What Would Mr. Paik Say?

Looks like Daniel Dae Kim rocked out with Obama last night in Denver. Somehow I don't think Jin's father-in-law would approve. It was so funny seeing his face suddenly pop up on screen last night. That's Kelly Hu with him, by the way.

Who's Not Dying Next Season

That would be Dr. Shephard, who's now getting $225,000 per episode. Looks like Evangeline's in negotiations too.

Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean they won't be killed, especially since it would now be financially beneficial to the show to kill them off. ;)

Incidentally, I finally pre-ordered my Lost Season 4 DVD, which isn't due out until December 9th. I know they want hype to build for the Christmas season and all, but given the show's really, really long hiatus wouldn't one think it would be better to release it around the beginning of the new TV season to dredge the show out of the bottom of everyone's mind? Or am I just being really, really impatient?

Pierre Chang

If you haven't seen the trippy, new video from the San Diego Comic Con yet, Lostpedia has it. In we learn:

1) Marvin Candlemundwax's real name is Pierre Chang
2) He has son or daughter somewhere
3) Daniel (!) seems like he's traveled back in time about 30 years to tell him of the future

It's actually pretty neat - at one point Chang, also wistfully clutches his arm. Nice touch. Go watch it - time IS the essence! :)

Hellllooooooooooo!

Anyone out there? I've been overloaded the past month or two - commuting four hours without a laptop (yet) does suck away a good deal of possible blogging time, as does sending out wedding invitations, attending functions every single weekend and starting a new job. *sigh*

There's like nothing LOST related out there at all. Lostpedia blog has a roundup of the Comic-Con happenings, which I haven't really been following. Lost ROFL has a few entertaining things to browse as well. Michael Emerson has a second chance to win a well-deserved Emmy this year (and he so better win). Good to see the show itself unstiffed in that regard as well.

Is it January yet?

Month-Long Musings

Hellooooooo everyone!

Yes, I'm alive. My transition from Sinai to Yale sucked a bit more of my time away than I anticipated. I'm actually still getting used to the long commute, my new environs and having less free time than I anticipated, something which is only going to continue to decrease as my wedding date approaches. I still hope to be able to blog some between now and then, plus considerably more often once it's over (and the new season starts next year). But my schedule's going to be somewhat unpredictable between now and then considering Em and I really don't even have a weekend free between now and our wedding. :P

And boy, there's like noooooooooooo Lost news whatsoever right now, is there? I really wish the DVD set was released in September to at least tide us over. *sigh*

How's everyone's summer going? See any good movies? Going to see "Dark Knight" this weekend?

Awesome

Chris is right. These may be the two most spectacularly awesome comic book panels in history. :)

Blargh

So... very... tired. Work is simply overwhelming right now - I have a ton of stuff to finish before I begin my postdoctoral fellowship, and once that's done I have a postdoctoral fellowship grant to write. Bleah.

But the good news is that I finally got my comics I ordered. Apparently they got the address wrong the first time and they were shipped back, but as soon as I have time to scan them in I can write a few comic posts. I have to say that "Secret Wars," for a cheap marketing gimmick created to tie in with a failed toy line, was just as much fun to read as I remembered. The entire story has its ups and downs, but the last three issues featured Dr. Doom at his very evil best which makes up for a lot of the fluff in between.

Anyhoo, as soon as I emerge from the lab, I'll have a few things up. In the meantime, I highly recommend "Get Smart" - was much, much more fun than I expected it to be and the entire cast looked like they had a blast making it.

Octagon Global Recruiting

Hey, I just got an e-mail from the DHARMA Initiative! Check it out:

Octagon Global Recruiting

Octagon Global Recruiting, on behalf of the Dharma Initiative, would like to thank you for registering your expression of interest in our latest volunteer recruitment drive.

We will be launching in San Diego on July 24th at Comic-Con International offering select registrants the opportunity to take an exciting aptitude test that will give applicants the chance to demonstrate their unique talents.

The Dharma Initiative hopes you will be able to join us to find out more about their ground-breaking new research project. We will contact you closer to the date with more information.

For those not able to join us in San Diego, Dharma's full recruitment program will be made available online to registered recruits after July 27th.

In the meantime, the Dharma Initiative urges you to spread the word. Invite your colleagues to join the team at www.octagonglobalrecruiting.com and take part in this once in a lifetime opportunity.

THIS IS AN OFFICIAL COMMUNICATION OF THE DHARMA INITIATIVE:
This message and its attachments are confidential and may contain information which is protected by copyright. It is intended solely for the named addressee. If you are not the authorised recipient (or responsible for delivery of the message to the authorised recipient), you must not use, disclose, print, copy or deliver this message or its attachments to anyone. If you receive this email in error, please contact the sender immediately and permanently delete this message and its attachments from your system. Any content of this message and its attachments that does not relate to the official business of the Dharma Initiative or its subsidiaries must be taken not to have been sent or endorsed by any of them. No representation is made that this email or its attachments are without defect or that the contents express views other than those of the sender.

While I certainly won't be there, I'm looking forward to hearing what all this is about. Anyone going? :)

Update

Busy week again. Finished "The Time Traveler's Wife" and I'll have an extended review up eventually, but suffice it to say it was one of the most wonderful books I've ever read.

Turns out they're making it into a movie, coming out this Christmas, with Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams - to me, two very odd casting choices for Henry and Clare, who have become two of my favorite characters of all time. I do hope they're able to do the book justice.

Brown Paper Packages...

With the hiatus upon us, I thought I'd share a few of my favorite things on teh internets and I invite y'all to do the same. I figure it might give all some entertaining things to do since there's not going to be much LOST to write about in the next several months. These are five of my local pit stops on the internet. I have a lot of pit stops, so I tried to pick (non-Lost related) things all on different topics that might interest people - and I also tried to pick stuff that people might not know about.

1. Five Thirty Eight - If you're a politics and/or statistics junkie, this site is like caffeine-laced crack dissolved in Mountain Dew. While electoral prediction sites are abundant on the net, I was thrilled to discover that this one is run by Nate Silver, one of the grand gentlemen who runs my very favorite baseball site on the internet, Baseball Prospectus.

BP uses an incredible statistical model called PECOTA, created by Nate, to predict how a player will perform in a given season based on various parameters (age, past performance, injury history, plate discipline, etc...). Five Thirty Eight applies a similar method to the electoral college, predicting how well Obama and McCain will do in various states using a statistical model based on polls and various demographics. The model held up incredibly well throughout the primary season and now Nate will be gearing up the site for the general election. Can't recommend it enough if you follow politics.

Oh, and how hot is Nate right now? His site just got a write up in Newsweek.

2. Fark, Top Links - I've been a member of Fark for nearly five years now and a member of TotalFark for almost as long (and a Top 100 submitter there, thank you very much). While I don't spend as much time there as I used to (although TotalFark is still the best $5/month you'll ever spend and the TF Secret Santa is one of my favorite little joys of the season), I usually make it a daily stop to check out the Top Links page.

These are the best headlines/articles voted by the TF community. A link can make it either on headline or content alone. At the end of the year, the best annual headlines are voted on to choose both an overall winner and individual winners in several categories (Best Sports Headline, Best Punning Headline, etc...). TotalFarkers can read all the voted headlines (there's a longer list that appears if you're a member) and all the comment thread (Farkers can only read greenlit threads), but anyone can click on the actual associated stories on the left hand side.

Since these are the top voted stories, it's an easy way (kind of one-stop shopping) of browsing popular/entertaining stuff circulating around the web.

3. The Hot Sauce Blog - I'm a serious hot sauce junkie. I use it in place of ketchup (which I oddly can't stand) and my tolerance at this point is pretty much through the roof. One of my former roommates used to frequently wonder how in the world I could even taste anything since my taste buds should have been burned off long ago.

The Hot Sauce Blog takes their hot sauces seriously. They review anything and everything and I've gotten quite a few suggestions on different things to try from them. All their reviews are neatly organized in the sidebar - if you're looking for something new, just click and browse. Bar none, it's the best hot sauce resource on the internet.

4. Baseball Think Factory - This is my one-stop shopping for baseball headlines. The BTF is filled with incredibly intelligent fans (much moreso than i), journalists and columnists (including the fabulous Tim Marchman of the New York Sun and Howard Megdal of the New York Observer) all discussing the pertinent baseball stories of the day. The news headlines on the front page are generally some of the best baseball writing and news on the web. Big stories make it there, but also lesser known stories of interest, generally with a statistical bent.

5. Penny and Aggie - I love webcomics. Lots of webcomics.

Some of my favorites, in no particular order are:

Least I Can Do - Guy humor. Really, really, really funny guy humor.
Questionable Content - Drama and music. With robots.
Scary Go Round - The most bizarrely creative comic on the internet. Pure joy.
Zebra Girl - Beautiful art. Fun story. I wish Joe would update it regularly. *sigh*
Grim Tales/PPGD - Bleedman's art rocks and I love what he's done with familiar characters

But Penny and Aggie has the best current storyline right now and it's probably not as well known as some of the comics above. I wrote a previous review of P&A on StumbleUpon a while ago and said:

Think "Archie," but meaner and nastier - like real high school. Penny's the Veronica Lodge of the comic - rich, beautiful, even smart (although she hides it). She's also an alpha female - vindictive and cunning. Throw in a pinch of non-trashy Paris Hilton (if you can imagine that) and that's Penny.

Her nemesis is the strip's Betty Drake, Aggie - pretty, intelligent, and ambitious. The product of two hippies, she's an uber-liberal too; a political, vegetarian, peace-loving environmentalist who always speaks her mind. She hates everything Penny stands for: The popular Barbie Girl who's more style than substance. Aggie constantly taunts her, which causes Penny to retaliate, which prompts more taunts, lather, rinse, repeat, etc...

Ironically though, if the two of them actually sat down and talked, they'd find they're not as different as they'd like to believe.

I was blissfully ignorant in high school, so I was never really involved in any of the class warfare going on. Just kinda got along with everyone - played poker with the jocks, played video games with my friends - and I really didn't care about being popular, which seems to me to have been the key. But I imagine a lot of you can relate to the strip and the social dynamics of the age.

Right now, the comic's in the midst of it's most ambitious storyline yet, and I find myself looking forward to new strips more than any other I read. I can't recommend it enough. Check out all the archives online to get the full backstory. Fabulous art too.

So that's my five. Anyone have anything sites they want to share? Blog it, post in the comments and I'll provide a link. :)