Locke (yes, that's his name), recovering paraplægic (thanks to the Island's MAGICAL POWERS) finds a hatch in the ground somewhere in the jungle. He spends about two months of episodes trying to get into the damn thing and then in the finale, GASP! THERE'S A TUNNEL INSIDE THE HATCH! It was about at this point that I decided I could give the entire series a miss. Oh, and there's some sort of monster that you never see (think of another JJ Abrams project, Cloverfield). 

I've been told by many that the series really picks up around series three, but frankly, I'm a completist and I can't bear the thought of sitting through the boring seasons to get to the good ones. I'm already doing that with Doctor Who serials.

----------------
Now playing: Audra Heaslip, Chuck Cage, Sean O'Hara - GWC Podcast #146: Two Hours With Richard Hatch
via FoxyTunes

I wrote this on an "illegal" copy of Openoffice.org

A friend linked me to one of the dumbest stories of the year. The fact that the year began just over 20 days ago doesn't make me feel better about this situation.

The story's from a blog, so there's no dateline. There's also no dateline because the nice people at HeliOS didn't want to out a complete fucking moron to the entire universe. A teacher in the Austin Independent School District saw a student giving a presentation on Linux. The teacher confiscated the discs, called a “conference” with the student (as we all surely remember, “conferences” with teachers in anything lower than university-level would be more accurately described as dressings-down). She found out about HeliOS and sent an email to Ken Starks who runs the HeliOS blog. Among the utter idiocy published in this email:

At this point, I am not sure what you are doing is legal. No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful.

No software is free, is it? Hmm, that means I must have “stolen” my copies of Firefox, Opera, iSquint, Openoffice.org, Yahoo! Messenger!, TweetDeck, TwitterPod, VLC media player, iTunes (when I used Windows), Last.fm, AVG antivirus programme, iAntiVirus (for Mac), Google Earth, Handbrake, and Twitterrific. Damn, that's quite the list of charges, isn't it? I think if it weren't for Opera I'd be okay, but since I have Opera, it's a Federal Pound Me In The Ass Prison!

[…] if you are doing anything illegal, I will pursue charges as the law allows. Mr. Starks, I along with many others tried Linux during college and I assure you, the claims you make are grossly over-stated and hinge on falsehoods.

What the hell do you think Linux is, lady? Is Linux the “L” in LSD? Linux isn't a drug, it's a fucking open-source software platform! I tried Linux on a trial version of Parallels once and guess what? The only problem was Parallels wouldn't let me connect to the fucking internet! I would consider using Linux if I didn't have a good thing going with OSX and if I could program things my damn self. The latter, by the way, isn't a deal-breaker. I'd figure it out on my own if I had to program.

[…] putting linux on these machines is holding our kids back.


Now that's just fucking stupid. It's been approximately two years since Windows Shitsta came out and underwhelmed took a steaming shit on everybody who got it, and Linux is holding people back? I sincerely doubt learning to use a computer that works is going to disadvantage anybody. In fact, if more people were willing to try other operating systems, the so-called marketplace of ideas could stop being a capitalist's wet dream and become an actual way of determining what is good, what is bad, and what functions well enough for the time being.

This is a world where Windows runs on virtually every computer and putting on a carnival show for an operating system is not helping these children at all. I am sure if you contacted Microsoft, they would be more than happy to supply you with copies of an older verison of Windows and that way, your computers would actually be of service to those receiving them..."

Even the idiot arguing for Microsoft Supremacy acknowledges that to “actually be of service to those receiving” these computers, they would have to be equipped with older versions of Windows. Now, certainly, old-ass software on old-ass machines can be of service. Okay, I'm totally lying. I've worked jobs where I had to use Windows 98 as recently as the past two years, and if there was one thing those machines didn't do, it was SERVE me in any useful way. Certainly I got to smack something around in a way I couldn't do to anything else at the job, but as computers, old computers with old systems are worth doo-doo.

Now I'm not a Linux or Mac evangelist. Well, I tell Windows users they need to get a Mac, but I don't go out of my way for it. I tell them this only after they've complained about how shitty Windows is. I offer them an alternative, and usually I get the same response: “I can't afford a Mac.” Linux is, in fact, free, and is, in fact, better than Windows. Granted that doesn't say a lot but it's true. Thanks to this idiot, I'm going to start trying to educate people who ask about the two significantly better alternatives. Thank you, Karen Namewithheld, for being so stupid to inspire me to action yet again.

Idiotic Adverts

I'm watching the Rangers-Penguins game because it's the first time in a very long time I've seen hockey on TV, and it's in HD to boot. It's the first interval now, and I'm seeing some adverts I've wondered about for some time.

I'm sure nearly everyone has seen the poker website ads. There's one where a bunch of cards are trying to get on board a bus but they can't because there's already a hand on board. There's another similar one with the cards in a bar. There's still another where a guy is talking about how you're playing everyone until there's one left, implying he's playing himself (I think).

The thing these ads have in common is the website they're for. I don't know if it's literally the same website, but every one of the sites is "not a gambling website". How do you have a poker website that isn't gambling? What's the point? If I want to play poker Senate Rules, I'll download a freeware game. Apparently it's a learning website. Really? It's a "learning" to gamble website. I don't think that qualifies as "not a gambling website".

Another ad that utterly fails to convince me of the quality of the product is for My Bloody Valentine 3D. They're advertising it as a movie full of sex and violence. I'm actually in favour of advertising that, because that's what's IN the damn movie. I don't see it as a bad thing because it's a MOVIE. Anyway, in the adverts, there's a blond girl having sex, looking up into a mirror on the ceiling, and saying, "I'm SO hot." Nobody told me Paris Hilton was in this film!

Seriously, the girl is much more physically appealling than Hilton, but that makes her just appealing enough to be murdered in a horror movie. The part that makes the ad even more unsexy is when she's being chased by the murderer through what looks like a rural motel car park ... still bare-ass naked. Is there a rule now that says horror movies have to have a Tara Reid lookalike running about naked? I can understand why many view that as a good thing, but I would hate to see nothing but Tara Reid clones in horror movies. For one thing, Tara (and very probably her clones) cannot act for SHIT. Her most convincing line ever was in The Big Lebowski - where she said to The Dude, "I'll suck your cock for $1000." Best delivery she's ever done.

Naturally, the ad ends with Naked-Tara-Double hiding under the bed (still naked). Maybe I'm weird but I don't find naked blondes running in sheer terror through a parking lot to be sexy. I don't even find it necessary for a horror film - not even a cheap slasher flick like this is obviously intended to be (let's be honest, nothing says "cheap slasher flick" like 3D glasses). When a film has a naked blonde running for her life, it makes me think her performance was so bad but they already had her under contract, so they decided to throw in a nude scene so they didn't feel bad for casting her.

Don't get me wrong; I have no problem with gratuitous screen nudity. But sometimes it actually takes away from the film. I greatly prefer when gratuitous nudity is in a film as a BONUS feature (not on the DVD, I mean you go to the movie to see the movie and SURPRISE! tits). If your movie needs to advertise gratuitous nudity (in 3D or not) to sell the god damn movie, you are doing something wrong.

Skiing holiday

I'm completely knackered after my dad and I went on a skiing holiday at Paoli. Anyone who's properly skied would laugh their asses off at this hill, but it's nearby and I like it. I'm not writing today because of all that, but instead I got some nice photos of other completely random people doing jumps and stuff.

----------------
Now playing: MSNBC Rachel Maddow (video) - 01-16-2009-195223
via FoxyTunes

Time for a change

Earth was the final straw. Laura Roslin has to go.

Laura Roslin as President of the Colonies has led us on a fruitless chase for earth. She has caused uncountable deaths of civilians and military men and women. She attempted election fraud which, if successful, likely would have doomed the entire human race. And she took hallucinogens and based her government off those hallucinations. Recently she wandered off on a selfish quest for "answers" (to what, we'll probably never know) on board a Cylon BaseStar, where, if the reports are accurate, she based even more judgements on hallucinations (this time from a Cylon Hybrid).

It has become clear to me as well as many others that President Roslin is unfit for the job of President of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol and should resign post-haste. The Vice President should also resign, in fact he never should have been in office. But when I think about it the Vice Presidency of a convicted terrorist reflects more on the judgement of Roslin than anything else.

Neither Laura Roslin nor her Vice President Zarek have ever been elected to the highest office in the fleet, yet we constantly find them on Colonial One. How do they keep ending up there? Certainly, Roslin's first term is excusable; the line of succession was carefully detailed in the Articles of Confederation. There should not have been a fight over whether the election should take place seven months after the destruction of the Colonies, but there was. It is clear from that incident, not to mention Roslin's attempt to falsify the election results, that Laura Roslin is anti-democratic. What, I have to wonder, is she doing in democratic politics?

There is one man who I think should be Laura Roslin's obvious replacement. It is not Gaius Baltar; he's busy with leading his new monotheistic cult. Not Galen Tyrol, the leader of the New Caprica and Fleet Unified Workers; he is still needed fighting for the working man (ironically against Laura Roslin's union-busting hard line). One man has worked as a lawyer, soldier, and politician, and therefore knows all the aspects of power and how best to balance it. He commanded a Battlestar, rescued us off New Caprica, has a long career as a Viper pilot (and Commander of the Air Group), successfully defended Gaius Baltar against one of the most controversial trials in the history of the Colonial Justice System. And most recently he has served the people as the Quorum delegate for Caprica and, when Roslin went on one of her vendettas, Acting-President of the Colonies. I speak of course of Leland Joseph Adama.

Adama is pro-union, pro-peace with the Cylons, yet is not above taking a hard line to do the right thing. He stopped Vice President Zarek's prisoner rebellion on the Astral Queen and still solved the problem Zarek brought up of elections. He helped prevent a possible assassination attempt on Cloud 9. He sided against Colonel Saul Tigh's military junta when then-Commander William Adama, Delegate Adama's own father, was under medical treatment after being shot by a Cylon sleeper agent. He almost single-handedly brought down the fleet black market under the control of a mob boss. He is a natural leader: tough at times, sympathetic at others, and always doing the right thing. Best of all, however, Lee Adama is not completely crazy like the past two presidents (one legitimate, one not, at least the second time).

I implore the people of the fleet to vote Lee Adama in the election.

Galactica pwns your face

I, like many of my fellow geeks, have been amping up for the return and finish of Battlestar Galactica this Friday. Then my fiancee's boss has to commit the third-worst case of party-pooping in history and have Liz work Friday night. When the mall closes right when Galactica comes on the air, that's definitely NOT enough time to get home.

If you're reading this and are unfamiliar with Battlestar Galactica (the 2003 series) (yes, it makes a huge difference) I'll give you a rundown of any given episode. There is a Cylon opening bit. In series one it gave a brief history of the Cylons (they were created by man, rebelled, evolved, look and feel human, some think they are human, and they have a PLAN). In series two, they dropped the look/feel human and some think they are, because by this point everyone knew was a Cylon. In series three, the intro only changed the pictures used. Series 4.0 gave a shot of every known Cylon with captions about that (twelve cylon models, etc).

The next part is a "previously on" segment, which is fairly common in serialised television, and I don't have to explain it (thank gods). Then they have a cold open, or a segment of the show that airs before the main titles. This is frequently either a) action-packed and some of the best television ever, or b) heavy on character development and some of the best television ever. Then the opening titles play. Series four's premiere, "He That Believeth in Me," was a perfect example of this format. Hell, that cold open even managed to give us character development AND be action-packed.

What follows the first ad break is some of the best storytelling, acting, writing, etc, that has ever been filmed. Since the show debuted in 2004 (after a 2003 miniseries pilot), it has been nominated for a Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) every year, winning in 2005 for the first series episode "33". In fairness, the only reason BSG did not win in 2006-8 for Pegasus, Downloaded, and Razor respectively is that those episodes were up against Doctor Who episodes penned by Steven Moffat, the best television writer in the known universe.

BSG has been critically praised and is probably one of the best things Sci-Fi has ever had going for them. Indeed, in late 2007 when their original remake of Flash Gordon was failing ... for good reason ... several Galactica mini-sodes aired during Flash Gordon episodes to draw viewers in as well as promote the upcoming feature-length episode, Razor. Like many things Galactica, the sodes (as they were known in fandom, coined by Galactica Watercooler podcast) brought up more questions than they ever answered. Luckily, that's just how Galactica fans like it. Among questions being asked about this final series include: Who or what is Starbuck, What's up with the final four Cylons, who is the final fifth, are the main group of Cylons going to come back and destroy Galactica and the humans, can the Cylons be trusted, and the ever-present question of Earth.

To quote Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly: "If you speculate and it turns out you were right, you will have retroactively spoiled me. Which means I will have to retroactively kill you."


----------------
Now playing: Bear McCreary - Prelude To War
via FoxyTunes

What's the matter with kids today?

Every now and then (roughly once a week) I have an off-day. I didn't sleep well last night, when I got back from class I went directly to bed, and now I can't think of a damn thing to write. In an effort to combat such days becoming anything more than an inconvenience, I use these days as an opportunity to watch telly and hope for a muse.

I'm watching West Wing series six and one of Santos's (Jimmy Smits) campaign issues is a longer school year. Personally, as a child I would've kicked this congressman in the tits for suggesting extending the (to me) already long school year. Now, when I see kids in the mall acting like little entitled shitheads who know next to nothing of literature, science, and maths, I think putting them in school year round, six days a week, is a damned good fucking idea. Hell, if you lock the shits in and don't let them go home at the end of the day I'm not horribly opposed to that.

I'm not a fan of kids in the best of times, and can count on one hand the number of children I actively like as people. I like them because they happen to have enough critical thinking skills to make them seem like adult humans as opposed to dropout-adults-in-training like I usually have to deal with. I only recently began actively considering having children of my own, with no small amount of pressuring from my fiancee. I had several caveats such as no faery stories pretended to be real (tooth faery et al), public schooling unless there's no other option, and under no circumstances will they be taught that one way is right and all others wrong without significant information on all levels.

This hasn't brought me any lack of worries that our children would have poorly-developed imaginations. In the end I don't think that's such a problem, as at least half the films in my DVD collection are sci-fi or fantasy. Plus at first glance, ... all of the books on my bookshelf are sci-fi or fantasy. And if there was ever a worry about imagination, we single-handedly ended it by deciding we would read to our child from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Voices and everything.
----------------
Now playing: Rachel Maddow 01-12-09
via FoxyTunes

But cats EAT fish ...

PETA did it again. They acted like fucking idiots.

This time it's fish. They want to save the fish. Of course, they say there's a PR problem with saving the fish, so they want to rename the entire phylum cordata to "Sea Kittens." I presume the scientific term would be felis aqueous?

Or maybe we should rename anyone having anything to do with PETA Homo Retardus. Seriously, Sea Kittens? I've crapped better ideas than this. I have shoes with more creativity. Plus, maybe they didn't know this little fact because they're anti-pet, but cats eat fish. In the wild, in domestic situations, big cats, little cats, house cats - they all love to eat seafood. Shrimp, trout, flounder, tuna, salmon, fish of any kind, my cat loves it. So has every cat I've ever met. That's why they make dry cat food fish-flavoured: to get them to gobble up what would otherwise be a bowl of Weetabix for cats.

I understand being against animal cruelty; I'm against it myself. I even understand being so against animal cruelty that one doesn't eat meat. That's fine. I would consider it myself if I liked any veggies. Hell, I'm even okay with not eating or using any kind of animal or animal-related product, although if I had to become vegan I think I'd just kill myself. The problem I have is trying to stop other people doing what they want to do when it doesn't actually hurt anyone.

Granted, overfishing is a problem. Granted, it's more ecologically friendly to eat vegetarian. But honestly, eating meat doesn't hurt anyone except the animal that's killed to make the food. That can be helped at least a little by making sure the methods of slaughter (that's a term that really helps) are humane. Buying kosher meats from a local butcher is probably the easiest, if a slightly more expensive, way of making sure your meat is killed humanely. Being a douchebag to an entire geographical area (northeast, northwest and Florida come to mind in this example) and attempting to put entire industries out of work is not a good way to get animal rights.

I live in the US. Nobody in this country has ever done something they didn't want to do without significant pressure. A non-profit organisation has never had enough power to put that much pressure on a person. Churches, corporations, governments, and local "culture" are the only things with the kind of power that can actually forbid someone doing anything or cause someone to think they have to do something. Until and unless PETA becomes that powerful, they will continue to have only "ha ha look at the retards from PETA doing another stupid fucking thing again" stories in the media.

Well, the media that doesn't necessarily follow their philosophy, at least.

----------------
Now playing: Ozzy Osbourne - Gets Me Through
via FoxyTunes

lol @ the irony of typing an anti-veggie post while listening to a vegetarian ROKK OUT

In what I HOPE is an unrelated note

I went to see The Unborn with Liz and someone from the Sci-Fi club tonight. We got into the cinema right as the pre-show adverts began playing. I don't mean the ones for Pepsi and the National Guard. I mean the local ones.

Now, when I worked at that cinema the in-between-shows ads played on a constant loop. I guess the owner realised that's incredibly expensive, so now they play for the 15 minutes leading up to the adverts for Pepsi, the National Guard, and several sports and fizzy drinks. They include businesses right next to the cinema, businesses whose owners are friendly with the cinema owner, and the like. But there was one that made me react with shouting, and the only reason I wasn't ejected from the building was because Liz noticed and put her hand firmly over my mouth until the advert was over. The advert was a recruitment ad.

For the Evansville Police.

Maybe I'm off track here, but shouldn't the police have a higher standard than "Average Moviegoer"? Sure, a lot of those movies have cops in them. Some are mysteries that resemble real policework. Others are shoot-em-up flicks that only resemble policework done in cities hosting the Republican and/or Democrat National Conventions. But either way, most policework consists of filing reports, sitting around, and executing black people traffic duties.

This explains a lot, really. It explains how cops hang out at Starbucks for hours on end. It explains how they still turn on their lights to get through traffic or a red traffic light. It explains why there's a well-known cop in the area whose entire purpose seems to be busting USI students for drinking, even when they aren't drinking. The reason is because THEY DON'T HAVE ANY QUALIFICATIONS BEFORE GOING TO POLICE ACADEMY!

Police Academy is supposed to be the place where cops-in-training learn specifics and how to do their job, not where they learn ... you know, I can't even think of a comparison, because THERE ISN'T ONE. Police shouldn't be fucking psychopaths who enjoy shooting two guns while flying through the air screaming, they should be people who have an actual interest in enforcing the fucking law. I worry that this will continue to provide Evansville with an utterly shitty police force.

At least the film was good.

----------------
Now playing: Atheist Community of Austin - The Non-Prophets 8.1
via FoxyTunes

Really?!

Three stories on CNN. Three on MSNBC. Only one of the CNN stories even talks about the shooting, another is about the protests that turned to riots (I have heard due to "political tourism", that is outsiders coming in to wreck shit for fun), and one is about the cop who did the shooting resigning.

MSNBC is little better; one story about the riots, one about the tape of the shooting, and another about there being "Two stories" from the shooting. Apart from one story from the New York Times and one from the AP via the Boston Globe, I nearly didn't hear about this shooting.

Well, if it weren't for the blogs, that is.

I personally have a lot more respect for blogs as news sources now. Daily Kos and Shakesville both showed extensive sources for this criminal act. Shakesville even linked a video taken by a train passenger that clearly shows Oscar Grant sitting against the wall with three to four other men, then the police force him to lie prone on the floor while one cop kneels on him. Then the other police creature (I cannot call him a man; I know not what species one has to be to do such a thing) pulls his gun.

Multiple sources say the gun "accidentally went off". That is not remotely the point. He was doing nothing that could be interpreted by a thinking person (or even an extremely jittery, stressed, thinking person) as an attempt at violence or escape. Grant was struggling to be sure, but then again, he did have a cop's knee in his fucking back.

According to the CNN report, the fired shot (I refuse to use weaselspeak and say "Discharged round") entered through Grant's back, ricocheted off the floor and pierced his lungs. He died seven hours later. Happy fucking new year, incidentally, to his four-year-old daughter.

Throughout the period of wrestling Grant to the floor, which was not obviously justified, the people viewing and recording from the train were shouting at the police that their actions, to put it lightly, were not proportionate. One man can be clearly heard saying "That's fucked up" repeatedly. Then the gun goes off (whether accidentaly or not is frankly irrelevant, as the officer should not have HAD IT OFF HIS HIP IN THE FIRST PLACE), and there is a moment of ghastly silence and shock. Everyone begins to shout at the police (quite understandably at this point) and the train doors shut them into the car.

This is possibly one of the most hideous videos I have ever seen. If you don't want to be utterly pissed off, sickened, depressed, or shocked beyond belief, do not watch. link

Judge for your damn selves if it was justified. The police creature who fired the shot resigned Wednesday. That should not save him from at the very least, an incredibly long prison term. As the poster of the above-linked video says, "You don’t get to execute someone and just find yourself on the job market again." Grant was cooperating by all available evidence and is now dead for the crime of obeying a police officer's orders.

Damn the lot of you. You deserve Inquisition-level punishments.

Round and round and round they go

A friend linked me today to a story about Greenfield, Ind.'s mayor proposing four new roundabouts. To quote the webcomic "Questionable Content," I am in favour of this so much you have no idea.

You see, in my hometown of Evansville, Ind., we have an east side and a west side. These sides of town have developed their own segregated cultures due to the difficulty involved in crossing from one side to the other. There are only two roads. One is a six-lane divided highway (which shrinks to four lanes outside of city limits, but even so) and the other is a four-lane divided street that doubles as State Route 62. The latter is called Diamond Ave. within city limits, and is far too north of where I typically need to go. Thus, my only real option is the former, known within city limits as the Lloyd Expressway.

The Lloyd as it is known colloquially was named for an ex-mayor who was murdered by a woman who believed him to still be the mayor back in the early 1980s. The expressway was constructed in his memory (partly due to his involvement during his life and time in office, I believe). It runs from Warrick County to the east to Posey County to the west. All along its route are traffic lights approximately every half-mile to mile, apart from one two-and-a-half mile stretch of elevated highway. How, many have asked, including my father upon its construction in 1982, the hell is this a god damned "expressway"?

Matters only get worse, of course. In the mid 1990s, there was an extensive construction project known locally for its severe cock-ups. The project took over one thousand days to complete. Eventually, approximately ten years ago, the project was completed and all lanes of the Lloyd "Expressway" were open for traffic again, apart from minor construction issues that all roads face. This past year, two lanes (one each direction) were shut down and an off-ramp was constructed. The two lanes being shut down increased the amount of time it took to cross Fulton Ave. westbound, the location where all lanes reopened.

Come December, the eastbound route is still restricted to two lanes after Fulton until Wabash, then restricted again to two lanes upon leaving city limits (which causes one to wonder why the fuck they don't just cut it to two lanes for the time in between but never mind that for now), but the westbound route takes the newly-constructed off-ramp, stops at a newly-installed traffic light on South Fulton, goes to another traffic light at First Ave. (southbound), ANOTHER traffic light at First Ave. (northbound), then to an on-ramp and back onto the elevated highway portion of the Lloyd.

Now hypothetically they are removing the traffic light at Fulton Ave. and installing an on/off ramp system. This is something I approve of, however I would very much prefer if we didn't have to trade one traffic light for three in the mean time. If you can build an off-ramp, odds are you could also remove the need for three traffic lights and simply have a turn-in/turn-out space like other sections of the highway have. This would only limit it to two traffic lights at First Ave., but with a bit of effort they could be much better synchronised than they currently are. The ultimate up-side of this would be fewer people would think their city planners and road commissioners are stupid fucking assholes.

Or, we could replace half the traffic lights with roundabouts and let the stupid drivers die on them.

You fucking idiot

Dear fucknut:

Your username is a Spanish-language pun on "Backwards", and it's never been so appropriate: it perfectly describes your thinking on nearly everything. You actually said, in a discussion on Proposition 8 and homosexuality,

The backlash against Mormons is not about them being "interlopers" it is because Mormons are minority that it is politically correct to demonize.

Would this be a bad time to mention that Mormons are allowed to do damn near whatever they like? Mormons are not allowed to marry multiple people, certainly, but then again neither is anyone else. Gay marriage would work as an equaliser: Everyone can marry one person of legal age of their choice, regardless of race, religion or gender. But the Mormons don't want that. Could they be jealous because they can't marry the twelve people they want? Honestly, I don't have a huge problem with polygamy either, so after gay marriage, if the Mormons want to push for poly-marriage, I'd be happy to support that cause too. I'll be happy to be the bigger person and support those who have opposed and even demonised my friends and those I've championed. 

But currently, Mormons are the most persecuted group, or at least popular to be persecuted. Are they really? You really think so, Backwards? Let's go to Richmond, Calif. Richmond is on the East San Francisco Bay area, a few miles north of Oakland. You know, the same San Francisco Bay Area that is a central city of gay culture and liberal politics. There was a story in the news, not widely reported of course, because it was sort of a downer, that on 13 December, a woman was hit with a blunt object, forcibly stripped of her clothes, and gang-raped. She was left naked outside a burned-out apartment block (source: San Francisco Chronicle). She MUST have been a Mormon, right? Nope. She was an open lesbian. The crime is being investigated as a hate crime, probably because it WAS one. 

A google search of "mormon hate crime" turns up two or three stories from Arizona newspapers of a Mormon missionary getting beaten up by an unknown assailant who shouted "Mormon" at him, and the rest of the results on the first page are attacks on buildings, not people, certainly not RAPES, many of which post-Proposition 8. 

Now maybe I'm off-target on this, but I think rape is the most despicable thing a so-called human can do to another human (or non-human as the case may be, but let's stick to intra-species violation). Murder, assault, battery, emotional abuse, property damage, or dismemberment don't hold a candle in my view to rape. So the next time a Mormon missionary is kidnapped, mugged, and gang-raped, and the police treat it as if it MIGHT be a hate crime as opposed to an OBVIOUS hate crime, I'll admit that maybe Mormons are persecuted. As it is, anyone claiming Mormons as a minority "that it is politically correct to demonise" can go fuck themselves.

Dr Gupta (CNND) and the economy

I'm really not confident in this administration anymore. I expected to lose confidence in the person I elected, of course, but I really wished I'd be able to watch the inauguration in peace first. So, gays: you're not a priority, we'd rather involve someone who hates gay people ... yet who claims he doesn't hate gay people, doesn't fear gay people, rather that gay people fear Christ (he said it. Yup, he did.) and ... you know, I'm not sure I can write about the things this guy has said. Having a functional brain and a severe lack of cognitive dissonance, I can't even begin to see where his line of thinking begins, let alone where it connects to other things. 

Not only that, but now Sanjay Gupta, a CNN doctor, is proposed to be the next Surgeon General of the United States. Based on his previous opinions (a glance at his Wikipædia article comes to mind) this makes me very nervous. I am guessing (uneducated guess though it may be) that now health care, which you would have to be a fucking crackhead to say "it's in great shape", is not a priority either. What's next, are we going to say "Fuck the economy" too? "Americans don't need to have jobs" sound like a good policy? Granted it sure seemed like we were going to hear it sometime soon during the auto bailout hearings, which lasted two to three weeks (as opposed to the bank/Wall St bailouts which lasted ONE).

This leads me to something I really just don't understand: If people are losing jobs the world over ... who is buying the things these people make? Who is paying the people who still have jobs? Seriously, if the economy is going south, why do I see people coming into my job at the mall and buying things? I suppose, sure, if people don't keep buying things regardless of the state of the economy (Which is FAKE anyway) then the economy will get even worse(er) than it is. But isn't that just horrendously cyclical? It feels like we ought to be able to just start producing, people will start buying with all the money they're making producing all that stuff they're producing, which in turn will create MORE jobs, ad infinitum. 

Granted, I know fuck-all about economics, but that's where I am.

Picking nits and taking names

I worked arse-early this morning. I don't mind that, but somebody used a phrase I've heard before, and never really got. The phrase, a very common one, was "Kicking ass and taking names".

I honestly don't know what you need the names for. I was told by the person who said it that you need the names "For kickin' ass!" but that seems overly structured. I've never seen kickin' ass as an orderly, organised activity. It seems more to me like an activity engaged in at the last second, and with no particular order to it. For example, if one is kickin' ass, and someone is there, guess what? There's going to be a foot-ass connection. You don't need to make a list! Just kick ass! This isn't the fucking census!

This got me thinking about what other phrases confer a status of organisation upon a naturally rowdy or disorganised behaviour? Is a demolition derby a structured event? Do jazz and blues players plan out exactly what notes they play, or do they do what feels and sounds right? Did Randy Rhoads write his guitar solos down? Do improv comedians (not the ones on such programmes as "Whose Line", but ones in clubs) plan their entire routine? NO, IT'S IMPROV. You're supposed to IMPROVISE.

I really don't get the "taking names" bit. I would prefer to "Kick this ass, kick that ass, I'll KICK THE ASS OF ANYTHING THAT MOVES!" This isn't to say everything should be unstructured. But kicking ass bank-teller style doesn't really work as a mental image. Kicking ass Dentist-style makes me think people's fears of going to the dentist are well-founded. Kicking ass screenwriter-style reminds me of anything Michael Bay has ever done, as opposed to The Godfather. Activities like kicking ass should be free-verse as opposed to iambic pentameter.

Unless Shakespeare has some as-yet-undiscovered battle raps lying about somewhere in Stratford.

----------------
Now playing: Ozzy Osbourne - Trap Door (Album Version)
via FoxyTunes

IQ tests for drivers!

Well, Mirta hates cats. It's official. So no new cat for us. However, with no god as my witness, I shall NOT let this deter my quest for a cheapass refurbished Xbox 360! Plus the boyfriend of the person whose cat we were hoping to take was playing Gears of War at the time we were over. And apparently all the time else. End Livejournally content, back to the writing part.

I remembered at the last minute today I was supposed to go to the library for PCMN movies. I pulled up behind a car on the way out of the lot, followed them in a right turn onto the main road, and stopped as they came to an inexplicable full stop no more than 15 feet from the exit. At first I thought maybe they were turning into the gym opposite, but they didn't have their indicator on and they didn't, well, turn. I began to reach for the horn when they remembered that they were ON A PUBLIC FUCKING STREET and drove off.

I really don't understand how people can come to a complete goddamn stop on a public, busy road without a living being in front of their car. Exactly what is it you are stopping for, idiot? Did you get lost? If so, there are SIX PARKING LOTS very near your current location! Pull into one and figure it out there, but the street is not the place for it!

My first thought was, "I wish I didn't have to drive places so I wouldn't have to put up with stupid shit like this," but then I remembered: I deal with this every time I walk into a place with a doorway. Maybe it's a Southern Bumfuck Indiana thing, but people love to stop and talk/read their receipts/put their money away/make sure the cashier didn't eat their clothes/dial their idiot box (a phrase that used to mean television, but I'm co-opting it for mobile phones). I don't think a doorway is the most useful place to do ... anything, really, except for WALKING. Maybe it's evolved to the point that these dumb motherfuckers actually think that roads are for dialing your phone/checking your bags/fucking with your wallet/reading/chit-chatting. If that's the case, I look forward to the mass deaths sure to follow and the return of Homo Sapiens Sapiens to the process of evolution by natural selection.

----------------
Now playing: The Pirate Planet
via FoxyTunes

meandering thoughts

Tomorrow, we're going over to a friend's apartment to look at a cat. Liz has been wanting to get a second cat since before we got Mirta a year and a half ago almost, but only now could we afford it (kind of). If Mirta and Monster (tentatively named Milo, or possibly something else) get on, we'll have a black cat with green eyes in addition to our half-siamese bratcat. Monster was abandoned at our friend's church and she took him home, fed him so he isn't malnourished anymore, and then her cat stopped crapping in the sand in protest. Hopefully, Mirta won't react the same way. Since we'd be getting MiloMonster for free (no adoption fee, already neutered, all shots) I told Liz that if we get another cat, she has to get me (or go in with me on) an Xbox 360. I will FINALLY PLAY GEARS OF WAR AND MASS EFFECT!

In other news, this evening (or noon depending on your global location) BBC Wales announced the actor who will be filling David Tennant's Chuck Taylors in 2010 as The Doctor (Who). Liz found out during the hour before she had to go into work today and complained about it because he has a super-emo-twat haircut at the moment. I honestly hope it's for a role and not his normal hair, or hair that he'll be wearing on set. Anyway, his name is Matt Smith, and at 26 he's the youngest Doctor ever. From the small clips they jammed into the Doctor Who Confidential they used to announce him, he seems quite an amazing actor, and I'm looking forward to what he'll be doing with the role. Liz relented and said she'd give him a chance on the condition that he doesn't look like the Doctor suddenly started to listen to Fall Out Boy and cut his hair like a goddamn moron in Hot Topic (my words, but I'm sure she'd second them).

Finally, (god, I've got to learn to tie this shit together) I've managed to coax my MacBook into ripping DVDs for completely legal fair-use backups again. The only part of the problem remains I don't have an AppleTV, but if I'm getting an Xbox 360 it should work largely the same way. I celebrated by finally backing up my copy of Old School, which is perfect for iPod use, as I somehow got the "full" screen version. I don't mind too much though, since it's not like Old School is a massive cinematic achievement that I bought for its intelligence, grand use of 1.85:1 ratio and Kubrickian Steadicam shots.

----------------
Now playing: The Onion - Roomba Continues Gathering Evidence Against Human Captor
via FoxyTunes

I'm a retard

I lost my phone at some point yesterday.

For years now I've seen people making facebook events called "I lost my phone, give me your phone numbers", and I've always thought, "how the hell do you lose your phone?! Well, now I know. Actually, I don't know because I still don't know where or how I lost the fucking thing. I know I got a call from my parents from outside my flat. I know I was sitting in my chair when I got it, and I know I hung up and got my coat on. I don't know where the fucking thing WENT! I was pretty sure I put it in my pocket, like I do every time I leave the apartment.

Editor's note: I'm a fucking retard. I looked just past my knee and saw the phone underneath a pillow on the sofa. It's been here the whole fucking time. Seriously though, I NEVER put it on the sofa for this very reason!

Guh. It's this side of myself I hate. This part of me has locked my keys in my car multiple times. How the hell stupid can I be?! I ... bollocksing shite!

----------------
Now playing: Black Sabbath - Sweet leaf
via FoxyTunes

iTunes-related OCD

I'm not really sure what gets into me sometimes. Every so often I will be in an excessively weird mood. I just finished organising, collectivising, and Album-artworking my iTunes library.

Yes, iTunes automatically organises tracks and downloads album artwork, but I listen to enough slightly obscure stuff that iTunes doesn't know where to find the artwork. Not to mention tracks I get from friends, from mix tapes, improperly labelled tracks, and really old random techno music from my first year in university, when I downloaded most things that popped up when I searched "techno" (half of that shit has never been properly labelled).

So anyway, I was organising, artworking, etc. I have no idea what causes me to do this. Is it because I just ripped a Black Sabbath album and it couldn't find the artwork? That makes sense; I had to go find it anyway, so I might as well keep wiki-searching and GISing all the other stuff. But that's not it, because when I put the entire Star Wars Trilogy of NPR dramas, I didn't think to properly title the tracks or relabel each disc so I only had one bit of artwork for the whole thing (instead of Star Wars The Radio Drama 1, it would be Star Wars The Radio Drama). (This blog is shaping up to be exciting as fuck this year, innit?) For Talib Kweli's Beautiful Struggle I got it from a friend, and some of the tracks weren't titled, and it took me six months to title them.

I guess I get into organisational moods, rather than being organised all the time. This makes me wonder if my New Year's Resolution to save receipts that could conceivably be work- or school-related so as to tax-deduct them will amount to anything past this weekend? I mean, I manage to let the dishes pile up in the sink until there aren't any cups and I want a glass of milk, I let the dustbin overflow until I have more than one aluminium can to throw away, and let's not even talk about the state of the floors in my flat. But every couple of weeks (sometimes once a month, it depends) I will go NUTS with cleaning.

This could be why I never gave a shit at Best Buy. When we were slow, they had us dust whatever surface we could find. We were occasionally so slow we had to dust the pegs upon which things hung. PEGS! Things that have next to no surface area on which dust can collect! And yet, we were supposed to dust them. I never got into it. I always half-assed the job, even after having to do it every day one week. I just didn't give a shit. Meanwhile, at my current job, I'll pile up returns on the small counter space until I can't put anything else there, and then when I get a free moment, I'll move that shit to where it belongs.

I'm not sure how it works, but maybe it has to do with it being on my computer. I flip out if I can't permanently delete things. I'm constantly trying to keep my hard disk more than 50 GB free. The only cleaning items I buy and use reliably are monitor wipes and canned air.

Or it could be that Liz was playing the second most boring bit of KOTOR II again and I needed something to occupy my fingers and brain.

The New Year

Well, we've spent the first nearly three hours talking about how stupid our families are, boob pains, and general redneckery. Oh, and getting people we know laid. In the words of Death Cab for Cutie, "So this is the new year".

I don't know, I've never felt what the big deal was on New Year's Eve. The only time I gave a shit was on NYE 1999, when every fucking country had a big-ass fireworks display. They ... well, they planned to light the Thames on fire, anyway. This year, what did they do? They brought back Dick York ... no, Dick Clark! from retirement/stroke. He did well I thought, for the two minutes of his show I watched.

Regarding restaurants on busy restaurant nights ... Something like ten years ago Red Lobster stopped accepting reservations or call-ahead seating. I went in tonight and immediately concluded that it was the stupidest fucking decision they've ever made, upon learning the wait was 90 minutes. We went directly to the Acropolis afterward and got in within 30 minutes - and reservations were an option too! This may be an insufficient sampling size but I think having the option for reservations just might HELP.

As a final weird atonal note, I plan to write a hell of a lot more on here. I started earlier than the first of the year to ensure I get more into the flow of writing. I had the problem of not wanting to write some days last semester, and really all last year, and I'm going to do what I can to combat that, namely by writing whatever horrid bullshit pops into my head each day.

Happy new year, small amount of people who actually read this!