Jeff Dunham is Jacob!

Well, not really, but this guy is the funniest comedian I have seen in ages. My daughter and I had the good fortune to catch his show last night in Kelowna. It was the first of our series of day trips to fill the summer holidays. Unfortunately, she's not quite finished school until June 25th, so she played hooky with me. Anyway, we had seats on the floor and an excellent view, yet we found our eyes glued to the giant screen above the stage. Talk about "Larger Than Life!" I had left my camera in the hotel because I didn't realize I could take photos during the performance. I'm really kicking myself.

Jeff's first puppet was, of course, Walter. I love this character and he reminds me of my own sometimes curmudgeonly father. They both seem to voice the same opinion of marriage, although I know they both really love their wives. Walter has an old man's opinion on everything, only with a twist that makes us all realize that we take life too seriously.

According to his puppet Peanut (my favorite of the puppets) he plays with dolls. Peanut, if you haven't met him, reminds me of a teenager with a skewed view on life. Sometimes my daughter tells me that Peanut reminds her of me. I'm not sure if it's a compliment, but I'm starving for compliments from her so I'm taking it as such. Often times, I think of my daughter when I hear a priceless pearl of wisdom from Jeff Dunham and Peanut. Maybe when I refer to my daughter as my clone isn't as far fetched as I thought.

The show wasn't exactly "family friendly" and contained some cursing and references to drugs and sex, but most of the kids attending were either old enough to shock Mom and Dad with their laughter, or too young to understand. By the way, I was surprised by just how many young people made up the audience. I only hope their parents have had the "what's appropriate and not appropriate in mixed company" chat that I had with my daughter.

Achmed is my daughter's and father's favorite puppet. He's a failed suicide bomber that believes he's suffering from a flesh wound. I am fascinated by his eye brows as they wiggle. I can't help it. His eyes dart back and forth and those brows wriggle up and down and I can't seem to stop myself from giggling. His signature "Silence, I keel you!" elicited many laughs. I had tears in my eyes as he described his first date with a girl on a camel.

Brian "Guitar Guy" Hener, opened the show (which started late) and had the sold out crowd at Prospera Place almost rolling in the aisles! I'm not sure if he writes his own stuff, but he was great. If the merchandise booth had taken credit cards I would have bought his CD (and one each of the talking Peanut and Achmed dolls). He's a guy who's been enjoying an overnight success that's taken thirty years to achieve. He'll tell you about his son who became a real rock star in just nine months. No, he's not bitter (I'm nodding my head here). He'll also tell you about his twelve year old daughter and her attitude, to which I truly can relate having my own twelve year old daughter, and his lovely understanding wife. She must be a saint.

The show ran an hour later than scheduled and we had the added treat of seeing Bubba J. As we walked out of Prospera Place our sides ached, our rear ends were numb from the seriously uncomfortable chairs and we couldn't stop giggling for the entire walk back to the hotel.

Thanks to my mother's generous donation of her Air Miles, my daughter and I stayed at the Delta Grand Okanogan Hotel. An apparent 4 1/2 star resort that is situated on the waterfront of Kelowna's Lake Okanogan, and conveniently across from Propsera Place, we thought it would be the best place for us.

Although it was a lovely hotel, everything was high end from the lush lobby area right down to the valet parking, I was somewhat disappointed. I must have had outrageously high expectations for a resort that charges $400 per night for a room, because I certainly didn't expect to be charged $12.00 a day to park my Jeep in their parkade! Nor was I expecting to have to pay $3.99 per hour for internet services!

I'm glad I took my own shampoo and body lotion because I wonder what they would have charged me for using those itty bitty bottles they had in the bathroom (which I packed and brought home anyway). In my opinion, the Delta Grand is far too fancy for me and not kid friendly. And the bathroom door was a pocket door that grated every time it was opened or closed.

There were two pools. One completely outdoors and the other half in half out. I enjoyed the pools, but my daughter found them boring. No water slide, which was not the icing on the cake for her. She certainly will not be recommending this Hotel anytime soon and neither will I. I learned that we are not resort people. Give me the Best Western or Holiday Inn Express any day.

Let Me Grieve....

One of the most heart wrenching scenes of the Incident, besides the grievous loss of Juliet and possibly Sayid, is the moment that beautiful blue jeep starts its painful journey toward the magnetic shaft of destruction. Stu Radzinsky has a great deal to answer for and he had better stay the heck away from me. There's nothing worse than an really ticked of redhead with a temper stronger than that magnetic pocket he just tapped so recklessly into! Just what the heck did he think was going to happen when he hit that giant pocket of electromagnetic energy, anyway? I bet he hadn't even contemplated how to control it! Like any mad scientist of fiction, he was on a slippery slope and hell bent on taking whomever, and what ever, he could with him as he descended into his own personal hell. If things haven't been changed by the survivors' actions, then history tells us that he found his own sweet acre of Hades here on Earth.

While we mourn Juliet, I also mourn the blue jeep. I only hope Dharma had more than one, but not to be destroyed. I have a personal attachment to blue jeeps. In fact, my first post ever referenced how much I love the jeep and how excited I was to see Le Fleur tooling around the island in one. It's like my own personal connection to Lost.

Now, each time I drive my own beloved blue Jeep, a piece of me is saddened and yet I am buoyed by the realization that the Dharma Jeep lives on. The trail never ends!


My Jeep Liberty.

LaFleur Drives a Blue Jeep!

LaFleur happens to rank among one of my all time favorite episodes of LOST. Not because we may have had a glimpse of the four -toed foot in it's entirety, and that has generated a whole landslide of debate in itself, but because LaFleur drives a Powder Blue Jeep.

Notice, if you will, the rest of the Dharma minions get to drive VW-like micro-buses, complete with 8-track tape decks. Same Dharma blue colour, but there's something about a Jeep that's ruggedly sexy. It says, I can go anywhere, do anything I please, and I'm cool. I drive a blue Jeep, that's how I know.

But my blue Jeep isn't powder blue. That's just not cool. Maybe way back in the mid-seventies it was, but not any longer. I'm not even sure that Powder Blue was cool back then. I was way too young to care about cool car colours. Besides, until last September I drove a purple car, so who am I to judge the powder blue thing?

The fact that Sawyer drives a different type of vehicle speaks volumes about how he and his crew have insinuated themselves into the Dharma camp. Just moments earlier (three years in their time) Horace Goodspeed was booting them off the island on the next available submarine to Tahiti. Speaking of submarines, perhaps Dharma should do something about the regularity of the sub service in their area, you know, to increase ridership? Anyway, Sawyer, as LaFleur, meanders outside and has a little chat with the ever ageless Richard Alpert and next thing we know, Sawyer's running security for the organization and bossing Radzinsky around. Remember who Radzinsky is, don't you? He was the guy who blew his head off in the Swan? I get the feeling we're going to see more of him and, hopefully, we'll find out what made him blow his top off.

By-the-way, I loved the shout-out to the audience with the eye-liner line. It's nice to know that the writers are paying as much attention to us as we are to them. Yes, yes, I am well aware that Nestor Carbonell does NOT wear eye liner and those are his natural lashes, but come on! Why is it that men are always born with the beautiful lashes that most women would kill for? Psst, mine are invisible! My cross to bear for being a natural born red head. Sigh.

It was nice to see Jin has survived and integrated into Dharma society. After working for old man Paik and doing the dirty work, he must have happily absorbed the almost peaceful atmosphere of island life. Does he miss Sun? Has he found someone to love? Is he friends with Miles yet? Perhaps they share a cottage on the edge of Otherville, living like bachelors.

I'm not terribly fond of Miles.....yet. There's still something, and I can't seem to pinpoint it, that bothers me about him. And it has nothing to do with how he cheated the grieving mother the very first time we met him, either. Not even the fact that he was willing to betray his employer, Charles Widmore, and spare Ben in exchange for 3.2 millions dollars. If anyone else has the same problem, let me know.

We didn't see much of Daniel Faraday this time around. Just in the beginning of the episode and again when he spotted the presumably very young Charlotte. Charlotte, like any woman, has been hiding her real age. Shame on her! According to Ben, she was born in 1979, but we see her as a child of approximately 3 years of age in 1974!

Next week is a repeat of this week's episode, but I can't wait until the 17th. Namaste will show us when and where Sun, Frank and Ben are. We will also see how Jack, Hurley and Kate are introduced to Dharma and what their appointed tasks will be.

So far, season five is as intriguing as season one, when it all started. If you're like me, Wednesday nights don't come fast enough, and then they pass us by way too fast. As I learn about this blogging, I'm sure my pages will become more sophisticated and grow more interesting.

Until next week.