Sweet Delay...

The only thing worse than anticipating something unpleasant is when that thing gets cancelled at the last minute, and now you have to anticipate its inevetable rescheduling. Sigh. The thing I'm speaking of in this case is grad photos, which I was supposed to have done today. Unfortunately, our photographer had to go in for last-minute emergency gall bladder surgery, so he was apparently unable to come and take photos. Slacker.

So now I'm stuck with knowing that at some point I'm going to have to get these stupid photos taken, but I don't know when. It could be next week; it could be next month. All I know is that at some fuzzy point in the not-so-distant future, I will have to put my gown and mortarboard on (misleadingly named, if you ask me, since the hat consists of no mortar. Perhaps years ago when the phrase was coined, graduates had to don a concrete hat to give one further example of the toils of getting a college education. Now they just charge you a graduation fee), and sit down full of contrived smiles and vim, pretending to enjoy my time in the spotlight.

Nothing, I assure you, makes me more uncomfortable than a one-on-one photo shoot. Put some other subjects in the picture (attractive wife or cute baby, for example), and I'm at least a little more at ease. With these ones, there's no decoys--I am on my own. How I loathe it.

Uneventful weekend, when it all shook out. Saturday consisted of much homework, which was productive, and allowed me to feel more confident of taking most of Sunday to watch football. Yes, some homework was done during the games (I'm serious--reading. Not a tough book, and the ball games were turned down low). I came out with one of my teams winning, so not bad. Not that I had any money on it or anything. I have better ways to lose my money (like putting gas in my car) than wagering on events over which I have no control.

Seriously, that's the whole thing, right there. That's pathetic. One measly paragraph describes the entirety of two days worth of living and breathing. Next week I'm going to have to steal a car or something, just to add some drama.

Moving on. Took some of the day today (with cancelled photos and all) to get started on a show that I've been hearing a lot about recently, but have never ventured to watch: Battlestar Galactica. Two reasons for not watching it: (1) my wife hates sci-fi, and I already test her patience enough with my incessant love of Star Wars and all the Star Trek series (yes, even Enterprise, which I thought was actually quite brilliant, but ill-timed); (2) we don't get the channel it airs on. But, thanks to the wonder of this thing they call the interweb, I can download the shows at my leisure and burn them to DVD to watch them in the comfort of my living room with no commercial interruptions (which, I realize, is contributing to the very high amount of advertising elsewhere that I was lamenting last week, and that my dad had an insightful comment on). Anyway, I'm only two years behind on Galactica (it's in season 3 right now), so I'm in the process of downloading all of seasons 1 and 2. Apparently, the whole series started with a four-hour miniseries, which is what I watched today (it was only three hours without commercials, and I had some time--give me a break).

What a truly brilliant show. If the rest of it is anything like the first four hours, I can see why it's widely regarded as the best show on TV. Compelling performances from the actors, gut-wrenching storylines, faced-paced direction, the likes of which I haven't seen since the first season of "The West Wing" (and even then, BG does a better job of it), and, to top it all off, it's not a sci-fi series. I know, I know, it takes place in space and they battle aliens. But it's not sci-fi. Can't explain it. The sets are incredible, too--so intricate and mostly defiant of the sci-fi stereotypes (beeps and boings and futuristic-looking flashing lights, for example, are absent). I'm looking forward to the first and second seasons, if only they would download a wee bit faster than I'm getting them now. No matter--I'll have them eventually, and then they'll be sorry.

In other TV-related news, had a boo at 24 tonight, too. *Spoiler alert* If you haven't watched this week's episode, skip the next two paragraphs. I think this is the season of the backstory--we learn about Jack's evil brother, and I'm just waiting for there to be another Palmer sibling jump out of the woodwork (he has a sister, too? What, was she suddenly adopted during the off-season, considering we haven't heard anything about her for the past five seasons?). I'm also waiting for Donald Sutherland to do a guest appearance as Jack's father (just like Jon Voight did to his real-life daughter in Tomb Raider), but IMDB doesn't credit him for an appearance. Too bad.

The appearance of Jack's brother also helps me patch a hole in my heart (or maybe just in the storyline) left after last season's boring end--who is Mr. Bluetooth? Now we know--he's Jack's brother. Have to admit, I didn't see that one coming. It just goes to show that the writers are a lot more wily than I gave them credit for. When we were all thinking, "Hey, what about that shady group of men controlling the president?" they were setting us up for this season. Nice move. Although I do hope that Jack pulls the bag off sometime before next week because (a) I like the brother's character, and (b) a week is a long time to have a plastic bag over your face. Or so I hear.

Well, I think that'll about do it for now. Have you looked at the lastest posting on Theo's blog? I posted it last weekend, so check it out. And I'll see you back here tomorrow.