I finally rented the 3 hour miniseries of the Battlestar Galactica remake - and wow, was I impressed. I almost stopped it about a half hour in because it starts really slow, but then it got really good, and I was hooked the rest of the way. Usually a slow start indicates bad storytelling, but in this case it sets you up with an extreme contrast that ratchets up the tension. And it has good acting! I thought I was watching a theatrically released thriller. I'm glad it got picked up as a series. I can't wait till everything comes out on DVD - because I refuse to pay for cable (I'm not paying $40 a month for ads and scads of badly produced reality TV).

The original series was my favorite TV show when I was four years old, so I thought that this would be cheesy, but it has better writing than most of the crap on TV. I didn't know what to expect, and thought at first that it picked up and carried on from the first series, but it actually appears to be a remake (my memory of the original series is slightly hazy). The original characters are there, but slightly retooled. For instance Starbuck is a female pilot (still cigar chomping) instead of a Han Solo clone. It even has the kid with the bowl cut!

Also, a friend of mine worked on the special effects - which are fantastic for TV! Way to go Mark!

I've just added a Sketchbook section (not that cool really), and updated the Writing section with the new site layout. I also added a favicon, so if you have IE, Firefox, or Mozilla, you should see it in your toolbar and tabs (Firefox).

I was told by my good friend Ben that my old website was going to go down at the end of June (he helped set up the hosting company). Yet, as of the end of July, the website is still there. I rushed and rushed to find a comparable solution (this website), right when I was fighting a deadline. I'm beginning to wonder how long the site will float along (it was free for 8 years, so the account might never be deleted). It's a little annoying, but not really a problem I guess.

In other news, I finished HBP two days after it was released (I should have been writing, I really, really should have been writing). I had to wait around like an antsy little kid for my coworkers to finish it, and I'm still waiting for most of them. We've been whispering surreptitiously in dark corners. What a shocking ending! Zombies! Breeding dementors! A certain significant someone dying! A complete change of direction in setting and plot! My normal friends aren't that into HP, which is fortunate for them, since I feel like an addict frothing at the mouth (JKR won't even start book 7 until this winter - argh).