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LOST – On-Island Christian Shephard != Smokey/Flocke

This thought has been whirling around in my mind ever since I re-watched seasons 4 & 5 of LOST, and last week’s ep [Lighthouse] seemingly added another layer of affirmation. Since I wrote out my theory in a rant-worthy fashion on Google Buzz, during a discussion with @snarkle, I thought I may as well regurgitate it here.

Note: Smokey = Smoke Monster = MiB = Fake Locke = Flocke

Jacob’s Cabin/Circle of ash 
The cicle of ash around Jacob’s Cabin is an anti-Smokey mechanism. So, if Smokey’s roaming around the island, the on-island Christian Shephard inside that cabin John Locke sees surely cannot be Smokey. 

Claire/Lighthouse

Two quotes from “Lighthouse” sum things up, where Claire seems to make a clear distinction between her father [on-island Christian Shephard] and her friend.

“First my father told me, and then my friend told me” – Claire, when explaining to Jin how she’s so sure The Others have her baby

“That’s not John. This is my friend” – Claire, at the end of the episode when Flocke walks into her camp

What ruins the theory

There’s just one scene that’s stuck with me that ruins this theory. In “Something Nice Back Home”, Jack, working at St. Sebastian hospital hears the smoke alarm beeping and then sees Christian Shephard. At the time, that smoke alarm going off meant only one thing to me, which sort of ruins the theory that they’re separate entities. Unless… there are two Smoke Monsters…

Smokey Candidates

If the two are separate entites, what does it mean? It’s only fair that if Jacob has his candidates, Smokey should be allowed to have some of his own too. Is this what Christian Shephard and Claire Littleton are?

We haven’t seen Claire doing too much for Smokey, but Christian certainly has:

  • Led Claire away from Aaron [to Smokey?]
  • Seen sitting with Claire in Jacob’s Cabin
  • Crucial in making John Locke believe he had to sacrifice himself, off-island, which I believe was needed for Smokey to take his form when he returned in the coffin
  • Told Sun to wait for John Locke [who was Flocke at this point]

UPDATE:

In retrospect, all I needed to say was, Smokey cannot leave The Island. Jack seeing Christian Shephard in “Something Nice Back Home” either disproves this fact [of which a 0% chance exists], or this is a plot hole.

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LOST – Lighthouse [spoilers, duh]

Dear god, questions, questions and more questions.

Thoughts:

  • What’s up with the scars/bruises you can’t quite remember, Doc?
  • Was Jacob pouring his own ashes into the pool? Pre-emptive measure against Smokey going for a swim [I assume that’s who’ll be visiting The Temple]?
  • “Clairousseau” sounds about right
  • Adam and Eve still there at least, and Hurley echoing what many people have already theorised
  • Best. Lighthouse. Ever.
  • That’s one impressive mirror right there! Jacob’s “Looking-Glass“? Nice cross-promotion with Alice in Wonderland coming out next week
  • The Numbers! Again! Looks like only 360 numbers can fit on that thing, with quite a few names being crossed out already
  • I swear Kate is Number 51
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  • Who’s Number 108?!
  • Who’s David’s mother? Is she Number 108?
  • Seemingly more affirmation that on-island Christian Shephard != Smokey
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Salmon Protocol – Unifying the Conversations

Salmon has come up quite a bit recently, and rightly so, with the talk around Google Buzz. I first heard about it on This Week in Google ep 29, which has some great discussion around Google Buzz from @jyri and @kevinmarks, and it came to mind again today with @scobleizer’s blog post; (Coming soon: the disruptive molecular age of information) so I thought I may as well embed this ridiculously simple slideshow that explains exactly what Salmon is.  
As updates and content flow in real time around the Web, conversations around the content are becoming increasingly fragmented into individual silos.  Salmon aims to define a standard protocol for comments and annotations to swim upstream to original update sources — and spawn more commentary in a virtuous cycle.  It’s open, decentralized, abuse resistant, and user centric.

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LOST – The Substitute [spoilers, duh]

That was mythology overload, right there.

Thoughts:

  • “What are the odds of you running into a spinal surgeon?” Sounds a lot like Ben Linus of season 3 to me, and very fresh in my mind after my LOST marathon. On that note, there is just so much duality i’m starting to pick up
  • Smokey cam is awesome! I propose a Smokey vs Cloverfield movie
  • Jacob brought them to The Island. He went to them when they were young and/or vulnerable, and manipulated them into making “choices”. They are brought to The Island as potential “candidates”, chosen to protect The Island. Well, that’s what the MiB says anyway. 
  • Was that a kid Jacob that MiB saw?
  • The MiB is also “trapped”, and I guess Sawyer’s his way out
  • Why’s MiB stuck as Locke forever now? Something to do with killing Jacob?
  • *MiB throws the white stone into the ocean* “inside joke” !
  • Very sad to see flash sideways John Locke losing all faith and resigned to his wheelchair existence. “Don’t tell me what I can’t do” is no longer his catchcry it seems
  • Where’s Kate’s number?! HT @marawlings

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UPDATE:

UPDATE #2:

The Official LOST Audio Podcast: February 22nd, 2010 (19:48)

Executive Producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse discuss the numbers, Claire, zombies and the Flash-sideways.

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    A Single Man [the movie, not me]

    Movie course day 3, and we are back on the road to awesome, with A Single Man.

    Every single frame of this movie was so meticulously and beautifully shot, and knowing this was Tom Ford’s directorial debut made it all the more impressive; I guess that’s what happens when a fashion designer directs. Some people thought it was overkill [too many close ups, too much color saturation], but I loved every second of it!

    Add to this the large dose of dark humor and a wonderfully depressing cast and story, and you have yourself a great movie.

    Oh, I should probably mention what the movie is actually about, but I might as well let Tom Ford do that.

    “It is a deeply spiritual story, of one day in the life of a man who cannot see his future. It is a universal tale of coming to terms with the isolation that we all feel, and of the importance of living in the present and understanding that the small things in life are really the big things in life.”

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    Google Buzz – An hour or two in…

    Ok, I have it, it’s running, but an hour or two in, I’m even more confused than I was with Wave.

    • First and foremost, I see 37 unread messages, but how the hell do I just skip to the next unread one? It was just spacebar in Wave.
    • How do I pull in my Twitter feed?
    • How do I add my Twitter contacts to Buzz?
    • How do I post from Buzz to Twitter?
    • Can I sort the threads somehow? Specific contacts, groups, unread messages, etc
    • Would love a minimise button next to each thread
    • Clearly I need to create groups to make this understandable
    • The maps integration is awesome, but the mobile site needs Android 2.0+ to work? Lame. Time to head to XDA I guess
    • It has an ‘edit’ button. WIN!
    • Jason Calacanis is spamming my stream >.<

    UPDATE:

    I might as well be meta and include the buzzlet [wtb microsyntax kthxbai] about this post and the associated comments.

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    LOST – What Kate Does [spoilers, duh]

    Another 42 minutes of mind frakking courtesy of LOST.

    Thoughts:

    • Nice shout out to season 2’s ‘What Kate Did’
    • Was that Smokey repellent, Dojen [the Japanese dude] blew over Sayid?
    • ETHAN. CLAIRE. DOCTOR. BABY. NEEDLES. PART TWO. CHILLS
    • Damon and Carlton don’t want to use “alternate”, but there are two timelines, and they will somehow come together… or so THEY claim
    • “Because it happened to your sister” *boom* … I guess Jacob didn’t take over Sayid, but this is the start of an explanation of what happened to Claire, and at least the evolution of it will be shown through Sayid; two birds, fine with me
    • Doubts in my mind about whether it’s Jacob or the Man in Black that’s actually evil
    • I don’t even know what’s happened to the real Aaron anymore… He’s staying with Clementine? Or Claire’s mum? So confusing >.<
    • Felt a tad like The Matrix with the whole pill thing
    • Dojen was “brought here (The Island) like everyone else” … they sure as hell better explain this!
    • What’s up with all the weirdness around Ajira and Rousseau? That was unsettling.

    I’ll continue to update with DarkUFO and podcast spam as the week goes on.

     

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    The Wolfman

    Movie course day two, and I sure as hell didn’t think we’d see The Wolfman. I can see Andrew Urban’s reasoning in giving us a completely different experience to Precious, but this was disappointing.

    Biggest gripe, didn’t think there was a solid enough reason that Del Toro’s character became afflicted with the curse in the first place. I feel this has to happen for these types of movies to work, and the redemption angle wasn’t the greatest either.

    The gore… Totally unnecessary
    and laughable for the most part. I am shit scared in even the weakest horror movies and I found myself laughing in this. And the horror genre “expert” who tried to justify werewolves decapitating people must’ve been smoking something.

    If this is supposed to be in the upper echelon of werewolf movies, bring on better made vampire movies please. Mythology wise, they kick so much more ass.

    UPDATE:

    Almost forgot, every time the CG transformation happened, all I remembered was The Hulk; looked exactly the same.

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    LOST – LA X [spoilers, duh]

    It’s back! I was left feeling unsure after the first episode, but by the end of the second, I was well on board and that familiar feeling of my mind trying to comprehend the madness that I just witnessed had returned.

    Thoughts:

    • The hydrogen bomb created two timelines?
    • Was The Island at the bottom of the sea Oceanic 815 [the one that didn’t crash] flew over the fate of those from the 70’s timeline we were following? I thought it was initially, but the current 815 flight that landed at LAX seems to be occuring in the same timeframe as the on-island story
    • 3 Locke’s! Wheelchair Locke, Fake Locke and Dead Locke [is Jacob going to ressurect through him somehow? o_O]
    • The Man in Black is the Smoke Monster [aka Fake Locke]
    • Smokey is evil =[ This is still confusing me… I thought Smokey was the Island’s security system. Does this mean that when Ben went along with Fake Locke to Smokey’s lair, Fake Locke slipped away and returned as Smokey?
    • Smokey being evil leads to more questions about what role Mr. Eko could’ve played if he had stuck around on LOST
    • Glad to see they didn’t forget about the other Others that Ben sent with Richard to The Temple, including the old Tail Section crew along with the children, etc
    • Who’s the crazy Japanese dude seemingly in charge at The Temple?
    • Was that Temple the same one Richard went into last season with young Ben? I thought he just went into Smokey’s lair, but that just seemed to be an entrance to the real Temple?
    • What the hell was Desmond doing on 815?!
    • Fake Locke to Alpert: “ It’s good to see you out of those chains” <- A Black Rock reference
    • The Man in Black wants to leave The Island and go “home”, wherever the hell that might be
    • Jacob has taken over Sayid’s body?
    • Kate looked hawt

    Other thoughts via DarkUFO:

    • What is the significance of the hand-carved ankh inside the guitar case?
    • Why did Flocke/MIB cut a piece out of Jacob’s tapestry?
    • Why does the ash on the island act as a barrier from the smoke monster? <- So, do we assume that whatever was being contained in the cabin [you know, the one surrounded by that funky ash] is some form of Smokey / Man in Black? It couldn’t have been Jacob’s cabin, could it, since he’s been seemingly living inside the giant foot the whole time?
    • Theory: Why the island is underwater
    • Recap: Things I Noticed – “LA X” by Vozzek69

    Why did I even bother calling it “Thoughts”? I see a few statements and a gazillion questions >.< Damon and Carlton, I thought you were going into answer mode, but you’re not helping my poor mind >.<

    UPDATE:

    The Official LOST Video Podcast 2: February 4th, 2010 (04:11)

    What is a flash-sideways? Who is Locke? The Creators & Cast provide some answers.

    The Official LOST Audio Podcast: February 4th, 2010 (23:33)

    Executive Producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse discuss the season premiere of LOST.

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    Random sidenote: My ankh keychain that I’ve had for years!

    Media_httpiimgurcomvp_mgiaa

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    Listen and TWiT

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    Listen is a Google Labs experiment and by far my new favourite Android app, and a must for anyone with an Android phone.

    Listen is basically a web audio / podcast discovery app that allows you to search, subscribe, download and stream in such a simple way that I found my listen queue filling up pretty quickly. Downloading has been easy & quick enough through 3G; haven’t bothered with WiFi since it downloads speedily and I can actually make a dent into my normally wasted data plan.

    You can tell that it’s a Labs experiment though, with a few strange things that stood out initially, but no doubt Google will be all over it soon enough, and I’m eagerly awaiting v1.0.4.

    Gripes / Wants:

    • No support to play other audio / other media on your phone – It only played podcasts that are downloaded through Listen, and strangely, it removes the audio extension on anything it downloads, so the file becomes incompatible with other audio apps unless you add in the .mp3 or .m4a extension
    • I thought I’d had an “ah-ha!” moment the other day when I realised I could use the scroll wheel to seek with accuracy, but then found the seek bar to creep back to its original position, with the scroll wheel doing nada
    • Some kind of web / desktop interface tied to your Google account [you need one to use the app anyway] almost seems like a must

    Download Listen via the QR code below

    Media_httpiimgurcomvd_juaeb

    Coincidentally, my love of Listen has a great deal to do with the gloriousness that is TWiT [This Week In Technology]. I humbly apologise to @renny510 and @pkattera for not heeding your advice earlier. I’ll probably have another mini rant about it sometime, but I’m already waiting for the next episode with as much anticipation as I would a JJ Abrams TV show. Luckily there’s a backlog of 200+ episodes that I can fall back on, not to mention the broader TWiT network, with podcasts like TWiG [This Week In Google] and others from Leo and the gang.

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