LOST Reaction: "Dr. Linus"

Sorry I've been so behind on these.

This week's LOST, "Dr. Linus," was yet another great Ben episode. Ben is either terrifying or weirdly endearing (or obnoxiously evil), and our perception of him seems to change every episode.

Ilana finds out that Ben killed Jacob, which is apparently worse than we thought. She looks like she's about to eat him once Miles reads Jacob's ashes (WTF?) and tells her it was all Ben.

They go back to the beach (once a-fricking-gain), and Ilana forces Ben to dig his own grave. He's penitent seemingly without ulterior motives, which is a first. Smokeylocke sets him free and tries to recruit him, but Ben explains to Ilana, while holding her at gunpoint, that he feels terrible for killing Jacob, and blames it on his distraught state of mind after Alex's death. He seems genuinely sorry, and says he's going to Smokeylocke because "he's the only one that'll have me."

This exchange really intrigued me. Ilana then goes against everything she's already said and accepts Ben. "I'll have you," she says, picking up her gun and heading back to the beach.

Did she forgive him? Does she know that he truly is sorry? It's an intriguing view of forgiveness, and I think it's high time Ben was truly redeemed.

The other Island storyline, with Hurley and Jack running into Richard, was incredibly illuminating. Richard explains that he was touched by Jacob and therefore given a gift. Both Hurley and Jack were also "touched" by Jacob, so what does that say? Are the Losties candidates for Jacob's job, or Richard's?

Richard leads them to the Black Rock where he tries to get Jack to kill him, which doesn't work. It's obvious they both, in the words of Walt, "still have work to do."

As for the LA timeline, I found it be quite interesting. Ben is a high school teacher who deserves more credit then he gets. He's a great teacher, cares about his kids (one of which is his alt-adopted-daughter, Alex), and is friends with a growingly-obnoxious Arzt. Seriously. A one- or two-second cameo was enough. The guy's annoying now.

Anyways, he's trying to get his history club back together (by inexplicably trying to become principal, some weird school politics if you ask me) and tries to blackmail the principal with lascivious emails, only to be reblackmailed into choosing between the principal job and Alex's future. And once again, a alt-timeline Lostie chooses others instead of themselves. He chooses Alex and goes back to being pitiful Dr. Linus again.
I think the alt-timeline characters are proving to be a lot more sane than their Island-bound selves. I hope all the flash-sideways tie together and prove useful, and aren't just filler. I really hope they have something to add to the story, but so far, they don't really have a bearing on the Island timeline.

Time will tell.

The Best Omegle Chat Ever

You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!

You: What are you?

Stranger: Imm'a machine.

Stranger: Built tough... like a ford.

You: I am a sock.

Stranger: MHMMM yess sir built tough like chuck norris

Stranger: But not as tough...

Stranger: How is that? typing with no weight

Stranger: or strength or anything.

You: I am a prehensile, self-aware sock.

You: FEAR ME

Stranger: OH CRAP!

Stranger: PREHENSILE, SELF-AWARE SOCK VS MACHINE

Stranger: FIGHT

Stranger: MACHINE USES ROCKET LAUNCHER

You: SOCK USES DRYER SHEET, MACHINE NOW SMELLS OF FRESH LINEN

You: *HEADSHOT*

Stranger: LMAO

Stranger: SOCK WINS!
FATALITY

You: You have fought well, worthy adversary.

Stranger: *bows*

Your conversational partner has disconnected.

Another Little Awesome Thing

It's getting close to Easter, which is awesome for two reasons. First, it is a time for us to remember Christ and His sacrifice on the Cross to pay the punishments we all deserve every day. And we should never forget that.

But it is also the season of the best jellybeans known to mankind.

The perfect candy exists, and it is Sweetarts Jelly Beans. I discovered them a couple of years ago. I usually don't get into the whole bunny/candy/not-related-to-the-actual-Easter-in-any-way thing, but these are certainly an exception. I remembered them as Target was beginning to put up the ridiculous baskets and assorted not-really-Easter decorations and patiently waited for the candy to be put out.

Suddenly, one day at Hy-Vee, I found them. There, in their glorious pink, blue and green bag, were the little nuggets of awesome.

This was about a month ago. We are on our fourth bag. They are THAT good.

They have a normal gooey jelly-bean center, but it's the coating that makes them spectacular. It's like they crushed actual Sweetarts and coated jellybeans with them. I can't get enough of them. My wife doesn't like them as they are a bit sour, but eats them anyways.

"They're okay if I just suck off the outside stuff first," she says.

Either way you eat them, Sweetarts Jelly Beans are yet another Little Awesome Thing that makes my day just a little bit brighter.

Five Ancient Versions of Websites

The Internet's not that old. But, interestingly enough, it IS old enough to look back on and notice how old and outdated some webpages were, back in the day. So here, courtesy of the Wayback Machine, are five of the greatest examples of Digital Nostalgia. (Go try it out yourself, it's addictive!)

1. Facebook

I can remember when there wasn't Facebook. That makes me feel really old. The original design, when I first started using it, was pretty clean. They've kept that up, for the most part.

Unfortunately, the Wayback Machine only has the login page, but you can still see that is was a lot simpler back then.

2. Google

Back in the day when you still had to choose a search engine (and when Google wasn't a verb yet), I mostly used Lycos and Excite. But I gradually came around, and now most of my life is uploaded and synced with Google and their servers. Back in the day, they were just a prototype at Stanford, but still colorful.

3. Excite

I was the one kid in sixth grade who didn't get a Hotmail account. I decided to go with Excite as my search engine and webmail of choice. I remained steadfastly an Excite user until 2006, when I finally broke down and got a gmail address. No, I am not making that up. I had an Excite.com email address for more than ten years. And I still have one that's so full of spam I could sign it up for a Monty Python sketch.

The first iteration of the lame-o search engine is a classic victim of late-90s webpage design. "Let's just put everything on the front page all at once! That's easy, right?"

4. The New York Times

I never was much of a news junkie until I got to college, and then I mostly used the start page of iGoogle or Excite. It wasn't until I was actively taking journalism classes that I started getting my news directly from news sites.

The New York Times' first iteration from 1996 is hilariously bad. It looks like they half-scanned the first half of the front page and stopped there.

Note the "Please open your window to the width of this line of text" banner across the bottom.

5. 3M

And finally, an example of what corporate America was thinking about this whole Internet thing in the late 90s. I've worked for 3M, my father still works there, and I've always gotten the impression that 3M was so massively gargantuan that it takes them a long time to change directions as a company.

Their first website, launched in February of 1997, is no exception. It looks like someone who read a book on HTML got his hands on a few press releases and lumped it together into a "Website." Oh well, the net was young, and we were foolish.