A Short Reprieve

Apr 29

metalman777Life No Comments

It has been a super crazy week and next week is gonna be super crazy in a good way!  My wife are going on vacation!

I usually try to write a few posts a week, but these next few weeks will be without any blogging.

No Room For Dissent?

Apr 21

metalman777Christianity, Life, politics, theology gay marriage, miss universe 3 Comments

[Note to the Reader: This post is a little long, but keep reading as it takes some time to set up my premise!]

I was browsing FoxNews.com today and ran across this story headline:

Did Miss California’s Answer Really Cost Her the Crown?

Now, I don’t follow the Miss California pageant or the Miss America pageant or the Miss Universe pageant or any other pageant.   I think these things are shallow and bad examples for our daughters, but that is another post for another day….

I wasn’t quite sure what the story was about, but it had piqued my interest.  One can sum up the article with the following quote:

So did her answer to Perez Hilton’s gay marriage question cost Prejean the coveted crown?

This was the last place I would expect to see the Culture War erupt!  Another article on the subject is posted at the Dailymail.com.  It says:

Prejean, a blonde student was one of the favourites to win the Miss USA  title at the pageant held on Sunday at the Planet Hollywood hotel and casino in Las Vegas and shown live on TV.

Having negotiated earlier rounds of modelling in a swimsuit and evening gown, she was down to the final 15 and had to answer a single question from one of the panel of five judges.

Prejean picked celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, who is openly gay and calls himself ‘queen of all media’.

Hilton asked her: ‘Vermont recently became the fourth state to legalise same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit. Why or why not?’

Prejean paused for a moment before replying: ‘Well, I think it’s great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage.’

She continued: ‘And you know what, in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman.

‘No offence to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised and that’s how I think it  should be – between a man and a woman. Thank you very much.’

Gay Marriage and Abortion are the two biggest issues on the Culture War front between Evangelical Christians and the culture at large.  But when Christians and the culture talk about gay marriage, I don’t think the questions being asked are in the same categories for both sides.

When someone like Perez Hilton (again, who? I just don’t keep up with media enough!) is talking about gay marriage, or gay rights in general, he is doing so thinking that these “rights” are just as absolute and redeeming as the slave’s right to freedom and the woman’s right to vote.  So it is in this context he asks the Miss Universe contestant if she thinks gay marriage should be allowed.  To him, it is tantamount to asking, “Do you think Hitler was evil?”  Of course the answer should be yes.

Miss Prejean hears the question and automatically filters it through her Christian worldview.  She comes to the question of gay marriage with an entirely different context.  Being gay is a lifestyle to be chosen.  The importance and magnitude of the question isn’t nearly so close to her (and many Christians in general).  When she hears “should gay marriage be allowed?” she is hearing a question of morality, a question of right or wrong.  It doesn’t really affect her personally.

I never could understand why gay people reacted so critically when disagreed with.  This is America right?  Aren’t we allowed a dissenting opinion?  Aren’t all viewpoints and world views allowed at the table? Do their rights cancel out my rights?

If the question of gay marriage is elevated to the status of questions of racism and prejudice, then yeah, they are correct in getting so ticked off.

This post isn’t an answer to the question.  It is me just writing down my thoughts as I ponder this issue.  It definitely isn’t as black and white as I used to think!

Comment and let me know what you think.

Some Like It Hoth Recap

Apr 16

metalman777Lost 2 Comments

Before I get into the recap, I just have get this out of the way.  When we were shown Miles as a punk teenager, did anyone else shout “Rufio! Rufio! Rufiiiiiioooooo!”  I’m telling you, he was a dead-on ringer for that character out of the 1991 Robin William’s movie Hook.  Don’t believe me? check it out…

At the very least he looks like his character, Kid Omega, from X-Men 3: The Last Stand:

Anyways, on to the Recap!

“Some Like It Hoth” was the thirteenth episode of Season 5 of Lost and the ninety-ninth produced hour of the series as a whole. It was broadcast on April 15, 2009.

1. Tonight’s flashback spotlight falls on Miles Straume, the hot-headed hustler capable of talking to the dead. Will we learn the origin of his powers? Will we learn why his parents gave him a name that sounds like ”maelstrom,” a Nordic term for ”whirlpool?” Will we learn why he’s such a Mr. Snarky Cranky Pants? Recall earlier this season how Daniel Faraday wondered if his freaky freighter friend had been to the Island before; might Miles be Pierre Chang’s infant child all grown up? If so, did Young Master Sixth Sense spend any time in Room 23, à la Walt? FUN FACT FROM THE WORLD OF CONSPIRACY THEORY LORE! Time-traveling Miles is currently parked in 1977 — the same year that the Senate conducted an investigation into a secret CIA project called MKULTRA, which conducted research into brainwashing, mind-control, and even psychic powers. Heavy drugs were involved. And allegedly kids were used as test subjects. Very Room 23, if you ask me.
2. When I asked the Lost Super-Computer (i.e., Wikipedia) to crunch the word ”Hoth,” it came back with the fact that ”Hoth” also refers to a figure from Norse mythology sometimes known as ”Hod,” ”Hoor,” or ”Hotherus.” Investigating Norse mythology brought me to the concept of ”Hel-Shoes,” as well as some other intriguing possibilities for Lost.
3. You see, for eons there were two sets of Norse gods that were at war with each other: the gods of Aesir and the gods of Vanir. There was an attempt at a truce, which involved an exchange of hostages as insurance. One of the hostages was an Aesiran god named Mirmir, who had the ability to see future events. For various reasons, the Vanir felt they had been tricked, so they cut off Mirmir’s head and sent it back to Odin, who for a long time carried it around and asked it questions and stuff. Creepy. And it gets better! Eventually, Odin buried the head in a well under the Tree of Life and was able to continue asking it questions about the future — but he had to cut out his eye as a sacrifice. Anyway, the truce between the rival tribes eventually collapsed, there was a rumble, and when it was over…the bickering deities found a way to get along and merged pantheons into one big super-pantheon.
4. But back to this Hoth guy. Hoth had a distinctive trait: He was blind. He also murdered his brother, a god by the name of Balder. One might be tempted to forge a Cain and Abel comparison, but Hoth had a good excuse: He was tricked by the god of lies, Loki, into shooting a ”missile” (or spear) loaded with mistletoe, the only substance capable of killing Hoth’s otherwise invulnerable sibling. Yet despite being deceived, Hoth was punished severely. Odin sired a monstrous son named Vali for the sole purpose of slaying the sightless, accidental god-killer. At Balder’s funeral, Odin whispered something into his dead son’s ear. No one really knows what Odin said, and from that day forth, anyone who dared to challenge Odin in a battle of wits had to answer the Sphinx-like riddle: ”What did Odin whisper in Balder’s ear?” Finally, Balder’s death set in motion Ragnarok, or ”destiny of the gods,” a series of events that culminated with a final battle between various sets of gods and monsters from various corners of Norse mythology. One of the major players in Ragnarok was the Norse equivalent of Cerberus, the hound of Hell. Named Garmr, this wolfish creature was unchained during the final battle for the world and allowed to slaughter with impunity. Ragnarok ended with the death of the world (everything gets submerged in water, à la the Flood) and the birth of the new world and the rebirth of fallen gods — including Balder. Indeed, while Odin’s whisper was technically a mystery, most scholars believe that it was actually a single word: ”Resurrection.”
5. Might this wide swath of Norse mythology parallel or at least intersect with Lost mythology? Garmr? Smokey, of course. Missile? Jughead. Odin’s Resurrection Riddle? That brings to mind the Rainier-Canton anagram (”resurrection”) from earlier this season, plus the ”What did one snowman say to the other snowman?” riddle from season 2 and the ”What lies in the shadow of the statue?” riddle of ”Dead Is Dead.” (My answer: Mirmir’s head!) Balder? The slain, reborn god, could be John Locke, because, after all, Locke is…bald. And he has been resurrected. Ragnarok? ”There’s a war coming, John. And if you’re not on it when that happens, the wrong side is going to win.” —Charles Widmore. (1-5 from Doc Jensen)
6. Beyond the Chang hook, Miles’ backstory reveals two secondary connections that could emerge as vital components in the future story:
   I’m assuming Miles wasn’t born on the island (remember, Ethan’s on-island birth was unusual), but did the island “give” Miles his ghost whispering ability? If so, why? And is Miles connected to Walt in some way? To date (and if I’m remembering correctly), Miles and Walt are the only two characters who have built-in abilities. Desmond earned his by destroying the hatch, so I’m guessing he only has a Hall of Justice visitor pass.

   Miles is actively recruited by two warring groups: Team Widmore and a murky second faction. If Miles was merely a secondary character, why would Widmore throw $1.6 million at him? Why would a platoon of masked men toss Miles in the back of a van and plead with him to reject Widmore’s offer and join them instead? Clearly, the island has big plans for Miles … he just doesn’t know it yet. (Or I’m blowing this out of proportion because I think the dude’s funny and want him to stick around.)

   Sidenote: This anti-Widmore group is verrrry interesting. To date, the group’s only known characteristics are an open hatred of all things Widmore and a passion for that thing that lies in the shadow of the statue (“What lies in the shadow of the statue?” is this season’s version of the numbers — an adjacent mystery that may never be directly answered, but catalyzes events nonetheless). The safe bet would peg the anti-Widmores as Ben’s shadow organization — and we’re led to believe this is the case since Miles requests $3.2 million from both the anti-Widmores and Ben — but could the group be something entirely different: perhaps a resurrected Dharma Initiative (The Bloodthirsty Hansos? The Screamin’ Mad Degroots?)? Beyond affiliation, how do the Ajirans fit in? Is Ilana an active member (remember, she asked Frank the all-important statue question last week), or was she inducted post-crash?

7. Despite their long time-travel debate, Hurley still isn’t sold on the no-paradox rule. He’s been writing the script for “Empire Strikes Back” from memory — itself an act that falls within “no paradox” because, technically, Hurley could have always been the source of the script — but he can’t resist the opportunity to revise the story, which clearly violates the paradox block (sadly, paradox was powerless to stop “The Phantom Menace”).
8. In the closing moments of the episode we see Dr. Chang and Miles welcome a team of scientists at the submarine dock, and one of them is our shaggy-haired-Charlotte-lover, Daniel Faraday! I’ve been obsessed with Faraday’s role in the 1977 plot line (I seem to reference that unconnected Faraday/Orchid scene from “Before You Left” in every review), so his reappearance certainly piques my curiosity — and opens up a big can of questions: When did Faraday leave the island? Is he a legitimate Dharma scientist or did he con his way onto the sub? Is he working with his mother, Eloise Hawking? Is he still wearing that skinny tie? There’s lots to consider here. (6-8 from The Lost Blog)
9. Okay, now the meaty stuff. We get confirmation of two big things here: first, that someone (Miles) can absolutely positively exist twice in the same timeline – we already pretty much knew that, but there were still skeptics. Second, we learn that Chang is not only Miles’ father, but that he abandoned both him and his mother when he was just a baby. Daddy douchebag? Maybe. But then again, maybe not.

   All you ever really need to know about life can be found in the movie Point Break (this isn’t just opinion, it’s proven FACT). And all you ever really need to know about time travel can be found in Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Time Cop. Matter can travel through time and space, but it cannot occupy the same time AND the same space at the same time. And if it does – well, really bad shit apparently happens. Bill Murray would tell you that shouldn’t cross the streams, either.

   Assuming this is true, perhaps this is the reason why Pierre Chang shoots his wife and baby back to the mainland like he’s launching skeet. Let’s go out on a limb and say that in the next episode or two, Chang realizes that grown-up Miles is really his son Miles. Remember how wigged out he got with the double-rabbit situation in the Orchid orientation video? Miles changing his own diaper would probably have similar catastrophic results. Couple this with the fact that the Swan hatch is currently being built – which means that the incident can’t be far off – and all kinds of crazy discoveries are about to happen with the Orchid… and the DI timeline is winding up to some pretty hairy stuff. I’m willing to bet Chang simply wanted to protect his family rather than abandon them. In watching the loving way he was reading Miles that polar bear book at the end of the episode, I can come up with no other conclusion. I’ll bet it all happened so fast that his mother never really knew it either, which is kinda sad.

10. The Ewoks were a lot like Kate in that they totally ruined everything. Even as a child I knew those rocks and sticks weren’t penetrating stormtrooper helmets or armor, but somehow I suspended my disbelief long enough to swallow that whole 30 minutes of sappy kiddie-shit. Damn.

    The whole Hurley and Miles Star Wars scene was hilarious and awesome, but you should also take something a little bit more significant away from it. Hugo mentions having seen The Empire Strikes Back over 200 times. More repetition. More circles (Pierre Chang: “I wasn’t aware there were circles”). Then Hurley explains how he wants to send George Lucas a script with a couple of his own improvements. Miles tells him he’s being stupid. But is he?

    Just as Hugo knows the Rebel base on Hoth will be overrun by AT-AT’s (unarguably the best scene in any of the movies!) he also knows that Dharma will be overrun by the Others. He knows ahead of time that everyone’s going to die. Miles, Dan… both of these people have told Hurley that this is inevitable – it can’t be stopped no matter what they do. But here we have Hugo trying anyway, writing a new script, attempting to change certain things. Hurley’s silly belief that he can change this upcoming Star Wars movie is a reflection that he believes change can occur at all.

    Later on he tells Miles at the gas pump: “The best thing I ever did was give my dad a 2nd chance”. And while he is referring to Miles’ dad here, I’d suggest maybe Hugo’s also referring to the whole outcome of the Dharma purge. And do his words sink into Miles’ head? Maybe he somehow gets through to him, causing Miles to tell his father who he is. Maybe this leads to change… or maybe it leads Pierre Chang to hurriedly send his wife and kid off-island in order to avoid the ramifications of time travel, the purge, or anything else Miles might tell him about the near future. This makes Miles himself responsible for his own bastardization! Total craziness. (9-10 from DarkUFO)

11. We’ve all seen now that Egyptian influences played a fairly larger role in the history of the island. With tonight’s episode we also saw the first glimpse that Dharma may have caught on to those historical influences as well, and appear to be studying the history and culture of the Egyptians as well. And as we all know, Dharma will later incorporate Egyptian hieroglyphics into the Clock of Doom in the Swan Station, though for what reasons we don’t know. (from Sledgeweb’s Lost…Stuff)
    
12. One of the more interesting reveals in Some Like It Hoth was when Miles was Vannapped by good ole Bram, who we know from the Ajira plane crash. Bram seemed to make it quite clear that he was not working for Charles Widmore, nor should MIles work for ‘the wrong side.’ So if Bram isn’t batting for Widmore’s team, is he part of Ben’s ensemble? Or are Bram and Ilana part of a whole new group, with a whole new set of objectives for the island. I’m starting to get confused and lose track of who’s who here. Who’s side do you think Bram is on? (from Sledgeweb’s Lost…Stuff)
    
13. These new people are frightening.  First of all there’s Ilana who looks like she might randomly shoot anyone who gets in her way.  Then there’s Bram, who is a behemoth and surprisingly talkative, that was very interesting how they brought him into the show.  I didn’t even expect him to talk when I first saw him.
    Anyways the point is that these people are new and important and they aren’t loyal to Ben or Widmore.  That leaves Ms. Hawking as the main suspect.  It seems very likely that she’s behind them.  She’s the person who chose Flight 316 and she made sure that everyone was on the flight. (from Not Confused Just Lost)

Easter 2009 Slideshow

Apr 12

metalman777family, pictures easter, family, kids, slideshow No Comments

[slideshow id=3098476543646035966&w=426&h=320]

We had a great Easter.  To see the above pictures in full resolution, check out my Smugmug gallery here.

Some Parents Are Just Plain Idiots….

Apr 09

metalman777Life dumb people, rant No Comments

I picked this picture because Nate's team is the Yankees. That's the only reason...

Just a quick rant…..

Nate had a ball game today and well, conditions were not conducive to playing!  It is 54 degrees and raining like crazy and the team we are playing belongs to the league president and he won’t call the game!  IDIOT!

Our coach actually had to forfeit so we could get our kids out of the rain.  And when our kids started walking off the field, the parents of the other team started booing and shouting “What about the kids!”

Am I just delusional or do I not want my kids out in that kind of weather so he doesn’t get sick and ruin his entire Easter break?

Ugh, some parents are just plain idiots…

Dead Is Dead Recap

Apr 09

metalman777Lost Lost, recap No Comments

“Dead Is Dead” is the twelfth episode of Season 5 of Lost and the ninety-eighth produced hour of the series as a whole. Ben, Locke, and Sun travel to the Temple so that Ben may be judged by the monster. In flashbacks, the origins of Ben and Widmore‘s troubled relationship is revealed. It was originally broadcast on April 8, 2009.

1. How many half-truths, obfuscations, and outright lies did Linus lay on us this episode? Part of the brilliance of Michael Emerson’s performance is that it’s hard to really know, and it forces you take a stand and make an interpretation that just might be totally incorrect. Here is mine: ”Dead is Dead” was the story of how one of Ben’s most ambitious fibs backfired big-time on him. His downfall began the moment he awoke in the Hydra Station and found Locke sitting by his cot sporting yet another one of his classic Season 5 grins. Hiya. Remember me? The guy you strangled to death? Yeah, that didn’t really work… Ben told Locke that he knew his Island magic would bring him back. The surprise etched all over his face certainly suggested otherwise, but silver-tongued Ben explained it away by evoking his Doubting Thomas Sunday school lesson from ”316:” ”Because it’s one thing to believe it,” he said, ”but it’s another thing to see it.” Then Ben told Locke that he had broken the rules by returning to The Island and claimed that he had a desire to be judged by Smokey. (”We don’t even have a word for it,” Ben clarified, ”but I believe you call it ‘The Monster.”’)

2. At the risk of impugning Ben’s honesty… oh, wait, that’s impossible. Anyway, my theory is that Ben really was totally shocked to see Locke alive again (Alex’s line ”I know you’re already planning to kill him again” would seem to confirm that Ben wanted Locke dead dead, not temp dead), and I think he was trying to buy himself some time with Locke by dropping an idea that he knew would capture Locke’s imagination: The prospect of The Island giving Ben cosmic comeuppance.

3. Charles Widmore, circa 1977: A cool fantasy hero stud saddled with atrocious hair. I asked my wife what he looked like to her. Response: ”A mushroom.” Widmore was pissed that Richard had brought Young Ben to The Temple. Richard neutralized him with four words: ”Jacob wanted it done.” This is pretty significant: We now know this unseen entity has held sway over The Others since at least 1977. Why did the mention of ”Jacob” shut Widmore up? Probably because he felt threatened. It’s been suggested that Jacob likes to play favorites, so Widmore probably realized right away that Ben represented a rival. You know what they say: Keep your friends close — and your future replacements closer.

4. One of the episode’s blockbuster revelations was that Charles Widmore had ordered Ben to kill Rousseau shortly after her arrival on The Island. Perhaps it was a leadership evaluation, akin to how Locke had been challenged by Ben and Alpert to murder his father back in Season 3. (Was Ben being assessed to fill Eloise ”Ellie” Hawking’s shoes? After all, she was mysteriously MIA from all the flashbacks.) Anyway, arriving at Rousseau’s tent, Ben discovered that the frazzled Frenchie had given birth to a child. Suddenly, all of his snakey heartlessness slithered away. Behold Ben’s Achilles’ Heel: Moms. Which makes sense. His own Bad Daddy had pumped him full of guilt for his mother’s death during childbirth. Mamas are the line that this Locke-killing, Dharma-purging fiend just can’t cross.

5. Yes, Widmore played the jerk in this drama. Yet we must ask ourselves: Was he correct? It all depends on if you think everything that has happened during the Ben era of The Island was supposed to happen. And for now, I am taken with the notion that it wasn’t. Benjamin Linus was a stop-gap for John Locke who outlived his usefulness, a mistake that won’t go away, and his ongoing struggle to remain essential to The Island’s story (if not simply survive) has created history that deviates from destiny. We know, of course, that Fate can correct an altered course, but either its repair job is following a long-term, slow-developing plan, or Survivor Ben, cockroach resilient, has been outwitting, outplaying, and outlasting Fate at every turn.

6. We also found out why Ben boarded Ajira 316 all battered and bloody. He had gone to the marina to fulfill his promise to kill Widmore’s daughter in retaliation for Alex’s death. Classy as always, Ben gave Chuck a jingle to let him know that his runaway child and mother of his never-seen grandson was about to get pumped full of lead. He dropped the name of Desmond’s boat, ”Our Mutual Friend,” named after the Charles Dickens’ novel that housed the love letter that kept the Hatch-trapped Scot going during his darkest days. The book, which I have not read, chronicles the consequences of an inheritance that is ceded to other people after the intended heir goes mysteriously MIA and fails to pick it up — which sounds an awful lot like the theory that Ben somehow usurped the Island destiny originally slated for Locke, a mistake that The Island has been madly trying to correct

7. We saw Ben pop a cap into Desmond. Right? We agree that we did see that? Okay, so a bag of groceries got in the way, but unless Desmond had some bulletproof cans of haggis in that bag, bruthuh should have been dead, or at least severely wounded. What was most interesting about this scene, though, was what we didn’t see — namely, what happened afterward. How did Desmond survive that near-point blank shooting? Did The Island intervene from afar as it did with Jack and Michael’s suicide attempts? How did Ben get fished out of the water? Who fished Ben out of the water? How did his damaged arm get put in that sling? Because Ben was sporting that sling in the episode ”316” when we saw him calling Jack from a pay phone at the marina. Perhaps Desmond pulled him out the drink in order to ask him some ”Why did you do that, bruthuh?” kind of questions — but that would blow a hole in the prevalent fan theory that Desmond is now en route to The Island to finish off Ben in order to protect his family from future attacks. If that’s what Desmond wanted, why didn’t he just make sure Ben was dead at the docks?

8. Ilana — the bounty hunter who was bringing Sayid back to Fiji when he got zapped back to The Island — teamed up with some other toughs on the plane and cracked open a giant steel case full of weapons and staged their takeover of the Ajira Airlines castaways. Looks like somebody came to The Island prepared for a hostile takeover, if not a war — perhaps the very same war Charles Widmore spoke to Locke about. Ilana gave Lapidus a sphinx-like riddle test that made her sound as if she was intimately acquainted with The Island’s ancient mythology. (He flunked, and got hit over the head for his trouble.) No doubt the statue refers to old Four Toe, aka the Egyptian god Anubis. What lies in its shadow? For now, my money is on Jughead. Regardless, I’m hoping upcoming episodes will reveal more about these radicals who have infiltrated The Island via Ajira 316 and what kind of perspective they have on The Island. (Doc Jensen)

9. Locke kept Christian’s shoes.  They showed him taking them in and out of his bag.  They might still have some significance.

10. Locke insists that he’s that same person he was before.  But something has changed.  He “knows” a lot more about the island, and his new perspective is interesting.  “Now you know what it was like to be me.”

11. Richard speaks for Jacob, interesting.  As usual, I wonder why he isn’t in charge.  It seems like Charles doesn’t speak for Jacob though, or else he could have countered Richard’s decision to save Ben.

12. Rewatch that scene with Ilana and Ben in the beginning of this episode.  She’s crazy-and-a-half, and confident.  Dangerous.

13. I think we can guess who the people with the Ajira water bottles, shooting our time-travelers are.  They’re going to be trouble for a while now.  Also It’s safe to assume that this group is going to be the threat to Locke that we heard about from Walt.

14. This could be the answer to the big question.  We saw a very clear carving of Anubis supplicating Smokey.  It seems likely that the Statue is Anubis.  It hasn’t been confirmed, obviously, but showing the god in te show is a pretty obvious tip-off.
The similarities between that carving and Locke’s childhood drawing is obvious.  What that means, I’ll leave for another day.

15. Smokey really seems to have a purpose now.  He is a judge.  Not a novel idea true, but it’s quite provable now.  We’ve seen two of it’s judgements now.  One when the subject repented and the other when he didn’t.  Eko was asked by his brother to repent, and he wouldn’t.  Ben was given the same chance and he clearly did feel badly for his actions and he was spared.  But his ghost, Alex, didn’t leave it at that.  I wonder what Eko’s ghost, Yemi, would have commanded.  If only we could know. (Not Confused Just Lost)

16. So in season 2, the countdown clock rolled over when it got to 0 and we saw Egyptian hieroglyphs, throwing fans into a tizzy. It took less than 24 hours before one of them figured it out by finding the particular grouping in a textbook of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. Then Ben went to summon Old Smokey in “The Shape of Things to Come” and he pushed open a door covered in them. Just before turning the wheel, there were more. In this episode, he steps back from the door and I could just hear the fans who have been translating the hieroglyphs either squealing with delight or moaning at all the work they had ahead of them. And then he dropped through the floor and landed in a room covered in them.
But the biggest moment was when he stood in front of the Egyptian drawing of Anubis, the jackal-headed Egyptian God of the Dead, summoning Smokey. I had suggested in an earlier post that perhaps that big statue is Anubis (but its ears are a little short to really be him) but here he is now. In one episode in season 3 (I think it’s “Left Behind”) Juliet rushes through the sonic fence and then Smokey hits it, and as he comes at it he looks like Cerberus, the three-headed dog that guards the gates of Hell in Greek mythology. Now we see he’s connected to Anubis. Anubis was the god of mummification, and rather than being some harbinger of death, which he is not, he was the one who protected the dead. We were discussing last week on the boards the idea that the Others are very caught up in keeping their dead bodies (they ask for Paul’s body… Christian’s body disappears and then he’s walking around… they ask Locke to bring his father’s body to them… Locke is now back from the dead… Amy makes a comment that they need to bury the bodies deeply in the ground). Perhaps they’re bringing them here for Anubis to protect them… or bring them back from the dead. Anubis is often portrayed holding an ankh, which Paul is wearing and Amy takes (and Horace freaks out that she’s kept this token of his).

17. Maybe I’m off-base on this one, but I screamed when Ben and Widmore had their showdown on the dock (not least because I thought those two were electric on screen in “The Shape of Things to Come,” and I’ve been dying for another scene with Emerson and Dale). Ben appears to be in charge now (it’s post-Purge, seeing as Alex is about 8 and the Others are living in New Otherton) and while Charles is hissing that if the island wants Alex dead, she’ll be dead, Ben is countering that he simply broke the rules. Therefore, he believes Widmore is wrong, the island never wanted Alex dead, and rules are rules. You do not go off the island and start a family, you stay on the island.
Now fast-forward to “The Shape of Things to Come,” and Alex is dead. Ben’s first words are, “He changed the rules.” On the dock, he insisted that Widmore broke the rules. We’ve been trying to figure out ever since what Ben meant in that death scene. Could it have been a reference to this one? Maybe it’s showing us that in that scene, Ben is thinking, “How could this happen to me? It was WIDMORE who broke the rules, NOT me, so why is my daughter dead? How could the island really have wanted her dead, when I’ve followed the rules and he broke them?” But why say he CHANGED the rules, not broke the rules? I’m thinking he is really saying that the island didn’t want Alex dead, so Widmore simply sent a vigilante to the island to make it happen. He changed the rules in forcing a death and not letting the island decide who lives and who dies. Rather than Smokey bringing the judgement forth, Widmore did it, thereby changing the rules. (Nik at Nite)

18. Ever since Sun and Frank went back to Othersville a couple of weeks ago, and we got to see the condition the barracks were in, plus the fact that there were apparantly still Dharma photos hanging up, people started to cry alternate timeline. I mean, how else could the barracks look SO different than when we last saw them. The theory was that something must have been changed in the past to cause the difference. But tonight when Ben entered his old house he looked at a Risk board laying on a table, a subtle clue that nothing has changed.
Last season, just before Keamy shot Alex, Hurley, Sawyer, and a few other people were holed up in Ben’s house. While in there, Hurley and Sawyer played a game of risk while having a little snack. As you can see from the images below, the Risk board is still there, just the way they left it more than 3 years before. (Sledgeweb’s Lost…Stuff)

My Future Hall of Famer

Apr 07

metalman777family 2009, baseball, nathan 1 Comment

Today should be a national holiday.  Today is Opening Day for the San Francisco Giants!  Here’s hoping they have a great season this year.

To help get you in the mood for Opening Day, I’d like to share some pictures and video from my future Hall of Famer, Nathan Latronica!  He played his second game of the season last night and had a great game.  He got to steal home and slide to evade the catcher and he got to be the relief pitcher (his first outing)

[slideshow id=3098476543645491216&w=426&h=320]
Here are some pics from the game.  Most are good, some are blurry, so you’ll just have to deal with it!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEWXSN3_P8A]
Here is Nate’s very first time pitching.  He did very well.  Not the fastest, but he made ‘em hit and ground out or he made ‘em swing and strike out.

My Kids

Apr 05

metalman777Life, family family, kids No Comments

I love my kids.  Let’s get that straight right now.  They know how much Cindy and I love ‘em, but today I was filled with gratitude out how much they love EACH OTHER.

We had a busy Sunday.  My In-Laws celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary (huge props to them!) and Hannah had a birthday party to attend.  Cindy was at AT&T Park watching the Giants play ball and I got to be the chauffeur hauling kids around.  After all was said and done, we all got home around 6pm and were all pretty tired.

In spite of that, my three kids, ages 14, 12, and 10 all decided to outside and play jump rope together.  Nothing earth shattering or mind blowing, but it made me so darn proud of ‘em.  I love the fact that they get along (for the most part!)  Of course there are the mandatory sibling bickerings, but they actually enjoy each other’s company.

God has done a good work here….and I’m glad he has let me be a part of it!

What Happened, Happened Recap

Apr 02

metalman777Lost Lost, recap 1 Comment

“Whatever Happened, Happened” is the eleventh episode of Season 5 of Lost and the 97th episode of the series as a whole. It was originally broadcast on April 1, 2009. Kate struggles to save a young Benjamin Linus from a gunshot wound at all costs. (Lostpedia.com)

1. Kate’s big season 5 flashback episode aspired to reveal why Kate was so emotionally invested in Aaron and managing the lie that he represented. Certainly time played a role. Funny now to think that Kate had been Aaron’s mother longer (three years) than Claire had ever had been (a couple months). Yet ”Whatever Happened, Happened” revealed that Kate needed to be Aaron’s mother. To fill her Sawyer void. To assuage her guilt over abandoning the Left Behinders.
2. The marina sequence — a nexus point of destiny for the Oceanic 6, originally depicted in ”The Little Prince” and ”This Place Is Death — was revisited yet again in last night’s episode, as it was last week for Sayid’s flashback episode. And once again, we saw that boat with the word ”Illusion” emblazoned on the side. For the Oceanic 6, the marina = ”this place is death.” It is the place where the mirage of their after-Island happy endings — poof! — faded away
3. Sawyer’s all Mr. Respectable now, the kind of ”Live together, die alone” leader Jack used to be. Meanwhile, Jack is back on the Island searching for destiny and his fulfillment, and while I don’t make that bad (not yet, at least), last night he came off looking a little…well, a little like Old Sawyer to me. In the same way Jack used to go barging over to Sawyer’s tent on the beach demanding help from the con man (Band-Aids, pills, etc.) and instead only getting bad attitude and ”What’s in it for me?” selfishness, now it’s Sawyer barging into Jack’s home, demanding that he apply his surgical skills to Young Ben, and getting a big self-centered ”No” in return. Yeah, yeah, there was a little more to Jack’s response to that — there always is, with anyone — but let us note this conspicuous role reversal. Jack is the new Sawyer. He even went shirtless last night! Wonder where that may lead? Sweaty cage sex? A Dharma library card? Crazy nicknames?
4. Last night, there was that bit of business about knowing that Sawyer and Kate were coming to him. But how? Psychic powers? Hyper-attuned jungle senses? A Desmond-esque flash from the future? And why not let them come to him? Is that just not the Others way — or did you get the sense, as I did, that Richard didn’t want them to know anything about the Temple, aka The House of Smokey? So far, we only know of one castaway who is aware of the Temple’s existence: Jin. (See: The Affair of Montand’s Severed Arm.) I’m going to hazard a guess and say that his knowledge of this mysterious Island landmark is going to play a crucial role in the season’s endgame. And while we’re on the subject of the Temple: Do you think Richard and Smokey are roommates?
5. Again, we are prodded to ask: What exactly is Richard’s relationship to the Others and his role in the leadership structure? My current take on Richard is this: He is like an angel to be wrestled with and overcome, like a sphinx to be solved and beaten, and should you be successful, you get the keys to the kingdom, the Island, and as part of the deal, he serves you faithfully until someone else comes along and knocks you off the mountain.
6. the castaways are being made to understand that their participation in past events is shaping the future that they have already experienced. They have themselves to blame for the thing that is Benjamin Linus. We are the causes of our own suffering. Think about your life. At the same time, I didn’t quite know how to interpret this idea that Ben would be getting a memory wipe as part of his healing treatment. Did Richard mean that Ben would only be made to forget how Sawyer and Kate helped save his life? I hope so, because if Ben’s whole childhood is about to get erased, it really makes me look stupid for insisting to the whole world that Adult Ben remembers growing up with the castaways in Dharmaville. (Doc Jensen)
7. Miles describes time as being relative to oneself. For them, the years go 197? (whenever they were born) to 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977… For Ben they go forward, and the “past” they’re in right now is Ben’s present. Miles is convinced that whatever happened, happened, and you can’t change it. Hurley, the lover of comics and reader/watcher of several stories of going back in time to change the past, isn’t so convinced. Is Miles right, and if so, where did he get his information from? Is it possible that THIS is his real usefulness?
8. There are a couple of lines from season 4 that I can’t stop thinking about. One of them was when the psychiatrist tells Juliet that Ben is obsessed with her because “you look just like her.” His mother? A girlfriend? Now I’m starting to be convinced that the person she looks just like… is herself. Roger stands in the room where Ben is struggling to breathe, and tells Kate that what a boy really needs is his mother. Cut to Juliet standing over him, looking concerned and leaning down to help him. According to Alpert, he’s going to forget everything that happened up to the point where the Others took him, but maybe Juliet mothers him in some way after this moment, and he’ll remember that and become obsessed with her years later.
9. The other line is one Charles Widmore delivers to Ben when Ben comes to visit him in the night and tells him that he’s going to kill Penny (Shape of Things to Come). I’ve always been unnerved by Widmore saying he knows WHAT he is, and he also says that they both know Widmore can’t kill Ben. In this episode, Alpert takes Ben to his camp and says Ben will never be the same. Then the one hostile says to Richard that Ellie and Charles will freak out if they find out, they being Eloise (presumably) and Charles Widmore, whom we saw as young soldiers in 1954. Is whatever Richard’s about to do going to render Ben immortal in some way?
10. Did You Notice?:• There didn’t appear to be a noticeable exit wound on Ben’s back. Maybe it went through his side and that’s why there’s no blood?• Kate’s got her Patsy playing again. An interesting choice, since Kate’s got Sawyer’s picture in her mind, but Juliet’s got him. (not that Kate knows that yet…)• Kate sings “Catch a Falling Star” to Aaron, which is the song that Christian always sang to Claire when she was a baby.

    • After Sawyer and Miles took off with the janitor’s keys, leaving Horace and Phil behind in the cell room, Phil had a look on his face like something wasn’t right. I think he’ll be the one to eventually unravel Sawyer’s happy little fairy tale.

    • For all his snark, Miles seems to fall into the role of being Sawyer’s underling pretty easily, and takes orders from him without ever talking back.

11. When Kate goes up to the guy to ask where the juice boxes are, he looks directly at her, and never do his eyes go down to look at Aaron. Then when she goes back to him to ask if he saw her son, he looks at her like she’s kinda crazy and says, “Your… son?” and as she runs away, he looks behind him as if to say to someone that she was nuts. Did anyone else think for a moment that Aaron was invisible in that scene or something? That grocery stock guy was very strange.• Kate and Aaron are wearing the same clothes when they go to Cassidy’s, as if they hadn’t slept at all the night before.• In the awesome smackdown scene between Juliet and Jack (did anyone else detect that maybe IF Sawyer has been pining for Kate, Juliet has been equally pining for Jack?) Jack says that he came back because he was supposed to, but doesn’t know any details. He sounds EXACTLY like Locke in this scene.

    • I don’t mean to be unfair to Sun, but Kate looked far more broken up over leaving Aaron than Sun looked about leaving Ji Yeon. (Nik at Nite)

12. It’s interesting how the “Lost” crew is using the time travel component — and the paradox/no-paradox question — as a lens for character development. Sayid is blindly driven to change the future by killing young Ben in the present; newly-mellow Jack seems to subscribe to Faraday’s theory that events will transpire as they’re supposed to transpire, so his involvement is irrelevant (and convenient, because you know he doesn’t want to crack Ben open again); and Kate, Juliet and Sawyer believe it’s inherently wrong to let a young boy die, regardless of his future actions. In past seasons, Jack would have acted/reacted, Kate would have avoided making a decision, Sayid may have considered the long-range implications (he wasn’t always cold-blooded), and Sawyer would have shot the kid himself.
13. Charles Widmore and Eloise Hawking are both on the island in 1977 (I’m making the wild assumption that “Charles” and “Ellie” refer to these two). Richard claims he doesn’t take orders from either of them. So what gives? Was Widmore a recognized Other leader, or did he adopt that title? And I’m assuming that if Young Ben is assimilated into the Others, he’ll come to know Eloise Hawking … but what sort of relationship will he forge with her, where will her allegiances lie (With Widmore? With Ben? With Alpert?) and how will the Ben-Hawking connection lead to old Mrs. Hawking helping Ben and the Oceanic Six return to the island in “316″? And who is Daniel Faraday’s father? (The Lost Blog)
14. Hurley and Miles started a new, special kind of friendship tonight that I hope we see more of in the future. Of course, it does make me worry for Miles a little. After all, people who come in contact with Hurley don’t always fare so well. But in Whatever Happened, Happened there was some fantastic dialog between the two on the specifics of time travel. Hurley definitely represents many of the feelings the fans have had this season. (Sledgeweb’s Lost Stuff. Click here to see video of the above conversations!)
15. Do You See What I See? Probably Not.
    Not me, mind you… but the characters on LOST. Know what they see? Only what they need to see. Or more specifically, only what they need to be shown. Which is why when Jin turns little Ben over, the bullet hole in his zip-down hoodie is now on the exact opposite side of his chest – on the other side of the zipper. It’s not even close, it’s a complete mirror image of the spot where Sayid drilled him precisely through the heart.

    Continuity error? Maybe on 24. But this is LOST, and we’re seeing exactly what the island wants us to see, through Jin’s eyes. But through the eyes of Sayid? For him the bullet went right through the kid’s heart – no need for a coup de grace. And this, my friends, is how the island isn’t so much manipulating the events or happenings we see from week to week. What’s being manipulated are the perceptions and experiences of the characters on LOST, and yes, even the flashbacks. I’ll go further nuts on this at the end of my review, but for anyone still dangling from that last thin thread of the continuity argument? It just snapped.

16. Jack put it all very well: he’s been here before. He’s already operated on Benjamin Linus to save his life. He’s already taken that shower that he’s about to take, he’s already stepped out in that towel and been reflected in that mirror… we’ve heard this song already. The only difference is that this time, Jack’s on the Locke side of the coin. “Maybe the island just wants to fix things itself” – this is something S1-4 Jack Shephard would never have said. Months, years of trying to deny the impossibilities of what’s been happening to everyone has finally give Jack a front row in the first pew of the church of faith – not science. This, plus his talk with Sawyer seems to have sunk in: Jack’s taken the time to examine all the actions he’s taken since flight 815 crashed, and he’s determined that nothing he did really accomplished anything. Whatever was going to happen would be unfazed by Jack’s intervention… and when Jack did intervene, it was simply because he was meant to. Totally maddening. Imagine realizing such a total loss of control – that nothing you ever did, or would do, really mattered at all. THIS IS WHAT JACK’S MEANT TO THINK. This is what the island has been trying very, very hard to show him. When Jack mentions he’d been “getting in the way” it’s because he HAD been getting in the way.
17. And although Kate came back because the island summoned her, one cool thing to note is that Kate came back with a purpose: Claire. This seems pretty important considering that, other than Sun, no one else came back to the island with any sense of purpose whatsoever. Sayid came back unwillingly, and Jack and Hurley’s most popular answer: “We just gotta go back”.Also important, it seemed Kate couldn’t go back to the island until she’d resolved something: her lie. This was part of the whole redemption-before-getting-on-the-plane process. Jack, the inventor of the lie, had to finally (and besottedly) admit to himself that they weren’t supposed to leave. Hurley spilled the entire can of island beans to his mom at the kitchen table, absolving himself of his own lie. Sayid’s big lie was apparently trying to be a carpenter instead of a killer. And at the end of this episode, Kate finally tells Cassidy and Carole everything: all about the plane crash, Claire being alive, and how she assumed custody of Aaron. Her lie is now over, and that’s when she gets on the plane. Maybe Sun ended up in 2007 because she never resolved her lie? Dunno.
18. Regardless, Richard makes a point to tell Sawyer and Kate that Ben will ‘always be one of them’. Unlike Juliet who could be easily excommunicated, Benjamin Linus would be forever initiated into the Others secret club. I get the impression that Ben is about to go through a subterranean, more personal version of island baptism than the rest of the Others have gone through (with Richard maybe being the exception). In exchange for his life, poor unconscious Ben is about to sacrifice his future ability to choose any kind of destiny all his own. Later on in life, I think Ben learns this might even be worse than dying.This is the reason why, above all else, I’ve always believed Ben not to be evil. He’s never been his own person, and has spent his life doing the island’s work. Just as the old John Locke has always been a puppet whose strings are constantly being pulled and manipulated by others, Ben’s own destiny has been unwantingly placed before him at an age where he could nothing about it. It sucks, and it’s always sucked. He knows this, and I think it’s why Ben shouts down the island with his whole “I hope you’re happy” speech and leaves via the donkey wheel. He wants to change things. Ben is thoroughly finished doing the bidding of this fickle bitch – he finally wants to have his own life. But in order to accomplish this, I think Ben knew he had to sneak back onto the island via some very shady means. Ben’s helping the O6 these past two seasons may have seemed to be according to the island’s plan, but I think Ben just had to make it look that way.
19. Humor me for a minute, and watch Kate and Aaron in the supermarket. She asks where the juice boxes are, gets distracted by Jack’s call, and then loses Aaron. Watch the look the stockboy gives her when she tells him she lost her son: as he says “excuse me” his facial expressions register confusion, not concern for someone who just walked by with a little blonde boy in tow. Rewind to when Kate first asks the question, and the stockboy never even looks at Aaron. In fact, no one looks at Aaron in the supermarket at all, except for Kate. As she frantically runs through the aisles the next scene is shown, not surprisingly, in the store’s giant mirror.
    

    Suddenly Kate sees Aaron again, this time seemingly being led away by Claire. We know Claire is supposed to raise Aaron, and the island is showing Kate this. It’s slapping her in the face with the fact that she’s living a lie. It leads Kate back to Cassidy’s house, where Clementine answers the door. “Hi Auntie Kate!”, she says. She doesn’t say hi to Aaron. She doesn’t even look at Aaron. Strange too, because Aaron apparently rang the bell.

    Later on, Kate gives Carole a picture of Aaron on a tire swing. Immediately she asks “Where is he?” Kate answers her question with “two doors down”, but Carole continues to stare at the photo. Where is he indeed.

    Okay, let me back up a minute. Am I saying that I believe Aaron’s nothing more than a figment of Kate’s imagination, and that he never existed at all? Nope. Aaron is as real as reality gets – on LOST, anyway. There are lots of people who see and interact with Aaron – Cassidy for one. But I am saying this: Cassidy’s words this episode were all about how Kate needed Aaron, instead of the other way around. The minute Kate began wondering if Aaron wouldn’t be better off without her, he suddenly and instantaneously disappeared. (DarkUFO)

80's Top Five Playlist – Done!!

Apr 01

metalman777music, videos 80's, hair metal, music, videos 2 Comments

So we are heading to an 80′s party this weekend and the only thing we are required to bring is a playlist of 5 of our favorite songs from that era.  Initially I thought this would be a very easy task, but it turned out to be harder than I thought.

If you haven’t seen my earlier post about trying to narrow my songs down from 100 to 40, I suggest you watch the video I posted there.  This has been a very painstaking process!

The criteria for picking my top 5 are as follows:  What makes me remember being a teenager in my room air guitaring all over the place and what just had that fun 80′s rock feel that made you want to be with your buddies?

I’m gonna count down from 5 to 1, so here is my fifth song:

5.  Ratt’s Round and Round

Ratt was one of my all time favorite bands back in the day.  Their music was infectious and groovin’ and fun.  I picked them from pure nostalgia.  I probably listened to more Ratt than any other band.

[viddler id=b3acb226&w=437&h=392]

4.  Dokken’s Burning Like A Flame

Burning Like a Flame isn’t the best Dokken song, I know.  I love it and again, this song is chosen from good memories as a teen.  I grew up in a small town and we didn’t have cable, so I couldn’t watch MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball.  I had friends that would tape it for me, and it always seemed that Dokken’s Burning Like A Flame was being played.  I love the album artwork and I love the entire album.

[viddler id=640e2a83&w=437&h=392]

3.  Tesla’s Love Song

Tesla just has to be in the top 5.  They have sooo many good songs that it was very hard to pick which one I love the most.  I figured that the power ballad needed to be represented, and Love Song is one of the best.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_2w4vl9mt8]

2.  Van Halen’s Summer Nights

5150 was the very first hard rock album that really grabbed my attention.  I was in 8th grade when it was released and it turn me onto hard rock for life!  You can read another blog I posted about this experience here. So needless to say, I had to pick a song from 5150 just because it was this album that made me what I am today!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMKHc3JURFo]
(I know the audio quality is horrible on this video, but it was the only one I could find!)

1.  Stryper’s To Hell With The Devil

Yes, Stryper has my number one song of the 80′s!!  Even as Van Halen’s 5150 made me give hard rock another listen, Stryper’s To Hell With The Devil made me give God a second look.  This album was a huge catalyst for me becoming a follower of Jesus.  I had the above album cover as the big back patch on my jean jacket in high school.  I was THAT cool!  Again, you can read about my experience here!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KubgMDSMXfI]
(unlike the Van Halen video, Stryper is spot on and sound just like the album! Premiere musicians, these guys are!)

It’s been a lot of fun picking these songs.  As soon as the party is over I’ll be posting pics of all us dressed up goofy and having fun!