Simmering Hope

In case you missed the show (I did), aired August 25, 2011 you get another chance to watch it.

From the press release:
“The film features in-depth accounts by people who are willing to risk their jobs and reputations to speak out about their extraordinary experiences, such as former Arizona Governor Fife Symington III; Nick Pope, former head of the British Defense Ministry’s UFO Investigative Unit, and others.

Commentary is provided by investigative journalist Leslie Kean, author of the NY Times bestseller UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record, who spent ten years studying the UFO phenomenon and bringing together high level sources from around the world.

Sightings of strange lights and darting orbs are reported from all over the world, and most are easily explained. But a few other cases present evidence that UFOs are real. SECRET ACCESS: UFOs ON THE RECORD focuses on claims that cannot be ignored: sightings over a nuclear-armed military base near Phoenix, a forest in England, a small city in Belgium.

These remarkable eyewitness stories are illustrated with actual source materials such as footage, radar images and voice recordings from NASA, the Air Force and the FAA.

Although the government has determined such episodes to be “insignificant,” records have nonetheless been confiscated, and the experts were sworn to secrecy… until now.”

I started watching the movie ‘Inception’ and after about 30 minutes I realized that I don’t really understand what the heck is going on.
So far this is what I got: there are layers and layers of dreams; there is a ‘thief’ stealing people’s most intimate and hidden secrets, and this thief must implant an idea into the subconscient basically. Hence the title of the movie.

I searched the net, and the best explanations regarding who’s doing what and where (dream state or reality-reality) I found to be on Screenrant.com.
Courtesy of this site, following are some guidelines that may be useful to read before starting watching the movie.

First of all, there are 5 levels of dreams:

Now the action is a little bit more clear.
Bear in mind that for Cobb (Leonardo Di Caprio) the kick is the totem. In a dream state the totem spins smoothly.

To return to reality, they need to get back layer by layer, one must stay awake in each level [Dreamer stays]. They need an “alarm” [the music] to synchronize time of the ‘kicks’.
One way to know you’re in a dream is that you couldn’t remember how you get there. When Cobb wakes up in the plane, he’s back to where he was, he’s not waking up in some unknown place with no explanation of how he got there.

When we create a dream, we fill out the scene with projections. In Cobb’s dreams, he set up projections to protect him from extractors, from other con artists like himself.
Example: Cobb and Ariadne in Ariadne’s dream. Ariadne changes the surroundings, creating paradox. Pay attention to the scene changing all the time, with stairs going nowhere, or streets folding. At some point, Cobb’s projections started to “attack” her because Cobb’s subconcious mind felt that someone is messing with his mind.

We are almost there. Time is coming up to say Good bye! to our beloved NCIS team, until the fall when the next season begins.

A few thoughts regarding Season 9 and a wish list for the next Season:

- PLEASE kill agent E.J. Barrett as she is getting on my last nerve. I dislike her character almost as much as I disliked that chick lawyer Hart. E.J addition to the show was not a good one as it messed up the familiar warm-inside feeling brought by our regular NCIS team. From what I have read on various forums, including the CBS’s one, almost nobody likes her and almost everybody wants to see her gone from the show.
- PLEASE replace director Vance with a more pleasant director. Maybe bring Hetty from NCIS- LA, as she is a great character and it would have a better synergy with the group. Director Vance should go to NCIS- LA, or find a different job. Vance is a nasty pompous ass.
- I hope nobody of the old established crew is going to be sacrificed as the producers did with Kate, long time ago. Thankfully Sasha Alexander is back on Rizzoli and Isles show.
- I did not like Ziva’s boyfriend- Ray- and I hope he is not going to be a permanent presence. No chemistry between these two characters.
- The killing of Mike Franks sucked big time. Why did they do that?
- I have mix feelings about watching the season finale, as I dread thinking that the cliffhanger will be the life or death of agent Barrett. Or even worse, of Ziva.
- It would be nice to get a new character, a love interest for Gibbs, somebody other than the annoying lawyer Hart. Too bad the the producers killed the Navy lady (forgot her name). She seemed to have been good match to Gibbs.

As curious as I normally am, this time I don’t really want to dig and find spoilers for the season finale; instead I am going to enjoy the ride.

Just a few thoughts. Let’s start by saying that I am so fed up with J.Lo that I would like to see her vanish into oblivion, which is not going to happen.
I was watching American Idol trying to relax and enjoy it. Well, maybe enjoy is too much to say. However, my relaxation was cut short after Haley’s performance. She sang a Michael Jackson song and you could tell that she gave it all; at the end of the song J.Lo started making faces and voicing her opinion which is and has been for some time totally biased against Haley. See, J.Lo favors Lauren, who is slowly getting on my last nerve, the same way Pia used to do.
So, my relaxation was cut short and I found myself screaming ‘STFU J.Lo! Stupid and pretentious cow!!’
Randy followed through with same stupid comments. The only one that save Haley’s performance was Steven Tyler. Bravo Steven!

OK, Lauren just finished singing. Geez, that girl is 16 looking 26. And surprise, surprise… NOT. The judges again pimped her. Boo!
I am so done watching this show.

Fringe is over for now. The season 4 is scheduled to start sometimes in September 2011. If you are like me, as in left scratching your head after the season finale, the good news is that I found some answers on TVLine.com.

The bad news is that it’s not really much light shedding.

This is what TVline guys got from Fringe’s producers:

“Speaking with executive producers Jeff Pinkner and J.H. Wyman after we previewed the finale, TVLine led with the No. 1 question on our list: Does Joshua Jackson have a Fringe gig come fall? Or should he have been auditioning for pilots? “He’s got a job. He’s still under contract,” Wyman confirms. “We can’t yet reveal what exactly we have in store for him, but he’s definitely not going out for other shows. As for those final two scenes, Pinkner said that even the most time paradox-savvy viewers “should be wondering” how it is that Peter vanished from existence, yet said he would be remiss to shed much light on that or what’s in store for Season 4. “The less spoilerage, the better,” he deferred. “The reason to come back and watch is exactly for the questions you’re asking.”

Wyman instead points viewers to this scene: “When Walter in the future says he has figured out a plan to send a message back to the past, he says that bringing Peter’s consciousness forward of course would have consequences.” Or as Future Peter himself remarked when presented with Walter’s plan: “Imagine the repercussions.” Indeed.
Now, a few other burning questions the Fringe EPs took on:

If Peter “Never Existed,” Wouldn’t That Mean No Feud Between the Walters, No Machine Activated, No 2026 Doomsday…? | In a word, no. “Walter and [William] Bell were always trying to find a way to cross over, even before the Peter [abduction] incident,” Pinkner reminds. “So things may have happened differently.”

What Was “Lost In Detroit,” As Future Peter Alluded To With Broyles? | “That’s not something the audience needs to understand just yet,” says Wyman. “It’s obviously something heavily emotional between them – that may or may not be the cause of Broyles losing an eye.”

Was Olivia In Fact the “Beloved Character” Spoiled To Be Dying In the Finale? (Or Was It Gene the Cow?) | “In the course of the episode, it was Olivia,” confirms Pinkner, noting that Gene had gone to that great dairy farm in the sky sometime between 2011 and 2026.

Is That It for Big Baddie Moreau? | Sadly, yes. Played by Dune‘s Brad Dourif, Moreau and his End of Dayers threat was simply the Case of the Week for Fringe Team ’26.

Have We Also Seen the Last Of Grown-Up Ella (Boardwalk Empire‘s Emily Meade)? | Yes, says Wyman — “for the time being.”

Did Fox Execs Have As Many Questions About Fringe‘s Latest Freaky Finale As I Did? | “Probably more!” Pinkner says with a laugh. “But everybody is asking the right questions – not questions of confusion but questions of intrigue, of being compelled. We always like it when it’s like that.” Adds Wyman: “We’ve gained a lot of trust over the years [when pitching ideas to the network]. They have now seen the way we operate, how we always have tent posts that we are moving toward and from.”