Galacti-can!
To nobody’s surprise, the SciFi Channel has renewed Battlestar Galactica for a fourth season. The series has garnered plenty of critical acclaim since its debut, winning a Peabody award for its high-quality scripting (including that of Superman/Batman writer and comic book veteran Mark Verheiden, who is also an executive producer of BSG) and making the American Film Institute’s top 10 outstanding TV programs two years in a row, and the ratings shot up even more with the show’s recent move to Sunday nights.
Another major factor in the no-brainer decision had to do with new viewing habits. On the one hand, more than a million BSG DVDs have been sold, offsetting production costs considerably (SciFi admits BSG is its most expensive original series). On the other hand, SciFi’s Mark Stern told the LA Times that 510,000 additional viewers in the 18-to-49 demographic are watching the show on DVRs, for which advertisers don’t yet pay (on the general assumption is that viewers fast-forward through ads during playback). The Times’ Denise Martin says this "could be a crucial point for the channel, and Stern is hopeful that the business model is shifting."
As part of Boskone 44 this weekend, The New England Science Fiction Association is holding the 
I’m a pretty simple guy. I see clear distinctions between right and wrong, good and evil, love and hate and Republican and Democrat. In this age of political correctness and doing the right thing I don’t make decisions because they’re popular. I make decisions because I think something is right. 
At my age (insert obligatory “hey you kids, get out of my store!, what do you think this is, a reading room?” here) the blasts from the past seem to blow with ever increasing frequency and velocity. I’m used to various elements of my past circling back on me, as my forays into pop culture hobbies always seem to result in intersecting circles of friends and acquaintances. A number of the same people who used to write for 
