LOST reflection

Well it seems that one of the major shows of my life is now over (I know its sad that 6 years is a good chunk of my life). LOST was perhaps the biggest and arguably the most influential drama in the the scif-fi genre on tv yet. Back in 2004 when it started, I remember that the promos sure did look interesting and immediately wanting to check it out.

I was a very strong fan of the show for about the whole run of 6 years, but toward the end it definitely needed to end. I can’t really imagine it going on any further either, especially with the given ending that the creators gave us as viewers. Mostly, I watched the show for the story, believing all along that the story only was relevant to understand the show. And for a show it had plenty of story to tell, which left its viewers with tons and tons of questions about how and why things were happening.

But I was apparently wrong about how to watch the show, because the ending is not about the story, its about the characters that are effected by the story. While I did find the characters intriguing throughout the show, I usually am an action type guy and don’t really pay attention to feelings and possible thoughts of characters. Well it seems that in the end none of the story really mattered because everyone died, but also everyone lived in the end too. Apparently, the island was just a means to an end. And end with the ones the characters loved. And really what way could you possible end a crazy show that seemed to have no direction (probably very little) in what the story actually it actually was telling.

Supposedly, a lot of questions were answered in this final season, but most people will say they weren’t. I don’t blame them. But really from my point of view it now doesn’t even matter at all! All that matters is the fact that most of the characters ended up with the ones they found love in or loved all along. So it was about love, which is a worthy quality. Was it worthy it, who knows really, but it sure was a good crazy show.

Overall I approve of the ending. It ended the show with a good message, and that to me is better than trying to please all the fans and viewers by answering all the questions that arise. Maybe it was a cop-out of some kind or a giant con, but sometimes shows are taken too seriously (as I often did with this show at first). Its called sci-fi for a reason and in that genre often questions go unanswered.

Well anyway, I think it ended on a good note and didn’t really expect anything to begin with. If you never have seen the show then I would still recommend watching it, but be prepared to either be very unhappy with the end or completely ok with it.

Phil Recommends: William’s Semester in Britain Blog

The blog has been going by the way-side as of late. Why? Well at work they are having us pretty much come in for any amount of overtime that we can do. Basically, at I am at the end of the production “line” and us guys in coating cannot coat the circuit boards as fast as we are receiving them. So we are super busy and I have been going to bed more on time than I ever have before. Getting up early, like at 4am, gets a little tiring after a while too.

Anyway, this time I want to recommend my brother’s blog. My brother is currently in York, England for a semester abroad program at York St. John University through Calvin College. I think he is doing a awesome job so far at posting and there is plenty of content and pictures.

Some of his posts are a bit lengthy, but he is trying to keep more of a journal on it that way too. He takes notes in a notebook and writes his posts from that, which is a pretty good idea. Seeing as he has only been in Britain for a week now he has a pretty good amount of posts from there already, but might not be so regular so I would recommend subscribing to emails of the posts here. Or do like I do and use Google Reader to subscribe to the RSS feed (well actually I have both now, but whatever).

Where might you find my brother’s blog you ask? http://york.williamoverbeeke.com that is where. Well hopefully he does not lack in his bloggings as I do, but we all no that this whole blog thing is a bit hard to do all the time when it is not a necessary thing to do in life.I hope to get more posts up soon on other topics/recommendations, but I can keep hoping a lot with no results too, haha.

Phil Recommends: Lifehacker

Well this post is kind of a little late in coming. The recommendation for this time in a sense should proceed the ones I have already done. Why? Because almost everything I have and will recommend usually is found by me on it first.So without further ado this week’s recommendation is the website/blog Lifehacker.com.

Let me just say, I like Lifehacker a lot. As the name implies its all about doing things in life with “hacks” to make it easier or better.  It only started way back in 2005, but I have found it a pretty good resource for a lot of awesome life hacks when it comes to online and computer life. At least thats mostly the kind of stories and posts I look into.

If you want to know more about Lifehacker.com from their FAQs page, here. While it is primarily a digital life focus, once in a while they will post things about other aspects of life. Like one time they gave instructions on how to create Skittles flavored vodka. Who doesn’t want that once in a while? Needless to say I have not tried that, but a friend did and was impressed. I have noticed that a lot of posts are about food or drink, if they are not about digital things.

If you use a RSS or blog reader of some kind then I would suggest adding Lifehacker to it. You never know if you will find something useful there. I know I favorite or star a lot of their posts everyday in Google Reader. Maybe that will be my next recommendation.

Anyway, go to Lifehacker.com you might just find something there that makes your digital life easier, if not you might just find a recipe that suits you too.

Chuckles is back

Tonight my favorite show starts its 3rd season and that show is Chuck. I like the show quite a bit and am really happy all the fan reaction allowed it to be renewed this season. It was not looking that good last April when the show ended. And the amount NBC has been promoted this coming season shows that they actually have started believing in the show. Before they did a minimal job. I even saw tonight the local news was promoting it, thats crazy!

Alan Sepinwall, a TV critic and blogger, happens to love the show too, like many other critics. Its just that the viewership is not all that great in the past seasons. But now I believe NBC knows they have a good show and they know their is people watching who fight for it to stay on. Oh, and Alan blogs here about pretty much all the shows on TV right now.

If you have not watched Chuck in the past and are considering picking it up now that awesome. Sepinwall gives six good reasons to start watching. And don’t worry you really don’t need to see the other seasons, at least thats the word. His reasons to watch are 1) It’s funny, 2) It’s exciting, 3) It’s dramatic when it needs to be, 4) It has great guest stars, 5) It has great music, 6) It is, simply, fun. Some of those are more so than others. I particularly like the funny aspect and the music. I even got a bunch of songs off iTunes from songs that were in the show in the first 2 seasons. I cleverly entitled the playlist Chuck vs. The Music. Here is Alan Sepinwall’s reasons for watching Chuck.

Well here is to a new season of Chuck. I hope it builds on the greatness of the previous two seasons and lends itself to a 4th season after that. Of course, you may not think so highly of the show, but thats why there is so many shows out there, so that everyone can have a favorite. Do you plan on watching the show, either way answer below?

Well if you do watch its on NBC at 9pm EST with 2 new shows and another new one tomorrow, January 11 at 8pm for another show. Happy TV watching everybody!

Phil Recommends: Pandora

This recommends column/post thing is a lot harder to keep up on than I thought it was going to be. Not really for lack of suggestions, but more for lack of time to write such posts.I think its this new thing called work that get in the way of such activities. oh well, such is life.

Anyway, this time I would like to recommend the internet radio service, Pandora. Its a pretty sweet way to listen to music that you want too, rather than regular radio that serves up a mash of everything most of the time. Its as simple as typing in an artist or song title and Pandora will do a pretty good job at matching the styles and “genes” with others in the same genre.

So if you really like a certain artist then put that in and it will play songs of that artist interspersed with songs from others that are similar.  For instance, I put in Coldplay and it plays Muse, Athlete, and Keane just to name a few. Of course, you may not like any of those, so what do you do? Hit the thumbs down on the slide for the song and Pandora will learn eventually what you like and do not like. I think its only with that particular artist/station you create.

If you get sick of a single artist type playing on your radio then you can either make another or add some variety by selecting the variety option. I’ve done this on occasion where I think 2 or more artist are alike but not really played by Pandora together. It can also make in more interesting of what streams through too.

Downer part of using Pandora is that you might run into the 40 hour/month limit of streamed music rather quickly if you like listening alot. If so, I think its a $1 a month for unlimited listening for the rest of the month.

Well I don’t know whats next for this recommends column, but I have a feeling it could happen sooner. I have an actual Christmas break coming up from work! A whole week to boot. Isn’t that a bit weird this day and age? I think so. But I will take it and should I be at Borisch next year then I will actually get paid for it too. Until next time!

Phil Recommends: Remember the Milk

A few posts ago I had said that I would be starting up a series of recommendations of various things I find useful. Well after starting that new job of mine it has been put on the back burner for a little while until now. So I hope this recommendation series can help you too. As it so happens today’s recommendation is reminding me everyday that I wanted to write a post about doing this very task.

The service of today is called Remember the Milk (www.rememberthemilk.com), which I have been using for about 2 years now. The name is quite a quirky one isn’t it? Well it is actually quite cool too, because it comes from the basic need for people to remember to get the milk when they go shopping.

But it is not simply a remember service to remember to get things either. Lately, I use it to remind myself to pay off my loans, haha. Or to remind myself to do certain tasks, because that is what it does best, task management. As said by the staff:

“Managing tasks is generally not a fun way to spend your time. We created Remember The Milk so that you no longer have to write your to-do lists on sticky notes, whiteboards, random scraps of paper, or the back of your hand. Remember the Milk makes managing tasks an enjoyable experience.”

Recommendations

I have an idea. That idea is to start a recommendation type post that I will try to do every week or so. These will probably consist of Firefox addons, websites, and online services I have found useful. I have yet to come up with a name for this “segment”, but I hope to start it soon.

With nothing much else to do while not having a job the web has been a fun thing to explore and there are some pretty useful things out there to use. Also, Firefox will be my chosen browser at least until Google Chrome has better extension support and more of them. I vow to never use IE ever again as my main portal to the web.

In other news, I do have an interview in the morning for a job at a place I got a “no” from before as an engineer. This time though it is for a electronics assembly position, which I think I will enjoy alot. It puts electronics and hands-on work together, which always a welcome job for me. Hope it all goes well.