The series finale of 24 had a lot of good points. Here are some my thoughts, in bullet point format:

• How great is Cherry Jones as President Allison Taylor? That woman can show emotion and the pains of being a national and global leader better than any other President that they’ve had on 24 to date. If they make a movie, I hope that she makes the cut to play the President.
• The confrontation between President Taylor and Dalia Hassan (played expertly, brilliantly even by Necar Zadegan) was one of the most emotion-packed, skillfully performed scenes on television during the entire spring season on any channel. This was the scene where President Taylor threatened to bomb the IRK into the stone age if Hassan didn’t sign the peace treaty later in the afternoon. Amazing, amazing work by these two extremely talented actresses. Brilliant.
• Oh, by the way, can anyone play the hateful, scorned woman better than Zadegan? Absolutely amazing performance. When she snapped at President Taylor that there was nothing else to say after the Russian President arrived, you could almost feel the thought of, “You filthy bitch,” ingrained in her words. That’s hatred right there!
• And what can you say about Kiefer Sutherland’s performance as Jack Bauer? Not only was be great on tonight’s series finale, but he played the most convincing anti-terrorist, patriotic American that I’ve ever seen on television. Sutherland should rest easy knowing that he has single-handedly created and dominated the anti-terrorist character that all future anti-terrorist characters will be measured up against.
• How surreal was the end of the first hour of the finale when Jack put a sleeper hold on Chloe O’Brian (performed by Mary Lynn Rajskub) and knocked her out? Of course, Chloe got her revenge by blasting Bauer in the upper chest before the CTU team came in.
• And I don’t know about you, but how great is Gregory Itzin at playing the weasel of the show, former President Charles Logan? That’s some good, scumbag acting right there!
• If I had to choose one person that made tonight’s series finale better than could have been expected, it has to be Cherry Jones. She slightly beats out the great performances put on by Necar Zadegan and Gregory Itzin. Absolutely wonderful job tonight. The way that you could see every emotion on President Taylor’s face throughout the show was a marvelous job.

Talk about a powerful final half hour of television. Between President Taylor’s withdrawal from the peace agreement, Charles Logan killing his assistant and then popping himself in the head, and Jack Bauer getting ambushed and kidnapped and then ultimately set free by President Taylor and Chloe – what more could you have asked for in an action-packed finale?! In fact, this finale was so packed full of storyline arcs and action that the two hours seemed to fly by in no time whatsoever.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that FOX deserves kudos for not piling on billions of commercials during tonight’s finale like ABC Television did with the LOST finale last night. Putting aside any differences that I have with the FOX Broadcasting Company (like the fact that they cancel shows too quickly – Family Guy or Arrested Development, anyone?), they do know how to create a good and proper send off for their shows once they’ve reached the end of their road. And part of that proper send off is not insulting the fans of the show with an inordinate amount of commercials.

Good job, FOX.

One of the last things that I want to say about this, the final season of 24, is how great of an impact the secondary characters had on this season’s show. Not only were regulars like Itzen and Rajskub excellent at their roles, but the introduction of Katee Sackhoff of Battlestar Galactica fame and Freddie Prinze, Jr. of preteen movies fame made great additions to the regular cast. And so did John Boyd as Arlo Glass. The one thing that you can always say about the folks at FOX is that when they’re looking for a computer nerd to fill in a seat at CTU, they know how to find the people with the right look for the job!

Another parting thought – as I said after last night’s LOST finale, I’m glad that this show is over because now I get an hour back in my life each week! Amen! Finally, any coincidence that 24 ended on May…twenty-fourth?! Ah, maybe that’s just the leftovers of last night’s LOST series finale! Anyway, what did you think of tonight’s series finale of 24? Good? Bad? Indifferent? Feel free to post your comments on the show!

This is what I think happened – let me know what you think…

Desmond uncorked the cork where the light was at the center of the island, thus allowing an opening for The Man in Black (Smoke Monster, Fake Locke, Evil, etc) to escape the island. Oh, and uncorking the cork also brought about the self-destruction of the island. Go figure. I think, however, that the uncorking of that cork also allowed for The Man in Black’s powers to go away and thus Kate was able to kill him and Jack was able to kick him down the side of the cliff and…splat.

Jack, Hurley, and Ben decide that they’re staying on the island while Lapidus (he’s not dead!), Sawyer, Claire, Miles, Kate, and Richard (who no longer has the gift of invincibility thanks to the uncorking) get out of Dodge on the Ajira plane, so to speak. Jack struggles to get back to the center of the island, is lowered down the hole by Hurley and Ben, hitches Desmond back to the rope to be lifted out of the hole, and recorks the island’s light hole. How weird does that sound, huh? Jack recorked the island’s light hole? It sounds like it’s a weird type of insult almost, like, “Shut up you light hole!”

But I digress…

Over in the sideways world, each of the castaways has a realization that they had an entirely different life on the island. As they each figure this out, they know that they have to go to the Church that was featured a few seasons ago when Jack was trying to go back to the island (remember the big swinging pendulum thing with Eloise Hawking?).

As everyone gathers, Jack is among the last to realize that there is a sideways world (more on that in a minute) and has to be convinced first by Kate and then, eventually, by his dead father. At this point, Jack realizes that he can see and talk to his Dad because he, too, is dead. Christian goes on to confirm to Jack that the reason why everyone was there in the Church was because they’re all dead, too. When Jack starts to talk about the timing of all of this death, Christian tells him that where they are there is no “time.” Silly thought on Jack’s part, I guess. Christian suggests that they’re all there because they all needed each other and that Jack needed them. Jack asks his father where they are going and he says that they should go into the Church and find out…so they do. Then there’s lots of hugging and remembering (albeit in a montage type of cut, so all you get to hear is music) and Christian walks to the back of the Church after everyone sits down. He opens the doors and a bright white light comes filling the room, engulfing everyone as they all begin to smile. And so we’re left with the thought that Jack and the gang must have been in some type of purgatory because they were engulfed by the white light and are now in heaven (or will eventually go to heaven when they die).

Does that make sense?

This idea is furthered by the final scenes of the series where Jack stumbles back to the place among the bamboo shoots where he woke up after Oceanic flight 815 crashed. In fact, the dog even comes back over and licks him a bit before laying down as Jack smiles and tries to force out a laugh. Then, right before he closes his eyes for the last time and dies, he sees a plane flying overhead. Is this the Ajira plane or the Oceanic 815 plane making it successfully across the island? Who the hell knows, but I have to assume that it’s the Ajira plane. Then, as the credits roll through the bottom of the screen, we see images of the Oceanic 815 flight all torn up on the beach. I’m assuming that the production people just wanted to create a nostalgia effect and sort of tip their hats to the diehard fans of the series that all began when that plane hit that beach.

I’m not entirely sure…

Other random thoughts about last night’s LOST series finale:

• Could they have put any more commercials in these two hours? Good grief! Thank God I had a book I was reading so I could mute during the commercial breaks.
• Though I was glad to see that Lapidus was still alive, I’m not satisfied with the resolution of the Charles Widmore storyline. Frankly, it was unacceptable to have him shot in the penultimate episode.
• What, exactly, did Ben have to finish up in purgatory before he went to the other side?
• I believe that the key to understanding all of this is understanding the timing of everything. The timing is everything…
• No resolution on Walt’s supposed magical powers? Anyone remember that stuff from the first season?
• Jimmy Kimmel Live was awesome. Jimmy did a great job with his interpretation of the series finale and I agree with his idea that when the sideways Jack felt the turbulence on the plane, that was when he died on the island and passed over into purgatory (to the plane). And I also agree with his idea that this series – LOST – was the story of Jack’s life, his trials and tribulations, and his eventual redemption and acceptance into heaven.
• How funny were the Target commercials that advertised smoke detectors by using the Smoke Monster? Made me laugh out loud when I saw it the first time.

A final note on the timing before I ask you guys for your impressions of the finale, if you have any. Remember that Hurley became the new protector of the island and that Ben was his second in command. Then, as Locke goes into the Church, Hurley pops out and tells Ben (who is sitting outside on a bench) that everyone is inside and he should come in. Ben declines and then says that Hurley was a great number one. Hurley thanks him and says that Ben was a great number two. There is a mutual appreciation and affection there that was not played out during this series. I think that this is the key to understanding Christian’s statement that there is no “now” and that everyone who was present at the Church was there because Jack needed them and they needed Jack.

Two final subnotes on this issue and then I’m done, really. First, Hurley and Ben clearly had a long-time together on the island for them to appreciate each other’s contributions as a number one and number two. So, while the story of LOST has come to an end, there is clearly more that goes on without us realizing it in what we saw in the last six seasons. Second, I think that Christian’s statement that everyone who was in the Church was also dead is, on its face, misleading. He could have just said that these people are here because Jack needed them and they needed Jack and that some are already dead and some have yet to die. In other words, if someone was in that Church then they’re going to be dead at some point if they’re not already (which is a bit of an annoying part of the story since, technically, anyone in the world could have been in that room if you believe that logic).

Anyway, what do you think? Did I miss anything crucial to the story? Hey, who else is excited that they get this hour of their lives back every week?!

Smallville
I’m a big Smallville fan, but I’m not a fan of how they break up the seasons each year. This year they went from January to the end of February, took off for March, and then started up again in April. What’s the point in doing that? It doesn’t make any sense? Anyway, I like the way that Smallville is trying to focus more on the actual comic book relationship to the series and less on the stupid, cheesy storylines. The more that they move in that direction, then the better and brighter this show’s ratings future becomes. Speaking of ratings, Smallville is one of those shows that gets a big bump each week thanks to people who DVR the show and watch within 7 days of the recording. Just goes to show you how new technology helps to keep good shows on the air!

Lost
I was talking to my Mom the other day and I said that the first season of Lost will probably go down as the best single season of a show in the history of television. That show had people riveted to its every move and plot twist – watching the show was actually fun! These days, though, while I like that we’re only a few episodes away from the grand finale, I’m annoyed that there is no possible way for the writers to address every single storyline and loose end before the show goes off the air.

So, while the first season of this show will probably go down in history as the best season of television ever, the last few seasons have to go down in history as a major disappointment. And how do you kill off Sun, Jin, and Sayeed? Good grief…

Fringe
I love it. This show is amazing. The idea that there is another universe that parallels our own should be enough to make any science fiction nerd happy. But showing that alternate universe and the relationship that it has with our own is what Fringe does best. Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson, and John Noble are out of this world (pardon the pun) in terms of their performances. A better cast couldn’t have been assembled for this show. My only concern about the future of this show is that it was created by and is currently executive produced by J.J. Abrams. Why might this be a problem? Well, Abrams created Lost and, well, see my review above…

24
On the one hand, it’s sad to see Jack Bauer and Chloe Sullivan canceled after this season, but on the other hand I think that this is the best thing for the show. In reality, there is only so much that you can do in terms of terror plots that have to cover 24 separate episodes. If I’m not mistaken it has already been confirmed that there is a 24 movie in the works, so that’s good news.

This season, I was shocked that they showed the aftermath of the assassination of Omar Hassan (played by the guy who was the game show host in Slumdog Millionaire). That made for some shocking entertainment television. I was also surprised that they killed off Renee Walker right after she and Bauer began a romantic relationship – I didn’t see that coming. However, I was glad to see good old Kara Thrace (the character’s name in Battlestar Galactica) a.k.a. Dana Walsh (real name Katee Sackhoff) added as a member of the cast. Okay, sure, she winds up being a bad guy and a mole for the Russians, but she’s one hell of an actress.

TNA iMPACT!
Well, if you know me then you know that I’m a wrestling fan. Sure, I’m not as big of a fan as I used to be and I don’t regularly watch the shows (thank God for DVRs), but I still get some enjoyment out of the “male soap operas” that are professional wrestling shows. For a variety of reasons, I’m not really interested in watching WWE any more. Not only has the show fallen to a PG rating (and thus puts out a product a bit below my age group), but I’m sick and tired of seeing some of the same people over and over again (Triple H comes to mind).

TNA, on the other hand, is showcasing some pretty great talent in Abyss and A.J. Styles. They’re also bringing us Desmond Wolfe, D’Angelo Dinero, Rob Van Dam, Jeff Hardy, and any other number of great performers that are getting to rub elbows with wrestling legends Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair in on-camera appearances. For that reason alone I enjoy watching TNA’s flagship show iMPACT! However, if you actually sit down and watch the show for what it is – as a fan of sports entertainment – you really see how entertaining the overall product can be. TNA recently decided to retreat to Thursday nights after trying to take on WWE’s Monday Night RAW head-to-head. TNA is really still pretty young and the move to Monday nights was pretty ill-conceived, but I’m glad that they listened to their fans and moved the show back where they wanted it – on Thursday nights on Spike TV!

V
I like this show. In fact, sitting through Lost is made more palatable because I know that after the show is over I get to see the actress who played Juliet as one of the main characters on V. The concept behind this show is interesting – aliens that look and talk like humans have come to earth in these spaceships and they are offering all of these great technological advances in the name of peace. Sounds great, right? Meanwhile, the aliens are really these reptile creatures that have the sole intent of invading the earth and destroy its people. In fact, a fleet of enemy ships are on their way to earth and no one knows about it!

There is a certain overall feeling of hopelessness with sporadic glimmers of hope throughout this show that reminds me a lot of the Battlestar Galactica series. All of the actors on this show put out great performances and it really is a good show to watch if you’re into the science fiction stuff.

Caprica
This is another show that was stopped mid-season by the SyFy Channel for a break. Why do these channels do this to upstart shows? What’s the purpose? Caprica aired its mid-season finale on March 23rd and the word going around is that there won’t be any more new episodes until the fall. The fall?! Really? What’s the point in that?!

Other than the dumb break in the season, this show is actually pretty good. I think that it needed some time to find itself after the first few episodes and it did. The only carryover character (not counting the Cylons) from the Battlestar Galactica series is Admiral William Adama, though Adama is a young boy in Caprica. At one point, Battlestar Galactica was the best show on television, bar none. I think that if Caprica is given the right room to grow into itself, it can easily become one of the top shows on cable television and probably compete with the network stations for audience.

The story thus far is pretty compelling. A genius scientist and a rugged attorney each lose their daughters in a train explosion set off by a religious separatist group claiming that there is only one God and not many Gods as most people believe. As the first half of the season progresses, we find out that not only are one of the daughters actually involved in the separatist group, but that she (being a genius herself) created an avatar of herself and has it stored in an online world that her father created for entertainment purposes. In fact, once her father finds this out he is able to create an avatar of the other girl that died in the bombing and he shares that avatar with her father – the lawyer – who then becomes obsessed with finding his daughter in this online world.

That’s a trivial explanation of what’s going on and I’m obviously leaving out major plot points, but this is a good show and I hope SyFy gives it a chance.

The Biggest Loser
This is one of the best reality shows on television, if not the best reality show, period. What makes this show so great is that not only do you learn the back stories of each of the contestants, but you actually get to watch them transform themselves into a new person. Anyone who is watching this season has to be impressed with Sam and Koli’s transformations. The same for Michael.

Actually, Michael is an interesting case. He’s the biggest contestant in Biggest Loser history starting the show weighing in at 526 pounds. And here he is a full 16 weeks into the show and he’s lost 192 pounds and is weighing in at 334 pounds. Yet, that’s the weight that most people start at on the show! Quite frankly, Michael can still lose another 130 – 150 pounds before his weight loss journey is over. Imagine that for a moment. Here’s this guy on this weight loss show and he’s lost nearly 200 pounds and yet he’s only a little past the halfway point in his transformation.

Amazing.

For this reason alone, Michael is my pick to win the whole thing this season, although I think his stiffest competition may come from Ashley.

House
You want to talk about great shows? House is the best medical drama on television. Hugh Laurie plays the best crazy doctor that anyone could ask for and he really makes the show complete. Whenever I flip over to my DVR and see what I have stored up to watch, I’m always glad when there is an episode or two of House waiting for me. This is one of those shows that you can watch one time and wind up getting hooked. In fact, I even began watching some of the first season episodes online so I can catch up with all of the storylines.

This season has been good and I think I find myself enjoying the individual episodes and the individual patient storylines more than the overarching stories behind all of the main characters. Maybe I like medical dramas, I guess.

Anyway, there’s my report on what I think of this season’s television shows and how they’re progressing. What do you think about these shows?

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!

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.

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!

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.

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!

Anyway, I won’t let that experience detract from my review of the story nor will I let the fact that this book is linked to the now-failed ABC series “Lost” jade my view. In fact, while “Lost” is literally a lost cause at this point (come on – they’re burying people alive now and we’re supposed to care one way or the other?), this book – written by the fictional Gary Troup (get it? It’s the word “purgatory” all scrambled up) – wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. For those of you that care, Gary Troup is supposed to be the guy who is sucked into the turbine on the beach in the first episode of “Lost.” And for the rest of you who care, the book was actually written by Laurence Shames.

It’s the story of a private detective named Artisan who takes on a job from the Widmore family who is searching for their lost son and brother, Zander. This ridiculous name is short for Alexander (shouldn’t it be Xander, then?) who is supposed to be the “bad twin” between him and his brother, Clif Widmore. You can almost predict the entire story once you get the basics down – Clif turns out to be a bastard, Zander turns out to be a good guy, the nice guy Artisan winds up with the girl, etc, etc.

When I finished listening to this book, I wanted to give it some time to digest. Well, it’s been digested and there is really nothing crazy about the story or the characters. I will give Shames the fact that he does some good character development throughout the novel, but the story itself is just blah. Almost like a “who cares” type of story.

Lost is incorporated into the story via the Hanso Foundation. There is a member of the board of the Widmore group who is from the Hanso Foundation. Deep connection… really…

I suppose if you have the opportunity to get your iPods on a free copy of this audiobook like I did, then go for it. Otherwise, don’t bother.

From this point forward, I don’t think I’m going to do episode reviews of the shows any more. The show just isn’t worth carving out free time on my Wednesday night to watch it. I’ll just start catching the online replays.