Lost's 100th

Lost is airing it's 100th episode, "The Variable", the evening and I couldn't be more excited.  A week without this show put me into some kind of crazy withdraw.  Who knows what's going to happen this summer...

 

Anyway, Doc Jensen has his weekly episode preview here about tonight's Daniel Faraday centric episode.  I'm expecting many revelations, specifically ones that delve into the Island's time travel rules.  Hope everyone enjoys it tonight.

 

Wishing work was over,

 

DK

Chuck vs NBC

The finale of Chuck was last night, and like the rest of this season, it was absolutely superb. I actually just finished watching it again. I've said before how much I love this show and this was a perfect end to the second season. I've embedded the show below - I loved the whole episode but if you really want to see Chuck at it's best start at 14:35 and just watch until the song is over. TV rarely gets better than that for me. I also ask you all to click on the link to the right to see what you can do to help bring the show back - if you haven't watched the first season, it's available on TheWB.com. Also, I own it on DVD, if you want to come over.



Peace out, Nerd Herders

DK

A Case of the Mon... Tuesdays 4/28/09

Actually getting a chance to take a deep breath at work so I decided what better way to celebrate than by actually updating.  This story is a pretty obvious but since we're all going to die from this I figured it was a good choice.

 

OMG!1!! SWINE FLU!!!! THERE'S NO ESCAPE!!!! PANDEMIC!!!!

 

I'm a little tired this morning so I just glanced at most of the article but I'm pretty sure that's the headline.  And now a point/counterpoint.

 

POINT - Article:

The WHO has lifted its pandemic alert to phase 4, meaning there is sustained human-to-human transmission of the virus causing outbreaks in at least one country. It also indicates the risk of a deadly global outbreak.

"At this time, containment is not a feasible option," said Keiji Fukuda, assistant director-general of the World Health Organization.

COUNTERPOINT - Me: I just ate a ham, egg, and cheese sandwich for breakfast..... w/ bacon.  Take that swine.  Delicious, delicious swine.

Because let's be real folks, if we stop eating bacon, the pigs have already won!

DK

Harry Kalas 1936 - 2009

This may seem a little late to post but I'm still kind of in shock over. Harry Kalas, the voice of Philadelphia baseball, died on Tuesday of heart disease. He died doing what he loved, sitting in the press box, going over the starting line up for a game that was only a few hours away. And he will be missed.

I'll be 25 in June, which means since I've been alive, I've heard Harry Kalas call baseball games. I can't imagine listening to a game without him behind the mic. When I heard the news, I could actually feel myself tearing up a bit. It was like losing a friend.

There's a lot of articles out there about Harry the K. ESPN.com's Jayson Stark, a resident of the Philly area wrote an excellent one. It also contains a great video that contains his call of Mike Schmidt's 500th home run and the Phillies 2008 World Series win. Also, just about every article on philly.com's Phillies page is about him. These articles say things better than I ever feel I could.

The Phillies hit three home runs on Tuesday. With each one I could here Kalas saying "OUTTA HERE!" in my head. And that's how it always will be.

DK

A Case of the Mondays 4/10/09

Hope everyone had a good week, a recap of my goings on will be up later today.  But for now, let's get rid of any residual happiness you may have from the weekend with two stories.

 

Few U.S. cities escape reach of the recession

 

93% of metro areas are suffering from a recession.  The county is receiving an A in economic decline.  You know, just in case you thought things might be turning around.   HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

Florida Boat slams into tug, killing 5

 

You know that Sunday night feeling.  You're not quite ready for bed but you know you should be going because you had work in the morning.  Sometimes you'll do something fun, just to try to hold off the week for a few more hours.  Now imagine you crash into a tug boat and 5 of your friends die.

 

This story reminds me of the time my friend CM was riding his bike and was "hit by a car".  And by "hit by a car" I mean ran into a parked car.  The tug boat was docked, so can someone explain to me how someone ran into it?  You should be vigilant on a boat anyway, especially if you're near the dock!

 

I will say I find it to be hilarious that the article goes out of its way to refer to the boat as a "pleasure boat".  Something about five deaths and seven injuries does scream pleasurable to me.  But maybe that's just me.

 

DK

USE YOUR WORDS: A weekend homework assignment

A random word from the wonderful website known as Urban Dictionary. Your assignment: Use the word in conversation this weekend, then post how you used the word in the comments section. Have fun!

1. Julian
A very honest man who is freakishly horny. He gets hard an average of 45 times per day. Many woman like him and dream of having sex with him. He is a player but everyone loves him because he is sweet like candy. He has an overactive imagination and can make up very sexual stories that can turn anyone on and get them wet like a lake.

DK

Barry Bonds can suck it.

While watching the Phillies home opener on Sunday (stupid Braves), I made a prediction about this season.

Ryan Howard will hit 100 home runs this season.

Yeah, that's right. One hundred.

My other Phillies fan friends laughed at me (as will most fans of baseball) but I am telling you not only is this completely possible, it is going to happen. All Ryan Howard has to do is working on his Batting Average. Because he only hits home runs. Either that or he strikes out. So get rid of the strikes outs. What are you left with? All home runs. All the time. Think about it.

I'll be tracking Ryan's success on sidebar.

GO PHILLIES!

DK

Everything I ever wanted to know about pirates I learned from Veggie Tales!

And apparently it was all lies.

Pirates do a lot! Like shanghai ships, steal cargo, hold U.S. sailors hostage, and generally terrorize the high seas! Who fucking knew? I went to Seton Hall and I was the laziest pirate you ever saw.

Seriously though, I knew that pirates were still a problem in today's society but I didn't realize they could actually cause this much trouble in one fell swoop. And apparently Obama's in a bit of a pickle because he doesn't want to use the fire power we have out there on the seas. This article analyzing his dilemma is nice but I'm going to assume that Barack has just decided to go in a different with this one.

He can either use the whole navy or....

JUST USE A FUCKING ARMY OF NINJAS

It's a rivalry as old as time itself. The two groups will be forced to battle for all eternity so not only don't you worry about the pirates anymore, you can use the kinetic energy from the fighting as a green source of energy!


I, of course, will be sitting out as I received a Doctorate of Ninjology as a Seton Hall Pirate so I'm perpetually conflicted.


DK

P.S. The spell check tried to tell me Ninjology isn't a word. Silly, right?

Weekend!

Just got done working overnight so it means that even though it's 7am on a Friday I'm done for the week! Yay!

A bunch of stuff I saw this week that I wanted to post about which I'll be doing today. Was really busy this week - the sleep I got between ending work at 12:30pm and having to be back at 9pm was the most I got all week.

My thoughts about the week and a Use Your Words to follow...

DK

Dead is Dead

Updated post with actual link to Doc Jensen's recap. I can be dumb like that sometimes.

In case you were wondering, Lost was excellent last night. It's definitely at number one on my List of Things That Are The Shit. As always, Doc Jensen's recap can be found here.

It's become a fairly consistent thing on Lost that the episodes that focus on Ben Linus are some of the best. It's amazing how a character that was supposed to only be on the show for a few episode has become such an important part of the show. It's definitely a testament to Michael Emerson's amazing performance.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Last night we got a good amount of answers (of course more questions were raised but it's Lost - there have to be) about everyone's favorite manipulator.

The flashback scenes showed us some of Ben's time in the others before he was their leader. We also got a view of Widmore at the end of his leadership. Though he claimed to Locke in "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" to have been tricked by Ben and forced off the island, this episode showed Widmore as a leader who had become corrupted and was being replaced by the island for no longer doing what was in its best interest. We know the same thing happened to Ben.

One of the focuses that pulled both men's attention away from the island seemed to be family. Widmore had Penny and Ben had Alex. Since Locke is the island's new chosen one is he doomed to repeat this pattern of being corrupted by a position of power within the Others? Or, as I personally believe at this point, has Locke's life off the island been miserable up to this point to make sure he doesn't have the connections to others that the previous leaders did? His only love is dead and his father, the one person he was never able to move past, was brought to him by the island to be killed by Sawyer. It's interesting.

Speaking of Locke, how crazy/awesome was Locke-zarus. Back from the dead with a smile on his face and a plan in his noggin... I don't believe for a second he's the same Locke as he claimed to Sun but I also don't he's an apparition like Christian Shepard or the other island ghosts. We know Ben's rules changed on the island once Alex was shot but even he was unsettled with the fact that for Locke dead just might not be dead. The idea Ben was forced to follow Locke was another in a series of role reversals we've had this season (the other big one being Jack and Sawyer).

So Locke leads, and Ben follows all the way to a cozy little place I like to call Smokey's Hideaway. I don't believe for a second Ben truly came back to be judged but the island forced one of his lies into truth last night and revealed to us more about the smoke monster than we've ever known. In a cave underneath the temple guarding wall Ben came face to face with the smoke monster and it flashed the events in Ben's life that lead to Alex's death. And while it did judged him worthy to continue living (for now), it didn't lead Ben go without a warning delivered by his dearly departed daughter. We know you're planning to kill Locke again. You better listen to him or we'll be back for you. And you wouldn't want that Ben. For you, Dead is Dead.

I could write about this stuff forever so I leave with a few Other Thoughts:

It was interesting seeing Ben's mommy issues come to the surface, and how his father shaped him as a parent....thank God Ben didn't kill Penny....was that picture about Smokey's grate him having the stare down w/ Anubis? because that's how I took it...oh boy! I was hoping we'd end up with another faction on the island! Though my friend Jon pointed out they may be from Widmore....excited for a Miles-centric next week...

And to end things a quote from the show Psych that just seemed to fit last night:

Shawn: Slap a wig on you, you're a dead ringer for when I was a kid.

Namaste,

DK

A Case of the Mondays - 4/6/09

Hey everybody,

 

Hope you all had a good weekend, I know I did.  And what better way to follow up your great weekend with a good old fashioned Monday.  Now there are definitely different levels to the Mondays.  There was mine last week, where I was an hour late to work.  Or there's this:

 

At least 70 dead as quake hits Italy

 

Official reports are saying 70, rescue workers are saying closer to a hundred and everyone agrees those numbers are going to get higher.  Not only that but they believe approx 100,000 people are now homeless and 10-15,000 building has been damaged or destroyed.  And for good measure, there's fear that one of the main hospitals in the area is going to collapse.

 

This is obviously a huge tragedy and my heart goes out to those who've lost loved ones and/or their homes.  I don't want to overshadow that when I make my next statement.

 

An interesting fact I found in the article:

 

The earthquake struck at 3:32 a.m. local time in a quake-prone Abruzzo region that has had at least nine smaller jolts since the beginning of April.

 

You're on a fault line that's show an increase in activity recently? Hmmmmmm, maybe you want to GET THE FUCK OUT OF DODGE!  I'm sorry but living in an earthquake prone area you need to be prepared for a situation like this.  The fact that around 15,000 buildings have been destroyed (including the hospital) means they weren't built in preparation for an earthquake.  Those buildings don't sound like they were built to withstand a quake.  And while I realize a 6.3 magnitude quake isn't anything to scoff at, it's not a 6.3 out of 6.3.  What if this quake had been worse?  It's a bit scary.

 

So, the lesson here?  Know the dangers when you live on a fault line so you don't get surprised if (hypothetically) one day half your state falls into the ocean....  California, I'm looking at you.

 

Have a good week everyone!

 

DK

World Fucking Champions

We're about an hour away from the Phillies opening day and I'm incredibly excited. At least for another hour the Phils are the best team in baseball. I loved watching last season, and when they finally won the World Series is a moment I'll remember for the rest of my life. It definitely replaced Joe Carter's '93 home run.

ESPN put up an excerpt from Jayson Stark's book Worth The Wait which does a great job of catching the excitement and magic felt in the city of Philadelphia after that win. It's a perfect read to start the season. Now all we have to do is win it again.

GO PHILLIES!!!!!

DK

Whatever happened, happened

In case you were wondering, Lost was excellent last night. Doc Jensen's recap can, as always, be found here.

So many questions, so many consequences, and next week, so much smoke (fingers crossed!).

I love this show.

DK

From the halls of County General....

As I may have mentioned before, I like to watch my TV shows in season long increments on DVD in about a week. One of my more recent forays was watching the first ten seasons (all that's been released on DVD) of ER. ER is ending it's 15 year run tonight and despite the fact I'm still 5 season back I'll be watching it tonight (and possibly getting quite emotional).

ER is an amazing show and it will be sad to see it go. I remember watching it a bit when I was younger but I never really followed it. To be fair, the show started when I was 10 and I doubt my parents wanted to discuss with me why Carol Hathaway tried to kill herself in the pilot. But it was always there. Always on at 10pm Thursdays on NBC.

I loved the way the show started out with a bang, never stopping to fully explain the medical jargon they were throwing your way. A show that assumed the viewer was smart enough to follow what was going on and be pulled into these characters lives. And pulled we were. Drs. Ross, Carter, Benton, Weaver, Romano - you say these names and people know them. And if you know a person who can legitimately tell you that they did not cry when Mark Greene died they are a dirty liar and/or Satan has a special place in hell for their soulless husks.

I'm not showing the show was perfect, cause it wasn't. I'm at a part at season 10 where it's swinging towards the weaker end (A helicopter crash? Onto the guy afraid of helicopters? Come on!) but I don't care. From beginning to end it feels great.

So set your DVRs and turn get in front of your TVs at 8pm for a look back and then watch one more story be told from the halls of County General.

DK