UConn James

It's called the Regent's exam. Several of my cousins who live in WNY have taken it, and I've heard that kids pull their hair out over it. It's pretty much a one-shot do-or-die. Have a bad day on test day (and we've all had days like that where nothing goes right) and you're pretty much screwed for life. Here in CT, the CAPT test is a similar thing and you take it as a junior with a chance to retry in your senior year any part you didn't pass. They are also spread out over several days, with a few hours each day. I wouldn't say money is the only part of the equation. It also takes willpower and resolve. But money, either in public or private endevors is a big part of it. If you want kids to do well, you're probably going to have to pay taxes; if you're content with failure as long as you get your tax cuts, that's your opinion. But bear in mind those dropouts and failures grow up w/ a much higher likelihood of becoming criminals. Either way, it takes our tax money. I'd prefer to have tax money go to education with a positive potential to society and our economy rather than the police budgets, courts, building more jails, social services, etc. after someone's ruined their life.

TJ, the powers of observation there make a guy's head spin. Those numbers are scattered around everywhere in the show. But before you think me all uppity, I too missed some of them, especially in the finale episode during Hurley's run through the terminal (i.e. the soccer team jerseys). Some of them are obvious, some are a little subliminal. I won't be complaining to see M-Rod again. She seemed like a really cool character. Very forward, understanding in an it-is-what-it-is way, not hung up on the past. I'm just a little leery of having expectations b/w her and Jack, romantically. The writers have been hunting at an eventual Jack-Kate pairing. I keep wondering how this can be when she keeps doing things that he's so set against. On the subject of Kate, tho, in last night's ep I was shouting out at Locke, "You a-hole!" when he volunteered her to go down the hatch first. Exactly the same thing as the plane and Boone. He wants the results and not to wait around, but he fobs off the serious risks to others. But I'm also wanting to become less of a critic of Locke as Public Enemy No. 1 (and maybe as a misunderstood but not wholly pure hero) as more of the characters are having their own flashes of things happening to them --- particularly Claire seeing the baby rocker and Shannon last night.

Taking off from one of his quotes while the door was hitting him in the ass on the way out of town, maybe his "star" will stop "shining." With that kind of language, it's a good thing he went to the place where you wear flowers in your hair. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Which begs the question: why in the heckfire is he speaking backwards? Are The Others really just a team of mad scientists fed up with getting foiled by Batman, and they shot Walt with the Revers-o Laser? Why would they go to such lengths to get Walt and then release him? Was it a hallucination? A hologram? What use is it if listless Shannon is unable to decipher it (and if she does, that's when the show will have officially jumped the shark). Also, it would be something to apply this to the whispering that Sayid and Sawyer heard last season....

Also, the fact that many European countries are city-centric. In America, we have to drive places. Add in the fact that a large portion of the price difference is that they tax the $%^& out of petrol. I know it sounds weird, but as prices keep climbing and wages remain the same (and I can't even imagine how it is for people making minimum wage), I can't afford to work. We are slowly creeping into a society where it's going to be the norm to be working 16 hours a day. And I can't believe that the govt, in the broadest sense of the word, is upset about that. It may be Jerimiah Johnson time in a few years. Catch me some Griz!

How did this get in here? Someone's playing a prank on me! Honestly, It's not mine! ----- Wow. I don't know what I was expecting for this season, but I was asking myself "How can top that? And will the pressure of success turn this show into crap like so many others?" Definitely a No. Great observations, guys. And I'm kicking myself for not having some mechanism for recording these b/c I really need to watch something as intricate as this ~3 times before I can start to get into some big thoughts and piece things together. How might Lenny from the psych ward fit into this now? Was he an inhabitent of the hatch before Desmond, and now that he's off of the drug...? All of the equipment in the computer room --- what the hell was that, it looked like a glass dome --- looked kind of like it was a listening post, and I would bet that his electricity is coming from the cable Sayid found. I would bet that this is where Danielle's loop message is being controlled from. Are "The Others" who took Walt just another group of survivors?

You mean how they exempt them for certain clubs but not for others? I don't understand why the policy is for one year of notification when the uniform has already been part of the repetoire for 40 years. If it were a completely new jersey, such as if the Bengals suddenly went from their old one to their new ones, I could understand that. But if we want to wear the '65 design or if the Patriots want to wear their Patriot Pat unis, they should be allowed. These have been standing copyrighted logos for the clubs since their inception; that copyright doesn't magically disappear when they switch designs.

I would agree with the "dumbed-down, tarted-up" thingie. This will be solidified when Katie Friggin' Couric is named to take over CBS's anchor position when her contract w/ NBC is up next year. No more is there such thing as the civic-minded, useful, independent, facts-is-facts, local newspaper/outlet. I would understand if that's what he was getting weepy about; imagine you built a fabulous mansion and 50 years later came back and it was public housing ('course, he didn't so much build the mansion....). Everything is national news, and at least 50 percent of any paper or broadcast is pulled off the wires and plugged right in. When you do that, you mostly get a pile of useless drivel. But I will say that Reuters' coverage of Katrina was pretty good.

Ralph is like the Susan Lucci of the NFL HoF ballot. I don't see why now would be the time to start selling out and keeping it under his hat just to get a few votes. If you want to speculate on his induction based on recent occurances and who he's po'ed, he's already not going to get in b/c of his comments earlier this year re: small-market teams and revenue sharing.

Probably the scariest thing I saw was in a kid's architecture contest after 9/11 was one of the kids had all this stuff in the plans for walk-through X-ray machines, retinal scanners, and about 5 other things just short of a cavity search just to walk into a building. The kid was unfazed in promoting this vision for the loss of liberty. And when the mouthbreathers in the audience actually clapped for him, I started making mental contingency plans for moving to the deep woods of Maine.

I think the fine for uniform infractions is $10,000. I think that was the figure when one team wore the wrong color socks last year. 'scuse me, but Jerry Jones would prostitute his mother for the almighty $ and Official League Approval. Ralph is the consummate gentleman, but being a gentlemen doesn't mean kow-towing on how you run your business. Are we talking about the same Mr. Wilson who told off the refs for three days after the Pats night game in '98 when we walked off the field? While this isn't a matter of winning and losing, he has in the past shown he'll do and say what he wants. I hope he tells the equipment guys to put out the throwbacks for the rest of the season, fine be damned. What is the NFL going to do? Keep him out of the HoF for the 20th year in a row? Screw the league and their micro-management.

Then came late last year when the NFL threatened to fine 69ers coach Mike Nolan if he wore a suit on the sideline. It's a league-mandated thing that coaches dress in polo shirts, team-logo sweatshirts, windbreakers, etc., and look like casual-casual-casual Friday.

I put it in yellow, which has been the MO for posting spoilers since these threads were started. That's something I saw on ET, which goes to show how much of a 'secret' it was. And yes, for everyone posting spoilers, please do use yellow. And if you don't want to know about the spoilers, you should know better than to go highlighting something that was obviously intended to be obscured. See, that just seems like a waste of bandwidth and board space to me. As before, if this is the set-up you like, I'd suggest the TelevisionWithOutPity forum. I'd generally consider this as a place to ask little questions, did you notice this/that and post some light, non-FFS-length theories w/o getting all hardcore. We've been lucky to have this space; why do you want to infringe on this kindness of being invited in someone else's house by spreading your underwear all over the living room and eating the last of the Fla-Vor-Ice on a 100* day?

Right. I would add Hurley; and I think his is a big reason why they are there. Boone and Shannon have basically been revealed. I would imagine they have some material that was filmed in the airport/plane with Boone in it, but IS's contract is over, I believe. I think the backstories of Sawyer, Sun & Jin, Sayid and Charlie have been covered pretty fully. It's just the main, main characters that are left. Do you suppose if this goes for a few more seasons they will run out of backstory material? I'm bummed about that, b/c that's a crucial part of what makes the show so interesting. Shannon sees Walt.

I'm claiming the 3-4 p.m. hour in the betting pool. But that's only b/c the Communist Mods are busy eating donuts and oogling hot ladies in the OT Forum.

Some more thoughts on Locke: Anyone notice how he called Hurley "Hugo" when they were setting the dynamite? I don't think anyone else on the island knew that as Hurley never used it b/c he didn't like it, (and he may have associated it with his mental health facility time --- didn't he use it when he talked to Lenny/Leonard?). And I'm wondering what Jack meant by saying that "If we survive tonight, we're going to have a Locke problem." I think that was due to the survivors' lack of any social order. Seeing the hatch and that it'd been kept a secret, Jack realized that Locke (or anyone) could do anything w/o recourse. Sayid, after he tortured Sawyer put himself into exile before returning after meeting Danielle; not everyone can be counted on to have a conscience to keep them in check. There's no courts or jails on the island to provide a detterent to all of the fights and bleeding/injuries for which Jack is running out of medical supplies. I think it was more of a thinking that something needs to be done to instill order amid the chaos that is the island. Which aligns with how the writers have said there will be more of a direction this season toward setting up a society of sorts.

I think that was the last time someone actually deserved their Oscar win.

You've got a lot to learn about the Crash and Burn threads. But I do commend you if you've never partaken. It's usually a frenzy of posts before the mark finally gets po'ed enough when their stupidity is pointed out and said mark goes into ~~~MELTDOWN~~~ saying something that I'm not able to publish here without a lot of %$#^'s in those words' place. Either that or everyone puts them on Ignore and they take their schitzo freak show elsewhere.

Hey! That prediction would have been correct last year, and it would have been <Three Stooges voice> coy-tains </Three Stooges voice> for anyone who dared get in JP's way.... when he was less experienced and still getting through his broken leg. We are talking to the person who knows the most about the Bills. Funny enough, I'm picturing bh's temperment something like Otto in "A Fish Called Wanda"....

They become extremist religious-right Republicans.

Where did you get the four years figure? I watched the whole season through on DVD and I don't remember hearing anything about it. Was it in that same episode? If so, then the hypothesis is dead. B/c Locke was a young man when he met and was used by his father. They tried to make this obvious with how Locke kept calling him "sir" and other mannerisms. I still think there's some kind of connection b/w Locke's paralysis and Jack's father (and Jack's) specializing in spinal surgery. It's too close of a linkage to be unrelated. I'm recently becoming enthralled with Locke's "Don't tell me what I can't do!!" line, b/c I'm running into a lot of people like that myself. People who simultaneously think I'm underqualified and overqualified for an office job and basically asking "Why is someone w/ your education applying here?" (Answer: To have a steady job and to make some money to be able to survive). People who don't think I can do a good job in making some craft look good when I've shown time and again that I can.... I don't know if this is making me a little sympathetic to Locke. But in a certain way, I don't know if Locke is entirely aware that he's being used by the island. I think the island saw his past and decided he may have been the most gullible, even tho he's probably the most capable. I don't think he even learned from the situation with his father, b/c he was falling into the same kind of situations in his job with his boss, and the phone sex(?) girl who he was talking to for 8 months as if he knew and loved her, even tho she was always like, "Ohh, well... *sigh* that's nice John...." the whole time on the phone.

Hogboy. Spiked Lemonade. JP-Era. BF. You know what these posters all have in common? They all started off in the Chicken Little phase, moved into the STFU phase, then moved into the Banned phase. Just a heads up, and I'm not trying to be a richard here, but go work it off at the gym.

And you could say the same thing about Holcomb in his prior experience w/ the Browns. In the wild card playoff game against Pittsburgh... 2 years ago?... he was put in late in the game and threw two picks, both on ill-advised sideline-to-sideline passes. But we can continue to lionize KH as the savior of the this franchise. Don't believe the coaches. They want us to lose. In fact, they sent Gruden a playbook on Friday night at the Marriott. MM was going to have dinner to share the scripted gameplan, but he saw Ralph at the bar screaming out "WTF?!!?!?" to some kid. KTFABD, you talk about how JP will have bad plays, bad series, bad halves, bad games.... I'll go further than that. Jim Kelly had bad games in his prime. Brett Favre had the worst performance of his career last week. Tom Brady threw up a stinker on Sunday. I guess they needed to be benched too, according to bh.

Get 17 monkeys in a room and one of them will be correct, too. Guessing the W-L total makes you the Bills Genius? Keep your pins and needles away from this guy's head, guys.... POP!!!

Maybe if bh had brought a folder with names of people he wanted to hire as his assistants, TD might have hired him to be the HC. Seriously dude, go to the gym or something.