A few of my favorite bits:

Let’s start with the bad guys. Battalions of stormtroopers dressed in all black, check. Secret police, check. Determination to brutally kill everyone who doesn’t look like them, check. Leader with a tiny villain mustache and a tendency to go into apopleptic rage when he doesn’t get his way, check. All this from a country that was ordinary, believable, and dare I say it sometimes even sympathetic in previous seasons.

And:

So they invent a completely implausible superweapon that they’ve never mentioned until now. Apparently the Americans got some scientists together to invent it, only we never heard anything about it because it was “classified”. In two years, the scientists manage to invent a weapon a thousand times more powerful than anything anyone’s ever seen before – drawing from, of course, ancient mystical texts. Then they use the superweapon, blow up several Japanese cities easily, and the Japanese surrender. Convenient, isn’t it?

I love it.

Right now hey you. Okay bye. Yes, Hi. Hi  Josh, This. Goodbye  okay. Give  me  a  matter.  Yeah, Hello that. Yeah yeah if it yeah. Goodbye hello, this is possible. Hello, Well hello.  E Hi mate, Al  house. Hey delivery down, hi hey matter of fact, I’m alright. Bye. On mon  house. As far as going on. Hello Hello. This is hello hi hello Hey, Cool, Hello Hi Heath.

So apparently Google Voice is ran by a mix of Beatles fans, Jamaicans, Australians, and former UPS delivery men.

A few months ago, I started watching Lost from the beginning. I had been interested in watching it for a while, but finally took the plunge one evening, starting the first episode on Netflix Watch Instantly. I became quite enthralled by it, occasionally watching three or four episodes a night.

I finally got caught up to the present airing just this past weekend- just in time to watch the next to last episode on Tuesday. And of course, the big series finale is tomorrow.

I’ve enjoyed the show a lot, for the most part. There were a few missteps along the way, and I honestly hated season 5 with all of its time travel stuff. I’ve found it really cool that, whether planned or not, the monster from the very beginning of the series is playing such an important role at the end. I would like to know more about the island and what’s up with the light, as well as more about Jacob, the Man in Black, and their mom.

But I’m honestly not sure if I’m going to get all of that. Despite having really loved the show, I’m quite afraid that we’re all going to be “Stephen Kinged.” That is, the ending will be like many of Stephen King’s endings. In The Stand, he spent hundreds of pages having a team of good guys trek across the country to fight the bad guys, only to have the “end” be a nuclear bomb going off accidentally, killing all involved. In the Dark Tower series, he spent seven whole books having Roland chase the tower, only to have him thrown back to the start of his quest once finding it and getting inside. Ultimately, King seems to be good at writing really good stories, just not particularly good at finishing them.

I’m worried that’s going to be the case for Lost. A wild ride, but with an ending that just doesn’t bring much closure. After Jack was “made to be like Jacob,” they could even have the show end with Jack basically taking the helm of the island, holding out against the monster indefinitely into the future, until he can pass the torch to someone else.

I hope that isn’t the case, and I hope that the finale answers most of the questions that have been left hanging. But I won’t be placing any bets…

Lo and behold, when I arrived at the party place, bad driver fellow was there. Not only was he there, he was the brother of the birthday boy’s dad.

Suffice to say, when the mom introduced us to one another and asked if we had met, we just smiled and shook hands. Awkward, awkward…

Nicholas II of Russia

Tim Curry

See? Granted, Tim Curry looks like he might be a bit more fun, but still.  If someone would drum up some interest for a movie about Nicholas II, they’ve got the man for the part.

I got a chance to try the Starcraft 2 beta (multiplayer only), and on my first match, I was able to win in about 5 minutes, using a tactic from the original Starcraft. That’s not to say that it’s just Starcraft with a face lift – there were a lot of units I didn’t recognize at all – but it looks like a good deal of Starcraft skill will port easily to Starcraft 2.

I can’t really comment much on Civilization 5, as they seem to have not released a whole lot – a few screenshots, and a worthless trailer – but I figure, based on the series track record, that it will be excellent.

That particularly problem was solved today. I finally received my Otterbox Defender case, which turned my iPhone more into a rubberized brick than a futuristic Star Trek-like gadget. Actually, it’s still pretty Star Trek-like, just not as shiny and slippery, which is fine with me. It’s much bulkier now, but I would rather have bulky and protected than slim and fragile.

The only problem I have now is the oil slick issue that happens with the Defender. Air bubbles appear between the screen and screen protection part of the case, and it looks like you’re pushing around little puddles of oil. I tried the baby powder fix, which did work, but I couldn’t get it to work without seeing little flecks of baby powder on my screen. I may give it another try later, or just spring for a cheap anti-glare screen protector, which is supposed to fix it as well.

There was a wonderful xkcd comic to go along with this, but I can’t find it right now. Damn. It was the one showing an iPhone user flying away after using an app to save someone’s life; anyone have a link?

I bought the regular Goo Gone stuff (4oz for like $5) and had the gum out in about 10 minutes.

Anyway, she usually is wanting back into the house within a few hours, or at most, at the end of a day. This last outing, however, kept getting longer and longer. After a few days, I started to get worried. After a few more, I was fairly sure that she had either been taken (bad) or killed (awful). I was pretty bummed about the whole thing; she’s a good cat, and I didn’t much like the idea of her being kittynapped (I went there) or flattened by a car.

And then, the other night, as I was coming back from walking Zoë, I heard a cat meowing like crazy. It sounded like Sookie, so I called her, and sure enough, it was her; she started meowing frantically, jumped over a fence separating our yard from the neighbor’s, and ran to me.

I’m quite glad she’s back, but have two outstanding questions:

1. Where was she? Based on how she was acting, she was either a) taken by someone and then escaped or b) accidentally locked up somewhere, like a garage, then let out.

2. What did she bring home? As in, is she carrying a load of kittens in her?

I suppose the answer to 1 isn’t overly pressing; she’s back, and that’s what’s important. But 2… eh. Free kittens, anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

You see, I suffer greatly from browsitis, which is when you sit down at the computer to do one thing, and then look up three hours later, wondering where the time went while you were reading about Russian skyscrapers or looking at funny pictures of cats. I look things up on my phone, but I don’t really browse for long periods of time.

Related to buying the iPhone, something popped into my mind the other day. It’s highly irreverent, but a friend of mine said I should share it: I wonder if, whenever Steve Jobs dies, his tombstone will simply read “iDead”? Sorry, I know, that’s pretty awful.