Book: The Year of Living Biblically

I just finished A.J. Jacobs' "The Year of Living Biblically" and I loved it.  In this book, A.J. pursues living by Biblical law, attempting to obey every law printed in Scripture.  

The take-home is that everyone is a "Cafeteria Christian" (or Jew).  This is a common term used by fundamentalists to discriminate against more liberal Christians.  They pick and choose what rules to follow, and leave the rest on the table.  However, once you read all the rules the Bible truly presents, you understand that it is almost impossible to follow every rule and you'd be hard pressed to meet even the most die-hard Fundamentalist Christian who can keep up to code.  For example, they would not be able to say "Thursday" because that day is named after a Greek God, and you shall not mutter the names of other Gods.    And furthermore, if they did claim to keep to each law presented in the Bible, those laws are often up to an incredible amount of interpretation, and their adherence would be highly debatable.  

This book has inspired me to read the good-book, because I never have.  I'll let you know how that goes, too. 

In the mean-time, might I also recommend Jacobs' first book, "The Know-it-All," which is about his mission to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica series.   

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TV: Lost - Charlotte Age Screw-Up

You've got to feel bad for the writers of Lost.  They have an awful lot of information to keep track and a whole bunch of plot elements to tie together by the end of next season!  

Inevitably, there are going to be screw-ups in continuity, and here's the latest example:  Charlotte's age.  In one episode, Ben listed-off all of Charlotte's personal information including her birthdate: July 2, 1979, meaning she'd be 28 in Lost time.  However, in a more recent episode, we see a young Charlotte running around in 1974, tricky! 

Horrendously, the executive producers blamed the screw-up on the actress who plays Charlotte, saying that she didn't want to market herself as a 37-year-old, and in the confusion of meeting her demands, the scrip continuity got messed-up.  

The actress Rebecca Madar fired back on Facebook that this was untrue and she was being blamed for a writing mistake.  The producers eventually came clean that this was all just a boo-boo and it had been wrong of them to make Madar a scape-goat. 

So the conclusion is, despite what Ben said, Charlotte was actually probably born on the Island in the year 1971.   They could probably let this issue go un-addressed in the show, but it'll be interesting to see if they come up with some excuse in a future episode.  

In another potential screw-up, the fans are all aflutter that there might have been an Easter Egg in the last episode, Namaste, for those who watched Lost on an HD television.  Was there a ghost in Jacob's cabin... or was it just a production staff member caught in a shot?  Take a look for yourself...   It doesn't look like Claire to me, and it also looks like a graphic-tee, which doesn't seem fitting.  I'm going to say this was another boo-boo. 

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TV: Bones and Family Guy Cross-Over?!

Umm... What?  Here's the latest from our friend Ausiello at EW:

Apparently in an upcoming episode of Bones, Booth will hallucinate and see Stewie from Family Guy chilling around.  Supposedly this is based on a real disease where people can see cartoon characters.   

Also revealed, Bones will ask Booth for sperm so she can have a baby.  Booth will see Stewie while in the sperm bank.  

And positively absolutely Booth and Bones will have sex in the season finale, and it will NOT be a hallucination. 

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TV: Lost - Helpful Radzinsky Reminder

In the episode "Namaste" we are introduced to a character we've only heard of before: Radzinsky.  In case you've forgotten, here's a some background on Radzinsky...

Radzinsky lived in the Hatch (aka "The Swan") with Kelvin Inman and did the duties of pressing the button every 108 minutes.   While working at the Swan, Kevin and Radzinsky created a map of the Island on the back of the "blast-door" that would come down during "lockdown" incidents.  Kevin and Radzinsky learned to fake these incidents so that they could work on the map.  Kevin says that Radzinsky had a photographic memory that aided in keeping an accurate representation of the Island on the door. 

Radzinsky also edited the Swan Orientation film, for unknown reasons.  What information did he leave out and why?

Kevin and Radzinsky were the only members of the DHARMA Initiative who were not killed in the Purge (of those who did not defect to the Hostiles).  

Kevin says that Radzinksy killed himself with a shotgun, leaving a blood-stain on the ceiling of the Hatch. 

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TV: Death Surrounds Us! Part 2

There have been updates on the major deaths that are to take place in Big Love and Lost. 

For Big Love, it's been confirmed that it is a male character.  Now I am putting all of my money on it being Roman.  

For Lost, there will be two deaths: one major, and one major-ish.  In this article, Desmond's picture was featured...  We shall see! I'm thinking the major-ish death could be his beloved Penny. 

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TV: Battlestar Gallactica

About 8 minutes into the episode aired on 3/13 ("Daybreak- Part 1"), I think Gaius totally slipped and didn't quite say "fracking"... 

The line he says is "I need this like a f*cking hole in the head"... what do you think? 

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TV: American Idol Gay Issues

Here's a very interesting article from the LA Times about American Idol's obvious lack of comfort with issues of sexuality and maybe even race... 

I would just like to underline the incredibly inappropriate nature of the homophobic jokes that Ryan and Simon exchange.  Remember just a few short weeks ago when Ryan brought head-band wearing Nathan (who was obviously gay) up to the Judge's table to interact with Simon?  As if Nathan would suddenly combust in a super-fabulous strip-tease and we could all laugh at Simon's discomfort?  That was awkward as hell and completely wrong.  

If you don't think that in 20 years our children will be reading about the intolerance towards the LGBT community in our times, you are deluded.  It is your choice if you want to be a part of the progress or part of the problem. 

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