Everything old is new again

The season finales of House (Tuesday) and Lost (Wednesday) were both kind of disappointing. Both had their cool moments, but ultimately neither revealed all that much. House gave us a little insight into House's inner thoughts, but when you invest time in an episode only to get "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"... well, that's kind of aggravating. Also, the ending was really sudden!

Maybe the show is just a much better watch on DVD - in fact, I know it is, because you have better picture quality, widescreen, and no fucking thunderstorm warnings beeping in every five minutes - but Lost's season finale last year had a much more palpable sense of tension and unease. The scene with the black smoke on the far side of the island, for instance. Nothing like that in this one. Also, way more questions left unanswered than were answered, but then that's not a shock, really. Plenty more comment in the Lost blog, if you so desire.

All right, I'll ask: what is the point of even having a "Go Lane" on CTA buses when someone paying at the regular machine with cash or a farecard means my Plus card isn't going to register properly? They had to have thought of this during testing, right? How does standing behind someone who's paying cash hold you up any more than having to be called back by the bus driver to swipe your card again? (That's an underratedly embarrassing moment, by the way, especially because most drivers have this exasperated tone, like you're the 500th person to do that today and they can't believe you didn't know better. "Sir... sir!" As bus embarrassments go, that's right up there with accidentally stepping in front of the one person in the entire city who cares about the order in which people board the bus.)