They say God never closes a door without opening up a thread. We’re here to do his work.

A quick rundown of geek hits: rumors fly that The Office’s John Krasinski is in consideration to play Captain America, that Ole Miss will change its mascot to Admiral Ackbar, and that Conan O’Brien has been blowing people away with his Tweets. Sorry; that last one sounded kind of dirty. And yet it’s the story most likely to still be true three months from now. Isn’t that how Hollywood works?

Question: Which actor would you like to play Captain America? Which pop-culture icon should become your school’s mascot?

There's potential for an OTI article here - how long can an Internet meme lay dormant before reviving it again becomes funny? It certainly forces us to IT'S A TRAP! ... sorry. that slipped out.

In less entertaining news, “Growing Pains” actor Andrew Koenig was found dead in a Colorado park yesterday, after having gone missing for several days. Police suspect suicide. His father, Star Trek veteran Walter Koenig, said that Andrew had been dealing with depression for some time. Among child actors who peak early, this isn’t unheard of.

Do you have anything cheerier for us to end on? Then by all means say it! Because this is your … open thread!

Every Winter Olympics, I do two things:

1. Marvel anew at the existence of ice dancing.
2. Watch the 1993 Disney comedy Cool Runnings.

The movie stars John Candy, testing our suspension of disbelief as a former Olympic athlete. He has a theory that world-class sprinters are really just underdressed world-class bobsledders. And when three of Jamaica’s fastest are tripped up trying to qualify for the Summer games, Candy gets to put his theory to the test. As he explains to one of his old teammates:

Listen, three of these guys can run the hundred in under ten-flat. I don’t care who you are, that’s lightning!

But what Irv fails to mention is that the fourth team member, Sanka Coffie, runs the hundred in about fifteen.

Every now and then, we like to take a break from our usual coverage of cyborg movies and dance pop to talk about something a little different.  By which I mean:  every now and then it’s one in the morning on the night before my post is due, and I’ve spent the last two hours frantically scrambling for a topic and coming up blind.  I just haven’t consumed any particularly interesting pop culture in the last week.  Makes it kind of hard to write about the stuff.

So what did I do this past week?  Well, I had a pretty good sandwich… yeah.  Okay, sandwiches.  Let’s overthink this thing.

[By popular demand, we're bringing you a Lost-oriented Open Thread this week.  And if it goes well, we'll bring you another one next Wednesday, too!  But don't worry—this isn't this week's only Lost post.  I'll still be subjecting "Lighthouse" to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve.  Come back Monday to see the full piece!]

So, here we are, four (or five, depending on who’s counting) episodes into Lost’s sixth season, and I’ve gotta tell you, I am loving it.  Although I disliked the flash sideways-es at the beginning, I think that had less to do with the narrative structure and more to do with the fact that Kate is just an uninteresting character. The events that occurred on the Island and in the flash Universe worked together to remind me of why I was so interested in the character of Jack back in seasons 1 and 2, before he started pining too much after Kate, before he got a tattoo in Thailand, before he stopped asking the important questions.  I’ll talk more about his flashsideways in my full post on Monday, but I was glad to see him get a full episode of character development before the season was up.

Question 1: The flash sideways-es: Awesome, or a waste of time?  Would you prefer a faster, more epic pace, or are you as cool as I am with these super-slow-burning character episodes?

"So, you and me are just gonna talk this whole episode? Uh, that's cool. I guess."

Speaking of Jack, it seems the the Daddy issues we thought the show forgot about are back and raring to go.

Question 2: Does this mean that Sayid, the only main living character who doesn’t have Daddy issues of his own, is doomed to die before the show’s climax?

And, speaking of Daddy issues, the unseen Christian Shephard haunted this episode.  (My bet is that we’re not going to see him again until the climax of the show — maybe the third-t0-last episode.)

Question 3: Takin’ all bets!  Christian Shephard: good or evil?  On the good side: Jack reminded us this week that he helped the Lostie’s out in the first season by leading them to the caves!  (Also his name is “Christian Shephard.”)  On the evil side: Back in the day, we saw him hanging out in the creepy cabin (which was probably being used by evil Smokey) with Infected/Evil Claire.

Speaking of Claire…

Question 4: Claire: What’s the deal?

The Othahs ate ha baybee!

And, finally, the big question:

Question 5: Now that the answers of Lost are coming out all fast and furious, do you WANT all the questions to be answered?  While I certainly want the big questions answered, I don’t want the show to lose its sense of mystery, either.  It’s like, if I were in a room with a poet, would I have him or her gloss every single word?  Then the poem would lose its spark.  Of course, I can easily understand the other point of view: “I invested so many hours in this thing.  I need to know that it all makes sense, that it holds together!”  (Also: is this debate just a meta-level recapitulation of the old “faith vs. science” debate we keep seeing in the show?  Am I like poor, deluded Locke, saying, “I looked into the eye of this network television series, and what I saw was beautiful”?  And if you, the rationalist answer-lovers, don’t get the answers you desire, will you take a telescope, Jack-style, and start smashing all the mirrors in Darlton’s houses?)

See you on Monday.

Last week, Fenzel wrote a thoughtful analysis of the song “Tik Tok” by Ke$ha. In the resulting discussion in the comments, OTI reader “Brimstone” had this to say about how the song furthers Ke$ha’s image as a “skank”:

I don’t listen to much modern pop but I’ve been a rock fan for ages, and male fans ‘glamorizing self-destructive behavior’ goes back as far as the blues, if beyond. The author of this piece is right – she’s doing the rock star persona thing, which ties into the Mick Jagger line. And that’s cool! Guys have been writing songs like this for decades… Nothing wrong with a girl doing it.

Brilliant observation, Brimstone. And to further illustrate your point, I’ve taken the liberty of re-recording a bit of “Tik Tok”…

as a Muddy Waters-esque old school blues song.

→Download Tik Tok (The Blues Version) [MP3, 2.6 MB]

Try listening to it. Thematically, it makes sense (well, except for the pedicure part) and isn’t nearly as weird as the picture above suggests.

More tellingly, the sum total isn’t that far removed from a Muddy Waters tune along the lines of “Hootchie Coochie Man”…

…or B. B. King’s “Let The Good Times Roll”:

Readers: what do you think of this unholy combination? Have you gained a new appreciation for Ke$ha? Or did I only succeed in sending Muddy Waters spinning in his grave? Sound off in the comments!

Update: Love the song? Digg it here.

[Disclaimer: As you can see, I’ve titled this piece “Season 6 Episode 3” even though everyone else in the world is calling this “Episode 604.”  The reason for this is that I erroneously interpreted the season premiere as one episode when, apparently, it counts as two.  I hope you can enjoy this piece, regardless.]

Lost has always been a show about dichotomies, but maybe never more so than in this week’s episode, “The Substitute.”  In this episode alone we saw dramatized all of our favorite dualisms.  To wit:

• Light vs. dark: Symbolized by the rocks on the scales
• Things you can do vs. things you cannot: Embodied by Alterna-Locke and Un-Locke
• Being trapped vs. being free: Un-Locke again
• Acceptance vs. denial: Alterna-Locke and Alterna-Rose
• Realism (or nihilism, if you want to be dark) vs. faith in miracles

And, beyond that, of course, we have the whole “two timelines” thing going on, allowing us to see two versions of every character operate side-by-side.  So we see Evil Island-Ben looking into the grave of one of the many men he killed and Not-Evil-Evil-But-Still-Kind-of-a-Prick-European-History-Teacher Ben who wants to grab a cup of tea with Locke, his new buddy.  The Bad Luck Hurley of 2007 is now being contrasted with Good Luck Hurley, the easy-going multi-millionaire from 2004, and Rose, who once was the big lover of faith and hope, is now a grim realist.  In fact, we now have two versions of every character, except for Locke, who, being special, gets his very own trinity of selves: Dead Locke (who I like to think of as The Father), Alterna-Locke (who I like to think of as Dead Locke’s spiritual “son”), and Un-Locke (the Unholy Spirit).

Anyway, except in the case of the three Lockes, we’ve seen a lot dichotomies in the last few seasons of Lost, and now it’s coming out big time.

The main question that arises when we think about these dichotomies, of course, is, “Which side is going to win?”  Are the writers ultimately going to side with science or faith?  Fate or free will?  Jacob or the Man in Black?  The 2007 Universe or the 2004 Universe?  And so on.  These are all forms of the same kind of question.

But is that the right kind of question?  My theory for a while has been this: Lost’s writers have been tricking us all along.  They have been manipulating us–nearly forcing us–to look at the world they’ve created as a Manichean Universe, a big ol’ backgammon board with two sets of pieces and a decidedly “black and white” world view.  But this is all a ruse.  In the end, my bet is that Lost’s world isn’t Manichean at all.  It’s a gray, gray, gray, gray world.

Matthew Wrather hosts with Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Josh McNeil to overthink Academy Award Nominations, with detours into what makes an Oscar-worthy performance, the meaning of meaning, and movies Fenzel has always wanted to make.

→ Download Episode 86 (MP3)

We’re still livestreaming the podcast recording on Ustream (on the Overthinking It Podcast Page, where it will return next week on Sunday at 9:15pm ET (6:15pm PT). (In two weeks, we’ll be watching the Oscars.)

Want new episodes of the Overthinking It Podcast to download automatically? Subscribe in iTunes! (Or grab the podcast RSS feed directly.)

Tell us what you think! Leave a comment, use the contact form, email us or call (203) 285-6401.

Update Feb 22, 2010 10:49am: Oscars are two weeks from today, not one week. We’ll be livestreaming like normal next week.

Falling from the sky like an unraveled skein, it’s this week’s OPEN THREAD.

In the stranger-than-fantasy-fiction category, J.K. Rowling has been hit with a plagiarism lawsuit by an author claiming that Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire stole several ideas. Or rather, the lawsuit’s being filed by the dead author’s estate. I’d make some joke about a Hogwarts artifact that communicates with the dead, but (A) I don’t know the series that well, and (B) this is such a transparent publicity stunt I can hardly jape about it.

Question: is plagiarism even that big a deal, outside of schools?

Because once you've made the first $1,000,000, your future writing probably won't be scrutinized at all.

Martin Scorsese’s latest, Shutter Island, opens in theaters this weekend. Metacritic gives it a 64/100: generally favorable reviews. DiCaprio’s Boston accent? A 29.

Question: what’s the worst accent ever attempted on film?

Dude, you see that feckin' Statie ovah deah? Dude, bro, he looks WICKED pissed.

And finally, GamesRadar observes that this week marked the 20th anniversary of the U.S. release of Super Mario Bros. 3. A groundbreaking platformer, with astonishing level variety, an unprecedented range of powerups and gameplay that was challenging without being frustrating, SMB 3 set the bar high for the greatest franchise in video games.

Question: does SMB 3 stand up to the test of time?

Do you want to plagiarize someone else’s Shutter Island review so you can get back to your Tanuki suit? Then HAVE AT IT, YOUNG’N! Because this is your … Open Thread!

“Weights and measures may be ranked among the necessaries of life, to every individual of human society. They enter into economical arrangement and daily concerns of every family. They are necessary to every occupation of human industry, to the distribution and security of every species of property, to every transaction of trade in commerce, to the labors of the husbandman, to the ingenuity of the artificer, to the studies of the philosopher, to the reaches of the antiquarian, to the navigation of the mariner and the marches of the soldier; to all the exchanges of peace and all the operations of war.”

Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, 1821

A note on sources:

For the factual background of this article, I relied heavily on an article by Hector Vera at the New School for Social Research. It’s short, interesting, available here and well worth a read.

For pop culture uses of the English System of Measurement, I tried a crowdsourcing experiment, calling on friends and family to help me list instances of popular culture featuring units of measurement. Dozens of them responded to a query on Facebook or the hijacking of otherwise pleasant conversation. I am in their debt.

Since its introduction during the era of rationalism that followed the French revolution, the decimal metric system has spread to the vast majority of the world. Universally standardized weights and measures, easily converted even by those who can only multiply and divide by 10 provide obvious advantages to international science and trade. By the mid 20th century, the world was basically divided with the UK, its Commonwealth and the USA using the English standard system and everyone else on metric. Today, only three countries continue to reject the metric system: Burma/Myanmar, Liberia and the United States of America.

A quick look at those three countries:

Obviously, the US is a bit of an exception here, if for no other reason than that we finished our civil war a long time ago.

I'm-a Mario! I'm-a an end in-a myself!

Who is Mario?

Mario is a guy with a moustache and red suspenders. He jumps on top of or over things in order to rescue a princess.

Why does he want to rescue the Princess?

Because she’s been kidnapped: sometimes by a giant ape, sometimes by a giant turtle.

No, that’s why she needs rescuing. That’s a tautology. Why does Mario want to be the one that rescues her?

Well, that depends on the setting. Most instances of Mario rescuing the Princess imply a rather chaste romance between the two.

Can Mario want something other than to rescue the Princess?

… hmm.