Smithology

oh above sun
we take it to the radio
long ago there are some of mine
you’re on your own brother now

:-)

(real lyrics)

[tags]bsg, humour, lyrics, misheard, music, tv[/tags]

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After a week of storms which devastated some suburbs of Brisbane (but left our place untouched) we had a weekend of strong dry winds. I had wanted to make a kite with Sol but decided it would be a project for an older child and then I had the idea of pinwheels. I located some garden stakes and stiff craft paper and a few other bits and pieces and we made pinwheels which Sol and I quite enjoyed.

Soundtrack is John Coltrane Favourite Things and The Wiggles Shakin’ Like a Leafy Tree. Also thanks to Vincent Van Gogh for the endorsement.

[tags]children, Matt and sol’s favourite things, pinwheels, Matt and sol’s favourite things[/tags]

Uncategorized matt and sols favourite things

Not much going on in The Sarah Connor Chronicles this week, or should I say there was a lot of setting things up I think. I still feel compelled to blog about it because I’ve got momentum now. I’ve been wondering what they are going to do now that… oh hang on:

**** SPOILERS: GO YE NO FURTHER IF YE GIVES A SHIT ****

Yeah now that Cromarti has been “deactivated”, where is the show going to go? It seems like the end of an era yet there are still more episodes to go (seven?). I suppose the story will focus more intently on Catherine Weaver, project Babylon and Ellison. We still don’t know what the real story is with Jessie the unconvincing tough-head from the future (man those scene’s where she was slapping that guy around were amateur!) or perhaps this new guy Charles Fischer is going to reappear?

A nice touch in this episode: Cameron’s curiosity around Sarah’s compassion for a tortoise struggling on its back by the side of the road. Cameron wanted to know why some people would stop and help while others would keep going and John asked her what type she would be. Later on she turned Ellison onto his front (after beating the crap out of him) in answer to John “we are not programmed to be cruel”, she claimed.

The Charles Fischer story revealed an interesting time paradox. I had a theory that there are factions in the human and terminator camps in the future: one faction of terminators that is pro-human and one faction of humans that is anti-john. Perhaps the time travel keeps changing things so that the future is gradually moving a certain way and then more future travellers (such as Jessie) are coming back who have different histories. A couple of episodes back, Cromarti killed the T888 copy of Ellison and we were confused as to why skynet was attacking its own agents. The multiple futures thing means that different futures are sending back people with different agendas. I wonder if this will prove to be a hindrance of convenience for the series. It could be a device for coming up with fresh storylines or it could become paradoxical to the point where the show is too absurd.

I thought that Jessie’s big reveal about Reece’s future torture fell flat too. I guess it’s hard to get that right as you don’t want the big “don don don” dramatic thing either.

[tags]complications, terminator, the sarah connor chronicles, tv[/tags]

Uncategorized t:scc, tv

I somehow managed to miss the reboot of Battlestar Galactica in 2004 and never could get the motivation to check out the series although I did have a look at the first episode of series 3 and found it completely bleak and angsty and I had no idea what was going on so I wrote it off.

Anyway, after a couple of friends assured me that I really needed to give it a proper chance starting at season one and seeing as I had an assignment due, I decided to check it out. Oh and another reason I wanted to look at it was because some of the writers from BSG are now writing for The Sarah Connor Chronicles so I was interested to see if the show was similar.

To me, the show is not really much about Cylons (at least in season 1), instead it seems to be about society and politics. Think of the show as “America in Space”. Each ship in the fleet is a state, except for Galactica which is the military and whatever the president’s ship is called which is Washington.

The themes of the show are mostly ethics and conscience. Each of the characters are setup with strengths and flaws which we see played against each other as the Cylons attack using various methods including direct attack from outside, sabotage and psychological warfare.

Towards the end of season 1, the writers started adding religion into the mix which is a bit unconvincing and tends to just be some kind of mash-up of mainstream religions but has a distinctly Protestant Christian flavour and I noticed that it is polarised the same way as religion is polarised in the media: literalists vs scientists. (i.e. tired clichés.)

The special effects in the show are great and all the space fighting scenes are fun to watch (just forget anything you learnt in physics class) and really you don’t need much more than space dogfighting to keep a sci-fi geek happy.

[tags]battlestar galactica, bsg, scifi, tv[/tags]

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It turns out that my SCC obsession mostly dissolved as soon as I handed in my final essay for the course I was studying this semester. I didn’t really think I was stressed by studying but in hindsight I realise that it is hard to fit everything in with just a few hours once the kids go to bed to try and cram the readings and reflections and then put together an essay as well as being able to find time to relax between working and sleeping. Don’t get me wrong, there is a sacred one hour slot before bed which is devoted to science fiction and this seems to be enough most of the time.

Having said that, SCC has been going some interesting places and at this stage I think I have to warn you very solidly that if you intend to watch this second season, the spoilers in this post are likely to truly wreck it for you so don’t read any further.

*** SPOILERS FOLLOW, GOD HAVE MERCY ON MY SOUL ***

There have been two episodes since I last posted. Mostly The Brothers of Nabulus was a setup for Mr Ferguson is Ill Today.

The religious themes have been highlighted in SCC lately. John and Sarah seem to have a connection with Spanish style catholicism and we see crucifixes in every second episode. This article on io9 discusses some of the religious stuff:

it was really nice to see the clash between Summer Glau’s Old-Testament kill-them-while-they’re-suffering-circumcision-pain attitude, and Sarah’s New Testament forgiveness. And then of course Summer turns out to be totally right, because the guy that Sarah allows to live then rats them out to the bad Terminator. Meanwhile James Ellison is being tested… just like Job. (Although maybe he should worry when his evil boss starts to encourage him to think of himself as a Biblical figure. Is she trying to get him to worship Skynet? It sure sounds like it, when she asks who spared him.)

In Mr Ferguson is Ill Today, we see a terminator executed in a chapel and as he shoots, he spreads his arms to shoot in two directions and mirrors the crucifix above the altar. I’m not sure what the writers were getting at there. Are they suggesting that the Terminator is some kind of Jesus? Perhaps it fits the judgement theme.

It may also be a precursor to Cromarti coming back from the dead? Sarah smashed up his chip but Ellison knows where the endo skeleton is so I bet he will let Catherine know to come and get it so that when the Connors return to properly burn it, it will be gone.

[tags]sarah connor chronicles, terminator, season 2[/tags]

Uncategorized t:scc, tv

The Cars are a pop band from the eighties that had a kind of retro fifties electro synthesiser sound. I got into The Cars through my dad when he brought home a best-of CD when I was in high school. The music is melodic and fun but also the musicianship in Elliot Easton’s guitar playing and the synth parts keep me listening over and over again. They do lots of interesting things with their intros too. At the start of this clip, “Since you’re Gone”, the click track (which stays through the song) implies a straight beat, the band does some intro chords but then when the main riff of the song comes it, the click is on the back-beat. Love the guitar solo too – simple playing, just letting the tone do its magic.

The clip’s pretty funny too, the way all the femininity drains from the house (and the chosen symbols of the femininity are funny in their own way and not surprising sadly).

[tags]bands, music, since you’re gone, songs, the cars, since you’re gone[/tags]

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I seem to be suffering some kind of confluence thing with The Wizard of Oz lately. Catriona’s reading it, the makers of The Sarah Connor Chronicles were reading it and now I was just doing a little extra reading about science fiction that may have influenced AI research in this paper titled Cybernetic Imagination and it also mentions Baum’s Tin Woodsman in The Wizard of Oz as a pre-curser to the 1930s science fiction robots.

I’ve been catching up on this fad called Battlestar Gallactica lately (starting at season 1) and I wouldn’t be surprised…

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For those who don’t already follow Escapepod, you might be interested in this reading of H. G. Well’s The Story of the Late Mr Elvesham. It was read as the halloween special and is suitably spooky. The only other time classic sci-fi has been read on escapepod was when they did Nightfall by Isaac Asimov.

[tags]escapepod, asimov, hgwells podcasts[/tags]

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I have a bad habit of starting and not finishing bachelor degrees. In 2004, I started restudying to be a civil engineer. In 2005 I started a theology degree. In 2007 I was offered a position in the arts program at UQ but never enrolled in any subjects. In 2008 I continued the theology degree a bit more and now I’ve decided to drop out once again. I can’t justify spending thousands of dollars a semester to do a degree that I’m only studying because I find it interesting. I was under the misapprehension that having received FEE-HELP, the cost would be spread over many years but alas I am in a high income bracket such that my repayment rate is higher than the rate at which I have the time to study.

The source of this educational angst is the perhaps unfounded belief that somewhere out there is the right career for me ^TM. Perhaps it is as John Carroll suggests in Ego and Soul that I am following a modern construction to try and fill a void that religion might have once filled (even though I still think of myself as religious).

A friend once told me not to look for fulfilment in some glamourous shit-hot career but that I would find some kind of simple contentment if I were to embrace the everyday, the daily routines of the mundane.

But I can’t help it. I want the glamourous shit-hot career. Just something that when people ask me what I do, instead of their eyes glazing over and them stifling a yawn, they light up and say “wow that is sooo cool!”.

Me: Hi I’m Matt
Them: Hey there Matt, what do you do?
Me: Oh this and that, I mainly build ten foot tall robots that breath fire and eat cars.
Them: Oh right. I’m a tax accountant. Do you have any hobbies?
Me: Yeah, I collect stamps
Them: Oh my God, that is sooo cool!
Me: Oh well, you know, it’s just a hobby

Maybe I just need an interesting hobby.

[tags]careers, study, hobbies[/tags]

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