I’m pretty excited. It’s a lot more aesthetic of a setup, so come check me out over there. I won’t be post anymore new posts here.

If you haven’t seen last week’s episode “This Place is Death”, then do NOT read on because some huge things are discussed.

Below, a picture of Desmond and Mrs Hawking in Season 2, Episode 8 “Flashes Before Your Eyes”

Read my theories after the jump…

Last week, as the episode concluded, Ben Linus identified Mrs Hawking (now confirmed to be Dan’s mother by Desmond’s appearance at the church) as Eloise Hawking. Eloise being the name, I think we can safely assume, is short for Ellie. Ellie, who we last saw walking around on the Island in 1954, looked strangely familiar to Dan as he inspected the Island’s hydrogen bomb.

Well, this would explain a lot. Dan’s mom got interested in time-travel when she met a scrawny scientist and his friends in 1954 who claimed they were time-traveling. This a) influences her desire and apparently Charles Widmore’s desire to later fund Dan’s research into the matter and b) blows a huge hole in Dan’s theory that you can’t change a THING in the past. Obviously, we already know that Dr. Richard Alpert shows up at Locke’s birth in 1956 because Locke told him what day and what hospital to visit him at.

Maybe Desmond isn’t so special after all. Maybe the Losties interactions with the past really do influence some things in the future.

Anyway… my big theory:

Ellie and Charles left the Island at the same time, along with several others- Miles, Dan and Charlotte. My guess is that it all has something to do with the Dharma Initiative and their more than forceful expulsion from the Island.

A question long unanswered in our favorite sci-fi fantasy show- HOW did the Dharma Initiative find the Island? The Island just doesn’t get found. It draws people who have a hard time getting off the Island once there, or finding it again if they leave. The only people that ever seem to be able to go seamlessly back and forth is the people in power: Ben and Alpert- to our limited knowledge.

My theory is that Charles Widmore, after seeing an old bald guy talk about time travel and the mysteriously disappear, realized there was a lot more power to the Island than what he was previously told about. Even Ageless Alpert seemed to be unaware of the Island’s time-traveling abilities (or pretended to be unaware) when Locke shows up in ‘54. I think Widmore used his connections as Jacob’s prior chosen one, to bring people from off the Island, using connections from wherever he came from to profit from the Dharma Initiative.

When the DI’s techy ways started pissing off Jacob, Alpert began looking for a new leader. Locke, still unwilling to accept any recruitment from the Island (Season 4, “Cabin Fever”) was not ready- but a young Benjamin Linus was (Season 3, Episode 20 “The Man Behind the Curtain”). Alpert met him in the jungle and told him he could come with him, eventually. We flash forward a couple more decades and the Dharma Initiative is gassed and Ben assumes his role as the new leader.

But where was Charles’ ousting? And how does someone who grows up on the Island leave as an adult, only to make a smooth transition to being the head of a multi-national, powerful business? All available clues point to Alpert not knowing how to handle the removal of Charles Widmore and the Dharma Initiative. Widmore was involved somehow in the Dharma Initiative knowing how to find the Island and being able to establish a camp there. The hostiles had to have been kept at bay while they built all their hatches- the hostiles can handle ALL intruders. The fact that the Dharma Initiative survived makes me think someone (Widmore) must have held the hostiles (Others) back while the DI was getting set up. But then the Dharma Initiative began to strike against the hostiles, taking more and more land than previously agreed upon. This led to Alpert/Jacob making a decision to start working against Widmore and the Dharma Initiative, very similar to how Alpert began working against Ben when Jacob decided Ben’s usefulness was almost at an end.

So somehow, Widmore, Ellie, Dr Chang and perhaps others, fled the Island with some of the children (Miles, Dan, Charlotte, and perhaps Annie?) and escaped the Purge but have worked tirelessly, while making a way from themselves out in the world, to get back to the Island. But somehow, Ellie and Widmore had a falling out, which is why she’s now helping Ben instead of Widmore, to get back to the Island.

To prove Ellie and Widmore’s connection in bringing the Dharma Initiative to the Island even further- where is tonight’s episode being set?

An off-Island Dharma station that Eloise Hawking has access to. Oh, and what does her son Daniel know ALL ABOUT?

The Dharma Initiative.

(A shot of Dan’s notebook- don’t forget that the kids knew about all the hatches, and the Purge when they arrived. Further evidence that Widmore may have stuck around through Dharma and been involved with its existence on the Island)

We’ll see tonight if any of these theories are correct, but I’m thinking that Widmore and Ellie were profoundly affected by the Losties flash back into the past, and that Widmore’s bringing the DI to the Island is what led to his ousting. This would be BIG in explaining a lot about the Dharma Initiative, and even bigger in debunking the time travel theory that nothing can be changed. If I’m right, things look a lot more cyclical than anything else.

/ geek post over!

Interesting dichotomy between the two. The fire is fueled by angry DJ’s and bloggers who want America to fail in order to get re-elected in 2012…

But what would be nice is to get past politics for a while while the country recovers. That way, when it does, Republicans could say, “It wasn’t just Obama, we deserve the credit too…” which while Republican governors can say they supported the President, unfortunately, the Republican lawmakers are all about saving face with angry radio hosts.

Steven Colbert suggested that all who voted against the stimulus put their money where their mouths are and refuse the stimulus money on behalf of their constituents.

But hey, before I seem too partisan… most of the Democrats in the House stink too. The whole legislative branch has been the weakest link of our government for a long time. I’d love to see Pelosi removed from her post- having her as Speaker is going to only hinder Obama’s efforts to get bi-partisan cooperation.

Posted yesterday by Consumerist, Facebook’s New Terms Of Service: “We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Content. Forever.” – this article picked up on changes made last Wednesday by Facebook on their terms of service agreement with their users. Basically they are saying that they own all the stuff that we users upload: pictures, video, blog posts, comments and messages… etc. Websites like Mashable reposted the article and started surmising what this means for us end-users and why Facebook hasn’t been forthcoming with this change, Facebook: All Your Stuff Is Ours, Even If You Quit. And really, why were they opting instead to change the terms of service quietly, choosing to wait for the oncoming blog-storm to roll in?

So obviously, once the story broke yesterday, it started a flurry of indignant tweets and retweets on Twitter. I first picked up the story early in the day when just the Consumerist story was floating around, but as more and more people retweeted the news, bloggers began writing and by the end of the day, Facebook decided it needed to respond. Facebook: Relax, we won’t sell your photos | The Social – CNET News

I love that CNET cites the impact Twitter had upon Zuckerberg deciding to write this post: Facebook | On Facebook, People Own and Control Their Information. Apparently, Sasha Frere-Jones of the New Yorker, a prominent Twitterer, deleted his account, along with other prominent bloggers and Twitterers in boycott of the poorly handled change of TOS. This kind of response to the TOS prompted Zuckerberg to address the change, but many point out he’s not apologizing at all, and asks us to trust that he and his company are going to be honorable about it all. Social media and tech site Mashable summed up the controversy and Zuckerberg’s response pretty well, Facebook Responds to Concerns Over Terms of Service.

I, for one, would love to see more specific terms of service written up as an olive branch to skittish end users. I just got back from Disneyland and want to put up my photos. I’m holding back. I don’t like the new terms of service, and while I appreciate wanting to safeguard content that users put up, I’d like more direct wording in the TOS about what they WON’T do with my content. All of this adds to a broader debate on the issues of ownership in the digital age- a debate that grows more interesting with every passing day and new development online.

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In a related point, I love how useful Twitter has been in making this into a story and pushing Facebook to respond. If the news reports on this tonight, it will be as more of an afterthought, and that is one of the many fascinating features that I love about Twitter.

UPDATE @ 5:53 PM: Twitterer @Mashable passes this article along: What Facebook’s revised terms of use mean for your content | Jacobson Attorneys: the new media law firm, a legal mind parses out the information on this subject.

I feel like when I can figure out what this problem is, and breakthrough with a completed short story in this genre, I’ll be able to get to parts of my imagination that for whatever reason have been blocked off. I don’t know why I blocked them off, but I know I have and I’m not resting until I solve this problem, open this door and write a fantasy story.

Interesting thought occurred to me today: how I write about normal life, no fantasy, only a little sci-fi… and how it doesn’t represent ME. I’m not normal. I’m a very odd person. If you’re supposed to write what you know…? Maybe I’ve taken that too literally. Maybe it’s not write what you know as much as it should be, write WHO you are. Not in a Mary-Jane kinda way, but in a “be true to thine own self” kinda way.

Anyway, Disneyland is an incredible place to ruminate on all these thoughts. I have an idea for a story, I just have to get rid of the barriers in my head and heart that keep me from writing it. We’ll see if, during the rest of this trip, I have any luck.

Some Disneyland pictures:

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I was so upset- my camera died right before he uttered the words, “You could always try MY way out…”

Recharging it for tomorrow. Hope the rain doesn’t spoil chances of getting good pictures. I so wanted to break in my new Nikon on this trip.

Brought to my attention by Twitter user @mashable, The New York Times picks up the chatter and maps the game visually across the nation. Very cool!

Map of Popular Super Bowl Words Used on Twitter – Interactive Graphic – NYTimes.com.

While I was sick, I missed a dinner reservation, a haircut, a gym trainer appointment, a paper deadline, and lost 10 followers on Twitter. But I also lost 3 pounds, sooooo…. win?

Sadly no. The loss of 3 pounds does not cancel out tons of mass guilt I feel for letting dozens of balls drop because of a stupid cold/flu. At least the migraines stopped and I can be sick without being unable to Twitter or read or write. Being sick is one thing, but migraines are the worst. (I’m not liking, by the way, that Twitter topped the list before read and write. What’s happening to me?)

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Anyway, I found this INCREDIBLE news story on a local news site this morning:

Couple die together after 62 years of marriage | KOMO News – Seattle, Washington | News

The story tells about a couple who recently died, after being married for 62 years, within six hours of each other. The wife had been diagnosed as terminally ill, and the husband basically ‘gave up the ghost’ when she passed away. Their relatives are quoted as saying that “their lives ebbed and flowed” together, and so, as sad as they are to lose both of them at the same time, they’re overjoyed that they died as they lived- completely in love and dependent on one another.

My husband Vasant and I were lying in bed the other night, and I couldn’t sleep- so I was distracting myself by trying to match my breaths to the duration and depth of his (he ALWAYS falls asleep right away). It took a while to slow my breath down to match his, but I kind of felt a “chi”-like energy in my gut breathing with him like that. I felt warm and drowsy and after ten or fifteen minutes fell asleep on his chest.

THAT is how I dream our last moments will be. In our nineties, on a house by the ocean, coming in from the garden and lunch, we’ll lay down together to nap, match breaths and just let go of this world. We’ve talked about that scenario so many times, and this story just kind of makes me feel reassured that it does happen. Vasant’s grandfather gave up the ghost six months after his wife went. Nothing was wrong with him- he just didn’t want to go on without her. The article details how it’s actually quite a regular phenomena, for couples who have been together for an incredibly long time to just “quit” life after one partner dies. Vasant and I read the article today and felt like that ideal afternoon 70 years from now… may be more than just our own sentimental wishes.

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In NON-SENTIMENTAL news, I twittered during the Super Bowl. It was fun. A small party actually happened at our place, last minute, which was wonderful, and while we’re all hanging out, I’m also twittering (I’m not anti-social, I’m WONDERFUL at multitasking twitter and live interaction). But man, watching the game was fun, but it was made even more enjoyable by watching it with all the people I follow on Twitter- especially when everyone in the room was yelling the same thing as all the people on Twitter. It was like being at TWO superbowl parties. I’m sure someone somewhere will right an article about that: Multi-tasking social events: Real Life and Twitter Superbowl parties and how they intertwine.

By the way, best movie trailer? Transformers 2. Best non-movie commerical? It was a tie between MacGruber and Alec Baldwin’s Hulu/Alien commercial. Great stuff.

I’m taking a break from revision on the book to finish a short story I’ve been playing with since the fall. I am in love with the concept of this story, but something comes and blocks the actual production of it everytime I sit down to work on it. So I distract myself with blogging, twittering, facebooking and then get up and do something like laundry or cook.

Now some stories are just bad ideas and I talk myself out of finishing them because they’re better prompts and exercises than they are anything else.

But some stories are great, and the reason I have trouble with them is not because I’m at a dead end, but more like a locked door. There’s some psychological key to the door and I’ve got to find out what it has to do with, why it’s there at all, and what it will take for me to solve the problem in my head so I can get through it.

Sometimes it’s as easy as solving a plot problem. But this one is a “me” problem. I know the reason why the story isn’t flowing. It’s a genre I’m uncomfortable with. I know that’s why it’s important for me to take the time to complete this short story. But what I don’t know is why I have this problem to begin with. Why on earth would this genre, which I love reading and watching, be difficult for me to write? When I sit down to write it, something inside me squirms and feels miserable, almost guilty.

I’ve got to solve this. This story needs to come out, and I feel like when it does, it’s going to be like opening the cork on a good wine that was forgotten in a dark and musty cellar.

That or it will be like opening the top of a septic tank.

Whichever, I need to find out why I love this genre but feel like I’m barred from creating anything in it myself.

The White House’s website is up, with a new look and a new outlook on how to connect with the people of the United States and the world. 

White House Blog is featured prominently on the front page. 

Vasant and I are on the way to class, but go out the door with a sense of new hope and promise underneath each footstep.

I’ve tried using a notebook while I’m on treadmills or bikes at the gym, but it always looks like I’m measuring seismic activity rather than writing down ideas. Using my phone is light weight, can be managed with one hand at times, and is more stable even when I’m moving fast. 

I like the QWERTY keyboard on my Samsung, and the document editing, but I’ve gotta say, I wish I had a phone I could sync up with my laptop. I work on the MacBook Pro, and wish I could sync up programs like Mail, iCal, and especially, MacJournal, with my phone via MobileMe. The iPhone looks great, but as a writer, I hate the lack of QWERTY and the inability to easily manage office documents- which is the only reason I bought a smartphone to begin with. 

But then I heart THIS is coming:

Documents To Go for iPhone.

This will be key for me to switch over. I hear there is an app for a QWERTY keyboard, which I can test out on my I-Touch. But I won’t switch until it manages documents, and if that happens (I’m thinking it may roll out in June??) then I will be totally converted to the Mac. 

Here’s what it will be able to do, according to Gizmodo’s guess: IPhone Office: Microsoft Office Documents Editing Coming to the iPhone

My current phone can’t even create native Word and Excel documents. This app will outdo my phone in a slicker setting. My husband giddily anticipates that day. Since getting me to let go of my PC and watching me fall in love with the Mac, it’s been one year-long ‘I-told-you-so-smile’ coming my way from him.