No, YOU'RE a Smoke Monster

I watched the end of Lost last night and the whole suspension of disbelief thing fell apart when I knew there were only 10 minutes left and they hadn't explained anything, really. Seems like they tried to give the fans a good feeling about the characters without giving up the goods.

What's funny is that I think Jimmy Kimmel nailed it in the after-show. The whole story was about Jack, and the island and all of the alternate realities occupied the split seconds before he died in that plane crash. The eye opening/closing gimmick seals it for me.

The smoke monster is probably based on real smoke, and the sound it makes when it appears is similar to a sound that a breaking or sinking aircraft might make.

So, it wasn't heaven or hell and it wasn't a crazy Hurley dream. It was always just about Jack preparing for death. Locke and Rousseau (and other philosophers) complicated things. The guy who looked like Jesus sacrificed and tried to help him. But in one of the final scenes, the stained glass window with all of the world religions reminds us that no matter what we believe or how much we complicate our lives, we're all going to die. And really, Jack is every man.

"You are everybody"

The MASH finale was better.

New Bike!!

Well, Elis hooked it up and I got my bike and a few more names last night. I'll run Torgard and Sven by J, but I don't think she'll bite. (It would be cool to call him "Little Thor" for short.)

Here's the ride (now if it would just stop raining!):

Cat's Out of the Bag, Bun's in the Oven

That's right, if you haven't already heard, we've got a kid on the way. He's due early in September, and that initial pronoun is not a guess; we have proof. We're still working out just the right balance of classic-yet-unique-yet-meaningful names to choose from for junior. I still like Boris N. - sounds pretty good with our surname.

It's interesting. I'm getting a new bike this week and the guy I bought it from has a small shop among a few big shops in Geneva. He's a real character. Lived the life of a sportsman, racing dirt-track Harleys and Bultacos, and now he's coasting by bending ears and selling bicycles. He's a little gruff with people but that and the variable hours of his shop make it far more interesting than the other shops in town.

He's not a huckster - he knows his crap. His edge is that he buys and keeps older bikes that have gone past their shelf date (meaning new model years have come in) and only builds them on demand. So, with older versions of top-end parts, I got a deal. What does this have to do with anything? Names.

We had this interesting conversation about his first name (Elis) and my great-grandfather's name (Elias) and how he's Italian and my GG was Norwegian. He started hitting me with all kinds of ideas for a name for the boy. I think both grandfathers would be tickled if the boy had an ethnic-Norwegian name, too. I'm looking into it.

Anyhow, I feel like I got more than a bike out of the deal. I think I'm going to push for a unique name.