Oh! And I meant to add, Yes, lots of alkaloid-containing herbs will work when rubbed on even intact skin, and very, very quickly when rubbed on broken skin.
Great, now I’m singing
*John Locke the witch doctor said I’m in love with you
John Locke the witch doctor said you don’t love me too
John Locke the witch doctor, he told me what to do
He said that …
Oo ee, oo ah ah
Ting tang walla walla
Bing bang
Oo ee, oo ah ah
Ting tang walla walla
Brrraaaiii-aaaaaiiiiins!
*
Yeah, we don’t really know how far back that Sawyer flashback goes. We’ve had two Kate flashbacks, and they seem to have been in reverse order (the episode putting her in Australia was aired before the episode with the bank robbery). Clearly there’s more to learn about Sawyer and how he got from being a stateside con man to an Australian whatever-he-was getting arrested.
Oh, and one other thing I pondered while watching last night’s show: With all the discussion about mango, papaya, guava, coconut, etc., this seems to me to be a remarkably well-fruited island. Almost… designed that way. 
I’m thinking that Sawyer did kill someone, maybe Jack’s dad. Could it be that he was also being transported by law enforcement? Did anyone see him on the plane? That would explain him saying that he and Kate have a connection; they’re both escaped convicts.
Just a note for people speculating about the TCM from Boone’s ‘vision quest’; remember that, as far as we know, none of that was actually happening. So maybe we shouldn’t try to get too many clues about the nature of the TCM from that particular episode.
Thanks, Monstre and Cervaise. I did go back and check on those scenes later. (Could have done it before, but it’s not as much fun as Dopin’.)
eenerms: Here is the relevant info on Michelangelo:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/2891/michels.html
Apparently he suffered a great deal, not only because of his father, but because of the physical positions he put himself in so that he could create his works of art.
I’m still thinking about this and Locke…
A question for the salt-water fishermen among us: It seemed to me that Jin and Hurley were fishing in too shallow water to catch anything big. Fish the size of Jin’s catch would school further out, not in the shorebreak, right?
If he killed Jack’s dad in Australia he wouldn’t be extradited because it would fall under Australian juristiction. It was also implied in Jack’s flashback that his father committed suicide, hence Jack’s impossible guilt.
I suspect Sawyer just got in an altercation with Jack’s drunk dad. Since it was “Dr. vs. Scruffy Guy”, Sawyer’s the one who got tossed in the pokey (heck, maybe Jack’s dad spent the night in the drunk tank too).
Maybe Sawyer saw Kate in a holding cell waiting for transport.
Oh, and related to the above (spoiler contains outside source info), but isn’t tremendously spoilery:
Didn’t the producers or some site say that all the characters would be connected somehow? I think that came up while we were talking about Claire’s ep.
I think Sawyer could kill in self defense or something. Sort of like Kate. Which is also the connection they have, they’ve both been living on the wrong side of the law for a long time. But I’d be surprised if Sawyer directly killed Jack’s dad. During Boone’s flashback didn’t he say, “it was his bottle, I just gave it back to him.” Maybe he was being charged with providing alcohol to someone obviously too intoxicated, and got involved in some sort of tussle at the bar over it. I’d guess if you get arrested as a foreign national in Australia, it wouldn’t take much for them to tell you to leave the country. I’m also thinking about when Sawyer tried to kill the marshall out of mercy, but screwed it up. He doesn’t have a natural killer instinct, as tough as he talks.
Alright help me out with this. A co-worker just offered a theory about Boone’s vision quest. And it is really messing with my mind.
She thinks that the flashback that occurred ‘during’ the vision quest can’t be trusted as a flashback about real events in the past. She says the Boone flashback during the vision quest period was either the incest one or the Sawyer in the police station one. She said either could just be the product of things in Boone’s mind, like maybe he never actually slept with Shannon but always wanted to and feels guilty just about the desire – and that Sawyer could have just appeared in the vision quest flashback because he is antagonist on the island and Boone dropped him into a memory during the vision quest.
I don’t know. In my mind the flashbacks were apart from the vision quest, and thus I am trusting them to be imperical truth. And since I have this mindset I really wasn’t paying any attention to which flashbacks were ‘during’ the vision quest.
But the possible f***ed-up, plot-twisting, reality-monkeying possiblities my co-worker’s theory opens up are mind boggling!
-rainy
I think the flashbacks are separate from the visions. Otherwise it would make no sense whatsoever! 
He is (unfortunately, in my opinion) getting to the age where he enjoys ogling bikini-clad hotties. He still doesn’t like Shannon, though!
It was Monica and Chandler peed on her because Joey had performance anxiety.
I’ve got a request for random speculation about next week’s ep. Sawyer apparently took Claire’s diary, and won’t give it up. Would Sawyer do this just to be sleazy? Doesn’t he usually take things that have some value–i.e. shampoo, electronics, money, etc.?
As others have mentioned, I don’t get the lack of concern about Claire. Sure, they’re all trying to survive, but there’s a crazed kidnapper somewhere on the island. Plus a crazy French lady who could possibly know something about the crazy kidnapper. Shouldn’t someone be jumping on this situation, even if they consider Claire to be a lost cause and are just concerned with the safety of everyone else? I wish the hobbit would tell us what happened! Charlie mentioned “them” shortly after his rescue. Care to elaborate, Chas??
Do we know the timeframe here? I believe I heard Kate mention last night that they had been on the island for three weeks. Jeez, it seems like they’ve been there since September! 
I agree-- the flashbacks are real, or at least as real as Boone’s memory of them. The whole “incest” thing is consistent with his overprotectiveness of Shannon.
I had forgotten that Jack’s dad committed suicide, and I think it’s reasonable to accept that as being “true”, in the sense of NOT being a trick from the writers. But he still could have gotten into an altercation with him.
I’ve seen the writers quoted as saying they wanted each episode to be “a few” days. Assuming that’s about 3 days per ep and we’re on ep #12, that makes it about 5 weeks now.
And, remember Rousseau’s warning-- something started happening to her group after 2 months on the island. Dammit, I WANT MORE ROUSSEAU!
I agree that Boone’s flashbacks are real. The reason being that the flashbacks are not part of his immediate, hallucinogenic, experience. They’re there for us, the watchers, as history of what has already happened. We’re watching both Boone’s current experience (vision quest) **and **past history. He’s only experiencing the vision quest. His timeline stops while we see history. When we come back to him, his story picks up where it left off.
This has been true of every other character, and it would be too far a break from the established Way Of Things[sup]TM[/sup] for it to be different for Boone. It wouldn’t be a mislead, or a red herring, or cleverness on the writers’ part - it would just be confusing.
You’re making the assumption that TCM is real in the first place, though. Be careful what you assume about LOST…
Seriously, though, we really don’t know if it’s real. And, as someone mentioned earlier, why are there no signs of it (eg, TCM tracks) anywhere?
Well let me start by saying I hope you all are right about the flashbacks otherwise I’m going to have to start a spreadsheet to keep this all sorted out.
But…some of the flashbacks have been tied to events on the island as if we are privy in the flashbacks to what is going on in the character’s minds.
Cases in point;
Locke gets knocked down/stunned by the boar – flashback
Jack suffers physical trauma while pursuing Claire – flashback
Sayid in drug induced stupor in French lady’s digs – flashback
Most of hobbit’s flashbacks were when he was hitting it.
So the mechanism of the flashback is at least sometimes tied to ‘real’ events on the island. I don’t think they we are guarenteed that the flashbacks are coming to us from an impartial History Channel documentary point of view.
Just playing D’s advocate a little.
-rainy
Hmmm…interesting points. I think I agree with you rainy on the flashbacks.
A lot has happened already with this show yet I see so much more that we need to and will prolly find out! love it 
I see those “trigger points” more as a plot enhancing mechanism to help the audience transition into the backstory. In fact, I don’t think the writers intend us to view the flashbacks as something the characters are actually expereincing at the moment.
Nah, they’re everywhere, man. I’ve surf casted, jetty fished, sand bar fished, pier fished, and river mouth fished. You can get a good sized fish in very shallow water or quite close to shore. Likewise, you can find some pretty worthlessly small fish in the deep ocean.