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February 26, 2007
Goolash - offline life, Oscars, BSG, the rush to surrender and a little 'inside baseball'
I've been feeling like I misplaced the party invitation and, memory failing, have arrived hours late ... the few remaining canapes are drying on the sidetable or are ground into the carpet and the punchbowl looks too iffy to take a chance. People are clustered in groups in well established conversations that one longs to join, if only one can try and piece together the backstory.
Lasek sidelined me, then limited me, then another whirlwind envent unfolded.
House purchase.
Exciting and damned scary all at the same time. Husband Eric and I spent three and a half hours on Sunday signing loan docs. Good thing all the signitures are notarized because the quality of our giddy flourishes at the beginning are markedly different than the "I'm hungry, cranky and O GAWD didn't I just sign this same thing at least twice before?" slashing scribbles near the end.
We should be getting the keys to our New Home Thursday ... and soon you will be all subjected to Redecorating Blogging with before/after pics.
Ok...not so much major remodeling with smashing down walls and living in a tent in a backyard adventures as our initial budget is shockingly small. Hey, we blew the wad on getting the house in the first place ... this being Southern California ... and even as the market has slumped off its 2005 utter lunacy, it hasn't dropped off the map either. However, I can paint, sew, recycle and can figure out how to take the inexpensive and make it look designer. Look to posts starting this weekend.
I deliberately skipped the Oscars ... the idea of Gore as the coolest dude in the room and the biggest threat to America is Western-Civ-Induced Global Warming just brought home to me how utterly irrelevant "Movie Stars" have become. If you're not a "name" to be immediately recognized (as in being a mere 'tech' member of the Academy) your Oscar is shoved at you at a separate and barely acknowledged event. Is it any wonder that the number of people going to movies keeps going down?
I haven't blogged the last several episodes of Battlestar Gallactica because while I enjoyed them, and they were basic good story-telling, they didn't really tell me anything new. Really new. But last night's Dirty Hands was stunning. And the "stunning" doesn't really fully hit you until right at the end. It was an episode where everyone was right and everyone was wrong and would they "get" it before the humans started down the road to destroying themselves. And that's besides the startling pithy scenes with Baltar and his Mein Kampf. His amoral genius in finding ways to survive was beautifully showcased by his little performance to try and turn Tyrol. Eric was hissing through clenched teeth, "They should've tossed him out an airlock. Hell, they ought to do it now!" Kudos to the writers of this episode.
If SanFranNan Plasticosi wanted to embarrass the other members of her sex on the national stage, she couldn't have done better than by acting as the class prissy tattletale to complain about things she pretended she heard but were never said. Of course, she was riding point for Okinawa Murtha who is busy trying to tear the wings off the US military in his rush to surrender Iraq.
I saved for last a couple of photoshops I created over the past couple of days. I wasn't quite quick enough to answer the explosion of Leftist unilateral blogwar aggression, but if you don't care or don't follow some of the "inside baseball blogging" issues that arise from time to time, you need read no further. For those of you that have followed what is looking suspiciously like efforts to force Jeff Goldstein to quit blogging, you know about Dr. Andrew Haggerty's dragging out an old controversy, reinventing it and then pretending he is Above All the Rabble. That followed not too far on the heels of J*sh/HTML Mencken/Retardo Montalban hysterical high dungeon about online integrity ... from Sadly No!, no less! (insert comedic comments about "projection" here). If you were following those blog affairs, then the photoshops over the jump will make sense and, hopefully, give you a couple chuckles.
Jeff has been gracious enough to allow me to guest blog at PW, so I'm posting these here as not to bring him any more grief from cultists. These are my own creation, and I confess, I had fun doing them.
Posted by Darleen at February 26, 2007 03:58 PM
Comments
A few things that bugged me about BSG:
1) Why would anyone in the fleet pay attention to Balthar? He's atraitor to the whole human race, and clearly self serving and untrustworthy.
2) Why would Tyrol even listen to him? It's not that long ago that Tyrol was sending folks on a long swim out the airlock for being collaborators.
3) I'm not really buying the whole poor colony/rich colony thing. In order for a planet to be civilized, it has to have both highly skilled and educated people, and poorly skilled and educated people. They need street sweepers on Caprica, and professors and CEOs on Areilon. This seems to be a heavily contrived attempt to discuss race without using race.
Posted by: gahrie at February 26, 2007 09:00 PM
Ah, but gahrie, I think the strength of the show is it's willingness to show how humanity has a tendency to fall into squabbling interests when it isn't united ...and some of that unity only comes under extraordinary circumstances.
When they are under direct Cylon threat (ie being chased), they put aside immediate concerns and pull together. When the pressure, per se, is off and its just people on a journey, then all manner of petty jealousies, personal agenda's, etc, start creeping back.
It's also the tenuous alliance between military and civilian structures. Adama was 100% correct...soldiers don't strike. Period. Yet, civilians do have the right to organize and collectively bargain. That's what Roslin did remember from her own background. And allowing that collective bargaining can head off the type of unrest that gives people like Baltar an opportunity.
So what if Baltar was a "traitor" on New Caprica? They aren't there now, and he's a good enough politician that is being "held without trial" with a lawyer that is smuggling out his writings that the disaffected WOULD start listening to him.
Remember Tom Zarek in a past episode was sincerely upset about letting Baltar go to trial. If anyone knows about mob psychology, it's Zarek.
Posted by: Darleen at February 26, 2007 09:38 PM
It would have been a lot more believable to me if Zarek was the one doing the rabble rousing instead of Balthar.
By the way...is Starbuck a cylon or not? It's pretty clear they want us to think she is a cylon.....
Posted by: gahrie at February 26, 2007 09:42 PM
Starbuck a cylon?
Naw.
But she's been one of the ultimate cynics...but still has a 'religious' component that seems to tie in with Tyrol's backgroud (Eye of Jupiter stuff)
I think the Cylons have tried to use her (they did take one of her ovaries when she was on Caprica)
Posted by: Darleen at February 26, 2007 10:07 PM
This episode bored me a bit. Too much dialog though I saw what they were getting at.
Thinking on it now, wouldn't Roslin be for massive spendings on unions and tenure? I mean she was a teacher and the head of the education department after all :P
Posted by: Digger at February 26, 2007 11:46 PM
Oh... and what the heck is that red crap on the side of the wall of your chimney? Rust?
Posted by: Digger at February 26, 2007 11:47 PM
Darleen--
Those are wonderful. I wonder if we could get a Friends Don't Let Friends Blog Stupid public service poster, or maybe an opera poster for the Armadillo starring in an adaptation of Gogol's The Nose?
Posted by: Dan Collins at February 27, 2007 03:00 AM
Also, you should google up Hallmark's "Journeys" series of cards for an enormous (ly appalled) laugh.
Posted by: Dan Collins at February 27, 2007 03:01 AM
If you are talking about the "discoloration" around the base of the chimmney, it's water from the sprinklers. (I have the same paint on my house)
Posted by: gahrie at February 27, 2007 05:54 AM
Digger, gahrie's got the answer. Our house was built in 1990 in the godawful pop-southwest/miami pink paint on the outside that was so popular in the late 80's through early 90's...and it's faded weirdly because the owners never adjusted their sprinklers.
The inside has some nice architectual details...but it is ALL PAINTED WHITE...everything... with pink-beige tile on the floor and pale blue verticle blinds.
AAARRRGGHHH!
(inside paint job is first thing we are going to do)
Posted by: Darleen at February 27, 2007 06:39 AM
I'm in the process of buying a house -- closing in a couple weeks.
The main bathroom is tiles with what -- literally -- looks like Irish Spring soap flattened out into squares. You know... that pale vaguely minty green with white swirled though it.
So, redecorating the bathroom is our first step. Don't even get me started on the "70s horror" bathroom in the basement.
Posted by: Strider at February 28, 2007 02:39 PM
Tiled roof is nice. Pretty expensive to replace though.
Posted by: Carl W. Goss at March 1, 2007 10:45 PM