Pre-"Jughead"

Now that you've already gone and re-watched both episodes from last week's mind-warping season premiere (watched by 20 million people, according to an ABC promo), here are two great articles with recaps and analysis to read over in preparation for tomorrow's episode, "Jughead":

Excerpt from Zap2It: It Happened Last Night's article:

In that scene, you'll remember Ben and Charles casually noting that neither can kill the other. Many of you might have simply chalked that up to Island will: after all, Jack and Michael have both had suicide attempts swatted down by the Island. But are we talking about Island will or the effects of major players in the Lost universe being unstuck in time? Remember what the increasingly important Daniel Faraday notes: the universe won't allow the creation of a new "string" of history. "If it didn't happen, it can't happen."

But there's an unspoken corollary to that: Everything that did happen, will ALWAYS happen. That's what course correction means. In short: Ben and Charles can't kill each other in London in 2005...because one or both die in the past. A past that hasn't exactly occurred yet, at least from the perspective of those two people at that particular moment. It's all relative. And it's all relatively awesome. And yet, completely and utterly baffling if you take it to its logical conclusion.

Excerpt from Entertainment Weekly's article:

Sounds like a time travel record. Sounds like a freak flag flown high. Sounds like what Season 5 aspires to be. Have you ever heard the title track, the one Dr. Chang listened to while feeding his baby? On the show, the tune starts skipping half a line into the refrain. The rest of it goes like this:

You can't make a record if you ain't got nothin' to say/ You can't play music if you don't know nothin' to play

Which reminds me of the song Lost used to open its second season, when it gulped hard and gave us the bizarre story of a man in a hatch that had to push a button every 108 minutes:

Make your own kind of music/Make your own special song

Make your own kind of music/Even if they won't sing along…

Translation: Yes, the producers do have a master plan. And now, it's time to play it out. Here's hoping it rocks.

Enjoy tomorrow night's episode, and feel free to discuss both last week's and tomorrow's in the comments!

Happy Birthday, Macintosh!

The Macintosh computer, the first personal computer in history with a mouse and graphical user interface, was introduced by Steve Jobs exactly 25 years ago.

This is the infamous Superbowl ad that started it all:

And Steve Jobs's dramatic demonstration on January 24th:

MacRumors, Apple Insider, and The Register all have interesting stories and retrospectives commemorating the occasion.

Two hours, twenty-two minutes

As the last few hours tick down, here's some reading that might help to get you (even more) in the mood, and keep your mind occupied so you don't go crazy!

That is, unless you haven't yet re-watched the entire series up to this point for review (or at least the three-part Season 4 finale) -- in which case, you'd better get started. There are only a few hours left, after all.

Chicago Tribune: Some answers from Darlton (Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse), in a nicely intriguing-yet-spoiler-proof package.

Zap2It: It Happened Last Night: I just found these articles this afternoon -- both entertaining and surprisingly thoughtful musings on individual LOST episodes, DVD releases, Mobisodes, etc. Here's the review of the Season 4 finale, though there appear to be posts for every recent episode.

Enjoy the three-hour premiere event, and feel free to post your theories, questions, thoughts, reviews, etc. in the comments!

The Inauguration Post

Barack Obama is now, officially, the 44th President of the United States of America.

You can follow the Inauguration on Hulu, below:

UPDATE: Hulu's live coverage is no longer available. You can watch the video of Obama's inaugural address below, and click here for Hulu's Inauguration section.

Three more days

With one of the best shows ever produced returning for it's fifth and second-to-last season on Wednesday, the anticipation is reaching feverish levels. For those who have already watched (and rewatched) the trailers and preview excerpts, Thursday's New York Times article about LOST's script coordinator and co-producer Gregg Nations won't necessarily help ease the suffering, but it's nevertheless an interesting read.

And with House returning from its six-week hiatus, and the fifth hour of thusfar-excellent Season 7 of 24 . . . it's shaping up to be quite a good week.

Note: Hulu has links to all of the show's episodes from the first four seasons here, though they're hosted by ABC and therefore need their media plug-in to be installed before watching. (And for those of you new to the series, the "Pilot, Part 2" is mis-labelled as the second episode, with "Tabula Rasa" being labelled as part of the first -- make sure to watch "Pilot, Part 1", then "Pilot, Part 2", then "Tabula Rasa", then "Walkabout", etc.)

SW: OT: Retold

I found this video a few days ago -- it's a fun summary of the Original Trilogy, by someone who hadn't seen it before. The real brilliance, though, is in the editing of the animation, especially with some of its blink-and-you'll-miss-them references and snappy humor. Hilarious for Star Wars fans, and still pretty funny for non-fans, I'd think.

Star Wars: Retold (by someone that's never seen it) - watch more funny videos

[via TheForce.net]

Evolution of Evolution of Dance

One of the most popular YouTub videos ever -- at the time of this writing, over 110 million views -- is Judson Laipply's "Evolution of Dance", which saw the release of it's official sequel several days ago. The original can be viewed here, and you can watch the new EoD rght here:



Let me know what you think of the new video in the comments!

24: Season 7

The second night of the 2-night, 4-hour season premiere event is upon us. The first two hours of Day 7 (aired last night), along with November's 2-hour prequel, 24: Redemption, can be watched for free (and with limited commercial interruption!) here, at Hulu (though they'll only be available for the next week, so watch them now). This season is already off to a fantastic start, and I can't wait for hours 3 and 4 to start in 13 minutes!

Apple's last Macworld keynote tomorrow

Now that we know Steve Jobs isn't dying (for those who were worried), we can all kick back and enjoy the show. I'll be following it here (if I don't wait for the video stream). I'm sad to hear that Apple isn't planning on coming back to Macworld; as many have said, it's looking to be the end of an era. Especially considering that Macworld was where Apple made many of their biggest launch announcements, I'm sad to see them go. Here's to hoping that they'll reconsider in the years to come (and that Steve starts giving keynotes again soon -- that guy can give a presentation like no one else!)!

Times for the keynote (via Engadget):

07:00AM - Hawaii
09:00AM - Pacific
10:00AM - Mountain
11:00AM - Central
12:00PM - Eastern
05:00PM - London
06:00PM - Paris
02:00AM - Tokyo (January 7th)