Month: March 2007

The Battlestar Galactica Season Finale

I should have expected something like this. Well, really, all you can expect from BSG season finales is the unexpected. Things change, secrets are revealed, it’s all exciting and scary and awesome, and the best you can do is go with the flow. And then, once you’ve watched it a couple more times, try to make some sense of it all.

All along the watchtower princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants too
Outside in the distance a wild cat did growl
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl

So. Yeah.

Ze mind, she is blown.

I should have expected something like this. Well, really, all you can expect from BSG season finales is the unexpected. Things change, secrets are revealed, it’s all exciting and scary and awesome, and the best you can do is go with the flow. And then, once you’ve watched it a couple more times, try to make some sense of it all.

Okay, so first things first: there was supposed to be a Big Reveal in this ep. Namely, we’d get to see the Final Five. Did we? I’m still not 100% convinced. Sure, there’s something screwy going on with Tori, Anders, Tigh and Tyrol. They’re definitely connected somehow (to each other and to the Nebula, since they only started hearing the music when the fleet got close), but it doesn’t follow they’re Cylons. After all, in the BSG universe psychic powers exist, with prophecies and various flavours of ESP from oracles and sacred Scriptures. Plus, Tigh predates the creation of human-form Cylons. So even though they are convinced they’re Cylons, I’m just saying there could be alternative explanations—even though Ron Moore himself said there aren’t, so there goes that theory.

I still want to hear the real explanation. I’ve got vague theories that the Final Five are incorporeal Cylons, existing as pure information on the boundary between life and death, and are somehow taking over—or at least sharing—these four human minds. That for some reason they went rogue and wanted to live among humans, which was such a betrayal that the other seven models refused to ever speak of them again. And unlike the known seven Cylons, there are no duplicates of the Five. Each model is alone, unique. This philosophical difference, of duplication vs non-duplication, may have been a part of the rift that caused the Five to leave or be kicked out. This would also explain why Cylons never recognized Tigh et al. as their own. Or, maybe they deliberately erased all knowledge of them, including their appearance, except for the simple fact of their existence, from their own memories. Which I guess you can do if you’re a machine, though it seems a wee bit extreme.

Roslin, now… what about Roslin? She’s sharing dreams with Sharon, Six and Hera. All three women are connected to the child in different ways. Sharon is her birth mother, Six is her godmother/adoptive mother (maybe), Roslin has some of her blood flowing in her veins. But she—along with Sharon and Six—was also affected by the nebula’s proximity, though in different ways from the other four “Cylons.” What if Roslin is the fifth of the Final Five? Wouldn’t that be a kick in the head?

Starbuck’s alive? And she’s been to Earth? And she’ll lead the fleet there? I’ll just squeak out a feeble “What the frak?!?” because… yeah. I got nothing.

Where’s Earth supposed to be, anyways? The final shot shows the fleet and the Cylons to be deep in a galaxy that looks a lot like the Milky Way, and the Earth to be in a small satellite galaxy like the Magellanic Clouds. Huh. Well, no big deal. Let’s just say it’s a different universe, and leave it at that.

But will I really have to wait until 2008 to see how this all plays out? Two thousand fucking eight? Are you kidding me? Sigh. Well, I guess I’ll have time to buy the DVDs and watch them over and over and over…

Happy Pi Day

It’s March 14th, and that means Pi Day. All the cool geeks are celebrating it. Although in Canada, March 14 is really 14/03 but since we don’t have an April 31st, this’ll have to do.

It’s March 14th, and that means Pi Day. All the cool geeks are celebrating it. Although in Canada, March 14 is really 14/03 but since we don’t have an April 31st, this’ll have to do. Or, we could celebrate it approximately on July 22nd (22/7).

On this 3.14, what was I doing at exactly 1:59:26? I don’t remember exactly, but I was training with the CCS app and learning about SAP for half the afternoon, so there you go. I’ll be better prepared next year.

Terra Firma

Hey, that was interesting.

I took the SkyTrain into Surrey today, which means going over the Fraser River. And I always got kind of twitchy doing that because I’m afraid of heights, and there’s nothing like guard rails on that bridge. It was just too easy to imagine myself (and all the other commuters) falling down, down, down into the water and then sinking down, down, down to the bottom of the river. I’m not really sure how deep it is, but the point is: down.

Hey, that was interesting.

I took the SkyTrain into Surrey today, which means going over the Fraser River. And I always got kind of twitchy doing that because I’m afraid of heights, and there’s nothing like guard rails on that bridge. It was just too easy to imagine myself (and all the other commuters) falling down, down, down into the water and then sinking down, down, down to the bottom of the river. I’m not really sure how deep it is, but the point is: down. I’ve skytrained into Surrey a couple of times in the last few weeks, though before that I hadn’t done it in a long time. And something was different today: I didn’t get nervous going over the water, not at all. I just gazed down at the river in perfect serenity.

Here’s the secret: I’ve been gradually desensitising myself against acrophobia. My new job is on the 9th floor of a downtown high-rise building (sometimes taking me as high as the 16th); at least once a day I stand by the floor-to-ceiling windows, and just… look down. (And sometimes out. We’ve got a nice view of False Creek.) It’s a bit dizzying, and definitely disorienting to look down at other buildings and see the people walking around like ants. But it’s worth it. The little flutter in my stomach isn’t gone yet, though it’s much easier to ignore. And apparently it’s totally gone when I’m less than nine storeys above the ground (or the water). Très cool.

Now that I think about it, I never got the chance to get used to heights until I started this job. There are no high-rises out in the boonies (well, there are a few near downtown Coquitlam, but not where I live); ditto for my old job, in East Van. Ditto for school. What’s the tallest building at Simon Fraser? The AQ, with six floors? I only went there a handful of times, mainly to get cool photos of the North Shore mountains. There was the zip-lining thing, in which I stared down the fear, but it didn’t make it go away. This will, though. I’m learning that patience and perseverance is the key to fears and hangups.

Heh. Maybe I should get into the self-help industry.

Accidental Community

I’ve just returned from the first meeting of the Accidental Community project. There was a photo slideshow by local artist John Kozachenko, a very brief overview of the history of gay men’s communities in the West End, Q & A and interactive discussion, and a look at future directions for the project.

I’ve just returned from the first meeting of the Accidental Community project. There was a photo slideshow by local artist John Kozachenko, a very brief overview of the history of gay men’s communities in the West End, Q & A and interactive discussion, and a look at future directions for the project. Fascinating stuff. I learned that the man after whom Davie Street was named—Alexander Edmund Batson Davie, 8th Premier of B.C.—was rumoured to be gay, though he had a wife and children. But apparently he hung out with gay people who, upon his death, started a social club in his honour and renamed the street after him. The articles I could find online don’t elaborate on just what kind of social club this was.

I was invited to this meeting by one of the project members, who’d contacted me a couple of months ago via my queer history project, looking for leads for his research (unrelated to mine, but it never hurts to ask). Unfortunately, I couldn’t really help him, since I haven’t kept in touch with the one person I interviewed and all my other sources are publicly available. Still, I’m enormously flattered that my little project got his attention in the first place.

In addition to some cool history, another thing I got out of this meeting was how disconnected I am to the West End, living way the hell out in the suburbs. True, there are advantages—it’s much cheaper to live out here, and I do have some (non-gay) friends nearby—but maybe I’m missing out on more than I realise. Years ago I voluntarily severed almost all ties with queer communities; I’ve since eased some of the way back in, and only recently have I realised what a mistake that self-imposed exile was. Where to go from here, though? That’s what I’ll have to figure out.