The Tale of the Mind Weenie

I am all for potty jokes.  I will laugh when I hear words like “fart”, “poop”, “turd”, etc.  But even I have limitations.  Conversations in my household usually revolve around bodily functions, this is hard to avoid when you have two young boys around.  Every song, every name, every food gets converted into something that has a poop variation in it.

Me: “We’re having tortellini tonight.”

Random Child 1: “Turd-ellini, ha ha, turd-ellini”

Random Child 2: “turtle-weenie, I said turtle-weenie.  Dad, Daddy, did you hear me, I said turtle-weenie.”

Me: “Yes, I heard you, you can stop now.” (hee-hee, turtle-weenie, that’s not bad)

It’s not that they say it once, or even twice, but it is the constant repetition.  Eventually, every word is poop or pee and I just can’t take it anymore.  The shows they watch just make it worse.  There are a few episodes of Nick’s Fanboy and Chum Chum that have a character named Janitor Poopatine (get it? like Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars…).  I hear that name repeated hundreds of times every time one of those episodes airs.  Even Disney is getting into it, they have a show now called Kick Buttkowski.

Every now and then they do come up with something interesting that causes me to laugh out loud.  A few days ago, we all headed out to play on the swing set.  My 7 YO jumped on the regular swing (green arrow in the pic) and began laughing at my 6 YO.  “You have to ride the Mind Weenie.”

6 YO: “Aww, the Mind Weenie.”

Me: “What is the mind weenie?”

6 YO: “This swing.” (pointing to the one with the red arrow in the pic)

Me: “Why is it called the Mind Weenie?”

6 YO: “Because it has a mind of its own and it hurts your weenie.”

You can’t argue with sound logic.  Name accepted and approved, carry on.

Their brains don’t always reside in the toilet, and it is at these times that I am really impressed.  On Sunday we were relaxing a little after a long weekend of playing.  We were watching The Blind Side and my 6 YO asked me why the boy didn’t have any clothes or somewhere to live.  I explained that for this boy, he didn’t have a mommy or daddy that loved him, so he didn’t have anyone to take care of him until the other family took him in.

6 YO: “Mommies and daddies shouldn’t be allowed to make babies if they won’t love them.  It should be against the law.  You and Mommy love us and you wouldn’t let that happen to us.”

7 YO: “Yeah, you and Mommy will always take care of us.”

That movie was emotional enough, and with this on top of it, there was nothing else I could say.  I just nodded and hugged them both a little tighter.

Long Weekends – Revisited

Long weekends are great.  Long weekends allow me to have two days to enjoy my family and spend extra time with my boys, if I rush around on Saturday and complete all of my chores.  The downside of a long weekend is spending extra time with my boys.  Please don’t misunderstand me.  I love spending time with my kids, I really do.  We play games, watch movies, go hiking, etc.  But it doesn’t matter what you do, what cool activities you have planned or how many things they have to play with, as time goes on the more their boredom level rises and the harder they are to please and the less time they will spend doing any one activity before wanting to move on to something else.

Children are amazing creatures.  They could have every toy imaginable, but they would rather play with a cardboard box or dig a hole in the dirt.  They could have ten kids to play with within a fifty foot radius of the house, but they don’t want to play with any of them.  You could run them all day long, but their energy level never drops, they just become more difficult to please and to deal with. 

I have begun work on a mathematical theory to calculate a child’s or a group of children’s behavior at any given moment. Since their behavior is directly proportional to their level of boredom and also their brazenness, you can use this equation to solve for either of them as well.  The theory is not complete and there are many more factors involved, but this is what I have so far. 

Henry’s Law of Childhood Behavior:

As you can see, the longer the time between when school ends and the time it begins again, the worse their behavior gets.  You can attempt to lessen the effects by spending more money, but as time goes on, you are screwed.  I am sure I will have much more data in the next few months on which to expand my theory.  I wonder if they will give me something to write with in my padded cell? 

Here is an example of the formula in action.  We promised the kids we would break out the water guns and water slide on Monday.  So, I spent 30 minutes filtering through two 40 gallon Rubbermaid storage bins filled without outside toys to find all of their water guns, of which they had about ten last summer.  They, of course, wanted to play with every other toy that I took out of the bins.  Once everything was put away back into the bins, I tested each one out.  I found one that worked.  The rest were so packed with sand and rocks that they triggers were completely disabled.  I cleaned them out the best I could, but to no avail.  Others were missing vital pieces, like the water reservoirs.  Luckily, the 6 YO had gotten a brand new one for his birthday, so they each had one.

I filled a large 20 gallon tub with water and let them loose.  This was supposed to buy me some time to dig out the water slide and get it set up.  I stepped out of the garage ten minutes later with the water slide and all water gun play ceased immediately and they began to hover over me like vultures.  The set up, which would normally take about ten minutes, took more like 30 because I constantly had to step around children.  And then my children started to multiply.  I no longer had two kids up my butt, now I had five.  I felt like I was Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams, if I built it, they would come.  Water slide inflated, water on, let the fun ensue and my leisure time begin.

Thirty-two minutes later, they were done with it.  Thirty-two minutes!  It took longer than that to set up!  I hadn’t even had time to sit down yet.  And then they had to the balls to say, “You know what I want to play next?  The eating lunch game!”

I have never beaten my children, nor have I beaten a neighbor’s child, but I must admit that I came very close to clubbing them each over the head with an aluminum baseball bat and swearing under oath that they all received blunt trauma to their heads from jumping off the water slide, which, your Honor, I told them specifically not to do several times.

My wife graciously played short-order cook, and served up ten hot dogs with a side of Flavor Blasted Xplosive Pizza Goldfish.  I got the part of waiter and busboy.  After the meal, they all lounged in the sun while I broke down the water slide.

Life is good.

Later that night, the very fabric of reality began to rip.  The boys prepared for their showers, complaining that they didn’t need showers because they played in water all day.  My wife and I were shouting orders because they some how forget how to undress themselves, bathe, get dressed again, etc.

Child: “Do we really have to?”

Other Child: “He goes first, I went first last night.”

Wife, shouts from the baby’s room: “Make sure you put your clothes in the wash basket.”

As clothes hit the floor, nowhere near the wash basket, Me, growling: “Did you hear what I just said?”

Wife: “I said that.”

Me: “Said what?”

Wife: “To put their clothes in the basket.  You didn’t say it, I did.”

Me: “Oh, yeah maybe you did. But to them, anything that passes from our lips should be treated as the word of God and it shouldn’t matter who really says it.”

In other news, my wife and I made a pretty good meal on Sunday.  We made Slow Cooker Pork Cacciatore from AllRecipes.Com served over whole wheat spaghetti.

My rating:

• Taste: 4 – very hearty, flavorful meal, probably better suited for a chilly fall or winter day.
• Prep Time: 2 – the recipe says 15 minutes, but it took me about 30-45 (this may be due to the fact that I had a golden retriever follow me with every step I took around the kitchen), and it takes at least 8 hours to cook in the slow cooker, so it not something that you can just whip together.
• Health: 3 – moderate calories, fat and cholesterol
• Cost: 4 – The pork and the mozzarella cheese were the only things I had to purchase that I didn’t already have in the kitchen.  The recipe calls for 28 ounces of diced tomatoes, I only used 14.  I also used two peppers instead of one.
• Kid Friendliness: 2 – yup, too many weird looking things floating around in the sauce.  Tried bribing them with s’mores, no reaction.  They ate some of it, very reluctantly.  They typically eat the pasta at least, but the whole wheat spaghetti did not look right to them.  If we dare make it again, it would be wise to have a back-up plan.
• Overall: 3

Long Weekends

I seem to always be surprised when I get a long weekend.  I am organized, I live by my Outlook calendar, but sometimes getting an extended weekend just creeps up on me.  I get that revelation at some point on Saturday or Sunday that I really don’t need to go back to work until Tuesday.  I spent almost all day working outside on Saturday.  My lawn is a mess.  It has been completely overrun with weeds.  If I weren’t so picky, I would be able to enjoy my beautiful crop of clover in the south quarter and my hearty bounty of wild strawberries blooming in the north.  I also have some weird vine-like weed that is filling in the spaces in between the clover and strawberries.  I put down a strong layer of weed and feed hoping that will put a dent in it. If this doesn’t work, my only recourse maybe to kill everything and start over.  I really hope it doesn’t come to that, with three kids and a dog, I need a backyard, not a mud pit.

The garden, on the other hand, is growing like crazy.  I already have a few small peppers sprouting and the tomatoes look like they are going to need 2X4’s to support them soon. 

The boys helped me weed all of the flower beds.  Of course I had to bribe them.  I offered them $1 per 5 gallon bucket of weeds.  I honestly didn’t think they would last past a bucket or two, but they stuck with it.  We were done in about 90 minutes and I am only out $12. 

I had to run out to local home improvement stores to pick up a few essentials, like fertilizer, duct tape and para-cord.  I think I moved up a few notches on some federal agency’s watch list after that purchase.  My wife suggested I pick up a fire pit while I was out.  We have been putting off getting one since we were waiting to install a new stone patio off to the side of the deck and have one built in.  I don’t think that is getting done this year, so we figured we might as well get one now. 

I found a nice one that was reasonably priced.  My wife picked up marshmallows, Hershey’s bars and graham crackers.  We promised the kids that if they ate their dinner we would roast some marshmallows and make some s’mores later that night. 

I pondered the genius that first created these lovely confections.  I wondered if this person ever had children or had considered the effects that this would have on them.  Let’s look at the steps making a s’more:

1. Ignite a marshmallow on the end of a sharpened stick (I think the Mongols conquered most of Asia with similar weapons)
2. Watch as it gets waved around like a flaming white meteorite (yet another medieval siege weapon, flaming pitch)
3. Attempt to squish the molten marshmallow between two graham crackers and a piece of chocolate
4. All of this happens around a fire

After the first round of s’mores, these steps get played out in hyperspeed as the roughly 500 calories of sugar per s’more gets quickly introduced into the child’s bloodstream.  This is a GREAT treat right before bedtime.

There were no injuries although the dog almost waved his tail through the flames a few times.  He could not understand why we were all outside in the dark and not in bed.  If he is not on his dog bed by 8 PM, he starts to get really weird.  He kept coming up to my wife and I and then turning towards the house as if to say, “um, hello!  It’s bedtime.  Follow me and I will show you where we need to be.”

We decided to go on a little hike after church on Sunday.  We packed up the kids and headed out to a nearby state park.  We got one of those backpack carriers for the baby.  Secretly I wanted to test out the My Tracks application on my phone.  We picked a bad place to start.  The beginning of the hike was a 600 feet increase in elevation over 2,000 feet walking distance.  That is about a 30% upward grade. 

20 lbs of baby + 7 lbs of backpack + my lard ass + 600 feet climb = imminent heart failure. 

I survived.  Unfortunately I hit something I wasn’t supposed to on the phone and turned the My Tracks application off midway through our hike, so I never got complete stats.  We all had a good time and it was a beautiful day to be outside.  The boys definitely want to come back to this same place again without their little sister, so I can take them exploring a little more.

This chick wouldn’t get off my back the whole time, her first lesson in becoming a wife:

State of euphoria from lack of oxygen:

mom and her two mountain boys:

mountain men:     

For Cattle and Love Play

No, it’s not what you are thinking.  “Mood’s a thing for cattle and love play,” is a quote from one of my favorite movies.  Moods maybe for cattle and love play, but they are also for music.  I love music.  I listen to music all day long, I listen while I am working, pausing only for meetings.  I listen when I am out doing yard work, driving in the car, making dinner.  And when I don’t have something playing, I usually have a song or three running through my head.  Every time I walk down a long hallway, I hear the “Imperial March” playing in my head.  Waking up everyday triggers a few minutes of “Ugly in the Morning” to come blasting through from my subconscious.  My Pavlovian response to a text message on my phone (i.e. when I get paged from work) is to whisper “I push my fingers into my eyes…” from ”Duality”.  Hell, even the title of this blog is ripped from a song title.  

I listen to a lot of different types of music, everything from Amadeus to ZZ Top, from “A.D.D.” to “Zzyxz Rd.”  I have about 90 GB of music stored in various places, about 20,000 songs.  That’s a rough guess – attempting to remove duplicates, spoken word tracks and audio books from the total count has proven a much more difficult task than I imagined and I didn’t want to spend the time getting an accurate number before writing this.  I have album versions, demo versions, live versions and even cover versions of the same song.  That has something to do with my condition of needing things a certain way.

I do have my limitations, there is a lot of music that I just can’t listen to, like new”er” country (anything written in the last two decades) and anything played on a Top 40 station or any radio station in my general vicinity (the radio stations around me have really began to suck over the past four or five years).  I will be the first to admit that I have some weird standards for music that I like.  First, and probably most important, if you are singing about bubblegum and rainbows and shiny happy people, I probably won’t be listening to you.  That has a lot to do with how I pick what I want to listen to at any particular moment, or rather, what mood I am in.  I just don’t ever get into a mood where I want to hear how happy someone is.  I don’t trust people that are happy all the time.

My week usually progresses from the slow sedate mood of a Monday morning where I listen to mostly classical or instrumental pieces to the frenetic, anger-driven pace of Fridays when it’s all hardcore, like Hatebreed, Sepulture and Sevendust.  On Tuesdays, when I have robotics, I have the urge to throw on some punk.  There is something about being in the middle of 40 kids that makes me want to hear Black Flag belt out “Room 13” (NOTE: this is not the original, but a cover by Corey Taylor, I couldn’t find a decent sounding version by Black Flag). 

Things slow down a bit again Wednesdays and I reach for some classic rock, and by classic I mean stuff from the 60s and 70s.  Thursdays pick up the pace again, and the genre du jour is a mix of the more modern rock with a heavy metal edge, with the blurring fingers of Hammett, Mustaine, Ian and the ilk.  Saturdays mean working out in the yard, so I need something LOUD to overcome the rumble of the various small engines of lawn equipment.  This brings a weird mix of hardcore metal and rap, because there are few things cooler than riding a lawn mower while pimpin’ some Chuck D and Pubic Enemy or killing weeds with Slayer’s “Chemical Warfare” as the soundtrack.

Sometimes the weather or the season gets me in a mood.  Late spring and early summer makes me want to dust off the Zeppelin (by “dust off” I mean, go to Artists, Led Zeppelin and hit play on my iPod).  This past week and for the next few weeks, that is all I will want to listen to.  There must be something in the air (other than pollen) that makes me need Zeppelin playing around the clock.  And it only gets better when I hear one of my boys humming along.

With kids around, I am faced with some challenges.  I always have to be mindful of what is playing when they can hear.  A large portion of my music comes with a parental advisory label attached.  You bet your sweet ass that they will hear and comment on someone singing a four letter word when they are three rooms away with the TV on, but god forbid they would so much as blink when I shout their names six inches from their heads telling them to stop punching each other.  I usually avoid those songs/albums/artists altogether when they are around, but sometimes I just press my luck and spin the volume to 0 when I know something inappropriate is coming.  My ever observant children never fail to say, “Why’d you do that?” 

“Do what?”

“Turn the song off.”

“It’s not something you should hear.”

“Like what?”

“Well, if I wanted you to know what, I wouldn’t have turned it off, would I?”

The other challenge, of course, is trying to not force them to listen to what I want them to listen to.  But it’s not as bad as it could be.  They are into the Top 40 stuff my wife listens to and what their friends at school are listening to, like Black Eyed Peas and Just’, Just’, Justin…  (Blech, I just can’t write his name.  Remember what I said about happy people earlier, well this douche is their crowned prince.  So what if he is only 16 years old, where are his parents?  Shouldn’t they have some sort of control over this child?  Isn’t there a law out there that prevents this shit from being played over the airwaves?  They should have to stick a label on the cover of that album that warns people “Contains lyrics that will make you want to pierce your eardrums with an ice pick after exposure”)

I win some little battles when my 7 YO asks if he can add some songs to his iPod.  He asked the other day if he could have Slipknot’s “Before I Forget” and Helmet’s “Surgery” added.  Or when my 6 YO sings every word to “Umbabarauma” which is mostly in Portuguese, or whatever it is that Max Cavalera is growling.  I guess I will have to be open to whatever they want to listen to.  But that doesn’t mean that I can’t try to help them experience the stuff that I am in to.  I can’t wait to take them to the first concert.

That is all for now, what was to be my Saturday post took a little longer and has now turned into a Sunday post.  I hope everyone’s Sunday is “Easy”.

Lost: The End

By now, I am sure all of the diehard Lost fans have read at least some of the myriad of theories and possible meanings of the last episode of Lost.  I have read quite a few myself (if you want a really good one, try this one posted on Dark UFO).  I have to admit that I was a bit confused by the final 15 minutes of last Sunday’s ending.  Let me rephrase that, I was fine and everything was peachy keen until three seconds after Jack closed his eye for the final time and my wife said, “See!  They were all dead the entire time and the Island really was Purgatory!”

“Huh what? No, that can’t be, it’s, uh…”  At that moment, six years of facts and figures and theories came rushing into my head.  She went to bed, mad at how it ended and I stayed up for the next few hours working (of course) and in the back of my mind, I recreated scenario after scenario of what I thought had happened.  By morning, I had a clear idea of my “truth” about what Lost really was.  And I also had a few “theories” on why people misunderstood what happened.  I read a bunch of critiques of the last episode and I saw that many agreed, but there were also quite a few that disagreed.

Before I go any further, let me start out by stating what I believe (and what my wife now believes):

Everything that happened in the six seasons of Lost (outside of the sideways/alt-universe of season 6) really happened to the characters.  They crashed on the Island, they fought with the Others, they time traveled, some were killed on the island, etc.  The LA-verse was some sort of afterlife meeting ground where they existed in a pseudo-existence before passing over to their final afterlife.  You could call it purgatory before getting to heaven.  It was Jack’s story of redemption, of finding faith and love and fulfilling his destiny.

With that out of the way, let me try to address all of the criticisms out there about unanswered questions.  Did anyone really expected to get all of the questions answered and delivered with a nice little bow on top?  The purpose of the series was not a science lesson, it was not a spiritual discourse on how to attain enlightenment.  It was a piece of art put together by many people over a long period of time.  It’s purpose was to entertain and move people.  Like any good pieces of art, whether it is music, painting, television or movies, it should cause its audience to think and to feel and to react and, ultimately, tell a story, and I think it accomplished that extremely well.

I also think that the people that really “get it” and like what happened over the past six years and enjoyed the ending (i.e. people that agree with me) are the people that have had experience with this genre before and can also accept that sometimes you just don’t get all of the answers.  I can name countless books and movies, many of which are labeled as classics, that did the same thing.  They told a story and left many unanswered questions at the end.  Is it wrong to do that?  No.  The authors and directors of these books and movies typically “know” or at least have a very good idea what the answers are, but they cannot fit them all into the story.  You would end up reading an encyclopedia instead of being entertained.  They told their story, as much of it as they could in the time allotted.  The reader/viewer/listener has to use their imagination sometimes.  Being spoon fed the answer to life, the universe and everything is usually not an option.  It’s part of the mystery of good art. 

Watch Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001 and 2010, do you get all of the answers?  No.  Were you entertained?  Read Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series, did he tie up every single loose end?  No.  Was it still an amazing piece of work?  Yes.  What about Pulp Fiction, did you ever get to see what was inside the briefcase?  What about Blade Runner and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, is Deckard really a replicant?

Even when someone attempts to go back and fill in the blanks, the result is usually never good, the viewers are never satisfied and the resulting attempts fail to entertain or enlighten.  I can name a bunch of these too.  Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection, both failed at building on the Alien story.  Even the mighty Star Wars saga failed when Lucas tried to fill in blanks with the prequel trilogy. (NOTE: I actually liked the prequel trilogy, but I must admit that it was not as good as the originals)  Try reading the Dune books written by Frank Herbert’s son, Brian.  The original six books by Frank were amazing, award winning works, but when they tried to revisit the story and fill in the blanks, the result was, um, very difficult to enjoy.

If you want all of the answers, read any of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories or something by Tom Clancy.  Certainly don’t cross over into science fiction and fantasy, because your need for all of the facts ain’t gonna be filled.  When you tell a story of another world or something that doesn’t quite fit with reality, you sometimes have to leave some of the facts open to interpretation.

But if you really want some answers, here is my attempt.  There was a really good article written on IO9 about the 50 Questions Lost Really Needs To Answer.  They followed it up with a report card of the results, which I think failed because it didn’t extrapolate what we know, it was based purely on seeing or hearing a solid answer.  I wanted to take a stab at answering them with what I think happened. 

 IO9‘s 50 Questions

1. So the island is the place with the glowy light that's inside all of us. Does this mean the Island's alive? People talk about what the island "wants." What do they mean? Is the island Eywa? – The Island represents some spiritual power, probably related to some deity-like being.  It keeps the balance of good and evil in the world.  Having just seen Avatar the other day, I would agree it is sort of like Eywa.  You could also call it The Force (for the Star Wars fans) or Ka (if you have a read a Stephen King book in the last 10 years).
2. How come the island heals people? Why does it heal them selectively? – If you do what the island wants, it rewards you.  If you have something that island wants, it protects you.  If the island doesn’t want you there, it doesn’t let you come.
3. Who was the woman who raised Jacob and the Man In Black, and how did she get there? – She was another protector of the island, she was probably not the first and definitely wasn’t the last.  She got there the same way everyone else gets there.
4. If Jacob was a Roman, why is he so into Egyptian gods? – I don’t think the Island follows any specific mythology or religion.  Since the majority of religions stem from the same ideals, the spiritual practices on the Island are just another example of an amalgamation of peoples’ beliefs and their search for answers to life’s mysteries.  Many religions and mythologies deify natural phenomena, like Thor being the God of Thunder, so the island’s inhabitants selected a god from their beliefs to represent what was going on.  And whatever the beliefs and heritage of the inhabitants of the island had, they built and used symbols that they were accustomed to represent that.  So somewhere along the line, there were probably Egyptian inhabitants there, along with Romans, and eventually Christians, Muslims, Hindis and Buddhists.  Every inhabitant of the island related to it in terms that they understood, so a Christian experiencing the island related it to stories that they heard from their religion (i.e. like my theories on Lucifer, Job, etc.) while an Egyptian would use something like Taweret.  I think the protectors of the island, like Jacob, knew its true nature and realized that it didn’t need a name, but went along with what everyone else wanted to call it.
5. What was with those Egyptian symbols that appeared in the Hatch when the countdown went past 108 minutes? That didn't seem like the Dharma Initiative's style. – See #4.  That probably stemmed from something that MIB created to try to harness the island’s power and was never “translated” out of what he or a previous resident did.  Newer inhabitants of the island took up where the previous or older residents of the island left off.  This is similar to using Greek symbols to represent scientific and mathematic concepts.  Why do we do that?  Because that’s what the guys who created them used and we just carry on the tradition.  We could always use different symbols but then our common language would fall apart and we wouldn’t be able to communicate effectively.
6. Jacob told Alpert some previous visitors to the island had built that Taweret statue. Did he tell them to build it? Why Taweret? – see #4 and #5 above
7. Is Jacob bringing people to the island, as the Man In Black suggests? If so, then who was bringing all those people to the island before Jacob did it? Why does Jacob want to bring so many people to the island? What was he trying to prove to the Man In Black? – I think that one has been pretty sufficiently answered by the show itself and doesn’t need anymore.
8. Why did Widmore bring Desmond to the island? What's the sacrifice Desmond has to make? – Again, answered by the show.
9. Why was Charlie fated to die, exactly? What did Charlie's death accomplish, in the end? – I haven’t really given much thought to this one, so I am not sure how to answer it. 
10. Was that the Smoke Monster telling Ben and Locke to move the island, back in season four? If so, why did Smokey want the island moved? What did moving the island accomplish exactly? – This was probably an attempt to destroy the island or set in motion the MIB’s plan to get off the island.
11. Why was Libby in the same mental hospital as Hurley? What's her deal exactly? Why was she in Australia? – Beats me, maybe she went through a tough patch in her life and had a mental breakdown.  Isn’t that what happened to most people on the show in one way or another.
12. Why did the Smoke Monster kill Mr. Eko? Why did the Smoke Monster leave Rousseau alive after killing or "claiming" the rest of her expedition? – Mr. Eko probably was getting too close to the truth of what the island really was or to what MIB was trying to and the MIB knew it.  It looks to me like MIB eventually claimed Rousseau anyway, or at least he got her to do what he wanted
13. Who made the Rules? Like, what's preventing Smokey from killing the Candidates directly? – The island :)
14. What was so special about Walt? No, really. They made a big deal out of it and everything. – Walt was probably more open to the power that the island emitted, similar to Desmond’s resistance to it.  Hurley and Miles also had some weird abilities, i.e. talking to the dead.  Maybe Walt was of a similar vein, but because he was young, he was more powerful. 
15. Jacob was immortal, right? So what made him decide he needed to start doing such a huge head-hunting search for his replacement? – I don’t think Jacob was immortal, but rather he wouldn’t die of old age or at the hands of the MIB.  He probably had a few other abilities that helped keep him alive too.  He was eventually killed by Ben, so that rules out the immortality thing.
16. Why is Aaron so important? Why wasn't Kate supposed to raise him? – Aaron may have been important because he was a child that was destined to be born on the island.  The island may have only allowed “special” children be born, such as Aaron, Jacob and MIB.  It could also be that the MIB could possibly take control of newborns in the same fashion he could take over the dead.  Kate was needed as a candidate and therefore shouldn’t raise Aaron.  Jacob said that he had to remove her from the list because she became a “mother”.
17. Why isn't Kate a candidate? – see #16
18. What was the Dharma Initiative really up to on the Island? What was their ultimate goal? Why did the Hanso Foundation regard the Dharma Initiative as a failure? – The Dharma Initiative was there for the same reason as everyone else, to harness the power of the island, and also serve as sort of a protector.  Some of them were eventually corrupted by the MIB.
19. It seems like everyone who was a passenger on Oceanic 815 has numerous connections that they don't even know about. Like Jack and Claire being half-siblings, and Sawyer's ex-girlfriend helping Kate confront her mom. What caused this excessive degree of synchronicity? – This is probably the work of Jacob and/or the island in drawing the candidates to the island.
20. What really happens if the Smoke Monster leaves the island? – The end of days
21. In the "flash-sideways" universe, the island is under water. When exactly did this happen? – I think this is a metaphor for what life would have been like if the island had never existed in the Oceanic passengers’ timeline.
22. How/when did Roger Linus and Pierre Chang get off the island before it sank? – a boat, or maybe a plane, does it matter?
23. Why did Ben and Widmore hate each other quite so much? Why couldn't Ben just shoot Widmore in the face that one time when Ben came into Widmore's bedroom? – They both wanted to be top dog on the island, having two power hungry leaders will always lead to contention.  Ben didn’t shoot Widmore because he wanted Widmore to experience the pain of losing his daughter, just like Ben did.
24. Why did Widmore order Keamy's gang to kill everyone on the island except for Ben? Especially since Widmore is so keen for Locke to lead the Oceanic Six back to the island a few years later. And why exactly is Widmore so keen for the Oceanic Six to come back to the island? Because they're Candidates? Or some other reason? If he is keen for there to be Candidates on the island, why did he order Keamy to kill them all? – Widmore admitted he was wrong for having done that and that Jacob came to him and showed him the error of his ways. 
25. After Richard Alpert met Jacob and Jacob explained the island to him, why didn't Richard repeat that explanation to everyone he met? – He didn’t explain it because most people would not have understood it.  He had to get the people to do what was needed by putting things in ideas that they could understand.  Walking around telling everyone that the island was some sort of spiritual power source that kept the world in balance and prevented evil from taking it over probably would have landed his ass in a Looney bin and we could have watched him not age in a padded cell.
26. How did Richard and the Others decide whom to recruit from among the various people who came to the island after that? What was the deal with all those lists? The lists weren't lists of Candidates, since the Others didn't try to recruit Sawyer or Jack. So what were they? – Jacob must have provided Richard with the lists or Richard might have come up with them on his own.  The lists contained people that had to be removed from the island and also people that were needed to influence the real candidates. 
27. Why did the Incident in 1977 leave the island's women unable to give birth? What's with the huge importance placed on fertility on the island, what with the Tawaret statue? Why are so many women separated from their babies? – See #16
28. So why was Widmore unable to return to the island? And then why was he able to return to the island after all? Also, why did turning the donkey wheel mean that Ben was unable to return to the island, except with the Oceanic Six? – The Island only brought people there that it wanted.  It didn’t bring Widmore back until he could bring Desmond with him.  It didn’t bring Ben back until he brought the candidates with him.
29. What was the deal with that brand on Juliet's lower back? The cross/asterisk thing? – tramp stamp?
30. Where did that supply drop come from? You know, the huge pallet of food and stuff? – the Others, Richard’s people that lived off the island.  Widmore’s people maybe.
31. Who built that weird Dharma Initiative door that leads to a stone wall? Did the Others put it there as part of their fake village? – no idea, but does it really matter?
32. Was Rousseau "claimed" by the Smoke Monster the same way Claire and Sayid were? – I would say “yes” and “no”, see #12
33. What was the Sickness that the Dharma Initiative was vaccinating people against? Is it similar to the Smoke Monster "claiming" people, or something else? – One way to control a group people is to unite them against a common foe.  It may have been the idea of Richard or someone that propagated the idea that there was a sickness on the island that made them go insane, instead of revealing that it was a mystical smoke monster attempting to control their minds.  It probably worked to keep the island’s inhabitants from getting to the real truth of the island.
34. When the Smoke Monster told Sayid that he could have Nadia back from the dead, was he referring to the "flash sideways" universe, or something else? Or just lying? – I think the Smoke Monster told a lot of lies, he even admitted it to Ben at the end.  He could have been telling the truth, but only part of it.  Maybe by destroying the island, the MIB would have released all of the souls in hell/purgatory and Sayid would have been reunited with her in a sort of hell on earth scenario.  Or maybe he planned on Sayid dying, since he was a candidate.
35. What was the deal with Pierre Chang having so many wacky pseudonyms? – Really, who cares?
36. What were the Others having Kate and Sawyer build? Was it really going to be a runway? For what? – Probably for the Ajira flight.
37. So if the hydrogen bomb going off caused the "flash sideways" universe and prevented Oceanic 815 from crashing, how did it change Hurley's lottery numbers, or make Sawyer a cop instead of a con-man? – I don’t think the bomb did any of that.  I think the bomb brought everyone into the same timeline or current day.  The LA-verse was timeless and was always there, we just never got to see it before.
38. Is Ji Yeon the "Kwon" who's a candidate? – No.  But she might be now that her parents were killed and she is alone.
39. Who's the mother of Jack's son David in the "flash-sideways" universe? On a related note, where's alt-Juliet? – Answered.
40. What happened to the body of Christian Shephard on the "flash-sideways" Flight 815? – Answered.
41. Come to think of it, what happened to Christian's body on the island? – Eaten by polar bears, consumed by the MIB, or something similar.
42. Sayid was "claimed" by the Smoke Monster, but he still had free will afterward. What did that being "claimed" thing mean anyway? – Claimed meant under the influence of MIB, but not in total control by MIB.  They were promised something by the MIB and sworn their allegiance to him.  It was probably a lot like Jacob’s marking someone as a candidate.  The candidates obviously got some sort of protection since the MIB could not kill them directly. 
43. What does god need with a starship? I mean, why does Locke need an airplane to leave the island? – I think he needed the ability to free himself from the island, regardless of what the form of transportation was.  MIB was sustained by the power of the island, he could not leave it unless the island was destroyed and that power unleashed.  Jacob on the other hand was still a living being and could come and go as he chose.  He could probably use the power of the island himself to travel in time, teleport off the island and return the same way.
44. Why are the Numbers so important? I get that each of the Numbers corresponds to one of the remaining Candidates as of a while ago. But that's just another instance of the Numbers popping up in relation to something. Why these numbers? Why were they powerful long before Jack, Hurley, et al. came to the island? – This was probably one of the many ways of attracting people and candidates to the island. 
45. And come to think of it, what was the point of having someone broadcasting the numbers over the radio over and over again for years? – see #44
46. If Jacob is dead, and his ghost is wandering around talking to Hurley, what's with the little kid version of Jacob? Why can only certain people, like Sawyer, see the little-kid Jacob? – They can see him when he wants to be seen.  His spirit lingered on until his body was completely destroyed.
47. Who was Juliet inviting to coffee? What sort of coffee? Can I come? Will there be biscotti, or madeleines? – Sawyer.  Juliet was dying and was seeing into her afterlife. 
48. Why can't the Smoke Monster cross a line of ash? What about the sonic fence? – The ash probably represented a magic circle similar to what is used to contain demons in many occult rituals.  The sonic fence disrupted the smoke particles or something similar.
49. So the Man In Black can't leave the island. But Jacob was wandering off the island all the time, buying Louis Vuitton luggage, touching the Oceanic Six and various other people, and stocking up on Flannery O'Connor books. At one point, Jacob opened a dance studio in Newark. What gives? – See #43
50. When Ben took Locke to Jacob's Cabin, there was a weird telekinetic storm and Locke heard a voice saying "Help me." Was that Jacob? Or the M.I.B.? What sort of help did the voice have in mind? More importantly, what's with the dog painting in Jacob's Cabin??? – This was the MIB, he was locked in the cabin by the circle of ash.  He couldn’t appear in a physical body because he didn’t have one to inhabit at the time.

So that’s it.  My final Lost post.  I might write something else when the DVDs come out in August.  I here there will be an additional 15-20 minutes of epilogue.  I doubt there will be another show like this for a while.  I am sure I will find something else to occupy my time, right now it is watching the complete Battlestar Galactica series.  Well, it will be when Netflix decides to start sending me the DVDs again.  I’m sorry this post was so long, but the word count is divisible by 18, which is always a good thing.

Say Hello to My Not So Little Friend

Day 141:  Another skirmish today.  We didn’t take any casualties, but the enemy suffered a major setback.  I was finishing up a production install for work.  I needed to take a break and get something to drink.  It was just after midnight.  I got up from my desk and began to walk across the room to where I had my bottle of Coke sitting.  This is what I saw staring up from the middle of the basement floor.

(that’s a quarter in the picture)

My two eyes locked with his eight.  He didn’t budge, he didn’t flinch.  He caught me with my guard down, I was unarmed and bare feet.  I backed up a few steps to my desk to arm myself.  I usually go for a can of compressed air and attempt to freeze the enemy, but this guy would be a hard shot.  He was in between the coffee table and the sofa.  If I hit him at the wrong angle with the compressed air, he would be propelled under either one and possibly flee the field of battle or be lost among broken crayons and Lego bricks.  Instead, I grabbed the wooden ruler I keep under my desk for confrontations such as these.  I hoped that he wouldn’t run while I was gone. 

No, not this guy, he was still in the same spot when I returned.  I approached slowly and when I was in range, I struck.  I brought the ruler down slowly and crushed him down.  Right before the ruler hit him, he reared up on his hind legs as if to parry the death blow.  The soft chitinous crunch signified his defeat.  He died in battle, he died with honor.  He got flushed down the toilet (after a short photography sitting).

Does anyone know an arachnologist or an entomologist?  I would really like to know what kind of spider this is.  I checked out a few websites, but I couldn’t find anything that looked this guy.  Is it poisonous?  Should I be concerned?  I am not concerned for myself, but I have three small children in the house, one of which does a lot of crawling about on the floor.  I haven’t seen them anywhere else in the house other than the basement.

Day 142:  All has been quiet.  I try to post a regular watch, but my other duties have kept me distracted.  I sometimes imagine I can hear the rustling of tiny bristled legs on the carpet.  The lack of sleep and constant vigilance has put me on edge.  I am jumping at shadows.  Ironic that my enemy lives in the shadows.  I don’t think I can keep up this pace.   My faithful companion deserted me earlier today for the warmth of the spring sun.  Damn him, my only companion now is the cold aluminum can of compressed air.

Should you not hear from me again, know that my enemies have organized a counter attack and I have succumbed to their overwhelming numbers.  Know that I fought bravely, for home and family.

Did that sofa cushion just move?  I think they are coming…

It was a 4-5-3-4-0(3.2) Star Meal

I like food, that you should already know.  I have talked about the meals I have eaten in the past and how much I liked them, how easy they were to make, and how the kids didn’t eat them once they were done.  I think I need a ratings system for food.  A simple five star system won't do, there are too many variables and I am not the kind of guy that overlooks the variables.  I was discussing this my wife and we had a few ideas.

1. Taste: this is pretty self explanatory, rating 0-5 stars
   • 5 Stars - Filet Mignon
   • 0 Stars - Filet-O-Fish
2. Prep time: how long does it take to make, rating 0-5 stars
   • 5 Stars - Throw it on a plate and eat
   • 0 Stars - kimchi
3. Health: will this keep your stool loose or clog an artery
   • 5 Stars – Anything with bran in the name
   • 0 Stars - Anything from Five Guys
4. Cost: whether you are buying the ingredients or buying the prepared meal, rating 0-5 stars
   • 5 Stars - Ramen Noodles
   • 0 Stars - Dom Pérignon
5. Kid friendliness: this one is a little difficult, so follow along.
• 5 Stars - Something that always works, anytime of day, under any conditions, like hot dogs, pizza and tacos.
• 4 Stars - Something that works a lot, but don't go to the well too many times or your kids will be whining, in my house, that's barbeque chicken and hamburgers.
• 3 Stars - You never know what will happen, they ate it the first time, but they might have been tired or distracted.  They might eat it again, but grudgingly, like pasta with Italian sausage and spinach or quesadillas.  Bribery with ice cream or some other treat will coax them to clean their plate.
• 2 Stars - Even worse, they complained the entire time eating it, but they will eat some of it, repeat performances are frowned upon.  We once made Egg Noodles with Ham and Peas and that went over like a fart in church.  My wife and I loved it, but the kids thought it looked and tasted like vomit, they at around the ham and peas and only ate the noodles.  Bribery fails at this point.  
• 1 Star – You didn’t think this one through, did you?  You temporarily forgot you had kids.  You forgot that they won’t eat anything that looks “weird”.  They might, just might, take one or two bites, but that is it.  Shut up, don't spook them or things could get bad quick.  Just suck it up and break out the cereal bowls.  We made chicken in a puff pastry shell.  We thought it would be fun to eat.  We were wrong, very wrong.
• 0 Stars - What the hell were you thinking?  If you were smart, you wouldn’t even make them a plate.  Hell, I wouldn’t even invite them to the table.  You eat the meal in silence and have a PB&J waiting for them when you are done.  The closest this meal is getting to their mouths is when they try to bite your face off for trying to serve it to them and you have a little of it on your lip.  An example of a 0 Star meal is the time we made noodles with a Thai peanut sauce.  Turns out that the sauce was just a tad bit spicy.  The kids immediately threw a fit and refused to eat.  They claimed we were trying to kill them.
6. Average Score – take all five scores and average them, rounded to the nearest decimal point.  I will not add weighting for any particular attribute at this time.

In any future posts where I mention food, I will reference this rating scale.