Holiday blues update

I haven't really been motivated to blog lately. Between work, family matters, and the general stress of the Christmas splurging season, I'm not left with much energy or time to rant on the internet.

During my time away from the keyboard, the Democratic governor of Illinois went down in flames, and turns out to have been a complete asshole and egomaniac. Or, as Dickipedia so aptly summarizes:

The subject of no fewer than a dozen separate federal investigations, Blagojevich is a disgrace to all Serbian-American governors everywhere—that means you, George Voinovich of Ohio. He is also just the kind of a-hole who threatens to screw the whole thing up for Barack Obama before he even takes office.

Rod Blagojevich was the first Democrat to be elected governor of Illinois in 30 years, a distinction he proceeded to totally crap all over by continually failing to pass legislation and budgets, making many political enemies (even in his own party), committing federal and state crimes, wearing a ridiculous side-part in some seriously bouffant hair, and, in October 2008, earning the title “America’s Least Popular Governor.” All that before he got arrested.

On December 9, 2008, adding dick insult to dick injury, Blagojevich was detained by the FBI and charged with conspiracy to commit fraud as well as solicitation of bribery for allegedly trying to sell president-elect Barack Obama’s vacated seat in the U.S. Senate. This happened the day before Blagojevich’s 52nd birthday. One imagines they canceled the stripper.

Heh. Hee hee.

What else?

Oh, I should mention that the BSG spinoff Caprica has been picked up by Scifi as a series! Details here. The only downside is that we won't be seeing any of it until 2010.

Webisodes bridging seasons 4.0 and 4.5 are currently airing as well, but I refuse to link to them in protest of their unavailability for Canadian web surfers (can't see the logic in shutting out fans who happen to be outside of the US; if Space is too cheap to get the rights to them, that's their problem). Catch them on Youtube instead.

Battlestar's coming!

New promo:



I can't wait! :)

This is very cool as well. Scifi's posting clues right up until Jan. 16, when Season 4.5 premieres.

I hate it that the show's ending, but at least it will have a proper ending. And there is still more Battlestar to come:

The Plan

Caprica

Generation Kill

I'd just like to write a quick recommendation of Generation Kill, the Iraq War miniseries (based on the book by Evan Wright) currently airing on HBO (six episodes in already, so catch reruns or get it On Demand).

Picking up right where they left off with The Wire, the writer/producer team of David Simon and Ed Burns set their sights on the US military. Not the men and women of the US military (they are portrayed honestly, neither heroes nor monsters, all nuanced characters in their own right), but the way the institution itself functions. It's not quite Catch-22, but it has a similar outlook. It deftly links the general disfunction of the military chain of command to the now-legendary mistakes that doomed the US adventure in Iraq.

The action is impressively staged, and there is little evidence of a TV budget. It looks convincing, quite a compliment in this age of 24 hour news, with pictures of Iraq beamed into our houses every night.

I don't know if I would put this quite in the same strata as The Wire, limited as this is by its setting and lack of dramatic license. There is nothing quite like that show's five year deconstruction of the ills of modern American society, but this is a worthy follow-up, and the first serious attempt (in my opinion) to deal with the Iraq war, either on television or on film. Although I'm still waiting for a definitive treatment of the US occupation of Iraq, which is much more representative of the American experience in that country as a whole. This is limited to those crazy days of Spring 2003, when anything seemed possible (but actually wasn't).

In lieu of real blogging, here's some Youtube clips!

Sorry for the lack of updates; I've just been too damn lazy to blog.

Here's an entertaining rundown of the entire primary season from Keith Olbermann's Countdown:



Ah, good times.

And here is the preview clip for the last BSG episode before the break:



I can hardly wait; I think some major shit will go down in this episode.

Weekly BSG blogging

Preview for this week's episode:



Looks a lot more interesting than last week's. Only two left until the break, but don't despair, frakheads! There are going to be some webisodes bridging the two halves, and the spinoff Caprica pilot will premiere in the fall. And finally, there are plans in the works for three additional TV movies after the series ends. :)

Various Items

Okay, wedding business is all finished. Everything went great, and we all had a good time, but I'm beat.

Just a few things to comment on tonight; I notice that Hillary Clinton made a big boo-boo during my brief vacation from blogging by referencing RFK's assassination when justifying her staying in the race. Oops. I don't quite think that she's hoping for Obama to be assassinated or anything like that, but it's clearly a major mistake that will hopefully put an end to all of this foolish "dream ticket" talk. June 3rd can't come soon enough....

And as promised, the new BSG preview:



With any luck, I'll get out to see the new Indiana Jones tomorrow. I've lowered my expectations a bit, so hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised.

More new Battlestar!

I couldn't find the longer preview clip; apparently they have it on Hulu.com, but those bastards discriminate against Canadians. *grumble*

Anyway, here's the standard preview (it won't air until next week though; maybe I'll find the longer clip by then):



Hee hee, it looks awesome. Apparently there are plans in the works for some webisodes to bridge the two halves of season 4, and also 3 new TV movies to be produced after the series ends! And of course, Caprica debuts this fall. How great is that?

New Battlestar!

New episode of BSG on tomorrow night; check out this preview clip:



Best show on TV, bar none.