UConn James

Yeah, emotionally stand-alone would describe most characters as well. With LOST, it always seemed like we were right there, like we were one of the "socks" watching it all happen.

Only if you eat the husks. Got whole fresh pineapples the last few times we cooked a ham. Don't know how I'm ever going to eat the canned Dole anymore.... Taking a nutrition, then a botany class in close conjunction was really cool. Developed a whole appreciation for fruits and veg that I had never had before. In the time since, working with and eating them has taken a new tack. Cutting open tomatoes, sectioning an orange, and taking off from there, seeing the honeybee in such a different light.... I mean, I try hard not to sound too wonkish when explaining these things to my niece and nephew to try to get them to see beyond their video games, but how else do you describe the sclerids in a perfectly ripe pear or the hesperidium sacs in citrus? Nature is so beautiful. And, yes gringo, that may have something to do with it with the mangos, but even so.... Cantalope has never been a favorite either. Just don't like the taste.

Favorite? Kiwi. (Tho, some people classify rhubarb as a fruit, in which case.... that's a moral dilemma). Ooo, but a good Cortland apple hits the spot, too. Least favorite, mangos.

Also, I am pretty keen on making a copy of the Cerberus door in Ben's secret-room-within-the-secret-room. Maybe make it the bathroom door. I think this is going to take years, tho. They actually had a small video up on how it was made out a Styrofoam-like material.

Yeah, like when a boa swallows a whole antelope, the past three weeks has just been a digestion period for me. Not strange that we feel connection to many of the characters. LOST is definitely on par with great classics of fiction that way. It is connection that is very hard to establish in the TV/movie medium b/c it's dependent on having spent a lot of time with that person and really knowing them. But that's not it... I mean, there's been how many seasons of Law & Order and for me, Sam Waterston or any of the badges are like automatons. Even worse for many other shows. It's not weird or disturbing, either. In fact, it's very human. I really have a hard time reading people who were "disillusioned" / didn't "get" LOST. That wasn't my experience at all, and reading their complaints gets very boring and exasperating b/c I want to reach through my laptop screen and slap some sense into them in a "No, no, no. You are entirely wrong about X! Were we even watching the same show?!" I can't stand people who just have to piss in everyone else's cornflakes because they're not 100 percent happy. Doc does meander quite a bit, but there is always some usable stuff. Not sure if I follow on his whole Island-as-Carrie thing, but I'll try. This has some teeth, tho: And that sequence on page 6&7 about the chronological order of the wells during the time flashes was illuminating. They flashed to ~2,500 years ago. Perhaps those first Romans who dug the wells found the rope that Sawyer had been holding and just dug. Hmm. Another piece just fit into the puzzle. And this made a lot of sense during the show's run, but makes even more sense now. For me the over-arching theme of LOST was the characters, as Darlton always said. It was their search for family. They didn't find their true family anywhere else they looked, in their flashbacks and flashforwards in the real world... As much as they may have wanted a relationship with someone there, almost all of the eps told about a search for connection/family that failed and reinforced that they had no real family off-island; they were Others who "walked among us, but are not one of us." You can see this any number of ways... but seen most poignantly through John Locke. Here was a character who was so spurned by so many groups and individuals it wasn't even funny. He had anger therapy, tried religio-commune life where he learned to "stop being so angry all the time," to Helen who he could have had if he'd only given up giving Anthony Cooper a fifth chance. All of the characters were like this, with the possible exception of Boone (tho, we didn't get much of his story, and none of his life unrelated to Shannon). Another thing I forgot the other day, on DarkUFO, they had a poll of "What body of work was most influential to the writers of LOST?" I didn't want to sign up and have my real name on there... so I'll put it here. It wasn't among those listed, but I would say "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" (1971) only without as many musical numbers. I recently watched this on Netflix for the first time in a long time. But seriously, that was a story where 5 candidates were selected randomly to take over as head of Wonka. If the company was allowed to die or if the secrets were sold/stolen for the candy competitor (who was a plant by Wonka), children around the world would've been less happy. Now, LOST takes this concept and makes it a lot less benign, but I'd have to say it's closest. Also, I totally missed it before, but... was the white shoe hanging from the tree right near where Jack woke up and died, one of Christian's?

Sorry this has taken awhile to get back to. Have a few things here.... merij, I'm just falling on the side that says Hurley wasn't crazy / mentally ill. Hurley always had the "gift" to see ghosts (similar to Miles' ability since childhood to read the final thoughts of the dead), only it manifested later and when it did --- coupled with the grief of feeling responsible for the deck collapse, etc. --- Hurley doubted his own sanity. I'm going to stick to my guns on this. I don't think Dave was MIB. MIB was not every ghost we saw, as you say. I can dig that the ghosts Hurley saw as an O6 period were from the Sideways. Which gives a little more ammo to the Dave contention. Why could all the others speak to Hurley from the Sideways, yet Dave couldn't be from the Sideways? Yeah. That last paragraph has something interesting, too. As much as these people took their pasts with them to the island, their island experiences affected their past. For many of the castaways, I think there was some "bleeding over" of their consciousness (likely through dreams) b/w pre- and post-crash. The most telling of these was that incident of Richard's visit and tests of Young John Locke. It reminds me of Walt and how Tom said the Others' tests showed he was "special." And it's got me really looking forward to those 12-14 minutes of epilogues (by the by, these will be included in both the collector's set and the single-season 6 sets). My prediction, whether it's shown in those or not, is that Walt will take over as Protector after Hurley. Also, Widmore was on Team Jacob, as he explained in the secret coat-room that shortly after the freighter exploded, Jacob came to him. And so, with Ben landing in 2005 after he turned the FDW, he (a little) misguidedly set out doing MIB's work, through Sayid. The other groups are all very loosely connected, if they're connected at all. Mostly, I think it was just Jacob positioning some pieces on the board, independent of one another, yet all linked to him.

Didn't mean to hijack the thread... but prior to working as chairman of ABC, Mr. Braun was Seinfeld co-creator/writer Larry David's attorney and that character was named after him. It's detailed in his lostpedia entry.

Kelly, it wasn't a movie, so it's a slightly different animal.... but the only reason LOST got on the air initially (with an astronomical $12M pilot episode) was b/c Lloyd Braun wanted to stick it to ABC b/c he knew he was about to be fired. Otherwise, I've been inside a movie theatre three times in the past 15 years, and even for those, I was goaded into it by somebody saying, "I want to see a movie tonight." Movies are 95 percent sh-- these days. Best thing to do is get Netflix and relive better days of the industry.

Could you provide a link to the Big East joining the ACC? All I see is this article on Google News. At this point, it's just speculation. And for most of the Big East teams, there's not even much speculation at this point. Kinda waiting for the big dominoes to fall, and then we'll see what happens to the smaller dominoes. Wouldn't be surprised or disappointed for this to happen, tho. It has seemed inevitable since Miami, BC and VT left. Per the link above, they're speculating that the BE could be split among the former Big-10 (PSU/OSU/Mic et al.), and the ACC. Big-10 wants access to the NYC market in the worst way, so they'll try to court Syracuse and Rutgers, and also go after Pitt and WV. Would be interesting to see UConn in an ACC-North. And for Basketball, that would make for a hell of a conference. Re-alignment is tough, what with possibly losing some long-standing rivalries, but something had to happen. If done right, it could be great for all parties to form some bigger, more cohesive conferences (with encouragement to have 16 members) that can propel the system (especially the football post-season) to where it should go. Whatever comes out of this, tho, they need to not use numbers in naming the new conference make-ups: Big 12 ==> Great Plains Conf. Pac-10 ==> Pacific Conf. Big-10 ==> Mid-West Conf. et cetera, et cetera.

I've been on the search for a foam/whatever DHARMA BEER cozy for awhile (something like this) but have come up empty.

He once was LOST, but now he's found. HB, dude!

Gee, I wonder why the Soviets didn't tell anyone about these? Couldn't be that they wanted to become imperialist pigs themselves, could it? No, I don't believe that. Can only hope that this could provide an income and badly needed jobs for the people there, esp. as an alternative to growing/producing opium. A close relative who is serving there currently and will likely be promoted to Master Sergeant after this deployment (as high up as you can get as a non-comm) wrote last week, "It's like Vietnam all over again here." A good majority will. Yep. The duality is that they hate us, but ~70 percent of the citizens say that they still need us right now for security. Lots of tension that rides along with that duality, tho. Literally, 700 years from now, they will still be bemoaning the cats who died in an airstrike that took out the Al Queda #3. These people 'forgive and forget' nothing.

'Enough to fund every Americans' health care for the next 12 years' Uhh... not quite!

Nike had better get on that!

Well, that's what happens when you let them off the leash....

Link Let's see if I get this right. It's OK for Mexican cops to indiscriminately kill Americans who cross their border, but it's not OK for American officers to shoot a Mexican border-crosser when it became a matter of self-defense. Nice logic. Or perhaps it's perfect logic, just depends from which vantage you see it. Innocent Americans need to allow themselves to be maimed/killed, and Mexicans' mellows can't be harshed for any reason. There was a time when these people would be dead for this act. No questions asked, no investigation needed, no apologies given. In the Ford era, we went into one country... I forget where, I just remember the circumstances... where Americans had been taken captive by a private group --- and we bombed the sh-- out of the city on the way in, rescued the people (there was intel on exactly where they were), and bombed on the way out just for good measure. Now, we apologize for living.

Too much exposure to bright light can trigger migraines for me. So, I'm sorry if I talk to you through shades, but I'm not going to pay the piper just so you can see my baby blue-greens.

Not if the mothers don't give a sh--. Which is why my stance on abortion is what it is. If a mother doesn't care enough, I'd rather that a child not have a sh-- life like that and become something that society has to pay for.

Here's a pretty cool screensaver that mimics the Swan hatch computer... Link.

Always the argument from people who just can't accept that the bullet needs to be bitten at some point. Waiting, putting it off all the time, grasping at straws from others teams' jetsam, then forever comparing young QBs to your previous HOFer, and you get the situation we've had post-Jim Kelly. Next year's class includes Ryan Mallet and Jake Locker. If the past is any indication of the future, the top prospects will fade a bit in measurables, have injury concerns, or something that will cause second-guessing. Also, some guys not on the radar now will light it up, and the second-guessing about them will be whether they're one-year wonders. And then, the talk will be all about some junior who decided to go back for his senior year or a soph who will enter the draft as a junior next year, and the process repeats again. It's always something. A GM has to identify a guy that has reasonable or close-enough fundamentals required for their type of offense and then put in the resources required to get that guy. Basing anything on what may be the case next year and the "paralysis of analysis" is a very good recipe for failure.

We haven't had sat or cable for the last 12 years now, and are over-the-air (OTA) only... but we're right in the middle of 3 DMA markets. I've written before on the consumer forums about antenna and digital transition stuff. Since we got an HDTV (we've saved so much w/o subscriptions, this is our one-off entertainment budget, and a very decent 1080 set at Sam's for $900) and I got a new laptop recently, it's a little mind-boggling to me that people actually pay for TV anymore. Networks are available by OTA and you can supplement with Hulu, etc. Things seem to be converging toward an internet-based delivery system that might actually provide the holy grail of "a la carte" programming --- meaning, rather than being forced to pay for a package of 30 channels you never watch, just to get the 3 channels you really want... you pay for only the channels you watch. Internet broadcasting might be what finally forces cable's hand on this. If enough people just tell TW, Comcast, Charter, etc. to pound sand with their $80+/month crap, things might actually change for the better. For the past couple of seasons, it's been a matter of finding an Internet broadcast link wherever I can find one. The NFL cracks down every so often, so it's a matter of people having to stay one step ahead. I've also been interested in Slingbox products. This is a box --- with no monthly service charges, just buy the box --- that relays an input signal (sat, cable, or OTA antenna for CBS and FOX channels) to a remote location via broadband Internet. They now have an HD box, as well. I believe you'd need a go-between to display it on your TV, say an HDMI-out from your computer to your TV. So, it appears that if you have friends/family in WNY with a broadband connection who is willing to accommodate this (it goes without with saying that kicking such a person a bit of cash or a 30-pack for their trouble would tide things over a bit), it might be a nice solution for providing free broadcast feeds for watching the games (tho blackouts would still apply). Anyone know more about this or have experience with the Slingbox?

Surprised that no one has taken comment on my observation of Hurley's vision of "Dave" in the same-titled episode. That was another one of those so-called "loose ends" that now seems very tied up, once you think about it. My contention was... Dave, which was an entity that only Hurley saw in the real-world and on the island... was rooted in the Sideways world, and had figured out/knew that the Sideways existence was fake. How or why doesn't really seem important... it was an anomaly / unpredictable nature of the Island as it related to space-time. Dave was a much more comedic/carefree take on it, as opposed to Charlie's mopeyness or Jack's workaholic-ism. Also wanted to say that I totally missed the Light cascading over Jack et al. in the final close-up image inside the church, after Christian opened the door. I guess I was concentrated on Jack dying on-island. So, it seems that they weren't very long inside the church before their next destination. This destination, if you put any stock into what Mother said, would seem to be "rebirth"? But what kind of rebirth is meant? Back to earth, or a rebirth into heaven/nirvana/paradise/whatever you want to call it? I dunno, it looked very much like a time-flash from S5, but then again, I guess the Light probably doesn't have special color settings or anything.... Oh. .... Dude! That sucks. RIP Nunu. Yeah, I'm not sure what anyone wrote to you, and I'm going to be careful to respect his and others' privacy here wrt details of postings past, but it's the real deal. And yes, he was a great representative for BR all the while. To me, it showed something that a person who worked on that stuff all day would come home and read/write about it on their own time. As I've written, I truly hope that tgreg didn't get into any hot water that necessitated taking that post down.

Why not put it in a flatscreen TV fund? A modest one.

This is a thing that's struck me for a while now... that so many people look at it as a science versus faith/God argument. As if it's some kind of ultimate ontological combat that can and will only have one winner. I don't view it that way at all. Much the way I'm a Compatibilist in the debate b/w Free Will and Hard Determinism, I stake a middle ground here as well. Why is it that people assume that God/Allah/Jehovah/Flying Spaghetti Monster is separate from science and the things man figures out of the workings of the natural world? We discovered the building blocks of the chemical elements, DNA, etc. Cannot a higher power have brought on what we call "evolution"? Tho there are people who will steadfastly argue to the death (sometimes, quite literally ;-( ) that every word of the early Bible is God's direct word, those words were written by human minds and hands. Perhaps God intended us to slowly transition to a higher state of being/consciousness. Perhaps it's making the point that discoveries of science lead back to the spiritual. Science and faith aren't in opposition, never were. They're just using different methods of discerning Truth.

Well, to speak metaphorically, they are like the numerous people who continue "living" in the Sideways world. Totally oblivious, untouched, not able to let go of "unanswered questions" (whose answers 1. Don't really matter all that much, or 2. Will "just lead to more questions.") and not able to move on. And, as Locke tells Jack... "I hope someone does for [them] what [the show] did for me." That moment with Jack dying in the banyan trees and Vincent cuddling up to him got me again. It always will.