Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Lost Episode 2 Live Blog

902 - Hell, Penny's pregnant! Good job, Des. Remarkably clean baby. I've seen one childbirth, and there was more blood there than in a Tarantino film.

903 - Des is telling his young son about the special island - England. Good one.

905 - Ginger is not doing so well. Miles is a hoot - gallows humor, and with sharp enough vision to see the tripwire. And boom. Who's the hot blond with a gun? She knows Faraday. Awww shit, it's ON!

910 - Des thinks he'll be done with the island forever after this. Riiiiight. Apparently he's never watched this show.

912 - The hot blond is back.

913 - Back to Locke, Juliet and Sawyer. She speaks Latin, as do their two prisoners.

914 - Miles can tell that some soldiers were recently buried there. Richard Alpert is back. The ageless one. He says that Faraday is back for his bomb.


920 - Des is looking for Faraday's mom and his lab. Blocked off for fumigation. There's the rat maze, and a comment about that poor girl.

922 - Miles, Faraday and Ginger are apparently meeting a young, mysterious Richard Alpert, who doesn't have all the answers this time. Talk of a radiation poisoning and the bomb.

928 - Locke has people???

932 - Des sees the girl is a coma. Whitmore is involved in the care of her.

934 - The H-Bomb is being suspended above the ground. Strange position. Kinda looks like an old-school bomb drop tower.

942 - Des meets Whitmore again. Whitmore is concerned about his beloved daughter.

950 - F*CK!!! A young Charles Whitmore!!!

957 - Penny knows Des is lying.

959 - Charlotte doesn't look so good.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Hour 2 of Lost

1008 - So, Sawyer's got a new shirt. Dr. Wizard, Mr. Wizard.

1010 - And Hurley almost ran into Kate at the gas station. She's getting a mysterious phone call. Who could it be? Locke? Ben? Her mom? She was the diner waitress, you know?

1013 - Back to Ben and Jack. Ben knows Jack's an addict.

1015 - Previously on Expose - hah! Nice touch. You gotta love a Cheech sighting.

1020 - Cheech is going to help, and the LAPD is hot on Hurley's trail.

1022 - Back to Kate and Aaron, and they're moving on uuuup...to the east siiiide. Or, it's just Sun. My future ex-wife.

1023 - Ben knows a butcher :) Now I'm hungry for a steak. Thanks Lost. I just made fajitas, but I could use a nice, medium rare steak. Then again, I always can use a steak.

1024 - Back to the island, and Faraday's making calculations. His redhead is still wounded. And flaming fuckin' arrows??? Sheesh! Now who's on the island? Romans?

1030 - More flaming arrows. Some extras got lit up.

1033 - Kate and Sun...normally a hot thing, but Sun seems crafty to me for some reason. Nice lil' cameo for Jin.

1035 - Jack. Ben, Hurley, Sayid... it's almost chaotic at this point.

1041 - Hurley and Mom. Hugo's telling the truth to his mom. She's not going to get it. And this is the perfect description of the show for people who've never seen it. It really does sound silly when it's said aloud. But that's about right. Nice little mom and son moment.

1046 - Sawyer needs shoes, and there's a guy with a gun. Ethan? Nope. Dharma Initiative people! They went WAY back in time.

1050 - Back, and Jack's going to try to save Sayid. Kinda nice having a surgeon around. What is it with ABC and surgeons? Grey's Anatomy...anyway. Jack's brought Sayid back.

1052 - Hugo just chucked a Hot Pocket at Ben. Classic. Ben's offering Hurley a hell of a deal. Ben's got Crinkle Eye power as well! But Hurley's gone and ran off and is being arrested by the cops.

1055 - Locke to the rescue - damn he's handy with a knife.

1056 - A new station. Seems the island is bouncing around the Pacific Ocean off the Australian coast and towards South America. Weird. Bouncing through space and time? Ben's apparently Catholic, and he's found the lady from Desmond's shop, and she just out-creeped Ben! Cue SFX and SCENE...


Stay tuned for a preview? Sure.
Kate's skeptical, Red's bleeding, and somebody is pregnant, and another dude is getting dragged down the street. Chaos.

Live Blogging Lost's Season Premiere

First off - YES!!!

901 - Willie Nelson, and the Dr. Candle is back. Orientation film.

Cameraman looks like Sawyer.

There's Hurley's van...by way of Ben's dad.

904 - Limitless energy.

WHOA!!!! First "Oh holy hell moment of the show!" Faraday.

Back to the recent present day. Locke's in the funeral home.

They're heading back to the island. The Orchid must be one hell of a valuable station.

907 - Back to the Orchid at the time of the move. The first shirtless Sawyer scene for those keeping score. Rose and Bernard are back. Shame the camp's gone.

So, much like Huey Lewis once said "Back in Time."

914 - Kate and Aaron, and a couple of lawyers. They want blood...samples, at least.

916 - More shirtless Sawyer. Trying to take Faraday's shirt? Ha...like he'd fit. He's got him by 40, 50 pounds.

918 - Locke's got crinkly eye power. And he's sunburnt. Poor dude. He just got North by Northwested by Eko's brother's plane. And he's got Charlie's Virgin Mary heroin. And he just got shot - could it be Rousseau...no! Crap! This is getting MESSED UP.

Commercial V/O'd by Jack Bauer.

924 - Locke's about to be shot by Ethan. And more shirtless Sawyer.

925 - Hey, there's my future ex-wife, Sun. My goodness she is lovely. Well, she's now trapped by the big guy.

928 - Hurley can't be dead - he's eating fries. Hah, he needs a cool code name.

931 - Sayid can still FSU.

935 - back to the Island - and the Hatch is gone.

936 - Locke's still shot...poor dude has been shot more than 50 Cent. The plane has fallen, therefore, there might be a dead Boone around. Aw crap, who's coming for Locke now? Richard, the ageless one. "When am I?" - great line. Hah...a compass. It points north. Damn, that's some cold shit - you're going to have to die, John.

This episode is quickly becoming a mind-f*ck.

946 - and we're back, and the hatch was gone, Sawyer's still shirtless, and the hatch is now back. And Sawyer doesn't want to listen to logic, he just wants his clothes back. Hah, the Ghost of Christmas Future! Another good line. Faraday's concerned about his bleeding girlfriend's nose. Hey, Desmond!!! He's got a gun, and the toxic suit. And Faraday just dropped a mind-f*ck on Desmond, and there's Penny as he's back in present day. And they're off to Oxford. Wow.

957 - Back to the Oceanic 6, and they're on a boat. Good ole' Frank's back. And they're back to the new present day, and Sayid's still shot up. Holy hell, Anna Lucia - wow. And Libby says hi. JEEZ...mind F*CK! And SCENE....

My goodness. That's a season premiere. Looks like they're going deep into the conspiracy-side of the show. Hopefully they won't get too X-Files on us.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

from DCFUD.com - The Five Paragraph Bitter Food Critic Needs Beta Blockers

glory days.JPG



Not even three weeks into the new year, and I already have a serious contender for the highly-uncoveted title of "Worst Restaurant Meal of 2009." If this meal had taken place in 2008, it would have won like Usain Bolt. If I'd had this meal in 2007, it would have won like Barbaro in the `06 Kentucky Derby. Only a couple of burnt hamburgers-slash-hockey pucks in Des Moines and a ridiculously spoiled swordfish fillet on undercooked linguine in Baltimore's Little Italy keep this debacle out of the "Worst Restaurant Meal of the Double-Aughts" status. And here's the kicker - it started off fine but, man, how it proceeded... nothing less than a sin against all that is holy and deep-fried. I shall explain.

A shopping trip in the Virginia `burbs with a friend ran much later than expected, and the Vietnamese place we wanted to try had long closed by the time we walked into the frigid air. Hungry and cold, we settled on a nearby local chain, Glory Days Grill, figuring a warm meal in a lively atmosphere would help lift our spirits. I've had decent salads from there before, so it seemed like a good idea. The menu is nothing fancy - standard bar grub but with a Chesapeake twist - Old Bay seasoned wings and real Maryland crab cakes are a nice touch - and with local professional and amateur sports teams' paraphernalia on the walls, proves that this is a restaurant based here and focusing on here.

Much like "Wedding Crashers," the meal began promisingly enough. A cup of clam chowder was filled with plenty of fresh seafood and seasoned correctly. But remember that breakfast scene with Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, and the movie seemed to lose a lot of steam? Well, the same thing happened with this meal, except much earlier in the film. The appetizer was the breakfast scene, with no Will Ferrell around to save the meal from disaster.

Now, as a rule, it's hard to botch fries. Les Pommes Frites are about as common and simple of a food as can be found. Cut the potato in to strips. Fry the potato strips. Drain. Serve. Boom. Done. If you're feeling zany, bake them. Bread them. Make them curly and season them. Bury them in gravy, or cheese, or go crazy like the Quebecois and use both and call it poutine. Just don't serve them how I got them Friday night - apparently marinated in salt, cooked in salt, coated in salt, and then, for good measure, add salt. I used to bartend at a margarita joint, and we had boxes of sea salt that we used to rim the glasses. A prankster co-worker poured about a cup of sea salt into my Starbucks one day, and that wasn't as salty as these fries. I now know what a deer feels like during hunting season. I have tasted the salt lick, now, where are the guys in camouflage jackets and bright orange hats?

Sadly, our entrees were equally salty. My friend's chili mac made her mouth pucker as the saline sucked the moisture from her skin. My chicken sandwich was ridiculously overseasoned, and I might be mistaken as the sodium-induced dehydration is affecting my short-term memory, but my side dish may very well have been the Bonneville Salt Flats. When the server asked if we wanted dessert, one thought permeated my mind - I normally love Teaism's delicious Salty Oat Cookies, but I had one right now, I would have an aneurysm. Seven hours later, and nearly half-a-gallon of water later, I still might. We skipped dessert, much like the arrhythmia is doing to my heartbeat.

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Glory Days gets 2 Whammies! out of a possible 8. The clam chowder was certainly acceptable, and the server was fairly snappy with refilling our water glasses. However, between the two of us, there are 8 chambers of our two hearts that now need replacing. No one should ever have this conversation after a meal - "My heart hurts." "Yeah, mine too. Know a good cardiologist?"
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Glory Days Grill
Lots of locations in the region, many of them conveniently located near emergency rooms and defibrillators.