Fantasy Baseball Week Eight

What a week to shit the bed.  Jason lost, plus I was playing Ryan. If I won, I could make up some ground on those guys.  Sadly I lost 8-2.  Sunday I was down 10-2, but at one point had come back to 7-4, but then Ryan had a reliever pitch well and his ERA/WHIP edged me out.

I think I made a mistake trading Prince Fielder for Andrew Bailey and Michael Cuddyer.  The saves are nice, but Cuddyer is not really a good substitute for Fielder.  By the end of the week I had dropped him and picked up Denard Span to help me with stolen bases.

Joey Votto has been hurt all week, yet is not on the DL.  Sucks for me.  Should I try to pick up another 1B?  If there was one out there, I would have picked him up by now.  Most of my hitters sucked, most of my pitchers sucked.  Ugh, I am getting frustrated...

This week I am taking on Pat, who is in fifth place behind me.  If my team does not come together and kick a little ass, then it will be time to make some changes.  Jonathan Broxton was about my only stud this week, 3 SVs, .55 WHIP and a 0.00 ERA.  Not too bad.

Another Lost Video

This is a video of the opening scene in reverse with an inset of the final scene.  It is actually pretty cool how close they mirror each other.

Girlfriend of the Week

I know you have been wondering where the GOTW has been and well let me tell you:  I have been working on this. This is just about every girl that has ever been on Lost.  There are a few that I just could not find a picture for, but this is just about all of them.  You will notice the old ladies and the young girls are on here as well.  I did not discriminate.

After the jump is a list of every one of these girls.

Unanswered Questions

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Watch this video and just laugh at all the funny questions that were never answered during Lost.  Like I said, further proof that they had no clue where thing were going and were just making shit up as they went along. 

Are We Winning?

As most of you know, I read a good amount of books.  Mainly fiction, but every once in awhile I will read something nonfiction.  Rarely do I read sports books.  Which I think is weird, since I love sports.  Some of you also know that I am a huge fan of Deadspin, especially the Will Leitch days.  Well, he has a new book out, called Are We Winning?  Fathers and Sons in the New Golden Age of Baseball.  I decided to pick it up last week and pretty much could not put it down once I started it.

The book is about a trip to the Cardinals/Cubs game in '08 when the Cubs clinched the division.  Leitch attends the game with his father and a friend (a hated Cubs fan).  Actually this is just the backdrop of the book.  Leitch is writing the book to his nonexistent son.  It is broken up into chapters by inning.  He explains modern baseball and how it is doing just fine, but also his own relationship with his father.

My favorite part of the book can be read here.  He discusses Steve Bartman and how that could have been any diehard baseball fan.  Anyone could have reached for that foul ball and ended up being blamed for ruining a season.  Utterly ridiculous the way Bartman was treated.

The book also made me think of the relationship with my own father.  In fact, so much of Leitch's description of his dad, reminded me of my dad.  Playing catch and my dad being able to launch flyballs into the stratosphere, or being able to throw the length of our field without much effort always amazed me.

If you are a fan of baseball or just want to read about father/son relationships, this is definitely a book you should check out. 

24: 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

I have to say that this series finale was kind of a letdown.  The last few episodes have been pretty damn awesome, but this one was a bit boring.

-Jack putting the gun to Jason's head in the back of the car was pretty great.  I bet Jason crapped his pants.  Actually after Jack made him suture his wound, then had him get on his knees, I guarantee Jason soiled himself.  Nice to see Jack knock him out and have that look of complete irritation that he could not bring himself to kill Jason.

-President Taylor threatening Dalia was actually pretty cool.  I wish she could have went through with it instead of having a moment of conscience.

-Jack's plan seems pretty lame.  Chloe will get the proof out there by shooting Jack in the arm?  Nothing could possibly go wrong.  How hard would it be for them to just email this to a bunch of newspapers, or hell, upload it to YouTube?  You could do this from a phone.

-It ends with the President admitting everything, her telling Jack to run for it.  Now Jack is escaping the country (set up for a movie?) and that is that.  I would have preferred either Jack dying, maybe Jack doing something insane, like killing the Russian President and maybe even President Taylor.  That way he could go from the hero to the villain.  This ending just seemed weak, like they had done it before...maybe back when Jack faked his death, sound familiar?

Ugh.  Here is a decent review of the finale.

Fantasy Baseball Week Seven

I barely beat Gideon, 7-5.  It was 6-6 going into the Yankees/Mets game Sunday night.  I figured I was done, since I had no one playing and I think he had three guys.  Not sure what happened, but I ended up with another category and won the week. 

Honestly, I was not really paying too much attention this week.  Mainly because of my stupid work schedule and the tendency to get up fifteen minutes before I had to leave.  Then getting home, I would fall asleep before I got the chance to do any real research.  Needless to say, it showed.  Fortunately I will do better this week because my schedule changes and I will have more time to endlessly browse fangraphs articles about players.  Believe me, that site helps a fantasy guy out.

Both of our teams played pretty well to be honest.  Gideon's line was one of those that is usually good enough to win, and mine was the kind that is just good enough to lose.  Oddly enough, it worked out the other way.  That is the kind of season Gideon seems to be having though.

I refuse to mention a Red Sox player as my big gun for the week, so instead I will lie and say it was Joey Votto.  Woo-hoo, go Votto!

This week I take on Ryan, who is in third place and I am in fourth place.  I made a trade with Imler that may have been a mistake, or it may have been huge.  I will discuss it next week though, since it went into effect today. 

Lost: The End

I am not going to sit here and tell you what happened during the series finale.  You watched it, you should know.  Instead I am just going to tell you what I thought about it.  But first, allow me to explain how I started watching the show.

The end of the summer after it aired I was at Best Buy and saw the box set on sale for $25 or something.  I had heard about the show through Wizard Magazine, and knew that it was something that most geeks were claiming was awesome. 

Kacie and I started watching it and we buzzed through five or six episodes in a row.  Hell, when she went to work I would keep watching episodes and then watch them again when she came home and pretend I was surprised.  It was that good.

Unfortunately, by the time we finished, season two had already started and we decided to avoid and by the DVD when it came out.  Which is what we did, and again it was the same thing, us pulling a marathon of Lost. 

Season three is when I finally started watching it on television.  This is also when I started writing about the show.  Most people think that I must be some kind of die-hard Lostie, who thinks the show is the greatest thing ever.  And that is simply not the case.  Do not get me wrong, I love the show, but I see that it has flaws.  However, I see past those flaws and see the inner-beauty of the show.  Now if only I did that with girls.

Despite what the creators have side, I do not believe they ever had a clue where the show was going after season two.  Hence the reason the DHARMA stuff was introduced and the whole fertility on the island stories.  I think as they went on they decided that it was a little more fantasy than science-fiction.  There is nothing wrong with changing a story in the middle.  Unfortunately there are people out there who cannot accept this, they need to know why there were polar bears on the island.  How can it be moved?  What was the deal with Walt?

These are questions that will never be answered, or have already been answered and people just did not hear them.  The polar bears were on the island because the DHARMA initiative was doing experiments on them.  Sawyer learned how to get their treats, remember?  That is what the creators would tell you.

Other questions, well those are questions that you must answer for yourself.  And that is what I will now attempt to do.  Answer my own questions.

What Happened
If you saw the ending, you know that it ended the way it began:  with Jack's eye.  There will be multiple articles written on what people think this means, aside from the obvious:  he is dead.  The parts in the church reminded me of the Inn in Sandman where everyone waits out a storm.  They are not truly dead yet.  And apparently the Island was the most important thing to happen to them.  It helped shape their lives. 

The show is called Lost.  I am sure you never realized this, and I am sure I have also said this before.  The title does not just refer to the characters being lost on an island in the middle of the ocean.  The first thing we learned from seeing all the flashbacks early on was that these characters were lost as people. 
-Jack:  problems with his dad, cannot accept defeat, control-freak, we could really go on forever.
-Kate:  running from the law and from her past
-Sawyer:  seeking revenge, being an all around jerk

I think that illustrates my point (interesting that the main characters all had some kind of father issue).  These characters were not perfect.  I could really could go on with more examples, but you get the drift (I hope). 

Once on the Island we see that these characters begin to overcome those issues in their own ways.  Kate returns to LA and stops running.  She becomes a mother, we see that even on the island though, she is always very protective of the group.  Sawyer settles down with Juliet, he stops being such a jerk to everyone.

And then there is Jack.  While on the island, Jack becomes a strong leader to the group.  Unfortunately off the island, he falls apart.  Jack knows that his destiny is on the island.  He then chooses to accept that destiny.  He drinks from the cup, he takes over the role of Jacob and he defeats Locke.

From the beginning, we had to assume that it would always come down to Locke vs. Jack.  Remember early on?  Locke believed the island was special and that they belonged there.  Jack thought he was insane.  They fought over so many things back in the early days.  Later, SmokeLocke told us that Locke was an idiot and never got anything right.  That is not the truth, he did get something right:  it was destiny that brought them to the island, and the island did have a purpose for them.  Unfortunately, that person was Jack and not Locke.

What is the Island?
I do believe Jacob when he told Richard that the Island is the cork that keeps evil from escaping into the world.  The Light is the source, maybe where our soul comes from, who knows.  I guess it depends on what you believe in.  The Light is what keeps the world going, if the Light goes out, Darkness will sweep the land and all shall be doomed.

Fortunately, Hurley is now the protector of the island (I loved his conversation with Ben outside the church, where Hurley says how he was a great number two, implying that they had a good time on the island) and as Ben tells him, maybe he does not need to play by Jacob's rules, he can make his own.

No more sucking people to the island in order to play a chess match with a Man in Black over human nature.  Maybe Hurley just let the Island be, hung out with Rose and Bernard, let them live for a long time and then called it quits.  He then had Vincent drink from the cup.  Vincent is now the protector of the Island (in the far away future that is).

Did I enjoy it?
Yes.  I had to think about it for a good bit though.  I am sure that I will watch it again at some point.  Actually, I would love to watch the entire series again.  My initial thought was that it was a little bit too much like C.S. Lewis.   It worked for the show though.  I feel bad for most of the actors though, fans of the show will never be able to watch them on something and not think of them as their characters. 

Except for Locke and Ben.  If they do a show together (I have heard they pitched a cop show to networks), that would be awesome.

Anyways, what did you think of it?  What are some of your favorite moments from the series?

Tell-All

T

Tell-All is the newest book by one of my favorite authors, Chuck Palahniuk.  If you remember last year's review of Pygmy, I said that I did not like how the book started out because of the style of writing.  Well this book was kind of the same for me.

It actually took me about four days to get to about page 42.  Then from there, I read the rest of the book in about two hours.  Obviously it gets pretty good, but for some reason the beginning was extremely dull.

The book is about a movie star, it is set back in the 60s (I am guessing, it's actually hard to tell).  The narrator is the actresses "friend", Hazie Coogan, who is kind of a maid/friend/caretaker. 

The plot revolves Hazie trying to help Katherine (the star) prevent Katherine's new boyfriend from murdering her to help him sell his unfinished tell all novel.  Like any ChuckP, there are plenty of twists and turns.

The part of this book that I would like to complain about, is the style of making it seem like a tabloid paper.  All of the name-dropping becomes a little hard to follow at times.  Especially with so many different actors from that time being mentioned (I had to wikipedia a few before saying screw it).

Without giving away the ending, let me just say that if you are a fan of ChuckP's books, then you will expect this one.  I do not know if it is because I expect it, but his twists do not surprise me anymore.  Unfortunately, that could be because I am always looking for it (kind of like M.Night Shamalamawhatever movies).

Anyways, it was a good book.  Nothing crazy, and nothing really extraordinary, but a decent read once you get past the beginning and get used to the style.

Lost: Episode 616

Let me explain something to all of my avid readers (there are three):  the creators of this show did not have this thing planned from the beginning.  I am guessing they started to figure this stuff out around the fourth season, maybe the third, but definitely not during the first two seasons.

Now that we have that out of the way, let me also say that there will be many questions left unanswered.  Last week I pondered the idea of Jacob and MiB being from the Bible (Jacob and Esau).  Now though, I seriously doubt they will ever tell us his name. 

I also believe that the island will never truly be explained.  People will write books about their theories and whatnot.  Some writers will probably expand the Lost-universe through comics and novels.  Trust me, this is not the end.

On the Island
Jack, Hurley, Sawyer, and Kate decide to head to the well to find Desmond.  Hurley runs into the little kid, who takes the ashes of Jacob and gives them to adult Jacob.  Hurley gets the rest of the group and they can all see Jacob.  They sit around a fire and have themselves a little palaver (as my hero Roland would say).

Jacob explains that one of them must volunteer to become the protector of the island.  Kate asks why her name was crossed out on the cave wall, Jacob responds that it was only a line of chalk through a name.  He did not want her because she had become a mother.  Much to no one's surprise, Jack volunteers.  Actually it was pretty cool the way there was no discussion, no thought.  He just stood up and said that he would do it.  I also loved when he makes the comment about what he is there for, Jacob asks if it is a question and Jack says nope...very cool.

Jacob has Jack drink from a cup and says some weird incantations and then when he is done, he tells Jack that he is like him now.  He gives him directions to the light source and says that he must protect it from the Monster.

Speaking of SmokeLocke...
Widmore and his girl meet up with Ben, Richard, and Miles.  They find out that SmokeLocke is coming to Ben's house, so Ben offers to hide them.  Miles runs away and Richard goes to talk to SmokeLocke.  That goes well for Richard.  He gets tossed aside by the Smoke Monster. 

Ben tells SmokeLocke where Widmore is hiding.  They go inside and SmokeLocke slits the girl's throat.  Widmore starts to tell SmokeLocke why he brought Desmond to the Island, because SmokeLocke promises to allow Penny to live.  Ben shoots Widmore and says that his daughter does not deserve to live.

SmokeLocke and Ben head to the well, but Desmond is not there.  SmokeLocke is glad that Sayid did not shoot him.  Apparently because of his resistance to electromagnetism, he can help SmokeLocke destroy the Island.

Flashsideways
I will sum this up quick.  Everything is starting to tie together.  Desmond is the key, he seems to understand everything.  He helps Kate and Sayid escape jail with the help of Hurley.  He convinces Locke to get the surgery (which he agrees to) and he lies to Jack that Oceanic has his father's body.  He is trying to get the group together for something...

Theories/Thoughts
-I really have none at this point.  I think that Desmond will somehow go into the light, yet he shall come out.  The good guys will win, the bad guys will lose.  I am excited to see how it ends, but I am not really going to spend too much time thinking about it until then.

-It is funny though how some characters are just redundant at this point.  What the hell is Kate even around for?  I mean, she is hot, yet has she really done anything in the last six episodes?  Same with Miles. 

-Jack's tattoo pretty much comes true.  Well that is good, right?

-I am sure people are really over-thinking the Light.  Jacob's mother told us what it is, kind of the heart of the world, everyone has a little bit of it.  Whatever you want to call it.  This is another one of those things that people are probably freaking out over, trying to decide what exactly it is.  What are the properties/rules/whatever else you can think of concerning some light...

Anyways, the episode was very good.  I am super pumped for the finale.

I Had A Dream!

Over the past two week, I have had two pretty cool zombie dreams.  Normally I would not want to share a dream, mainly because they are usually so stupid that no one would ever want to hear about it, but come on, two zombie dreams?  I have to share.

Dream One
This one started out with work stuff.  Basically zombies begin devouring everyone during Mother's Day.  A few of us escape work (due to me pushing the one overweight coworker into the zombie horde) and use my car to escape.  Apparently my car has secret compartments full of guns.  For some reason we end up in North Dakota playing a game of softball.  Yep, not a scary dream, kind of like Shaun of the Dead.

Hell, I can even tell you what the dream probably meant.  The fact that Mother's Day was going to be busy probably was weighing on my mind, it would feel like a horde of monsters attacking us.  My car having compartments, well when I was changing my tire I found that every part for the spare is hidden in some secret compartment.  This dream was not really that mind blowing.  But, I woke up from it laughing.

The next dream was not so cool.

Dream Two
Last night I watched Diary of the Dead (it pretty much sucked) and then went to sleep.  The dream that happened caused me to wake up in a cold sweat.  It was pretty intense.

I am not sure if I was in the dream or if I was somehow watching it like a movie.  It took place in an office building, like a huge skyscraper.  We were being chased by zombies.  These were at first your typical zombies:  slow, dumb, easy to defeat with a shot to the head.  Then something caused them to change.  Somehow their brains shifted to someplace else in their body (I have no idea how this happens) and caused them to be smarter and to be incredibly difficult to kill.

They also gained some speed and agility.  They have us trapped on the tenth floor.  The one female in our group was bitten and failed to mention that to any of us (there is always one of these jerks in the group).  She turns and begins terrorizing us.

I do not know how the dream ended, I am guessing I was about to be eaten.  I just know that the closing shot of my dream needs to be put into a movie (Hollywood, feel free to use this scene).  The office building had one of those giant, glass elevators in the center of the building.  For some reason there was an elephant and his keeper inside the elevator.

I have no idea why there was an elevator inside the building.  Maybe there was some kind of convention or some shit.  Anyways, the elevator is going up slowly and the zombies are throwing themselves at the glass.  Other zombies are using them as a kind of zombie-ladder.  As the elevator struggles to go up, the zombies are now level with the elephant and they are beating on the glass.  This causes the elephant to rear up and try to smash them with its feet.  The glass cracks and the zombies begin to crawl over the glass and start savagely tearing into the flesh of the elephant.

I do not know if you can see how terrifying that scene would be, but trust me, it was terrifyingly awesome!

24: 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.

I am now officially scared (and in awe) of Jack Bauer.  This entire episode was awesome.  Jack kidnaps President Logan, threatens to kill him, then takes out the Russian ambassador...with what looks like a fireplace poker. 

-Jack dressed in full body armor and wearing a mask might be have been the coolest thing ever.  Very effective as well, as Logan screams out "Did you hear what I said?  That's Jack Bauer!"  That guy should win an award because I was convinced that he was actually shitting his pants.

-To make the scene better, he stands on the hood of the limo and shoots at the windshield until it cracks, then drops in some tear gas and then covers the hole with his foot.  Honestly, the way that scene was shot was just super cool.

-Did everyone else get upset that they did not show how Jack killed everyone at the Russian place?  It was probably the best way of showing that scene though.  Just a bunch of dead bodies and the ambassador lying there with a poker sticking out of his guts.  Again, very cool.

-I guess Meredith's editor is some kind of moron.  He is going to call the Justice Department regarding a Presidential cover up?  Remember what happened when Jack went to Secretary of Defense Heller (Jack's girlfriend's dad) about President Logan's involvement?  Heller wanted to use it to blackmail the President.  Why would this be any different?  She should have just been like "Oh, the FBI is there?  I will go to the NY Times, or CNN, or any other media outlet."  Hell TMZ would work just fine.

-I really, really thought that Chloe was going to bring in Tony Almeida.  The way she said that there was one person who could go to Ricker, I just assumed she meant Tony, not Cole.

-Speaking of Cole, I am still not sure how I feel about him at the moment.  This whole "I do not agree with Jack's revenge, but I also want to expose the cover up" thing is pretty lame.  I hope Jack just shoots him at some point. 

-The ending with Jack listening in to Logan and Subarov's (I am way too lazy to look up how to spell his name) phone call was awesome.  Even at a point where Jack is now just a homicidal maniac, he still has the foresight to plant a bug on Logan.

Needless to say, I am excited about the finale.  Way more excited for the finale this season than I have been in years for a 24 finale.

Fantasy Baseball Week Six

Ugh, this was definitely not a good week for my team.  Almost every single one of my players decided to just not show up.  That is not an exaggeration either.  I got smacked around 8-2 by a team that is not nearly as good as mine.  Pretty ridiculous. 

The worst had to be Ryan Braun, who hurt his elbow and then missed a few games.  His line this week was atrocious.  All zeroes and a .143 average.  Not a good week for my number one player.  I cannot even explain how crappy everyone else played.

The only positive spot was Ricky Romero who had 12 Ks, a win, 0.00 ERA and a .67 WHIP.  I am still in fourth place with a 37-30-5 record and just 10.5 games out of first place, which is owned by Imler.  I am taking on Gideon this week.  I hope this week some of my guys decide to show up.

In the other league, I dropped from first place to fifth place after Sunday.  What happened Sunday?  My team had two hits!  Two fucking hits.  2/42!!!  That means a .048 batting average.  That is by far super crappy.  Ugh.

Elliot Mast

No Girlfriend of the Week.  Sorry, instead I thought I would post something a little different.  This is a link to Elliot Mast's blog.  He has dedicated his entire baseball season to the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.  And no, he is not some major league player or anything, he is just a normal 11 year old kid.  Anyways, head over to his blog and check out his challenge.  Sometimes even an evil bastard like myself can feel his heart grow three times...

Lost: Episode 615

What a great episode!  It focused on the Man in Black and his brother Jacob.  We get to see their birth and how they they came to the point they are today.  Well we sort of see how they got to where they are now.  I am not going to recap the episode, mainly because if you did not watch it, just stop reading this right now and go watch it on abc.com or something.  Instead I will just give my thoughts and theories.

-As the two babies were born, notice how they were wrapped in blankets:  Jacob in a white blanket, MiB in a black one.  Is it their destiny to be the way they are, or is it free will?  I love pointing out the obvious since this is a major theme of the show.

-I am definitely glad they drifted into English at the beginning of the episode, I really did not want to listen to people speaking Latin the entire time.

-So the real question is:  what kind of power does Mother have?  She said that she made it so that the boys could never harm each other and also she tells MiB that they do not have to worry about ever being dead.  Also, did anyone else think that when she died Jacob seemed to understand more and almost knew what would happen when he threw MiB into the light?

-The island is basically the center of creation, the light being what makes up a person's soul?  Am I the only one who felt that way?

-Is the Smoke Monster a separate being than MiB, who can only take on the appearance of a dead person, or did MiB's soul somehow become entwined with the Smoke Monster?  His physical body died, but he is clearly not dead. 

-Any theories on what MiB's name could be?  I am still saying that his name is Esau.  Evidence, aside from none, well he is hairy.  Actually, in the Bible, Esau was supposed to receive the birthright, but through deception from the twin's mother, Jacob received it.  Mother does tell Jacob that she favored MiB, but that was the wrong choice.  I know, it's a real stretch, but I just cannot believe that there is no connection between the fact that they are twins and one is named Jacob...

-We at least know who the little kid is that keeps popping up on the island in front of SmokeLocke (and by the other candidates).  Kid Jacob...at least I think that was him.

What else did you folks notice from the episode?

Iron Man 2

I went to the midnight showing of Iron Man 2.  Let me preface this by saying that aside from the first full trailer of the movie, I did not check out any of the other previews or online fun.  Hell the closest I came was the Burger King commercials.  No real reason, just wanted to go into the movie without feeling like I already saw most of it.  Let me say, the movie was awesome and the only bits I did see from the previews, were not really in the movie anyways.

As before, Robert Downey Jr. was great as Tony Stark.  He pulled the smug, party-going, super genius off as well, if not better than in the first movie.  I have heard some complaints about the party scene, but to me it was well done.  We are not ready to see Tony with an actual drinking problem.  Right now, it has to seem funny and not a problem.  In the next movie (or maybe the Avengers movie) we should start to see him drinking more and more while he is alone, having no fun...you know, that whole downward spiral thing.

The rest of the cast was pretty good, Sam Rockwell and Mickey Rourke were great villains.  I actually thought Sam Rockwell's Justin Hammer was very cool.  He comes off as the Tony Stark wannabe.  Maybe it's because I always think Rockwell is pretty funny in just about any role.  Scarlett Johannson was also fine as the Black Widow.

The plot was actually the weakest part of the movie.  Not saying that it was a bad story or anything, it was just fairly simple.  Revenge against Stark, Stark being poisoned by his reactor, Rhodey becoming War Machine, Stark solving problems...fairly simple.  I was not expecting any big twists or anything, but it would have been nice to be a little surprised.  Fortunately, the movie does it so well that I did not mind.

The only problem I had with the movie was the whole discovery of the new element that helps cure Tony.  Why would someone hide a new element in a diorama?  That is weird.  It would have been better if Nick Fury would have called someone and said "Dr. Richards, how close are you to that cure we talked about?"  Meaning Reed Richards, the person smarter than Tony Stark.  That would have been awesome.

Speaking of Nick Fury, I have read complaints out there about how this movie spent too much time setting up the other Marvel movies as well as the Avengers movie.  Yeah, it took like two minutes to set them up.  So distracting...

Again I predicted the after credits scene:  it was Agent Coulson calling Fury and saying that they found it in the New Mexico desert.  As they pan across a crater, we see Thor's hammer.  Yes, I am pretty excited for the Thor movie now.

Comic Book Movie Grade:  A

24: 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.

This episode started out way too boring.  And then, things went a little crazy.  The Russian team sent to kill Jack plays right into his hand.  He and Michael Madsen capture Pavel by using the reporter as bait.  Jack manages to kill the entire Russian team and escape Jason's detection.

Jack then begins to torture Pavel.  He starts with pliers and instead of breaking a finger, he goes for the stomach.  After beating the crap out of him, Jack starts using a blow torch.  Unfortunately Pavel will not talk.  Well unfortunately for Pavel, awesome for us.  I am not sure if Jack uses the blow torch on Pavel's crotch or just on his stomach.  Pavel still does not talk.

Jack gets frustrated and starts looking at Pavel's phone, and then realizes the SIM card is missing.  He searches for it and then calls Pavel a dumb bastard for swallowing it.  He then gives Pavel a live autopsy to remove the card.  He dials the last number, and gets Charles Logan's voice mail.  That guy has to be shitting his pants right now.

There was one stupid moment that I have to address.  Chloe and Arlo set up an alternate network using a Sprint Mobile Hotspot!  I realize that product placement happens, especially during this show, but come on, could Chloe sound more like a commercial?

Fantasy Baseball Week Five

As I said last week, this should be an easy week, and fortunately for me, it was.  I destroyed Singer's team 11-0-1.  It would have been 12-0, but one of his guys got a last minute stolen base to even us at five.  By spending a few minutes looking at everyone's weekly stats, I can say that I would have basically destroyed just about anyone.

I made the joke midweek that I could possibly hit 100 Ks.  I actually did not believe my team could do that, but they pulled together and proved me wrong.  Lincecum had 21 Ks in two starts and Romero had 16 Ks.  Pretty good week.

I wish that we had a perfect game clause.  Dallas Braden pitches a perfect game, but it basically did nothing for me.  Boo hoo, everyone should feel bad for me.  Other pitching stats:  Tyler Clippard had three wins and one hold, pretty smart pickup on my part.  Neftali Feliz had four saves and Broxton had two (I knew it was a matter of time before he started racking them up).

My hitting stats were pretty good, and by that I mean, they were awesome.  Obviously.  Braun and Youkilis destroyed the ball, as did Prince Fielder.  I guess the big one though would be Vlad, hitting four home runs, thirteen RBIs, one SB, and a .360 batting average.  I guess he is not so washed up after all.

I moved up to fourth place with a nice 35-22-3 record.  I am only 5.5 games behind Imler and this week I take on Big Jacker, who is pretty damn bad record wise, but his team could be somewhat good.  This should be an interesting week.

Girlfriend of the Week

Last night I went to see Iron Man 2 (do not fear my thoughts on the movie will be coming some time this weekend), and I realized that Scarlett Johansson has never been GOTW.  After seeing her kick ass in the movie, I decided that it was her turn.

She definitely looked super hot in that outfit (actually in any outfit she wore).  Aside from being hot, I actually enjoy some of the movies she has been in like In Good Company, Home Alone 3, and Eight Legged Freaks.  Okay, I did like the first one, but not really because of her.  I also enjoyed Lost in Translation.  Whatever, she is hot.

Ancient Aliens

Remember when I wrote about the History Channel program called Ancient Astronauts?  I figured this would be the end of such a discussion, but unfortunately I was wrong.  There is now a show called Ancient Aliens and it is pretty idiotic.

I know I should not really care too much about these kind of shows, but what upsets me is that people watch this crap and believe it.  Guess what?  They never use actual archaeologists to explain the so called evidence.  Fortunately they discussed one thing that I definitely studied, ancient Sumerian.  I actually took a graduate level course where we learned how to read Sumerian texts.  Needless to say, when they started using the Sumerian creation myth as evidence for ancient aliens, my interest was piqued.

Basically, their idea is that Anunnaki came to earth from space in order to mine gold.  Unfortunately they did not like doing the manual labor, so they created a race of people to do the heavy lifting and that is where humans came from.

The one guy points out that the term Anunnaki means "those who came from the heavens."  That is a bit incorrect though, Sumerian text is broken down where Anu means heaven, ni (or na) means and, ki means earth.  Really it just means heaven and earth.  The Sumerians believed that their gods were not from these places, but instead they were these things.  Anu was not a guy who lived in the sky, he was the sky.  Ki is the mother goddess, but she is not just some lady, she is the actual earth.

Look, you can take almost any creation myth and change it around to aliens.  Seriously, let us look at the Finnish creation myth.  You need to scroll down to read it.  I will take the same kind of liberties that these nutjobs take.

Ilmatar (meaning female sky being), lands on earth and directs her spaceship to drop down multiple pods containing all the things that make up the earth.  From these pods terra-forming the land starts and eventually she is able to create humans as part of a science project.

See how ridiculous this seems?  Imagine a Finnish scholar read that, he would be informing me how I am a complete moron.  I expect History Channel to call by Friday.

Lost: Episode 614

This was an excellent episode.  All sorts of crazy stuff happens.  In fact, people died!  Without further adieu, let's get to it.

On The Island
Widmore's group has taken Sawyer's group prison and puts them in the cage.  He does this by threatening to shoot Kate, which causes Sawyer to relinquish his gun.  Kate does not believe that Widmore would shoot her, but Sawyer confirms that she is not one of the candidates because of what he saw in the cave.

Jack, Sayid, and SmokeLocke head to the rescue.  The Smoke Monster attacks (why do people shoot at a cloud of smoke?) and pretty much kills everyone.  Jack comes to the cages and helps free everyone.  Sayid took out the fence generator (is the generator outside the fence?  Why did Sayid have no trouble disabling it, yet SmokeLocke could not mess with it?)

They head for the plane, but SmokeLocke found a bomb on the plane and he informs everyone that Widmore wants to load them into a nice closed space and then kill them all.  They decide to take the submarine.  Sawyer tells Jack to prevent SmokeLocke from getting on the sub. 

Widmore ambushes them and it turns into a nice firefight.  Kate gets hit in the shoulder, Jack knocks SmokeLocke into the water, but has to get on the sub to help Kate.  Claire gets left behind.  Once on board they begin to dive, but then they find the bomb from the plane inside Jack's pack with a timer attached for about four minutes left.

Sayid says that if you pull the two wires, the bomb should be disarmed as long as the wires are pulled at the exact same time.  Sawyer is about to do it when Jack says something extremely important.  He says that SmokeLocke has been leading them to this point the entire time.  That he cannot kill them, but he does need them dead, hence the reason he was so adamant about everyone being on the sub.

Jack says that nothing will happen to them, that SmokeLocke is not allowed to harm them, but if they pull the wire, then they will be hurting themselves.  Sawyer cannot take that chance and pulls the wires.  The timer stops, but then goes extremely fast.

Sayid tells Jack where Desmond is located and that SmokeLocke wanted him dead.  Sayid then grabs the bomb and runs away from everyone else.  The bomb explodes and the sub starts to sink.  The explosion causes a hatch to explode towards Frank (it looks like he is dead as well).

Sun is pinned inside the sub, Jin and Sawyer try to rescue her.  Hurley wants to go for Sayid, but Jack says he has to get Kate out because Sayid is dead.  The sub suddenly buckles and Sawyer gets knocked out.  Jack has to get him out of there as well.

Sun wants Jin to leave her, but he refuses.  They kiss and the sub goes down.  They are both dead.  Seriously, four people dead in one episode.  When was the last time four major characters died in one season, let alone one episode?  Okay, maybe Frank is not dead or a major character...

We then see SmokeLocke and Claire watching as the sub never resurfaces and the survivors turn up.  He starts to walk away when Claire asks where he is going and he replies that he is going to finish what he started.

Flashsideways
Locke wakes up after surgery and Jack informs him that he is a candidate for a new surgery that could restore feeling in his legs.  Locke refuses.  Jack obviously cannot let it go and needs to why.  He finds out that Locke's father is a vegetable.  Locke explains that he got his pilot's license and took his father out for his first solo flight.  They crashed, Locke was paralyzed, but his father was a complete vegetable.

Jack uses the same story Locke used at the airport about Christian to apply to Locke's father.  He says that Locke needs to stop punishing himself.  Locke still refuses and Jack says "I wish you had believed in me."  Which is what Locke wrote in his suicide note to Jack.

Thoughts
-Jack must be the greatest swimmer in the world.  He just pulled Sawyer out of the water, and he does not seem to be all that tired.

-I was so glad that Jack was right about the bomb.  It just makes me happy that he is fitting into this role of Jacob.

-I am sad that Sun and Jin did not make it.  I almost cried. 

-In the flashsideways, did anyone catch the scene where Jack offers Claire the candy bar?  Remind you of when Jacob gave Jack a candy bar? 

-Also, in one time-line Jack is trying to save Locke because he is a candidate, but in another time-line Locke is trying to kill Jack because he is a candidate.  I find that interesting.

-Naturally we get another question revolving around the music box.  I do not even want to speculate.

I am super excited for next week.  Apparently we get to see something more about the Man in Black and Jacob. 

Taser All Phillies Fans

For those of you that watch ESPN or read anything in the papers, you probably saw that a Phillies fan was tased last night after running out onto the field.  I listened to a good bit of the arguments and figured I should throw my two cents into the discussion.

The argument is that this is a good deterrent for people thinking about doing the same thing and maybe doing something really bad, like stabbing someone or beating up an umpire.  Mike Golic makes the point though that yes, it might deter drunk morons from running onto the field for attention, but it will not stop someone with serious intent.

Personally, I agree with both points.  Put up signs saying that if you enter the field, police will use a taser to render you unconscious.  People are saying that if someone gets hurt because of tasing (or dies), then it will become a big deal.  If there are ample warnings to fans, would the team (or police) still be liable if someone gets hurt?  Unfortunately, if someone wants to say kill Edwin Jackson for ruining his rate stats that wake in a fantasy league, then a taser warning is not going to stop the individual.

Honestly though, why the hell are people still running onto the field?  It is lame.  You piss people like me off because I am actually interested in the game.  Not some drunken idiot running around.  Screw the taser, I think the moron should be hit with a bat or tackled, like in the following video:


The real mystery to me is that this kind of thing does not happen more often in Philadelphia.  I would expect a Phillies fan to be tased about once a week.  I seem to remember a Phillies fan murdering someone either last year or two years ago?

Also, did the dude in the photo piss his pants?

24: 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

This was a pretty decent episode.  There were a few silly things that could have made it dumb, but then it ended well, so that made it all better.   Basically, Jack and Cole must rescue Dana and then force her to tell them where the evidence is located.  Easy, right?  Actually for Jack, this is an easy one.

-When someone gets knocked out by Jack, are they automatically out for ten minutes?  He knocked the guy out on the roof and just left him there.  What if the dude just got up like two minutes later and went behind them and shot them both?  At least tie him down...

-Jack shooting the torturer holding Dana was great.  The fact that he tries to reason with Jack by saying that the shot is too risky.  HA, guess he never read Jack's file.  I love how there was no hesitation.  The sentence barely ends and Jack "pops a hydroshock in his melon."  To steal a line from Training Day.

-So that is water-boarding?  Not what I pictured, nor does it really seem all that bad.  Usually how I start my morning...

-Now Jack's method for information extraction was much more effective:  stick a gun to Dana's chest and demand the information by the count of three...

-Who the hell has a flash-bomb in a safety deposit box?  Along with a gun and a silencer?  Talk about being prepared.  Will we learn that Dana is really some highly trained super spy? 

-When Jack finally catches up with her and he forces her to give up the evidence, we get the feeling that Jack might let her go (which would have really sucked), and then at the last moment he puts two bullets in her without any remorse.  Good for Jack.  Although, Dana might be the ultimate manipulator.  I guarantee when Cole sees that she is dead he will want to take Jack down.  He is going to get beat down in a heartbeat. 

-At what point will Chloe start helping Jack because she does not like the guy from Logan's camp?  I say next episode...

Troy: Fall of Kings

I finished Troy:  Fall of Kings the other day and I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed this series.  For those of you who do not know, this series is David Gemmell's retelling of the Trojan War cycle.  The final book focuses on the war with Troy and Greece.  Let me highlight some of my favorite parts.

-Achilles battle with Hektor.  Such a good fight scene, plus Gemmell does such a good job of making Achilles a likeable character at the beginning of the book.  He learns how to be a decent man from Odysseus.  Also, instead of Achilles killing Hektor outright, it was much cooler that they both died from the dual.

-Gershom heads to Egypt with the desert folks and we learn at the end of the book that because of the eruption on Thera, the Nile is turning red and also locusts are attacking people.  Gershom had a prophecy of his brother, the pharaoh, freeing the desert people, but only after suffering a great loss (hinting towards the first born).  Apparently, the people believe that Gershom's god caused these "plagues" upon the city.

-The Hittite emperor coming to destroy Troy after Agamemnon takes over.  That was pretty awesome.  The sheer contempt he shows for Agamemnon made me so happy.  Agamemnon is such a dick in just about every version of the old story.  It just felt so good to have someone knock him down a few pegs.

-I also loved the part where Helikaon goes to help Odysseus rescue Penelope.  Such a cool thing seeing these two forget the war and rescue Odysseus' wife, with the help of Achilles.

-I can understand how some people would have problems with the ending.  It ends with Helikaon being dead and Andromache setting his funeral pyre (his ship) on fire.  She is joined by her grown sons and grandsons.  We learn that Dex (Helikaon's first wife's/stepmom's son from the rape) is now known as Iulos, which will be the family that gives birth to Julius Caesar.  It just ends so abruptly, but whatever, I still enjoyed it.

Actually there is just way too much that I loved in the book.    If you read the book(s) let me know what some of your favorite things were...

Fantasy Baseball Week Four

Well this was not a great week for my team.  I tied Happy Valley Swagger 6-6.  My teams hitting started out very slow.  Then picked up at the end of the week.  Pitching was doing fine except for Edwin Jackson and his two losses and giving up an assload of runs.

Picking up Tyler Clippard was a smart move, since it seems that most people have ignored holds.  It is an easy statistic to win if you have the right player.  Clippard only had one hold, which was enough for the win.

My big player of the week was Jason Heyward:  5 R, 3 HR, .350 AVE, 7 RBI, and a .440 OBP.  Yeah, not a bad free agency pickup after the draft.  I decided to drop Jackson and pick up Colby Lewis from Texas.  I hope that he can bring the ERA down from the high fives, to maybe the low threes...

This dropped me to fifth place and leaves me 12 games behind Jason.  Not too fear though, I take on Singer's Sluggers, who it appears is not paying attention and has three starters on the DL.  Actually this is what frustrates me:  only the beginning of May and most people are not actually competing in the league.  My luck though, Singer's team will destroy me and I will look stupid...