It was a decent episode considering that 1) we already knew a lot of what was going to happen from all the Season 4 flash-forwards, and 2) the reveal of who was in the coffin was just about the most anti-climactic thing ever since I was 99% sure it was Locke the second Kate said Jeremy Bentham a few moments into the episode.
I really liked how they added on to the scenes from last year's season finale, with Kate slamming on the brakes and coming back, and Jack returning to the funeral home. Also, Desmond and Penny finally being reunited was really nice.
I think if Locke really is dead, and it isn't a trick from Ben (and Locke?) to get everyone to return to the island, then he'll almost certainly be half-dead like Jacob and Christian when his body is returned to the island. Also, since Christian appeared to Michael right before the C4 went off, and also Jin was at the very front of the boat when the C4 went off, I wouldn't be surprised if Jin and possibly others that were on the boat are still alive somewhere, somehow.
And it should be really interesting to see what exactly are the horrible things that took place on the island that Jack said that Locke mentioned. Are these related to Widmore, Abaddon, or someone / something else? And how did Locke get off the island? Did he have to move it again like Ben did in this episode?
Update (6/1/08): According to this article, it appears that I completely misinterpreted the scene with Michael and Christian right before the freighter blew up. Christian's "now you can go" line apparently indicated that Michael had served his purpose and the island would now let him die.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Saturday, May 24, 2008
"Kegel can't peel a kiwi."
The first new Reno 911! in 2 1/2 months aired the other night and it was definitely worth the wait. My favorite parts were the intro hooker inspection, the popcorn machine in the briefing room, Terry talking about his job skills, and of course the new polygraph scene. The polygraph scene in Undercover At Burger Cousin, which I previously wrote about, was probably the funniest scene ever on the show, and this one was close behind. Hopefully there are a lot more polygraph scenes coming up in future episodes. Overall I thought this episode was better than Undercover At Burger Cousin since I liked the Jackie dying stuff better than the burger place stuff. I found the scene with Patton Oswalt crushed between cars talking about movies a little odd since he mentioned Antonioni's L'avventura, which I saw also wrote about not too long ago after recently seeing it again. Junior's line at the end of that scene was just priceless.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Thursday, May 15, 2008
The Office Season 4 season finale
The Season 4 season finale of The Office starts in about an hour from now, and I can't wait. My bookmark folder of spoilery blog posts, videos, and pictures, all from OfficeTally is completely full, and while I don't want to, I'll have to wait at least an hour after the show to start going through it since immediately following The Office season finale is the first part of the Lost season finale. My speculation on last year's season finale wasn't just bad, it was embarrassing (no link - if you want to read it you'll have to find it yourself). So my speculation is only a basic outline of the episode. The title of the episode is Goodbye, Toby. Last week or two weeks ago while going through production stills on Sparklies I accidentally opened the folder for the finale, and saw several pictures. The main thing I saw - and this is slightly spoilery - is there's an unknown woman with Toby in some of the pics. I think this might be the HR representative who is going to replace Toby. So my general prediction for the episode is: Toby announces he's leaving, his replacement comes to the office, she is shocked at what's going on in the branch, starts to make changes that make everyone, especially Michael, very uncomfortable, and Michael is forced to beg Toby to come back, and he does. Probably not even close to correct, but it makes sense, right? And about Jim and Pam, I'd be surprised if Jim doesn't propose tonight, and while I'd hope Pam would say yes, I think she'll probably say that she wants to put it off for awhile. We'll see!
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Short post about the Presidential race
So Obama has the Democratic nomation all but locked up, and now the media are trying to hype an Obama / Clinton "dream ticket." While Clinton as his VP candidate would help Obama more quickly unite Democrats behind him, Clinton supporters are going to come around and support him eventually simply because he's infinitely better than McCain. The racists who woun't vote for Obama because he's black, such as many of the people in yesterday's West Virginia primary, probably wouldn't vote for him in the general election no matter who the VP candidate was. The best thing I can see possibly coming out of Clinton's refusal to admit defeat and drop out of the race is if she gets Obama to adopt some or all of her health care proposals, which is the one issue on which I greatly prefer Clinton to Obama. As for who Obama's VP choice should be, there are a ton of reasonable choices, one in particular that sounds promising is Ohio governor Ted Strickland.
The people who give idiotic answers on Jaywalking are the smart ones.
The other day Digg linked to a list by Mark Bauerlein titled 8 reasons why this is the dumbest generation. After reading the list I think Bauerlin is in much worse shape than this supposedly stupid generation. Here are the things from the list and why (most of them) are wrong. Note: The things on the list are based on a book by the author. My review is based only on the explanations present in the list.
1. "They make excellent 'Jaywalking' targets" - This is the first item on the list, and it's the most clearly wrong. Leno probably interviews hundreds of people for each Jaywalking segment, but only a few go on the air. If Jay Leno puts a microphone in front of your face and asks you a dumb question, the smartest thing you can do if you want to be on TV is give the most idiotic and ridiculous answer you can think of. I'm sure some of the stupid answers he gets are genuine, but I'd bet that most of the stupid answers he gets are from smart people who want to be on TV, even if it means they have to pretend they're stupid. This is so obvious, I have to question why everyone doesn't know this. Maybe they'd rather laugh at how stupid others are than honestly assess their own intelligence.
2. "They don't read books -- and don't want to, either" - This is probably the most accurate item on the list. However, it doesn't seem to take into account how much of our reading we do online nowadays. After all, newspaper and magazine reading is way down from what it was 10 or even 5 years ago, yet we are better informed than ever by getting most of our news on the Internet. Nor does it take into account that some of the things that are being done in place of reading books require more (or at least different) active intelligence than reading.
3. "They can't spell" - There's a difference between not being able to spell and choosing not to spell correctly. With instant messenger and texting, time is the biggest factor, and it's simply not practical to correctly spell your words when you're carrying on several conversations at once or are typing on a terrible little keypad. The lack of meaningful content in these forms of communication is probably a more accurate indicator of the stupidness of the generation.
4. "They get ridiculed for original thought, good writing" - Really? Haven't young brainy people always been treated poorly by their less brainy, more muscular and attractive peers? The Internet provides a means for brainy people to connect with each other in a way that prior generations did not have available to them.
5. "Grand Theft Auto IV, etc." - Video games by themselves can increase puzzle solving skills, goal-oriented behavior, reflexes, coordination, and other skills. Like anything else, when they're played too much, leaving less time schoolwork, other worthwhile activities, or sleep, then they can be bad, but that's not the fault of the games themselves.
6. "They don't store the information" - This is one of the stranger items on the list. Of course most of us don't go on the Internet rubbing our hands together looking for some information that we don't currently need but figure we can store it away in long term memory and then retrieve it later should we ever need it. But when did we ever do that before the Internet? The simple fact is that more information (including lots of rubbish) is immediately available to this generation than any before it. Just because we don't always intend to store it away for a long time doesn't mean that we don't do that. In fact, because we have so many sources available, and we have to do active thinking to figure out what information is probably most accurate and relevant to our immediate needs, we probably retain information better than previous generations which simply flopped open an encyclopedia and started transcribing information.
7. "Because their teachers don't tell them so" - This one is probably true.
8. "Because they're young" - This is obviously true, but it seems a little like the author is covering his butt for when this generation grows up and turns out to not be so dumb after all.
1. "They make excellent 'Jaywalking' targets" - This is the first item on the list, and it's the most clearly wrong. Leno probably interviews hundreds of people for each Jaywalking segment, but only a few go on the air. If Jay Leno puts a microphone in front of your face and asks you a dumb question, the smartest thing you can do if you want to be on TV is give the most idiotic and ridiculous answer you can think of. I'm sure some of the stupid answers he gets are genuine, but I'd bet that most of the stupid answers he gets are from smart people who want to be on TV, even if it means they have to pretend they're stupid. This is so obvious, I have to question why everyone doesn't know this. Maybe they'd rather laugh at how stupid others are than honestly assess their own intelligence.
2. "They don't read books -- and don't want to, either" - This is probably the most accurate item on the list. However, it doesn't seem to take into account how much of our reading we do online nowadays. After all, newspaper and magazine reading is way down from what it was 10 or even 5 years ago, yet we are better informed than ever by getting most of our news on the Internet. Nor does it take into account that some of the things that are being done in place of reading books require more (or at least different) active intelligence than reading.
3. "They can't spell" - There's a difference between not being able to spell and choosing not to spell correctly. With instant messenger and texting, time is the biggest factor, and it's simply not practical to correctly spell your words when you're carrying on several conversations at once or are typing on a terrible little keypad. The lack of meaningful content in these forms of communication is probably a more accurate indicator of the stupidness of the generation.
4. "They get ridiculed for original thought, good writing" - Really? Haven't young brainy people always been treated poorly by their less brainy, more muscular and attractive peers? The Internet provides a means for brainy people to connect with each other in a way that prior generations did not have available to them.
5. "Grand Theft Auto IV, etc." - Video games by themselves can increase puzzle solving skills, goal-oriented behavior, reflexes, coordination, and other skills. Like anything else, when they're played too much, leaving less time schoolwork, other worthwhile activities, or sleep, then they can be bad, but that's not the fault of the games themselves.
6. "They don't store the information" - This is one of the stranger items on the list. Of course most of us don't go on the Internet rubbing our hands together looking for some information that we don't currently need but figure we can store it away in long term memory and then retrieve it later should we ever need it. But when did we ever do that before the Internet? The simple fact is that more information (including lots of rubbish) is immediately available to this generation than any before it. Just because we don't always intend to store it away for a long time doesn't mean that we don't do that. In fact, because we have so many sources available, and we have to do active thinking to figure out what information is probably most accurate and relevant to our immediate needs, we probably retain information better than previous generations which simply flopped open an encyclopedia and started transcribing information.
7. "Because their teachers don't tell them so" - This one is probably true.
8. "Because they're young" - This is obviously true, but it seems a little like the author is covering his butt for when this generation grows up and turns out to not be so dumb after all.
Concessions
I've been a little sick these last couple of days so I haven't felt very good. This clip from The Daily Show made me feel a lot better though.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)