- If you are in the immediate vicinity of the ESPN compound in Bristol, Conn., I advise you to significantly upgrade your health insurance and take extra measures to protect yourself beginning March 12. That’s the date when the most explosive, short-tempered, hothead of a coach that college basketball has ever seen will join the Worldwide Leader for its coverage of college basketball’s postseason. Bob Knight, the chair-throwing, vase-at-athletic-department-secretary’s-head-tossing, player-choking, player-bullwhipping, verbally-assaulting a-hole who recently stepped down as the head coach at Texas Tech, has signed on to be part of ESPN’s postseason coverage. I don’t dispute that Knight knows a lot about college hoops; I’m merely advising anyone who’s going to be in his vicinity to take adequate measures to protect themselves if and when Mount Knight erupts.
- Overall, this season of Lost has been the worst of the show’s four seasons, at least to this point, and I thought tonight’s episode was more of the same. The writers and producers don’t seem to be able to sufficiently juggle all the pieces of the puzzle, consistently leaving important, interesting characters out of entire episodes. This week, there was no Locke, no Sawyer, no Kate, no Hurley, no Claire, no Sun, no Jin, no Hurley and a few scant scenes with Jack and Juliet, along with Daniel and Charlotte from the freighter team. Almost the entire freaking episode was about Desmond and partially Sayid, both aboard the helicopter they boarded two episodes ago along with the craft’s pilot, Frank. The trio flew back to the freighter using directions Daniel gave them, but along the way Desmond’s brain somehow got fried and he began vacillating back and forth between 1996 and 2004, which is when the show takes place. As he lost consciousness in one year, he was then living in the other one. His 1996 memories began with him at Camp Mitchell, a Scottish military base where he was a soldier. As he began experiencing his 2004 dreams, he began to look for answers there. Back in 2004, he was helped by Daniel, who told him that 1996 Desmond needed to find 1996 Daniel to help him with his problem of slipping back and forth between the two years. Apparently traveling to and from the island where Oceanic 815 crashed has that affect on people and 1996 Daniel, after being relayed a message by 1996 Desmond that 2004 Daniel gave to 2004 Desmond, helped Desmond figure out how to regain his bearings in the present, 2004. Using research he was doing in 1996, Daniel tells Desmond back in 1996 that he needs to find a constant, something or someone that he could recall from 1996 that he would also be able to make contact with in 2004. Des chose his girlfriend Penny Widmore, with the only problem being that back in 1996 he had broken up with her and joined the army. She was understandably reluctant to talk to him, but after getting her new address from her father, Des visits 1996 Penny and relays his cryptic message about needing her phone number to use in 2004. She gives it to him and back in 2004, Des snaps back to consciousness and using the freighter’s radio equipment, which Sayid has managed to rig up despite it being sabotaged two days prior, Des calls 2004 Penny and completes the circle, so to speak. Making contact with his constant allows him to stop bouncing back and forth between 1996 and 2004 and to escape the fate of two members of the freighter’s crew, who both died from brain aneurysms after going into the same flashback/unconsciousness mode Des was in. A tearful conversation with Penny ensues, with both of them vowing to find one another again. How Penny got in touch with the freighter in the first place is still unknown, but the ship’s communication officer, one of the two who died from the mysterious condition, told Des before his death that Penny had been consistently calling the boat but the captain, who we haven’t met yet, order the crew not to answer the calls. So for now, Des is ok and he and Sayid are aboard the freighter with Frank and the crew, which includes guys named Kingsley and Omar, along with the unidentified captain. Back on the island, Daniel explains the condition Desmond is experiencing to Jack and Juliet, despite objections from Charlotte not to tell them. At episode’s end, Daniel looks at a page from his own journal that reads, “If anything goes wrong, Desmond Hume is my constant.” In other words, in the same way talking to Penny helped Des, talking to Des is what Daniel needs in case he too is disoriented. Again, this was not a great episode because 1) it was confusing and disjointed, and 2) too damn many characters were left out entirely. The previews for next week promise that it’ll be more of a normal episode with everyone involved, mostly in terms of having tension and extreme hostility between the members of the freighter crew on the island and the survivors of Oceanic 815. So here’s hoping that next week is better…..
- I lead and America follows…or something like that. I ripped Sunday’s Oscars for the same reason I rip every other awards show - it’s a pompous, long-winded, self-congratulatory schmooze fest where the principle recognizees are the status quo, the ones everyone already knows, rather than new faces who actually deserve the awards. Clearly I’m not the only one who feels that way, because ratings for this year’s broadcast were 14 percent lower than the previous least-watched Oscar telecast in history, which came back in 2003. The numbers look ever worse when you contrast them with last year, when ratings were 21 percent higher. Think maybe there’s some lingering resentment from the writers’ strike and maybe America is getting a little tired of having one awards show or another on every damn week? Actually, the one positive from the strike was that awards shows were canceled because footage from shows and movies couldn’t be used during it, so that’s something I actually do miss from the strike. Just don’t ask me about who won or lost at the Oscars and what I thought of the show, because like most of America, I didn’t watch a single second of the broadcast.
- The running of the bulls in Pamplona it ain’t, but Sunday’s inaugural running of the reindeer was still a nutty, fun idea and I for one hope it continues next year. Hundreds of people lined the streets of downtown Anchorage for the quirky, only-in-Alaska event. It featured seven small reindeer and 1,000 costumed participants, with the reindeer lining up behind the first wave of runners. The confused creatures had people in front of them dressed as carrots or with bull’s-eyes taped to their backs. Once the race started, the reindeer didn’t exactly play the part of the bulls very well, blowing right by the runners without goring anyone or tossing them up in the air. Instead, the reindeer sprinted out into the lead by the halfway point and didn’t look back. “Normally we just eat them,’ said spectator Mark Berg of the reindeer. “We got smoked by the reindeer,” explained participant Amanda Pelkola, who got talked into dressing up like a carrot and running in the race by a friend. Let’s face it: in Alaska, where winter is a year-round thing and temperatures are on the wrong side of really freaking cold way too often, any diversion for the poor souls living there is a good thing. It’s exactly the kind of goofy stunt that serious, busy, “responsible” types frown on and the kind of nutty activity the truly unique among us enjoy. So here’s hoping you all make this an annual tradition, Anchorage residents.
- This might be viewed as discriminatory, but the state of Florida really needs to start instituting an IQ test for prospective tourists. If you’re not bright enough to avoid doing what one particular Austrian tourist did a few days ago, you should not be allowed to visit Florida and give the state’s tourism industry a black eye on account of you being a ginormous moron. Marcus Groh, 49, has established himself as an early favorite for this year’s Darwin Awards, a tongue-in-cheek award given out by a group that recognizes those who do a service to humanity be removing themselves from the gene pool. Groh was on a commercial diving trip that left from West Palm Beach and was anchored near the Bahamas, about 50 miles off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, when he dove into waters that had been baited with bloody fish so divers could get “face to face” with sharks. Hmm, wonder what could go wrong….oh yeah, maybe someone could get eaten by a shark. That’s exactly what happened to Groh, who died after being bitten by an angry shark. I hate to be calloused, but my man Marcus, you pretty much deserved this one. You want to get up close and personal with a shark, make sure it’s inside one of those reinforced steel cages they drop into the water, like in Jaws. You jump into water purposely laced with bloody fish when you know the waters are shark-infested, you’re asking to die. Were my IQ test idea put in place, M. Groh clearly would have failed and either not been allowed into Florida or at most allowed to ride the Living Seas ride at Disney World where the only bites come from those overpriced souvenirs and refreshment taking a chunk out of your wallet.
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