If Jack Bauer Were On Lost, They'd Have Been Off The Island In a Day

So, the election is over. America voted, and history was made. Hopefully, we can put our differences aside at some point and actually try and grow as a country instead of continuing the divisiveness that has plagued us for a long time now. I doubt it will happen soon, but I'm going to try and be hopeful. Either way, we can finally move on to other pressing matters.

24 is back.

Well, not entirely, but on November 23 there's a 2 hour movie coming out, and that was enough for me to break out my WWJBD (What Would Jack Bauer Do) bracelet today. To say I'm geeked is an understatement. I'm giddy. I may do a little dance later. I'll get back to you on that.

For the uninitiated, 24 is a show where America faces some terrorist threat, and in real time, Jack Bauer (played unerringly by the occasionally inebriated Kiefer Sutherland) manages to diffuse said threat in a 24 hour period. He does so by first always being right, and second by being a bad ass of epic proportions.

What's funny about 24 is that I love to watch it, and I love to root for Jack Bauer, even though he really stands for a lot of things I loathe. He does not hesitate to torture people for information (the highlight of the last season for me was when a dude wouldn't talk, so he shot the dude's wife in the leg, even though he was clearly friends with her). He's totally flippant about breaking laws that get in his way. He abandons all notions of personal rights if he thinks he can get information to stop whatever terrible thing is about to happen. Of course, it's watchable because he's (almost) always right, but still.

The thing about the show is that it's really well written. Everything Jack does has terrible consequences for him - he's essentially a man who has given up everyhting in his life to defend his country. He's lost his family. He's become a heroin addict. He always ends up an outlaw, hiding out until the doody hits the fan, and then he gets pulled in somehow to open yet another man size can of whoop ass on someone. So even though it's always preposterous, it's written well enough that I can't help but watch.

So yeah, the guy who couldn't give a damn what's on television tonight <i>finally</i> has something to look forward to. I seriously can't remember the last time there was scripted programming that really moved me to excitement of any kind, but 24 does that. If you've missed it, do yourself a favor and start catching up on the DVDs now. You'll be glad you did.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get into the spirit of things and go torture the &#%$ out of an analyst until they tell me whether or not I should be validating this data before the user can save it. Sweet.