Unanswered Questions from Lost 4.5

Normally this show leaves me with my head perpetually tilted to the side like Nipper.

This week's installment was no different. Sure, Desmond's jumps between 1996 and 2004 were confusing at best. And yes, one can't help but ponder a connection between Daniel "Unfrozen Oxford Caveman" Faraday's machine being tuned to 2.342 and Penny's old man bidding on lot 2342 (the Black Rock painting).

But this week my relief outweighs the questions.

Until tonight I thought we were in for Fisher Stevens as this season's Big Bad. And if you've been reading the Block for the past few months you know there's not much I like about that dude. I recognized "Minkowski's" irritating voice from those first phone calls from the freighter, and I thought, Shit, Fisher Stevens is now a character on my favorite drama.

But by the end of this episode I was thinking, Yay! He appeared briefly and died like a rat!

I'm celebrating with no questions.

Cubs Fans Are Getting Angry

"Ur a prick."

That's the text message I received from a die-hard Cubs fan when I floated the possibility of Wrigley Field being called something else in the near future (see picture below).

It seems the team's new owner, wee little Sam Zell,* is considering selling off the naming rights of the second oldest ballpark in the country.

A White Sox fan replied to my text with a laugh, having already been through the demolition of old Comiskey Park and its new branding by a mom-and-pop, bodega-sized wireless carrier.

I predict riots and tears on the day the construction crews arrive to swap the signage.

Although born a Sox fan, Rider is known to enjoy a few Bud Lights within the Friendly Confines each season

* Known in Hobbiton as Samzell the Moneywise

Caught a Bug, Rented One

If you're weak and feverish and shaking with the chills, don't watch William Friedkin's Bug, even as a goof.

All I know is I drifted off and woke up to the sight of Ashley Judd cutting bugs out of her skin with a razor. Then I fell back asleep, enjoyed a nightmare or two, and woke back up to the sight of a dude yanking his teeth out with pliers.

I'm not saying the movie wasn't good. It's not for me to say given my condition. Based on Friedkin's body of work, I'm sure he set new standards for graphic representation of paranoia.

What I am saying is this: I'm much sicker today. Correlation?

You Know That Thing That's Going Around...?

I'm out of commission for a day or two. Go 'way.

Peggy Sussed

At the closing credits of Danny Boyle's latest flick Sunshine, I was floored by a song by Underworld. A quick search of iTunes yielded nothing. The best I could manage was this YouTube video. Does anyone know where a Mac user can score a legal, virus-free copy of "Peggy Sussed"? Damn, that song kicked my ass as much as the movie.

This fansite, with the song's lyrics, is interesting as well.

Unanswered Questions from Lost 4.4

Cuse and Lindelof lobbed us a softball with the whole Kate's son reveal, but we got so much more to make up for it: Locke giving Ben the satisfaction of knowing he crawled under his skin for the umpteenth time, a clean-shaven Jack committing perjury, VHS movies from 1980 that somehow haven't degraded yet, an Asian man in bondage with an explosive forced in his mouth, and a shame-faced Scooby Doo reference. Plus there's the promise of Jack finding out he's an uncle and being a future jerk about it.

But, oh, the questions, questions, questions.

• Should Claire let Locke near Aaron when she hears what he uses as a pacifier?
• How is it that Evangeline Lilly looks less feminine in clean clothes?
  
• Will Kate admit to the beachies that she was expelled from the philosopher-king's compound? How many will laugh?
  
• Female viewers and fellow bloggers like Marni sigh and moan over love scenes with Sawyer...but have they considered the greasy film he leaves behind? Not to mention the long hairs on the pillows?
• Why was Locke's solution to running out of eggs to choke his chicken?
• How much longer until ABC starts marketing Dharma-branded boxed wine and assorted snacks? I picture an entire grocery aisle full of bland, generic packaging. It'll feel like Cub Foods in the mid '90s.

Born on February 21

Peckinpah, Palahniuk, Whisperer.

Two of them are certifiable geniuses in my book. Who's with me on this?

Happy birthday to all those born on February 21. Whether you whisper to spirits or not.

Turns Out It Wasn't Just Steve - Updated

Terri Irwin, bebanged widow of the "Crocodile Hunter," still puts her children in...interesting situations with wild animals.

Remember when Steve fed a hungry croc while holding his one-month-old son? Well, Robert is now four, and he's just been bitten by a boa constrictor. It's cool, though. Explains my nominee for 2008's Mom of the Year, "I assured Robert I wouldn't actually let him play with venomous snakes" [italics added].

She's got a valid point. Boas don't have poison. Just rows of sharp teeth. Watch how little blood they actually draw on a grown man.



See. Nothing to get your panties in a bunch about. A kid should be able to handle a snake attack like that with a minimum of mental trauma.

It's not like she's plunking a rugrat on a blanket with a hissing cobra and allowing it to be struck repeatedly in the head.

Note: Easily upset folks should not click this link, although it's fairly clear the snake's fangs have been removed and the child is never actually injured. This means you, Valerie. (And no, it's not the fat, naked Interweb surfer again.)

Update: YouTube pulled the cobra/infant video due to violation of terms. Probably for the best. You can guess just how disturbing it was by reading how two grown men reacted to it in the comments.

Unanswered Questions from Lost 4.3

The plot twists are screaming along like a Soul Asylum runaway train now, and expect things to really heat up after the eighth episode of the season. Due to the end of the writer's strike and the shortened season, Carlton Cuse has said they're going to condense the last half of this season into five episodes instead of the planned eight.

Tonight we got to see Naveen Andrews in golfing clothes, Miles begging for a weapon before picking on Hugo and being traded for a chick, a rhetorical question about "playing house" with Sawyer aimed at the female viewers who all whispered "I would," and the distinct possibility that Elsa's boss is the Pager King boyfriend of Liz Lemon from 30 Rock. Also, the latest round of questions:

• When Sayid closed the eyelids of the two actresses playing corpses, were either of them terrified of his overly long and feminine fingernails coming near their faces?
  
• Don't lesbians usually exchange leather wristbands? And how angry will Regina on the freighter be when she sees Naomi is dead? (Those are her initials on the bracelet, right?)
  
• Locke was already upset when Hurley could see Jacob's cabin, so how will he react when Jacob and the ghostbuster hit it off like long-lost buddies? A little less special, perhaps?
• Would you watch a sitcom called Jacob and the Ghostbuster?
  
• Did anyone else think the 30-minutes-late-payload-missile was about to hit the helicopter and give us a Gilligan's Island-like reason why no one would be able to leave?
  
• You do realize Sayid has left the island for good, right? And that the postcard he sends Jack will be of Naveen Andrews appearing in the sequel to Planet Terror?
  

Gerber Ducks into the Unknown

Before the world heard of Star Wars, and before the Disney Company would claim ownership of all pants-less water fowls, there was an ill-tempered, cigar-smoking duck and his red-headed, hairless ape girlfriend.

Comics were never the same.

Steve Gerber was a ground-breaking writer of the rarest variety: unlike most pioneers who are seldom appreciated in their own time, my 11-year-old mind knew it was witnessing something unique and deep when I first picked up Howard the Duck #1.

I was too young to pick up on the nuances of Gerber's cutting-edge satire as filtered through the eyes of a duck "trapped in a world he never made," but I knew I was reading something unlike anything being published by a mainstream comics company. For the first time I was regularly buying a comic book not featuring men in tights.

Gerber's distinctive voice was also the first to make me seek out comic books written by a specific person rather than drawn.

While I didn't read his Omega The Unknown series, I followed his career when he ventured into television and created Thundarr the Barbarian, and I still have the controversial Void Indigo graphic novel.

Steve Gerber died yesterday.

Read what his friends and other comics professionals thought about him here.

Bad News for the Ladies

Guess who's been secretly married to a 22-year-old since last year?

There goes one more slab of man you girls won't be getting your claws on.

The Beaches Are Closed

Roy Scheider died yesterday at 75.

His Chief Brody in Jaws was inspiring to me as a kid--surviving when even know-it-all Quint ended up as shark bait.

Rest in peace, Roy.

Creepy Character Actor Plays Creepy Cartoon Character

I defied my life coach's recommendation last September and continued watching Prison Break's third season. Yeah, I know it's a pale imitation of what it used to be. I get that. I can think of ten reasons not to bother anymore.*

But one of the reasons I keep watching is to see one of the creepiest bad guys on television right now.

Robert Knepper is a walking snake with unkempt hair. He's a slimy man-insect that skitters up out of your peripheral vision and caresses your cheek with his antennae and whispers, "How do?" in your ear.

Your first reaction when he appears onscreen is to cringe, and when he touches his tongue to his teeth and sucks in air you feel your gorge rise.

Can you think of anyone else on television who's creepier?

Naturally, I was thrilled when I realized exactly who had voiced the superbly dickish "Chichak" in the animated direct-to-DVD feature Turok: Son of Stone.**

I was sort of bummed, though, during the making-of special feature when Knepper was interviewed and sounded nothing at all like T-Bag.


* Here are five: 1. Wentworth Miller's acting range never strays from David Duchovny doing Richard Gere, 2. Jodi Lyn O'Keefe's features are disturbingly tiny on that wide face of hers, 3. Bellick displays his dirty underwear and/or beer gut in every episode, 4. Sucre still finds ways to cry "Maricruz!" even though she's not on the show anymore, and 5. The prison's Big Bad once showed the absolute extent of his "evil"...by pouring hot coffee on a guy's back. He also won't share his cell phone, the big meany.

** Turok's not rated and it's not for young kids: lots of limbs hacked off and blood spurting, although it does have dinosaurs.

Does Anyone Watch the Grammys?

Another year and another awards ceremony I won't be watching.

Are any of the nominees and/or performers known for anything other than controversy? Does anyone remember when the recording industry was about music and relevance? (This is the post where I come off sounding like a poor man's Lester Bangs.)

I was looking at the top ten songs on iTunes, and the only artist I recognized as someone known strictly for his music was Tom Petty. The rest are names I wish I didn't know or couldn't care less about.

Here's my take on recording artists' lame names.

• A name that sounds stolen from an alien character in any given Alan Dean Foster sci-fi novel
• A stage name seemingly made up by the musician for their 5th grade talent show that they never tried to improve
• First choice on an uncreative parent's short list; second choice: Kilometery
• Estranged brother of the Kingston Trio making it under his own steam; an Andy Gibb for the 21st century
• Perfect name given by the parents of the decade

Unanswered Questions from Lost 4.2

Before they had an end date in sight, the old Lost would've stretched the events of tonight's episode out over three weeks. But in a short 48 minutes we got the backstories of four new interesting characters, a Colonel Kurtz joke, pet polar bear bones, a cowbell, a shooting, a fresh round of Whose Turn Is It To Kick Ben's Ass?, and proof that Mr. Abbadon wasn't a figment of Hurley's imagination.

That's not to say questions weren't left hanging in the air like the bitter stench of sadness wafting off a soundly whipped Mormon presidential candidate.

• Was Jeff Fahey added to the cast to refuel the old theories that events on the island are happening in a virtual reality?
• How were the rover operators so sure of the flight number of the sunken plane? Is Oceanic like Qantas and rarely has accidents?
  
• How much longer will it be until Jennifer Love Hewitt is featured as Miles Straume's lover in a Very Special Crossover Episode with The Ghost Whisperer?
• When we finally see Fisher Stevens as George Minkowski, will the producers furnish him with a thick prosthetic for his pencil-neck so he doesn't look like the male equivalent of Giada De Laurentiis? Because a huge head on a thin body is just so distracting...and I miss enough Easter eggs on this show already.
  

It's Quiet...Too Quiet

I've been busy with non-blogging stuff lately, and I apologize for the sorry state of the Block lately.

I texted regular reader Dean Xene the other night, because AMC was showing The Karate Kid again.* Xene texted back a short reply, which also happens to be our favorite quote.

Then there's this link for Valerie.

* Which, it turns out, they're required to do fortnightly by the FCC to keep their license.

Insultingly Short Review of a TV Series™: Battlestar Galactica

I watched 2003's three-hour miniseries, the 2004 13-episode first season, and the 2005 20-episode second season of the new Battlestar Galactica.*

You should buy it, not just rent it. It was hardcore.

Hardcore rating: 5 out of 5 "Hardcore, Chucks"






Next: All 144 hours of 24, seasons one through six. Unless I get a job.

* I've been unemployed, remember?