12 posts tagged “tv”
because some jerk stole the last flat screen tv at the fitness center. there were two television sets but the other one was stolen a few months ago. i have a feeling the same person (or persons) came back to finish the job.
disconnected
After all the recent season and series finales, what are you watching on TV these days?
kyle xy
traveler
creature comforts
the 4400 (starts this sunday!)
painkiller jane (not sure if i want to keep watching)
so you think you can dance (i caught last night's episode and i think i might be hooked)
miami ink (reruns)
watching a couple of DVDs:
the pretender
niptuck
and the lineup on the DVR:
naruto
one tree hill
grey's anatomy
house
prison break
can i just say, i totally jumped off the couch and pulled a hiro last night when i yelled, "bonsai!!!" i did my little chicken dance when my hunch was confirmed. ryeli called it last week and i started to think it was nathan because i had recognized the ring on his hand from episode 8. i'm a bit miffed that the ring keeps jumping from one hand to the other. did anyone else catch that? is there any significance, or is it flat out bad continuity?
i still have more theories that keep going back to sylar. i still think nathan's watch is foreshadowing the family connection to sylar but what's the significance of the possible relation? if nathan's and HRG are working together, is that why *they* want sylar alive? because of family ties? or do they think sylar can be rehabilitated and help save the world?
and speaking of family ties, what's with issac painting the building where samone's father lived? he paints the future but what's the significance of the rooftop/building? and the flying rats pigeons?
and for the record, peter is by far (and always has been) my favorite character, and the show totally upped the ante with his "epiphany". SO COOL.
it's interesting how sylar and peter's powers are quite similar and after tonight's episode, i'm wondering if peter is more powerful than sylar. too bad sylar killed all the people whose powers he stole, obviously limiting peter's capacity to acquire more abilities. then again, maybe that was sylar's plan all along? leave no one alive? but wait a sec, peter was in contact with sylar at claire's homecoming so he should have absorbed sylar's power, and the powers sylar had acquired. so, essentially peter is more powerful than sylar, right?
anyway, i want to see linderman step up and make an appearance soon. i'm getting tired of him working in the shadows. what the heck is he up to? i still think nathan and HRG are trying to stop linderman, but stop him from doing what?
geez, this show and all the group discussions has me thinking way too much and it's driving me crazy. but i love it. and here's what's been running through my head.
btw, do theories count as spoilers?
in an earlier post, i talked about sylar being a savant, and the more i thought about it, i realized i had to stop thinking it was just sylar, but everyone on the list. they all seem to be dealing with some sort of hurdle/mental disorder and they all possess extraordinary abilities.
i hadn't thought about the meaning of the word until i read more on wikipedia about autistic savants and their abilities. i even skimmed through a few articles with some pretty interesting stuff:
- Inducing savant-like abilities in ordinary humans by applying slow repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation to the left anterior temporal lobe.
- Wisconsin Medical Society: Savant Syndrome
- Savant Syndrome: Articles
i especially like the paper by jef reinten (inducing savant-like abilities in ordinary humans...). it's a bit technical in some (okay, a lot) of areas but it makes me wonder about the people who have been abducted by mr. bennet. what is he doing to them? who's telling him to do it? and what for?
maybe HRG (mr. bennet) is helping "the 36" (who's left of them) tap into their powers to recruit them for a superhero leauge. guess that would explain parkman's headaches--he probably got shunted at HRG's lab like our guy sylar in the last episode. so, why is HRG (and/or his boss) building a team? is it to stop linderman? i can't imagine they're trying to stop sylar--they need him. at least that's what i've been thinking.
(totally random thought: the 4400 is coming back for another season)
let's assume HRG's boss is nathan. it would certainly explain why HRG wants claire off that list...because nathan told him to get her off the list. maybe they're trying to build a team to stop linderman. wasn't nathan going to go after his own father to stop linderman? and if nathan's daughter is claire, he's just being over protective and doesn't want his daughter in the big battle. anyway, i'm just taking guesses at what's going on.
btw, the reason why i think claire's father is nathan is because in the preview for tonight's episode, i thought i recognized the ring. remember in episode 8 ("six months ago") when nathan was dancing with his wife at peter's party? i remembered seeing a ring on his hand. so of course i watched the episode again and saw it. because i'm such a fanatic, i even took a screenshot.
again, because i'm SUCH a fanatic. here's a screenshot from the preview for tonight's episode. the rings look similar but they're on opposite hands, so who knows! maybe it is linderman...
anyway, here's some info i read about savantism and the experiment in reinten's paper. interesting stuff if you ask me, but i'm more interested in tonight's episode. woohoo!!
--
Savantism
Definitions
Savant is derived from the French word savoir which means “to know”. In practice however the term “savant” is used to denote any individual who demonstrates an extraordinary degree of natural ability despite significant mental disability (Fox 2002, O’Connor et al. 2000, Pearce 1992, Snyder 2001, Treffert 2000). Some special abilities are found commonly in savants, these include calendar calculations (O’Connor et al. 2000), extraordinary detailed drawing from memory (Miller et al. 1998), and mechanical ability (Hoffmann & Reeves 1979).Aims
The aim of this short paper will be to explore the possibility of inducing savant-like abilities in ordinary humans using slow repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (slow rTMS) on the left anterior temporal lobe (ATL). The only paper published that explores this use of slow rTMS was produced by Snyder et al. (2003) and examines its effects on proof reading, and drawing from memory tasks. Snyder et al’s (2003) study will therefore be the main focus of this short essay. I shall begin by establishing the possibility of impairing regions of the brain to produce positive effects in specific task performance, a phenomena known as paradoxical functional facilitation. Next I will explore the function of the ATL since this is the region that Snyder applied slow rTMS to. Following this I shall describe the effects of slow rTMS on neural tissues. Finally I will analyse Snyder et al’s (2003) study in the light of our findings.
i just wanted to give a little background on my thoughts about sylar and my roach theory. here in georgia we see a LOT of roaches and last july i had a run-in with one that totally caught me off guard. i thought it was dead and after i went in for a closer look, the damn thing moved. so, of course when i saw the roach in sylar's room, i thought...no freakin' way. would he shut himself down and pretend he was dead? i know i over analyze things but hey, the show gives me a reason to.
anyway, for a while, i thought sylar might be able to figure out anything he wants because he could be a savant. the full description is a must read but here's a snippet of what reminded me of sylar's ability:
...Other skills include precisely estimating distances and angles by sight, calculating the day of the week for any given date over the span of tens of thousands of years, and being able to accurately gauge the passing of time without a clock.
in the episode when sylar knew dr. suresh's watch was off by 2 seconds off, the light bulb went off in my head that sylar's power might be savantism. if that's the case, our man sylar is crazy powerful. then again, he already knew that when he appeared in peter's dream and said, "you don't know anything about power."
and for anyone who might be interested, here are the entries that spawned my little roach theory...
I hate roaches
2006-07-25 12:16:00
There's a roach lying on its back in my breezeway. After leaving the apartment this morning, I walked past him and he looked dead. He was on his back and I stared him down to see if he would move. Nope. No movement. Later I would find out he was faking it. It was when I came back to the apartment and noticed the roach had somehow moved 90 degrees. So, I'm thinking the wind blew him around. I go on to unload a few boxes and what do I see? The bugger had moved again, but he's still on his back. No way--he has to be dead. Then it happened. He moved his legs and antennae. Oh, hell. Here we go. I had to stop myself from screaming so I could calmly get back to the apartment so I wouldn't freak out my neighbors. This is exactly why you should never move a *dead* roach. He will take the opportunity to latch onto you, and then you find yourself screaming and running.Why he decided to play dead on our breezeway is beyond me. Lord knows I abhor roaches, and the big ones scare me so much that I can't bring myself to killing them unless I'm armed--pick your poison...Raid...Hotshot...whatever will kill on contact in a matter of seconds. I will never step on one. The crunching sound alone would make me faint. The fact that I'm writing about it makes me want to gag.
I'm tempted to spray him but I don't want to open the door and find that he's gone, and somehow managing to sneak into the apartment. YUCK. He's huge, and playing dead. What if he's hanging over the doorway and waiting to fall on my head. Unbelievable. Maybe he flipped back over and scurried off somewhere. I have to leave this place at some point. I will be armed.
I feel like screaming.
*gag*
Still there...
2006-07-25 17:08:00
Well, the roach is still in the breezeway but someone beat me to him with the spray. Being on his back obviously fooled me once but now that all his appendages have withdrawn into his body, it's safe to say he is indeed dead. Hmmm. I hear the landscaper with his leaf blower. I hope he makes his way up here and blows the bugger off the landing. *crossing fingers*
on saturday, a couple of friends (mejo and court) met my brother and me for lunch at the cheesecake factory. we enjoyed our meals and i did remember to take a few pictures (thai chicken pasta, kahlua cheesecake and snickers cheeecake).
once court found her cabinet and filing system, she headed home and the rest of us met up with another friend and drove to an outlet mall. i found a pair of
then we headed over to the food court and as we walked through the entrance, i spotted a new type of vending machine with very interesting "snacks". a few months ago there was only an ipod vending machine (a.k.a. kiosk), and now there's a very creepy looking one for proactiv solution. all i could do was laugh and take a pictures. in another photo, with slightly different lighting, the kiosk sort of reminds me of a giant atm.
great episode last night. i was a little worried that sylar would be killed off but thank god for cockroaches. at least that's my theory. it's amazing what you can do if you put your mind into what ever it is you want to do. fortunately for sylar (and this is just my opinion), he had the mind of a roach to tinker with and figured out how to play dead. lol, awesome survival tactic if you ask me.
as usual, i'm left with a few questions. is there a connection between sylar and claire? claire's mom was talking to a guy with a (really nice) watch and maybe i'm reading too far into that.
and what's the deal with the invisible guy possibly having connections to other heroes? are we to assume that he's killed a few?
my biggest question. is there a connection between sylar and the petrelli brothers' father? sylar's mentally unstable--wasn't peter and nathan's father crazy, too? or maybe i'm thinking of niki's father.
hmm, maybe the 36 people on the list all had the same father...
i have to admit i was really annoyed with niki's character on heroes for the longest time. how could having a personality disorder be considered a superpower? i guess i was hung up on the idea that our heroes would have extraordinary abilities and i only saw niki as being extra-crazy.
then i thought about a few comic book heroes and their alter egos: the hulk and bruce banner; phoenix and jean grey; batman and bruce wayne; spider-man and peter parker. they all have dueling personalities. i hadn't thought of the jekyll and hyde, good versus evil approach in niki's case, well, simply because i was annoyed with her personality. from here on, i'll try to keep an open mind about the roll niki/jessica will play in saving the world.
and speaking of an open-mind, what the heck is happening to sylar? i think i missed something but he looked like he was dying in the last episode.
i love this show!
i watched the latest episode of heroes, finally! it keeps getting better with each episode. for my friends, or anyone who hasn't seen the show, you're heading into spoiler material now...
i have to say, i don't like the idea of one of my favorite heroes exploding. not one bit. peter was looking rather putrid during the interrogation scene and i still get the feeling that he saved the wrong cheerleader. if he had saved claire's friend, maybe he wouldn't have died, come back to life and be the cause of the world going supernova. something must have happened when peter absorbed claire's healing ability and now hiro and the gang have to figure out how to stop him from exploding. it's all claire's fault. i'm no whiz at reading lips but i'm pretty sure she said "i'm sorry" in peter's dream. yeah, sorry for saying she'd died before and it wasn't a big deal. poor peter.
one of my favorite lines, from this episode, besides hiro's "how do you stop an exploding man?" was a line by claire's friend when they were on the track field -- "are you on crystal meth or something cuz this is really cracky behavior." speaking of cracky behavior. i'm glad to see isaac can predict the future drug free. and his latest painting of hiro and the dragon--didn't we see the future hiro with a sword on the subway in an earlier episode?
kelleah, budd, you both have some interesting ideas about the characters...claire's dad having powers to mute powers and sylar being indestructible if he absorbs claire's power. tell me more!
i'm still trying to figure out how sylar was captured in the first place with such little effort. and since the haitian guy can erase memories, why couldn't he do it to sylar? oh, and does anyone else get the feeling that our heroes are part of some sort of experiment?
i'd love to hear more thoughts about the show...
