THANK 'EW G'UBNAH!

I've been obsessed with BBC America for a while, and last month we got a dish that carries it. I love the programs - even the repeats. I'm currently watching Being Human and Skins, but recently thrilled to Torchwood: Children of Earth and Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead.

Over at BBC America's site, they have a British American Dictionary that I found pretty amusing. You can check it out (dirty words included) here.

WORD TO YOUR MOTHER

Well, not really, but I thought I was funny that my mom (who now has a blog for school) told me about Wordle (here). It is a site that scans other sites (of your selection) and makes "word clouds" from the random words on that site. Here is one for this blog:

Kinda cool.

TREK THIS!

Now that school has ended (until August), I've been meaning to catch up on a few things... first, let's chat about how great Star Trek turned out to be. OK, so I've already talked about it (here). And as you'll recall, I posted some behind-the-scene photos from the movie on my site here.

But I never showed the finished product, after much CGI work:
That's the library from the school I'm attending (left), moved to San Francisco thanks to a little industrial magic (the generic kind, not the trademarked George Lucas, "My Scripts Suck, But Check Out These FX" kind). Oh, and they modified the shape of the building a tad.

If you get the chance, check this flick out. I like it so much I saw it twice (and even paid for it the second time).

OK, I GIVE IN

I just got back from Star Trek, and I have to say... it was pretty good. There were some plot snags I wasn't too fond of. And (as usual) JJ Abrhams stunk up what was an otherwise great film. (Enough with the shaky, hand-held style filming, and short, stuttery, jump cuts... we get it, you're edgy, or whatever.)

I would give this film a rating of 8.5 out of 10.

THANKS, SCI-FI CHANNEL

I'm tackling a sizable "To-Do" List today, including some pre-finals schoolwork. But while folding two batches of (finally) clean laundry, and waiting on hold with the Auto Club, I turned on the telly... only to find that Sci-Fi is running a Doctor Who marathon. (From the good series, not the early ones.)

Now I'm not going to get anything done I can't do in front of the tube... Oh well, at least I'll get my schoolwork done, no?

SO SAY WE ALL...

Tonight - after several long, wonderful years - the epic saga begins its conclusion.

LOST IN TRANSLATION, INDEED

A company in Great Britain put together a list of the world's most difficult-to-translate words. Here (via the BRI), are the top 10 English words voted the most difficult to translate into another language:

10. Kitsch "An item, usually of poor quality, that appeals to common, or lowbrow tastes"

09. Chuffed (from the word chuff) "puffed with fat" but now meaning "proud, satisfied or pleased" in British slang

08. Bumf (short for bumfodder) "toilet paper" but in British slang, often refers to "paperwork in general"

07. Whimsy "a quaint or fanciful quality"

06. Spam - as in the luncheon mean, not the junk mail variety

05. Googly (from Cricket terminology) "an off-breaking ball with an apparent leg-break action on the part of the bowler" (Although I don't think this term makes much sense in English to begin with)

04. Poppycock "nonsense; empty writing or talk" from the Dutch pappekak, which translates literally as, "soft dung"

03. Serendipity "finding valuable, useful or pleasant things that you haven't been searching for; happy accidents"

02. Gobbledygook "wordy; unintelligible nonsense" (Oddly enough, Blogger and Firefox's auto-Spell Check flagged several words on this list, but not this one)

01. Plenipotentiary "a special ambassador or envoy; invested with full powers to negotiate or transact business"

PEPSI STUFF & JUNK

I gave in to a crass marketing campaign recently, and joined the Pepsi Stuff Program over at Amazon (site here). Here's basically how it works: you drink specially-marked bottles of Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and other Pepsi Co drinks, and on the inside of the cap is a code. You enter that code at the Pepsi Stuff site and earn points. These points are good towards merchandise and music downloads from Amazon...

Which is all nice and peachy, except, one bottle of soda is worth 1 point. A portable CD player is 125 points. And most MP3 downloads (which requires downloading a special software package from Amazon just to work) are 5 points.

No problem, right? Just drink a lot of soda! (I'm a big Pepsi Co fan to begin with.) Except that not all the MP3s at Amazon.com are available for download if you redeem your Pepsi Stuff Points. Only certain songs (and I have no idea how they selected which ones) are available through the Pepsi Stuff downloads.

Thanks... but no thanks.

SAY WHAT?

Sorry I haven't posted in a while - not much to say. I did want to share this latest security generator pass code:

THE LAST BATTLESTAR SUPPER

Hidden in this recreation of The Last Supper are clues to the final season of Battlestar Galactica.
(Click to enlarge photo.)

I LOVE...

wii Golf. No, I'm not a Johnny-Come-Lately. I'm just not big on video games. My cousin recently picked one of those wii things up, and I fell in love with the golf game. I wish there was a way to have more of a variety of courses, but I love it, nonetheless.

NONE OF THIS HAS HAPPENED BEFORE...

and it will never happen again. After a year of waiting, and three years of watching, Battlestar Galactica begins the long road home... tonight.

EXCLUSIVE SNEEK AT NEW "STAR TREK"

These photos were sent to me, from one of the shoots for JJ Abrams' new movie, Star Trek. It appears to be the set for Starfleet Academy, with tons of blue screen special effects (on campus at CSUN). I must admit, I'm not a fan of Abrams' work, but I'm more and more curious to see this film.

APRIL IS FOR NERDS

It is a sad, sad sign of just how lame (and old) I am, that I'm so excited about Friday nights this month. No, I'm not planning on going out or anything. I'll be staying in, and watching TV. But not just any TV. This month sees the return of two of my favorite TV shows.

Battlestar Galactica enters its fourth, and final season this week. I'm sad to see the show go, but in the end, I think it is what's best: the show can go out on top, and not worry about getting stale, or run-down. I'm looking forward to the resolution of several plot arcs, and answers to several key questions about the show. (The opening credits always mention a Cylon plan... just what is that plan?)

Doctor Who is, hands-down, one of the best imports to American TV in a long time. Never mind the show has been running, in one form or another, for several decades... this newest incarnation rocks, and I can't wait to see what Cycle Four (Season Four to us Yanks) brings.

A couple of thoughts about both shows, both of which will air on Friday nights on the Sci Fi Channel: Both are in their fourth seasons, airing in the fourth month of the year. Nerdy of me to notice, huh? Both shows are re-makes of shows from another era, and both offer fresh, bold perspectives on their respective sub-genres. While both qualify as science fiction, one (BSG) offers a dark, post-modern take on human struggles, while the other (Dr Who) takes a more upbeat, and at times, comical look at man's place in the cosmos.

If it is a Friday night, you'll know where to find me...

HONK HERE:

When you download files from Rapidshare, like I do, if you don't buy a premium membership, you have to enter a java-generated password each time you download for free. The passwords are supposed to be randomly generated, and vary from download to download. In reality, I've seen some passwords come up more than once. But they pretty much never spell any actual words... until the site generated this password:
Not that funny, but given the number of random combinations of letters and words the site can generate, and the fact that some of the nonsensical words have repeated, it is pretty amazing this word showed up at all.

LEGO GALATICA

A quick nerd-search of the web - in anticipation of the final season of Battlestar Galactica - found a widget that counts down to the next, new episode, and these images of a Lego representation of the Viper launch bay:

WILD RICE IS NEITHER

I was amazed to read that wild rice is neither wild, nor rice. It is a grass (click here for more). As for the wild part... well, anything grown and mass produced for wide consumption can no longer qualify as wild.

NERD ALERT

I was browsing the iTunes store the other day, as I often do, and I stumbled across the list of top TV downloads. Included on that list, was something called Robotech: Shadow Chronicles. Yes, 20 years after Robotech aired in the United States, they finally made a new chapter.

For those of you not in the know, Robotech was the American version of a very popular Japanese cartoon... actually, the American version was a scaled-down version of several Japanese sagas. For whatever reason, they decided to streamline (and dumb-down) the original content into three mini-sagas, which aired in succession on American TV. The shows were as popular in the U.S. as they were overseas, spawning a line of toys and graphic novels. (Although, in the interest of accuracy, graphic novelizations existed before the show, too.)

I, for one, loved the show... although watching it now, I don't quite understand what it was I saw in the show. I get a warm, nostalgic feeling when I watch clips on You Tube, but I'm not rushing out to rent old seasons, or purchase the new one. I did, however find this clip:



Not the greatest moment in the American run of the show, but a great example of what foreign animation sounds and looks like when its been Yanki-ized.

SCRUBBING, UH, SOMETHING...

It's been about two weeks since I installed my Scrubbing Bubbles Shower Cleaner... which is about the amount of time the box says I'll notice a difference. (Original story about the installation here.) My overall impression of the product would be positive, although I have a beef: it doesn't really clean, so much as it gives me the impression my shower is clean.

After I run the (noisy) cleaner, a wonderful (chemical) sort-of clean smell fills the shower. I don't really see a difference, the way the product (and the commercial) promises. I don't know what I expected, but I'll keep the damn thing until the cleaning solution runs out. I don't think I'll buy the refills. The product doesn't make my shower sparkle, like on the TV, but few things live up to their TV shine, I guess.

SCRUB MY SHOWER!

This is going to sound a little strange, but for Christmas, I was given a Scrubbing Bubbles Shower Cleaner. Yes, I asked for one, so it wasn't like an insulting gift, like Geeze, your shower is a scummy, nasty mess, here's an easy way to correct this problem. (Although, my older sister refuses to shower in my shower when she visits... but she's a bit of a germ-a-phobe, and the shower she uses is actually dirtier than mine, but that's a story for another day... or not.)

Anyway, I'm setting up the shower cleaner unit (hee hee hee), today, and I'm sad to report, it is quickly turning into the highlight of my day. I'm not going to go so far as to post pictures of the progress of the shower cleaner... but I felt the need to mention the fact I was going to start using it.

Who knows, maybe I'll end up giving updates - it is supposed to have your shower spotless in only 14 days - or maybe I'll just give an overall review of the product, later on. Either way, installation seems a little complicated, and I'm not sure where I'm going to store the extra bottles of cleaner they give you, but nonetheless, I'm thrilled.

What can I say? I'm old, and the big thrill of the weekend has shifted gears: from going out to the newest bar, hitting the clubs, or some Hollywood Hills house party, to new cleaning products. Such is life, no?