I’m a big fan of Hill Street Blues, the great 1980s cop drama that aired on NBC. At some point, I learned the show’s style had been influenced by a documentary called The Police Tapes. Learning that it was available on DVD, I added it to my Netflix queue and forgot about it right up until Sunday night, when I opened a red envelope to find it.

It’s incredible. It’s sad, and it’s wise, and, in the person of Anthony Bouza, it’s very self aware.

Arrr! There be spoilerz here!

Frankly, I find myself losing faith in Adama and Roslin. I want to be sympathetic towards the rogue Cylons, but, were I a member of the Rag Tag Fleet, I would find their arguments lacking. The Cylons are responsible for the genocide of humanity, of which only fifty-thousand out of tens of billions survived. For years, they’ve been hunting the last few thousand humans across the cosmos, and now they’ve decided they were wrong and it’s okay to kiss-kiss and make up? Give me a break. Add to the fact that the top honchos are being all secretive, and even the vice-president is saying stuff don’t make sense, and I’d be flipping out too!

I absolutely don’t blame the crew of the Tyllium ship from fleeing, and I don’t know that I blame them for the death of a Cylon and two of Galactica’s Marines. The Rag Tag Fleet is falling apart, and while the hammer of the Galactica’s Marines have usually been able to hold it together, I think that hammer is on the verge of not being reliable anymore, thanks to Mr. Gaeta.

I have a hard time blaming Gaeta. He served as a mole inside Baltar’s administration, leaking information to the human resistance. For his trouble, Tigh screams at him in CIC, and he nearly got thrown out an airlock by Starbuck. Then, he’s shot in the leg by Anders, a Cylon, has his limb amputated, and then Anders gets … thrown out an airlock? Nope, a full pardon. And Tigh? Who humiliated him in front of the whole CIC crew as a Cylon lover? He’s a Cylon, too. So I have a hard time blaming Gaeta for stirring dissatisfaction within the Galactica’s crew: there’s a mutiny coming.

No wonder none of the Cylons really cares about Tyrol’s kid the way they do Athena and Helo’s: it’s not Tyrol’s. Seems Callie got it on with hot-shot fighter jockey Brendan “Hot Dog” Costanza. Sucks for Tyrol, but it’s nice to see Hot Dog get some face-time: he started off strong in the first season as a kid drafted out of the fleet to replace deceased fighter jockeys. Since then, he’s been the occasional background player with dialogue, but the last role of substance he had was of leading the Viper squadron which attacked the Cylons on New Caprica. In this episode he finds out he’s a daddy and gets his face bloodied by Tyrol: really, here’s the thing – given the nature of the fleet, and people’s feelings towards Cylons, isn’t Tyrol smart enough to realize that bashing someone’s skull in is probably not going to go any distance towards making people trust him? Guess not.

Lastly: I went back and watched the final 4.0 episode’s end. That planet doesn’t necessarily look like our Earth, or at least, you can’t tell – it’s green ,it’s blue, there are clouds, but I couldn’t make out any continent that I would point to and say “Oh, that’s Asia!” or “That’s Africa!” I think there’s some misdirection going on here, and while the planet found may indeed be their Earth, there’s nothing to stop the Colonials from finding another habitable world nearby, one with recognizable continents, and christening it Earth: our Earth.

I don’t know why you’d buy a house on Butt Hole Road, but people do:

The name most likely has to do with the spot’s historic function as a source of water, a water butt being a container for collecting water. But it proved to be prohibitively hilarious.

“If they ordered a pizza, the pizza company wouldn’t deliver it, because they thought it was a made-up name,” Mr. Hurst said. “People would stand in front of the sign, pull down their trousers and take pictures of each other’s naked buttocks.”

The couple moved away.

It must do wonders for the property value, although I’d be interested in seeing how many action the residents of Slutshole Lane get.

It was very warm this morning. It was about a quarter of nine, and I was standing a few meters east of Connecticut Avenue on Woodley Road. And I thought, for half a second, that I should remove my scarf before I started sweating. And then I thought, well, that’s stupid: as soon as the fire department shows up, it’s going to get cold again.

In the middle of the street was what appeared to be a mid-1960s Ford Mustang. I’m sure even a few minutes ago it could have been described as “beautifully restored”, or “beautifully maintained.” Two old ladies stood a few meters south of me, staring at it. I think it belonged to one of them. Orange flames were licking up through the grill, down through the undercarriage. Smoke billowed through the passenger compartment and out the back. The SUV parked on the north side of the street had caught fire.

Why the hell didn’t I bring my camera?

Granted, I usually don’t just throw my camera into a pocket just in case. Also granted, I’ve learned this lesson enough that I should make my camera a regular item to keep with me. Still, it’s not everyday that you see an expensive, beautiful car go up in smoke — literally.

I feel really bad for the poor bloke who is going to go out to his car to find it half melted.

In any case, a firetruck from Adam’s Morgan showed up, and firefighters leaped right to work and were spraying both vehicles done quickly. I took that as my cue to depart, and as a result of my voyeurism, I missed the L2 (I missed it going home, too).

It’s not that I don’t like the Metro — but when you’re only traveling two blocks, it’s kind of hard to make progress into whatever book I’m making my way through.

The Bookstore was cold. The building is under construction, and our store is obviously being affected. A few weeks ago we rearranged the upper level to accommodate the construction of a false wall — a false drywall wall — so that the construction crew could remove and eventually replace the exterior windows while not causing any damage to the store’s merchandise, employees, or customers. They got around to removing the windows today, or yesterday, and let me tell you, the upper level was freezing. Drywall is not very good insulating material.

The situation was worse at the registers, where the temporary new door brings gusts of cold air straight down the queue. I shivered through my first hour at the registers, but the second time I went up there, I did so in my coat and scarf. There’s a company policy against wearing hats at work, which kind of sucks since my head is 100% absent of hair, but if they want me at the registers tomorrow night, I’m going to insist my head be warm.

Usually people don’t like working the Music Information desk — it’s slow, it’s boring, all of the sections are a mess. Today? Since the lower level is the only one where one can feel the on-full-blast heaters, we all cherished our precious too-little time at that station.

It’s not that I mind the cold — but when I’m inside, at work, at home, I prefer warmth. And inside, inside myself, I mean, I’m excited about the forecast for snow on Tuesday.

Lately, I feel like if I’m not angry, I’m scared. There’s a lot to do with that: the general economic trend of the country, coupled with my own current financial woes, currently being exacerbated by my trouble getting hours at the Bookstore, and this sort of creeping feeling that, sooner or later, the roof is going to cave in at the Office job in some form or another — I learned on Thursday that another coworker, a guy who has been there for a very long time (er, albeit the company is only two years old or so, but he’s been there for most of that time), was told he’s going to be let go soon: he’s upbeat about it, he has health problems and can survive on unemployment for the time being.

Still.

I try to keep myself occupied: I’ve been reading a lot, I’ve become completely hooked on Jack McDevitt. I love intelligent sci-fi/noire. Also, exploring the wonder that is Comcast’s On Demand: I no longer have to worry about missing an episode of Battlestar Galactica! (Er, until I cancel cable).

I’m not a particularly social person: given the choice between spending the night out, and spending the night with my computer on my lap and a DVD on the TV, I’ll choose the latter. Part of that is practical: I really don’t have the money to blow on expensive beers at overpriced bars. Part of that is just my nature: I’m easily entertained, and I enjoy my own company.

I think that’s part of the reason why most of the people I count as friends are people who I’ve either worked with, or people who met me after knowing me through my blog. The problem is, my blog does not accurately represent me, and I don’t really try to make it that way: or, rather, good luck getting me to go into political rant mode at a bar when I don’t have the option of taking my time, rewriting, editing, and venting steam during said-writing process. But the point is, people who don’t know me through either work or the blog just think of me as the weird scary bald dude with the shaggy beard. That’s fine: I’m more than a little introverted, and I’m okay with that.

The problem with my own company is that I’m not particularly good about keeping myself from being overwhelmed with my troubles. Thankfully, tonight, I’m off to a house warming: with that, and the late night that will result, and being bone-dead tired at work tomorrow, at least my mind will be on how welcoming my bed will be Sunday when I finally stagger home.

Also: Rambo, the recent one, is surprisingly decent, for a Rambo movie.

I take shit from time to time on being an alcoholic lightweight, but I think, more than anything else, that it is a responsible financial position to be in. For the cost of one or two (preferably strong) glasses of beer, I can be completely shitfaced: I have a coworker who could drink a glass of Guiness from the time he wakes up, through work, and on to a happy hour, and go home slightly buzzed — but how much is he spending on beer?

Being a lightweight: it’s the responsible financial position for the drinking crowd.

By now, probably everyone knows that Rush Limbaugh expressed his hope that Obama’s administration fails. I have a hard time criticizing him for feeling that way: after all, eight years ago, I was an angry Al Gore supporter who felt that George W. Bush was the “Commander-in-Thief” and who hoped that he would leave office as the worst president in history, having completely failed in his term.

Admittedly, I thought Bush would only have four years in office, and if September 11th hadn’t happened, that very well may have been the case. But it was eight years with Bush in office, and the country has been wrecked, but who should I hold in more contempt? George W. Bush for failing, or myself for hoping he would fail? Living with the consequences of those failures over the years, and as we continue to live with them, I’m ashamed of a lot of the conduct of the administration over the last eight years, but none more so than my own in wishing Bush would fail.

I know it’s stupid to think that my heart’s desire could actually influence the events of the last two terms, but in the same way that I can watch a sports event and clench my firsts and murmur “make the shot make the shot make the shot” and feel like I contributed when the athlete does, so do I feel that I am at least partially responsible for the failures of the Bush administration.

Of course, eight years ago, I was a 22-year old idiot with a lot of maturing let to do. I don’t say that as an excuse, I say that as an explanation. And I hope that as the years progress, and as presidents who I don’t care for, and who I didn’t vote for, are inaugurated, I hope I can find the wisdom to wish them, if not success in all of their political objectives, then at least that they don’t fail, because I’ve learned — we’ve learned — the hard way that a president’s failures are more than a few nasty lines in a history book, they have a very real impact on the lives of people across the world.

One of those pundits on CNN yesterday was talking about how involved a certain segment of the community — namely, young African-Americans — were going to feel about this Obama presidency, and how he saw it as a very real possibility that they would hurry home to turn on the news and take a real interest in politics. Personally, I think that’s a stretch for a large percentage of kids, teens, and young adults, regardless of race, but I think if there’s any administration that has a chance of not only engendering but continuing such a level of interest, it’s this one.

From The Miami Herald:

Later, Obama announced during remarks at a swearing-in ceremony for White House staff and Cabinet officials that he’d freeze the pay of White House employees who make more than $100,000 a year. He told his senior staff that given the economic climate, “it’s what’s required of you at this moment.”

He signed two executive orders and three memoranda to implement the pay freeze, ethics and public records changes.

The executive order on ethics prohibits executive branch employees from accepting gifts from lobbyists. It prohibits anyone who works for the administration to leave and lobby the executive branch “for as long as I am president,” Obama said. It also precludes lobbyists hired by his administration from dealing with agencies on matters they lobbied about for two years.

A second order revokes an executive order signed by former President George W. Bush in 2001 that limited release of former presidents’ records, and replaces it with new language aimed at more transparency. Obama’s order could expand public access to the records of Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney, as well as other former leaders, in the years to come, said Steven Aftergood, the director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists.

So far, it’s a good move. In fact, after all the secrecy and the cloak-and-dagger stuff of the last eight years, I think this is absolutely the best first day anyone could have hoped for: this, indeed, is change I can believe in.

But, of course, we’re not even two full days into the new administration. There’s always talk, and today there’s been some action, but there is always the possibility that these changes could slip away. Obama talks the talk about being accountable, but it isn’t enough to take him at his word — we, the voters, the citizens of this country, those of us who voted for him, those of us who didn’t, it’s our job to make sure he walks the walk.

So I hope that pundit’s vision of an involved America is true. And I hope it thrives throughout the Obama Administration and continues to his successor and beyond. A citizen’s responsibility extends well beyond walking into a voting booth every other year.

I like smart TV, and I like arc-story telling. Really, it’s no surprise that Veronica Mars is a favorite of mine. Admittedly, and I’ll say this up front, the third season was pretty blech.

So I was surfing Facebook today when I saw someone make an offhand reference to a Veronica Mars movie. A quick Google turned up this article from last August, which seems to make it at least a possibility (even a slim one). Frankly, though, I don’t think it would work — or at least, I’m not certain that it would. VM’s strength came not from the stand-alone episodes of the third-season, or the in-episode mysteries of the first two seasons: rather, it came from the dropping of clues, and the building character relationships leading from the “Big Mystery” from the start of the season to the end.

In a lot of ways, I found the show to be the cultural successor to Buffy The Vampire Slayer and, yes, I know that seems like a stretch — one’s a show about a chick killing vampires, and the other is about a chick solving mysteries in her high school. But when you compare Buffy and Veronica, and ignore the fact that they’re both small, cute, blonde girls (Kristen Bell‘s cuter), and look instead at the quick-fire banter, my point is made.

I would love to see Veronica Mars back on television. I think the show’s cancellation was a mistake, although I wasn’t confident the series could work as “Veronica Mars, FBI” as it was pitched for its fourth season. There’s something else VM and BTVS had in common: they were great shows, but only when set among the relative innocence of high school — when the characters moved to the “real world”, the shows went down. I have a theory on this, and it involves, of all shows, Saved By The Bell.

So, we all know Saved By The Bell. It was a live-action cartoon with 2-D characters making the motions through mediocre scripts and brightly-colored scripts. After NBC had dragged the show on and on, they decided the three male leads could survive a college-set spin-off aired during their evening schedule. And the show failed: I mean, it was just awful, but that’s what happens when you take Zach Morris, who used to break the fourth-wall regularly, who once used a “time out” to freeze AC Slater mid-punch and arrange for his nemesis to strike Mr. Belding instead, and you put him in a show where he suddenly can’t make time-outs, and the consequences are suddenly far more real than a detention or lecture from his parents.

Now, admittedly, that’s an extreme example, but I think the broad-strokes apply. Veronica Mars was a show with a lot of heart, but it was also a show about the outsider and the outcasts against the insiders and the populars, and it was a show about a father and daughter. I don’t really see Veronica Mars, FBI Agent, living at home with her dad, but that might just be me. And in the same way that I didn’t like Veronica Mars as a college student, and just as I can’t picture her as an FBI agent, I just can’t see her on the big screen.

A Metro train has apparently derailed, per a coworker who is still trying to get into the Office. This’ll be either on the Green or Red Lines, and wow!, it’s a good thing this didn’t happen yesterday.

There was some sort of inauguration program printed up by the Inauguration Committee, and the Bookstore was supposed to receive some. As is the nature of Obamamania in this country — which is why a whole double-table of what can only be described as Obama-crap (a judgement on the merchandise, not the man) continues to sell in great numbers — everyone wants a program, and for some reason, the company’s website continued to state that we had it in stock.

Uh … we didn’t.

I don’t actually know the story of why we never received them. Presumably they’re still waiting to be delivered: the Secret Service shut down deliveries to businesses after Saturday, so the Bookstore doesn’t even get another product shipment until Thursday. Most customers accepted that story, although a manager or two did tell me they were under the impression the programs were being printed manually and that even if it were a question of someone hand delivering them to us, we were still expecting to have them by Tuesday.

As we didn’t receive them by the time I left Monday at closing, I’m going to go out on a limb and say we probably never got them.

Sadly, there was one group of customers who refused to believe that we didn’t have them, or couldn’t get our hands on them, or couldn’t special order them: I refer to this group of people as that dreaded band of “New Yorkers.” They weren’t even in DC — they were calling from New York City demanding that we ship the progams to them.

Most conversations went something like this:

“Ma’am, I’m sorry, but we don’t actually have them. They never came!”

“What do you mean you don’t have them? You’re supposed to have them!”

“I know we’re supposed to have them, they never came.”

“Well, I don’t care. I want one.”

“I can’t get you one.”

“Well, what would you suggest I do? Do they sell them in New York?”

In fact, they probably don’t — I mean, if they can’t get the programs to a damn store four blocks from the White House, how the fuck are they going to get them up to New York? And also, since the items were purchased store-by-store instead of through the corporate office, it’s highly unlikely that any stores outside of the region had the opportunity to purchase them. “Oh, they might. You should check!” That’s what I said. Also, since our store in Silver Spring was the only one we knew to have gotten their shipment, we referred most calls to that store — right up until Silver Spring called over and asked us to please for the love of motherfucking God stop “We’re out!”

Just a general note: it would be nice, sometimes (okay, always) if customers would just shut the fuck up and listen to what I’m trying to say. I was trying to find a DVD set for a customer on the phone, and while I kept asking her to clarify a spelling, or repeat the title, she would just continue to repeat, “It’s so-and-such by him, starring this person, that person, and this other guy, it’s an 5-disc set shaped like a dog’s hutch and it was just released.” I finally located something that I assumed to be the same set — we didn’t have it, and our ATLAS database showed that, in the whole country, only one other store had it. When I tried to explain this to her, she demanded the phone numbers for two other nearby stores and said she would call them directly. I feel so sorry for whoever she spoke with.

In any case, the inauguration is over, so I’m hoping the New Yorker phone calls about the apparently lost programs are finito. Also, it’d be nice if the Metro isn’t a mess of tourists tomorrow.

Joseph Lowery’s speech was far more impressive — and funny, to boot!

Classy is Obama escorting Bush out the east side of the Capitol to a waiting helicopter.

Not classy? Was the booing Bush received when he was announced. And the shoe-throwing at Dupont Circle yesterday.

Change. It’s not just a slogan, unless we want it to be. But I want more.

Which means, legally, even without being sworn in yet, that Barack Obama is now President of the United States. I know this because I’m watching CNN’s coverage and Wolf Blitzer said it!

UPDATE:

And no sooner do I post this then he’s sworn in. I have to admit a.) I stood up, b.) giggled when Obama had to get Roberts to repeat part of the oath, and c.) opened my window to find out if I could hear the cheers from the Mall: er, no, it wasn’t.