I'm starting to lose my way...

...things are starting to look less familiar. I think I might soon be....LOST!!!

Gear it up, fans. The final season is two days away. Here's a tune featured in Season One. You'll know it as the song playing when the batteries went dead on Hurley's cd player at the end of Episode 17. It's Delicate, by Damien Rice. (embedded video on blog)



Recap of Episode 17, for fun. We see what Jin had been doing for Sun's dad, which lead to their estrangement. Sun outs herself as an English-speaker during Jin's beating at the hands of Micheal. You remember, Micheal thinks it was Jin that burned the raft? It was really Walt. (He will soon be renamed Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalt!!)

We also get the nauseating budding romance between Sayid and the ever-annoying Shannon. Yeah, the worst family ever assembled on a desert island were in full force. Boone only had a few minutes, but made the worst of them. Those two should've died in the crash!

The hatch was found a few episodes ago.

There's still a little time to catch up or brush up. Check out the Lostpedia. http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page with full descriptions of episodes, characters, etc. Hey, you might not know all you need to about Frank Lapidus.

Spot on, as usual

Sabutai, of Quriltai on the Shore, once again offers excellent insight on how elections--and the electorate--are often misread both by the media and politicos involved.

Today, a note on how implacably elections are reduced to a single-issue frame so quickly and easily. Many Bay Staters are reasonably irritated that outsiders (especially those in Washington, DC) are taking Brown’s victory last week as a repudiation of the health care reform process underway in the nation’s capital. While health care was an issue in this election, it was not the only issue. Such a view ignores Brown’s skilled campaign, the Coakley implosion, Democratic over-confidence, and a number of other factors in the result. Worse still, it led to a short press to force House passage of the Senate health care bill, almost regardless of the bill’s contents.

It's not just an American problem. He provides other examples of very poorly characterized election results. Well worth the quick read as usual. Visit qontheshort.blogspot.com early and often.

A realistic outlook

Christopher Beam at Slate.com provides a reasonable look at what the special election results in Massachusetts might mean and what they do not mean.

Everyone has his or her own interpretation of why Brown won and Coakley lost. Which is why the aftermath of this election is likely to be as acrimonious as the election itself: No one can prove or disprove anything. Even more than usual, the pundits and analysts don't really know what they're talking about.

There's only so much we can learn from this election, largely because there were no exit polls. Normally, a consortium of news organizations pays a company to conduct surveys outside polling locations—but only when there's enough interest in the race to justify it. By the time national media started paying attention to the race, it was too late.

As a result, we don't know to what extent independents swung to Brown. We don't know how many women voted for Brown instead of Coakley. We don't know whether Obama's appearance drew more African-Americans to the polls than usual. We don't know why voters favored Brown, or when they made up their minds. Perhaps they liked his ideas on health care, his plan to keep Guantanamo open, or his smile. For all we know, his truck sealed the deal.

Read the entire thing, it's worth a look.

Teddy Pendergrass is dead

Teddy Pendergrass is dead at the age of 59.

Many of us only know him because he recorded a version of One Shining Moment, the schmaltzy song CBS uses for the annual highlight video of March Madness. Here's a sample. These things always bring back memories and send me scrambling to look up the brackets and replay things in my mind. Didn't pick this year for any specific reason, other than it's one of the years they used Teddy's version and not someone else. But there's plenty to comment on, if you care to.

Lying, manipulative scumbag

What a despicable person.

I'm with Conan

Jay's a super putz. I enjoyed seeing him fail and hope he'll just go away soon.

NBC handled the whole thing horribly.

Letterman is the best of the bunch. Always has been.

Steroid cheater

That oversized tomato can head can suck my left elbow. He cheated, deliberately and continuously, for years. I don't think he even believes himself when he says they didn't improve his performance. He's a disgrace and neither his late, qualified, alterior motivated admission nor his tears mean a thing to me.

Go away...or don't. But shut the he'll up when it comes to your playing days or the issues of honesty, integrity or respect for the game. You remain a disgrace.

How far can you make it?

Can you watch this all the way through to the end? I made 19 seconds.

Netflix

My in-laws gave me a three month subscription to Netflix for Christmas and I finally got around to activating it last night. Here's what I've got in my que so far:

Borat
Batman Begins
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Little Miss Sunshine
Iron Man
Burn After Reading
Wedding Crashers
300
Seven Samurai
The Wild Bunch
No Country for Old Men
Superbad

Looking for movie suggestions. Don't be upset if I don't jump all over something you suggest.

Deval Patrick

The Governor of Massachusetts gives almost every indication that he just doesn't WANT to be Governor of the Commonwealth beyond his current term. If that's the case, why doesn't he just announce it and let us all move on with picking a willing Democratic nominee?

My latest favoritist app

Adrenaline Pool Online. You can play 8-ball, 9-ball, straight pool or snooker against other folks online. You can't have a custom screen name or play against the computer unless you buy the full app for $4.99, but the Lite version is good enough for now.

It tracks your games and keeps a separate ranking for you in each game. Also tracks the time you've spent playing.

My nephew, brother-in-law and I were playing quite a bit over the vacation week.

JibJab