You've LOST me

Last night brought the conclusion of the fourth season of LOST. No spoilers, I promise.

I can't say the episode was a disappointment, only because it had everything a LOST-watcher once looked for, but the problem is just that, they've been on this straight line trajectory for a long time. Now, the actual plot may have many twists and turns, but quantitatively, we keep getting the same.

What really drew me to the show was the vagaries. Now the religious and sci-fi connections are painfully obvious.

I guess maybe I thought they were cleverer than they turned out to be.

The first season will forever hold its place in my mind as the most captivating storytelling to ever come out of a television screen. Back when I would eschew going out and instead hang out with the roomies to watch and debate the newest episode-- it was an event, as were the couple of marathon rewatchings I had.

But sadly, the thrilling promise of reinvention that last season's format-busting finale never transpired. I'll probably still watch, I do after all consume a ridiculous amount of content, but the bad feeling I got watching the first episode of this season turned out to be right, they've lost their way.

Limited Time Only

This blog is temporarily going selected access only. I'm not being mysterious as much as its not even really interesting enough to talk about.



Off to Vegas in 2.5 hours! YES!

Top men working on it... Top, men.

Oye. It had its moments, it was fun, but this movie was all over the place. Now, we're not talking Star Wars prequels here, but Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull suffers from undeveloped peripheral characters, over-complication, and a story that stretches the bounds of the genre mighty thin. eg,

Pointless character: "why do you have to return it [the skull] alone?"
Indiana: "Because it told me to." ........ yikes.

That 'pointless character' is some double-triple crossing agent working for whomever the plot finds necessary at a given moment. His character is painfully bland with a distinct lack of back story to the point where I wanted to shout at the screen, "Who ARE you?"

Indiana Jones always had a companion in the original trilogy, but he also got his fair share of solo screen time to do what he does. This time around he's surrounded by others, including a Marion Ravenwood who hasn't aged particularly gracefully.

The original movies were about the characters more so than the story lines engineered to get us from one cool action sequence to the next. And I would probably be okay with the level of story in this film had the new characters been captivating. By the time Shia LaBouef (whatever his name is) came on screen he was a welcome addition, he and Cate Blanchett offered some much needed believability.

As for the script, well, lets just leave it at this, I don't want to see Indiana Jones dealing with aliens. I just don't. Sorry.

On the plus side, the action scenes were generally very good. Good enough to generally forget about the story and ignore the side characters you wished weren't there. Karen Allen as Ravenwood is generally ok in these sequences as well (though nothing can replace the coolness of her 25-years-younger shot-downing incarnation).

One wonders why Spielburg and Lucas lost their ability to create compelling storylines with interesting characters, perhaps age has clouded their ability to make good guy / bad guy judgements.

But all that said, if you go see a matinee, and have your expectations in check, you should have a good time.

Screw It, I'll Walk

American Airline's new fee: $15 for first bag
David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, May 22, 2008

A word of advice for airline passengers: Travel light. Or else.

American Airlines announced Wednesday that it will charge most passengers $15 for the first piece of luggage they check.

Other airlines may soon follow suit, quite possibly marking the end of free bag checking that most passengers have known for their entire lives. Many carriers - including American - decided earlier this year to charge $25 for the second bag that customers check.

The reason? Oil.

This decade's stunning surge in crude oil prices has hit airlines hard. Each airline burns massive amounts of jet fuel, which is made from oil. And jet fuel's price has nearly doubled in the last year. If prices don't fall, American will spend $3 billion more on fuel this year than it did in 2007.

Airlines have hiked their fares in response, but not enough to cover the full increase in fuel costs.
So they're slapping fees on services that travelers once took for granted, such as schlepping bags.
"The bottom line is that our revenues, which include ticket sales and fees, must keep pace with our increasing costs," said Gerard Arpey, chief executive officer of American's parent company, AMR Corp.

The airlines are also taking far more drastic steps, such as eliminating routes and laying off workers.

Not just another sports story

Tonight Jon Lester of the Boston Red Sox accomplished one of those great feats in sports, pitching a no-hitter.

On any other day, for any other ball player, that would be the story, and it would be important enough.

Except that 18 short months ago he was diagnosed with cancer, Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

After the game, Lester was interviewed about the journey from treatment to tonight, “It was a long road back. When I did get back, I wanted to be at a certain level and I wasn’t at that level and it took a while. It was tough mentally and tough physically to go out and pitch every five days. It was a long road.

I’m just glad that I’m here at this moment right now - and in five days, I’ll go and pitch again.”

The world needs stories like this to inspire us and give us hope. At least for me, this was a good night for sports, and a story I really needed to hear.

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Lester adds no-hitter to unbelievable tale (Yahoo! Sports)

A Tale of Two Destinations

If I'm going on a trip there's a 90% chance I'm either going to a theme park or Vegas. So when an article appears in the San Fran Chronicle about both it quickly grabs my interest. Here's my personal take on a story of how the economic climate effected the two--

When I first went to Vegas it was during its familization period, where Vegas tried to become a family friendly theme park by adding attractions [including, of course, a theme park]. This coincided quite perfectly with my age at the time and, in fact, both Vegas and I grew out of it in much the same time frame. It was the period of highly themed hotels-- Excalibur, New York New York, and the Aladdin.

Vegas' next incarnation was ultra-luxury. To me it was just as much a put-on theme as the knights of the round, the big apple, or the middle east, except that now each hotel had more or less the same gak in it: Chanel, Gucci, Dior (with its obnoxious, disproportionately large D), etc.

Things were going great for he old Mafia town. Meanwhile, back at Disney, they were diversifying in the other directions, adding value-priced (okay, this is uber-relative) hotels and packages to entice a broader market spectrum.

So when this most recent recession (sorry, Bush) hit everyone expected the same results as had always happened in the past, Mickey would feel the hit while Vegas would keep on gambling into the night. Gaming is, after all "recession-proof".

But not so fast. Vegas had done SO WELL in their luxury play that it was now generating 59% of its revenues from $1,000 watches, $300 dinners, and $140 Cirque shows. Well, guess what ISN'T recession-proof? That's right. Disney, on the other hand, now offers a way to scale back yet still enjoy a vacation there.

Looks like the mouse was the better gambler this time around.

So at the moment I'm looking into upgrading my hotel for the Vegas trip I'm taking next month, as prices there are in quite the slump. But of course, I also have 1 day left on my Disneyland 2-fer pass I have to use soon.

For more info, check out the SF Chronicle article.

I always liked this picture

Airport Accidental

Recently I've seen two really cool looking airport reconstructions. The pictures don't do the visual memories justice, there was something really neat about the accidental imagery created at Louis Armstrong International where some protective plastic over a winged sculpture created this great Icarian looking thing and recilinear construction trussing contrasting with the smooth flowing lines of LAX's main terminal.... I wish I was a better photographer.