just fyi, there is a likelihood that i will be coming to you straight from hottlanta this summer, as i just got offered a fellowship with cnn.com there. this is both exciting and terrifying in many ways. more details to come! the one for-sure positive: the stress diet i've been running on since the beginning of the quarter just racheted itself up a few dozen notches. my goal of losing 10 pounds for a june wedding is now attainable! thank goodness for the little things.

Yes, it's true. I dove back into Lost last night. Sommer had missed last week's episode too, so she came over and, along with Charles, myself, some beers and a bit of morningroundupering, caught up on what's been going on on the Island.

Short answer: serious shit. They revealed another research station! They killed two characters — and ones whose backstories we were merely somewhat tired of, instead of totally fucking bored by. They inserted a twist! And Ana Lucia and Sawyer played several variations of "hide the pistol". There was lots of stuff going on, and at a pretty good decent pace. I was pleased.

I was even more excited to see that the powers that be have started placing fake Hanso Foundation commercials in the middle of Lost's regular ad breaks. "Paid for by ABC" flashed in the corner of the first one ever-so-briefly, but otherwise it seemed like a low-budget but generally plausible commercial for one of those organizations that doesn't actually sell, make or do anything, yet still feels compelled to purchase TV spots. At the end: dial 1-877-HANSORG for more information.

"Wow!" I thought to myself. "Now that's a good use of Asterisk."

Since we were still working off the Tivoed copy of last week's episode, the phoneline wasn't jammed. We put it on speaker and heard some floaty music and instructions to dial our party's extension or select another option. We hit 1 for general information and got a looping clip of somebody speaking French. Hmm. Pretty intriguing. I mashed the star key a bit and somehow ended up hearing a rap extolling the virtues of Sprite. Er. Okay. Somebody has to pay the bills for this sort of unconventional storytelling, I suppose.

Then it was time for this week's episode. As I said, pretty satisfying. And they ran the same commercial again, except this time the momentary flash said "Paid for by Sprite", and they showed a URL along with the phone number: www.sublymonal.com. If you follow that link you'll find it contains a flash animation of a bunch of TVs showing static, arranged around the word "OBEY".

First of all: this is not a great site for a nonprofit, Mr. Hanso. It's flash-based, there's no action, and the navigation could use some work. You're never going to build your list this way.

Second: it all started falling into place. I think Sommer may have been the first one to put it together. SubLYMONal.com. As in "the only one with lymon (dot com)". And what should we be obeying, anyway? Our thirst, perhaps?

This does not sit well. I don't mind being sent down blind alleys, but I don't expect to find soda machines at the end of them. This ad campaign demonstrates that the show's producers not only don't have a grand vision for the show, they also don't particularly give a shit about whatever it might turn out to be. I fully expect the Others' next onslaught to be warded off by the sight of a CapitalOne card.

I find this particularly crappy because I was completely and totally ready to jump back onboard the Lost bandwagon. As Catherine mentioned, I even decided to waste some time in Illustrator and make a vector version (PDF) of this bitmap of the Dharma Initiative logo. I figured it looked kind of cool, and might be good for some money on SpreadShirt. But after the Sprite Revelation I've pretty much lost interest in the project, to what I'm sure is Catherine's great relief.

a brief conversation that illustrates why i probably will never come around to lost again:

Thomas: they've started running hanso found. ads during the lost commercial breaks, which is cool
me: no! it's uncool!
that's the show's problem
they spend time thinking up shit like hanso fdtn ads
Thomas: yeah
me: instead of figuring out what's actually going on
Thomas: well, I'm gonna put a hanso found. shirt on spreadshirt
but in general I agree
me: you are?
10:48 PM Thomas: sure
I want one
me: you're going to make a hanso foundation shirt?
to wear in public?
Thomas: sure, well it's subtle
10:49 PM just this one
http://lostpedia.com/wiki/Image:Swan_logo_closer.jpg
I think it's understated
and I'm gonna do a black print on an already dark color, like maroon
10:50 PM hopefully only other weirdos will notice
me: tommy
that is the dorkiest thing i've ever heard
10:51 PM Thomas: come on!
you don't want one?!
me: i'm seriously embarrassed for you
Thomas: awww
I just like the design
me: uh huh
Thomas: haha
well now that you say it, it does sound bad

this is lost's major problem. 1) they spend more time on commercials than the show and 2) they inspire people to MAKE T-SHIRTS IN HOPE OF T-SHIRTLY COMMUNICATING WITH OTHER LOST NERDS, except there are approximately 7.8 million people who are lost nerds, so that's going to be a lot of t-shirt communicating.

i know i don't watch lost anymore, so i can't actually speak accurately to the show's terribleness in terms of stupid, totally pointless stuff like, uh, plot, or character development. but the cripe. i'm not past admitting that i will probably start watching again next season, because i hope now that JJ abrams is done with his mi3 duties, he can come back full-time. but i still retain serious doubts.