The Year of the Oh-Niners

I want to say that the reason I haven't posted for so long was because of a rigorous barrage of finals (just to put my particular finals week into perspective, I was inspired to watch Kill Bill 1&2, Jackass: The Movie, and 28 Days Later in straight succession while working on them). I even think it would be acceptable to say that I've been busy with student teaching. But, to be honest, I haven't posted in such a long time because I do not think it is possible to ever top Neal's and Ryan's amazingly geeky Star Wars vs Star Trek banter. Things like that don't happen every day, and if you've read through their meticulously planned point/counterpoint argument, you should pat yourself on the back for witnessing something worthy of induction to the geek hall of fame.
Even though I know this post (nor any of my subsequent posts) will ever come close to capturing such unbridled awesome, I can't neglect my little blog any longer.

So, 2008 is over, right? Yeah, I thought so. Here's what I remember fondly about that year:

The Dark Knight: I want to preface this by describing how much I love the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Those were movies that effectively captured the living essence of an already stellar work of art such as J.R.R. Tolkien's novels about Middle Earth and almost perfectly translated it into a living, breathing epic. I know that everyone loves these movies, and a film snob like myself should shun the big-budget, CGI stuff, but let's just be honest with ourselves and say that those movies deserved every bit of praise they got.
That being said, I haven't seen a movie since then that even comes close to capturing the same sense of awe and wonder that I felt upon seeing each of the Lord of the Rings films. And then, in 2008, The Dark Knight comes out and reminds me of what it's like when excellent source material is perfectly crafted into a near-flawless cinematic spectacle. I think you all know what I'm talking about, and if you don't, call me up so I can come over and break your collar bone with a crescent wrench.



Battlestar Galactica/Lost: I blame these two shows for making me plan my weekly routine around my TV (or sometimes someone else's TV, cuz we don't get Sci-Fi). It's hard to talk openly about their awesomeness (spoilers aplenty!), so if you haven't caught yourself up on both of these epic tales, get crackin'!





Fallout 3: I don't really like to write about video games. They're just way too subjective to accurately critique. But today I'm breaking my rule. I've never been so completely sucked into a game in all of my twenty some-odd years of video-game nerdery. Let me just sum my experience with this game up in one of my many simulated experiences while traversing the post-apocalyptic wasteland that was once Washington D.C.: I reached a point in the game where I was getting hassled day in and day out by hired mercs (I'm playing as a do-gooder, and the evil folk don't jive with that). After I slew them mightily and rifled through their dismembered corpses, I retrieved a letter from a dude named Tenpenny who had hired these douchebags to come kill me. When I was finally able to activate the coordinates of every possible map destination, I discovered a place called Tenpenny Tower. So I thought to myself, "I'm gonna find this bastard and make him pay!" I got to the tower, and this Tenpenny guy had set up a community of elitist jackasses within an old hotel (kinda like Dennis Hopper in Land of the Dead). At first, I was just going to blow Tenpenny's head off with my shotgun, but a more intriguing opportunity came my way. It turned out there was a settlement of ugly, radioactive folks who wanted to move into the tower, but of course the folks who were already there didn't want anything to do with these nasty Ghouls. So what do I do? I let these vicious psychos into the tower through the basement and let them rip through the place! I figured that every son of a bitch who through his lot in with the coward who sent mercs to kill me deserve to be eaten alive by mutants! I lost good-guy points for doing this, but it was so very gratifying.

I'm a total nerd :(

Comic-Con: Such a grand celebration of everything that I ever thought was awesome (including Frankenberry)! I sometimes find my mind wandering back to our trip to San Diego to witness this conglomeration of movies, comics, TV, video games, zombies, Anime, F-list actors, washed-up centerfolds, and rare collectibles when I need cheering. Even though Nathan Fillion came very close to stealing Sheree away from me, I have nothing but love for the Con.





7-18-08: That's mine and Sheree's wedding date! It was so amazingly wicked awesome! Flowing rivers of ice creams and sauces, happy folks coming and going, tasty cakeses, and most of all, the most intelligent, beautiful, and perfect woman in the world became my wife. Indeed a great moment of 2008.

Mmm hmmm.