life, and a little more

An Unexpected Treat

Mar 07

metalman777lost but now found!, music aor, hard rock, Treat No Comments

When I run across music from the 80’s that I have never heard of, I always ask, “How did I miss that band?”  I ask that same question in regards to the band Treat.  How the heck did I miss this hard rock goodness?

I’ve been reading about their new album, Coupe de Grace, and how good it was.  It hasn’t been released in the States yet, but I could get a taste of their back catalog with the album, Weapons of Choice.  Whoa!  These guys are awesome!  Imagine Heart, mixed with a little Bon Jovi, mixed with some Kiss and Firehouse and some more modern hard rock of Harem Scarem or Pink Cream69.  That’s what you get with Treat!

Take a listen for yourself.

World of Promises

Sole Survivor

Sundown Recap

Mar 03

metalman777Lost recap, season 6 No Comments

[note...not a whole lot of talk in the blog-o-sphere as of yet about this episode!!  very odd!]

“Sundown” is the 6th episode in Season 6 of Lost and the 109th produced hour of the series as a whole. It was originally broadcast on March 2, 2010. Sayid is faced with a difficult decision, and Claire sends a warning to the Temple inhabitants.  (Lostpedia.com)

1. And what’s really interesting — and perhaps hints at the future of the flash-sideways segments — is that unlike the last two weeks, when Alt Jack and Alt Locke found a measure of redemption, Alt Sayid finds no such thing. He tries to reject violence. He even goes so far as to physically remove himself from a violent situation. But the violence still tracks him down. It drags him back in. So does that mean the “fallen” characters are beyond saving, even in the alternate universe?
2. Instead of retribution, Flocke tempts Sayid with the possibility of “seeing” the departed love of his life, Nadia, once again. He’s a little fuzzy on the details, though. Does this mean Sayid could actually reunite with Nadia? Or is this a mere glimpse? Also unclear is whether Flocke’s proposal is the catalyst for Sayid’s slide into full-fledged evil. I’m thinking it may have been a little push, but Sayid was already well on his way.
3. Ilana, Frank, Sun — Can someone please explain to me how Ilana et al got into the Temple? They just appear as Smokey lays waste to the place? And now they’re … what exactly? The anti-Flockes? If this is the cavalry, my money’s on Flocke.
4. Ben — Ben is technically part of Ilana’s group, but the moment he shares with Sayid deserves special notice. It was the first time Ben has ever looked genuinely scared. Think about that. This is the guy who endured interrogation at the hands of Sayid but never flinched. And now, with one look from Sayid’s evil, evil eyes, Ben squirms away? That’s a huge shift
5. As I mentioned up top, the most intriguing aspect of this episode’s alt timeline is that Sayid doesn’t find happiness or clarity or personal fulfillment. He doesn’t ride off with Nadia (even though she’s married to Sayid’s brother in the Happyverse, I’m sure she’d be up for a divorce if Sayid forced the issue). He doesn’t forgive himself for past sins (he’s actually got a wicked martyr complex). And when push comes to shove, he can’t help but shove back. This almost makes me want to see how Alt Claire plays out. Is there a connection between a character’s state in 2007 and their alternate timeline? If you go evil on the island, are you doomed in the Happyverse? We’ll see, I suppose.
6. What I’m interested in seeing is how the castaways come together in the alt timeline. I’m assuming Alt Sayid will release Alt Jin, and perhaps they’ll tag team in some way. Combine the “knowing mirror looks” we’ve seen from the likes of Jack and Kate with all the path-crossing (Claire and Kate, Jack and Locke, Hurley and Locke, Locke and Rose, Sayid and Jin, etc.), and I get the sense the Alt Timeline is driven by some sort of gravitational pull. (1-7 from The Lost Blog)
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7. So what’s Smokey’s overall plan and what will happen to all his recruits?Now that the Temple dwellers have either been recruited or killed, one would imagine that the only thing left for Smokey to do is to go home, wherever that is. But how simple is that going to be? I imagine there’s probably only one way Smokey is allowed to leave and I strongly suspect it involves killing more people. Dogan said Smokey once killed every living thing on the Island which certainly doesn’t bode well for his recruits and I’m sure he has no intention whatsoever in granting them “anything they ever wanted.”My guess is if there is a literal “magic box” on the Island, Smokey’s going to want to use it to go home. But I also suspect that he can’t use it directly – he needs one of his recruits to use it for him. Now this is a scenario where I can see Sawyer totally pulling the Long Con on him.
8. How did Dogan’s presence in the Temple keep Smokey out? Wasn’t that the ash ring’s job?So what exactly kept Smokey out of the Temple? In LA X, we saw the Temple dwellers pouring ash around the Temple perimeter, but Lennon said that Dogan himself was the only thing that was keeping Smokey out.
9. Is Dogan’s “scale” the same one used in the Weighing of the Heart ceremony?I’ve long thought that the Island’s purpose was the ground for the Weighing of the Heart ceremony in Eygptian Mythology, with Jacob as Osiris, the Nemesis as Set and Smokey as Ammit. I discarded this theory after Smokey and the Nemesis were revealed to be one and the same, but Dogan’s scale analogy makes me rethink this. The reason I discarded the theory is that Ammit really isn’t on the same level as Osiris, more of a servant (or a pet) to the gods rather than a god himself.  Didn’t Dogan say that once Sayid’s infection reaches his heart he will be gone? Perhaps the reason Smokey is trapped on the Island is that he’s a servant of Jacob rather than a true rival. That’s why he could be summoned to protect the Island and that’s why he judged people – it was his job when Jacob was around. But now that Jacob’s gone, he’s free to devour all the hearts his little black heart desires. And I imagine in the Alt verse he’s been feasting for decades.
10. Where the heck were Sawyer and Jin during all this?Claire mentioned Sawyer and Jin before she went into the Temple, but where were they? Off on some super-secret Smokey mission? I’m looking forward to Kate’s reaction when she sees Sawyer again, provided Sayid or Claire don’t kill her first. Assuming she survives though, I do wonder if she’ll pick up on the fact that Sawyer’s probably conning Smokey and play along.The fact Jin is with Smokey and Sun is with the rebels makes me think Smokey’s going to eventually use him as leverage to recruit her. After all, you have to think Smokey will be taking out every potential candidate he can
11. Are all the Alt storylines starting to converge?Given the cliffhanger for this week’s Alt installment (Sayid finding Jin in his brother’s restaurant’s cold room), I have to imagine we’ll be seeing some of the Alt storylines come together since I can’t imagine they’d leave this one dangling. And if next week’s episode is as Ben-centric as the preview suggested, I have to imagine we’ll see some more of Alt Locke in his flashes.But now it seems to me that outside of Flight 815, the lives of all the people on the flight would have been connected even if they hadn’t crashed on the Island. Here’s a list of the familiar faces we’ve seen in the Alt verse storylines so far:

    Kate – Claire, Sawyer, Ethan
    Locke – Jack, Hurley, Rose, Ben
    Jack – Dogan, and likely Jack’s mystery wife
    Sayid – Jack (in a background cameo), Keamy, Jin

    So should we have an Alt Jin episode, we’ll probably get more of Alt Sayid. Alt Sawyer might bring more of Alt Kate, Alt Hurley might bring us more Alt Locke, etc. And the fact the lives of these people are so involved without Jacob’s influcence makes me think that might be the reason he chose them – since they were all going to be linked anyway, why not just bring them all along? Regardless I’m greatly looking forward to next week – I just hope present day Ben doesn’t die – we really haven’t seen much of him this season and his absence is felt.  (7-11 from Mistaking Coincidence for Fate)
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12. ”Locke” was stuck on the Island because Jacob was alive, now that Jacob is dead he’s free.  Not exactly news, but it’s nice that it was spelled out.
13. Dogen says “Locke” wants to destroy every living thing on the Island.  He seems content to leave his followers alive.  This is where we get into the old Lost hearsay conundrum.  What do we want to believe?  This guy was probably just trying to get Sayid to anger “Locke” into killing him.  So he might have just said these things to give Sayid a reason to plunge that knife in his chest.  Or maybe he’s saying that because it’s true.  Or maybe he’s saying it because that is what he was led to believe.  Every episode we face this same thing.  What do we want to believe?  “He is evil incarnate”.  Again, I tend to believe that, but it’s coming from a very biased and unreliable source.
14. Dogen’s death was very confusing.  “He was the only thing keeping (Smokey) out”.  I could have sworn that the ash was the only think keeping it out.  I guess Sayid might have messed up the ash, or Smokey managed to do it himself with all of his tree ripping.  But if Dogen was powerful enough to keep Smokey out then why was he afraid of getting killed by him if he left the Temple?  I think Dogen’s death was important in that it meant that Jacob’s power is crumbling, “Locke” is winning.
15. “Locke” promised Sayid that he could resurrect Nadia if Sayid would deliver a message.  He didn’t say that directly, but I think we all agree that that was what he meant.

16. Jacob promised Dogen that he would resurrect his dead son if Dogen would serve Jacob at the Temple or at least on the Island. This sounded a lot like the promise made to Juliet about her sisters cancer. Except that a resurrection is a lot crazier. I get why they had Dogen tell that story, they wanted to show the similarities between Jacob and “Locke” but I still really didn’t like that story. It makes things very complicated. I’m very tempted to not even believe that Jacob resurrected Dogen’s kid. But what’s worse, lying to a guy to get him to serve you or holding someones dead loved one over a persons head so that they have not choice but to serve you?

17. Here’s the thing, I know there are a few people that are slowly boarding the “Locke” train, but I think we should stop and take a step back. Here’s what we’ve seen him do so far. He’s held three different carrots in front of three different people. He told Sawyer that he would tell him why he was on the Island and he promised to get him off the Island, he promised Claire that he would get Aaron back from the Others, and he promised Sayid that he would resurrect Nadia. If you ask me all of those promises are lies. Maybe he’ll get off the Island, but it’s just as likely that he’ll stab Sawyer in the back in order to get off. It was a straight up lie that he would get Aaron back. He knew that Kate had Aaron, he has all the memories that Locke had. And if he could resurrect Nadia, then why didn’t he offer to resurrect Charlie and Juliet too? That would have been great incentive for Claire and Sawyer. He’s lying and you’re falling for it.

18. Here are the facts. Sayid was dead, and he miraculously came back to life. Since he came back to life he’s been through a lot, but at the moment he’s very evil. There’s no doubt about that.

    Claire was in a building that blew up. she may have died in that explosion, we don’t know. All we know is that after that she’s been acting odd. She is currently bat-shit crazy and also pretty evil (remember the axe? yeah).

    Dogen told us about the Infection, and although it’s easy not to believe him, I think we should believe him about this. These two were probably Infected and it seems as though both of them are now lost causes.

    In the last scene of this episode I wondered whether or not all The Others were infected too. That group was just very robotic and unquestioning. I wonder if the Infection can be spread like that. If so then I really worry about Sawyer, Jin and Kate. (12-18 from Not Confused Just Lost)

Best Buy Is Stupid

Feb 24

metalman777Life best buy, rewardzone, ripped off No Comments

I got an email today from Best Buy.

It said “Congratulations on requalifying for Premier Silver status. We greatly appreciate your continued loyalty to Best Buy^®, and we’d like to say “thanks.” Your Reward Zone^® program Premier Silver status is good through February 28, 2011.”

It listed my points as below:

I thought to myself!  Sweet!  $660 in rewards is the equivalent to electronics heaven!!  I could buy so many things – FOR FREE!!  Man, I could really save up and get that super big HDTV!

So I go about my work and kinda forget about it.  As I sit at my computer relaxing after a long 11 hour day, I get another email from Best Buy.

It says: “A PREVIOUS EMAIL INCORRECTLY LISTED YOUR POINTS AND REWARD CERTIFICATES; CORRECTION BELOW.”

It listed my points as below:

Talk about a buzz kill!!  Going from $660 in free electronic goodies to a measly $5? How could this be?  I’ve dropped more than a few hundred dollars at Best Buy over the last 6 months and surely I’ve acquired more than $5 in rewards!

What’s the saying?  Easy come, easy go?  That is a stupid saying!