My LOST Addiction; "Jughead"

Another episode of LOST was on last night.  If you do not know already you then you will know very soon that I am obsessed with this show.  It has pretty much everything you could want in a television show; action, comedy, intriguing characters, love stories, and a deep deep mystery.  Since, this is the first time I have written about the show I figured I would walk you through my routine the day after a new episode has aired.  

If after reading this you think "Wow this guy has no life,"  I will revert you back to the title of the blog and say "DUH!"

First, I download and listen to the The LOST Podcast with Jay and Jack.  They are two guys just as geeky about the show as me.  They usually recap what happened, give their spin on  it and then play calls from other fans around the country.  They have a Thursday show and then another on Monday.

Next I hit up the bogs.  I read Tuned In written by James Poniewozik for Time Magazine, and The Watcher written by Maureen Ryan for the Chicago Tribune.  They are both professional television critics and both have sweet spot in their hearts for LOST.  The Watcher, especially, typically has interviews with the writers and actors of the show as well as a recap.  I also check the comment thread on Pop Candy by Whitney Matheson for USA Today.  I don't usually all the comments, because there are literally hundreds.  Thankfully, on Mondays she makes a collection of the 10 best comments.  Last week some of the theories discussed there made my mind explode they were so interesting.

Sometimes I also have to check out Lostpedia, a giant wiki dedicted to the show.  Pretty much anything related to LOST can be found there.  So if I have any questions or confusion I go there to clear it up.

Finally we have come to the best part: Doc Jensen's column for EW.com.  If you think I am a little crazy, then this guy should be institutionalized.  He picks apart every aspect of the show and then does full research on it.  When a new character is introduced get ready for dissection of all the possible meanings it could have and all the real-life references it includes.  This guy could literally teach a class on the show, and I am not so sure he is not planning on doing that some day.  I think I like his column so much because he makes my obsession not seem so bad.

So that is my road map for addiction.  And now I will leave you with a few random comments I had about the episode "Jughead" last night.

-It was weird seeing a chicken commercial with Walt in it during LOST.  Does that mean he is in need of work and has no plans to come back on the show?

-It was cool that Desmond named his kid Charlie.

-I keep hoping that every time someone jumps out of the jungle it is Rousseau.  Don't know why, I did not really like her when she was alive.

-Are we to assume that Rose and Bernard are dead?  If they come back there had better be a good explanation.

-Miles just keeps getting funnier and funnier.  Keeping him and Sawyer together was a good choice.

-I hope we figure out why Richard is no longer the leader of the Others at some point.

-Is the girl that had the gun with Faraday supposed to be the girl he messed up at Oxford?  and now her mind is some how tied to the Island.

-Notice how when Penny asked Desmond he did not promise never to got back to the Island.  I think Desmond is going to end up being the final leader of the Island.  He's got the leadership qualities, according to Faraday he is already special and if he had the chance to stick it to Widmore he totally would.

-I almost thought I heard every one watching the show last night yell "Whoa!" when the Widmore reveal happened.

-Why is Charlotte the only one feeling the effects of time travel?

Put That Blackberry On Silent!

So Barack Obama was sworn in as President a week ago and the most popular story has not been about the historic event,  the flubbed oath, or even policy.  Everywhere I go all I hear about is Obama's Blackberry (side note: Newsweek's article about the Blackberry was titled "POTUS Gets To Keep His Precious," which I thought was hilarious). Now I am all about technology.  I would be lost without all my gadgets.  In fact, since I got my iPod Touch for Christmas it has not left my sight.  So I completely understand Obama wanting to keep his Blackberry.  But, I do not think the President having a cellphone is a good thing.  It is not the security aspect that I argue with.  I believe that if we can send a man to the moon, we can secure a single cellphone.  My argument is that it may be a distraction.  

A Blackberry is essentially a PDA or a Personal Data Assistant.  We need a devices like that to help us remember appointments, phone numbers and to pick up the milk. The President's job puts him in a different situation.  He has an entire wing of the The White House filled with personal assistants.  Entire departments spend all their time creating the President's schedule.  He does not have to keep track of that.  No one can just pick up a phone and call the President, he calls you.  And in reality the President does not to remember numbers either.  He never has to dial the phone he has his staff call first then he gets on the line.  There are multiple staff members and their only job is deciding who can talk to the President.  The only people that have automatic walk-in privileges (according to TV and movies) are the Chief of Staff and the First Lady.  His own Senior Staffers, Congressmen, Cabinet Members and even the Vice-President need permission to see the President.  Everyone in the world wants to talk to the President it is the staff's job to decide which ones actually get to do it.  That is how the Office works.  When the President is in a meeting that should be all he is focusing on.  He should not be bothered with anything else, because if the President is involved in the meeting you know that it is going to be important.  He does not need the Secretary of Energy emailing to remind him about fuel prices when he is meeting with the Joint Chiefs.  If the Secretary of Energy needs to contact the President he should talk to the staff first.  It is their job to relay the message.  There is nothing that a Blackberry can do that the President's staff does not do already.

I am excited that the new President is so tech savvy.  And I think more technology in the White House is a good thing.  I even hear his staff wants to use Macs instead of PCs, which makes me smile.  But in the case of a Presidential Blackberry this is when people are actually better than a machine.

I will throw in a recommendation here too.  If you want to see how the Office of the President really operates (or at least how I want to believe it operates, I guess I do not know for sure)  watch the television show The West Wing on DVD.  It is very addicting.  My perception of the Presidency and our government has been completely jaded by it, but in a good way.

Nixon... On Stage? Or On Screen?

You know in high school when you had to write those papers comparing and contrasting a book and a movie?  They always seemed fun and easy because you got to watch a movie, but when you got into them they were a lot harder than you thought.  I was struck by that problem all over again last weekend.  Two weeks ago I saw the play of Frost/Nixon downtown at the Palace Theater and Friday I saw the movie, which was directed by Ron Howard.  Both were excellent, but now everyone keeps asking me what the difference was between the two.  Each time I have been asked it has been hard to describe.  Now I think I finally have my answer.

The biggest and most obvious difference was the actors.  Stacy Keach played Nixon on stage.  He was great and played the part well.  However, he did not make me feel like I was watching Nixon on stage.  He just seemed like someone similar to Nixon and happened to have the same name.  Part of it was because he does not look all that much like the former president.  The more subtle reason was that Nixon has such a distinctive voice and speech pattern, which Keach did not do well.  Frank Langella (who played Nixon in the movie), on the other hand, nailed it.  I did not see an actor playing Nixon when I saw the film version, I saw Nixon.  I also thought that through the power of big screen that I was able to connect with Langella's Nixon better than I could with Keach's Nixon.  When I went home and watched the actual Frost/Nixon interviews (here) it felt awkward because the real Nixon almost seemed fake.  Langella was fantastic, and he deserves to win the Oscar for which he is nominated.

The plot of both the play and film were identical.  I picked up lines while watching movie that were word for word from the play.  There was just one scene that was a little different.  In the movie David Frost calls James Reston and tells him to go find the damning piece of evidence that they use against Nixon at the Library of Congress.  In the play Reston mails Frost the evidence without being asked.  It seems more like a coincidence in the play, instead of Frost having great investigative skills like the film portrays.  It was not a very important difference, just something that stuck out to me.

After seeing both versions I left each feeling that the pivotal scene was put in there for dramatic effect.  Spoiler Alert:  Nixon calls Frost drunk the night before the final interview.  What Nixon says stirs up something in Frost and gives him the determination during that last interview to get the confession out of the former president.  It worked in the story, but I did not think that was how it really happened.  I was wrong, that is exactly what happened.  In fact, according to the Slate: Spoiler Special podcast, Nixon had a habit of making numerous drunken phone calls at night.  It seems crazy, but sometimes history is a little crazy. 

Overall, I thought both versions of the story were great and would recommend seeing either one or both.  I would also recommend if see the movie to listen to the Spoiler Special podcast afterwards.  They bring up an interesting point about how Frost reacted to Nixon's drunken phone call because of his British upbringing, good stuff.

hello internet

Over the past couple months I have spent a bunch of time surfing around the Internet, because as the blog title states I am young, bored and unemployed. While surfing I have discovered many new things and learned a lot. Recently, I have come to the realization that I want some place to express my opinions and thoughts about... well... anything. So I figured what the heck I will join the millions of people out there and start blogging. I am going to use this space to discuss whatever I want, which is how a blog should be. So there is no telling what I will end up posting about, but be sure it will interest me and hopefully some of it will interest you too. So get ready its gonna crazy here soon (or not, who knows, I'm just trying to be optimistic).

PS If anyone out there wants to employ a recent college grad with a History degree let me know. I can change the name of the blog at any time.