Your "So, That Happened" Quizo Update

Well now.

We certainly can't say the last few days have been.... INTERESTING, at the least.

Thursday saw the long-awaited return of Lost, even if it is - at the moment - for a shortened eight-episode mini-season. There is talk now that this may not be the case much longer, that the WGA strike may in fact end as early as this week. It's too late to save most of the admittedly-limited television that I watch - even a settlement tomorrow would probably mean there wouldn't be new episodes of Lost or 24 until the summer at the earliest, more likely fall - but a resolution soon should save Battlestar Galactica (which doesn't start airing until March) and when it comes to television as long as Galactica finishes its run everything else can fuck off.

But that premiere on Thursday! Great googly moogly. When Lost is on its game - which is still most of the time - it's no worse than the second- or third-best show on television, the the fourth-season premiere shows it. The show has so many levels of awesomeness it's oftentimes hard to keep up with them. It's the little things that make a difference. For instance: when Hurley is hallucinating in the police station, his vision of Charlie swimming in the mirror puts his hand on the glass and it says "THEY NEED YOU." Or when Jack and Hurley are playing basketball and Jack only gets as far as H-O, which are the 8th and 15th letters of the alphabet (c.f. also Charlie "standing next to the Ho-Ho's").

Did you also happen to notice - I did not until my second viewing - that in the scene in the cabin it's Jack's father in the rocking chair? Oh yes.

Admittedly if you don't watch Lost this not only doesn't make sense but probably sounds pretty silly, but if you do watch it's FUCKING HUGE.

[Soccer content ahead]

Saturday saw some... well, I would say something like "quality soccer action," and the games themselves were great, but the results kinda pissed me off. Spurs (aka "fucking Spurs...") scored early against Manchester United and then actually played defense for almost an entire game, something relatively unheard of. Of course, the key word in that sentence is "almost" as they allowed a goal at the very end of the game, preventing Chelsea from closing the gap on United and Arsenal.

And, of course, Chelsea also chose not to help themselves in that regard, with an absolutely gorgeous goal from Nicolas Anelka - really, you should try to find it, it's quite something - cancelled out by giving up a soft one to Jermain Defoe, meaning that instead of us winning and United drawing and getting closer to first place, Chelsea drew when United drew and Arsenal won, meaning that by the end of the weekend we're actually FARTHER off the pace now. Of course, we are in the League Cup final in a few weeks and Arsenal is, let's say, decidedly not, so that's something.

[End soccer content]

Then there was the Super Bowl yesterday, which was... yeah.

Even the most ardent football fan has to admit that yesterday's game was three quarters of utter garbage. I mean, really, ugh. However, as I semi-predicted two weeks ago, some combination of a) whatever hideous black magic the Giants have wrought, and b) the expiration on Saturday of Tom Brady's Faustian pact meant that the New York Football Giants once again managed to eke out a win against a clearly-superior team and - inexplicably - win a Super Bowl in the process. Suffice it to say I don't think anyone really saw that coming, as the odds against either or both of those things happening had to be slim at best. Of course, revelations that the Patriots, hereafter referred to as "Cheaty McCheaterson," had been plying their rules-snubbing trade as far back as the Super Bowl in 2001 could, I suppose, have had something to do with it on some cosmic level. Karma's a bitch, yo.

Round 2 of the Tournament of Champions tonight. Results from last week are on the website. Let me tell you how much fun compiling all THAT was...

JLK