Month: March 2009

I got my tax refund yesterday. Today I paid off my car. It may not be stimulating to the economy, but it’s stimulating to me. 4.5 years and one tree later she’s all mine. There are only about 43,000 miles on the clock and with my old car back running it should stay low for a while. I hope to keep this car for several more years.

Yes, it’s a cheezy post title. Ask me if I care. Oh wait, I can’t hear you.

I waited a week to watch the BSG finale.  The idea being that since my best friend was coming down for the start of the F1 season we could watch it together.  Last weekend was kinda bad – I feel like I missed out a little on a chance to watch it with all the fans at once.  And as hard as I tried I did get spoiled a little – I knew that Lampkin was going to be President and I knew that Laura died in a Raptor flying over some planet.  That, uh, left a lot of stuff in between.

All in all I liked it.  No, it didn’t wrap everything up in a nice neat bow. Some fans aren’t happy if there isn’t a lot of pseudoscience in their science fiction.  Calling them “angels” and the particular force behind the scenes “God” (although supposedly “he doesn’t like that name”) may seem a cop out to some – but they don’t get that it was never about what exactly Kara was.  Or who/what “Chip Six” was.  It was about these people and their journey. It’s like the folks who read David Webber over Lois McMaster Bujold. 
Bujold has 4 Best Novel Hugos, Webber has none.  Why is that?  It’s about the characters, stupid.

And I don’t understand what the folks are upset about?  You had a full hour+ of awesome military sci-fi.  Epic battle.  Guns.  Robots.  I mean what the hell did you people want?  I suppose they may have wanted more of a “Ship of Lights” thing – you know, you can’t actually have beings who have evolved into Gods but don’t need a magic spaceship…

The coda (in Vancouver/NYC), though – that part I didn’t really need.  It was cute, I suppose, but I could have done without it.    Then again, it’s not my show.  One thing, though – I wonder if the Star Trek franchise is kicking themselves right now?  They had this amazing storyteller working for them.  Just think what they could have had if they had let him off the leash?  Oh, that’s right – they could have had perhaps the finest SF TV show EVER.

One thing I gotta say is that I found was this thread on the official SciFi forums where Ron Moore (the creator/showrunner of BSG) answers fan’s questions through the intermediary of his wife.  It would seem his wife has been engaging fans during the seasons – the woman must be a saint.  Talking to SciFi types?  On the intartubez?  She’s crazy.  Clearly she needs to be informed of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.  After the emotional rollercoaster of seeing such an amazing show end the last thing either of them need is to be doing is trying to talk to annoyed fanboys.

Chris showed me the manga before, but I wasn’t in to it.  It was released in the US as Apocalypse Meow, but the Japanese title was Cat Shit One.  The original manga is set in Vietnam.  This is, obviously, Gulf War – although I’ve seen rumors that it is also Iran Hostage Crisis.  (But that wouldn’t make sense with the 1991 time frame.)  I just keep expecting Solid Snake to wander in.   I think it looks very good, and would be fun.  They’ve gone for a very realistic look and it’s just awesome to see some hardcore tactical action offset by…bunnies.

Update: A friend said “whoever came up with that must hate furries”.  I hadn’t even thought of that.  And I wish he hadn’t.  It’s…disturbing.

Update 2: Chris says that there is a rumor that our heroes are part of a PMC.  He then asked, “Does that make this Blackwatership Down?”  When he gets here on Friday I think he’s earned a slap.

Killzone2-Packfront

Originally uploaded by PlayStation.Blog

So these days I’m playing a fair bit of Killzone 2, and I’m pretty happy with it. I suppose part of it is the “new toy” factor – I had gotten burnt out on COD4, and I had left Halo 3 a while ago (although I get tempted to bring it out once in a while).

The game is great. The graphics are just amazing (it’s pretty – it’s oh so pretty) as is the sound design. Having classes to play (meaning ranking up brings more than just new guns) is fun. So far I’ve only unlocked the Medic and Engineer badges but I, as all of the players do, want to get to the Scout badge with the invisibility cloak.

Some folks have said we’ll only be playing this until COD:MW2 comes out. That may be true – but that’s not ’til Christmas and until then this will be a lot of fun.