Some quick thoughts on the first episode of the final season of LOST…

• Great first episode of the final season! Didn’t get many questions answered, and many more were introduced, but still an action-packed and intense episode!
• I really like the dual threads/alternate reality, a.k.a. flash sideways. Brilliant!
• I wonder if, at the end of the show, the two storylines will collide and each person will have to choose which one they want to stay in.
• No Shannon on the plane. Boone says she said stayed behind in Australia. Turns out that in real life, her busy schedule didn’t allow her to film any scenes and they had to re-write the back story. I thought Boone’s was a lame explanation, though, and didn’t fit with everything else that has happened in the LOST universe, such as certain people needing to be on flights to recreate conditions. The writers could simply have said Shannon was sitting elsewhere, in the bathroom or otherwise led us to believe she was on the plane, even if we didn’t see her.
• Where were Michael and Walt?
• There were several other things that were different with the “rebooted” storyline on Oceanic 815, e.g. Hurley being luckiest man alive, Desmond on the plane, Jack and Rose’s exchange. Were these butterfly effects from the explosion? Wonder what significance, if any, these particular differences have…
• I guess Juliet had to die at the Swan site since there are parallel worlds and she would still be alive back at Dharma land? Couldn’t have Juliet A run into Juliet B… And the Others/Dharma folks still on the island?
• Did Jacob’s last gasp of “They’re coming,” to which Fake Locke (a.k.a Flocke a.k.a the Man in Black a.k.a. Jacob’s Nemesis) seemed worried, reference Jacob’s bodyguards – Illana, Bran and crew? I hope not, because
  that wasn’t a challenge for Flocke at all.
• LOST probably has one of the largest casts on TV. We have the group from the fuselage, the tail section, the Dharma folks, the Others, the French, the freighter, the Ajira flight, all the folks from the flashbacks/forwards and now the temple dwellers (and those are just what I can think of off the
  top of my head).
• Seems we now know what kept Richard (and the temple dwellers?) young and what healed young Ben – the spring in the temple.
• Was Jacob the source/influence of the spring’s power, or did he use the spring to keep himself young? Did Flocke kick him into the fire so we couldn’t be brought to the spring to heal?
• Were the risks mentioned by Dagon concerning putting Sayid into the “dirty” spring related to Sayid’s state (almost dead) or the state of the spring (dirty)? If it was the spring, seems that the temple dwellers have experienced this before, or how else would they know the risks?
• Is Jacob now in Sayid’s body?
• Hmm, thinking about Jacob’s conversation with the MiB, and some other factors, there’s a hint of The Matrix in LOST (In The Matrixm, The One keeps appearing over and over until he really is the one and can make changes. In LOST, Jacob keeps bringing people to the island – to make progress – waiting
  for them to succeed.)
• Richard was in chains…on the Black Rock?? Is there a story of redemption here?
• Where exactly is “home” for Flocke/monster and what’s keeping him from going home? (Jacob can get off the island apparently…)
• Very interesting that in the alternate reality – on the plane – Charlie shouts “I was supposed to die!” He said the same thing on the island.
• What’s the deal with the blood on Jack’s neck in the plane bathroom?

Series finale is scheduled for Sunday, May 23rd. Mark your calendars!

My friends Lori, Dan and Kristi went to a taping of The Price is Right – and Lori made it on the show! You can also see Dan (going nuts) and Kristi in some of the audience shots. Watch the episode at the link below. Lori was the first contestant and made it to the showcase showdown! Yay!

The Price is Right – 10Nov2009

One of my all-time favorite clips from a sitcom.

When Theo brings home a poor report card, but claims he doesn’t need good grades to get a job. So Cliff gives him an economics lesson with Monopoly money.

Some of my favorite quotes:
“The government comes for the regular people first.”
“Theo…that’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard in my life! No wonder you get D’s in everything!”
“I am your father. I brought in this world, and I’ll take you out.”

Trying to keep my blogging momentum going… Today’s post is all about randomness.

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There’s a fun and travel-intensive weekend ahead of me! Friday, Kristy and I are heading up to Indianapolis for my yearly fix of DCI. This year I’m going all out. Rather than heading to a local show, we’re going to the DCI World Championship semifinals! Let’s go Phantom Regiment! (Unfortunately, after winning it all last year, they find themselvs in 9th place at the end of the “regular season” this year… )

Saturday we’ll be heading to Western KY to spend some time with my family. Every year around this time, before school starts, my father’s side of the family converges on my grandparents’ farm, south of Henderson, KY. This year I’ll be bringing a special guest. Kristy will get to meet the entire paternal side of the family…all at once. She graciously accepted the invitation and seems to be up for the challenge of meeting everyone! Yep, she’s a keeper

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There are rumors of a Quantum Leap Revival. Yes! That would totally make my day! Quantum Leap is one of my all time favorite shows.

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I’ll follow that with an interesting report on a study that concluded Opposite financial habits attract.

Eli Finkel: We found that when looking at spending patterns, spendthrifts and tightwads tend to pair up.

Tess Vigeland : And though singles say they would rather marry someone with spending habits like their own, they often don’t. Finkel says it has a lot to do with trying to address the pain we each experience. Tightwads actually don’t like spending too little money and spenders don’t really like spending too much.

Finkel: On those rare cases where we have a trait about ourselves that we dislike, those might be the cases where we would seek somebody who’s the opposite of us. So, if I’m somebody who spends a great deal of money and experiences some pain about it, I’ll dislike it enough in myself that I may well seek the opposite in a partner.

Vigeland: Of course, if you disagree on finances, the research also shows you may experience “diminished marital well-being.”

The actual study can be found here: Fatal (Fiscal) Attraction: Spendthrifts and Tightwads in Marriage

Considering that the number one cause of problems in marriage is money, and 50% of marriages end in divorce, I’m not sure if this is a good thing…

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Here’s an interesting website to which I wanted to bring attention: givinganon.org.
In a nutshell, the site let’s you give anonymously to others.

Giving Anonymously is a non-profit organization facilitating generosity between people. We are a volunteer organization; each of us donates our time without pay to keep Giving Anonymously running.

We began with a few goals in mind: We wanted to relationally connect people through giving, to make it fun, and in the process protect relationships from feelings of obligation. Giving to others in need can be full of mixed motivations and our hope is to facilitate Pure giving.

Anyone who enjoys putting cash under a friends door or in their mailbox will often times not know if their friend actually got the gift and they cannot hear what it meant to them. So, we came up with an idea to have a messaging line where recipients could call after receiving their gift. When a recipient doesn’t know who gave the gift to them they are even more free to express their gratitude and we capture this through voice files that we email to the donor.

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And the last bit of randomness for today – I completely missed my 1 year anniversary at Medpace! I started July 28th, 2008 and the past year has been a good journey. I’m not doing much of what I was originally hired to do, having instead stepped into a more specialized role with a different system. I’m thankful for this opportunity and appreciate the challenge of establishing new processes and reworking old processes to streamline the flow of getting the system up and running. The company itself is great. They definitely have employee morale in mind by providing word day activities such as cornhole and pop-a-shot tournaments, ice cream socials and lunches, as well as outside work events such as the Christmas party, paintball, golf outings and more.
It has been a welcome change from my previous employers!

For all you Losties out there…a little entertainment for this Friday. What if Lost were a sitcom from the nineties? (via tvsquad.com)

All I have to say is someone is trying to pass the time while waiting for the final season…

I’m a little late on this one… A couple days after Paul Harvey passed on, so did Uncle Al. Those of you not in the greater Cincinnati area probably haven’t heard of him, but he was host of The Uncle Al Show, one of the longest running local children’s shows in American TV history (35 years). You can read more about him and his show at the following sites:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Uncle_Al_Show
• http://www.wcpo.com/content/aboutus/uncleal/default.aspx

I don’t remember much about the show, but I was actually on it! Way back in Jun of 1981, when I was a few months shy of being four years old. See if you can spot me:

No other sit-com has tugged on my heart strings more than Mad About You. I still remember the first time I saw The Finale, the three part ending of season 4, when the Buchman’s were going through a really rough time in their marriage and we all wondered if they would stay together. That was a tough stretch to watch, and though they brought it on themselves by making bad decisions, I was still rooting for everything to work out and for them to live happily ever after (I say it like that were real people). There’s also an episode in season one, Met Someone, which was about how Paul and Jamie met. This was another episode that warmed my heart (I’m such a sap). I really can’t wait until I experience these emotions, both the good and bad, in the context of finding, dating and marrying that special person. Over the past year, I’ve gone from wanting that fairy tale, storybook, “perfect” marriage to really looking forward to experience the highs and lows of a “real” marriage, wanting to work and fight together through the difficult times then share in the enjoyment and pure bliss of making up and the moments of triumph each other’s lives. I’ve come to realize there can’t be all good times in a marriage, no matter how hard the couple tries, and the difficult times are like fertilizer that nourish the relationship and make the good times all that much greater. I’m digressing…

Mad About You is one of my favorite sit-coms, joining the likes of The Cosby Show, Seinfeld and The Office (that I can think of off the top of my head). If you haven’t seen it, catch it in syndication on TV Land or watch seasons 1-3 on DVD. Highly recommended!

Saw Prince Caspian this weekend… Overall, pretty good movie, with plenty of action and adventure and good special effects. You may be disappointed if you’ve read and are a fan of the book, though. While it didn’t deviate drastically from the book, there were some liberties taken (such as a bit of a romance) and they choose to leave out quite a bit in order to throw in more battle scenes. What bugged me the most, though, was the wannabe Lord of the Rings aspects of the film – such as the Ent-like trees in the final battle. The big screen adaptation wasn’t close to the “movie” I had formed in my head while reading the book, but it was still an enjoyable movie. I’m really looking forward to the next movie, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Dawn Treader is my favorite book of the seven and could make a really great movie. It’s scheduled to hit the big screen in May 2010.

This is turning into quite a summer for movies. Ironman has been a blockbuster (haven’t seen it yet, but heard nothing but rave reviews about it), Indiana Jones is released this week (heard it’s awful, but I’ll see it anyway) and Get Smart is coming in June (looks hilarious). I was very surprised to see a trailer for Journey to the Center of the Earth, starring Brenden Fraser. This movie is based on the Jules Verne novel of the same name, which is one of my top 10 favorite books. Fantastic read – be sure to check it out! The book has been adapted to the big screen before, almost fifty years ago, but the reason this version surprises is me is that it aired as a made-for-TV movie on SciFi ION earlier this year.

Last bit of entertainment news – Muppet Show Season 3 hits stores tomorrow!

On a side note, I added a few new pics to the gallery.
[Oops, new gallery pics were broken. They're fixed now.]

Things have been a bit hectic and crazy lately, hence the lack of posting. So, just to get a post up so the site doesn’t go stale, let’s talk Super Bowl XLII.

What did you think of the game? I didn’t really care much about the game going into it, and it was a pretty boring game until the end. I’m not a fan of either team, but I was pulling more for the Patriots just because I wanted to see a perfect season, something I didn’t think would ever happen again. I’m not bummed that the Giants won, though. Now I can focus on college basketball!

Thoughts on the half time show? I didn’t watch any of it, since I was busy losing at euchre in another room… :-/

What was your favorite commercial? If you don’t remember them, YouTube has the collection. Some of my “faves” (they weren’t really that good overall) were the Bridgestone “Squirrel in the Road,” Doritos “Mouse Trap,” Diet Pepsi Max “Roxbury/What is Love?” and several of the Budweiser commercials. I can’t really figure out why, but the SoBe Life Water “Thriller” commercial was catchy, too.

The worst ones? Take your pick out of any Salesgenie.com commercial. Blah

Two tests coming up…hopefully more posting when those are out of the way.

I’m a big fan of the Discovery Channel. Mythbusters, Survivorman and Planet Earth are all great shows. I’ve heard Dirty Jobs and Deadliest Catch are pretty good, too.

Discovery debuted several new shows around the start of the year – Fight Quest, Smash Lab, Some Assembly Required and Weapon Masters. Considering how good most of their shows are, I couldn’t wait to check out these four.

First, the disappointment – Smash Lab. It’s similar to Mythbusters, with a team of four “maverick engineers” testing various things…only this team is not nearly as funny and engaging as good ol’ Adam and Jamie and the things they test aren’t as satisfying as myths.

From the website:

“[T]hey take on everyday technology and apply it in revolutionary new ways. First they break down the technology to see how it works and then use their know-how to see how it could be used in a different, supersized way.”

It seems forced, as if they’re trying to much to be like Mythbusters, rather than being their own show. Hopefully it will get better as the season goes on, as the team members get more comfortable with each other and the camera. It has potential.

Weapon Masters involves two guys exploring how weapons are made. The one episode I saw had the guys traveling to Japan to see how the kitana, the samurai’s sword, is traditionally made. The “weapon master” then tried to recreate the sword with today’s technology and tested it against the traditionally made sword. Unfortunately, it seems the preview episode of the show didn’t get many viewers or good reviews, because it isn’t listed on Discovery’s website any longer. A DVD of episodes is available in the Discovery store, though.

Fight Quest is an interesting show where two guys travel the world learning native fight styles.

“A blend of cultural immersion and good old-fashioned smackdown, the series follows seasoned mixed martial arts fighter Jimmy Smith and 25-year-old rookie Doug Anderson as they travel the globe, adding fight styles from Kali to kickboxing to their repertoire.”

It’s a pretty interesting show, and though I’m not really a fan of Doug, Jimmy is engaging and easy to root for in his various fights. It’s cool learning about the different fighting styles and the culture surrounding them.

My favorite new show is Some Assembly Required. Of all the “how things are made” type shows (How It’s Made, Made in America,etc), I think this one is the best. Very engaging, funny and informative. So far, they’ve looked at Jelly Belly, moonbounce, Zamboni and Gibson guitars to name a few.

[T]hey explore the manufacturing process of everything from cheddar cheese to Gibson guitars. Some Assembly Required will give you a new appreciation of everyday items and the people who build them.

Be sure to check out these, and the other Discovery Channel shows, if you have the chance!