"Dead is Dead" re-cap

Introducing new contributor Insertcoolnamehere...

Also, I'm having issues with embedding photos here. Consider this a test post for now!

That One Albino Chick: Previouslies!!!
Insertcoolnamehere: :D
9:01 PM
TOAC: dude it looks all medieval

ICNH: yeah wtf
TOAC: the island chooses who the island chooses. good to know
who's this guy?
ICNH: and what is he doing to ben?!
ive never seen this character
wha?
OMG
TOAC: gasp! it's widmore! i actually like this version of him so far
whereas ben seems to have been creepy from the getgo
ICNH: its those beedy eyes
the monster!~~~
TOAC: the monster's gonna judge?!?
ben said he believed john would come back to life once his body got back to the island. do you believe him?
ICNH: its hard to belive anything he says
TOAC: it's always hard for me to tell - which I guess is the genius of the character
ICNH: this is true..
ive been on both sides of the fence when it comes to ben
TOAC: yeah it's mine and addy's constant argument - she thinks he's on the side of right and i have a hard time believing that
ICNH: its hard to tell
TOAC: but for her it comes down to his philosphy - she thinks he's just completely utilitarian. ends justify means, and his end is right.
not sure what i believe
ICNH: im not sure either
TOAC: ooh like the actor who's playing the chubby guy on the beach - he's been in a bunch of stuff
ICNH: whoa
TOAC: omg cannot believe ben is sowing doubt re locke
he's also trying too hard - hope it backfires
shit cesar buys it
ICNH: i hope ben gets his ass kicked, again
see, this is the part hatred i have for ben
TOAC: ethan as a kid!!!! this is so awesome
ICNH: amledu fremauge!
why is he doing this?
TOAC: wha?
oh god yeah - what the fuck is he doing?
"corporate" heh
9:14 PM
ICNH: it worked!
TOAC: a lot hinges on ben doing what he does "because it was in the best interest of the island" as he says. i no longer buy that as his total motivation
nice! Locke's calling his bluff!
ICNH: i cant wait to see him be judged
yeah
cesarrrrrrrrrrr
rolling my rrrrrrr's ther
oh shit!
he just shot cesar!
TOAC: holy fucking shit. ben must have wanted cesar dead for some other reason - else why the games?
ICNH: wow
TOAC: he's so tricky!
gotta pee brb
ICNH: k
good idea
TOAC: so yeah ben is impenetrable to me - have no handle on his current motivations or ultimate ends
ICNH: i know what you mean
its like hes up so something, but im not quite sure if its for the good, or PURE EVIL
"dead is dead"
thats the tittle of this episode
i wasnt aware of that
TOAC: "i think you're lying" - awesome!
ICNH: call him out!
9:23 PM
TOAC: ok, now i am totes confues. ben saved teh baby AGAINST the others' wishes???
ICNH: why do they want it dead in the first place?
or, her, i should say
TOAC: no idea but it's more motivation for killing alex later than just to piss ben off
ICNH: good point
who is that?
TOAC: love love love locke doubting ben given his past STUPID tendency to buy into his bullshit
ICNH: yeah....
hes really stanging up to ben
its sun!
and the capt
were they doing it?
:P
uhh ohhh
scary
lol
scary i mean
TOAC: locke's little wave was awesome
i am still so curious about christian. at first assumed it was something else using his body but some of his other interactions make me think there's more there
9:30 PM
ICNH: i hope we get to see the monster in this episode
i miss the monster
TOAC: i still think one of the creepiest things in this whole show was when claire was in the cabin, all casually "i'm with him" gesturing to Christian
ICNH: yeah
TOAC: MORE MONSTER!!!
ICNH: wtf was that
TOAC: wha mustve missed it
ICNH: and throw in a polar bear while you at it
poor sun
i think she is one of the most inocent charictars
on the show
o
wait
i take that back
i forgot about the cheating
and the lying
what the fuck is that?
TOAC: so fucking great - locke's ben's stern father
ICNH: he is
TOAC: wonder if this passage was always there, or if ben later installed.
ICNH: where is he going?
hmmm
TOAC: eeuw - it's like he just flushed a giant toilet with his hand ON THE INSIDE
ICNH: what is going on
lol
i was thinking that too!
oooo
TOAC: oooh more complexity added to more amiguousness about why alex died!
ICNH: ill be seeing you, boy
yeah
because i killed him
TOAC: oooh! dead is dead according to ben!
ICNH: is he lying right there?
TOAC: this is so fucking exciting!
ICNH: here it comes!
lol
that was locke
TOAC: nice touch of humor or possibly pointed. is locke the one thing ben can no longer control?
ICNH: kinda looks like it
is ben really upset at all of this, or is it another ploy?
TOAC: i don't know! i'm tempted to think he was surprised by locke's resurrection, but then again it was so important to him to get his body on the island
i wonder if he thinks locke isn't really alive or is some other state of being, similar to christian's unexplained status
although i don't even know if ben was previously much aware of christian. i need to get on lostpedia again
ICNH: sorry... was peeing
that sucks
glad were not on the freeway
did you see that?
TOAC: i did see that - i'm actually super-stoked that the dude let his family go
ICNH: yeah
TOAC: it just seems like lately there've been a lot of shootings of kids and spouses by insane dudes
ICNH: people like ben
locks the man he alwas been
9:44 PM
TOAC: omfg this is waht i've wanted to know forever - who beat ben up? are penelope and desmond alive?????
ICNH: wow
im at a lost
TOAC: i hope desmond is the one who kicked his ass.
ICNH: no pun intended
TOAC: plus that they all lived
nice speech by john - wonder if ben really learned anything from it
ICNH: if he did, it was shortlived
cause now theres the temple to worry about
TOAC: ooh - does going under the temple make a difference than going in through the door?
oh shit - desmond'll "know" what ben's sorry for?
ICNH: thats was it seems like
yeah
wtf
fucking ben
yes!
carnage!
9:49 PM
TOAC: oh fuck yeah!
ICNH: wheeeeew~!
TOAC: peeing again brb
ICNH: ok
:-o
9:50 PM :'(
x-(
:-/
those are fun
TOAC: i am kinda impressed that ben seemed to change his mind about killing penny
although i guess we'll never know if he decided for sure in that moment since desmond tackled him
ICNH: yeah
that was a pretty cool scene
TOAC: yeah - the blood while he was falling through the water was a nice touch
visually
ICNH: it was
im getting a beer... would you like one?
TOAC: oh yeh - teh unusuals premieres next - i'm kinda interested
and i would like a beer! how ya gonna manage that? i'm on my last, but i might be able to steal more from the roomies upstairs...
"what lies in the shadow of the statue" wtf?
ICNH: yeah... what is that all about
TOAC: holy effin shit - wonder if they're all ben's people?
9:56 PM ICNH: its a trick!
o shit
lol
that was kinda funny
9:57 PM
TOAC: cant write consumed with curiousuty
ICNH: thats it!
thats the monster!
what?
i hope she punches him
good!
wow
what does this mean?
TOAC: no idea what it means.
not sure how i feel about the smoke monster visions but loved the rest
ICNH: so, do you think ben is gonna follow john now?
TOAC: i think he'll try
goes against his nature so it'll be interesting to see
next week's episode looks super-awesome but i'm gonna try to watch this new show now. talk later???
10:06 PM ICNH: totaly... looks good
TOAC: good night!
ICNH: have a good one! Read more!

Dr. Horrible, Joss Whedon, Alternative Media yada yada

So on the heels of my last post, I just want to say how strangely awesome it is that i cannot watch Dr. Horrible's first episode. I've tried so many times tonight, honest. I just keep trying over and over. Then I realized from the io9 posts that a) it was temporarily broken due to demand and b) that I could buy some sort of season pass on itunes (see comments).

I got desperate, which you can go ahead and consider fan-crazy but fuck you (did you see the musical episode of Buffy, Once More With Feeling?), so I went to itunes. First off, tried to investigate the season pass option and when I clicked on that, nothing came up. It was there to click, but there was no option to buy once you got there. I looked up Joss Whedon on google and got to his Whedonesque site, which I'd heard of but not often had occasion to visit. I believe it's his official site though, and this was the message when I got there:

Grrr argh... Whedonesque has met its nemesis.

Due to a traffic spike caused by today's release of Dr Horrible, our host has shut down our database. We are working hard to move our site elsewhere. In the meantime, the forum at Whedonesque.org is still up and running:

Visit whedonesque.org.

The Whedonesque forum gave no insight. I went back to itunes and chose to buy the first episode for $2 (supposedly the "season pass" is $4 but I don't know what that means in terms of how long the season pass lasts). And I was told that my purchase would have to be tried again. I tried to watch the itunes sample song (also shown on the io9 link), but even that stops after 30 seconds. As far as I know, the best place you can (legally) watch even just the clip is the io9 website, which doesn't have nearly the quality of the itunes version.

What I'm trying to say is that demand for this particular endeavor broke the fucking internet. Whedon, you wanted to explore new ways of delivering entertainment and it worked. It worked too well. I'm frustrated that I can't watch Right Now Immediately, but I can't actually be mad. This is fucking exciting. What I assume was quite a monetary risk is clearly paying off. I mean good god, fucking itunes is even broken. So a big fat congrats. to Joss Whedon, and alternative media.

If anyone else is jonesing really hard (which I totally have been), I'd like to try to distract you with something else that is awesome. It has nothing to do with Whedon, science fiction, comics, etc. but it's Michael Cera (aka George Michael from Arrested Development), the intro credits are crazy hilarious on their own, and the later episodes were just incredibly fucking funny (although you may have to watch the first episodes to build up to "getting it").
Read more!

New and Old TV, and also some other stuff

I am catching up on my io9 reading this evening and have some things to say about TV.

First off, I was pissed that The 4400 was canceled. It was good, I was invested, and now I have no answers to the greater questions. So I guess it's cool that they're putting books out now, but why did they have to start with something early on in the series? Does this mean it will become a serial that never dies? Will I get my answers, and after how many books (if at all)? Grrr...

Secondly, ZOMG Dr. Horrible's first episode is out today!!! I imagine everyone is going fucking crazy for it, because I cannot get through to the website and have been unable to watch yet. This may get it's own post after I've watched it, but do read the i09 link for the Joss Whedon quote. I'm really excited that he's trying something new in part to see what other ways Hollywood can do business. Last year's writer's strike really proved how limited artists/ writers/ etc. are in how they can reach us consumers of pop culture. Others have certainly done this, but perhaps not on this scale, at least when unaffiliated with a major studio.

Weirdly, I was just talking about the movie Battlefield Earth over the weekend. It is supposed to be that level of God-awful that makes it unintentionally hilarious, as the clip amply demonstrates. I'd like to watch under the influence with friends sometime this year.

Yay! More people joining together to circumvent established bureaucracies for better products, this product a freaking ROCKETSHIP. Seriously, government regulation seems to exist just to bolster established corporate power, and we need more endeavors like this, public efforts attempting to prove that there are better ways to do what needs to be done. I know many people would say that it's not necessary to go to space but I'm a sci-fi lover who's always dug the space program, and every time I hear the argument "that money could be so much better spent elsewhere" I think of corporate wealthfare and wonder why said critics don't focus on that. Plus I hear from my science geek housemate that in terms of physics, the cutting edge breakthroughs happen in one of two places: NASA or weapons research. Which would you prefer we pour money into? And in which place do you think the breakthroughs that could lead to significant medical/ environmental/ scientific advancement will be public vs private? (I honestly don't know here and can't find anything on google, but my understanding has been that our government funds private weapons companies for this shit rather than our own agencies, so the private companies get the patents for their own profit rather than the greater good - hooray for runaway, state-funded "capitalism" and "let the market decide" my ass!)

Yeah, dudes, The Middleman is totally fun and good. I haven't managed to catch each episode, but the ones I've seen have been everything the post says - funny as hell, and a great mix of camp and realistically flawed (albeit quirky) characters. In last night's episode (minor spoiler) there were trout zombies. Not fish zombies, human zombies who wanted trout. I so wish I could find a clip of a physically restrained zombie groaning "troooouuuut," but I cannot so you will have to make do with this PSA instead:


I can't believe how much I'm enjoying that show, and I have to say that ABC Family is an interesting network. I always thought of it as this family-oriented station that was willing to show relatively dirty Whose Line is it Anyway reruns, but bizarrely followed them up with the 700 Club. A few years ago, though, they put out a bunch of pretty good female-centered TV movies that I was shocked to enjoy. Yes, they were fluffy entertainment (wait, I love fluffy entertainment, why am I apologizing?), but the Christian Network moralizing I expected didn't really happen. The one I remember best was See Jane Date, starring Charisma Carpenter from Buffy fame, and I remember loving how all the women drank and the she was sometimes hungover without it being turned into a Big Problem. Plus, this was Charisma Carpenter post childbirth. I really appreciated seeing a former super-skinny actress with just a little heft, and how refreshing it was that weight-loss or guilt or body issues in general did not seem to factor into the plot. It was mindless entertainment, but the characters were surprisingly realistic and the movie avoided playing into standard female tropes in a lot of important ways.

Cross-posted. Read more!

Canada is Awesome

This kicks ass. I wonder what the repercussions will be from the current administration, though. Read more!

When blogcrushes crush

Two of my favorite blogs are Jezebel and Shakesville. Along with i09, these are the blogs I check for new posts frequently throughout the day while I should technically be working. So for some reason it was double crushy to watch Megan at Jezebel cover one of Jeff Fecke's posts from Shakesville. The two blogs have feminism in common, but Jezebel is much more pop culture oriented than Shakesville. They share a certain sensibility though, and the Jezebel comments urging Megan to ask Jeff for a date were just killing me with teh awesome. Plus, a lot of those comments were very much in the vain of, "feminist men are hot, let's go out with them," whereas I know from Jeff's past writing he gets accused by men of being a feminist only "for the pussy." He always responds in the best way, stating that he's a feminist because women deserve equal respect, not because of his personal gains, also managing to admit that he's had to struggle occasionally to recognize his own privilege, but he keeps trying because it's right, dammit. I think you just have to read his beautiful takedown referenced above to see what he's about.

Augh, both of them pissed me off occasionally during the primary season, but now that it's over I've rediscovered my love for them and this shit is just fun to watch. It feels like when you introduce two separate friends for the first time and watch unexpected sparks begin to fly. Part of you feels excited for them, part of you feels proud for introducing them (obviously not applicable), but a lot of you is happy to have witnessed what may just be history in the making. Not that I think these two will date in real life (they live in different states and all), but Jezebel could learn a lot from Shakesville, and I've been noticing Shakesville writers referencing Jezebel posts the last couple months. I feel a wholly unwarranted sense of personal connection here. Internet world is so weird like that. Read more!