I realize this doesnt belong here, but can any of you research inclined folks help me out to find the average duration of a Major league Baseball game? Looked everywhere...

The answer is in the ? hatch

Or here:

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/2003-03-05-faster-games_x.htm

Um....is this font huge for anybody else?

There you go....

Well, I am willing to go on record again as saying I liked the episode, though I feel sort of defensive - the show seems pretty under attack from many.

I am wondering about why, even before the end of the episode, the Locke that last season was so willing to believe in the greater purpose of the island and being stranded now seems so cynical. Is it his legs?

I love the acting of Double A, Mr. Eko.

For the first time since, oh, season 1, I wasn't disappointed by an episode. Maybe it's just cos I like Eko so much -- but it really seemed like, for the first time in forever, there wasn't a random "GOTCHA!" moment at the end, just to hold your interest in case the rest of the episode bored you to death. Not that they didn't try. (Let's zoom in on Michael, as if everybody gives a crap!)

And -- done. I've already started one fight about this show this week.

Mr. Eko is a great character. I loved hearing an interview with the actor in his normal voice, which is quite English. "The' tol' me not to tell abou' the plot, but I'm a bit of the blabbermou'".

Sorry, hard to type an accent.

So, I believe there is one hour left next week and then a two-hour finale the week after (5/24)?

Also, I'd wanted to see Eko act as a priest ever since they first mentioned that he'd masquaraded as one. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje is an excellent actor. I almost wish there was a "Father Eko" show.

"The' tol' me not to tell abou' the plot, but I'm a bit of the blabbermou'".

It's similar to seeing Naveen Andrews speak for real -- he's all upper-crust British 'n' stuff. To me, he'll always be Kip from "The English Patient":

"You ah meking me increddibly engry."

(Similar caveats about typing in unfamiliar accents.)

The show is really going gangbusters right now -- the producers have played a very smart gameplan all season, carefully building up characters and clues and now they're slamming 'em all together.

However, I predict angry howls over the Internet after the season finale doesn't "answer all the questions", and merely tantalizes in new and unexpected ways. :)

Then again, there's only been two episodes this season that haven't held my interest.

Naveen Andrews in interviews seems to be upset that they kill off so many characters. I hope Barbara Hershey didn't mind his scenes with Maggie Grace.

11 Barbara Hershey should guest-star as an Other and then she and Mira Furlan can have a cat-fight between Well-Preserved Middle-Aged Hotties.

I'm not looking for all the answers; I'm not even looking for most of them. The show just tires me out, is all, and I've lost any interest in most of the characters other than Eko & (surprisingly, to me) Hurley. Which is a shame, cos I used to find Locke, in particular, fascinating.

All that said, I think this is my favorite episode of the season, cos they just let things go how they were going, dropping a hint here and answering a question (sorta) there, without feeling the need to suddenly mash all of the buttons at the end. I feel like the show I really enjoyed last season is regaining its balance.

11 - Andrews' whole older women thing (including Hershey) creeps me out a little tiny bit. Not that it's not valid to be attracted to older women. But the man has a child by his high school math teacher. It freaks me out just this much (fingers held a centimetre apart).

Has anyone been following "The Lost Experience" over at TheHansoFoundation.org?

I've poked around. The site was pretty busy tonight.

6 - I give a crap about Michael. He's a good guy who lost his son. Recently. Something's been done to Michael, but we don't know exactly what. And note that he hasn't mentioned Walt since his return - even though of course Walt looms large in the subtext. Michael has killed two people. He's a murderer and yet he's clearly suffering and worthy of sympathy. I care about what's going on with him.

On the other point, I think it's reasonable to assume that at least the writers don't think they're boring people to death, and therefore, that they're not putting in Gotcha moments at the end just as a hedge to keep people watching.

Did you guys see them sneak the Hanso PSA at about 9:45 tonight. We almost missed it as we fast forwarded through the commercials.

For those interested in Hanso, and other associated 'external' bits of the Lost Experience:

http://thelostexperienceclues.blogspot.com/

17 - So what are the gotcha moments for, then?

On the subject of Michael, I admit to being snotty. I kind of give a crap about Michael, too. I just felt that the last minute zoom-in on him was a sort of pointless bow to TV convention. We all already knew that there was something weird going on with him. It just felt like a, "Don't forget about . . . MICHAEL!" moment that was unneccessary. Ultimately, it's a nitpick about an episode that I actually liked.

We've already had a good portion of this discussion before, and I think it might be time to agree to disagree. I feel the show's lost focus in its second season, and you apparently don't. We can argue about influences (which I find irrelevant, at least as far as quality goes), or button-pushing, or whether we find the characters enjoyable, or whatever, but ultimately we're going to come down to an ultimate, and apparently irreconcileable, disagreement about the season's quality.

Which is why I really should stop now. I should have stopped before, when I said I was going to, but I'm an insufferable blowhard. So I subjected you all to this.

Uh, thrills?

Pills, and bellyaches?

5 I thought Locke was cynical mainly because he thinks Henry Gale just killed two of his friends and almost killed a third. Locke had developed a strange friendship with Henry and now he's hit with the realization that he trusted the wrong person again, the same way he did with his father. I think the newest orientation video just drove the point home to him that he has too much faith and continues to get bitten by it.

20 "We've already had a good portion of this discussion before, and I think it might be time to agree to disagree."

Hee Seop Choi would second your comments, although he would also want it to be on record that that Lost is the best show on television and that he is the real father of Sun's baby.

I went to the website shown on the HansoFoundation ad (http://www.sublymonal.com) and it's as puzzling as everything else. Six or eight rotating ovals (tv screens?) with the word Obey fading in and out in the center of the circle formed by the ovals.

I did think the shot of Michael at the end was a pretty good depiction of alienation.

Eventually you can click on the ovals (they're more like quadrilaterals) and they change colors. Once they all change colors, the screen changes.

Eventually you will end up back at the Hanso Foundation site at the biographies of the executives.

23/25 - -points at the page he linked in 19-

Any and all clues can be found there (it's written in a non-spoiler style, so if you get stuck you can find the directions to get past the next clue... or if you just want to know the whole storyline that has been uncovered so far, you can find it there as well).