FOODIE FRIDAY for February 26, 2010

Fellow Twins fan KIRSTEN says, "While a bottomless glass of wine sounds appealing, I'm not really sure what a bottemless glass of wine is."

Hmmm...I think the only way you can get to a bottemless glass of wine is by drinking yourself silly enough that that word looks totally okay and not misspelled at all.

Kirsten also said: "I had to make about 7 U-turns so that I would get to the stoplight when it was red so I could safely take the picture." Kudos to her for doing a drive-by photo shooting safely--and that's a friendly reminder to all my readers to be safe while pursuing photographic evidence of bad grammar! :)

Thanks to KIRSTEN for spotting this misspelling! Have a wonderful Foodie--or Drinky--Friday, you guys!

LOST...in 815 (or fewer) words: "Lighthouse"

Welcome, dear readers, to LOST...in 815 (or fewer) words. This is a variation on last season's series of Lost posts on Red Pen, Inc.--the main difference being that these posts are less rambly. However, I'm still counting on the rest of you to talk to me in the comments about your thoughts/theories about last night's season premiere--so ramble on, you guys, OK? ;)

I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about last night's episode, "Lighthouse." I kinda rolled my eyes when I heard it was gonna be a Jack episode. Aside from maybe 10 minutes during Season 1 during which I thought Jack was hot (which ceased the moment I saw Sawyer, who is the epitome of hotness and complexity), I haven't been terribly interested in him. I can't put my finger on exactly why, but I don't find Jack to be particularly likable. After this episode, I'm still not sure I like him at all. Also, I was hoping for a Christian cameo last night and some sort of resolution to the Christian/Jack storyline, but that didn't happen, either. But instead--hey now, Jack's got a son? (Which, in typical Lost fashion, raises more questions, most notably "So who's the mom?")

I started to actually like Jack a little more when I saw that he was really trying to connect with his kid, David. (Also: Did anybody else get a bit of a Faraday vibe off that kid? A gifted, piano-playing child who wants to please a parent by succeeding/not failing? I'm flashing back to the beginning of that Faraday flashback episode from Season 5...this kid reminds me a bit of young Faraday.) I liked Jack there because I felt like he'd taken what he'd learned from how his father treated him and tried to make sure his son didn't suffer the same sorts of pressure.

And then Jack busted Jacob's mirror.

Cue me going back to not liking Jack so much.

Now, I'm thinking it's likely that Jacob wanted Hurley to bring Jack to the lighthouse for exactly that reason--Jacob didn't exactly look pissed when Hurley told him what happened--but still, it was a selfish, impulsive action on Jack's part. He could have learned more, a lot more, from that mirror, and now he can't. (Also: did the mechanism that turned the mirror remind anyone else of a Big Frozen Donkey Wheel? When I saw that thing being turned, that's the first thing I thought of...)

So did Jacob want that mirror destroyed? If so, was it because he needed it to be destroyed in order to attract someone--lord only knows who--to the Island? What's going through Jack's mind as he stared out at the ocean at the end of the episode? And has he done these actions by free will, or because of Jacob's influence?

On a different part of the Island, Crazy Claire was being, well...crazy. She killed a dude from the temple and has kinda threatened to kill Kate, if in fact Kate did raise her child--and we, dear readers, know that that's exactly what happened. Smart Jin for trying to lie about this to Claire--but I'm not entirely certain she believed him. And now we know for certain that Claire's "friend" is FLocke, which certainly seems to back up the notion that Claire has been "claimed."

Also: what's the significance of Dogen showing up in Jack's sideways timeline? (And, upon first seeing that Asian kid, did anyone else go "OMG, it's Ji Yeon!" before realizing that, well, it wasn't? I was all aboard the Ji Yeon train...'til i saw Dogen.) Anyone else think there was more to Dogen's "Your son has a gift" than he was letting on?

We got to see another glimpse of the skeletons (the ones in the cave) in this latest episode. One of them appeared to be wearing a dark blue button-down shirt. Did anyone else catch any more details about the skeletons? One character immediately comes to mind as someone we've seen recently on the Island, wearing a dark blue button-down shirt...

I'm gonna end this one with a couple of quotes I really enjoyed during this episode. What were some of your favorite moments? Any theories or thoughts on the mirror imagery scattered throughout the episode--Claire mirroring Rousseau, Jack bringing up his appendix operation (which we know that in the on-Island timeline, was done using a mirror), the Annotated Alice book (conjuring up thoughts of mirrors as well--and by the way, I had a total nerdy moment of excitement when I saw the book, because I have and have been re-reading that very same book), and, most obviously, the big mirror that Jack smashed? What are your thoughts on the skeletons? Shout 'em out in the Comments section!

[Regarding the lighthouse]
Jack: How is it that we'd never seen it before?
Hurley: "I guess we just weren't looking for it..."
(I'm really, really, really loving Hurley this season.)

and

Hurley: "Why'd you come back?"
Jack: "Because I was broken and was stupid enough to think this place could fix me."

I still may not like Jack a whole lot, but I can't help but hope that by the end of the season, he's no longer broken.

MISSPELLING MONDAY for February 22, 2010

So BRIDGETE, who is going to Paris in the near future, found these errors for us. She says: Normally I wouldn't submit something like this; I know it's primarily a French website, and they just give an English translation out of courtesy. However, the instant I read "No smocking hotel" I nearly died laughing, so I knew I had to pass it on. Although, it is Paris, I guess there could be some sort of Fashion Police rule against smocks...

Not only that, but the mention of "multilangual" staff at this hotel makes me smile. Does this still count as Engrish since it comes from France? (Normally Engrish comes from Japan. So does this still qualify as Engrish, or do we need to come up with another term, like Franglish?)

Thanks, BRIDGETE, for spotting these funny errors! :)

FOODIE FRIDAY for February 19, 2010

OK, so technically this post deals with food, but...it's food you probably shouldn't eat! Seriously, why the hell would someone paint potato chips? Wouldn't they be rather fragile? And aren't potato chips for nom-nom-nomming, not for arts and crafts?

Anyway, MEGAN found that silly misspelling at the Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum. (That surprised me--I'd taken one look at this crazy craft and figured it must have been spotted over at Regretsy...) I don't think we can blame Linda Lee Curtis for any transgressions beyond making some rather bizarre-looking art projects (the paintings on these chips really kinda creep me out); the museum seems like it's the guilty party when it comes to the misspelling on the little sign. So Ripley, if you said somebody at one of your museums couldn't spell...well, I'd certainly believe that!

Thanks, MEGAN, for catching this error!

HUMP DAY GRAMMAR for February 17, 2010

Normally this misspelling would not be fodder for a Hump Day Grammar post. But since all it does is make me think of this hilarious scene from Entourage (link is NSFW!)...well, in that scenario, "furry" totally counts as something Hump Day-related.

Thanks, LadyStyx, for spotting this funny FAIL!

Happy Hump Day, you crazy kids. Have fun fuckin' like rabbits...and I mean that figuratively, not literally! ;)

LOST...in 815 (or fewer) words: "The Substitute"

Welcome, dear readers, to LOST...in 815 (or fewer) words. This is a variation on last season's series of Lost posts on Red Pen, Inc.--the main difference being that these posts are less rambly. However, I'm still counting on the rest of you to talk to me in the comments about your thoughts/theories about last night's season premiere--so ramble on, you guys, OK? ;)

Last week's episode, "What Kate Does," was not a holy shit type of episode.

This week's episode, "The Substitute," more than made up for that.

This episode wasn't huge on answers, but it was big on making us feel like the answers are on their way. For instance, we don't know quite why the numbers--you know, those numbers--are written on the ceiling of a cave alongside names of some of the 815 passengers. Flocke says it's because said people are potential "candidates" (to lead the Island), but let's face it--who's gonna trust Flocke a whole lot these days? Lost is a show brimming with unreliable narrators, and we have nu guarantee that characters on this show actually speak the truth--in fact, they generally do quite the opposite (a-hem, Ben, you lying rat, telling Ilana that Flocke killed Jacob when we all know you helped!). But the numbers being on the ceiling does seem to hint that we'll understand why the numbers were so important in the first place, and also insinuates that the people whose names are not crossed off the list are all special for some reason. I'm not taking Flocke at face value, though--there's no way in hell that in the fourth episode of the final season, with more than 10 episodes left to go, that they're spilling the answer to why these people are on the Island so soon.

We got handed another mystery tonight: Who's that blond kid in the woods? My theories:
a. It's (young) Jacob.
b. It's (a slightly older) Aaron.
c. Jacob = Aaron somehow (sideways universes colliding?), and this child is that entity.

Flocke seemed spooked by that kid, didn't he? Which leads me to believe that kid is absolutely connected to Jacob in some way or another.

We got to see a different side of Richard Alpert during this episode. We saw this man, a man who has not seemed to ever age and who generally seems to be confident and knowledgeable, look absolutely petrified. We saw him get dumped out of some sort of trap/bag-like contraption, and then later we saw him desperately trying to avoid Flocke in the woods. The normally unflappable Richard Alpert is acting all kinds of scared now.

We got to see the return of badass Sawyer. Tortured as though he may be, I've gotta admit that drunken Sawyer was delightful to watch. I'm getting the impression that he knows Flocke's bad news, but he wants to escape the Island so badly that he's willing to go along with Flocke. Loved the scene at the entrance to the cave, where Flocke seemed to tip the scale--a scale on which there were rocks, one side light and one side dark. (And where have we heard of such a thing before? That scene in season 1 where Locke--the real Locke--was telling Waaaaaaaalt! about backgammon--that scene that so many Losties think foreshadowed the point of the entire freakin' series...)

We saw some surprising familiar faces pop up in Locke's sideways timeline. Hurley! Rose! And...Ben? Teaching European history? That was just fantastic. I was convinced we were going to see Jack, too, but Helen tore up Jack's business card (and then made out with Locke--OK, is it just me, or did we see a little more Locke-related intimacy than we'd ever wanted to? Locke making out, Locke in the bathtub, Locke about to explain sex ed to a classroom full of kids... But Locke in Love? Truly and deeply in love, and having that love reciprocated? Now THAT was fantastic.).

I have no idea how or when the Lost timelines are going to collide or otherwise impact one another in a major way, but it can't be far from now. It looks like everyone on the Island is getting ready to head to the temple (some of them are already there, the Sun/Ben/Ilana/Lapidus group is headed there, and I'm willing to bet, now that Sawyer told Flocke that people were at the temple, that Flocke will want to head there as well...plus, we already know that those two other Others are probably going to be bringing Jin back there...), which would get everybody in the current Island timeline all in the same place at the same time. And what will happen then...?

What do you think, fellow Losties? Shout it out in the Comments section below!

iHide.

I find it questionable that there are no hidden costs associated with this...especially when there is a hidden letter involved in that statement. They managed to hide a letter d from the word "hidden." Oh, the irony...

The suburbs aren't the only thing that's rattled...

Looks like the earthquake also rattled somebody's brain...because really, what other explanation could there be for a nonsensical sentence like "The quake appears to be is bona fide"?

Thanks to SARAH R. for spotting this one!

Screw the roses and chocolate--for some people, a gift of correctly-spelled words would be the best choice...

Spa coupons? Sure, that's a great gift for most women. But for the woman who wrote the newsletter in which this special gift was advertised...well, I think her gift should be a dictionary. For obvious reasons.

Thanks, MAGGIE, for spotting this funny error! Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

FOODIE FRIDAY for February 12, 2009

Something smells a little fishy around here... Is it the shrimp cocktail, or the spelling skills of the person who wrote this menu?

In just one line, we've got "coctail," "jombo," "srhimp," and "coctal." This idiot couldn't even be bothered to misspell cocktail the same way--he managed to screw it up in two different ways!

Thanks to KOL for spotting this crazy series of errors!

LOST...in 815 (or fewer) words: "What Kate Does"

Welcome, dear readers, to LOST...in 815 (or fewer) words. This is a variation on last season's series of Lost posts on Red Pen, Inc.--the main difference being that these posts are less rambly. However, I'm still counting on the rest of you to talk to me in the comments about your thoughts/theories about last night's season premiere--so ramble on, you guys, OK? ;)

So everything I read in advance about this episode seemed to indicate that it would be Kate-centric. To some degree, it was, but I think that the more interesting and more important story is what's going on with Sayid...and also Claire.

That's not a knock on Kate at all. She's my favorite of the female characters, and while other people seem to really dislike her, I find her to be brave, strong, and loyal. Yeah, she's a felon, but she also knows how and when to do the right thing. Like in tonight's episode, when she was on the run (off the island)--she could have been completely selfish and just taken off, not come back for Claire, and not helped Claire get to a hospital. But she did come back and she did assist Claire, even when there were cops after her. Kate risked her newfound freedom to do the right thing. (Also regarding the Kate/Claire storyline: holy shit, it's Ethan, looking a lot less creepy than he usually looks, and seeming much more benevolent than he usually seems!)

I found it interesting that on-island and off-island, Kate and Ethan are two major players in the Claire-having-a-baby drama. That's definitely a parallel. (Another sign of...something about parallel universes, perhaps?)

I was also really impressed with Sawyer tonight. His emotions were believable, palpable, and it made it hard to remember that this guy was once a selfish con artist loathed by pretty much everyone else on the island. I still feel like Kate and Sawyer are two halves of the same whole, and I do hope that they somehow find a way to be together, but...not just yet. Sawyer's growing with his Juliet-induced grief, and I'm curious to see where that takes him.

Back at the temple, the Sayid mystery continues. Is he dead or isn't he? The strange Japanese man ("Dogen"? Is that right?) seems to think Sayid's been...inhabited. I'm inclined to agree with him. He described it to Jack as an infection: "There's a darkness growing inside of him. Everything your friend once was will be gone." Jack, the man of science, asked how he could be so sure of this, and the man replied, "Because it happened to your sister." And then a couple minutes later...there's Claire, acting and looking mighty Rousseau-like with a shotgun in the woods.

My prediction: Sayid's gonna start being bad, bad, bad, and somebody's gonna have to kill him. My money's on either Jack or Hurley: Hurley because he's been a little more heroic as of late, or Jack because he's going to feel a need to be a hero and balance out the things he recently did that he's not proud of (like his role in what led to Juliet's death). I'm betting Claire's also turned rather rotten (becoming inhabited after the attack on the Dharma houses way back in season 4). What will happen if these core members of Flight 815 turn against the other people from the flight? How will these bad apples get redemption? And how does it all relate to the parallel universe issue Lost has going on this season?

Your turn, you guys. What'd you think of "What Kate Does"? What's next for these characters? Was anyone else kinda dying because there were no Flocke or Ben scenes in this episode? (I sure was!) Comment away!

Spamtasticness!

It's going to snow again, kids. And snow is de-freakin'-pressing. So here's some hilarious spam, courtesy of the lovely LadyStyx, to cheer you up. I didn't even red pen it up because...well, then the entire letter would be covered in red, and I wanted you to be able to read it clearly.

Remember, you guys--remain beless, and love matters a lot! (But dammit, it doesn't matter as much as good grammar does, OK?) ;)

Thanks to LadyStyx for sending in this crazy-ass e-mail!

All this snow gave one writer a hell of a brain freeze...

Hmmm, I think somebody's brain is all clogged up with snow... What is this "remains to be under" crap? "Remains under" would have sufficed. No need to throw random "to be"s around like...I dunno. Like snowballs?

Fellow East Coasters, what are you doing on this snowy day? Out sledding or building snowpeople, or hiding in your nice, warm houses with mugs of hot cocoa?

I disagree with this writer's choice of words...

For those of you who say that Obama's accomplished nothing since he's been President, I can now say with absolute certainty that you are quite wrong. Our President has accomplished the impossible: the ability to be given a verb as opposed to just being handed an ordinary noun! It takes true talent to earn a verb, you guys!

Thanks to ZACH for spotting this funny word mix-up. Happy Friday, everyone!

Hi there, Pot. Meet Kettle...

As if that writer has any room to talk about handicaps. But hey, at least we don't have to guess too much about exactly how the writer is handicapped. I think his spelling-impairedness is pretty obvious, don't you?

LOST...in 815 (or fewer) words: "LA X"

Welcome, dear readers, to LOST...in 815 (or fewer) words. This is a variation on last season's series of Lost posts on Red Pen, Inc.--the main difference being that these posts are less rambly. However, I'm still counting on the rest of you to talk to me in the comments about your thoughts/theories about last night's season premiere--so ramble on, you guys, OK? ;)

Lost is a thinking person's show. It's not for those who are content to revisit the same crime dramas, hospital dramas, or laugh track shows that have been done ad nauseum. It's for people who like to be bombarded by questions and need substantial stuff to think about. Simply put, Lost is for those of us who crave braingasms on a regular basis.

Last night's season premiere was, in terms of braingasms, the cerebral orgy of the century. Unsurprisingly, Team Darlton gave us more questions than answers. (OK, maybe you were surprised, but I wasn't--I couldn't keep my paws off the spoiler sites, and I'd learned a couple weeks ago that the premiere was question-heavy, answers-light.) To their credit, they tossed quite a few gems our way (hey, look, there's Arzt! And later--hey, isn't that Cindy and those two scruffy kids who got snatched off the beach in season 1? Now we know where they went...). But the questions...oh, the questions!

The big picture: Last season they tackled the issue of time--in particular, time travel. This time around, I'm wondering if they're tackling the issue of space--particularly in terms of parallel, or at least multiple, universes. (Update: And this article confirms the basic premise, at least, of my theory...) We've sort of seen them flirt with parallel/multiple universes a wee bit before, but now it's gone past mere flirtation and now they're making out with it, complete with groping and lots of tongue. In the premiere, we saw a different on-the-plane scenario where the plane did not crash, collected $200 and passed Go on its way to LAX, and on its way, we saw what looked to be the lost city of Dharmalantis hanging out on the bottom of the ocean. Kate, Jack, Hurley, Locke (real Locke), Sawyer, Sayid, Sun, Jin, Rose, Bernard, Charlie, Boone, Desmond, the marshal, the pilot (or some version of them)--we saw or heard all of them in this off-island space. We also know that Kate, Jack, Hurley, Sawyer, Miles, and Jin (or some version of them) exist in an on-island scenario (what time period that is, I'm not entirely sure--but it seems to be post-Hatch-getting-blown-up, so maybe they got sent to 2007 as well?). And we know that fake Locke (Flocke), Ben, Richard "Maybe He's Born With It" Alpert, Ilana, and Sun (or a version of them) exist in an on-island scenario that seems to have picked up right where the season 5 finale left off, so that would mean that version of those characters exists in "present time," which for them would be 2007.

Is it possible that what we're seeing now is a series of parallel universes, where characters can exist in multiple universes at the same time? Did Juliet setting the bomb off do something to make these universes exist? (Is this what Juliet wanted to tell Sawyer right before she died? How could she have known that, though?)

In sticking with the "a version of that character" theme, here's my theory on Sayid: the on-island version of Sayid is now Jacob. Much like Flocke is actually Smokey in disguise, I'm betting Jacob, from what happened at that bizarre ritual at the temple (were they reversing the sands of time?) is now disguised as Sayid. We already know the real Locke is dead. Is the real Sayid also dead?

We know that going into the final season of Lost, there's a focus on redemption. At the beginning of the episode, Sayid asked, "What do you think will happen to me when I die?" and then followed it up with "Wherever I go, I doubt it'll be very pleasant" due to all the people he tortured in his career as a member of the Republican Guard. Is this a chance for Sayid--or, at least, his body--to be redeemed? To allow himself to be a vessel for Jacob, who wants to protect the island?

Speaking of Jacob, Ben articulated a Jacob-related question that's been preying on my mind for, oh, the last 8 months or so: "Why didn't he fight back?" When Jacob saw Flocke, the look in Jacob's eyes indicated he seemed to know exactly what was going to happen--he had almost a defeated look going on. But why'd he just stand there and let it happen? Aren't god-types supposed to be powerful? What's Jacob up to that he just let himself get killed without putting up a fight?

Also on the redemption theme--I've always felt that Hurley is one of the most good characters on the show, and he's less in need of redemption than some of the others. In this premiere, while he may not necessarily have been going for redemption, he's certainly on a bit of a path to hero status. He was the only one Jacob could communicate with, and therefore he put forth the idea of taking Sayid to the temple to save him. When it was clearly a futile effort for Jack to keep trying to save Sayid, Jack--always the leader, always the hero-type--had to defer to the often-bumbling Hurley.

One more point before I let you crazy kids take over in the comments. One of my favorite moments in tonight's premiere was this line from (real) Locke, which he said to Jack at LAX after the plane had landed: "They didn't lose your father. They just lost his body." And if that doesn't speak to the theory of people existing in multiple realms--ie the parallel universes point I made a few paragraphs earlier--then I don't know what does.

OK, now it's your turn! Talk to me in the comments section. What did you love/hate about this premiere? What are your burning questions? What are your crazy theories? And are you gonna be able to make it another week without your head exploding in some supermassive Lost-induced braingasm?

Happy LOST day!

*squeal* You guys, LOST is back today! Who's excited? I'm totally stoked...and not just because I need a Sawyer fix, either. I've been going nuts about this show's unanswered questions for the last 8 months or so, and now, finally, some of our big, burning questions will start to be answered! (Or maybe not: I've heard that the season 6 premiere will confuse us more than anything, and then the rest of the season will start to make things more clear for us. But I digress.)

What is the number one Lost-related question you want to get an answer to this season? Shout it out in the comments. As for me, I want to find out if Ben's bad or good (the words "bad" or "good" are far too simple to describe Ben, but you get what I'm getting at, I'm sure), and I want to know if he'll find redemption.

(Oh! As for the grammar mistake, this lovely Lost article-writer clearly forgot that Michael is played by Harold Perrineau. I don't know who the hell this Michael Perrineau dude is, but whoever he is, he isn't on Lost!)

In the future, everybody's typos will be world famous for fifteen minutes.

I'm back! And now I'm 29! But I still look about 23 or so, which is really kind of nice. ;) And luckily I'm not getting any less snarky as I age.

I was really happy to read this article on Andy Warhol, since he's my favorite artist (I have Warhol prints all over the house, and something crazy like...7 or 8 Warhol books). But this article's editing left a lot to be desired. While Warhol exited this world quite a few years ago, headed for that big Factory in the sky, I'm pretty sure that he would actually be excited--not exited--about his photos being distributed to various colleges and universities.

Warhol once said, "Don't pay any attention to what they write about you. Just measure it in inches." And I'd like to add this to that statement: "Let's just hope those inches don't have to be marked up with lots of red pen!"