Lost 316

Last night's episode, 316 was the worst episode of the series yet. Since I'm on the road, I watched it early this morning online. Here are some (mainly hypercritical) notes I took:

• So far ho hum.
• This Place Is Boredom.
• I have discovered the source of the whispers and it's Eloise Hawking.
  
• I'm renaming Eloise to Drama Queen. What's with the voice? Tell me: would that voice convince you to do anything?
• Granddad seems like a fairly healthy old dude with a limp. Why does he need assisted living? Why would a man with a limp try to escape with Christan's lace-ups? If I were Ray, in my 70's, beat down by the death of my alcoholic son, stuck in a home for people incapable of taking care of themselves I'd much rather wear Locke's laceless loafers.
  
  
  

  Locke's Shoes

  Christian's Shoes

  
  
• Given that until about 48 hours earlier, Jack was a pill-popping alcoholic, why would he, rather than his mother, be the primary contact for his grandfather?
  
• Damn, this is dreary.
• Wow. I'm watching this online, the episode sponsored by the Orange Juice Council. There were several commercials from the council, the first one having Tom Selleck talk about how they discover new nutrients for it all the time. Come back from first break without OJ commercial and the first thing I see is Jack pouring OJ for messed up Kate. Jack says "I poured you some orange juice." Fuck all if that wasn't on purpose because I thought, "Oh, that's good, it's full of nutrients." In case you thought that product placement wasn't possible on a show that takes place on an island, this proves otherwise.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Ben is fully marginalized this season: "I've been sidetracked"?! How about the Ben we used to know who could be cool and manage to control shit? The dude who would just smugly say "Because, Jack, there's more going on than you know!"? Unless this panic is genuinely going to matter, fuck it all.
• Oh, fuck, Ben has been messed up. Maybe he could use some Orange Juice, it's full of nutrients!
  
  
  
  
  
  
• On the audio podcast, Darlton said that they could have changed the play order this episode and The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham. I kind of doubt it at this point.
• Poor dead Locke.
  
  
  
  
  ... which reminds me of an old Jewish joke.
  
• "Rest In Peace..." before you make him a zombie proxy"
• This dialogue is bad, but so is the heightened false sense of emotion. I blame the director for trying to inject excitement where there was none.
• This Episode Is Death.
• If it improves the episode, give Jack another tattoo.
• OK. Walt was told he could leave the island at the end of S2, so, okay, I'll give up on Walt. I should have realized this sooner. Sigh. Sorry.
• Write a letter on 8.5" wide paper. Put it in an envelope. Fold the envelope in half and then try to tear it open the way Jack did. Then remove the piece of the letter you tore.
• Frank Lapidus has no further role on the show. That he was the pilot was likely to entertain the group.
• Kate: if you plan to go back to the island, and tell Jack to get some hiking boots -- buy some fucking hiking boots. And some sensible clothes.
  
• I understand that all this episode did was return our fans to the island and create some questions: why doesn't Kate want to discuss Aaron? What happened to Sayid? What happened to Ben? But in the end I just don't care.
  

Return To The Facebook

I used The Facebook for a few months in 2008, but I left last June.

Look, I had plenty of The Facebook friends, and plenty of coworker friends, but there were still very few real-life friends. Now, I like my coworkers, but I don't need The Facebook to be in touch with them; them I saw all the time. And I found this need to collect The Facebook Friends like some people used to collect Pogs Milk Caps. The Facebook was overhwelming.

And I left. I wrote about it on this blog, and the response surprised me. Not that there was a lot of it, I just expected something different - a little bit of conversation about time spent on The Facebook, the value of in-person contact versus living in small dialogue boxes, et ceterea. But mostly people were confused, as some occasionally are by things I write. Some took to mocking me, and one woman went so far as to summarize her opinion by repeatedly calling me a faggot to my face, a rare case where I would have much preferred the online version of the conversation.

For these last six months I had the distinct feeling of not missing out. Last month learned that many of my friends (the real ones, the ones I wanted to spend weekend time with) had joined The Facebook in the intervening time. All of a sudden there was this real value to returning to The Facebook, and so I have.

I like friends, and I even like coworker friends. Let's be friends! But this time I'm not collecting them for points, and let's keep out the surveys, snowballs and super pokes. I like The Facebook when I use it as a relationship supplement; not its replacement.

I must no longer be gay; my wife will be so relieved.