I always thought Gaeta was the Starfleet character in BSG. He had absolute optimism that things would turn out for the best as long as he trusted in authority and gave people the benefit of the doubt. And then New Caprica happened. Helo just went around judging people, which is unnecessary in Star Trek because the…

I remember the fury. The sly casting of Richard Hatch as an scheming rebel leader went a long way to assuage fan anger.

I appreciated Sonia spelling out that Tricia Helfer's hotness is intrinsic to her Six-ness, which I had never really thought about. (Me, during original viewing: She's sure purrty!) This show seems to have lucked into casting unknown actors who turned out to be amazing, which allowed the show to do very interesting…

Oh man, Gaeta had the best character arc in the show. Can these reviews have a "Gaeta Watch"?

Stevie Wonder - "Part Time Lover"
Afro-Cuban All Stars - "Amor Verdadero (Guajira-Son)"
Wickerman - "Girls Gungo Walk"
Michael Nyman - "To the Edge of the Earth" from The Piano soundtrack
No Doubt - "Sixteen"

Amen to that.

As a kid, I repeatedly played my parents cassettes of the Chuck Berry hits, Little Richard hits, and an album of opera tenor Mario Lanza covering traditional European drinking songs. I regret nothing.

+1 on this. Even if you form a team with four friends in Dota or LOL, I don't think you get the social feedback loops that WoW guild raiding gives people.

One of my childhood friends divorced his wife in large part because he didn't want her to play WoW so much. Last he had heard, she had moved in with her parents, who were threatening to kick her out unless she stopped playing and got a job.

Case in point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…. To summarize, a whole bunch of sources including the Smithsonian indicated that the chief in the Seminole Wars named Billy Bowlegs and the Seminole captain who fought on the side of the Union during the Civil War named Billy Bowlegs were the same person. An editor who had…

The list at http://en.wikipedia.org/wik… can be seen as proof both that Wikipedia is totally useless or the best general reference source ever.

I knew an engineer who did building inspections on military bases. He said the barracks of regular soldiers tended to be dumps with empty booze bottles and posters of naked women and weapons on the walls. The Army Rangers were even more so, with the Rangers going out of their way to make sure the inspector knew that…

Groundhog Day's thesis is "If people are allowed enough chances to fuck up, they'll eventually become better and kinder." And it doesn't limit itself to the protagonist; by making the lead the worst person in town, the movie is clearly making a universal statement. Most entertainment never even gets close to that…

Charybdis tested well with teens.

"DM on a power trip" is spelled "tarrasque"

I really don't play new games due to Steam backlog/computer limitations, but my favorite of the year was definitely One Finger Death Punch. My favorite game I've finished this year is Hexcells (brilliant!), but Dota 2 sucks up most of my gaming time.

Unless you had a close close connection, he would always be referred to as Ozu in the third person, or Ozu-san directly, or a higher honorific. A close childhood or school friend might refer to him as Ozu-kun. It's possible close family members or other intimates may use Yasujiro-kun or pet names like Yasu-kun,…

The Weeknd - "Wicked Games"
De La Soul - "Keepin' The Faith"
Mystafya - "Gwan"
Devendra Banhart - "Michigan State"
Massive Attack - "Five Man Army"

I've heard the Magic microtransactions are more annoying than in previous versions. Anything of note?

"Telling stories" seems like choosing to fight on movies' home turf. For my money, the strength of games is in that it's uniquely situated to give agency to the player. A Crusader Kings player may realize that assassinating the child ruler of the next kingdom over is the best way to get rid of a threat, and feel…