I'm in Calgary for the Comic Expo, it's been good so far. Last night was nice to wander and talk to artists without such a big crowd. Today was our traditional Battlestar Galactica panel, this time Michael Hogan and Kate Vernon were the guests, and it was great. We did a rousing bunch of " So say we alls" to end. And Summer Glau had a panel after, she was really sweet.
I have lots of great photots of cosplayers of course, but those will have to wait till ibget back to my computer to upload them, I'm on my iPad right now. Hence all the typos.

At Comic-con we went to a Battlestar panel and it was excellent. One thing that they kind of promised but never delivered on was info on the rumored BSG movie. Seemed like the deal for it was being finalized as the panel was going on, they kept checking the or phones to see of they could say anything. So anyways I forgot all about it, but mow some concept ray has surfaced over at Blastr. .
Crazy iPad! "mow some concept Ray" should read now some concept art. No arrow keys or whatever to go fix mistakes and autofill glitches.
What else? Did you hear that Chuggington will be headlining SDCC this year? I didn't either but if it were true we'd have no choice but to return to Sam Diego for Pallas's sake. She loves those little trains. She loves Winnie the pooh too, and doesn't really get it when he,s off camera to let Tigger and Rabbit and Piglet have the spotlight, and she cries and cries until he returns.

So it turns out there's a new Battlestar Galactica DVD out- sort of new, anyways. It's called The Plan. And if you haven't seen it or seen all of Season 4 yet then I invite you to go check out these cool shots of a sperm whale munching on a giant squid instead because here there be spoilers, so be warned.

Okay then. The Plan was alright. It was a bonus BSG movie when you thought it was all over forever, right? So nothing to complain about there. In fact, thanks all you BSG guys! That was nice of you!
Most of the new footage was what the Cylon agents were up to in the early seasons. It kind of fleshes out why the Cylons abruptly changed their minds about completely wiping out every single human being at the end of Season 2.5. (There's been a change of plans . . . sorry about killing all those billions of people!) And then there's some new footage of Final Five guys, mostly Tyrol and Sam.
The trouble is, all that Final Five stuff felt like retconning to me. It felt like Ron Moore put all the characters into a hat and drew 5 out and those were the last Cylons. Whatshername I don't care about (Tory?), Sam I guess I can accept, Ellen I just don't buy and I refuse to accept Tigh and Tyrol as Cylons. That was just some hallucination like Baltar's Six. The trouble is, having them be Cylons ruins their character arcs up to that point, and Tigh's story in season 3 especially is absolutely wrenching. But not if he's a Cylon!
And don't even get me started on the whole Earth is a radioactive cinder except when it's not thing. The more I think about the last season, and specifically the finale, the less satisfied I am with it. In my mind BSG ended when they found Earth and it was dead. And there were no Final Five. So, I guess everyone dies or wanders space forever which is a downer but at least it's not completely baffling. I sort of hoped The Plan would explain some of that stuff better but oh well. Even though I voice these complaints I still consider BSG my favorite TV show ever and really miss those guys.

CCEE- Battlestar Forum

I was a little surprised that Michelle wanted to come with me to the Comic Expo, but she was excited about seeing Tahmoh Penikett, Battlestar Galactica's Helo. Then they added Kandyse McClure (Dualla) and we were in BSG heaven. While we were standing in that crazy line to get in, the lady in front of us mentioned that Edward James Olmos was a late addition to the guest roster. This is akin to being Catholic and going to Mass and being told that the Pope would be presiding. Mr. Olmos walked by us twice during the course of the day, once with Kandyse McClure. Which is good because in the very crowded forum room we were in the very back, with a crying baby girl and her stroller.
Anyways, for whatever reason Tahmoh never showed up for the forum, maybe he wasn't even at the Expo but it didn't matter. Admiral Adama and Lieutenant Dualla were there! The two of them sat down and just talked for an hour, answering questions and joking around. Remember when Billybob was a billlyboob to Jian Ghomeshi? Olmos and McClure were the exact opposite, classy and gracious, generous in their answers and incredibly passionate about BSG.
ONe of the better questions asked was, if they had to choose a different character to play in the series, who would they choose? Kandyse chose Tory of all people, and Starbuck as a backup, and Olmos picked Colonel Tigh. Ooh- and he also mentioned how mad Michael Hogan was about . . . you know (for the sake of spoilers I won't say exactly what). We were mad about it too. Anyways, at then end EJO shouted out a "So say we all!" and we all answered in turn.
So say we all!

Fanart Friday: Starbuck
Well, after rewatching nearly the entire series so my wife can get caught up, there's not much point in pretending I am interested in anything but BSG right now. So here's 5 0r 6 Starbucks for ya- go buy a vente latte!
First a pair each from Otis Frampton and Grant Gould, respectively:




And the above two are by LexiGeek and AmericanNinjaX.

With a name like Bear McCreary it comes as no surprise that he is a genius. He does the music for Battlestar Galactica. The haunting theme song- actually both of them since they changed it after Season 1. And then he outdid himself arranging Dylan's All Along the Watchtower. No one tell me why they were singing it way out there! I have my theories and they don't involve secret cylon codesongs, but no spoilers!

Fanart Friday: Cylons!

My wife has decided, completely of her own accord, to get into Battlestar Galactica. She watched a couple of episodes of Season 3 last week and got intrigued so now we are starting from the beginning all over again! And with Season 4 starting next week (though I will be working and anyways I am not caught up on Season 3) what better time to celebrate those genocidal god-fearing gogobots than now! First the classic Cylon Centurion, rendered by Ripplin. Love the Cyclopean Cylonian eye!

Then we have a beautiful pencil drawing of the new Centurion by Chickenno.

But of course, everyone's favorite Cylon is Number 6, Caprica, Alberta's own Tricia Helfer. Painting by Valerhon.

Make sure you check out JasonPal's gallery for tons of BSG fanart, as well as fanart from nearly every other great fandom around- including more Amidalas than you can shake a gungan at. I like this one of 6 and Gaius Baltar. Why yes he does look exactly like my friend Crogdor.


Did you know they are holding a design-your-own Cylon contest?
And this just in! Breaking news! Grantgoboom shows us what would happen if BSG and SW had a baby. Or more accurately, he shows us Fett and Leia as Cylons which is ten times cooler.

The new Harry Potter book won't have any quidditch in it, as apparently Harry and Voldemort have taken up frisbee.
And the Battlestar Galactica guys are having a fan-film contest! They're providing music, sounds and even some visual effects for you to do up your own episode. I should talk my friend Crogdor the Baltar-lookalike to learn a London accent so we can enter. Who do I know that looks like Tricia Helfer?

Crash Course In Brain Surgery
So yeah, along with Battlestar Galactica I've been getting into Grey's Anatomy lately. It's pretty good- I still haven't figured out for sure which character is the Cylon agent. My money's on Sandra Oh but it could just as easily be that McDreamy guy- he's just a little too perfect if you ask me.
I know it's a TV show, but one thing I appreciate about it is how it makes brain surgery look so routine. They're like, "We need to cut out half of your daughter's brain and we need to do it in the next five minutes or the Cylons will destroy the Earth she'll die!" And then they go and do it. Easy! There's no sense that operating on someone's brain is this crazy hard thing to do, it's just a normal part of their day. Which makes sense- they're brain surgeons! They say to each other, "This isn't exactly brain surgery you know. Or actually, that's exactly what this is but no problem- that's what I do."
Which sets my mind at ease as my sister goes in for a little brain surgery on Tuesday.

Remember that prison planet in Star Trek VI where Kirk and Spock get sent for murdering those Klingons? Actually I think they were framed for the murder, but the point is, Kirk got to smoke a joint with Iman, and then kiss her. Only she turned out to be not a Sudanese supermodel at all but rather some sort of wookie-like shape-changing monster.
No wait, that wasn't my point at all. Uh, my point was that the coal mine where I work was just like that planet this week. Minus the faux-Sudanese supermodels and angry Klingon prison guards. But there were plenty of blowing snows and raging blizzards and deep pits and treacherous ices and stuff. And I didn't even really mind- my active imagination just transported me away to that far-off penal colony and I was happy. Though the illusion was repeatedly broken by my buddy Robin who kept saying how warm it would be in Cuba the next day when he went there on holidays. Bastard.
Oh well. I covered for him as pumpman last night and just drove around checking all our pumps in different pits. Had some moments of worry when some of the pumps failed to work. And there was another moment when I very badly wanted to punch my foreman in the nose for shutting off a pump without my permission, thereby royally screwing it up. Ice gets all clogged up and can very quickly ruin your night if you don't catch it in time. But I did, and after a little sledge hammering and tiger torching, I spent the rest of the night watching Grey's Anatomy on my PSP.
I bet Kirk didn't get to do that on his little prison planet.

PS- speaking of Star Trek, one of my favorite actors was Michelle Forbes (she was briefly on Next Generation). She kicked ass. And she kicks ass even more in Battlestar Galactica as an Admiral.

It was Michelle's birthday not too long ago so I got us tickets to the Barenaked Ladies concert last night. The Ladies are Michelle's favorite band. And they remind me of our honeymoon- we tuned into Live 8 on our wedding night while waiting for room service, we danced in broad daylight on Main Street in Antigonish to their song One Week, and I bought her a copy of Maroon in North Sydney while we waited for the ferry to Newfoundland. So you can see that tickets to the show was a pretty brilliant birthday gift.
What a great show, too. I'm used to the Rexall Wall of Fuzz, where bands like tool or System of a Down turn up their amps to 11, so the singers sound like the adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon. Mwah mwah mwah mwah. But BNL just played at a nice, mellow volume and I could actually hear all the instruments. And I could understand the between-song banter, much of which was about Battlestar Galactica. Another reason to love the Ladies.
My favorite BNL song is Pinch Me, which also reminds me of our honeymoon, driving all around the Maritimes in our rental car Seamus, yelling out "Under where?" after every line. That was their first encore song and they nailed it.
Michelle says "I cannot articulate it any better than 'fucking awesome!'"
You can read the Sun's review of the concert here.

Thinking it would be an easy matter to convert video from DVD to PSP, I rented Season 1 of the new Battlestar Galactica, which I have been sorta curious about ever since it came out- especially since lately it's been touted as one of the finest shows on television. I figured I could watch it on the bus to work, but the power of conversion eludes me. So I just watched the first episode on my TV. Kickass! The trouble is, now I have to watch the whole series. Does anyone know how to do the conversion? I'm kinda like the crew of the Battlestar- only old computers on board.
Here's a cool painting from deviantArt:

Battlestar Galactica by *jasonpal on deviantART

Check out these alternate designs for the cylons. And here's a funny Weird Al song on YouTube comparing the two series. I loved the original series when I was a kid, I even had a bunch of the toys and comic books, and I was horrified to see an episode as an adult and realize how cheesy it was. Though I still love the themesong, which was worked in rather cleverly into the pilot episode of the new show. But I'd say the new series is pretty much cheese-free.
How's this for cheesy? When I was four years old, and my parents would take me to watch the fireworks, I would pretend it was a space battle with Starbuck and Apollo shooting down cylon ships. Every time a firework would go off I'd yell "Good shot Starbuck!" or "Way to go Apollo!"
Uh, yeah. It would be best if you never repeated that to anyone.