Lost Season 5 - Recap

In short, I loved this season!! It was great. There were a lot of answers, a lot more questions, some mythology was flushed out, and it had tons of action.

My thoughts on the finale are: WHAT!?!? I have no idea what's going on any more - which is exactly when I love this show the most. It really makes you think...

Here a dozen things I'm thinking about going into the final season...

1. Locke isn't dead? I was blindsided by that one. It seems someone or something had taken the form of his body. Is it the same thing that appeared in the form of Christian, Eko's brother, and possibly Claire (which I previously thought to be the smoke monster)? Right now, it doesn't look like the cabin was Jacob's after all - is "fake Locke" really the dude who want's to kill Jacob and who was actually living in the cabin all this time? And who kicked the ash to set whatever was in the cabin free?
   
2. Is this the same cabin Rose and Bernard are living in? Nice to see them again. I was hoping they didn't get hit with the flamming arrows. Was there any significance to Bernard asking Juliet if she wanted tea? That seemed a little weird. And didn't she hint a little at being pregnant by touching her stomach afterwards?
   
3. A big shout out to Miles for finally asking the question, "don't you think that by acting we may be cause the exact events we are trying to prevent?". This seemed obvious for some time - from when Sayid shot young Ben to when Eloise shot Daniel (who I'll miss). I mean if Dan just stays away, he never gets shot and Jack would have a near zero chance of getting her to lead him to the bomb, right? And how does Dan have such good notes about things that haven't happened yet?
   
4. What is the smoke monster - really?
5. I'll be kind of angry if the bomb does place the survivors back on the plane with no recolection of any of these events and the plane doesn't crash. That would be obvious and lame.
6. Is Juliet dead? There was reference a while back to her looking just like someone Ben knew so maybe she'll be back. Or maybe she just looks like a picture of Ben's Mom.
   
7. What's Jacob's discussion with that other dude all about at the start of the show? Are they some mystic beings who experiment with humans in an attempt to find the good in man? And didn't Jacob die a little too easily. Was that really kind of a sacrifice (like Ben Kenobi or Jesus) - time will tell.
8. Are the other people on the plane who keep asking about the shadow of the statue timeless as well - like Jacob and Alpert.
   
9. When will we finally find out what the Others wanted with the kids? What are Walt's special abilities and does he have a role in the show's final chapter?
10. Who's coming? (in reference to Jacob's last words).
11. Will we find out why Radzinky is destined to work in the hatch pressing the button and what leads to his suicide?
12. Where's Desmond and what role does he have yet to play?

Finally, it was cool to finally find out how Chang/Crandle lost his hand.

I have no idea how they'll answer all of these "big" questions in the one final season, but I'm already looking forward to it.

Fanny's (Amherst, NY) - Review

I dined at Fanny's on May 2nd 2009. It was not at all what I expect from a fine dining restaurant. For the price you're going to pay here, you want a great atmosphere and the food to be exquisite. I experienced none of this.

My wife and I had a special occasion and made reservations for a booth (which we had on a previous visit and was quite nice). The maître d' said he would do the best he could to accommodate our request. Upon arriving at the restaurant, we saw that main dining room with the booths was completely filled for a private party. We were relegated to the "auxillary" dining room. This thing was hideous - there was a bad mural on one wall, faceted mirrors on the other, the lighting was beyond bad (way too bright), and the chairs were horribly uncomfortable. The atmosphere was a complete bust! Strike one.

Since we made reservations that same night, we know the maître d' had to be fully aware of the party and of the zero chance for us getting a booth - but he lied to us to get us in the door and that was upsetting. Strike two.

Finally, the food was just so-so. The calamari was uninspired and had ranch dipping sauce. I expect a restaurant of this caliber to be more creative than serving anything with ranch dip. Our Caesar side salads with dinner were $8, which were grossly overpriced. Finally, I had trout which had *way* too much lemon sauce and overpowered the dish. So-so fare is a definite strike 3 - especially at this price point.

In addition we had to ask for the bread that was supposed to be served with our dinner and our waiter reaked of cigarette smoke.

The lying about the availability of the booth was the absolute worst part and I'll never go here again.

Best TV Line Ever

From this past Sunday's Office (after the Superbowl).

Michael Scott:

Meredith, you've slept with so many guys you're starting to look like one. Boom roasted.

I've been laughing about this all week.

Classic!

Lost Season 5 Premiere

WOW!! That was awesome!

Here's some of the things I think I learned and am now thinking...

Sun
Sun wants Kate to pay for leaving Jin behind on the freighter - and pay big time! I guess I noticed in the finale how Kate said she was going to get Jin, then didn't. But I didn't think much of it at the time - things were chaotic and Jin wasn't on board. They had to move fast and there was no time to really search the ship for Jin.

Obviously Sun sees it differently and has been holding this grudge against Kate for 3 years.

What I'm not sure about is how teaming with Widmore is going to help her get revenge on Kate?

The Kids
Whoa! They all turned into fire-arrow shooting vigilantes and went all Lord of the Flies (without the aid of strip malls and skateboards)? How could this happen? I'm sure we'll soon find out.

It seems that ending scene must be like 5 or 10 years in the future.

The Island
I love the "time skipping" aspect of the story. We're gong to get to learn a lot about the Dharma Initiative, the history of the Island, the future of the Island and everything in between - all very quickly.

I still don't get how the Hatch and the "donkey wheel thing" that Ben turned are linked. It seems that both might somehow be related (because of the white sky thing), but what real purpose of the hatch is remains kind of a mystery to me because nothing really happened after it blew up.

Was the Hatch just a "cloaking device" station to protect people from finding the Island and the "donkey wheel time machine thing"?

At least we now seem to get why Alpert showed Ben the compass and the other objects when he was a boy.

Desmond
Desmond is going to be huge this season - he's seemingly a "walkie-talkie" for communication between the different time periods.

Oceanic 6
Again - I love the shell game being played with the survivors! This was great in the finale, I can't wait to see how they all come back together to finally return to the Island.

Lost Finale - Season 4

Last night, ABC replayed last season's finale - all 3 hours. I was happy to see Lost back on TV again. This was a really good episode (3 hours), but definitely not my favorite finale.

Here are some of the parts that stood out to me...

• The funniest (or at least the most light hearted) moment was when Locke and Ben were descending into the Orchid station. First, Ben teases Locke about not finding the right kind of flower in the greenhouse (Locke shrugs and says, "I don't know what it looks like"). Then Ben sits Locke down to watch a video while Ben does "big boy stuff". Finally Locke watches in disbelief as Ben loads the chamber with metal even though the video specifically prohibits it.
  

Of course it all turns horribly dark when Ben kills Keamy, only after learning that doing so will in turn blow up everyone on the freighter.

The whole sequence, although pretty funny, was a reminder just how ruthless Ben will be to "Protect the Island", and just how pathetic Locke really is. Locke really is like a kid - or a puppy dog - constantly looking for approval and not really able to do much of anything on his own.

Part of what I'm looking forward to in the upcoming season is to find out, just how Locke manages to bungle everything up and if Jack can in fact, fix things.

• I also liked the "Survivor Shell Game". We knew through the flash forwards who the 6 survivors would be. The problem was, all 6 were never together to be rescued until the very end.
  

It started with Jack, Kate, and Sun together, Sayid in the freighter, Hurley on the other side of the Island, and Aaron somewhere in between. Jack and Kate leave and find Aaron. Then Aaron and Kate leave. Aaron is passed to Sun. Sayid leaves the freighter. Sun and Aaron leave for the freighter. Kate and Sayid go back into the jungle... and on, and on it goes for 3 hours. Well played!

• I also forgot how sad I was when Jin died - or more so - Sun's reaction when she (and the chopper) were forced to leave the freighter with Jin only steps away from joining them. Powerful stuff.
  

I'm hoping that Jin is not really gone. You never really know with this show...

Christmas Grill!

I woke up Christmas morning to find a new grill under the tree! This one's a beautiful charcoal water smoker. It has a great charcoal basket, two doors to access the meat or add fuel, and three vents (two on the bottom and one on the top). One of the nicest features of this grill is that you can remove the two upper sections and use it for direct grilling. This should be the perfect form factor to take camping. I can't wait to get it fired up!

The rest of my grill family looks like this:

• Beefeater 3-burner gas grill
• Char-Griller Smokin' Pro offset smoker
• Weber Smokey Joe

Big Boys Christmas

Last year I started a tradition of getting my brothers a toy for Christmas. Something cool and frivolous. Something with a remote control...

We don't have a lot of time to spend together on Christmas anymore, so it had to be something relatively easy to use and something we could get instant gratification from. Just 10 minutes of pure fun was my goal.

Last year I bought remote control helicopters. They were a huge hit! It took us a while to figure out how to fly them, but once we did it wasn't long before we were making kamikaze runs at each other.

This year I got these cool Air Hogs Zero Gravity cars. They drive vertically on walls and upside down. They are way cool and totally fun. After dinner, we raced above our family on the living room ceiling.

I started this gift tradition because I wanted something fun we could do together on Christmas Day. Something that brought back the excitement of Christmas past. Gift cards or new Christmas sweaters don't pack the same punch.

If the "big boys" in your family are anything like me and my brothers, give this gift approach a try. Remember, you're not looking for something they'll necessarily use all year long, just 10 minutes on Christmas Day.