Filling Food. Unfulfilling Episode.

Eight long months of nothing but reruns and hunting for things I may have missed in the first five season of LOST came to an end last night as the final season premiered to lots of anticipation.

I won’t go into all the details. But here is a comical overview.

Bottom line is I felt the episode, “LA X” (a double entandre about the LA Airport where the flight terminates and how X marks the spot) fell considerably short of what we could have asked for. But I have put a lot of faith into the show over the last 5 years so if I could get thru Nikki and Paulo I can get through a slow episode or two.

What made the evening really great though (other then spending it with the wife and the dog) was the fun we had with the Lost-themed meal. On the menu:

Rousseau’s Nutty Baguette with Sayid’s Hand Pressed Olive Oil
Little Ben Linus’ Chicken Salad Sandwich
Hurley’s Famous Dharma-Ranch Dressing Fries
Sawyer’s “I’ll raise you a papaya” slaw
Frozen Donkey Wheel Sundae (with chocolate chip Frogart)

We did Dharma-brand labels and even had a full printed menu for the occasion.

Now I need to figure out how to top this for the final show (although I really hope that Liz and Jen over at the Washington Post will set up a giant viewing party).

Today’s Topic: Things That Are Lost

Yes we’re going to talk about LOST and the kick ass season finale but that will come in just a moment.

Topic One: Snub the President? Calling the IRS!
First I want to touch on our esteemed President, Mr. Obama. It seems that he had graciously accepted the invitation that Arizona State University extended to him. President Obama did not HAVE to go to ASU. He could have accepted any one of hundreds (if not thousands) of invitations to other universities and colleges around the country, including his alma maters (at this point I won’t yet get into the Notre Dame fiasco...although we do have to thank Alan Keys for making the GOP look even more backwards!) But POTUS did decide to go to Tempe, Arizona and give the commencement address to the thousands of students gathered at the football field. He opens with a great joke,

"I learned to never again pick another team over the Sun Devils in my NCAA bracket. And your university President and Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS."

And continued on to give the typical speech you’d expect...

Blah, blah, blah. The economy is tough, blah, blah, blah. Consider community service, blah, blah, blah, thank you and good luck.”

Ok the speech didn’t go quite like that (see the speech video here) but the bottom line was that all the students (should have been) were honored to have him there. That sentiment may not have been felt by the regents of the school however as they refused to confer an honorary degree upon the President saying in effect “he hasn’t accomplished enough yet.”. Um...he’s the freakin’ leader of the free world. So other then being the first black man elected president and other then bringing a sense of hope and change to most Americans and other then being an accomplished lawyer, community organizer, local, state, and federal politician yeah he really hasn’t accomplished that much.

Always the diplomat, Obama simply played it off and said (again to the effect of), Yeah I really haven’t done much yet. In effect he’s saying, just you wait. If they snub him again I wouldn’t be surprised to really see the IRS paying the school a visit.

Topic Two: Stop Flapping Your Arms.
Congratulations go to Jerry and Helen for winning their respective categories on the latest season of NBC’s The Biggest Loser. Helen kicked but and beat out Tara and Mike who were the two toughest people on the show. BTW: Tara, if you’re not doing anything next Saturday give me a call. (just kidding Mrs. Bloggerman!) But the real story was Jerry, who, as the oldest contestant ever (65) lost 170 pounds with most of them coming away from the “ranch”. He is a role model for all older people trying to loose weight but now that he has all that prize money I’m urging him to spend a few dollars and get those arms tightened up. They were flapping so much with extra skin that I was worried he was going to fly away and hit the lights in the tv studio they were filming in.



Topic 3: WTF!
What a great episode of Lost last night. I want to tell you all about it but I’m not sure of what I saw...plus there are those of you who read this who haven’t seen it yet (known as American Idol or Capitols Game 7 Suckas) so in deference to those two hate mongering groups I’ll simply point you to Jen and Liz’ Weekly Dueling Analysis in the Washington Post.

As a side note to that topic we went to the WaPo’s LOST Happy Hour at the Reef where we got to meet Jen and Liz and have a Jin and Tonic, Sex (with Sawyer) on the Beach, and Jughead Juice. No Dharma-tini’s though. Brendan is a light drinker.

How Long Will THAT Last?

Is there anything that the Old Farmers Almanac doesn’t know? We’ve always used it to predict how long winter will run (and by we I mean the weather man on TV) and when to plant squash but did you know that you could predict when you had to change out a major household appliance or even your vinyl siding?

Yep, it’s true. Tonight while searching online for a part to replace on my clothes dryer (while delaying watching LOST so that we can DVR out the commercials) I found this page on the Farmers Almanac.

How cool is that? Now I don’t have to guess when to replace my Microwave (oh wait we don’t own one) or my heat exchanger (not sure what that is). Still it’s cool.

Yummy....Dharma-Brand Bento Box!

I’m an addict. I admit it (isn’t that one of the first steps?). Lost is in my blood. I watch every Wednesday night along with my two favorite woman-folk. We crawl into bed and start to watch/analyze/cheer/complain/be scared etc once a week. I take it further, analyzing screen grabs, reading in-depth analysis and listening to podcasts. However I am no where close to “uber-fan” status as much as I’d like to be.

Sure I analyze the show while running out with friends on Saturday’s but I draw the line when making decisions about food. If given the choice between dharma-brand beer and a bottle of Blue Moon...well give me an orange slice and call it a day. The same goes for mangos. I won’t eat any mango’s that come with the “?” mark...I just won’t do it! But this fan, Pikko. She has taken her love for the show and her keen culinary design skills to take Lost from the screen to the Japanese lunch (bento) box

Take a look and happy eating!

The Morton's and Hurley's Got a Blog

Just like “The Google” or “The USA Today” we now have “Mortons the Steakhouse”. Are we really reduced to that point in our collective dumbing down process that we need to be told that Morton’s is in fact “the steakhouse”? Are there other Morton’s around that may not serve charred cow? Is there a Morton’s the Auto Parts Store down the street or Morton’s the Perodontist in the same town? See my point.

I would be completely fine with them calling it “the steakhouse” if there were other business in town that you might get confused with and especially if those other businesses were restaurants. I mean you couldn’t very well have two places in town with the name Morton’s if one were the steakhouse of fame and the other were say, a vegetarian chinese establishment could you? That just wouldn’t be right. No it would not.

Because I passed Morton’s (the steakhouse) during a rather long run this past Saturday, it got me thinking that they call it “The Steakhouse” because well, they serve steak there. But a look at the menu also shows a pension for fish, chicken, and even veggies. So is “the steakhouse” really an appropriate moniker considering all the other types of food they serve? I would understand if all they served were steak and perhaps a vegetarian option. In fact I imagine it might go like this:

Scene: a dimly lit, cozy, corner booth in Morton’s The Steakhouse. Dinner Time.
Waiter: What would you like to eat tonight?
Patron 1: What do you have on the menu?
Waiter: Well, we have our famous steaks and our vegetarian option
Patron 1: I’ll have a steak, medium
Patron 2: Well I don’t want a steak so I’ll have the vegetarian option.
Waiter: Very good, I’ll be back soon
About 20 minutes pass and the waiter comes back with the food
Patron 1: Oh this smells delicious
Patron 2: What the #$@#$#@$! This isn’t vegetarian, it’s a whole chicken. And it’s not cooked. In fact it’s not even plucked.
Waiter: Yes sir, that’s our vegetarian special. One entire chicken. And we don’t even kill them because we here at Morton’s The Steakhouse understand how important it is for you people to know that the animal you’re about to eat has not suffered any pain.
Patron 2: Yeah but it’s a raw chicken, how can I eat this?
Patron 1: Damn this is a good steak...look how nicely marbled it is!
Waiter: If you’d like I can bring you some steak sauce or ketchup perhaps. It might help moisten up those feathers.

Ok you get the point...it was a long run and I had a while to think about this.

To end this episode I want to point out another Blog of Note that has made it to my sidebar. Jorge Garcia (Hugo “Hurley” Reyes on ABC’s Lost) has his own blog, “Dispatches From the Island” that I’m going to begin checking out. I stumbled upon it when I learned that my man Duff had made the Lost 100th Episode Cake...take a look at the pics...very cool!

Until next time loyal viewers happy eating (steaks, cakes, or otherwise)!

Some Small Changes

For those of you who do more then just read the latest entry on this page there are a few small changes on the right hand side to see.

I've added a widget for fans of LOST on ABC. The widget will show you the latest posts from DarkUFO's LOST ScreenGrabs page.

The other edition is a list of blogs I'm checking out. Some will stay there for a while, some new ones will be added and others might go away if I get bored with them. If you have suggestions for other blogs to add (or additional content for that matter), please let me know.

Out. Rack me.