Chicago: Malort Cocktail

i spent all last summer going to and from the g-d post office
worst: beast in rogers park
second worst: angry woman at uptown PO who took her damn time
third worst: the manager at the devon PO who refused to open the doors because the woman who normally works called off and he didn't want to deal with the people standing in line so he just ignored us until 8:45. was supposed to open at 8. i refused to leave and spent my time calling the customer service number.

i am in charge of the work series store, so i was/am constantly mailing DVDs to europe. less so now that the initial rush is over, but we get about 1 order a monk.

haha
month

I was selling stuff on Amazon for a while and AFAIK, the only way to mail something book rate aka media mail is to do it in person.

yep
also you have to do customs form to send shit to europe. i have lots of the forms at home and i fill them out before i go, but you can't use the APC or whatever it's called

to JVC - Well, I have a general suspicion of a lot of SciFi, to the point that I was all "meh" to BSG at first. The thing that makes BSG different is that it's not about the science. It's not like Star Trek, which I never, in any of its billions of iterations, been able to get into. It is very much a really intense, character-driven drama that happens to be set in space. Space as a setting is certainly important to the story, but the focus is on the people and their relationships with each other.

I mean, by the last season, I pretty much cried during every episode because I had become so attached to the characters at that point. I like Lost a lot, but it doesn't make me cry.

europe/out of the country, that is

Monk might be a pretty interesting installment in the series.

wiseman already did that

I actually watched Star Trek TNG for a while (with Courtney!) b/c it was AWFUL.

what i told john a while ago is that bsg is mainly about the morality of war. i don't think this really helped convince him to watch it though

Also re: BSG, the acting is of a much higher caliber than a lot of those cheeseriffic SciFi channel shows, and the CGI space battle stuff is totally quality, plus the guy who writes the music is super talented.

The biggest danger of BSG is that it might make you more tolerant of other nerdy entertainments. For example, I'm not going to say I'm some sort of Torchwood fangirl, but I'm also not going to say I don't watch it when Jeff isn't around to roll his eyes all over the place. (Note: BSG beats Torchwood on all fronts, except camp.)

Oh! Hey, I saw a car yesterday w/ a pink ribbon breast-cancer awareness sticker on it. The sticker read

SAVE THE TA-TAS

is torchwood about the wild west?

that's deadwood

and maverick

Thanks Jenny, I will certainly try to convince her with some of that, sounds pretty reasonable.

Plus I mean, tell her she can watch just the pilot, which is movie-length, and then decide if she wants to watch the rest of the show. It's not like agreeing to spend two hours of an evening watching BSG commits her to a lifetime of Dragon Con attendance or anything.

Torchwood is a new Dr. Who spin-off about a secret organization of paranormal/space-time rift investigators led by Captain Jack Harkness. Typical modern British television special effects cheese, a la the new Dr. Who.

I actually watched Star Trek TNG for a while (with Courtney!) b/c it was AWFUL.

;_;

I LOVE Achewood!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torchwood

Sorry, they deal with mostly extraterrestrials, not necessarily paranormal stuff.

whoah wait i think i actually missed the pilot

the first episode i saw was the one where there was 33 minutes between each jump

yeah you missed the pilot, smooth move ex lax

Going back to the post office talk, the worst was when we did mailers to the press, because I'd always have to send out multiple packages (CD plus press kit) at once. Usually it wasn't too many, but after the remix album came out last year, we did a national press blitz, and I showed up to the post office in the Merchandise Mart with a trash bag full of like 100 envelopes.

See, I think my wife actually has a higher tolerance for this stuff than she is ready to admit. She always goes on about how much she hated X-Files, but she is addicted to Fringe. They both seem pretty similar to me, at least irt the paranormal/weird shit going on.

Ha, Kr loved X-Files but is also I think kind of embarrassed about it, because she was like 13 when it was on.

the pilot is....a miniseries? please halp guys, i need to know how the rest of my academic career will be ruined

right, i thought the fringe was the lame '00s version of x-files

I think I'm ready for BSG, even if phrases like "CGI space battles" give me serious pause.

Alllllllllllllssssssssssssooooooooooo there are a lot of badass women on the show, which is nice, and Mary McDonnell plays a v. badass, hot, older woman who wears business suits in space and will toss you out of an airlock as soon as look at you, which is pretty delightful.

http://www.daemonstv.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/nup_107035_0234.thumbnail.jpg

there is something about her delivery that is soothing and also, like, weirdly nasal

I think I'm ready for BSG, even if phrases like "CGI space battles" give me serious pause.

Hahaha. The "CGI space battles" on the one episode of Babylon 5 my friend made me watch was nearly enough to put ME off sci-fi forever.

I tried to love Fringe but it was just so formulaic that I just stopped watching it and didn't even notice until just now when I read about it on this thread.

Yeah, Evan, you missed the pilot, which you should go back and watch since it sets up a lot of important foundation for the whole thing. 33 is the first ep of the first regular season.

see, i'd been running on teh assumption that all of the back story i'm missing (who are the cylons, why does gaius see one all the time, etc) were going to be revealed to me over the seasons, as a mystery. now i'm guessing that all that shit is in the pilot, huh

xp

haha, i bet it will also undermine one of the neatest "devices" in the first season: the whole helo is on caprica w/sharon. i understood it to be flash-back for the entire season and then it's like ~bam~ tricked ya it's been happening concurrently the entire time!

The "CGI space battles" on the one episode of Babylon 5

those were infamously terrible

(yes, i just admitted to watching babylon 5)

I kinda like Fringe, but mostly because of Daniels and all the other Wire cameos and because the crazy scientist guy reminds me v v much of my father-in-law.

ugh babylon 5 blewwwwwwww

i also feel weirdly guilty about not getting into firefly (for reasons i believe i've stated before)....it's like it ~should~ be right up my alley, but whatever

xp tried watching fringe and that it was garbage. a cheap assembly of myriad, better shows

the whole helo is on caprica w/sharon. i understood it to be flash-back for the entire season and then it's like ~bam~ tricked ya it's been happening concurrently the entire time!

waht, i don't remember this

no, see, that's the thing. it didn't happen! i'm guessing it was established in the pilot that helo was downed on caprica w/sharon and that everything that was happening was going on at the same time. i just thought that it was a flashback because, you know, TWO sharons

The pilot doesn't fully explain everything. You don't find out why Gaius sees a Cylon until the series finale and you don't find out who the Cylons really are until the end of season four.

GUYS you are getting into spoiler territory for JVC, but Jordan he's talking about something that was ongoing throughout the entire first season so you should really remember it.

ah, ok, stop talking about it, NO SPOILERS (<--- which is why i'm not reading the ILX threads devoted to BSG)

And Evan you need to watch the pilot, stat.

Another reason not the read the ILX BSG threads is because there are like three people who shit all over the show like it's their fucking job, basically shutting down any possibility of there being any discussion of the show that doesn't revolve around why it sucks.

DLing

btw i <3 u starbuck

first season was so long ago

You don't find out why Gaius sees a Cylon until the series finale

but this was only a couple weeks ago and i don't remember an actual explanation!

I didn't see it coming at all when Gabriel Byrne bites the gymnast/patient in the neck and it turns out that he is a colonel in the army of the undead.

that was explained in the webisodes

Hey, the gal who acted in my radio-show play is now on Scrubs and is funny on the webisodes (haven't seen the real onez).

i am basically DLing 8GB of video at the moment