All along the watchtower
I finally got around to watching the season 3 finale of Battlestar Galactica. I must say that season 3 was looking pretty crappy to me for most of the season. There was a lot of weirdness–metaphysical and philosophical mumbo jumbo, no real clear direction of what was going on, and not enough space battles.
But. And there’s always a “but”. But, the finale was not only incredibly good, shocking, and nugget-filled, it also gave a pretty clear direction to what next season would be about.
“There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief
“There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief.
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth.”
I’m going to get into spoilers, but not too much, since you can easily find them elsewhere, but if I were you, I’d get the 2-part finale any way you can and watch it, instead of reading any further.
“No reason to get excited,” the thief, he kindly spoke
“There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.”
Four out of the “Final Five” were revealed. Not “kinda” revealed, or hinted at. Flat out revealed. Who they are is incredibly shocking. The way they were revealed is fantastic: four simultaneous nuggets.
All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.
The last few lines of dialog in the show indicated that the location of Earth is now clear, and Earth was even shown in such a way that made you think it wasn’t any farther away than your corner drugstore. Who reveals this information, and how–is somewhat predictable. But, you only have 2 seconds to blurt out what you do see coming before what you don’t see coming….er, comes.
Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.
Oh yeah, and there’s an awesome cover of Bob Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower, that will certainly be on the soundtrack. In the meantime, you can download a copy below (ripped from the TV show, so there is some dialog over the music):
Halo not to be seen
And now for something completely different…
Reds Preview 2007
Can you smell the peanuts? Can you feel the sunshine? Can you hear the crack of the bat? Yes, sports fans, it’s that time again! Time for baseball!
So, what are the Reds looking like for 2007?
The Reds didn’t lose much in the offseason. Most notably, they no longer have Jason LaRue behind the plate, as his really low batting average and high salary didn’t make a lot of sense when you have David Ross to call on. His defense will be missed. Rich Aurilia also decided to go back to the Giants, which is a major offensive loss.
The Reds also didn’t resign Royce Clayton (thank God), so they signed Alex Gonazalez to play short. His bat isn’t stellar, but his defense is well-known.
There’s a full offseason transaction log at RedReporter. With that, here’s a breakdown of what’s going on around the Reds in 2007:
Starting Pitching
The Reds managed to resign Arroyo through to 2010, much to shock of everyone who thought he’d be on the first plane to Boston the second his contract expired. With Harang signed to a 4-year contract as well, the top of the rotation is looking excellent. 3-5 is where it gets sketchy. Kyle Lohse will probably be #3, and Eric Milton will be #4 for the last year of his contract, barring any shocking changes. I predict that #5 will go to Matt Belisle, who may finally be getting it together. The Reds could really use another solid starter in this rotation.
Bullpen
Amazing Eddie Guardado was signed, but due to his injury, he probably can’t play until well into the season. David Weathers is back again, hopefully he can as decent as he was last year. Majewski may start the season on the DL, but Bill Bray will still be there. The biggest pickup for the Reds is Dustin Hermanson, who was injured last year but had an amazing season with the White Sox in 2005. He’s looking very recovered in spring training and could be the go-to man for closer. The bullpen is still a pretty big question mark, but I think there is some hope here.
Catching
David Ross is starting. His defense was very shaky last year, but there’s no question his offense is there. Valentin is still a great #2 catcher and maybe even a better pinch hitter. Chad Moeller was also picked up as well, meaning the Reds are again going to carry three catchers.
Infield
With Edwin, Gonzalez, Hatteberg, and Phillips, the infield is looking good. Edwin improved his defense significantly last year, and the rest of the group get high defensive marks. Gonzalez will probably be in the .250 batting range, but the rest of the infield are all solid at the plate.
Outfield
Some major changes in the outfield this year. Ken Griffey Jr. will be playing right field. This is a really big deal, and I think something that might keep Griffey in the season a little longer than normal. Which is good. Adam Dunn is still in left, and he’s been working extra on his batting this year. Let’s hope he can set a personal record for least amount of strikeouts in a season.
Center field. Well. I figured this would probably be a Freel/Denorfia platoon. However, the Reds picked up Josh Hamilton on a rule #5 draft in the offseason. This guy has been the story all over baseball in spring training. He was signed as a #1 draft pick some years ago to a record signing amount, but then pissed it away to a cocaine addiction. Since then he’s become a Christian, got himself clean, and is tearing it up. Behold:
I don’t put a lot of stock in spring training stats, but he has hit .400 in spring training in 60 at-bats. He is right at Adam Dunn’s offensive level. Plus, he can run like the wind and throw like Paul O’Neill. Freel is probably my favorite Red, but if Hamilton doesn’t start in center field, it would be a crime.
I haven’t taken much of a look at the rest of the NL Central, but I’m pretty excited about the Reds this year. See you at Opening Day!
Venture Bros Season 2 DVD
If you’ll recall, Venture Brothers Season 2 DVD Box set is soon to be released.
Here’s a video about what you’ll see on the Season 2 DVD set:
Er, well, the YouTube upload didn’t seem to work that well. The audio works. But whatever.
DO NOT WANT: Episode 5
The latest DO NOT WANT podcast episode is now up and running at the usual places including Podshow.
Luke was on spring break for this episode, so it’s just me and Joe this time. And no video this time either.
Also, if you haven’t had a chance to check it out, go look at our DO NOT WANT list, which scientists suspect is around a 99.7% ripoff of Colbert’s “on notice” list. Leave a comment about something on the list, would ya!?
XXX TLD
Despite being shot down (twice) in the past, the “.XXX” top-level domain is up for another vote with ICANN.
Apparently both religious groups and pornographers are the strange bedfellows, so to speak, in that they both oppose creation of .XXX.
I don’t think it will matter one lick, so to speak, if .XXX was approved. .COM is domain that people know and are familiar with. Sane businesses don’t want any other TLD (unless they are schools or governments, which have the juicy .EDU and .GOV TLDs respectively). Don’t believe me? Name a top-notch big business that has a .NET or .ORG or any other TLD for their primary website. When was the last time you saw “.CC” or “.US” in a commercial that wasn’t for some two-bit shady operation or amateur dump of a site? There’s lots of blogs and niche sites that might have ‘em, but I’m telling you: .COM is where the action is.
But here’s the key: religious groups don’t want porn TLDs to “legitimize” it, and porno guys don’t want to be “relegated” to a crappy TLD that can be blocked easier. But what both groups don’t realize is that creation of a XXX TLD doesn’t mean that all porn sites will move to XXX, precisely because .COM is still king and any other domain, XXX including, bites it hard, so to speak.
But onto the hilariously out of context quote:
“I have not met one single webmaster or adult video producer that is in favor of ‘.xxx,’ and I’ve met a lot of them.”
IF you know what I mean!
Granfalloon
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night weekend continues here at mgroves.com. If you haven’t already purchased SotN for 360 or at least the PSX version, do yourself a favor and pick it up. If you love Castlevania and/or Metroid, I promise that you will not be disappointed.
Anyway. I just finished fighting a boss in the game called “Granfalloon”. It’s a hideous, frightening thing, consisting of a giant floating tentacled monster covered with a huge armor-like ball of bodies, or perhaps formless, soulless, homunculi. These bodies are hurled toward you, screaming, down into a huge pile of bones. Most of them proceed to slowly march at you, like faceless zombies.
Can you tell I really like this game?
Anyway, this boss was called “Legion” in the Japanese version, but is called “Granfalloon” in the US version. I assumed it was some reference to Inferno or some other such ancient/medieval fiction.
It turns out that it’s actually a political term coined by everyone’s favorite grumpy humanist, Kurt Vonnegut! It’s one of many terms coined for use in Bokononism in the novel Cat’s Cradle.
The term means, briefly, “a proud and meaningless association of human beings.” So it looks like the creators/translators of SotN slipped in a little dark humor/irony into this boss bottle.
This concludes your pseudo-vocabulary lesson for the day.
Game Shorties – Super Mario World
Princess Toadstool set out on a vacation to Dinosaur Land. However, during this vacation Princess Toadstool is kidnapped and a spell is placed on the inhabitants of Dinosaur Land. Accidentally stumbling upon Yoshi, a dinosaur, Mario and Luigi hear that it is Bowser’s doing. Wanting to take control of Dinosaur Land for its natural resources, Bowser has cast a powerful spell trapping the Yoshis in eggs since they tried to stop Bowser earlier. Waiting for someone to liberate them, Mario and Luigi must go through seven distant castles and defeat the Koopalings to reach Bowser and save the Princess – stopping his latest scheme.
What is man? A miserable little pile of secrets
In honor of this weeks release of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for Xbox Live Arcade, I give you perhaps the worst and/or the most memorable voice acting in videogame history:
Richter Belmont: Die, monster! You don’t belong in this world!
Vlad Tepes Dracula: It was not by my hand that I am once again given flesh! I was called here by humans who wish to pay me tribute!
Richter: Tribute? You steal men’s souls, and make them your slaves!
Dracula: Perhaps the same could be said of all religions…
Richter: Your words are as empty as your soul! Mankind ill needs a savior such as you!
Dracula: What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets! But enough talk… Have at you!
Enjoy this flash:
Your 3 favorite blogs
If you had to limit your RSS reader to only three blogs, or had to choose only three blogs to ever read again, which blogs would they be, and why?
And don’t say mgroves.com, liars!
Now, I’m referring to blogs here, not just anything with an RSS feed. So, while Penny Arcade is very blog-like, I wouldn’t count it. Also, Dictionary.com “word of the day” and stuff like that doesn’t count.
Here’s mine, in no particular order:
- Kotaku, just to cover the gaming news as thoroughly as possible.
- Protein Wisdom, a well-written, hilarious blog, with lots of political, humorous, and humorous political posts. And entertaining commenters as well.
- Coding Horror, which should come as no surprise, since I’ve gushed about it on here before. I subscribe to a lot of really good programming blogs, but I think Coding Horror captures what I believe about the fundamentals of programming and also does a good job of presenting things that really interest me.
Honorable mentions: Worse Than Failure, Right on!, Michael J. Nelson’s MySpace blog, Project 86 Podcast.
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