You All Everybody

I finished the first season of “Lost” sometime over the past week. I like it a lot; I can’t say that I’m wetting myself to see what happens next, but I do have to admit to downloading the first few episodes from iTunes so I can watch them on the flight back home. (TiVo has been recording a few, but not all of them from season 2. According to the episode guides, I’m missing episodes 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42).

Favorite moment so far is when Hurley is running through the airport and there’s the soccer team with the numbers on their shirts. Next favorite would be Arzt’s final scene, and I got more about that to say in a minute. Most annoying characters are now Walt and Michael. Yeah, they’ve had a tough time and yeah, you’ve got to feel sorry for them, but come on. All they do is pick fights with people and fail to connect and conjure polar bears. The annoying people you feel sorry for are the worst kind of annoying people, because you can’t just come right out and be mean to them and tell them to go away.

I admit that Sun and Jin’s story gets me every time they have an episode with them. Also, Sun is hot. And I also got a little weepy at Jack’s story where his dad told him he wasn’t able to let go. That was like a double-whammy of sad, in the flashback and the present day.

I’m thinking that this is one of the rare shows that’s better in weekly episodes instead of watching them all in one go. It’s still good, but I get the impression that the reason it caught on with so many people is because they had time to ponder all the cliff-hangers and mysteries and build up the speculation around them. When you watch the whole thing in two weeks, it’s hard to have a reaction more profound than, “Well, that happened.”

One thing that concerns me, though, is that I watched a couple of the documentaries on the last disc and I’m worried that I might already be too much invested in what’s going to end up being a disappointment. Obviously, there’s a lot that they’re just making up as they go along, but that’s not that bad as long as the stuff they come up with has payoff and isn’t just filler. (They’ve proven they can come up with stuff on the spot and make it work; according the documentary, they invented the characters Sun and Jin at the last minute just because they knew they wanted to cast Yunjin Kim).

What bugged me was how they were talking about the pilot and how it originally had Jack be killed by the monster when they find the cockpit. Kate was originally supposed to be the hero of the show. It was that way pretty late, too, apparently; they have footage of both Yunjin Kim and Evangeline Lilly auditioning for Kate’s part using her dialogue after Jack’s death. The reason that annoys me is because it’s such a cheesy gimmick. It’s the kind of stuff high schoolers write when they’re trying to be daring and bust up cliches. You get attached to the hero, and bang! He dies! Sure, Hitchcock did it, but he kind of ruined it for everyone else.

Now, you could say that the bit with Arzt was the same thing, but it’s not. The reason I liked it was because it was such an obvious gimmick, that everyone could see coming from a mile away, and there was never any doubt whatsoever how that was going to play out. So it played with the gimmick by making it all about timing. Your suspense doesn’t come from wondering what’s going to happen, but when. And the timing of the punchline was just about perfect.

So I’m still hoping that what’s down the hatch is cool, and the monster is cooler than just black smoke, and whoever The Others are is cool, and the story behind the numbers, and Claire’s baby, and Walt’s “being different,” and the whispering, and the island itself all turn out to be worth the investment. I’m actually highly skeptical that the revelations themselves will be all that great, but I still have faith that they can make the lead-up to the revelations great. Like in “Twin Peaks.” Finding out who killed Laura Palmer wasn’t all that impressive on its own, but leading up to it were some of the most downright horrifying moments in television ever.

And unlike “Twin Peaks,” and “The X-Files,” and “Buffy,” I’m hoping that they know when to quit.

The Bob Loblaw Law Blog

Turns out there really is a Bob Loblaw Law Blog, a fact which makes me about as happy as anything on the internet can. (It doesn’t look like a fake site done as a “Arrested Development” tie-in, because a) it’s been up since November, b) if it is a joke, it’s an unbelievably subtle one, and 3) that would imply that Fox pays to advertise the show).

Yesterday was about as crappy a day as I’ve had in a while. When I got back from King Kong Sunday night, I stayed up a couple of hours later to finish some work I had to get done. And then I couldn’t get to sleep, at all. I wasn’t wired or anything, just absolutely unable to get the brain to turn off. It was around 7 am before I could get to sleep, and that was only after I watched an episode of “Lost” that upset me so much I just wanted to lie down (it was the one where Claire’s baby is born and Boone… well, you know). I was awakened at 10 am by a phone call, but when I answered it they’d already hung up, and then I just fell into a coma again. Missed a phone meeting, missed the work I was supposed to get done, just completely f-ed everything up.

When most people get insomnia, they’re at least able to get up the next day and be tired but semi-functional. For me, I always get into this weird state where I’m semi-conscious but physically unable to get out of bed. I guess if nothing else, it’s a reminder that I don’t need to be actively seeking more caffeine.

I also headed out to the post office to pick up a package my parents had sent. (Presumably I was asleep when it was originally delivered). The line stretched all around the post office, and there was a separate line in the back to pick up packages; that line had about 10 people in it. So I waited for about 20 minutes, until there was one woman in front of me. The guy handed her her package, mumbled something no one could make out, then closed the door. The woman turned to the rest of us waiting in line and said, “He said they’re not taking any more customers.”

It was one of those things where I just shut down; I had absolutely no idea how to react. That somebody could be that much of a dick — not even saying to my face that he was closing up, but just shutting the door and slinking off into hiding — my brain doesn’t know how to handle it. The woman behind me did, though; she shouted “Asshole!” and stomped to the other line. Everybody else who’d been standing in line filed past me to the other line or out the building to come back the next day, and I just kept standing there.

Sure, my rational brain knows that cussing at the guy or pitching a fit wouldn’t have done any good and would’ve just gotten me upset, but the whole thing was doubly annoying. Once for wasting my time, and double for giving me another opportunity to just stand there filled with impotent rage, wondering what would be a better course of action than just standing there like a wimpy doofus, or getting into a profanity-filled screaming match with a stranger.

The rest of the night was good, anyway. I had a big steak.

Kong

King Kong is frickin’ awesome. I think from now on, Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens should make every movie. Except for the ones by Wes Anderson and the Coen Brothers.

Sure, it’s three hours long, and I could tell it was three hours. Not that I was wanting it to be over, just that I was aware of how long it was taking. That’s the closest I can get to a criticism of it — there was nothing in the movie that was bad or completely superfluous, but it still felt like a lot of stuff. I wish they’d spent more time on the island and less with acts 1 and 2. Just about everything that happens on the island is just spectacular, the Tyrannosaurus fight in particular, so I wish there’d been more of that.

I don’t have much to say other than that it’s a damn fine movie, the best I’ve seen this year. I’d heard reports that it was very moving, so I was expecting to get all caught up in that. I didn’t, really; I cared what was happening, but wasn’t particularly moved by it except for the action sequences.

One of the things that impressed me about the Lord of the Rings movies was how Jackson made them as movies, that is, combining elments of horror B-movies, science fiction, fantasy, genuine horror movies, melodrama, pirate movies, battle scenes, etc. to tell what could be a pretty dry fantasy story. King Kong isn’t quite as epic, but it’s definitely a movie made by someone who loves movies and hates pretension. Of course there are all the B-movie elements, but there’s also a sense throughout that it’s all charming and funny. The T. Rex scene isn’t just spectacular, but it’s genuinely funny in how it just keeps building. All the bug scenes are intended for the schock value gross-out, and they’re just fun. And Ann and Kong’s scenes are designed around vaudeville slapstick and a child’s tantrum, and it just works, and it’s just charming. Never too corny to work, and never too absorbed in irony or self-reference. It’s just designed to be enjoyed.

I knew going in that I was going to like Naomi Watts, because I think she’s just great in everything I’ve seen her do. I was surprised that I liked Adrian Brody — he’s pretty much useless to the movie, in retrospect, but while it’s going on you always get the sense that he’s just supposed to be there. What really surprised me was Jack Black; his character is supposed to be smarmy and unethical, but genuinely passionate about what he’s doing, and undeniably charismatic. So it turned out to be perfect casting, and he did a good job with it. He’s actually got more of a character arc than anyone else, including Ann.

And the more I think about it, I guess I have to change my story about not being moved. The best scenes are still the action sequences, but the one that really got me on an emotional level is when they’re back in New York and do the Kong show at the theater. The combination of the ape chained up, and the dancers in black-face, all just hit me as “this is the most depressing thing I’ve ever seen.” Even more than the ending. (Which I won’t ruin here.)

Wanted: New Drug

The book I’m reading (another Terry Pratchett book, Monstrous Regiment) has a vampire who’s joined the Temperance League and substituted a blood addiction for an addiction to coffee. Somehow that got the idea stuck in my head that I should do the same thing.

Not give up my addiction to blood, of course — I love blood. But I’ve got a costly Coke habit that has not only done a number on my teeth and my breath, but also keeps me perpetually chubby. I figure if I could just get over my aversion to coffee, I’d get all the caffeine — something my body needs anyway, and I like that — without as much of the high fructose corn syrup.

So sometime last week (details are hazy), I went and busted up a Starbuck’s in my initial test run. I’m not even going to go into the whole business about the coffee-drinkers vs. non-coffee-drinkers club, and how the feeling I got looking at the menu must be what normal people feel like when they go into a comic book store. The double whammy of you don’t belong here and you have no idea how this works. (Plus the double grande non-fat mocha latte chino bit was already tired even when LA Story came out).

I ended up with a latte because I heard someone order one one time and I know it has something to do with milk. Tasted like warm milk served in a cup that had been previously used to drink coffee and wasn’t sufficiently cleaned. Not bad, definitely not as bad as my previous attempts at coffee-drinking, but nothing spectacular. I forced myself to like beer and cigarettes, I figured, so I can force myself to like this. The only question was whether it would have any effect — it didn’t seem very strong, and my years of the Coke monkey on my back have built up a pretty significant tolerance to caffeine.

At about 5:30 the next morning, I thought it would probably be a good idea to go to bed. I wasn’t tired yet, but it was starting to get light out so it just seemed like the thing to do. As I stopped vibrating long enough to drift off, I started to wonder what an espresso would do… Maybe Coke Blak is the answer?

Update: Apparently a latte is espresso. Go figure. Well, now I know, and knowing is half the battle.

The Moth

Speaking of cancellation: I don’t want to scare any of the “Lost” fans, but I started watching the series on DVD. And I like it. There’s a good chance I won’t jinx it and get it cancelled though, because I’m not crazy in love with it; I’m merely enjoying it. I’m actually two discs into it already, and I hadn’t realized how many episodes I’ve already seen. Without context, I didn’t like them as much, and so I just remembered all the initial spoilers.

The pilot is still phenomenal, two of the best hours of television ever made. Seriously. The others I’m liking but I’m not blown away yet. I noticed that Paul Dini is a story editor and wrote a couple of the episodes; whether it’s his influence, or just because I know who he is and am making connections that don’t exist, the episodes remind me a lot of the Batman animated series. Tightly written stories with a clear message and interesting symbolism, but a little too “neat.” I don’t want to sound overly critical, because I think they’re very, very good, but there’s just something keeping it just short of great. The symbolism is a little too blatant (Charlie digging out of the cave is just like that moth digging out of a cocoon and look! there’s a moth right there!) and the message is a little bit too clear. But I’ll say again that that’s me being over-critical because the show is so well done otherwise.

And the music is perfect. Unless I’m reading it wrong, it’s by the same guy who does the music for “Alias.” The score doesn’t draw attention to itself, but just works perfectly for setting the mood. And even their song choices work — in “Alias,” whenever they would start playing a song and show a montage of people thinking, it just seemed sappy and obvious, but the couple of times they’ve done it so far on “Lost,” I didn’t even notice it was happening.

Also, I’m going to have to add a couple of things to my “Llorando” post below, apparently: the end of Locke’s story (in “Walkabout”) and the end of Sun’s story (in “House of the Rising Sun”).

Crap, I was just looking on imdb and saw another spoiler in the cast list. Dammit. I’m going to have to hurry and get caught up.

And I’ve got a question for those who’ve already seen season 1: The first few episodes have a lot of flashbacks to the plane crash. Do those go on throughout the season, or are they kept mostly to the beginning of the series? I don’t want to be watching an episode during a plane flight and then all of a sudden have another one of those flashbacks pop up and freak my shit out.

The Horizon

I didn’t even remember that “Alias” moved to Wednesdays until I saw it on the TiVo last night; I’d pretty much written it off since I heard about the cancellation and since the season seemed to be starting off on shaky ground. But last night’s was really pretty good! They’re back with the action scenes and the intrigue and the secret conspiracies and double-crosses, and of course the guest stars. I’ve always liked the drug-induced-dream-sequence-flashback episodes (they’ve done at least three that I can remember) for some reason; I guess the people behind the show realize that and are tapping into that market.

If they can keep it up at this level, and the signs suggest they can, then I’ll be mighty pleased. They’ve got a good villain in Amy Acker and decent support cast with the two new guys and French lady with overbite. (And it’s kind of funny that cutting off somebody’s ear was horrifying and brutal in Reservoir Dogs, but now they show it not only on network TV, but on a network TV series that my mom watches).

The show’s already repeating itself, so it’s good that they can go out on a high note. They’ve always had kick-ass season finales, even before the big cliffhanger, so I can only imagine that a series finale that they’ve had this long to prepare for is going to be huge. I could do without the “somebody’s going to die” stuff in the teaser commercial, since they’ve already blown their wad, cast-member-death-wise, for this season. But still, should be interesting.

400 Gigabytes of Terror

Man, I’m pissed. I bought a new extra-huge hard drive for my Mac mini because the internal one sat me down and had a long heartfelt talk with me about how it needed more space. I’m not sure what exactly was taking up so much room; it sure wasn’t my “novel.” I guess all those lengthy fan letters to the G4 TV show hosts and hostesses started to add up. Or else it was all the scratch audio for my “Pieces of Chuck” podcast.

Because I’ve been working with or around computers for the past 16 years of my life, I’m an expert at them and knew exactly the first thing to do when I installed my new hard drive: copy every single document, music file, photo, video, and game file to the new drive and delete them from the old one. And because I’m extra double-plus smart, I made sure to include all my work files in that.

When I woke up this morning afternoon today, I saw that I’d shut down my Mac but left the hard drive running. I turned it off to go take a shower, and that was the last time it was heard from ever again.

I’m pretty sure that not much is lost permanently. It looks like it’s just the enclosure’s power supply that’s bad and the drive is still most likely in good shape. And I backed up just about everything to DVD (except my iTunes library) when I got the new drive; worst case, I’d lose some minor changes to the work stuff and have to restore all my music off the iPod. It was annoying enough a couple weeks ago, when I copied my music over to the new drive without doing it exactly like iTunes wanted me to, so I lost all my ratings, playlists, and my play history.

If nothing else, it’ll encourage me to do more frequent backups in the future. And I have a healthier respect for all ths Web 2.0 business, since I notice my website and Gmail accounts are still golden. Now I just have to mail back the drive (at my expense), wait for them to fix it and mail it back to me, and pray really really hard that they pay attention to my instructions and don’t format the hard drive.

Also: another SFist post about Apple.

Trolling the Web

If I did have a working links section, then I’d use it to post stuff like the following:

Lore Sjoberg started updating his website again, including this comic strip which I’m convinced that my laughing at will somehow result in my eternal damnation.

That site is also the first I heard of Twink, the “toy piano band,” which is cool stuff for anybody who liked The Carl Stalling Project and/or electronic music. My favorite is The Broken Record, which samples from vintage children’s records. Just about every review I’ve read has a line about its making you laugh out loud at least once, but I’ve got to say it’s true — what gets me is “Alphabent.” Their stuff is on the iTunes Music Store if you’re not into hunting it down, but of course you don’t get the bunny rabbit book.

Wandering around Flickr led to Adam Koford.com. I really like his drawings of Hell, Adoption, and a monkey with a wrench.

Oh yeah, I knew I was forgetting something: Some helpful people on a message board reminded me the name of a toy I had from the early 80s, Parker Bros’ MERLIN. I’d been thinking of it because all the robot-vacuum-beeping was reminding me of something, but I couldn’t figure out what. Turns out this guy wrote a Merlin simulator for Windows, and he put the original instruction manual on his site (check the Downloads section). Unfortunately, the simulator doesn’t have sound effects as far as I can tell, so there’s no point to the music game. But the other games work, and are a good bit of nostalgia. And a reminder that the thing was a lot cooler as a Space Phone or a Space Car for my action figures than it was as an electronic game.

No, actually, I don’t yahoo.

I put up another post on SFist about Yahoo’s buying the del.icio.us site. It’s a little bit on the ironic side, since I was just thinking how much better it would be if I just had some kind of URL-sharing thing so I didn’ t feel the need to put up a new blog post every time I just wanted to post a link. It was my intention to make the “Links” section of this site exactly that, a total rip-off of the del.icio.us idea, but it’s another one of my neglected projects and probably won’t see any attention anytime soon.

That SFist article was very briefly one of the top stories on Google news again, which is still just weird. I was looking on there for links to other stuff, and there was a blog post I’d written staring back at me. There’s still something unsettling about that; it makes it seem like I’m trying to pass myself off as a “journalist” or something. Journalists actually get interviews and do research and shit; I just get off on pontificating and trying to be funny in equal doses.

Hints and Allegations

The Season of Giving is already weighing down on me something fierce. I hadn’t even started really thinking about Christmas gifts before the websites started giving me more deadlines I had to meet to guarantee shipping by December 23rd. Apparently I’m already way behind. So I went out tonight to do a first pass, hoping that the perfect gifts for everybody would jump out at me. It took a little over two hours and I didn’t get anything but discouraged.

People have told me that I’m hard to shop for, because although I’m not quiet about stuff I think is cool, I’ve usually already bought it for myself. All right, I’ll give you that, but look at it from my perspective. Being a shallow consumerist whore makes it really difficult to buy stuff for other people. The stores are filled with stuff that I want to get; they stand out. And nobody bothers meeting me halfway — when I’m going on about some DVD or the Apple store or whatever, they just nod and wait for an opportunity to change the subject, never doing what conversation dictates and interrupting me to talk about what they want.

It’s even worse now that I don’t really talk to people anymore, but just make long blog entries and then read occasional comments in response. Nobody bothers to say, “Yes, that’s a fascinating point you make about Wikipedia and online news aggregation sources, but have I mentioned how my favorite movie blank was just released on DVD?” Or “Another gripping and insightful commentary on ‘Alias!’ It reminds me of how much I want to read Some New Book Title.” Or even better, “That was a captivating example of navel-gazing self-obsessive introspection. In response, here is a step-by-step list of how to buy gifts for women that don’t involve Borders or Best Buy.”

So the Season for Giving is now also the Season for Wanting. Use the comments section to drop hints of varying degrees of subtlety about what you’d like me to buy you (or make for you, but you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment if you go that route, I’ll warn you now) for Christmas. (Or Hannukah, if you’re one of my Heeb friends, assuming I haven’t already missed that.) (Or, for that matter, whatever weird-ass thing the rest of you celebrate in December that makes Decent God-Fearing People such as myself have to resort to “Happy Holidays” while you kill Christmas.)

I have to warn you that I still don’t have a 100% accurate picture of who reads this blog, and I can’t guarantee that a comment will get you a gift. But you can’t win if you don’t play. Sample comments could be, “Your post about the new Mustang reminded me of this new set of stainless steel knitting needles that are really awesome,” or “I agree with you about ‘Arrested Development’ and would like to watch volumes 1 and 2 on DVD.” Amazon links are welcome.

It could be said that this just ruins the whole spirit of the thing completely, but think of it as your gift to me. People are always, okay frequently, giving me the perfect thing that I never would’ve thought to get myself and it turns out to be a very nice and thoughtful gift. And I don’t like to be reminded that that’s a talent I lack.

Suck on this, Asimo!

Q: What do you get when you cross a JAP with a nerd? A: Me, apparently.

My Roomba came today, and I swear to God it made sense for me to get one back when I ordered it. I was tired of seeing the bits of styrofoam and big dust tumbleweeds all over my hallway that’ve been there for the past few weeks, but I was out of vacuum bags. My dream-logic rationalization was this: I could just go to Target, find the bags, get them home and see they don’t fit, go back to Target and get the right ones (I did all this, last time I moved), vacuum everything up, and then go back to being too lazy to vacuum for another eight months or the next time I had to move.

Or, I could make an investment in a fairly expensive robot vacuum, which costs more now but would be more likely to get used more often. Put it that way, and it’s a bargain! And I’m realizing that I’ve got to clean more often around here — I don’t want to get too graphic, but I’ll just say that I’m way too hairy to only vacuum twice a year.

So I took the thing out of the box, and I swear it shuddered a little when it saw the floor. It was kind of like a Russian mail-order bride who’s resigned herself to making sacrifices in order to start a new life in America, but then she gets off the plane and sees her new husband is Michael Moore. After I charged it up and let it wander around a little, it got to the bathroom door and immediately turned around. I’m sure it was just because of the lip of the floor into the bathroom, but I wouldn’t have blamed it even still.

It managed to navigate around both rooms of my apartment and the hallway without much incident, although it did threaten to chew up my speaker cables (they warn you about that, and they need to get taped up anyway) and it got stuck under the couch and had to call for help so I could dislodge it.

When it was finished: well, the results weren’t all that great. There were still plenty of missed corners, and it left long strings of hair and lint on the edge of the rug. But to be fair, it was kind of like sending a coal-mine canary into Chernobyl. I put a new bag in the upright vacuum (now that I had already bought the Roomba, my brain switched out of have-to-buy-new-gadget mode and reminded me that I had one spare left from the last time I moved) and did a pass over the whole apartment. It was a lot easier knowing that it was the last time I’d ever have to do it.

The thing comes with a remote so you can drive it around yourself; I haven’t used it yet because I don’t have any batteries. So now all I need is a cat and a teddy bear. The only part that bugs me so far is that they had to make it “cute,” so it has a different beep for all its different cleaning modes, including a little “uh-oh” beep when it gets stuck. It sounds too much like those little Simon games and programmable robots from the 80s.

I’m not going to lie; now I want a Scooba too, but that’s not going to happen. They’re twice as expensive, I just don’t have the floor to warrant one, and besides, two cleaning robots would be getting into OCD clean-freak territory. I ended up washing the kitchen & bathroom floors “by hand” tonight, and I just locked the Roomba in the bathroom to sweep up the leftovers. It’s in there, banging against the walls and the door like William Hurt in Altered States.

I’m sure it won’t be long before it starts to put the pieces together. “I serve Human. I clean floors. Human is dirty. Human makes floor dirty. Must eliminate Human.” But if it gets all uppity, it’s really not fast at all and I can just out-run it into the living room. It’ll get lodged under the couch and then I can just point and laugh while it beeps for help.

I think I’m going to call it “Lupe,” because “she no Dust Buster.”