- You know how we begin every episode recap of Lost, so let’s get to it. The key characters who were AWOL this week: Sawyer (for the umpteenth week in a row), Kate, Claire and Sayid. As for the episode itself……the hour kicks off on the island with Ben Linus running through jungle. He stumbles and falls, then spots a group marching by with torches. It’s Ilana, Lapidus, Sun and Miles, all of whom Ben last saw during the Black Smoke Monster’s attack on the temple. They continue their march through the jungle, trying to get as far from the temple as possible. Off the island, we catch up with Ben at the high school where he is a history teacher. His job becomes a little less fun when Principal Reynolds asks to speak to him after his class ends and informs him that due to budget cuts and staff shortages, Ben is being assigned to monitor detention instead of running a meeting of his history club. In the staff lounge, Ben complains to the science teacher, Arntz (an Oceanic 815 passenger in whatever alternate universe is at work in the show). Also in the room is John Locke, who is still filling in as a sub and chimes in with the opinion that because Ben seems to care so much about the lackluster way in which Reynolds runs the school, perhaps Ben should be the principal. Back on the island, the walk through the jungle continues and Ilana turns to Miles and asks him to use his skill as a ghost whisperer to hold the small collection of ashes she collected from the fire in which Jacob was burned up after he was killed and asks him to determine how Jacob died. Miles holds the ashes, works his magic and makes the stunning revelation that Ben killed Jacob. The rest of the group immediately turns on Locke, shooting him angry glares and walking on toward the beach with out him. They arrive at the former camp of the Oceanic survivors and no one talks to Ben. Ilana works on shelter and ignores him when Ben tries to talk his way out of the mess he’s in. Elsewhere on the island, Hurley wakes up from a night of sleeping on the ground and Jack is ready to head back to the temple after their visit to the lighthouse. Hurley does everything he can to stall that walk because of Jacob’s warning that someone very dangerous was coming to the temple, but Jack sees right through the ploy and insists that they get going. Their walk has barely begun when Richard Alpert comes tromping out of the jungle and meet them. Richard leads them in a different direction, ostensibly back to the temple. In Oceanic-land (life off the island in the alternate reality where flight 815 never crashed), Ben is at home with his father Roger, whom he killed on the island in the other reality (yes, it’s confusing) going on. Roger is in poor health and must use oxygen tanks, but the two men talk about what life was like on the island and how things may have been different if they had not left (a clue to exactly what’s going on with the two “realities” perhaps?). A knock at the door interrupts them and Ben opens it to find none other than Alex, Danielle Rousseau’s daughter from the island who Ben raised as his own and watched die in Season 4 rather than surrender to Charles Widmore’s mercenary team. Alex asks why history club was canceled and worries that without Ben, a.k.a. Dr. Linus, tutoring her, she won't get the grades she needs to get into Yale. Ben agrees to meet her in the library the next morning to help her study. On the island, Ilana forces Ben to dig his own grave for murdering Jacob and when Miles comes to offer him food, Ben declines and tries to bribe him with the $3.2 million that Miles tried to extort from him soon after arriving on the island. Miles refuses and also refutes Ben’s claim that Jacob didn’t care about being murdered. He says that that Jacob did care about being murdered and right up to the moment he died, Jacob hoped he was wrong about Ben. Out in the jungle, Richard leads Jack and Hurley to the Black Rock, the slave ship mysteriously beached in the middle of the jungle and which has been a prominent setting for several key scenes in the first five seasons of the show. Richard admits he has no plans to lead Jack and Hurley to the temple because he’s already been there and seen the carnage left by the BSM. He does offer a bit of hope, telling them that Kate, Sayid and the rest of their friends were not among the dead at the temple. Richard also reveals that the reason he doesn’t age is that he was once touched by Jacob and given a “gift.” When he learns that Hurley has spoken to Jacob, Richard says not to believe what he said, then takes off because he says he needs to do something – die. Off the island, Ben makes good on his promise to tutor Alex early in the morning in the library. While they study, she frets over her grades again and says that she really needs a recommendation letter for Yale from someone who went there and the only person she knows who did is Principal Reynolds. She inadvertently calls him a pervert and when Ben asks why, Alex reluctantly shares a story of being sick in the nurse’s office, falling asleep and waking up to the sound of Reynolds and the nurse having sex in the adjacent room where hearing tests are administered. Back on the island, Ben is still digging his grave. In the jungle, Jack, Hurley and Richard are inside the ship, where Richard opens the crate with dynamite in it and takes out a stick. He asks Jack to kill him, explaining that because of his “gift” from Jacob, he cannot kill himself even though he wants to. When Jack asks why he wants to die, Richard says that he devoted his entire life to Jacob’s promise that he was part of a plan and purpose bigger than himself and that with Jacob dead, his life was for nothing. Off the island, Ben visit Arnzt’s classroom and asks him to hack the school nurse’s email account to prove her affair with Reynolds. Arnzt agrees but strikes a deal that ensures him new lab equipment and a better parking space once been takes over as principal. On the island, Jack agrees to light the dynamite to help Richard blow himself up and a terrified Hurley flees for fear of being blown up. Curiously, Jack doesn’t flee and instead sits and down tells Richard they need to talk. When Richard worries that Jack will in fact blow up along with him, Jack reveals that he doesn’t believe that will happen. In fact, he’s sure it won’t. Why? Because of all the images of his life he saw reflected in the mirrors at the lighthouse and the realization that Jacob has been watching him since he was very young. If Jacob wanted him to come to the island so badly and had such a purpose for him, then there’s no way Jacob will allow him to die. His theory proves correct as the fuse fizzles out just short of detonation and a befuddled Richard asks what’s next. Jack says they need to back to where “it all started.” Off the island, Ben goes through with his plan to blackmail Reynolds, handing his boss a handful of 30 emails documenting the affair. In response, Reynolds counters with a little blackmail of his own. Alex has asked him for a letter of recommendation to Yale and if Ben goes through with his threat, Reynolds warns that he will “torch” her chances to get into Yale. The ball is in Ben’s court and he must decide if his aspirations mean more to him than Alex’s future. On the island, faux Locke materializes from the jungle and comes to visit Ben. Faux Locke says he doesn’t want Ilana to kill Ben and that once he and his followers leave the island, he wants Ben to take over control of it. To facilitate that, faux Locke frees him from the noose Ilana has tied around Ben’s leg and tells him to run to the Hydra station and find tree with rifle leaning up against it. This will give him the jump on Ilana. Ben tosses his makeshift shovel to the ground and runs with Ilana giving chase. He reaches the tree with the rifle and turns on her before she has the chance to raise her own gun. But instead of shooting her, Ben wants to talk. More specifically, he wants to explain why he killed Jacob. After watching Alex die at the hands of the mercenaries and essentially choosing to protect the island over his adopted daughter, he felt betrayed by Jacob and in his anger, he killed him. His request to Ilana is that she allow him to go his way in peace and she asks where he’ll go. He says he’ll join forces with faux Locke because “he’s the only one who will have me.” Ilana relents and walks away, but not before saying, “I’ll have you too.” Back off the island, Ben walks into Reynolds’ office and perhaps he’s followed through with his plan….but no. Reynolds walks in and Alex is close behind to thank the principal for his recommendation letter to Yale. It turns out Ben didn’t use his blackmail plot to force Reynolds to resign, but rather to get him to write the ltter for Alex and get himself off of detention duty and back to his history club. Arnzt is bummed that Ben didn’t oust Reynolds, but Ben’s day is made when he sees a beaming Alex skipping away from Reynolds’ office. The episode wraps up on the island, where Ben and Ilana return to camp and Ben begins the difficult task of attempting to fit in. Down the beach, Jack, Hurley and Richard arrive in camp and are greeted with hugs and smiles all around. The scene shifts to the water off the island, where we see periscope pop up from water and pan down to a submarine under the command of none other than Charles Widmore, When one of his sailors asks if they should stop at the beach because there are people there, Widmore says no and demands that they continue with their mission. What mission? Maybe we’ll find that out next week. Oh, and maybe Sawyer will come back from whatever rock he’s been hidden under the past several episodes…………
- Google has its own plans for speeding up Internet speeds in the United States, but Cisco has its own designs on the same goal. On Tuesday, Cisco unveiled a new Internet technology Tuesday that it says will provide the ultra-fast data speeds necessary to stay ahead of users' rapidly growing online video demands. The new technology, known as "CRS-3," is a network routing system that offer downloads of up to 322 Terabits per second (a terabit is basically 1 million bits). By Cisco’s estimation, the system will facilitate download speeds of 1 Gigabit per second for everyone in San Francisco, download the entire printed collection of the Library of Congress in 1 second and stream every movie ever created in less than 4 minutes. Cisco Chief Executive John Chambers attempted to slyly boast about the system’s speed by saying that one of the chief criticisms will be that its speeds and network capacity are not necessary. Cisco believes that multimedia apps for smartphones necessitate the speed and capacity. "I know this is not that exciting to the average consumer right now, but it is the foundation for future speeds," Chambers said. "When it comes to mobile devices, I want to get any video, anytime and be able to share that on any device in your living room. The foundation of that is the CRS-3." Those comments are right on point if you look at the growing reliance of smartphone customers on their mobile devices for more than calls, texting and other traditional apps. Videos and pictures take up bandwidth and wireless providers have been scrambling to update their networks to increase capacity for growing data traffic as smartphone sales skyrocket. For example, AT&T saw its network traffic grow 40 percent in 2009. Not so coincidentally, AT&T has reached a partnership deal with Cisco to use the CRS-3 system. With online video services like YouTube now offering high-definition video, the need for more bandwidth will only increase in the months and years ahead. If Cisco can back up its claims that the CRS-3 will triple the speed of its predecessor, the CRS-1 and offer speeds of up to 12 times faster than the next fastest product on the market, then they will make a killing on this system. And when I say a killing, I mean it. After investing $1.6 billion in the CRS-3 technology, you know the routers are going to cost a lot of money. Just one CRS-3 router will set you back $90,000, so save your pennies now if you want one. You have a few months because the CRS-3 won’t be available until the fall. I am currently in the vicinity of $89,900 short of what I need for a CSR-3 router, so if anyone wants to pool their money to buy one, you know where to find me…………
- For those of you who have been clamoring for a Donovan McNabb-Terrell Owens reunion, here’s your big chance. McNabb and Owens will team up for a basketball game on the new season of Spike TV's "Pros vs. Joes." They will be part of a team of NFL players that played college basketball competing against former NBA stars. How that’s “Pros vs. Joes,” I don’t know. They’re all professional athletes who were at least good enough to play college basketball, so what’s the point? Either way, McNabb and Owens will be on a team with and Antonio Gates and they will face Hakeem Olajuwon, Kenny Smith and Rick Fox. Of course, McNabb and Owens teamed up to lead the Philadelphia Eagles to the Super Bowl in 2004, but Owens’ egotistical ways and big mouth couldn’t stand prosperity. There were scenes of Owens screaming McNabb down on the sidelines as Donovan kept walking away and tried to diffuse the situation and there was Owens insisting that the team was not doing enough to get him the ball – in other words, the usual. Following the last of his battles of will with the team, Owens was cut midway through the '05 season. He has since made stops in Dallas and more recently Buffalo, where he spent this past season and caught and unimpressive 55 passes for 829 yards and five touchdowns. Owens is now a free agent and in his spare time, he’s preparing for the second season of his own lame reality show, which somehow managed to get renewed despite extremely low ratings, and also guesting on other equally crappy reality shows. He and McNabb have reportedly patched up their differences and are all good, which I seriously doubt. They may be good enough with one another to coexist on the set of a reality show for a few hours and ball, but just don’t tell me that these two are now pals and will be hanging out together during the holidays and vacationing together over the summer…………
- Dammit, stop persecuting stoners, world! It’s not just in the United States that potheads of all ages are wrongfully targeted for arrest, prosecution and general scorn from society’s squares and The Man. It’s also happening in Argentina, where a federal appeals court has ruled that a grandmother – a grandmother! - must stand trial for growing two marijuana plants in her backyard. Whoa, not two whole pot plants! That’s just excessive and dangerous. What’s astonishing is that Argentina actually allows personal consumption of marijuana. In fact, a federal judge issued a stay against prosecuting the unidentified woman, who swore she used the marijuana solely for herself. You have the word of a grandmother that she’s not selling the hippie lettuce and only using it for herself but you don’t believe here? What is this world coming to? The case probably would have died there, but the damn public prosecutor's office appealed the ruling and a federal appeals court overturned the previous decision because the woman lives with her two sons and a grandchild. I’m sorry, but how is that a problem? First, the woman says her sons and grandchild don’t use the tree and even if they do, so what? It’s their life and their chronic, so you all need to back off. I don’t know what this poor woman needs to do in order to prove the marijuana was solely for personal consumption, but I have all the proof I need. I summarily reject the findings of the three-page appeals court ruling and stand on the legal statute established when Argentina's Supreme Court ruled in August it is unconstitutional to punish an adult for private use of marijuana as long as the use doesn't harm anyone else. Smoking the hippie lettuce has never hurt anyone and always make the world a better place. Instead, Argentina shows its intolerance and makes the world an even more unwelcoming place for my friends the stoners…………
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Okay, so it was more of an organized union protest and not an actual riot, but I’ll overlook that fact and just enjoy the dissidence. That dissidence took place today at the World Trade Center site as members of the city's construction unions spent their lunch break today rallying in an attempt to break the stalemate between developer Larry Silverstein and the Port Authority. While it wasn’t an actual riot, I did enjoy seeing thousands of carpenters, iron workers, laborers and local residents show how ready they are to build two more office towers at the site, which has now stood mostly empty for eight and a half years since the fateful day of the 9/11 attacks. Although construction is already underway on the centerpiece of the site, One World Trade Center along with a memorial and transit hub, work on the remaining planned towers has ceased. "Let me finish by once again pleading with our partners on this job to sit in a room, lock the doors, don't eat, don't drink and come up with a solution that will benefit everybody," said Lou Coletti of the Building Trades Employers' Association. "It is a disgrace that nine years after this attack we are still looking at a hole in the ground," shouted City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. "That we are still fighting this fight." As angry as these union members and elected officials were, Lower Manhattan residents were equally passionate at the rally. The standoff is due to Silverstein’s demand that the Port Authority finance at least two of the three towers. Things have become so contentious that an arbitration panel has been forced to step in and set a deadline for Friday for an end to the fight between the two. If the two bickering parties can’t work things out by that time, the panel could impose a solution of its own or give both sides some more time to sort the situation out. I believe I speak for everyone involved when I say……just build the damn towers………
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