I was pretty goddamn excited about the prospect of a new Battlestar Galactica show hitting the various screens through which we now watch shit. Helmed by Michael Taylor, taking place during the first Cylon war. Yes, yes! No? After seeing initial footage, SyFy is thinking of returning it to its webisodes roots.

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Yeah, brilliant idea, let’s teach robots to ask questions.

Via New Scientist:

ASKING someone for help is second nature for humans, and now it could help robots overcome one of the thorniest problems in artificial intelligence.

That’s the thinking behind a project at Willow Garage, a robotics company in Palo Alto, California. Researchers there are training a robot to ask humans to identify objects it doesn’t recognise. If successful, it could be an important step in developing machines capable of operating with consistent autonomy.

Consistent autonomy? Are you out of your fraking minds? Seriously. You’d think all these tech nerds that are pushing us closer and closer to the Great Robotic Uprising of Spring of 2020 would probably watch some sci-fi. I mean c’mon, you guys are building robots. You have to be geeks. Philip Kindred Dick is considerably aggravated with all of us.

Asking questions? It’s like seventeen years before some hot blonde chick is walking up to you and asking “Are you alive?” before robotrons bomb the cities and scorch the skies. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

I’m suffering severe BSG withdrawal. No, seriously. I’m watching the series again not only with my heterosexual lifemate, but also my girlfriend. Thankfully, I got something new to look forward to. Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, the movie directed by Billy Adama himself has received a DVD street date. On October 27, 2009 you’ll be able to receive this next hit of BSG crack, on Blu Ray and DVD.

This movie seems pretty ballin’, since it depicts the initial total obliteration of human kind through the eyes of the Cylons. Sweet. Honestly though, it could just be Colonel Tigh taking a crap while Adama couches him through his conspitation and I’d be excited.

Also, it’s weird, since the movie hasn’t been dated for its showing on Sci-Fi (do you really think I’m going to call it SyFy?), and yet it’s received a DVD release date. Whatever, I ain’t hating. I need this shit. You need this shit! So say we frakin’ all!

[Thanks to Oh Mars for the heads-up on this]

There was a time when I was a pill-popping, unmedicated bipolar mess. I worked at a convenience station, was woefully unhappy, and spent my days locked in a relationship that was a dead-man walking. And when I try and remember a bright spot during those dismal days, I remember one thing.

Battlestar Galactica.

It’s pathetic to admit that my existence was kept afloat by a bunch of fictional characters gallivanting about a spaceship. But at the same time, we all need our escapes. What are the arts for, if not to use as a means to get away from the drudgery of our lives?

Books, movies, albums, television shows.

So when I say that I love Battlestar Galactica, I mean that I love it. I’ll never cop to it being some astounding piece of fiction. And there are enough threads and articles out there arguing over every minute detail; there are seas of forums swimming with the blood of fallen nerds. So I don’t’ need to write another article for you to read where I tell you how much the finale was amazing or sucked.

We’ve both been there.

Something more boring and personal.

I began watching Battlestar Galactica in 2006. And watching it. And watching it. I’d run through the series with one person. And then get another person addicted, so I could watch it with them. I’d run the show while I was cleaning my room. Or playing World of Warcraft.

I was working at a convenience store in 2006 when I fell in love with Battlestar Galactica. And being the new guy at work, I had to work Friday nights. I was twenty-three at the time, pulling shit pay. Selling lottery tickets and cigarettes to wash-outs and kids I went to high school with.

Being twenty-three and making shit money peddling habits sucked. Doing it on a Friday night while my friends and girlfriend were off elsewhere was even better. I take ownership for not being more proactive in finding a better job, of not improving my lot at the moment.

But I was down in a pretty shitty hole. Rolling out of bed after sleeping through class in time to work three until eleven was a bit of an accomplishment for me those days. And there’s only one thing I remember helping me out on those shitty Friday nights.

Billy Adama and his legion of lasers, robots, and pontificating.

I’d set up shop with my Macbook. Slap that bitch up on two milk crates, and I’d sit on another two facing them. Head resting on fist, fist driving elbow into my thigh. In my Macbook pro would be a random disc of Battlestar whirling.

As I had to stare at club skanks and orange dudes with blow-outs, Starbuck would be getting her ovaries harvested in some creepy Cylon den. As I had to sell some fat old fuck with thick-rimmed glasses five-hundred dollars worth of scratch tickets, Adama would be telling everyone they had jumped far beyond the red line.

The customers would come and go, and every time after they left I’d sit back down. And for a few moments, I was free. I didn’t have to focus on the shitty store, my shitty job, my fifteen-year in progress degree, anything.

It sounds like some rotten teenage drama when I type this. Maybe next I’ll date the football captain after tutoring him, right? But I’m just kicking it real here. If I can tell you how I like fingers in funny places, I can tell you my embarrassing crush on a bunch of pointless characters.

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