two roads diverged in a sea of stars

The more I read the wonderful post-game interviews with the BSG writing staff and the Chicago Tribune's Mo Ryan, the more I realize that there's a huge disconnect between the show's staff and the show's audience. I read the staff's personal insights into the story I just watched, and find the things they were trying to tell me got lost, or weren't made clear enough. In fact, I think the majority of these final 10 episodes have benefitted greatly from the post-games, because apparently I'm not watching with the right eyes and ears.

Indeed, it's been said the show itself isn't as enamored with its own mythology as the audience is. For every giant leap forward in storytelling, there's two steps backwards with misplaced character pieces -- a plague of the show since it was expanded to 20ish episodes a season.

If you were to go the itunes route, I don't think you'd even buy this full final season. I think "The Final Season" would actually be 6 episodes long, and not 10, and that's a shame.

Like Buffy season 7, I wonder if Battlestar has gone into finale panic, knowing that they're leaving the world behind and start exploring every nook and cranny they can, when they should really be focusing on the main cast and plowing towards the finish line with amazing speed and strength.

In my mind, last night's episode was 20 minutes long, and last week's was 10, because that's the information I needed. I craved.

Lost is eyeing its finish line right now, and so far has been firing on all cylinders. I don't think they're going to be rewatchable episodes (unlike BSG's mutinary arc), but I think its an amazing ride and I have no complaints.

These sci-fi/supernatural serials are rides, and I hate when they stall.

little lady makes good

While I continue to work on books of my own, my friend actually finished one. It's a real book, with lots of pages full of lots of words about Death's baby girl all growed-up.

Plug. Plug. Plug.

the storyteller

Neil Gaiman is a tricky one for me. I love his stories and ideas, but I'm not an actual fan of his prose...in fact I was only able to finish reading Coraline after I saw and enjoyed the movie. His comic work, for the most part, is where he excels (I thought Eternals was disjointed, but I'm sure part of that was reading it in monthly installments that were anything but monthly). He tells great stories, but his prose is just ... difficult. To me.

After seeing/reading Coraline, rewatching Stardust, and reading that Neil Jordan was going to adapt his latest novel The Graveyard Book as a feature film, I was sort of jonesing to give him another try. The fact that Graveyard won the Newberry award helped.

I ordered it on Amazon, it arrived promptly, and after reading 15 pages last night, I started to ajust to his writing. It was almost like letting your eyes adjust to a darkened room, I got used to it, and started to love it, and read a bit more.

I'm not going to recommend you go out and buy the book now, but if you, like me, had Gaiman-prose phobia, know that this is a mountain you can tackle.

Also, been working a lot yadda, yadda, yadda. No complaints. Little Matilda fully adjusted.

mothership

G/A/F/F/C

review: coraline 3D

broken

* don't read anything into this, its just an exercise liberated from a sketchbook

rainy day viewing

Every few weeks I skip through the HD movie channel guides and set timers for movies I have (or had) a mild interest in seeing. I stockpile them for rainy days like today, when I'm home alone with the kids playing in the warm living room.

Right now I'm watching A Sound of Thunder. Wow. Just WOW.

It's like someone took the budgets from two SciFi Channel original movies and conned someone into release it in the theatres. In reality, someone actually spent $80 million to make it.

In return, it made:
Domestic: $1,900,451
Foreign: $9,765,014
Total Theatrical Gross: $11,665,465

angry people who yell a lot

I have to say, I really liked the recent Battlestar/24 crossover. Sure it got soapy and over the top, but it was almost like an insane "what if?" with fallout I can definitely live with.

I sort of felt like the season premiere was the real series finale (downer), and now everything afterwards is gravy. Like the time travel episodes that made up the post-graduation episodes during the final season of Felicity.

Lost is also on a roll...if you fastword through anything with the Oceanic Six.

the new girl

snaggletooth princess

This is little Matilda.
Who was found in downtown Los Angeles.
Running traffic, without a collar or microchip.

This is little Matilda.
Who is coming to live with us tonight.
Because Tucker had a crush on her when he met her.
Because Murphy played chase with her for a bit.

This is little Matilda.
Who is moving in tonight.
Because three happy little tails are better than two.

(she's about 5 or 6 3 says the vet, fixed, flea free, and hunger issues aside in good shape, they think she's a reindeer/apple chihuahua mix, teeny tiny)

frak

superstar