I *heart* my Kindle

Reading is something I used to do a lot. I would always read before going to bed, but I guess when I got a TV for my own room and then after moving out whether that be at University, or post-Uni and all the media that the Internet can offer, meant I was more likely watching some right before bed, and often in bed.
Now Amazon's Kindle had been out for a while and I had been tempted by it for a while. The year previously I had made an effort to read more books and had bought some paperbacks but having space-saving digital e-books that can often be cheaper than their paper based siblings was very attractive. I went for it late Jan/early Feb last year and have not looked back!
There are those which say it's not the same as holding a real book. Well yes, they are right, there aren't physical pages to turn but the counter to that is that instead it's super thin, lightweight and with the e-ink, there's no glare on your eyes and it's effectively like reading off paper.
I do all my reading in bed pretty much and sometimes I will read whilst lying on my side. With a book I have to crane my neck to read both pages, a little awkward especially if the book is large. With the Kindle, this is not a problem.
Reading the Game of Thrones books in particular has meant I've made good use of the dictionary function. I simply hover over an archaic word and get an immediate definition - it's fun to learn!
Battery life is also very good, page turning is very fast and it can even display web pages and play mp3s if you so desire.
It's awesome and as in the title, I <3 my Kindle, plus they've recently released a new version which drops the keyboard for an even smaller form factor which is dirt cheap. If you like reading, just go and buy one. I didn't go for the 3G one as I'm happy to do any purchases or transfers off my Mac over the Wi-Fi. If you travel a lot then the 3G connection sounds good for purchasing books whilst out and about.
Click for a list of books that I've read since getting my Kindle.

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New Year Resolutions

Just like everyone else it seems, I'm penning some new year resolutions to attempt to improve myself. Now generally I'm not one for saving all these changes for the new year - if you truly want to make a change, then start doing so tomorrow, or better yet, later today. Ignoring that here are some resolutions for the coming year, not necessarily every one I will start acting on immediately, but will definitely aim to at some point.

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Fine + 2 pints

A song by the pretty awesome Minus the Bear, and right now, after having a few beers (umbrella term for any kind of alcohol) it seems fitting for the post.
It's weird but I get some small enjoyment from drinking alone, getting merry, watching some shows and laughing in my own company.
I find it strange that I feel more like myself, even in my own company, after a couple of beers, hence the post title, but I feel it's true.
I've always held the opinion that drink doesn't truly change you as a person, your inhibitions will drop, your reactions will slow but you're still essentially the same person that you were at the start of the night, with all the same wants, needs and drives.
I will admit that I've driven home with probably too much alcohol in my system - an illegal amount, but guess what, I never crashed and I never got close to crashing because I am a careful driver, I don't tailgate and I like to think that my anticipation is very good, I'm always scanning the road ahead, slowing in time and like my driving instructor said to me, making the task of driving as easy as possible.

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Community

Community is a show I've started watching thanks to the endorsement by the Totally Rad Show and after a slow start where it looked like it would be pigeon holed as a B-List Comedy but getting into the second half and it has established itself as a very good show - one I will definitely continue to watch after I have exhausted the first season.

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Bottom Drinking Game

With the holiday festivities came the idea of playing drinking games to our favourite TV shows. First up was Red Dwarf and a debrief of all the clauses, requirements and a hastily drawn "H" on the forehead and we were having fun.

Next show up was Bottom and a quick search on the phone resulted in no matches - it seems no-one has thought to knock together some rules for the game. We took 5 minutes out of the evening to come up with some rules and I am penning them here in a hope that someone in the future will not be out of luck like we were...

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#0 On The Box!

The team here at Your New Favourite Blog have been busy expanding and we're (read: I'm) proud to offer a new themed post - On The Box.

The whole purpose of the new themed post is to throw out some thoughts regarding TV and Film - praise those faves of mine and berate those poor offerings that I was tricked into watching.

Anyways, stay tuned and expect On The Box to be a fairly regular occurance. I have mentioned in the past that I am a subscriber to the LoveFilm service so get to watch Films on a regular basis. Also there's a number of highly anticipated shows that have started up in recent weeks: 24, Lost, Scrubs, Battlestar Galactica and there's also older shows like the Wire which I need to get back into so it's not like I'll be struggling to find stuff to cover.
I leave you with a link to an old rant about Peter Jackson's King Kong, oh dear... I mean enjoy!

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I want to get away (I want to fly away)

For those clever people, the above is indeed a lyric from the well known Lenny Kravitz song. It should be relevant to a post which has been on the backburner for some time but finally throwing it out there - that is my respect and admiration for those that document these epic journeys, sometimes not even for sightseeing purposes but for raising money for good causes and how I am very jealous of discovering lands anew.

The first thing I saw/read that got me very interested in travelling the globe was reading the travel fiction of Bill Bryson. It's not just the travelling but the whole lifestyle as well. Basically Mr. Bryson would go travelling somewhere with the only limitation being that he would have to produce a book at the end of it. That being said, not everyone can write books like he does, but man what a cool life to live. Just think how great this blog would be if it was something that I did full time, and not throw in 5 minutes here and there.

I also checked out the show A Long Way Down starring Ewan McGregor and his good friend Charley Boorman travelled from Scotland to South Africa on a pair of bikes, followed by a TV crew. They were raising awareness for a number of charities and also had a number of charity events scheduled along the way, but the rest was all unplanned, meeting people, visiting cool places along the way - it was actually very entertaining and interesting television. A lot of times they did grumble about the trip in the "end of day diary" sessions but as they would probably tell you, the good times on the trip clearly outweigh the bad times, or at least that's what it looked like watching.

It's weird that whilst I'm quite scared of the unknown, the main reason why I hesitate such a lot, but I've always really liked the idea of travel, although I could not do it like what my mate Adam did, you can read some of his travels (and check out some pics) over at www.adamswonderfultravels.blogspot.com. He went all over the Far East and I believe he's planning on heading back out to Japan this time. I have a lot of respect for that, to have the motivation to just get on a plane all on your lonesome and go see these faraway parts of the world - it is very cool.

Another charity effort which is a bit closer to myself is the efforts of some of Adam's family. His brother and dad along with some of his dad's friends did something very much like A Long Way Down but on a smaller scale - the aim was to visit 8 capital cities in 8 days on trikes, whilst raising money for the Alzheimer's Society and the NSPCC. The blog and links to help donate can be found over at www.g8globaltour.blogspot.com.

I've always thought that once I am driving, I would be keen on going on epic road trips. My friend Chris Simms from Uni told me stories of the road trip he did down the west coast of America, visiting places like LA and Vegas, damn I was so envious. I would like to go on a road trip round the British Isles to start possibly, before going on an epic trip round America and/or Australia, very much like Bill Bryson above.

Anyways, this is a quick post to highlight some of the efforts which I admire and respect and maybe one day I'll do something similar. Like some of the examples above, I think if I could get some kind of fundraising element into the whole thing, then that would be cool as at least that way someone else benefits from my selfish desire to see the world.

Here's thinking of making all blog posts have song lyrics as their titles.

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Red Hair Revelation

I've been meaning to put together the very first episode of Your New Favourite Podcast for what seems like ages, and thanks to unexpected events this week, it has still not been possible. So, I'm going to offer up the content of that planned episode in a blog post which I'm gonna put together over my lunch break.
I was going to cover a fair few subjects in the podcast, but here I'll stick to something which has been at the forefront of my mind for the last few days, well when I haven't been in a terrible mood, but that's gonna be left for another time.
I was in an absolutely fantastic mood at the start of the week, I was dropping some suggestive hints through my twitter tweets. The reason being that I've developed a crush - it's a good time at the moment, right before I become far too obsessive and self-destruct my chance.
Yes, an upside of this crush has been the elevated mood, it's strange (well maybe not that strange) that music seems to get me incredibly pumped, like it's never resonated so strongly it what seems like forever. That being said, I think doing some of the vocal stuff in Rock Band has also encouraged me to sing along with the songs.

I'm not going to go into the details about the crush here, it seems a little wrong to tell the Internet before I tell the poor girl. Anyways, I'm not sure it's just the crush, I've been feeling a little more susceptible, being more aware of the laydees, although it's probably down to last weekend's festivities, going out with the Kidderminster crowd. Friday evening consisted of a gathering in the infamous Red Man, and Saturday we went off to Wolverhampton for some alternative (read: metal) goodness at the Planet. The weekend was overall very good, although as I've felt before, I don't have much in common with a metal crowd. That being said, as mentioned above I was defintiely feeling attraction to a fair few girls over the two nights.
On top of the crush, there was Jill, one of Neo's exes on the Friday evening. Now, she came over late on in the evening and insisted on touching my fringe. I'd rather not have strangers coming up and entering my personal space like that, but there was nothing negative about it, if anything I only consider a good thing, my hair was obviously of such interest that she couldn't help but be curious.
On the Saturday, I remarked to Wilson via a typed message (it was far too loud inside the club) that this girl Deb (or Debs) was quite hot. Apparently that makes it 2 for 2, although it is possible to find some people attractive, but not actually fancy them. Plus on reflection she was a tocuh naked, and OMG she has red hair! For those not in the know, on DiggNation they covered a story where they found that people with red hair have the healthiest sex lives, and possibly more eyebrow-raising is that people who dye their hair red are subconsciously sending out a message that they are looking for a partner. So maybe that helps explain my initial thoughts towards Deb.

Strangely enough, during Sunday I was ironing a shirt ready for work and I popped on the TV to have some background noise/sights whilst I ironed. As it turned out Scrapheap Challenge was on. It used to be a staple of earlier years but I've outgrown it a little, although the odd episode every now and again is pretty enjoyable. Anyways, for the unintiated the show is hosted by Robert LLywelyn (Kryten from Red Dwarf) and Lisa Rogers. Now, the show has been running for quite some time - 10 years if Robert is to believed, and Lisa Rogers is still very attractive. She would be even more so, if she didn't put on the exaggerated voice to be more in fitting with the show. Anyways I was watching the show, this week's challenge was to build some boats. Now in tradition with the show, any boats built have had the tendency to either not work, or plod along really slowly. It turned out this week, that one of the teams had built a machine which could travel at a fair nick. Anyways, they had Lisa Rogers in a boat for the "trackside" view and once this speedy racer got going, they literally couldn't keep up and then the strange thing happened.

in fact she was looking out of my TV at me, who by now was transfixed onto her smile

The boat Lisa Rogers was in had to really push to keep up with the action, and there was Lisa staring into the camera, and she looked so incredibly cute. It was as if she wasn't staring at the camera, but in fact she was looking out of my TV at me, who by now was transfixed onto her smile. Her expression was of pure delight and excitement - like holding each other, swinging around in a meadow. It sounds ridicolous reading it back but it stunned me, but in a good way.

EDIT: I'm not sure if now knowing that red hair, whether that be natural or artifically created, is the indicator as described above is now affecting how I look at ladies now, but my head seems to turn in their direction much more. Actually on a recent trip back to Shropshire, there was one red-haired girl on the way down on Friday, and then another on the way home on the Sunday. Hell, even the lead female singer of my "solo" band (Bobion the 3rd! yeah!) in the World Tour on Rock Band had, until recently, red hair, mmmm.

On closing, I need to pluck up the courage to do something about this crush and maybe sometime soon I'll be able to put together episode 1 of the podcast. I'm sure once I get started it'll be easier to keep going.

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We're all Frak ups!

So I've been slowly rewatching Battlestar Galactica over the last few weeks or so. Way back when (actually about a year ago :s) I was watching the updated Battlestar Galactica for the first time and hit a roadblock at the end of season 2 - there was nothing I felt in the story that inspired me to keep on watching. Following on from watching the simply awesome Totally Rad Show (which I still need to write a Podcast Review for, arg!), they are (obviously) big fans of the show and revealed to me, at least, that the fourth season of BSG will be the last.
I thought to myself, "hey, I'll push through onto season 3 and before I know it I would have seen it all. Now, back in the day I had some criticisms of the show, which can be found here. [As it turns out, it is the most popular post on the mirrored wordpress blog I started up a while back, but no longer maintain, so that's quite cool]. For those worried about spoilers, there are no big ones following that link, more the gist of the plot. There maybe some following the read more link, but hopefully not too big.


As of Monday evening, I rounded off the end of season 2, I had reached the point at which I didn't feel the need to carry on watching. The main reason is the terrible rushed ending. Not to throw out too big a spoiler, but in the last episode (I believe it's a double ep), they do the classic "One year later" halfway through. I didn't like it at all. It would seem more natural to have the one year later occur between the end of season two and start of season three, but then there wouldn't be the cliffhanger (be careful!)

On a more flippant note, what the hell is going on with their stationary. It seems all documents have had their corners removed and it pisses the crap out of me (which apparently has been defined as one of my sayings now). Firstly there's the simple loss of space on a document lost to these corners, it doesn't make sense to just lose the corners, it would still require something rectangular to store it all in, or are they going to cut the corners off them as well?!? What happens when they staple documents together? They obviously can't use the corner cos there isn't one.
More importantly, it seems like it was an aesthetic decision to give the show a distinct "other worldly" feel. It's a change for change's sake, if only to remind us, hey these are people, but they're not from Earth, so how can we make them different? You can just imagine the board meeting:

"hey, let's cut off all the corners from the books!"
"Yes! Great! and while we're at it, let's paint all their skin green!..."

The same can be said for the naming of the twelve colonies, yes we all got it almost immediately, they're named after the contellations of the zodiac. There was a lame scene where they revealed the "old world" names for them - Caprica,

What happens when they staple documents together?

or Capricorn, dun dun duurn! ZOMFG! All they did was swap out the end of the names with A's or On's. Lame.

I think I even saw an octagonal data disc one episode, now that just doesn't make any sense with respect to how a disc is read, i.e. it's rotated about its central axis, so logically a circle would give the most area for a defined radius compared with other shapes. Come on, humanity here is a space-faring race, even we have worked that out long ago.

That being said, Battlestar Galactica is one of the best sci-fi shows I've watched/watching. It is sci-fi but has grounded feel to it, and thankfully avoids very convenient future tech solutions which Stargate became incredibly guilty - too much mention of out of phase bollocks. "Why don't they fall through the floor?!"

Latest: I've watched the first few episodes of season three, and it's actually been pretty good for the most part, although I was left feeling a little sceptical now they managed to return the status quo it seems *rubs chin* oh well. I may throw out some more thoughts after finishing watching season four, but following the twitters of the TRS guys do not hold a lot of hope for season four *looks worried*

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Gym me up Scotty!

Yes another blog from work, just keeping it brief, heralding the imminent return of the Gym Impressions posts which had a short-lived history last year. Obviously, since moving I have not been able to keep up my regular attendance at Wem's excuse for a gym, but rejoice! I have joined my local JJB fitness club and pretty swish is it too.

Obviously the amount of people is a lot higher, i.e. more than 1 but with that there are more machines and apparatus for me to look very cool struggling away, sweating like a bastard, I belive is the term...
I am of course taking my mini mp3 player along with me, as I am not partial to the dance rave-a-thon themed music they have booming out. So this would mean a chance to stick on some choons and jog the night away. Speaking of which, Reuben's "We're all going home in an ambulance" is an absolute must for upping the pace. It starts playing and I reach for the speed up button = winnar! Other possible gym reviews coming up would be Motion City Soundtrack's latest venture "Even if it kills me", (mmm, no emo vibe going on there, lol) and Tellison's "Contact! Contact!" which have been recommended to me by Adam, has a lot of promise.

In other news, the look of the blog needs a bit of work, I changed the header image as I was annoyed that the image wasn't stretching at higher resolutions, and even post-change it's actually no better. Do not view this at 1680x1050 like I did with my shiny new monitor, it's scary! So I will put aside a bit of time to sort that.
I also want to spruce up the site with a few more pics. Blogger have produced a Flickr slideshow widget so I need to populate my Flickr account, and get that happening. Unfortunately, as I discovered just before I went to the NFL london game last year, my digital camera has stopped working, so I was left to cope with my mobile phone camera, which is frankly a bit rubbish. Anyways, I have some pics on there, some fun, some a little random from my travels on the train.

A lot of my stuff has been broken, or in need of replacing when it came to the move, and I'm slowly working through all my material goods. The first thing that needed replacing was the weak 14" TV - I now have a lurvely 37" HD TV monster! (again pics have been promised for some time...). I have just replaced my 15" monitor which my Mother broke but refuses to admit to it. So the next thing I need to replace is the digital Camera, and I'm also hell bent on finally getting myself an iPod classic, it will happen, maybe after next payday.

That's enough of my lunch hour spent blogging, time to go eat. So yeah, look forward to Gym Impressions blogs coming soon, and I also want to have a positive rant about the xbox 360's latest dashboard update so check that out.
Take it easy.

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Ma First Daiye....

Hey, so here we are, long time no blog but it's time to share again.
A lot has happened in the last few weeks, especially considering how little I've been blogging in these last couple of months so it's a bit of a mystery what's actually happening right now.
I'm sure I'll be able to expand on the events of the past another time, but in a revision session, catch up type thing, it's best just to spell out the simple facts so that you can pass the exam (There is no exam).  Basically, off the back of this JBC Course in Coventry I have managed to get a job hurray for me! Yeah, today was in fact my very first day, so it's pretty scary to finally be part of the rat race proper.I am working for Prestwood Software based in the Stourbridge area, who offer financial planning software, and my job is to provide support for this software product to its users.  Also somewhere down the line, within a year or two, I will be able to move into the programming side of things, which is what I really want to be doing with myself so feeling pretty optimistic.

I have had my first day, indeed the first day of five week's worth of training, to get me upto speed with the software product, how the company operates and more generally the, frankly scary, world of financial services.  Yep, I have my own desk and PC in the offices.  The PC itself is running Vista so that will be good to get some hands on experience with that.  My first day started off with a crash course in financial services, learning what endowments, annuities etc are.  I was asked a few times how I was getting on, what I actually wanted to say was what a mindfuck all this information is - I was feeling really stretched and my concentration levels seemed all over the place.
The main reason for that is probably the living arrangement I am currently engaged in, and other arrangements I am chasing. Simply put, Stourbridge is too far to commute from Wem so I set on sorting out my own place.  Unfortunately time spent chasing this other job in London (more on that later), I was only able to spend Tues to Fri of last week flat hunting.  That being said, I've done rather well I thought and with the help of my good friend Wilson [picture missing] I've decided to go for this house in Kidderminster.  Kidderminster being a short train ride from Stourbridge for those geographically-challenged people (like myself). I sent the application off for that on Sunday, and if all goes to plan I could be moving in this Saturday. I am very pumped about that, my very first place plus being in Kiddy I am quite close to Wilson so I won't be in a new strange land completely on my own, which is a bonus.

Yeah, so currently I am shacked up in a B and B in Stourbridge. It's not too great, put simply it's a room with a bed(double) in, an ensuite bathroom and a TV, the TV being a big surprise.  The only proper benefit is the price, this place being cheap.  Money is getting very tight, and the whole application process and the required deposit all adds up to a small fortune.  Yeah, so slumming it a bit in this B and B till Saturday when it hopefully should get a load better.  I should be contacted on Thursday with regards to my application but hopefully it should be fine and I'll be in my very own place before I know it.

Continuing my trend in offline blogging I will no doubt build up a backlog of blog posts while I seek to find ways to spend the time at the B and B, especially lacking the money to go out, have a pint or two, go watch a film etc... It's ok, as you may have guessed by now, I've brought my laptop and my trusty external HDD to provide with TV based fun to keep me sane.
Here's taking the first steps in becoming a working professional...

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Week 1 (actually it's week 3 now :S)

Very overdue but it seems any free time I've got so far has spent in front of the TV like a zombie, or down the pub with a pint, err... like a zombie.

I did try and write this at the end of week 1, and then again at the end of week 2, and now I'm here on the Monday of week 3 and still nothing, oh dear. I think it's now best to make a number of small(er) entries rather than try and do a catchup of everything that's happened so far.

So, here we are, might as well make this a kind of overviewy exercise. I've started on a course which should train me up with the powers of performing desktop and/or network support in a professional capacity. Along with the lecture and the study towards certification, there's also the help with making my CV better and making a better interviewee of myself as well. That's been one of my probs, so along with the skills, we should hopefully get there.

Along with the course, they've given me a place to live for the couple of weeks. I am currently living in Earlsdon Ave South, quite literally a stone's throw away from where the Red Faction house was when I was back at Uni. Living with 5 others, and they're a pretty good bunch and surprisingly of all different ages.

There's this guy called Dave from South Wales. His surname is actually Hughes which is again a surprise, but then again it's a pretty common name in the land of Wales, so it's time to get over that. He is 32 and has recently graduated from a Music Technology degree and is a bit of a classic rock/metal fan - in particular Guns 'N' Roses. Then there's Aman, a recent graduate of a Computer Science degree and is 24. His twin brother has luckily got himself a job quite recently so Aman's hoping to sort something out pretty sharpish. There's Julian, 29, who currently works at Amazon in Milton Keynes as a problem solver. He's originally from South Africa but is very cool, if a little hard to understand at times (I'm sorry). We then Peter, although that's not the correct spelling - he is fact a Pole national and it's spelt (and pronounced) a little differently, but that's the English equivalent. And finally there's Dal (full name Dalber - remember Dal and "beer" - easy!) who as Julian described him perfectly and concisely as a "party animal" - he is 25, also a computer science graduate, and is often out all night, or gaining points on his licence, usually not at the same time.

So that's the guys, and it's not that surprising that there are no girls living in the house, although there is a single girl in her course - Aeyeisha (sp) who seems nice enough, not really spoken to her much, and unsurprisingly, Dal has made it a bit of a mission to lay her - to his credit he did invite her back to the house late one night, not sure what came of that, she wasn't in our house in the morning, and now Dal has moved out because of Asthma problems into her house, she better watch out lol.

It's probs best to save anything else for another post, but it's worth adding that some of the material in the course has been covered in my previous academic pursuits of computing, whether that be at A-level level (err..) or at degree level, so that's a bonus, although I think the most useful stuff will be the practical stuff plus proprietary hardware/software like Cisco and Windows Server 2003 etc. Also it's worth noting that a couple of the lecturers (Andy and Alex) are also party animals, pissheads at the least, and they are often out on the lash. I actually managed to make it out once so far with them, but that's another post right there.

I will finish up by saying that I've signed up for random free photo hosting accounts (photobucket and flickr actually) and mean to get snapping with my mobile phone with pictures of the room, this Strongbow glass I managed to swipe (another post), random shots of Cov and if you're lucky, me in my formal robes (read: shirt and tie).

Here's spending another night decomposing in front of the TV.

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I need a hero...

So, thanks to a recommendation by my good friend Adam, I recently started watching the show Heroes the other day, and Wow! what a great show, I have got immediately hooked and watched like 6 episodes in less than three days.  I cba to explain the story here, just check it out, but basically it involves a number of individuals, subtly connected,  who slowly discover they have superhuman powers and the show follows their tales.

Anyways, it got me thinking, not unlike a child, how great it would be to have a superpower, perhaps 3.  The characters that I've met so far in the show involve someone who can fly, someone who can alter space/time, someone with incredible regeneration, someone who can paint the future, a mind reader, and possibly the coolest one, like Rogue from X-Men, someone who can seemly borrow other people's powers. Pretty sweet no?

 

So, let's discuss which are the coolest powers from the list above? Lol.  But seriously, I think my faves are the altering of space/time and the mind reader.  The guy who can alter space/time is effectively a Japanese nerd, and thankfully his story so far has provided some light relief from the other stories. 

So yeah, the altering space/time is pretty cool. You could effectively do anything, a lot of the fun options have already been explored by the show including teleporting into the ladies' room, and successfully cheating at gambling in casinos.

The mind reader one is also pretty darn cool.  I am also impressed with the show realising that it wouldn't actually be an ability that you can just turn on and off as required, but you would hear people's thoughts all the time.  I think first done in the original Star Trek series where Spock obviously had his mind-meld tricks, and I remember him saying how it takes years of training to be able to block out all the random thoughts of others.  Boy, wasn't the original series of Star Trek quite cool, in a very low budget, Kirk-also-makes-out-with-a-hot-alien, The crew in red always die kind of way yeah!

The mind reading is particularly cool as the guy uses the ability to "win" any conversation he has, not to mention freak people out with facts about them that they have not openly spoke about.  He has also won back favour with his wife, with whom he is currently having troubles with in their marriage, by setting up the perfect date - everything she has thought would be good.  For selfish reasons, mind-reading would make dating a much more efficient process as once they start thinking, "screw this guy, he's kinda lame", you could then just move on, rather than wait for them to tell you so, a couple of dates later.  The power is actually not unlike the film "What Women Want" which although kinda being a bit of a chick flick, is quite a smart film, only for the cool mind-reading abilities.

 

Here's looking for a local toxic dump from which to gain superpowers. Wish me luck!

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What the Frak?! You motherfrakker!!...

Hey all, Quite recently I've been exploring my interest in sci-fi and decided that I would check out the series Battlestar Galactica.  For those not in the know the show is a remake of the original series made back in the 70s - it is first billed as a remake, but is more of an evolution of the story set about 40 years after the war with the Cylons.  I won't go into any particular plotlines cos frankly that will take too long and I really cba, but I will say that the premise of the show is that after this ceasefire between mankind and cylon (according to them, the plural of cylon is indeed cylon), the cylons begin an onslaught on the human race, trying to wipe them out. The aging ship, the Galactica is the only ship to avoid the attack, and after meeting up with a civilian convoy formed by the new President  - who used to be Secretary of Education (a schoolteacher as they often joke), jump off to some far away part of the Universe away from the Cylons.  This would be ok if the Cylons themselves weren't bent on chasing them down and killing them all for good, and to make matters worse, Cylons can now look like ordinary people, which as even the creators admit, makes special effects a damn side easier, and they are agents within the fleet.  But there is hope, some scripture has already described their journey to a new home which just turns out to be Earth, horray!

 

Ok, hopefully that has wept your appetite, perhaps not, but it shows a lot of promise, but after watching the first two seasons I have my reservations about continuing to watch it.  For a show that boasts it is a sci-fi show, there isn't a terrible amount of sci-fi actually in the show.  The fleet being out in space is a big help, but it could so easily be set on the ocean and they're still encountering the same problems - food, fuel, permanent settlement etc, cylons/pirates chasing them.

Delving a little deeper than the general themes of the show mentioned just, a lot of the plot of the show seems to concern the conflict between the remaining military and a new fledging government.  Also one reservation is the reliance the show puts on Gyuss Baltar, the leading scientist in the fleet, who since falling in love with a Cylon agent back on Caprica(or whatever planet he was on), now sees visions of her talking to him, advising him on what would be best for the Cylons etc.  It was quite smart at first, but having him appear to talk to noone in particular, and them sometimes have his hallucination knock him about a bit, it has got tired. 

Although not a crucial flaw but something that doesn't make complete sense. Not to go into too much detail for those who've not seen the show, but as I said before Cylon agents that are indistinguishable from humans now exist.  Now these agents are notoriously hard to detect, as the show will no doubt explain, even their synthetic blood is identical to human blood.  If these agents have technically the same physiology as their human counterpoints, then the question arises, where do they get this superhuman strength from?  They're exactly the same as the human they replace except they have the ability to pick someone up by their neck and chuck them about a room... yeah right *rolls eyes*.   One particular cylon agent is of this middle aged, and kinda fat guy, and yet he also possesses this incredible strength and speed, but how? I mean, c'mon it can't be something in their muscles or blood or whatever cos it's the say as humans, and you don't see them throwing people about all the time do you?

Another thing which really annoys me, and this is a more general point, but it is now particularily bad on Battlestar Galactica, and that is shows that are obviously censored to not include swearing, but feel that some cursing is crucial to the script, and thus create their own swearwords to avoid censorship - Battlestar is one such show.  The word that they use in Battlestar is Frak, as an obvious alternative to Fuck (sorry kids :s).  The use of the word wasn't immediate in the series, but during the first season, it entered the vocabulary somewhere halfway through and has steadily got worse.  Most uses are along the lines of "What the frak is he/she doing?!" etc, but there have been the odd "For frak's sake!" and possibly the most criminal "Motherfrakker!" *sigh*. It just sounds really lame and quite embarassing for me to be watching it, I hold my head in shame on behalf of the writers...

 

Now, I am not objecting to swearing, nor am in the party that states that there never can be too much swearing, but I like characters to be depicted realistically, and well we all swear, so writers should be given the option/ability to write it in without fear of censorship.  Especially when a show's plots are so character-driven, which is actually one of Galactica's strengths, it just feels really fake, and you suddenly are no longer totally immersed in the story and become very aware that you are watching a TV show - or at least that's me :D

 

Here's leading the charge for free swearing, so come on you bitches and join the cause...

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