All I've got to say is: I'm looking at CNN.com and stumble across Anderson Cooper's so-called 'Blog'... emblazoned with his narrow, earnest ("I'm so J. Peterman") mug and these sage words across the masthead:
"Be honest about what you see, get out of the way and let the story revealHe's so humble, that Anderson. He even quotes himself.
itself." Anderson Cooper
Again... more from my ongoing email conversation about Battlestar Galactica with a buddy from grad school..
Finally watched the latest Battlestar on TIVO last night... "The Captain's Hand"...
And egads! Are we rushing Lee's character along at this point, or what??
I HATED that opening scene with Dualla.. with all it's "while you were away" exposition thrown in there..
I realized during that scene that my problem here is that I have NO idea what the trajectories of these characters are...
I feel like they did a pretty good job milking some of Starbucks development earlier in the season... but now it feels like we're just rushing the characters along. Starbuck is drinking herself to death infront of projector screens full of young pilots getting waxed (remember a few eps ago) while Lee sleeps with (quite literally) every woman he encounters (except the president and the terrorist leader) and jumps from CAG to Pegasus Commander in a matter of weeks...
That said, it felt like this episode kind of found itself somewhere about 2/3's of the way through... around the time when I was REALLY ready to give up (as I was thinking to myself "is there even one single competent officer ANYWHERE on Pegasus?")... as what's-his-name Pegasus idiot took himself down to the engine room and the battle ensued with the Cylons, it's like they were able to capture some of the original tension and pacing of the early episodes.
And just when I was ready to feel better about the show.. then Baltar announces himself for President...
And I realized that so much of what's been missing these last few episodes has been Baltar. He really has been terribly underused recently.
But to use him this way, was really more like abuse than anything. I didn't care for it... this all just feels really very ham-handed.
Did I come to expect too much from the first season and the first half of this second? What the hell is going on here?
All the same, this ep does give me a small glimmer of hope.
They are going to have to figure out how to write a subtle Pegasus character, though... and having Lee running the ship over there gives them some opportunity to do that, I suppose...
Preview makes it look like the next episode will be another character-sketch... this time on the Cylon side... could be interesting.. but I just feel like these previous character-excursion episodes they sent us on somehow caused them to lose the thread on the larger story... so I'm concerned about how or if they'll ever get back on track...
A little Battlestar Galactica commentary after watching this week's episode:
Okay... after watching the latest BG over the weekend.. I'm honestly now starting to feel like I'm watching these episodes out of sequence.
What's the deal with Billy? you know, an episode or two ago, I remember wondering where he'd gotten off to.. even thought he might have been killed and I'd just not noticed it... and is it just me or did this little romance between Apollo and Dualla just spring up virtually out of nowhere? I do recall them setting it up a bit a few weeks ago, but even then I was wondering: What the hell happened to Billy? And my but isn't Apollo having a go of it lately-- that hooker on Cloud 9 he was keeping under wraps, a near tussle with Starbuck, and now Dualla.... geez-louise!
Makes it hard to believe Rosalyn when she's getting all weepy over Billy-- I mean, I'm talking to the TV: Geez, lady, you haven't seen the kid in like 2 months.. comes back on the scene, he's about 2 inches taller, got a new haircut, and he's clearly been working out at the gym... anyone care to wonder where he's been. Did his re-appearance not have "I'm back for one day's worth of shooting so they can kill my character and I can move on and work on my new pilot" written all over it??
Other questions: where's the good Doctor and Ms Tricia Helfer? Are they on vacation??
Has anyone seen the Chief since he and Helo were released?? (They were released, right? See, I can't even remember)..
All this adding to the ongoing drama of "What the hell happened to Pegasus?" I know, I know, they've made a couple of mentions of the ship, but who's at the helm of the freaking boat??
This ep was generally better than the last one, I thought, and loads better than 'Black Market'. More tension, a few good lines (Adama: "Cut the line."). But I'm starting to feel like Moore and the gang are either a) starting to feel a little too bullet-proof with their writing; or b) these were just filler episodes they figured they could shoot in any sequence and drop into the lineup when they needed some time to work on some larger story-arcs. I wonder.. from the preview, it looks like we're finally getting back to the Pegasus...
Let's hope so. After the last three or four episodes, this show is gradually starting to lose its grip...
Well done. Well deserved.
He announced, in the post-game, "the bus has made its last stop in Detroit!"
Happy Retirement, Jerome!
Tom Brady says Charlie Weis i the best coach he's ever been around:On Sirius radio, Brady acknowledged this was a trying season, especially after losing offensive coordinator Charlie Weis to Notre Dame and defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel to Cleveland.
“From the start of the year, the word coach (Bill) Belichick used was truth,” Brady said. “He was going to tell us the truth where we were at every single week as a team. We weren’t looking at the past. We had quite a bit of changes. We lost Charlie, who’s the best coach I’ve ever been around. We lost our defensive coordinator, who’s a head coach in the NFL. We lost some key players, had some tough injuries, and even through all that, were very competitive at the end of the year and had a shot to host the AFC Championship.”
Clip from an email I sent a friend regarding BattleStar and Firefly:
Just watched this week's BSG on TIVo--
Scar"-- and I've got to say.. I think it may be the most uneven episode I've seen (in a while at least)...
Since when did Cat become such a hot-shot? Maybe I haven't been paying proper attention...
Also seems like they introduced a lot of new pilot characters.. or at least the camera gave them special emphasis we haven't seen before..
This plus the overwhelming emphasis on Starbuck's drinking... and I've also lost track of who's CAG on which boat.... is Starbuck no longer attached to Pegasus..
Just weird.
I still loved the episode, but I just found myself scratching my head when it was over....
Also finished watching Firefly and Serenity this week.. and I'm totally IN LOVE!
Read a rumor somewhere along the line that the DVD sales of the show and movie are good enough that Joss may try to make the case for a return to TV for the show... that would, I think, be best... as good as the film was, I just think the pace of the writing and the style of the show lends itself best to the weekly TV format...
Random things you notice when you're kids are watching Toy Story non-stop for a week-- Joss Whedon got top writing credit for the first Toy Story screenplay.. not sure I realized he worked at Disney or Pixar... wild.
Just wish I weren't in my office quite so early in the morning..
but the view is pretty.. (not sure how well it comes through in these pictures..)
I never figured I'd be one of those guys with the multiple devices clipped to his belt (well, I'm still not, for the record)... I mean, who really needs constant access to their email anyway?
But I must say, now that I've got this little thing in my hands, I'm totally geeking out.. I can't put the damn thing down.. it's ridiculous!
Well, that may be too strong a way to describe my feelings in the aftermath of ND's loss to Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl.
Do I feel like the Irish deserved to be there? No question.
At the same time, I do feel a bit that the Irish were being ranked as much for their potential as for their accomplishments.
And, as a friend pointed out, I think Ohio State could, at this moment, give Texas or USC a run for their money if a playoff were part of the deal.
So all in all, I don't feel too badly. Disappointed..
But in years past, as in the Fiesta loss to Oregon State, or the Gator (?) Bowl loss to NC State-- I felt a sense of the lost opportunity, as though another season like this might not come along for a long time to come..
But this year, it seems terribly easy to say "Yeah, well wait til next year."
Here come the Irish.
and the Red Sox 'Nation' (which stretches as far as 495, last I heard) weeps with the 'defection.'
As though Damon were born a Red Sox...
Gotta love this note from the Dayton Daily News coverage of ESPN's College Football Awards show:
The zinger of the night came from Penn State's Joe Paterno, the Home Depot coach of the year. After he gabbed on the air with Herbstreit, a former Buckeye and Centerville High School quarterback, Paterno cracked, "It sure is great to be interviewed by a guy from Ohio State who can speak English."
Well, it may be bowl season-- odd that that means that there are actually NO college football games for weeks and week...
But this morning, I am, as my pseudonym implies, very very sleepy.
The younger of our two boys, 19 months old now, is still battling the last of this latest round of winter-time sniffles.. and last night seemed to be the worst of it-- he just could not get himself to sleep.
Add to that the stress of settling into a new job-- not to mention getting up at 4:30 this morning so I could be in the office by 5:30 (don't ask).. and it just was not a good night all the way around..
Coffee, coffee, coffee...
The boys have both come down sick this weekend-- stuffy, runny noses, little coughing, sneezing, and not a lot of sleeping... and I've started having to go into work at 5am.. why do these coincidences always happen to me like this?
Okay... now I KNOW that Congress, and politicians in general, are an easy target for this kind of thing.. but I just couldn't believe my eyes when I read this headline on ESPN.com:
"Congress to look into 'deeply flawed' BCS system"
HOUSTON -- Calling the Bowl Championship Series "deeply flawed," the chairman of a congressional committee has called a hearing on the controversial system used to determine college football's national champion.
A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee, charged with regulating America's sports industry, announced Friday it will conduct a hearing on the BCS next week, after this season's bowl matchups are determined.
Had to listen to the ND game last night via WLS radio, over the internet... local ABC affiliate here decided to show us Georgia-GA Tech.. can't say as I blame them, given the pre-game no-hype over ND-Stanford...
But man, did they miss out on a nail-biter!
And so did I... almost.
With a couple of minutes left in the 4th quarter and ND leading by only 6 points (30-24), the WLS internet radio broadcast was interrupted by a message indicating that they had to end their copyrighted broadcast over the internet or something like that... it was Heidi-like timing...
What's that sucking sound you're hearing?
Geez-Louise I HATE games like this (no kidding).
And just as I was cursing the gods of Internet radio (okay, well, that's a bit melodramatic)... over my shoulder, I hear ESPN News switching over for 'bonus coverage' of the closing minutes of the ND game... and man, am I glad they did!
I have to say-- in that closing two minutes, once again, the Irish showed the kind of poise I can't recall seeing for many years before this season. Starting from their own 20, ND moved swiftly down the field (with two long pass plays to Samardzija) and scored on a powerful run from Darius Walker, reaching out and holding the ball over the goal line for the win... so tough! (capped by a two-point conversion made on a direct-snap to Walker who went in untouched)
So today, both the AP and Coaches Polls have dropped the Irish from #6 to 7... not that I can say I'm crazy with the way the Irish won.. but how may times before, in reference to USC's many close calls this season, have we heard "Just win"...
Ah well.. I'll still be munching some tortilla chips for the New Year... and for the first time in a decade, I feel like the Irish have a legitimate shot at winning the thing!
Heading out with the family tomorrow for a bit of an excursion.. So I'll be out of pocket for the next week or so. Not sure if there'll be internet access or not-- and there's no laptop coming on this trip.. so the blog will go silent for the duration.
But I'll take notes and come back with lots to say, I'm sure.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Got home a little while ago from my friend Manundso's house, doing a little stint on his Podcast.
He's the proprietor of Happy for Apathy.com. He's a former co-worker, a stand-up comic, virtuoso composer.. and all around good guy.
Check out the website..
Check out the podcast..
Try not to be too disappointed in me..
Excuse me while I geek out on the new Doctor Who for the next few weeks...
watching the first episode right now. But as little time as I get to spend watching shows like this, it could be weeks before I'm through.
Christopher Eccleston is the new Doctor.. well, he's the first season doctor.. the 9th Doctor, whatever.
David Tennant is the newest Doctor. In the UK, they're preparing for the unveiling of the second season... but me? I'm just trying to make my way through this first new season..
Eccleston looks great. Too bad he decided to leave after just a single season.
