Jenksismyhero

Don't worry everyone, we know who's fault this is. That mother f***er Bush

ugh. i'm an idiot. sorry!

am I seeing this right? The Euro is now .81 to the dollar? Craziness. Might be changing my honeymoon plans in October...

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ May 26, 2010 -> 11:51 AM) The problem is that basically nothing that happened on the island mattered in the whole scheme of things. The problem is what is the whole scheme? It's a very basic story about a people that come together after a tragedy and then eventually all die and leave for heaven or whatever together. The told that story via their experiences on a mysterious island. I think people are way over thinking things. Blogs and the internet spread the greatness and wonderfulness of Lost as some show about all these things that were going to be linked together and connected. I get that. But that's not the writers fault that people like Doc Jensen took a couple of interesting props (like books or cd's or whatever) and ran with it.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ May 26, 2010 -> 11:34 AM) You're shifting goalposts. It was a central issue for a while on the show, and then was dropped completely without explanation. Like dozens of other things. I can't define the line, but there's things in fantasy genre that don't need explanation and things that do. With Lost focusing on so much minutia, these things should have been explained. Star Wars didn't have a motif on what the force was, so you didn't need a background explanation (and when Lucas tried he destroyed it). Lost focused on this issue for about half a season and foreshadowed it for two before that. Then it was completely forgotten. I get your point, and I agree there were lots of misses by the writers. But to me the issue with the pregnancy just wasn't all that central to the remaining years of the show. It was just something that happened. It's akin to the healing properties of the island. That was a big issue that never got explained, but so what? It's a mysterious island.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ May 26, 2010 -> 11:26 AM) Island pregnancy. It was a central issue to the actions of the Others in the first few seasons and it was why Juliet was on the island. But no explanation was ever given. Who cares? Do you need to be told how Jacob has the power to give Richard eternal life? Or do you just accept it? That issue has nothing to do with the overall plot of the show, only a way to introduce characters like Juliette, and to create intense seasons about Sun and Claire.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ May 26, 2010 -> 10:58 AM) Brace yourself, guys. It’s a long one: I fully realize what I wrote. It doesn't change the fact that even if these characters were victims of circumstance, those circumstances went completely unexplained. They could have gone through a lot of cool s*** in a desert and Africa and still gotten close together. Instead, they were placed on a deserted island by an mysterious man with intentions that are wholly contradictory, terrorized by a group of "others" who operated without any sort of internal logic (Jacob gave us a list of people he wanted, but refuses to talk to himself, even though he talked to them when they were kids, that time he somehow got off the island, let's scare the s*** out of them and kidnap their kids, because we can't have kids, because of some sort of pregnancy thing that will never get explained), effected by a group of numbers, that were offered a tangential explanation and then contradicted by Jacob (just chalk on a wall, Kate.) and so and so forth. Anyone trying to say that the character ultimately outweighed the mythology should realize that the mythology was grown and expanded upon beside the characters for 6 years, and ultimate went unexplained. I remember how during the writers’ strike one of the head writers Carlton Cuse carried around a sign that said, "Do you want to know what the island is?" Yes, Carlton. I do want to know what the Island is. Explain it to me. What? It’s a glowing energy source protected by a magical cork in the center of the Island that sometimes turns people into smoke, which somehow links back to early Egyptian mythology? Awesome, now explain that. Why didn't the sign say, "It's the characters, stupid?" That’s the same type of crap that most writers do when they run out of time to give proper answers to the questions they raised. I enjoyed the four season of set-up i got. I just wanted two seasons of answers instead of time-travel and purgatory. We'll, there's no convincing you otherwise, but to me I think a lot of these things have answers. You can't explain every mysterious thing. They might not have come out and had two people have dialogue about it, but there's enough there for you to draw your own conclusion. Some stuff they introduced and never got back to, but it's not like they dwelled on anything for so long and then just ignored it (without a reasonable explanation why, like the Walt thing). They gave hints as to what the answer is/should be for 99% of the important unknowns. As to the bolded, what would have been sufficient? Do you need to know the history of everything introduced on the show? Why not be pissed that you didn't get the entire life stories of each character? They answered all of the important questions - who these people were, what the island was, why they arrived on the island, and ultimately how they left and ended their lives.

QUOTE (T R U @ May 25, 2010 -> 02:27 PM) I have not experienced any major bugs or glitches and I have completed the story and have spent a lot of time on the game.. maybe its only certain instances, but I haven't run into any yet Consider yourself lucky.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ May 25, 2010 -> 01:04 PM) The first two seasons were about Walt being special and how that related to the others and the kidnapping of children. How was that not important? Also, what was the motivation behind Jacob bringing the candidates to the Island, and then allowing his people to terrorize them and attempt to kill them for three seasons? I can fill in a lot of these gaps, but I shouldn’t have too. Nor, should I have to look in an encyclopedia to get the answers that should have been given over the course of the show. I'll give you that the Walt being special angle didn't get played out fully , but I think that's explained by the fact that that kid grew like 6 feet between seasons, so they were basically forced to cut that story. The Others were interested in kids because they needed the next generation of Others due to the not-being-able-to-have-kids dilemma Eh, who knows about Jacob letting the candidates go through that stuff. Maybe by touching them they were protected from harm? Maybe that was part of the trial to see who was worthy? The Others had a list of their names from Jacob, and therefore knew that they were special. Maybe they were supposed to protect them, but because of evil-Ben's jealousy it was more protection-with-aggravation/torture instead. At some point you gotta realize the show is a show, it's a story that went on for 120 hours over the course of like 8 years, so of course there's going to be some things that didn't work or things that they decided not to get back to. I think that's the nature of the beast. All of the major, important mysteries were answered to some degree, with the rest left up to the audience to figure out on their own. As someone else already posted, I think if they had tried to answer everything it would have just been dumb.

QUOTE (Middle Buffalo @ May 25, 2010 -> 01:22 PM) 3) Undocumented immigrants are entering Arizona in record numbers. • REALITY: The flow peaked about a decade ago. It has slowed or even stopped since the economic decline. The Department of Homeland Security estimated 460,000 undocumented immigrants in Arizona in 2009. 6) Stiffer laws and tougher border enforcement will rid Arizona of undocumented immigrants. • REALITY: This has begun, with illegal crossers falling from 600,000 in 2000 to 241,000 in 2009. It's doubtful most undocumented families would leave because they've been welcomed over the past decade for their labor and have established their lives here with children who were born as U.S. citizens.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 25, 2010 -> 08:55 AM) Just to stress again...this is exactly how the drilling companies want the system to work. Especially when the taxpayer has agreed to take on the price of any accidents, like they did after Exxon. Man, I can't wait until there's government oversight into the national healthcare sys...oh wait...

S'all good. Eventually we'll all be on the government pay roll anyway. Who needs a job? Gimme Gimme Gimme!

I dunno why people are having such a difficult time with the questions/mysteries. 90% of the questions were answered to some degree, and the rest are not that important. It's like if you were trying to tell a story about a guy walking down the street in a city. A writer might describe a building or a sign the guy walks by, but you don't need to know the whole history of the building and/or sign to get the story. Also, think about it in the larger perspective - you had 2 seasons where the writers knew of a vague story about people on an island. Everything was totally fabricated to keep people interested. The more f'd up the island, the more people talked about it. Eventually they get an end date and have to come up with a story to link it all together. Some of it worked (the others, dharma, MIB/Jacob) and some of it totally failed (most of the off island stuff, time travel - really, why even include all that nonsense if it had nothing to do with the end result?). I'll grant you that they brought up a of stuff to create the wow factor and then failed to follow up, but still, those things weren't all that important. It was 5 seasons of sci fi action, one season of trying to wrap it all up into a story that completes the tale of the 6-8 main people we've watched for 120 hours. It'll be remember for the awesome story telling mechanics - the use of flashbacks, flashforwards (genius...."Kate, we have to go back!" will be legendary TV line i think), even the sideways stuff was all pretty new, especially for a network show. I dunno, I think in 3-4 years i'll think a little less of the show, but for what it was, it was pretty sweet.

So, I'm probably 5-6 hours in to Red Dead, and so far, and it's the buggiest/glitchiest "major" release i've ever played. Not enough to be ubber annoying, but enough to frustrate me. I was doing the first bounty hunter mission last night. The guy is by a lake/river. He takes off on his horse down the "bank" of the water, though there is no "bank" or shore, just a rocky wall filled with shrubs and trees. I lasso'd his ass in the middle of a gigantic tree that was nearly as wide as I was. I've also failed missions at least twice by running my horse into the guy i'm supposed to talk to, causing the system to think i'm attacking him. I'm surprised they didn't fix that one. Seems pretty obvious that if i'm doing a job for the guy i'm not going to hurt him. Still, this is the type of immersive game that I never got with GTA (except for the first one). I think the missions are better, the side stuff is more fun, and being out in the "open" gives the game a whole different feel.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ May 24, 2010 -> 01:30 PM) This post is even better when read next to your avatar. It looks like Hillary is yelling your post at me.

QUOTE (Tex @ May 24, 2010 -> 12:56 PM) While we are fighting for minimum wage jobs, middle class jobs are being outsourced, and higher wage jobs are being taken by H1B Visa holders. The business leaders and politicians have done a great job of misdirection. Is that true? I thought all the reports are saying that jobs that are outsourced are replaced with other jobs here.

here's the solution: our society stops being PC p*****s about EVERYTHING and then this crap wouldn't happen. You think middle school hispanic kids gave a flying f*** what these idiots were doing? But now that there's a major uproar over it we just gave kids the incentive (attention) to be a bunch of teenage assholes. This country makes me so f'n sick sometimes with having to appease EVERYONE about EVERYTHING. Can't we just go one day where someone gets direspected and instead of crying like a bunch if p*****s we just say "ya know what, EVERYONE gets disrespected about SOMETHING. That's life. Shut up and deal."

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ May 24, 2010 -> 09:06 AM) Two of my beefs: After selling the Sayid/Nadia love story for all these years were we really supposed to be convinced that Shannon, his 1 week fling, was his true love? Lame. Also, the whole Michael/Walt thing. These were central characters for 4 seasons and not even a cameo yesterday but Shannon's stupid brother gets a big hug scene with Jack at the end? Overall, I did enjoy the finale. Agree on the Sayid/Nadia thing. I haven't watched the first couple of seasons in a while, perhaps that romance/love angle was stronger than I originally thought. But even in the later seasons it seemed like he was longing for Nadia, not Shannon. Michael was given a cameo an episode or two back, when he told Hurley he was stuck on the island, along with others. I assume that's where he stayed, and perhaps at some point when he's ready, he'll leave too. I think it was pretty clear that all of the good characters showed up at the church in the end, the rest are stuck behind/not heading to heaven. I'll give the finale an A-. The "awakening" moments when everyone remembered each other were amazing. Great way to show old clips and to really give those moments some history/meaning. I'm sorta of split with the board here. 2 weeks ago I was pissed about the Jacob/MIB story as being totally lame and uninteresting. So I get the camp that wants answers to the questions that have been building all these years. But I'm coming around to the group that argues those answers don't matter. They're interesting, no doubt, but aren't important for the show. The island is magical, it has special properties, the end. Every little quirk they introduce isn't that important IMO. My two biggest gripes: Desmond and Hawking. I'm still not sure what their role in all this is. Do they have the power to "see" the other side? If so, aren't they the same as Hurley/Miles? What's the difference? Sad to see the show go. Luckily I have 120 hours to re-watch in the near future. Maybe we'll get more clues/meaning out of the earlier stuff.

QUOTE (CrimsonWeltall @ May 21, 2010 -> 03:53 PM) A group of teenagers plan to all wear their American flag shirts on Cinco de Mayo. Yeah, no possible reason that administrators would think they're just being assholes... who cares ? You think the guy wearing the jesus smokes bongs shirt wasn't being an ass?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 21, 2010 -> 03:40 PM) Minus the sarcasm, which do you prefer. Paying more to put people in jail or paying less to put families on welfare? Since I don't think either are the ONLY results in these situations, I'll choose neither. Look, I dunno what the best solution is, but here's what I think: I think it's a travesty that the mindset in this country has gone from "whatever hard work I put in, i'll get back" to "hey, hey! it's not fair X person has this. I want it too" without the expectation that people actually have to WORK and be ACCOUNTABLE for their own lives. The entitlement school of thought is ridiculous. The country was designed for equal OPPORTUNITY, not equal RESULTS. Do I feel bad for a single mother with 2 kids? Sure. Probably more for the kids, but whatever. People make mistakes in life and I totally agree that we shouldn't just let people die on the streets. But why create a system where we're basically giving incentives to be like that. I tell you what, growing up, I never once thought that if I failed to get a job, that I could just go down to the local government office, fill out some forms, and get some $$, food stamps, whatever. And that's the way it should be. People should be shocked that society will help them WHEN THEY NEED HELP ON A TEMPORARY BASIS. Can you at least admit that the time that people are on welfare is out of whack? I mean, how f***ing ludicrous is it that YOU have to pay for someones laziness and cheapness for not getting health insurance, despite the fact that its READILY AVAILABLE? Yeah, they might have to give up a cell phone, a text plan, cable, whatever, but so what? It's available.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 21, 2010 -> 03:20 PM) I think you guys are missing a lot of the other negative consequences of your actions. No matter how good foster parents are, you're still ripping apart a family, which is traumatic for both children and parents on its own, and which of course in a lot of cases winds up correlating just as much with another generation of substance abuse, crime, and government interventions. You're hating doing anything that would give people a governmetn bailout, like health care or a roof over their heads, but what do you think is going to happen to those people when you put them out on the street? You're going to be footing an even larger bill for them once they get locked up in jail. You're talking about being much more aggressive in taking children away from parents, which is a very difficult thing for the government to do at any level, because having the government declare people unfit parents is a pretty major step. Heck, statistics show it also doesn't work, to a staggering degree All this because you feel angry about your money going to poor people. I think I speak for most Republicans when I say I'd just rather they all die so me and my fellow white males can play golf and smoke cigars in peace. Also, they dirty my shoes. I do not like it.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 21, 2010 -> 02:40 PM) Great. So where are you putting the kids? In that huge pool of foster families that are out there, right? So now the kids are getting bailed out by the government, the foster family is getting paid by the government to take them, and you're angry because your tax dollars are going to deal with other people's problems and because the kids are still being taught that the government will bail them out if they screw up. Kids growing up in foster care I would bet live better lives than kids growing up in public housing developments filled with drugs and crime and a mother/father that can't provide. Moreover, I'm much more willing to give my tax dollars to those kids knowing that their chances of not falling into the same life as their parents. And I dunno how that keeps them in the government will bail them out category. By 18 they are on their own (again, like the rest of us). And hopefully along the way they'll have better role models and realize being poor and relying on the government for everything isn't a good life.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 21, 2010 -> 02:24 PM) So, let's see, you've got 2 kids living with an unemployed, hell let's say substance addicted parent. His argument is that those kids need to learn that they can't get by on government handouts. So, what exactly should be done? The mother isn't going to provide for them, clearly. You can't have the state intervene; that teaches them that the state will intervene. So what else is left? Who says the state can't intervene? If you're a f***ed up junkie parent who can't get a job you shouldn't just be paid to have children so the state stays away.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 21, 2010 -> 01:50 PM) And you know what would be better for society? Throwing that woman's kids out on the street and letting them fend for themselves. That'll teach them a lesson. Without even bothering to challenge the accuracy of the anecdote, which I'm sure can be fairly easily done there. No, but how about as a society we teach our young people that YOU CAN'T JUST RELY ON THE GOVERNMENT ALL THE F'N TIME?! Why is that so hard? It's not leaving people on the street to die, it's telling people YOUR LIFE IS YOUR LIFE, SOCIETY ISN'T RESPONSIBLE FOR YOU. Oh wait, the government knows better than the individual right? What's the line? GOVERNMENT SAVES! And you're going to refute what I witnessed in person? That's rich. Be sure to link me to some liberal blog.