monkey brasses

It was bloody cold last night and this morning.

At some point during the night it snowed, but it must have been dark when it happened as it was a case of opening my curtains this morning to be greeted by a blanket of the white stuff.

I love a bit of snow - it looks very decorative, but the practicalities can be a little difficult. After it had snowed it got so cold that the snow then froze, so this morning it was very treacherous going out to the car. And that's not to mention the job I had trying to scrape the stuff off the car.

It's really difficult scraping frozen snow off - it forms a sort of lattice structure that's really strong. Ordinary frozen ice is much easier to get off as you can literally just scrape at it, plus turn the engine on and melt it a bit. Frozen snow you have to sort of hack at it, and it really takes some doing, plus because it's got all these holes in and is so thick, it's less susceptible to heating.

All told it took me a good ten minutes to de-ice the car. It's things like that which make me glad I get up nice and early for work.

Anyway, I watched the rest of Lost Season 4 last night. I've just got the extras left.

It was good - don't take what I'm going to say next to mean I didn't like it - but I'm not at all sure about these short seasons.

I believe the idea behind them is so that the total number of episodes adds up to 108 (which is the sum of the magic numbers). Plus I also guess it means they get to stretch it out a little from the planned five-year arc.

But the problem is it makes these last three seasons seem more like light snacks than full-course meals, and I like my Lost to be a full course meal. Especially since I basically have to wait an entire year between seasons (thank you once again, fucking Sky).

In season 4 the pace is definitely a lot faster - all of the episodes are roller-coaster rides with very little let-up in the pace. So, for example, when they had Ben locked up as a prisoner before he was there for ages, but this year when they had him as a prisoner again, he was almost immediately out again.

Not sure which I prefer, tbh, as it's a bit swings-and-roundabouts. A fast pace can be nice, but it does tend to highlight one of the cheats they do on Lost.

The cheat in question is the size of the island. If a group heads out for another part of the island, the amount of time it takes them is totally flexible. There was a classic at the beginning of the season, where they went to a dead body and then it was the best part of a days walk until they encountered the helicopter.

But then, it apparently only took them 20 minutes to go and fetch the body and bring it to the helicopter. Well, okay, maybe the first time they were wandering a bit, but it still should have taken them a lot longer to go there and back the second time :/.

Anyway, as I say, I love Lost. Part of the reason is because it's proper sci-fi. I know a lot of people give it flack because they feel it's being made up as they go along and it never really answers any questions, but those criticisms mainly come from people who probably shouldn't be watching it in the first place.

I mean I'm glad it is popular of course, so it doesn't constantly have an axe having over its neck like Babylon 5 used to, but like B5 it's clearly really for sci-fi nerds more than it is for the average viewer.