Finishing LOST

When we were in college, circa 2007, my roommate Stacey liked this weird show. She'd come home from a one of her ridiculously long days, change into her PJ's, and make a beeline for the TV. I'd watch her cower under a blanket alone, screaming and gasping and yelling out loud to the characters. Sometimes I tried to catch on to whatever it was that she thought was so good, but all I saw were people marching through a jungle and the occasional creepy flying black cloud. I did not see the appeal, and never understood what was going on. I thought she was nuts!

Fast forward to 2012. As of this Saturday, I finally finished the TV series "LOST" from start to finish. And frankly, I am blown away! I realize I'm about 6 years late to this party, but I feel that my admiration for the series and the accomplishment of completing it (Thank you Netflix!!) merits its own blog post. 

Kate and Jack?

Now that I'm a grown up, and unconcerned what the constituents of Nessacus Regional Middle School think of me, I'm ok with admitting I'm a sci-fi geek. My parents were Trekkies, and my sister and I grew up loving and obsessing over Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc. We were equal opportunity nerds, and LOST fits right into this vein of guilty geeky pleasure. A little bit sci-fi, a little bit fantasy, I loved every time-traveling detail! 

Or Kate and Sawyer? 

But make no mistake. I like Star Trek, but I really like Gossip Girl and Friday Night Lights and Downton Abbey, too. LOST fills in this void in my TV watching heart-- the love stories, oh the love stories!! I have not found many TV series that invested me so deeply in the characters as LOST did. I still can't believe they killed off ***** (Censored for future LOST viewers)**** after all that!!!!  

If anyone reading this has been toying around with the idea of starting the series on Netflix, but just can't seem to commit (I think I myself watched the first five episodes like, four times before I finally got into it) a word of warning: LOST is a series where you have to pay attention. It's not a good show to watch while doing laundry, cooking, or correcting papers. It's a show that deserves a bowl of popcorn, a beer, and a friend, and no other distractions to the viewing experience. But it's worthy of your attention!

People like to criticize LOST because it goes a little crazy, and there are all these unanswered questions that drive viewers nuts. And even though by the end of the series you don't get all the answers you want, when you think back to all the answers you DO get, the complexity and cleverness of the series is a work of art. There's nothing else like it on TV. I think, if I had to draw a parallel, it's comparable to "Inception," which I also loved.

Anyways. Now that the series is done, I feel like I broke up with someone! I don't know where to begin. "Mad Men" is my rebound boyfriend right now, but I have a feeling he's getting dumped soon. I had a date once with "The Wire," but it didn't go so well. Maybe it's time to call him up again. Or maybe, one of my friends can set me up with someone new. 

Suggestions welcome! 

Namaste, 

Tori 

Space Race

I really, really love living in DC!! It is the coolest city ever and this morning I had one of those "my life is SO AWESOME" moments that I don't think I'll ever forget.

As you may have seen on the news, the Space Shuttle Discovery was retired today to the Smithsonian museum. Officials decided to send it on one final "flight" over the city so America could say goodbye. Our office was so excited- we knew the fly over was happening at 10 AM, so we went about our morning counting down the minutes.

But one thing lead to another, and suddenly I was on the phone with alumnae and taking notes on calls and immersed in work when I heard the roar of a jet engine above our building. I looked at my computer clock- 10:03! The roar faded and I ran to the window. NO! I MISSED IT! I MISSED IT!!! I could hear the roar fading away but the spaceship was nowhere to be seen.

I was so upset. I gchatted my friend Shana and told her I was going to lie to people and say I saw it anyways. I turned on CNN.com where I knew there was a live feed. It loaded up and I saw the spaceship zooming along, perched on top of a 747 (How do they stick it there!? Why isn't it falling off!? How is that thing flying!?!?) and realized it was circling the Washington monument.

I can see the Washington monument from my office window. Was this a second chance?! I ran back- and sure enough, there it was!

It made a wide circle around the monument and then flew back towards the college. It was so cool! Everybody in the office had their windows thrown wide open and were hanging out as far as they could, taking cell phone pictures and literally jumping up and down with excitement. The huge jet flew low so people could get a good look, and a small jet followed alongside, taking the video feed that I was watching on CNN.

By the time I got my wits about me and decided to take a cell phone picture (To prove to Shana that I wasn't lying.) It was far away. Here's my proof that I saw it. See that tiny dot flying away in the distance? That's it. I swear!!!!

And here's a really really super awesome couple of pictures from other people's cell phones that I stole from the internet:

Yay America! Yay space! Yay DC!

Peace and Love.

Wear a Helmet, kids.

If you've been to any major city lately, or maybe just your local mall, you've probably seen people riding Segways. And even though you probably laughed at them and made fun of them out loud, deep down, you know you wanted to try them. It's ok. I did too. So when Jason suggested we actually purchase an online coupon for a 3-hour segway tour of Washington, DC, I was thrilled.

Getting the hang of it

First of all, let me tell you. Riding those bad boys is not as easy as it looks. My sister was convinced I was going to crash, and with good reason. They're so darn wobbly, it's impossible to get your balance at first! And you propel them simply by shifting your weight...not with a hand accelerator like a snowmobile or something. To turn, you kind of have to lean. But lean too far in any direction, you'll go tumbling!

Not only are you riding a wobbly, weight-sensitive dork-machine, the tours make you go out on the open road! Bike laws in DC mean that it's actually illegal to ride on the sidewalk in many places, and on some roads the bike lane is in the middle! Imagine the traffic of a downtown city street at 6pm with a chain of Segways riding in the middle of it. Yep, you're imagining it correctly.

The good news is, you eventually figure out your balance (I guess it's a bit like skiing, or riding a bike.) Once you find your center, Segways are the coolest vehicles on the planet. You can zoom around, weave in and out of obstacles, turn on a dime, anything. Everyone fell in love with them by the end of the tour, despite the constant loud harassment from the hundreds of middle school tour groups.

I'm not going to pretend like it's possible to look cool at any point while riding on a Segway, but if you can get beyond your inevitable helmet-hair, I can't recommend doing a tour enough. Find a deal in your city of choice and get riding! It's the best way to hit all the attractions in a short amount of time and it's a ton of fun. Go with friends and bring a camera. Set the camera on video when they aren't looking. You won't regret it!

Peace and Love,

Tori