Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Computer Status, Television, Books

Maintenance: So, my job had assigned me a very nice laptop computer. When stepping out of my car about a week and a half ago, I dropped the computer, completely ruining the display. I basically have no laptop, which means I'm currently having to retreat to my office to blog, which is not SOP here at The Signal Watch.

I am unsure if the work computer will be replaced, but I do know its making it a bit of an effort to actually write anything at the moment as I've been forced into having to sit at my desktop computer like its 1995 or something.


Television: My cable package is as ever-changing as the T-1000, and so I was surprised to see a new channel added to my HD line-up this evening, "CI". I believe its "Crime and Investigation", which seems to translate to cop shows in re-runs, such as "Crossing Jordan". But it also includes "Twin Peaks". So, I spent a part of the evening watching episodes of "Twin Peaks".

In the week when "Lost" and all of its mysteries went off the air, free of its own will, and with its own producer-determined conclusion, it was interesting to see "Twin Peaks" at its height, with Leland Palmer/ BOB revealed as the murderer, and to ponder that had Season 2 not gone so horrendously off the rails, at some point "Twin Peaks" would have had to come to some conclusion, and let's be honest... wrapping things up was never David Lynch's style. Would the audience have been dissatisfied had the writers not explained The Black Lodge other than in the magical abstract? Or given a life history of BOB? Explained who, exactly, Cooper's Diane might be, and was she actually receiving the tapes?

But, ah... Sherilyn Fenn...

I've been a bit surprised at the flack "Lost" took on Facebook as the switch has flipped and the audience seems to feel gypped by the entire sixth season. Perhaps my aforementioned "casual observer" status had me preset to just accept whatever "Lost" put on the table, but I have to also wonder: seriously, what did the audience who felt the finale let them down expect? I have no idea.


Books: I'm currently reading "The Man with the Getaway Face". It's aces. And I am going to go off and finish it now, if you don't mind.

6 comments:

Ransom said...

I did the same thing to my personal laptop a few years ago. I was getting out of my car, and I had my laptop back in one hand. Unfortunately, I had neglected to zip shut the laptop back, so when I stepped out of the car, it fell out of the back onto the asphalt. Alas.

The League said...

yeah, my bag is pretty good for one you get at Target, but I didn't close the plastic clasps. It was truly slow motion horror watching the computer flip out onto the pavement.

Ransom said...

The worst part about my experience: The laptop could be fixed and returned to normalcy, but only for some obscene fee, because I broke the one thing that was the most difficult and costly to fix. Alas.

The League said...

I told my bosses about the busted computer, but they never responded. I am stuck in some odd, busted-laptop purgatory.

Anonymous said...

Well, I'm coming to this conversation late. I just watched the finale of Lost. This is from a person who watched the entire first season, one quarter of the second season and then an average of 2 episodes every other season. I basically gave up on watching Lost not because it wasn't good but because it was effort and when my life is crazy (which it was) I don't put forth much effort in entertainment.

Therefore, from what I gathered, and what struck me as a let down is the finale became some hokey mysticism ending which kinda obviated the first four to five seasons. When I started watching in the first season, what got me excited at watching it was that it was a survival/sci-fi/mystery. I love survivor stories. So the sci-fi stuff was awesome. The survivor issues that group encountered trying to live on the island was awesome. The whole mystery/conspiracy was awesome. The ending basically threw all that out like a red herring. Instead of a something explaining about Dharma and all that, I get a hokey we're all in this together humanity heaven thing. Now I know I really can't talk since I checked out of Lost a long time ago but seriously, all that work came down to some purgatory mellowness for Jack? So I think that's what people are griping about.

-NTT

The League said...

NTT, I actually agree that I enjoyed the show more when that was the focus. But having had watched the last three seasons, I can tell you that the show had abandoned most of that angle a while back. So if 1/2 to 1/3rd of your show has seemingly been leaning in the pseudo-spiritual direction, I think deciding the last fifteen minutes ruined the whole thing is a bit off the mark.

I also think people largely misunderstood the ending, and I'm trying to parse what you're saying here. Despite some fairly concrete statements that the "sideways" flashes were the afterlife, somehow a HUGE part of the audience decide it meant the entire show had been Jack's purgatory. But that wasn't what they were saying. Just the vision of LA in which our heroes got what they really wanted was the purgatory.