After launching her rockin’ photoblog, gwynnejohnson.com, a few months back, Gwynne has gone and done it again. Her newly christened, slightly more text-y blog, gwynnejohnson.blogspot.com, will chronicle her adventures in Rockport, ME, this summer at a program called the Maine Photographic Workshop.

Ana and I are so happy for G-money. It sounds like she’s incredibly psyched about photography camp and between her new red car, her new red car, and her successful removal of red-eye from every picture of Stephen Baldwin (long story), things are clearly looking up. For further evidence, just witness the latest cheery pic on her photoblog. Alright, it’s not exactly a smiling baby, but I’m taking the disappearance of the “Virgin Mary in trash heap” motif to be a good sign. A very good sign, indeed.

I got this idea from Andy’s SynchingMac blog, which I just checked in on last night. Pretty cool stuff. I’d post my Google Trends chart of the Baldwin Brothers in 2006, but — well, it’s just all too disturbing.

OK, I’m just wanna throw this out there: Locke is the lost heir to the Widmore family, an extremely weathy clan with a Murdoch-like empire of companies under their control. In the final episode of the season, we’re going to see Locke’s twin, Charles, another baldie (who looks fairly similar to O’Quinn). Charles is the British Widmore heir; Locke is the American (as referred to in the last official Lost Podcast). For those who’ve read “Bad Twin,” Locke is Zander to Charles’s Cliff.

Separated at Birth?
Alan Dale (left), set to play Charles Widmore, and Terry O’Quinn (right) as John Widmore, née Locke

The Widmore companies are the ones pulling the strings at the Hanso Foundation and, by extension, the Darhma Initiative and the Lost island. I’m not totally sure why Charles would want to bring Locke to the island (he could be sick, wanting to remove Locke as a potential heir, etc.), but my bet is that we’ll get some clue about what he’s up to in the finale.

As for Michael, I suspect that tomorrow night’s episode will show that he worked for Widmore and was, in some way or another, manipulated by his employer to spring Henry Gale two episodes ago. A lot of this is based on reading “Bad Twin” and what I’ve gotten off of lostpedia.com (Incidentally, I also like the theory that “Bad Twin” was authored by James Patterson). Although the Lost Experiece game and thehansofoundation.org site have been entertaining and fun thus far, I’m not totally sure how those clues about Alvar Hanso and the company board add up. If I had to guess, I’d say there’s something similar to the plot of “The Constant Gardener” — drug trials and scientific experiments going on in Africa, the Middle East, and hard-to-find islands, plus plenty of other shady pharmaceutical company dealings. But regardless of what the island’s actual scientific purpose is (I think there are many, actually), I’m fairly confident that the Widmores are behind it.

There, I’ve said my peace.

Jeez! After three-plus weeks of cracking Da Vinci Code Quest on Google puzzles, they go and pull the plug. I totally didn’t see this coming. I was down to the last round, fiddling with the hardest Soduku-type puzzle, when Ana started complaining and insisting that I come to bed. “Oh well,” I thought, “I’ll just finish it tomorrow.” Little did I know there wouldn’t be a tomorrow — at least, in the world of Quests on Google.

To up the frustration, Doug DID finish. What’s more, he got an email saying congrats and that his cryptex decoder is in the mail. That’s right, his own bonafide cryptex! Mother-effin-cryptex. Man oh man do I feel gypped. And I mean that in the gypsie-swindling etymology of the word.

While I try to live vicariously through Doug’s success — and perhaps aid in his conquering of the next Quest round — I can also console myself in the new Google Talk. Free phone calls over the internet? Sweet!

(OK, I know there were already plenty of companies like Skype doing the free phone call thingy. But honestly, don’t they all sound kinda sketchy. While Google may well be vying against the NSA, Cheney, DARPA’s TIA program, and La Cosa Nostra for the title of Big Brother 2006, they’re still the most trustworthy of the bunch, wouldn’t you agree?)

The setup: A cat laser that automatically comes on, moves in circles around the room, pauses, then circles again — all automated to save me from having to use the hand-operated lasers. As if that weren’t friggin great enough, it’s called the “Bada Beam” (evoking a certain adult club featured on a certain HBO original series).

The dilemma: Do I buy this brilliant invention, thus proving that I am the single laziest cat owner on the face of the earth, too lame to even manipulate a cat dancer or get up to shine the hand-held laser around the apartment?

Only time will tell.