"For years, I had people praising Lost to death, and now they say: 'I'm so pissed at you for the end of 'Lost.' I think a lot of people who were upset with the ending, were just upset that it ended. And I've not yet heard the pitch of what the ending should have been. I've just heard: 'That sucked.'"

He has a point: By the last season of "Lost," there were too many loose ends to tie up in a way that would have left everybody satisfied. When it turned out that the alternate reality presented in the sixth season was purgatory (kind of), where everyone was waiting for Jack and his dad, Christian Shepherd (YIKES!), to lead them into heaven, the dogmatic community of "Lost" fans suddenly turned on their formerly favorite show. They demanded a more satisfying conclusion than the "They've been dead this whole time!" cop-out.

Where were the answers to all the mysteries? We still don't know who the original inhabitants of the island were, why Hurley's lottery numbers were bad luck or what the hell that giant foot statue was about.

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2. Terrible names for Woody Allen movies of the day: "The Bop Decameron," the Jesse Eisenberg, Alec Baldwin, Ellen Page, Roberto Benigni, Penélope Cruz, Greta Gerwig and Allen picture that will be set in Rome and hopefully translates to "I'm sorry about this title."

3. Hot guys holding little kitties of the day: It's so weird, I was just talking to my friend today who was asking, "When is Sam Trammell just going to do a video where he undulates around a green screen holding a little cat?" I was worried I'd have to wait until the season premiere of "True Blood!" Thank you, FunnyorDie!

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Evangeline Lilly will be playing a new character—the Woodland Elf, Tauriel. Her name means 'daughter of Mirkwood' and, beyond that, we must leave you guessing! (No, there is no romantic connection to Legolas.) What is not a secret is how talented and compelling an actress Evangeline is; we are thrilled and excited she will be the one to bring our first true Sylvan Elf to life.

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"I did all my research for that scene by going on Chatroulette, that website where guys masturbate for strangers. My moves in Hall Pass are an amalgamation of, I don’t know, maybe 20,000 different dudes. I took the facial expressions from SexHog22; I took the hand motions from GrizzlyBearDong. Those guys really know what they’re doing."

2. Casting news of the day: Charlie Day ("It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," "Horrible Bosses") may be joining the Guillermo del Toro's monster mash "Pacific Rim." Wonder if there will be a cameo for Night Man?

3. HBO wish of the day: That "Lost's" Michael Emerson would make a cameo on "True Blood." Hey, apparently it might happen! "I'm friendly with Alan Ball ... " Emerson said at the premiere, "He'll say, 'I've gotta get you on here!' And I'll say, 'Yes, I'm ready!' "

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As you probably know by now, "Super 8" is a monster movie about a group of small-town kids in 1979 Ohio who are making a monster movie, and I guess it's that faint touch of postmodernism that makes it not exactly like a Spielberg project that didn't quite get made 30 years ago. Otherwise, the Spielbergian impersonation is uncannily complete, from the half-disillusioned, half-idealized portrayal of chaotic suburban family life to the secret confraternity of kid culture to the faint stirrings of political correctness to the overdetermined, almost architectural sentimentality of the last act. I kept fighting off the feeling that "Super 8" had actually been made by, say, Michael Haneke or David Lynch, in an opaque conceptual-art spirit of mockery. Or that some form of illicit horror-movie congress has occurred between director and producer: They merged, like the two women in Bergman's "Persona." Or Abrams has eaten Spielberg's brain and is wearing his skin.

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But the day the show ended, I began watching "Lost." I watched it every day this summer, and I finished the whole thing in three months. I did this mostly out of spite as well, so that those same friends now had to listen to my own inane theories about the island being part of a giant government experiment or Locke being Sawyer's dad (don't know how I came up with that one), while they bit their tongues and tried not to spoil anything.

Maybe it was because I blew through the episodes so quickly and didn't spend over half a decade looking for answers that I wasn't that bothered by the show's finale. In fact, all things considered, I thought "Lost" tied up most of the big loose ends. It wasn't the end I would have written for the show, but at least now we know where those polar bears came from.

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One was sold at a Safeway supermarket here in eastern Washington, and the other in Post Falls, Idaho. No one has come forward yet to claim the prize, with each ticket worth $190 million.

"We don't know if it's a working stiff or a retired person," resident Richard Hart said at the Safeway.

The prospect of winning the second biggest jackpot in history drew huge interest across the country as thousands of people lined up to buy tickets in the 41 states and Washington, D.C., where the lottery is held.

A day after the drawing, all eyes were on a region where most of the nation's frozen french fries are produced, and on the similarity between the winning digits and the ones used by a character on the television show "Lost."

The winners had to match five regular numbers plus the "Mega ball."

The winning numbers were 4, 8, 15, 25 and 47, with the Mega ball number of 42. Four of the six winning numbers matched numbers that were prominently featured throughout the popular series -- 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42.

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That said, I was pleasantly surprised a few times with the 2010 Emmy nominations, and was, per usual, irritated just as often. Tony Shalhoub, again, for real? (eye roll) "Two and a Half Men" taking up valuable space in any category? (bigger eye roll) And why Aaron Paul of "Breaking Bad" didn't submit his reel in the lead actor category is confounding and shameful -- Bryan Cranston is, arguably, the star of that show but this was Paul's year. His performance as the now-sober meth cooker Jesse Pinkman was, in a word, eviscerating.

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Perhaps it's true that the polar bears and hatches and four-toed statues and submarines wouldn't have added up to more than a one-season gizmo of a show without the grounding offered by the intimate personal journeys of the castaways. But, let's face it, "Lost" was not ultimately "all about the characters," as its creators and admirers often claimed, because the characters were not interesting enough to sustain a series by themselves, either. As pleasant as it was to see the gang achieving lives of ordinary happiness in this season's flash-sideways, we care about them because we've seen them go through so many bizarre ordeals. Would you really have wanted to watch a series in which the same people got their shit together in the ordinary fashion? I didn't think so. "Lost" was not "Six Feet Under."

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Well, if you were too busy quietly weeping and telling your dog you love him to catch Jimmy Kimmel's "Aloha to Lost" with the cast and crew late Sunday night, you might have missed Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof's revelation of their three alternate endings to the series. Far be it for us to spoil them -- we'll just say that we're a little in love with the cast and Kimmel today for giving us a taste of the vastly different "Lost" that might have been.

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Just as the Western world was destined to be disappointed in Obama after his earth-shaking, groundbreaking, glorious, hope-encrusted parade to the White House, the world's peoples are doomed to be crestfallen and unruly when the last stupid moments of "Lost" flash across their screens. Personally, unless that glowing light energy at the center of the island flows straight out of my TV screen and into my body, blessing me with the purest, sweetest sensation of joy and fulfillment in the known universe (and since I don't currently have any narcotics dealers on speed dial, this seems unlikely), I'll be disappointed.

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I am a great fan of the pleasures of surprise. When I discuss or review new films and books, I'm cautious not to disclose key plot twists. But as I find myself in the thick of finale season and drowning in a sea of springtime blockbusters, it seems I can't have a decent water cooler conversation without feeling like I'm tap dancing through a minefield of, "Wait, wait, don't tell me!" So let's get a few things straight: Starting with the fact that once a work enters the pop culture vernacular, it is not society's responsibility to provide you with earmuffs until you finally get around to experiencing it.

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Now that the information age has finally delivered on its decades-old promise to transform us into distracted shadows of our former selves, we're haunted continually by factoids, opinions and televised entertainments heartily embraced and endorsed by the nattering nabobs and twittering tweakers of the Internets. Even if we shun the continual onslaught of news about Justin Bieber's signature hairstyle or Sandra Bullock's brand-new, 100 percent authentic third-world infant souvenir, our socially mediated selves push us to keep up. Our personal brands demand that we remain consistent, that we continue to watch Rachel Maddow and read Michael Chabon and listen to the National, lest our "Followers" and "Friends" and other demi-associate members of our target demographics start to view us as impulsive, inconstant or -- heaven forbid -- complicated.

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ABC says the May 23rd finale originally scheduled for two hours is now set to air from 9 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. Eastern.

Preceding the finale will be a retrospective special, "Lost: The Final Journey," airing from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern. It will look back at the past six seasons of this mystical thriller.

And to finish out the big night, ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel bids the series farewell on a special edition of his show, "Jimmy Kimmel Live: Aloha to 'Lost,'" airing from 12:05 a.m. to 1:05 a.m. Eastern.

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ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co.

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On the Net:

http://abc.com/

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No wonder we turn to our televisions for novelty, to see if the lovely downhill skier weeps tears of joy or disappointment, to find out if the patient's heart surgery saves his life or kills him, to discover if the castaways live happily ever after, or spend another week wandering through the jungle, searching for more clues.

If your life is stable, it's hard not to experience its details as predictable, if not a little mundane. If your life is unstable, it's hard not to experience its twists and turns as dismaying instead of entertaining or suspenseful. You're too close to enjoy yourself.

So you mumble distractedly to your co-workers and your family all day long, then weep openly for the fictional heart patient on your TV screen at night.

Jacking around

What's interesting to me these days is that I still find myself addicted to shows that I have no emotional stake in whatsoever.

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These are the questions, questions, questions that haunt us when Tuesday night's second episode of the final season of "Lost" begins – yes – with even more questions: How did Sayid come back to life? "What happened to me?" he asks, and then "Who are these people? What do they want?"

"It's the Others, dude," Hurley answers. "They caught us ... again."

Oh dear. It's the Others (again), and they caught us (again). And just in case the repetitive nature of this show is, ahem, lost on you, the entire episode seems to be made up of nothing but questions.

"Who are you? Why are you holding us here?"

"I just lied to him, didn't I?"

"So did they tell you why they burnt me with a hot poker?"

"Who do you care about, Kate?"

"So, what happened to your handcuffs?"

"Why are they after you? What did you do?"

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Once at an open mike night I attended at a bar on Haight Street in San Francisco, a guy in a tie-dyed T-shirt pounded his fingers onto an electric keyboard, then screeched into the microphone, "The first rule is that there are no rules!"

But do things really get any more interesting when there are no rules? That's the question that arose in the pained faces of the audience gathered in the bar that night, and it's the question that came up during Tuesday night's final season premiere of ABC's acclaimed series "Lost" (8 p.m. Tuesdays), a show that, despite its rabid fan base, sometimes feels like the televisual equivalent of a keyboard-pounding poet. Although the "Lost" writers will mostly be praised for inventively throwing out the rules of time and space in order to keep things interesting going into the show's home stretch, their maneuvers sometimes feel about as mysterious and thoughtful as yelling into a microphone.

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