Plankton

I really got into The Pogues, Johnny Cash, and Frank Sinatra about 4 years ago. I just recently started to listen to Bob Dylan. I'm not sure what took me so long with all of those. EDIT: Oh, and a little Neil Young lately too. Money's a little tight, but once he funds start to increase, I'm sure more Neil Young CDs will find their way into our household. The same can be said for Bob Dylan.

If Locke died off of the island, is it completely out of the question that the island could bring him back to life if he's brought back? I know that's much different than being able to walk after years of being crippled, but I suppose it is possible. Of course, he's been pumped full of embalming fluid. So maybe not. I keep wanting people to come back to life, but it never happens. And I was pretty confident that Jin was going to actually be alive this whole time and that Sun would know this, but was having to go along with the charade of him being dead because they lied (this would have meant that her torment in the earlier episode was not because he was dead, but rather because he was alive, and she could never see him again or talk about it to anyone). And I did consider that he maybe jumped off of the boat, but where could he have gone to? The island moved.

I just started X-2 over again, this time using a walkthrough so I can get a 100% completion. I missed a lot of stuff the first time around, and this time I'd like to experience the whole game. I think I'll tackle V when I'm done, as I've yet to play it.

The Friends cast got $1,000,000 an episode for the last couple of seasons, and only Jerry Seinfeld got paid that much on Seinfeld. Fair enough. I Googled this topic to be more accurate this time. Jerry Seinfeld was offered $5 million an episode for an additional season (which he turned down). The rest of the cast were netting $600,000 an episode. This is according to imdb. So this is still the norm of the business, and I think people would be hard pressed to argue that others deserve the money more than they do. I'm not saying it would be bad to disperse it more evenly among the crew, but few people are more responsible for the success of that show than the actors.

I love the 3D Mario games (Mario Galaxy has been especially amazing so far), but as I played through some of the 2D versions recently, I started to wish that they would make new 2D Mario games. Then I realized that they did on the DS, but I've never enjoyed playing portable games. Maybe they'll be available for download on the Wii sometime.

Fox makes a ton of money off of The Simpsons, and it is in large part due to the talent of the actors (and, to be fair, they do more than just reading off of paper). I think if other people are making a lot of money off of your work, then it's okay for you to demand a large chunk of it because without you, the higher-ups wouldn't be making their money. And I don't buy the idea that any voice actor could do their work. The famous Homer scene where he sings "I am so smart, I am so smart, S-M-R-T... I mean S-M-A-R-T," was a a legitimate mistake, and improved on the spot. The producers are always pointing out the little things that the actors do to make the show better. Of course they don't do the toughest work out there, but they are an intricate factor of a show that generates a lot of money, so they're certainly within their rights to ask for more. Sometimes it's not just the amount of work you put into a project, it's what your work helps generate, and the producers consistently point out in the DVD commentaries what the actors do to contribute. Plus, considering actors from shows like Seinfeld and Friends received several million per episode, by comparison, $500,000 is fair for the amount of work they do. Basically, I feel the same way about this as I do about athletes making an obscene amount of money: it is ridiculous, but the money is being made; it has to go somewhere, and actors (like athletes) can make a very solid argument that their contributions are hugely important. The alternative is to either go through the trouble of reworking the contracts of other people who contribute so the money is distributed better (which, as we saw with the writers, is very complicated and would not happen), or a ton of it goes to a bunch of higher-ups. The actors deserve it.

Hopefully they'll release the Transformers and GI Joes on DVD for reasonable prices, unlike the last sets that came out. They're one of the few cartoons from that era that I think still hold up.

I like Roger & Me and Bowling for Columbine. Sicko was good, but seemed like mostly fluff and little substance to me. I like that he showcased the positives of other health care systems, but he obviously dodged the vast majority of the negatives and, in the end, offered no real solution. I was fine with it being left somewhat open, but that created a lack of focus. I wish he would have gone back to the focus of the beginning of the film where he told horror stories of the American health care system, and followed then follow that up by making some kind of plea to how we should try to introduce some of the better ideas from other countries. The ending just felt flat. Although I liked Columbine, I thought it had a similar feel; the overall story was better though. Roger & Me just had a great story in general. I didn't like Fahrenheit 9/11. It just felt a little too preachy. It was as if he wanted the film to be as fun as Supersize Me and as serious as Why We Fight, and while I think it was a good idea in theory, it didn't work for me. As a public figure, I like Laid Back Michael Moore, but find Serious Michael Moore to be overly pretentious and preachy. In the past I've defined him as someone who gets people talking, but I think the weaknesses of his films (more specifically, the lack of counterarguments) cause the discussions on his film to be more focused on how biased he is rather than the actual topic. This is why I was mostly disappointed in Sicko. Most of the press that I saw focused more on the counterarguments he ignored. I think if he would have focused a bit of his film on the flaws of the other systems, and then at the end suggested we take the positives and use them to fix the negatives of the American system, there would have been more discussions on what could be done and how it could be done. In the end, Moore's unwillingness to bring significant focus to any counterarguments in his films leave the after-film discussions not nearly as productive as they could be. That's just me though.

My wife loves dogs and we have a rat terrier/chihuahua mixed breed, so we'll probably end up owning this and watching it several times. Sons of bitches. Although chihuahuas typically really do not like children, so a lot of parents are going to buy their kids chihuahuas because of the cute movie and a bunch of kids will get their faces bitten. So at least there's that.

The wife and I watch a lot of Scrubs and The Office. Lately, our go-to movies have been Kill Bill and Borat. Nothing else really comes close, but it looks like Walk the Line might find itself in heavy rotation soon. It's a good fall-asleep-to movie.

GTA IV and the Lego Star Wars game. I barely ever buy games unless I can pick them up used, so I'm just waiting until these are $10-20. I'll probably get the Star Wars game for more, but there will be so many GTA games used in about 6-12 months that I won't spend more than 20. Oh, plus I still need a 360 (a minor set back). But I'm pretty much not going to even care to have one until GTA is a cheap buy.

Plus Myle's Pizza (!!), which I greatly miss. Toledo seems to get a bad rap, but I always thought it was a nice city. We ended up moving to Kent, but Toledo was our second choice. We could have joined in all the Finkbeiner-bashing.

Voted. And I didn't know you were from Toledo. I just moved from Bowling Green area about a month ago.

I pretty much am playing some installment of Madden about 6-9 months out of any given year, and especially during the NFL's season. Our PS2 bit the dust recently, so that's stalled. I'd get it on the Wii, but I heard there's no create-a-team mode, so I guess I'll have to wait until I either buy a new PS2 or get a 360. I also like to either be playing some installment of Final Fantasy (6 and 7 especially) or Earthbound, but again, with no PS2, I'm out of luck with FF, and Earthbound isn't available on the Wii yet. Lately, with only the Wii, I've been playing a lot of Mario3 and Super Mario World over and over. And Star Fox 64, which is incredibly replayable.

Band of Brothers really is ridiculously good, but extremely depressing about the time they get to the medic episode. But then again, I can't think of any war films that are uplifting. I guess Black Book wasn't a downer, but that was more of a World War II era film than a war film. I don't think they showed any battles. I just watched and bought Seven Samurai this year and was really surprised with how well the entire movie held up. It's not as if older movies can't still be enjoyable, but when you're watching a mid-50's film and you forget that fact at some point, that's pretty awesome no matter what the era. I would say it's so well-done it will hold up at any point in history.

When I worked as a plumber, occasionally a leaf would fall on my head and I'd grow a raccoon tail and have the ability to fly for short periods of time. The only exceptions were when I was given the leaf by royalty for a good deed; I could fly for quite a while with those. Coincidentally, my video game habit had nothing to do with that. It did cause me to stab people though.

It would be worth your while to purchase a few cheap Sinatra CDs. All the Way was our first dance song, which worked out well. You can also throw in My Way for fun. We thought about playing that or The Clash's Should I Stay or Should I Go as a joke, but didn't for some reason.

Sometimes I find Jack's reactions a bit underwhelming, but I usually chalk it up to him being a surgeon. He's used to disengaging himself in difficult times where he needs to find a solution. Being calm until he finds a response that will fix the situation is his second nature. This was established in the very first episode when he told that story to Kate as she sewed his cut up. That said, I'm sure there are moments here and there that may be inconsistent to that idea. If there are, I don't think it bothers me. I usually try to find an explanation as to why some of the characters act in sometimes unusual ways. Hey, people are different, right? But I have to admit, this was pretty timely since I just listened to the This American Life podcast Monday night, which had this quote from Dan Savage: "...But was the portrayal of heterosexuals on television any better? Do real straight people act anything like those crazy ass breeders on Desperate Housewives? Do real straight people act like the fake straight people on Lost? Does anyone act like the people on Lost?" Touche, Dan Savage.

This Film is Not Yet Rated- **** - Great documentary. I felt there were a few holes in the overall argument, but those were mostly in the smaller points. Good, thought provoking stuff. Re-Animator- **** - Another great film that I finally got around to watching for the first time. Like Romero's films, I think this one took full advantage of the horror genre to make a moving, smart film without breaking conventions.

She was the stewardess (she gave Jack the extra alcohol in season 1) who was part of the tail end group. She disappeared when they were traveling to the other side of the island in season 2.

John Swartzwelder's books are worth a look. You can read the first few pages on Amazon to see if they're what you're looking for. The Time Machine Did It Double Wonderful How I Conquered Your Planet

Some of my personal favorites: The Book of Ralph- It's probably one of the funniest books I have ever read. McNally is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. The Virgin Suicides- Worlds better than the movie, which didn't even touch the depth displayed in Eugenides debut novel. The Catcher in the Rye- One of those essential readings. If you haven't already read it, you'll either love it or hate it. There doesn't usually seem to be a middle ground. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven- Alexie's prose is off the wall awesome and he's cynical as all hell. Pastoralia- Definitely one of the most bizarre sets of short stories I have ever read. Saunders' prose is incredibely unique and he knows when to push the envelope. Nice Big American Baby- Another set of short stories. Budnitz portrays the magical real in a way where it's hard to question it as a reader. It's a difficult thing to accomplish. In the Lake of the Woods- I wish more commercial fiction was like this. O'Brien mixes politics and his own Vietnam experience in this one. Slaughterhouse-Five- I don't think a war story and a sci-fi novel have ever been mixed together so well. Alive- A great true story about the Andes survivors. Okay, I'll stop now. Let me know if you read any of these (that goes out to anyone, for that matter). I like talking about these books. I've assigned some them in my book club and they generated good conversation.

I've never heard that argument, and it's fucking ridiculous. Trent Reznor wrote that song about his own heroin addiction. It has far more relevance to his life than it ever would to Johnny Cash's. People just seem to relate the song to the video, and to the fact that it was his last single, and decide that makes it so much more emotional. Out of that context, yeah, it's still an emotional song, but not the heartbreaking epic emotional journey that some people seem to act like it is.

I've never seen anyone :ohwell: