The Comeback Kid

Well my friends, you've asked for it and now you've gotten it...a new blog post! My return to blogging had an inauspicious start as I forgot my password cause it's been so long since I've logged into this account, I've been jumping through the hoops to retrieve the password and just now got it. I'm not sure what good this Mac's password remembering software is when it doesn't work on this page. Luckily it works on every other page though, so if someone got a hold of this computer they could log into my bank accounts, facebook page, fantasy football teams, porn si...er, historical book club accounts. And my return to blogging couldn't come on a better night as douche of the year Brett Favre is taking on his former team the Packers. I'm not sure how these two events correlate but it sounds good. I guess I could somewhat be considered the Brett Favre of blogging, right when you guys thought you were rid of me, I came back, and come back with a vengence I will! Also like Favre, I blog best after I've been hit with tragedy, and earlier today that happened as I stubbed my toe on the corner of my bed post. Not fun, but my loss is your gain. Be prepared to read as I spit ill venom kids, game on.

It's a big week as this upcoming Sunday is the Chicago marathon, the first marathon I've ever ran. So far I've only had one person ask how long that specific marathon is. Just to clear any confusion, all marathons regardless of location are 26.2 miles. Let me put that in perspective for you, if you went out and ran 1 mile a day it would take you 26.2 days to cover the race distance. That's almost a whole month, my goal is slightly better than that at finishing in a touch under 3.5 hours. Some crazy African dudes will finish in approximately 2 hours, that's amazing. One runner has apparently thrown down the gauntlet that he wants to break the world record for the marathon at this race, I for one hope he does. It would be pretty sweet to witness something like that, albeit by the time I cross the finish line that guy will be back to the hotel and showered, had lunch, and on his way to the airport. But you understand what I'm saying.

It's been a great year for me in terms of racing and luckily for me no matter what happens on Sunday, I'll set a personal record in the marathon. So I have that going for me. Earlier in the year I was chronicaling all the races I'd done and the number of shirts I had collected. The total at this date is 11 shirts, my collection is rather stout now. After Chicago, I'll probably do 1 more 5k just to lay down a smoking time before winter and call it a year. That's 13 shirts, no doubt I'll be living in race shirt oppulance. Most shirts are pretty good (I'd probably say the River Run half marathon is my fave, not the best design or highest quality material, but it's black and very slimming), with the exception being the Komen Race for the Cure shirt (cotton, we'll cut them a little slack and assume the money normally reserved for technical shirts went towards cancer research).

Anyway, I just wanted to wet your appetite for what should be a good week of blogging. I hope to do at least 2-3 more entries before the race, and no doubt the one after will be epic. I'm thinking Pulitzer. It's going to be an interesting week that obviously culminates at 7:30am central time this upcoming Sunday. 3 of my 4 fantasy football teams won this week, so we're off to a good start which I like. Talk to you later kids.

The Incident

No, this isn't the big recap of the LOST season finale that you've probably been hoping for over the past week and a half. It is fitting though that the season 5 finale was titled 'The Incident,' then 2 days later I was in a major bike collision with another biker on the Olentangy bike trail a few miles north of my house. Definitely a major case of life imitating art, and no doubt ironic as well seeing how I'm a major league LOST fan. It was only fitting to name the accident for the episode. It's also fitting that after posting a picture of the Eric Idle biker character from European Vacation that got hit numerous times, the same thing should happen to me a few weeks later. I'm like a blog sage who's able to predict minor future events by posting pictures of them in advance, maybe I'll post a picture of a new Dodge Challenger and see if one shows up on my doorstep. Actually, if my powers are true, I might get hit by a Dodge Challenger. Maybe I'll hold off on that one for now and try another pic. Back to the wreck, I have to be honest by saying it was pretty spectacular. Me and the guy I collided with were going somewhat fast, not super fast, around a blind turn in a residential area of the bike path. After we saw each other, we both zigged the same way (me the right way, him the wrong way) and we absolutely DRILLED each other. I was sure I was going to break at least an arm and/or leg. I landed about 10 feet away from my bike in a guys front yard, landing on the grass was probably my saving grace, the other poor bastard landed smack dab on the concrete and severely messed up his shoulder (he seemed to think it was broken but he wasn't a doctor or anything, it probably was, it didn't look good). I only had a few scratches and felt good all things considering. Luckily the guy had his cell phone with him and was able to call his wife to come pick him up. It was a huge bummer and I felt bad, it was such a nice Friday and this definitely wasn't the way either of us envisioned our ride going. We determined we were both at fault and took the high road and didn't point any fingers, we were both travelling a little too fast through a highly populated residential area where we should have been riding more conservatively. The guy, Jim, was pretty cool about it actually, I offered to wait with him til his wife showed up but he said not to worry about it. I gave him my name and phone #, I haven't heard from him which is a good thing I guess. His bike was pretty beat up though, massively beat front wheel, broken chain, and other bent components. My bike was fairly unscathed, the front wheel was bent a little. It's presently at the bike shop getting service so we'll see on Wednesday if there was anything I missed. The rear derailler was loose but not broken, so we'll see. So, there you go Lauren, the story has been told, my conscious is clean.

And, just to show how much of a trooper I am, I ran the Komen Race for the Cure 5k the next morning. Hobbled and everything, I still made it. I was like Willis Reed at Madison Square Garden for the Knicks back in 70's or 80's or whenever that game was. I suffered in silence though as the Komen is a day for cancer victims/survivors and not for people in bike wrecks, so my story went untold so I wouldn't rain on my mom's parade. The event was pretty crazy though, I thought I was doing good by leaving the house with enough time to get in a 3 mile warmup and still have 15 minutes before race start, this turned out not to be the case. As I jogged closer to the event I was seeing people with bib #'s in the 40,000's! Holy crap, that's bigger than the Chicago Marathon! By the time I got there, I couldn't even find water so I could take my energy gel before the race, DAMMIT! Then, I went to get to where timed runners were supposed to be...uhhh no, not gonna happen. I think I started the race in about 150,000th place, not optimal starting position. The first mile was spent trying to get past people walking, holding hands, and generally trying to be in my way. At the start of mile 2, the crowd had thinned somewhat, but then this ahole kicks me in the foot as he tried to pass me. No big deal I thought, the course is crowded and there had been some arm contact and stuff up to this point so I figured he'd apologize and we'd move on. Sooooo, I look at him looking for a 'sorry man' or 'my bad' but the kid makes eye contact with me and says nothing. Hmmmm, now I'm getting kind of upset, a few more steps are taken and still nothing from my attacker. Game on dickhead! I get right behind the kid and stay about 6 inches behind him so he can hear my every breath, I even started breathing heavier than normal just to make sure he was aware of my presence. This continues until we get to the water stop at the end of mile 2 and the pussy quit. DOUBLE DAMMIT, now I can't even torture this prick for the next mile? Nothing was going my way at the Komen, except for the fact that I was one of the cancer free people I guess. So the last mile was ran in solitude, sans Komen nemesis. The last mile featured tons of bikers on High Street that were honking and reving their engines which was pretty sweet. I finished the race and figured I'd turn around and run counter-course and find my mom, who was doing the survivor walk. Uhhhhh, no chance in hell. It turns out trying to find a short person wearing a pink shirt among 1 million other people wearing pink shirts isn't exactly easy. So, it was a bummer I couldn't find her and finish the race with her, but she was understanding of the situation after the race. This race provided race shirt #5 of the year, cotton and pink, but a race shirt nonetheless.

Race Shirt Heaven

Last post I spun the yarn concerning my trip to Shitsburgh, PA for the half marathon a few weeks ago. I ran out of space before I got to say that the shirt from the event was top shelf, nice moisture wicking material, good sizing, and not gaudy to look at. The only problem is that it's black, which isn't optimal for summer workouts, but oh well. And actually, I somehow managed to get two (2) shirts out of the deal, compared to everybody elses 1 shirt. When we went to the marathon expo to pick up our packets I was handed a bag that had the official race shirt as well as a yellow Nike Dri-Fit shirt as well. When I saw it was an XL (I ordered a L upon registering), I asked my friends what size there yellow shirt was. The only problem was...I was the only person that got one. Apparently there was a mix up and I was given a bag with a shirt that someone had used to put a shirt they had purchased in. At no point in time did I remotely consider taking the free $40 shirt back, this represents reason #10,471 why I'm going to hell. We'll consider the yellow shirt to be shirt #3 of the racing season.

Another thing about Shitsburgh was the bag check on race day. FedEx was one of the sponsors of the race so they had a few package delivery trucks there where you could check a bag while you ran the race. When my friend and I got there we took the bag there assuming it would be there when the race was over, this was not the case. At the end of the race (sweaty, cold, hungary, etc.) we went to get our stuff only to find out they had moved the trucks to a location that was completely impossible to get to. To make a long story short, by the time we managed to get to the trucks and actually get our bag about an hour had passed. They're lucky I didn't catch a cold, a lawsuit would have been in order. But, this did give me a great idea for future races to score tons of free stuff. Buy a few shitty delivery trucks that remotely resemble FedEx delivery trucks, paint them white and make some big FedEx stickers for the sides. Next, drive to a race and set up a
'bag check' and put people's bags in your trucks. After the start of the race, drive off with everyones shit. Boom, the perfect crime. Nobody will know what happened for well over and hour, and by then I'll be long gone. How you like that Danny Ocean?

Fast forward to last Saturday and race shirt #4 from the Springboro YMCA sprint triathlon. We got up ass early to drive over to Dayton so we could be there by 7am to prepare for the 8am start. The swim was inside the Y's pool and was guaranteed to be massive chaos, people going in every 3 seconds, swimming a lap, going under a lane seperator, repeat til at the end of pool. It was like a massive fucking mosh pit, not to mention we had to stand outside half naked in the windy cold for 20 minutes. The swim was mainly ruined by people who needed to stroke their own egos by starting near the end of the line and pass slower swimmers like me, instead of starting near the front where they belong. What a bunch of jerks, I don't even want to talk about it, their lack of sportsmanship bothers me so much. There's no need to ruin my swim just to make yourself feel better dick head, I can't wait to pass your ass on the bike or run. I did the swim in 7:45 which was good for 180th place out of 232 people, yowza! That sucked! Oh well, time to regroup and hit the bike, which was to be my big comeback. I went out like gangbusters and rode hard, passing a lot of people. The odd thing about a triathlon of this format is you don't really know who you're racing because you didn't start at the same time as everyone else. So, if you're even on the course with someone, the person who started after the other in the swim is actually ahead according to the clock. I was making hay bigtime on the bike, did that part in 33:27 which was good for 52nd place during the bike portion, now we're talking.

Time for the 5k run, this should be my time. I popped an energy gel during transition #2 in preperation for the short run, I had never actually run a 5k so figured it would be pretty easy. But, it was also the first time I had biked super hard then attempted to run immediately afterwards so my legs were a bit tired, combined with the fact that I had just busted ass 7 days prior in the half marathon and this could have been some of the hardest 3.1 miles I've ever done! Did the first mile in 8:10, mile 2 had a massive, and I mean MASSIVE downhill, with an immediate turnaround and return trip up Mount Springboro. Did mile 2 in 7:40ish, my watch took a crap which sucked. R.I.P. Ironman watch, ironically it never lived to see me do an Ironman event. I'm not sure what mile 3 was but I was moving pretty good, total run time 24:09, good for 54th place of all runners. Overall time (including the 2 transition areas) 1:08:26, 66th place overall. Eventhough the swim was chaotic and it psyched me out, the event was still fun and I think I did really well for my first tri. I definately look forward to doing another one in the near future. The next planned one is an olympic distance event at Antrim Park in July, which is a 1.5k swim, 40k bike, and 10k run. And, not only was the event fun, but the shirt was high quality as well. I'm not sure, but I'm going to check the message boards to see if I can get an Ironman tattoo or sticker for my car since I've done a tri. If anyone knows the rules about this, let me know.

The Quest for Shirts

Race season is officially upon us and I'm pretty hell bent on collecting as many race shirts as possible as long as it doesn't put my personal health at risk, or enact my overdraft protection. This year is a first for me as I'm not traveling for work and I am actually able to come up with a race schedule and proper training plan. Since I started the whole physical fitness thing I've never been able to plan more than a few weeks in advance so this year looks to be a nice change, and as results suggest so far, it appears to be a positive change. A little more than a month ago I ran my first half marathon in Xenia, and had registered for the Pittsburgh Half Marathon last weekend which was sponsored by Dick's Sporting Goods. Can't the government step in at some point and make them change their name to Bill's or something? Anything but Dick's! What, was Cox Sporting Goods already taken? How about Peter's? I have to assume at some point they've had those odd commercials with interviews of customers who say 'We love Dick's, we buy all our stuff here,' or 'Dick's are the best, we can't get enough,' or perhaps 'Coming inside a Dick's store during a sale is great, I always get more than I bargained for!' It must be great to work in the PR department of Dick's Sporting Goods. Here's a sample conversation for a hypothetical employee:

Person 1- Hey Bill, long time no see. What are you doing now-a-days?

Person 2- Wow, Tony! What are you doing at Chick-Fil-A? I'm doing good thanks. I work in the PR department at Dick's Sporting Goods.

P1- That's great, so you tell everyone how great Dick's are?

P2- Wow, that's pretty fucking original. I've never heard that one before you homophobe. I hope you choke on your Chick-Fil-A, you asshole.

P1- Hey, don't take out your anger on me cause you love Dick's man. How are the wife and kids doing?

P2- Actually, I got divorced cause my wife was cheating on me. Somehow she got custody of the kids too. Didn't you already know that? That happened a while ago.

P1- Yeah, I did. I just wanted to bring it up again. Take care man, good luck in spreading the word about Dick's!

p2- (collapses to the floor crying)

The moral of the story is everyone at the race had a black sack that said Dick's real big on it, awesome. The day before the race was one of the longest few hours of my life though as we had gotten to Pitt early so we could pick up our race packets, and had a lot of time to waste throughout the day before needing to go to bed to get some proper pre-race sleep. I stayed with a high school friend who luckily lives near 3000 bars, and since I was fully prepared to bust ass the following morning while running 13.1 miles, I had no intention of drinking. Another great thing was that it was damn near perfect drinking weather and the Kentucky Derby was on, as well as Bull-Celtics game 7. To top it off, one of my friend's buddies showed up and at one point offered us $100 to drink with him. These are the moments when you decide how serious of a racer you are. It was by far the longest amount of time I've ever spent at a bar without drinking. The old me would have caved for $20, but I held strong and only ended up having 2 beers at our mega-dinner at Buca diBeppo, which I was fine with. Beer has carbs, and carbs are good for endurance events.

Waking up for a 7am start didn't prove too difficult and we were at the event in plenty of time to check a bag/warm-up/etc. The race had around 10,000 entrants, so it was by far the biggest race I've ever participated in which was cool. The race had a good vibe too, the city hadn't had one for the previous 5 years so it was the big return, and the city seemed fairly excited to have it. My goal was to start out faster than I had at Xenia, then cruise from there, my main goal was to break into the 1:30's and finish in the top 20% of the half marathon field. They had pace groups which I'd never seen either so I got near one of those with the expectation of hanging it with for a while before speeding up. At race start I was feeling good and ready to put in a good effort, the weather was perfect, nice and cool, overcast with no sun. Mile 1 was 7:33 (roughly 45 seconds faster than mile 1 at Xenia), mile 2 was 7:38 (about 20 seconds faster), then mile 3 was 7:05 (about 40 seconds faster), so after 3 miles I was 1:45 ahead of my previous best. This was far faster than I was hoping but was still feeling good and breathing alright. I jobbed out miles 4-7 in good time 7:18, 7:23, 7:24, 7:27, really consistant, over halfway home and looking good. Total time to mile 7, 52:32. Mile 8 went through a neighborhood with a few hills and I started to feel fatigue set it, the plan was to take my energy gel at the end of mile 8 anyway so this seemed fine, to take the gel I had to slow a bit which produced the slowest mile of the race @ 7:48. Mile 9 was 7:30, then mile 10 I crashed, going out so fast had taken it's toll and I was starting to feel it, the gel didn't prove to be much help. But, while I felt terrible and thought I was going slow, the watch said otherwise, mile 10 in 7:42, not too bad. At this point I was really struggling and the finish line couldn't come soon enough, I was convinced I did mile 11 in 8:30, Mr. Ironman watch corrected me, 7:48. I also felt slow because a few people started passing me, which I hate. More pain and suffering in mile 12, 7:37, 1.1 to go, feet don't fail me now. Normally, I'd kick pretty good the last mile (@ Xenia mile 13 was my fastest mile @ 7:18), here...no such luck. Some dbag little kid passed me at some point and I was about ready to punch him, there's no way this punk had run the previous 12 miles! Mile 13 was 7:46, then I sprinted the last tenth in 45.74 seconds. Total time- 1:38:49. I was pretty wrecked after the race but was happy with the good PR. The results proved odd though, at Xenia (which apparently is one of the most competitive races in the country) I ran 2 minutes slower than this time and finished in the top 21% of half marathoners. Here, out of 4105 1/2er's I was 182nd, top 4.43%! Strange, must not have been a very competitive field, but I'll take it! Out of 1675 men, I was 145th (top 8.66%). And age group, I was 19 out of 275, for top 6.91%.

Overall, the race was fun....hard, but fun. The course was good, and I think it sets up to run a fast time. The event was very well organized and I would encourage anyone to do it next year, I'm sure the race will only get bigger (if the organizers increase the field, they had to cap it this year cause so many people registered). And I'm definately super happy with the result. It was good to realize I felt so bad but still ran good times, that will help out big time in future races when I feel like crap. Really nice race shirt too! Shirt #2 of the season! I'll try to get out the epic tale of shirt #3 from yesterday in the upcoming week!

BB vs. iPhone

As I described yesterday, I got a Blackberry Curve 8330 last week as I look to expand my cell phone horizons. I still think the iPhone is the way to go, but the BB has some strong aspects as well. After 6 days with the BB I like it and could see myself keeping it if need be. It definitely does everything I want, possibly just not on the same level that the iPhone could. The main thing that I think I like compared to the iPhone is the fact that it has an actual keyboard and not that touch screen mumbo jumbo. I thuroughly enjoy texting and emailing and I can see myself getting discouraged with a touch screen cause I hate trying to pinpoint those little buttons on the screen with my finger tip. That isn't to say the BB is perfect, the buttons are pretty small and I find myself mistyping quite a bit, which for a texting perfectionist like myself is bad. I take pride in my texting spelling, puncuation, etc and want a phone that makes it as easy as possible for me to get things 100% right the first time. I think the first time I would try to type a long message on the iPhone I'd probably consider chucking it through the window cause it took so long. I'm sure it's something you get used to, and apparently the device acclimates itself to your typing style as well to help out. But, I still like the tried and true method of typing with the buttons, call me old fashioned.

The big thing that the iPhone pushes is it's AppStore. I would assume that the iPhone is the undisputed king in this category cause while I browse the Verizon and BB app stores, the selection is pretty slim for most things. There seem to be a lot of similar applications, yet none of them seem to be significantly better than any of the others. A good one that I've found and would recommend to everyone with a BB is called Poynt (go to BB App Zone, or www.poynt.com). It's one of those nav/business/movie type of apps, except it functions very well while looking pretty slick too. You can do just about anything, search for whatever, wherever, whenever. You can find movie times and even buy tickets through it which is kind of cool, and you can integrate it with Google maps if you've downloaded that (which you should, BB maps is amateur hour). It's free, and way better than paying $9.99/month for VZ Navigator (if you have Verizon). I gave Poynt 5 out of 5 stars and even sent in a review cause I liked it so much. A good weather app to get is from The Weather Network, it's free as well. As you scroll over it's icon on the phone it shows the current weather conditions, and the icon itself is a representation of whats currently happening which is cool. Not that I need animated raindrops to tell me it's raining outside, but I appreciate the effort. It has a nice current, short term, and long term forecast in a better format than Weather Channel mobile so that's why I dig it. As for sports apps, I've gotten ESPN and FoxSports but am not sure if one is really better than the other. ESPN is solid as you'd expect and I'd imagine I'll use it, especially come fantasy football season since that is the site my leagues are with. One app I would recommend not getting is called Viigo, it claims to be a jack of all trades in terms of news, sports, weather, etc, but doesn't seem to be very good at any one thing. It does have a flight search (which would be nice) and is on the verge of getting audio/podcasts which is the main reason I got it, hopefully they get that capability sooner rather than later.

I think the main things that will sway me to the iPhone will be the ability to use iTunes and all the good apps. Having tunes and podcasts on there would be nice. And the active GPS w/ Google maps is awesome when driving somewhere that you don't know where you're going. Also, the touch screen comes in handy here cause you can just slide your finger to move the map, rather than having to move the trackball and waiting forever for the map to readjust. Plus, I think there's an app that integrates the GPS with running/biking so you can track your workouts and possibly integrate them with your Nike+. That seems pretty cool, and since you have iTunes on there, you can take it with you on your workouts and it serves a dual function. While the BB does have GPS, there don't appear to be any apps that use it for this purpose. And I'd imagine there's some kind of iPhone porn app, does anything else really matter? No.

I'm not sure if the iPhone does this, but the BB integrates your Facebook friends with your contacts to put their FB pics on their contact info. Its funny to look up someone in your contacts and see their FB profile pic, that's pretty cool. I'd imagine FB for iPhone does this as well so it's a push. I like FB mobile as a whole, I'm interested to see the differences on the iPhone. So overall, I like the BB, I definately don't dislike it for any reason. I think the iPhone might just be a touch better. Everyone I know that has an iPhone says they love it and wouldn't trade it for anything, and from some of my weird friends, that's a big compliment. Even people I know that are scared of phones, computers, technology like it, so that's saying a lot.

The Blacker the Berry...

This picture doesn't have anything to do with this post but I saw it and thought I needed to share it with the rest of the world. I found it through God's Twitter page. Yes, God is on Twitter. I still don't understand Twitter, but God's Twitter feed is kind of funny, and I'm sure he knows who follows his feed so when I die he should hook me up, so I've got that going for me.

Last week I wrote part 1 of Saturday's events in Bowling Green with the thought of it being a grand 2 part blog with tons of hilarity. I meant to write part 2 on Tuesday but I ended up getting busy and never had the chance to write it and do it justice. As the week passed I've lost a little steam over what transpired so I'll give you a shorter account. Just to refresh your memory, part 1 ended with us ordering Myle's pizza at the bar while getting sloshed. Soooo...while at the bar, this girl who a friend used to hook up with in college showed up out of nowhere which was crazy, what are the odds? It's funny cause her nickname is 'Lawnmower Toes Amy' cause she's missing a few toes due to a tragic lawnmower accident as a child. After everyone got back from the dinner, we hit the carryout to grab some brews and went with some undergrads to one of their off campus houses. I went classy and got a 30 pack of Natural Ice, I didn't realize they still made the stuff, I thought it got outlawed cause it was making kids go blind. We didn't stay there long before heading to the Brathaus downtown. Things were getting hazy here and I don't remember anything particularly interesting happening. At bar close we went back to the house w/ all of our beer where we met an undergrad who felt the need to bump his gums to us about how we were old and couldn't drink anymore.



Bad idea son. After realizing I wasn't backing down from his challenge he tried to puss out and get a proxy to take his place in the beer bong challenge I set up. Whatever, I crushed the other kid too. Point is, you fuck with the bull, you get the horns. I'm pretty sure I ruined this kids life. Looking back, I probably could have cut the kid some slack. Nahhhh nevermind, he needed a lesson taught to him.

In other big news this week, I got a Blackberry this week. I'm debating whether or not to get an iPhone or something else, but either way I know I need to get a phone w/ email/internet/etc. My regular douche phone just isn't holding my interest anymore. I went to Verizon (my current carrier) to check out their selection of phones, and as it turns out most of their phones horrendously blow. The only decent option is the Blackberry Curve, the BB Storm is an abomination. After that, I went to the AT&T store and checked out the iPhone...game over. iPhone is the way to go, but...I still have time left on my Verizon deal and it will cost me $85 to get out of my contract early. It's nice though, through my new employer we get 20% off of monthly plans at AT&T, and 22% off at Verizon, so that's super sweet. With news of a possible new iPhone coming out in a few months I decided not to plunk down the $200 for the phone plus the early termination fee w/ Verizon, so I could wait to see what Apple does with the new product. It seems as if it isn't actually a new phone, it is merely an HD input/output cable and new OS (which is free to download) for the current phone. Also, next year the iPhone exclusivity contract w/ AT&T expires and all carriers will be able to carry the phone. See, I bet you didn't think of this as your go to tech blog did you? I still think AT&T's 3G network is the hot ticket though. The BB is pretty cool though, it's definately a huge step up from what I had. Plus, I'm probably just going to take it back in a month anyway (I can take it back w/o financial reprocussion w/in 30 days). I'm sure I'll write more about it in my next post, I've been familiarizing myself with it over the past 5 days and have gotten over the initial learning curve I think so I'm just hitting my stride.

We're Going to be Pigs!

This post isn't about European Vacation, but while I was searching the interweb for a picture from the Pig in a Poke scene, I stumbled upon this pic which has the Griswald's name misspelled. They're name is actually spelled 'Griswold.' I had never noticed that before, I'm sure as most of us guys watched this movie we were probably focusing on our dirty thoughts towards Beverly D'Angelo, and not on the spelling of their name. Come to think of it, that movie has some funny parts and I haven't seen it in a while. It might be worth Netflix-ing at some point. In other misspelling news, the other day the Washington Nationals sported jerseys with their name spelled 'Natinals.' Genius! Or maybe budget cutbacks due to the poor economy meant they couldn't afford all the letters, and their management figured a missing 'o' wouldn't prevent people from figuring out what team was actually on the field. If I ran the Nats, I think I'd just let our players wear t-shirts during the games, I wouldn't even care if they were matching or not. The Nats are like...well...they're like the Nationals of MLB. I think even the Pirates look at them like a joke. And speaking of baseball, is it necessary for ESPN to have Power Rankings after the first four games of the season? Hey ESPN, the teams have played 4 f'n games and they still have 2000 more to go, can we give the power rankings a rest until we've seen the teams go through their rotation 2 or 3 times? Thanks. It's amazing how much I simultaneously love and hate The Worldwide Leader.

Onto the point of this blog and the reason for the European Vaction pic, this weekend was my fraternities spring grad event formally known as Pig Dinner (for info about the history of Pig Dinner click here). A great week of Facebook terrorism had me pumped to get into town and see a bunch of old friends. From what I had heard, they were expecting a good crowd, and I knew most of my good friends were going to be there so the liklihood for a blood bath was high, but, how much damage can you do in one night? HA. I had to work Saturday morning, but was able to make it up to BG by 5:30 to get involved in the festivities. I got into town and went straight to the bar where everyone was, I was primed to get wasted for numerous reasons: 1- whenever I'm with my friends we always get plastered and tons of funny shit happens, and 2- I haven't been drinking that much recently and the possibility of tying one on sounded good, between working 2 jobs and tons of training I think I deserve it. Upon getting to the bar I was mainly hearing 2 comments from people: how skinny I look and how many people read and like the blog. It was kind of weird being told by so many guys that I looked good, it was like I never left the Short North! The comments are much appreciated though and it's nice of people to notice the work I'm putting in and to make nice, genuine, and positive statements to me about it. No doubt, if you're last mental image of me was from my days at Bowling Green, I doubt you could even recognize me if I didn't come up and shake your hand. I wish I still had Ruhl's pic from our graduation when me, him, and Hoynes each weighed about 250. Jesus, that picture is hilarious and sad all at the same time. If we ever ask why we didn't get more attention from ladies in school, all we need to do is look at that picture and the question is answered.

All the comments about how everyone likes the blog was nice to hear as well. I was convinced I had about 7 friends, but apparently a lot of people are reading this and recommending it to others. Actually, the total hits on the page are roughly approaching 1000 which is good. At my previous projections of the '7 friends' business model, I figured it would take until roughly 2053 to reach 1000 site hits. We're getting close to that in about 4 months, thanks for the support. So, while most people left the bar to go to the formal dinner, some of us had planned just to stay in BG and hang out, and hang out we did. While playing cornhole in the bar, we were consuming some serious amounts of beer, and even got so lazy that we had pizza delievered to Muggs. This was actually the low point for the night as I had my mind set on going to Myle's and chowing down, and I only ended up eating 3 pieces which was disappointing. But, some Myle's is better than none, and hanging out with 4 other first ballot Hall of Famer's is more important than pizza. This is getting long so I'll conclude part 1 of the night for now, the best is yet to come it part 2 tomorrow!

When Harry Met Rally

As you may or may not have heard, the world's economy is in a bit of a downturn right now. People are loosing their jobs at unprecedented rates and the lifestyle that most of us have come to take for granted over the past few years has gone by the wayside. While this bear market has produced many negatives for a lot of people, a few positives have come out of it. Subway has all footlong subs for $5 and Quiznos has some subs for $4, at the end of the day I think this is what will define this era, The Great Sub War. This time has forced many people to adjust their spending habits and become more resilient . I think as a whole the general population is trying to make the best of a bad situation and is maintaining reasonably high spirits in spite of the poor economic conditions. Americans are showing their true spirit and doing everything they can to support their fellow citizen who may be in need, this is no more true than in the case of General Motors. While some people are saving pennies and still managing to donate their time, food, clothes, etc, to those less fortunate, GM is taking the unprecedented step to ask Americans to 'put their rally caps on.' Get inspired by watching the commercial...



(pause)

Hmmmm, put my rally cap on? Are they being serious? I think they are. I almost wrecked my car the first time I heard the radio commercial for this appeal to the population. Then, I almost jumped through the roof of my house after seeing the tv commercial asking the same thing. Sooooooo, let me get this straight...GM is seeking $24 billion in bailout money from the government to support their sorry asses, and they want me to put my rally cap on? How out of touch can these people be? You put your rally cap on when your baseball team is down 2 runs heading into the bottom half of the last inning, not when you're asking Uncle Sam for a cool $24 billion. Let me try to describe the sports scenario equivalent of the situation GM is in right now....oh wait, THERE ISN'T ONE BECAUSE NO FUCKING BASEBALL TEAM HAS EVER ASKED THE FUCKING GOVERNMENT FOR $24 BILLION FUCKING DOLLARS! Even the Pittsburgh Pirates and Kansas City Royals organizations are looking at General Motors like they're a goddam joke, and rightfully so. The Pirates and Royals are a lot of things, but I've never seen them on Capital Hill begging for money.

And why should we put our rally caps on? Aren't they the ones with one foot in the corporate grave? Heres a hint for the GM wonderkin, why don't you put your fucking rally cap on? Take your own advice and wear your rally cap the next time you head to Washington D.C. to shill for more taxpayer dollars. Maybe the government will appreciate the 'fingers crossed, let's hope for the best' mentality of the rally cap and just give you $50 billion just to tide you over. And while I'm dropping hints to the GM 'braintrust,' why don't you try updating the gauges, dials, radios, buttons, etc., in your cars once every 30-40 years? Have you ever thought that maybe that's why you're in this predicament? Fuck me, if you need a power window button for a 2007 Chevy Malibu, all you need to do is go to a junkyard and grab one out of a 1988 Astrovan. No need to reinvent your model lines once every five years like the Japanese companies, that's just a big waste of R & D money! Around the 12 second mark of that commercial, it says 'we need to start thinking differently.' Really? No shit? You're only about 3 decades and $24 billion late on that call buddy. Oh well, who needs technology and innovation when we have rally caps? They'll save the day!

I may not be in the best financial situation I've ever been in but I'm working and staying afloat which is fine, life has its ups and downs and this is just a part of the ride. And it has nothing to do with 'digging in' or 'rallying,' it's called being a normal human being and surviving. Unlike the white collar fat cats who drove GM into the ground, and on some level aided in the current world economic crisis, the overwhelming majority of us don't have the comfort of taking the corporate jet from our cushy northwest Detroit suburb mansions to the nation's capital to panhandle for cash. It's possible there's a lesson to be learned from how GM is handling this current crisis, can we apply the their rally cap theory to all aspects of life? "Good evening sir, this is American Express. Your bill is past due and we'd like a payment." "Well, I'm kind of short right now, but I have my rally cap on! Does that give me an extra month?" or perhaps..."Sir, I have some bad news, your kidneys are shot, you need a transplant." "Well doctor, I presently don't have health insurance cause I was laid off of work from a tier one GM parts supplier." "No problem sir, I just realized you had your rally cap on. We'll take care of it for you, no problem!" I could come up with scenarios like this all day, but I haven't even touched on Chevy's shitty anti-gay Howie Long truck commercials. Not only is GM broke, but they also feel it's important to disperse anti-gay sentiment in their commercials. Sorry for using my Ford 'man step' to make my day easier and save my knees and back Howie, I guess I'll buy a Chevy just so you don't call me a queer. And Howie, wearing wire rimmed glasses and a mock turtleneck don't make you smart, they just make you look smart...big difference douchebag. Here's a good video on how comic book villains are handling the current economic climate...

"Lex Luthor Bailout" with Jon Hamm from Jon Hamm

Formal Apology

In an effort to maintain the highest standards of journalistic integrity, Third and Forever is issuing a formal apology to women bikers after our post yesterday. As it turns out a guy I know also wrecked numerous times this week making the score: women wreckers- 3, men wreckers-1. I'm sure the men number will change to at least 2 once I start biking as well, as I attempt to get used to being clipped in to the pedals. I hope this suffices and any feelings of ill will towards Third and Forever recede.

The Boys (and Girls) of summer...and fall

I'll just apologize to start off, there will not be any pictures of puppies today in the blog. I'm sorry, if you came here thinking of me as your one-stop shop for everything puppyness, you're partially incorrect. We all enjoyed the pictures of little Hank on Monday's post, but some things are best done in moderation. Notice I said 'some things,' alcohol is not one of those things, the more the merrier with booze. Another thing that is best not done in moderation is kicking peoples asses during races. Like booze, the more ass you can kick, the better. I mention this cause the weather is turning nicer and race season is starting to heat up, I'd say it's at a simmer right now, but come next month it will be at a full boil. (I guess I meant that last sentence to pertain to running and tri races, but auto racing is also getting in full swing with the start of Indycar, Formula 1, and ALMS so that is good. At least there are options other than NASCAR on Sunday afternoons now which is outstanding. Last weekend all 4 disciplines had races so it was a veritable racing orgy of sorts which I appreciated. And like an orgy, I had a boner for an extended period of time, I will not confirm or deny if ED drugs were used.)

But, I think most of us that are training for a certain event(s) can now see the finish line (literally and figuratively I guess) and all those indoor workouts over the winter are looking to pay off in the racing arena. As I talk to friends who are training you can tell everyone has spring fever and is itching to see if all the hard work is going to be worth it and take precious minutes off of their times. Last weekend I got the first taste of competition on my tongue, and I'm definately ready for more. With my introduction into triathlons, I've noticed how fun it is to look and talk about tri equipment, mainly bikes. Basically everyone I know has gotten a new bike and it feels like the day after Christmas where we're all calling/emailing each other to talk about our new toy. In running, you don't have this aspect. No one calls each other to talk about their new Brooks Defyance running shoes (which I just got last week, they're really nice). This will be a fun year to hear about everyone's racing experiences, with my exit from auto racing (and lack of travelling) I'll now have the time to focus on racing myself and be a part of the community which will be a good change. The main thing I'm excited about since I'll be doing more races this year is collecting as many race shirts as possible, another case of the more the merrier. I love technical shirts and unlike my collection of hoodies, my tech shirt collection needs some help, after this race season that will change. I plan on doing any and every race that is within 2 hours of Columbus. I'll keep a scoreboard on here to let you know how the collection is coming.

I hope everyone does well this race season and is able to meet/exceed their personal expecations, and is able to stay healthy. On that point, what is it with girl's falling on bikes? 3 girls I know have fallen on their bikes recently, 0 guys have. What's going on here ladies? Seriously, we need to get this figured out! I'm excited to get into tri's and do my first race, I think they'll be a lot of fun. I looked on the web and found out that the average income for a triathlete is $126,000, I'm glad that I can help bring down the mean big time. The next race on my schedule is the Pittsburgh half marathon on Sunday, May 3. I should be able to get into the 1:30's pretty easily I think, but we'll see. 2009 race season stats so far, 1 race, 1 PR, 1 technical shirt.

Enough about racing, at the night job a few days ago I came up with what is widely being considered one of the best nicknames ever. This one black guy wears these matching light brown Dickies shirts and pants to work, eventhough only full time drivers get uniforms (which are possibly brown at the company I work for). He has a matching dark brown set as well and he looks like of funny cause everyone else is dressed so casually. He looks like a zoo keeper, so I nicknamed him Brian Fellow, which was a character portrayed by Tracy Morgan on a Saturday Night Live skit called 'Brian Fellow's Safari Planet.' Here's a clip if you don't remember the skit:



Everybody at work loves this nickname and it's pretty obvious the guy doesn't seem too enthused about it. He looks like a tool though, and I think it's hilarious. All night you can hear people yelling 'FELLOWS!' at him whenever he drives by on his forklift. He'll probably come in and shoot up the joint one of these days, but it's funny in the meantime. And another black guy nicknamed me Birdman, a reference to Larry Bird, cause he said I talked so much trash for a white guy. This is one of the nicest things I've ever heard.

I'm not sure if I'm going to write about LOST tomorrow, our relationship is kind of going through a rocky phase right now so I'm taking a step back. I have quite a few other things I want to write about so I'll probably get another post up tomorrow.

Better Late than Never

I know, I know, it's been a long time since I last had a proper post on the blog. But, can you really stay angry with me after seeing the picture of the cute puppy up there? I mean, look how cute he is! And I posted it, so by basic transitive property you shouldn't be the least bit angry with me. Let's walk through this...if you aren't a commie and you like puppies, and I post a picture of a cute puppy, then you should like me...pretty simple. So let's forget about the lack of posts the past 3 weeks and focus on the important stuff, like Hank the golden retriever puppy from the 1/2 marathon I did Sunday. Did I mention how cute he is? Doesn't Hank rock? And, isn't that a great dog name, Hank? Yes, yes, and yes! Oddly enough, I didn't actually get to meet or photograph Hank, I was running at the time of his presence at the race, so all I have are these pics to preserve his legacy. Here's another one, I just can't help it! That's two (2) puppy pictures, I could write anything from this point forward and no one should care!
I wish I could say I haven't had any posts recently because I was busy partying it up with my boys Lance Armstrong or P.Diddy, but sadly that isn't the case. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Instead of living the high life of rich socialites I've been working two jobs and training in every spare moment in between. I used to travel all over the world on someone else's dime and was on ESPN or ABC 20+ times a year. Now, I have the potential of working 70 hours a week while making less money than when I used to have 1 racing job, good times. My days basically consist of 4 things: sleeping, eating, working, and training....seriously. And looking at Facebook. To be honest, I don't mind the working, I just mind how it cuts into my ability to train how and when I want.

Unfortunately, until I can go full time as a driver for a certain parcel service that my second job is at, I'm forced to keep my shitty day job with the white trash losers, which is what I'm really upset about. With my night hours at the parcel service, which functions internationally, I'll just call it IPS, I'm actually gaining a new found respect for my dvr. I'm actually forced to use it again for the first time in a while, and I now have a new found love for it. The second job is also at night which has somewhat cut into my texting, which is my lifeline. At IPS I work Tuesday thru Friday 6pm to 12am'ish, which are prime texting hours (they have a no cell phones policy in the building, but as I've noticed as I work there longer, no one really gives a shit about this policy, or very many other things for that matter). So, hopefully I can go full time at IPS sooner rather than later for numerous reasons which include but aren't limited to: more sleep, less white trash people, better/more consistant training, more money, better health benefits, and all the brown pants/shorts I could ever hope for. Pray for me.

A few good things have happened since we last talked. First, I got that new job at IPS. It's not the best right now, but has the potential to be absolutely outstanding, in a relatively short time period as well. They have a great tuition reimbursement program which is one of the things I'm most exicted about. The sooner I can get a real degree and move my pathetic psychology/sociology degree to the background, the better. Second, I got a cool road bike. I got it from an OSU student the day before he was leaving for spring break. I had talked to him about it for about a week and a half prior but figured he'd be more desperate for cash as spring break neared so I wasn't returning his calls or emails right away. The last Friday of OSU finals I called and gave him a ridiculous offer which he seemed pretty excited to receive. He got vacation & beer money, and I got a sweet bike at a great price, it was a win-win situation. God bless craigslist and broke college kids. If you're a bike dork and want the specs send me an email or check out Fuji's website. Here's a pic...

Third, I completely blew away my expectations at the 1/2 marathon I ran yesterday. While it was the first official 1/2 I've run competitively, I'd say I've been physically and mentally prepared to run one for a while but haven't for different reasons (injury, scheduling, etc). I was incredibly anxious to finally do one and see how I'd do in a competitive environment. My stated goal for the race was 1:45 which is basically 8:00 pace, I would have been fine with running this time. I started out the first mile at 8:15 and felt good, my first mile is always my slowest, it's possible I over-compensate for trying not to come out too fast by going a little convervatively. Mile 2 was 7:55, now we're talking, still feeling strong and breathing is good. Mile 3 came with some hills which I like, started passing people and the competitive juices were flowing...7:45. Mile 4 started a long stretch on an arrow straight fairly flat paved bike path, getting splits during the next while was hard cause mile markers were non-descript, miles 4,5, and 6 were done in 22:20 (7:27 pace), miles 7 & 8 in 15:21 (7:40). The turnaround was at mile 8 and started us on a mile trip dead into a headwind which was discouraging, I felt good til I hit this point, luckily I brought an energy gel which I took at the mile 9 aid station, miles 9 and 10 done in 15:52 (7:56, uh oh, creeping back up towards 8!). The gel kicked in and I jobbed mile 11 in 7:35, only 2 miles left, we're almost home free! A guy with a Garmin 305 w/ GPS caught me at this point and was trucking, as we passed he said keep up the good work and said we only had 2 miles left. We exchanged a few out of breath sentences and I decided I had to try to keep up with him, we did mile 12 in 7:42. Mile 13 we caught a guy who was walking and encouraged him to finish with us, the poor guy ran about 50 yards and proceeded to stop and puke, awesome! Mile 13 = 7:19, the fastest of the day. Race total: 13.1 miles, 1 hour 40 minutes 45 seconds, 7:42 pace, 95th out of 444 half marathoners (top 22%). I'm still psyched today, I'm surprised I haven't broken my arm/shoulder while patting myself on the back the past 36 hours, but what can I say? Sometimes we do things that we're proud of ourselves for, and this was one of those things for me. A la Tim Riggins on Friday Night Lights after his Panthers lost in the state championship game, I left my shoes at the finish line, Xenia Forever...

April Fools Blog

April Fools!!!!! Buhahahahahahahaha!!!

But seriously, check out this link for the great new song by the band Carolina Liar, 'Show Me What I'm Looking For'

Mo Tweeting, Mo Problems

I have to be honest when I say the main reason I look at Twitter is because of Bad Boy Records CEO Sean Combs (Twitter @iamdiddy). When you look at the picture to the left, how could you not be interested in knowing what he's doing at any point of the day? It's a guarantee that whatever he's doing, it's way cooler than what you or I am doing. I would like to see a pie chart of how Diddy's days are spent, I'm guessing there aren't that many categories of things he's doing, but they're probably completely awesome. And even if what he's doing is something like you or I do (like in USWeekly's 'They're just like us!' section), he's still doing it with way cooler shit. Like if he's surfing the internet for porn, you know it's on a Diddy edition solid gold 19" Macbook Pro. You're probably saying, 'Brandon, Apple doesn't make a 19" Macbook Pro.' I know they tell the general public they don't, but I bet they build them special just for Diddy. And when he's texting hos on his cell phone, it's no doubt on a diamond encrusted Titanium Blackberry that has a Cristal application that shoots Cristal out of a special Diddy edition bluetooth headset into his mouth. Back to the Diddy pie chart...I'd say the major categories represented (with corresponding color, cause it's a pie chart and you need colors) are: riding in my Bentley/personal jet/yacht (canary blue), throwing hundred dollar bills at strippers (hunter green), throwing hundred dollar bills at strippers while in my Bentley/personal jet/yacht (burnt orange), drinking Cristal (yellow), hangin wit his peeps (red), and handling Bad Boy/Sean John bidness (gray). Actually, I'm very interested to see Diddy's pie chart now, I'm very uninterested in seeing mine. The only categories that would probably be involved are: tri training, sleeping, and thinking about what to get for lunch. Sadly, that's about it.

I only actually know 2 people on Twitter, besides that it's all celebs of varying degrees. Diddy is easily the best person to follow, his tweets are off the charts. I'm convinced he's a fucking vampire cause he only tweets at night, during the day I'm sure he's just resting his loins after a hard night of doing....stuff. Pretty much all of his tweets are incredibly positive and uplifting, his energy is unrivaled in the interweb. A basic Diddy tweet consists 3 things: 1- ALL CAPS AND LOTS OF EXCLAMTION POINTS!!! 2- trying to get people to do something he wants to do. And 3- a charge to his followers to get up and go. Here's an example: 'CMON PEOPLE!!! PTWITTY IS UP AND ON THE AIR AT 6AM!! HOW YALL FEELIN? LETS GO!' He's hilarious, he was out of the twitterverse yesterday but came back with a vengence today, here are a few of his tweets to wet your palate:

ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER!!!...IM BACK!!!...LETS GO PEOPLE!!!

+++++++++++++++++++++ENERGY!!!!!! take that!+take that+TAKE THAT!!!

I NEED YALL TO LIFT UP YOUR ENERGY PEOPLE!!!!! LETS CHANGE THE WORLD!!! LETS GO!!!!!

Ptwitty question of the day: ARE YALL READY TO DANCE???!!!

As you can tell, it's hilarious. Diddy provides some great fodder for me and my 2 Twitter friends. And, UFC announcer/comedian Joe Rogan commented on Diddy's awesomeness on his feed yesterday. It's obvious the whole world is catching on.

living in harmo-knee

it's been 5 days since my last post, and i don't really have a full topic i need to touch on but I feel the need to clear my mental pipes of the stuff that's accumulated over the past few days.

- my buddy Ted Haynes (name has been changed to protect his true identity) was in town Friday night for the state high school wrestling tournament and we met at Buffalo Wild Wings for some drinks. a girl I knew from college brought a friend and met us so that was fun, they left early though cause she's a gymnastics coach and had to be ready for the individual portion of the gymnastics tournament that was also in town. Ted and I ended up staying at BW3 til they were dragging us out while our fingertips dragged across the hardwood floors. Luckily, the hotel he was staying at had a fridge in the lobby with shitty frozen pizzas and cans of Bud Select. the lady was nice enough to sell us some beers, god knows we needed them....fast forward to Ted poring out 11oz of each can later that morning. we stayed up til 330am pseudo-drinking in the parking lot and shooting the shit, good times. this represents 1 of 3 times in my life i've been to a BW3 and didn't order any food, history was made.

- luckily, i had one of the worst hangover headaches i've ever experienced on saturday morning. after cruising home to grab a quick nap and get my gear for swim practice, it was off to the pool. i felt terrible and was in no condition to properly attack the lesson in typical deagle-gusto fashion. after 200 yards the teacher asked me if i was going to yack in the pool, that's not a good sign. fortunately for me, our teacher was a big talker and we didn't necessarily spend the whole hour swimming. he was a good teacher though, he actually got in the water and swam with us. he was really no-nonsense which was nice and helpful. i had a headache all day which was ridiculous, it must have been the draft beers. i later ran 7 miles, then proceeded to slam 5/8 of an extra large Minuteman Pizza.

- sunday, i didn't do anything. literally, i did nothing. well, thats not completely true, i did some dishes and 1 (one) load of laundry. and you know what? i didn't feel the least bit bad about it. tragically, when nothing else is on tv on sundays i get roped into watching nascar, which sucks on principal, but has some really talented drivers which make it worth watching. there was an incident in the race where a gas man for one of the pit crews ran across the pit lane and damn near the track to retreive a tire that rolled away from their pit stall. this was insanely unsafe and incredibly stupid, but hey, were dealing with nascar here, stupidity shouldn't be unexpected. of course this hilljack was the talk of the race and has been all over espn the past few days being chastized for his actions. as a former fueler on pit stops, i couldn't be more embarassed. i would like to feel sorry for the guy but i can't, he must be a moron. if it wasn't for possible negative backlash from the public, the team would have fired him by now. but, with his 4 race suspension by nascar today, firing this retard would simply incite a sympathy campaign for the goof leading to people sending him hundreds of thousands of dollars to put towards his kids college fund and thus, not teaching him a valuable lesson; which is...don't be a retard.

- the weather has been nice recently and luckily this has coincided with my knee feeling better and me being able to run. hopefully, this won't be my down fall. i'd like to ease back into running more than what i have, but it's just not part of my genetic makeup. my first day of running was last wednesday and i did 3 miles (after swimming for an hour), then i ran on thursday and did 4.5 (after biking for an hour). saturday i did 7, with the plan of running on tues, thurs, and sat this week. upon getting to the gym monday night there was only one bike, which was occupied (somehow the other two were 'out of order.' my ass dickheads, it's a fucking bike. can you pedel the fucking thing? oh, yes? then it isn't out of order). so i ended up running 10 miles last night in record time (82 minutes), then did 7 tonight in 57 mins and immediately went to the gym to bike 15 miles. i hate being inside when it's nice out, the weather is supposed to go back to shit tomorrow which will be a blessing indisguise on some level.

- for some reason i've been checking out twitter a lot lately. i only actually know 2 humans on it, but for some reason its kind of fun to check out some of the peoples messages. i have no clue how to describe twitter, what its true function is, or what its purpose in the greater scheme of things is, but its almost kind of interesting. my favorite part is puff daddys tweets, hes hilarious. i sent him a tweet but he didn't tweet me back, i'm still broken up about it. the fact that he refers to himself as p twitty is spectacular. i'm still partial to facebook, but i'm sure in our present state of technological society, FB will grow to large for its own good soon and our information seeking carnivorous pack will migrate to the next best thing, leaving FB's bloody remains on the interweb prairie.

- no LOST tomorrow but i still might post a few thoughts about recent events. for the return next week I'm planning a big format change to the episode blog which I think will be most enjoyable for all!

LaFleur

If you were hoping to see a picture of Dhani Jones for the third post in a row then I hate to disappoint you but there will be no such image added to this post. But I will post this link to a picture of #55 straight pimpin. Today, I was asked by someone if I had a man-crush on Jones. The answer to that is no. While he is no doubt very interesting and probably a pretty cool guy, I only have room in my heart for one guy now, and that guy is Lance Armstrong (here's a picture of him messaging me again on Facebook. He likes to keep me updated on things when he's on the road, but enough is enough Lance, there's work to be done!). For some reason right now I'm completely and utterly fascinated with everything Lance, Livestrong, and The Lance Armstrong Foundation (LAF). I haven't been able to determine if I'm presently looking for a road bike because of my infatuation with LA or if I'm presently infatuated with LA because I'm looking at road bikes. Either way I'm hooked, I think subscribing to the Twitter feed of the LAF CEO, Doug Ulman, was the final straw. Those people seem genuinely pumped up to tackle cancer and be at the forfront of the fight. Their world perspective and optimistic approach is nothing short of completely addictive. I think their grassroots movement in the fight against Cancer was, in part, inspiration for the same way Barack Obama ran his presidential campaign. I have no proof or direct parallels between the two, but I think there are definately similarities. The LAF isn't a large organization, but they energize a large group that is more than willing to do the work necessary to organize events, raise funds, educate, heighten awareness, and overcome their experiences with the deadliest disease in the history of man. I encourage everyone to checkout the website for the Lance Armstrong Foundation, there is always interesting stuff to read, watch, and aid with getting involved in the campaign against all forms of cancer.

That being said...onto thoughts on LOST. According to the LOST Twitter feed (I have no clue if it's officially associated with the show or ABC), but they had an interesting tweet today about the name of the episode titled '316' from two weeks ago. The flight number that the episode was named for is based on the Bible (apparently the B in Bible is supposed to be capitalized, I looked it up, the interweb wouldn't lie) story described in John Chapter 3, verse 16. This verse reads: 'For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.' This goes directly to my belief that Locke is Jesus, because as Christian Shephard told him before he left the island, his death would be a sacrifice. It also speaks to what Locke wrote in his suicide note to Jack, 'I wish you would have believed me,' because at the time of writing that letter, he and Jack were natural rivals. At that time Locke thought Jack would never go back, and Jack's lack of belief in the 'man of faith' would ruin the whole plan of getting the Oceanic 6 back to the island, and in turn save the universe. It wasn't until after Locke mentioned Jack's dead father, and Jack's subsequent tailspin involving booze and painkillers, that he realized that Locke was possibly right and that they needed to go back. I'm not religious by any means, but there is some cool shit with some serious religious meanings happening lately. The scene from that same '316' episode with Ben describing the story of St. Thomas the Apostle to Jack was absolutely amazing (which also dealt with the theory of belief, ending with Ben saying 'We all end up believing sooner or later Jack'). Here are the major talking points from this weeks episode 'LaFleur.'

- They finally showed the whole statue that belongs to the partial foot that they've shown before. BUT...BUT...BUT...they didn't show the front of it! They merely showed it from the rear! Whose face is on it? Locke? Jack? I can't wait to see that.

- Michelle Dessler from 24 shows up as the wife of the leader of the Dharma Initiative. They always find interesting ways to work in new characters.

- They finally account for the 3 year time gap between when Locke leaves the island to the time flight 316 crashes there and brings everyone back. At the end of '316' they showed Jin in a Dharma jumpsuit but we had no clue how he ended up being a member over the previous 3 years. The story of how they became accepted by the DI was good and became clear in the mega awesome scene in which...

- While chillaxin in the DI compound, Faraday sees a pre-pubecent Charlotte running around. She had merely died a few hours before and he's been whacked out since. I'm interested to see the scene where he tells her she can never come back to the island once she leaves, as well as learning how they're related.

- Richard Alpert shows up on the Dharma Initiative compound looking pissed and ready to fuck tons of shit up. Earlier in the show, Sawyer and Juliette had killed 2 hostiles, Alpert's people, as they attempted to kidnap Dessler (no clue what her character's name on LOST is, I didn't really pay attention to that). Alpert came to talk to Horace, the Dharma leader, to seek retribution for the breaking of their 'truce.' Sawyer steps up to talk to Alpert and take responsibility for what happened and completely mindfucks ageless Richard in the process. You see, Sawyer knows all kinds of stuff about Richard, but Richard has no clue who Sawyer is. For the first time ever, Alpert is not in a power position and ends up being Sawyer's bitch. He tucks tail and leaves, only partially getting what he wants, while Sawyer is vindicated for Horace earlier saying 'you aren't Dharma material.' Sawyer's actions to preventing war between the DI and the Hostiles earns Sawyer et al. two more weeks in the DI camp while they look for the rest of the people from their 'ship.'

- While Sawyer, Jin, Faraday, and Miles are going to stay for the two weeks, Juliette says she plans to leave on the sub the following day. Sawyer uses his wiley charms to get her to stay and proceeds to bone the hell out of her and get involved in a serious relationship. What bad can come of this? It's not like Kate is coming back to the island...oh...wait...

- Sawyer gets an urgent phone call and leaves Juliette in bed. He meets Jin who has picked up Jack, Hurley, and Kate fucking Austen. Our man James Ford is now in quite the little nugget dilemma isn't he. Good luck with that one champ.

- One of the kids from the Coors Light NFL coaches ads was in a Buffalo Wild Wings ad. I recognized him right away, I have no clue what his name is, nor do I feel like wasting the key strokes necessary to describe which guy in the commercials he is, but he's one of those guys. Good to see he's branched out and hasn't been stereotyped as a 'beer ad only' guy.

No LOST for two weeks, it will be a hard time, but we'll make it. Together, we will make it.

LOST Two-for-Tuesday...errr...Wednesday-

Before I get to the past 2 episodes of LOST, there's something I need to add to yesterday's post regarding Dhani Jones (here's another picture of him in a bowtie) being considered a renaissance man. Oddly enough, I blog about him yesterday and all of a sudden he's mentioned on Sports Illustrated's website on their pop culture hot list, check that out here. Thanks to SI.com for not citing me at all as the reason for including him on their list. Also, this tag of 'Renaissance Man' for Jones seems to have followed him around since the beginning of time. It's almost like he's a former president or something. Much in the same way that Bill Clinton will always be referred to as 'President Bill Clinton,' it seems that Jones will go through the rest of his natural life as 'Renaissance Man Dhani Jones.' (I stricktly used that example to piss off any possible Republicans that might read this cause they despise Clinton with such a visceral hatred. I could have picked any president but I went with Slick Willy. When Republican parents find out their children are having underage sex, they don't care that the kids are engaging in sex acts, they care about the possibility of the kids ending up like Bill Clinton. No doubt it would suck to raise one of the best presidents in the history of the USA that helped create the biggest budget surplus known to this union. It's probably better off living your life as a repressed gay person who has to have intimate encounters with congressional pages and to raise your kids in the image of a winner like George W. Bu......oh nevermind). And, since he will always have the moniker 'RM' like a president, shouldn't he get a library named after him somewhere? That would truly be fitting of a RM.

Last week's episode of LOST was shockingly tame and didn't end up being nearly as great as what I was hoping for. It was better than the previous weeks episode, but it still lacked any profound glimpses into Locke's greatness. There wasn't really enough going on to make an entertaining running diary out of so here are some of the main points:

- This guy Cesar, who talked to Jack in the airport line while waiting to board the plane to Guam, is destined to become a huge character. His second scene in the show and he's already found an office and is rifling through papers clearly looking for something specific. He obviously works for someone, but who?

- After flight 316 crashes on the island, Locke comes back from the dead. In the exact same manner that Dr. Jack's father is now alive, this is what Elouise Hawking was referring to last week when she said Jack needs a proxy on the flight. As we see later in the episode, it's obvious why Locke loves the island, when on it he regained the ability to walk...as well as the ability to breathe. When off the island, he always seems stricken to a wheel chair for one reason or another.

- After Locke had his leg set and was in the first aid tent, Widmore shows up and they have an awesome interaction in which Widmore explains how they've met before, only 4 days previous on Locke's timeline. C-Dub then tells Locke, "There's a war coming John, and if you're not back on the island, the wrong side is going to win." Good stuff, the war is going to be the epicenter of the story starting in the next few weeks and from here on in. It will be interesting to see how sides are chosen.

- Matthew Abaddon, the black ageless man and Widmore's employee, tell's Locke that he is his driver and that he 'gets people where they want to go.' I found this interesting because he was clearly pushing an agenda while driving Locke around and was a 'driver' in a sense that he drove people to do what he, or more like Widmore, wanted them to do. He implied he was a 'driver' in the literal 'driving you around in a car' sense but it's more of a 'drive you crazy' sense that he can in some way impose his will onto your future actions. This reminded me of a great character on the X-Files (when it was good) called The Pusher, who was able to make people do all kinds of bad shit (namely kill themselves) simply based on his will. That guy was awesomely demonic, he kind of had a modern day Star Wars Force thing going for him.

- Sayid, Kate, and Jack all felt the need to point out to Locke in some way shape or form that he is an old, single, loser who only wants to go back to the island because he has nothing to live for in the real world. Nice people those Oceanic 6.

- In another example of LOST being racist, Matthew Abaddon is shot and possibly killed. I say possibly because he is ageless, so I would find it hard to believe that he's actually dead. Why does he get killed while white ageless man, Richard Alpert, ascends to power on the island as the leader of the hostiles? I think it's fairly obvious whats going on here.

- Technically, Locke didn't commit suicide. Ben strangled him after being told Jin was alive and that Locke knew of Mrs. Hawking. Ben looked somewhat shocked and irked to hear Jin was alive, but upon hearing Locke knew about Hawking he went all Linus on him and strangled his crippled ass. I consider it a moot point though as Locke was on the verge of hanging himself anyway, and the only reason he didn't was cause Ben talked him out of it. And since he ended up being choked in the same room by the exact same electrical chord he was going to hang himself with, I don't feel the need to blame Ben too much for this. I'm working under the pool principal of 'same ball, same pocket' in terms of calling your shot.

This ended up being a little longer that what I expected so I'll write the summary of tonight's episode tomorrow.

Along Came Poly(-math)

There's a story out there, I'm not sure if you've heard it but it has many ruminations, about a carpenter who gets drunk one night and at some point ends up giving a male friend a blow job. As the story goes, the man goes into work the next day to find out that all of his co-workers have found out about this odd incident and one guy calls him a cocksucker. To this the guy replies, "I've been a woodworker for 20 years and no one has ever called me a carpenter, but I blow 1 guy and all of a sudden I'm a cocksucker." While I could go off on 50,000 different tangents about that hypothetical story, I'm more interested in how people, or in this case, 1 specific person, get their nicknames. The subject for today's post: Cincinnati Bengals linebacker, and former Michigan Wolverine, Dhani Jones.

Me and some friends have had a connection with Jones since his days at Michigan, not because he was particularly the best player, but because of his profile picture on ABC (after considerable internet research I couldn't find the picture :(, and by considerable I mean about 18 seconds worth). In his pic he had kind of a jacked up afro that went straight up and he had this 'I just took a massive bong hit, and liked it' look on his face. It's easily the best profile pic in the history of college football broadcasting. It was this period when Jones was first deemed a 'Renaissance Man' by uber-douche announcer Brent Musburger. At the time I felt it was hard for anyone in college to be considered a Renaissance man (from here on referred to as RM), what does that mean for someone in college? Does it mean you shower frequently and don't eat ramen noodles/generic mac&cheese 4 days a week? Do you have to own your own bow tie company? And how would Musburger be able to figure this out?...like I said, he's an uber-douche! Anyway, the story could have died there...BUT...to this day, Dhani Jones is still considered to be a RM. The question posed to Third & Forever today, how does one become a true RM if so inclined? Good question, lets explore...

First, we should define what a renaissance man is. Besides being a shitty Danny DeVito movie, a RM, or polymath, is simply a person who has achieved mastery of multiple fields or disciplines and who has a very wide base of knowledge. The term RM refers to the Renaissance period in Europe that took place around the year 1450. The main doppleganger associated with this time period is master artist, engineer, and anatomist, Leonardo Da Vinci, whose main popularity comes from the book 'The Da Vinci Code,' which was later turned into a shitty movie, what a tribute. Some famous fictional polymaths listed on Wikipedia's entry on the subject include: Will Hunting, Batman, James Bond, Fox Mulder (from X-Files), and Sam Beckett (from Quantum Leap). Oddly enough, under 'Sporting Polymaths,' Jones is not listed.

Now that we know what a RM is, how do we achieve that label? Step one is picking out a few (I'd say bare minimum 3, but probably more like 4) subjects that you think you can master. Obviously, we aren't spring chickens anymore, and this task would be best suited to partake in starting at a young age, so you should pick subjects you already know (or think you know) a decent bit about. In my case I guess I'd choose boozing, hot wings, 90's video games, and auto racing. Step two, put your junk in that box. Just kidding, that's from the SNL skit 'Dick in a Box,' which is absolutely hilarious. Another great skit by Andy Samberg et al. is 'I'm on a Boat,' which you can check out here. Unfortunately step 2 actually takes a lot of time and requires a lot of learning, which I was hoping I didn't need to do any more of after graduating college with my prestigious degrees in psychology and sociology (click that link and go to the bottom, priceless). I'm not really sure what step 3 is because I don't think a person can deem themselves a Renaissance Man, you need other people to start calling you that. So, I guess you just go around talking to a bunch of people about the things you have a mastery of and hope they take notice? Maybe? Tragically, it's also possible that step 3 involves you having to die. Like most true genious, it probably won't go noticed in this lifetime.

So there you go, that's the gameplan. Sounds like a lot of work. It's possible I'll stick to the phrase "jack of all trades, master of none." Regardless, check out Dhani Jones show starting on the Travel Channel in 2 weeks, it looks pretty cool. Or, if you're into boobs and stuff, check out this show by one of the retarded chicks from E!'s 'Girls Next Door.' That could be interesting as well...if her top falls off...and she doesn't talk.

LOST Crossroads

I have to be honest when I say that I had modest expectations of the 5th episode LOST, '316.' I'm not bragging but I think I'm pretty good at determining the importance of the upcoming weeks episode by the little trailer they give at the end of the current weeks episode. You know what I'm talking about, when they say "Coming up on next week's Friday Night Lights, Riggins gets loaded and has to make a tough decision regarding Lyla." I'd say that my success rate of predicting the greatness of the upcoming LOST episode based on that 1 minute clip is roughly 97%, it's like my spider-sense. Except in my case, I can't predict when something is bad to happen to people around me, I can merely predict the LOST awesomeness that will take place in one weeks time. So at the end of episode 4 when they showed the '316' snippet, I harbored my enthusiasm as it was made apparent the show would be based on a simple series of events leading in the direction of the Oceanic 6 getting back to the island. This isn't to say that I was unexcited, LOST episodes are like pizza to me, none is bad, just some are better than others.

See, the beauty of LOST isn't in the basic events that take place from episode to episode or season to season. While the stuff that transpires (smoke monster, time travel, heavily armed mercenaries, etc.) on the show is great and generally mindblowing, it is also stuff that could probably be found on any given night on the SciFi channel. The greatness of the series lies in the characters and their history. LOST goes to lengths of defining it's character's identities that no other show has gone to, and that's what makes it truly unique and special. While we knew what kind of cereal Jerry Seinfeld liked and what kind of guys Elaine Bennis was into, Seinfeld never bothered to tell us the story of how Kramer blew up his mother's boyfriend or how Newman was once wheelchair bound and eventually conned by a man claiming to be his father. A lot of tv shows in the past have claimed to be 'character driven,' but in the end it has nothing to do with the actual characters, merely the actors portraying them. LOST is truly a character driven show, which is what made the flashbacks from the first 4 seasons so incredible. As we learned about these people in an impossible situation, we were able to see far past their ability to start a fire or catch a fish, and gain a level of understanding about each individual that isn't common beyond real life. As the series progresses towards it's finale in 2010, we can only hope it doesn't lose sight as to why so many people have a connection with it.

That being said, heres the one sentence summary of episode 5: through some miracle the Oceanic 6 + Ben manage to end up on the same plane that takes them back to the island. Really, that's the gist of it. There were a few noteworthy events that took place, here they are...
- Elouise Hawking tells Desmond that "The island isn't done with you yet." This is major forshadowing that will come more clear later in the episode.
- The scene in the church with Hawking and Jack was outstanding, as was the story of St. Thomas told by Ben to Jack. I can't pick out one or two lines to summarize it, but it was very powerful and prophetic in terms of showing Jack and Locke's importance. Ben tells Jack he has to go tie up 'a loose end.' Translation, someone is going to die.
- Kate came over to Jack's place and proceeded to jump his bones, presumably to get knocked up before heading back to the island so she wouldn't die. Now that it's inevitable she's going to lose baby Aaron, she has no real reason to stay in the real world.
- Ben calls Jack, bloody and out of breath from a boat dock, saying he took care of a promise to an old friend (from last season when he told Widmore he would kill his daughter Penny). It's pretty obvious he's killed Penny and probably little Charlie as well. This goes to what Hawking told Desmond, with his family dead and Ben on the island, Desmond has no real choice but to head back to the island and try to kill Ben.
- For his trip back to the island, Jack decides to wear a suit and tie. Odd choice, I would have gone with shorts, sandals, and some shades. Oh well, different strokes for different folks.
- Clearly something weird is going on because a complete stranger at the airport tells Jack sorry for the loss of his friend, and then the stewardess gives Jack the suicide note after he already tried to get rid of it.
- The pilot of the plane turns out to be Frank Lapidis, the helicopter pilot on the freighter from last year. That was kind of an interesting twist. As Jack and Frank talk, Frank notices virtually everyone on the plane is someone he met on the island, "Wait a second, we're not goin' to Guam are we?" he asks Jack. Well Frank...no you're not.

LOST Episode 4 Diary

Hopefully, everyone enjoyed the post yesterday about my list of favorite fast food restaurants. Thanks to everyone who sent some kind of correspondence saying they liked it in one way shape or form. It's taken me 32 years of research to develop that list and I'm pretty comfortable with how it turned out. A few people voiced concerns that I was trying to push my opinions onto them when nothing could be farther from the truth, I was merely attempting to start a fast food dialogue for all people to join into. I encourage everyone to create their own list, I think you'll learn a lot about yourself, and in the end...isn't that what life is about? Also, 3 people stated they were displeased with Fazoli's being left off the list. I can't agree or disagree with this point of view because I've never been to one, there's only 1 Fazoli's in Columbus that I know of and it's 15 miles away from my house. If I'm ever in the vicinity I'll stop in and let you know what I think. Let's move on to episode 4 of LOST, 'This Place is Death!' That name just sounds awesome, let's see if the episode can live up. (just a note, I didn't actually write any notes during the original airing of the episode so there isn't the normal time code that you're used to seeing. I could have figured it out while watching the dvr'd version, but I didn't feel like watching the commercials to recreate the true time. I'm sure you understand, if not screw off)

- The show opens with everybody at the dock like at the end of ep. 3. Sun pulls out a gun acting like a hard ass, trying to convince everyone she's going to shoot Benjamin Linus. Bitch please, we all know you aren't going to shoot him! I'm not really sure why this was even a part of the episode since it had -1000% of happening.

- Cut to the beach where the French people are trying to talk to Jin. While using their hands and words don't seem to be cutting it, Rousseau's boyfriend draws a triangle with some lines in the sand and manages to get Jin to figure out hes asking about a radio antenna within 4 seconds. Are Jin and this guy some sort of championship international charades team? How the hell did he figure that out?

- While walking thru the forest, the black smoke monster comes back to mess with the Frenchies. I have to ask, why does the smoke monster have to be black? The nice white polar bear never killed anyone. And look at one of the black castaways, Mr. Eko....a drug dealer. Seeing what I'm getting at here? I'm not saying, i'm just sayin'.

- After killing one of the frogs, the smoke monster grabs some other a-hole and pulls him into a hole by his feet, and his 'friends' decide to grab onto his arm. Hmmm...tug-o-war with the smoke monster? Bad idea jeans homies! I'm not going to say the guy got his f'ing arm ripped off in incredible fashion...oh wait, yes I am...cause that's what happened. Sorry French guy, nice to meet ya. Then his genius friends decide to go into the hole where the smoke monster is to try to save him. Well, they're French, what do you expect?

- A few small things I've noticed: 1- Jin's lips are chapped something fierce, fuck that would hurt. Hopefully the Dharma Initiative has some cherry chapstick stached somewhere. 2- They haven't shown any of these people eating forever. I would be f'n starving! Did the Dharma guys ever open up an Arbys or Quiznos on that damn island? I would be one complaining son of a bitch!

- Rousseau lives out every woman's dream and shoot's her bebe's daddy in the head without repercussion. Apparently, she also capped the only other 2 dudes they were with. This is gonna be some kind of movie on Oxygen channel someday, I can feel it.

- While trying to talk to Jin, Locke asks semi-Asian looking Miles Straume to interpret for Korean Jin, to which Miles responds with the zinger "He's Korean, I'm from Encino." Good stuff.

- Back at the dock in the LBC, Snoop Dogg shows up to help Ben Linus round up the Oceanic 6. HAHA, just kidding, that would be sweet if that happened. And, I wouldn't doubt for a second that Snoop is in Benizzle's Blackberry. Seriously though, Sayid threatens Ben and Jack that if he ever sees them again "It will be very unpleasant for all of us." I'd like to see Sayid torture Jack, that would be great.

- In the forest, Charlotte collapses yet again in an attempt to get attention. Upon waking she has a crazed look in her eye and starts ranting in Korean while peering at Jin. She eventually starts up in english again and tells Jin he can't bring Sun back to the island because "This place is death!" Outstanding scene, I think I'm starting to like Charlotte now, it's too bad she has to die. I might actually be upset at her passing...actually...no I won't. But she deserved to have a cool scene, and now she has. You can go in peace Charlotte, its your time.

- After 2 scene changes we're back to Faraday and Charlotte in the woods where she tells him she's been to the island before and was actually raised there as a child before her mom moved them to England. She tells him a story about how in her youth, a man on the island told her when she leaves she should never come back cause she'll die. "I think that man was you Daniel." Another fabulous scene, that makes 2 for her. That's the final nail in her coffin, they're just pumping her up before her death. This scene opens up a whole can of worms about what the actual relationship is between Faraday and Charlotte. Some people think Faraday is Charlotte's dad, I believe he is her brother and that they have the same mother. Time will tell, but they're definately related somehow.

- Jin gives Locke his wedding ring to show Sun when he finds her after leaving the island. He says that this this will prove to Sun that he is dead. I disagree, all this would prove is that Locke stole your wedding ring at some point.

- Back in the forest, Charlotte (she's now my 41st favorite character, with those 2 good scenes she cracked the top 50!) finally croaks, and it's final too cause they're playing the music from all main characters deaths. Too bad, we'll see what this does to Faraday.

- Cut to Locke in the bottom of the well and Dr. Christian Shephard shows up out of nowhere. I have to say that this guy is the single biggest thing I don't understand about the show. I don't have the slightest inkling about what his role is and why he's around. When we finally learn what his part is in the LOST story, I will be able to sleep better at night, I just don't see what his deal is in the bigger picture. But, as he talks to Locke about his task at hand, he uses the word sacrifice to describe why Locke must die to reunite the Oceanic 6. Oh man, is Locke actually Jesus Christ? The show has been taking on some more religious overtones lately so it's possible. After hearing from Christian that he has to die for the greater good, Locke replies "I'm ready," who like Jesus appears to have an acceptance of his fate. Then, a split second before starting the time leap Christian tells Locke to tell his son he say's hi. Locke responds he has no clue who his son is, the son being Locke's natural rival Dr. Jack Shephard.

- Back at the LBC docks, this time Snoop does show up to help Ben. Psych! Just kidding...again. And actually, they're not at the docks, they're at the church where supposedly Faraday's mom is. For the second time in the episode Ben gets in a battle of semantics, this time with Jack over how he came to meet up with Locke. Earlier he got in a childish argument with Sun over who she thought killed Jin. Ben could have squashed both of these arguments within 1 second but he had to be the smartass and make a comment just to instigate things a little. Nice work buddy, that's the way to get these people to do what you want. Then, just to make things real interesting, my man Desmond shows up.

So to sum up, all the French dudes are dead, Jin could use some chapstick, the LOST creators are racist, Charlotte kicked the bucket, and Locke might be Jesus. Good episode.