So Ellen Tigh is the Final Cylon…
And I’m a little disappointed about it.
Not that she’s not a great character, we just haven’t had a chance to get to know and like her like we have her husband, Saul. While Saul’s personal standing had continued to rise as the years went on and the fleet continued their quest through uncharted space, Ellen died in the early parts of Season 3 after passing information over to Brother Cavill in order to get Saul out of prison. She was manipulative, cruel, evil and lascivious. She drank heavily and plotted against everyone so that her husband (and her) could benefit from others failings. She is not an easy person to like.
But Saul loved her (until he had to kill her) and still loves her, and now that he’s had his vision as he prepared to kill himself in some icy radioactive ocean on Earth he’s convinced that she’s the final Cylon.
But I wasn’t convinced about that. How to explain Starbuck and her resurrection from the dead? What about that Viper she and Leobon saw with her charred body in the cockpit? If anyone had a legitimate claim to the Final throne I thought it would be her. Maybe as the final Cylon she is the most powerful and can resurrect without the Resurrection Ship? Maybe.
But Ron Moore, creator of the re-imagined series, said -
“[Ellen and Saul Tigh have)) always been Cylons, and there’s something profound about that. They’re a married couple who just have to go at it periodically and just have major issues and major problems. But the bond between the two of them was something that literally could not be broken. And I thought that was a really interesting and ultimately very positive thing to say.”
So I’m apt to believe it. And I thought it would be interesting if someone that had been killed off of the show was the final on, but not her. Maybe Billy or Dee or that little girl that died on the cruise ship during the pilot. Ellen just seems like such a…blah choice.
If and when Ellen returns (and they’ve set it up where she just has to return) how will she? Can she create herself? Will a Higher Cylon Power create her? Will she be all knowing? I doubt it. The other four don’t know anything even though they’ve been asked. Do they know the way to Earth? Nope. Do any of the Final Five have the answers to the big questions? Probably not. If they do it’s been dribbled out of their programming, like that song they all sang together, which was cute, but they don’t seem to share a hive mind of higher powers or advanced knowledge.
Will Ellen be the Know It All? Probably not.
I’d hoped (hoped hoped) it would be Tom Zarek because that way when it was (hoped it would be) revealed in the last episode that he was the final evil Cylon then Adama could nuke him and his evil compatriots. Of course, the way the storyline is progressing right now along the lines of treason and revolution Adama may have his chance to do just that. But now we know it isn’t going to be Zarek.
Oh well. Had to be somebody.
My Youngest is Obsessed With Mailboxes
When Peyton and I go out for walks around the neighborhood (which has become more and more frequent since I’ve started working from home) he notices lots of things. He likes to talk to Twister, the horse that lives across the street, and he likes to yell, “RUN!” and then run, and he likes to play with leaves. His greatest obsession though started probably a year ago, while watching “Blues Clues”.
Peyton really grew to love the show. I like it too, as anyone who has read this blog before can attest to, and I’ve got my favorite characters on the show, but Peyton’s has become Mailbox, who shows up rarely more than once a show after Steve/Joe have sang their mail song and always delivers “a letter from our friends”. Mailbox wants to be a standup comedian someday but he’s rooted in place in the front yard, so it will probably be hard for him to travel.
But Peyton loves the guy (or girl, it’s hard to distinguish, since his voice has a strange timber to it) and always sings along to the mail-retrieving songs that Steve/Joe sings. And this love has translated into our everyday lives as well now. So while we’re out Peyton will now want to look inside of the mailbox when we leave on our walk and also on our return to the house. And he likes the vanity mailboxes, like the mailbox that looks like a dog at the end of the street or the stone one that has vines growing on it. But he loves all of them pretty equally.
So the next time if we show up at your house with Peyton and he has a pile of your mail in his hands, you’ll know why.
The Wayback Machine Has Resurrected a Lot of My Long Dead Posts
God bless the Internet.
The Internet Archive, also known as the Wayback Machine, is a wonderful thing. You can see the way Google looked a long time ago or the website of the New York Times from September 11, 2001. It’s not the fastest thing in the world (and come on, if you archive the majority of the internet for free, do you really have to answer to anybody about the speed of your servers?) but it sure is awesome.
And its awesomeness now travels over to this site. My first blog that I wrote years ago Central Services — The Minstry of Information Retrieval1 is on the Wayback Machine. Not all of it, sadly, but a large portion of it. So if you start seeing new posts appear in your RSS reader or you’re just poking around the site avoiding the boss, check ‘em out.
- Taken from the movie Brazil. [↩]
Why Does the Black Eyed Peas’ Service Have to Suck So Bad?
Last Sunday Kim and I took the kids over to The Dixie House, a longtime established Dallas restaurant in the heart of the Lakewood area. They were well known for their chicken-fried steak1 back in the day, but then they got bought out by another restaurant chain, The Black-eyed Pea and were amalgamated into the fold, only retaining their name and little else. After adopting the same menu as their new owner they lost much of their signature character and they really became just another Black-eyed Pea.
Which is sad. For the past few years or so every time I’ve eaten at the Black-eyed Pea the service has been terrible. The food is *okay*, I suppose, and since there are few restaurants around that still serve the Southern-style food that most of us Texans grew up on it was like a strange oasis in a sea of Asian fusion and California Pizza Kitchen-type places. Like I said, the problem is the service is terrible. Several weeks ago we went in, again on a Sunday, and were sat fairly quickly, but then our waitress, who looked like she was charged with seven or eight tables, came by and said she’d be right back to take our drink orders. Five minutes, then ten minutes passed, no waitress, no drink order. We eventually flagged the hostess and asked if we could just have some water and rolls, since the kids were getting antsy and angry.
Ten more freaking minutes passed and no waitress to take our order. And so we left.
Jump back to last Sunday. We’re sitting at The Dixie House. It’s around 1:30 in the afternoon and there are probably eight tables full and three of the wait staff to shephard over them. Our waitress came, said she’d be right back with our drinks. Another table is sat in her section, they order drinks and then get them before we get ours. Five more minutes pass, no drinks. We finally flag down our waitress and ask where our drinks are and she stumbles over what we’d ordered. She then gets them out. The food is alright but still the service is incredibly lacking.
So we’ve made a pact: no more Black-eyed Pea. Ever.
We’re never going there again. I’ve wasted far too much money on a crummy establishment. I’m done with them.
So if anyone reads this and has a suggestion of where to find this mysteriously hard to find Southern cuisine in the Dallas area, leave a comment. If it’s good we might even ask you to go with us sometime.
- And don’t try to call it “country-fried steak”. That’s for wusses. [↩]