The Dow Is Up!

One of the great things about having kids is how much they want to be with you. Sure, this only happens for the first 8 years of their lives, but still. Unfortunately, one of the worst things about having kids is how much they want to be with you.

On Monday, I came home from work and Luke couldn’t be more excited to see me. He ran up to me, insisted on being picked up, and hugged me for about 5 minutes. And not a simple hug that you give your Aunt Mildred. It was a full-on death-hug that OJ gave his lawyers after he was found innocent.

(By the way, he’s coming out with a book now called, “If I Did It.” That one must have been really hard to write. I can just imagine his editor constantly having to insert the words, “If I did it” before every sentence. So, “That bitch got what she deserved” becomes “If I did it, that bitch got what she deserved.” Gotta love OJ. Or else he’ll kill you.)

Anyway, being wanted by your child is a great feeling. Until it happens at 4:30 in the morning, which is did today. At about 3:30, the dog woke me up, whining her head off. Apparently, she had to pee. Which is supremely annoying because she had just peed 5 hours ago. I guess she likes to save some up just in case.

At about 4:30, Luke woke up screaming his head off. For some reason, The Wife was already awake, but she was downstairs watching TV. Given her hearing problems and my proximity to Luke, I went to go calm him down. Usually, this just entails picking him up and putting him back in bed. (He’s out of the crib now, in a car bed. Though sometimes he finds it hard to stay in the bed.)

This morning, the usual tactics didn’t work. And since I had to work, I called The Wife up to take care of Luke. I figured she could pause The Jeffersons for a few seconds while I got some much-needed sleep. Well, it turns out that Luke wanted nothing to do with The Wife. He screamed his head off when I left. After a couple of minutes (when I realized I wasn’t going to be able to sleep through his crying), I returned and he calmed down right away. Apparently, he really wanted ME. Which is touching and all, but not exactly what you want to experience at 4:30 a.m.

Luke didn’t want anything to do with his car bed, but he was amenable to sleeping in our bed. As long as he got to sleep on top of me. So we laid there for awhile as his tears streamed down my chest and his shoulder blocked off my windpipe. Eventually, I rolled him off so he could sleep on his own. That didn’t work. Instead, he tossed and turned and grabbed and kicked. At about 5:15, Luke finally agreed to going back to his bed. I managed to get another 45 minutes of sleep, but I have a feeling that I’m going to break my all-time coffee drinking record today. Yep, it’s feeling like an 8-cupper.

Quick, say the word “often” 5 times to yourself. How do you say it? Do you say “off-en?” Or do you say “off-ten?” Today I was walking from the train to work and I heard a guy behind me say, “off-ten.” Right then, I knew he was a jerk. I don’t need to know anything else about him, but I guarantee you he’s a jerk.

Last week was the “fall season” finale of Lost. Basically, Lost realized the same thing that 24 did last year. They realized that reruns of the show are pointless because of the serial nature of the series. (Is that redundant?) The only thing more annoying than reruns? Tuning in one week expecting to find your show and finding a very special episode of Prison Break. So, Lost is running almost all of its episodes in a row (just like 24). But Lost decided to whet our whistles by giving us a 6-week “fall season” followed by a 16-week “spring season.” 24 thankfully just runs 24 episodes in a row.

I rather enjoyed this "season," but I don’t think it really accomplished much. In the most recent episode, Kate and Sawyer end up getting it on. It was funny watching that with The Wife. Here’s the scene. Kate escapes from her cage and opens Sawyer’s cage. She tells him to run and he tells her it’s pointless because they’re on an island. She gets upset for not telling her sooner. He says he wanted to give her hope. Then he bones her. The Wife couldn’t believe this would happen. Sawyer was all beat up and they’re in the middle of nowhere. The problem with this train of thought is that The Wife is not a man (at least, not the last time I checked). You see, men don’t care about that. This is why men get in so much trouble. They see a chance to get laid and they take it, damn the consequences.

(Another wonderful part about this season of Lost is that I actually get to watch it with The Wife. When I was in school, I was gone most nights, so we didn’t get to watch much TV together. And now I don’t watch much TV at all, so any chance to sit down and watch a show with her is a plus. It’s weird how much more enjoyable a show can be just by watching it with someone. Unless that show is Law & Order and you’re watching it with my former roommates doing their impersonations of a drunk Jack McCoy. Now THAT is redundant.)

Anyway, it turns out Jack watches Kate and Sawyer get it on thanks to a miraculous escape. (Or was it really miraculous? Maybe Ben purposely let him escape so that Jack would see the lovemaking.) Jack gets upset and agrees to do the spinal surgery on Ben and everyone thinks Jack’s gone crazy.

Well, it turns out that everyone’s right, but not for the reason they thought. Jack purposely injures Ben in such a way that only he can save him. Now he has the upper hand when dealing with the Others. They have to let Kate go (and Sawyer too?) or Ben dies. And that’s pretty much where they ended the “fall season.”

Here’s what we learned. The Others are rather advanced. They have an established village, but they continue to use the Dharma bunkers. I have no idea why though. Maybe they have to because so many crazy things keep on happening on their island.

The Kids Are Alright. Remember how Rousseau (the French lady Sayid sort of befriended) had her child stolen away from her? It turns out that she’s okay. If you consider raiding the Others’ workspace with only a slingshot “okay.” Yes, that “Alex” (who was formerly Malcolm in the Middle’s girlfriend) is Rousseau’s missing daughter. It seems like she was raised by Ben. But where?

I think that’s about all we learned. There are still many, many more questions. First on my mind is why on earth did they kill the woman from Deadwood so soon? I thought for sure she’d be a recurring character. Nope. Shot dead in her second episode. Booo!

Who’s the guy in the eye patch? We haven’t seen him anywhere else. When Sawyer was about to be shot, the guy doing it mentioned some other guys “list.” Perhaps it’s that guy. The one thing that popped out to me, though, was the pirate ship. Remember in season one where they went to go find the dynamite and it was at the Black Rock, which turned out to be a pirate ship in the middle of the island? Well, what if the captain of that ship found another one of the hatches? This is quite a leap and I’m only making it because pirate captains frequently have eye patches. That and they never explained anything related to the Black Rock.

What’s going on with Desmond? Can he really see into the future? Why? And how is this going to benefit them?

What the hell killed Mr. Eko? It looked like a giant fist, which made me think it was literally the Hand of God. Makes sense given that Mr. Eko was a fake priest. I’m sure there’s a Bible quote out there somewhere to explain it. “Yea, thou shall walk on the mysterious island with a rod with God’s word upon it. If thou dost not garner high enough ratings, then the Hand of God shall smote thee. Probably by smacking thee around. Consider thouself warned.”

Why the hell didn’t they discover the Other island? So, the Others are on a different island than the Losties. That’s fine. But each island is viewable from the other island. So why didn’t anyone circumnavigate the Lostie island and discover the Other island? That would have been the FIRST thing I did after I crashed. Hey, what if you’re not on an island after all? What if you’re really on a peninsula or an isthmus? Isn’t that something worth noting? Instead, these people just ASSUME they’re on an island? Eventually, they got a map from Rousseau that showed details of the island. But still, they never double-checked? Morons. It’s like an old-episode of Cheers where the guys go out on a road trip and get stranded in the desert. Norm disappears. When he comes back, they find out that they’re like a mile from a resort. Maybe there’s a Club Med on the island. Go find out!

Who told Jack the door was open? Does that intercom really work and the Others are messing with him? Or is he getting help from an external source? And if so, who is it?

What the hell happened to Desmond’s wife from last season? Remember the last episode of the year when they didn’t push the button in the hatch? It caused a big KABLOOEY. And all of a sudden we flashed to an arctic expedition and they were able to detect it. And it turns out that the person financing the expedition is Desmond’s former wife? (Maybe they never actually married. I can’t remember.) Well, what’s up with that story? Are we going to be hearing from them again this season?

And finally, are we ever going to get an episode without a flashback? Please? Pretty please? With sugar on top?

I’m approaching two months here at Geeks, Inc. And despite the joy I have at being here (especially when I contrast it to my time at LAF), it isn’t all roses around here. I thought I’d go through some of the serious problems I have here.

First of all, there’s the woman who shares a cubicle wall with me. I never really see this woman because we have a 6-foot wall between us. But I hear her. All the time. She’s constantly on the phone, blabbing about TV and movies and whatnot. She just won’t shut up. And she has one of those voices that just gets on your nerves for no good reason.

That said, we’ve sort of formed a bond. It turns out that she’s a fan of Lost, which I like to chat about. So we started talking about that and it turns out that she’s an even bigger fan of 24, which I think is the best show on TV nowadays. So now I have someone to chat with about my dorky TV shows. So, she’s still got an annoying voice and is on the phone way too much, but at least I have an outlet for my Jack Bauer talk.

Another problem? The coffee machine. At LAF, we had these pod-type things that made individual cups of coffee. Even better, I could get French Vanilla, my favorite. Here, all we have is plain old coffee. Can you believe it? What kind of two-bit operation are they running here? Can you believe that I’ve been relegated to drinking unflavored coffee? This is just an untolerable situation.

One of my major complaints here at Geeks, Inc. is that I have to walk by the receptionists every time I have to visit the bathroom. Since I drink a lot of coffee and a lot of water, this happens pretty often. And there’s no way around it. So the receptionists here are way too familiar with my bathroom habits.

And everyone here seems way too nice. It’s annoying. I miss the office politics and the backstabbing at LAF. At least it made the day interesting. No, instead, all I get are people saying, “thank you,” and MEANING IT! People here seem to have built up good relationships without any of the “team-building” events that we had at LAF. You know what that means? No free dinners or happy hours. Who needs them when you’ve already built a good team? And if you think I’m getting a 2-day trip to Lake Geneva, think again!

My manager here is pretty annoying too. She’s always checking in on me to make sure that I have enough work to do and that I’m getting all my training done. She’s even gone so far as to suggest ADDITIONAL training for me. I feel like telling her, “Hey lady, I’ve already got a mother AND a wife! Lay off.” Doesn’t she realize that I’d rather be bored out of my mind surfing the internet than actually doing work and learning stuff? What a bitch! And not only is she checking in on me, but she’s scheduling meetings every single week so that she can be sure we catch up with each other. The nerve!

Yep. This place is a hell-hole alright.