BSG: Pegasus

This was a tough episode for me. The episode had a lot of drama and it ended on a cliff hanger that was the natural culmination of many various storylines, but it exposed some ugly undercurrents that have been bothering me since last season. I’ll come back to that thought.

What I Liked

• I always like when the producers of the new Battlestar Galactica pay homage to the original show. They did it in Final Cut by unexpectedly playing the original Galactica theme, they did it last season by introducing the dilemma of what to do with the inmates on the prison barge and they did it in this, the season finale, by reintroducing Cain, one of the most popular characters from the original show. But of course, this ain’t your father’s Commander Cain. This is Admiral Cain, and he is now a she.

• I don’t like the fact that we have yet another gender switch of a popular character, but Michelle Forbes, AKA Ensign Roh from Star Trek: The Next Generation, was a good choice. She was one of the few bad eggs in the clean-cut Star Trek universe, so she fits in well in the anti-Star Trek universe of Galactica.

• Discipline on the Galactica has been consistently shown to be lax, ever since the 2003 miniseries. The repercussions of that lack of discipline comes back to haunt everyone in the episode. Admiral Cain reviews the Galactica’s logs and, as is her right, makes drastic changes to correct the problems as she sees them. Apollo is demoted as CAG and he and Starbuck are reassigned to the Pegasus because both have proven to be insubordinate to Adama. An aeronautical engineer is sent to the Galactica because he is more qualified than Chief Tyrol to supervise ship repairs. And so on. It’s hard to argue with her reasoning.

• Baltar is given something useful to do. He’s sent to the Pegasus to study their Cylon captive, which happens to be another Number Six replica, of course.

• Tyrol and Helo work together to save “Caprica Sharon” when they are made aware that the Pegasus’s interrogation expert uses sexual assault as one of his tools. For them Sharon is a woman, Cylon or not, and they’re determined to defend her. When they end up killing the interrogator Thorne, it’s -- like most of the best writing on Galactica -- a natural culmination of how these characters have been scripted from day one in the series.

• Even Callie, who shot “Galactica Sharon” to death, is appalled when the Pegasus’s crew openly brags about what appear to be regularly scheduled sexual assaults on their captive Cylon. Does Callie consider Cylon women to be “real” women? Who knows? But what Callie does know is that once that behavior is condoned, it doesn’t stop. It’s one tiny step from raping the enemy to raping somebody else. Military women know this. You’ve got as much to fear (if not more) from the men in your own unit than from the enemy. I bet the female fighter pilots on the Pegasus don’t frolic around in their mixed gender quarters dressed only in towels. Not if they know what’s good for them.

• Tigh’s drunkenness actually becomes useful in this episode. He befriends the XO of the Pegasus by offering him moonshine and the other XO reveals a chilling tale -- he got promoted to XO when Cain executed the previous one for disobeying a controversial order. She shot the other guy in the head with his own pistol.

• When Tyrol and Helo are taken to the Pegasus, tried and sentenced to death, Adama demands that they be tried by an independent tribunal. Cain says no, and she reminds him that he himself dissolved the Quorum’s independent tribunal (in the episode Litmus from season 1) when he didn’t like their verdict last time. And Tyrol was a defendant then too. Again, I love when bad decisions come back to haunt people on this show.

What I Didn’t Like

• We’ve got yet another gender switch -- Cain is now a woman. They should’ve stopped this mess with Starbuck.

• In The Living Legend, the two-parter from the original show that this episode is based on, Cain, played by Lloyd Bridges, was a much more charismatic and interesting character. He was a tactical genius and a “fly by the seat of his pants” type of guy. The new Cain is a flat character -- a mean bitch with no redeeming qualities.

• Since original Cain and Adama were the same rank, there was a rivalry there that can’t exist in the new show with Admiral Cain outranking Commander Adama.

• Also missing from this new version of Living Legend is the history between some of the characters on the two battlestars. In the 70’s show, Cain and Adama knew each other on a personal level. This Cain and this Adama seem to know of each other. Also, original Starbuck’s love interest, Cassiopeia, was the original Cain’s ex-lover. That extra drama and backstory stuff is lost.

• There’s no Sheba counterpart on this Pegasus. In the original Living Legend, Cain, like Adama, was a single parent with a fighter-pilot child whom he was very proud of. Now, it would’ve been bad to introduce yet another ball-busting chick to this show, but couldn’t the new Cain have had a son that would’ve been a decent love interest for Starbuck and a rival for Apollo?

• Starbuck doesn’t seem happy to be assigned to the Pegasus. Come on, Kara -- why the long face? That’s an entire battlestar full of men you haven’t slept with yet. You should be ecstatic.

• Cain claims that she found the Galactica by perusing Cylon ships that were, unbeknownst to her, chasing the Galactica. She claims to have been fighting Cylons the whole time. Isn’t the Pegasus one of the newer battlestars with networked computers? Why wasn’t her ship or her Vipers affected by a Cylon virus when the attack on the colonies went down? Why haven’t they been affected since?

• Where the hell has the Pegasus been getting its water, food and fuel from since the colonies fell? I couldn’t tell if the Pegasus had its own set of satellite ships like the Galactica does, but I think it doesn’t. They don’t seem to have the burden of protecting civilians.

Fears, Questions and Hopes for Next Season

• Where the hell is Tom Zarek and what is he up to?

• Can we see what the Quorum of Twelve does on a regular basis, please?

• Again, where exactly is the fleet? Is there a coherent plan to the jumps they make?

• Doc Cottle said last episode that Laura has only a month to live, so are they really going to kill her off when the show returns in January, or will they do some hokey mess and give her a miracle cure?

• If Laura only has a month to live, why isn’t she forcing Vice President Baltar to absorb all of her administrative knowledge so that humanity will have the semblance of a functioning civilian government when she passes away?

• The season finale ends with the two battlestars poised to fire on each other. I suppose the Cylons will conveniently show up now so everyone has to work together.

Armed and dangerous - Flipper the firing dolphin let loose by Katrina

From The Guardian:

It may be the oddest tale to emerge from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico.

Yeah, right!

Read more

“Go” Bag

Because of the recent hurricanes and the ever-present threat of terrorist attacks, I decided I needed to prepare a “go” bag. The idea with a go bag is you stuff a backpack ahead of time with everything you think you’ll need and leave it by the door so you can scoop it up while you’re fleeing for your life.

This is some of what FEMA recommends you need in a disaster kit:

• One gallon of water per person per day


• At least a three-day supply of non-perishable food


• A first aid kit


• Non-prescription drugs


• Mess kits, or paper cups, plates and plastic utensils


• Fire extinguisher


• Compass


• Matches in a waterproof container


• Toilet paper


• Feminine supplies


• Household chlorine bleach


• Sturdy shoes or work boots


• Blankets or sleeping bags

And a whole lot more.

The full list is here.

So if you set aside everything you’ll really need, you’re talking about a couple duffle bags, right? That’s not very convenient unless you can count on some young people with strong backs in your family. And of course, the more people you've got, the more water and food you need to go around.

Still, psychologically, you feel like you’ve got a fighting chance to live if you get some of this stuff together while you still can. Since I’m too lazy to buy all this stuff separately and assemble it, I took the easy way out and bought a pre-made “go” bag from these people.

This is what I got in my bag:
Storage

1. 1 - Adult Size Backpack - (Durable and High Quality! #1 Emergency Backpack Available)

Warmth and Weather Protection

1. 2 - Large Emergency Space® Blanket


2. 2 - Emergency Rain/Wind Poncho Adult Size


3. 2 - Hand or Abdomen Warmers

Light and Heat

1. 1 - 12 hr. Instant Green Light Stick


2. 1 - 12 hr. Instant Yellow Light Stick


3. 1 - Survival Candle 36 hours


4. 1 - Box of Waterproof Matches


5. 1 - Flashlight (Solar, crank and battery - never out of power)

News and Communication

1. 1 - Radio (Solar, crank and battery - never out of power)


2. 1 - Whistle / Compass

First-Aid

1. 1 - 54 Piece First Aid Kit


2. 1 - Large Ace Bandage


3. 1 - Large Cold Compress

Water, Water Purification and Air Filtration

1. 1 - Bottle Germicidal Tablets – 50 Tablets


2. 3 - Purified Drinking Water Squeeze Boxes


3. 5 - Dust Masks

Food Items

1. 1 - 2400 Calorie Food Ration Bar


2. 1 - Government Issue Survival Candy

Hygiene Items

1. 12 - Wet Wipe Packets


2. 2 - Tooth Brushes with Toothpaste


3. 1 - Pack of Tissue Paper

Miscellaneous

1. 1 - 13-Function Swiss Army Style Pocket Knife

Not bad, huh?

Next I’m going to buy a case of MREs and keep some in the car, some in the house and some in the “go” bag.

But you know what’s going to happen, right?

When the shit hits the fan, I’ll be caught in an elevator in midtown and all of this preparation will go for naught.

Oh, well.

Invasion

Surprisingly, Invasion turned out to be the most disappointing of the three network Sci-Fi shows I mentioned last week. Because it was placed after the premiere of Lost in the schedule, I suppose I was expecting some of Lost’s creepiness, diverse, strongly written characters and sense of mystery.

Instead, I was given the umpteenth iteration of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Come on, people. Break some new ground.

It’s Science-Fiction -- you’re supposed to take chances, get it?

Model Behavior

Kudos to British retailer Burberry, Swedish-based fashion giant H&M and French fashion house Chanel for all dropping supermodel Kate Moss. Moss, famous for embodying the “heroin chic” look, has long been dogged by rumors of being a drug abuser and she finally got busted. British tabloid the Daily Mirror has printed photos of her doing blow and her contracts has gone kaput.

I have my doubts about things like whether the fact that Rafael Palmiero in particular takes steroids really has made any young male do the same, but when you put a drugged up chick forward as a standard of beauty, well, people (teen girls) are going to kill themselves to achieve that look.

Surface

I watched the premiere of NBC’s Surface last night. The pilot centered on four characters -- a young boy, a woman and two men -- who separately encounter mysterious sea creatures of apparently extraterrestrial origin. They’ll eventually come together to fight the aliens, I guess.

What I Liked:

• The idea of extraterrestrial sea creatures certainly hasn’t been done to death -- outside of The Abyss and Seaquest, I can’t think of any other examples where that was the main focus of the plot.

What I Didn’t Like:

• The sense of tension that was being nicely built was shot to hell when one of the scientists gave a briefing about the growing threat and unveiled a freaking molar that was about 7 feet tall. ROFL!

• None of the main characters are likeable. The woman seemed bitchy and self-centered.

• The show tries to evoke a Spielberg-like sense of wonder, but that’s played out and so 80’s.

• The kid who took the alien egg into his house really didn’t strike me as stupid enough to do such a thing. That wasn’t like taking in a cute mammal. We’re talking slime, you know? Who the hell would do that?

The Verdict:

• It won’t last unless the characters get more interesting. I am curious enough to want to get a good look at one of the creatures to see if they’re hideous or cute.

Writers Needed For New Star Wars TV Show

From SyFy Portal:

George Lucas has begun searching for scribes to produce scripts for his upcoming television series based on the Star Wars film franchise, according to an exclusive report at IGN FilmForce.

Yo, how do I apply???

Read more

Bush's "bathroom break"

From ABC News Online:

A photographer has snapped United States President George W. Bush apparently writing a note to ask whether a toilet break is possible during a United Nations meeting.

Mr Bush is said to have written the note to his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.

"I think I may need a bathroom break? Is this possible?" a Reuters news agency photographer caught him writing during a UN summit.

George needs to ask "Condi" if he can pee?

ROFL!

Read more

BSG: Flight of the Phoenix

After weeks of poor shows, they finally got back to what was missing. It’s spooky. It’s almost as if they read the comments I had on the last show. It’s not a great episode, but it addressed many questions that have been dangling, and some I didn’t think to ask.

What I Liked

• Helo is a complete pariah. When he enters a room, everyone gets hostile. Again, this makes total sense. Even if he wasn’t a proven “Cylon lover,” he’s been separated from them too long. Most of the pilots who knew him are dead.

• Chief Tyrol is a pariah too. As he should be. It was his Sharon that shot Adama. Like Helo, no one can trust him. The goodwill he enjoyed with his staff is gone and he can barely get anyone to do any work for him.

• Helo and Tyrol get in a fistfight over Sharon. I’m glad the obvious tension that would exist between them over was addressed.

• Belief in Earth still isn’t for everyone. When one of the female pilots gripes that they’re going nowhere and Kara insists that Earth is out there, the pilot retorts that she doesn’t buy some “half-assed planetarium light show.”

• Kara gets dissed by the same female pilot when she says she’s going to go look for Helo: “Good idea. Maybe that Cylon whore taught him a few new tricks.” Everybody knows Kara is a ho.

• Callie is released from the brig and is given a big welcome back party, complete with moonshine. This makes total sense. Callie is a hero to pretty much everyone for shooting Sharon. Not only was Sharon a Cylon, she wasn’t well-liked by the enlisted people in her department even when they thought she was human.

• Gaeta blows up at Tigh when Tigh orders him to go through the Galactica’s programming line by line to find and eradicate the Cylon virus. As if that’s trivial! Dick.

• Lee’s target in the shooting range has a picture of Sharon on it. ROFL!

• When Helo showed Sharon the lines of code from the Cylon virus, her disoriented reaction made me think for a second that it had reprogrammed her. Good red herring.

• Tigh helps Tyrol with his project by supplying an engine. He takes a jar of moonshine in return, of course.

• Everyone freaks out when Laura goes to smash the bottle of champagne to christen the new stealth ship. Can’t waste good liquor!

• Good tension at the end when Starbuck tests Tyrol’s hybrid stealth fighter and she disappears from screen. Tyrol’s face when he thought that he had killed the fleet’s best pilot was special.

• No Number Six! Baltar actually acted sane in this episode.

What I Didn’t Like

• It looks like there’s some sexual tension building between Dualla and Lee. Where did that come from, and how does that make the story better?

• Despite the fact that the writers did a good job of showing that everyone is bored, tense and needs something to believe in, I think people pitched in to help with Tyrol’s project too readily. They’re all working like dogs. Who would have the time and energy for that?

• What are the odds of creating a space-worthy craft that is welded together? I bitched before when Starbuck flew the Cylon Raider that had a freaking hole in it into space in last season’s Act of Contrition, and I’m bitching again. I hate bad science. In real life we’ve seen two space shuttles blow up because of compromised heat shielding. You just can’t weld shit together with hand tools and expect it to withstand space travel!

• Adama seemed pleased that Sharon came through and sent out a virus that disabled the Cylon ships. Dude, she still can’t be trusted.

Threshold

I watched the premiere of Threshold on CBS, and it didn’t suck as bad as I thought it would.

The pilot episode centered on a risk consultant woman (her only friend is her white French bulldog -- my pooch is so much more handsome) who developed the protocol that the government will use in a “first contact” scenario. When a naval ship encounters an unidentified flying object and all communication with them ceases, the feds bring her in and essentially kidnaps a handful of other people who are to be her assistants.

The group goes out to the ship, poke around, and discover a video tape that makes their noses bleed. They also encounter the sole survivor on the ship, a guy whose DNA has been altered. When the team is forced to evacuate the ship because the North Koreans are coming (wait a minute – why are we scared of them? It’s our ship!), the survivor breaks loose, attacks some people, is shot four times, but survives. He later tracks the consultant woman back to her house and attacks her.

That’s about all that happened in two hours on the show. It’s implied that the aliens are hostile and they may come from fourth-dimensional space, as opposed to another planet. They also seem to be reprogramming human DNA, as opposed to possessing people or inserting worms or insects in their bodies.

The verdict? I still don’t think this is a good show, but it didn’t insult my intelligence.

The President's Speech

The president spoke from New Orleans tonight. This is the fourth time he's been there since he belatedly got interested in the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

So, George promised everything to the audience:

• New Orleans will be rebuilt.


• Evacuees will be given first dibs on rebuilding jobs.


• Evacuees in shelters will be offered job training.


• People moving back to New Orleans will be encouraged to buy homes instead of rent. Low cost mortgages will be provided.

And so on. Everyone will have food, clothes, shelter, medical attention and a job.

This is great stuff. These are the most liberal plans ever to escape from his mouth. But where is the money going to come from? We're talking a price tag of $200 billion. He doesn't dare raise taxes, so what programs will get cut?

Horror in Fall Lineup

In addition to the Sci-Fi shows that are debuting this Fall, there are two Horror-genre shows as well.

Supernatural (WB): “Two brothers, Dean and Sam Winchester, travel the country looking for their missing father and battling evil spirits along the way. Ever since they were little their father has been consumed with an obsession to find the evil forces that murdered his beloved wife, and recruited his two young sons to help them. They have grown up as hunters of the supernatural. Sam escaped this way of life after high school, and now has a happy life with his girlfriend, Jessica, and a promising future career. Dean, however, stayed behind with his father to join him in his ‘hunting.’”

This debuted last night. I found it boring. The brothers weren’t personable enough and the monster in the first episode wasn’t scary or unique enough to make me want to see more. This show is likely to be cancelled by November.

The Night Stalker (ABC): Shame on you if you don’t know the premise of this show or that this series -- the original one that is -- is the father of The X-Files.

Anyway, for those of you who really are too young to know this show, this is the (new) premise:

“Crime reporter Carl Kolchak is partnered with Perri Reed at The Beacon, a Los Angeles newspaper. Together they investigate a string of strange murders...all of which may be related to the death of Kolchak's wife 18 months earlier in a similarly bizarre manner. A murder that the FBI considers Kolchak the primary suspect.”

Reasons why this remake will flop:

• Stuart Townsend is playing Kolchak. Townsend (AKA "Lestat" from the lackluster Queen of The Damned) has the distinction of having been the original choice to play Aragorn in Peter Jackson’s Lord of The Rings. After a single day on the set he was fired and replaced by Viggo Mortensen.


• The original Kolchak was an over-the-hill hack writer. He was often scared shitless of the monsters he faced, but he only armed himself with a camera or a blessed magic item. That was the charm of the show. Since they’ve gone with a much younger man, expect this Kolchak to actively seek to kick monsters’ asses.


• Gabrielle Union is the love interest. It’s doubtful that this will go over well on mainstream TV.

Like the Sci-Fi shows I mentioned yesterday, I’ll watch these at least once and report back, especially if they really suck.

Summaries are taken from TV.com

Sci-Fi on Mainstream TV

It seems that the major networks -- ABC, NBC and CBS -- have rediscovered the Sci-Fi genre this Fall. Some say it’s because of the success of Battlestar Galactica, others point to ABC’s Lost, though that is more properly categorized as Fantasy.

Here’s the low down on these shows:

Invasion (ABC): “Man has searched the skies for centuries and has never come up with conclusive evidence to prove the existence of other forms of intelligent life. What if we have been looking in the wrong place? What if there were other forms of intelligent life already living among us? What if perceived natural disasters were really diversions created to conceal clandestine alien activities?”

Surface (NBC): “Surface is an expansive drama and undersea adventure that centers on the appearance of mysterious sea creatures in the deep ocean -- and tracks the lives of four characters. They are: Daughtery Carstarphen, the young oceanographer who discovers the secret; Dr. Aleksander Cirko, the government scientist who tries to keep things under wraps; Richard Owen, the Louisiana fisherman who loses his brother in a suspicious diving accident; and Miles, the young boy who brings the creatures ashore.”

Threshold (CBS): “Revolves around a female government contingency analyst who leads a team of scientists and military personnel who get in contact with a mysterious alien lifeform.”

Will any of these shows make it? I highly doubt it. I’ll watch the pilots of each, however. If they’re worth talking about, I’ll review them here.

Katrina Affects ABC's "Invasion"

From SyFy Portal:

Hurricane Katrina's devastation of countless lives across the southeastern United States has caused ABC to rethink the opening scenes in its new SF show, "Invasion," according to TV Guide.

The series premiere starts out with a hurricane running amok through the Florida Everglades.

After pulling promotional ads featuring the stormy start, ABC is in the process of evaluating just what changes should be made to that episode in light of Katrina's impact on the national consciousness.

Read more

BSG: Final Cut

The last four episodes of Galactica have eroded the good feelings I had about the second season of the series based on episodes 1-4. It's just an ordinary sci-fi show now and with each passing week the characters are getting less real and more like caricatures.


**SPOILERS**


What I Liked

• It's mildly amusing that Baltar is pissed that reporter D'Anna Biers initially ignores him.
• The 911-style impromptu memorial shrine with photos and personal mementos created by the crew and last seen in the mini-series still exists somewhere on the Galactica. Evidently the crew maintains the shrine on their own and they replenish the candles periodically. People seem to go there to pray and be alone when they have downtime.
• They've finally given first names to some familiar characters. Gaeta's first name is Felix, Dualla's first name is Anastasia.
• Starbuck is miffed that she isn't a suspect in the attacks on Col. Tigh.
• After Ellen's urging, Tigh agrees to be interviewed by Biers to get out his side of the "Gideon Massacre" story, i.e., the shooting of unarmed civilians by Marines in episode 4, "Resistance." Biers cleverly softens him up by getting him to drink. He quickly becomes agitated by her questions, throws the glass and shoves her. All caught on tape.
• There is a tense moment as Louanne "Kat" Katraine, high on stimulants, crash-lands her Viper. That's some good continuity there. In an episode last season (was it "33"?) Starbuck, Lee and some others had to take stims in order to stay awake for days and do their shifts. Kat, if you recall, is one of the "nuggets," so it's not surprising that she feels the pressure acutely.
• The original Battlestar Galactica theme plays in the background of Biers's finished video. That was a nice gesture for the old school fans.
• I was actually surprised at the end when three of the human Cylons we're familiar with -- Doral, Sharon and Shelly -- view the footage in a private theatre and reporter D'Anna Biers is revealed as a Cylon.

What I Didn't Like

• The reporter films some footage in the pilots' quarters and we get to see Starbuck, Lee, Kat and other people frolicking around in various states of undress. I guess that was supposed to be sexy. YAWN.
• Palladino, the Marine in charge of the supply run that turned into the Gideon Massacre, turns out to be the guy stalking Col. Tigh. He was leaving threatening messages in Tigh’s quarters and sabotaging his shuttle. He duct tapes Ellen and puts a gun to Tigh's head, but can't pull the trigger. Palladino is arrested. Too easy. Someone else takes the fall for Tigh's incompetence.
• Why would Palladino tip his hand by leaving a bad poetry on Tigh's mirror? Too theatrical.
• Starbuck recognizes the message scrawled on Tigh's mirror as the work of "Kataris," some famous Caprican poet. I guess this is supposed to show she is an educated, sensitive ho, not just a fighter pilot ho.
• I really didn't think we'd see another human Cylon again so soon after Simon was revealed in episode 5, "The Farm." It was too soon. They need to spread out those revelations.

Fears

• Is this as good as this series is going to be now? Please let the answer be no.

Dr. Arrested For Telling Cheney to Fuck Himself

ROFL!

Some doctor who was pissed at the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina got himself in trouble.

As he stood about 10 feet away from Cheney and his friend and some camera operators from CNN and other media filmed the scene, Marble suddenly yelled, "Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney! Go fuck yourself, you asshole!"

Hey, at least Marble was polite. After all, he referred to Cheney as "Mr. Cheney."

Read more:

South Africa's "Dr Death"

I was looking at BBC's site to get an international perspective on the Katrina tragedy when I came across this shocker. Dr Wouter Basson, head of "Operation Coast," the South African apartheid government's "secret" biological and chemical warfare program is free after a 30-month trial.

Here's some of the stuff "Dr. Death" was accused of:

• "Operation Coast" sought to create "smart" poisons, which would only affect blacks, and hoarded enough cholera and anthrax to start epidemics.


• Naked black men were tied to trees, smeared with a poisonous gel and left overnight to see if they would die. When the experiment failed, they were put to death with injections of muscle relaxants.


• Weapon ideas included sugar laced with salmonella, cigarettes with anthrax, chocolates with botulism and whisky with herbicide.

Despite calling 153 witnesses, the court was unable to put this guy away.

Oh, this is the best part -- South Africa's biological warfare program was developed with the assistance of British and United States intelligence services.

Were these two governments using South Africa to field test these bio weapons in case they needed to exterminate their own blacks?

The South African research is surely in the hands of these two governments, right?

That's just great.

Read more

Beren on K9 Karma!

Back on April 3rd I reported that Beren was filmed at Scout NYC for an Animal Planet show. I finally saw him on TV today!

He's in an episode of K9 Karma called "Now and Zen." Beren is the Frenchie in the Black CBGB t-shirt. He's all up in the camera for a couple shots. Yay! I'm so proud!

One More Prediction

I left out one prediction yesterday. This is a no-brainer.

Lt. Gen. Russel Honore has a bright future in the Republican party if he doesn't self-destruct. Either that or Hollywood should give him a call.

As soon as he set foot on the scene in New Orleans, shit started getting done. I don't know if a word he says is true, but he speaks with passion and conviction and he demands respect.

Simply put, he looks like he knows what he's doing and he's not afraid to get his hands dirty.

Appearances are everything, after all.

Things to Come

I predict the following things will happen in the months to come as a result of the Hurricane Katrina Disaster:

• We will find out that a scary number of felons, sex offenders and mental patients escaped into the general population in the chaos of the storm and their records have been destroyed.
• Some children who are not orphans will be declared as such because they can’t be identified.
• Someone will claim a baby that is not theirs and the birth parents will have to get a DNA test done to get their child back.
• Some evacuees will assault people then declare themselves “not guilty” because of post traumatic stress disorder caused by the hurricane.
• The true body count will never be known.
• Lawsuits will be filed against Mayor Nagin, Governor Blanco and FEMA on behalf of those murdered, assaulted, or denied medical attention in the Superdome and the Convention Center, and those who will be “forcibly” removed from their homes.
• Someone will organize a pop album featuring a dozen or so well-known artists and proclaim that the proceeds will go towards the relief effort. Rappers, many of whom are from the South, will drop the ball and fail to do the same thing.
• Displaced teens put into new schools will have violent encounters with “indigenous” students.
• Public sympathy will gradually turn against the evacuees in as little as three months if they fail to find jobs and move out of the shelters.

I’ll check back in with this list once a month until January and discuss which of these predictions have come true.

Hustle & Flow

I finally got around to seeing this movie today. I can't understand why this story of a pimp having a mid-life crisis was well-received at the Sundance Film Festival and got favorable reviews from Rolling Stone, Village Voice, New York Times, USA Today, both Ebert and Roeper, Time Magazine, etc.

Wow.

What did these people see that I didn't see?

What I saw was a movie about DJ, a man in his mid to late thirties who makes a meager living by pimping three not very attractive whores, one of whom can't whore right now because she's about 8-months pregnant and another who has a toddler. The only one in the household consistently bringing home the bacon is DJ's teen-aged white whore, whose name I've already forgotten. In exchange for whoring, the women get to live with DJ in his dilapidated house in a poor neighborhood.

An old father-figure (Isaac Hayes) tells DJ that a remote acquaintance of the pimp who is now a major rap star will be back in town on the 4th of July and needs a supply of quality weed. DJ gets it in his head that this is his big chance. He runs into a small-time recording engineer and convinces the man to help him make a demo. The pair are joined by a white guy who likes rap and knows how to play piano and use a sampler.

The trio build a home studio at DJ’s place using the money DJ's white whore earns by screwing men in their cars. All she asks for in return is a little attention and a chance to sit with the AC on for awhile. Aww!

When DJ's song needs some oomph, he gets the pregnant whore to sing some of his lyrics and pressures her until it comes out right. When the whore with the toddler gets sick of the changes in the household and mouths off at DJ and the other girls in her frustration, DJ does the manly thing and puts her ass out on the street. He picks up her son in his walker and puts him on the sidewalk as well.

The engineer neglects his wife and leaves her in the dark to speculate about what he’s doing in a house full of whores. One day she decides she’s wrong to be upset about her man’s sleazy new friends so she makes sandwiches and comes over to feed everyone. Aww!

DJ's big day arrives. The pregnant ho gives him a thick gold chain and a medallion she bought him for good luck. Evidently her pimp needs this expenditure of money from her more than her unborn child does. She gets a big wet kiss in return.

DJ goes to the rundown club to supply weed to the rapper in the hope that the rapper will remember him and listen to his demo. The arrogant rapper doesn't know him from Adam, but he does appreciate the weed. DJ manages to keep the conversation going most of the night and he finally gets the rapper to take his demo tape. But when DJ goes to the men's room he finds the rapper passed out on the floor and the demo tape in the toilet. DJ beats the rapper bloody, shoots one the rapper's bodyguards, flees to his home and is arrested and sent to prison.

But all is not lost for our hero! The unappreciated white ho, on whose tricks the studio was built and the demo made, takes charge and shops the demo around to local DJ's and radio stations. DJ's song becomes a hit and by the time his bid is up, he's already famous enough that two prison guards give him a demo tape to listen to as he's walking out of prison. The viewer is left to muse on whether DJ will arrogantly flush their tape down the toilet too.

Why would anyone think this is a good movie? A selfish man makes money off of weak women whom he can't even say thank you to for helping him start a presumably lucrative career. That's the whole thing in a nutshell. In fact, he doesn't thank the pianist or the engineer either. The only one who gets a thank you from DJ is the father-figure whose reward for introducing DJ to the rapper is to have his club shot up.

The one good thing about this movie? Terence Howard is very handsome, even with the stupid poofy Southern curled hair. But he's a better actor than this role shows.

Hurricane Katrina's Wall of Shame

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin (Democrat)
Told people to evacuate New Orleans, but provided no means for the 250,000 people without transportation to do so. Sent people to shelters that had inadequate food, water and sanitation to support them. Nagin made broadcasts on the radio during and after the storm, but he didn't have the balls to show his face at the Superdome or the New Orleans Convention Center where people were living in slave ship conditions. Contrast him with Rudolph Giuliani who was on the scene during 911. He didn't actually do anything, but if your constituents don't see your face during a crisis, don't be surprised when anarchy ensues.

Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (Democrat)
Mobilized the National Guard too late. Slow to ask the federal government for supplies and troops from other states. Too scared to visit the squalid refugee centers. Even lame Governor Pataki of New York made sure to get his ass to Ground Zero quick in the aftermath of 911.

FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) Head Michael Brown (Republican)
Claims to not have known until Thursday that thousands of people were at the Convention Center, despite the fact that the media showed people arriving there as early as Tuesday and reported that no one was in charge. Brown turned away trucks of water sent by WalMart. When Al Gore arranged a chartered flight to rescue approximately 100 elderly patients from a New Orleans hospital, FEMA threw up roadblocks that delayed the process until Saturday, endagering their lives even further.

Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff (Republican)
Finally arrived in Louisiana on Sunday. Apparently didn't know he was supposed to be in charge. Continued to insist all week that evacuations were taking place in an orderly fashion and that food and water were on the way while people were dying of thirst and diabetics were going into comas. At a press conference today he praised his staff for doing a "fantastic job." He says that 10,000 people were rescued in the last two days, but his own agency's press release says the number is only 4,500.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (Republican)
Was spotted in New York late last week enjoying her vacation, buying $1,000 worth of designer shoes in a midtown store and catching a performance of Spamalot on Broadway while elderly people and babies were dying of dehydration and living in their own filth in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, her home state.

United States President George W. Bush (Republican)
Placed an emphasis in every press conference on the specific number of soldiers he was sending to the affected area, and how they had orders to shoot to kill desperate people who were getting food and water for their families by any means necessary, as opposed to talking about how many doctors were being sent, how much medicine was being sent, how many civil engineers were being sent, etc. Chose to make scheduled stops in Arizona and California to pump up support for the war in Iraq for most of the week. Finally got his ass to the affected areas on Friday for a sanitized photo-op with two clean, calm light-skinned girls from a suburban neighborhood in an attempt to dispel the appearance of a racial aspect to this tragedy.

Live from New Orleans

Keep checking this guy's blog to get insight into what's happening in New Orleans from a guy who's stuck in the middle of it.

The blog probably won't be up for much longer. He'll be evacuated at some point or his blog will get so many hits that LiveJournal will shut it down.

Michael Moore to George W. Bush

A letter to Dubya from Michael Moore re: Hurricane Katrina.

And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!

Read more.

Our Tsunami

Where do I begin with this one?

I don't understand this. What went wrong here?

Watching the events of the past few days unfold has been bizarre. By the time Hurricane Katrina touched down on Monday, people had been warned to evacuate for 3-4 days already. Yet thousands of people are supposedly dead, just like in any Third World natural disaster. They're saying this disaster is second only to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake in devastation as far as America goes.

But concerning this death toll, why is it so high when there was so much warning? I can understand the people who got stuck in their cars. The roads were clogged and they were inching along too slow to escape the storm. But why were so many people trapped in their homes? Not all of these people were procrastinators. It looks like most of the people who got trapped had no transportation. The evacuation plan apparently consisted of telling people to go to shelters or flee to another state, but if they had no car, too bad. There weren't buses or vans canvassing communities in an organized fashion to evacuate people who didn't have the means to reach a shelter. They were just assed out.

Price gouging on gas has begun. I filled up last week and was appalled when the total came to $50 even for about 17 gallons. And the price then was $2.97. Now it's over $3.50 up here. Some bastard down in Atlanta is already selling gas at $6 a gallon for premium.

As for the asses who fired on the military helicopters that are trying to rescue people... WHY???

But the best thing I heard today was that Germany and some other countries are sending us monetary aid and supplies to deal with this crisis.

GERMANY!

The worm has turned for the USA.

Cylons: Can't live with them, can't live without them

Some interesting musings from another fan about the nature of the Cylons here.

Quote:

Lingering behind all this is the entire issue of how the "toaster" Cylons went away for 40 years and returned with their humanoid masters. Who -- or what -- is in charge? Did the Cylons truly evolve or just encounter something which gave them human form. Why are there only 12 master types of humanoid Cylon? (One for each colony? Or one for each of the 12 entities buried in Athena's tomb?)

Rome. Booty.

Why is it so hard to make an entertaining movie about ancient Rome? Isn’t that an intriguing setting rife with possibilities for good stories?

[Don’t mention Gladiator to me. You know and I know that movie was bullshit.]

I watched HBO’s Rome on TiVo today and I was underwhelmed. Two minutes into the program I had already lost any hope of understanding who was who and connecting to any of the characters. I tried to watch ABC’s Empire earlier this summer and found that boring too. Worse yet, the viewer was put in the position of being expected to root for the heir of a dictator as the heir runs around in hiding plotting to regain a throne that was stolen in the first place.

One last question:

How come they always use British actors to play Romans instead of Italians? If I was Italian, that would really piss me off.

The best thing about...

The best thing about the Curacao kids that I mentioned in the previous post were their names. Because of the mixed Spanish, Dutch, English and African history of the island, the kids' names are all over the place.

Check these out:

• Denjerick Virginie
• Dienston Manuela
• Ingemar Haime
• Jurickson Profar
• Naeem Laurens
• Rayshelon Carolina
• Rudmichael Brandao
• Sherman La Crus
• Sorick Liberia

Cool!

These are like the results you'd get if you used a random name generator.

Kudos to Curacao

Hat's off to the defending Little League World Champions from Curacao who, though they lost in dramatic fashion to Hawaii yesterday, were an exciting bunch of kids to root for.

Quiet as it's kept, the tiny Caribbean nation of Curacao is a Little League superpower. They have made it to the International finals in five of the last six years, beating out well-established Japanese and Chinese teams to do so.

The Curacao team took an early 3-0 lead in the championship game, let Hawaii tie it late, then pulled ahead with two homers to make it 6-3. But they just couldn't hold the lead. In the bottom of the sixth with two outs to go they failed to turn a double play that would've ended the game and Hawaii tied them 6-6. Into extra innings they went.

Trash-talking Hawaiian pitcher Vonn Fe'au mowed down the big men (LOL, I'm talking about 11 and 12-year-olds, you know) in the Curacao lineup in the top of the 7th for a 1-2-3 inning. Throwing at 46 feet from the plate at 78mph, this man-child was hurling fastballs at the equivalent of 101mph on a Major League level.

In the bottom of the 7th, leadoff batter Michael Memea ended it with a walk-off homerun. The Curacao kids showed class, though. Instead of whining, they saluted the winners and the fans before joining their parents. There were a few tears, of course.

Only four of the Caribbean team's fourteen members will be too old to enter the tournament next year, so hopefully Curacao will get a chance to avenge their loss next year.

BSG: Home, Part 2

This is the second episode in a row that I haven't liked too much.

Things I Liked:

• Although I'm bored with the Baltar/Number Six relationship, part of the mystery of what's going on with him is solved in this episode. Six flips the script on Baltar and tells him there isn't any chip in his head -- he's just crazy. Baltar goes to Doc Cottle for a CAT scan that proves not only that there's no chip in his head, there's no tumor either. So his craziness isn't the result of some physical thing.
• Adama tells Laura that she saved his life and that of everyone else in the fleet by having them flee the colonies. An interesting admission.
• Kara tries to talk to Laura on the trek to the tomb and tells her that there's a resistance going on on Caprica that they should support. But Laura blows her off and says she can't think beyond getting to the tomb. Kara says nothing, but is sullen about Laura's dismissal of her. A lost opportunity for bonding, but a good scene.

Things I Didn't Like:

• The Tomb of Athena thing was anti-climactic, although I did like that they have a reference, of sorts, for determining if any given planet they land on is Earth. They now know that the other twelve constellations can be seen in a specific pattern only from Earth.
• But what was the deal with the Arrow of Apollo transporting them somewhere? Was that magic? If so, why weren't they more freaked out or more profoundly moved? And how did they get back?
• Sharon saves Adama from an assassination plot by Zarek's boy Meier and then she swears she doesn't have any deep level programming to turn against them. Why should anyone believe that?
• How can everyone let Zarek off the hook for his guy trying to kill Adama? Ironically, he really isn't responsible, but why isn't he held responsible anyway? Nobody trusted him before, so why give him a pass now?
• Adama and Laura are acting like friends now. I'm sorry, it's just too abrupt, too pat, too Star Trek. He put her in jail. He suspended the rule of law. Civilians got shot opposing the Marines (okay, that was under Tigh's watch). That's beef that takes time to resolve. How can the civilians trust the military not to impose martial law the next time there's a disagreement with the President?

Fears:

• There will probably be tension between Helo and Tyrol over Sharon. How tired is that?
• Where does the fleet (physically) go from here?

Vile Brother

Too bad we can't get some U.S. politicians to sign on for something like this.

From Reuters.com:

Four Mexican politicians completed a three-night stay in a spider- and scorpion-infested shack on Wednesday as part of a campaign to raise awareness about poverty dubbed "Vile Brother."

In contrast to the typical house on the reality television show "Big Brother," the shack was made of sticks, tin and plastic sacks, lacked a sewage system and had a dirt floor.

The group tore down the shack as they left, after buying a new concrete house for the seven-member family that had lived there, Mexican television news reported.

I'm Bored

I have nothing to say today, so I'm posting a picture from the pond at the butterfly farm in St. Maarten.

BSG and the "Pegasus" Storyline

I think we can stomach one teeny spoiler about Galactica, right?

We all know by now that Cain and the Pegasus are going to show up near the end of this season.

Ron Moore has the following to say (from Trekweb.com):

With Cain I wanted to maintain that kind of superior warrior attitude of someone who wants to concentrate on the battle against the Cylons as opposed to the survival of the human race.' Moore told the magazine 'There's a twist, through, in that we've made Cain an Admiral, and that throws a wrench into everything. Adama is no longer the senior military officer, and therefore not in command of the fleet any more.

Read more:

Venezuela: The Next War?

Brace yourself -- the next country our soldiers may get the opportunity to die in may be Venezuela.

Why?

Well, they've got oil. They're America's forth largest oil-supplier. Venezuela own Citgo. You've heard of them, right?

Of course, we can't just march in there and take the oil. I mean, even we have a little subtlety.

No, what we do is the usual thing. We say their leader is evil and he's trying to destabilize the region. Ho hum. Haven't we seen this before? At what point are we going to stop needlessly making new enemies and creating the next generation of young people with beef against us?

President Hugo Chavez doesn't like the U.S., okay? He runs his mouth. SO WHAT? Fuck that guy. Ignore his ass. Take the high road, for God's sake.

The only new thing about this current pre-aggression dance is that Pat Robertson is in on the demonizing too. Why this particular dictator irks him I don't know, but Pat recently suggested that we avoid a messy war and just assassinate Chavez.

I guess this is what Jesus wants.

From TIME.com: Why Pat Robertson's Statements Help Hugo Chavez

Being Bobby Brown

I'm surprised at myself, but I have to admit I like Being Bobby Brown, the reality show on Bravo about the ex-New Edition star and recurring jailbird.

Bobby is surprisingly likeable in a pathetic loser sort of way. We watch him as he gets out of jail, gorges himself on lobster like he has no home training and goofs around with his three illegitimate kids and one legitimate one. The theme of the show, if there is one, is that Bobby is trying to make yet another comeback. He's working on an album of mediocre R&B songs and showing up at photo shoots with swelling under his eyes that he vainly tries to get rid of by applying Preparation H to his face.

In one touching episode he showed up at the Jimmy Kimmel show, unsure of what he was supposed to do, but managed to summon up a performance of Roni that made you remember that this man was once the shit. Watching from back stage, Landon, Bobby's eldest bastard son (I swear this kid looks twenty. Bobby fathered him at 15??) was practically in tears as he cast adoring looks at his dad on the monitor.

But you KNOW what the real reason to watch this show is.

Mrs. Brown.

Whitney. Houston.

OHMYGODWHATTHEFUCKHAPPENEDTOYOU??

As you stare into her junkie eyes and wince as every other word out of her filthy mouth has to be censored, you remind yourself that this woman was once the black "girl next door."

This was once America's sweetheart.

And the more I watch this show, the more I have to say to myself, Bobby didn't do this to her. The "good girl" image had to have been a sham from the get go. No human being can bring another to this level unless they were already there.

Are You Ready to Tanqueray?

The other day I mused over the curious choice of Snoop Dogg as a spokesman for Chrysler. Ironically, the spokesman job he should've been tapped for was for Tanqueray gin. One of Snoop's greatest hits is the immortal Gin & Juice in which he mentions Tanqueray by name!

DUH!

Instead of Snoop, Tanqueray is using someone named "Tony Sinclair" in their new commercials. According to their website, Tony is a "socialite" and a DJ from London's East End. In the commercials, Tony, who unfortunately has bad teeth and looks like total skeezer when he smiles, is at upscale parties commenting on other people's "lack of moderation" or having his ice cubes perfectly shaped by a jeweler.

Again, here's the question:

Will black Americans buy more Tanqueray because of a black Briton, who's gotta be a fake?

Will old white guys (the primary purchasers of gin) be grossed out by this guy?

BSG: Home, Part 1

I didn't like this episode too much. It didn't suck, but I felt a lot of characters were acting, well, out of character.

Things I Liked:

• Laura was pretty slick in dealing with Sharon (at first). She told everyone to put their guns down, then told her peeps to put Sharon out the airlock. LOL! Of course they didn't go through with it, but I thought that was a strong move.
  
• Zarek comes clean in private with his second-in-command, Meier. Neither believes in the religious thing going on, but they'll use others' beliefs to further their ends. I liked Zarek's quote: "I believe in the power of myth."
  
• Birch, the guy Adama picks to replace Lee as the "CAG," is a total fuck up. He takes too long to do a routine refueling mission and later he nearly gets two "nuggets" killed when his orders on a training run are unclear. Tigh speaks up, of course, but even Gaeda says to Adama that the guy is too green to handle the job.
  
• Baltar in his brief scene, was introspective about what happened with Sharon. He regrets not having asked Sharon for more detail about the eight remaining Cylons when he had a chance, and it seems that he regrets this because he could've helped others with this knowledge.

Things I Didn't Like:

• Do I have to say this again? Sharon can't be trusted. It's insane to listen to her, no matter how you slice it. Whatever.
  
• Adama's scene where he has Dualla in his quarters just rubbed me the wrong way. Not that there was anything sexual going on, but he's a basically by-the-book guy and it's inappropriate for the Commander to have a young female petty officer in his quarters. More importantly, it didn't seem like she'd be the person he would confide in about his fears.
  
• I never cared for Elosha (AKA "Miss Cleo"), but I think the character was killed off prematurely. She did have an important function with regards to Laura. Laura is going to be totally winging it now on the religious front.
  
• Lee runs up to Starbuck and kisses her when she returns. Fuck that guy. I just don't like him. His emotions are all over the place. One of the last things he did last season was punch her in the face. Then he tells her in this episode that she should confide in him and he loves her (you know, platonically). What a prick. Sorry, that just wasn't believable.

Fears:

• Adama seems realistically different after his shooting, but I'm concerned about a permanent change because, frankly, I liked his mature machismo. Maybe the personality change is necessary because the Olmos Adama is a lot more like the Lloyd Bridges Caine in the original show. And since Caine is coming (sorry for the mild spoiler), the personalities of the two commanders need to be sharply defined and very different.

Snoop Dogg and Chrysler. For Shizzle?

I wonder how the staff meeting in which it was proposed that making a commercial with Lee Iacocca and Snoop Dogg was a good idea went down?

Don't get me wrong -- the commercial is cute. Snoop and Lee are depicted as golf buddies and Snoop is wearing some goofy pastel argyle stuff. And I've heard that Snoop really does like Chrysler cars. Supposedly he personally called Chrysler company president and CEO Dieter Zetsche last year asking for a 300C sedan. I'm not sure why he couldn't just go to a dealership to get one though.

But...

Isn't Snoop a convicted felon? Wasn't he busted on cocaine charges in 1990? At what point did he become wholesome enough to push cars for an institution like Chrysler?

The real question on my mind is, who is the commercial supposed to attract? White (adult) consumers would be turned off by Snoop, I would think. And will (young) black consumers consider Chrysler cars fly because of Snoop? He's getting kinda old for that market, isn't he?

BTK Bitch

They sentenced Dennis Rader, the "BTK" killer today in Kansas to life imprisonment for the ten murders he committed from 1974 to 1991.

Can you believe this guy had the nerve to cry in court and also draw parallels between his life and the lives of the people he murdered?

Life imprisonment is a travesty for guys like this. Kansas didn't have a death penalty at the time of the murders, so he gets a pass.

Huh?

Hopefully the men in whatever prison Rader is sent to will take care of business and avenge the Otero family.

Walken 2008

Why?

Who knows?

BSG: The Farm

Another good episode, but a little weak on the Caprica side.




Stuff I liked:

• Apollo couldn't make the tape denouncing his father and Laura and Zarek were pissed at him. LOL!


• No Baltar in this episode. He's best used sparingly.


• Adama does look like a man that has had a brush with death. His movements are slower and more deliberate. Good!


• Callie earned 30 days in the brig for shooting Boomer. Good! Discipline must be maintained.


• Laura makes a religious appeal to the people of the fleet to follow her back to Kobol. And a third of the ships join her, much to Adama's irritation.


• Tyrol comes to Adama to speak on Callie's behalf, but Adama is more interested in quizzing Tyrol about Boomer -- "Did you love her?" Later, Adama cries when he looks at her body in the morgue. He has been shaken to the core because, evidently, he loved her as a daughter.

Stuff I didn't like:

• Starbuck, why did you sleep with that jerk from the Caprica Buccaneers? Jeez, what a ho.


• We learn that Starbuck had all of her fingers broken in childhood. So, a woman can't be strong unless there's abuse in her past.


• Starbuck gets a pelvic exam from a Cylon. Disgusting.


• How did Starbuck get shot and captured? She was standing right next to Helo.

Fears:

I think the filthy Cylons may have taken some of Starbuck's eggs to use in breeding experiments. Vile!

Dawn Over Miami

Nice, huh?

Back Home

I'm too tired to post the last vacation picture. I'll do it tomorrow.

Good news! Beren isn't depressed. Usually he's very sad when we pick him up from the kennel, but he was playing in the car on the way home and he seems happy. I guess he learned how to handle himself in the joint.

Cruise: Day 7 - Nassau

Weather: Stank

Mood: Exhausted

We went on the "Ghosts of Nassau" walking tour today. Boy, what a mistake that was! The sun had no mercy and there was little shade. I quickly got dehydrated. I have such a raging headache now.

The tour was light on the ghosts and the obiah aspect. We saw one small dungeon under a library and we walked up to an old fort. The guide described some man who fell victim to a spell imbued in coo coo soup and she described how it felt to be "hagged," or attacked by spirits. That was it.

By the time we made it back to the shopping area, I was too tired to shop. I bought two shirts because I had run out of clothes (!), but that was it.

Even though this trip was a bust as far as buying jewelry, I got some nice pictures taken by me and of me. The portrait photographer took two nice shots of me on Thursday. My skin looks gorgeous.

Oh, the midnight buffet sucked! :(

I'm not taking this cruise line again. I require good meals.

Cruise: Day 6 - At Sea

Weather: Low 80's

Mood: Bored

Nothing to do today. I could've gone to a seminar to learn how to make towel animals like the bunny they left on our bed last night, but I passed on that exciting proposition.

The food sucked again last night. I had an uninspired rack of teeny lamb. WHAT IS UP WITH THAT?? Tonight there is a lobster and crab dish. It better be good.

We're on our way to Nassau, the last stop on our trip. I haven't bought anything worthwhile. My money was spent on this Internet connection and some photos.

Tonight there is a comedy show, the third parade of the trip, and a late buffet. I hate to turn in early, because the night is so long, but, wow. I really don't want to fight people for food at midnight.

I hope to find a nice piece of jewelry in Nassau. I haven't seen shit that says, "buy me," to me. Very disappointing. I came with money to be spent, yo. Looks like I'm going to leave with money too.

Cruise: Day 5 - St. Thomas

The weather was better today. Warm, but not as oppressive.

We had to go through customs at 7 a.m. this morning. Not sure why.

We went on a tour of Blackbeard's Hill, which the tour guide said actually had nothing to do with Blackbeard. The streets were very clean and the shopping district was nice, but I haven't found anything I really wanted to buy in the last two ports.

We had a lousy lunch that cost us $66 dollars at a restaurant by the waterfront.

The "Planet Ice" show last night actually didn't suck. Since we were way down front in the second row, I could see the costumes clearly and the facial expressions of the skaters. One girl fell down twice, though, so every time a skater leaped I held my breath. I felt sorry for her. The ice was all chopped up. I guess the rink is too small for a Zamboni machine.

I bought another picture of myself. Another $19.

Cruise: Day 4 - St. Martin / St. Maarten

Again, very hot today, but it was a drier heat. We arrived at the port at 8 a.m. The water was very clear -- I could see the fish swimming from the balcony.

The "Yoda Guy" shop was bullshit. It was a regular art gallery and he had a couple of framed pages from the OT scripts and some storyboards which he was signing for people. False advertizing.

Later we went on a tour that stopped at a butterfly farm then the French side of the island. The French side looked crappy. The Dutch side (where the cruise ships land) has all new houses and clean upscale shops. The French side looked depressed and unclean.

Dinner tonight sucked again. The jerk chicken from the restaurant across the street from my house is better.

We are going to an ice show tonight. This should be good for a few laughs.

Cruise: Day 3 - San Juan

Portrait of Michelle's mom. After 40 minutes in the linen store in Old San Juan, did she buy anything? Nope.

--

The dinner last night was better -- roast duck. Oh, and I didn't wear the stockings.

I had some camera trouble as we were pulling into San Juan. The lenses on all my cameras were fogged up because of the difference between the heat and humidity in the room and outside.

The seven of us made an ill-fated attempt to walk to the San Cristobal fortress. We never got there. Only two of us are not overweight and we have three ladies who are over seventy and one in her fifties. And people got bored on the way.

My mom had a lot of fun using the coupons in her shopping book and she bought me two Hawaiian shirts, so she is happy.

I will be happy when I can buy some electronic stuff.

I was bored today, but tomorrow should be more interesting. I'm going on a tour of a butterfly farm, so I hope to take some nice pictures.

I need a photographer's vest so I can store my stuff distributed across my body. My shoulder is killing me from carrying this bag.

Cruise: Day 2 - At Sea

I had a hellish night. I was fine until about 1 a.m. I got up and went to the bathroom and went I climbed back into bed. I couldn't get comfortable and I soon had a cramp in my right shoulder. This lasted another seven hours. I don't like the mattress and the pillows.

I skipped breakfast and had lunch at 11:30. The food once again was shitty, even at the buffet. I then attended a shopping seminar where they gave us a map and told us where to shop in St. Thomas and St. Martin. It was 90% jewelry stuff, but there is a Star Wars shop (yep) that's on the list that I will visit. I also need a couple accessories for my camera -- a lens hood, a lens cleaning kit and a thing to keep the lens cover from getting lost. I can live without all this stuff, of course.

I went to the photo place and picked up the photos taken of us at dinner and when we boarded. $97! HOLY SHIT! I wasn't paying attention.

I signed up for the "Cyber Cabin" deal as soon as I got on board so that I could get Internet access. The cost was a flat fee of $100. But it's dial up! They handed me a plastic box with a phone in it, some cords and a manual. Unbelieveable. I almost said forget it, but it is cheaper. I would prefer the wireless broadband access, but it's .50 a minute -- $30 an hour. And I'll probably go over three hours in a week.

Actually, now I'm thinking I should go for that. Dial-up is just so fucking slow it makes me crazy. I could probably force myself to only spend three hours online, right?

I experimented with my new wide-angle lens and the circular polarizing filters. They make the sky very blue and everything is darker and more saturated. I probably won't use them unless I'm in the open and there's exteremely strong sunlight. I also re-familiarized myself with setting exposures manually. I fucked up many good picture opportunities in Alaska by relying on the automatic setting. So many of my pictures were severely overexposed. SIGH!

Tonight is "formal" night and my mother is already irritating me by asking me what I'm wearing. I don't care about clothes and shoes and shit. She tossed a pair of panty hose at me and I tossed them back. I said I'll eat at the buffet if she keeps this up. I came on this vacation to relax, not to have someone tell me what to wear. The waiter last night said we don't have to wear formal wear, so I won't.

Cruise: Day 1 - Miami

I ended up staying up until 2:30 in the morning, despite having packed a week before. I always do that.

The taxi ride to La Guardia was quick and unevenful. No problem with checking in at the airport. There wasn't much available to purchase for breakfast so I had two bites of a ham and cheese croissant and threw the rest away.

I dozed through the 3-hour flight, but I was very uncomfortable. The flight was packed.

The transfer from the Miami airport to the pier was smooth. They put our bags in a truck and we went in a separate bus to the pier. We breezed through the check in since I had filled out the forms online. We had our picture taken on the gangplank, then we boarded Explorer of the Seas.

Our room has a balcony, a welcome change from the last two cruises we took, both with interior cabins. Cheaper, but claustrophobic.

We've been on Renaissance and Norweigian cruises before. I had no problem with the other two cruise lines, but I was surprised to see that this Royal Caribbean ship is nicer. The decor is a bit more elaborate and I like the Promonade area that looks like a mall, complete with cafes and shops.

There have been a smattering of non-whites on the previous cruises we've been on, but there are a lot more minorities on this cruise. There are also a lot more children and teens.

The only disappointment so far has been the food. It was average to poor and the portions were small.

BSG: Resistance

I'm so amazed at this show. I was prepared not to like this season. I was sure it was going to start to suck. But the first four episodes have been great. They've exceeded my expectations.

Things I liked:

• Callie as Jack Ruby. Wow! I didn't see that coming at all! That was a great scene. They're leading Boomer to her new cell, everyone is screaming and throwing shit at her, then BOOM! Callie jumps out of the crowd and shoots her.
  
• Baltar playing hardball. Again, wow! He poisoned Tyrol so that he could force Boomer to give up the number of Cylons embedded in the fleet.
  
• The "Boston Massacre" scene. I shouldn't have been surprised, but when spooked the Marines fired on the civilians who were refusing to supply the Galactica, I didn't expect it.

Things I didn't like:

Saul and Ellen's "rough sex" shit. Fuck that. I'm not interested in that.

BSG: Fragged (5)

Callie knows she’s not qualified for this, and even if she were qualified, the person creating the diversion for Crashdown will be killed. Crashdown orders her to move and when she says, “I can’t,” he quickly puts a pistol to her head and says he’ll count to three. At the count of two, Tyrol has his gun out, imploring him to stop. But at the count of three it’s Baltar who shoots Crashdown in the back, killing him.

Everyone is stunned except the Cylons, who couldn’t help but hear the gunshot. They open on their position. Tyrol orders everyone to fall back, but he stops to rip the dog tags off of Crashdown’s neck. Baltar has the presence of mind to pick up Crashdown’s rocket launcher before fleeing after Tyrol with the girls. Number Six appears to him and says, “Now you’re a man.”

Meanwhile, the Raptor is approaching. Tyrol and crew are hauling ass, going for the dish. The medic gets shot and Callie goes back for her, draping her arm over her shoulder and dragging her forward. Tyrol tries to take a shot at the dish and gets shot by the Cylons. The dish swivels around and points at the Raptor. Tyrol yells, “Gimme the launcher!” at Baltar, who exposes himself to fire in order to reach the Chief. Baltar competently covers Tyrol with pistol fire at the Cylons, giving Tyrol a clear shot at the dish, which he takes out.

The Cylons do manage to fire some missiles, but because the dradis was taken out, the missiles fail to lock and sail harmlessly past the Raptor. Tyrol is out in the open and gets shot. Baltar has partial cover behind a tree and he continues firing and protecting the two women. Knowing he can’t reach cover, Tyrol stands up, takes out his pistol and starts firing, fully expecting to get wasted. Suddenly the Cylons blow up and Tyrol looks at his pistol in surprise. Then he notices the Raptor overhead that just nuked the Cylons and saved his ass.

They two women hold Baltar’s hand and they all look like they’re going to burst into tears.

Back on the Galactica, the Quorum of Twelve, escorted by Tigh, approach the brig. Tigh is gleeful. “Viewing time at the zoo!” he cackles.

“I’m glad to see you hold the President in such high esteem,” remarks Tom Zarek.

“Your day is gonna come, moffit boy,” threatens Tigh.

[What the fuck is a “moffit boy”?]

They come into the brig and Laura is sitting staring into space. She doesn’t acknowledge their presence.

They start to get nervous and Tigh says, “Okay, the show’s over. Let’s give her some privacy. Let’s talk about where to proceed from here.”

Then Laura stands.

“Thank you all for coming. I have a statement I would like to make. The attempted military coup against the lawful government of the Colonies is illegal, ill-advised and totally doomed to failure. I have not resigned the presidency. I will fight this action with everything I have.”

Tigh, seeing the situation slipping out of his control says, “She thinks she’s a prophet! Go on – ask her! She thinks the ‘Arrow of Apollo’ will open the Tomb of Artemis.”

“Everything I’ve done has been logical,” Laura says calmly. “We have found Kobol. We have found the City of the Gods. And when we receive the Arrow, we will open the Tomb of Athena and we will find the road to Earth.”

The Gemonese councilor is particularly impressed. “Madame President, have you read the scrolls of Pythia?”

“Carefully and many times. I humbly believe that I am fulfilling the role of the leader.”

Even Tom Zarek looks like he may be buying this.

Tigh has had it. “Enough of this nonsense. Everybody out!”

Zarek doesn’t budge. “Sarah, you represent Gemenon. You know more about the scrolls than any of us.”

“The scrolls tell us that a dying leader will lead us to salvation.”

“She’s not dying!” interrupts Tigh. “She’s crazy!”

“I am dying,” Laura replies. “I have terminal breast cancer. Dr. Cottle will verify the diagnosis. I have a few months to live, and in that time I will lead the people to salvation. It is my sole purpose.”

“Praise be to the gods!” someone says, and the whole Quorum gets down on its knees and reach out their hands for her to touch them.

[Okay, this part I don’t buy. They can’t all be zealots like the Gemonese.]

Tigh knows he’s totally played himself. He has the guards come and usher everyone out. He shoots Laura a look of mingled respect, fear and fury.

The religious corporal comes to Laura after the others have left and she thanks him for his help. He smiles and says, no, thank the gods.

[Have you noticed that Laura has three disciples, all black? Elosha the female priest, the corporal, and the Gemonese councilor. Hmm!]

Back on Kobol, Tyrol gives Lee the dog tags of the three dead men. “A hell of a butcher’s bill,” he says. Then he asks the dreaded question – How did Crashdown die?

Baltar is quick to answer. “Leading the charge. He gave his life for me in the finest tradition of the service.”

Baltar looks at Tyrol pleadingly behind Lee’s back, then Tyrol backs him up. “Yes, he was a hero.”

[Since Baltar looks so anguished, no one is going to question this. Ironically, Baltar was the actual hero in the assault on the dish.]

Number Six shows up and says she’s proud of him. “Because I’ve taken a life?” he says unhappily.

“Well that makes you human,” she says.

“Is that it? It’s not poetry, art, music or literature? It’s murder? Murder is my heritage? Is that the lesson I’m supposed to pass on to my child?”

About this time Lee starts screaming for Baltar to come on and board the ship.

Back on Galactica, Dr. Cottle has a smoke outside the plastic sheet separating the rest of the infirmary from the OR. He tells Tigh that Adama will live and he’ll “wake up when he damn well wants to.”

“I really frakked things up for you, Bill,” Tigh says to the sleeping Adama.

Tigh then further fraks things up by holding a press conference, dissolving the Quorum of Twelve, and declaring martial law because “it’s obvious the government can’t function.”

The episode ends with a huge uproar and the reporters surge forward toward Tigh while the Marines try to hold them back.

BSG: Fragged (4)

Back in the brig on Galactica, Laura’s ramblings makes the corporal stand up and take notice. “It sounds like she’s quoting the scrolls of the prophet Pythia,” he says to Billy. “She foretold that a leader would bring humanity to salvation.” The corporal reveals that he is from Gemenonon, where “we believe in the literal truth of the Scriptures.”

Billy seizes his chance and asks the guard if he knows about chamalla, the herb used by priests to aid in visions.

Cut to Tigh’s quarters where he’s getting his drink on with Ellen. He laments about his various stresses – Adama is still in surgery, the press wants a piece of him and the Qurom wants to see the President. Let them, Ellen says. She assures Tigh that Laura is so crazy, once everyone sees her, all of the military’s actions will seem justified. And Tigh will be in complete control, since the vice-president is missing or dead. Just until the old man gets back, he says. Of course, she says.

Apollo’s raptor makes the jump to Kobol with the rescue team.

On Kobol, Callie dutifully practices setting up her weapon over and over again. Baltar has another vision. Number Six warns Baltar that someone will betray the others during the mission. Crashdown gives Baltar a weapon then puts on the dog tags of Socinus and Tarn, presumably for good luck.

Dualla calls Tigh in his quarters and informs him that the Quorum is adamant about seeing the President. He tells her to tell them to shove their demand up their collective asses. On the other end of the line Dualla rolls her eyes and makes the universal sign of drinking to Gaeda. She remains professional on the phone and repeats the Quorum’s request and says she needs instructions for the sentries. Tigh laughs and says, “Tell them they’re going to get to see what has become of their precious President.” Tigh smiles at Ellen, who giggles, loving this shit.

The religious corporal comes through and returns from the infirmary with a bottle of chamalla extract which he hands off to Billy.

Apollo’s Raptor approaches Kobol and locks on the transponder of the downed Raptor.

Crashdown’s group takes one last look at the Cylons. Crashdown orders Callie to take the point, but then Tyrol notices that there are five Cylons below, not the three that they counted before. Tyrol interprets this to mean that the dish is unprotected. He urges Crashdown to consider a new plan – go back and take out the unguarded dish instead of attacking all five Cylons head on. Crashdown refuses to listen. He can’t be sure that there aren’t still two Cylons at the dish.

As they are arguing whether there are five Cylons or seven, they hear a sonic boom overhead – the Raptor has entered the atmosphere. That seals it for Crashdown. He orders them to follow his plan and move out. Again he orders Callie to go down and create a diversion.

Only, she can’t do it.

BSG: Fragged (3)

Laura gets a surprise visitor in the brig – Ellen Tigh. Laura is in bad shape. She’s mumbling in her sleep and she when she gets up, she fails to recognize Ellen. She is coherent enough to ask for an attorney, but Ellen snorts, “Sure, right.” Ellen leaves quickly, bursting to tell this new development to her husband. The religious brother guarding Laura reaches for his prayer beads.

Back on Kobol, Baltar scales a tree and observes the Cylons for Crashdown. He loses his binoculars, but makes it back to the camp unseen. He reports the number of Cylons to Crashdown, who then asks him if he’s ever fired a gun before. “I’m not a soldier!” Baltar wails, seeing where this is going.

“Don’t worry, I’ll give you the simplest assignment,” Crashdown reassures him.

“You’re not suggesting we attack the Cylons!” Baltar wails.

Tyrol takes Crashdown aside and advises against this plan. Crashdown argues that they have to do it for Socinus and Tarn, the other guy that got killed. Tyrol counters that he fails to see what this has to do with the two men who died.

“Maybe that’s why I’m an officer and you’re not,” says Crashdown, cementing his position as biggest asshole on Kobol.

Baltar talks to the ladies. The medic says she hasn’t fired a weapon since Basic and Callie says, don’t look at me – I joined to pay for dental school. [LOL!]

Crashdown drafts a very by the book plan of assault and draws little pictures in the dirt and moves sticks and leaves to represent various obstacles. Baltar looks even more dismayed as he realizes that Crashdown is seriously going to force them to try this. Baltar can’t take it any longer. He points out the absurdity of the plan – five Cylons vs. five humans does not spell equal odds. Baltar tries to organize a vote and Tyrol cuts him off by saying this is not a democracy, it’s a military mission.

The plan basically calls for Callie to create a diversion and the medic girl and Crashdown will assault the “dradis” (Galactica-speak for radar dish). This virtually assures that Callie will die.

Palmeiro Suspended for Steroids

You big dummy!

Steroids must really be like crack. Palmiero was outed in Canseco's book, he was called to testify before congress in March, and he still couldn't stop! He failed a drug test and yesterday it was announced that he'll be suspended for 10 games.

What an ass! He might not make it to Cooperstown now. What a waste of a career.

Read more

BSG: Fragged (2)

[By the way, have I mentioned that I hate the new theme music? It’s sort of minimalist. I liked the music from last season. It’s actually the same melody, they just added some (too) soft vocals and removed more prominent the strings.]

Billy comes down to the brig to see Laura. The religious black corporal is very concerned with the way she’s been moaning and shrieking. Laura confides in Billy what he already knows – she’s finding it hard to think because of the chamalla withdrawal. He promises her that he’ll try to get her some more.

Baltar has another familiar hallucination where he’s back at his swinging bachelor pad on Caprica. Number Six continues to work on him about how savage humans are and how he must save their baby and the baby is the path to salvation. He says he’s not ready to be a father or a guardian. She says, “Be a man, Gaius.”

[Same ole, same ole.]

Crashdown’s group observes the missile battery and they try to get a count of how many Centurions are guarding it. Crashdown gets the bright idea that need to take it out, since they realize that the sole purpose of an anti-aircraft battery is to take out any Raptors that come to Kobol to rescue them.

In Galactica’s hangar bay, Lee accesses the state of the Vipers – seven are down. Dualla gives Tigh a stack of messages, all of which are marked priority. Tigh asks how long before Lee can get his raptor in the air. When Lee estimates 90 minutes, Tigh explodes.

“90 minutes! We’ve got men down on that frakking planet! Get your head in the game. Do your job or go back to the brig.”

Everyone stares at him. Lee turns away and rolls his eyes.

Tigh meets with the Quorum of Twelve in the ward room (?). They demand to know why the president is being detained. Tigh forcefully defends Adama’s actions. “She caused a key military asset to be lost! The Commander felt he had no choice but to remove her from power.”

Tom Zarek speaks up. “Adama knew exactly what he was doing. He was paving the way to declare martial law and declare a military dictatorship. Isn’t that right, Colonel?”

Tigh reaches for a drink... of water. “I can’t speak for the Commander. He’s still in surgery.”

Zarek won’t let him off the hook. “Well, you seem to be in command here. So what exactly are you planning to do? Are you going to declare martial law?”

“Absolutely not. The old man hated the very idea of martial law. He believed in freedom and democracy and all that good stuff.” Tigh raises his glass in a toast that mocks the Quorum.

“If this is still a democracy, I move that the Quorum demand immediate access to the President.” The motion is quickly seconded and they unanimously agree.

“We demand immediate access to the president,” says the Gemonese councilor.

Tigh looks both irritated and amused. He gets up and walks to the door.

“I’ll take your demand under advisement,” he says as he turns his back on them.

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