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Posts Tagged ‘Lost’
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
Normally, I write these blog entries a day or two in advance and then have them scheduled to automatically upload at a certain time of the day (usually around 11:30am). However, since there are a few random subjects that I’d like to hit on which don’t necessarily require a separate, standalone entry, I thought that I might create a quick, impromptu entry covering a bunch of random stuff.
To begin, at the beginning of January I began teaching for a well-known online/distance learning-based university. After doing this for about a month I have to admit that I’m not impressed. I thought the online teaching setting would give instructors a great deal of resources to utilize for their students to learn the course content – I was wrong. Or at least I was wrong with respect to the place where I’m teaching. I was handed a syllabus and told that I had to follow it. Then I was told that I had to utilize the online-based discussion forums and online submission tools in order to receive assignments. That wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t both filled with glitches that render their usage impossible. All in all, it makes the instructor (me) feel that I do not have much control over the class and its direction. That’s not a good feeling for an educator.
On top of it all, my pay rate (which is the least of my concerns with this arrangement) is a couple of hundred dollars per student enrolled in the course with an enrollment cap of 15. Not a bad pay rate really except that less than 5 students are enrolled in the course. Whoopie.
Two weeks ago, though, I began teaching a brand new course that I designed. This course is being taught at the local college and it has been good so far. I do have some concerns about the real-world preparedness level of the students in that at least half of the class chooses to not hand in assignments on time. I also have some concerns about the students comprehending the information that I give them in class. For example, one assignment asked students to identify a specific type of organization. We talked about these organizations for over an hour in class and two short reading assignments went in depth about the typical characteristics of these organizations. Again, more than half of the class chose groups that were not even remotely close to what the ones they were supposed to identify.
That’s somewhat troubling for the future workforce…
Hey – Lost is back on ABC tonight, huh? That’s pretty exciting. I’m looking forward to the final season of this show if only because I have to get it out of my mind! Does anyone think that all of the Lost fans out there will be completely satisfied with the “answers” that are given this season? I tend to think that the Lost writers have set themselves up for a catastrophic failure if they don’t answer every single question that is out there about the show. I guess that judgment should be reserved until after the season really gets into the swing of things. All I know is that a lot of people have invested a lot of time into watching that show and they better not blow it.
I will hopefully have some more encouraging news about my student loans coming up in the next few days. You can guess what that might be…
If you keep an eye on the market, then I’m sure that you’ve seen how Sirius XM is blowing up all over the place! For those of us that purchased this stock at a dime or two per share, we’re doing pretty good with our investment at this point. Last I checked, share prices were at 0.94. Not bad making 1000% return on an investment, huh?
And just think – if you listened to almost every big internet stock market website out there you would have sold this stock when it was down to a nickel per share. Talk about being shortsighted! That’s why I do my own research on the stocks that I purchase – the internet stock market sites have an agenda and I’m not interested in their garbage.
Oh, and I’ve been doing pretty well with Ford (which the internet stock market sites said I should have sold a year ago) and Barnes & Nobles (same story). The lesson learned here is to do your own research and trust your gut!
Eddie has been doing a fine job with running TBLWrestling.com. Hits are up an incredible percentage and I’m proud of his efforts. Good work, Eddie! I’ve been running TNAStars.com now for about a month and I’m pleased that it has already achieved some level of success. Both of these sites are hobby sites for Eddie and I and we only spend a few minutes each day putting up some updates. With such reduced involvement, I’m glad to know that the people out there like what we’re doing!
I guess that’s about it. See you tomorrow!
Posted in Entertainment, Random Entries | No Comments »
Saturday, June 6th, 2009
Alright, I know that this review is weeks late (and trust me, I have more late reviews coming up, so be prepared), but I wanted to get some comments out there about the season finale of ABC’s Lost. While the two hour show was interesting and fun to watch, at the end of the episode I found myself wondering whether or not this is the direction that J. J. Abrams (the show’s creator who left a few seasons ago) would be taking the story.
Some of the bigger events of the night…
It appears that John Locke isn’t, in fact, John Locke. Instead, he’s the counterpart to the infamous Jacob. And Jacob, apparently, is some omniscient do-gooder who tries to heal people and give them reassurance that they have free will. On the flip side, some entertainment websites claim that Jacob could be the evil one between he and Locke and that he is a type of puppet master. I’m not sure, though I think that Jacob falls more along the lines of the good being between he and Locke. My only sincere hope, though, is that the writers don’t blow the entire storyline to smithereens in the first episode of the next season. With the way television writers are today, you can never be sure.
We also saw Ben break out of his killingless-streak as he exacted some degree of revenge on Jacob for never allowing him a face-to-face meeting. There could be some legs to this particular part of the story because of the action of Jacob’s death. You’ll notice that he fell forward onto Ben as he was dying which showed one of the major themes that we see with Jacob throughout the episode – namely that he makes it a point to touch the Oceanic folks that he meets both before and after they are on the island.
I’m not sure what the touching means, but I do believe that it has something to do with his magic (or whatever you want to call it) being transferred to the touchee. The entertaining EW.com review of the episode compared Jacob’s touch to the horcruxes that represent Voldemort’s essence in the Harry Potter series. That’s an interesting concept. For those of you that don’t read Potter out there, in short this means that if all of the people that Jacob touched were to come together, they could recreate him. Interesting concept…
We also saw the probable demise of Juliet on the final episode of the season. I’m hoping that this isn’t true because I think she’s a sympathetic character and one that still has a lot of story left in her. However, she may have set off a chain of events that could possibly bring her back to life. I really don’t have much to say about the whole time warp thing and Faraday’s postulation that human are the inconstant variable that could change the course of history.
Whatever – I guess we’ll see what happens with that in the next season.
One more word on the season finale. I got the distinct impression that it’s going to be very hard for the writers to tie up all of the loose ends in the final season, which is set to begin airing next January.
Posted in Book, DVD, Movie, & Media Reviews, Entertainment | 2 Comments »
Thursday, January 22nd, 2009
Last night saw the return of ABC’s Lost and a return for ABC to good Wednesday night ratings (though FOX came out on top last night). After watching last night’s two-hour season premiere, though, I think something is very wrong with Lost…and I think it’s the creativity factor.
Part of this problem lies in the fact that Lost creator, JJ Abrams, is no longer working on the show. This is typical of Abrams who is getting a reputation for starting a project and then leaving before the project is completed. I hope he doesn’t do that with Fringe on FOX because that’s becoming one of my favorite shows, too, but I digress.
My main problem with last night’s episode was that the creativity factor seems to be gone (or drastically reduced). For example, Benjamin Linus is plotting to get everyone back on the island and in the midst of his plan he walks into a butcher shop and, miraculously, the butcher lady knows everything and starts talking to Ben about his plan. What? Then Ben runs into a problem when Hurley gets himself arrested and it seems that he cannot return to the island. What does he do then? He walks into a temple of some sort which happens to be where some old lady appears to be marking the movement of the island. What?
Hardcore Lost fans would argue that finding out the answers to these questions is what this season will bring to the table. I disagree. Lost has proven that it won’t answer as many questions as it asks and with a set time frame on how many episodes are left in the series, I don’t think that the writers are creative enough to bring satisfactory conclusions to all of the open questions. As I was texting a friend of mine last night, I’ll begin to be pleased when I know the full story of the original Hostiles who eventually became the Others. Once we get that out of the way, I’d probably be less harsh on a random butcher lady being a key to Ben’s puzzle.
The writers need to be careful with the whole moving through time thing because it becomes very tiresome, very quickly. Nobody is interested in watching a show that you have to struggle to keep up with on a variety of levels. I’m not saying the show shouldn’t be for intelligent, quick witted audiences like Arrested Development used to be, but I am saying that the more aggravating thought you have to put into watching each episode, the less enjoyable watching becomes.
In the next episode, I need to see more about Daniel Faraday and more about how that secret room at the bottom of the island was accessed if the Asian guy who seems to be leading the Dharma Initiative didn’t instruct his team to get into the hole. I also want to know why Faraday was at the digging site so many years before Lost takes place. Has this guy been time traveling for a while? Putting that out there, I have to admit that it’s getting a bit repetitive to have an abundance of questions coming out of each episode of Lost.
The first season of Lost has to go down as one of the best seasons of television in history. It was dramatic, thought-provoking, interesting, and it kept you glued to your seat. The second season dragged a little bit and the third and fourth seasons were duds for a lot of fans. Last night’s opening episode for season five really tried to get back some of that aura that the first season had, but I don’t think it accomplished its goals.
Anyway, check out Jersey City Locksmith for the best locksmith service in the Garden State!
Posted in Entertainment | No Comments »
Sunday, January 11th, 2009
Some people will say that the Giants’ loss to the Eagles today was a disappointment, but as a Giants fan let me tell you that it was not a disappointment at all. Yes, I wanted to see the Giants advance to the next round of the playoffs, but when your team has played like shit for the last three weeks and plays incredibly uncompetitive during a playoff game, what do you expect besides a loss? Throw on top of that the fact that Eli Manning played like garbage today and you get the results that Giants fans got today.
On the other hand, I can see where a Giants fan would be disappointed that the Giants lost to the Eagles in one of the poorest post-season performances that I’ve ever seen out of Philadelphia. If the Giants were playing like defending SuperBowl champions, they would have beat the Eagles by three touchdowns because the Eagles really aren’t that good when compared to the other post-season teams. However, the Giants have been playing so bad lately that the Eagles were good enough to beat them and advance.
Watching this game it boiled down to the fact that you could see in their performance that the Eagles wanted it. The Giants? They didn’t wait it. Tom Coughlin certainly wanted it as he became beet red on more than one occasion, but his team? I didn’t see anything indicative of defending SuperBowl champions.
As a Giants fan, I hope that the team continues to grow stronger and work on their cohesion. Eli needs to continue to develop his on-field leadership and the Giants need to go out and get some more impact players so that they can make the big plays that they just didn’t make today.
Posted in Sports | 1 Comment »
Sunday, November 16th, 2008
Welcome to Joe’s Journal on JerseySmarts.com! You may remember a few months ago when I suggested that a merger between my two personal blogs may be coming. After some research and some additional thinking over the plan, I’m pleased to announce that Joe’s Journal is now officially hosted at JerseySmarts.com! Chances are that very few, if anyone, really gives a hoot about this merger, but it means a little something to me.
Under the new system, I’ll be able to spend less time ensuring that my updates are listed on two different blog sites. In terms of loss, both Brian and Bob (two guys who wrote a few posts on JerseySmarts.com) are no longer posting here. Sorry guys. I am thinking of larger things for JerseySmarts.com, though, and that will likely include sub-blogs for additional New Jersey bloggers to use. I’m still thinking about the details in my mind, but it’s a high possibility that a set up like that will exist in the future.
During the process of merging the two blogs, I regret to inform you that I lost all of the comments made on the various entries. Nah, I’m just kidding – I actually managed to get everything uploaded to the new site with no problems! It was actually amazing – all of the comments and content of some 1,200+ blog entries made it over to this website with no problems. Good work if I don’t say so myself!
Hopefully the new URL for this blog is easier for the masses to remember. I think JerseySmarts.com is a much easier URL to remember than blog.thebalrogslair.com – I believe that you’ll agree!
While the merger was successful, please understand that I expect there to be a glitch or two in the blog. If you find any of these glitches, please let me know so I can address them and get them fixed up. While there are certainly some items that I need to work on, they are generally behind the scenes items that shouldn’t really effect you guys as you browse around the site. There might be a graphical change or update here or there, but again – nothing that will interrupt your enjoyment of this site (I hope).
There you have it. The merger is complete and we’re ready to go on JerseySmarts.com. Enjoy!
Posted in Computers, Internet, & Technology | 9 Comments »
Tuesday, October 17th, 2006
A few months ago I bought a pedometer to see how many steps I walk in a day, week, month, etc. I figured it would be a fun little thing to have and just something interesting to monitor.
Well, being a schmuck, I had to buy the $25 pedometer as opposed to the $10 one. I don’t really know what the difference is between the two, but that didn’t matter at the time. So I started wearing the pedometer and it was cool to see how many steps you take in a day or how many steps you take when you’re just walking around the mall (by the way – you take a LOT of steps walking around the mall!). I also wore it to the gym so I could see how many steps I took during a typical session on the treadmill. All of this was very interesting.
But the stupid pedometer had a habit of flopping open all the time so I was constantly locking it back into place. That wasn’t really annoying, but it was aggravating to have to do that all of the time. Also, it was a pain in the ass to always have to remember to put the thing on when I was just walking around my apartment or lounging.
Anyway, I got out of my car in Newark today and as I was walking towards the building I was going to, I felt down to the pedometer and the fucking thing wasn’t there! The shell of it was there (that is, the piece that locks it into place), but the actual pedometer was gone. I figured that it was in my car since it has a habit of popping off in the car. Nope.
I lost the damn thing. That’s $25 that I pretty much just threw into the street somewhere. Fucking fantastic. The moral of the story here, kiddies, is to not buy expensive trinkets if they are too small to keep an eye on and especially if you’re going to attach them in a manner that allows them to easily be lost.
Stupid pedometer…
Posted in Gym Stories | No Comments »
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