I ask you to leave, You say you're gonna leave. WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?

If anybody still views this thing and sees this then I urge you all to go to www.furtherinstructions.com post-haste. We have some great Season 5 discussion on the go and we just got a batch of new recruits so you won't be ALONE.

I know there are good people still out there. So come along!

TV.com forums are a spoiler-haven so I'm STEERING CLEAR. I'll see you on the other side.

Wewt. Next week, Wednesday-Monday. Will probably get very muddy, will certainly get very drunk (my beer supply is stacked and looking fine) and will generally have a great time, probably make an ass out of myself and come back with the mother of all hangovers and debts.

I'll let you know how it goes.

A certain somebody on the Lost boards is trolling and now has me marked for moderation. Chances are, because I know how the system works, he'll get his way. And if/when he does this account is dead.

I'd say I had a good run. I lasted longer than most people. richlost, ackermaniv, sunlust, MOS, tramlaw, Mr_Dutchiee, all bit the dust long ago. Maybe I'm making something out of NOTHING, but if I do get ban't "I'll see you in another life".

Might as well get one last plug out. www.furtherinstructions.com. Go, sign-up, join in the party. No bans, no trolls, no noobs, just pure unadulterated Lost discussion and hi-larious off-topic chat.

FAREWELL.

Lol level 9.

Fun fact: Leave the site for a while then return. Your level will shoot up.

Not sure if anybody reads this but I'm back for a spell. Spoilers are done, the finale is over and it was a nice end to a fantastic Season.

I still have some substantial fears about the future of the show, but let's see how it pans out from here.

I don't know if anybody still views this....probably not. But it's worth a shot.

I got a graphics tablet today and I've been getting into drawing again using it. These aren't amazing but they're pretty cool. Aside from the people on my forum who have probably seen them already...I'm hoping somebody will give me some feedback. Positive or negative both equally accepted.

Vincent

The lab sitting on a beach near some waves.

"Hope"

John Locke shares a moment of hope with a stranger.

All feedback is appreciated and all criticisms reviewed.

Oh and anybody reading this not over at FI: get over there. www.furtherinstructions.com . We're not as bad as people make out. Come and join the party.

It's amazing how lack of activity boosts your level. Gotta love this site's system.

Wut's a super-friend?

Just a quick "hi and bye" (to anybody who still reads this thing)

I'm done with the Lost forums for a while. No drama, it's just that spoilers are emerging and I want to be clean for Season 4 so I can't risk it. I already know that.

I'll come on to check blogs and give the occasional feedback as I always do. If you want to discuss any Lost I'll be at furtherinstructions.com as always.

I'll probably post on the "OFFICIAL" threads here when Season 4 airs too (and I'll probably do some reviews).

Laters

I've been thinking about this lately. When did America's favourite family become America's dullest family? Did it simply overstay it's welcome or what? The following are the reasons I think it jumped:

1.) Continuity and character-development. Remember the one where Barney cures his alcoholism? I not then chances are you won't appreciate some of the "jokes" in later episodes because watching this one is key to getting that. Why introduce continuity in a show made of stand-alone episodes. In the olden days they would occasionally refer back to past events and it would be a minor point, but having sixteen odd seasons of past events means that sometimes the entire plot of an episode revolves around one.

Character development is the other issue. Why fix it if it ain't broken? Why turn Barney into a sober recovering alcoholic when the source of his humour was the blatant alcoholism? Yes, jokes get old and I appreciate that but character development is best left to drama shows, not something like this. At least if they're not going to do it right. Apu was far funnier when he wasn't married with eight kids.

2.) Parody or lack of it. One of the biggest jokes in the show was it's ability to parody other shows and make numerous references to music, TV and anything really. This was more of an inside-joke type affair but it was hilarious for the select few who got the reference. Maybe this isolates those who don't get the references but frankly I feel this was one of the show's strongest sources of laughs. Have they simply run out of stuff to reference or are the writers just not trying anymore?

3.) The death of Phil Hartman. Okay, I know this may seem a little harsh because it was something nobody could control or predict but when Phil Hartman was killed the show lost one of it's best. To say he will be sorely missed is an understatement because Phil put a lot into the show. I miss seeing his characters which were all instantly retired as well (two most prominent were Troy Mclure and Lionel Hutz, who was one of my personal favourites). Regardless of the tragedy, the show continued and produced some good stuff for a while so this isn't the key shark-jumper. But it did change things, believe me.

4.) The long jokes. When a joke starts and it isn't funny, chances are a minute later it still won't be funny. I've noticed recently that they've started employing these minute long jokes and the like, and they are horribly painful to watch. Leave that one for Family Guy, the Simpsons was meant to be short and snappy.

5.) It takes itself too seriously. When they can kill off a nothing character (which again is pretty stupid for a cartoon that isn't supposed to be a drama) and devote certain episodes to the aftermath you've got to ask what do the writers think they are doing here? People aren't going to mourn the death of Maude Flanders. She's a drawing on a piece of paper. Stop taking yourself seriously and get back to producing top notch humour, please.

6.) Just because it's funny doesn't mean it will be next time. When a joke is re-used it sometimes works. As with my Barney example earlier: That was funny. However I notice certain jokes which were so hilarious at the time have been re-used....and recieved no laughs. An example is the crazy cat woman. She appeared in an episode and threw cats at people. It was absolutely hilarious, one of my favourite gags. Then I saw her show up in later episodes and I cringed. Do not milk the joke please. Then again the Simpsons is the biggest milked joke of all.

7.) They simply ran out of material. The new "plots" are utterly stupid, and nobody in their right mind could appreciate them. Maybe they just did every joke they can possibly do.

That's all I have for now but there's probably more.

When we all know it has gone to the next stage?

When I said I was stuck at 87%, I meant put me up, not reset the thing.

You have failed TV.com. Hobo obliteration will commence.

Before I say anything, people who have not yet done so:

WHAT ARE YOU DOING? get on over to www.furtherinstructions.com NOW people......pretty please?

Now onto the topic:

This is a problem. Firstly it's a problem because it's stuck at 87%. This is the primary reason. But other than that it's a problem to society. See if I don't get to 90% in a few days I'm going to be pretty WEE-WEEd off. Why is my mood an issue, I'm just a hobo right? Well by rights yes but in a week if I am very WEE-WEEd off (like my moderation avoidance?) I'm going to strike out at the hobo community. You see truth to tell I am not a real hobo. I've never even been to hobistan. Oh I may claim to be but when the cards are down and it's me or them, they get it in the cheek every time. And I ain't talking about their face.

I'm not a cruel man. I murder the occasional spider, torture the occasional infant, digest the occasional cat. But truth to tell I am fair in what I do. I always give the other party a chance for one. If they can best me at a game of Scrabble I let them go without any kind of negatvie reaction. And belive me, you'd be shocked at the number of times I've lost to a witty infant. But I digress. No I am not a cruel man but if the mood is right cruelty can come from even the darkest mind. These hobos, these beautiful bearded homeless who make our society that much more colourful suddenly become in the firing line.

Everybody strikes down. Gorrillas attack chimps, chimps attack termites, termites annoy humanity, humanity attacks dung beetles, dung beetles attack the dung. The dung gets stuck in my shoe and I am left with a lot of frustration I can't vent because the only thing lower in the scale is a leaf. But while I may be a fair man this is where I cheat. I attack the hobo population despite their strong position in the pecking order and this is where the real trouble starts.

Hobos have more power than we generally assume. When one is injured word spreads quickly and they congregate. They congregate in mass groups until certain areas are completely blocked. Humanity becomes barricaded in it's streets and can't get home to watch American Idol. Why does this matter? Because then American Idol gets cancelled.

Now I know this pleases most of us but the fact is, the network will need a replacement. Something far more edgier than a moody Brit. What about robots...they say. Everybody loves robots. Even the robots love robots. And so we get a team of eggheads together to create a small community of robots. They are to be placed aboard a boat and shipped off to an island in the med where they will eventually go nuts and blow each other up. Hey, who wouldn't watch this show?

Then comes the next problem. EVERYBODY is watching the robots so much that the networks of the world make their own robot shows. It gets to a point where nobody is working because of the robots. But that's not a problem because people are lazy BARSTOOLS anyway. It's a problem because the networks overload and we get a full scale television blackout. Like all addicts, these sad and deprived individuals need some kind of a fix so they start building their own robots. But people are stupid, and don't know how to build robots.

Thus they build faulty robots that can barely waddle around. They end up dead on the streets, abused...homeless much like our hobos of yesteryear. But one man....err robot....one robot, one brave little circuit board stands up to the tide of abuse. His name is YARGFLURSHL. This little droid helps the needy...the sick and is disgusted at humanity's abuse. He is so disgusted he writes angry letters to local newspapers.

They get ignored by most but a small group of people who believe that he is right, and a smaller group who complain because the robots came over to our country and TOOK OUR JOBS. Despite the fact the robots don't have jobs, nothing can deter this group of robo-racists who begin lynching circuit-bearers across the globe. The good guys quickly gather up the robots and hide away in the islands that started it all. They are chased down to one small island where the final battle takes place.

A war is waged but there are no clear winners. It is around this time that the robo-sapiens (as they call themselves) discover an unlikely ally: chimpanzees. Unfortunately the robo-racists also find an ally: gorrillas. As we all know, these guys are mortal enemies. Tensions heighten and the chimps hail support from nations across the globe. An ape army amasses in a huge battle, which causes cities to be overwhelmed by feaces and banana peels. Things are pretty grim indeed but back on the island things get real heated real fast. The robots develop boats and take their battles to the high seas. A handful of people who don't like the new ways disperse....these are the pirates. The pirates roam the seas and plunder all who stand in their way. They have no morals, no sympathy, a severe dislike for circuit boards and really cool beards.

Their beards are so cool it causes barbers worldwide to study the art of beardry. They can't create a beard of that magnitude. One barber will discover the key and pretty soon every man woman and child will have a bad-ANUS beard of their own. Great news for humanity until the fleas arrive. Okay, I hear you cry, so where the HECK did these fleas suddenly emerge from??? Are you forgetting the world is full of chimp warfare now you FOOL? The fleas leave the dirty apes and lodge in human beards. The pirates are free from all this but the rest of humanity becomes very very itchy and very very irritable.

Not realising humanity's mental state, the pirates attack a small village and a BLOOD-FILLED battle emerges. many pirates are slain which causes uproar on the high seas. Pirates hate each other but they hate the normal people more. An underground pirate brigade starts a land-based organisation called "beardless". Beardless does something previously unheard of, it reaches out to the robot population and enlists their help in constructing a very powerful weapon. This weapon is a cannon of such magnitude that lighting it could blow up Venus. And they do. Venus is destroyed.

This in turn causes the planets to spin out of orbit as gravity is completely MESSED-UP. Boffins worldwide unite the many armies of the world in their mass conflicts and realise that we need to reach peace if we are to evacuate the planet. However there is only room for a handful. YARGFLURSHL is elected president of the world, and he unites members from the six tribes. The best from each is chosen to represent the new world while the rest are doomed. And so rockets leave Earth filled with the brightest and strongest robots, apes, pirates, humans and beardless.

The ape rocket never makes it. It collides with an asteroid and the ape society is gone forever. The beardless join up with their departed pirate brothers and finally the now three tribes land on a new world. 87,000 people die when they step out of the rocket and forget there is not atmosphere. All of the humans are dead. All that remains is 1000 robots and 1000 pirates. They still have contempt for each other but they colonise the planet....each inhabiting different sides.

Warfare is just around the corner and it's not long before pirates vs. robots rocks the new society. Many are lost in the immense battles that ensue...the survivors too weak to continue the fight. They agree that the few who remain will develop this planet into a new Earth. They will send it through a black hole using the giant cannon, so that it arrives near a sun and can survive for a long time. The pirates are extremely hairy by now, this is important.

They shoot the new Earth through a suitable hole and it pops out in another place....and another time. The new Earth ends up exactly where the old one once stood but billions of years in the past. They emerge on the new world. Sadly pirates are viscious, especially now they are nearly naked, much shorter (gravity changes during their space travels led to an evolved shorter race), very hairy and have developed a language that is nearly all grunts. A war breaks out and the pirates hide in trees, as robots can't climb trees. They do have a new weapon though....nanobots. Tiny micro-organisms created by themselves to think freely and adapt. They're practically life-forms. The robots would have won the battle but the pirates had a better weapon, their big-BUTT cannon. They blow all the robots to bits....which fill the Earth with their parts...minerals and ores.

But the nanobots live on...adapting and evolving. The pirates lose their ability to think freely...become a little stupid and start picking fleas off one another. Their time spent in trees causes them to evolve in strange ways. They develop tails and pretty soon...it is clear....the pirates have evolved into apes. And the nanobots have evolved into lifeforms that prowl the Earth. Dinosaurs...mammoths....lizards....birds....

Time has only gone and repeated itself.

What was the point in this little history lesson? I'll tell you now. We cannot allow this to happen. If it doesn't happen the universe may implode, but if it does happen things will be worse...far worse.

Eventually we will develop computers and TV...and eventually we will develop the same shows like Lost and Heroes. Eventually we will develop TVtome and TV.com.

So I pray to you moderators now, DO NOT allow this to happen. If you continue to allow my level to remain at 87% we will have the worst fate known to man. We will have another 5000 F-ing WHO IS IN THE COFFIN threads!

PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN!

TV.com have reverted me back to level 1. It's not a glitch either, I have the weatherman icon and a new percentage level. I can still post for some reason, but maybe Level 1s can.

I suspect that the reasoning behind this is due to me being to cool for the site. They immediately encountered a coolness overload (much like those guys in the station at the end of Lost season 2, but replacing magnets with coolness) coming from my posting vicinity. They immediately knew that this would disrupt regular posting and so reset my level in an attempt to make me appear less cool to the casual observer.

Needless to say most people strongly disagree with this theory. I like it though.

Further Instructions

It's a forum I created when I was disillusioned by TV.com a while back.I'm hoping a few people see this before the post is deleted. 

It's general Lost discussion with an off-topic and games section to add a little more. Me and The-Soup-Nazi a.k.a MrDutchiee run it and we're hoping a few people from here might drop by and post. Nothing much there so far but it has some potential I think.

So take a look if you're interested.

Still no review done for Through the Looking Glass. I'm fortunate in that my mom watches Lost and is so far behind it gives me an excuse to re-watch most of the latter part of Season 3 (plus it's always nice to see how other people react in comparison to yourself). So I'll get to it when I've had a re-watch I think. Not that any of you care if I review it or not, but I like to clarify anyway.

Thanks to those of you who read my last Solving Lost entry and commented. It's nice to know if anybody agrees with me, or if they think I'm just spewing garbage (which I may well be). I've decided to look into my personal favourite of the Lost mysteries this time: the smoke monster.

What We Know

The Monster as it is often called (or smokey as I prefer to call it) has long since remained a dominant and ever-discussed part of Lost. However it is also one of the things that completely fails to make much of an appearance despite popularity. In a sense this is good writing. Because to show smokey on a regular basis would kill the shock and mystique that always surrounds it's appearance.

The best way to theorise on anything it to first state what we already know. Chronologically, the first time we have ever seen it referenced was during Dharma's stint on-island. An orientation film mentions that the sonic fence has been built as protection against the island's wildlife. I can only assume this alludes to smokey, because most of the other forms of wildlife that could be considered dangerous were brought in by Dharma themselves. However this is all an assumption. It is a fact that the sonic fence was built to keep something out of the Barracks, and it is a fact that the smoke cannot penetrate the same fence.

The Others claim to have no knowledge of it. This is purely on their word however. And their word isn't too reliable. So if it pre-dates Dharma and the Others, it's been around for a very long time. It also means that whatever it is, it is not something that was introduced to the island. The island is it's home, everybody else is an invading force.

All of this talks as if the smoke is some kind of creature though. For all we know it is nothing more than a machine. Rousseau called it a security system. Built there to protect the island. Can we trust her ramblings when even the Others claim to not know what the thing is? Maybe not. But if it is a security system it's very advanced. The smoke has the capability of reading people's pasts, of downloading information. It also has a physical presence, seen directly when it dragged Locke and beat up Eko.

Locke has had the most encounters with it so far. He has stared it down on two known occasions. On the first occasion it left him alone, and he described what he saw as a bright light. A bright light was seen when the smoke stared into Juliet and Kate. It flashed somewhat during the encounter with Eko, however the view was obscured so we were unable to determine if there was an actual flash of light. It is probably safe to assume there was. On the second occasion it dragged Locke into the island. Only two people have ever stared it dealt with it twice, those being Locke and Eko. Eko died during his second encounter. It is unknown what Locke's fate would have been because the smoke was jarred and unable to complete it's task when Kate threw dynamite into the hole.

Let's not forget that Locke has described it as both "the eye of the island" and just "the island". Does he know what he's talking about? It's hard to say. For all he has a connection with the island, he doesn't seem to always have the right ideas. 

So what we have here is a security system that protects the island. It reads people, or intruders. It then judges them and returns to deal with it's conclusion. It wasn't implemented by any of our intruding human forces, and as far as John Locke is concerned it is the island itself.

The Island killed him

Many people have come to the conclusion that it can manifest itself into any form, and also invade people's dreams. I thought for a while that this was the case but lately I've re-thought. I mean, if the smoke can do all of this, why didn't it just fly over the fence? And why does it still knock down trees everywhere it goes?

I don't think the smoke is changing it's appearance and jumping into brains. Think about it, when Eko spoke to the spectre of his brother, why did it walk away into the trees before the smoke came and killed him? If it was the smoke it could've changed it's appearance there and then. So I'm going to differ from what is now everybody's definitive theory. I'm going to all out say that the smoke is not responsible for these things.

From the facts, my own personal take is that the smoke is merely an extension of the island. It is a physical force that the island controls to do it's bidding. I believe that the island is sentient, not the smoke. Eko's brother and all those crazy dreams are not caused by the smoke. They are caused by the island itself. The island can warp the perceptions of it's inhabitants to the point where it is actually directly effecting their senses. The smoke, is the island's physical form of protection. For all it may be able to create elaborate illusions, I don't think the island can actually harm anybody. Because of this it relies on the smoke to defend itself.

Dr. Doolittle

I can't say what it consists of but assuming the island is sentient and is really messing with the minds of those on board, I'm guessing it can control things. Animal minds would be perfect for this. So all of the boars, insects, and even our good friend Vincent may be susceptible to control from the island itself. Think about it, either Vincent is an extremely smart canine with supernatural powers...or more rationally the island which we know to exert some kind of control is actually extending it's control on to Vincent too. 

People are hard to control however, because their minds are too complex. Other methods are necessary for this purpose, such as giving visions or dreams. Locke is constantly propelled by his dreams and he is the island's lap-dog. But to control a large group...that would take something else. It would take convincing the group's leader that it was another human being...a very powerful one. Thus we have Jacob. The island manifests the image of a powerful human to control the leader of a group, thus directly controlling that group's actions.

I may be jumping the gun a little here on a Smoke monster discussion, but it's food for thought