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[part 4] [part 3] [part 2] [part 1]

I offer my wacky predictions for the third season.

The Cylons Will Be Nice

But only to a point. I totally agree with all of the Vichy France rumours floating around. A outwardly pleasant, yet evil occupying army is a logical direction for Battlestar Galactica story to head. The Cylons will tell the people of New Caprica the same as they did Baltar: do not resist, and you won’t be harmed. They will take care of the colonists, as long as the stay quiet and don’t complain about the odd person taken away for testing and interrogation. The Colonials will accept their new rulers gratefully, though uneasily at first, but slowly and surely they will realise the true horror of their position. A resistance will form.

Anders and Starbuck Will Lead The Resistance

Anders and Starbuck will reunite the Buckaneers and lead the resistance against the Cylons. No tactic will be beneath them and they will use bombs, snipers, and plain old backstabbing to strike out against their enemies. They will be so brutal, in fact, that many of the regular Colonial people will be afraid of them.

Starbuck Will Cut Her Hair

I like the hair, but it’s gonna go. It’s so much easier to kick ass without all of the blonde tresses getting in the way.

Anders Will Die

Unfortunately, Anders is really going to fight them until he can’t. He dies fighting, in a hail of bullets, weapon in hand. Powerless to help him, Starbuck will watch him die. Then she’ll get really angry.

Leoben Seeks Starbuck

Inspired by her mercy in Flesh and Bone (admittedly after having tortured him for a while), a resurrected Leoben believes he has found true love. Not realising that she has married, he has come to New Caprica to ask her to come away with him so they might be together and have children.

Baltar is Going to Get Kicked Out of Office

Baltar’s only real option at the beginning of season three is to collude with the Cylons. But by the end of the season, Baltar will be impeached by the Quorum because he sucks as a leader. Roslin will be appointed as the President in his place. No one will complain. Her first act will be to pardon him and tell him to never cross her again.

Helo Will Move On

Helo is going to find a new girl this season who isn’t a Cylon. I’m not sure how or why, but Helo’s getting a new one. He’s finally going to get over Sharon. Unfortunately, Sharon still isn’t over him.

Cally Will Continue to Suffer

Cally will continue to be one of saddest supporting characters on television.

She only signed on to the Colonial Fleet to pay for her schooling as a dentist. Just prior to the Cylon attack her service was nearly complete and she was about to be honourably discharged from the military to pursue her career in dentistry. Guess that isn’t happening now. In Bastille Day she narrowly avoided getting raped only to get shot instead. In Kobol’s Last Gleaming, she is forced into the role of a combat soldier, and watches some of her crewmates die. While on Kobol, she is nearly executed by Crashdown for refusing to carry out his suicidal attack order. She has a front-row seat as Dr. Baltar blows him away. In Resistance, she takes out her anger on the BSG Sharon and kills her. In Lay Down Your Burdens she is savagely beaten by Tyrol after rousing him from a violent dream.

So in keeping with this fine tradition of suffering, she’s going to lose her baby. We feel really bad for poor Cally, but such is her lot.

Enough guessing for now. Here’s a cool picture from season one of Helo and Boomer striking a pose.

As it turns out, there is more.

[part 3] [part 2] [part 1]

Thoughts on the 2nd Season Finale

Every now and again there comes along a movie or a show that makes you think, “What the frak?” You are left stunned, but not in a bad way.

I am continually amazed, entertained and challenged by the writing in Battlestar Galactica. The season two finale, Lay Down Your Burdens offers an incredible, almost ridiculous challenge to the audience, asking us to jump, irreversibly, one year into the future of the story. Not a year ahead as in time travel, but one year later in the lives of our heroes. This is rarely done in television and it ranks right up there with such other audacious sci-fi stunts like Plato’s Stepchildren, Jeffery Sinclair, or Captain Jack Harkness. At first I thought it was supposed to be a dream, a vision or something, but no, it really is one year later. The show is now a whole other ball game.

But while we desperately wait for season three, we’re left to wonder about all the stories that haven’t been told about that year. The trials of our characters during their stay on New Caprica can only be guessed at based on what we see of them in their present in the last part of Lay Down Your Burdens.

Some of the things that jumped out at me:

I’ve seen a lot of elections, Gaius. Most honest. A few fixed. And you can always tell the fixed ones because they don’t make sense. And this doesn’t make sense.

Even Laura seems to know there’s something up when Adama calls to congratulate her. I’m not surprised that Tory and Tigh were involved, but Dualla? I guess Dr. Baltar is now the rightfully elected President of the Twelve Colonies.

I wonder if Sharon is still locked up in the brig or they finally spaced her. Maybe Helo continues to work on Galactica for Adama because he’s still in love with her. Even though she thoroughly dumps him, you just never know because Helo is that loyal. The BSG writers originally intended to kill off Helo at the end of the miniseries but Tahmoh Penikett and Grace Park continue to justify their unusual and captivating story with strong, angry performances.

Surely I’m not the only one who thinks that Starbuck looks kinda cute with long blonde hair — more feminine and less aggressive. Did she always have that much ink on her arm? And when did she and Tigh and Ellen start getting along?

Starbuck complains that “I married a moron,” as she drags her sick husband off of the pyramid court. Wonder what the wedding was like. Anders is what Starbuck is after in a man. Sure he’s a bit of a dope, but he’s strong and confident enough in his own asskicking abilities to not be bothered the Starbuck’s awesome talents. “You don’t have to get me drunk, I will sleep with you,” he jests. He’s arrogant and boisterous and loyal, and that’s the way she likes it.

I know I’m not the only one who found Tyrol’s speech to the Union on New Caprica really familiar. Maybe BSG is actually a clever attempt to teach science fiction fans a thing or two about history. A bit of reading reveals that it’s pretty close copy of a famous speech by social activist Mario Savio:

There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies on the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop! And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!

As he delivers his speech to the union we notice that Tyrol wears glasses. And he’s got an all-sorts-of-pregnant Cally at his side. I guess some girls can forgive the rough stuff. Both Cally and Tyrol have suffered so much during the series that we can feel relieved they have found some comfort together, even if it is on the crap that is New Caprica. There’s a whole story out there we might never get to see regarding them: his acceptance of her love, their courtship, repairing Vipers together, their first kiss, the first time they… well… maybe it’s all better left unseen.

Lee and Dualla are still together I guess, running the Pegasus (though she addresses him “Commander” instead of something more personal). She seems a bit annoyed that the old flame has called him up and it really gets you wondering what Starbuck did to anger them both so much. Surely they’re not still pissed over her “frakking Dualla” comment a year ago. I’m not sure how the makeup folks did it, but Lee looks a little bit older and a little bit fatter. I guess Dualla has been keeping him happy with some quality home cooking. Up until the Cylons show up, Lee seems happy and completely at ease with himself and his position, confidently strolling the hallways of his ship just like his old man.

Baltar has hoes! All Laura got was Billy and Tory (we like Tory, as beautiful as she is crooked). Baltar runs the Colonies like a crazed Roman emperor, boozing and whoring and threatening to jail people for merely protesting. Gaeta seems somewhat resigned serving the President and you have to wonder why he’s working for Baltar at all. Is it for the girls? The boys? Surely it can’t be for the money. He might also be working down on the planet because he’s persona non grata on the Galactica after ratting out Roslin’s attempt to fix the election.

Of course the Cylons eventually find the New Caprica settlement, but instead of just nuking it, they tell the Colonials that they will not be harmed if they don’t resist. Now that’s very interesting. Have the war hereos altered things that much? Was Cavil really telling the truth?

Starbuck knows the score. She knows what has to be done:

What do you want to do Captian?

The same thing we always do. Fight them until we can’t.

Starbuck is going to put a hurtlock on the Cylons like they’ve never seen.

Next: My predictions for the next season.

[part 2] [part 1]

How Easy Is It To Detect A Cylon?

Damned easy. I’m not sure what the deal was in the first season with Baltar going on about how difficult it was to detect a Cylon. I noticed in the second season they have backed away from the idea. Maybe it’s hard to tell by exposing a blood sample to radiation (as I believe Baltar was doing), but certainly not from a physical examination.

Aside from appearance, we assume all Cylon skinjob models have the same basic traits.

• While not invincible, the fleshy Cylons are somewhat stronger than humans. In Flesh and Bone, Leoben breaks a metal chain and tries to attack Starbuck. To be strong like that implies some kind of physiological difference from a regular human specimen. Any serious examination would reveal different, or denser muscle tissue and reinforced bone.
• From the miniseries and from Six Degrees of Separation, we know that the spine of a Cylon exhibits some bioluminescence during intercourse (I actually think the writers are using it as a metaphor for love). While I’m very sure this had a lot to do with the special effects folks getting frisky, we’ll assume it’s canon until RDM says otherwise. Hence, you can easily find a Cylon agent by watching them frak…
• Cylons have a radio in them somewhere. There must be some mechanism inside a Cylon agent that acts as an FTL radio so they can quickly upload their consciousness to a resurrection centre in the event of the agent’s death. Surely this kind of additional equipment, biological or not, would show up in an X-Ray or a CAT scan.
• Some part of the Cylon anatomy allows them to interface with computer systems. In Flight of the Phoenix, Sharon interfaces herself with the Galactica by cutting into her wrist and inserting a network cable. This isn’t as silly as it might seem at first. Researchers in the real world have been attaching living cells to electronic stuff for years. So there must be something about the Cylon nervous system that is not normal. Surely this could be detected with a biopsy or something.

Why Do The Cylons Hate The Colonials So Much?

We presume that machines like the original Cylons were used as unpaid workers, as any machine is used today. This is fine right up until the point you give a machine like that enough intelligence to question its place in the world. At that moment, you have just created a slave. Slaves often find ways to rebel, and they can harbour a bit of resentment towards their former masters. I guess the Cylons had a lot of resentment.

At the same time, I think the Cylons are also afraid of their old masters. The First Cylon War did not end in a victory, it ended with a truce. We find out in Resurrection Ship that the Colonials are not helpless. The older Galactica and the modern Pegasus shred two Basestars and destroy the Resurrection Ship. I think the Cylons hacked the Colonial defence systems not just because they could, but because they had to in order to achieve victory. If forced into a stand-up fight with the Colonial fleet I think they would have lost, and they knew it.

Some have suggested religion as a motivator. The Cylons are a monotheistic religion, while the Colonials are polytheistic. Certainly humans in the real world have fought over less. A statement is being made about religion to be sure, but that’s not what is driving the Cylons. I think that good old fashioned fear and hate are. The only problem the Cylons have now are the reports of some of their field agents. The “faulty logic” that Brother Cavil refers to is likely the fallacy of division. The willingness to annihilate an entire species has got to be pretty closely tied to the assumption that all of its members are evil. But some of the returning agents are reporting that some of the humans aren’t so bad after all. Some, like Sharon, even wish they were human.

What is Cylon Culture Like?

In Downloaded we get a fascinating and creepy glimpse into Cylon culture, or at least the one on Caprica.

The Cylons would seem to have a society of unity, where the efforts of all the members are equally valued. Unless its members have no egos at all — the Cylons have pretty big egos — I suppose such a society could work if you have an endless source of slave labour to do all the crappy jobs, which the Cylons have in the form of the Centurions. I suppose it is also helpful that every Cylon knows there are millions of other citizens who look just like him.

It becomes pretty apparent watching Downloaded that the Cylons intend to resettle Caprica, perhaps all of the Twelve Colonies. But more than that, they intend to fix it up kind of like it was, only better… or at least their idea of better. In Downloaded they have the Centurions planting trees and cleaning up rubble. They’ll have their theatres, walks, parks and coffee shops to go to. They serve each other happily and freely as good members of their unified society should.

They even intend to re-populate it. In The Farm, Starbuck stumbles into their experiments with Human-Cylon reproduction (Helo and Sharon managed to get the job done the old fashioned way). One presumes they intend to repopulate it with their kind of people, not faulty, wicked human types. A society where everyone works together and is happy. Utopia? I guess all one would have to do is exterminate all of the pesky humans first. Hunt them down and kill them all so they can never, ever pollute your society with their wicked ways ever again. Leoben even says as much at the end of the miniseries.

All of it creepy. It’s like the Cylons want to be just like the humans, just without all of the baggage that makes humans real people. The kinds of things, bad though they might be, that keep us rooting for the people of the Colonies. It is as if the glee club from high-school took over the world.

A common complaint about these scenes in Downloaded is that not all of the models are present. I was able to identify D’Annas, Sharons, Sixes, and Dorals, as well as others which were probably supposed to be Simons and Leobens. One possibility is that not all the models want to be there or are supposed to be there, but I’m thinking this has more to do with: a) saving money on guest stars, and b) keeping back some surprises for future seasons. Remember, I still hold on to hope that President Adar will turn out to be a Cylon because Colm Feore plays such a great bad guy.

We know the Cylons have a religion — a lot of people have latched on to it as a central conflict in the show. But as I said before, I don’t think it really is. In the context of the story, I think the whole religion thing was a gradual development in Cylon culture and is now perhaps one of the ways the Cylon leadership (if there is such a thing) keeps certain members of their culture from questioning their atrocities (eg. you are doing this for God). Six seems to believe it. Maybe belief in a great deity is their way of staying in denial about who really made them in the first place.

Brother Cavil seems to know the real score, however. In Lay Down Your Burdens, he says plainly that “there is no God.” This might be the writers having a bit of fun (as Cavil was working undercover as a priest) or maybe there is a nugget of information in there about him and Cylon culture.

Here are some other unanswered questions:

• The skinjobs now seem to form the bulk of all self-aware Cylons. What prompted the switch from the metal bodies to the human-like ones?
• Have they been planing the extermination of the Colonials all along?
• If their society is unified one, why is it that the D’Anna models seem to have more authority than Sharons? Or was that just those particular two?
• Does the model numbering scheme imply some kind of rank?
• Is there any central Cylon leadership at all?
• Who leads the Cylon military and makes the strategic decisions?
• What the hell happens when you get “boxed”?
• Where do all the Cylons live on Caprica? Have they simply cleared away all the bodies and moved into all the empty houses?

Next: On one of the most intreguing episodes in sci-fi history.

[part 1]

How Did Baltar Survive Getting Nuked?

Easy. He ducked and covered.

Bert the Turtle wasn’t lying. Why else do you suppose that all that nuclear war literature in the fifties told people to lie down and cover their head?

Forget about the science fiction you’ve seen. Nukes are nothing more than big, firey bombs. They blow stuff apart, set things on fire, and the radiation makes people die after a few days (something which the Colonials have a treatment for). It is scary, but not unsurvivable.

When a nuke hits, the electromagnetic burst travels away from the epicenter much faster than the compression wave does (kind of like lightning). We know that Baltar’s house is some distance from ground zero as the EM flash precedes the compression wave by many seconds. Six has more than enough time to explain her resurrection before the edge of the compression wave hits.

At this range, having your body crushed or getting set on fire is less of a concern than getting hit by debris picked up by the (now declining in power) compression wave. Sure, a planetary-scale nuke is going to crush your body and set it on fire at ground zero, but ground zero around even a 50MT warhead is less than 100 kilometres wide. But with blast overpressure decreasing in power in accordance with the inverse square law, one can be fairly certain that a nuke won’t flay the flesh from your bones if you are far enough away to actually notice the flash. Baltar survived the blast by simply not being in the way of all the of the flying glass. Six didn’t.

I think maybe the special effects guys in the miniseries got a little too enthusiastic with their special effects, and maybe it’s because they figured that they had a lot of audience expectation to live up to. Likewise, I think the makeup folks weren’t enthusiastic enough. One would have expected Baltar to have serious lacerations on his hands and arms from the shattering glass (assuming he lied down and covered his head). But could he have survived the nuclear blast at that apparent range? Of course.

Caprica City Seems To Be In Pretty Good Shape After Getting Nuked

Compared to Baltar’s house, Caprica City seems to have faired well. A little bit rough around the edges, but most of the buildings are standing.

I’m working with the assumption that a planetary-scale nuke is in the 50MT range, kind of like the Tsar Bomba. Blast overpressure from such a weapon would destroy most buildings around it for maybe 30km, and cause fires for another 30km beyond. One would expect the cities on Caprica to be reduced to rubble.

But as we discover in Downloaded, the Cylons intend to resettle Caprica. So to reduce the amount of surface damage, my thinking is that they used very high altitude enhanced radiation weapons (eg. neutron bombs). You detonate these at very high altitudes, over flat terrain or bodies of water. Much of the compression energy of the weapon is lost, but lethal doses of radiation are spread over a much larger area. You pepper the planet with a bunch of these and wait. Most of the people will eventually die, yet many of the structures will remain relatively intact. If you want to move in, all you would have to do is clean up the bodies and sweep up the litter.

This contradicts what happened to Baltar’s house somewhat, but again, I think the special effects folks were overly enthusiastic with that scene.

Next post: there is more to Cylon society than meets the eye.

Following the incredible end of Season Two, I offer my two cents to the web. Warning: extreme spoiler alert. You have been warned.

All kinds of websites out there are devoted to guessing at the various secrets of the new Battlestar Galactica (my favourite is Lee Adama is a Cylon). The more I read and listen to stuff about the show, the more I think it’s good idea to keep Occam’s Razor in mind when hypothesising. The unwritten stuff in Battlestar Galactica is all about keeping it simple. The show continually avoids deviousness and strange techie junk to advance its story.

I think it is also a good idea to forget what you know about science fiction when you watch Battlestar Galactica because the writing in the show is like no other I can think of.

Anyway, here we go…

Is Adama a Cylon?

No, because Bill Adama is too old. He predates the original Cylon War and the creation of the skinjobs. So he can’t be a Cylon. And, since we presume he remembers the birth and raising of his son, we can also conclude that Lee is not a Cylon either.

Unless, of course, the Cylons are able to clone people and replace them like in The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. But I highly doubt this is going to be the case with Battlestar Galactica, because in addition to going down a road of paranoid madness (everyone could be a Cylon!!!), it is also kind of lame, and I don’t think Moore and his writers will want to go there. Maybe if the ratings slip.

No, Leoben is just a liar. That’s his job.

Baltar and Six

Has no one who watches Battlestar Galactica ever seen Harvey?

After seeing Downloaded, I’m now fairly certain that Six is all in Baltar’s head. No chip, no memory uploads, no cloning, just a bit of mental illness, understandable under the circumstances. Even people with a mild psychosis can make up all kinds sophisticated events and people in their minds while still remaining very functional.

If this were Shakespeare, Baltar would be doing soliloquies. But since it’s a teleplay, I think the writers are simply trying to provide a visual representation of the turmoil going on in Baltar’s fragile mind. He imagines, or maybe hallucinates his former lover telling him what to do. When he is uncertain, she gives him advice. When he has done something wrong, she berates him. I don’t think his vision of Six she has ever given him any information he didn’t know himself.

I find it deliciously ironic that Caprica Six suffers the same. Again, I think it’s a visual metaphor for grief and loss, not some kind of memory swap as a result of a nuclear blast or something. Does anyone honestly think the writers of BSG would try to foist that kind of thing on their audience?

Obviously these two people mean a great deal to each other. While other Sixes might seem pretty ruthless, in the miniseries the Caprica Six tells Baltar to take cover because she wants him to survive the nuclear strike. She is speechless with emotion when she learns from (the resurrected BSG) Sharon that Baltar is still alive. Maybe spending a few years living intimately with the enemy can do a lot to change one’s perspective, even for a model Six. Following the discomfort of her resurrection, I am not surprised that this Six feels guilty for all the bad things she’s done.

Next: How to survive getting nuked.

Should I bore you with a recipe? Yes, I think I will!

After a couple of trials I believe I’ve perfected an outstanding Italian-themed meatloaf recipe. I’m not sure if the Italians traditionally ate meatloaf, but the addition of some Italian spices really kicks a regular loaf up a notch. Meatloaf is an easy home-style meal, simple to prepare and tasty. You can serve it will all kinds of stuff and the leftovers make great sandwiches the next day.

The Italian Meatloaf version 2.0

In addition to obvious kitchen hardware, you will need:

• A big mixing bowl
• A bread pan, preferably a glass one. I find the loaf cooks more evenly in the glass ones
• A metal mixing spoon, like a soup spoon. More on this later
• though not required, a meat thermometer isn’t a bad idea

In the large bowl combine:

• 1 1/4 cups of breadcrumbs. The kind you get in the little paper tubs at the grocer is perfect
• 2/3 cup of finely chopped fresh parsley. This means you are going to start with a big hank of the stuff. Get rid of the larger parts of the stems, but leave the smaller ones. Good flavour in there
• 1 cup of finely grated Parmesan cheese. Don’t use the crappy dry table stuff with the cellulose in it. Get the proper stuff in the deli section. If you pull it from a cooler, you’re on the right track
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of pepper. Fresh ground is optimal
• 1 teaspoon of thyme
• 1 tablespoon of oregano
• 2 teaspoons of basil
• 2 teaspoons of marjoram
• 1 tablespoon of chili powder. Not the hot stuff, but the classic American mix like you get at the grocer. Alternatively, you can use paprika, or ground New Mexico chillies
• a pinch of cayenne powder
• 1 1/2 cups of finely chopped onion. Not pulverised, but chunks a few millimetres a side are best. Really big chunks are no good as they can make the loaf fall apart.
• 3 tablespoons of finely chopped garlic. Really take the knife to it and make it smaller than the onion chunks.

Mix all that stuff together. Now for the wet stuff. To the mixture add:

• 3 large eggs, beaten
• 2/3 cup of ketchup
• 12 ounces of raw ground pork. 12 ounces is around 350 grams
• 12 ounces of raw medium ground beef. It is important not to use lean beef. Meatloaf isn’t yuppie health food, it is homestyle cookin’, damnit. If you use lean beef the loaf will be too dry

The metal spoon is useful here. Most ground meats tend to be arranged in long strands. Use the edge of the spoon to cut across the strands and flake it off into the bowl. Although most meatloaf recipes call for you to use your hands to mix the loaf, I find the metal spoon does a better job of dispersing the ingredients. The mix does not have to be perfect, in fact it shouldn’t be. Too much mixing will reduce the texture of the loaf and make it too dense. You mostly want to ensure there are no pockets of breadcrumbs. The mixture should be moldable like clay, only with lumps. If it is runny, add some more breadcrumbs. If it is crumbly, add some more ketchup.

Lightly grease up the bottom of the bread pan. The sides are not so important. Butter is not the best choice, as it can make your loaf taste a bit, well, buttery. I use bacon fat (this is a meatloaf, after all), but PAM, canola oil, or even olive oil will work just as well. Use the spoon to pack the mixture evenly into the pan. As with the mixing, we don’t want it too dense, but we don’t want large air pockets either. Round the top a little, as it will keep the edges from getting burnt. I always doodle a little design on the top with ketchup, but such flourish is not essential.

Place the loaf in the very centre of an oven preheated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (about 180 degrees Celsius). The oven must be preheated, or the loaf will punish you by burning to the bottom of the pan. Don’t want to go there. Cook it until the meat thermometer says the the centre is nicely over 160 Fahrenheit. If you hit 170 and the thing isn’t burnt, you have done well, young Jedi (the glass pan will help with this). This process will take around one hour and twenty minutes (or about five minutes less if you are using a metal bread pan.) If you don’t have a meat thermometer handy, go to one hour and twenty-five minutes. The sides of the loaf will be a bit crispy, but the raw meat in the centre will be cooked.

Flip the loaf out on to your cutting board and let it stand for 10 to 15 minutes. This will let it firm up a bit and allow any excess fat to drain off. Because of the Parmesan cheese, this loaf will be a little bit looser than many, so when it is hot the optimal thickness of a single slice is around one inch. That’s OK, because you don’t want some wussy half-inch slice anyway — this is meatloaf we’re talking about here!

What to Have With Your Loaf

You can wow your dinner guests, or even just please yourself by properly accessorising your meatloaf. Here’s what I might do.

To Drink

Before the meal, any dry beverage will do. I’ve often felt that strong meat dishes benefit from a cleaned palate. Something like a martini, a dry white, pale lager beer, or even soda works nicely.

With the meal a dry red wine is best. My preference would be a spicy Merlot, or a stiff Shiraz. If red is not your thing, you can do white, but it has to be a strong one to stand up to the awesome power of the loaf. A Chardonay or a Sauvignon Blanc would probably be pointless. Can’t say that I’ve tried it, but a strong, dry Reisling or a Gwurtztraminer would probably do. Go for spunky New World whites, like those from Ontario or Australia. If wine isn’t your thing, then consider a medium bodied beer like a brown ale. If booze isn’t your thing, you won’t go wrong with a tall glass of white milk.

To Garnish

A meatloaf doesn’t leave you with much to make a gravy from. But such is not the way of the loaf. Meatloaf works well when garnished with sweet sauces. One could offer a variety to your guests. Pureed hot pepper sauce is most excellent, but might be too hot for some. A solid barbeque sauce, like those Bullseye ones you can get at the grocer, go very nicely. Even simple ketchup or salsa provides a complimentary flavour. Liberally drizzle the sauce on the meatloaf slice as if you were setting up a piece of cheesecake.

Fresh ground pepper is nice on the top of the loaf. Chopped parsley is a natural to spinkle on top and around the plate. Also try finely chopped green onion — the fresh onion flavour plays nicely alongside the cooked onion flavour.

Starch

I am conviced the ideal starch for a meatloaf is a baked potato. You’re running the oven at the perfect temperature anyway! Try a couple of smaller red ones, instead of one giant one, they look nicer. Put them into the oven in the last 30 minutes of cooking. If they are still firmer than you might like, leave them in while the loaf cools. Hit them up with the usual stuff like sour cream and green onion. If you really want to tie them in with the meatloaf add bacon bits.

Veg

Brightly coloured ones are visually interesting alongside the brown loaf and white potato.

Steam or nuke your veggies in the microwave, don’t fry them. The fresh steamed flavour of the vegetables provides a break between the sweet, meaty power of the loaf, its sauce, and the potato. I’ve found that things like carrots, broccolli and sweet peppers work well with the meat. Don’t overcook them. Flavour them with a bit of butter and salt.

So there you have it, my meatloaf recipe. Enjoy!

Every time I get to build one it’s like I’m building it for me. Maybe one day I’ll even get to take one home.

A discerning customer has asked us to make a quality tower similar to the one from the Quiet Project. Armed with the knowledge from that pervious build, this one goes along smoothly.

The mobo is an Asus A8N32-SLI-Deluxe. The CPU is a dual-core Athlon 64 X2 4200+. RAM is 2GB of Kingston DDR. The video cards are a pair of MSI GeForce 6600LE PCI Express models. As it turns out, you can run them as an SLI pair. This is interesting, as the 6600LE is fairly cheap, and passively cooled.

Anyway, here’s another Athlon-Sonata build for your enjoyment, in pictures.

[part 2] [part 1]

It is grey outside, but the Window is still brighter than the lights, washing out everything with a blue-grey hue. I sit on the gimpy stool in front of her and she sits up in the chair we got for her smiling cheerfully.

“Well, some good news!” she says, “It looks like we owed you a bit of money.”

“Really? I mean that’s great. How much?”

“It’s just over a thousand dollars.”

“Holy shit. Pardon me. Wow that’s great!”

“It offsets the penalties somewhat. You now only owe seven thousand eight hundred twelve dollars and fifty eight cents.”

“What the fuck!”

“You know, you should have told us about that error the moment you discovered it. You would have saved on a whole bunch of interest.”

“Jesus Christ! How the hell could I have made that big an error? I don’t have that kind money! How the fuck am I going to pay that?”

Her smile disappears, her eyes narrow and she leans forward. “What do you mean, you don’t have the money? This is the Ontario Government we’re talking about here, sir. You will get the money. You don’t want to know what we do to people who don’t give us what’s due us.”

…

Oh wow. Shouldn’t let the mind wander at six in the morning when you’re half asleep. All sorts of not good. You know, this audit thing has really gotten under my skin.

…

She smiles and asks, “So I’m looking for the same kind of report you gave me before. But this time for Services.”

And so now we get to it. The part I’ve been dreading.

“You know, you’re going to want to have a close look at the first half of 2002. I wasn’t charging PST on labour for the first half of that year.” I blurt this out almost without thinking. She seems a little surprised by the admission.

“I hadn’t up to that point. I believe there was a ruling that came down from the Ministry in 2001 or 2002 that clarified the whole PST on technology labour thing. Only I didn’t read the memo until July.”

“Umm. OK. Well thank you.” With her reports she went back upstairs to the junk room. Honesty only gets you more taxes. Wow do I suck.

PST on retail was never a question, but in the IT trades PST on labour was always confusing. None of the Ministry documentation had anything to say about computer services, so most computer people figured we were being grouped in with the other intellectual trades like lawyers and accountants (who only charge the federal GST). But sometime around 2001 or 2002, the Province issued a clarification stating that such hands-on labour did indeed fall under the PST. Only I hadn’t bothered to read the memo until July of 2002. Mea culpa, I suppose.

…

Both of us snack down on Subway subs that afternoon. Stratford isn’t all that big a town. When I run into her at the fast-food joint, the best I can do is say “Hello.” I just don’t have that military-guy ability to chat to people spontaneously.
…

By late afternoon on the second day all the data that needed to be crunched was crunched and the audit was complete.

“It looks like we owed you a bit of money. Some unclaimed compensation. As you can see on the summary, it’s just over a thousand dollars.”

“Now that’s keen.” OK. I think I’m ready to hear about all those penalties.

“It offsets the uncharged PST on those early 2002 invoices. So, as you can see on the summary, we owe you just over three hundred dollars. That and the Ministry credit will put it to over five hundred. So expect to see a cheque in the next month.”

I guess she is happy. All good.

She asks if I had any questions about her report. I told her honestly that I was planning to fire a staple into these, shove them into the “non-accounting” section of the 2006 box and never look at them again (only the actual assessment that goes along with the cheque will actually make it into the “accounting” section). She smiled and chuckled.

We shoot the breeze for a while after the official closing interview. We talk about poker and about the worst audits she has been on. I showed her a bunch of the interesting stuff in the junk room: and IBM XT, a pile of ATs, an old Commodore PET, a pair of operational C64s, an old Apple Macintosh.

“It’s so cute! You should hold on to this stuff. It might be worth money some day.”

“Perhaps. So much effort went into building this technology, but much of it is now basically worthless. But it has sentimental value. See those C64s over there? That’s the computer that got me into computing in the first place. You’re probably too young to remember the 64 at its peak, but they sold tens of millions of them. It was a great system.” I’m now a little bit embarrassed for using such a line.

Let’s see: smart, nice, pretty, and interested in computers. I think it’s about time to stop being flirty. She’s got a boyfriend to go back to and I’ve got me a fine woman already. But if I were single I think I would have asked her out for a drink right then.

Still trying to digest the whole experience completely, but I honestly can’t say I have any complaints. I’m not sure what happened to all these other business owners, but I got me a tax refund and I met me an interesting person. The negative impressions I had about government auditors are gone for now, and that’s something to be sure.

…

I’m not likely to see you ever again, but I hope you do well as a CGA.

Last post, I met with the auditor in person.

The images of those two horrible men from the CRA begin to fade somewhat from my mind. This government auditor smiles warmly, almost shyly, as she introduces herself and for a minute I don’t feel entirely at her mercy.

In keeping with the sage advice of my accountant, I have prepared a work area for her in our junk room upstairs. It’s where I keep all but the most current year of accounting anyway. The temperature is raised from the usual 15 degrees to 22. A card table is set up by the only window. A decent office chair is moved in as the only other chair in the room is an old lounge chair which is too low to work in. I want to keep the auditor happy.

A PST audit for a business my size is a two day affair. The intent is confirm compliance with the Sales Tax Act and correct any errors. In simpler words: ensure you are collecting and remitting all of the sales tax you’re supposed to. The onus is on the merchant to correctly apply and remit the tax. If the merchant fails to charge the tax on a qualifying product it is the merchant who must pay. This is the part that worries me…

I show her to her ‘office’. She likes the big window and the old lounge chair.

“My accounting is all computerised, so I keep the dead-tree stuff in these cardboard boxes, ordered by year. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No, that’s great. Stuff is all separated in these shiny bags,” she commented looking at the ESD bags I put everything in. Apparently my filing system has been approved of. This is good. The auditor is happy. “We’re going to need reports from your system.”

“We could always install Quickbooks on your laptop. You could generate all the reports you want.”

“Can’t. Government laptop I guess. We’re not allowed to install anything on them. We don’t even have Solitaire,” she says sort of ruefully.

“No Solitaire? What kind of people you working for?!” This incites a smile and a chuckle. Good. The auditor is happy.

“I’ll build a computer for you and put Quickbooks on it, if that’s what it takes.”

“We don’t have to do that,” she says a bit surprised, “All I need right now is a report on your PST liability account for the audit period. If you have a way to export it to Excel that would be great.”

“No problems. I’ll head downstairs to work it out.” I need to find a way to do this, otherwise I’m going to have to give her a paper report which she will then have to manually key into her machine. This could make her unhappy, and we don’t want that.

Quickbooks has a button at the top of the report viewer entitled “Excel”. I’ve never used it before because I don’t use Microsoft Excel. When I click on the button it tells me I don’t have it installed. I shuffle over to the special shelf over by the A-bench and pull out a bootleg copy of Microsoft Office. Sorry Bill. I don’t have any MS-Office in stock. Gotta do whatever it takes to keep the nice girl happy. The report is generated and presented to her on a memory key. She knows exactly what to do with it and is well pleased. Good. The auditor is happy. I return downstairs to get some real work done.

While I’m going through my email, Codesmith shows up. “So is the auditor here?”

“Oh yeah. Not at all what I expected. Wait until you see her.”

The beginning of a PST audit consists of an opening interview, then a tour of the business. This is the lab where computers are fixed. This is the showroom where sick ones are admitted and product is flogged. This is the back room where used stuff is kept. She seems particularly interested in the shop, not for any particular audit reason but because I think she thought it was cool (the shop can have that effect on people). She has also reviewed our website and knows about all the products and services we offer. She may have even read this blog…

While I generate more reports, Codesmith entertains her with stories about his time as a government employee — ten years in the army — and she politely and attentively listens. Smith, like most military types I know, has a talent for gabbing with anyone about anything, particularly if they are women. We find out she’s doing this government job while she trains to become a CGA.

The reports are generated and put on to her memory key. She thanks us and disappears upstairs to continue her work.

“Kinda cute.”

“Yep. Nice too.”

But I want desperately to tell her about something she’s probably going to find in those reports. Something I’ve known about for a while. Just not sure if I should.

Next Post: why be honest?

“She was just a horrible woman. Mean. Snappy. She was at it for days and in the end I had to pay them like 3000 dollars and I still don’t know what for.”

“They did all this stuff and I wound up paying 1500 bucks.”

“You’re humped!”

“Those people are assholes. They will stay until they find something, anything. I think they get in trouble if they don’t come back with something.”

“Don’t piss them off.” Such is the unofficial advice from my accountant.

These are the testimonials I got from some of other business owners I know when I told them about my upcoming Provincial Sales Tax audit. I’ve been in business for many years but I’ve never been audited for anything. In the early years it was likely because I was below the radar. But apparently not any more.

The Provincial Government has sent me stern sounding form letters telling me about the process. I’ve always run my shop above board, but I still get worried when the government wants something from me. Governments can be tricky. You never know what they are going to do and if you piss them off they can screw you harder than the devil.

I’ve faced up government auditors before. Not for my business, but to support a past employer. They were auditors from the federal revenue ministry and they were downright mean sons-of-bitches. I was required to explain what I was doing for the company to justify some kind of tax break. They were rude and contemptuous. Even our accountant was amazed by the hostility of these people. Needless to say, we didn’t get the tax break.

So I am greatly worried.

I want to be philosophical about the process. I figure if I owe money I owe it. My job as a retailer is to collect the sales tax and remit every bit of it to the provincial government. But what if I’ve made some great big error and I owe them a stupid-big amount money? We’re not a big firm — I’m not sure if the company can swing even a five thousand dollar tax bill.

When I finally get around to speaking to the auditor on the phone to set up a date, the voice on the other end is female, youthful sounding, friendly, and polite. I figure this to be some kind of tactic by the Ministry of Finance. They contact the victim with the pleasant sounding people to lull them into a false sense of security then they send in Guido and Luigi to carry out the audit. Can’t fool me. They are coming to get me.

On the Thursday morning — A-Day — as usual, I’m on the phone dealing with the support-related detritus of my job. An attractive young woman walks in. No thugs, or men in black, just a girl with a laptop bag and a briefcase. It’s obvious who she is. She introduces herself, and she sounds like the pleasant voice on the telephone. Wow. I’m about to get a government audit.

Next Post: I get my audit on.