Chicago Meet-Up! Blog, Facebook and Twitter Contests! It's All Fun & Games... Until Someone Gets Eaten by Smokey

Hello my dear friends -

As Bananarama might say, it's been a cruel, cruel summer. One that has gone by much too quickly -- how did it get to be mid-August already?

In years past I would've made a comment right... about... now where I told myself that it's all good because each passing month brings us that much closer to the Lost premiere, but since this time around we're approaching the series' final eighteen hours, I am actually in no hurry for Season Six to begin. I'm one of those people who gets all depressed before I go on vacation because I start thinking about what a bummer it's going to be to return to the real world afterward, so I simply can't bear to think about the grand finale of our beloved show just yet.

Thankfully, there are a few things to keep me occupied and prevent me from falling into despair anytime soon.

COME ON
BABY DON'T YOU WANT TO GO
BACK TO THAT SAME OLD PLACE
SWEET HOME CHICAGO

The first is Zap2Locke Con, a mini-con (short for "conference," for those of you who don't know your Comic-Cons from your kamikaze shots) right here in Chicago. OK, so it's not really a conference in any way, shape or form, but it still sounds cool, right? Behold its magnificent logo!


This means all you Windy City area peeps need to come by and witness one of the few times I'll ever be away from my laptop for more than a couple of hours. My good buddy Ryan from Zap2it's Guide to Lost is going to be in town, and in his infinite wisdom he proposed that we try to bring together readers of our sites and any other Lost fans that we can round up in the vicinity.

Details are below... but if there's absolutely no way you can make it to Chicago for the event, then you can jump down to this spot, where I'll explain what else I have in store for other faithful LLL readers.

OK, so for those of you who are in Chicago or close enough to justify a trip into the city for this most momentous of occasions, here are the details for Zap2Locke Con:

Where?
The Dark Horse Tap & Grille in Wrigleyville, 3443 N. Sheffield. Chosen in honor of the enigmatic black horse Kate saw both on and off the Island. (Think they'll ever explain THAT mystery? No? Me neither.)

When?
Friday, September 18th, at 7 PM (but Ryan and I will definitely be hanging out on site earlier than that)

Who?
Myself, Ryan from Zap2it's Guide to Lost, our respective spouses, bloggers from Zap2it's other channels, and anyone else who enjoys Lost and wants to hang out for a bit. You do not need to be an uber-Lost fan or anything; there will not be a quiz with 108 questions that you must ace in order to join us. There will not be judgments passed by the likes of Smokey. There will not be snowman riddles you have to answer. Jacob did not give us a list of pre-approved attendees. We just thought it would be a fun thing to do while Ryan was in town.

How?
Um, we'll just show up at The Dark Horse, find a spot in the outdoor garden area, and wait around for people to come by. If nobody does then the Zap2it folks and I will have no choice but to drown our sorrows in MacCutcheon's whiskey.

Why?
Because you KNOW you want to see if I'm as big of a freak as you've imagined me to be! And because you need to at least think and talk a little bit about the show during the hiatus or you're going to forget everything by the premiere next year. And because we'll be giving away stuff! Ryan has a dozen or so bigger-ticket items that will go home with a few lucky attendees and I have a couple of small things in store -- but alas, I didn't finagle a Terry O'Quinn appearance. The promise of some free stuff is better than no free stuff, though, right?

If you think you can make it and you are on Facebook, please please please RSVP through this event page so that we can keep a semi-accurate count.

If you can make it and you're not on Facebook, either leave a comment below and/or write me at e@longlivelocke.com just to give me a heads up.

I have been lucky enough to meet a few Long Live Locke readers in the past and we've always had such a great time, so I really hope that if you're in the area you will be able to join us!

Finally, for those of you who've not yet had the pleasure of reading Ryan's musings on our favorite show, you need to click on over to Zap2it immediately. Ryan is seriously one of the most -- if not the most -- hard-working Lost bloggers on the planet. He cranks out four completely original posts on our favorite show each week -- yes, even during the break. One of my all-time favorites includes scenes from a Lost musical he dreamed up (sample lyric, set to Guns N' Roses "Sweet Child o' Mine," in reference to Zeke: "He's got a beard that seems to me, reminds me of Gorton's fishery." BRILLIANT!) If you like my writing style, you will definitely like his; anyone who was able to join one of our live chats saw first-hand how he and I will often make the same comments simultaneously -- it's like we are of one mind. Which is a scary thought indeed.


OH, THE GAMES PEOPLE PLAY, NOW
EVERY NIGHT AND EVERY DAY, NOW

I was sad not to be able to make it to Comic-Con in San Diego this year for the last-ever Lost panel, and was also disappointed when one of the events for the latest Lost viral game was held out in LA, so I wanted to be sure that I still show a little love to everyone who reads this site and is not near my hometown and therefore can't attend Zap2Locke Con (read: the vast, vast majority of you).

I haven't figured out all of the details yet (and am open to suggestions, so if you have any cool ideas, let me know), but what I am sure of is that I intend to run a series of games, contests and online events between now and the series finale so that I can not only "meet" more of you, but also dole out a few small tokens of appreciation for the time you've spent reading my posts, leaving comments, writing to me and enriching my Lost experience so, so much over the past five years.

Some of these contest-game-thingies will be held solely on this site, others might be Facebook-based and still others might be Twitter-based. I'm proud and envious of anyone who has resisted the temptation to give in and join Facebook (which I actually like) and/or Twitter (which I kind of despise), so rest assured that there will still be ample opportunities for you to participate in many of the (most likely bizarre) competitions I dream up even if you only check this blog and nothing else.

That being said, if you ARE on Facebook and/or Twitter and haven't yet connected with me, you can do so here and here. While not all of the games will be time-sensitive (as in, "the first person to respond gets X!"), you'll definitely be made aware of what's going on more quickly if you're linked to me through FB and Twitter.

I will also be sure that a good percentage of the games will be open to those outside of the U.S. -- I'm a sucker for your accents even if I can't actually hear them.

So stay tuned for the first Long Live Locke contest... I'm hoping to have it up before the end of August and then continue with at least one new game or event per month until next May. Remember you can sign up for the email notifications or the RSS feed of my posts through the links in the right-hand column so you don't need to keep checking back.

(I can't end this section without giving a huge shout-out to LLL reader, FB friend and graphic designer Mair Daliessio for creating the "Locke in a LLL t-shirt" graphic above! Thanks!)


RAPPER'S DELIGHT

Before the first contest is announced, here's a little something to keep you entertained. I sent this out via Twitter a month or so ago, but I wanted to make sure that all of you have seen the very impressive and equally hilarious video below called "The John Locke Rap." I've come across so many Lost spoofs that as I pressed play and settled in to watch this one, I figured I'd probably only be able to deal with it for about thirty seconds before deciding that it was too lame to continue wasting my time on. But lo and behold, these guys really went all out with their rhyming skillz and I was thoroughly entertained for four and a half minutes. (The video may take up to a full minute to load, be patient... it's worth it. Here's the direct link to it on YouTube, as well.)

Those guys are like Lost fandom's version of Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake, no? I emailed them to tell them how much they rock and they wrote back and said that one of them is in a band called My Broken Hero, and that their second album was entitled "Man of Science/Man of Faith." Love it! If MySpace kills your computer like it does mine, you can check out their Facebook fan page here.

OK, since it took me a full week to finish writing this relatively short post, I better wrap it up and get working on the first contest, since the end of August is almost nigh.

I hope you are all having a wonderful summer so far! And yes, I do still plan to write about what went down at Comic-Con (or what I learned went down, as I wasn't actually there -- sniff), but I have no idea when I'll get to that. Oh, wait, yes I do: before January.

More within 1.5 weeks,
- e