Moments after Alex enters the code to shut down the
sonic defense system, a phone rings in Ben’s cabin. When Locke
answers, he is greeted by a semi-mechanical voice reciting the
message: Code 14J.

  
This is LOST, of course, and 14J is a clue,
right?

  According to Wikipedia, 14J is a job
classification in the Air Defense Artillery Branch of the US
Army. The career associated with the 14J classification is called
Air Defense Tactical Operations Center Operator/Maintainer also known as
an
Early Warning System Operator.

  Exactly! So – does this imply a military connection to
the island, or is it just part of an elaborate plan by the writers to
make us all stay up late looking up stuff like this! Hmmmm…

LOCKE: What is the Monster?

BEN: What?

LOCKE: The black smoke, the Monster, what is it?

BEN: I don’t know.

from Episode 2, Confirmed Dead

  The monster has been a mystery since LOST began. Recently,
in an
interview with Jorge Garcia on AOL Television, he mentions
something about an upcoming episode involving the smoke monster:

… but something happens, that’s coming up, that involves that thing, and it’s just… it’s pretty crazy.

  Could he have been talking about last night’s episode (The Shape of Things to Come)?

  Episode 9 leaves us with many many things to think about and the nature of the monster is just
one of them. Can we think of the Smoke Monster as a piece of a very complicated game? When Alex is captured, Ben plays a mind game
with her captor. He refers to Alex as a pawn (bluffing – playing Poker now rather than Chess)
The mind game fails and Ben appears to be in shock. He changed the rules? mutters Ben.

  
Rules? We saw what the Smoke Monster did
to the crewman from the freighter. Was he a pawn? Is the Smoke Monster a rook? Controlling the center of the board is
important in the game of Chess. When Ben confronts Widmore, we begin to understand that control of the island may be the object of the
game in LOST. Allgames, the webmaster of lostisagame.com has a lot to say about the nature of LOST.
Is LOST really a game? Certainly, there are a great many game references in the show.

  Jeff Jensen (aka Doc Jensen, theoretical LOSTologist) of
Entertainment Weekly
has been visiting the cast and crew of LOST on the island of
Hawaii! Doc, of course, has provided us with some of the most interesting
LOST theories imaginable. Now, in Hawaii, he is privy to all sorts of new
information.

—– possible spoilers follow —-

  Apparently, no one was watching, because not only did
Doc Jensen enter Ben’s house, but he went into Ben’s secret room and
put on his clothes!! Pretty creepy, eh? Ben! I’m wearing your clothes!!
It’s all in the video (upper right).

  Here are some very interesting excerpts from the magazine:

Our first eight episodes, by design, were all set up for these episodes to come. That we’re doing just five instead of eight means they’re even more packed with plot. It’s payoff time.
– Matthew Fox

  
Mysterious things are happening to Claire that set up the next few episodes–and the next few years, too. – Carlton Cuse

  
I thought we would ease into things. Instead, I get this all-Ben extravaganza: combat, riding horses, foreign languages. And piano playing! All waaay outside my comfort zone. How can you work two weeks and feel like you need a vacation already? – Michael Emerson on the first episode after the writers’ strike.

  Big and epic – Matthew Fox on the upcoming episodes

  
Look for a raging gunbattle at Camp Locke, a murder victim (apparently) washing up on shore, a flash forward to
Ben’s war with billionaire Charles Widmore, Sayid’s romance with Nadia and more.

Thanks go to EW.com for the info!!

The internet ratings service known as Quantcast.com
says that for every 79 males who visit LOST.COM, there are 119 female visitors. According to Quantcast:
The site attracts a more youthful, more affluent, more female audience.

Holy Smokes! From what I had seen of LOST fandom, there were more females but this is the first time I’ve
seen real statistical proof.

I was going write something about LOST, dynamite and how I love the smell of gunpowder and
cordite in the morning, but I can’t ignore these stats. We can still talk about gunpowder, exploding submarines
and the proper handling of unstable dynamite, but we can’t ignore Evangeline Lilly’s clothing either. Right??

Dana has a website called Fashion Under 100
where she duplicates (roughly) the same outfits worn by celebrities for under $100.00 by finding the components
online. Here is the entry for an outfit recently worn by Evangeline Lilly.

In a related story, Evie and Dom are still together. What? You thought they broke up? Well – you were wrong!!

  I’m convinced that the LOST Experience alternate reality
game that played out between Seasons 2 and 3 has some important clues for LOST fans. LOSTLOVER, who has a blog here at LOST.com, recently posted that
she thinks Ben may be connected to the Hanso Foundation. Her evidence is found at the Hanso Foundation website (yes – you thought it was down with
only the letter from Alvar Hanso!) under Executive Bios. Peter Thompson’s bio says that he was miraculously cured of cancer at the Alvar Hanso Cancer Center in Geneva. Of course,
we now know that Ben told Juliet that he arranged for her sister to be cured of cancer. Now, that’s something to think about: a connection between Ben and the Hanso Foundation!
Read more here!

  For anyone who doubts that the clues in The LOST Experience will someday mean
something to us, remember the scene in a recent episode, The Constant, where we see Charles Widmore
purchase the log of The Black Rock at auction. The seller was Tovard Hanso!