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I probably should have mentioned this in my bio post a few days ago, but I am a crazy fan of LOST. Best show on TV? Of course. Best show ever? Maybe. (We’ll see how these next 2 seasons unravel.)

I’ve been kicking around the idea of posting about LOST the day after a new episode airs in order to generate some discussion on it, but I wanted to see what you all thought of that. How many of you watch LOST?

How many of you don’t watch it and are sick of hearing about it?

One thing I should say up front though…I HATE spoilers. I avoid them at all costs. I don’t even watch LOST commercials on TV, or watch the “Next Week on LOST” clip because the writers and producers don’t have control over what goes into them. I like to read LOST theories and I’ll catch every podcast and video that Damon Lindelof and Cartlon Cuse (the show’s producers) put out. But I don’t want people with inside info to spoil the show for me.

(Speaking of Damon and Cartlon, did you know that they’ve been releasing weekly videos called “Dharma Special Access” videos over the past month. You can click here for Week 1, and then you can find all 7 weeks if you click around Youtube. The most recent video features a look into the Writer’s Room, which is pretty dope. )

So yeah, if you’ve got an opinion on the idea of me posting every week about LOST, share it in the comments. (and vote in the new sidebar poll).

Namaste!

*Now that I think of it, a couple years ago I wrote up a little article on why I love LOST, even comparing the writers of the show to God. To see how I did that in an unblasphemous way, you can click here.

Author: Steve Martin

Book Name: Born Standing Up

I’m Glad it Wasn’t Called: Giggles, the Angry, Bilingual Ferret

Book Synopsis in Twitteresque 140 characters or less: Steve Martin writes of his days as a comedian. From magic acts at Disneyworld to sold out arenas, he details the how and why of his stardom.

Where I Bought It: Borders Express at the Exton Mall, from Jill.

Paid for With: Debit Card (store did not accept attempted payment with Arubin Florin)

How Long it Took Me to Read: 2 days. Which might be a new record for me. This was a combination of three things: 1- I really enjoyed it, so it was easy to breeze through it, 2 - Erica was engrossed in a book at the time, so all we both wanted to do was read, and 3 - It was over a holiday, so I had time to kill.

Who I WOULD NOT recommend this book to: My brother-in-law Michael, who has recurring violent nightmares in which he is attacked by a middle-aged man in a bunny suit. I fear the cover of this book alone would send him into shock. In fact, just in case Michael is reading this review right now, someone might want to swing by his house and check on him.

Who I WOULD recommend this book to: Anyone with an interest in comedy, showbiz, or performing arts. It’s fascinating to read Martin’s reflections on his rise to fame. I especially love the times where he footnotes a moment early in his career and foreshadows the bigger role it will play in the future. A good reminder that even the seemingly “normal” events of our lives might play a huge role in where we are headed.

What I used for a bookmark: One of the 50 extra Allain family christmas cards we have lying around.

Fascinating Tidbit From the book that is True: Early in his career, Steve worked with and fell in love with Stormie Sherk, who later became Stormie Omartian. Yes, that Stormie Omartian.

Fascinating Tidbit Not From the book that is Not True: Martin learned to play banjo on a saxophone.

What I learned from this book that I will apply to my next book: When you are famous, you can make your name appear in larger font on the cover than the book title. Applying that to my book, the font size used for the title will be 8 times that of my name.

Expectations Going In: I had read recommendations of the book from a few people, so I thought it would be a good read. Didn’t expect it to keep me engaged the whole way through, but thought it would be a nice diversion from the other books I was reading.

Cannarf Rating: I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. It was what I like to call a “time-maker”, in that when you are in the middle of it, you are always “making time” to read it. The content was very interesting and Martin’s writing voice was perfect for the material. It inspired me to be entertaining and reminded me that hard work usually pays off. +4 cannarfs. (what’s a cannarf?)

Have any of you read it? If so, what’s your cannarf rating?

The problem I have always had with objective ratings and reviews is that they aren’t objective at all. The expectations you bring to a movie or a book always color how you receive it. So instead of trying to take the subjectivity out of my reviews, I decided to go the other way and make them completely subjective and based on my expectations.

A few years ago I created something called a “Cannarf”. What’s a cannarf? Well, a cannarf is a unit of measure used to rate books, movies, TV shows, and basically anything under God’s blue sky.

I did this because the one question I found myself asking friends after they’d read a book or seen a movie was, “Was it better or worse than you expected?” To me, their answer to this question gave me more data than any other question I could ask. I don’t care how the movie stacks up against all other movies. I don’t care if the book was a classic or not. Just tell me this: what were your expectations going in, and was it better or worse than you expected?

The Cannarf Rating System goes from -10 to +10. If a book or movie is exactly what you expected it to be, it gets 0 cannarfs. If it does not live up to your expectations, you give it negative cannarfs. (-1 cannarfs means it just barely fell short, -10 cannarfs means the gap between your expectations and how crappy it was are as big as the cosmos.) If it is better than expected it can be scored from +1 cannarfs all the way up to +10 cannarfs.

The cannarf scale is totally subjective. That’s why I love it. In fact, a better movie might get a lower cannarf rating just because the expectations you had for it were so high. For  example, here’s pretend reviews for 2 Shia LeBouf movies I saw in the past year:

+ Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: This movie was basically exactly what I expected it to be. Dumb and fun. I enjoyed it, but the bit at the end with the aliens was a bit too dumb for me. -1 cannarfs.

+ Eagle Eye: I had pretty high hopes that this movie would keep me on the edge of my seat and deliver a nice plot twist at the end. In the end, the only thing it delivered was a tired idea that I’ve seen too many times before. -3 cannarfs.

Did I like Indiana Jones a lot better than Eagle Eye? Not really, but I penalized Eagle Eye because i had higher hopes. That’s how it works.

The other thing I like about the Cannarf Rating System is that the cannarf ratings build on themselves. If 3 of your friends read a book and give it positive cannarfs, then it might push your expectations of the book so high, that the book doesn’t meet them (even though you liked it). As a result, you have to give it negative cannarfs.

Anyway, that was a long explanation for a fairly simple concept: I rate things based on what my expectations were, and I quantify them on a scale that I call ‘cannarfs’ because I like to make up words.

Why am I telling you all this? Because I am going to start reviewing movies and books and such on my blog, and I’ll be using the cannarf system to rate them. (And now I have a post I can refer new readers to for an explanation.)

First book review coming later today…

I saw this article on CNN.com yesterday and couldn’t resist. Researchers at Stony Brook University have confirmed via brain scans that “a small number of couples respond with as much passion after 20 years together as most people only do during the early throes of romance”.

But wait, there’s more…

Previous research has suggested that the first stages of romantic love fade within 15 months and after 10 years it has gone completely, the newspaper said.

“The findings go against the traditional view of romance — that it drops off sharply in the first decade — but we are sure it’s real,” said Arthur Aron, a psychologist at Stony Brook, told the Sunday Times.

Phew! This is a huge relief! Thanks Arthur Aron! For a second there I was beginning to question those “I’m so in love” feelings I still get for my wife. Good to know they can be proven by scientific research!

Since this is apparently news, I guess I ought to make this official:

BREAKING NEWS!!! Man Still Has the Hots For His Wife of Almost 10 Years!!!

“I am in love with my wife,” Bryan Allain said today, ” She still drives me crazy. I still get excited to see her and be with her. I still feel like the luckiest guy in the world when she’s on my arm. And I’m still convinced I can’t live without her. In fact, I can say with confidence that these feelings are stronger today than they ever have been before.”

How about you all? Any of you suffer from this apparent abnormality as well?

(if anyone at CNN reads this and wants to do a story on me and my weird readers, you know where to find us.)