Team Other

I'm on Team Other, as DHARMA was a totalitarian intrusion upon the innocence of the Island, on par with The Man in Black himself.

Who was the Smoke Monster, of course. Which was what? Magic. DHARMA, on the other hand, was all about science and control and groovy 70's symbology.

Like all the Hieroglyphs. If you watched the show, you'll recall this stretch of episodes being dark as heck. Creepy stuff - the tale of Ben Gale.

But then, if you were raised on Mystery Magic Island, you'd be pretty twisted too. Thus, count me in for Team Other, cuz the rank and file had the best intentions of the Island in mind - and if you lived on Mystery Magic Island, you'd work to placate it as well. Logically.

The New Protector

I miss "Lost". Really. It was such an engaging show. So many great stories, so many great characters, like Hugo, or AKA Hurley, The New Protector. Hail!

If you've never watched "Lost", do so immediately.

When we were LOST

Remember Lost? It was such a wild ride, I really miss it - the ongoing mystery, the crazy theories, the mad twists. Lost was a modern day epic in the old school Greek tradition, and I am super glad I caught it in real time, since speculation was part of the fun. Also, it was all Vincent's dream.

I was - perhaps sadly - still watching Lost every day up until 3 months ago, while I worked out. But alas, Football season started and there was "research" to be done. Seriously! I take Fantasy very seriously. I dedicate most of my spare time from September through December studying football. Sad! And now awesome:

 Touchdown, Team Jack.

I'm a Survivor

Herewith, I give you the remainder of my Survivor .gif cache:

A clotheslining, by an actual clothesline. Isn't it ironic?

Crystal was a gold medal Olympic winner (some kind of relay race), and yet, was a terrible athlete. It was rather surreal.

Dan was a small man in a very big chair. It was part of an in-show advertisement for Jack Black's "Gulliver's Travels". Which was an instant classic, I hear. I - for truth - enjoy the advertisements in the show, since it's a connection to most other TV game shows. And it's cheezy, and these poor suffering players are amazed by these strange items from a foreign land. Also, there's usually some kind of strategic element to these advertisement segments - winning an expensive car, for example, often would bias the jury against the winner.

Oh yeah. T&A. It's another big factor in the show - for all genders and sexual persuasion. A well proven Survivor maxim: Everyone looks better starving and dirty than fat and covered in makeup and questionable clothes.

Spider dance. Speaking of:

An exploding ball of spiders. Hello!

This World is Now Ours

This is a compilation of all tropical storms over a year. Neat, huh? Note the remarkably quiet continent of South America - what's up with that? Eastern Africa is also incredibly calm, whereas look at Wastern Mexico - BAM! Must be that El Nino dude.

These are the Andaman Islands, one of which is - and has been for a long, long, long time - the home of the Sentinelese. The Tsunami of 04 went through here, but no one knows what it did or didn't do to the Sentinelese. They remain a mystery. From the satellite image above, it looks like they get a lot of big storms - I bet they survived in large numbers, if it were possible, due to their no doubt higher sensitivity to their environment. Uncle t-Thuk'ik-rytyr always knows when a storm is coming. Or a big wave - the birds, man. You got to read the birds. When they start freaking out, or not freaking out, you know something's up - head for high ground.

Islands in the Sun

Lookee here at the ISS and the Space Shuttle transiting in front of the sun - picture taken from earth based telescope. Of course, these two objects are in Earth orbit and not close to the sun at all, but as always - PERSPECTIVE!

Here's a magnification from a slightly different angle:

Pretty neato!

And for your moment of zen today, stop for a moment and consider that there's 3 people right now, floating above the Earth, orbiting the planet every 90 minutes or so. They live up there! Like some type of Gods.....

Can you spare a sub ride?

I miss it. And by "it" I mean specifically, the Island. I realize the Island was my favorite character on the show. The show was really about the Island, in the sense that it was the motivator or cause for all other character's actions.  

I like calling it the Island too, that it doesn't have a name. Names are overrated.

Wise Man's Night Out

I'm sure his friend is getting the beers and hotdogs, extra mustard.

Lost no more

This is the end - the last Monday on which there is a new Lost episode to come. So, in the spirit of appreciating what you got before it's gone, I'm going full on Lost till the finale this Sunday, and maybe some days after that.

But then that's it! I give up TV soon enough anyways.


Re: The Light, as seen above. This is a shot when Locke moved the island. If you recall, this light came about when the characters were flashing through time, and specifically, when Locke was going down the well to get to the wheel, the light very clearly came up from the well.

The same well/wheel we saw MIB building long, long ago, which was his attempt at getting off the island via the magic light Crazy Momma had shown him, but he could never find on his own.

A similar, but different light flashed when Desmond turned the failsafe key in the hatch at the end of Season 2.

I assume all of these lights were from the same source - The Source, as shown in the last episode.

I also assume this will all be brought home soon enough. Too soon. Alas!

Shelter Island

That's the name of the meteorite that just so happened to be near by plucky rover Opportunity.  Look upon an alien rock on an alien world, and ask yourself: Is not this existence grand?

Also, our old friend Iron - did you know Iron is essentially poison to stars? As soon as Iron starts getting formed, everything it touches dies within the star. And the same might be said of Iron here on Mother Earth, no? 

Wish you were here

I have some stress in my life - perhaps you do as well? This stress would often cause me difficulties sleeping, as my mind would race around the track of "All the things to do!".

So I searched about for solutions. No drugs though, as sleeping pills are pure evil, and except for the fun drugs, I am firmly a "Just Say No" kinda redshirt.

I tried tea, milk, curtains, sound machines, fans and fans and more fans, and nothing worked. I tried counting sheep, and I felt like that was getting me somewhere, but not far enough. And then I came upon a realization: Your brain is keeping you awake with thoughts of "All the things to do!"; if you can redirect that mental activity somewhere else, perhaps you can bypass it. This is the principle behind counting sheep, after all - the visualization of sheep jumping over a fence is mentally engaging enough to distract you from your normal thoughts, and the procession of counting more and more sheep creates a hypnotic effect whereby you are talking yourself to sleep in a gentle manner - self hypnosis of a sort.

Counting sheep simply gets boring, my mind drifts back onto the stress, and so I was dissatisfied with the technique. But the principle is sound, so I developed it - what about some kind of complex scenario that would require you to spend that limited mental activity, but also not create any new stress or drama? This last part is key.

For example, one of my early attempts at a "go-to-sleep" scenario was "What would my dream house be?" And I would try and imagine all the cool things I might have in a house if money were no object. But I found this scenario quickly led to thoughts of money, of responsibility, and those thoughts would then lead back to the "real world" of stress and anxiety and etc.

So I searched about for different scenarios, and came upon one that has worked for me for years and years now - stuck on a desert island. Please note this started BEFORE Lost. Ahem! Now, your mileage will vary, and if you try this technique, you'll have to come up with your own scenario, as each of us is unique in our way and no one specific path is necessarily meant for another.

Stuck on a deserted tropical island, with a big chest of whatever I wanted to pack in that chest. Tarps, knives, lighters, pots, fishing gear, etc. How would I drink water? What would I eat? How would I build a shelter? What about bugs? The bathroom? Etc. Endless permutations of mindless repetitions, essentially, for me, disconnected entirely from the "real world" (as in, it's highly unlikely I'd ever find myself stuck on a desert island). Counting sheep writ large, in other words.

It worked wonderfully for me, but alas, some 8 years now doing this, I've found it's gotten a bit stale. So I'm trying out some new material. If you're having any difficulty sleeping, I encourage you to give this general technique a try. Remember, the keys are it has to be quite disconnected from your "real world" so as not to lead to any stressful thoughts, and it has to be engaging in a harmless way in order to distract your brains from the habitual thoughts it wants to engage in. Maybe you could envision a great garden with all types of different plants. Or maybe imagine building a model train set to minute detail. Whatever works for you, but it might take you some time trying out different scenarios, so be patient.

To finish, in all this time, I don't recall ever once dreaming of being on a deserted tropical island, which I find exceedingly strange.

Come back

As good as last week's episode was, I got the sense it was more of a set up episode for tonight's episode. Thus, tonight's episode should be, in a word, awesome. Tune in to find out!