Year: 2007

Network Monkeys Do Good

This will hurt my credibility as a Lost fan, but I haven’t been a fan of the show since the beginning.

I started watching in the summer of ’05- before the second season, when djl made me a dvd of the first season. The reason I didn’t watch from the beginning was because I thought Lost would just be an updated version of Gilligan’s Island.

Well, according to a new article in Chicago Magazine, that’s almost what it was.

To summarize the article, in the summer of ’03, the real Lloyd Braun (head of the ABC network, not the aide to David Dinkins, gum middleman and computer salesman) came up with an idea about a show that was basically “Cast Away: the Series.” The show ended up in the hands of Aaron Spelling’s production company, where it was given to a writer named Jeffrey Leiber.

Lieber imagined something like Lord of the Flies—a “realistic show about a society putting itself back together after a catastrophe.” In roughly a week’s time, he concocted a general story line centered on what happens to a few dozen plane-crash survivors when they are stuck on a far-off Pacific island. The show, as Lieber saw it, would focus heavily on eight to ten main characters.

To give you more of an idea what the show involved, from a documentary on the Lost S1 DVD:

And in the initial pilot script, the time period, in the pilot alone, went over like six weeks or something. So, kind of by the end of the pilot, they were already like coconut-bowling and living in hutches and that kind of thing.

The show went through development, but Lloyd (Serenity Now!) Braun didn’t like the angle the show was taking.

Braun decided to give the project J. J. Abrams … [and Damon Lindelof] came back with a far-out idea to get around the show’s limitations: What if the island were a character—a supernatural place where strange things happened? Braun loved it.

And things took off from there. The Chicago Magazine article explains that Leiber still receives royalties from ‘creating’ the original script. And after the expensive pilot was filmed, Braun was fired from his post at ABC.

But at least the show wasn’t about cast aways going cocount bowling.

King Tom

Gripping Your Pillow Tight

For a few weeks I’ve been having problems with my eyes. Nothing major, just my vision gets a little blurry from time to time.

So I went to the optometrist, and he ran through all the tests, and there was something wrong with my cornea, which can be fixed. But the cause of it, according to the doctor is that I sleep with my eyes open.

The way to fix it is to get this nighttime eye drop solution and put it in my eyes every night. But how will I know if my eyes are open or shut if I’m sleeping at the time that this is happening?

King Tom

Print is dead

I was disappointed earlier this week to find out that next month, the Weekly World News would cease publishing its print edition.

While never a subscriber (or regular purchaser), I have bought my share of issues, mostly using them as bathroom-area wall decorations in college. They say the Web version will still be published, but the Web version of the world’s only reliable newspaper isn’t that great.

Now I’ll have to get my all my news from people at the bus stop.

King Tom

You know my name

Because my legal name ends in Jr., I’ve never been the only Tom in my family.

Now that I’m married, it’s even more complicated.

Both The Civee’s father and eldest brother share my first and middle names.

I was driving to a wedding this weekend with The Civee and her parents, when the topic of what to call me amidst all these other Toms came up.

Thomas?
No, I don’t like it.

Tommy?
I haven’t been called that one in a long time, and I don’t mind it, but it’s also what The Civee’s brother was called when he was younger.

But then, I said, “Well, some of my friends call me King Tom.”

After getting past the whole “why do they call you King Tom” bit, The Civee’s mother started to call me “King Tom” several times throughout the night.

Of course, each time she did so, the cutest little scowl would appear on The Civee’s face.

If this continues, much fun will be had at my wife’s expense.

King Tom

In his mind, he's already there.

Michael Richards, who played Kramer on Seinfeld and famously made an ass of himself last year, is going to Cambodia to find himself.

From the link:

the comedian is visiting remote temples in Cambodia, following the teachings of a Hindu monk. In a recent Los Angeles Times interview, the comic admitted he has lost his sense of humor, adding, “I’m taking time off to feel myself out, get to know myself and appreciate other people.”

Sometimes, you know, life does imitate art:

In real life:
-Michael Richards played Cosmo Kramer on Seinfeld.
-Cosmo Kramer was based off of Kenny Kramer, real life friend of Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld.
-After the fictional character based on him became one of the most popular television characters ever, Kenny Kramer started (a hilarious) reality tour.
-Michael Richards goes insane during a live performance.
-Michael Richards goes to Cambodia in Southeast Asia to find himself.

In “art:”
-The biography of Elaine’s boss, J. Peterman, is based off of stories bought from Cosmo Kramer.
-After the book becomes a bestseller, Cosmo Kramer starts (a pathetic) reality tour.
-J. Peterman goes insane while at work.
-J. Peterman runs off to Myanmar (not the discount pharmacy), in Southeast Asia to find himself.

All I have to say is the world works in strange ways.

King Tom

Correcting a 20-Year-Old Mistake

Last week, the Civee and I went to see Transformers. (She tagged along because I’ve watched a bit of General Hospital in the past few weeks).

While I was looking forward to the movie for a while, I was prepared for the possibility of disappointment. Ugly robots, only one of the original voice actors and the director of Pearl Harbor trying to make a movie about transforming robots meant this could have been a very bad movie.

But it wasn’t. I really enjoyed it. Some of the action scenes were hard to follow, the Tranformer “deaths” happened too easily and I had questions about some of the plot points, but those were minor issues.

The action was great- and it was neat seeing things from a “human scale” (even if that made it hard to follow). John Tuturro and his character were a nice surprise. The idea of transforming robots didn’t seem that ridiculous (even if the scene outside Sam’s house was a bit of comedic relief). And Optimus was the same Optimus Prime character (“Freedom is the right of all sentinent beings,” “One shall stand, one shall fall) that he was back in the days of Generation 1.

Best of all, he didn’t die this time.

King Tom