Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Lost: The man from Tallahassee

I don't want to appear as if I'm some kind of Lost obsessive but I am. There's no escaping it (as the Beatnuts once sang).

What a fantastic episode. So many questions left in the mind:

Q: Was Ben ever going to let Jack and Juliet leave by submarine?

Q: Now that the submarine has been blown up by Locke, are there really no other ways off the island as Ben said? And no other ways of communicating with the outside world?

Q: Are Ben and Locke pleased that no one can leave the island now? Well, if that's true (see above question).

Q: Are The Others (AKA The Hostiles) some kind of pseudo scientific cult? Ben and his gang recruit people to join the islanders and he seems to hope they will learn to love their new life / not want to leave.

Q: Locke said that Ben's way of life on the island was 'cheating' - he was referring, we think, to the relative civilisation they have. What does this mean? Does he prefer a purist human-interacting-with-island approach where they commune with the environment without walls, a roof or refrigerators to put chicken in?

Q: Is Russoe an Other?

Q: If 'The Purge' was a fight between The Others and the Dharma Initiative ... what are their differences? Are The Others a breakaway group? Or maybe one stands for religion and the other for science? Which is which?

Q: GO Googling for Hanso Adoptions ... you'll see there is a lot of talk about family and belonging. Is this what the island experiment (if that's what it is) is all about?

Q: Parents. A constant theme growing ever stronger now that Locke's dad is on the island too. ALl of the Losties have wronged their parents ... except Locke. Mikhail referred to Kate and Sayid as 'flawed' in the Par avion episode. Is being 'flawed' about having wronged your parents? Certainly we know Sayid and Kate were not on Jacob's List. It's unclear but Mikhail said he rememebred Locke ... does this imply that Locke isn't flawed and may well be on Jacob's List? We also know for sure Jack isn't on Jacob's List from an earlier episode and Jack dobbed his Dad in to the hospital ethics board.

Q: Are all the parents on the island?
Q: Is Walt's Mum really dead? Is she on the island? Ditto Jack and Claire's Dad?
SO many questions!

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Sun Pat Peanut Butter

Do you remember the olde TV advert for Sun Pat?

The jingle sang: "Sun Pat Peanut Butter for your daily spread ..."

It kept running round my head while I was at the supermarket earlier. Damn annoying. What do they call them, 'ear worms'? Tunes you can't get off your brain.

Then I started thinking about the Ringo Starr one: "Our son Pat ... goes round in circles like a cat. Has a bat, etc etc" (I've not quite perfected the words here)

It feels quite cold this afternoon in London. Smashed a bottle of gin at the counter in the supermarket ... and whaddya know, the nice staff came and replaced it for us fre of charge!

I'm getting worryingly into my gin since New York.

I saw the Man from Tallahassee last night! Oh my God! Lost has turned a new corner. What an excellent episode. I'll talk about it more once it has been on Sky One tomorrow.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Lost: Man from Tallahassee

Big potential spoiler alert here

I am obsessed with Lost - that long-running tv drama showing on Sky One in the UK, originating on ABC in the states.

I'm aware that in two short hours, all US citizens will be able to tune their TV to ABC and watch the latest episode - season 3, episode 13 - entitled "The Man from Tallahassee".

Are you watching it? Honestly, there's not a day goes by when I don't think about it, look it up on a website or download a podcast / YouTube clip for the latest theories, gossip and general immersalness.

The UK gets to see tonight's episode on Sunday night, 10pm, Sky One.

OK, so where are we.

At the end of the last episode (Par Avion) we saw Locke, Sayid and Kate enter the Others village that they tracked down ... due to some hokey thing about Locke having seen it on Mr Eko's stick as he was burying him: "a sign, a sign".

Anyhoo, at the end of the show we saw Jack playing football with The Others! He was playing with Tom, Mr Friendly, specifically. He seemed to be having fun. So we're left with the question ... is he now in league with The Others?

Having YouTUbed around, I found a trailer for this week's Lost on ABC (and hence Sky One in the UK, too). We see Jack talking to Kate. Oooh darn it if there's not a lov thang goin' on. Looks as if the little fling with Sawyer on the Hydra little island was perhaps born of pity because Kate thought Sawyer was a gonner. Kate didn't admit to loving Sawyer ... he did ask her and rather admitted he loved her.

Moving on. We discover Ben Linus knows that Locke was a wheelchair user for 4 years. He knows how he ended up in the chair, too. We hear from the voiceover man that Ben is going to tell Locke some of the secrets of the island in this episode too! I'm sure this must be connected with his apparent recovery and ability to walk again, Rose's bout of cancer remission and possibly even the reason why Sun became pregnant though her husband Gin is infertile (it's possible that Sun had an affair with that Lee fella we saw in flashback though, I think Damon Lindlaugh and Carlton thingumbyjig may hav admitted to this in one of their podcasts in the last run, Autumn time).

Ya know, it's only when I come to writing this down that I realise how dull it must be for others who know nothing about Lost? I was trying to tell my parents - they were up this past weekend - about the intricacies and how much I like the show ... they were zoning out barely before I started.

Latest Lost theories

• Desmond is Jesus -- Well. I had thought for a while back there that, tapping into this whole religious thing, Desmond was some kind of Jesus figure: keeps saving people (well Charlie), beard, keeps calling people 'brother', saved the world so others might live - but not sure about that now. Well, not sure what it would achieve in the entire story arc at any rate. Might come back to that another time.

• The great man -- Ben has talked about him, Mickhail the Russian fella who got killed talked about him. We're talking about the leader of The Others or the Dharma Initiative - if they are one and the same thing which I'm not altogether sure about. "He's a great man ... but not a forgiving man" said Ben back in season two when he was captive in the Losties' hatch. If he's not forgiving, could this be why Mikhail and Miss Klough were happy to die? Is he ruthless? Or is he a cult leader? Is the Dharma initiative a pseudo-scientific cult? Who is the leader? I think it might be Jack! But Jack has somehow either forgotten temporarily or is playing an elaborate game. Jack's faith healing tattooist saw leadership qualities in him, all the Losties defer to him as leader (mostly) and his tattoos say he is a man who stands alone amongst others. Others? Hallo, suss the big clue? He's the leader! He's why everyone is on the island!

• Leader backtrack -- Or maybe Locke is the leader ... Mikhail said he remembered Locke ... suggesting he may have been on Jacob's list. Hmm, whereas Tom (Mr Friendly) said Jack wasn't on Jacob's list back in the episode where Ben was in the operating theatre. But maybe Jack wasn't on the list because he IS the leader?

More at another time.

Not lifechanging

I've done it again. Got all silly boyish excited about an electronic gizmo / piece of software I've got.

Basically everyone, party over, seems as if JAWS 8 isn't life changing after all.

Fuck. I'm off to bed.

If Dragon's Den were on when I were a kid ...

When I was a lad, I used to get all fired up by TV programmes I watched.

If Blue Peter taught you how to make something, I'd be up, out of my chair, at the table, making it.

When the film 'WarGames' came on TV, I got up, went to my computer and tried to hack into something important. Didn't have a modem but that didn't stop me programming something with a password that made me feel like a technical whizz / hacker! Oooh! Ingenuity.

Superman? I drew a big Superman S thing and cut it out, put it on my TV shirt and became a superhero.

So to the present. This evening I watched Dragon's Den, got all excited as usual about starting my own business and making millions ... but what have I done about it now that I hav the tools, freedom and adult brain to make it a reality? Answer: nothing. Well OK I did sell a few old DVDs on eBay a few months ago after a particularly good episode of the business show but ... well if only it had been on when I was younger I could be a millionaire, innit.

At last

For those of you keeping up with the fascinating yet fateful tale of why this blog hasn't been updated properly in a dog's age ... well we reach final stage tonight.

I have received the latest version of my screenreader, JAWS, and so Blogger is once again accessible - no thanks to the Blogger team who altered their site so that certain screenreaders were unable to use it. 290 pounds later, I can decorate the web with my meaningless blabber once again.

You must be relieved.

Tomorrow I get another disk with new voices for my screenreader which means I can evoke the lovely Karen - an aussie female voice - which I am taking a small amount of pleasure in for some reason. OK. I am in love with a speech synthesizer. I admit it.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

I posted. There.

OK so I'm posting to my blog for the first time in ages. did I tell you I've been to New York? Effing cold, minus 10, snow on streets, but had a great time. Shopped like a b*stard.

I'm writing this at work. It's 7:38pm and I should ahve gone home ages ago. I believe Americans have almost caught up with our superior method of mean timeage by doing daylight saving a few weeks early. That's nice.

OK. I've now forked out 290 quid (?) for the latest version screenreader so will be back blogging again very soon.

So, for those of you who missed me (and I can't imagine there are too many) then hurrah I'll be back. Screw blogger though and their sudden decision to make their site less accessible.

I've become meaner and more unpleasant since the last time I posted. I should warn you of this. I'm fired up at the moment and scattering my hell and hatred everywhere. Perhaps.

Oh god my mum is calling my moble.