Author: King Tom

Lost: What They Died For

It wasn’t supposed to be him.

If, way back during Lost Season 1, you were to go through all of the survivors of Oceanic 815 and pick one to be the protector of the Island for all eternity, the smart money would have been on John Locke.  Locke believed in the power of the Island and experienced its benefits first hand.  The actions he took were to explore the Island and learn about its secrets.  Locke’s main rival, Jack Shepard was everything Locke was not.  Rather than believing that the Island was some special place, he was focused on escaping it and getting back to his life.  The protector of the Island was supposed to be John Locke.  Jack Shepard was supposed to leave the Island and save those who needed to be saved off of it.

Yet here we are.  Six seasons later, with What They Died For, the second-to-last episode of Lost.  John Locke as we know him is dead,  A quasi-immortal centuries-old being is using his likeness.  And Jack Shepard, who was willing to go to “war” to get off the Island, experienced hell off it, traveled through space and time to get back and now willingly accepted the mantle of Island protector.

Congratulations Jack Shepard.

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A Month of Hope

The Civee and I can’t believe it: we’ve kept our daughter Hope alive for a month!

The past month has certainly been different for us- having to arrange our schedule around her and paying attention to every single little cry to tell if she needs food, to be changed, or just wants our attention.  But it’s been a lot of fun.  We have this little person who’s developing her own personality.  She can smile (we think), lift her head up and give us some serious eye contact.  She also likes to go out with mom and dad.  The Civee and I have taken her to all sorts of places and not once has she caused a scene (so far).

If I had one complaint, it would be that everyone who says babies sleep 16 hours per day was lying.  Because whenever it’s my time to watch Hope late at night, she’s wide awake.  Of course, it could just be she wants to hang out and watch Sledge Hammer! and Lost with me.  And I’m perfectly fine with that.

The surprising thing (to me) is that I haven’t dropped her or forgotten her anywhere.  There’s still time to do that, but with each day, I get a little better at this parenting thing.

 

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Jacob Needs Help and The Candidates Are Way Across The Sea

Mother
Can you keep them in the dark for life?
Can you hide them from the waiting world?
Oh, Mother

Around this time last year, I was all but ready to declare Eloise Hawking the worst mother ever.  But after seeing the third-to-last episode of Lost, Across the Sea, I’m not so sure.

Tonight, we met the mysterious mother of Jacob and fLocke/the Man in Black.  Of course, she wasn’t their real mother.  She killed their real mother and raised them as her own children.  Strike one.  She played mind games with them to the point of denying the existence of life off the Island.  Strike two.  And after the birth mother was unprepared to give a name to her second child, mother let the poor kid live his whole life without giving him a name.  Strike three.

No wonder Smokey is so pissed.

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Weezer: The Year of Nothing

The final chapter in my article about Weezer between Pinkerton and the Green Album is up at All Things Weezer, which you can read here.

As frustrating as it is that there was all this material the band worked on that never made it out of the studio, it was enjoyable to work on this article.  I got to dig through some old-school Usenet posts and get some new information from sources close to the band (I’ve always wanted to use that phrase).

Who knows, one day we may get to hear more of what Weezer recorded in ’98.  Then again, that stuff may stay in the vaults forever.

King Tom

Jack Bauer Doesn’t Find Torture Hard To Stomach

Last summer, The Civee and I went rafting.  My phone ended up in the water for just a minute or two, but even that was too much.  I later found out that my phone and SIM card were toast (or soaked, as it were).  Had I seen tonight’s episode of 24 before that fateful rafting trip- I would have known better.  I would have swallowed my SIM card, because at least that would have survived the rafting trip.

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Artichoke 1, Knife 0

The Civee and I are huge fans of artichokes.  We love our daughter, but we’re not looking forward to dividing artichokes into thirds instead of halves like we do know.

I have a few different ways to cook the artichokes, but some of the best results I’ve gotten involve grilling them.  Usually, I’ll just stuff them then stuff them down into the coals, letting them catch fire and cook off for 20 minutes or so.  But there’s another way I’ve done it- cut the artichokes in half, boil them for 10 or 15 minutes, then finish them off on top of the grill.

Last night, I was getting the artichoke ready for boiling.  I cut it in half (after some struggling) with a large knife.  Then, using a smaller knife, I started to dig out the annoying fuzzy choke part of the thistle.  While digging out the innards, I heard a snap, but didn’t think anything of it.  It wasn’t until I took the knife out that I realized there was something wrong: the tip of the knife had broken off inside the artichoke.  I dug out the tip of the knife and finished preparing the artichoke.  But here’s an after shot of the knife:

It’s a shame because until yesterday, that knife had served me well.  But then I boiled and grilled the artichoke and it was worth it.  It was one of the best artichokes I’ve ever made.  The knife was a sacrifice the grill demanded.

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Searching For Weezer’s Holy Grail

For most Weezer fans, the time period between 1997 and 1999 holds a lot of mystique.  The band lost a bassist, replaced him and started demoing and recording songs for their third album.  But by the time The Green Album hit record stores in May 2001, the material from the summer of 1998 was forgotten by the band and never heard by the fans. Not much is known about this time period, perhaps something adding to the era’s mystique.

A few months ago, I was selected to be a blogger at All Things Weezer, the band’s leading fan site, with the idea that I’d write and develop feature-style pieces  Back in February, I started writing about the fascinating, yet maddening period between 1997 and 1999.  It’s taken a while to compile it all, but I’ve published the first of three pieces on the time period.  The first piece mostly deals with Rivers’ time in Boston and while it sets up what’s next, it’s probably the part with the least amount of new information.

Taken overall, the article isn’t meant to be a definitive statement about the time period, but rather, it will hopefully shed some light on what happened.  If you want to take a look, the first part is online at allthingsweezer.com/2010/05/05/indecision-and-abandoning-the-past-part-i/.

King Tom

Not Even The Candidate Is Guaranteed A Happy Ending

Back during Lost Season Three, something surprising happened to me as a viewer; I started to like Charlie Pace, the English burnout has-been rockstar.  It was surprising because he could be very annoying at times and to me, his storyline, recovering from drug addiction, was one of the show’s least interesting.  But during Season Three, Charlie started getting appealing.  He was paired up with Hurley and later Desmond and actually committed a few heroic acts as the season wound down.  Then, in the season finale, Through The Looking Glass (an episode which unleashed the flashforward twist), Charlie died.

After watching that episode, two things hit me about Lost: first, I could not predict where the story was going to go.  Second, no one is guaranteed a happy ending.

So as I watched tonight’s episode The Candidate, these two things hit me again.  I have no idea where the story is going.  And no one is guaranteed a happy ending.

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