- There was a whole lot of Hiro on tonight’s Heroes and finally, an answer to my persistent questions about where my man Mohinder Suresh has been all season. Most of the action centered around Hiro going back in time three years in another attempt to save the love of his life, Charlie the waitress from the Burnt Toast diner in Odessa, Texas. Hiro arrives in town three years in the past and finds Charlie, but the problems persist from there. For starters, Hiro has a fellow time traveler. That would be Samuel Sullivan, who has asked the other time traveler in his life, the elderly Arnold who is a member of his carnival’s crew, to send him back in time with Hiro. He does so because Lydia, the Tattooed Woman, tells him through her unique gift to tell who people are and which ones Samuel needs to find, displays Hiro’s likeness when he injects her with ink and the ink reforms under her skin. She explains that there is more, then displays the likeness of Claire and Noah Bennet and Sylar. So Samuel is sent back in time three years and catches up with Hiro at the diner. He challenges Hiro that unless he knows all of the effects that will come from his changing the past and saving Charlie’s life and unless she is absolutely worth it, he should rethink his plan. Hiro replies that he knows what he’s doing and goes ahead with the plan. His first hurdle is that if he saves Charlie now, his future self wouldn’t have traveled back in time to save her from Sylar in the first place and so he and Charlie never would have fallen in love. To rectify that, Hiro finds his past self in the restroom, tells him that he needs to teleport back in time to save Charlie and not worry about the mission past Hiro was on, “Save the cheerleader, save the world.” Past Hiro obeys and goes back in time, fixing problem No. 1. Current Hiro sees himself appear in a birthday party photo of Charlie’s at the diner, confirming that fact. The next problem comes with Hiro’s pal Ando, who is at the diner with past Hiro, as happened when they came on their mission to Odessa originally. Current Hiro tells Ando that his pal is in the past and will soon return to the present, so he must wait for him. Ando agrees and that solves Hiro’s second problem. Next up is Sylar, who shows up to kill Charlie and take her power. Hiro finds them in the storage room, stops time and hauls Sylar off to the bus stop, where he crams him into the baggage compartment under an outbound bus. That problem solved, he returns to the diner, where he confronts the fourth problem - the brain aneurysm that killed Charlie in the past even after Hiro stopped Sylar from doing so. The aneurysm is still there and Charlie is dying. When its effects pop up, Hiro is in the midst of suggesting that they take to the open road and Charlie is picking Otsu, Japan as the destination. But the aneurysm turns her power to read, learn and remember anything into an on-autopilot control mechanism and Hiro can see she won't Knowing that Sylar can fix things with his powers, Hiro devises a plan. He goes to the bus stop, finds Sylar and negotiates. After Sylar tries to kill him multiple times and is thwarted every time when Hiro halts time, Hiro offers up a unique deal: If Sylar will heal Charlie, Hiro will tell him everything he knows about the future. The deal is struck and Sylar returns to the diner, where he magically takes the tumor from a terrified Charlie’s head. She is fine, but Hiro must now live up to his end of the deal. He doesn’t give specifics, but instead tells Sylar he will kill many people, take their powers but ultimately die alone after others with powers gang up against him. That unfolded at the end of Season 1 in New York’s Kirby Plaza. Having honored his end of the deal, Hiro stops time again, takes Sylar to the middle of town and leaves him there and goes back to find Charlie. When she learns about the deal Hiro made, she scolds him for not using his power to stop Sylar but instead to save her life. It’s selfish and why should she get to live when so many people die every day who could be saved, she asks? Later in the day, Charlie finds Hiro in a nearby restaurant, having a root beer at the counter beside Noah Bennet (more on him later). She admits that she loves him for saving her life and she understands why he did what he did. They are back on track and ready to take their trip, but when Hiro follows Charlie out into the street, he finds that she’s disappeared and instead, Samuel is waiting for him. Samuel confesses that he’s taken Charlie to his carnival and Hiro must come to get her if he wants her back. But once there, Hiro doesn’t find Charlie at all. He does find himself surrounded by Samuel’s “family” and after getting physical with Samuel, he is pointed inside a trailer in his search. He doesn’t find Charlie there, but he does find Arnold’s body. Samuel tells him that Arnold was time traveler like Hiro and he too had a brain tumor. His last act was to teleport Charlie to a different point in time and trap her there. Only Samuel knows where (or when) she is and he’ll only tell Hiro if Hiro helps him right a terrible wrong he committed eight weeks ago. Hiro agrees and the next thing we see is Samuel standing inside some sort of apartment, apologizing to someone off camera for something he’s done. The camera pans down and dead on the floor we see……Mohinder Suresh! Welcome back, M. Now, as for Noah Bennet, he was on screen a lot as well – just in the past. Three-years-ago H.R.G. pops up at the diner, having breakfast with a co-worker named Lauren. She too is an agent for the Company but clearly there is more between the two of them than working together. At the diner, Lauren hands H.R.G. a motel key for a rendezvous, but he leaves after taking an urgent phone call. Remember, this is the time when H.R.G. was frantically trying to save Claire from Sylar. For help, H.R.G visits Isaac Mendez, the man who could paint the future and whom H.R.G. had in lockdown at Company HQ. When Isaac can’t help him out enough, H.R.G. takes a break in the office break room and is comforted by Lauren, who also kisses him. So it turns out that past H.R.G. was a bit of a douche bag who cheated on his wife, but things go no further than the kiss for the time being. Later in the day, H.R.G. uses the motel key and meets up with Lauren. She says she’s glad he came, but at the same time he blurts out that he can’t lie and cheat on his family. That was reinforced by getting a bite to eat with Claire earlier in the day and realizing how much he cares for her and the rest of the family. Lauren is surprisingly understanding about being rejected and although it’s obvious she and Noah care about each other, she agrees to keep working together and put the personal stuff aside. In fact, she does one better, wiping her own memory. She has the same power as the mysterious, stoic Haitian and is able to erase her own memory. Before doing so, she writes a note for H.R.G., puts it in an envelope and lays it on her desk. The next time H.R.G. arrives at the office, she gives him the note and makes curious comments that indicate she doesn’t remember any of their mini-affair. He reads the note, which explains that she wiped her memory because it was “cleaner” and “more professional” this way. So the affair buried, leaving H.R.G. in the clear. A relieved H.R.G. goes for a drink at the restaurant where he meets Hiro and encourages him to not give up on love. So not great episode and a bit convoluted in terms of the Hiro situation involving time travel and altering the past. Also, the episode was huge offender in terms of excluding key characters from screen time, including: Peter, Angela and Nathan Petrelli, Gretchen (Claire’s roommate), Matt Parkman, Emma and Tracy Strauss. Not one of Heroes’ better efforts and so far, a subpar season for the show at best……….
- This next story has me seriously pissed off. And if you think I’m just fired up for the chance to take up for hot girls in bikinis….you’d be partially right. I do love the concept of hot chicks in bikinis serving overpriced lattes to people, but that’s not the only reason I’m ready to start throwing some verbal haymakers on their behalf. The location is Spokane, Wash., and the business in question is the Pretty in Pink espresso stand in Spokane near the intersection of Sprague and Bowdish. The concept is simple: hot girls with great bodies making and serving coffee in their bikinis. It’s a solid concept and if you’re a male coffee drinker, it’s right up your alley. However, if you are going to ask girls to perform this type of job and subject themselves to being objectified and checked out by every single customer who comes through their coffee shop, one thing you had better do is pay them well. But not only are Dana and Danielle Jacobsen, the mother-daughter duo who own Pretty in Pink, not paying their baristas well, they’re not paying them at all. The bikini baristas, both current and former, have begun filing grievances with the Department of Labor and Industries because they claim to have not been paid at all for the work they’ve done. The Jacobsen’s own four bikini coffee shops, including one in Post Falls and two in Western Washington. So far, 15 former employees of the bikini espresso stands have filed formal wage claims with Labor and Industries saying they were never paid for their work. “They were unprofessional,” former barista Amanda Emerson said. “The first day I showed up I didn't even know it was a bikini espresso stand.” Hmm….wonder if ol’ Amanda should have perhaps found out a little more before agreeing to work there? But clueless or not, she clearly deserves to be paid for her work. Emerson explained that she was supposed to get paid every two weeks but after four weeks of work she still had not been paid. She called up the Jacobsen’s to ask where her paychecks were and didn’t receive a satisfactory response. “If I called them they didn't really answer their phones,” she said. When they did answer their phones, Emerson said, “They’re like ‘OK we'll send the paycheck’', I gave them my address and like two weeks later I said 'Where's my paycheck I never got in the mail' and they said we sent it to you. It was just that over and over again, or I couldn't get a hold of them, or different lies.” Eventually she clued in to the fact that no money was coming her way and she quit. “I felt kinda bad about it, but after a while I heard about other girls not getting paid also,” she said. The formal wage complaints filed thus far range from $150 up to $1,600. You might think that with more than a dozen former employees taking legal action against them, the Jacobsen’s would wise up and pay the employees currently working for them. Umm….no.
- The only time I’m going to talk about auto racing is when one of the “sport’s” (i.e. not a real sport) drivers is either an alcoholic or a meth addict. This story is the former, featuring NASCAR AJ Allmendinger, who was charged with driving under the influence on Thursday. But the DUI isn't the part of the story that piqued my interest, not by a long shot. Anyone can have a beer or four too many, get behind the wheel and get popped by the cops. Not everyone can show up for work at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama and be forced to submit to a breathalyzer prior to his first Sprint Cup practice for a race. "It's a part of it,'' Allmendinger said after the second practice. "I know what I've done. I respect the punishment and everything that I have to do to gain the trust back of NASCAR and everybody that is out there racing with me. "It's not the best feeling in the world, but at the same point I respect I have to do it. I understand and I no problem with that.'' I’m glad you don’t have a problem with it, A., because I sure as heck don’t. What’s better than a racecar driver not being allowed to get behind the wheel until officials determine that he’s sober enough to drive? Was Allmendinger also forced to recite the alphabet, touch his nose, walk in a straight line and balance on one foot before being given the keys to his car? Was there a sobriety checkpoint set up on pit row so officers could wave him in randomly and force him to submit to further sobriety tests? I still have no interest in auto racing, but with Allmendinger placed on probation by NASCAR through the end of the season, I’m hoping that these breathalyzer tests become a regular occurrence. As for the DUI, Allmendinger
- Not cool Mexico, not cool. When people flee the United States, sneak across the border and look to take refuge in your oft-lawless nation, you should not be sending them back to face justice in record numbers. But that’s where we are after Mexico extradited 11 fugitives to the United States on Saturday, putting 2009's total Mexico-to-U.S. extraditions at the highest yearly level ever. Thanks to the U.S. Department of Justice for confirming that sad reality. Worse still, Saturday's extraditions pushed 2009's total to triple digits at an even 100, breaking last year's record of 95. These are not the kinds of record we want to be breaking, y’all. For one, it means there are a whole lot of fugitives out there and secondly, it means they can no longer disappear across the border into Mexico and start a new life. Unfortunately, the government of Mexican President Felipe Calderon is not helping in this situation with its insistence on increasing extraditions of those facing charges in the United States as part of its offensive against drug cartels. Just because you guys can’t contain your drug cartels and keep them in check, don’t go shipping our fugitives back as they try to build a new life south of the border, thank you much. Critics would argue that U.S. prisons provide a more severe punishment than if a wanted person is kept in Mexico, but I don’t see it that way. Sure, of the 11 people extradited Saturday, four were wanted on drug-related charges, but others were merely wanted for murder, robbery and other crimes. It’s a diverse group, hailing from Texas, Florida, California, Maryland and the District of Columbia. "Each year since 2001, Mexico has increased the number of defendants it extradites to the United States," U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement. "By ensuring that alleged criminals are held accountable, we send a strong message that fleeing across the border does not mean you will escape justice." That’s exactly the problem here, E., and you need to do some serious thinking before you meet up with Mexico's new attorney general, Arturo Chavez, this week. Stop hounding people who have been smart enough to evade justice and flee the country. They’re gone, it’s one less criminal we have to deal with here and that person is someone else’s problem. Sounds like a win-win to me…………
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