Turns out it's Islamofascism Awareness Week in the States (at least for some people). Are there genuinely people left in the US who wake up every morning thinking "Holy Christ, this country is insufficiently hair-triggered when it comes to Muslims, and only a faintly disturbing week-long revel in the Islamic greatest shits collection will do the job!"?
People get it. There cannot be anyone left in America unaware that the Venn diagram of Muslims and fuckers-who-want-to-kill-us has a non-empty intersection (much as is that of FWWTKU and non-Muslims). Isn't there something else we should be made aware of instead? World hunger, maybe. You think Churchill needed "Why We Hate The Nazi's Eve"?
Thursday, 10 April 2008
SpaceSquid Branches Out
Ordinarily I'd feel horribly egotistical (even by my standards) linking to my own ramblings, but since I have no evidence that anyone but me has ever even visited this blog, I guess it doesn't really matter a great deal. If, for some reason, you find yourself compelled to read some of the increasingly abstract comical musings that take place in my flat as an alternative to genuine work, then Big G and I have the blog for you: http://www.ourfrontroom.blogspot.com.
Monday, 7 April 2008
SpaceSquid (plus KT) vs Television No. 1
Title: Are You Harder Than a Ten-Year Old?
Pitch: Noel Edmunds looks on with a terrifying leering grin as Britain's smuggest child prodigies are beaten senseless by full-grown adults in a variety of ever-more violent gladitorial combats, loosely based around playground bullying and PE teacher pederasty.
Target Audience: Everyone who has ever met a smart kid.
Pitch: Noel Edmunds looks on with a terrifying leering grin as Britain's smuggest child prodigies are beaten senseless by full-grown adults in a variety of ever-more violent gladitorial combats, loosely based around playground bullying and PE teacher pederasty.
Target Audience: Everyone who has ever met a smart kid.
More On Galactica
Since I'm still waiting for Season 4 to grace my screens (admittedly at this point waiting for around 30 hours or so), I thought I'd get one more theory in about Galactica (once again aided and abetted by Senor Spielbergo). This time we got into the reasons for the split in Cylon culture. S. Spielbergo reminded me that we know from Razor that the Cylons were pissing aroung with skin-job tech much earlier than we thought. It seems more than plausible that the war was halted as the first proper skin-jobs rolled off the assembly lines.
What's more interesting is the idea that there was some kind of vote called as to what to do next. One scenario is make peace vs feign peace whilst preparing for sneaky genocide. Perhaps that vote had gone 7 to 5 for the former (the Eights may have wavered here, possibly the Cavil's too, although given how self-contradictory he is, it's hard to know), or even 7-4-1 if the final model is as different to the four as it is to the seven (and at this point I'd bet quite a lot of money that it is). Once the decision has been made, the losers might well have quit in disgust, or for more subtle reasons, and integrated themselves into human society, before the mass cloning began; presumably asking all records of them be destroyed and they not be followed (it's been noticed by others the significance of Cavil being the one to "box" the Threes for violating these conditions). This idea opens up a really interesting question and an even more interesting possibility, namely:
1) Why is Tigh older than Tyrol, Tori, and Anders? Were the original 12 mainly children? Were Tigh and Cavil the only adults, and by extension were they deliberately conceived as "mentors" for the other 10 (admittedly an addictive personality and and a contradictory atheist are not necessarily the best choice of mentors for commie religious nuts, but what new system doesn't have its kinks)? One thing the show has never discussed is whether the skin-jobs age as we do. If they don't, it's hard to explain Tigh. Tyrol, Tori and Anders could just keep changing lives from time to time (in theory, although see below), but since Adama has known Tigh for decades, it certainly seems they age. Presumably the fact that the copies of the other seven models are all the same age is a deliberate choice by the rest; certainly it would suck mightily if every time a skin-job died it had to be downloaded into a baby. They could potentially re-boot the entire line every so often, of course.
2) It's entirely possible the five/four were so appalled by the majority plan that they wanted to stop it. They couldn't do it themselves, of course, because they'd lost the vote fair and square. But if they deliberately altered their memories and placed themselves in human society and ended up in positions to stop it, then that would be fair game. Looked at it that way, the fact that Tyrol and Tigh both ended up on the only Battlestar able to withstand the coming attack stops being massive coincidence and instead becomes a deliberate plan. Tori too was clearly an up and coming political figure who, had she risen just a little higher, might have been in a position to be more useful (maybe even in Laura's shoes; had Colonial Heavy 798 not happened to make it through the attack) in fighting the Cylons. Even Anders managed to get himself into Pyramid, which might seem fairly pointless, but did give him a group of physically fit men and women loyal to him and used to working as a team, but weren't in the military that was deliberately targetted for destruction during the initial waves of the attack.
What's even more funky about this idea is that leads to the corollary that Tori and Tigh might have been intended to be in control of the military and civilians at some point during the attack, had it not been for Adama delaying his retirement and Roslin being there to witness it. If that had happened, perhaps the partial awakening we saw at the end of Season 3 might have kicked in immediately, albeit probably in a different way. This idea of helping to fight the attack rather than prevent it again can just be seen as the concept of playing fair with the other models. Tyrol and Anders might have had a similar "kick-in" goal, although those are harder to quantify (if we consider the twelth model and whatever he/she has in mind for Starbuck a wild card (see below), its possible Anders would have kicked in after so long fighting on Caprica had he not met her).
Of course, if you want a further level of head-games, you can instead see the other four models as being cure attack-wise, and Baltar as prevention. He alone could have stopped the attack, and there's a level of irony in the fact that he was seduced by another Cylon into betraying his own adopted race, but also the plans he had for his true one. Of course you then lose the wild-card idea of the final model pulling the strings. Or do we? We still don't know who pushed that note under Adama's door in the mini-series, but if Baltar is the last model he may well be subconsciously working towards more than we or he suspect. Maybe the four thought he was on their side during the vote, but he had other ideas, which is another layer of confusing awesomeness that will have the idiots I mentioned yesterday crying into their Talking Dalek mugs, especially since the Sixes at least think he's on their side. Baltar's constant left-turns (pretending the Cylon detector doesn't work even after he's become VP and wouldn't have to do the tests himself anymore, handing his nuke over to a bunch of nuts) immediately become parts of a larger plan.
All of this is deliberately ignoring (almost) the Starbuck destiny angle that they're pushing fairly hard. Whether or not she herself proves to be the final model or not, the strands of destiny idea is probably going to involve said model pretty heavily. The idea that the twelth model is seperate from all the others and pulling strings independently of the other eleven could potentially paper over several apparent holes, and tie in interestingly to Cylon monotheism (again, particularly if it is Baltar, which of course would hardly be surprising, but if the S3 finale proved anything its that surprise is not a sufficient condition for quality). That's something S4 is obviously going to deal with, I just wanted to come up with a plausible and (if I may flatter myself so much) interesting idea as to how we've got to where we are, and at least one way to tie the former to the latter.
Update: It's been put back a week! Curse you Sky, you inveterate douches. Now my American cousins will be two weeks ahead of me instead of one!
Updated Update: They're showing a double bill, so it all works out. Phew!
What's more interesting is the idea that there was some kind of vote called as to what to do next. One scenario is make peace vs feign peace whilst preparing for sneaky genocide. Perhaps that vote had gone 7 to 5 for the former (the Eights may have wavered here, possibly the Cavil's too, although given how self-contradictory he is, it's hard to know), or even 7-4-1 if the final model is as different to the four as it is to the seven (and at this point I'd bet quite a lot of money that it is). Once the decision has been made, the losers might well have quit in disgust, or for more subtle reasons, and integrated themselves into human society, before the mass cloning began; presumably asking all records of them be destroyed and they not be followed (it's been noticed by others the significance of Cavil being the one to "box" the Threes for violating these conditions). This idea opens up a really interesting question and an even more interesting possibility, namely:
1) Why is Tigh older than Tyrol, Tori, and Anders? Were the original 12 mainly children? Were Tigh and Cavil the only adults, and by extension were they deliberately conceived as "mentors" for the other 10 (admittedly an addictive personality and and a contradictory atheist are not necessarily the best choice of mentors for commie religious nuts, but what new system doesn't have its kinks)? One thing the show has never discussed is whether the skin-jobs age as we do. If they don't, it's hard to explain Tigh. Tyrol, Tori and Anders could just keep changing lives from time to time (in theory, although see below), but since Adama has known Tigh for decades, it certainly seems they age. Presumably the fact that the copies of the other seven models are all the same age is a deliberate choice by the rest; certainly it would suck mightily if every time a skin-job died it had to be downloaded into a baby. They could potentially re-boot the entire line every so often, of course.
2) It's entirely possible the five/four were so appalled by the majority plan that they wanted to stop it. They couldn't do it themselves, of course, because they'd lost the vote fair and square. But if they deliberately altered their memories and placed themselves in human society and ended up in positions to stop it, then that would be fair game. Looked at it that way, the fact that Tyrol and Tigh both ended up on the only Battlestar able to withstand the coming attack stops being massive coincidence and instead becomes a deliberate plan. Tori too was clearly an up and coming political figure who, had she risen just a little higher, might have been in a position to be more useful (maybe even in Laura's shoes; had Colonial Heavy 798 not happened to make it through the attack) in fighting the Cylons. Even Anders managed to get himself into Pyramid, which might seem fairly pointless, but did give him a group of physically fit men and women loyal to him and used to working as a team, but weren't in the military that was deliberately targetted for destruction during the initial waves of the attack.
What's even more funky about this idea is that leads to the corollary that Tori and Tigh might have been intended to be in control of the military and civilians at some point during the attack, had it not been for Adama delaying his retirement and Roslin being there to witness it. If that had happened, perhaps the partial awakening we saw at the end of Season 3 might have kicked in immediately, albeit probably in a different way. This idea of helping to fight the attack rather than prevent it again can just be seen as the concept of playing fair with the other models. Tyrol and Anders might have had a similar "kick-in" goal, although those are harder to quantify (if we consider the twelth model and whatever he/she has in mind for Starbuck a wild card (see below), its possible Anders would have kicked in after so long fighting on Caprica had he not met her).
Of course, if you want a further level of head-games, you can instead see the other four models as being cure attack-wise, and Baltar as prevention. He alone could have stopped the attack, and there's a level of irony in the fact that he was seduced by another Cylon into betraying his own adopted race, but also the plans he had for his true one. Of course you then lose the wild-card idea of the final model pulling the strings. Or do we? We still don't know who pushed that note under Adama's door in the mini-series, but if Baltar is the last model he may well be subconsciously working towards more than we or he suspect. Maybe the four thought he was on their side during the vote, but he had other ideas, which is another layer of confusing awesomeness that will have the idiots I mentioned yesterday crying into their Talking Dalek mugs, especially since the Sixes at least think he's on their side. Baltar's constant left-turns (pretending the Cylon detector doesn't work even after he's become VP and wouldn't have to do the tests himself anymore, handing his nuke over to a bunch of nuts) immediately become parts of a larger plan.
All of this is deliberately ignoring (almost) the Starbuck destiny angle that they're pushing fairly hard. Whether or not she herself proves to be the final model or not, the strands of destiny idea is probably going to involve said model pretty heavily. The idea that the twelth model is seperate from all the others and pulling strings independently of the other eleven could potentially paper over several apparent holes, and tie in interestingly to Cylon monotheism (again, particularly if it is Baltar, which of course would hardly be surprising, but if the S3 finale proved anything its that surprise is not a sufficient condition for quality). That's something S4 is obviously going to deal with, I just wanted to come up with a plausible and (if I may flatter myself so much) interesting idea as to how we've got to where we are, and at least one way to tie the former to the latter.
Update: It's been put back a week! Curse you Sky, you inveterate douches. Now my American cousins will be two weeks ahead of me instead of one!
Updated Update: They're showing a double bill, so it all works out. Phew!
Sunday, 6 April 2008
The Pillaging Of My Childhood Continues
The opening salvo of the new season of Doctor Who was pathetic. Not in the sense that a wounded deer trapped under a fallen log is pathetic, but in the sense of that guy who would watch that deer, hands on hips below his Weird Al T-Shirt, and lean toward you so you could smell his stinking breath as he told you "Oh DEER!" in a ludicrous stage whisper that hurts your head.
This latter scenario may, or may not, describe the sensation of taking RTD out for a pint. I've never met the man (although I've never seen or read an interview with the man that didn't set my teeth on edge), but it certainly describes the sensation of watching a great many of his episodes. Almost invariably, they are tales told by an idiot, filled not just with sound and fury but idiotic dialogue and ludicrous asides. Also moments ripped off from Wile E. Coyote, of all places. Once your TV show lurches into territory already covered by Loony Tunes, perhaps it's time to move onto greener pastures. Add in the requisite gurning, shouting, running around at random, and worst of all the horribly forced "character moments" (if a joke falls flat, you get to move onto the next thing, a four-minute conversation between grandfather and grandaughter is almost unbearable unless the writer knows what they're doing), and you end up with the same recipie Mr Davies has been serving up for more than three years. You can't help but get the feeling he's desperate to throw as many different things as possible into each episode. That wouldn't be a bad thing except for the fact that he isn't very good at pretty much any of them, to the point where they don't just fail on their own terms, but they rub up against each other irritatingly too, like sand in your trousers. Assuming the sand isn't silica but over-earnest mugging, and your trousers are a fellatio reference, for some reason.
What's also of interest is how this nightmarish mish-mash of idiocy and self-indulgence has been received by the on-line community (well, my on-line community at least). To whit: total orgasmic delight. It's becoming increasingly hard to believe I have my TV tuned to the same channel, not least because what I believe to be the shows major weaknesses (see above) are highlighted by others as its strengths. I just don't get it. I want my TV shows to be like a good meal; it doesn't have to be just one or two ingredients, but there are rules about what you mix with what and in which order you serve it in. This show simply takes the ingredients, throws them into a blender and whisks it into a grey paste, which is then served to you by a clown singing tunelessly.
Actually, it's probably not the fact that everyone but me seems to love this bouillabaisse-and-custard monstrosity, its the level of contempt some of these people have for those like me, i.e. those incapable of watching anything with our brains on standby, cooing at the pretty lights and embarrasingly anthropomorphic marshmallow alien children. It's pretty hard to take the sneering contempt of someone witless enough to not notice that the Doctor hiding in a cupboard that then just happens to contain a supercomputer is entirely lame (Trial of a Timelord lame, which rates as over seventeen hundred mega-Langfords), harder still because of the underlying assumption that my objections mark me out as some kind of uber-nerd that even normal nerds kick mud in the eyes of, assuming so much physical exertion doesn't set off their allergies. I guess it's true what they say. Doctors make the worst patients, teachers the worst students, and inveterate geeks the worst cool kids.
Still, come Tuesday, Galactica will be back, and the shoe will be on the other foot as my hated enemies begin whining that the show is too dour, the plot too complex, and the characters far too morally ambiguous and grey for them to choose who to root for as they're gobbling down their Doctor Who spaghetti shapes.
This latter scenario may, or may not, describe the sensation of taking RTD out for a pint. I've never met the man (although I've never seen or read an interview with the man that didn't set my teeth on edge), but it certainly describes the sensation of watching a great many of his episodes. Almost invariably, they are tales told by an idiot, filled not just with sound and fury but idiotic dialogue and ludicrous asides. Also moments ripped off from Wile E. Coyote, of all places. Once your TV show lurches into territory already covered by Loony Tunes, perhaps it's time to move onto greener pastures. Add in the requisite gurning, shouting, running around at random, and worst of all the horribly forced "character moments" (if a joke falls flat, you get to move onto the next thing, a four-minute conversation between grandfather and grandaughter is almost unbearable unless the writer knows what they're doing), and you end up with the same recipie Mr Davies has been serving up for more than three years. You can't help but get the feeling he's desperate to throw as many different things as possible into each episode. That wouldn't be a bad thing except for the fact that he isn't very good at pretty much any of them, to the point where they don't just fail on their own terms, but they rub up against each other irritatingly too, like sand in your trousers. Assuming the sand isn't silica but over-earnest mugging, and your trousers are a fellatio reference, for some reason.
What's also of interest is how this nightmarish mish-mash of idiocy and self-indulgence has been received by the on-line community (well, my on-line community at least). To whit: total orgasmic delight. It's becoming increasingly hard to believe I have my TV tuned to the same channel, not least because what I believe to be the shows major weaknesses (see above) are highlighted by others as its strengths. I just don't get it. I want my TV shows to be like a good meal; it doesn't have to be just one or two ingredients, but there are rules about what you mix with what and in which order you serve it in. This show simply takes the ingredients, throws them into a blender and whisks it into a grey paste, which is then served to you by a clown singing tunelessly.
Actually, it's probably not the fact that everyone but me seems to love this bouillabaisse-and-custard monstrosity, its the level of contempt some of these people have for those like me, i.e. those incapable of watching anything with our brains on standby, cooing at the pretty lights and embarrasingly anthropomorphic marshmallow alien children. It's pretty hard to take the sneering contempt of someone witless enough to not notice that the Doctor hiding in a cupboard that then just happens to contain a supercomputer is entirely lame (Trial of a Timelord lame, which rates as over seventeen hundred mega-Langfords), harder still because of the underlying assumption that my objections mark me out as some kind of uber-nerd that even normal nerds kick mud in the eyes of, assuming so much physical exertion doesn't set off their allergies. I guess it's true what they say. Doctors make the worst patients, teachers the worst students, and inveterate geeks the worst cool kids.
Still, come Tuesday, Galactica will be back, and the shoe will be on the other foot as my hated enemies begin whining that the show is too dour, the plot too complex, and the characters far too morally ambiguous and grey for them to choose who to root for as they're gobbling down their Doctor Who spaghetti shapes.
Thursday, 3 April 2008
In Which I Am Noticed By The Government
I checked my inbox this afternoon to find that the Iran Co-ordination Group had responded to my e-mail about the discrimination against the Ba'hai in Iran (specifically in the field of Higher Education, although the problem goes far deeper than that). It was a fairly generic "We're onto it", which directed me to the EU President's statement on the matter from February. It's nice to know someone's keeping an eye on all this stuff, and that my message got through, however little difference it made.
Update: my local MP got back to me today, too. With, annoyingly, the exact same message. My faith in politicians dies this day.
Update: my local MP got back to me today, too. With, annoyingly, the exact same message. My faith in politicians dies this day.
Tuesday, 1 April 2008
Ode To People Of Reduced Ferrous Potential
It has been rather forcefully pointed out to me by Ibb that, as a general rule, the description of a woman with very pale skin should be "English Rose", and not "borderline anaemic". Apparently the latter is not considered particularly romantic, even when delivered in poetic form.
Her face is smooth, her grace proficient
Her breasts are firm, her blood deficient
Ticks find no food in her fair arms
Magneto's helpless 'gainst her charms
Oh! How I'd hand to you for free
The blood you seem to stir in me.
I really don't see what her problem is. I think it scans rather well. In your face, cadence!
Her face is smooth, her grace proficient
Her breasts are firm, her blood deficient
Ticks find no food in her fair arms
Magneto's helpless 'gainst her charms
Oh! How I'd hand to you for free
The blood you seem to stir in me.
I really don't see what her problem is. I think it scans rather well. In your face, cadence!
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