Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tales

Reminder: Spoilers for Lost! But the show is 10 years old, so not going to cut this. Skip this post if you haven't watched the whole series yet!

I actually have seven minutes left in the "final" episode (there's one after this one, an epilogue, but for some reason Netflix doesn't have it), but I had to pause it so I don't start crying.

Man, this last season might just be better than the first one. I love nearly every single bit about it.

Ironically, the one part that doesn't work for me? Too much information/too many answers. My worry this whole time had been not enough answers, but if they had left out that light/source of the power of the island (world?) thing, I would have liked it a lot more. It's not bad, I just... I just like things a little more open-ended/unexplained. (Again, ironic, I know.)

But that was a minor, minor thing I didn't like (and "didn't like" is really putting it too strongly). I don't usually curse, but: Holy fucking shit, I loved so so so so so much about the ending. I loved early on in this season, when the second timeline started. I loved how when people died in one timeline, we still had them in the other. And most of all, I loved how everyone not just met again, but they remembered everything after touching their loved one. Usually I'd say I hate soulmate storylines, but somehow it 10000000% worked for me here.

For all its sci fi/fantasy/mystery trappings, I think at its heart Lost was a great love story. I can't believe how sniffily I am over this ending.

Tomorrow I get to start reading all the AV Club recap/review of each ep (Edit: Drat, they're only up to the middle of season three! Slackers!). I had been doing it as I watched it, but I had to skip all the spoilers, so I decided to just wait and read it all at the end.

Okay, guess I'm okay to watch the last few minutes now. Don't cry, don't cry... Okay, this might be a lost cause. 30 seconds, had to pause it, crying. That I came to like Jack in the end makes this all the harder. I love how they're handling the life after death stuff (and I sure do wish it were real).

Man, they couldn't have made that ending more aimed at making me cry. That was so perfect. Jack slowly dying, intercut with him in the... 'afterlife waiting room'? Then Vincent laying down next to him as Jack dies. That couldn't have been more wonderfully, awfully, terribly perfect.

I'm so very glad I finally made it through the series. While seasons two, three, and part of four didn't work for me, it was so worth it to stick with it to reach the last two seasons. It also amuses me how I knew a major spoiler ("They're all dead") and it didn't at all matter -- didn't spoil anything. ...wait, or am I not understanding something. Was the second timeline never a real timeline? Were they really dead and they just couldn't "let go" (theme of the whole dying thing)? I need to go read all the spoiler comments I was avoiding all this time!

Icon: Usually I'd eat my keyboard before using an animated icon, but wow, this one is so fitting. I can't resist! It's an old anime icon, the two characters were dying next to each other...

I know it's kind of pointless to post about Lost, since I don't want people to correct my mistakes or confirm what I guess (no spoilers!), but I've been watching so much of it, I want to post about it again.

I'm not going to use a spoiler cut, since the show is 10 years old, but if by chance you haven't seen it and are considering watching it, just skip this post. Spoilers up to early in season four.

The end of season three took off right after I made my "I'm really not enjoying this" post, haha. For a while, things got really, really good. Like Locke's father arriving in the "magic box" implying things about the island (that it's not an island, that it's Hell).

We got another scene with my most favorite Lost character ever: Jin's father. Just seeing him makes me happy (and sad). Such a wonderfully kind man, so positive and yet so humble. He crushes me (in a good way). The way he wiped off his hand before he would touch Sun made me want to sob and shake him and hug him forever.

I noticed something odd: In most shows, I don't usually like established couples, but Jin/Sun and Bernard/Rose make me so very happy. They're my favorite main characters (and I'm so worried about one of them from each couple dying).

My dislike of Jack and Kate grows with each episode.

Charlie's death killed me. Other than scenes with Jin's father, it's the only time I nearly cried so far. (I had to pause the episode for a while so I wouldn't cry.) I was spoiled and knew it was coming, but they handled it so well and it was so sad and just arg! If I was reading the scene right, it was totally unnecessary that he died -- Desmond had the scuba stuff for both(?) of them. That made it even worse. Even if there was just one set of scuba stuff (which wouldn't make sense, since there were multiple people there), they could have shared it. *sniffles* Darned you, Charlie.

So anyway, season four. Instead of flashbacks, we're getting... what do we call them? Flashforwards? I'm really confused as to how they got off the island. I thought I read spoilers that the island was indeed purgatory, so... now I'm just confused again. Also, I'm confused as they keep mentioning "The Oceanic Six" in the flashforwards -- there are a heck of a lot more than six people left on the island, so what happens to them all?

I'm really getting worried about how the show will end. I read that people either were satisfied with the ending or hated it (depending on what they were watching the show for -- getting to know the characters or the mystery). I'm watching for the mystery, so I'm worried I'm going to be in the hated it group. At this point in the series, I'm watching for Answers. What is the island? What are the monsters? What in the world is Jacob? How does the "magic" happen?

Amusingly, I'm kind of missing TV. I haven't watched anything other than Lost in... 13? days. Something like that. I'm worried that if I stop watching it, something else will hook me and I'll never get back to finishing the series. AGAIN. I've watched part of it so many times, but never the whole thing. Early in season 3 was as far as I've gotten, so I set a new record this time, but darned it all, I want to see the whole show this time.

Forgive two posts in a row, but I didn't want to put non-book stuff into the book review post. While usually I live in fear of an author finding my review posts (since usually they're kind of rough on the writing), this one was so positive I linked the author to it -- I thought it might make her happy to see it. I've never done that before, but a week or so back I left a comment on her blog about something related to the story, and her comment was quite friendly and positive, so I thought she'd be open to a link. (Edit: She wrote back already and said she was happy I linked her to it. Yay!)

Anyway, the good and the bad. I'll start with the bad, for ease of reading.

The bad: My god, body, what the hell are you doing? I did a spot check on my weight this morning, and I'm up two and a half pounds. What the living fuck? If this holds true on Friday, it will mean I gained three of the last five weeks, stayed the same one week, and lost one week. That is not what is supposed to be happening! I am not cheating! I'm not eating fast food! No sweets, no chips, not even any nuts! I swear, body, I'm willing to hack off a leg to lose weight, don't make me do that!

A plateau is one thing, but gaining weight is NOT A PLATEAU. Arg fricking fracking I'm going to cry or throw things.

The good: Lost. I can never decide if I should put spoilers behind a cut. The show is ten years old though, so it feels silly to cut them. If by chance you're planning on watching the show, just skip the rest of this post.

Man, I'm loving this rewatching so much. I remember almost nothing about it, so it's nearly new to me. I remember more how I felt about the characters than the characters themselves, so it's interesting to see how I feel about them now.

I had hated Kate when I watched the first time. While I don't love her now, I fully understand her and can accept her as a character.

I loved Sawyer at the time, and I'm a lot less into him now. He's a fun character, but I suppose I'm more mature now and less into assholes (even if his assholeness is just a front).

I'm surprised at how much I liked Boone. I remember all the jokes about how useless he was (lifeguard who couldn't give mouth-to-mouth and who had to be rescued from drowning!), but man, I loved his character arc so much, how he became Locke's little attack puppy. I was so sorry to see his character die.

I don't remember how I felt about Sayid at the time, but he might just be my favorite character now, both character-wise and in attractiveness.

I had loved Locke before, but now I'm seeing him more as... There's a fandom term, "whump", which is basically abuse of a character, sometimes as part of a hurt/comfort plot, sometimes just because it's fun to pile all the abuse on one guy. It feels like Locke is that guy. More and more bad stuff (pre-island) keeps happening to him, and all I can do is feel bad for the guy. (The last ep I saw yesterday was about the rich guy pretending to be his father just so he could get one of his kidneys...)

If I'm right in remembering all the people on the island are already dead (don't confirm/correct me!), then I wonder what happens when they die. Did Boone go on to his final resting place, or to some new purgatory? Also, why are they in a purgatory? Some of them (Locke, Jack) don't seem to have done any bad stuff, why don't they just get to move straight to heaven?

I love all these characters so much. Even with all of their flaws, they're all good people.

The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition by Quark (with help from Ira Steven Behr).

If I had paid for this book, I would feel cheated. (Ironic, huh?) I thought this would be a fun, lighthearted read -- something I was looking forward to after the last couple books I slogged through. Turned out it was a 96 page book, 90 of them containing one sentence each.

Each of the rules had a page. The page contained the rule and nothing else. I had expected a write-up about each one, an example of when it might have been used, some character's opinion on it, something.

It takes some balls lobes to put out a full-priced book with so few words in it.

I've never tried to get my money back for a book*, but if I had paid for this one, it would have been the first.

* Once I ordered two copies of the same ebook by double-clicking by mistake. Amazon refunded me for one. I don't count that as really returning a book.

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By chance I'm watching Lost. Something I was watching ended, and the first ep of the first season came on, and it hooked me. They're only showing three eps today, but I really should rewatch/watch the series. (I stopped a few seasons before it ended and never went back to it.) I had forgotten how good the early seasons were. I've forgotten so much, too! It would be like new to me.

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Swimming: It's going to be a long, cold winter. I went to the Y to sign up to use their pool, only to find it's an outdoor pool. Eek. I swam today (high of 72), and I didn't make it the whole hour because I got cold. Part of the problem is I have to go underwater to get to a free lane, so my hair gets wet and that makes me colder. (Wonder if a hair cap thingie would keep me warmer? I bet it would help keep the heat in...)

They gave me a free three-day pass to try things out, and once that ends I'll buy membership. The charges aren't too bad, other than the extra fees they tack on. $45 fee to buy membership (which costs $55/month), that's a one-time fee... if you never let your membership run out. Want to buy visits day by day? Then there's a $55 charge per year for the right to do that.

The Y is a lot nicer than I thought it would be. My image of it is dated by decades: A flophouse for homeless men. It's so different they really should rename it. ("Flophouse" sounds insulting, doesn't it? I wonder if it's non-PC? Maybe it would be if it were a more common word? Anyway, I mean a very cheap place to stay that isn't a shelter.)