It's a tale told many times, but you just can't help wondering what the 14-year-old checkout girl at Shoppers thinks when you show up at her counter and drop lube, a whole bunch of moisturizer, condoms, a Maxim magazine, a lottery ticket and a really stiff brush... I mean I know there must be sensitivity training at the SDM mothership or something like that, because they're always so effortlessly unsurprised by your purchases, but still, it's a riot of mental possibilities. One time I really did buy nothing but KY, rubber gloves, and tampons. There's no explaining that. Just imploring eyes that say too much in the wrong direction. And a whole lot of chuckling afterwards.

Tonight we had the first bifurcated Lost episode, in that it was flashback-centered around two characters instead of one, both of whom are Korean. I don't think that was why, but it raises the question. If the next episode flashes back to the youths of Michael and Mr. Echo, we'll know we're onto something. Meanwhilst, here's everyone who could get killed in the next ep, and why it will suck:

• Sun - would suck because we really want to see the Sun/Jin romantic reunion in four more episodes.
• Claire - would suck because if they had her birth Turnhiphead, only to turn around and kill her (because once a woman has offered up the fruit of her womb she's no longer relevant), I will be forced to be offended.
• Kate - would suck because she's supposedly the star of the show and she looked mighty fetching when she was wriggling through that duct. And also puts a nasty residual spin on the Kate/Sawyer/Jack three-way.
• Shannon - would suck because she's finally not annoying, and is in fact interesting, what with the voices and the grief and the whole new dishevelled look. And also killing the sister of the guy they killed last season smacks of favouritism. Oh: and she's hot. A lot.
• Michelle Rodriguez - wouldn't suck particularly much at all because let's face it she's annoying as hell, but one would hope they didn't introduce a Hispanic character just to whack her three episodes later.
• The New Chick - would suck because if they went to all this falderal about an imminent death, only to kill the New Chick without ever really introducing her, they're fucking rude bitches.

I probably shouldn't say anything yet because it's still entirely first-trimestery, but I took the advice of MacLean and wrote a bitchload of new script today. Nearly twenty pages actually, of a script that was not even a twinkle in my eye this morning other than its title. (One of those "Hmmm... that would be a good title for something sometime" situations.) I can tell you that it's entirely the product of grief (like The Site five years ago) although in a distinctly more veiled way, and otherwise falls under my usual rubrick of end-of-the-world shite (though in an unusual, totally-ripping-off-a-movie-I-like manner). Oh: and I think it's the first time I've had to write a twelve-year-old boy since about 1994, so that's interesting. Boys are different from girls. They have penises.

"That's all the dialogue I can think of today." - Marlon Brando