TV Talk - Battlestar Galactica Season 2

Well, spring has finally decided to show its lovely face. Unfortunately, you weren’t able to tell that for a bit. I guess God was like “Well, I gave y’all 70 degree weather in Feburary, so winter’s gonna stay for a little longer!” Welcome to Tennessee, folks. During my week off from work, I thought it was time to check up on those 12 Colonies of Kobol. I pretty much knocked through Season 2 of Battlestar Galactica. I even started on Season 3 before the break ended. My plan was to talk about this season next month, but since I’m pretty much done with it, it’s coming now.

Season 2 of BSG aired between 2005 and 2006 with a long break between the first 10 and last 10 episodes. That’s why this season is split up into two DVD sets in some regions. I was more or less watching the show at this time. While football games weren’t in the way anymore, there was still college life and work (I worked at Wal-Mart during the summer) to consider. I know I missed some episodes but I know I watched the last few episodes of the season as they aired. It’s hard to forget about the end of Season 2.

The season picks up with the events of what happened in Season 1’s finale. Let’s just say that a crapload of crap happens and it’s a while before things get back to the status quo. There was insurrection, someone got shot, and Ellen Tigh was being annoying as usual. They’re still on the way to Earth and the Cylons are still on their tail. We even find out that there are more survivors on a Battlestar called the Pegasus. As she show continues, we get into a lot of struggles within the fleet. We even get a few new Cylon human models played by some cool sci-fi alums. It all culminates with an ending that I’m still shocked by to this day.

Random Thoughts #48 - "Painting's Messy"

I haven't gotten to this point in the rewatch yet, but I really relate to this pic now. I'm just not as mad as Adama.

Well, this year is moving fast. With all that's going on in the world, it's like things don't want to slow down. At least my break from work helped me out. I took a week off a couple of weeks ago to rest a bit and do some house work. As you can tell,  I didn't get any blog work done since there's so much going on. Now that I'm rejuvenated (and not losing track of my jump drive!!!), I think it's time for another edition of Random Thoughts.

Channel Not-so-Awesome?
So, this was a surprise in the making. Channel Awesome (formerly known as That Guy With The Glasses) was a site I used to peruse back in the day. It's a  site that hosts (or now hosted) videos from Internet reviewers like the Nostalgia Critic, Linkara, Spoony, and other folk of that sort. Watching them (especially Linkara) was one of the things that got me into talking about geeky stuff here. I barely go to the site these days since pretty much everyone (current and former contributors) is on YouTube. For more info on who they are, here's a link since I'm not a wiki.

Anyway, Channel Awesome is going through a bit of controversy. Back in March, former and current CA folk got to talking on Twitter about the company's problems. It became so much of a thing that some of them released a Google document in order to put their points in a more focused area. Twitter apparently can't handle long threads. CA did issue a statement and that made things worse since it was apparently the worst non-apology ever uttered.

I've been looking at the controversy which is new for me. I try to avoid Internet drama but when it involves something I'm familiar with, my interest is piqued. Because of all the fuss, a lot of contributors have left the site. From what I've read from the document (it's over 60 pages) and CA's response to it all, I can't blame most of them. While some grievances were minor, some of the complaints were pretty messed up. I don't have much of an opinion on the whole, honestly. If all that's been said is true, then boom... shakalaka-shakalaka. I'm not personally invested in it, but seeing all this fallout has been interesting to say the least.

Random Thoughts On... Al Ewing's Mighty Avengers

So how do I start this post out? Hmm…

“Wait, Al Ewing’s not black? I’m kinda shocked to find that out! Still, nice job dude!”

For a while now, I’ve been going through different runs of comics physically or through apps like Marvel Unlimited. One series I was somewhat curious about was Al Ewing’s run on Mighty Avengers. It was a series that was supposed to take lesser known known Marvel superheroes and team them up. The interesting thing was that the team was mostly full of minority characters. I was curious about getting the series, but when I saw Greg Land was doing the art, I said “Nah.” After re-reading it and it’s “sequel,” Captain America and The Mighty Avengers, I’m kind of regretting that.

Volume 2 of Mighty Avengers started to hit shelves in 2014 right as the umpteenth Marvel crossover, Infinity, was coming out. Luke Cage and a few other lesser-known heroes (including Spider-Man at times) decided to create a new team. Unlike the big-leagues, they were more interested in helping the common folk. They even set up a call center at their headquarters in Gem Theater. After 14 issues, the book was then relaunched as Captain America and the Mighty Avengers (CAATMA) just in time for Marvel’s other umpteenth crossover, AXIS. It then came to an end at nine issues as the next crossover event, Secret Wars, was starting up… are you seeing a pattern?

Anyway, I came across the series during my read-through of Johnathan Hickman’s runs on Avengers and New Avengers. I was going to talk about it last month, but I’m lazy when it comes to this stuff, so you’re getting it here. Al Ewing, who’s still at it these days, helmed the book for all its duration. The run did have multiple artists, though. On pencils, we had the aforementioned Greg Land, Valerio Schiti, Salvador Larroca, Luke Ross, and Iban Coello. Most of the pencillers like Ross, Larroca, Schiti, and Coello provided inks for their own work. Other inking was done by Jay Liesten. The colorists were Frank D’Amata, Edgar Delgado, Matt Milla, and Rachelle Rosenburg. The lettering was done by Cory Petit and Travis Lanham.

Okay, I can either pick Captain America, Ryu, Wolverine, or that weird catlady from Deathstalkers to beat this mofo.

Trek Novels - Star Trek: The Captain's Table Book 3 - The Mist

“Today’s post is the start at a look at an anthology series that was released throughout 1998 called 'The Captain’s Table.' The basic premise is that there is a special bar called The Captain’s Table and captains of all sorts come and relax for a bit. Six books looked at the different captains at that time… I’m going to try to look each book during the next few months…”

1 Year, a few months, and some days later…

So, I really lapsed on this one. If there’s anyone out there who was wondering about my opinion on the rest of the books, I’m sorry. This little series got away from me. I guess I needed a break from Trek books since I hadn’t read many for a while. After reading this one, I can kind of see why I needed that break.

Today’s book is the third one from the series and it features Captain Benjamin Sisko. I guess I needed to get another fictional hero in for Black History Month and Sisko perfectly fits that position. It was written by husband/wife duo Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Smith was one of the writers who came up with the concept of this extradimensional bar. While Sisko’s time in the bar took place sometime during Season 6, his story took place a few months before the Cardassians joined the Dominion. So, what would make a former Cardassian space station disappear into another dimension?

Star Trek: The Captain’s Table – The Mist
Writers: Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch

BRIEF BLURB: Captain Sisko is forced to take a break from the Dominion War by Dr. Bashir. He heads to Bajor and finds the Captain’s Table. There, he tells a story about how his crew encountered a legendary species called The Mist.

Favorites – 12 Favorite Black Characters in Comic Books

You know, I really haven’t done much for Black History Month here. I tend not to do much in February anyway. Heck, I’d rather talk about us any other time. Why regulate blackness to one month anyway? Maybe I shouldn’t complain since a lot of history could and does get swept under the rug. It’s also possible that I’m just filling up space with this paragraph. After all, I’m usually a dude with few words.

Since it’s Black History Month and Black Panther is finally coming to theaters, it’s time to get to this post. I’ve wanted to do this for a while but never knew when to do it. While there aren’t many, there are some cool black characters in comics. While some of them aren’t necessarily my favorites, there are some I really like. I especially like when they’re actually well-written. I’d probably say that Marvel uses them better but DC has good ones too. So, here are some of my favorite Black characters from comic books. It’s also not in any order either. First, I have some honorable mentions:

• Bishop (Marvel) – Lucas Bishop’s up here mostly because he may be the second black superhero I ever ran across. For those who don’t know, he’s another X-Man from the future. I first saw him on the 90’s X-Men cartoon. I thought his power set (he can absorb energy and use that energy) was pretty cool. There’s also the fact that was one of the only X-Men who had sense to carry weapons. That being said, I was not a fan of what the writers did with the character around the late 2000’s. How can you turn one of the only black dudes on the X-Men into a villain? At least he’s not like that now.
• Falcon (Marvel) – Sam Wilson isn’t really one of my favorites. Guys who fly and can communicate with birds aren’t my thing. I also haven’t read much of anything with him in it. Still, I did like his turn as Captain America when he was written by Nick Spencer. Yeah, it’s the guy who made Steve Rogers into a fascist. We can’t all be perfect. Also, Anthony Mackie has been killing it in the MCU. Maybe he gets to wield a shield in a later movie?
• Black Lightning (DC) – Then, there’s DC’s first black superhero. As you can tell by the name, Black Lightning has power over electricity. I really didn’t see any of Jefferson Pierce until Infinite Crisis. He was pretty cool in Brad Meltzer’s run on JLA. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen much from him since then. I haven’t even gotten to watch the CW show yet. I’ve heard that it’s good, so here’s hoping I can get some more Lightning goodness there.
• Bronze Tiger (DC) – Ben Turner, aka Bronze Tiger, is pretty much in the antihero side of things. While he has been a villain (especially on CW’s Arrow), he’s sometimes a good guy. I talked about him last month. While I haven’t read a lot on him, I like what I’ve read so far. He’s just a dude who’s awesome at martial arts. That’s cool to me. If you saw what I was posting last month, you’d see that.