Only Pizza is Everywhere

Slept in late to-day, to 1pm. It couldn't be helped--last night was the first opportunity I'd had to do laundry in a week. With the extra hour of wakefulness, I played a little Daggerfall, predecessor to Morrowind and Oblivion, taking place in the same world and featuring many similarities in gameplay. Daggerfall gained some national attention when Joe Lieberman singled it out as one of his ten "least wanted video games" during his crusade to save the souls of gamers from 3D violence and the shameful sight of the naked human form.

It seems especially silly now with Daggerfall's crude, two-dimensional sprite characters and poor lighting effects. The only thing that came close to putting me into a homicidal rage was the difficulty of the first dungeon. Daggerfall, like the other Elder Scrolls games that succeeded it, was known for its open-endedness, allowing players to explore a vast and intricate world, in some ways larger than the later games, and allowing players to be any sort of person. You wouldn't know it from the first cave/fortress, from which you're required to escape, which has so far managed to kill me something like twelve million times with just rats and bats, except when I'm using a bruiser barbarian character. "No choice, huh?" as Deckard would say.

I went to Mission Valley Centre again for lunch yesterday. There seems to be a lot more languages spoken at that mall, and a wider variety of skin colours, than at most of the other malls around here. Trying to decide what to eat at the food court, I saw one place with no sign visible except one large, black and white one that read, "Pizza". I ordered an eight inch personal pizza from the Indian woman working there, and as I waited I looked at the menu and saw curry, rice, and a variety of other things under the heading of "Authentic Indian Cuisine". It didn't seem like the place got much business, so I guess the owner decided to fill the void left by the closing of the food court's only pizza place.

The pizza itself was that same, greasy, anonymous pizza you can get from most cheap little places.

I kind of liked the ninth episode of Battlestar Galactica's second season. I like the chief building a fighter from scratch, and Sharon helping out with the Cylon virus infecting the ship, though I still don't understand why they won't interrogate her. The interactions between the crew about the captive Cylon, though, were the first that felt genuine in a long time. I particularly liked the stuff about friends not knowing how to talk to one another knowing the others' closeness to the Cylon, and the difficulty people had acknowledging their own fond memories of Sharon. People not knowing how betrayed they ought to feel, and whether or not they should feel ashamed of feeling betrayed. Adama's behaviour with Sharon still doesn't make much sense, though.

I've noticed there's a Hierarchy of Wisdom, let's call it, on the show. That is, on any contested issue with only one correct interpretation, whether or not someone is right is invariably based on their rank in this hierarchy, and not upon any expressed rationalisation. The hierarchy, as far as I can figure, goes something like this;

1. Roslin
2. Starbuck
3. Commander Adama
4. Apollo

And Colonel Tigh is always wrong, except when he's talking to his wife, in which case she convinces him to take the incorrect action. Any time there's a breech in this hierarchy, I'm going to get excited. Which maybe is what the writers are going for.

I've noticed that Roslin is not only annoying, she really doesn't seem to do anything. The only things she's been responsible for all season were deciding to look for the Tomb of Athena, and telling Adama to find common ground with the Cylon captive. Which makes a whole lot of sense after she'd been willing to toss them all out into space before.