My opinions of Super Tuesday 2008

Warning: political post ahead. Skip it if politics bore you :)

 

Sadly, Super Tuesday proceeded as predicted, and by day’s end the death knell was sounded on Mitt Romney’s campaign. McCain is now the true frontrunner and barring a miracle will be the candidate in the fall. If Romney doesn’t give up the ghost officially this week I’d be surprised.

 

But . . if I were a McCain fan – and if I was, please shoot me – I still wouldn’t do my happy dance quite yet. McCain aced a few states – California, New York, etc – that will certainly fall to the Democrats in November while losing or struggling in the core ‘Red’ states.

 

That’s not a great omen for the man.

 

Plus, I’m just plain shocked at Mike Huckabee’s performance, especially in the south. I can see his home state giving him a futile pat on the back, but how do you explain his showing in other states?

 

Look, I’m a moderate on some positions, conservative on others, and overall I probably drift to the middle of the road in the GOP, but let me just come right out and say this:

 

The support for Huckabee is downright embarrassing.

 

It isn’t about the man himself, if my opinion hurts your feelings, it’s about the fact that America isn’t going to elect the guy.

 

Period.

 

And I know he’s no longer aiming for the Oval Office, instead hoping for VP, but the pundits are right: put him on the ticket and folks are going to point to the old man from Arizona and say “if he dies that Huckabee is in; do you really want a President Huckabee?”

 

The answer is no, and undecided voters are going to vote in droves for the other candidate.

 

On the other side of the table it sure looks messier for the Democrats, with Obama and Clinton still neck and neck and Super Tuesday deciding not much of anything at all.

 

Well, maybe it decided more than it first appears. They both essentially tied in delegates and the popular vote, but Obama carried more states and seemed to disprove some worries that his appeal was limited by his race.

 

{One site, pro-Dem, argues that race is a non-issue because Obama’s father is Kenyan. Thus he isn’t a descendent of slaves and doesn’t carry the stigma and contempt inherent with that title.

 

I’m thinking that’s a wee bit of a stretch, as even a decent newshound like me didn’t realize his heritage, (so how prevalent could the notion be?). Besides, the idea, right or wrong, sounds a wee bit Birth of a Nation-esque.

 

If a Republican had said the same thing . . . look out.}

 

Right now I think it’s legitimately anyone’s game, but Obama certainly looks to be on the upswing. Clinton is short on cash, physically tired, facing a youth movement from within her own party, winning tiny battles at far too high of a cost in effort, and she’s not the person who can pull off outstanding if meaningless rhetoric like Obama’s “the people we’ve been waiting for are us”.

 

On the other hand Obama failed to win the big prizes like New Yorkand California, and believe me, that nifty ten-point Clinton win in CA still paints her as the one to beat. Plus Obama did a McCain and scored big in states that are probably going to stay Red in ’08.

 

I still think it will be Clinton and McCain in November. As far as who would have the edge in that contest . . well, I’ll debate that another day.

 

 UPDATE:

 

Since I wrote that piece last night, Romney has indeed bowed out; the story is breaking across the web as I write this . . . 'tis a shame.

 

 

WASHINGTON (AP) - John McCain effectively sealed the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday as chief rival Mitt Romney suspended his faltering presidential campaign.

"If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror," Romney will say at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.

"This is not an easy decision for me. I hate to lose. My family, my friends and our supporters... many of you right here in this room... have given a great deal to get me where I have a shot at becoming President. If this were only about me, I would go on. But I entered this race because I love America, and because I love America, I feel I must now stand aside, for our party and for our country," Romney said.

Tags: Mitt Romney, John McCain, Obama, primaries, Clinton

One heck of a photo from Alaska

The National Weather Service is saying we might get up to 20 inches of snow by morning, while conservative estimates land around 13-14".

Sweet. Just what we need on top of the 52 odd inches we've already seen this winter.

But, as in all things, it's all relative. My friend Fred Bryan of Oftencold.com lives in Alaska, and when I mentioned the 20" he didn't even think it worthy of acknowledgment.

There are advantages to living in the boonies though - check out the visitors on Fred's back porch:

 

Tags: Fred Bryan, eagles

In which I nearly eat the unthinkable, send YaYa to the eye Dr, see Hannah Montana, and drink Tang

 With my wife at work I made dinner for the kids and afterwards, in exchange for some decent behavior, we made and shared a pan of brownies.

When I put them to bed YaYa asked for another brownie. "Nope," I said. "The last one's for Mommy"

 

So I kissed her goodnight and wandered downstairs, picking up brownie crumbs all along the way. On the kitchen floor I found the mother load, a huge if slightly squashed brownie that the kids must have dropped. With no one watching to scold me, I picked it up and greedily brought it up to my lips.

 

That'd be when I remembered that Smiley had wandered into the room naked a few hours back, his butt covered in poo. I'd quickly found the diaper he'd abandoned and it was clean, minus some racing stripes. Not unusual, considering he's *trying* to make an effort to go in the potty and often ditches his waste in the toilet.

 

'That's funny," I thought at time as I wiped his bum, "I could have sworn I cleaned him up pretty well last time".

 

Yes, dear readers, you guessed it.  

 

I had picked up and was set to consume a large, compacted chunk . . . of Smiley poop.

 

* * * * *

 

 

Earlier in the day, with Lu in tow, I took YaYa for her eye appointment. She was actually kind of psyched, having heard tell of some Hannah Montana glasses. She was a good sport for the doc and didn't flinch with the whole 'air puff to the eyeball' thing that always freaks me out. "Mr. Slap, you have to keep your chin on the bar!"

 

The verdict? Astigmatism, but very slight. "Three steps from nothing" in her right eye, "Two steps away from nothing" in her left eye. The doc wants her to wear glasses when reading and at school, but not in everyday activities.

 

Sounds like a pretty darn agreeable verdict to me. We picked out some glasses but with my wife absent I deferred the decision to another day.

 

For posterity, here is her prescription:

 

Spherical: p1, cylindrical: -.75  Axis 148

Spherical: p1  cylindrical -.5    Axis 032

 

 

 

* * * *

In a controversial decision we decided to keepboth girls home from school Monday so they could attend their beloved Hannah Montana's 3D movie with their Mom and cousins.

 

 

Hannah Montana is a family favorite here and enormously popular among the girls, especially LuLu, who happily sings along with her idol. [sidenote: each and every time I get a dorky giggle by pronouncing her name like Tony from Scarface. The problem is, it's always me giggling)

 

In January I had briefly, oh ever so briefly, considered getting a Hannah Montana tattoo as part of a local radio station contest to win tickets to her (actual) sold out concert.

 

In the end I just couldn't - I really don't dig tattoos - and I felt like I let Lu down.

 

So I shelled out $14 a ticket for her 3D movie and yeah, the only time that was open was during school hours.

 

I can't be the only parent who did it - the movie was sold out by showtime.

 

Anyhow, I had to work but the reports that filtered back to me were overwhelmingly positive. The girls loved Hannah, gave a thumbs down to the Jonas brothers (although YaYa liked Year 3000), LuLu loved when Hannah 'hit me on my nose' with her drumstick, and both thought the opening Disney logo was frightening when it shattered (so did Mom).

 

Even Lisa thought it was a pretty darn good show, although she would have liked more of the backstage stuff. I think Lu would have liked that too, as she was intent on telling me all about how Hannah gets to the stage via a lift of some sort.

 

It made me happy we didn't shell out big moolah for the real concert tho', since Lu got very tired by the end of the movie and had to sit on her Mom's lap.

 

Here's an LOL - Lisa said all the adults in the audience laughed when Hannah's Dad, Billy Ray Cyrus, bragged about performing at every Indian casino in America.

 

* * * *

 

 

To my chagrin, the mysterious 'they' still make Tang, the drink of Astronauts and beloved beverage of my youth. I bought a can of powdered mix, which I was pleasantly surprised to see was loaded with vitamins and contained 1/2 the sugar of pure OJ, and mixed up a batch for supper.

 

Here, with no exaggeration/dramatic license, was my honest and immediate reaction.

 

"Jesus!," I said, "This sh** is good!"

 

I'm telling you, it was like being paroled and getting your first taste of freedom - it was THAT good.

 

Why isn't this stuff still popular? The kids were instant fans of it too and I think it'll be a common purchase in the Slapinions household from now on.

 

One bad thing - Smiley, who is really a pain in the butt lately, decided to dump his entire cup into the casserole I made for dinner. I was furious and sent him up to his room. You know what though? I thought the orange flavor gave a pleasant little kick to the dish.

 

Then again, I eat poo.

 

Tags: Tang, Hannah Montana, Smiley, LuLu, YaYa,

A request

The father of longtime reader and  friend Mary of AlphawomansBlog passed away last night. She's written a touching post about him on her blog. If you can, stop by and give her your condolences.

Super Tuesday on the Horizon

Tomorrow is Super Tuesday, when a full 24 states will get their say in choosing the candidates for President. Not Wisconsin mind you, so I still haven't had my say, and when I do it will probably  all be decided and in the bag.

Such is life.

The Democratic field is a mess, with Clinton and Obama neck to neck, but with the senator from Illinois gaining steam. Here's hoping the empty suit fails to sway the masses and Hilary wins (did I honestly just say that I wanted a Clinton to win anything? What a world!) but I think Obama will carry the day. I don't think it will be a decisive win, and as many people are predicting I think the Democratic convention will be contentious and home to a wee bit of drama.

On the Republican side it's hard to argue against the McCain momentum coming off of wins in Florida and South Carolina. If you ask me 90% of that 'momentum' is the pure invention of the media, but like I've always said, perception is nearly as good as reality.

 Florida was a close race, but the reaction in the press was that it all but decided the nomination. I disagree, but from what I've read McCain has a built in advantage tomorrow:

Not all state primaries are winner-take-all for the GOP, but in the states that are  McCain has the lead. So he can scrape by in some states but reap the whole benefit, while finishing second in others and still grab delegates. Meanwhile Romney has an uphill fight in many of the all-or-nothing states. Iin a worst-case scenario Super Tuesday might spell the end of Romney's campaign. It'll be a shame if that happens.

This is shaping up to be an odd election.  Voters will *probably* have to choose between a Democrat Lite in McCain, who's almost as liberal as the opposition (tho' granted,  he is hawkish on defense) and either a very left-leaning Obama (does anyone actually listen to the man's ideas, or is everyone sold on his charm?) or a suprisingly hawkish and middle of the road Clinton.

Take Obama out of the picture and it'd be hard to figure out what candidate is from what party - they've all switched philosophies.

My prediction: I think McCain aces the nomination, Obama slips by Hilary but not with enough to knock her out, and we all dance the dance another day.

If any of this stuff appeals to you, check out the two Electoral sites on the sidebar. Both are a wealth of information.

Tags: Super Tuesday, Romney, McCain, Clinton, Obama

My first professional submission of 2008

Well, I did it. I submitted my first, well, anything to a  publication in a long time. Nothing fancy mind you, just a book review. It spawned from winning an online contest on a popular book site, with the prize being a free copy of an upcoming release delivered straight to your door from the publisher.

So I figured what the heck, write a review and send it in.

It was hard to plow through the book at first. For a moment or two I got tangled in long, twisting passages that seemed to go nowhere. When I complained about this my wife said, and I quote: "That's just because it's different than your writing. Your writing is simple."

Cue my jaw dropping open. She scrambled to recover: "Not . . not.bad or anything, per se. . .. Just simple. You know. Like . . like, uh, like Hemingway!"

Ok, so I exaggerate; it's always fun to paint a spouse as a villian. Once my jaw dropped she actually said "I like your writing, but it's simpler, more down to earth. His style is different."

 To quote Hawthorne: Easy Reading is Hard Writing.

Anyhow the book picked up steam and wound up being a pretty good read. Here's a copy of the review (and I hope its presence here doesn't void any potential publishing opportunities):

* * *

Now You See Him

By Eli Gottlieb

ISBN: 9780061284649

262 pages

William Morrow, $22.95

By the time Now You See Him begins Rob Castor is dead and buried, reduced to nothing more than a lingering and tawdry story in the tabloids.

But make no mistake: Nick Framingham may be the narrator of the novel, but the story is Rob Castor's at every turn.

Now You See Him is the sophomore effort by award winning author Eli Gottlieb, who returns after a decade's absence with a novel of friendship, obsession, secrets, and the ever present clash between the nostalgic memories of the past and the harsh reality of the present.

Nick Framingham and Rob Castor were childhood friends and neighbors, but from the start Rob seemed destined for something more than their small, upstate New York town could provide him. While Nick would marry and settle down, Rob would become a minor celebrity as a writer - and a national obsession when he murdered his girlfriend and then committed suicide.

In the wake of his friend's death Nick is unable to resume his normal life. His marriage to his college sweetheart continues to deteriorate, with his wife unable to empathize with his loss as she is increasingly drawn to another man. His sons grow distant and his job performance puts his career in jeopardy.

It will only get worse.

Like a siren call Rob's family begins to draw Nick further into the chaos that envelopes anyone who grew close to the writer. Rob's mother, a bitter and alcoholic widow, is quick to wound with harsh words and hint at something sinister as yet unspoken. His sister, Nick's old flame, returns to town and seems eager to resume their relationship, further putting his marriage in jeopardy.

And somewhere beneath the surface lies a pair of secrets that will consume two families and haunt Nick for the rest of his life.

The publisher calls Gottlieb's prose 'extraordinarily luxuriant and evocative' and it is - but at some cost. Gottlieb has a knack for spinning a memorable and breathtaking phrase, but at times he tries too hard.

For every " . . .we found the quiet itself a fraught, richly communicating thing. If we listened carefully enough, we were certain that the distances had a hiss; that trees sighed, even on windless days; that clouds breathed their way backwards across the sky," there are four passages that seem strained and cumbersome, filler created not to fulfill a page count but that of a silent, self-assured quota of talent on display.

If at times, and only at times, the prose inhibits the reader's enjoyment, the framework of the story itself never fails to keep your interest. What seems at first like a pedestrian story about loss amid a midlife crisis soon morphs into a blistering attack on every facet of Nick's life, with a final plot revelation that changes the entire foundation of Nick's existence and how you relate to him.

All of these plot twists, each change in Nick's life, big and small, flow from his relationship with Rob. It is as if his death has broken a dam of long suppressed pain and secrecy and allowed the water to wash away every iota of what Nick thought was safe and secure.

Not bad for a character who only appears in flashbacks, and then usually at the lowest ebb of his life.

Now You See Him is an impressive and deceptively complicated novel about friendship, love, and the steep cost of living a lie, even one deferred. It's an impressive sophomore effort by Eli Gottlieb and no doubt a precursor of things to come.

-00-

Tags: Eli Gottlieb, book review, Now You See Him

Nobody's Perfect - The Giants Win! 18-1

Oh, Lordy . .once upon a time I thought SuperBowl XXV, another Giants nailbiting world championship, was the best drama a Super Bowl could produce. No sir; that'd be SuperBowl XLII.

Wow.

The Giants win by three points- as my gut predicted - to win the Lombardi Trophy.

Forget the Patriots and their smug, quick dismissal of the Giants as overconfident, and Brady's cocky rejection of Burress' prediction that the Pats would be held to 17 points.

Try 14 buddy.

The Giants just plain refused to be cowed, attacking Brady relentlessly and knocking him around like a tennis ball. Give credit where it was due; a lesser quarterback would have folded by halftime, but Brady just kept coming.

Two moments  had me on my feet, pumping my fist in the air and screaming:

Eli Manning on his way to getting sacked in the midst of his historic 84 yard game winning drive, but somehow squirming out and unloading a deep pass to Tryee, who hauled it in like an acrobat, all the time wrapped in the arms of a Patriots defender.

                       

That one actually caused me to bust my living room chandlier, knocking the glass loose with my fist and shattering a bulb.

I'll have to explain that one to the Mrs.very carefully.

The second was that booming sack of Brady with ~20 seconds left.

I left the chandelier alone that time.

So Eli joins his brother as a Super Bowl Champion - has that ever happened before? Probably not - and has come into his own.

And how does history judge the Patriots? Even at 18-1 they can't be considered the best ever, not without a championship ring. Realistically, on a numerical ranking they must be placed behind each and every championship team, just like the 116 win Seattle Mariners in baseball, despite the fact that they are/were one of the most dominating and suffocating units in history.

Congrats Eli and New York. Thanks for the great game!

Tags: SuperBowl XLII, Eli Manning, Tom Brady, New York Giants

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A Request for Help for a Fellow JLander, Sorrow for a Departed Friend, and Thanks for an Award!

I've been perusing http://journals.aol.com lately, and despite its many flaws I like the 'recently updated blogs' list. I'll often pop on to a blog I haven't seen before and take a look. You'd be suprised - or perhaps not - at the many great blogs on AOL, and the few that are absolutely dreadful.

My favorites tho' are the odd ones, the 'my minister is sleeping with my grandpa and they are plotting to kill the mayor because he's a Republican from Jupiter' versions.  And these people seem absolutely serious.

Sweet.

One of the brand new one's I stumbled on was Roses are Read (a nifty play on words, I think). She's brand new to the web and I've tried helping her with a few issues she's had here in JLand.

The trouble is she's now attempting to add music to her entries. I've always been print-centric and loathe to include anything that couldn't eventually be printed out - even my Youtube entries make me squirm - so I have no clue how to do it.

I've tried to help but it's no go. If you know how to do this, please stop by her site.

* * *

While trying to help her I came across the help site of Pam from One Girls Head Noise, a woman who was very kind and helpful to me when I started out here. She passed away in '06 but even now she reached out a helping hand.  Her alternate site is full of hints and tricks, and worth a look whenever you're stuck. A link to her site even created the license plate at the start of this entry.

Man, I really do miss Pam.

* * * *

I was flattered to receive my first award or recognition here in JLand, and it came from across the pond. Over at Villiage Life I was put up for a Nice Matters award with the following kind words:

I have only been looking in on Dan's journal for a few weeks now but he sure has a way with words and has a lovely family.

Thanks for the kind words. As you all can see I've loaded the award graphic in the sidebar and will display it with pride.

* * *

Ok, I really don't care and probably won't even watch, but as an American I'm obliged to give my Super Bowl picks. My head says the Patriots (gag) by a TD or more, but the rest of me is hoping the Giants take it by 3.

Tags: SuperBowl

Buddy Holly - 49 years on

Today is the 49th anniversary of ‘The Day the Music Died’, the fateful day when Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens, along with their pilot, Roger Peterson, perished in a plane crash near Clear Lake Iowa.

Rest in peace guys.

My wife asked me if I was going to write anything new for the anniversary, and I said no, thinking I’d just rehash some of my old tributes. (here, and here, for instance). I’ve changed my mind for two reasons. One, the old stuff was kind of skimpy, and two, well, the mood struck me.

I first got into Buddy Holly because of Robocop. Back in ’87 Robocop was a double feature, playing first and followed by La Bamba. My friend Erv went with me to see Robocop, and I went because I wanted to see LaBamba.

I was immediately hooked on Ritchie Valens and grabbed every cassette of his I could find, including a copy of a concert he did at his high school. (you’d be surprised how much the man recorded in an 8 or 9 month career).

[Sidenote: The concert cassette had an address of a fan club - pre-zip code no less - and I wrote in. The President of the Club, at the time of my letter a woman in her fifties, kindly wrote back and said the club had been phased out nearly thirty years before.

I still have the letter somewhere around here.]

Anyways, the movie soundtrack had a great cover of Holly’s Crying, Waiting, Hoping and I hesitantly called Mean Mountain Music, a store specializing in ‘50’s LP’s and tapes, and asked if they had any Buddy Holly.

“Uh, yeah,” the guy said, sarcastically. I deserved it; hell, I deserved a ‘duh!’.

So I became hooked on Buddy and stayed hooked, long after my affection for Valens faded into childhood nostalgia.

Why do I love the guy?

Not to sound shallow, but first and foremost I like the songs themselves. They’ve held up great over the decades, much better than many of the ’50’s rock tunes, and they still get you moving.

[ It’s a shame most people only know of “Peggy Sue”, a song I find pretty dull by Holly standards. ]

I also love his inherent cockiness. Here’s this curly haired, scrawny Texas kid with huge glasses, in an era that idolized beauties like Elvis and Troy Donahue. Yet he goes out and records songs that just reek of smug self-assuredness.

In his cover of Chuck Berry’s Brown Eyed Handsome Man, a fun and aggressive song (and one of my favorite of Buddy’s) he sings:

Arrested on charges of unemployment,
he was sitting in the witness stand
The judge's wife called up the district attorney
Said you free that brown eyed man
You want your job you better free that brown eyed man

Or in one of his own tunes, That’ll be the Day, he rejects his girlfriends threats of breaking off their relationship and retorts: ‘if we ever part and I leave you’

I like the fact that a half century after he’s gone musicians still tip their hat to him and acknowledge his influence. In 1998 Bob Dylan won album of the year and said in his acceptance speech:

"And I just want to say that when I was sixteen or seventeen years old, I went to see Buddy Holly play at Duluth National Guard Armory [note: this was on the final and fateful tour} and I was three feet away from him...and he LOOKED at me. And I just have some sort of feeling that he was — I don't know how or why — but I know he was with us all the time we were making this record in some kind of way."

I love the fact that no two songs of his ever sounded the same; Nickelback he was not. ‘Peggy Sue’ is not ‘Not Fade Away’ and ‘Words of Love’ is about as far away from “Oh Boy!” as a single artist can get. And whenever possible he was innovative, both in the recording studio and as a composer and arranger. Check out the use of the celeste/xylophone solo in ‘Everyday’. Who does that???

Finally, I love his inspired guitar work, which seems far and above anyone of the era, with the exception of Berry himself, and I really like Buddy’s voice and trademark ‘hiccup’.

Anyone can play ‘what might have been’ and mourn a great and productive future that never came to pass; Lord knows no one ever has the guts to come out and say ’had so-and-so lived, they’d have ended up locked in a mental hospital like Britney Spears’.

But with Buddy I think it’s safe to assume that the crash ended what would have been a long and influential career. Perhaps not as an artist himself, because he was already deeply interested in the producer/publishing aspect of the business. But with his knack for finding new and exciting ways to push the boundaries of rock ’n roll, who knows what he could have culled from some never-to-be-heard artist.

Next year is the 50th anniversary of the crash, and for the past 21 years I’ve wanted to spend that day in Clear Lake, Iowa to commemorate the event. I told my wife today to start making plans for the date, and God willing we’ll be there.

I only wish we were celebrating 50 years of new Buddy Holly recordings instead. 

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Tags: Buddy Holly

Lost: 'The Beginning of The End'

Truthfully, I wasn’t really feeling the season premiere of Lost.

Ok, sure, part of it was the terror that was the combined might of my children. And some can be chalked up to the disappointment of being greeted with a paltry one-hour season opener.

But really, there was no ‘oomph’ to the episode. No startling revelations or explanations (as if!). No sense of the drama of where the season 3 finale left off. No romantic news, no new characters, no new nothin'.

All of it a bit ‘blah’ really.

Here’s what we did learn:

At least six, but probably only six, survivors returned to the world. Among these ‘Oceanic Six’ are Hurley, Kate, and Jack. We can presume the coffin from the season finale contained another of the six, but that is just conjecture.

We’re made to think that the six returned only after forging a less than noble deal to keep their mouth shut about the island. We’re also led to believe that the rest of flight 815’s survivors remain, alive, on the island, held there at least in part by the complicit silence of the Six.

We know that neither Jack nor Hurley are comfortable with the deal they’ve made. Jack, however, seems to have choked down many of his demons and recovered a ‘normal’ life, albeit with a current of regret and pain running beneath the surface. Kate does not seem to share many of these misgivings, at least from what we’ve seen.

Hurley’s prediction about his money would seem to be incorrect, based soley on the car he was driving.

Hurley’s denial of Ana Lucia would indicate that the Six claim that no one but them survived the initial crash . . Or he just didn’t feel like talking : )

Much of the episode must be interpreted in light of Hurley’s illness. Is he crazy and imagining things, or are these people real? Or is it a combination of the two?

Presuming he is real, the mysterious visitor to the mental hospital would indicate that dark forces are still searching for both the island and the survivors. Whoare these people and what do they want? They can’t be the people who forged the ‘deal’, so who in fact did ‘rescue’ the Six?

By the way, that characters’ name, Matthew Abbadon, means roughly ‘place of the dead’ in Hebrew, presuming a reference on the web is correct. UPDATE: I guess that's wrong. Abbadon is an angel in Revelations who guards the place of the dead (hell).

Was Charley a real ghost or an imagined phantom? Either way he represents Hurley’s regret and his concern for the survivors so it really doesn’t matter. And they did surprise me with that one. I thought Hurley ran from the ’numbers’, not a person.

I vote that he’s a hallucination. No, make that a ghost - er, I can’t make up my mind quite yet.

Some questions I have:

“Not Penny’s Boat”. Maybe I’m misremembering the finale, but aren’t the Losties reading a whole lot into the scribbled words of a dying man?

The man in the chair in Jacob’s cabin looked an awful lot like Christian Sheppard, Jack’s Dad, didn’t it?

I didn’t dig Jack pulling the trigger on John, even if John deserved it. Jack is the moral compass of the show, and I don’t want to see him deviate from that.

If you’re hiding from a sophisticated boat-plane-skydiving-satellite phone yielding bad guys, why choose to hide in a man-made, in-the-open barracks John? Why not head for the caves from Season One?

Who left the second blood trail?

Hurley regrets going with John. That doesn’t bode well for Locke’s group, does it? Or is he simply just apologizing for not supporting Jack?

Well, fiddle-de-dee. Going into this I never would have thought that much of the episode sunk in. Huh.

You can bet I’ll be back for more next week.

* * * *

Update: Here's some interesting tidbits about the episode that were posted on Lostpedia this morning.

While playing horse with Hurley, Jack gets the letters "H" and "O". "H" is the 8th letter of the alphabet and "O" is the 15th - 815 (the flight number)

• Behind Hurley as he’s freaking out over Abbadon there’s a small sculpture of the letters ‘HO’ on a shelf.
• Hurley mentions Charlie’s ghost showing up in the convenience store right next to the “Ho Ho’s”.

Tags: Lost, blogplugs

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