Entertainment & Sports: March 2007 Archives

Yes, Sanjaya Malakar is a poor singer. He's a kid, so that's no knock against him as a person... but c'mon, he's one of the top 10 unsigned singers in the country? Ludicrous. I think it's hilarious that VoteForTheWorst.com has kept him in this long and that he'll get to go on the top-10 tour this summer. Idol fans shouldn't be upset, because in the end they'll have more votes than VFTW's followers and they'll get the singer they want, but in the meantime it's quite entertaining to see the horror of the audition round extended a few more weeks.

[VFTW founder] Della Terza claims Fox once issued a cease-and-desist order demanding he take copyrighted "Idol" material off his site, a move Fox confirms.

"Millions of fans of 'American Idol' vote for their favorites each season," the network proclaims in a statement, "and that success speaks far louder than the specious ramblings of any mean-spirited and insignificant Web site."

Della Tersa is undeterred. "They're as dumb as the 12-year-olds that write to us," he says.

"All we're doing is getting people to watch their show. ... You're idiots. We're [earning] you money for the sponsors!"

It's just a huge game, it isn't a matter of life and death. VFTW enhances the entertainment value of Idol immensely, not least because Simon Cowell has threatened to quit if Sanjaya wins. Let the circus continue!

Here's a pretty sweet spaceship size comparison chart. I'd host it myself, but the bandwidth could get excessive.

Here's another, interactive site about Starship Dimensions.

(HT: Donald S. Crankshaw and Deep Space Bombardment.)

"The man from Tallahassee" Ben asked for has to be Locke's dad. What's more, I agree with TeleValues who thinks that the con man who motivated Sawyer was also Locke's dad.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shouldn't get so incensed about "300"... doesn't he realize that 95% of Americans don't even know that Iranians are Persian?

Ahmadinejad also appeared to hit out at a Hollywood blockbuster called "300" that depicts a 480 B.C. battle between Greeks and Persians. Iranian officials and the public see the film as a Western attempt to vilify Iran's image.

"Today they are trying to tamper with history by making a film and by making Iran's image look savage," he said.

He's vastly overestimating the historical knowledge of movie-going Americans. Plus, y'know, this battle happened almost 2500 years ago.

This post won't make any sense to anyone who isn't up-to-date with Lost -- meaning that you watched "Par Avion" last night.

Here are my predictions. We know The Hanso Foundation is a major sponsor of the DHARMA Initiative and heavily involved in life extension research. Eyepatch told us last week that the "Hostiles" (a.k.a., the Others, of which Eyepatch is one) were on the Island long before the DHARMA researchers arrived. So, DHARMA went to the Island to do life extension research but there were people already living there... implying that the Others are actually extremely old themselves, far older than any of them look; some of them are possibly hundreds or thousands of years old.

Eyepatch also told us that the Others can leave the Island whenever they want but that it's hard to come back. He also implied that the Others prefer to be on the Island. Why? Because they start aging when they leave. When the Swan station exploded the Others' sonar beacon was damaged so the ones outside can't get back to the island. This is bad for them since they'll start aging. Perhaps the Swan station was a power source that used the strange magnetic properties of the location to power the beacon and the communication equipment? Or perhaps the explosion damaged the equipment, like some sort of electromagnetic pulse.

Did Desmond avert the end of the world when he destroyed the Swan station? It's implied that his fate was to turn the key, and what would be the point of the key if it wasn't able to prevent the Swan station from ending the world? My theory is that the Swan station or the magnetic location it covered somehow protects/protected the Island from being discovered, and that if it were allowed to overload then outsiders would have been able to find the Island. If the Island grants everyone who visits eternal life, then discovery of the Island could indeed precipitate the end of the world. So now that the Swan station is destroyed, is the Island still impossible to find? It would appear so, since Eyepatch was worried about the sonar beacon, but then he didn't seem to be particularly well-informed about ongoing events. Perhaps the magnetic anomaly was saved from destruction when Desmond turned the key, even though the station itself was destroyed.

So why did Bea Klugh ("be clue"?) want Eyepatch to kill her in last week's episode "Enter 77"? First off, there's a reasonable chance that she didn't die when she was shot. We know the Island can heal those with enough "faith", so it's very possible that Klugh and Eyepatch will both be revived after the main characters have leave their bodies behind. Perhaps Klugh knew that Sayed would torture her if she were captured and that she would reveal critical information, so she thought it was better to take her chances with a bullet. Similarly, why would Eyepatch thank Locke for throwing him into the sonic fence?

If these guys have eternal life, why are they so quick to embrace death? Either because (1) they aren't really dying, (2) they're protecting some idea that's even more important to them than living forever, or (3) they're afraid of some consequence of betraying the Others that's even worse than death. I'm thinking the most likely answer is (1). But Ben has implied (by claiming to be the "good guys") that the answer is actually (2). However, most people aren't eager to sacrifice their lives unless there's an imminent threat to whatever they hold dear, and neither Klugh nor Eyepatch had reason to believe that the Others' goals were in immediate danger.

So my overall theory is this: the Others are the guardians of some sort of fountain of youth. Many of them are extremely old, and despite their youthful appearances they can't have children. They abduct "good" people (and people with "psychic" powers?) to replenish/grow their society, and they reject "bad" people because who wants to live forever with a bunch of rotten apples? The Island is protected from discovery by the outside world by some sort of mystical force, but the force isn't perfect and sometimes people get through, including the Others, the DHARMA Initiative, and the Losties. The Others let castaways live on parts of the Island but do their best to protect their fountain of youth because they know the effect it would have on society if it were found. The Others were eventually forced to destroy the DHARMA Initiative because the DI was getting too close to the truth.

Meanwhile, Penelope Widmore and Widmore Corporation have lost contact with the DHARMA presence on the Island and have even lost the Island itself. Charles Widmore sponsors a yearly sailing race around the world, probably part of an attempt to relocate the Island. When the two Portuguese-speaking men at the listening station detect the explosion of the Swan station they call Penelope and tell her they "found it", obviously meaning the Island. They knew to look for magnetic anomalies, and the explosion was a big one. This means that Widmore Corporation is probably on its way to the Island and will arrive soon. Penelope seems like a good guy, but her father isn't and it's very possible that the Others will turn out to be acting in the best interests of the world at large. The Others' sonar beacon is destroyed, so they won't be able to get reinforcements (if they have any available off the Island) which will force them to team up with the Losties against Widmore.