Unofficial Battlestar Galactica Blog

So long, farewell, good bye

It is with a mixture of sadness and relief that I write this blog post. The Unofficial Battlestar Galactica Blog is officially closing up shop and entering retirement. The site will not go away anytime soon--there is far too much valuable content--but I will no longer be updating. This is the last post.

Due to my family, other web ventures, continued success at work, and other personal endeavours, I just don't have the time I once I had for scouring the BSG universe and running a site at the level of quality that I expect from myself. There are plenty of BSG sites out there now, some really great ones.

If you run a BSG blog, feel free to post the link in the comments so my readers can find it!

It has really been fun being a part of the Battlestar Glactica community. I have emailed and talked to some great people and have seen great outpourings of support and thanks. My best to you all!

Cheers,
Trapper Markelz

P.S. I can always be reached through my personal website and at trapper@tjmweb.com.

Thoughts on Downloaded delayed

Hey everyone. I just want to apologize and say that my thoughts for the episode Downloaded have been delayed this week. I will try and have them posted Monday night after work. I was involved in a video gaming marathon this weekend which meant that I only just now got around to watching the episode.

I promise never to get mad at Ron Moore for delaying his podcast ever again. Sometimes things just come up!

I just can't win...

Last night I fired up my DVR to watch this week's episode and wouldn't you know that the massive snow storm we had knocked out my satellite dish. Someone is conspiring against me to make watching this show as hard as possible. I downloaded iTunes in hope of buying it... but it isn't posted yet. I scoured some torrent sites, looking for a seed, but all the ones I tried were off-line...

So here I sit... waiting... longing for my BSG fix... and it feels so far away...

/drama

I haven't seen it yet!

My brother and sister were in town this week... with that and other family things this weekend, I have still been unable to find time to watch episode 2.12. We are having people over to watch 24 tonight, so I might try to squeak it in after everyone leaves... that all depends on how much beer we drink and how late everyone stays.

Battlestar Galactica isn't the only show I am behind on... My wife and I still haven't watched Lost. It has just been one of those weeks.

So, I promise a write-up soon... as soon as I have a chance to see it!

Frakkin Toasters, my new partner in crime

As you can see on the far right of the page, there is an icon link to the Frakkin Toasters comic. I am partnering with Jett Atwood to provide that link. A new comic is planned on a weekly basis and the thumbnail icon on this site can help alert you when it is available.

I hope you enjoy the comics as much as I do. Thanks Jett!

Battlestar Galactica 2005, Year in review

Since I started this site in February, I have posted almost 600 times. I decided to take a look back and pull out my favorite creations, community moments and show memories. Enjoy:

(Listed oldest to newest)

Great Quote
February 08, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/02/great_quote.html

Grace Park in Maxim Magazine
February 17, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/02/grace_park_in_m.html

BSG is perfect for our times
February 24, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/02/bsg_is_perfect_.html

Official Battlestar Podcast
March 04, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/03/official_battle.html

Thoughts on The Hand of God
March 13, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/03/thoughts_on_the.html

Cycles of History
March 22, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/03/cycles_of_histo.html

Best five minutes of television ever aired?
March 25, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/03/best_five_minut.html

Fan fiction sample platter
March 30, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/03/fan_fiction_sam.html

Battlestar Galactica Wiki
April 01, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/04/battlestar_gala.html

New Battlestar Fan
April 24, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/04/new_battlestar__1.html

How Battlestar Galactica killed broadcast TV
May 14, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/05/how_battlestar_.html

BSG Spoiler Overload
July 07, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/07/spoiler_overloa.html

Season 1 Soundtrack listening notes
July 10, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/07/season_1_soundt.html

What is your season 2 wishlist?
July 12, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/07/what_is_your_se.html

Thoughts on Scattered
July 16, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/07/thoughts_on_sca.html

Hey you, defend that coup!
July 25, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/07/hey_you_defend_.html

Thoughts on Fragged
July 30, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/07/thoughts_on_fra.html

Thoughts on Home - Part 2
August 28, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/08/thoughts_on_hom_1.html

Spoiler-free (kinda) recap of the 2.07 podcast
August 29, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/08/spoilerfree_kin.html

The BSG Origin story
August 30, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/08/the_cylon_origi.html

My Battlestar Galactica song
September 18, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/09/my_battlestar_g.html

Katee Sackhoff flies Alaskan Airlines
September 23, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/09/katee_sackhoff_.html

Thoughts on Pegasus
September 25, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/09/thoughts_on_peg.html

The debate: Reality or Disgusting?
September 28, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/09/gritty_reality_.html

Season one vs. Season two
October 16, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/10/season_one_vs_s.html

Battlestar Galactica Gift Guide
November 26, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/11/battlestar_gala.html

Subject 2 Discussion Interview
November 29, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/11/myself_on_subje.html

Your iPod, powered by BSG
December 06, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/12/your_ipod_power.html

Time calls BSG #1 show of 2005
December 22, 2005
http://www.battlestarblog.com/2005/12/time_calls_bsg_.html

Do any of you have a favorite moment from BSG 2005? Maybe something you created? Commentary or an episode review that you composed? Maybe some fancy icons for LJ or a nice wallpaper? If you do, put the link in the comments!

The best BSG Christmas present?

Let's here it! Leave a comment on this post. What Battlestar Galactica related stuff did you get for Christmas? I did not receive a single BSG related item, but I did convince a friend to buy himself a subscription to Netflix for Christmas so he can watch the show and he is now loving every minute of it.

I guess you could say I got NBS Universal another fan for Christmas. :)

So? What did you get?

Happy Holidays

Happy holidays to all of you out there in BSG fandom land. Nothing fancy, just a little message from me to you. I hope you are all unwrapping awesome BSG-related gifts tomorrow.

Of course the best present for all of us are the new episodes in January! Wow... 2006 already. That singularity is right around the corner!

Cheers,
Trapper Markelz

Thoughts on Final Cut coming soon!

Hey everyone! It has been a long and busy weekend for me. It is 9pm CST and I just now had a chance to sit down and watch this weeks episode Final Cut. Holy CRAP!

Unfortunately, (or fortunately) I am leaving for LA tomorrow for a week and I haven't packed yet so I do not have time to write down all my thoughts right now. I will give it a go on the plane tomorrow and see where I can get.

I am going to be at Microsoft PDC all week so the updates might be a little slow... just warning ya!

Searching for BSG WAV files

I am coming up empty on Google, so I thought I would ask the BSG community. I am in the process of creating a trance/house themed song based on Battlestar Galactica and I am having problems finding some really good .WAV files to use as thematic filler in the track.

If anyone out there knows of a really good source for .WAV/.MP3 files from the new series, put a link in the comments!

I am particularly interested in speeches or extended dialog that is free of background noise. If you know of any good sources, send them my way!

That of which we do not speak...

I have been getting a fair amount of questions about this and I just want to publicly say that it is a conscious decision on my part to ignore all the spoiler articles about episode 10... cast members... plot revelations...etc. etc.

You'll have a hard time reading any site lately without bumping into the massive spoilers... hell even the official SciFi.com is spoiling the big moments.

So I just wanted to clear that up... in case you were wondering.

I ranted about spoilers in the past and since then I have pretty much stopped linking to spoiler articles. I figure I am not just a fan site operator, but also a viewer. I understand that sometimes it is required that the networks publicize episodes to get new viewers and to leverage star power to attract people to the show that otherwise might not give it a chance. I respect the need to do those things... but I have a policy against reading spoilers so I don't feel it is worth my time to link to things I can't even read...

There are a lot of great sites out there. If you really want the mega spoilers some of my favorite sites for that are:

• http://www.hollywoodnorthreport.com/
• http://www.livejournal.com/community/bsg_news/
• http://www.syfyportal.com/

Those sites are pretty good about covering spoilers with the proper warnings.

Flickr Photos Added

For fun, I added a list of the latest photos added to Flickr that are tagged with "Galactica". You can see them at the bottom of the left margin of this site.

New Feedburner feed

In order to better track how many people are reading this site I switched my XML feeds over to Feedburner. If you are currently subscribed to this feed, I would ask if you could be so kind and switch your feed over to my new URL:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/battlestarblog

The good thing about this new feed is that I can supposedly tell what posts interest people and what posts do not. With the show becoming so popular and so many articles and commentary appearing on the web, I want to maximize my time and post things that people are interested in. This is one of the first steps to find out what that is.

So, if you can take a moment and subscribe to the new feed and delete the old subscription, I would REALLY appreciate it! Thanks!

New Battlestar Fan

On a personal note, my wife gave birth to our first child this weekend. A little girl, her name is Hannah. I guess that means I failed as a BSG fan... I should have pushed harder for Kara or Laura or Sharon or something eh?

So if the news is a bit stale this week, it will most likely be that I am off learning to be a dad... but I shall return... sooner than you think!

Battlestar on the brain

I made this graphic using a logo generator over at Cooltext.com and thought I would share:

If you make a cool Battlestar Galactica logo, share it with me!

A note about April Fools

As someone who reads alot of news and gets really excited easily, I really don't like April Fools Day. If i happen to post something about BSG today that is not true... can someone please tell me?

I have already seen posts about a new Star Trek series on Sci Fi and all kinds of other crazy things. April 1st just isn't the best day to be a news/rumor site!

UBSGB Livejournal Feed

A very thoughtful someone was kind enough to create a Livejournal feed for this website. If you have a LJ account, follow the link to add this site to your Friends list.

Unofficial Battlestar Galactica Blog LJ Feed

Google search added

If you check the left hand column, I added a search for this site powered by Google. It's not much but it helps. Now you can find anything so long as Google is nice enough to index it!

Special thanks to Matt Haughey for publishing how to do this at Everything Typepad.

The site has grown... wider

I was starting to feel a little bit cramped so I expanded the website template to three columns instead of two. For those of you reading this on a feed, that won't matter much... but I did make some good use of the space adding the TypePad "categories" list so you can find information faster... that is... if you can decipher my cryptic categorizing scheme...

Three cheers for three columns!

Battlestarblog.com

The site is now running under it's own domain name: www.battlestarblog.com

Be sure to update your links and bookmarks to point to the full URL. The battlestar.typepad.com address will still work, but it doesn't look as nice!

Buy your BlogShares

Have you ever heard of HSX? It is a fictitious stock exchange where you trade shares of hollywood films and actors. I played it a ton with friends in college. Some of my friends still play it. I guess there is something similar for the blogging world called BlogShares and you can actually by shares of THIS blog now:

Unofficial Battlestar Galactica Blog

Valuation: B$1,000.00

Added: 10:46 11 Feb 2005

Status: Available to Trade.

Welcome

Welcome to the new Unofficial Battlestar Galactica Blog. Over the past few weeks I have been scouring the web, looking for information on the new series from SciFi. The pickings are slim, so I figured I would start something that could become that source.

I hope to provide daily/almost daily updates about the new Battlestar Galactica series in the tone of a casual fan. I have always enjoyed Ron Moore's work and SciFi in general and I am happy to see him succeeding in this latest endeavor.

This is as much an experiment for myself as it is for readers. I hope you enjoy what you find, and even contribute by sending news/rumors and posting comments.