Now that "Lost" is over...

Okay, I for one, liked the finale. Was it perfect? No, but finales rarely are, especially when they are for a show like Lost with so many strange story lines to begin with. There is no chance of making everything close out all nice and tidy with a pretty bow on top. It's nearly impossible, unless you want the show to go on for a few years.

A few thoughts:

No, they were not dead the whole time on the island. I've been hearing, and reading, a lot of people saying the Losties were dead and this was purgatory. No. Go back and watch the finale. Listen to Christian in the church. He says they built this place (church) to find each other. Basically, they made such deep connections on the island that they all met there when they did die so they could move on together. The whole sideways world was a kind of purgatory, I guess, where they found each other so they can meet at the church.

Part of the problem I think some people had was the timeline. The meeting at the church was not really happening right after Jack died. Hurley and Ben let you know that when they tell each other how good of a job they did on the island when Hurley was running things. Also, Sawyer, Claire, Kate, Miles, Lapidus, and Richard all made it off the island to make a life for themselves for a while. How long? Who knows. It doesn't really matter. Their story ends after they leave the island for good.

What was the deal with the light cave, the hieroglyphs and all the weird stuff like that? I think that was just to let us know this has been going on a long time. There has been a protector of the island for ages. Why? Again, that's not the story. The story we are being told is of the people on the island this time around. The story is how these people, who are lost and alone in life, make connections that last a lifetime. And beyond. The island is just a secondary or tertiary character at best. At the same time, I did like all the skeletons that were found in the glowy cave. Obviously people have tried the same thing Jack and Desmond did in the past.

In short, yes, I liked it. For a show like that it's about the best you can hope for. But, I'm not a TV critic. There are many other people out there who can give a longer, and deeper, discussion of the finale.

But, I didn't have an idea for some spin-offs. Ready?

Smokey and The Bear: Follow the smoke monster and the polar bear as they travel the island to look for innocent people to scare to death all through history. Good times. I would only expect this to last one season. Maybe half.

A*F*T*E*R*Lost: Follow Ben and Hurley and as they wander the island to find people to help. It's a new regime, people. As castaways wash up on shore, Ben and Hurley treat their injuries (with Ghost Jack's help) and help them build rafts to get off the island. Special guests to include; Donnie and Marie Osmond, David Hasselhoff and a special appearance by the Harlem Globetrotters.

Sawyer, P.I: This is perfect. Sawyer is a PI, Ben is the stuffy, uptight caretaker of a mansion that Sawyer get's to live in for some reason. (Yes, Ben would be on two shows. I don't expect A*F*T*E*R*Lost to last long). Along with his buddies; helicopter pilot Lapidus, slick restaurant manager Sayid, and police officer Miles, Sawyer helps people with their problems. Usually the problems will involve solving a murder, or preventing one, and stopping drug traffickers. Hey, it's not the 80's anymore. Occasionally, Sawyer's long lost love, Sun, will show up on the island. She can't stay and leave her family behind, but she still loves him. Come on, who wouldn't watch this?

Two Girls, a Ghost, and a Baby: Kate and Charlie's ghost help Claire raise baby Aaron since she is a little nutty for a little while after coming home from the island. Oh, the fun dates Claire will go on and while she's still crazy lady. It will be great!

That's all I can come up with right now. Let me know if you think of any.

Weekend Assignment #285: Lost and Found

Since I was a slacker and didn't get to Karen's last assignment in time, I making sure to get this one done quickly. Karen's assignment of the week:

I'm going to combine the main question and the extra credit all into one. I hope that is okay with you. Too bad if not.

I can't remember exactly when this happened, but it was close to ten years ago. At least eight. I think. Anyway, it was a cold and snowy January (maybe February) night. Jenn and I had just gotten home from a dinner at Chevy's and I just come in from taking our puppy, Cosmo, out. I noticed something was different as soon as I took my gloves off. May hand, more specifically my left hand, felt weird. The usual rubbing of the wedding ring on my pinky wasn't there.

Since I'm a typical guy, I didn't say anything to Jenn at first. I went up stairs to check my dresser. Maybe I forgot to put it on this morning, I thought. Nope, not there. It wasn't in the bathroom. Not in my coat that was hanging up. It didn't take Jenn long to figure out something was up. So I confessed, my wedding ring was missing. I looked around the house. I looked as best as I could outside where I took Cosmo out, and out around the car. Nothing.

We both figured I dropped it outside the restaurant when I took my glove off to get my car key out of my pocket. I don't remember if we called the restaurant, but we probably did. Jenn wasn't mad. She knew it was an accident. Somehow, all those times I played with my ring, I never lost it. That would have been bad, this was understandable.

Since I had recently finished my second round at school, and we were paying bills back, we didn't rush out to get it replaced. It's not like I went out to bars a lot anyway. Nobody was going to think I was available.

Well, since the title gave the climax of the story away, I'll jump to what happened.

Sometime in March we were doing some spring cleaning. The place we were in was pretty small, and we didn't have kids yet, so it wasn't a tough task. As I was moving some stuff around off to the side of the patio door, something shiny caught my eye. Yep, my ring. See, I was right about it coming off with my glove, just wrong about the location. This was the patio door I always took Cosmo out, and when I took my glove off by the door it must have flew behind the speaker that was right there. See, sometimes it pays to procrastinate when it comes to replacing things!

At least it was a happy ending, right? I've never lost my ring again. But, I have forgotten to put it on at times. Usually when I've hit snooze one too many times before work.

In real life

I've been absent from here a few days, sorry about that. It's been a busy week. I've been on the afternoon shift at work, which always makes things a little more interesting, and we've been busy around the house too. I don't want to say why yet, if everything works out I'll let you know of course.

But, one fun thing did happen this weekend. I got to meet a blogger friend, in real life and everything! It was a little surreal to think about it at first. It's not like I know many people from here anyway, but actually meeting someone who I've never met yet, at the same time I know, was strange, cool and fun all wrapped up together.

See, Florinda was here in town for the BlogHer convention, so after several e-mails, and work tweaking, we got to meet downtown for lunch on Saturday before I had to go to work. It was fun, but way too short. I only had about 90 minutes before I had to fight traffic to make it back to work on time, but it was totally worth it. I had a good time, and since she hasn't blocked me from Twitter yet, I guess she did too. I did feel like I was talking at an extremely rapid pace, but sometimes I do that when I'm a tad nervous, and when I only have 90 minutes to tell my life story. Good thing I didn't have any caffeine to make it worse.

The funny part is that we would have had a little more time to talk, but I got a little lost. I don't drive downtown much, hate the traffic, but I did okay there since it was right off of Ohio street. For those of you not from Chicago, that is the street you get off the tollway from, in that area at least. I was fine there, the problem came after parking. It was one of those garages where you pull in on one street then come out somewhere else. Or so it seemed. All I know is I came out of the garage and I was totally turned around. I called Jenn for some help, but she couldn't help without seeing where I was. Then I remembered I had GPS on my phone! Somehow I got a decent signal, figured out which direction to go (the opposite of which I was heading) and started to jog to the restaurant. I'm sure I looked like a total goober. So, in short, the person who has lived in the Chicago all his life, was slightly late meeting the person who had never been there because he was a little lost.

Anyway, we had a nice lunch, talked a bit about the conference, family and the city. We didn't have enough time at all, but it was still great meeting Florinda. She said her and her husband plan to come back to town, so hopefully we can get together again. This time I'll have Jenn with to guide me.

One thing I wanted to do was take a picture with both of us in it to post here, but I forgot. See, goober. Want to know what pictures I did remember to take that day? Take a look:

Yes, I took pictures of in the parking garage so I could remember where I parked. Nerd!

Anyway, Florinda, thanks for taking time out from your convention to meet me for lunch. I hope I didn't talk your ear off.