August 26th, 2008 § § permalink
Finally finished Season 4 of LOST. I think it only took about 8 months to get through the entire body of work. And honestly, I think I’m done with it.
*** Just as a warning, if anyone else on Earth hasn’t seen all of LOST, this post will probably spoil a lot of it for you ***
I’m just sayin…. cause I was extremely careful not to take in any information about the show until I’d seen it all, so I don’t want to go and ruin for anyone else.
Back to the point of the post…
Going in to the show, I really only wanted to see how (or if) they got off The Island. Now that I know, I don’t really care what happened after that point. I can imagine how people would care, but the characters whose plot lines are still a mystery just aren’t interesting enough to me to want to watch the show to learn what happened to them.
First example: Locke. Sorry, but I slowly stopped caring about him over the course of Season 3. By the end of Season 3 and throughout Season 4, Locke was nothing more than a plot driver for me. Not only that, but he was the least surprising and/or intriguing cliffhanger ever. Sure, when JJ Abrahms did cliffhangers in Alias they were always on the verge of the absurb, but at least they were surprising and hinted at something more, or something mysterious, or at least something. The end of Season 4 was just kind of like, “Oh, OK. That actually makes sense.”
Next up: Ben. I never really cared about him. I felt sorry for him, sure, but he’s the villian, and he’s engaged in a battle with another villian. And they both apparently have vast resources and/or wealth. I’m not sure I even want to know what happens there, because I don’t think I’ll be happy with the outcome no matter what it is.
Who else? Claire? Sorry, but leaving your baby to follow the ghost of Jack’s dad doesn’t exactly make me care more about you.
Juliet? My wife was really into her and her mentalness, but I just never quite connected there.
Sawyer? Yeah, OK, maybe I care what happened to Sawyer. But only because we all know that he should have ended up with Kate.
In the end, I know there’s only going to be 34 more episodes. And with all the time I’ve put into it, I suppose I’ll just end up watching the rest just to have seen the whole thing. But all the while, I’ll be wishing JJ would have just left us with the simple idea of a mysterious island and people surviving on the island. I mean, Gilligan and Co pulled off that idea for 98 episodes. LOST basically wrapped it up in only 83.
August 24th, 2008 § § permalink
So close that Amazon has videos of Neal Stephenson talking about it, and even reading from it!
Still not sure if I’m going to buy the hardcover when it comes out, because (as previously stated) I just don’t like having to carry around heavy books. And this one is already 928 pages, so it certainly doesn’t need any added tonnage.
Previous posts about Anathem:
August 22nd, 2008 § § permalink
It’s not my birthday, but this meme was up over on Chris Roberson’s site, so I’m using it…
Look up your birthday in Wikipedia. Pick 4 events, 3 births, 2 deaths, and 1 holiday.
4 events
1493 – Christopher Columbus first sighted the island of Dominica in the Caribbean Sea
1913 – The USA introduces an income tax
1918 – Poland declares its independence from Russia
1957 – Sputnik program: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2. On board is the first animal to enter orbit: a dog named Laika
3 births
1852 – Meiji Emperor, Japanese emperor (d. 1912)
1900 – Adolf Dassler, founder of Adidas (d. 1978)
1957 – Dolph Lundgren, Swedish actor
2 deaths
1954 – Henri Matisse, French artist (b. 1869)
1998 – Bob Kane, comic artist and Batman co-creator (b. 1915)
1 holiday
Japan – Culture Day (originally celebrated as Emperor’s Birthday until the Meiji Emperor’s death in 1912)
August 21st, 2008 § § permalink
I saw Clone Wars on Sunday with my wife and an avid Star Wars fan and his wife (I would have just said two other friends, but I wanted to get in the part about how one is the kind of guy who can beat you at Star Wars Trivial Pursuit in 1 turn). I think Mr. Star Wars Junkie enjoyed it at least a little, but he was also annoyed whenever the droids talked.
Personally, I couldn’t get over the fact that Anakin’s padawan looked just like one of the Olsen twins. I’m sure that was not a coincidence either. I mean that, and the whole thing was another one of those political games for trade routes in space. I think if I were reading a book about it, it would be easier to understand and probably much more interesting. In fact, I just did read a book about it; called Tempest, part of the Legacy of the Force series. It was all about the political intrigue and motives, but the author could take the time to explain things better (even while showing and not telling). But when you (or George Lucas) try to make that kind of thing work in a 90 minute kid movie (yeah, it’s a kid movie), a lot of the political tension that could make it deeper gets lost.
August 19th, 2008 § § permalink
I made it a rule when I started blogging to never apologize for not posting in a long time. That’s what RSS feeds are for. So, without further apology, let me just say that I got a new dog, and it’s taken me longer to get adjusted to him than it took him to adjust to me (and I’m still not sure that I’m fully there yet). Yeah, I know, I was worried that this guy would get bored from laying around all day while I work from home and turn on his masters in a show of bored ferocity:
But seriously, look at those fangs:
In other news, I started and stopped StarCraft: Nova. I made it through about 50 pages and then just couldn’t handle the writing. I imagine it’s mostly because it was written more for a teenage video game playing audience than a mid-twenties video game playing audience. I did like the concept, though, and it was exactly what I would have wanted to read if a) I were a teenager or b) it was written in a more adult style.
So, now I’ve started A Canticle For Leibowitz. Evidently it’s a classic or something.
