We all know the manly men that play Football, Baseball, Basketball, and Hockey are true athletes, but what of other sports?
Tell me if the participants of the much maligned sports below are real athletes or not.
Pro Tennis player
PGA Tour Golfer
Race car driver (including NASCAR, Formula 1, Indy)
Pro Soccer player (MLS, English Premier League, etc.)
Pro Beach Volleyball
X Games (including skateboading, snowboarding, bikes on ramps)
So I'm reading the next to last book in the Harry Potter series. Why I'm not sure, maybe it's just the massive pull of something that is a cultural phenomenon. I want to read the final book and I might as well read the book that leads up to it. It hasn't gotten up to a good start. I'm already annoyed with it. There's a line in the opening chapter about the Prime Minister of England meeting with the U.S. president. The president is referred to as a "wretched person". Great, and I have some 700 pages to go.
So I'm in a stall in the men's room at work and some guy comes in and takes the stall right next to me. There are open stalls farther down but he takes the one right next to me and let's loose, making all kinds of noises. What the hell, what kind of sick freak intentionally sits right next to some guy in the men's room? And don't give me this crap about he didn't know someone was in the stall. The doors in our men's room hang open. It's easy to tell if they are occupied.
And I'm a guy who was forced to take a crap in a room full of open toilets with oh, about 25 other guys. That's right no stalls. It was circa 1984, Fort Benning, Georgia, U.S. Army Airborne School. Yeah, that was fun. And noboby could come up with a funny line to break the uneasyness in the room. So we just took our crap and got outta there.
And now a special announcement to help you save money. If you have a Pep Boys auto parts store in your area, they have Purolator oil filters on sale for 49 cents, after a mail-in rebate. They also have Pennzoil Full Synthetic on sale for $1.99 a qt, also after rebate. To demonstrate how cool that is, consider that Mobil 1 Full Synthetic is $5.50 a qt. That's awesome and come on, it's not that big a deal to change your own oil.
The Cincinnati Reds have hired Dusty Baker as thier manager. Good God. Well, I guess it's appropriate to hire a racist in this town. After all we had Marge Schott and her Hitler memorabilia for an owner. F*** me it's going to be a helluva 2008 season.
Amazing, kids actually learn better and become smarter by DOING things. It seems this study finds that playing with blocks produces smarter children than playing classical music to them while they are in their crib or even in the womb.
Some dopes actually believe that if they put on Mozart it will somehow stimulate the infant's brainwaves and develop their brain better. Uh, sure. I guess this is similar to the old tall tale that if you play audio of some textbook under your pillow at night you'll "absorb" the knowledge right into your cerebellum. Knock it off people, achieve by doing, don't be like... teachers.
7:45am
The brand new Airbus A380--the largest passenger plane in the world--flew into Greater Cincinnati Airport today as part of a promotional tour. This is a French built plane (Airbus is a French company and a big rival to Boeing). The engines are manufactured by a joint venture between usual rivals General Electric and Pratt and Witney.
The GE engine plant is right here in Cincinnati and on its way to the airport it did a low altitude flyby over the GE plant, which is about 25 miles north of the airport and close to where I work. We could see the thing out the window of our office building. Eh, big deal, it's a frog plane, I'll take a new Boeing 787 Dreamliner anyday. A lot of people around the area phoned police about the low flying plane, thinking it was in trouble or a terrorist attack despite forewarning by Cincinnati authorities.
The Union of European Football Associations Champions League is the Major Leagues, the NFL of Soccer. They are having their championship, their Super Bowl this month...ON A WEDNESDAY. Man, that is bitchin. Nice going, Europe. The most important sporting event of the year is taking place on a wednesday. Now, NASCAR stupidly blows their load by having their Super Bowl as the first race of the season, but at least they have the sense to do it on the weekend. But I might have to tune in because one of the players has the same name as my Dad, with 1 extra letter (Stephen Gerrard, plays for Liverpool).
I cleaned the throttle body (TB) and combustion chamber on my car. It's probably never been done and doing so will improve gas mileage. It's pretty easy but I think it will need another cleaning. Anyway, I nearly screwed up my engine in the process, which could have cost me thousands of dollars. I purchased the appropriate cleaning agent at the dealer--never use generic cleaner that is not specific to combustion chambers. Then all you have to do is disconnect the air cleaner hose leading to the TB, this exposes the opening of the TB, and this is where you spray the cleaner into. Now, on my car there are two holes within the TB that you must plug up. I had no plugs that fit (or any other kind of plugs--who has plugs like this lying around??), so I used tape. Well, after you spray the cleaner in you need to run the engine in order to get it fully into the system. Thinking I might spray some more after the first go-round, I left the tape on. Well, this monumental stupidity nearly got the tape sucked into the engine. And once it's in there the only way to get it out is to tear down the engine. You only get so many of these "mulligans" in life and I hate using one up like that.
1:57 pm:
How long will it be before some secular Lefty mouths off on this? Over the next few days, we are going to hear how he is no doubt in Hell right now, something along the lines of "Well, he's probably turning a crispy brown right about now." Oh well, maybe Keanu Reeves can rescue him.
2:32 pm:
Bob Barker is retiring from The Price is Right. Barker is the man. He has been staple of American television for decades. I always loved how he would very subtley get frustrated and testy with the particularly dumb contestants. And he was nailing the hot presenter-babes while in his 60s.
I don't care if you want to save gas, in fact, I rarely drive over 65, usually around 60, on the highway. But these people are taking it to the extreme and putting other drivers in danger. One of these days a trucker is going to squash one of these pinheads just for the fun of it for tailgating.
A prequel to the excellent TV mini-series "Lonesome Dove" is finally coming to network television in a few weeks. It was filmed a couple years ago and has bounced around in limbo ever since. The title is "Comanche Moon". This is based on the novel by the same author as Lonesome Dove. I saw the previews and I'm afraid this may suck royally. Why? Well, anyone who knows anything about Lonesome Dove knows that the success of the original was due to the great characters of Gus and Woodrow Call. They are the central figures in the story.
So I'm watching the previews--I've seen two different versions--and between the two of them, the character of Gus appears for about 3 seconds and Call does not appear at all. I believe this is because the two actors playing the parts are awful. Awful casting that is, they may be fine actors otherwise. The guy playing Gus, Steve Zahn, (Gus is a hard-ass Texas Ranger of the old west, a traditional western badass) is the same guy who has played such goofball roles as the boyfriend in "Riding in Cars with Boys", Marvin in "Daddy Day Care", and Phoebe's husband on "Friends".
Am I being unfair by type-casting the guy? Maybe, but by any reckoning this is poor casting. I've read the book "Comanche Moon" and lest you think that maybe Gus and Call are not the central figures in the story, I'm here to tell you that they are indeed the most important characters. They are the reason for writing the book; it follows their early career as young Texas Rangers. But of course I'll sit my ass down and watch the whole darn thing anyway. Actually I'll DVR it because it is airing right in the middle of the primetime college bowl games. This is another red flag as to why I fear this will suck--why would CBS air it opposite BCS bowl games unless they are trying to hide it?. The demographic for this series is mainly men 18-50. Precisely the same demographic for college bowl games. I'll report back once I've seen it and admit my error if indeed it turns out to be excellent
Ohio, which demonstrated its lowly state of existence a year ago by passing a smoking ban, now has topped itself. Legislation has passed that bans touching at strip joints and has mandated that patrons must be six feet away from the dancers at all times, a so-called "6 foot bubble" that must be maintained around the dancers. No more dollars in g-strings, no more leaning in for a close look in Ohio. God, we suck. At least these chicks are fighting back.
Vincent Bugliosi, famous for prosecuting nutjob Charlie Manson, has written a magnum opus, 1600 pages worth, refuting the JFK conspiracy nuts. Not that we really needed this, but there are still numbnuts out there that think along the lines of an Oliver Stone. 3 quick points:
1. Despite people's claims, the act of getting off 3 shots from Oswald's location in a certain amount of time is not impossible and has in fact been duplicated over the years. Out of those duplications, 2 shooters have bested Oswald's results (2 or more head shots as opposed to Oswald's 1).
2. The magic bullet nonsense is actually on the part of the conspiracy nuts. When they talk about a magic bullet, it is because they have misrepresented where Connelly was sitting in relation to the president. Yep, it's that simple. The bullet travelled as it should based on where Connelly was really sitting. If the conspiracy nuts are right, the bullet would have ended up stuck in the car somewhere, because they say it would have had to make a right turn, etc. in order to hit Connelly. There was no bullet found elsewhere, and they can't explain where it ended up.
3. Kennedy's head did in fact move forward (as can be seen in a frame shot from the Zapruder film) before it moved backward, just as it should. For a brief microsecond, his head moved forward, then snapped backward, just as physics allow.
South Park's new episode wednesday did not disappoint. While Randy was not in the ep as much as I thought he would be, it was great nonetheless. Stan and Kyle play "Guitar Hero", score 100,000 points, and ultimately get dissed by the game in a homophobic finale. Randy had not one, but two classic tighty whitey moments, which has become his trademark.
Phil Hendrie's new show continues to be very good. He has kept the loony "guests" but has dispensed with taking calls from real people. Fine by me, the real callers were boring anyway. He has pissed off many of his fans for doing this and also pissed them off for his pro-Iraq war, pro-Bush stances. They just can't stand that he has these views--of course they had no problem with him when he expressed his very liberal views on his old show, pre-9/11. Besides, he still has a lot of liberal views, but the war thing tends to dominate. Anyway, you go Phil, you're awesome.
Clinton stiffs waitress.
No, no, Hillary....not Bill.
Or did she?
http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2007/...of-the-tip.html
The only thing about this story that has any relevance is that media outlets are using the word "waitress". I thought this word was outmoded, outdated, and otherwise sexist. I guess it's ok since she is from Iowa, and well, you know, those folks out there aren't as sophisticated as the rest of the country.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1291894,00.html
Jesus, at least when an American goes nuts and kills people they have the ability to finish the suicide portion of the process properly.
The shooter posted a video of himself on Youtube.
So I guess by attempting suicide, he feels that he is unfit and a disgrace to the human race.
At my workplace, I have the misfortune to have my desk (cubicle) near the break room. I get to hear the noises and conversations of everyone making lunch, whatever. Today I heard some lunkhead saying to someone "Don't drink from the tap! You should drink from the water fountain, the water in the fountain is treated!". Man, how did we get to the point in the US where people believe tap water is dangerous and/or unhealthy? Tap water is safe to drink and will not harm you. It is treated. Remember when the saying was "don't drink the water in Mexico"? They were talking about the tap water and it was because it wasn't treated, unlike the nice, safe water we have here in the USA. Nobody ever said "don't drink the water in Mexico...oh yeah and also don't drink it in the US either". Well, until now at least. For some reason, it has become the norm that you shouldn't drink form the tap, even though nothing has changed to make it less safe to drink.
In some instances, water from a water fountain will taste better, but it is no more safe. Taste is the reason you should drink from a water fountain or bottled water, not to avoid sickness. The bottled water you buy is from the tap, unless it says specifically that it is from a spring, such as Evian or Poland Springs. The bottling companies take the water from the tap and then do further treatments on it, mainly to improve taste and sometimes to introduce minerals and/or vitamins to the water.
Me and the Mrs went shopping for a cabinet thing for the basement, since we're moving the computer down there. We went to the frontgate outlet. Frontgate sells yuppie, expensive stuff for your home and patio. Right up my alley. We found a nice wood cabinet that had a chip in one of the corners and it had scratches from being a floor model and all, but it looked ok, especially for something that is going in the basement. This thing retailed for about $500-$600. We got it for $65.
Rome was just talking about LeBron James and how he demonstrated that he is no Michael Jordan by passing the end-of-the-game last second shot off to a teammate instead of taking the shot himself. Rome is a complete ass. How can someone who purports to have a deep knowledge of sports make such an idiotic comment? Has he never heard of John Paxton and Steve Kerr? Jordan in fact passed off a last second shot not once, but twice, to the aforementioned players, during the post-season.
Oh, update, 12:20--now he's mentioning Paxton and Kerr, someone must have clued him in...starting to backtrack slightly...but he's still sticking to his take! Ah, he's "in that situation, he has to take the shot". Um, Jordan did so "in that situation" you dumbass. He's stuck, he made his signature 'take' and now he can't back off it. Hilarious. Yeah, better move on to the O.J. suit story.
Speaking of sports talk show hosts, they really are all a bunch of extremely jealous wanna-bees. Guys who played in high school and could never make it to college or the pros. So they end up talking about it instead of doing it.
And most of them (not all by any means) no very little about breaking down sports and being knowledgeable about which team or player is better, etc. The PTI guys are a prime example--they know nothing about sports. Now, I don't either, but I can tell when someone else doesn't. Yesterday they said if the Pistons shut down LeBron James, they win, guaranteed. Well, they nearly lost and James had 4 points total I think, no more than 6 for sure. The Cavs were winning at one point by 10 or 12, with James at that point below 4 points.
Honda snubs greenie weenies...
Sorry for the Tongans but it looks like it was the teenage dumbass' fault, not Ford.Their SUV was HIT by another vehicle, causing it to roll over. Doesn't sound like they attempting a normal turning manuever in the car. Give me the highest safety rated SUV and if it is hit in the side by another vehicle traveling at high speeds, it's going to go over more often than not.
This from the Orwellian file:
Holiday Display Task Force in Ft Collins, Co.
An example of some of the policy suggestions: Avoid snowflakes and red and green lighting--these things are too closely relatable to Christmas. My advice, remember this season to 'X' out--Xmas not Christmas!
The founder of the Weather Channel went apeshit over the idea of catastrophic man-made global warming yesterday. Check out this rant:
Mike Gallagher's career in radio may be coming to an end. He just wished for (9:10 am Friday) the execution of the various Leftist pundits who have not exactly expressed joy over the killing of the Z-man in Iraq. He was quite serious about shooting the likes of Jerry Springer (Air America talker), Randi Rhodes, and some congressman, among others, for treason. I don't know, I've never heard something this extreme from him. This has to cause problems, I don't see how this will just blow over.
Edit: He just said that he is not "calling for" the assasination of these people. He is just wishing for their execution. Whatever, you decide what he means and if this is a big deal or not.
So I saw the preview for "I Am Legend" starring Wil Smith. This is based on a Richard Matheson book of the same title and has been made into a film two times previously. You could say the story is about zombie/vampires--the Earth's population is killed by a plague and they turn into these living dead creatures, except for one remaining man....or is he really alone? Hmmm, living dead? Yeah, I think the first film version of this--The Last Man on Earth starring Vincent Price--was Night of the Living Dead before there was a Night of the Living Dead. Romero's zombie flick borrows a lot from the Price movie. In Last Man On Earth, people die and come back as zombie/vampires. They walk slowly and can be avoided pretty easily. They exist to kill Price. In other words, just like Night of the Living Dead, made three years after LMOE.
The second filmed version is "The Omega Man" starring Charlton Heston. It is really good though a bit dated, having been made in 1971 and is very much a 70s movie.
This new remake will suck. All I needed to see was a CGI deer, a CGI lion, and a central casting vampire snarling 6 inches from Wil Smith's face. Jesus. It will make a reasonably amount of money due to Wil Smith, but nothing spectacular. It will be completely forgotten 6 months from now.
I was semi looking forward to "Hitman", but the reviews have absolutely dogged on it. Apparently it is terrible.
"The Mist"? LOL. A lame excuse for King to preach about the evil that is the U.S. military and Christianity.
That leaves the new Coen brothers movie. HELL YEAH. Cannot wait for this. A dead solid no-brainer. It will be awesome.
Thomas Jefferson said coffee "is the favorite drink of the civilized world." Of course that was a slap in the face to England, a bunch of nancy-boy tea drinkers that we wished to distance ourselves from in any way possible. Those cats back in the early days of the country were crazy-mad coffee drinkers. Fast forward some 200 years and here I am in a typical office environment trying to get a decent cup of coffee. There are four avenues available to me.
1. Take part in the office coffee club. $5 per month or 25 cents per cup. No way, I have no control over who makes the pot, it could turn out watered down.
2. Bring in my own small coffee maker. Eh, too much trouble, I'd have to decide whether to bring the coffee I have at home to the office during the week and take it back for the weekend, or buy an extra can just for work....bah, the hell with it.
3. Stop at a coffee shop every morning. Haha, way too expensive. Plus, what if want a cup after I've been at work a couple hours.
4. Instant coffee.
Yep, 4 gets it. Now, which brand to buy. I've had Folgers and did not like it. I had Maxwell House and liked it. Then I bought a second batch and found it tasted different and thought they had changed the formula. They had not, but I'll get to that in a second. So thinking that Maxwell House had changed their coffee, I decided to try Nescafe Tasters Choice. Never had it, it's been around a long time, a name brand, I figured I couldn't go wrong. Plus they had those hip, cool commercials in the 90s that were like mini soap operas. Well, I opened it up for the first time and the odor was something on the order of dog shit. If you think I am exaggerating, I assure you I am not. So I went back and browsed the coffee aisle, and realized that Maxwell House has two different coffees on the market. I had bought the new one, called "Rich". It sucks. The old classic was still there and is better.
Now what to do about the 10 o'clock snack...
Although I'd rather be talking about Danica Patrick and the idea of her slurping milk in this weekend's Indy 500 winner's circle, ESPN's Dan Patrick is a tool of the week candidate. He pulled the classic "leading the witness" deal with Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis on his radio show. He brought up profiling and asked Lewis if his players were being profiled. Then all Lewis had to do was say "Yes, Dan they are". The obvious implication being race, although Danny boy never specified that. But now Lewis says he didn't really mean that, he was talking about profiling them as Bengal players, not as black men. Ok, I'll take Lewis at his word, although usually I would scoff at a next day apology/clarification like this. Patrick, you're a tool.
This was all brought up because Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry was pulled over for not signaling on a right hand turn. And this was on the heals of his being falsely accused of failing a drug test--his test was negative but some numbnut lawyer jumped the gun and said he failed the test. Well, include this lawyer as a tool of the week.
One of Europe's most legendary and respected metal bands, Gamma Ray, has tour dates this spring and summer in the United States. When heavy metal got wiped out by the grunge wave of the 90s, Europe was the only place to find metal. And wow, was it ever metal. It could be argued that much of it was better than what we had here in the U.S. One of the best was Gamma Ray, a German band renowned for the technical precision of their music. Fast, furious, and exquisite. Whaddaya expect, they're German aren't they?
They are going to be in Massachussetts, New York, Virginia, and Los Angeles this year.
The only bad thing is that their latest release, "Majestic", contains some strong anti-American lyrics. One of the songs alludes to the War on Terror and how we (Bush) has unleashed his evil on the world, etc. So I won't be making the trip and spending money on their concerts. Yes, I already bought the CD. Now I wish I had downloaded it for free.
Here are the lyrics:
Oppression deadly reign
Madmen gone insane
They hate and bring us pain
Bloodlust in their eyes
Getting high on torture cries
They hate and terrorize
They sacrifice
They try to break my will
They claim the right to kill
My world is standing still
I`m lost in hell
They try to make me right
A prisioner no reason why
All I try is to survive
The world`s demise
Chained in darkness - Screaming for the light!
Killing pain to save my life
[Chorus]
Condemned to hell - I`m facing the end of my days
Condemned to hell - Their torches are burning
Condemned to hell - My freedom will burn at the stake
Condemned to hell - The dark age returning
They don`t care, they close their eyes
Kick away our human rights
A world dehumanized
Now tell me... how many gave their lives?
How many have to die?
Killed by official lies
With stars and stripes
Pain and anger - Killing all the light!
Darkness comes... eternal night
[Chorus]
Condemned to hell - I`m facing the end of my days
Condemned to hell - Their torches are burning
Condemned to hell - My freedom will burn at the stake
Condemned to hell - The dark age returning
Chained in darkness - Screaming for the light!
Killing pain to save my life
[Chorus]
Condemned to hell - I`m facing the end of my days
Condemned to hell - Their torches are burning
Condemned to hell - My freedom will burn at the stake
Condemned to hell - The dark age returning
Condemned to hell
Condemned
[Repeat 3 times]
Hell! Hell!
This weeks South Park promises to be awesome for one simple reason--Stan's dad Randy plays a prominent part. Randy has become the show's best and funniest character, leaving Cartman and Butters in his wake. He's already kicked ass this season with his world record defecation (confirmed by a Swiss group that oversees fecal measuring accuracy). This week will follow the much praised Imaginationland Trilogy, which I thought started out great but fizzled at the end of "Episode III". Randy Is The Man.
Al Gore was asked a tough question about someone in the IPCC who disagrees with some of his conclusions regarding climate change. His response--
"He's an outlyer, he's no longer with the IPCC."
Way to confront an opposing view. Just call him an "outlyer" and move on.
RFK Jr called Glenn Beck a fascist and corporate toadie during the Live Earth concert. Glenn is outspoken as not
buying into the man-made, iminent disaster global warming hysteria. Glenn had Jr on his CNN show and asked him what
the definition of fascism was. Jr responded "the American Heritage dictionary definition is government controlled by
corporate power".
Now the real American Heritage dictionary definition of fascism:
NOUN: 1. often Fascism a. A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent
socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of
belligerent nationalism and racism. b. A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of
government. 2. Oppressive, dictatorial control.
I happened to see Mission Impossible 2 the other day. It is both a great movie and a terrible movie. It's terrible
because of its title. The movie has nothing to do with the television series upon which it is based--it is in fact a
disgrace to connect it to that series. It is nothing like the TV series. It's great because it is an entertaining,
flashy film experience. The music is great, John Woo directs with flair and style. Movies are supposed to be
entertaining and as long as you push the words "mission impossible" from your mind, MI2 is fantastic. We need more
movies like this. This movie was supposed to usher in a new era of action film and in a limited way it has, but not
nearly enough in my opinion. Now, I still want diversity in movies, dramas etc. Take Prince of the City for example.
You don't know anything about this movie but it is an adult, interesting movie, well written and well acted. I suggest
giving it a look sometime when you have 2 hours to kill. It's a perfect example of interesting vs. entertaining. It's
not exciting. We need more MI2.
I have never been among those sports fans in America that hate soccer. I don't hate soccer, I'll probably even watch some of the World Cup this summer. Sports talk radio in the U.S. absolutely HATES soccer and I don't really know why they are so worked up about it. But I will say that these smug World Cup commercials are really getting on my nerves.
The first one talks about Liberia and how, due to the fact that they have a World Cup team, there is now a cease-fire and there's no more violence, blah, blah. Great, and what happens the minute the World Cup is over for them?
The second one is even more googly-eyed about the World Cup's (more specifically the ball itself, according to the commercial) importance. It talks about people coming together all over the world, putting aside differences, even stopping wars. Hey, is Iran or North Korea fielding a team this time around?
Now, I said I don't hate soccer, but one of the first things that comes to mind when the topic of soccer is brought up is that violence that occurs at soccer matches in Europe. The so-called "hooligans" and whatnot. Beatings, fires, tramplings, all that good stuff. It might get a country's people on the same page for a short time, but they're still going to hate the other country and that country's team. Some head-shaved hooligan is going to chuck a molotov cocktail at some poor bastard...all because of a ball.
Well, lookee at us...Cincinnati has made the bigtime. The Wall Street Journal published an article about a regional backyard game called Cornhole. It's in the same genus as Jarts, badmitton, etc.
WSJ
excerpt:
It is a fun game and goes well with beer. And it is a lot cheaper than golf.
We have a local sports morning show here in Cincy featuring 2 guys who call themselves the "2 Angry Guys". They are former sports writers and are pretty cool to listen to. The show is entertaining. Recently they talked about Ken Griffey Jr. and the topic of him moving to another position, perhaps left field or 1st base, in order to reduce wear and tear on his body, which, let's face it, has been an issue lately. This topic was brought up because a few weeks ago Jr was asked about moving positions and he fired back to the reporter "Are you going to change YOUR job"? Hmmm, just a little bit of a childish response Jr.
Now this week Griffey is responding to the 2 angry guys, apparently upset about their comments. Now, they may have gotten a bit out of hand with a few of their comments, such as saying that the guy who had replaced him in center field earlier this year was doing better. But that was a flippant comment. Their main point was that they wanted him in the line-up and felt that moving him out of center field would help prevent injury and ultimately be better for the team. That's reasonable and in no way were they trying to rip on him or call him a lousy fielder. Come on Jr., I guess living next to Tiger Woods in Tampa has rubbed off on you, what with Tiger's notortious smug responses to media questions about his game.
The "LOST" season finale aired last night. I watched it in wonderful High Definition, but the experience was slightly marred by a local weather storm warning scroll at the top of the screen that went on for the entire 2 hours. Thanks for that, you local weather dickheads.
As for the show itself, it exceeded my expectations of mediocrity. It was pretty darn good. Much better than the famous "X Files" full disclosure episode that was neither full nor disclosed anything. The explanation of what really caused the plane to crash in the first place was revealed. More background on Desmond and the hatch was revealed. The only thing that was frustrating was the "Hostiles" or "Others". Nothing much was revealed about them. The dude that they had captured said "We're the good guys" and that they were "going home". Yeah. OK, whatever. But all in all satisfying.
