Reaction to tonight's LOST: "Follow the Leader"

Last year's penultimate episode jaw-dropping final line of dialogue: "He wants us to move the Island."

This year's penultimate episode jaw-dropping final line of dialogue: "So I can kill him."

(As if what happened in the 59 minutes preceding it weren't awesome enough.)

If you haven't gotten into Lost yet, you've still got 8 months to buy the DVDs or watch 'em streaming online or do whatever the heck you can to catch up.

Because folks: television like this, I have to believe, will be a LONG time before it comes again... if it comes at all.

The rumor the past few weeks was that "Follow the Leader" would be a Richard-centric episode. Instead we got one marginally focused on Locke, now a man solidly with purpose. Along with a lot of action shifting wildly between 1977 and 2008.

And between Jack's trying to detonate the Jughead and Locke's modern-day machinations, past and present are headed toward a massive collision... that will rock the future?

High points of tonight's episode: Dr. Chang confronting Hurley and friends about the future. Sawyer and Juliet being interrogated in the security station (Phil is so dead after what he did to Jules). A few intriguing morsels about Richard (was the ship in a bottle he's building meant to be a clue?). Miles' continuing acceptance of his father now that he's getting to see firsthand what really went down. Sawyer's half-serious plot to win financially once he makes his way to the outside world of 1977. And of course, Locke deciding to call Jacob's bluff.

Next week: the two-hour Season 5 finale, "The Incident". One way or another, in one year or another, the Island is gonna go straight to hell.

(Will it end with a mushroom cloud? Find out in seven days!)

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Massive GEARS OF WAR 2 DLC retail pack coming in July (including new single-player content!)

Arriving in retail stores on July 28th is the Gears of War 2 All Fronts Collection: a compilation of all the multiplayer maps that have been released so far along with a new set called "Dark Corners". It'll sell for $20.

What's really got me stoked about this however is that the All Fronts Collection will include "Road to Ruin", a new campaign chapter that can be played solo or co-op.

Hey, Epic Games and Microsoft: a lot of us out here are very excited to hear this, and few things would make us happier than to have some more one-player friendly content for Gears of War 2 headed our way. Not dissin' the multiplayer aspect at all, but the Gears of War universe is a very rich one and we would love to explore more of it at our own pace, instead of having to "duck and cover and fire" all the time :-)

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World's oldest ground discovered in Israel

The next time you hear someone speak of a thing as being "old as dirt", now you'll have some context for it...

Deep in the Negev Desert of Israel, scientists have discovered what is being called the oldest patch of exposed ground in the world. It's been dated at around 1.8 million years old.

Pretty humbling, aye? To know that there are still places in this world that defy the savagery of both nature and man. It's much like whenever I go out on the Blue Ridge Parkway in the western part of North Carolina: seeing all those mountains, knowing that they were here long before us, and will still be there long after we are gone.

And who knows? This might literally be ground that Abraham, or Joseph, or Moses once walked upon. Perhaps even Jesus Himself, who we are told went out into the desert for forty days. Maybe He came to a place such as this.

Makes one think, doesn't it?

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Churches that say "Amen!" to Twitter

Not so long ago, for a person to employ a BlackBerry or an iPhone during a worship service was deemed the height of irreverence. But increasingly it's not only grown acceptable, it's becoming encouraged.

Time Magazine has a story about churches that have adopted Twitter - the micro-blogging utility that's become all the rage - as a a tool for edifying, evangelism and Bible study. As one person in the article points out, Twitter makes it possible to actively write and save notes from that day's sermon, without having to ever again misplace what you jot down. As an added benefit, those who are somehow unable to "be there" can keep up along with the rest of the congregation.

Very, very cool. Kevin Bussey also shares some experiences he's had with Twitter on his own blog. And now that I've got a new cellphone that can send text messages, I might have to Twitter from a church myself sometime :-)

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Dom DeLuise has passed away

The very sad news just broke that Dom DeLuise has passed away at the age of 75.

Once upon a time, this guy was everywhere! DeLuise played Buddy Bizarre, the movie director toward the end of Blazing Saddles (yeah the one who got punched in the gut by Slim Pickens). DeLuise did a bunch of other movies for Mel Brooks too, like Spaceballs (as the voice of Pizza the Hutt) and Silent Movie, a film which I've always thought was one of the funniest of the Seventies. Not long after that DeLuise became a frequent co-star with Burt Reynolds, in such comedy fare as The Cannonball Run, the second Smokey and the Bandit flick and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

Well, what else can I say? The guy was hilarious. DeLuise always lit up every scene that he was in. He just seemed gifted for that, with his voice and beaming smile.

He's survived by his wife of 43 years, their three sons and several grandchildren. Our thoughts and prayers go out to them.

Rest in peace Dom. And thanks for all the laughs.

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Tale of the Zombie Sea-Monkeys

A little over a month ago I was in Greensboro on some afternoon's business. While there I went into that new Target store on the north side of town, more or less to oggle the Star Wars toys (and if need be to straighten them up and make them look neat and tidy, 'cuz that's what all his friends do now that Darth Larry is on the other side of the country... but that's a story for another day).

Anyway, it was in the toy section that I spotted a package of Sea-Monkeys: those "adorable" brine shrimp that have been a classic gimmick for over a half-century now. I'd had 'em before, most recently as of about six years ago. So pretty much out of whimsy I bought a set of them for nine bucks. For that you get the aquarium tank, the "water purifier" package, the envelope containing the Sea-Monkey eggs, and the food which can last about a year if you use the included measuring spoon. I also got a sealed jug of distilled water, because when it comes to Sea-Monkeys the higher the quality of water, the better.

I started that night on the process of bringing my new charges to glorious life. First I poured the water into the aquarium, mixed in the purifier and per the instructions waited for 24 hours. The following night I opened the packet of eggs, dropped them in and gave the whole primordial soup some vigorous "wake up" action with a spoon.

You could barely see them come the next day, but with the right lighting some very tiny specks could be observed flitting through the water. Within another three or four days they were far more visible. Five days after hatching I gave them their first bit of food.

And then the weather turned unseasonably cold, and the Sea-Monkeys were in a part of my home that doesn't get that much warmth when the heat is turned on.

Long story short: my Sea-Monkeys apparently died. Frozen to death, barely a week after tasting life beyond the state of suspended animation in their egg state.

I did some research and it looks like brine shrimp can be very temperature sensitive once they have been "vitalized". I spent the next several days watching often for any evidence that there had been survivors. Alas! There were none to be found. So I sadly wrote them off as casualties of my own gross neglect, and contemplated what to do next. Perhaps give them a dignified burial at sea courtesy of the bathroom toilet?

For whatever reason, I didn't do that right off. Got busy with other things. And then a week and a half later, I happened to catch something moving in the aquarium.

The Sea-Monkeys... had come back from the dead.

They are still swimming around as of this writing, active and supposedly content. But curiously, they are also now much bigger than I have ever personally seen Sea-Monkeys before. There are four or five of them in particular that are of positively monstrous size.

So as if my life didn't have enough craziness in it, I've now somehow cultivated undead Sea-Monkeys. Whatever it is that's going on in that tank is a phenomenon that I've never seen before, after having three or four batches of these critters over the years.

So... anyone else had any experience with "zombie" Sea-Monkeys? Feel free to leave a comment if you have! :-)

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Ever see SUPERMAN III and OFFICE SPACE?

Remember how Richard Pryor's character Gus Gorman in Superman III (an "under-rated" film, as the guy in Office Space says) used his hackin' skillz to embezzle all that money from the company he worked at? Okay well...

A now-retired aerospace engineer discovered forty years ago that he was being overpaid by 2 cents an hour. He suggested a way to fix the discrepancy, but it got lost in bureaucratic bungling.

And now, four full decades later later, the government has lost BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, literally pennies at a time, because it failed to address what is being called a "simple" error that would have only required very minor changes in accounting software.

Read MSNBC's article "Did Pentagon lose billions, pennies at a time?" for the full story on aeronautical engineer Walter T. Davey... and how the United States government could have saved a buttload of money if it had listened to him.

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I knew he couldn't stay away forever

The greatest curmudgeon of the Internet - and probably the modern world - has returned.

Actually, Fred Reed has been back at it for over a month now from the looks of it. He announced in February that he was retiring... but nature does abhor a vacuum, right?

So Reed is at it again, and in his latest work he offers his unique insight regarding the death of the journalism industry.

Here's an excerpt...

A story once might have begun, “At midafternoon Thursday a house burned down at 112 Maples Street. Three children left unaccompanied inside escaped unhurt.” In the sensitive new journalism, the lead became, “Sally Harpooner, a single mother of three, saw a towering plume of smoke rising from her home as she returned from a community-sponsored drug-rehabilitation center. Her heart beat faster….” Before, a reporter would have said forget her heart, beat sally for being such a useless skell. Not longer. Stories began to appear about a kind old man who was giving hydrotherapy to his faithful dog Bowser who had hip displasia. The old crew had nothing against Bowser, but they didn’t think he was news.

The new crowd didn’t remember being blind drunk on ghastly Cambodia gin during the siege of Phnom Penh, running the alleys in rikshas by night and eating deep-fried pregnant crickets. They eggs made them creamy. Kipling would have understood. By day in Phnom Penh the ancient T-28s flown by the Khmer Air Force crashed because they pilots were trying to smuggle more sugar than they could take off with. The ragtag press corps—Cambodia was a sidewhoe--when not eating crickets, lay on rooftop patios with the full moon hanging above and the smell of flower trees making the air sticky-sweet and Chicom 122s whistling into the city from the marshes and taking out whole houses.

It was the last wheeze of the news game as it should be—raw, free, often eccentric. Then came embeds and newspapers run by accountants with green eyeshades. Advertising had always paid for papers, but now it became the paper’s reason for existence. The distance between a newspaper and a PR firm narrowed. Pleasantness became compulsory. The old hands hated pleasantness like poison.

One of these days, I'm gonna go through a whole bunch of Fred Reed essays the way they're prolly meant to be enjoyed: pissed-off mad and with several shots of Jack Daniels in my belly (and I'm not even a drinking man). One of these days, my friends. 'Til then, mash down here for the rest of Reed's newest article.

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The Google Goats

In an effort to encourage "a more carbon-friendly, less polluting alternative to lawn mowers", Google has turned to employing goats to chew down the excessive vegetation on its sprawling California campus.

Here are the Google Goats hard at work...

The idea isn't entirely without precedent. During the World War I years First Lady Edith Wilson kept the White House lawn "mowed" by letting her family's sheep graze freely on the grounds. Maybe Obama could follow Google and the Wilsons' example and demonstrate some real environmentalism at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? :-)

Well anyway, I think it's a pretty neat story. Having grown up on a farm with a number of goats I can attest that they can eat anything, and will faithfully keep the grass and weeds at bay. Who knows: maybe with some good PR, goats and sheep can become the next "cool" pets to own.

(And as an added bonus, they can provide goats milk and lambchops!)

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THE HUNT FOR GOLLUM: The most beautiful fan film I have EVER seen!

Ever since I began my own forays into filmmaking, it's become one of my personal missions in life to encourage others to make their own movies too. And you wanna know why?

Because the time has finally arrived when every person can make a movie that stands on par with anything that the major studios can produce.

Seriously. Think about it: high-def consumer camcorders are now inexpensive and with some equally affordable editing software and a lil' bit of know-how, the finished footage can look extremely cinematic. Can't compose a note of music? Ask around on the 'net for talented folks to help you out (hey, it's what I'm doing with a project now :-)

Thanks to the web and broadband, practically the entire world becomes a fully-equipped studio and post-production facility right at your fingertips. There's no longer any reason not to make the movie you have always dreamed of.

And as of today, a group of dedicated fans of J.R.R. Tolkien have proven that premise in spectacularly gorgeous fashion.

The Hunt for Gollum is a 40-minute long movie that had its online premiere earlier this afternoon. It's directed, co-written and executive produced by Chris Bouchard, who coordinated a worldwide effort involving 160 people to make the film a reality.

Adapted from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, The Hunt for Gollum expands upon Gandalf's recounting to Frodo earlier in the novel the tale of how Gollum eventually went looking for the One Ring, before the vile creature was tracked down in the wilderness and captured by Aragorn.

That's all you need to know before you start watching The Hunt for Gollum, because the film is so utterly amazing and tremendous an achievement, that I don't dare spoil anything else for you. Well, I can tell you that the cinematography is a feast for the eyes, and it's obviously styled after the look that Peter Jackson came up with for his The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

Okay, I'll tease ya with this: yeah, you see Gollum. Chris Bouchard and his friends didn't "cheat" either. Maybe someone should make a fan film about The Hunt for Gollum crew breaking and entering into WETA so that they can CGI-render Gollum on the sly :-)

So... want to see it for yourself? Click here to watch The Hunt for Gollum in high-def or standard quality. And prepare to be amazed, friends and neighbors.

And to Chris Bouchard and his staff: very well done!! Y'all deserve nothing but the highest of praise for what you have done :-)

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MAKE MINE FREEDOM: Amazing insight from a 1958 cartoon

Just over fifty years ago, Harding College produced a series of films "to create a deeper understanding" of American culture. This one, Make Mine Freedom, has been "re-discovered" in recent days and is making the rounds quite a bit across the Internet. Personally, I found it to be uncannily prophetic about the country we are living in today. Perhaps we should begin considering the wisdom of the past.

Here is Make Mine Freedom...

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My first-ever text message from a mobile device

Yesterday (Saturday) afternoon I finally broke down and got a new cell phone. At the risk of sounding like a Luddite, I had only the vaguest sense of what mobile technology is capable of doing these days, like "Bluetooth" and such.

And then there is text messaging. Something that I have never done before in my entire life. Not even once.

Until tonight.

I got the X-tc from Virgin Mobile (and I might treat myself to an iPhone if... something happens in the near future), which has a very nice slide-out QWERTY keyboard. It's a feature I was particularly looking for since I'm such a fast typist, and I didn't want to "re-learn" how to do texting like most folks seem adept at doing.

Anyhoo, I tied my Twitter account into my new mobile phone, and a short while ago sent my first-ever text message from a mobile gadget.

Want to see it? Here it is.

"What hath God wrought" were the words in the very first telegraph message, sent on May 24th, 1844 by its inventor Samuel F.B. Morse from a line in Washington, D.C. to Baltimore. The quote is from Numbers 23:23 in the Bible, and was suggested by the daughter of a friend.

The first time I got on the Internet, those were the words that I sent in my all-time first e-mail. So I figured this was an appropriate time to use the phrase again :-)

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Jack Kemp has passed away

Jack Kemp was one of the best people in modern American politics who never became President.

I'll be even more blunt: when the 1996 elections came around, Kemp was the only reason why I not only voted for Bob Dole, but put up a huge campaign sign for "Dole-Kemp" in our front apartment window (yeah my roomie was rootin' for 'em too).

And I can't help but wonder: if he had been vice-president under Reagan (I've heard plenty over the years that he was highly considered for the job by Reagan himself, but the party bigwigs wanted George Bush as his running mate instead) then this might have been a far different... and far better... country today. Kemp was a man of real ideas, particularly in regards to economic growth.

Jack Kemp - former NFL football player, member of the United States House of Representatives, and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development - passed away today at the age of 73 following a long battle with cancer.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family tonight.

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Swine flu has FINALLY infected swine!

It's taken more than a week, but tonight the first confirmed case of the swine flu infecting REAL swine has been reported.

The plague-laden pigs were found in Alberta, Canada: a loooong way from what's thought to be the initial hot zone down South of the Border.

Meanwhile, news agencies all over have been struggling with what to call the epidemic, since it's apparently "not nice" to refer to it as "swine flu". In the past few days there's been a dramatic shift on the part of journalists toward calling it simply the "H1N1 virus".

Can't say that really rolls off one's tongue, aye? So I noted to one reporter that it adapts well in "leet-speek"...

...so maybe we should start calling it the "Hiney-virus" :-P

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Framed websites creeping back into popularity

Remember "frames"? That website design technique which a lot of us discovered during idle hours in a campus computer lab back when the Internet was still so new? Depending on how they were used frames could make a page look spiffy-kewl... or they could make it look like a fractured abomination.

(To this day I'm still stunned at that one homepage that my filmmaking partner "Weird" Ed came up with. Just how many frames did you cram into that, Ed? Did you even know?!)

Anyways, The Wall Street Journal is reporting on the comeback of frames and how a lot of people aren't too happy about it. Digg attempted to resurrect it last month but was promptly booed-down by many of its users.

Personally, I never found any reason to outright dislike frames, and it mystifies me that there's this much raw hatred toward them.

What do y'all think?

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He can have a strong influence on the weak-minded

Found this political cartoon and couldn't resist posting it here...

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PATRIOT Act denied son Constitutional rights, says North Carolina mom

This early on in the reporting of the story, I'll admit to wondering if there's more to this. But knowing what I do about how damned abusive and corrupt our own government has become, I'm also inclined to take this family at their word.

Sixteen-year-old Ashton Lundeby, of Oxford in Granville County, North Carolina (not far from Raleigh) was the subject of a raid by federal agents who handcuffed him and took a LOT of his personal possessions. The feds claim that Lundeby made a bomb threat, but the family denies the charge, saying that someone hacked into their IP address and made crank calls through the Internet.

And now...

Ashton now sits in a juvenile facility in South Bend, Ind. His mother has had little access to him since his arrest. She has gone to her state representatives as well as attorneys, seeking assistance, but, she said, there is nothing she can do.

Lundeby said the USA Patriot Act stripped her son of his due process rights.

"We have no rights under the Patriot Act to even defend them, because the Patriot Act basically supersedes the Constitution," she said. "It wasn't intended to drag your barely 16-year-old, 120-pound son out in the middle of the night on a charge that we can't even defend."

Passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S., the Patriot Act allows federal agents to investigate suspected cases of terrorism swiftly to better protect the country. In part, it gives the federal government more latitude to search telephone records, e-mails and other records.

"They're saying that 'We feel this individual is a terrorist or an enemy combatant against the United States, and we're going to suspend all of those due process rights because this person is an enemy of the United States," said Dan Boyce, a defense attorney and former U.S. attorney not connected to the Lundeby case.

Critics of the statute say it threatens the most basic of liberties.

"There's nothing a matter of public record," Boyce said "All those normal rights are just suspended in the air."

According to the story, Ashton Lundeby sounds like a pretty good kid. He's got American flags all around his room (he's probably more patriotic than the assholes who passed the PATRIOT Act) and he was away at church when the raid went down.

If the Lundebys' story is true, I will once again be led to yield to the lesser angels of my nature, go against all sense of polity and Christ-like bearing that I do strive to uphold, and repeat with great exuberance what I posted here a little less than a month and a half ago on another story about law enforcement abuse...

"F*CK THE GOVERNMENT!"

(I won't post the exact word until we know more about the situation. But you get the gist of it.)

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