At long last we find the impulse for our Galactica 1980 marathon

We realized people have Oscars-watching parties because it’s the only way to make the damned things entertaining. Poor Hugh Jackman. He tried so hard, but he was doomed by the dreadful material he had to work with. We were embarrassed for him during that opening number.

Husband and I decided it was time, time to begin the long-promised Galactica 1980 marathon.

We’d already watched 4 episodes, but that was a long time ago. Figuring we’d repressed most of what we’d seen, we broke out the DVDs and began at the beginning. We watched the first 3 episodes and then tuned back in to the Oscars to catch the last hour of awards. Compared to Galactica 1980…the awards were still dull.

Things went off the rails quickly the last time I vowed to do this whole Galactica 1980 marathon thing – you can bring yourself up to date here.

This time, with God(s of Cobol) as my witness, I will watch the whole series. And blog about it. This week. I guarantee it, or we’ll give you a full refund.

Oh – here’s some obligatory Oscars content: The best Oscars-related opinion writing was in yesterday’s Washington Post. Robin Givhan made a sensible case for dumping the ridiculous custom of letting stars hold the fashion industry hostage for alleged “good publicity.” (“Designers in the Red: The System’s Wearing Thin”)

Frak Pak? Really?

It’s the final season of Battlestar Galactica and SciFi is scrambling to monetize every last moment.

“Buy artifacts from Earth!” they keep cajoling. Er, no thanks, I have plenty.

In addition to all of the prop and costume auctions, SciFi and Kentucky Fried Chicken are apparently running a sweepstakes. I hadn’t paid any attention to it – living in a time-shifted viewing universe I generally ignore the commercials. One of my knitting buddies was over today to catch up on this season and I failed to fast-forward through one of the commercial breaks in the first episode. Our jaws all dropped when we saw the commercial.

I just hit the SciFi channel website to see if they’re still running the promotion. I see that they’re now calling it the “Can’t say that word on tv” sweepstakes. I’d like to imagine that the Battlestar Galactica writers laughed so hard they ruptured their spleens when the SciFi marketing braintrust rolled out what they originally called the “frak pak”.

Now, obviously, you can say the word on television, because they do. That’s the point of the word. SciFi is basic cable, so having characters utter the word fuck every 6 seconds on a 42 minute program would break the bank. On the other hand, I don’t know if I’m willing to give SciFi enough credit to believe that they rolled this out on purpose so that they could then change the name with a wink-wink-nudge-nudge bit of viral publicity.

Husband suggested I embed this video for those who don’t know the show. Here’s a montage of BSG characters using the word Frak. (It’s pretty amusing, anyway).



So why don’t I think this was a calculated plan on the part of SciFi and KFC?

For starters, I don’t think KFC is that cutting edge in their thinking, nor do I think their shareholders would probably dig that plan.

Secondly, SciFi is the channel that killed the clever, witty and original Dresden Files in favor of Sanctuary. I rest my case.

Still, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that my inner 13 year old found this frakkin hysterical. It’s really a miracle I’m able to get through this post without pointing out to KFC that they missed the boat with this one, because they do allegedly sell chicken at their establishment and the phrase “box of cocks” rhymes as nicely as “frak pak” and could be a cross-promotional bonanza.

Maybe that’s not as funny as I think it is – I proposed it to Husband and he just stared at me while I laughed hysterically.

I think I ate too many cookies today.

If you so desire, you can learn about how the FCC determines if the usage of a word is profane or obscene by reading the Golden Globes Award Order, which was the result of the legal wrangling after Bono used what the FCC refers to officially as the “F-word” (in quotation marks) during the Golden Globes. Or, you can just say “frak pak” a lot and giggle hysterically, which is what I’ve been doing.

Announcing the Art of Change – January 20, 2009

This just landed in my inbox:

Artomatic and Playa del Fuego are excited to announce

The Art of Change :
An Inaugural Celebration
of DC’s Creative Communities

Downtown DC, January 20, 2009, 8 pm until … ?

Save the date (because there’s nowhere you’ld rather be on a
Tuesday night!), and look for full details this Friday, January 2nd!

The website is at artists-ball.org and will have all the details as they emerge.

Things

My brother has spoken approximately 27 words in his entire life. It’s possible he speaks at work, when he’s deep in the bowels of the Pentagon creating the dinosaur-human hybrid super-soldiers that you must pretend to know nothing about, but I can’t vouch for that.

He gets this lack of verbosity from our father.

Among my mother and her legion of siblings, there has not been a documented break in the conversation since 1932. There are rumors that there was a moment of collective silence at a Church service in 1953, but lacking credible eye-witnesses, I choose not to believe it. Conversations in my mother’s family are like the audio recordings NASA pumps into space, they will be floating far out into the Universe long after our sun explodes and our galaxy is snuffed out in a fiery cataclysm.

My father, on the other hand, was a man of few words.

I don’t mention these conversational contrasts because I worry that someday life-forms in a distant galaxy are going to pick up an argument over cheeze-it flavors on their radio telescopes, which will have far-reaching implications for their civilization.

I mention it because my father had an effective method for dealing with busy bodies – those people who won’t take no for an answer and demand to know what else you need to do that could possibly be more important than what they want you to do.

The conversation would go something like this:

“But surely you can stay for a few more hours.”
“No, I’m sorry, I have things to do.”
“What sort of things?”
At this, my father would lean in, repeat simply, ominously, in very hushed tones, “Things.”

And then, he would smile.

It was the unexpected smile that sold it. If you’re curt and rude you just seem socially inept and boorish. If you smile and are polite as you brush them off, it unsettles them a bit and allows for a graceful get-away. I highly recommend it.

It might help if, like my father, you’re very large and heavily armed and otherwise never say a word, Regardless, I say go for it. If nothing else, maybe politeness itself will be enough to confuse them.