BSG Rant

The greatly anticipated Battlestar Galactica season finale leaves me with mixed feelings. I feel that over all, they did a pretty good job ending this season, but I do feel that that they left too many story lines unresoved and they could have done better at closing up the ones they chose to address.

They finally brought back the action that I've been missing for most of Season 3 and 4. This show became too much of a character driven space drama. I think the first season they had the perfect balance of action and drama. It was also nice to see the old centourions back in action again. And as the victiorious fleet reunites around earth, the musical cue from the original 70's score was a nice touch too.

1) Too much god shit. Seriously, it was kind of getting annoying. And Baltar and The 6 as angels of God? Yeah.......

2) Gaius should have died. I understand that he's the bad guy you love to hate, but I think it would have been way cooler if he finaly got his in the end rather then him developing morals. Or maybe he could have been mdade a good martyr?

3) What happened to the other Cylon, 'Daniel' who was an artist and we never got to meet? I though they were gearing up for that to be Kara's Father, who they also played up a lot, but never really explored.

4) Don't understand why Adama had to leave with Rosilin so suddenly and he wasn't going to come back.

5) Cylon Suicide? Come on, Cavel was too much of a bad ass to kill him self.

6) Still don't understand why Hera was so important to the human survival. I get the Cylon motivation for wanting her, but why was she worth a volunteer sucide mission?

Feel free to bring the flames if you loved the finale.

Is reading cool again?

So the other day Mike invited me to join a new social network centered specifically around books, http://www.goodreads.com. Now up until last year I hadn't read a book since college. It's kind of weird, because as a child my mother would read to me every night. I used to fall asleep while she read me "The Borrowers", "The Indian in the Cupboard", and "Stewart Little". Her encouragement led to me reading my own books during grade school. I particularly enjoyed "Encyclopedia Brown" stories, even though I could never guess the mystery, and I had a pretty impressive "Choose You Own Adventure" collection too.

By about 11 or 12, I ultimately fell in love with the science fiction and fantasy genre, and burned though "Dragonlance" and "Robotech" stories. But shortly there after, in junior high, my teachers started assigning books to read for class. I think some of them were OK, but I was going through that rebellious phase that pre-teens go through. For some reason, if I had to read it, because a teacher said so, it wasn't as enjoyable. Maybe rock and roll was just way cooler distraction, but I ultimately stopped reading? I used cliff notes for a few book reports, most notably "A Brave New World", which I think I would really enjoy to read today. I used to brag to my friends that I didn't read becasue I thought I was so Gen X.

In any case, Mike also started the "Mens Book Club" last year. It's been a fun opportunity to keep in touch with a friend who I don't see that often now days. Most of the books I've read in the last year have been book club assignments. I don't have enough time/diligence to burn through a 400 page novel in a few days, so ultimately I haven't had the chance to read as many other books as I'd like due to book club responsibilities, but that doesn't really bother me, because if I don't enjoy a book we're assigned to read, I won't bother finishing it. ("Naked Lunch" pretty much hurt my brain while reading)

So now we come to Good Reads, the social network for bookworms. I enjoy a web site with exceptional User Experience, and I'm pleased to say that the goodread.com guys have really nailed it. Perfect use of AJAX to update book status and rate in real time. Their catalog is exhaustive. (At least I've been able to find anything I've searched for) Oh, and the site is fast too! Which ties in to my next point.... nobody is using this cool site.

In the age of the internet we've debunked that old myth , "If you build it, they will come". There are just too many places where I can got o find relevant info or equally waste my precious free time on the internet. Who has the time to learn how to use and maintain a new social network when all my friends are already on Facebook and Myspace? The result is that DUNE, which tops the 'Best science fiction books' list, has only 600 votes. Clearly the good reads community is in it's infancy. Hopefully it will only grow larger with each day.

But I'm hooked already! I've invited friends and coworkers, and their general response has been very positive. I anticipate that with all the buzz that Amazon's Kindle is stirring combined with the good experience of websites like goodreads.com, reading might actually become cool again.

AMA's Review - Watchmen

Watchmen by Alan Moore

4 of 5 stars
It's good. Very dark. Gritty. Hands down best graphic novel I've read.

Most believable depiction of world reaction to superhero phenomenon. Story jumped around a lot. I'm always skeptical about weather a story would be better sequentially or though flash backs. Concerning this story, I'm still undecided.

View all my reviews.

How to read hip

Tonight I decided to watch Factotum. You know, the Bukowski movie. Shortly after starting the movie, I think "I should read some Bukowski". That's right, I've never read any. I know vaguely who he is. I've heard many a friend mention the name, especially those friends I consider hip in the realm of reading. Then I realize, I'm not a hip reader, but that I'd like to be.

So this may be a bit of a blog of solicitation, to find out how to read hip. What do I start with? Do I just start by reading anything I can get my hands on? I want suggestions. I want to get started. I want to be able to converse on Kafka and Hemmingway, to suggest books to others. As I stand now, this is not very possible. So please anyone out there who is really into reading, suggest away. I'll do my very best to get on it.

How do I read hip? Is it really even possible? Or is it all subjective?

What I'm reading now:

The Big Rock Candy Mountain - Wallace Stegner
Watchmen - Alan Moore (yes, I stole the idea of reading this from men's book club. whatevs)