Yeah, I know, I forgot to write a bit about last week’s episode. Actually, I had a lot of stuff going on and after deleting fifty million comment spam, didn’t really feel like sitting in front of the computer anymore.

So, picking up from last week … Roslin, already escaped from a Galactica holding cell with the help of Lee Adama and a bunch of Galactica servicecrew, and hiding in the fleet, plays the religious card and makes her move to Kobol. Predicting only a handful of ships will follow her, Bill Adama and Tigh are surprised when nearly 1/3rd of the fleet follows. “They believe this religious crap?” Adama mutters at one point, but given the state of things over the past few episodes, I don’t know if its quite so much that as it is “Hey, those nuts on Galactica have lost it! I’d rather face a Cylon Centurion – naked! – then deal with those morons anymore.”

It isn’t an unjustified feeling — Tigh’s tenure as acting-commander was nothing sort of disasterous — what with troops firing on civillians, the establishment of martial law, and an actual mutiny on Galactica — it’s a wonder only a third of the ships left. Then Adama gets back on his feet and in this episode is to the point of threatening to throw reporters in jail if they publish rumors that he lied about knowing Earth’s location.

Even with Adama’s continuing grief over the betrayal of his son, there are still rapidly compounding problems — notably with his new choice of CAG, a nice if green lieutenant who gets confused during Viper training and nearly gets one of his pilots killed and who later nearly crashes a tanker into a freighter. There’s a scene at the end of this episode where Adama is building a model ship and talking about betrayal and for several shots they don’t show who he’s talking to, and I was convinced Adama was busting this guy back down to “non-CAG.” Shows what I know. More on that conversation later …

Back over Kobol — James Remar guests as Zarek’s #1 Goon! — Starbuck shows up with the Arrow of Apollo … and Boomer M2 in tow. Having stolen her Cylon raider last season before Boomer M1 put two in Bill Adama’s chest, she’s probably a little surprised when Lee rams Boomer M2 into a steel pillar and sticks his weapon into her face … which of course prompts Helo to pull his gun on Lee. This leads to an interesting exchange as Roslin orders them to lower their weapons. Helo says to Lee, “Are we going to listen to the nice lady?” and Lee responds, “Helo, you moron, that’s the President.” Because, of course, Helo kept up with the news during his season-and-a-half on Cylon occupied Caprica. (“Former Education Secretary President of the Colonies-in-Exile” was the headline on The Cylon Weekly). Boomer M2 escapes “death by airlock” only by promising to show Roslin to the Tomb of Athena, one of the neccessary steps to locating Earth.

The leaders of this seperatist fleet, throughout the episode, talk about the prophecies which relate to their current situations — in specific, that while the Tomb of Athena will bring them one step closer to Earth, it will also carry a price in blood. At the beginning of a Cylon ambush, Lorena Gale’s Priest Elosha is killed. The writers are really being ruthless to the recurring characters lately — Crashdown was killed a few episodes ago (probably because with Helo’s return there wouldn’t be much for him to do anyway), now Elosha … I’ve got my doubts as to if Zarek will survive Kobol.

Boomer M2, in cuffs and a red-prisoner suit, makes a bolt during the ambush and is hotly pursued by Lee, no doubt anxious to blow her brains out. He’s right on her when she jumps on a grenade launcher, but she’s able to restrain him and blow the hell out of the remaining Cylon Centurions … and then tosses him the launcher. His, “You’ve gotta be kiddin’ me…” is a bit hilarious, hard not to see how much he wants to blow her brains out.

One of the problems with such a large cast of characters is that, inevitably, some folks won’t get much screentime. In this episode, that’s Baltar, who is in one scene. I think he had the same amount of screen time last episode. Not seen at all is Chief Tyrol, or Billy (who, you’ll remember, refused to accompany Roslin off Galactica).

This episode would’ve been a let down after the previous five. Let’s face it — the pacing is slow, yeah we get Lee and Kara’s long anticipated reunion, but the episode itself is a bit of a drag. But I said would have been a let-down, not “was”. What makes this episode is the scene in Adama’s quarters where he talks about betrayal and the rage he feels. He’s talking to Petty Officer Dualla, and when she sees her opportunity, she tells him a piece of her mind — he’s not happy about this, “…You thought a Petty Officer wouldn’t have anything worthwhile to say,” she criticizes. But she does, and its a damn good speech, and it works — not long later, Adama is in the CIC asking for all information on Kobol.

“I’m putting the fleet back together,” Adama announces to the crew. “I’m putting our family back together.”

Next Week:

Everybody’s on Kobol, and Boomer seems to be planning to shoot Adama … again. Fancy editing? I hope so. Like Adama told Tyrol last week, “You’ll see [Boomer] again.” And I think a Cylon-renegade would be an interesting addition to the show as a regular.

Also – I don’t see how Roslin will survive the season.

I’d like to say something deep and profound about the failed attack today against the USS Ashland in a Jordanian harbor, but the fact of the matter is that I can’t seem to get over the fact that the Navy Spokesman quoted in the article is a Lieutenant Commander named Charlie Brown.

I bet he’s horrible at football.

Every pizza shop I’ve ever worked at has reimbursed delivery drivers for their mileage and vehicular wear and tear. Every pizza shop has done this differently. Roughly, a driver will earn money from a shop for every delivery taken — sometimes this is a flat amount, i.e., seventy cents per delivery, sometimes (rarely, these days) its a percentage of the order total (i.e., mileage is equal to 5% of the total amount of orders delivered).

Some shops charge what is known as a “delivery fee.” I have — until recently — never worked at a shop with a delivery fee. In my opinion, its a rip — essentially, the shop is looking to get delivery customers to offset the mileage paid to the shop’s drivers.

Gary decided to institute a delivery fee.

On one hand, it makes sense — he recognizes a need to increase his drivers’ mileage compensation. We used to make fifty cents a delivery. The problem is how he’s handling the thing. He’s tacked on a dollar delivery fee to every order. Our mileage has increased 100% … to one dollar. In other words, the customer is now paying the delivery fee, and Gary’s cut his costs (by fifty cents a delivery) and given us a raise in mileage (which he isn’t paying a cent of). The problem is that the guy down the street who was ordering a $12 large pepperoni pizza is now paying $13 for the same pie. “Did you raise prices?” he will inevitably ask over the phone, at which point he’ll learn of the delivery charge.

And he will adjust his tip accordingly.

In other words, while mileage compensation is going up by a dollar, tips are going to go down by the same amount (if not more, because I know some — many!!! — asshole will be like, “Oh, see, isn’t that nice, we only have to tip a dollar and they’re charging us for it already.”) Tips on small orders will go down, I should say, as the folks who place large orders probably won’t ask what that extra-dollar is on their $250 pizza order.

I’m dissapointed in Gary’s decision. I’d be less dissapointed if he’d instituted the mileage charge and tacked it onto the compensation we already recieved (i.e., $1.50 per delivery). Thems the breaks, right?, and I’ll grouse about it here, but I don’t think I’ll take it to Gary’s attention — generally because he’s a good boss and a good guy, and the positives to working at the Indy outweigh the negatives.

If the shop you order delivery from tacks on a delivery charge, find out how much it is and how much of it goes to the driver (many pizza shops pocket a ridiculous amount of the fee). Please remember that a delivery fee isn’t a tip, and deducting it from the tip lowers the income he or she is working hard to earn. It isn’t fair to punish the driver for his employer’s greed — rather, call his boss and complain about the fee, or go pick up your food.

Bed time for me, than my short bloggin’ break begins.

Well, the switch to WordPress has been made. There’s still some tweaking to do, but I want to thank Tim for the long night he put in bringing everything over. I’m happy with the change, a bit frustrated because I’d gotten so used to Moveable Type’s Admin pages, and now I’ve got to learn WordPress’ behind the scene tricks.

I’m probably going to take a few days off from blogging to recharge my batteries. I’ve already been kind of light on blogging the past week or so … I’m kind of feeling I slipped off my “blogging path” and I need to get back on it.