Meet Swarley

This is my new car, Swarley SuperCocoaBear Svensvensonson--she's Swedish--but you can call her Swarley, Swarles, Swarles Barkley, Swarlemagne, Swarleyhorse, Swarlize Theron, or the Nipple Erector.

I was still 18 months out from paying off my Civic, but they gave me a pretty awesome trade in and I was feeling saucy, so here we are. About an hour after I got home my brother decided to buy a very large TV which fit snugly in the back, so I feel that wholly justifies the purchase right there. Plus I've really been itching to name something Swarley.

Lost Is Pissing Me Off...Mostly In A Good Way Though

I'm a pretty huge fan of Lost. Definitely my favorite current show after Battlestar, and the only one I tune into loyally. I'm also a fan of House, Mother, 30 Rock, The Office, Family Guy, and American Dad has been seriously growing on me, but I usually just catch those on Tivo later. I ignore all other current shows in favor of Scrubs and NewsRadio in syndication.

So last night was the big Lost "cliffhanger." I was pretty disappointed right after I watched it. God knows why, but I really thought there was going to be some huge game-changing revelation, some clue as to the motivations of The Others. Oh yeah, I remember why, it's because the writers specifically said there would be a huge game-changing revelation about the motivations of The Others in this episode. Lying sacks of crap.

After choking down my seething rage at the lack of any new information, however, I decided it was pretty good, with one caveat: why is everyone so stupid? Making people ridiculously stupid is a plot device of bad horror movies. Lost is plenty mysterious enough that they could have their characters act intelligently and still get into Tough Spots.

Exhibit A: Kate and Sawyer don't even try to escape because it is revealed they are on a separate island. WTF? You got on the island somehow, geniuses. Go hijack whatever that means of conveyance was. Or ambush Danny and steal his gun. Try and find Alex. Save Jack. Go investigate what it is you've been building. Orrrrr...have sex in your cage and wait for death.

Exhibit B: Ben goes under the knife with absolutely no insurance. The Others are supposed to be ridiculously smart, right? So Ben's ingenious plan to get Jack to want to fix his spine was to torture everyone for a while? That was awesome and intriguing when I thought the tumor was just part of some grander mind game, but anyway...it turns out it's real. Okay, Ben, so you've got Kate and Sawyer. You've proven you're ruthless and a liar. You're about to knock yourself out and give the man you've been imprisoning several sharp knives. Here's what you do: you bring in Kate and Sawyer behind that little glass window, and you say if anything goes wrong in the surgery, we shoot them both in the head. Or some equivalent threat of retribution. Giving Jack the opportunity to stage his little rebellion was...absurd.

Exhibit C: When Kate and Jack are radioing at the end and Jack tells her to run, Kate just screams "No! No! No!" repeatedly, never telling him why. Okay, you're in a pretty high stress situation, but still, just tell him that you're on a separate island, man! Jack's "Holy Shit We're Completely Screwed" look would have been a way cooler cliffhanger than what they actually pulled anyway. Then he grins/shrugs and instead of going BwwweeEEEEEE the Lost Horn goes bwow bwow bwow bwooooow...

Other than blatant stupidity on both sides though, I decided it was pretty good. For one thing, it had freaking Nathan Fillion. Admittedly he wasn't very badass, but I could feel it rumbling beneath the surface. For another thing, Jack became sweet again. He'd been slipping there for a while, and we certainly need an influx of Awesome following Eko's untimely demise. Kate's flashback was mostly useless, but it was kind of interesting and kept with the whole redemption theme when she decided not to leave Sawyer like she left Captain Malcolm Reynolds. Finally, I was a little annoyed when Locke's big revelation was "open your eyes and look north" until I realized Alcatraz is probably situated north of the main island...oh baby. I can see it now. Kate and Sawyer are on the run, The Others keep closing in, things look grimmer and grimmer until they're backed against the shoreline, surrounded, an impossible situation. There's no escape, no hope remains and suddenly...BwwweeEEEEEE! Locke and Sayid surf in on their huge testicles, propelled by sheer badassery, and proceed to whoop the shit out of everyone with huge-ass manly hunting knives and a side of Jesus Stick. Then Ball and I hug and jump up and down like little girls.

That's right. I just wrote passionately about a TV show. You thought you knew me.

C-Town

I headed home to Columbus this weekend for some family-visiting and OSU-watching. It was a good time. Gwen has really come out of her shell a little--down in NC it took her a couple days to get used to me, but this time around she was pulling my hair in 5 minutes flat. She did a whole host of cute things that I will not write about now, because I'm not sure they're all that cute in narrative form. Just trust me.

Saturday I went to the OSU game with Jan, and it was a thrashing as anticipated. It's always an adventure to hang out with Jan, because you never know what's coming next. Maybe she will throw a candy bar at your face. Maybe she will hit you in the chest with a spicy submarine sandwich. She might inexplicably introduce you as her creepy friend Steve, or pummel you with pieces of couch. Perhaps she'll just stand there and strike you for a while. She's unpredictable. The game was pretty awesome, despite the complete lack of doubt regarding the outcome. It was weird saying "GOOoooooooooOOOOOO!" and not following up with "IRISH!" and I very nearly outed myself as a non-native on the first kickoff, but fortunately everyone was too busy shouting "O-H-I-O!" to notice. The brats were delicious.

After the game we headed over to Catfish Biff's for dinner. Oh man did I forget how delicious Catfish Biff's is. There are no words. I won't try. After enjoying our Biff's and watching USC lose, which I know is bad for us but was SO satisfying, we headed off to see Jon Stewart and some Daily Show regulars at the Schott. It was pretty funny stuff. First 5 seconds:

Jon Stewart: Hello everybody! Is it true that a Buckeye is just a gay acorn?
5,000 OSU Students: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Jon Stewart: <jumps up> I will KILL every last mother fucker in this room!!

It was a moderated forum, insofar as the Dean of Arts would ask questions, some of which were vaguely serious, and Jon Stewart would answer with references to having sex with his cat. It was definitely interesting seeing him in a non-edited-for-TV atmosphere. They broke it all up with clips from the show and talked a little bit about the production and stuff. It was cool.

Hey, my brother just finally put up some pics from the NC trip! Highlights:

Gwen and Jenny enjoy some fee at the aquarium. Please note that my father is not opinionated, he's just always right.


Natalie is certainly happy about something. Perhaps some dust motes just floated by! Or maybe she was thinking about fee.


BUBBLES. ARE. AWESOME.


My mother on the beach. Mom loooooooves being photographed!


Todd knows how to entertain man and baby alike.


You're not special Natalie, Gwen was throwing those bad boys out all over the place.


How majestic is this shit? They should make a movie about the Schreiber boys just so this can be our poster. Trivia: I actually photoshopped out my huge, bulging pectorals for public consumption to forestall Lizett's murderous jealousy.


Me and Lizett with Natalie and Gwen. It's worth noting that while Natalie clearly loves her Uncle Steve, Gwen's rage and loathing towards Aunt Lizett burn with the intensity of ten thousand flaming gorillas.


Natalie was the official foot-rinser for the trip.


Gwen is adorable. You should've seen her in her chicken costume for Halloween. I've got to get a picture of that.


Gwen and Natalie play the Notre Dame Victory March. 1,000 miles away, Charlie Weis consumes a heart-medicine laced submarine sandwich.