On the Cusp of a Real Breakthrough

This is a post about the Sci-FI TV show Battlestar Galactica. SPOILER WARNING: If you haven’t seen last night’s episode, stop reading until you have.

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I’m sorry, they asked me to stay a loyal viewer through that dreadful ‘labor unrest on the ore processing ship’ episode, and the tedious ‘Detective Lee vs. the Black Market’ episode, and the mind-boggling awful Lee’s married to Dualla subplot, they think that a few minutes of ‘mysterious clues’ jammed into the end of an episode is supposed to hold me for NINE FRACKIN’ MONTHS?????

That’s not ‘organic’ scripting, that’s smokin’ dope.

Why should I bother ever thinking about this show again, much less tune in sometime NEXT YEAR? Especially now that I’ve seen they aren’t actually developing subtle plots over long time frames, but kinda pulling ‘cool stuff’ out of their butts? What’s my guarantee that, in 2008, there will actually be answers to the mysteries, and they will be worth waiting for? Nothing. I haven’t felt so manipulated for so little effect since X-Files.

Crazy Space Mom’s cancer is back at random. Riight. The Admiral throws his only surviving son out, but then decides, maybe not. And oh-lookee - there are only FOUR characters who think they are Cylons. Gosh, who’s the fifth? OOOhhh, very mysterious boys and girls. (Hey, doesn’t Chief have a kid? So that hybrid Hera’s not so special then, is she? And, um, hasn’t Tigh known Adama since before the first Cylon war, before ‘human form’ Cylons evolved? Let’s just rewrite everyone’s back story next season, shall we?) Oh look, that huge Cylon fleet that’s supposedly been chasing them has been waiting for them. Well, maybe at least we’ll find out what happened to all those on-board the Cylon ship plotlines they’ve dropped for weeks. Remember the virus, anyone? The in-fighting? The wacky babe in the bathtub? Probably not. That was all before they decided to put Baltar’s ’shocked’ face into a courtroom scene instead of the ‘end of 2001′ set. ‘Oh, were you actually paying attention and trying to follow a plot there? Sorry about that. We dumped it.’

Finally, ‘All Along The Watchtower’? Seriously? Perhaps the most egregious ‘you think there’s something meaningful here, but there isn’t’ lyric in Dylan’s entire ouevre?

Was that meant as a transcript from the latest writers’ session, trying to figure their way to another season? “There must be some way out of here, said the Joker to the Thief? There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief”? Now they’re just being insulting. What’s next, flying motorcycles visit LA? (uh-oh. Maybe so.)
Here’s a tip: if you’re asking viewers to come back to you some time NEXT YEAR after suddenly pulling the show out from under them, it would be smart to leave them with something other than “No reason to get excited, the Thief he kindly spoke.”

There are many here among us, who (now) think that Battlestar Galactica is but a joke.

Circumstances again inspire me to note that sinuses mostly full of air are a really good thing. It is one of those things I tend to take for granted, in between the times when vile rhinoviruses are doing a full-tilt boogie on my nasal passages. Now that I no longer feel like someone inside my head is trying to stretch my skull with a screw-jack, I look forward hopefully to breathing normally again.

I have a bunch of draft posts partially completed. Really. But they need polishing before I post them.

In the meantime, I’d just like to officially note that I find the little girl and elephant on the Texas Instruments ‘DLP’ commercials really creepy.

That is all.

In my earlier days, I was a technological “early adopter”, but after I left the Internet industry and life took some left turns, I’ve let the waves of innovation pass over me, content to float lazily along, paddling only as often as I wanted to. Which is how, here at the end of 2006, I carry a cellphone model introduced in 2001, and only because I could no longer get the one introduced ten years earlier. And also how, here at the end of 2006, I just got my first iPod.

Earlier this year, after hearing about yet another generation of iPods being released, I did take the time to answer the question “well, if I were going to get an iPod, which one would I prefer.” I decided that the new 2nd generation iPod nano suited me best. I didn’t really forsee watching video on an iPod screen, and the nano weighs almost nothing, yet has more control and features than a Shuffle. But, even with the remarkably low prices, the deliciously stylish black 8 gig model hung just beyond my price threshold for something I don’t actually need. It went onto my Amazon wishlist, along with other things that would be nice to have, but I’m not going to buy right now. My loving wife found it there, when weeks of “Gee, I don’t really know if I want anything for Christmas” had driven her to distraction.

One unrealized benefit of actually having my own iPod is that now I can participate in one of the games some of the cool bloggers play, a list of 10 songs generated by the iPod shuffle feature. Often these lists give some insights into the blogger, because it is a small sample of their musical tastes. Sometimes, reading these lists just makes me realize yet again that I am old compared to the technogeeks I read. Other times, it serves to point me toward tracks I might like. (Of course, I’ve been able to generate such lists using the iTunes shuffle on my laptop, but doing it on an actual iPod seems more proper, somehow.)

My favorite is the version used by my friend Janeen, who posts not the song titles, but a line from the lyrics of each, in contest form. The goal is to name the song, and preferably the artist. I find I usually have no problem naming her jazz standards, but I’m not so good at guessing which artist, and I am of course hopeless with her broad repertoire in Spanish. Using Google is frowned upon.

With that inspiration, I contrived to create my own Random 10 game. I soon encountered small quandries. What if the lyrics seem like no challenge, when a song’s lyrics and a song’s identity are almost the same? Include it, because you may be wrong, and it’s only familiar to you? Or give someone an easy start? OK. You get what the iPod gives you, I guess. Easy picks in.

What about intrumentals? I have a bunch. I decided they get included by title, in order, but aren’t counted toward 10.

Then, of course, there are the judgment calls about which line to include. Obviously, there are some that would make the game too easy, some too hard. I decide to shoot for a more obscure line from well-known songs, more obvious from lesser-known ones. When in doubt, shoot for something poetic, or at least carrying the flavor of the track.

Here’s how it works. Below is a list of ten lyric selections, with two instrumental bonus tracks. You can guess any or all of the tracks. Leave your guess in a comment at the bottom of the post. Google searching is frowned upon.

The process of preparing the list has been enlightening. In going back over it, I realize that even the songs which are relatively widely known exist in more obscure versions on my iPod. So, the odds of guessing more than just the song title are slim. So this game is for Titles. I’ll offer extra points for people who name their favorite version of the track. When the game is over, I’ll post the actual details of Title, Artist and Album as they appear on my iPod. I figure #2 is impossible, so #3 is easier. Hint: #4 is not a trick question.

Random 10: Number 1

1. “Readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmetic are the branches of the Learning Tree”

2. “Aesthetic quiessence is gone…Wright, Sullivan, van der Rohe gone…”

3. “Empty pockets never make the grade.”

4. “It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright.”

5. “When she passed the bar, and she heard the music play, she had to go in and see, it had to be that way.”

# Instrumental: Horn - Nick Drake - Pink Moon

6. “If you feel that you can’t go on, because all of your hope is gone …”

7. “Little boy sat down and cried, old man stopped and asked him why. ‘I can’t do what the big boys do!’ Old man sat and he cried, too.”

# Instrumental: Pia (1962) - Les McCann, piano - Relationships: The Les McCann Anthology

8. “I can feel the Future trembling as the word is passed around, if you stand up for what you do believe in, prepare to be shot down.”

9. “And you know that you’re over the hill, when your mind makes a promise that your body can’t fill.”

10. “He said ‘Well, if you insist. Where you want go, Miss?”

I spend a lot of time these days feeling slightly out-of-sync with the world. A surprisingly large amount of my day involves coping with chronic conditions. I have to take medications, and I can only eat certain foods, and then only slowly, and I get tired easily, etc., etc.

So it was very nice this rainy Saturday morning to be out doing conventional do-it-yourselfer man things, like talking with the guys at the tile place about sealants, and buying supplies at the Home Depot, so I can spend some time this afternoon working on our house. I was even wearing a plaid flannel shirt and blue jeans. It felt so, well, normal.

I have a tip for the producers of some of the new shows.

Despite what you may have heard, a boring shot is not actually improved by failing to hold the camera steady. You may believe that it adds some dynamism or a sense of edgy reality like some kind of hip documentary, but it doesn’t. It just makes the viewer wonder why you failed to lock down the tripod, or hire some camera people without palsy.

Similarly, normal people have tops on their heads. If every shot cuts off the tops of people’s heads, then, when you want to use a claustrophobic close-up for effect, no one will notice. This is true even if you cut away to another topless head, or succession of topless heads at a rate of one or more a second.

Normal people do not, actually, move their head around all the time as they look at things, and they don’t stand with their heads six to nine inches away from the faces of total strangers, and I do not want to watch TV shows that make me do that.

That is all.

As I write, I’m sitting up in bed, in my pajamas, waiting for the two extra-strength acetaminophen I took to take effect. Kimberly is next to me, sound asleep. It’s only 7:30 in the evening, and still bright light out.

I’m sore and tired in the kind of deep way that comes from having spent two weekends in a row, and a substantial portion of the week in between, on home demolition. Even though I’ve been trying to practice good self-care, stay aware of my limits, and not overdo, I’m afraid I have pushed myself too far. I probably shouldn’t have done anything at all today, so even though I tried to focus on using brain and not brawn, it was too much. I’m not going to be awake much longer, and tomorrow’s agenda will have to be all about recovery.

The good news is that we are almost done. All the decrepit plaster has been taken off the wall in the upstairs room. In the kitchen, we are down to the studs, the old flooring has been pryed up, and the wallboard and floor in the future breakfast nook have been taken out. We’ve taken out the wall sink in the half-bath, and taken out enough of the wallboard behind it to discover the completely bizarre framing and plumbing hidden there.

Of course, we didn’t do it all ourselves. We had help from our friends Janeen, Phil and Becca. Phil in particular was a Hero of Labor today, doing most of the muscle work that I was avoiding.

Even though I’m eager to write about the awesome ramps I built, one for the back steps and one up to the bed of the dump truck in the driveway, I’m too pooped. More later.

Pictures of the first stages of the project are up on Kimberly’s blog.

The Fourth of July in Seattle is typically cloudy, breezy and cold, if not actively raining. As a result, I’ve gotten out of the habit of making a big to-do about going to see fireworks, since they aren’t as much fun when you are in a down parka. Plus, from our upstairs windows we can see the highest shots in both of the local Seattle displays, so why go out?

This year I’m also enjoying the pyrotechnics of my transplanted rose, which has decided it is very happy where it is. (I credit unusually dry and warm sunny days, since I’ve been ignoring it.)

Sadly, my skills with my little camera are limited, so this picture doesn’t really do justice to the profusion of blossoms. I’ll have to try Kimberly’s camera, to see how much of the problem is in the equipment and how much in the user.

The radio just had the news that a doping investigation in Spain has caused a large number of cyclists to be dropped from the Tour de France! The race begins this weekend, and now it will be without Jan Ulrich and Ivan Basso, and who knows how many other familiar names. Now that Lance has retired, Ulrich or Basso was thought likely to win. This should be interesting.

Yesterday, the temperature broke the record for the day in Seattle, at 88 degrees Fahrenheit, or 304.26 Kelvin. Once it gets that warm here, Kelvin just seems the more appropriate scale.

I realize that it regularly gets this hot in places all over the country, many of which are far more humid as well. There are reasons I don’t live in such places. Part of the deal we make in accepting the long winter weeks of drizzle and grey is that we get summers that are pleasantly cool and beautiful. 88 degrees in June is not part of the deal.

The authorities have issued a heat advisory, since the temps are supposed to be even higher today. This is an official reminder to those of us who are sensitive to heat to take care. That’s probably a good idea, since the heat can make people stupid, as well as cranky. I’m using my remaining faculties to figure out where to cadge some air-conditioning today. Since the medications I take for my heart keep my blood vessels dilated and limit my heart rate, my body’s automatic responses for dealing with heat get very confused if it gets too hot. I’ll skip the details, but that is not a good thing at all and it’s worth considerable effort to avoid.

I think an official heat advisory gives me an excuse for going to a movie this afternoon, in a dark air-conditioned theater. The only question now, since it was into the mid-70s before 7am, is where I can take my laptop and cell phone to set up a ‘remote office’ in artificially cooled splendor this morning. Since it’s Seattle, I’m sure there is a cafe with both air-conditioning and free wireless Internet somewhere.

They claim it will be cooler, though still warm, tomorrow, and relatively normal by Thursday. I hope so.