Fair Game, the movie

Sounds like a good spot to kick back with a good book.

It is a perfect reading chair. I have my mini-system set up in the same room, too.


Eve found a table at second-hand store, and a good price on dining room chairs from Target.com. That takes care of one room!

I am still searching for home theatre seating as well. The best that I have found online for a decent leather set (three wide) is around $800 for a closeout model. Otherwise, it tends to be at least $1200. I wish that I could find some used, but so far no luck.

I like to check out Lazy Boy discount stores. You often can't find a full set, but if you just need a three seater or even an oversized love seat for your home theatre room, you can find some pretty good deals. I found a nice leather sofa there with a list price of nearly $3000 on sale for $899. The only thing wrong with it was that they could no longer get the matching recliner for it. Whatever.

I am hoping for something that listed at $1000-$2000 that I can pick up for $500-$600. I may be overly optimistic.

That's doable. I was quoting in Canadian dollars. I'm sure the US equivalent is much more favourably priced.

I have not been to a Lazy Boy discount store. I will have to try it.

Mind you, someone backed into our garage door this morning, so we are going to have to drop a few hundred getting that fixed. Never rains but it pours . . .

Ugh. You'd think people would own up when they have accidents like that.

She did. 'Nuff said.

BAG. Gotcha.

I am trying to protect some feelings here . . .

Chairs, new table and new drapes are up. Progress is made. I even found a set of inexpensive drapes for my home theatre room that are black (which goes perfectly in the room, since the speaker socks and my acoustic panels are both black.) They supposedly block 99% of incoming light. I am curious to see how well they work.

Sounds nice. Let me know about the drapes. It is a ways off, but I am planning on redoing the basement, which will include redoing the home theatre room. If all goes well, the room will end up in the middle, so I won't have to worry about windows. However, there is an equally good chance that the room will have windows and it would be nice to block out all light.

Well, "99%" was a bit of an exaggeration, but they do seem to work pretty well. A set of blinds under them would help. The biggest problem that I discovered is with curtain rods -- almost all of the hardware that I have seen holds the rod out a good distance from the wall, which makes a big gap around the top and edges for light to leak through. I temporarily bought some eye hooks and mounted them directly to the wall, so that the drapes hang in tighter against the wall. I will try to get some pictures later.

Rather than start a new thread, I thought I'd tack the discussion on here:

Did you ever finish watching Lost? If not, I won't say anymore, but I'm curious as to your thoughts about how they chose to wrap up the series. Also, have you picked up Caprica? That's another one on my list. I was holding out for the Blu-ray, but I'm not sure if the series is going to be released on Blu. Might be unlikely, since the series was cancelled after only one season.

Any one of our threads will do for any one of our discussions -- we can either keep them going, or start a million new threads. Preference?


Anyway, I did finish Lost. I will post some thoughts about it later with a spoiler warning. (The bottom line is that I was disappointed by the ending, though perhaps not for the reasons some people were.)

I have not seen Caprica.

Your choice if you want to start a new thread. I'm indifferent. I suppose for the sake of neatness, a new thread might be nice. I have also watched Lost in its entirety, so I have no worries around spoilers, though a few others who post here might.

Well, we can finish this discussion first.

I really did not care for the ending of Lost for the simple reason that it did not earn it. I was pretty engrossed by the final season as a whole, but the last episode really left a bad taste in my mouth, not so much because of what happens, but rather because I do not feel that the rest of the season legitimately led up to it. Of course, the whole series has been one where the crea tors made it up as they went along, and that has really been its biggest weakness. The twists and turns become arbitrary and illogical. The flash sideways were pretty interesting, but I do not think that the writers had in mind at the beginning of the season that they were all taking place in this state of limbo. I enjoy twist endings, but I do not like ones that are a cheat from the rest of the narrative.

On the other hand, I liked the way that they resolved Ben's character, although the ending raised more questions that I wish it had spent more time answering (meaning just what Hugo and Ben were up to -- that would have made a great couple of episodes focused on just that plotline.)

I think that was a relatively spoiler-free way to explain it, but we can certainly get into more detail.

The creators swear that they had that ending in mind early on, but I agree that Season 6 didn't really lead up to that ending. That said, given the ending, you could argue that the entire series didn't really lead up to the ending.

Part of the problem is that the creators signed off on the ending, claiming that the show was all about the characters. While I would agree with that to a certain point, there is no arguing that the storyline and overall plot became a huge part of the show. Shows like Six Feet Under (if you have not seen that series yet, you need to go and buy it now) really are about the characters and pull it off well. Yes, there are storylines, but the show never gets lost in those storylines.

Unlike others, I had no problem with the loose threads that weren't explained. In fact, I think a careful viewer will find that most of the mysteries are explained, it's just not always spelled out. Personally, I prefer that over having it handed to me on a plate -- it makes me think and that makes me participate. Incidentally, I have a theory as to what Ben and Hugo were up to. It's nothing fancy and just draws on the information provided in the episodes. I can type it out here, or we could put in a spoiler-warning thread. I wonder if anyone here actually cares?

No, feel free to share. I agree that not all questions need to be answered, but in the case of the Hugo/Ben pairing I simply would have enjoyed watching them work together more.

I do agree that the whole series does not lead fairly up to that whole ending, but it seemed especially noticeable when watching season six episodes back-to-back. It just felt like a cheat. Twists can be a cheat, but there needs to be a good thematic reason for it (like in the case of Fight Club -- the film cheats liberally relative to that ending, but since we are seeing things from the point-of-view of the main character, it all works.)


Six Feet Under is on my list along with True Blood waiting for that magic price point. I will get it done. Right now, I am considering saving my pennies for the fairly expensive Deadwood box.

Deadwood is a must, but Six Feet Under is more accesible, meaning you don't have to pay as close attention to follow along. That said, I think you will enjoy Deadwood, if, for nothing else, the dialogue and language alone. Think Shakespeare with a heavy dose of crassness and outright profanity. It's modern-day poetry! Throw in some great acting, fairly tight script writing, and you have a winner. It is a shame that the show was cancelled.

Regarding Hugo and Ben: I understand what you mean. You just wish to have seen more of what they were up to. You probably nailed it on the head when you said that the writers were developing the story on the fly. We likely didn't get to see more of what Hugo and Ben were doing because the writers hadn't figured it out until the end. Hugo, incidentaly, was the new Jacob, with Ben as his sidekick. In the flash sideways (which I understood to be an alternate universe created by the losties so that they could find one another in the afterlife), Hugo and Ben were helping folks do just that -- find one another before moving on to the the great light in the church. Thankfully, the creators never tried to explain that light (nor the light on the island), which could have been from the same source. I read many people complaining that they wanted an explanation, but that would have been like having the star child explained to us in 2001. Some things are better left alone.

I always figured Hugo and Ben understood what was going on because they had inside knowledge or a greater understanding of life from their time on the island.

I know what they were up to, and I understand what they now represent -- I just wanted to see a bit more of them in action. All told, by the end of the series, Ben was probably my favorite character. Jack got just plain annoying.


I may do the Deadwood thing. I have a $50 gift card, another $10 Amazon gift card, and Amazon currently has the Blu-Ray set listed at $124. Netting the set at a bit over $60 is not bad. Would you do that ahead of True Blood or the DVD set of The Wire?

Tough call. True Blood is satisfying in a guilty pleasure sort of way. Deadwood is much more artistic and intelligent in both presentation and acting. The Wire I have yet to pick up, but it is on my list.

True Blood is easy to get into, easy to watch and easy to follow. It is probably the more addictive of the two, but not necessarily the more satisfying. Deadwood is excellent and while the overarching storyline might not hook you as quickly as True Blood's, the acting and dialogue will. While fictional, Deadwood is rooted in historical fact, so it also has that going for it.

You will eventually end up with all sets, so decide if you're in the mood for a western, a satirical drama about vampires or a cop drama. You can't go wrong, regardless of which series you pick up.

Well, I am a hard-core Western fan, so maybe I will lean that way. I have heard nothing but raves for The Wire, but maybe it would be better to wait for Blu-Ray releases of that (and one helluva good sale, since the full series will no doubt be in the megabuck territory.) I have also been on a Roman kick lately, so the gift card(s) would be one way to ease the pain of the double-dip with Rome, but I think that I would be better off getting something new. (Speaking of which, have you seen Neil Marshall's Centurion? It has some serious flaws, but it is filled with some hardcore Roman bloodletting, and Olga Kuryenko kicks MAJOR ass in that film!)

I am finishing up the Blus of Generation Kill that I picked up with my last gift card, and it is an excellent miniseries that is worth your consideration. Which reminds me -- another thing that was on my possibilities list: have you seen The Pacific yet?

I have not seen Centurion. Talking of Rome-based films and series, have you checked out Spartucus: Blood and Sand? I have heard good and bad about the series, but have yet to pick it up myself.

I have The Pacific, but have yet to start watching the miniseries. I'll likely start that one over the holidays.

I have Blood and Sand and have watched it. It is definitely a mixed bag. The first episode is the weakest, but it does improve after that. However, it has some narrative weaknesses that are exacerbated as the series progresses. While that temporarily disappointed me, the last episode makes a drastic change in the narrative that makes it all pay off. In fact, I would like to watch the series again knowing how things turn out in the last episode to see if I judged the rest of the series a bit unfairly. It is worth picking up, if you get a good price. (U.S. WalMarts have it for $34.95.)