squagels, smoke monsters, etc.

I got up this morning, made a squagel with tofu creem chease and raspberry jam, and settled down in front of the computer to watch the weekly mindf**k known as Lost. And I immediately noticed that my bagel tasted really, really strange. I checked the container to see if it had gone bad and discovered all these tiny green flecks in the chease. What the....? Then I saw the teeny, tiny letters on the lid: Herb & Chive. Dammit. Why couldn't they put that on the side of the container, where I actually look? Or, better yet, a big picture of an onion so morons like me can tell what they're buying? Anyway, I couldn't waste a whole bagel so I ate it anyway. Not all that bad.

Lost. Mother of God, if last week's episode was a little ho-hum, they sure made up for it in spades this week. What was going on with the smoke monster and Juliet when it was flashing a light on her? Was it doing a funky mind-meld thing, or showing her the past? Will she be its next victim? Where is everybody going, and why did Locke go with them? What happened to his father? Was he left behind, too? Lots of enticing mysteries. As Kate said, "Welcome to the wonderful world of not knowing what the hell is going on."
Excellent storyline, too. Kate isn't always trustworthy, but we should know by now that she only does the wrong things for the right reasons. Now, along with Juliet and Sayid and Jack, she has to cope with rejection again. Sawyer is feeling out the idea of being a leader just when it seems Jack is reluctant to continue being one. And Hurley? We all need a Hurley in our lives...someone to tell us when we're being an ass and to make us laugh and kick back the rest of the time.

Regarding the smoke monster, I came across this passage in Richard Parry's book Trial by Ice, about the disastrous Polaris expedition to the North Pole: "Shuffling away from the grave of their longtime friend, the Inuit purposefully kept their backs to the northern lights. Unseen by the white men, each Inuit held a drawn knife behind his back, between him and the lights, for protection. For to the Inuit the hissing lights overhead were the spirits of the resltess dead, those who had died violent deaths or been murdered." Like the smoke monster, the northern lights make a strange hissing sound. True, they don't grab you by your ankles and drag you through the jungle til you're a bloody corpse, but could this be the secret of the smoke? Does it contain the memories, thoughts, or even souls of those who have died on the island?