815 Space Dharma

2007-03-31T09:15:00.000-07:00

Pasadena, Calif. -- An odd, six-sided, honeycomb-shaped feature circling the entire north pole of Saturn has captured the interest of scientists with NASA's Cassini mission.

. . . "This is a very strange feature, lying in a precise geometric fashion with six nearly equally straight sides," said Kevin Baines, atmospheric expert and member of Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We've never seen anything like this on any other planet. Indeed, Saturn's thick atmosphere where circularly-shaped waves and convective cells dominate is perhaps the last place you'd expect to see such a six-sided geometric figure, yet there it is."

The hexagon is similar to Earth's polar vortex, which has winds blowing in a circular pattern around the polar region. On Saturn, the vortex has a hexagonal rather than circular shape. The hexagon is nearly 25,000 kilometers (15,000 miles) across. Nearly four Earths could fit inside it.

It moves too:

Exclusive! Secret Baby Brainwashing Scene

2007-02-14T08:15:00.000-08:00

Check this exclusive never-before seen footage of Claire's baby going through the Young Carl brainwash treatment while he was kidnapped a few seasons back. This was apparently cut for decency's sake, and for good reason. It's just a baby, man. Just a baby.

A New Refutation of Time and Space.

2007-02-13T20:15:00.000-08:00

Claire has a hard time getting comfortable with the Supreme Court all up in her uterus.

Wow. LOST writers are really reachin' with this whole backwards-masking of talk about enslavement to time and space during last week's Young Carl brainwashing scene.

Male Pregnancy

2007-02-08T20:15:00.000-08:00

This and this have gotta be LOST affiliated, right? Otherwise...

SIGN ME UP!

It's Always Sunny on the Island

2007-02-08T08:15:00.000-08:00

Forever Young: Mac is rumored to play a big role in Lost's upcoming "Prom Episode."

Except when something bad happens; then it rains every time.

2006-10-18T08:15:00.000-07:00

Wire - I Feel Mysterious Today

Remix better than the OG

2006-10-17T20:15:00.000-07:00

Turns out that video posted below isn't new after all, not by internet standards at least. it's known as the Sri Lanka Video, and it came out piece by piece as part of one of those online LOST role-playing alternate reality fake website follow the clues things that I skipped out on this summer whilst travelling around checking out real-life mysterious islands.

Looks like I missed out, though, because that Sri Lanka video (up until the unintentionally comical chase at the end) is more interesting than anything we've seen yet this season on the actual television show.

There's too many of us

2006-10-12T20:15:00.000-07:00

Another week, another song from Repo Man. Oh yeah, new(?) DHARMA/Hanso video too...

Fear - Let's Have A War

2006-10-10T20:15:00.000-07:00

Normally I'd be a little salty at this guy over the pointless negativity of his "Why Lost Sucks" blog, but dude is also the man behind this magical spot (where despite the bitching, hope springs eternal,) and it's not in me to ever speak ill of a true supporter of the A.

So instead of a "you mad, doggie?" admonishment, I'll simply say, "do you, homie, and update that Lost blog while you're at it. You aren't even through Season 2 yet."

Meanwhile, I need to get on registering Atlanta Krunk dot blogspot dot com.

2006-10-08T08:15:00.000-07:00

While the unexplained appearance of this Creepy Little Girl™ in the promotional flicks for last week's season premier might lead some to believe the episode was secretly guest directed by M. Night Shyamalan, it wasn't.

Nope. Would have been even worse.

Looking for the joke

2006-10-04T20:15:00.000-07:00

with a microscope.

Juicy Bananas - "Bad Man"

Whut?

2006-10-03T20:15:00.000-07:00

Just in case you're a little short on *buck!* for Wednesday, don't worry, systemD128--the genius who gave us this--offers up a little help in the form of this "Let's Go!(Lost Mix)Say Whut."

Thanks to 51:51 for the heads up.

Internet Pervert's Photoshop Game So Focused!

2006-06-01T20:15:00.000-07:00

Alright! Anybody got an animated gif?

Bet it smells like ranch dressing...

2006-05-26T20:15:00.000-07:00

Mmm, ranch.

2006-05-25T08:15:00.000-07:00

"The place is quite a wilderness," said Squire Headlong: "for, during the latter part of my father's life, while I was finishing my education, he troubled himself about nothing but the cellar, and suffered everything else to go to rack and ruin. A mere wilderness, as you see, even now in December; but in summer a complete nursery of briers, a forest of thistles, a plantation of nettles, without any livestock but goats, that have eaten up all the bark of the trees. Here you see is the pedestal of a statue, with only half a leg and four toes remaining: there were many here once.

-CHAPTER IV: The Grounds

Answer your telephone!

2006-05-24T20:15:00.000-07:00

You know, they had me--from the surprise appearance of Caleb Nichols, to the giant four-toed statue and the talking bird, through to the Byrd Gang colored sky--right up until that well put-together English broad who happens to bear a suspicious similarity to the star of that elaborate commercial/ARG, "The Lost Experience," answered the telephone at the end.

Corporate espionage is so lame.

What is this "O Clone"?

If only.

Finally.

2006-05-23T20:15:00.000-07:00

McFarlane Toys will be selling "Lost" action-figures. They may make dolls, but these guys are not playing around...

AGAIN DO NOT COMBINE FIGURES FROM DIFFERENT SERIES UNLESS BOTH SERIES ARE IN STOCK!!! You MAY not recieve your entire order if you do not follow these instructions. ORDERS CANNOT BE ALTERED AFTER THEY ARE PLACED so be CAREFUL!

~~GREAT~~, err, I mean, Great. I guess that means I'll have to place my "Vince Young Titans Baby-Blue" order seperately. Why must they torment me so?

RIP Ana-Lucia Cortez

2006-05-20T20:15:00.000-07:00

Cortez?

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Cortez the Killer (Live)

2006-05-19T08:15:00.000-07:00

"'Lost' is the sudoku of network television, a brainteaser that puzzles but does not enlighten."

Spoken like someone who sucks at sudoku.

No Rerun.

2006-05-16T20:15:00.000-07:00

ABC has decided chunks are better than fits and spurts. Next season, they will air seven new "Lost" episodes in the fall, then put the show on hiatus while "Day Break," which seems to be some kind of Grown & Sexy update of "Groundhog Day" starring Taye Diggs, airs. "Lost" will then come back in the Spring with new episodes through the end of the season.

This year, though, we'll have to continue to rely on these guys.

Clocks

2006-05-13T08:15:00.000-07:00

Looks like we finally know what caused that plane to crash. The very fabric of the universe was ripped asunder by the unholy "mash-up" of woodgrain errything and trendy high-design.

I'll take two, please.

Biddy Biddy Bong Bong

2006-05-11T20:15:00.000-07:00

One by one, load up the van, all of-a ganja it ram.

Dude, is that ganj? Dude, that's totally ganj.

Eek-a-Mouse - "Ganja Smuggling"

subLYMONal.com

2006-05-10T20:15:00.000-07:00

Please tell me the Hanso Foundation spot that ran tonight instructing viewers to go to subLYMONal.com (a site prominetly featuring the word "obey" as in "obey your thirst" not as in this) didn't have tiny print in the corner reading "paid for by Sprite."

Shit, at least it didn't play that god-awful "Falling Away" song.

UPDATE: These guys seem to be doing a remarkable job of running down all the clues involved in this interactive game.

The Shock of Recognition?

2006-05-06T08:15:00.000-07:00

Oops. You weren't supposed to shoot her, Mike. She's one of them.

1-877-HANSORG

2006-05-04T08:15:00.000-07:00

So somehow, despite the fact that we here at 815 are nerdy enough to maintain a blog about Lost, we missed the fact that the producers have been hyping up and now unveiled a new interactive puzzle/game.

The first clue was revealed last night in the form of a Hanso Foundation commercial that ran during the broadcast. The TV was on mute up here at HQ, but we caught the phone #, which doesn't seem to work, but supposedly reveals a password that one (if one is so geekily inclined) may use to access some kind of secret virtual reality Davinici Code riddle over at the revamped and heavily flashified Hanso Foundation website.

~~Obsess.~~Enjoy.

2006-05-03T20:15:00.000-07:00

Lindleof and Cuse claim the bumping off of Rodriguez' and Watros' characters was planned from the beginning and had nothing to do with the two actresses' recent DWI arrests. I don't know if I believe them.

And if, in fact, cast-members are being punished for their unsavory late-night extracurricular activities, it seems only fair that Evangeline Lily receive some sort of censure for screwing the Hobbit.

Shook Ones

2006-04-26T20:15:00.000-07:00

In case you're wandering around the water-cooler, unawares, wondering why there's so many gotdamn re-runs (or re-hashes in tonight's case) of Lost these days, it's because they're dodging and ducking, scared to go up against new episodes of American Idol.

The Watchmen Theory

2006-04-13T20:15:00.000-07:00

Whatchuknowaboudat?

No Scrap Paper?

2006-04-13T08:15:00.000-07:00

SUR LES DÉBUTS DE MESDEMOISELLES RACHEL ET PAULINE GARCIA

Ainsi donc, quoi qu'on dise, elle ne tarit pas,

La source immortelle et féconde

Que le coursier divin fit jaillir sous ses pas;
Elle existe toujours, cette sève du monde,
Elle coule, et les dieux sont encore ici-bas!

A quoi nous servent donc tant de luttes frivoles,
Tant d'efforts toujours vains et toujours renaissants?
Un chaos si pompeux d'inutiles paroles,

Et tant marteaux impuissants
Frappant les anciennes idoles?

Discourons sur les arts, faisons les connaisseurs;

Nous aurons beau changer d'erreurs
Comme un libertin de maîtresse,

Les lilas au printemps seront toujours en fleurs,
Et les arts immortels rajeuniront sans cesse.

Discutons nos travers, nos rêves et nos goûts,
Comparons à loisir le moderne et l'antique,

Et ferraillons sous ces drapeaux jaloux!

Quand nous serons au bout de notre rhétorique,
Deux enfants nés d'hier en sauront plus que nous.

Ô jeunes coeurs remplis d'antique poésie,
Soyez les bienvenus, enfants chéris des dieux
Vous avez le même âge et le même génie.

La douce clarté soit bénie
Que vous ramenez dans nos yeux!

Allez! que le bonheur vous suive!

Ce n'est pas du hasard un caprice inconstant

Qui vous fit naître au même instant.

Votre mère ici-bas, c'est la Muse attentive
Qui sur le feu sacré veille éternellement.

Obéissez sans crainte au dieu qui vous inspire.
Ignorez, s'il se peut, que nous parlons de vous.
Ces plaintes, ces accords, ces pleurs, ce doux sourire,

Tous vos trésors, donnez-les-nous
Chantez enfants, laissez-nous dire.

-Alfred de Musset, 1839

Ay-oh. Oh-ay.

2006-04-12T20:15:00.000-07:00

I really don't give a shit if Jack and Kate end up making out or not, but this whole pattern of having...

a) a strobe-lite appear
b) Michael run out of the jungle
c) Mona start making out with the postman...

every time they they're about to mug down is getting pretty silly.

Who's the head bull-goose loony around here?

2006-04-08T08:15:00.000-07:00

That was subtle.

Hurley Episode...

2006-04-05T20:15:00.000-07:00

Watch

Out

For

the

Big

~~Girl~~

Guy!

Keepin' It Real?

2006-04-01T08:15:00.000-08:00

Les' hatch comes complete with Cosby sweaters!

For all his faults (trust-issues, smug holier-than-thouness, not immediately spittin' game at fly-ass Nadia when she said she was single, inability to consider crawling through the vents before he got his legs mangled trying to go under the blast door, etc...), John Locke is my kinda dude. Who can argue with Les McCann as a "desert island disc"?

Les McCann & Eddie Harris - Real, Compared to What?

Bonus Killin' Chris' Bandwidth Versions:
Roberta Flack - Real, Compared to What?

Della Reese - Real, Compared to What?

Re-up!

2006-03-31T08:15:00.000-08:00

Life imitates Lost, either that or Eko's back in the game...

Wow.

2006-03-30T08:15:00.000-08:00

Click pic for ~~Star Trek level geekery~~ extensive annotation...

I can't believe how fast somebody was able to churn this out. Looks like maybe folks haven't given up on the show after all.

Edit: Here's another.

Sweet Blacklight

2006-03-29T20:15:00.000-08:00

Dude.

Old enough to know better...

2006-03-28T20:15:00.000-08:00

Wow. It’s been a while, huh? Chalk it up to mama-infused manners, because there just hasn’t been a whole lot nice to say since we stopped giving a shit about Lost.

As if the interminable breaks between new episodes weren’t enough, the writers had to go and fall the fuck off, becoming seemingly incapable of stringing two decent episodes together in a row. Seriously, that Sawyer episode? Might as well have been peeled off the cutting room floor over in the basement of whatever YMCA men’s shelter they make JAG C.I.S.

Anyway, though, the only thing nerdier than a blog about a television show is a bitchy blog about a television show, so enough of all that.

So the Lost–centered email trains have trailed off. The episode-night beer-swigging, takeout-ordering get-togethers seem more effort than they’re worth. Even the guilt-ridden furtive forays to into the dirty, dirty world of Lost message-boards have stopped.

Not that we’ve given up altogether. We did rather enjoy watching Sun and Jin slither around in various states of undress, not to mention speculating about Sun’s suspicious pregnancy—I say if it’s that other Korean guy’s kid she should keep her mouth shut, if it’s Michael’s she might ought to say something to Jin.

Even if this week’s episode sucks, stayed tuned over here, I actually went out of my way to read a couple of the supposedly portentous books none-too-subtly displayed throughout the show (hey, whadayaknow, there actually is something nerdier than bitching about a TV show on your blog), and a report on a few of them soon come.

Pushin' Too Hard

2006-03-24T20:15:00.000-08:00

Add one more to your list of known records on the hatch shelves. Locke was jammin' a little psychedelic garage rock, "Pushin' Too Hard" by the Seeds.

Hatch stacks run deep.

Dork Fodder

2006-02-15T20:15:00.000-08:00

Finger? (Blank.) Bomb? Bird? Divining Rod?

Somebody help me out with this. Back in college I got a 'D' in "Introduction to Mayan Hieroglyphic Writing."

Of course if the glyphs are Egyptian that's a whole 'nother story.

Die!

2006-02-08T20:15:00.000-08:00

This is a good read.

Might as well face it...

2006-02-06T20:15:00.000-08:00

~~Skeet~~ Click on Mischa for 3 min promo clip.

"Looking For Clues" (featuring Gary Numan and Chris Frantz) would have been my choice for a Robert Palmer track to edit a LOST highlight montage to, but, you know, whatever. This is not something I'm gonna lose a lot of sleep over.

In case you missed it.

2006-01-31T20:15:00.000-08:00

I didn't notice this the first time around (perhaps it was only visible on HD?) but the good and tech-savvy folks over at Lost Research have uncovered a hidden little something something at the beginning of one of Charlie's lamely executed and decidedly not mind-blowing dream sequences (video here).

Is it too much to ask that next time we have a "psychedelic dream sequence" we get someone who's actually done psychedelics to design the damn thing? At least call in a consultant. I'm pretty sure Aaron Sorkin has some free time on his hands.

Zig Zagging Our Way Through The Boredom and Pain

2006-01-29T20:15:00.000-08:00

Perhaps you were too busy throwing up in your mouth a little bit to notice the background architecture immediately after the Driveshaft diaper commercial scene, but check it out*...

Awesome.

"Pigs on the Wing (Part 1)" - Pink Floyd

*While you're at it, try to decipher what that sign on the building says.

Jack = Abner Doubleday?

2006-01-25T20:15:00.000-08:00

Opening engagement in an island war tonight? We'll see.

DITC

2006-01-23T20:15:00.000-08:00

This LOST shit is deep. Or not.

In a move clearly designed as a direct message to yours truly, the music-nerd staff of this here Flight815 blog, last week's "The Hunting Party" episode featured a scene with two dorky guys listening to records and talking (rather pathetically, mind you) about girls.

So we've been called out, that's obvious, but in typical LOST fashion the message is cryptic if not downright incomprehensible. Let's examine what we do know.

The LPs:

Geronimo Jackson - Macna Carta
This fictional record by a fictional hippie looking band with an apparent penchant for fuzzy photographs and stupid fonts appears to be nothing more than a red-herring. (It's a good name, though. Geronimo, of course was the badass Apache warrior who fought and evaded the US Army--led by a notorious sadist who would later be on the $20 dollar bill, Andrew Jackson--for years upon years in the mountains that now make up the Gila National Wilderness. It's also suspiciously close to the names of Clyde Geronimi and Wilfrid Jackson, the two gentlemen who directed ABC parent-company Disney's "Alice in Wonderland" and "Peter Pan," both possible LOST inspirations.)

Pousette-Dart Band - Amnesia
Hmm. A reltively obscure 1977 record from a forgotton and pretty terrible AOR/MOR countryish light-rock band. The "depressing" song played was "Fall on Me." (YouSendIt link because there's no way we're wasting bandwidth on this pap.)

Ooklah the Moc - (title unknown)
Contemporary Hawaiian reggae named after the wookie-looking dude on 1980s Saturday morning cartoon Thundarr the Barbarian. These guys started off as a reggae/hardcore band a la Bad Brains, but (no pop, no style) are now Strictly Roots in a Steel Pulse sort of fashion.

Those were the only records we've been able to indentify so far. There were also a couple of covers that somebody ought to be able to identify, a sleeve with the words "???? to the world" and another featuring a photograph of some androgynous looking somebody, along with what appeared to be a LaFace 12" sleeve (the record inside, however, had a red label with yellow print. ARC? Columbia?)

The conclusion one must draw from these obscure titles could not be more obvious; it's a backhand to the grill. These records don't mean anything. We can draw no conclusions about D.H.A.R.M.A. aesthetic values from this stack of dusty grooves. They aren't clues, they're whatever crap some AD dug up at some Hawaiian AmVets or Salvation Army, common dollar bin bullshit.

What a tease. If the fact that there's a local Hawaiian reggae band among the unimpressive bunch wasn't proof enough, the hole in the corner of the Amnesia cover ought to seal it.

Pousette Dart Band? Come now, really? I'm a Seals & Croft fan. I think Fairport Convention kick ass. Hell, I even ----- with some James Taylor on occasion. Pousette-Dart band? I'm not trying to hear that.

A name.

2006-01-21T08:15:00.000-08:00

Walt's kidnapper, the mysterious and bearded* Other, has made another appearance, this time brandishing a luger and quoting Alvar Hanso and lecturing Jack about letting dudes handle his rare LPs, and we just don't know what to think. Did one of his shadowy buddies shoot Sawyer with a dart or is he actually bullet-proof? Was it badass or tribal council-esque when he yelled, "light 'em up!" and all his folks lit their torches? If he's really a scientist how come he talks like an Arkansas pig farmer? What's his name anyway?

Below are the possibilities we have compiled so far in answer to that final question, feel free to add your own:

Zeke
Gerald Degroot
Boatnapper
Boatbilly
Seabilly
Beardo
Kurtz
Ruppert from Survivor
The Other Allman Brother
Lynyrd Skynyrd's Weed Carrier
Will Oldham's Fat Bootleg Cousin
Jake Plummer
Oliver Reed as Vulcan in "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen"
Catfish

*More information on beards available here.

2006-01-17T20:15:00.000-08:00

The song Charlie was singing to at Jin in last week's episode (as Jin toiled away catching dinner in the surf) was a Kinks tune called "He's Evil," all about a smooth talking, con-man, pickup-artist type who is, underneath all that slick, actually evil. An intriguing thought, no? Who could Charlie be singing about? You know what I think, but the possibilities are as endless as the list of male cast-members.

We'd love to share the tune with you, in convenient mp3 format and everything, except for one small problem; it sucks. Ray Davies wrote dozens and dozens of great songs, but he churned out quite a few stinkers as well, and "He's Evil" is down there with the worst of them, Bad Saxophone Solo and all.

Don't fret though, dear reader, we've got something else for that ass, a Kinks song that is actually good. Really good. It's apropos too, being a melancholy yet rousing lament about an airplane (or perhaps it's a spaceship?) flight with an unknown destination. It even begins with trippy jet sounds!

"This Time Tomorrow" - The Kinks

In the Shade of the Qur'an?

2006-01-14T20:15:00.000-08:00

From Flight815 Mistress of Information, J-Shep, the Griff to our Chuck and Flav and X*, comes an intriguing suggestion about the name "Sayid." She points out that the character Sayid shares a name (minus one sometimes vowel) with one Sayyid Qutb, "the founder of radical Islamic fundamentalism as we know it."

Qutb was radicalised back in the 50s by, among other factors, his attendance in the USA of what he considered a sexually perverse "sock hop," which is a silly and quite prudish reason to formulate a world-view, and his torture at the hands of Nasser's CIA-trained Egyptian prison guards (according to some, at one point they covered him in animal fat and sicced a dog on him), which is a good deal more understandable.

The question is, is our Sayid's name in reference to this man, the mentor of Osama Bin Laden's mentor, or is it merely a coincidence? Why not Sharif? How about Malik or Mohammed, Yusuf or Abdul, Talib or Tariq, Kareem or Khalid? Perhaps it's giving LOST writers too much credit to assume they had a relatively obscure 30 year old Arab political reference in mind when naming their ex-Iraqi Republican Guard/almost suicide bomber/CIA snitch with a thing for anorexic blondes character, but perhaps not.

We can hope, at least. A good dose of old-fashioned anti-American political intrigue would be a nice balance to the new-age fruitiness of the "ghost smoke," and somebody has got to offer a counterpoint to all the bible thumping that's been going on of late. A radical Islamist might be just the guy.

*Shoklee's jersey, unfortunately, remains retired.

Stone Cold Badass

2006-01-12T20:15:00.000-08:00

While last night's LOST assuredly got the fanbois and gulls going nuts about that long, hard, long overdue look at "the smoke" (and the images contained therein,) we here at Flight815 headquarters are all atwitter about Mr. Eko's "City of God"-esque backstory.

Hard. As. Fuck.

With its dusty, sunwashed vistas, sudden and shocking violence, and Adebisi's giant, swaggering, slow-burning presence, this was clearly the most interesting backstory we've gotten yet. Give us a few more lines like, "You live in a world where rightousness and evil are very far apart... that is not the real world," and we'd be happy if the rest of the season was just further adventures of Eko the murderous Nigerian warlord.

So many questions remain. How did he rise from over-grown young punk to HNIC? Did his brother really have to snitch to the army? Where was that heroin going? Did I really just write HNIC? How'd his gunmen get the balls to to kick Eko out the plane? How'd that plane get from Nigeria to The Island, and did Eko know it was the same place? And finally, how come he abandoned those dapper-ass braids?

Who wants to help us lobby for a spin-off?

Bun B Loves LOST!

2006-01-09T20:15:00.000-08:00

First track on the highly essential Houston for Dummies Mix CD from DJs Ayres and JD is an introductory drop from legendary TEXAS lyrical don Bun B. On it he expresses his fondness for the television series LOST, the very subject of this here blog!

We whole-heartedly recommend you go ahead and buy the CD (seriously), but just to whet your whistle, here's a transcript of Bun's words:

This your boy Bun B reppin' UGK for life. Free Pimp C*, baby, and you know we gettin' it in for you square L sumthin' never been nowhere hidin' under a rock on an island like LOST motherfuckers...

He goes on to further extoll the virtues of Ayres and JD's fine compilation, and then Tony Montana comes in via sample on the Geto Boys "Balls and My Word," and that's that.

So maybe it's not exactly a pledge of undying love and devotion, but if we were JJ and Lindleoff and them we'd be honored just to have our name in the big guy's mouth.

Tantalizingly, and in addition to being an excuse for us to hype a dope CD, this raises the face-melting possibility of a heretofore entirely unheard of meaning to the phrase "draped up and dripped out."

*Done.

Dharma jingle!

2006-01-08T08:15:00.000-08:00

While rewatching season 2 -- sad, I know, but this is what we've resorted to -- I noticed an interesting piece of score trivia. Check out the mp3 below to hear the score from the closing shot of season 1 (with Jacke & Locke peering down into the hatch) and the music from the intro to the Dharma orientation film.

2 more days...

Right-click/save as for sound comparison mp3.

Say what?

2006-01-07T08:15:00.000-08:00

We're reeling here. This is shocking on so many levels.

Apparently Sayid aka Naveen Andrews, while seperated from his longtime girlfriend, fathered a love-child. Not such a big deal, right? Naveen's a sultry, strapping brother, and he's probably still cashing in weepy groupie residuals off that whole "English Patient" thing. Just, you know, wrap it up next time, dude.

Here's the shocker; the longtime girlfriend he was stepping out on was Barbara Hershey. Who? Barbara Hershey.

You might remember her (if you can get past the image of David Carradine's bulbous nutsack) as the sexy-dangerous title character in "Boxcar Bertha," Martin Scorsese's first movie. Way back in 1973. If perhaps that is a little before your time (Chris) you might remember her in "The Right Stuff," or "The Natural," or "Hoosiers," or a bunch of other stuff from a long, long time ago.

So Naveen likes his women on the experienced side . She's 57. He's 36. Although, in all fairness, more than just well preserved, she still looks pretty hot.

So whatever. It really ain't no thing. It's not nearly as weird as this...

What's going on here, a Mystery Island Ren Fair? Are they selling giant turkey legs? Will Locke run around tossing little foam balls at Eko while yelling, "Spell! Spell! Lightning bolt!"?

Dude.

2006-01-03T20:15:00.000-08:00

How long has it been? What's this blog about again?

Seriously, when the people nerdy enough to devote their time and energy to an intertron weblog about a television show actually forget what happened last in said show and aren't sure if they even care it's safe to say you've lost momentum.

Word is LOST execs are panicking over rumors that a guy from one of the many messageboards even went on a date! (In actuality, he sat at home and got totally into "Sleeper Cell" on FX, but he did read Neil Strauss' The Game, which is a start and still has the suits sweating.)

Back to the topic at hand, though, which is... right... LOST. Not that much has happened since that magical November night five weeks ago when Kate's My Little Pony ushered us into these December doldrums.

There is supposedly some kind of website out there where you can get emails from and even chat with Doctor Marvin Candle, but, sorry Doc, we’ve got football games to get hype for.

LOST and its expansive cast were the recipients of many a year-end award (and a couple of other citations,) but strangely, and despite our consistently superior performance in all facets of the bullshitting on the internet game--not to mention the all-powerful presence of phantom member Jon C--yours truly at Flight815 were summarily ignored when it came to 2005 kudos. For shame, arbiters of arbiters of cool, for shame.

Don't leave me in the back of this car, papi.

2005-12-22T20:15:00.000-08:00

You know you done fucked up, don't you?

I originally posted up about the M-Rod/Cynthia Watros (C-Wat?) DWI thing not because I thought it was a big deal, but because I'm secretly fascinated by the whole party-hardy, Hawaiian-island, hotshit-celebrity lifestyle, and because, frankly, those mugshots are mesmerizing.

Turns out, though, this story might have legs. First came word that Michelle, nobody's belle, threw a little tantrum upon her arrest.

"Why don't you just put a gun to my head and shoot me! You've already taken my freedom! You might as well take my life too!" she is purported to have told her arresting officers, and one can only dream that she delivered this fiery melodramatic spiel with the same dull, wooden demeanor she uses on-screen when she's "acting" similar "emotions."

Now comes word that this is Rodriguez' second DUI, and if convicted she could face actual jail-time. Some crappy magazine I've never read speculates that this could mean some serious re-writes of upcoming Lost episodes, which seems unlikely, seeing as how she's a wealthy Hollywood celebrity and ought to be able to afford the ~~slimiest~~finest in legal counsel and avoid the long arm of the law, but you never know.

You never know...

Something! Anything! I guess...

2005-12-18T08:15:00.000-08:00

I'm not even sure where this picture comes from, let alone whether or not it's legitimate, but shit, you got anything else Lost-related going on right now?

Me neither.

Neither do I know what the hell any of it is supposed to mean.

Playing cards corresponding to the numbers. A Dharma logo with the intials of our principal characters strategically scrawled on. A toy soldier. A bullet. $8.25. What's left of one of those Apple IIs from the hatch. A baby photo. Some dude's photo (Hanso?). Letters I'm too lazy to read. A compass. A microchip. Dogtags. Those damn books. Is that Desmond's bag? Is this all his crap? Shouldn't you be working?

When is the next episode already?

815 A shitload of links in lieu of more Lost.

2005-12-06T20:15:00.000-08:00

Drop in on the (newly expanded) cast of geniuses over at ~~Skitatime~~ Freedarko.com for the kind of NBA hoops discussion you might hear while sitting courtside at a Knicks game and eaves-dropping on a drunken debate between Spike Lee, Hov, and... oh, I dunno... Jacques Derrida?
~~Bug Chris for~~ Download that December Catchdubs mix.
Watch Vince Young and the Texas Longhorns get crunk on Reggie Bush and the USC ~~Jimmy Hats~~ Trojans for the MNC of college football in the Rose Bowl on January 4th.
Get warmed up for that by watching this VY 2005 highlight video (towards the bottom of the page). Enough clips to last through "Hell's Bells" plus two Andrew WK songs? That's a whole lot of awesome.
Reggie's got highlights too. Jesus fucking Chirst. Don't forget to check out Leinart's block at the 20 sec mark.
Haven't gotten enough football yet? Read this NYTimes magazine profile of eccentric genius Texas Tech coach Mike Leach. My nominee for sports journalism piece of the year.
Watch Steve Nash be way more coordinated than you.
Watch Shawn Kemp be the second greatest dunker of all-time.
Speaking of basketball, this guy is unstoppable!
Go read a book you illiterate son of a bitch and step up your vocab.
Still here? Watch the most absurd "rap" video of all time.
Read (or, better yet, hit me up with an mp3 of) the greatest baseball play-call of all time. Poetry.
Check out these graffiti artists taking over a crowded train right on the subway platform.
Like your graffiti art a little more on the conceptual side?
Nerd out in the dark, disturbing world of Lost internet messageboards and peruse this "ultimate Lost theory."
Like theories? You LOST fanatics are gonna love this; we did not land on the moon!
Speaking of moon loonies, watch badass Buzz Aldrin clock one of these fools. Quoth Buzz, "Get my name out your mouth, bitch!"
Get Crunk one more time.

Zanzibar.

2005-12-04T08:15:00.000-08:00

New clues on the Hanso Foundation website. Click on Alvar's picture.

Too Much Jack's Tequila...

2005-12-02T20:15:00.000-08:00

...too little tonic. (mugshots jacked from The Smoking Gun)

Ok, guys, seriously, next time there's a LOST Christmas party, the 815 staff would appreciate an invite. I'll even go ahead and volunteer Chris to be the designated driver, 'cause that's just the kind of dude I am.

Sayid TV

2005-12-02T08:15:00.000-08:00

Much like Hurley's rotund ass made it onto Korean television during Jin's Season 1 flashback, Sayid was on TV in the US Army recruiting office Kate dipped into to see her "dad."

Cool, I guess. The swarthy and hirsute (yet sexy!) are criminally underrepresented in the media, so any facetime is a good look. Narratively, though, it doesn't make a lot of sense. What channel are they watching, some sort of closed-circuit Pentagon torture feed?

Is that how LOST thinks they get our best and brightest to sign their lives away on that dotted line? Shouldn't they be watching dudes rock-climbing, jumping out of airplanes, and returning home to sneer condescendingly at their wimpy, loser, friends?

2005-12-01T08:15:00.000-08:00

January 11th, 2006. Six weeks. 40 days. Here's another country classic to help you through the dark, frigid, LOST-less days. Stay strong.

"If We Make It Through December" - Merle Haggard

So far away.

2005-11-30T21:29:00.000-08:00

EIGHT-ONE-LIVE!

2005-11-30T20:15:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the delay - had to find a suitably dorky picture via Google Image Search to represent us herbs (minus Caramanica) sitting around with laptops and blogging about a TV show.

9:00pm: No homo, but damn, Jin is a buff motherfucker. I mean, how did he get those killer pecs while he's stranded on a mysteri-- ohhh, we get it. He's been doing push-up's on Sun since he got back.

9:04pm: Babylon - "The house is gonna blow up."
9:05pm: House blows up.

9:10pm: Nice musical selection, Nina Gordon's "End of the World," in Kate's mama's seedy diner.

9:13pm: No-one bothered to dress up for Shannon's funeral, but at least Sayid got a jheri-curl.

9:14pm: More country classics, this a Patsy Cline reprise. Did the producers make a late-night television purchase of a Time-Life boxset?

9:20pm: Either Charlie's strung out, or he would be the worst grief counselor ever.

9:23pm: We're hoping that, after the movie, Eko & Michael & Locke stay up all night drinking cocoa with mini marshmallows and arguing over who's the cutest, Jack or Sawyer... or Bernard.

9:25pm: I can hardly believe it, but the panel here is telling me that's the first time Jack & Kate have kissed in the whole series. Maybe it's because they've been eye-fucking for like 30 episodes.

9:30pm: Eko's reaction to the film; another 40 days of silence. If he'd said he wanted to watch it again Locke probably would have tongue-kissed him.

9:40pm: Great, Eko's a Jehovah's Witne... Wait! Sweet! "Dharma Vid. 2, The Quickening."

9:46pm: Hugo "Jokesalot" Reyes, meta-commentator of Lost and speaker of our unspeakable racial stereotypes. 'Tis the season of jolly fat men, and Mystery Island makes no exceptions.

9:50pm: Odds aren't looking great that we'll get to see Eko's film tonight.

9:53pm: Sawyer is, apparently, some kind of weird Hate Vampire who feeds off the vitriol of others.

10:01pm: There is much rejoicing in the 815 camp at this moment. The fact that the producers decided to leave us with the missing scene from the film, and not corny-ass Kate petting a horse, or corny-ass alcoholic Jack on the rocks, means a lot to us. Beautiful.

10:03pm: GODDAMNIT. ARGH.

And now we wait.

Until January 11th, 2006.

Fuck.

Guess we'll go read "The Black Stallion" now.

Guilty... of Being Hot

2005-11-29T20:15:00.000-08:00

I will pray for that too...

Dear ~~Lord~~ Lindleoff,
I don't need to learn a damn thing about the numbers or the Dharma Initiative or Desmond or the Others or the monster or even the polar bears, but is it too much to ask that "What Kate Did" involve leather, near-nudity, mud-wrestling and/or a tub of hot oil? I mean, that makes sense right? That fits into this "character-driven" mystery drama, does it not? She's obviously a very naughty girl...

Seriously, I know they promised "illuminating," but Kate's flashbacks better be exciting too, because I don't know how much I can take of E Lily and what's-his-name-that-plays-Sawyer grunting out flirtatious verbal barbs in between his moans and groans and septic death rattles.

Ding.

2005-11-26T20:15:00.000-08:00

The folks over at The Tail Section done it again: check out the American and Canadian versions of the promos for next week's episode, "What Kate Did," and see why our neighbors to the North got it better than us... you know, like, aside from the health care and less tyrannical government. Careful of spoilers in the Canuck one, though...

Apologies for my lack of posts lately: spent the last week eating turkey and re-watching Season 1 (and the so-far of Season 2) in an attempt to rediscover my true feelings for Lost in these most trying times.

The blossoming friendship between my two favorite characters could do the trick...

T+1

2005-11-25T08:15:00.000-08:00

So this Aggie pledge-ritual field-trip crash lands on a desert island. Utilizing their exhaustive stores or agriculture know-how and plain old gumption, they set up camp and go on with all the traditional rituals and hazing.

The first night, around the campfire after dinner as the fellas all cuddled up with their girlfriends (see above), one strapping young lad stood up and yelled, "4!"

Everyone erupted in laughter.

The laughter died down and another corn-fed young man arose.

"8!" he yelled, and this time the laughter was uproarious.

When those guffaws had finally died down, yet another young man stood up, the fire of meat-judging ablaze in his eyes.

"How about this one... 15!" he shouted and the crowd lost it. Rolling in the sand, gasping for air, slapping their knees.

"15! No he didn't! Aww man... 15."

"16!" someone else hollered. "23!"

The laughter was uproarious

One young freshman--a sweet, simple lad--didn't get it.

"What the hey's going on here?" he finally asked. "why y'all keep yelling out numbers and then everybody's crackin' up?"

An older guy pulled himself away from his wooly lady friend and took the confused young man aside.

"It's an Aggie joke book," he informed. "We all know the book so well that we just yell out page numbers, and everybody knows the joke."

"Oh, alright, I get it!" the young fella beamed. "Watch this!"

"42!" He yelled at the top of his lungs.

Silence. Not a sound but the crickets chirping in the jungle and the waves crashing on the beach.

"I don't understand," he asked. "What happened?"

"Don't know what to tell ya, man," the older fella consoled, shaking his head. "Some folks just can't tell a joke."

2005-11-23T20:15:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. See you soon.

Funky Meters ft. the JB Horns - "Pass the Peas"

Sike. Eyeball.

2005-11-21T20:15:00.000-08:00

Tensions have subsided over here in the dungeon of 815 World HQ, and we're now okay with the whole glass eye thing.

Sure there are a ton of other unanswered questions floating about--we've seen neither the black smoke, the black rock, nor the hatch and it's mysterious "Chernobyl"-like wall in a while, and I think the monster may have been cut from the cast for conduct unbecoming a murderous yet camera-shy dinosaur--but we are merely passengers on this here ride, and if those that are in charge need to, unnanounced and unexplained, throw out there another ------- weird-ass twist for everyone to obsess over, so be it.

Namaste.

In this spirit of forgiveness and acceptance, we've done a little detective work and, in a surely fruitless attempt to figure out exactly who might be the unlucky owner of the no longer offending prosthetic, put together a dossier of sorts.

The suspects:

The Boatnappers. Despite the fact that all visual evidence would indicate otherwise, they're, like, pirates. I mean, c'mon, one of 'em's gotta have an eyepatch.

Locke. Not only does he have a scar around one of his eyes, but our serenely creepy island guru was actually once seen wearing two glass eyes. Sure it was in a dream, but so was Freddy, and he's your boyfriend now.

Dr. Marvin Candle. Much has been made of the good Doctor's oddly limp arm, but check out dude's cock-eye. Huh?

Jin's father-in-law. Again with the cock-eye. That can't be natural. What's up with that?

The grease-truck dude Sawyer killed down under. Does anyone on this show have two working eyes?

Also suspect are those Nigerian drug runners in the plane that fell on Boone. I couldn't find a screencap of them, but I can totally imagine one of their gaping skulls sporting an eye-patch. Their Priest get-ups might explain the bible too.

Correct me if I'm wrong here. I'm not over-thinking this am I?

Sports Guy

2005-11-19T08:15:00.000-08:00

So what if he doesn't know Diamond D from the Mighty Diamonds, you gotta love Bill Simmons for dropping jewels like this into a NFL "Contenders and Pretenders" column...

Remember in "Lost" this week, when Ana Lucia climbed the mountain with the dude holding the radio, and it seemed like they were having a casual conversation, only she was sizing him up the whole time because she thought he might be one of The Others, and there was that weird intensity in her eyes, like she was trying to remain cool, only deep down, she was waiting for the guy to pounce on her so she could stab him ... and it just went on like that for about two minutes before they finally started fighting? Riveting scene, right?
Well, that's every Cowboys fan dealing with Drew Bledsoe right now. Stick a camera on a Cowboys fan when Bledsoe goes back to pass in a close game, and I guarantee they have the Ana Lucia Face going. Everything seems casual. But it's not.

Now, Bill, just stop telling us how the Smashing Pumpkins were as good as Nirvana, and we'll be straight.

Original Sufferhead

2005-11-18T20:15:00.000-08:00

Found a screencap of our good man Eko's cryptic stick. Blew it up and flipped it.

"...I WILL LORD E..." is all I can make out.

Except for this appropriately named Fela track, that's all I've got...

Fela Kuti - "Eko Ile I"

Anybody else?

There is something I have to do.

2005-11-17T08:15:00.000-08:00

There's too much going on.

While something tells me that I could only be truly happy if Lost was running a 365-episode schedule, the current 24 already seem insufficient. We're only 7 deep, and already there are plots being stacked upon plots, more than could ever possibly be resolved by the spring. At least in the first season, there was a glimmer of hope that we'd know the score. Now, through interviews and intuition, we know that the creators are prepared to let the show run for 10 seasons if the ratings keep up.

The reason I mention all this? The glass eye. I mean, c'mon. Assholes.

With the Hatch out of the picture for the time being -- though the preview shows that we'll be down there next week -- and Locke being relegated to the role of Charlie's Keeper, my fascination has turned to Echo. 815's early posts document the staff's fascination with the man formerly known as Adebisi pretty well; he's just got that presence. Some Echo-centric observations from last night:

- The Others wanted Echo! Obviously, we've seen him to be a stand-up guy, but what do they know about him that makes him "good?"

- We couldn't see what the man was carving into his whuppin' stick, but it's obviously of some import.

- Motherfucker didn't talk for 40 days! How gully is that!? Kinda biblical, too, along with Echo in the white shirt pulling bodies from the water.

Oh, and the 'extended episode' was a sham. Who thought of that shit? Juve?

Rolling Numbers

2005-11-16T08:15:00.000-08:00

Not quite, but there aren't (that I'm aware of) any classic 70s rock LPs called "We Finally Find Out What Happened to the Other Side of the Plane Tonight."

You get the point.

Let the Sunshine In

2005-11-14T20:15:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the dedicated work of folks like those at thetailsection.com, where I grabbed the above screencap that clearly(?) shows a stab wound on Shannon's anorexic little belly, the Ana-didn't-shoot-her movement is steady gaining legitimacy.

Besides, Ana couldn't have done it...
What follows is technically a Spoiler, but I saw the pic in the Daily News last week, so it's hardly top secret. Once again, hi-lite the invisible text...
If you growed up the way she did, you gotsta understand, Ana love da kids...

See?

Clarification, in case you missed it.

Dan Rule Draws

2005-11-14T08:15:00.000-08:00

Some guy named Dan lives in Japan and posts selections from his sketch-book up on the interwebs for our enjoyment. He did the above drawing in response to a Lost DVD marathon. Thanks, Dan.

Art Forms of Nature

2005-11-11T20:15:00.000-08:00

Bigspaceship1 finally updated, and the new look is a painting of a cool little Dharma-shaped creature which links to a website dedicated to the Natural Selection/Eugenics work of some Nazi-fave crackpot biologist, Ernst Haeckel. Fascinating stuff. The paintings are gorgeous. Here it is in English.

EDIT: It looks as if Bigspaceship1 is back to its old changing-up-the-steez-every-couple-of-hours tricks. It's now taking me here, to a propaganda painting of some snow-bound miners, part of a series entitled "Nationalistic Themes in the Art of North Korea."

Lots of Love-making But No Love

2005-11-11T08:15:00.000-08:00

Some new info has popped up over at thehansofoundation.org. Clicking on Life-Extension Project now brings up a letter about a 105 year old talking orangutan named ~~Cornelius~~ Joop.

The last line of the letter is a link to a page with some garbled text, two buttons, and a password prompt. I tried a few obvious ones, and "815" took me back to the Hanso Foundation homepage.

Anybody find anything else? What's up with that other button?

Sayid: Wrath of God

2005-11-10T20:15:00.000-08:00

Damn. Sayid's about to get all Republican Guard on Ana and them tailies like they're some Kurdish villagers. Is there a worse person on the island to piss off than the professionally trained sadist?

What really happened, though? Why the Hell would Ana shoot a hysterical screaming blonde running through the brush with all the grace (Martha Graham, my ass) of a drunken buffalo? That's not the others' style. Ana seems like she knows how to handle a piece, and she certainly doesn't seem like the shook type. Anybody else think somebody else got Shannon, and Ana actually shot her attacker?

Is Sayid about to go jihad on the wrong infidel?

Poor fellow, I feel sorry for the guy. As soon as his "English Patient"-honed charms finally bedded his lady, she makes him get her a glass of water, sees a ghost, runs off in the jungle, refuses to shut the fuck up despite clear instructions to do so, and then gets shot. I just hope he doesn't hold her behavior against all blondes.

Anyway, here's Walt's backwards talk if you're interested.

Lil Drippy - "They're Coming and They're Close (Hearsed and Reversed Rewind Version)"

2005-11-09T08:15:00.000-08:00

Thank You M'am

2005-11-07T20:15:00.000-08:00

Allright y'all. No more silly jokes and Trading Spouses videos; this actually is a spoiler, although a relatively minor one. Basically it gives a sneak peak at the former career of a previously unflashback-ified character. I don't think it reveals a whole lot about any ongoing mysteries, but it's pretty damn grown and sexy.

Hi-lite the invisible text...
M-Rod's a cop. Yikes. I don't think there's ever a good time to make an Abner Louima joke, but oh the things that woman could do...
and click away.

Dot Dash

2005-11-04T08:15:00.000-08:00

Bigspaceship1 step your game up! Almonds can't touch the legendary pink (green?) dots.

Lots of People Talking...

2005-11-03T08:15:00.000-08:00

Possible Spoiler Alert!

Dunno why Herr Lemon hasn't posted this up yet, since he hooked me up with it last night, but anyway.

Rumor has it this is a deleted scene from last season (just watch, you'll see why) and if so it sheds quite a bit of light on some of the show's underdiscussed themes, from domestic disharmony to the possible presence of demons and their minions walking among us.

You have to see this to believe it.

Smoke Dog Baby

2005-10-28T08:15:00.000-07:00

Lack of new episodes to prattle on about has reduced us to that most desperate of blogger tactics, posting animated gifs.

Cool innit? Yerp. What's the general consensus about this smoke stuff, anyway? Poison cloud? Swarms of nano-bots? Noxious fumes from the french lady's unkempt bunker?

Nano-bots are awesome, but you'd think that if some genius was capable of developing something as badass as that, they could get them to do something besides flying around and uprooting foliage.

Going way back now, what's going on here?

Is that an early version of the smoke, before the producers fully nailed down the idea, or is it something else entirely? It looks like a turbo-charged magic-destructo-carpet to me, but I'm having a hard time fitting that into what we know so far of the narrative.

Vincent Invasion

2005-10-25T20:15:00.000-07:00

Here's hoping this three week hiatus is being used to fine-tune the special effects and animatronic talking faces and whatnot on the much-anticipated (and dare-I-say essential) "Vincent Is A Dog; One You Do Trust" episode we have all been so patiently waiting for.

Seriously, lets do this.

More Internet Crap

2005-10-23T08:15:00.000-07:00

A "new" Hanso film has surfaced, you can check it out here. If you believe it, it seems to reveal the rest of the Dharma logos along with a bunch of cryptic scientific jargon about what the different projects do.

Despite some obvious mistakes (two station #5s,) if it's a fake, it's a good one.

I'm inclined to believe that at least some of these unverifiable internet clues are legitimate (or legitimate red herrings, at least.) The writers would have to be stupid--and they aren't--not to capitalize on the viral marketing bonanza of all this internet buzz; it's cheap, it's easy, it's effective, and it's not nearly as obnoxious as imbedding clues in "Invasion" or something, forcing us obsessives to watch that crap too.

Dead Pool

2005-10-22T20:15:00.000-07:00

Two and half weeks until "a very special LOST." Who's it gonna be?*

I say Claire. She's ~~served her purpose~~ played her part, and her death ought to be just the boost Charlie needs to hop back atop that white horse and make his galloping return to a Rock & Roll lifestyle**.

*Speculation only, no spoilers please...
**If dude isn't already working on a prog-rock-opera double-LP based upon his island experiences, he should be. That would truly be epic.

How To Move Them

2005-10-21T20:15:00.000-07:00

Let's be honest, Episode 5: ...And Found was a bit of a yawner. Props to Lindelof et al, though, for having the balls to stick to their "it's all about character" guns and give us an epsiode almost completely devoid of meaningful action or plot-development despite the fact that the next episode is three weeks away. (Quite the next-level cop-out, however, revealing new Dharma logos and whatnot via the interwebs).

I liked the Sun/Jin back-story (him being an ambitious country-boy cum frustrated populist-hero cum ruthless mobster is playing into all kinds of dope Rhygin/Pretty Boy Floyd archetypes,) but it didn't seem to reveal much of anything about any of our ongoing mysteries. Perhaps there is a Boston connection between Sun's uninterested Mr. Perfect and one of the female characters, and perhaps Jin's dickhead boss at the hotel has some nefarious Hanso Foundation/international weapons trade connections or something, but who knows?

We didn't learn much back on the island either. We knew ~~Adebisi~~ Mr. Echo was a badass, now we know he's a stand-up fellow as well. Ana Lucia... still tough, still a bitch. The only real new information was our brief glimpse of The Others, or The Others' muddy cankles to be more precise. This brief, obscured by shrubbery, view revealed a few interesting things...

The Others kill folks dead. Yikes.
The Others wear no shoes, leave no tracks, and appear to glide/shuffle on palm-fronds rather than just walking like the rest of us.
Some of The Others appeared to glide/shuffle by twice, or perhaps there are twins or clones among them.
Many if not all of The Others seem to be either pre-pubescent or in possession of an unlimited supply of Lady Bics.
One of The Others had a teddy-bear (much like Desmond--remember Desmond?--with his stuffed bunny and Walt with his stuffed polar bear).

I'm seeing these folks as kind of "Children of the Corn" types but more similar to the desert-dwelling, water-preserving, worm-riding Fremen in DUNE; they are dangerous, they are masters of their physical environment, they are in control of a valuable secret, and they are fundamentally misunderstood.

Rhapsody in blue.

2005-10-21T08:15:00.000-07:00

Zany musical flash animations are a dime a dozen nowadays, but this one just made my day. Don't worry: there are no spoilers, unless you think that Some Island is really floating in a big pool on some space-turtle's back.

Big up 815 reader Mr. Jones for sending the link.

Cat Bird?

2005-10-20T08:15:00.000-07:00

From ABC's official (and officially lame compared to the abstract mindfuck going on over at bigspaceship1's guerilla spot) Mega Lotto Jackpot website comes the above bone, thrown to us snarling internet Lost dogs just as the show embarks on its 3-week scared-to-compete-with-the-World-Series vacation.

It's a new Dharma logo, but what exactly is it? "Properties" tells us it's a "catbird," but it looks more like a seahorse that met the business end of a sledge-hammer to me.

Further digging yields more bones and leads one here, where we can not only discover such grammatically questionable ~~nonsense~~ Fletch quotes as "the biggest clue of all is that a flute with no holes, is not a flute," we also get a clearer shot of the "Arrow" logo and yet another Dharma symbol...

What is that, a leg?

UPDATE: Mounting evidence points to the "catbird" logo (and the Mega Lotto site in general) being total horseshit, dunno about the "leg" though...

Here I Go Again

2005-10-19T08:15:00.000-07:00

Here's hoping the writers once again--as they did with the whole Episode 1 and 2 bunker reveal--employ the narrative device of retelling, this time giving us Kate's shower scene from the perspectve of her slippery, sudsy, oh-so-lucky bar of soap.

Or Hell, maybe they ought just follow the homie Papertrail's ~~desperatly frustrated plea~~ sage advice and introduce a Ferrari for her to get half-naked and writhe around on, Tawny Kitaen style.

Gyrate

2005-10-18T20:15:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a trip down to my dirty homeland of GA where I discovered that LOST enthusiasm crosses all sorts of geographic and cultural barriers. From the frazzled, travel-weary, redneck denizens of the Nascar-themed Miller Lite Victory Lap airport bar to the laid-back CDr-pushing fellows at Supersounds, everybody's talking Locke and Dharma and Ana Lucia and Adebisi and y'all cluckity-cluck-cluck, y'hear.

Even the frumpily dressed indie-rock chicks in Athens were fired up about the others and whatnot, even if they insisted that their post-collegiate, 60s-informed appreciation pre-dated and was somehow more valid then the mainstream, consumer-oriented, TV-Guide style fandom so pervasive amongst viewers like me who actually enjoy explosions and boobs and sports cars and Hot 97 without chalking it all up to irony.

In fact, my horn-rimmed, earth-toned contacts in Bulldawg country not only gushed over the show, they delivered a minor scoop; legendary Athens art-punks Pylon (always and mostly* accurately described as "angular" and "jangly" and best remembered for their contribution to the Athens GA, Inside/Out documentary film) are back together, reunited and it feels so good, but--bigger than that--Pylon drummer Curtis Crowe spends the better part of his time in Hawaii as a set-designer on LOST. Perfunctory internet research confirms the information.

My attempts to contact Curtis in search of spoilers have, so far, gone unanswered.

Pylon - "No Clocks"

*"No Clocks" is about prettiest and least angular song in their catalog, but unless someone wants to start digging thorugh my parents house for old casstte tapes it's the best we're gonna get.

2005-10-13T08:15:00.000-07:00

(Enlarged view of Dharma logo on wall.)

There's no question that the bunker that M.Rod & the Back-enders are holed up in is a base for a seperate sector of the Dharma Initiative. Now the question is: which sector is it? What's its codename? (The logo isn't giving away too much.) And, most importantly, why is it there? If sector 3 was in place specifically to monitor the electromagnetic anomalies found on a specific part of the island, what purpose does this sector serve?

UPDATE: Definite "DHARMA" and an upright arrow right thurr...

Volcano Island?

2005-10-12T20:15:00.000-07:00

Like Walt on a milk-carton, straight from Hugo's dream to you comes the Mr. Cluck's Chicken Shack website. It's cute and clever and just surprising enough, but more importantly(?) if you click the little "paragraph" symbol in the bottom corner you get a short list of links including a boring podcast LOST recap (which I only listened to about 10 seconds of) and a webcam of Mount St. Helens, which isn't nearly as entertaining as this African watering-hole webcam... except that the profile of Washington's most famous voclano looks curiously similar to the mountain sketched on crazy Rousseau's map. Are our castaways overdue for an eruption?

2005-10-12T17:57:00.000-07:00

I really just wanted an excuse to post up that gully-ass picture of Adebisi.

But seeing as people tend to enjoy, like, content on their blogs...

- That boy Aziz Ansari has an interesting theory: "In my nerdy Lost email group, there is a raging debate over whether Jin aka Daniel Dae Kim is evil. I think he's good." I'd like to hear the justification behind the Jin-is-bad angle. I don't think we've been shown much evidence to support it yet, but if the English we saw him speakin' in the preview for this week's show turns out not to be some kind of dream sequence, it's gonna be a whole new ballgame.

- Out of sheer boredom, I've transcribed the orientation film for the Dharma Initiative. Places with elipses ("...") are where there's a kooky, wacky old reel-to-reel effect and the film was made to jump on purpose. Most times, it just meant losing a few words.

Welcome. I'm Doctor Marvin Candle, and this is the orientation film for Station 3 of the Dharma Initiative. In a moment, you'll be given a simple set of instructions for how you and your partner will fulfill the respsonsibilities associated with this station. But first, a little history.

The Dharma Initiative was created in 1970, and is the brainchild of Gerald and Karen Degroot, two doctoral candidates at the University of Michigan. Following in the footsteps of visionaries such as B.F. Skinner... imagined a large-scale communal research compound where scientists and free-thinkers from around the globe could persue research in meteorology, psychology, parapsychology, zoology, electromagnetism and utopian social... reclusive Danish industrialist and munitions magnate Alvar Hanso, whose financial backing made their dream of a multi-purpose social science research facility a reality.

You and your partner are currently located at Station 3, or 'The Swan,' and will be for the next five-hundred and forty days. Station 3 was originally constructed as a laboratory where scientists could work to understand the unique electromagnetic fluctuations eminating from this sector of the island. Not long after the experiments began, however, there was... an incident... and since that time, the following protocol has been observed. Every one-hundred and eight minutes, the button must be pushed. From the moment the alarm sounds, you will have four minutes to enter the code into the microcomputer process... --duction into the program. When the alarm sounds, either you or your partner must input the code. It is highly recommended that you and your partner take alternating shifts. In this manner, you will both stay as fresh and alert... most important that, when the alarm sounds, the code be entered correctly and in a timely fashion. Do not attempt to use the computer for anyth--

Congratulations. Until your replacements arrive, the future of the project is in your hands. On behalf of the Degroots, Alvar Hanso and all of us at the Dharma Initiative, thank you, namaste and good luck!

Time Banditos

2005-10-12T08:15:00.000-07:00

One night a few years ago some friends and I were stumbling around a City of Austin municipal golf-course drinking fortified wine, smoking that purp, and generally getting blasted when my homie PaperTrail hit upon what he thought was a brilliant idea for a movie: some Mexican soldiers from the Mexican–American war walk into a time-warp of some kind and emerge right then and right there--scruffy, surly, and a little drunk--in modern times on that very same golf course. They do not remember the Alamo, since for them it has not yet occurred. Wacky hi-jinks ensue.

This, he insisted, can’t miss.

Naturally, everybody acknowledged this idea as the retarded musings of a stoned simpleton and clowned on dude accordingly. In fact--along with the time he got all drunk and red-faced and weepy and confessed that if he had to have sex with a guy (not that he wants to, of course, but if he had to,) that guy would without a doubt be Ving Rhames—it’s one of those things we’ve never really let old PaperTrail live down.

All of which explains, I guess, why the idea of time-travel was recently bubbling up in his (in actuality far removed from simple) mind in reference to what was then the upcoming second season of LOST.

Back on September 20 of this year he sent me the following in an email:

The island and its inner workings are actually the nexus of some sort of time-traveling apparatus. The people and polar bears and shit have all been pulled there from different points in time and space. The pirate guys are actually the crew of the Black Rock (the big old ship with the dynamite). The magic numbers are some sort of temporal coordinates, describing the island's location in space-time.

Brilliant, I thought. Beautiful. So what if the guy wants to screw Marcellus Wallace, he’s onto something here. Time-travel is the perfect explanation for all these wacky island happenings. The crash. The numbers. The old ship. Locke and Walt’s prescience (they could be receiving clues from their future selves). Jin’s mysteriously important watch. The “monster,” which could be a T-Rex. Hell, Charlie might even be Marc Bolan.

It’s perfect because, since time-travel actually makes very little sense once you begin to get down to it’s logistical specifics, it can be used to explain anything.

I bring this up now, following the recent clue-filled bonanza of the hatch and its Orientation video with their myriad indications that everything on the island may be explained by some sort of scientific experiments into magnets and eugenics and paranormal military weaponry, because I hope there’s more to it than that. This Dharma initiative stuff is cool, I just hope it’s not the end of the mysterious road so many have been sucked into.

Enough of Sanskrit scientists and shadowy Norwegian businessmen, where are the anachronous, befuddled, and mustachioed Mexican-American War soldiers who mistake Jack for Davey Crockett and Hurley for Santa Ana?

Seriously, JJ, step it up.

Proof?

2005-10-11T14:14:00.000-07:00

Does Anyone Remember Laughter?

2005-10-10T20:15:00.000-07:00

This Bigspaceship1 website (found by going here instead of here) keeps changing (every 108 minutes?) and flashing all kinds of crazy images and Morse-code references and audio files about Alice in Wonderland and Star Wars and Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Watership Down and obscure Island of Dr. Moreau-type arcana.

When I last stopped by the page had nothing but the two dancing, fuzzy polar bears you see above, but earlier they were rocking this tripped out optical illusion while in the background wailed an ill version of the Gilligan's Island theme-song sung over a cover version of "Stairway to Heaven."

Little Roger and the Goosebumps - "Stairway to Gilligan"

Does Desmond have a bong down in that bunker?

Lords of Chaos

2005-10-10T08:15:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Henrik, our man in Norway, we now know the location of the buildings seen in the Orientation video (and perhaps in the photo of Desmond and his lady-friend.) The buildings are in the small town of Narvik, Norway, and the mysterious Alvor Hanso is thought to be a local politician and the father of a local footballer.

A great piece of detective work, but it can't possibly mean shit. Can it? LOST producers just grabbed some obscure and suitably creepy stock-footage. Right? I hope so. If there's a Black Metal connection I'm out of here. Babylon don't mess with no Count Grishnakh.

Locke says we have to.

2005-10-08T08:15:00.000-07:00

A hidden link at the bottom of the list of projects on the "Active Projects" page of the Hanso Foundation website allows one, if one is so inclined, to watch the Dharma Initiative training film.

Upon repeat viewing I was struck, amidst all the corpro-pharmaceutical imagery, by the somewhat anomalous appearance of the two granola-type University of Michigan doctors. Could they be the same people as Walt's kidnappers, the Southern Rock Uhzzahs?

UPDATE: Click here for a photoshopped comparison-collage (thanks Henrik).

Incidentally, Alvor Hanso is an anagram for Lava Horns, which has nothing to do with any LOST mysteries, but does seem to indicate that the University of Texas football Longhorns will stomp a mudhole in the Oklahoma Sooners this afternoon in the Red River Shootout.

Homework

2005-10-07T20:15:00.000-07:00

Anybody actually read "Turn of the Screw," the Henry James-penned ghost-story novella, or "The Third Policeman," Flann O'Brien's comic novel about the nature of time, death, and existence--both prominently featured on Desmond's quite respectable underground bookshelf? Feel like sharing how they might relate to our castaways-cum-labrats?

Timekill

2005-10-07T08:15:00.000-07:00

UK viewers have all the fun. First that absurd David LaChapelle promo video and now this extensive "explore the mystery" type Flash site from Channel 4. Not sure if those of us that have actually seen the first season have anything to learn there, but it's ~~maddening~~fun to click around for a little while.

Exclusive.

2005-10-06T16:24:00.000-07:00

(click for larger image)
If this isn't a "dharma-logo" tongue-tattoo in the mouth of the polar bear from Season 1, then what is it? Hard to make out, but it's clearly soft-white... like a ???