Thanks to blogtor who for this. I THINK that’s Jo grant getting hugged by Sarah Jane. You know for a second I thought it was rose

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I jumped on to my Itunes account tonight to test out itunes TV rental to see what it’s like and whats to offer. I’m interested and a little frustrated as well.

First of all, for some reason TV rentals are limited to iOS 4.1 products only. So once the new software rolls out, the only way you can watch tv rentals on anything that isnt itunes is via ipod touches, iphones and (eventually) ipads. Yes, for the next couple of months until the update is finally released AGAIN the ipad misses out. I can understand them wanting to make sure it’s stable for the official ipad release, but now it’s getting ridiculous. NOVEMBER??

Also, old apple tv equipment misses out. Now I can understand them limiting other products like netflix and whatnot. The new Apple TV has the A4 chip and there might be technical limitations on what it can and cant do. rentals, however, work already now. At the present I can rent a film, transfer it to my apple tv and watch it within the month limit. how different is it between tv shows and movies? it’s the same tech!!

The tv shows?? Well, I cant blame them for that. I am surprised to see Murdoch working with tech though. After his newpaper rants he was the last on my list to agree. There’s Fox, some BBC and Disney. Been getting some of the BBC stuff tonight, started watching Skins. I’m actually liking it so far. It’s a little over the top and unbelievable but highly enjoyable. That Tony Bastard is brilliantly written.

As for the new version?? I dont see myself buying it in the meantime. Sure, I may not be able to watch a couple of TV shows on mine, but theres not a hell of a lot for me to buy in the first place! And until they open up the thing and allow some sort of app installation, whether it be by apple themselves or by an app store there’s really no reason. We don’t get netflix in Australia (i wish).

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There you go. See this guy? he is also an ex stig. Obviously the cash isn’t that good. I thought the BBC would ignore it this time and let it go. What colour will he be next time??

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I don’t know who Eric Turner is, but I don’t mind Tinie Tempah’s work. Sure, it’s commerical and all, but he’s got a very interesting producing thing going on. I like how he can change from hip hop to D&B in the same song in “Pass Out”. I think this is an album I’m going to buy when it comes out…

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For you overseas folk, he’s probably the most conservative of our politicians. He’s probably not as bad as WBC, but close….. He’s the kind of guy who wants to ban the Mardi-Gras and hates anything slightly muslim. You get the idea.

“members of his staff were simply researching links on certain websites”

Hahahah. Research. Dude, we ALL use that excuse…..

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Look on the net. It was leaked online a few weeks ago, supposably. I can’t remember now myself, but really it shouldn’t matter that much. I wonder if this means they need another new stig? What colour would you make the next one? Green? Enviro-stig???

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Taken from – http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2010/08/it-was-pretty-damn-wonderful-actually.html

Neil and the good doctor. You can’t believe how much I’m looking forward to this

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I can quite happily get away with NOT doing much at the moment. I have a beer belly and that’s about it. Everything’s hidden well underneath my t shirt and I look around and think “I could be worse”. Still, that’s no excuse for NOT getting fit.

So today is just another work day, actually I have to say an absolutely GORGEOUS day outside. First time I can honestly say it felt like spring. Let’s hope this continues. Anyways, stressing thinking about this in my head all day. “what CAN i wear? whats good music for my nano? am I going to look like a right idiot??”

this evening i lessen my nerves, we arrive .. AND!!

My friend’s little bub wakes up. She had to go home

We’re going to attempt again tomorrow, see if I can get used to it. And what kind of prices as well. I hear they’re pretty steep…

1. Sepultura – Chaos AD
2. David Bowie – Hunky Dory
3. The Beatles – Revolver
4. Nirvana – Nevermind
5. Nine Inch Nails – Year Zero
6. Madonna – True Blue
7. Faith No More – Album Of The Year
8. Big Star – #1 Album
9. Foo Fighters – The Colour And The Shape
10. System of a Down – System of a Down
11. Pacifier / Shihad – Pacifier
12. Murray Gold – Doctor Who (2005/2006) Soundtrack Score
13. Spiderbait – Ivy & The Big Apples
14. Michael Jackson – History (Disc 2, the new tracks)
15. Rage Against The Machine – Rage Against The Machine
16. TISM – Machiavelli And The Four Seasons

It’s one of those water-cooler talks at the moment around the town. Some people for, some strongly against. If you jump in a taxi you have a 90% chance of the topic coming up on the way home.

I don’t see what the big problem is. All these people ranting about problem gambling. Honestly, I work in the gaming industry now, it’s pretty bad already. Having another handful of pokies is not going to cause thousands of more people to flock to these machines. And I’m one of these people who believes you should let people do what the hell they want. There’s plenty of warnings out there. People still smoke, despite hiding the smokes and constantly upping the prices. “The odds of winning on pokies = SFA” is stickered onto every single machine. Hell, it’s a rule. The clubs get fined if they are removed.

As for “the bad element”? Pullease. This town/city has already inherited a SA Bikey gang. As it stands now you can’t walk home from the clubs now, and this was long before the bikes came to town. This is just standard city life. I’m not saying it’s right but that’s what you get when your city is moving forward. Hell, my home town has around 20 thousand people or so and I wouldn’t even walk home there. And that place is shrinking, not dying!

I say why stop progress to this wonderful place. If we continue to jump up and down and act like country yokels, they’re just going to go to another town and this place will lose a whole bunch of new jobs for people.

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(slightly NSFW and for your sanity)

Seriously, what was the band smoking when they made this clip? Delightfully odd and strange….

All this tease with the eventual necromancer movie. Want to see now!!!!  

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Music – Rain Forest by Green Lab (used with permission from friendlytunes.com . Contact me for any information.)

This had to go in its own little section. This was the same day as the Port Vila trip (not far, but I can’t remember the exact location) but it was so beautiful and amazing. The sad part is that this was all planned by my Uncle (who had been before) and I don’t think there were any official tours to this place by the Cruise company! All of these people were other tourists (some from the boat, most not) who just knew of it as well.

I remember this place with fond memories from the first time I visited when I went on the Fairstar with my parents at the age of 12. Last time (I think) we checked out more of the traditional stuff. On this day we went on another trip with probably the friendliest but quiet guy who drove us around. Learning from our Fiji mistake, we made sure how much we were going to pay this guy. Obviously what we offered him was a lot – he hung around and waited for us all day even when we went to the waterfalls and the little island later on in the day.

This was the first time we as a group saw some of the poverty that was around this area. Beautiful setting but just walking down the streets you can see the vast differences between here and Port Denarau. Also was interested to notice a large Indian population here. When I saw the badly pirated Bollywood films for sales in some of the store windows, I couldnt help smile

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Sitting there watching TV the other night with my father, I don’t think I could do TOO much showing off now I come to think of it –
young me – “what tv shows are popular in the future?”
old me – “reality shows”
young me – “reality what?”
old me – “well, we watch people cook, and sitting in a house being lamely experimented on, and people doing up houses and people arguing at airports….”
young me – “what happened to proper tv shows?”
old me – “well, they usually last a couple of years and get cancelled…”
young me – “what about “hey hey it’s saturday?” ”
old me – “god help me, i forgot i liked that. it’s back….”

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The reason I ask is because I know this idea to be false. Perfect example – Keith Richards. God knows how many years of success (even if you don’t agree with them) says a lot. Another example – iggy pop! He may be on a health kick now but look at the stooges, even look at his solo work. Sure, we may lose the odd rock star now and again, but I would hated to have listened to a clean Jim Morrison, or a clean Kurt cobain’s work.

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We return and we get a cheap cop out in the way of flashbacks – while most are actually from the episode, the Tess breaking up with Jack certainly DIDNT happen last time we were watching the show. It ended on an upbeat note – Jack with the option of moving to Australia, not knowing if we were going to lose our favorite Everyman or not to love.

You can tell some time has passed, though. Alison’s baby is suffering from SORAS, and Kevin is turning into another walt – let’s hope they never do a long slow show like lost, then they’ll be in trouble. I have to say, it’s good to have Kevin back. Here we have an autistic kid with a single mother expecting another. Like this wouldn’t effect him. Sure, they might of not being able to get the actor to return, but the only mention of kevin last year was a comment by Alison to the fact that this whole pregnancy thing isn’t new to her. Anyways.

Instead of “zim DOOOOM of the week”, we get a good old Blast to the past and our main characters travel back in time. Jack naturally gets himself into trouble, and Fargo is the comic foil. I have to say, LOVE the terminator parody. It’s all pretty standard fare here – a race against the clock to get back to the future before their time window closes. We get a sweet kiss/moment with Alison and Jack this early in the piece, so of course my alarm bells are ringing instantly.

The catch? When they get back, things are slightly changed. Tess never left, Zane is still a troublemaker and has nothing to do with Jo, Kevin is no longer autistic and some new love interest for Henry is now married to him. Oh yeah, and one of Einstein’s buddies accidentally gets sent forward.

I have to say when the time line was changed I was thinking “please bring Nathan back…”, but no dice (is he still on true blood? Im way behind…) I hope they keep this timeline as the new status quo. Im guessing we’ll get weeks of awkward Zane/Jo moments but it’s great this kind of show can mix it up so much. Looking forward to weeks ahead…

I then went on wiki and sussed the fellow out. You gotta give the guy credit – everest is no easy feat – but finding out the show is a ten day shoot, and when not filming he’s “in camp” (ie 5 star motels) with the rest of the crew? Okay, it’s pretty obvious that he’s not alone on this trip. Apart from the raft sequence at the end there’s no Blair witch handy cam work. But I don’t know, maybe adding more realism to all of it would make it much more fascinating viewing.

Still, the survivalism tricks he knows is pretty cool. And that bored tiger shark at the end gave me the heebie jeebies….

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Gameplay – for once, Rockstar got it RIGHT. They’ve opened up the difficulty settings massively. There’s easy/normal/hard modes, also checkpoints. So even if you do stuff up, you don’t have to start from the beginning again. Also, fail enough times and you can skip certain parts. One of the biggest problems with GTA4 was if you get stuck at a point and cant progress, you’re screwed. Harcore gamers got very uppity about that point in this game, but if you want to be a sucker you can certainly keep retrying to the late hours of the morning as long as you like, AND you don’t get any achievements associated with that level. If they incorporate these types of things into the next GTA, it’s going to be so so much better.

STORY – (And a big SPOILER point here) the ending should have been when John first meets up with his wife and son again is when the game should have ended. I don’t mind that the game has a sadish ending, it’s just the game builds and builds and becomes more trickier – and then you go home to herd cattle and shoot crows again. Its like a car that accidentally went into first gear, the whiplash is shocking. And when you finally do get to “get your revenge” as Jack, it’s all over too quickly. You stop at a couple of strangers locations and end the game with a duel. Wouldn’t of been much better to make that part DLC content? Think about it. The opening bits with Jack and John could of been a reintroduction to the game and Rockstar could have invented some more story to go behind Jacks part. Introduce some storyline current to the 1914 timeline and some new random characters, don’t make it too easy for Jack to find the guy at the end, even if he is retired.

Other than that, great game. Haven’t messed around much with the online stuff yet, and I certainly will once my bloody network works again!

I’m not a hermit, but I HATE shopping. If I can I try to avoid it as much as possible. 9/10 when I walk into a game store, or DVD/CD place (on the rare occasion, like a bluray purchase), i’ve already pretty much decided what I’ve come to buy anyways.

One of the best apps onthe ipad is vinio. It’s basically the ibookstore for magazines. Sadly at the moment It’s only got a smallish choice of magazines available, but the music section isn’t TOO bad. There’s Rolling Stone (on the odd occasion they publish something that ISN’T crap) but my number one selection, NME. I love their radio station, and even though I don’t know half of the bands they talk about, It’s good to read and they have a chart list. For AGES I’ve been searching for a decent charts list which wasn’t anything to do with GAGA or any of that terrible ilk. There’s some crap, but at least it’s getting me downloading new music again. I know I need to go back to the past and listen to some old music that passed me by the first time around, but there’s so much good stuff coming out today it feels almost criminal to ignore it.

This, tied with the newspaper app (pressreader), why would you EVER need to go into a newsagency again? I buy my lotto tickets straight from the website, get the Herald Sun from my ipad in the morning and go to bed reading a magazine or a book from Kindle if I’m in the mood..

I’m not saying that Apple is the reinventors, cause that’s BS. A lot of this stuff has been around for a while already. I think my new toy makes it easier though to combine it all into one. Before this I could read a book on a kindle, but I wanted to say, watch a video, I’d need to grab my PSP. Oh, there’s an interesting link I’m reading about – better get my eeepc…..

I’m excited, but also in a way I’m worried for the small companies much like the independent music stores were once the mp3s took over music.

As it goes, I want to review a lot more music on here as well. As the charts change week after week, so does the nano in the car. Tomorrow I have either The Drums, Pendulum or Kate Nash. I’ll keep you posted…

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Plan B – The Defamation of Strickland Banks

The last couple of days I did a mass download of different and new tracks of the interwebs, thanks to the NME magazines (as purchased on the ipad) top 20 list they have in their magazine, I’ve discovered this British artist called Plan B. I want to call him a rapper, but after this album he can hardly be “just a rapper”. Where his first album was more of your standard hip hop fair, this album takes a much more brave directions by two things – a concept album, and a sort of soul / hip hop mixup.

The story (as far as I could tell – mind you, I was driving so I cant fully concentrate on music while I also have my head full of work things and phone calls) is about a fictional Soul singer named Strickland Banks who is sent to jail after a one night stand with an obsessive stalker who screams rape after he refuses her and goes back to his wife. The tone takes a dark turn where he’s forced to kill a man in self defence in prison, and the story ends just as he’s about to hear his verdict to the retrial…

It’s a great attempt although sometimes I felt he was trying too hard to fit the story into the song. When he’s also singing, it’s a little different than a “Mike Skinner rapping a story” that The Streets gave us in A Grand Don’t Come For Free. I think he does a much better job though. This guy has such an amazing voice and I was surprised to read on wiki later that his previous album was just your standard British Hip Hop album. I couldn’t help thinking I was listening to a soundtrack straight out of the 70s a lot of the time today. He’ll break this up with his great rapping skills, but it’s sewn into the songs themselves and works perfectly – There’s no jarring break into something not suiting the album.

I also read that this is an experiment and he’s interested into going back into something more like his first album. It’s a bit of a shame. While there’s not a full album of radio hit singles on here, it’s a great piece of work and i’d rather that anytime over a handful of disposable 3 minute chart fillers you hear on the radio today…

Here’s a song from the album, She Said. It’s a cute, well choreographed little clip which gives you a good idea what the album is like…

@Chleee is right, though. I love Zamiro but the humor isn’t there without Wogan. Even Norton would be much better. Can’t you switch to the UK stream again please???

Typing this from my new iPad. I’ll do a proper post when I get time time, but the thing is gorgeous. The beejive app is a little clunky and I get the occasional app crash, but it’s early days of this thing. It’s only going to get better. Got the 3G model as well. While I don’t need the connectivity as yet, it’s only going to make my next trip away so much easier. Goodbye eeepc you worthless piece of shit….

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Wow. One week left.

This week after our strange flashback moment and this and that, we really get our one last cliffhanger before it’s all over for good. The last time we see that LOST title and wonder “what’s to come next week??” hmm….

Then why at this point are they frustrating me??

Don’t get me wrong, I like the whole “source” of the island, even the whole Jacob/Smokey angle. That flashback ep was well done. Why do they make Ben and Charles’ wrap up stories so bad??

Some weeks ago, we got an excellent moment with Ben Linus. Almost a redemption of sorts. Since his birth, he’s been through hell because of this island. Maybe it’s time to realise all the mistakes his made because of the island’s.. The killings, the lies, the deaths… Then why hasn’t he learned anything?

Okay, yes I know he lost his daughter and all (mind you, not his REAL daughter, but anyways..) but apart from a brief mention this week, she’s been ignored in the storyline since last year. All of a sudden he thinks in the last moments of last weeks eps “to hell with the greater good, i have some petty squabble to fix”. Yes, the passion of the moment can cloud anyone’s judgement, but it was done in such a cold, calculated  way it’s not like it was even upsetting him. Maybe that’s more to do with Michael Emerson?’s acting style. Who knows… It just feels like that moment on the beach, standing by himself wanting to be part of that group (a perfectly shot moment) was for nothing. Never mind Charles Widmore’s death… After all that planning, all that buildup for him to return to the island, he’s killed off within seconds, like the writers ran out of ideas for him now he got to Othersville. It’s kinda weak.

Let’s use an example from another Scifi show, Deep Space Nine. Gul Dukat, played by the wonderful Marc Alaimo. Probably one of the best bad guys created for TV (tied with Al from Deadwood, but that’s another non scifi story,,,) he goes from supporting character, to baddie, to good guy to downright evil by the end of the 7 year run. The thing with his character, it wasn’t a pathetic WWE double cross or anything like that, at all times the character believed what he was doing was right. All the best bad guys believe it. During the series when he loses his position of leader due to his illegitimate half Bajoran daughter, he becomes an un-easy ally of some sorts to the Humans of the show, as he continues to fight the evil Dominion for the good of the empire. By the end of the series, he goes full on whackjob crazy not because “ahh shock! tricked you!”, more due to the fact that he has a mental breakdown due to the death of his daughter. If you’ve never seen DS9 and love clever scifi, give it ago… and mind the spoilers

The problem I have is the surprise twist in Lost is that it doesnt feel that real to me… He’s been betrayed by the island for not being that important. He never gets acceptance from Jacob in all his years which leads him to his mistake of killing the island’s protector. He receives acceptance somewhat with the remaining Losties (and the rest of the hangers on left over). After all he’s done to them all, they’re still willing to take him in while they’re busy running for their lives from Flocke. And yet he sides with Smokey at the end?

Maybe the creators are trying to tell us that deep inside Ben is a truly flawed man and can never learn from his mistakes, or he’s got an ace up his sleeve and the death of his old nemesis was just a bonus. Well, one more week to find out anyway

It’s funny, after flying on one of the larger air carriers, I feel more comfortable flying with the rex people. There’s something more personal? And a small complimentary drink/nibbles is just nice. Spose you get what you pay for.

I love this mophie juice pack. Slowly starting to run out now and I’m still sitting on 100% internal. Love it.

My ipad would have done nice right about now. Apple says still 28th may, do no more delays hopefully.. It’s funny though with voda 3g and shitloads of apps, I’m finding I’m not missing out on a lot than I would if I brought my shitty and slow eeepc. Probably going to visit the apple store on Monday, see if I can find one of those battery cases for my 3gs.

Anyways must dash. Nice dinner out tonight for my friends birthday… Hope all is good with all of you.

Terry

No, no.. Nothing actually happened to me. Just “life” got in the way, and I got lazy. Work’s been work, but I’ve still been able to sneak in a little of a social life and some TV watching on the side too. Thought I’d spend a little while telling you how I feel about the sci fi shows I watch of late.

Dr. Who

There’s something fun and exciting when someone new takes over the reigns of my favourite show. Being that it’s Stephen Moffat as well, a guy who I think has made some of the best television shows of the past couple years doesn’t hurt either. (FYI – Press Gang, Coupling, Jekyll. Check them out if you haven’t already). To say I’m a fanboi is a bit of a understatement. I may cause dramas with fellow nerds, but I prefer his record over Joss’, despite me falling in love with the ex show Firefly.

You can see if all through the reviews over the net anyways, but people are looking towards series 5 (or 1, or 31, or whatever the true name of this is) as a far more fantasy feel than the big and bold era of Russell T’s time on board. Not that there’s anything wrong with the change, there’s such a different feel between series of old school who as well. From the fun camp Douglas Adams days, to the more serious sci fi Bidmead period, to much later on the darker feel of “Cartmel’s Masterplan” as the show went on. Apart from Nick Courtney and the TARDIS, nothing ever really hung around all these years. The opening scenes of that creepy garden as the Doctor crash lands with the mystical music of Murray Gold (I have to say an invigorated Murray Gold – maybe the change was good for him. Towards the end of last year I was seriously thinking he’d run out of ideas) we’re introduced to new everything. Not even an old companion to adjust, not even the classic series did that. It some ways it almost feels like a new show as well. There’s some clever retconning of the previous years as well to keep the Earth young and exciting again as well – some more hardcore fans might be infuriated that those 4 and a bit years are now null and void (personally I think a clueless Earth when it comes to aliens is much better) but it opens up the story for new and exciting ideas. It’s just a shame that the new ideas for the Daleks look so silly.

Beyond that, my only real grip at the moment is Amy Pond. Nothing about her, or her acting ability or anything like that, it’s just I’m having a hard time connecting to the companion this time.  The companion’s role usually is to connect to the audience, having the Doctor being incredibly alien and all. Gone are the days of the two dimensional cutout who asks stupid questions and screams whenever something weird comes in their direction. Since Ace (and especially Rose) the companion’s character and story is almost as important as The Doctors. So we go to series 5 and we get such a mysterious companion (with her backstory anyway) and I just don’t know what to make of her. At the moment she seems very much like a replacement Rose. Young, plucky etc etc… What else?? Maybe cause we’ve had such wonderful companions since (Martha, Donna, WILF!!) It’s going to take me a while? Or is it just the fact that her backstory is still unknown?? back in the day we had a similar thing with Turlough. We didn’t find out why he was exiled to the Earth until the very end of his stay in the TARDIS, but we also had Tegan to relate to as well – She was the one kids loved (actually, have to admit, apart from a dodgy Australian accent, I did like her character – she was the only one who stood up to The Doctor back then ) In this day and age it’s very much a one doctor, one companion and OCCASIONAL tag alongs, so it’s kind of different. Maybe this will clear up in the coming weeks as she goes back to Earth and takes Rory for a trip in the past. We’ll see.

Lost

Until this very week, I was beginning to think that the “shades of grey” was beginning to come into effect with the Widmore/Flocke showdown. I mean, noone is truly evil in this fight and both are doing bad things for the wrong reasons. Boy was I wrong! Such a heartbreaking episode! We see the end (and redemption) of characters and when they wash up on the beach and Hurley breaks down, I lost it. I think it’s the first time in the show that Hurley has and it really says something about all of the characters, it’s their breaking point. It’s also known that the show is ending very soon, so.. haha .. but you can really see that this is the beginning of the end for all of this. There’s one thing though – I HOPE it doesnt get too mystical on us all.

Before you laugh, let me explain. Does anyone remember a movie back in the 90s called Hideaway?? Very average film I remember watching PROBABLY because Alicia Silverstone is in it. About a father who can see into the mind of a serial killer, and begins to worry when the killer starts to stalk out his daughter. It’s not so bad up to that point but the showdown is almost like the director runs out of ideas and makes this stupid supernatural special effects showdown between the father and the killer which is just so stupid. I just hope that the candidate (whoever it is) and Flocke don’t follow the same path. Sure, the show is full of weird, unexplained things happening everyday, but I think that’s almost shark jumping material. We all know there will be a final confrontation, let’s just hope it’s a little more thought out. 6 years of this show, i want a decent satisfactory ending to all of it.

Stargate Universe

Not a real lot I can speculate about this show. It’s not that kind of show. I’m still very much enjoying it, and it’s great that these characters are all so very REAL (the flashbacks for Greer this week were very well done) it’s a bit more serialized and doesn’t have a “Big Bad” hiding in the background, like the cracks, or the pure oddness that is Lost. Killer cliffhanger this week though – I’ll be curious to see how they get back to the ship and if it will be instant next week or later on down the road.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – this is what Star Trek Voyager SHOULD have been.

That’s all I can formulate in this tired 29 year old head of mine. I know I should do this more and I promise to from now on. Peace.

Terry

The redemption of Benjamin Linus

You know, not since I think Gul Dukat in Star Trek, Deep Space Nine, have we had such a well depicted bad guy on a television series. This episode focuses mainly on Ben, and throughout the entire episode I was sitting there thinking that he WOULD actually take the bad route. Right up to the very end, this Machiavellian mastermind loves his control. Throughout the series however, he’s realised his one mistake – Alex. While not technically his daughter, he’s grown to raise her and chose the island over her. Because he thought his faith in the Island, faith in the Jacob will pull him through. In alterna-world, it’s a pretty mundane existence, but with the same Ben. He can have the principal’s job, however Alex’s (in this world, just a gifted student and no relation outside of school) application to college will be thrown in the bin. For a second I thought – “will he do it? he hasn’t had the experiences of the island since a child (the breaking point (so far) of the original timeline..), he hasn’t learnt life’s lessons?” Apparently, the good of the somewhat mundane yet good world has done him the world of good. Oh, and Artz is back as the science teacher. It seems even in this world, all these characters stick together.

We see similar aspects with Jack and Richard. The loss of faith. Jack because he thought the island would fix him. Richard now doesn’t have Jacob to look to. Yet fate is a cruel mistress in the Lost world. They can’t die – maybe they can still age unlike Richard, but the island has much more in store for them. So what do they do?? I almost feel in a way, like I said last time, that it’s a parallel to religion in someways. Jacob the good, yet not providing any answers. Being frank (yet cruel) to Ben when he tells him that he’s not important. When it’s more than an invisible man up in the sky and we truly believe in the island when we can see the mystic happening around, you WANT to know what’s going on. There’s probably a very good reason to why (like us) they’ve been kept out of the loop when it comes to answers. A point to all of this? I don’t want the end to say – “actually, Jacob was wrong. Flocke is fine to leave, end of show”. It would seem a bit of a cop out.

A few other notes -

When did the timeline split? The island is now underwater in Earth-A, yet Ben still went there as a child, and just left with his father. Maybe they evacuated the place when the bomb exploded? End of the island?? (although how could they survive something like that?? I’ll give them a little leeway there…)

Only last week I was saying “I wonder what happened to Charlie” and whether the character was coming back. If he is the person to be returning by Jacob’s hand? Or maybe Jacob had nothing to do with it, and just knew it was going to eventually happen?? He’s very anti-Ben at this point and I have a feeling that he won’t be cosying up to him, even for the good of the island. And also – Does that mean the eventual return of Penny/Des? I hope so. Even though I’d love a happily ever after for those two, you KNOW stuff like that is pretty impossible in the Lost world.

All round, a really good episode. Less WTF moments, but some really well done scenes with Ben and Ilana as she is ready to kill him.

Other things I remember

1 – MOUNTAIN DEW!! – This may sound odd, but there’s some silly Australian rule that says only cola flavoured soft drinks can have caffeine in it. So our version of Mountain Dew over here is nice, yet tame. You don’t drink it to get buzzed. On my trips, when I had a moment, I’d stop in different stores and see if I could find a bottle. First stop was Noumea. While my uncle and crew paid through the nose for a couple of drinks at the deli right next to the port (suckers) I paid something like 1.50 or something for a 600 ml 7up (no MD was found yet). I spent half an hour just looking at all the French versions of different foods and drinks over there. Twisties were really popular over there. Don’t ask me why. I could be wrong, but I’m SURE I saw Arnott’s Shapes as well. Being an Australian food, this is pretty surprising for a French colony…

Anyways,

Yes, found some in Port Denarau, and had to take a photo of it as well I’m surprised how much caffeine they pack into those bottles, actually! I’m a pretty steady coke drinker, and I’m sure that had more of a kick than your standard bottle of Coke. Maybe it was the lack of soft drink on that trip (mainly cause I was drinking beer 95% of the time) but I could of sworn that was more of a Red Bull like pick me up. Anyways

2 – Rich area. I mean RICH RICH. After visiting places like Suva, and even Noumea which was very commercial, still had its points of poverty (like most cities), this place was nothing but expense. Looking at the map a few minutes ago, I honestly thought (until now) that PD was actually a small island not connected to mainland Fiji, so no doubt a ten minute drive down the road would show you the rest of the place. Even so, If I had Bill Gates like wealth, I’d certainly pick up a place there for a holiday pad. WOW

everything else, whether it be music, my rantings or sci fi geeky stuff will still go through here and filtered onto the LJ account anyways.

hope everyone is well

Terry

“i am a good man…”

We start off with a good old fashion comfrontation, as Sayid’s had enough of being stared at and goes to see Dogen. What we get is a kick ass fight scene that shows us Dogen’s no slouch, he’s just devious like that. How an accountant (as we find later) manages to kick so much ass living on the island for so long is another story. Bit unintentionally racist there?? Like the sisko, he loses his baseball and just stops. End of fight. And tells Sayid to “git”.
Meanwhile, Claire and her “friend”, Flocke are behind the ash wall that keeps him out of places (my guess is that the hut was not housing Jacob but keeping Flocke IN, but we’ll hopefully later see)

“Are you going to hurt them, Friend?” “Only the ones who won’t listen….” Great friend you’ve got there, Claire. I’d really think about getting out more. Either way, it’s Claire’s turn to do some work. It might keep Flocke out, but Claire’s happy to wander wherever she likes.

In Sayid’s words “Apparently, i’m evil” – he’s gone to pack up and leave being banished, talking to Medium-Miles. Looks like Hurls and emo-Jack aren’t back yet. And in walks Claire!! Even messy she’s still adorable.. don’t know if i’d pick her up if she were hitchhiking .. Miles makes a similar comment as well. We get a little you go see him, no he can come here, so Dogen decides to get sayid to kill him! Poor guy, wherever he goes he cant escape his past..

It’s coffee (or beer) time as Miles sings the praises of Claire and fills in Kate with what’s been going down since she got the talk from Sawyer.

Sayid’s looking aroundin the jungle, and we get the good old ca chunk ca chunk of Smokey’s true form,, forms into flocke and Sayid goes the stab. Mind you, Dogen instructed to stab before he spoke. Maybe thats why we get a “it’s just a flesh wound!” moment as Flocke pulls out the knight with a confused/annoyed look. “Why you go and do that? It’s quite a good moment. Made me giggle.

Flocke gives some answers here. Is he being trustful here ? “You had no chance. Dogen knew that and he was hoping i would kill you…” Sayid is offered his temptation – could have anything he wanted?? ahhh so i was wrong with that “Last Supper” photo they setup. Perhaps Sayid was meant to be the judas figure?? The betrayer??

Sayid returns and gives all the group a message “Jacob is dead. You no longer have to stay here anymore. You are free” … well, maybe.. we’ll see how well Flocke treats the redshirts… “Flocke wants to leave the island. Anyone who wants to go, join him… if you don’t, you die..” Dogen looks less than impressed…

Kate gets all up on hippy sol star’s face so she can go see Claire. Claire, however, is singing some ditty that i couldn’t recognise (well US Australian children certainly didn’t sing it) and Claire goes all OH HAI to I KILL U!!! once she figures out what happened to Aaron. the face change is amazing, Emilie is an amazing actress…

Sayid drops the knife off to Dogen, where Sayid asks him why he gets others to do his dirty work. The sad strings start and we here Dogen once lived in Osaka, he made a silly mistake and lost his son to a drink driving accident. He was also given the option for his son to live, but he had to come to the island and he would never be able to see his son again. Sayid, without blinking, decides to drown Dogen. Umm, dude, remember that water brought you back to life?? Well, regardless to whether Dogen comes back, it’s too late. Hippy sol star lets us know that Dogen was the only one keeping Flocke out, he gets a slash to the throat for his troubles and yes, the wail and ca chink sounds of good ol’ smokey…. have a guess what happens?? miles and take split up, and while take goes for Claire (stupidstupidstupid), Miles bumps into the rest of the Ajira crew, just in time Kate hides in the hole with Claire while smokey runs through the room, and Ben and Sayid have their confrontation.. Ben for the first time in his life is actually nice and caring, but the evil smile on the face of Sayid says it all.. Ben slowly backs out the room off to the rest of them where they hide in Hurley’s tunnel from the other week. Kate follows Sayid and Claire outside through all the destruction where we see Flocke did do good on his promise, the rest are behind him, a little scared, but alive nonetheless.

On Earth-A, however. Still it’s Sayid’s turn. Nadia is alive, and yet married to his brother. You can tell there’s some tension there, some tense looks which disappear when the Brother’s kids come in and Sayid gets them their presents – the fakest, dodgiest tourist boomerangs I have ever seen. I hate to be mean, but seriously, it looks like they were probably made in Hawaii.

Omar, the brother turns to Sayid in the middle of the night. Even in this world, Sayid still seems to be the go-to man when things get rough. Bro owes cash to bad men. You can guess what he’s been asked to do. I really feel for Sayid at this point. No matter what he does in his life, the memories of the past always come back to haunt him.
It’s really only the next day when Sayid’s bro is “mugged”, but wife and Sayid know better. Nadia pleads for him to go home and wait for the kids to come home from school. He actually agrees!! She gives him “why didn’t you want me” actually, that’s a DAMN good question. Who’d say no to her??? Looks like he still feels guilt over his past actions. YET – an extended stay on a weird island makes a different opinion later on. Go figure…

Later, Sayid bumps into some hired goons who offer him “a ride he cannot refuse”, and not in the dirty way (ew). In some kitchen restaurant, we find the head honcho is Keamy, that bastardo from the freighter a couple of years ago. Good to know a bastard is a bastard, no matter the time line. Sayid sorts the business out as he knows how, and on the way out bumps into Jin in a freezer… obviously that money he stashed in ep 2 was meant from them. And we’re left wondering WTF is going on there for another week. why Jin seems to be in a poorer position in this universe is beyond me. isn’t sun’s dad Mr. powerful and all of that?? *shrugs*

So far into this season and I’m already thinking of some ideas. Is that the gist?? Have we got two sets of people living on earth?? Maybe the time line WAS changed, just that the old paradox keeps the original time line going. So YES, technically Sayid would be able to see Nadia again, well as long with Sayid-B? maybe Flocke IS evil, but is the island really THAT important?? Now that the button is no longer an issue, does anyone really need to stay?? is it to protect it from outsiders? and speaking of which, hows widmore going? havent heard much about him lately… hmm

One thing I’ve noticed is the heavy handed religious theme they’re playing with Jacob/Flocke. Jacob with the God/Faith angle, and Flocke, the devil side actually offering power and answers. I’m not the most religious man in the world, but in my head it really feels like this is what they’re aiming for. i might have to look up some stuff online. It’s no confusion compared to say, Neon Genesis when it comes to religion, but I’ll say I’m still enjoying all of this and it’s keeping me watching, that’s for sure!

“No Stig For You!!”

I know it’s not the geekiest show in the world, but I do enjoy Top Gear. (The UK version, mind you. The Australian version was too try hard for my tastes). I suppose in a way it IS geekery, well in a car geek kind of way. Although being raised in a car family, it kind of passed over me. No, the reason I watch this show it is because it is so damned funny. For a long time in Australia, the SBS has been airing the series a little while after the UK shows them, usually a year behind. Late last year, one of our commercial stations Channel 9, bought the rights off of the SBS in what has been said for quite a lot of money. It’s kinda sad for SBS, a part government/part commerical station getting the show taken off of them mainly because it was one of their highest rating shows. That’s the harsh reality of television these days though, and a couple of weeks ago they started showing Season 14 on Prime Time on 9.

Well, kinda.

Being the week before the Winter Olympics, they had a double bumper – Episode 1 and The older Winter Olympics special. Fair enough. Because of advertising and the two episodes, they chopped quite a bit from the first episode. No news, no Power Lap, mainly the Star in the reasonably priced car and the challenge. I grumbled, but shrugged. Thems the breaks. Luckily shortly after the show aired, Itunes had the original episode as broadcast from the UK available. Now the Olympics are over, and I go to check what we have airing tonight? Part of episode 4, and the other half from the American Road trip, back from Series 9 in 2007.

How can commercial stations screw up television so much? We’ve all seen the American Road trip before. Hell, it’s even available on DVD in Australia! I understand that they have the rights to show all the old stuff now that they own everything but series 1, but why don’t they wait a couple of weeks after airing the ORIGINAL NEW episodes they have now? Due to BBC budget cuts, they’re only running 7 episodes a season anyways! They have plenty of time to show best of episodes in the weeks to come. I just hope itunes are sensible enough to release the proper episodes as they’re meant to online. I’ll find out in a few days as the tv shows update..

It’s silly things like this, and other commercial stations dropping cult TV shows half way through original airings (Torchwood, Veronica Mars are two examples that spring to mind) that Australia is the second largest country in the world for downloading/bittorrenting our television.

If someone with a knife to your leg asks if you are still friends, YOU SAY YES!!

This week there’s a lot of things happening in real 2007. Hurley’s on his (what seems) to be twentieth game of Plant naughts and crosses with (whatever happened to scribbling in the dirt?) where Jacob comes back and tells him to get a pen – He’s got work to do. Looks like now that Jacob’s dead Hugo’s the little errand boy, seeming that he’s the only guy who can see dead people. He doesn’t manage to find a Dharma notepad, so he’s arms all blue with instructions. Apparently he’s got to take Jack to some lighthouse where they can light it and summon someone who will help. After a brief encounter with Dogen, Jacob teaches Hurley the magic words he wishes he knew all the way back in Season 1 – “I’m a candidate”. Firefly fans try and decipher the harsh language Dogen spits out and from then on it’s a mainly a few character moments with Jack and Hurley. There’s one point when Hurley says “This is like the good ol’ days!” which is replied by a foul look by Jack. Mind you, foul looks is pretty much all you get from Jack in this episode. He’s had a gutful again. He thought that the island would “fix” him, never mind looking within himself to find out why he feels like this. We stumble across the old cave and Adam & Eve, where Hurley gives a few ideas (maybe they’re time travelers from the dinosaur age? My guess at the moment is Rose and Bernard) and Jack and Hurley are both amazed that they have never seen a lighthouse on the island before. I’m surprised the “Somebody else’s problem field” has worked for this long. Douglas Adams would be proud.

In the lighthouse, we see those silly old numbers again. Matched up to names. When Jack lines it up to his number (despite the instructions by Jacob) we see Jack’s childhood house. Before we get to see what’s behind Hurley’s window, Jack smashes up the glass. He’s realised that Jacob’s been manipulating them all for a very long time. Outside Hurley’s one to add to this list as well – this was all to get Hurley and Jack out of the Temple, and to show Jack that’s he’s important. They’re certainly playing Jack up as the reluctant hero. I just wish he was less emo about it all. It gets a little annoying from Jack after a while..

Meanwhile, on the other side of the island, we return to Jin and Claire’s last encounter. In the three years since we last saw Claire, she really has turned batshit insane. We have Rousseau 2.0. She’s got her little camp setup packed with traps, dynamite, the works. One of the fellows from last week wasn’t exactly dead. Jin wakes up next to this tied up guy, Justin (for the 80s kids, it’s in fact BLT from Degrassi Jnr High. Remember him?) who pleads Jin to let him go, Claire is batshit crazy. Well, Jin soon discovers this fact himself. Claire thinks they’re hiding Aaron in the Temple. Jin lets slip what really happens, but covers it up quickly. Claire’s relieved, if Kate DID look after Aaron, she’d have to kill her too. And Claire REALLY doesn’t want that. Just before she starts hearing voices, or a three headed monkey, Jin is saved by Claire’s new friend. Well, she says “friend”, I say Flocke. Jin, be scared Does that mean Christian WAS Smokey? Or is he a completely different character in the jungle? Be interesting to see how that one goes and whether we see Christian in the normal timeline again…

As for Earth-A, or alternate timeline, WE HAVE MORE DADDY ISSUES!! This time around though, it’s with Jack’s son. Yeah, even I went “WTF” there. Starting off he seems like most teenagers – Emo, Sulky, resentful… But we find he’s an akward kid whose father/son relationship is very much like how Jack and Christian were. Jack and his (less bitchy) mother go rummaging around Christians things looking for his will, and, of course, we find out about Claire, but that story is cut short and we return to Jack looking for his son David. He’s run out. Not back to his mother’s house, or to some club on a drug bender, but TO PIANO PRACTICE?? Looks like David’s issue is he’s afraid he can never live up to his fathers expectations. We have a sweet moment and it’s also kind of sad – back in the original Earth during Hugo and Jack’s walk, Jack scoffs at one point announcing “I’d be a terrible father. I could never have kids”.. At least we know in this timeline he doesn’t have one…

Wasn’t a bad episode at all. Jack is never my favourite character to explore. It does seem that’s he’s having a better attempt at life on Earth-A, though. He gets along with Mother, even though he’s broken up with his wife (that’s an interesting question to see) he still has a pretty good kid and has given up the booze… As for the rest? it just seems that these characters we’re watching week after week have been manipulated into this final showdown that is coming soon. More of a build up, but still interesting TV

I think the post says it all, really. What do you think?? The visual style is different, but cool. it’s got a much more modern feel – even more so than the RTD work. Hard to explain, but there’s a much more younger feel. I just really hope that with Steven’s influence he doesn’t make it too kiddy. I have faith, though. He wrote Coupling, and that’s not the most family suitable show in the world…

Is that going to be the new vortex look?? If it is, cue fanboi hatred in 5, 4, 3, … Don’t get me wrong, I like it, but such a massive change to the style will have people talking.

As for the music, I really really like it. I could feel a more modern rock/indie influence in the background there. I was worried Murray Gold was running out of ideas by the end of Tennant’s run. We had so many memorable tracks in the early days which kind of faded to “okay, but nothing you’d write home about” come season 4/specials time. And to tease us with the old theme! It’s been reported that he’s redoing the theme song for the new series as well. Guess we’ll have to wait for that.

So we have an Easter release! It’s a shame it’s not a late March release again, but hey, I’d be happy to give them another month if it means a better overall bunch of episodes.

A few notes – Has anyone else noticed that the Daleks are the old-school style Daleks? Are we seeing a bunch of the Daleks from before the whole Time War? They also had Time Travel tech, and it would be interesting at the end having the let the Daleks go, knowing full well that to kill them off now would be bad…

Weeping Angels – This one is a given. Let’s hope they’re as frightening as they were before…

Let the countdown begin

Locke was really getting sick of receiving all that Dharma spam in his inbox.

This week is John Locke’s turn at the sideways swipe. This time, however, things are different AND the same. John obviously had a healthier relationship with his father (yet STILL ended up in a wheelchair, how does that happen??) and is happily engaged to Leela, err, I mean Helen. No sex lines for THIS Locke He still tries to go on his walkabout, however, and is denied. What we get this time is more of the asshole boss, who ends up firing him and Locke bumps into the owner of the paper company, one Hugo Reyes (who never twigs seeing a bald wheelchair guy on the plane earlier, or vice versa) who still basks in luck in the alt-universe, and offers to help John with a new job.

Basically we see John agonize over the card given to him by Jack in the second episode during their past encounter. He decides to stop believing in Miracles and hopes that Helen can accept him for who he is and not keep holding onto a hope that one day he’ll walk again. It’s a sweet moment.

Back in Timeline A,  Fake Locke (or Flocke as he is known around the Lost forums) is running and ca-chinking around the island in hope to recruiting some people to his cause. His kidnap of everlasting Richard last week doesn’t help a bit – he refuses and ca-chinks back over to ex-Otherstown where Kate has tearfully left and somehow there’s still enough power for Sawyer to crank some Iggy and the Stooges on the turntable, and I crank the speakers for a few minutes .

Back on the beach, not too much happens. IIlana sooks a little about her dead crew. I don’t know why. Maybe they’re some sort of “off-island Jacob cult” and very close, but until these last couple of weeks, she’s seemed not much more than a muscle group here to help Jacob. However she scoops up some of Jacob’s ashes, buries Locke, and decide to all go to the temple, but before (of course) will have all sorts of zany adventures and stay out of the way until needed just before mid-break finale, where they will most definitely tease us with the Sun/Jin meetup as a cliffhanger…

Back in ex-Otherstown, James in his drunken state has gotten to the point where he just doesn’t CARE anymore about the weirdness of the island. I want to say he takes it all in his stride, but it’s more than that. More of a resignation in some ways. It’s very sad. Still, Flocke offers him answers and after a run around in the jungle with a warning by Richard and some creepy little kid, we fall down a rickety old ladder (good question – how in the hell are they getting back UP that cliff-face for next week?) and Flocke throws a white stone out in the ocean. I was right about the ying/yang thing. There are two sides to this show. Whoever Jacob WAS and Flocke IS, they are the ying/yang to all of this. Stands to reason whether black is evil and white is good… We see a large list of crossed out people, the list of the dead. The remaining on the list are the main characters. Jack, either Sun or Jin, Sawyer, Hurley and Sayid, all accompanied by those good ol’ numbers (according to the show, Jacob was a bit of a maths nerd). For once, we GET SOME ANSWERS! Jacob/Flocke were once men like them, Jacob is there to protect the island. Flocke, most probably, is chaos. Chaos/Order, anyone? Someone needs to replace Jacob, and “the list”, are the candidates. The remaining main cast of this show. Flocke gives him the options 1. Do nothing, and get struck off of the list (does that mean die, though, or be removed as a candidate?), 2. Become Jacob’s successor, or 3. Get off the island with Flocke, which is all that Flocke has ever wanted to do. And just as Sawyer decides, “stuff it, let’s leave”, it’s credits time.

i liked this episode. Out of all of the characters in this show, it seems that they let John Locke suffer the most. Nothing in this guys life ever seems to work out. Here though, despite his disability, he’s doing alright. He learns to deal with his drawbacks, and becomes a better person, something he couldn’t really do on the island as he was chasing faith every week. Locke’s a believer, and all this mystical shit is like Heroin to Charlie… In the real word of Timeline B, he’s decided – “enough dreaming, time to grow up a little”. It’s sad that I feel like all of this “what if” is going to be swept under the rug somehow, and we’re going to be left with the John Locke we buried this week.

The secrets? It’s good to finally, (if slowly) see some answers. My big question is do they ALL need to be part of what is to come? Is it destined? Something they can’t escape? The way Flocke was talking to Sawyer, it sounded like Death will be certain if he chooses not to take this path. We’ll see. And what about Jacob/Flocke? Did they come in the times of the Black Rock? Did these two replace some other people? Is it a never ending battle that started at the beginning, like the Egyptian times? I’m happy to see the black/white side though. And I like the little moment with Timeline B’s Locke’s alarm clock sounding very much like the alarm that the hatch used to make. Great episode and well done enough to keep us fans guessing and thinking for the week to come.

This is how I’m feeling 90% of the time. It’s kind of odd. I usually enjoy summer. Well, more than winter, that’s for sure. This year though it just feels like it’s drailing the life out of me. Also, while the rest of the country is either getting some decent storms, ortoo much rain, Mildura is being passed by. The last time it rained was about 3 days ago or so. And it was in the middle of the night and lasted minutes. Literally minutes. So perhaps its envy? I don’t know. Either way, I’m not trusting the weather man and keeping the watering out the front up.

Had the family here most of the the weekends lately. Had Auntie here, weekend before, Mum and Dad, weekend before that, other auntie. It’s like this is becoming the new Broken Hill (my home town) or something. Also, remind me not to drink Carlton Draught again. Woke up in the middle of the night with a serious headache, I’m talking migraine almost. Something obviously didn’t agree with me with that beer. It’s kind of odd, I used to drink that all of the time when I lived in Wagga Wagga, with no ill effects. (this is before Pure Blonde). Maybe drinking all this Low Carb, low preservatives Beer has agreed with my body. Who knows. Went to my fathers friends house after heading out to the drags where I fall asleep and start snoring in front of them all. Classy. I think i’ll give the Carlton a miss next time. And the bad thing is, I MAYBE had 4?? God I’m useless

In which we see Kate’s story as a girl on the run again, and Sayid finally gets a taste of his own medicine..

Deep breath, Claire. You’re about to go into Labour. AGAIN.

So this week we return to the flash-sideways? Is that a good way of putting it? Kate and Claire are in the taxi running for their lives and as soon as we get rid of the unimportant taxi man, it’s all about them. What I think they’re doing with these sideways stories is showing us a more “what if”, alternative universe, much like the new Star Trek movie and that their lives wouldn’t have been that much different if their plane didn’t crash. It begs the question “if that’s so, how did Jack etc end up back in the current day?” but even I scratch my head at that one. Best way I think.

I mean, look at it. The adopted couple end up not being able to keep the baby and Claire ends up going into premature labour. Apart from a nice little cameo from Ethan, or Dr. Goodspeed (obviously the Rom surname was a pseudonym of some sort) Claire decides to keep the baby and Kate ends up caring for Claire way more than she should.

I have to say, I have to giggle about poor old Artz copping it episode after episode. He must be a character the writers delight on making him suffer.

Back in the original timeline?? Sayid comes back from the dead and he gets a red hot poker, and some electrodes on the nipples, and DEFINITELY not in the kinky way. I mean, Sayid’s alright, but it would of been a nice moment where he goes “now I know how they all felt…” or something like that. Sawyer cops a brief comment before leaving, but he’s gone by the time the event happens. As for magical Sayid? The Gods champions? Claire playing for the “white” side (or if Jacob IS the good side) and Sayid being on the “black”, or Smokey’s side. The rest of that story was drawn way out as the whole group go “woah” and Jack and The mysterious Chinese guy get into a pissing competition about who is cooler and whatnot. Withholding information this late in the game?? Better start coughing up the answers soon, boys, we’ve only got one season left….

As for Sawyer, you really get the sense that he truly has lost everything. Finally finds love in Juliet and he gets it cruelly taken away from him. Kate follows out of a sense of… what? Love still? She says to Sawyer the reason she came back was for Claire, but you can tell from her reactions earlier with Jin (who also left the temple, looking for Sun in (of course) a later episode) and her tears when Sawyer and her have a little talk that I think Kate still has some feelings for our Western boy. My guess is that something happens with Juliet and Sawyer in the alternate timeline, I mean he’ll bump into Kate in some very too convenient way but by the end of the season, they’ll be happy in some way or another..

All in all, not a bad episode. There was less shock in this episode around, more of a building up to things. Poor ol’ Hurley maybe gets two words to bleat out (and while Jack admits that he didn’t save Sayid, he never tells him it was Big Hugo… Poor guy … Props where Props are due…) and the present day Claire reveal right at the very end probably will be a tease for another couple of weeks…

As we saddle in for the final season of Lost, probably one of the best series to hit TV since Babylon 5 for pure mind-fuck and well planned story, I think I shall try and blog the whole lot of this season this year. You know, I’m going to miss this crazy show once it’s finally off the air. It’s good for them though to say ” hey. we’ve got a plan. we don’t need to go on any further.” for example, look at the x files. that show went on for far too long and it suffered when it came to the overall story. I’ll just have to find another new show to obsess over. Until then, I still have Dr. Who, which comes back in March.. (yay!)

Well, let’s see. The alternate timelines is a clever but brilliant idea. It doesn’t seen to negate the original timeline either, the rest of the group are back in the present time and still being their typical selves. So instead of flashbacks and thinking “okay, enough is enough”, we get what would of happened to the group if they DID land at LAX instead. It’s gotten my attention so far. Kate is still Kate, We get a sweet cameo from some of the smaller characters (Froghurt) and apart from a big absence from Walt/Micheal (understandable, Walt can’t play being a kid again) we get the only difference from the original – Shannon decides to stay in Australia. Suits me fine – Couldn’t stand the character anyways… And, oh yes – we get our first appearance from Claire in a hell of a long time. Good to see she’s in it until the end. I would of hated to see that they couldn’t get her back for the show and they write her off with some back handed comment or something…

As for the current time, my thoughts aren’t as clear for the current moment. I’m glad to see I was correct – Jacob’s nemesis WAS Smokey the cloud monster and he’s been using dead people for quite some time. As for the temple? I don’t know. It’s good to see the kids and the rest of the flight still alive and safe, but it seems like a bit of a cop out. You’re trying to tell me that “The Others” as we have known them for the past 5 years didn’t know about this group living in the temple? Or perhaps this is their safe place?? Why didn’t they all run here when things got bad last year?? We’ll see what they have planned, oh, it’s good to see Kimberley Joseph again as the flight attendant. I thought she’d never come back.

So a delightful return for the last year of one of my favourite shows. Once this is over I’m certainly going back and rewatching them on Bluray to see the subtle clues (if any) they they have been planting since the beginning. Who would of thought this show would of been as sci-fi as it is now all those years ago

This is how the wonderful people of Fiji saw us off from Port.

It’s strange. I enjoyed the day, but the dodgy driver before and the massive crowd we had on the day made it really impossible to just go walking in town. Not by yourself anyways. And the rest had retired to the boat – My Uncle on his walk, the other two – probably at the bar (where I should of been). This changed my mood totally. Especially the cute little “Aussie Aussie Aussie” chant at the end. I know they probably do this all of the time, but it was good and they were very very talented. I wish I could of left the boat to get closer and watch them, but we were already preparing for departure at that point…

This was one of the more interesting days. We didn’t have plans and took a little site seeing tour with one of the worse vans I have ever been in. In Australia, this thing wouldn’t pass inspection. The guy kind of ripped us off at the end of the day, but It was our fault not asking before how much it was going to cost. Our trip to Vanuatu we made very sure.

It also happened to be one of the busiest days of the year for them. They had their annual carnival on, and the streets were packed. We also discovered later the Rugby finals were also on. Teams from all of the Fiji islands came over to play, where the winning team would get over 2 grand in prize money – quite a lot for some of these people…

It was a very rainy, yucky day but at least cleared up a little by the time we got to the falls. That was gorgeous. We didn’t stay for long, but they had this nice little cafe up the top that would of been great just to sit and relax for an afternoon or something…

The funniest thing I noticed on the drive (which you can kind of hear on the video) was the music. Many different cultures co-exist on these islands, so the music ranged from top 40 pop, your typical reggae music you heard everywhere on the trip and Indian Bollywood music from the latest hit film that hit their shores. At one point the DJ was complaining about how she couldn’t get twitter on her mobile phone as she didn’t have an iphone and her current phone didn’t have a data plan. Somethings are the same the world over….

You’re kidding, right? You know the jokes we can make here, right?? Ehh, maybe cause it’s too easy. I’m not too sure.

Looking at it now, it basically looks like a glorified ebook replacement. A large version of the Ipod Touch. No Flash (despite its hate its still sadly used), no USB ports, Iphone OS so really only one app open at the same time. I honestly thought maybe the software would be a hybrid between the normal OS and the Iphone one. Kind of a shame. I know you say netbooks are cheap and gimmicky, but the fact is the average netbook IS, and yet can do a lot more than this Ipad.

My biggest gripe is there’s no tethering, as far as I can tell. So here’s another dataplan you have to add on top of your net at home, and your mobile plan. I never go over my 1GB limit on my telephone plan. I’d like the option to bluetooth to my iphone and use that.

Still, looks pretty. The ibook will be interesting overseas. No surprises it’s not getting a release here. And an app version of Iwork – smart move. I’ve never been too sold on the gaming aspect of Apple – For me portable gaming still needs buttons of some kind, like a PSP or a Nintendo machine. That’s the old school gamer in me.

By the time I get around to purchasing a machine, I still think it’s going to be a macbook of some sort. Just have to be a 13″ version, the smallest one they have. They’re not TOO heavy to lug around, are they???

The Apple ebook reader.

Withe the early slip by the McGraw Hill guy yesterday, this much is certain. Should the Amazon people be worried? I say yes. Although it may not have the battery power and life of the kindle, this thing will be in colour, have more options than the kindle software and be able to display graphics with ease. Amazon have pretty much failed when it comes to international support of the Kindle. Only recently have they finally made an international version, and the content available outside of the US is pitiful. Apple will surely want to give this to everywhere there is an imac or iphone available. This means the “ebook store” will most definitely stock way more overseas and get way more sales. I know it’s a tricky legal battle uphill to please all publishers across the globe, but they did it with the music industry AND the TV networks, this will be a piece of cake for them at this point.

Also, with the better colour options and graphics, this could very well work for not only newspapers, but for magazines as well. Imagine that – having a decent price to pay for your magazines instead of the 20 plus dollars so you can get the NME imported from the UK… Also with comics – the big two have been experimenting with online comics for a little while – not everyone has access to a decent comic book store (when I was into it, i used to order online from a store in Sydney, 1000ks away…) comic scenes on bittorrent are getting away with murder, it would be good to get access to some of the archives, that some may want to read but not fork over the big bucks on ebay just so they can read the origins of their favourite superhero…

A Macbook Replacement ??

I’m going to go a little off centre here – what about the portable computer market? Apple have always said they weren’t into that whole thing. Still, I would love a smaller Macbook so I can take it away with me. Sure, 13 inch laptop isn’t exactly HUGE, but when you’re going away the smaller the better. If they offer options to say, plug in USB hard discs, or DVD drives, could it be a basic simple to use computer when going away on holidays?? I eventually need a smaller machine for my next holiday, and the ol’ eeepc just doesn’t cut it in the long run. It’s the perfect size but the processor power struggles with Win XP, and ubuntu is still sadly a joke in many ways. Sure, it won’t be able to run imovie or make a DVD, but that’s not what I want it for. I’d like it to have wifi (and the option to tether with my iphone), an option for external HDDs (mainly so I can drag my videos off of my handycam when it gets full, and for the odd film I can’t fit on it ) and some simple, straight forward web browsing, email, itunes access etc. Iphone OS of some sort is going to run on this, so the apps can probably be made for stuff like this, and it would be very handy to pull out the slim tablet and start to type something out in a word file using the on screen keyboard… I don’t need all the power of a macbook to do these things. That’s why I have an imac for.

I suppose we shall see tomorrow. I like a good tech announcement, but please forgive me if I don’t wet myself and giggle at some of the “over-enthusiastic” people around the internets at the moment. I do like my tech toys, but still own PCs, Xbox 360 and whatnot. I love all tech.

That’s the big surprise, I can’t believe how easy and simple it was to call them, them to get my details and sort everything. Within ten minutes he had given me a number, a sheet to print out and BOOM! Off to the Post Office, where THEY get one of their own packing boxes and sort it out for you. God knows how much that must cost Apple altogether each year. Sure, I have to pay to get the screen replaced, but it was my own fault…. Probably Internode and Apple are  the only tech support numbers I’ve ever called and not come away with a migraine afterwards.

Being sucked into Dragon Age : Origins at the moment. If you like single player RPGs, this is probably THE best game I have ever played. So much gameplay, such clever and well thought out character design where influences and disapprovals by your companions completely changes the storyline. And its got many difficulty settings so a uber-noob like me can actually play and not get frustrated and stuck somewhere. I’ve only done two areas and I have so so much still to go on. Haven’t even started the Downloadable Content yet….

Noumea was a lot better than I previously remember. I went when I was around 12ish. The day was freezing, It rained all day and it wasn’t that different from what we left in Sydney, I thought at the time. This time around, however I was a little older, a little wiser and actually enjoyed myself. It’s probably the most commercial when it comes to all of the Pacific islands, but after the drive we had hours to kill and that’s when I truly enjoyed myself. I returned to the ship, dropped off my handycam and just wandered the city like I belonged there. Beautiful parks, shops all around (although not much to buy! I never did find a music store on the island, probably plenty and I passed them all).

I know it sounds odd, but I love wandering supermarkets. Seeing all the same stuff just that little bit different, in a completely different language. For some reason, Twisties are MASSIVE over there. Maybe it’s got something to do with a cultural thing, or something which doesn’t translate well, but the normal slogan “Life’s pretty straight without Twisties” to “Life’s great with Twisties”. I have no idea.

The boat was late to set off that night because two people were late in returning?? Where were they?? Why, McDonalds of course. Go all this way and you get junk food at Maccas. To be honest I was tempted to go there just so I could order a “Royale with Cheese” (which is probably bullshit. but a giggle)

Finally getting around to doing my holiday video from my Cruise last year on the Pacific Dawn. imovie is a little annoying in parts, but it’s bloody easy to use and simple to get going. Once I figured out that the video from my handycam will only work while it’s STILL on the camera, and not off (seriously? WTF?) it was simple enough to import, cut and choose what bits I want. And cut out the naughty words my uncle says so I can get it on youtube without getting into trouble.

This is the first of many. Unfortunately (or fortunate, if you look at it that way, thanks…) because of the ten minute limit on youtube it’s going to take a little chopping once I’ve done my version that I’m going to put onto DVD. The Noumea van drive around the island is being converted and created as I speak. Hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the trip. I’m definitely going on another of these trips

Being a typical 80s music owner, 90% of all his CDs are now fucked. Don’t blame me! The only CD I ever stole was Thriller by Whacko Jacko. And that was half ruined in the car when Dad decided to “take a shortcut” and never made it to the other side of the much deeper water than we thought it was. (One of the coldest times of my life. 10pm in the middle of nowhere near Burra waiting for a tow truck. Only Wagga was colder…)

So the CDs I remember listening to -

Abbey Road – To be perfectly honest, I’m only really just getting into that album now. I mainly remember listening to Maxwell’s Silver Hammer (cause it was so silly and messed up for them) and “Here Comes the Sun”. Actually, that was the first Beatles song I ever heard. I remember seeing it when I was very young on an episode of Play School. It was “filler”, basically – they were playing the song to some video clips to some small sailboats. Dad told me the first song of the Beatles he ever heard was “Michelle”, driving in the car with Granddad. Dad was fascinated. Grandad thought it was shite.

Led Zeppelin – IV – It was one of those albums I always remember. I didn’t love it, or hate it at an early age. Just passed me, basically. It wasn’t until I met my good friend Paul and he got into the 70s music which suits him so well until I started to listen to this album. Just, wow. Every song hits the right point. No filler, it’s one of the few albums I can listen to from start to beginning without thinking “yeah, this song is shite.”

1927 – ..ish  – I don’t know what it is about this album. These guys really disappeared after this album, didn’t do a hell of a lot. Weren’t a bad band, i have a twitter friend tell me they had a lot of things happen to them at the time, just a bad point in life, I suppose. They’ve got a remaster of the original album just came out, I’m tempted to pick it up, not just for the better quality sound but also for the bonus songs that are included.

Well, at the moment, I’m catching up with my Pearl Jam albums. First up is Yield. I remember listening to this album on a houseboat as it was my exes album at the time. Even my mother said it was “okay”, which says a lot, trust me. Hahahah. To be honest, the only album I remember my mother introducing me to and liking it was the band Morphine. I hear they got back together with a new singer and a new band name. Need to check it out…