‘Golden Girls’ actress Estelle Getty, who played Sophia, has passed away.  She was 84 years old and was suffering from a form of dementia. 

Einstein would approve of moving the Island on Lost.

According to Einstein’s discovery, the presence of mass-energy warps space-time; what we perceive as gravity is just the curvature of space-time. That’s the Theory of General Relativity, now firmly established by experimental tests. The strange behavior of time and space (the fact that two twins traveling apart can experience different amounts of time, for example) are verified daily in our physics labs, using radioactive particles rather than twins

To make physics sense of the movement of the island in Lost, I assume that the island is actually connected to the South Pacific by a wormhole-like warp in space-time. (It doesn’t have to be a simple worm hole; it could be a warren of parallel and intersecting tubes.) Then, to move the island, all you have to do is move the wormhole connection, not the island itself. That’s what I think Ben did. He changed the nature of the space-time connection between the island and the rest of the world.

So the island didn’t disappear. It didn’t even move. Imagine that you are visiting a small town that you used to visit when you were young. You drive for miles, and never come to it. But it turns out the town has not moved. Rather, the highway now goes around it. That’s what Ben did—he changed the highway.

I suspect that Ben, too, is a physicist—the one person who has figured out how to understand the connection between quantum theory and relativity, and to manipulate them—at least to some degree, just as he manipulates people. That’s why Charles Widmore is so anxious to capture Ben alive. Only Ben really understands the physics.

Michael Emerson (Ben from Lost) deserves to win an Emmy for Lost this season.  He is absolutely incredible and has carried the entire season on his shoulders. 

For those who watched Lost tonight, there was a hotline displayed for information regarding the crash of Oceanic flight 815. That number was, 1-888-548-0034, and the contents of the recorded message is as follows:

“Thank you for calling the Oceanic Airlines flight 815 hotline. Information is updated as the investigation proceeds. Investigations are thorough and, as such, may take a period of time to complete. At this time we do not have any additional information regarding the crash of flight 815. If you are a family member or relative of a passenger on Oceanic flight 815, we are sorry for your loss. Detailed information is given during the daily family briefings. This briefing updates families on the progress of the investigation and allows for questions to be asked of the medical examiner or coroner and other parties connected to the investigation. Please contact your accident coordinator or call back later for more information.”

Update: Apparently this is not the first time we’ve seen this phone number.  It also appears on the interactive Lost site, find815.com.

The season premiere of Lost didn’t tell us much, but we’re used to that. Instead, it teased us to things that will come and also posed several new questions.

What we do know is that six Losties get off the island. We already know who three of them are: Jack, Kate, and Hurley. I’m going out on a limb here, but I’m assuming that one of the six also dies some time after getting off the island (see season three finale). We know that this person isn’t Jack nor Kate, so it very well could be Hurley. We know that Hurley’s flashbacks (or flash-forwards) took place way before the season three finale flash-forwards of Jack. Therefore, it could very well be Hurley that dies — but why wouldn’t anyone else attend Hurley’s funeral? So, maybe then, this rules out the funeral being Hurley’s.

The one thing that really annoyed me last night was the fact that Juliet played no part — I don’t even think she had a speaking line. Why isn’t she an impact for the group? She clearly worked with Ben for several years. I’m sure she knows plenty about the island, about the experiments, and how several people could survive a place crash. Yet, no one even acknowledges her? Come on! Why wouldn’t Jack ask Juliet if what’s Ben is saying is true or not? I know, I know, they need to leave certain things out to make the show work, but sustaining belief for so long just isn’t possible — eventually fans are going to grow very tired.

And Jack? Excuse my language, but why is he being such a pussy these days? I’ll end this entry here; until next week.

Thank you, Comcast, for not royally screwing with my head and my pocket.

The other day, I noticed my Comcast bill had shot up by about thirty dollars. Now, that’s a lot for me, I’ll be honest — it really does make a difference.

I called up Comcast to see what had happened. Apparently, my promotion rates expired, and I was being charged full price for everything. Plus, they increased almost every package by a dollar (HD box, HD-DVR, etc). So once the very nice representative (shocking, I know) finished explaining everything to me, I proceeded to go on my rant.

I explained that thirty bucks was a lot for me, and such an increase would FORCE me to leave Comcast for a satellite provider. I went on to ask if there’s anything she could do to keep me as a customer before I started to seek television elsewhere. She put me on hold for a few moments.

When she came back, she explained that she can apply the original promotion rates for an additional year. To that, I replied, “ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC!”  Yes, and I did sound quite homosexual.

I’ve read that Comcast and other providers would absolutely keep you on your promotion rates to keep you as a customer. However, the only way to accomplish this was to actually call Comcast and to totally bluff when telling them that you’re leaving for satellite.

I called Comcast back, as requested by the rep on Wednesday, to check the status of the credit being applied to my account from all the issues I’ve had these last few weeks.

Comcast: What credit? There’s no notes on your account pertaining to a credit.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

Luckily, the representative today was able to work with me. She, unlike the lady on Wednesday, was able to process the credit from her system. A few minutes went by and sure enough, a credit for almost twenty-five-bucks was instantly applied to my account. Before I hung up, I thanked her, and told her she was the only one who helped me 110% and actually cared about my issues.

So, next bill will be twenty-five-bucks cheaper — which makes my bill just crazy expensive, and not fucking-crazy-expensive like it normally is.

Well, once again, my Comcast service wasn’t fixed last night, as promised.

Called up again tonight to ask what the deal was this time.  The representative tonight put me on hold for a few minutes, came back every now and then to tell me she’s currently working with a supervisor to fix my account, and finally, a few minutes after that, she comes on to tell me to check my channels.

Sure enough, everything is fixed.  I asked about a credit, and I was informed that my service since November 9th is on Comcast.  But, I’ll believe when I actually see the credit on my bill.  Somehow I don’t think this issue is resolved.

Well, I was promised full service by Monday.  Monday came, and went, with the continued shitty service.

I decided to call Comcast for the fifth time in two weeks.  Finally, I was connected to a customer service representative that just didn’t want to rush me off the phone — like the four before her.  I explained the situation, she gave their take and their reasoning.  I was told that the service would be fully working by later this evening (its 8:47pm as I type this).  I asked what type of guarantee is that since I’ve been given empty promises for two weeks now.  She said it was just handed down to her from the supervisor and this time, “they’re confident service will be back to normal.”

I call bullshit, again, but I’ll go along with it.

I asked her about credit for the last two weeks.  She informed me I will receive credit for each day my service was interrupted, since the 9th of November, as long as I call back tomorrow evening. I asked her if she could make note of this on my account, and surprisingly, she was more than willing to comply.  She even read back to me the note for my approval.

It’s funny how none of their representatives are on the same page with information nor on the same page as customer service.  The first rep I spoke with had no idea of the town-wide issue.  The second rep knew about the issue, had no knowledge about a memo sent out notifying me about the possible outage, but guaranteed I’d see a credit.  The third rep knew about the outage, agreed that a credit will be applied to my account, and gave me a bogus correction date.  The fourth rep knew about the outage, told me Comcast sent out a memo pertaining about the outage (which I didn’t fucking get, obviously), and threw out another bullshit date of yesterday.

Well, here’s to hopefully having normal service by tomorrow evening.  Cheers.

Well, Traveler is over. Nixed. Cancelled. ABC felt their ratings weren’t up to par and decided to have it’s way with the show. While I understand ratings equals money, I don’t think ABC gave this show any form of respect or expectation from the beginning.

As I was googling during the first episodes of Traveler, I found out that ABC only agreed to eight episodes of Traveler and would decide on a final eight (to finish season one) based on ratings. So, Traveler had eight episodes to 1) lay down the initial plot lines, 2) capture an audience, 3) hold an audience, 4) grow an audience, 5) advance the plot and character lines 6) do all of this in summer months when tv viewer numbers are down significantly compared to the fall.

And when I found out that there are only eight gauranteed episodes, I almost quit on the show myself. I knew I’d be left with some kind of cliff-hanger because I would never ever know the outcome of this series. I thought to myself, why invest my time in something that ABC essentially already axed in the beginning? But I decided to keep watching and supported the show since the first two episodes put up ratings that were good for the summer hours. The ratings, however, seemed to have slipped right after those episodes.

I found this on the creator’s, David DiGilio, blog entry.

“Fnich1 writes: How do the network bigwigs expect to attract viewers when they keep pulling the plug so early? It’s getting to the point where I don’t want to watch any new TV until the series has been established for a season or two.

I think you’ve hit on a real issue with network TV. Gone are the days when shows are allowed to grow an audience. Think what would happen if Seinfeld were released today. It most likely would have been cancelled due to low viewership. Seriously, I loved that show, but the first four episodes of Seinfeld are nothing like the show once it hit its creative stride and became a huge hit. As you guys head into the new TV season, all I can say is, “Don’t be afraid to commit to a show.” I think the perception that “serialized shows don’t last” hurt Traveler more than anything. If the audience does not tune in because they think a show is going to get cancelled, then the ratings will never be there and the network has no choice but to cancel the show. Watch the shows you want to watch and then let the chips fall where they may.”