My Top 100 Movies
March 20, 2009
It’s taken a while, but I’ve finally finished compiling a list of my 100 favorite movies of all time, to go along with my other Top 100 lists (songs and albums). I’m working on a list of my 100 favorite TV series of all time, which I’m hoping to finish and post soon.
But until then, here’s the link to the list of my 100 favorite movies: https://bobbland.wordpress.com/bobs-top-100-movies/.
LOST Thoughts – S5 E9
March 19, 2009
Here are my thoughts on the ninth episode of Lost (season five), “Namaste”:
- How is it that virtually overnight, “LaFleur” morphs from a caring and benevolent flower-picker to a faux-intellectual egomaniac who compares himself to Winston Churchill??? Boy, Jack really brings out the worst in Sawyer!
- That was sort of a weird interaction between Jack and Juliet when she opened the door to the love shack. It was kind of like running into someone from college you hooked up with at a party that one time…awk-ward.
- I think that Phil, the unibrowed Dharma manifest checker/staff photographer, is on to Jack, Kate and Hurley. They won’t be having a hootenanny on HIS watch!
- And is it just me, or was Juliet kind of messing with Kate’s head a little bit and intentionally bringing Phil the “corrected” sub manifest at the last possible nanosecond before Kate ended up sharing cells and sandwiches with Sayid? That look Juliet gave Kate was like, “Back off…Sawyer’s MINE now, bitch!”
- Speaking of Sayid, let me see if I can get this straight. When a supposed hostile breaches security at The Flame station (years before it would become “Patchy Manor”), Radzinsky’s main concern isn’t the safety of his people – it’s that Sayid saw his cute little popsicle stick model?!? Is he afraid Sayid’s going to steal it for the 7th Grade Science Fair???
- By the way, would it have killed Jin to at least wink at Sayid when he threw him to the ground and pointed the gun at his head? I mean, anything to let him know that he’s not really a Dharma, he just plays one on TV.
- As for Mrs. Jin, it’s no wonder Korea is doing so well at the World Baseball Classic…even their women can hit for power! If Ben’s head hadn’t been attached to his body, Sun would have knocked it into the gap for a stand-up double.
- It turns out Amy isn’t just a mild-mannered Dharma housewife, after all. She’s also a submarine captain and the mother of…ETHAN ROM!!! I didn’t see THAT one coming, but it does make sense, other than trying to figure out why Ethan’s last name isn’t Goodspeed. Maybe Rom is Amy’s maiden name? If only Amy and Horace had realized their son’s name is an anagram for “arm he not,” they could have kept him away from guns and he wouldn’t have grown up to be such a creepy pregnant-lady-kidnapping-and-injecting psychopath. Chalk this one up to poor parenting.
- The only thing creepier than adult Ethan is young Ben. Are you SURE you really want to eat that sandwich, incarcerated Sayid??? It might be a peanut butter and anthrax! At least it’s not a hot dog, because Ben Linus happens to be an anagram for “bun in els,” and eating ANYTHING that had been removed from South Africa’s biggest golfer is a dicey proposition at best. Besides, the one thing jail cells and sandwiches DO have in common is that both are known for “five dollar footlongs.”
- Has there ever been a more ethnically confused name than Pierre Chang? I mean, even if you tried, the closest you could come up with would be something like Pedro Glickstein or Dieter Olajuwon.
March Madness Bracket Tips
March 15, 2009
It’s that time of year again, when cubicle jockeys from coast to coast try their hardest to win the office bracket pool, in hopes of funding their desperately needed and impossibly expensive hair replacement and/or penile enlargement procedure. I’m certainly no exception, which is why I’d like to offer some tips for filling out your bracket. These tips have served me well over the years, including an incredible finish in the upper tier of contestants in the 2003 Prodigy.com Big Dance Basketball Bracket Busters Contest (#32,147 out of 70,000, suckas!).
So, now that we’ve established my indisputable credibility as an expert prognosticator, please feel free to take my advice and follow these tips for virtually guaranteed bracket success:
- When trying to pick which teams will be upset in the first round, steer clear of those whose coaches are of Italian heritage (Pitino, Izzo, Calipari) and stick with teams coached by WASPs. Look back at just some of the coaches who were victims of first round upsets in years past: Lute Olson (Norwegian-American), Jim Boeheim (German-American) and Bobby Knight (Asshole-American), just to name a few.
- Teams who needed a hot streak at the end of the season (including their conference tourney) just to make the field of 64 probably don’t have enough left in the tank to make an extended run. They’ll probably still win their first round game, but are virtually an iron-clad lock to lose in the second round.
- Schools with confusing directionals or descriptors in their name (East Virginia AT&T, SW Paducah State, Bayou Tech) almost never pull off the big upset, but schools with bizarre mascots (Spiders, Mocs, Catamounts) have done so many times before.
- As rare as it is for all four (or even three of the four) top seeds to make it all the way to the Final Four, it is even more rare to have more than just a couple of notable early round upsets each year. Never have more than one double-digit seed making your Sweet Sixteen, and never pick a seed lower than a 13 to win a first round game. Lower seeds have won, but it is beyond rare, and not worth the risk. Stick with the more likely upsets in those 6-11 and 5-12 matchups.
- Even if it’s not a team’s official home arena, playing a regional within 1-2 hours driving distance is as much of an advantage as an actual home game. Single-digit seeds playing in these near-home locations almost always win, and should not be viewed as potential upset fodder. The inverse is true, especially for teams in the 5-9 range who have to travel cross-country.
Hopefully, you will find these tips helpful. I will post updates on my bracket throughout the tourney, to put my figurative money where my virtual mouth is…um, so to speak. Good luck and happy bracketing!
Happy 75th, Ruth!
March 14, 2009
I’d like to wish a very happy birthday to my mother-in-law, Ruth, who turns 75 today…here’s to many more!
LOST Thoughts – S5 E8
March 5, 2009
Here are my thoughts on the eigth episode of Lost (season five), “LaFleur”:
- The newly-shorn locks of “LaFleur” seem to indicate the presence of a Dharma barber, which makes it that much harder for me to understand why after more than four seasons wandering the island without so much as a Flowbee, the previously clean-cut Jin all of a sudden looks like the fourth Jonas Brother.
- Dharma also apparently has a climate-controlled supply of dynamite, because if Horace had attempted such drunken fuse lighting with the humidity-compromised stash found in the wreckage of the Black Rock, he’d have gotten Arzt-ed to high heaven.
- For being in the mid-’70s, Dharma is certainly well ahead of the technology curve, based on their earwax-igniting sonic fence and general early warning capabilities. After seeing the salacious look grown man Faraday gave little girl Charlotte, let’s just hope they were 20 years early developing the Amber Alert.
- Speaking of the aforementioned sonic fence, I noticed Alpert mention that he and his people are immune to its effects. Is that because he’s a ghost and can just float over it, or does living for hundreds of years leave you with a thick enough barrier of ear hair to repel even the deadliest frequency?
- I’m a bit confused as to how Juliet ended up on mechanic duty in the Dharma motor pool. Do her c-section skills directly translate to cutting out a catalytic converter from a VW microbus?
- You think Juliet’s going to want a do-over on not taking that first sub outta Dodge when “LaFleur” starts roto-rooting Kate’s esophagus with his Sawyer tongue?
- Seeing the giant statue in all its glory before the final flash was pretty bizarre. I wonder just HOW far back in time they were. I almost expected a pterodactyl to swoop in and carry Miles off like some deleted scene from Jurassic Park.
- Recognize that symbol on the necklace Horace’s baby mama Amy pulled off her dead husband Paul before completing the trade with Alpert for a corpse to be named later? I’m thinking there’s some sort of subtextual connection with the plot of Logan’s Run going on here. Either that, or Paul was a roadie for Blue Öyster Cult before joining the Dharma Initiative. Wait a minute…BÖC’s lead guitarist is named Buck DHARMA! Woah – talk about more cowbell!!!
- Any guesses as to the possible identity of Horace and Amy’s baby? He’s got to be someone who was born in 1977, so I’m thinking it’s either Charlie, Boone or Screech.
- Shouldn’t young boy Ben be amongst the 1974-77 Dharmites? Or did he and his drunk daddy, Uncle Rico, arrive on the island in the late ’70s? Something tells me we’re going to soon witness an encounter between child Ben and adult Ben. What will become of Independent George?!?
Nailing The Triple Lindy 