Odd idea concerning the nature of the characters in Alias that connects to my thesis - the characters in Frank Herbert's Dune function as heroes because of their supernatural qualities, but at the same time (while a shallow reading of the text makes it seem otherwise) whatever romanticization they have is stripped from them. For every beyond-normal quality they have, the hours of work and pain and discipline are detailed, implying that yes, even you Mr. Joe Reader could hypothetically become like this. While none of the characters in Alias have supernatural qualities, they certainly behave in a beyond-the-norm manner - their actions take on heroic proportions. Even still, Joe Viewer can apply to the CIA, or can take martial arts, or can take a language or acting course. So the characters of each are at the same time epic in nature and just like you and me - we can identify with them and look up to them simultaneously.

-wasn't there something about cell phone bombs on CSI: Miami the other night? (via Wyatt)

-Nuclear Terrorism - being able to center a map of a blast zone on a zip code is cool, but I wish they'd also lay out likely targets in that regard as well so I would know where to avoid on principle (via Kevin)