Novinha’s Headquarters

Since a long time ago, I personally consider Babylon 5 as the best TV SF series in existence, followed closely by Space-Above and Beyond (Star Trek series fans can bring their crap somewhere else, the only thing I respect from there is Jean-Luc Picard). Many series have tried, and failed, to take the crown - the combination of strong story, solid characters, and exciting action scenes were simply unmatched even by later SF series. That is, until the emergence of the re-make of the infamous classic SF series Battlestar Galactica!

I will not review it here (Google around, you lazy bums!), so I’ll just mention why I consider BG to be among the creme de la creme:

1. Innovative storyline (well, at least for those who haven’t got the opportunity to watch the original) - one based on how humans have to fight for their survival against Cylons, their own creations (which they had abused in the first place). The hints of the humans’ origin and Cylon’s motives are revealed gradually as the story progresses, giving a rich background for the entire story…. I can’t tell this properly, you really have to watch it yourself to understand!

What I like most is that during the title scenes of the episodes, the number of human survivors traveling in the Galactica Fleet is displayed - and the number decreases in each episodes as more and more humans perished….

2. VERY solid characters - the rock-hard Commander William Adama and his shaky relations with his remaining son, the dying president Laura Roslin whom charmingly and delicately performed her duties for what was remained of the colonial government despite her ailment, the half-mad scientist Gaius Balthar and his affair with the dominating blond Cylon in his mind… there’s many more, in fact all BG characters are realistically build and will be rationally understandable by the viewers (although maybe not sympathized with, but that’s another good point of this series!).

3. ‘Shaky’ camera: Perhaps a first in western SF (anime already had employed this for a LONG time), BG employs this technique for virtually every space action scenes, realistically emulating how a camera would unable to make steady shot during hectic space maneuvers. It makes the scenes very realistic and engaging!

4. Realistic backgrounds; BG correctly shows how tight things are in a ragtag fleet running from a superior enemy, with no support in sight since all existing Colonies have already been conquered by Cylons - how they have to mine materials they need, build and repair fighters from limited resources, and tightly ration limited supplies; How people have to resort to black market to purchase necessities due to the rationing; how military personnel were stressed out because they have to fight all the time without any reinforcement, resupply, or replacement… THAT makes for an interesting, realistic story. Unlike, for example, the perfect world in some other certain series where everybody prospers and poverty have been eliminated? Yeah right.

5. And, of course, Grace Park! *big fanboy grin*

There was an old episode of Mythbusters (too lazy too lookup which) where those lovable curious personnel tested the myth of CDs shattering inside high-speed CD drive - they had to make special cd-spinning rig to test it, but in the end they managed to shatter a disc just by spinning it at high speed.

Well, mine is a run-of-the-mill LG 16x DVD RW drive, but yesterday I have just achieved the same feat (not that I am proud of it!) with an old cd from my collection. I inserted the damned cd and browsed its contents for a few minutes when a loud ‘pop!’ sounded - and the poor drive stopped working! With the particular Mythbusters episode in my terrified mind I immediately tried to eject the disc - to no avail (Later I found out a piece of the shattered CD blocking the drive’s eject mechanism). Hence I spent the better part of the night disassembling the drive (and voiding its warranty, but don’t tell the distributor that and removing all the pieces of the shattered cd, which fortunately gets the thing back to work.

Today though, tired from doing all that after the tiresome task of helping with a colleague’s marriage, I’m down with throat inflammation ^_^;

Lessons learned:
1. Don’t buy crap CDs! Buy only brand name, high quality stuff or prepare to suffer the consequences!

2. If you already have one with data in it, copy the data somewhere else and dump the thing before it explodes inside your new high-speed drive ^_^;

3. Watch Mythbusters! It actually gives you practical knowledge ^_^;