< 365 and whatever else I think of before pushing the publish post button

We are now less than 365 days from Bush leaving office (at this moment it is 358)! Hey if you get one of those $500 checks from the government that's almost enough for a bottle of $2 wine from trader joe's every day till he's gone, that should help ease the pain (although considering he's got another year to completely destroy the economy and dismantle social services, this may not be the moment to become an alcoholic). I think that in protest of the insane idea of giving out a few hundred dollars to make up for the economic crunch everyone should use the money to buy treasury bonds - wouldn't that mess with their heads...

Hm, well the attempt at political humor didn't work as well as hoped, so I guess I'll tell you about my weekend. I slept. Then I watched TV. Then I slept. Then I watched TV. Then I slept. Then I got my oil changed (I'm currently averaging 6,000 miles per year which means I use less gas than my prius owning co-worker). Then I watched TV. Then spent 30 minutes being told by a friend why I shouldn't vote for Obama (within the first minute I told him I already voted). And now I'm blogging. It's a bit early to sleep again so you can probably guess what's up next. When I actually do stuff I'm busy so I don't bother blogging, but when I'm doing nothing I have time to write about it - kinda sucks for you readers.

Next week I'm headed to ISSCC. It's a big integrated circuit design conference. I've never been to a real conference before so I'm excited about going to that. It is put on by the same IEEE society that publishes the JSSC which is the circuits journal I subscribe to.

It's been raining more than usual in SoCal which is a bit of a downer, but it does mean I feel less guilty about requiring a half hour shower every morning to wake up. It also means that all the brown hills have turned green. I was surprised by how fast everything turned green once it got a bit of water.

The rest of this post is about BSG so proceed at your own risk of boredom.

I've started watching the original series - it is a bit goofy but it is interesting to see where the new series got some of its ideas and characters. A lot of the names are from the original. Also in the original starbuck is a guy who is the top pilot and a womanizer and adama has a daughter that starbuck goes after. So that's kinda cool that they kept the character traits but turned starbuck into a woman. Also all of the ships in the new one are copies of the old one. In the fist episode they do a close up of a lot of the ships - it is a bit disturbing that for most of them I could think of either their name or function in the new series. Oh - and Tom Zarek is Apollo in the original (I just realized that - I knew I recognized him, but couldn't place it till now). Frac is also from the original.

I was looking around to see when BSG is coming back and found this article. It says that:

Sci Fi Channel's executive VP of original programming, recently promised TV Guide that the reveal of the final Cylon would surprise a lot of people. "The reveal will have great emotional resonance," he says, "and will make many things that happened in the past three seasons click into place and make sense."

So I've decided to make an official guess about the 5th Cylon cause if I'm right that will be so cool and if I'm wrong no one will remember or care (as I start writing this I have no idea who I'll pick so the following are my thoughts as they come). So Adama and Roslin are out. Roslin because of all the cancer stuff and Adama cause that just doesn't seem like it would fit - I was going to say he was out because they already took us through suspecting him, but I guess they also did that with the chief. Since the 4 gathered together on Galactica it seems like the 5th shouldn't have been there at that time, but that would eliminate practically everyone so I'm dropping that as a criteria. Apollo is a tricky one we'll come back to him. Obviously none of the cylons we know about are the 5th (wow, that would be a twist though). They already dealt with Baltar in what seemed like a definitive way (that would be like JD and Elliot getting back together after Turk's wedding - oh, wait...). They actually have more explaining to do if Starbuck is not a cylon so as a surprise she is out. It could be Helo, but then the half child wouldn't make sense and even more important it would make all of his character strengths just be lame - this is the one person I would be disappointed if it turned out to be. If the one human who is really understanding turned out to be a cylon that wouldn't be cool. Gaeta is an interesting one. The other four were the leaders of the insurgency on new caprica and he was the informant so it would fit that pattern. There's no strong reason to not be him, and he is the computer scientist of the crew. He also has a minimal back story. The one downside is he doesn't seem like a major enough character, but I'm keeping him in the running. Dualla is another possibility. She has a bit more back story, but not enough to rule her out. But it doesn't seem like anything would click into place if it was her. Dr. Cottle would be a cool choice, he's got a bit of a cylon side to him, but I don't think anyone has any emotions about him. If they brought back a resurrected Billy that would be funny, but he doesn't seem like final cylon material plus it would get kind of obvious when he showed up. Cally would be an interesting choice. I'd almost have to go with her since she would have to deal with so much hatred for Cylons, except for the whole half human kid thing. Although they could explain that away. Kat could have been a contender except the whole dying from radiation poisoning. Tom Zarek might be a good choice, although I don't see what it would really explain and I'm not sure people are attached to him enough to care. Also the other four fought for humans against cylons, but Tom did most of his fighting against other humans. Ellen would be an awesome choice, but again the death thing kind of ruins it. Same with Cain. I think the rest of the characters are too minor to include.

Ok, the top four are Apollo, Gaeta, Dualla, and Cally. While any of them would require some fancy footwork explaining I think Apollo just isn't workable with the whole his Dad being around thing - he's out. I think that if it was Gaeta or Dualla, Gaeta is the more interesting character and it fits better. Between Gaeta and Cally - I think Gaeta fits better, but Cally would be the bigger surprise and definitely would get a bigger emotional response, although I do admit things wouldn't click into place.

WINNER - CALLY!

Now just 3 months until I get proven wrong (well, that assumes they don't drag it out forever, which they probably will). I guess the other option is they could introduce someone new - like have the people of earth be the 5th cylon, but if you open it that wide there's no way to guess, so I'm sticking with Cally.

Um, if you actually made it this far - sorry.