UConn James

So.... Seems evident that the writers wanted us to reflect back on the Locke-Boone "sacrifice." Instead of thru a dream, it happens close to real-time, in broad daylight; and rather than pyschadelic metaphors like 'Theresa falls up the stairs, theresa falls down the stairs; Desmond receives true-blue visions. And instead of sacrificing Charlie as Locke did Boone, keeps saving him. All that was to change, Desmond thought, but when the moment comes, he can't bring himself to let it happen. Seems like the same kind of frustration is getting to him as punching in the code for 3 years; it's a task that he has to do to save Charlie instead of the world. Seemed like before the cut to commercial Hurley & Charlie had a WTF moment where they knew Desmond planned on letting Charlie die. I think the question going forward is, does Charlie keep 'letting' Desmond interfere. Thing to take from the flashbackS, I guess, is that Desmond is kind of... destined to fail at things. Jilted the girl from tonight; dumped Penny; entered the race and washed up on mystery island; the hatch imploded; he 'fails' by saving Charlie. Also, we know why he calls everyone 'brother.' The heavy accents always give me a little pause with my hearing, and CC always blocks out too much of the picture. Still, I enjoy the Des eps, as he has a great depth of character and sense of humor (the jokes he tells Penny had me ) despite all that happens. Also, who was in the picture on the head monk's desk? It flashed for a split second. Anyone have TiVo? As for the visions and real life, there were the red specks against the dark sky, which evidently were the flashing beacons on the flightsuits, which would mean that one of them is out in the ocean? What was the splash (sounded heavy-ish...) --- the helicopter proper, some sort of supplies, Penny? This was obviously the result of the scene from the S2 finale. What was the book that fell out of the pack --- "Catch 22" in a different language? What was that w/ Kate+Sawyer, that she was crying as she was jumping on him. That's pretty odd. And to continue from last week's discussion, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if she does get preggers and becomes the answer to Everything.

For damn near any TeeVee show, it's always the case that people say seasons past were the best and the current season is subpar/crap. For me, S1 was the best; mostly due to the sheer originality of the series and freshness of everything that was going on as it was a new kind of show. That has subsided since then; viewers know things, viewers expect things, viewers want answers. I've always compared it to reading a really great novel one chapter at a time, over the course of several years.... you know, something like Dreiser, of whom critics often write that while his words, sentences and chapters are like ordinary bricks, how he puts them together that makes a beautiful building.

Actually, it was said about McGahee. Just never delivered.

Photographic extrapolation.

Quite reasonable doubts, actually.

Sept. 9 DENVER BRONCOS (Loss) Sept. 16 @ Pittsburgh Steelers (Loss) Sept. 23 @ New England Patriots (Loss) Sept. 30 NEW YORK JETS (Win) Oct. 8 DALLAS COWBOYS (Win) Oct. 21 BALTIMORE RAVENS (Loss) Oct. 28 @ New York Jets (Win) Nov. 4 CINCINNATI BENGALS (Win) Nov. 11 @ Miami Dolphins (Win) Nov. 18 NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS (Win) Nov. 25 @ Jacksonville Jaguars (Loss) Dec. 2 @ Washington Redskins (Win) Dec. 9 MIAMI DOLPHINS (Win) Dec. 16 @ Cleveland Browns (Win) Dec. 23 NEW YORK GIANTS (Win) Dec. 30 @ Philadelphia Eagles (Loss) 10-6

Lots of good observations in there. Point #3 especially, something I hadn't picked up on with the intentional pairing of Kate & Sawyer, esp. in light of the Kate-centric ep's "You can't help who you love" mashing in with her dilemma of who to choose. In part she wanted to reject who she was; to wit, she killed her real father and hates that she feels something deep for Sawyer --- but then her inability to fit/feel comfortable when she did get married to a good man, and her connection with Jack. In essence, she doesn't want to be po' white trash but she is, and try as she might to change it, she can't escape it. Which kind of ties back into Desmond's ep that if something is meant to be/fated, it will happen eventually. I dig your point #5, something I was thinking myself and didn't have the time or initiative to write down. The Others seem to know so much about the Lostaways, it can't all come from public records, etc. And the stories all merge so much, it can't be coincidence that they're all there. When the plane crashed and Ben said to get a list, it's quite possible that it would be a list of who was where --- the plane crashed in two sections. I do not doubt that the Others do have that connection to do things in the outside world, and Ben's "Hurry back" was curious. Ben is a man of his word; I don't question that. But it doesn't stop him from making promises and then having other people break them i.e. promising to get Jack and Juliet off the island with the sub, then playing his game with Locke to get the sub blown up. Ben's hands are clean from breaking his promise. The writers have put in several homages to The Office. I've only seen a couple eps of the British Ricky-Gervais version, which... isn't my brand of humor. And I don't watch the American version. Duey, the bolded part, I believe, is one of the BIG things of the series. If Kate is preggers, it might fit into Abrams/Lindelof original plan that they wanted Jack to die in the pilot and Kate to be the hero. As of now, she is kind of a co-hero who volunteers to solve so many problems. Kate could be a hero that they first invisioned if her child is the first (questionable) to be both conceived and born on the island. I also wouldn't say Charlie is a "good person" or that Shannon was a "bad person." They are both really in the middle. Tho we don't know what distinctions the Others draw on --- does drug use, attempted theft, etc. make Charlie a bad person? Does the fact that other people (step-mother) being total a--holes that made you into what you were make Shannon bad?

Some of my last post had a response to the first paragraph.... Perhaps there is a link b/w the inability to get cancer and the inability to survive pregnancy. Something intrinsic to the island. Maybe magnetics, maybe something else. Ironic that the price of life/health is the inability to continue life/give birth. For each ying there is a yang, for each black there is a white. Hmm?

See, I'm not seeing all that. If her ulterior motive was to join in with the Lostaways, she prol'y wouldn't have bogarted Kate when she opened the door to deliver food and then again in the jungle, and she wouldn't have given away that she had the key to the cuffs. Kate suspects her, Sayid suspects her. No matter what Jack says and no matter what Juliet does. They both know that the Others will give a little and then play you like a fool/use you in their experiments. How many times has Jack been totally, totally wrong about the Others and what he thinks they'll do, and Sayid has been totally, totally right? I think trusting Juliet is Jack's last mistake as the Leader. Notice the last moment of last night was her tying that knot forcefully; she's going to do what she needs to do and go back to the Others and Ben, who showed last night that he is "a man of [his] word." She does believe that; and by doing this plan she will either try to get off the island.... or, she stays on to continue the research. Another thing she does believe in is the worthiness of the Others' cause. We probably shouldn't try to read into things with her. Something else.... If the Others can cure cancer wily-nily, then why did Ben need Jack to do the surgery? Well, we know why; Ben's cancer immunity isn't working anymore and he's scared about that. Why the need to be so secretive about it, tho? Note that they went to an entirely different island when they could have stayed on the main one; only a select group of the Others were there. Does he need to hide this from the rest of the group, and why? Did many of the Others group see him sick? Call me out if I'm wrong.

Touché! Do I need to go sit in the corner now? There was just something soooo "12 Monkeys" about that scene, tho. I kind of got caught up with that theory. She well could have been a 'seer' (she was never billed as one, as opposed to the 'seers' where it was a Lostaway who did the initial-encounter approaching); just that it would seem odd for a woman selling jewelry to suddenly go into that unless she had been planted there for the specific purpose. The nature of what brought the plane down was revealed last season. To wit, when Desmond was lookjing at the printouts from the Pearl station and saw that the crash coincided with his not entering the numbers in time and the 'system failure.' That's not something the Lostaways are going to be hunting him down for --- they know. I would have to check to be 100 percent certain, but yes, I believe she did. Which, evidently, would make the phenomenon something that had developed w/in those 16 years.

"I'm cool about time." I think especially after the Desmond ep, you have to accept there's going to be some kind of time travel/worm hole things brought in. How could the Others have put the woman in the jewelry store to tell Desmond all that unless it had already happened? They looped back (and I'm thinking in a "12 Monkeys" kind of way --- there was something about the way that scene was shot that was familar) to keep Desmond from trying to make a free will decision to not do the things he had the visions of. Like I said at the time, that ep is going to turn out to be one of the penultimate for understanding what is going on. But yeah, any connection w/ 9/11 is likely dubious. Besides it being a major event that forces the Others to speed up their plan to save humanity and take a more hard-core Utilitarian Ethics approach (notice then, that Juliet's ex would likely have been hit by the bus very soon after 9/11. Mideros/Others/Dharma needed her tout suite, so they killed him). I don't think the writers want to go anywhere near involvement in 9/11; that would be such a poison pill/jump the shark moment.

"So it goes." (Damn.)

It's not that I was surprised by it. Just wowed by the level of writing even so.... and Juliet on the bed. I think she does exactly what Ben wants. Why would she? There's got to be some other way off of the island. She wants off.... but I think you have to also wonder if she wants control if/when something happens to Ben. From her past, remember, she is subservient to dominant/'higher-up' men. Once they're out of the way (her ex-husband killed in exactly the way she had described, too), she's ready to take a gamble. So, every woman who's been preggers on the island has died. Claire has not. But the Others want the Lostaways to think that she could w/o their vaccine. Ben had cancer, when no one else on the island had cancer. The Others/Dharma can cure cancer (only, not in Ben's case? why? Locke hit a nerve w/ Ben when he suggested that the island's healing power wasn't working for him anymore) non-invasively. Why haven't they shared the secret? If you've seen the Dharma stuff on youtube (that the creators put on there), human overpopulation may be a part of the number that they are seeking to change; therefore, allowing people to die of cancer isn't a bad thing to the Others, in the interest of the human race surviving. Since the farmhouse place where Mikhail(?) got all the information from blew up, are the Others now w/o their eyes and ears on the outside? This ep showed a big reason why he, as a true believer, would rather die than reveal anything by being interrogated/tortured. Did anyone catch what Ben said when Juliet asked him how he got the medical records? Before the end of the season, I want to see something re: the S2 finale with Penny and those two guys in the listening post.

No. But then again, no one thought Warren Moon would be, either. Tho, I think there's other reasons why WM got it; was the 'mobile QB' prototype who was also a great passer, stats, a consideration that if the teams around him were just a little better.... For Drew, his main team won the SB(s) only after he went down and out.

Dude! This show is just awesome.

While we're in the shower? Pervert!

Whatsamatter, Pete? Hartford didn't make your list? I'm very provincial myself. Farthest west I've ever been was the Ralph, farthest south was the Bronx, farthest north is central Maine & St. Lawrence Seaway, farthest east is the Mass. coastline. But even within these confines, I've been to some pretty cool places. I don't need to drop names. In Maine, I've been to a natural spring that only a few townfolk know about where the water is better than any I've ever drank. I've walked the floor in Gampel Pavillion. I've looked at Babe Ruth's plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame. I've looked at the gold timothy fields shining in the sun and blowing in the wind at my grandparents' 350 acre farm in WNY. I've hunted amid bare mountain laurel and fished in both the clearest and the darkest (cedar trees turn the water absolute black) of ponds. I've walked down a swamp road with my german shorthaired pointer and placed flags at the graves of men who fought and died for this country in the Revolutionary and Civil wars. I've been at a house where I helped construct walls that will still be standing 300 years from now (excluding vis. force majuer clauses). I've stared at Monets and hundreds-year old pottery in the MFA. And a thousand other spots that I'm perfectly contented to be in as long as there is good food, good humor, good conversation and good works.

Ditto. Except for the finding it frustrating part. Maybe they think the Others will be back? Maybe they want to stay at the beach just b/c... and they're holding out the faintest hope of a ship or a plane. Maybe some of them will return to live in those cabins. Who knows. That's what most people find frustrating --- it's like being able to read the best book you've ever read, only a few pages per week. Or, since this is Schedule Day, the NFL only releasing "Sept 9 Denver 1:00pm" today. Viewers want it all now now now, but there's somebody at the other end who regulates it.

Socrates... Plato... Kant... Coli.

Link. The Bengals PR guys always seem to be the first to the ball.

Happy that the soldiers are home safely, but I can't say I disagree with this guy. British sailors’ conduct was a disgrace: Where is honor? Iran hostages’ handshakes, apologies are ‘reprehensible’

Fuggin unbelievable. 1) What do they do every time there's a technology change? i.e. from the first iPod --> iPod Nano, fitting more capacity in less space.... 2) What happens every time some kid breaks the things, b/c you know that will happen. 3) Is there some kind of plan to convert lesson plans to mp3 files? Give kids CDs/DVDs and stop buying text materials? Would doing that save money? What is the practicality of this, or is it just so kids can listen to music and burn their parents' hard-earned on Brittany Spears' crap? 3) In a time of budget crises..... Seriously! WTFin'F??!?!?

To answer the question, people rarely, if ever, move to Connecticut. (Not in the last 30 years, at least).

You are correct that the relocated team holds the history, i.e. the Carolina Hurricanes hold the Hartford Whalers' historical record. (Interestingly, there is talk that a new owner of the Hartford arena wants to bring the NHL back here; if so, I'm sure there will be a lot of pressure to get the Whalers' name and history back). HOWEVER, the example of the Browns-Ravens isn't accurate here. The Ravens formally gave the city of Cleveland the Browns logo, history, records, etc. --- cut all ties so Cleveland could retain the Browns if they got another franchise, which they did --- and the Ravens essentially became a new franchise. It was part of the deal.

Just to clarify, he has not shifted positions on gay marriage/union. The allowance for it was 'legislated from the bench' and Romney has been fighting it from the start. Didn't want out-of-state gay couples married... wanted it put to a referendum (where it would likely fail) rather than it going to the legislature (where it has a chance). He has shifted on abortion and gun rights. And I would hope he shifts his stance on alternative energy (he was opposed to the wind power project). Don't ask --- you're better off. French politics is a total clusterf--k.