www.youtube.com/watch?v=XofPdZPrsp8

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcF95L6Tv-0

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqSBZ8Xsjiw

Well, I don’t think I’ll ever to do that. I’m just going to watch the 150-minute series finale and tell the Internet what I think.

8:59 – I have almost as little experience with NBA basketball as I do with Lost, but the automatic TV reminder just took me away from the Lakers-Suns game. Context-free entertainment is easy for sports to pull off; we’ll see if that’s true about weird, dramatic television.

9:01 – Excellent! The “previously on” scenes made absolutely no sense to me.

9:05 — How long have these people been on this island? Their hair and clothing make it look like it’s been a long afternoon.

9:07 — I gather that this is hard enough for people who watch regularly to follow, so I’m probably making it almost impossible by trying to type and drink and watch at the same time.

9:17 — So at some time, some people were bailing strangers out of jail and taking them to very important concerts, and then at some other time a bald guy planned to blow up an island where some of those same people are, along with some others? And everyone speaks needlessly cryptically all the time?

9:27 – I thought this was going to be all smoke monsters and time warps and parallel universes and smoke monsters. I might be seeing some parallel universes or time warps (I can’t be sure about the chronology of these the flashbacks or flash-forwards), but apart from one reference to a “magic Leprechaun,” which I’m pretty sure wasn’t literal, this hasn’t been nearly as crazy as I’d hoped.

9:34 — Eh, who cares? Abort.

Late update (the next morning) – I tuned back in at the very end to see the big reveal. Since it was the purgatory scenario, which ranks below the dream scenario on the list of acceptable television show endings, I feel vindicated in my decision to watch only 34 minutes of the 121-episode series.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsvAj6qfmFQ

The worst companies have the best ad wizards.

Due to our last days online problems, many phishing attempts and identity-theft, we need to verify our members accounts information.

That kind of sloppiness might produce profitable results when sent to illiterate or particularly oblivious Americans, but the rest of us need to see a little more respect before you can defraud us.

Scam managers really ought to consider adding English-language editors to their operations.

The driver of this car changed lanes abruptly in front of me in heavy traffic on K Street this afternoon. As you can see, it’s registered in California and bears a license plate marked “U.S. CONGRESS 46.”

Does Rep. Dana Rohrabacher drive a green Oldsmobile Aurora?

As far as I can tell, it is — or should be — his car. The California Department of Motor Vehicles says this of such licenses:

The number represents the congressional district. The small “A,” when present, indicates a second vehicle owned by a member of Congress. A small “R,” when present indicates a retired member of Congress. A small “1″ after “R,” indicates a second vehicle owned by a retired member of Congress.

There are no small letters or numbers next to the “46″ above, so this appears to be Rohrabacher’s primary automobile. I didn’t get a better look at the driver than what’s visible in the photo, so I can’t confirm the congressman was behind the wheel.

If it is Rohrabacher’s car, he’s had it since at least 2000, when Space.com published an article that began thus:

A sign above the congressional office door of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher sums up his mindset: “Fighting for freedom and having fun.”

That might help explain why the California Republican, who loves a good battle over space issues on Capitol Hill, was cruising his district’s scenic coastline in his Buick Aurora recently when a reporter reached him by cell phone.

Case closed!

Postscript: if I’m ever unlucky enough to be a member of Congress, I certainly will not pay extra to have a license plate that invites bloggers with too much time on their hands to investigate my identity when I make a questionable decision on the road. California’s DMV charges legislators $12 for the privilege of announcing themselves to drivers behind them.

Career ERA and ERA+:

• Jeff Karstens — 4.89, 89
• Zach Duke — 4.39, 98
• Paul Maholm — 4.30, 100
• Ross Ohlendorf — 6.13, 71
• Ian Snell — 4.67, 92

Maholm’s career ERA+ of 100 means he is a perfectly average major league pitcher. All the other guys have been worse.

It’s true. Iron City is a no-frills lager brewed in Pittsburgh since 1861 by a company that survived bankruptcy a few years ago. If you’re looking for a bland beer with a proud industrial history, look no further (and for $3 or less in the bar around the corner, the history is a bonus).

Lindsey also points to a post at A Continous Lean where Miller High Life gets much-deserved support, and I can’t argue with it. Here’s why:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9arBRMM_JE

The YouTube user graffiti62 has done the world a great service by posting a few dozen of these old ads. Do yourself a favor one night: buy a six-pack of the Champagne of Beers and watch them all.

But also, please start asking for Iron City at your local dive.

But maybe it is, or could be.

Here are some anecdotes about my friends from high school:

Ian bought a house in Pittsburgh last month, having spent most of the previous five years in Las Vegas and Washington.

Max, who’s in law school in Ann Arbor following stints in Boston and New York, told me recently that he’ll probably take the Pennsylvania bar exam.

Jessica, who has lived mostly in New York since 2000, told me she can see herself ending up in Pittsburgh when it’s time for kids and mortgages and all that.

Here’s some data:

The difference in housing prices between Pittsburgh and New York/Washington is absurdly large. Trulia’s home price “heat map” for Pittsburgh features a scale from $58,000 to “$136K and up”; Washington’s scale begins at “236K and below.” New York starts around a million.

Here’s some more:

The seven-county Pittsburgh metro area lost almost 3,000 people last year, but new Census Bureau figures show that the region’s long-term population drain could be coming to an end.

University of Pittsburgh economist Chris Briem said what’s most interesting is that the gap between the number of people moving out and moving in closed considerably between 2007 and 2008, from 3,351 to 708.

The closing gap is probably due to Pittsburgh faring better than surrounding metro areas in the early months of the recession, which began in December 2007, he said. If so, then the number of people moving into the metro area could exceed the number moving out this year, the first time that would have happened since the early 1990s.

…

During the mid- to late 1990s, Pittsburgh lost population even though its economy was doing well because other places were booming, Briem said.

“If you were young and mobile, there were some great wages to be made in some of these places,” he said.

The question among economists was whether those booms were sustainable, and the answer appears to be that they weren’t, he added.

God’s argument is question-begging nonsense, since you’d have to believe in him to accept that he created or loved anything. But I’m more interested in the meaning of his comma. Let’s look at the statement again:

Why believe? Because I created you and I love you, for goodness’ sake.

If I understand God’s intent, the comma sets “for goodness’ sake” apart as an interjection to express his exasperation at having to explain himself to us for the thousandth time. Who can blame him? He’s been working on this for millennia, and he’s still going around asserting his existence to transit riders and bystanders in major cities.

There’s a second possibility. Maybe “for goodness’ sake” is his reason for creating and loving. If that’s the case, God’s ad contradicts itself. Someone who did something solely for the sake of goodness would be unlikely to purchase mass-visibility advertisements to claim credit.

Either way, his decision to spend money on ads just to promote himself is kind of tacky. Campaign season is over.