This is not your practice blog

How I Geek Out on Lost

I've been watching Lost since the first episode, and mostly, I've loved it. Lost is the rare TV show that rewards attention and study: if you get into it, you can enjoy it even more. Yes, I'm one of those, and just watching the show, one day a week, isn't enough for me. I need more little doses of Lost during the rest of the week.

The only limit to Lost fandom is how many hours of your life you want to spend on it. There are dozens of blogs, podcasts, web sites, and other places to sink your time. This post is based on what I do, which takes up about half an hour a day beyond watching the show itself. You can spend every waking hour reading, writing, and thinking about Lost if you want; you can check out Alltop for finding lots more Lost stuff. And you better hurry, because Lost ends forever in May, when season 6 finishes up.

No spoilers!

Real Lost fans hate spoilers. We know that Lost is much more fun when experienced by watching the show, rather than digging up info from leaked scripts, location shooting info, etc. The sites and activities listed in this post adhere strictly to the "no spoilers" policy, except where otherwise noted.

Lostpedia

Lostpedia is a superb resource. If you're not sure about a character, episode, or topic, or you need a recap of a long-ago episode, Lostpedia is your friend. Bookmark it; know it; be in awe of it.

And now, here's my guide to a Lost week:

Tuesday

• Watch the previous episode "enhanced" at 8 PM. (UPDATE Or not. See this comment for more about the potential spoiler qualities of enhanced episodes.) Remember Pop-up Video? This is kind of like that. ABC often (but not always) reruns the previous week's Lost, only this time in a so-called enhanced verson that includes clever omniscient captions that add valuable information to help you figure out what you're seeing. 
• Watch the show, and avoid social networks until you do. Lost comes on at 9 PM. If you're on the west coast like me, you shut down Twitter and Facebook three hours earlier, when the show starts in the eastern time zone. 
• Read Alan Sepinwall. After you've watched the show, you'll want a dose of community. If your partner is off watching American Idol and is not a Lost fan, read TV critic Alan Sepinwall's blog, where he reliably posts a review of the new episode even before it's finished airing on the west coast. Alan's review and the comments will provide more info and let you compare notes on the new episode.
• Read James Poniewozik. He's Time's TV critic and he also usually posts a review soon after the show airs. After you read that, you can go to bed.

Wednesday

• Read alt.tv.lost. This Usenet/Google Group is a great way to see what others learned and thought of the newest episode. The best info is usually posted by Wed. or Thu. each week. And spoilers are occasionally posted here, so stay away if you never ever want to see a spoiler.
• Read "42 Inch Televison". This blog provides an insightful, enthusiastic take on each week's episode.
• Read Flash Sideways. For each episode, ABC compiles a list of differences between the original timeline and the flash-sideways, 815-landed-safely timeline introduced this season. Super-dry, but useful.
• Watch Lost Untangled. Each week ABC creates this hilarious self-deprecating episode recap featuring action figures, puppets, and dialog that imitates the real actors.

Thursday - Friday

• Listen to the Official Audio Podcast. This podcast features the comedy team of Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, aka Darlton, Lost's showrunning executive producers. Never a spoiler, often insightful, always hilarious. The audio podcast is sometimes replaced by a video podcast, which is not as fulfilling, because Darlton don't usually appear.

Saturday - Sunday

• Read TVGasm. A biting, insanely funny, sometimes vicious recap of the previous week's episode. If you don't laugh out loud, you're probably taking the show too seriously.
• Read Erika Olson's "Long Live Locke". Erica recaps each episode in depth and explores the meaning and direction of what happens. She takes the time to ponder events thoroughly, with a personal touch.

Monday

• Don't you have some work to do? A family to talk to? I mean, seriously.

Lost fans: which sites do you read? How do you make Lost last through the week?

Nexus One and iPhone, again

Way back at the beginning of January I wrote a post about my experiences switching from an iPhone to a Nexus One: what was different, which missing features could be replaced by other features, and so on. (As I mentioned then, I work for Google, but these are my own opinions.) I promised more, and it took a lot longer than I expected, but here are a few additional notes and observations:

• A recent system update enabled pinch and spread gestures to resize in the browser, so I don't have to miss those any more.
• Speaking of system updates, they happen over the air, just like sync does. After your first over the air update, the idea of docking your phone to a computer for updates or syncing seems silly. 
• Most Android apps use the menu button to display actions for any screen. This provides a nice central place to see what you can do, but often causes an extra touch for the same function vs. the iPhone's technique of placing a little button bar on the screen.
• A cool app called RingDroid lets you create and edit ringtones right on the phone.
• You can copy files to and from your computer via Bluetooth.
• I'm not sure I prefer the four hard buttons along the bottom, but having a search button at any time is definitely handy. The current app can make the search context-sensitive; otherwise, it's a hybrid search that combines web results with on-device items.
• Text editing is not as nice as on the iPhone, but is pretty good. Here's the technique: tap to place the insertion point, then use the trackball if you have to move by a character or two. (Thanks, Jimi.)
• Android lets you put folders on your home screens, which is extremely useful. I've created folders to organize my most-used apps onto one home screen, and I don't even use the other screens. I can't remember app positions on more than one screenful anyway, so this is perfect.
• You can create a button that dials a contact's phone number, then put that button on a home screen or in a folder. Handy.

I've been trying out the Nexus One as my phone for about 2 months now, and I've become completely comfortable with it. I even remember that its power switch is on the opposite side from the iPhone's. I miss some iPhone features (tap at top to scroll to top, super-smooth general touch screen physics) while I love some Nexus One advantages (Gmail and Google Calendar apps, background Pandora and chat apps, folders to organize home screens). When I decide which phone I want to keep using, I might weasel out and use the iPhone for phone + apps, and the Nexus One at work over wifi for Gmail, Calendar, Chat, and more.