Month: April 2010

BuzzSugar LOST Giveaway

I got the following tonight. Check it out!

Who is the better Lost character — Penny or Jin? Charlie or Miles?
As fellow Lost fanatics, we thought you’d enjoy our brand new
bracket, where we’re putting each of the show’s characters head to
head as we countdown to the finale. The final man (or woman) left
standing will be declared the best Lost character of all time, and
we’re giving away an ultimate fan prize package.

Hope you like, and if so, we’d be so appreciative if you would pass
it on to your readers so they can play, too:

http://www.buzzsugar.com/Vote-Best-Lost-Character-All-Time-8215771

Happy Lost’ing,
Lauren Bradshaw
BuzzSugar.com

Erma Bombeck Writer’s Workshop

The weekend before last, I was at the Erma Bombeck Writer’s Workshop. It’s the second time I attended.

The workshop is held every two years at the University of Dayton campus. About 300 to 400 people attend for two and half days.

The workshop is completely unlike any conference I usually go to. Some of you may know that I do computer work, and a writer’s workshop is COMPLETELY different. First, the ratio of women to men is completely reversed. I think there less than 20 guys at the workshop. Estrogen galore. Whoa.

Second, the sessions start earlier. At the computer conferences I’ve been to, most sessions start at 10:30 or so. These started at 9am. A hour and half makes a difference to a computer guy.

The classes at the workshop were much smaller, which is nice if you want to interact with the instructor. You could certainly do that if you were brave enough to read any of the exercises you went through (I wasn’t).

Everyone was very interested in hearing about what everyone else wrote about. I did my best to try to explain the 24 stuff I write about, and to my shock, someone I met had actually read it before. And they didn’t want to chase me down with a hockey stick because of it. Theresa Lode, thanks for admitting you read that 24 stuff. 🙂 Check out her blog, The Mother Lode.

I met a writer who gives tours and teaches out to write about your adventures while traveling, Dave Fox. He runs Globejotter Tours, and is great guy to hang out with.

I also met Danny Gallagher, a writer for TV Squad, and one of the guest lecturers. Danny was really busy, and seemed to know darn near everyone. Another really nice guy to hang around with.

I was able to get books signed by Bill Scheft (writer for Letterman), Steve Doocy, W. Bruce Cameron, Christian Lander (From the Stuff White People Like site. Christian’s rise from idea to New York Time’s best seller took about six months. Crazy.

If you’re at all interested in humor writing, be sure and keep you calendar free for spring of 2012, when they’ll hold the next workshop!

Season 8 – 24 – 10 am to 11 am

Previously on “24”, we saw: Ex-President Logan is still a weasel (apologies to any weasels that may be reading this); Dana is Russian for “mole”, since that’s who she was working with all this time; Jack tried to give Dana a “desk slam makeover”; Most people watching the show fell asleep for 50 minutes, yet somehow didn’t miss anything – fortunately they woke up just in time to see Jack take a CTU helicopter, because he’s just plain sick of driving cars.

The following takes place between 10 am and 11 am:

10:00 am – Jack continues his flight over New York city, only narrowly missing getting mugged. A couple of more helicopters show up, and tell Jack they’d like to have Jack’s helicopter back, so Jack lands it on the “Cooper” building. The helicopters continue to circle, providing narration to Jack’s actions as he makes his way down the fire escape and to the ground. The Fake New York Police arrive just in time to lose Jack, who has already made his way into the crowd.

Continue reading “Season 8 – 24 – 10 am to 11 am”

Fringe – The Man From The Other Side


Spoilers Ahead

I gotta tell you, I’ve had what was going with Fringe completely wrong. I’d been thinking, along with the characters on the show, that there’s some sort of war coming. That might well be true, but there’s something else that’s going on. I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me until just now.

So, Walter grabbed Peter from a parallel universe when he was a kid, right?

Do you honestly think that the Walter from the parallel universe would just let that stand? He’d do everything, and I mean everything, he could to get Peter back!

That’s why the people on the other side are trying to get through to our side. Parallel Universe Walter wants to get Peter back.

It’s pretty likely that the “Secretary” on the bridge is Parallel Universe Walter.

Thoughts?

LOST – The Last Recruit – Notes and Theories


I’m not really sure how I felt about this episode. A lot of interaction between characters, a lot of getting people together, but other than that… well, it’s still more setup.

Just a few notes about tonight’s show:

  • I think it’s clear at this point that that reason Desmond hit Locke with the car was to be sure and get Locke together with Jack.
  • I have a hard time believing that when we saw Christian, it was always the Man in Black. After all, we did see Christian off the island – remember when Jack saw him while he was trying to fix that smoke alarm? I’m sure there were cases (like in the cabin with Claire) that he was disguised as Christian, but I just don’t think he was ALWAYS Christian Shepard.
  • So, just letting the Man in Black talk to you is the way he gets you over to his side? Really? Still, Claire sure seems to believe that Jack is part of MiB’s group.
  • Zoe showing up in camp was a surprise, and I think we all know that the thing they want back is Desmond.
  • Speaking of Desmond, I don’t think Sayid killed him. I think Desmond turned around Sayid’s desire to see Nadia and the ramifications of her finding out that he had to kill Desmond to get her back are why he didn’t kill him.

    Kinda weird that even though Sayid and Claire are beholden to UnLocke, they both did something he wouldn’t like. Kinda surprised that Claire got on the boat without shooting anyone.

  • Anyone else wonder why Sawyer didn’t walk to the jetty and get in the water there to swim to the boat, rather than jumping in at the beach?
  • Still kinda wondering how they’re going to get Sayid, Kate, and Sawyer together with the rest of them. Maybe at the hospital?
  • Ilana as a lawyer… That was probably the biggest surprise of the show tonight. I didn’t expect that at all.
  • Another episode with no mirrors.
  • Sawyer throwing Jack off the boat? Really? REALLY? That was just too weird.
  • I bet that Jack’s surgery is going to allow Locke to walk again.
  • Glad Jin and Sun are back together, but I thought that sonic fence was going to torch one or both of them.

Season 8 – 24 – 9 am to 10 am


Previously on “24”, we found out that: They choose new temporary directors of CTU by seniority (but we’re still happy Chloe is now in charge); They choose new presidents of fictional countries by marriage; They choose new plot lines by recycling old presidents; The sniper who killed Renee better be choosing his coffin, because Jack is going to be doing some recycling of his own.

The following takes place between 9 am to 10 am:

9:00 am – Jack tries to use his powers of staring to bring Renee back to life, but it isn’t working. A nurse comes in to take Renee’s body away, and I have to say it is the best acting Renee has done all season.

Jack wanders down the hallway and another nurse gives him some new clothes, with less blood on them, to put on. His phone rings. It’s Chloe.

Jack insists on finding the person who killed Renee. Chloe doesn’t know who did it, but does know the Russian mafia is involved. She’s reluctant to give Jack any information since she’s now in charge of CTU. She’s also pretty sure that Jack is completely capable of taking out the entire Russian Mafia with a shoelace and a butter knife, so she declines to tell him where he can get more information.

Jack knows they still have Bazhaev in custody, and he promises not to interfere with the overall CTU investigation. In Jack Talk that translates to: “I’ll only kill him a little bit if he doesn’t give me the information I want.” Chloe, who has known Jack for eons, believes this for some reason, and tells him where Bazhaev is currently being held – he’s in federal court downtown.

9:02 am – Ethan, who had a major heart attack a few hours ago, who was denied treatment by some White House staffers a few less hours ago, and who got out of surgery even fewer hours ago… shows up for work. This guy is the very definition of a workaholic. Mrs. President is shocked to see him.

Mrs. President tells Ethan that she decided to send ex-President Logan over to the Russian embassy to pick up some of those cool nesting dolls, and to negotiate a peace treaty while he was there. Ethan asks how Logan intends to do this, and like everyone else on the show, Mrs. President is completely stumped. She has no idea, and assumed that he was going to try to win them over by offering them a bunch of blue jeans and iPads. Ethan thinks this is pretty suspicious.

9:04 am – President Logan shows up at the Russian embassy outdoor buffet, and orders an espresso from one of the KGB agents. Novakovich tries to explain how sorry he is about Hasan’s death, but Logan isn’t buying it. It could be the huge smile on Novakovich’s face while he says it. He goes on to explain that he doesn’t think Hasan’s wife can do a thing to help the peace process, since there was so much opposition.
Continue reading “Season 8 – 24 – 9 am to 10 am”

How To Kill A Smoke Monster

About that Smoke Monster/Man in Black/UnLocke…. whatever it is.

We’ve seen that Smoke Monster for six seasons now. The only thing we’ve seen stop it was that sonic fence. All that did was stop it from getting into the Dharma compound. It certainly didn’t do enough to kill it.

We’ve seen the Man in Black, disguised as Locke, take a knife right in the chest. He pulled it out, and didn’t have a scratch on him.

So, how in the heck do you kill someone/something like that? Everyone who’s shot at him have ended up being picked up, slammed against the wall and killed.

You know what? I think I figured it out, and we’ve seen the answer repeatedly over the whole season.

The secret weapon is Jacob’s ashes.

Think about it… what do you think would happen if a big plume of black smoke came barreling down on Hurley and he tossed Jacob’s ashes right into the middle of it? I’m guessing that it would turn into a HUGE problem for the Man in Black, and would very likely kill him.

What do you think? Off base? Right on? Have any better ideas? Let’s hear ’em in the comment section!

edit: After reading the comments, I should point out that I’m talking about the ashes of Jacob that Ilana gathered after Jacob’s death, not the ashes that were used by Dogen or the ashes that were around the cabin.