The LOST Game

The LOST Game

It seems my intuition about LOST was correct. A few weeks ago, I speculated that LOST is a combination of computer game, like MYST, and a TV show, like Survivor. This idea has been borne out by a CNET article, which you can find here:

http://news.com.com/2100-1026-5918146.html?tag=tb

LOST is a cross-media event. A key feature is the "alternate reality" game, of which LOST is one example. As fans have revealed on many discussion boards, an expanding number of LOST faux Websites sponsored by ABC lead adventurers on a merry chase for clues. I placed a few of these sites below, not because the list isn't available elsewhere in one form or another, but because it's helpful to have them all on a single page. This is good for my own reference, if no one else's.

The LOST sites (official ABC) that I know of follow:

Oceanic Air: http://www.oceanic-air.com/
Oceanic Air was the original LOST site, which I am aware of. It purports to show flight schedules and other data for Oceanic Air, but is really loaded with Easter eggs. You can find a seating chart that shows the castaways' names and where they sat on the plane, a page from a "script" for the show, and some pages of survivors' diaries.

Oceanic World Air: http://oceanicworldair.com/
According to the storyline, the original Oceanic Air went bankrupt after the scandal of the disappearance of Flight 815. Some time later, the airline was revived with a new name: Oceanic World Air. If you sign up for the Miles Plus program, you can get weekly updates from a character named Vincent Madison. The updates contain clues. You can also add your own theories to the Miles Plus bulletin board and earn extra "miles."

The Hanso Foundation: http://www.thehansofoundation.org/index.html
According to the film Locke discovered in the "hatch," Norwegian industrial magnate Alvar Hanso runs a foundation dedicated to furthering human progress. The foundation has active projects, which are listed on this site. Dig a little further, and you can find a message from a mole and some hidden letters. A hidden link under "Active Projects" leads you to the original Dharma Swan film, hosted by Dr. Marvin Candle.

King Cross State Police: http://www.kingcrossstatepolice.com
Once you solve the riddle of the snowman, you gain access to this site, which is run by Dr. Candle (supposedly). There is quite a bit of back story here, and the determined detective can spend hours sorting through clues, Websites and hidden files.

The Snowman: http://www.th3sn0wman.com
Dr. Candle's agent, the Snowman, has his own Website now. You can follow his investigations and even receive text updates from him on your cell phone.

PB Sales: http://pb-sales.com/businesses.htm
The Oceanic World Air site links to PB Sales as its publicity agency. PB Sales also has other clients drawn from fiction, such as Yoyodyne Propulsion. One of the other clients is an company called Merrick Biotech, whose site has been hacked by an organization known as Clonewatch. The gist of all this seems to be that cloning is a key component of the LOST mystery. Another PB Sales client, Geocomtex, has a site with some interesting things on the FAQ page.

The Santa Rosa Institute: http://www.srigenetics.com/srcareers.html
You can find this link under Careers on the Oceanic World Air site. Evidently, Santa Rosa has developed two new, controversial drugs: Genuflex (a life-extension drug), and Envigor (a drug that's supposed to allow people to extend their waking hours throughout the night). Clues indicate that these drugs are derived from zombie and vampire DNA.

From the Santa Rosa site, you can find a link to the Federal Vampire and Zombie Museum. This again hints to the zombie and cloning factor.

Mr. Clucks: http://www.mrclucks.com/
Mr. Clucks Chicken Shack is where Hurley worked before he struck it big in the lottery. His boss, Randy, turned out also to be Locke's boss at the box factory (which Hurley bought after winning the lotto). Clues change frequently: look for the buffalo.

Marvin Candle: http://www.marvincandle.com/
This is a site linked from the King Cross site. There's some code here, which you can figure out.

Globespotter: http://www.globespotter.com/
Check out the map.

Arelai: http://aralai.com/
A satellite photo map (Google) with coordinates (the LOST numbers).

Messing with MySpace

Messing with MySpace


I've spent the last couple of hours scouring the nether corners of MySpace. My curiosity has been piqued, so I decided to see what was available. So far, I've managed to find an old high school friend, as well as search for others. Unfortunately, it seems most people of a certain age are not up with the MySpace scene yet.

I also used the Thomas's MySpace Editor to add some color to the site. This will never replace my own home page on RoadRunner, but it's fun to play around with. I may try duplicate posts between my Blogger blog and MySpace one, if there's enough of an audience here. Or, I could just keep two separate blogs!

A few notes about MySpace. It seems SLOW. Editing and saving changes lags, as does watching videos or listening to music. I tried to find a band whose music I could post there, but the available free songs were--to put it mildly, awful. The music videos give "trash" a bad name also. Bustah Rimes and the Notorious BIG can bite my a**!

If you'd like to see my MySpace profile, here's the URL:


http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=34007287

The Final Week

The Final Week

On the Monday after Christmas, I went to fare spese at the Barnes & Noble here in Mira Mesa. It was a lot of fun--post-Christmas specials abound, and in combination with my just-renewed membership, gained me as much as 60% off some items.

For my shopping agenda, I used the gift cards people had gotten me for my birthday and Christmas. I had wanted to purchase the latest Star Wars movie, so I picked that up, as well as the 2006 Simpsons calendar, the book Freakonomics, and a Chronicles of Narnia calendar for Harold's boys.

Yesterday, Harold and I drove up to the DMV in Poway to straighten out the mess created when they didn't record the results of my eye exam in November. I quickly finished that up by retaking the exam and we (Harold, his son James and I) left the DMV within a half-hour of arriving. We spent the rest of the afternoon having fun with the Atari Flashback. Harold's kids still live in the virtual 1950s, so the Flashback's 2600-vingage games seemed newfangled to them. It was funny to watch them try to steer their tanks in two-person Combat. They didn't know how to work a joystick, so they just spun their craft around in circles, whining, "Daddy! I caaaaan't make it stop!" You may rightly believe video games to be a worthless waste of time and money, but a little hand-eye coordination is not a bad thing.

Today has been really quiet. I'm just working on writing. Tomorrow, I'll register for SD State's Writers' Conference, which takes place at the end of January.

'Twas the Day after Christmas

'Twas the Day after Christmas

This weekend, we had a very pleasant Christmas holiday as a family. Saturday evening, I went to Mass with my parents, Dorene, Richard and the boys. We attended the 5:00 PM Mass in the general hall, since my parents volunteered to read for it. Not surprisingly, most lectors choose first to read in the main sanctuary, where all the elaborate decorations, the big crowds, and the full choir can be found.

After Mass, we drove to my parents' home and had dinner. The dinner was buffet style, with cold cuts of turkey, ham, cheese, rolls and salad. For dessert, we consumed Mrs. Smith's pies. My mother has decided, thankfully, that the stress of baking homemade apple pies is not worth the result.

Tien and Alicia and their four boys also came down to celebrate with us, and after dinner we retired to the living room to open presents 'round the tree. Most of the presents were for the children, with us adults giving each other a few items. My big haul included a gift certificate from my parents toward the purchase of PowerStructure, and a nicely framed photograph of them in formal attire from their recent New England cruise. Dorene made me her special banana bread and cookies, which I am slowly working on.

Monica gave me a fun gift--an "Atari Flashback" game console. It looks like a half-sized Atari 2600 video game machine (I think it used to be called the "Atari Video Computer System"). Last night I hooked the simple connectors up to my HDTV and had a nostalgic blast playing Pong, Asteroids and Centipede till midnight. At one time, I owned about 50 games for my 2600; the machine was a sanity-saver back in 1982, when I brought it into Sharp Hospital and Harold and I used to play games on it till the wee hours of the morning. Although the new video game consoles, like the Xbox 360, are infinitely more sophisticated, the old games are endowed with an irreplaceable, charming simplicity. I guess it's possible to feel nostalgia toward an old video game console the same way my grandparents waxed nostalgic over the pre-war days of radio.

Yesterday, Christmas Day, was very quiet. Dad and I drove down to Linda Vista to pick up my uncle, then we sat at my parents' table and enjoyed a dinner of turkey, ham, dressing with gravy, stuffing and rolls. This was topped off by Mrs. Smith's wares again. I brought cards for everyone, since that was about all I could handle financially this year.

In a while, Clarence will arrive and we'll head to Barnes & Noble to check out the post-Christmas specials. I still have a lot of gift cards to redeem from my birthday.

Its Almost Christmas!

It's Almost Christmas!

This is the day before Christmas Eve. I've completed pretty much everything I've set out to do, except fill out a few more cards (for my family and closest friends). I'm not giving the nurses cards or presents this year--it's just business.

Tomorrow evening I will head out to Christmas Mass with my family. Dorene and the boys will be down from Northern California and will be spending part of the week at my parents' house.

This yuletide has been a warm one. Today has only been hovering in the 60s, but earlier this week the thermometer hit around 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

One more week, and 2005 will be history. Certainly it hasn't been the horrible year 2004 was for me, but I'm anticipating better things to come in 2006!

You Big Ape!

You Big Ape!

I went to the opening of King Kong yesterday evening. Hollywood must be short of blockbusters this year. The movie was three butt-numbing hours of screaming blonde and rampaging gorilla. As the review in Le Monde asked, "why does it take Peter Jackson twice the time to tell the same story as the original did in 1933"? Basically, there are two reasons why: lethargic plotting and overblown special effects. The opening sequence in New York was overly long, and while I liked much of the Skull Island action, I felt that one scene of dinosaurs mashing people was enough. The giant bugs were cool, though.

Like The War of the Worlds that I watched on DVD last week, the main problem with Kong was simply that it's an old, tired and outdated story that has too many miles on its literary and cinematic odometer. Previews for films debuting next year looked bleak too: yet another Mission Impossible and a remake of the 70s disaster flick Poseidon Adventure (now shortened to merely Poseidon).

Hollywood is bereft of original ideas. Guys, you wonder where your slump originates? Check your scripts!

Another really annoying thing about the movies nowadays is the ads. Before the film even started, we were subjected to ads for Coke, TV shows, cars and movies just out on DVD that had appeared in the theater mere weeks ago. Does it not occur to the movie moguls that the audience is a wee bit peeved at paying $9.50 for a ticket and then being subjected to more commercials than appear in an hour of Lost? At least at home, I can fast-forward through the ads with my DVR.

Corporate greed is killing culture, just like it's killing the American worker with the Wal-Martization of industry. The blockbuster mentality kills books as well. Publishers will scoop mountains of cash into the next Harry Potter or Da Vinci Code clone, but starving young authors receive not even mere crumbs from the big guys' plates anymore.

Morituri

Morituri

Early this morning, Stanley "Tookie" Williams was put to death in San Quentin State Prison in California. Putting feelings about Williams's guilt aside, I would just like to note that this is another victory for the "pro-death" wing of the Republican Party.

I had a long discussion about this with Clarence, one of my home nurses, who is as black as Mr. Williams. "He deserved it; he killed a lot of people," Clarence said. Indeed, Williams was a bad man. Therefore, the argument goes, he did not merit clemency.

But, I must ask, when does clemency apply to "good men"? If you are not on Death Row for having committed murder, then why are you seeking a pardon from the governor? Schwarzenegger noted in his remarks denying clemency that Williams had not confessed to his crimes, and that without "repentance" there can be no "redemption." Using religious vocabulary, the Governator assumed the role of Pope.

Yet, what does the Pope say on this subject? The late John Paul spoke often of the dignity of each and every human being, and the "seamless garment of life." If you are pro-life, then you must be pro-life from the moment of conception to the moment of death. Nothing else will do.

They used the excuse of Williams's lack of repentance to carry on with the execution. But, when Governor Bush ruled Texas, he gleefully put Carla Fay Tucker to death, even though she had confessed, adopted Bush-style born-again Christianity and thrown herself on the mercy of the state. It's a no-win game, this death penalty. Russian roulette with all cylinders loaded. If the convict maintains innocence, then he or she must be without a conscience and therefore worthy of death. If the convict confesses all and repents, then the confession must not be "sincere."

Pro-lifers of the Republican ilk always proclaim their desire to protect the lives of the innocent. Yet, what of the 122 death-row inmates across the country who have either been exonerated or had their penalties re-evaluated due to corrupted evidence? In speaking of repentance and redemption, politicians like the governor invoke the mind of God. Who else but God can know the soul of a man? Yet, God said "My ways are not your ways." In Genesis, Abraham pleaded with God to save Sodom and Gomorrah if even one innocent man dwelled among a city of sinners. How, then, can our government set itself above God, and set about to slay the guilty alongside the innocent? Where is the justice in the American way of death?

Capital punishment is a game in this country--a vile, sordid and political game played out for the most cynical purposes. When the state takes the life of an "evildoer" (to borrow a phrase from Illustrious George) people like Clarence are fooled into believing justice has been fulfilled. Nothing can be further from the truth. In a land without justice, killing one man provides nothing but an empty, nihilistic sense of vengeful fulfillment.

What the Republicans, establishment Democrats and oligarchic theocrats want the public to do is shut up, go to work in their crummy, low-wage jobs without healthcare and continue to put themselves out of work by slouching through the aisles at Wal-Mart in a perpetual search for Chinese-manufactured, crappy products.

The death penalty is a platform for demagoguery--nothing more. Global warming? Forget about it: Tookie Williams has met the needle. 2140 soldiers dead and $300 billion blown in a futile Iraq war? Forget about it: Tookie Williams has met the needle. Hurricane Katrina? Forget about it; the world is OK because the State of California has put one man to death in cold blood.

A la recherche....

A la recherche....

Last Saturday, Harold and I drove down to USD for the annual Alumni Mass. This year's was special, in that I and the other Bishop Buddy Award winners received a medallion at the end of the mass. The medallion is quite attractively designed--I'll post a picture on my Web site as soon as USD forwards photos to me. After the mass, there was a reception in Founders Hall, near the French Parlor. I got to meet a few of the other winners, and some old alumni. The university's new president, Mary Lyons, greeted us all pleasantly and she appeared to really want to make the event worth remembering.

Since we arrived an hour before mass, Harold and I wandered around the old grounds a bit. Many changes have occurred in the last 28 years since I graduated. What was once the cafeteria is now a small arts building. Inside Camino Hall, we passed what used to be named "Camino Theater" and is now "Shiley Theater." Back behind the theater, down a side corridor, we slipped through an unmarked door into the music rooms. There is a narrow corridor with small rooms on either side, in which students can practice on upright pianos. Harold and I entered one and he sat at the bench and played Debussy's Arabesque and some Liszt. A student heard him playing, and dropped by to watch, fascinated. He told us that he too had been practicing Arabesque and wanted to demonstrate how he plays it. Although he missed a few notes, his technique showed promise.

USD has preserved its traditional, Spanish Renaissance architecture. The floors are still tiled in deep red. Tapestries still drape along the white-plaster walls, dark, heavy European furniture still sits in the foyers. The sounds, the way the light reflects, the smell of cleaning fluid, wood and dust, almost made it seem as though we had gone back in time 30 years. Has it really been that long? Tom Wolfe said "you can't go home again,"  but I believe if you keep a place and time close to your heart, you can always return for a visit.

On Tuesday evening, I attended my final Technical Communications 1 class for the quarter. Bonni devoted the final session to questions and answers, and the time passed swiftly and painlessly, considering it's December and everyone has his or her mind on Christmas shopping. The course was very well designed, Bonni is an animated, involved lecturer who makes able use of humor to keep things flowing. We awarded her a round of applause at the end, which she richly deserved. (All this commentary assuming I receive an A, of course!)

I'll be seeing Bonni and a few of my fellow students next quarter, when I take "Critical Thinking for Technical Communicators." One of the books for that course is Freakonomics, which I planned to read anyway.

Tonight, my parents are coming over for the first time in a few weeks. We will watch Spielberg's War of the Worlds. I hope it's good!

Flash This (Fiction)!

Flash This (Fiction)!

This week, I've embarked on an ambitious new project to write a flash story a day. So far, I've written two. Each one's between 800-1100 words long. I probably won't be able to keep this pace up, but I want to practice for next March, when I take Judy's Flash Fiction class.

Tonight, on to another story!

On another front, I was surfing Ralan.com yesterday and came across a sad announcement. Ellen Datlow's fine e-zine, SCIFICTION, is no more! The geniuses at the Sci Fi channel have discontinued it. What a shock! What a loss for both the SF reading community and the SF writing community. Though I never got to sell a story to SCIFICTION, I had hope up until now. It was the best-paying short fiction market in SF.

What brilliant folks, the Sci Fi Channel executives are? Have you seen the TRIPE they run on that network? Tonight they have something called Manticore, about a beast running around Iraq. Terrorists are behind raising it from the grave, of course! And the brave Americans must put it back in its place. Please!

On other SF fronts, LOST continues to do well. With the "tailies" and the "fusies" merging, the series seems more and more like a cross between Survivor and the computer game, MYST. Two tribes, mysterious "hatches" filled with buttons to press, films that hint at more information, and number puzzles. If this isn't MYST for TV, I can't think of what would be.

Invasion finally got its "sea legs" yesterday. We got to behold the glowing alien creatures in their golden glory. They remind me of a manta ray with tentacles. The part with the young, naïve deputy dismembering himself with a chainsaw (after the evil alien sheriff convinced him to do it) was chilling and priceless. "Dave" on the show remains its most memorable and entertaining character. I'm not just partial to him because my name happens to be Dave, either!

CBS just cancelled Threshold this week. I thought the show had promise. It was the fastest-paced, most accessible of the new SF programs this season. And the little person who played the linguist-hero was a riot! I hope he finds more roles, in longer-lasting venues. Maybe he can team up with Michael J. Anderson for a remake of The In-Laws.

Also, it seems Night Stalker has disappeared from the Thursday night lineup. Duh! It was up against CBS's strong Thursday lineup. All network execs are idiots, I have decided. The producers of Night Stalker screwed up too, when they substituted a young, angry Mulderesque character for the original, rumpled, Columbo-type guy. The show flattened out, sans the self-deprecating humor of the original 70s series. We already lived through seven years of The X Files, we didn't need a copy of it now.