LOST 2.21: ?!

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My notes on LOST are delayed a week because of the rigors of jury duty. I’ll have more to say on the most recent episode a little after the DC justice system has spit me back out of its crowded maw. First, read DCeiver’s Pompatus of Lost 2.21. Lots more spoilers follow after Mad Eko.

EKO MAD! EKO SMASH!

So Locke and Eko found “Pearl” Station, supposedly the enigmatic question mark in the middle of the blast door map, and it turns out to be a monitoring station with a view of Swan. Clues point to recent use of the room. I’m glad they used a videotape for the station orientation video this time around; as I hinted in my Dharma and Ba Gua post, there’s no reason a Hanso-funded high-tech collaboration should have been using film reel for a 1980s project when videotapes were already in common use by then. It’s worth pointing out that “Mark Wickman” (a.k.a. “Marvin Candle”) seemed to have use of both of his arms, implying perhaps that the Pearl Orientation may have predated some injury that occured during the “incident” mentioned in the Swan Orientation.

Eko seems to have become the new island mystic to replace Locke. Interesting that supposed proof of a behavioral experiment at Swan has increased Locke’s skepticism, but somehow reinforced Eko’s sense of fate with regard to the Island. I’m still curious as to the meaning of the Numbers, and I’m hoping the plot doesn’t back off from the mystery raised in the first Hurley-centric episode. It’s hard for me to accept that the all the concrete walls and electromagnetism are just Skinner Boxing.

The revelation that Claire’s psychic is actually a fraud brings a new twist to the plot. (Those of you who came late to the story may have missed Claire’s flashbacks where she sees a psychic, after the boyfriend who got her pregnant leaves her, and the psychic tells her — against her plans — to never give up the baby for adoption, and later gives her tickets to fly on Oceanic flight #815, which Charlie later theorizes was him conspiring with fate to strand Claire with her baby on the island.) It’s implied, then, that the Hanso/Dharma people could have hooked the psychic up with the tickets to get Claire on the doomed flight so they could get their hands on her.

Also, what was all that stuff on the table? Drugs?

Speaking of Hanso, All the Hanso viral stuff — Sublymonal and such — is more involved than I want to get, but I’m glad the fans are enjoying themselves. ABC has really struck a chord with the proto-scifi aura of mystery surrounding this show.

More from MagicLamp, Lost_TV on LJ, MostlyMuppet, and MCSweetie.

Also see Ausellio on why LOST killed Libby, USA Today’s Bill Keveney, and Ten Things we Want to See on LOST.

Irony.jpg

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(Irony.jpg, uploaded by brownpau.)

Outside the US Department of Labor. Don’t worry, he’s not dead, just sleeping.

Wright Night!

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IMG_6707.JPG I almost didn’t make it, thanks to jury duty and some annoying javascript bugs at work, but finally I ran out of the office, grabbed a taxi to National Cathedral, and caught N.T. Wright speaking on his new book, “Simply Christian.” (And I also managed to snag the last hardcover from the Cathedral book desk, too.) Wright is a wonderfully lucid and witty speaker, and the comparisons to C.S. Lewis are not without cause. I especially appreciated his thoughts on the narrative-centric nature of Scripture, and the need for Christianity to engage in a postmodern critique of the arrogant historicity of Enlightenment Age thought.

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Above left: Wyclif, Eleysium, and a random grinning stranger. Above right: One great Anglican signs autographs for another great Anglican. (By the way, Brian Davis was there, but had to run back to Baltimore before I could pull my camera out. Sorry.)

Finally, nothing to do with Wright, but the amber rays of sunset provided some perfect light for this shot of the National Cathedral:

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Juror

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Moultrie.jpg Well, as if May weren’t busy enough already, I’ve been selected to be a juror. This entails going to the DC Courts everyday for the duration of the trial. Judge says the case will last for three days, more or less, from 10am to about 4pm each day. If I’m really lucky, it ends early, and I can still make it to Wright Night and Amy’s graduation. If I’m not lucky, it stretches out for days into next week and all I get is $34/day for the trouble. Hurrah for the DC criminal justice system. Pictured at right, the courthouse building I’ll be really familiar with by the end of the week.

Wright Night is Coming!

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As I mentioned, tomorrow is Wright Night: Bishop N.T. Wright (of “New Perspective” fame) comes to the National Cathedral to talk about his upcoming book, Simply Christian. I’ll be there to bask in N.T.’s shekinah, and so will Wyclif. Anyone else going? We’re thinking of meeting up afterward for burgers somewhere in DC. Or something.

The Busy Month of May Continues

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I’m now halfway through the Busy Month of May, and the schedule is still filling up. Today is Jury Duty Monday, most of which I will spend sitting in a jurors’ waiting room in the Moultrie Courthouse Building, hoping that (1) I don’t get picked, (2) we all get let out early, and (3) I can find some decent wi-fi somewhere in the waiting area.

Today my younger brother Jungie comes back to DC after a jaunt up to New York to see friends. He leaves for Chicago tomorrow morning to visit my older brother. Tomorrow night is Wright Night, and then Wednesday night is the start of a special bible study series at church called “What Baptists Believe and Why: Being Baptist in the 21st Century,” an overview of Baptist beliefs and history.

The next two consecutive weekends will be spent in New York, this weekend for Amy’s graduation (she gets her MFA woo yeah), and Memorial Day weekend to meet up with aforementioned older brother, who’s visiting New York to see friends. (Yeah, it’s getting confusing, isn’t it?)

I’ve also got three clients, a heap of potentially profitable personal project ideas, and my day job. So yeah, this month is filled up with like ten different kinds of total awesome, and I’ll be riding high on caffeine and life for a lot of it.

Oh, check out Jungie’s Sea World Orlando photos. That was the day before I arrived, so I wasn’t able to go to Sea World. :(

Okay, off to jury duty.

Aussie BTQ Interview Done

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Well, I suppose that went okay. Helen Razer called a bit after 10am, and we chewed the fat for a bit on my richly varied history before getting the recording going. The interview was just a few minutes long, in which I talked about what begging the question really means, the meaning of the original Latin phrase petitio principii, and why I started BegTheQuestion.info. It got a bit rambling at times, and my explanations of the term may have been a bit off. I also mentioned a couple of other pet peeves: “wait on/from” and “different than/from”, though these seem to be more American usage quirks with which the Australian audience would be less familiar.

There was a bit of a cage stage atmosphere to the conversation, so I may have come across as more strident about “BTQ Abuse” than I really am in real life; but I did point out that my whole purpose in starting the site was pure whimsy on an April Fool’s Day. In truth, whether or not BegTheQuestion.info actually helps lessen the erroneous vernacular usage of the phrase is of less concern to me than the Adsense and Cafepress income I get from the site. Hee.

I came in rather late for choir practice because of the timing, and when I told our choir director about it, he told me that he’d been taught that “beg the question” meant “beat a dead horse” — figuratively, that is. Someone who kept coming back to the same premise again and again was “begging the question.” There’s another “evolved” usage of the phrase to add to the vernacular definition, I suppose.

Oh yeah, buy the shirts!

Aussie BTQ Interview

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I’ve just* gotten off the phone with Shannon McDonald of ABC (the one in Australia), to schedule a radio interview with Helen Razer for the early early Monday morning radio show. (Or late late Sunday night, whichever way you look at it.) I don’t know the exact time, but it’s whatever time it will be in Melbourne at 10AM EDT, which is GMT-4. Shannon says Melbourne is 14 hours ahead of Washington, DC.

The subject: Begging The Question.

I demand that you Aussies get up at 2am and listen to the whole thing. Thank you.

* Okay, not “just,” more like yesterday, but it sounds more dramatic as “just.”

Update: Interview done!

Lost Bags

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Update: See Lost Bags: Followup for the resolution of the problem. Airtran sent me a replacement bag.

On May 7th, 2006, I and my brother were booked for Airtran #109 from Orlando International Airport (MCO) to Atlanta (ATL), to transfer to Airtran #182 to Washington National Airport (DCA). We arrived at MCO to find that #109 had been delayed such that we would miss the Atlanta transfer to #182, but later learned that #182 had also been delayed due to weather conditions, so we would be able to make the transfer after all.

The transfer at Atlanta that night was the fastest we had ever done: walk from the Boeing 717 at Gate C9, to get on the other Boeing 717 at Gate C10, which pushed off almost as soon as we had boarded. I wondered as we took our seats whether there had actually been time to transfer our bags in that short period.

We found out after landing at DCA that no, there had not been time, as neither of our bags showed up on the baggage claim — though we did notice that other transfer passengers from Orlando had gotten their bags. Upon learning that all bags from Airtran #182 had been unloaded, we entered the baggage service room and filled out the requisite Lost Baggage forms. These were difficult to understand, and the bag description fields gave no indication that a handy numbered baggage-type chart was hanging on the wall right behind me for reference. The attendant told us that upon receipt of the found luggage, it would be delivered to us at the address we had given on the forms.

The next day, someone from airport services called to say that our bags had been found and could either be picked up, or they could deliver them straight to my residence within a four hour window. I was quite happy about this, opted for delivery, and called work to say I would have to take the afternoon off so I could receive the bags within that window.

At around 3pm, the bags had not arrived yet, and I received another call from the same person at airport services, asking to confirm my address. I asked why the bags had not been delivered, with the four hour window almost up, and the person on the line told me that the four hour window was from the time that the bags came to them at the Baggage Service office, not from the time we were informed the bags were found. The bags had just arrived there, so my four hour window was supposed to be until 7pm. This misinformation left me rather angry, and I asked if my bags could be prioritized, as I had work to attend to. They told me that this could be done.

At around 6pm, the bags still had not arrived, and I called again. The conversations that occurred here were quite confusing, with the contact at National Airport attempting to conference me with the mobile phone of the bag-delivery driver, getting only a voice mail message, and accidentally (?) hanging up on me twice. People who know me, know that I am a fairly calm person who doesn’t normally raise my voice in any situation, but this had me yelling. This travesty of service was a complete outrage.

The delivery finally arrived at 7:30pm, half an hour past the end of the four hour window. The bags were quite battered: the hard lining of my suitcase had been crushed, so that the top of its frame was misshapen, and my brother’s TSA-approved padlock was missing. Fortunately nothing else had been lost — or stolen.

I suppose there are a few lessons to be learned here: always try to go carry-on, and pick up bags at the airport rather than request delivery. This whole affair — careless management of checked bags on delayed connections, poor communication with ground services, and untimely delivery of found baggage — has left me sour about ever trusting AirTran or Washington National Airport ever again with my travel, especially with checked bags.

(CC:’d to Air Travel Complaints, AirTran, and National Airport Operations.)

Update: See Lost Bags: Followup for the resolution of the problem. Airtran sent me a replacement bag.