I loved the ping-pong game, especially what Sun & Jin thought up about Sawyer having to give up nick-names for a week if he lost. Sawyer really didn't lose anything, but he had to exercise some constraint, besides it gave everyone else a bit of reprieve from his constant verbal darts. Hurley looked reaaaaal serious at the start of that game. He had a look of determination not present in other circumstances. I had a suspicion of the outcome when he asked about the 11-0 rule.

There was no trickery by the others. It was game - a gamble... Sawyer didn't see it as a gamble, only because he didn't consider that somebody else could be good at ping-pong, let alone better than him. That's pretty arrogant. Sawyer saw it as a hustle but I didn't see it that way, not really. If anybody did any hustling - Sawyer did it to himself. Hurley knew his own skill, but I didn't see anything to make me believe he had the same ridiculously arrogant certainty of winning that Sawyer did.
I never thought it was about the stuff per se. I saw him going for power. His gathering stuff was just a means... the stuff provided bargaining power - leverage to use with anybody else, as needed. There are a few things he cares about. He likes reading. However his attachment has limits - he refuses to take back his girly magazine back when he sees the guy is holding a toilet paper type thing behind it. He gets grossed out. As much as he hated them, he cared about the glasses and was glad when he got those back. He needed those to read.

I like Sayid a lot. He has a lot of integrity. I feel badly that he seems to get "compromised" by a painful loss later on. (I am a lot further along in the transcripts than I am in the show).

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You don't have to if I got too into the philosophy stuff for your taste. I will try to avoid carrying on like that from now on.

One thing I do not like about this show is the amount of "action" guns and violence. There is enough of that as to make it hard to watch, but now I've started I'll watch it to the end. I like the mysteries, the symbolism, the philosophy and psychology. Later there is more some sci-fi. I like that too.

~ waves ~