Best TV Moments Of 2008

 

The Obama Election
I watched this historic accomplishment with my 8 year old daughter and K. I can help but thinking that more than ever, this election has engaged everyone into looking deep into our selves to see how it would feel living our lives as we feel inside AND as citizens of the world. Sounds like a cliché but what a real opportunity to better our lives, our children's lives, and the lives of everyone in the world. We need to ask our world neighbors to be patient. It is as if we are a new nation once again, carrying all the hopes and aspirations of a fledgling democracy, but saddled with the crushing burden left by a cynical past. There is much opportunity for failure, but there is also renewed reason for hope. We were offered a choice between fear and embrace of the future. We chose well this time…It is a new day, a new generation of voters have spoken.

And to the criminals leaving...it is not about revenge for the past it is about justice for the future.

Lost
The 4th season is arguably the best season since the first. Multiple episodes this past season completely changed my expectations for the series' conclusion but introduced entire concepts such as time travel, etc. They turned the science fiction valve completely open. In the brilliant episode, "The Constant," we saw Desmond travel through time (Did he?) due to an effect of the island, and in the mind-warping season finale, we saw the entire island vanish. The shorter than usual 14-episode season ended up giving more answers than past longer seasons. Cue the Island burp…

The Misadventures Of FlapJack
Flapjack is your typical, wide-eyed kid out looking for adventure. What's not-so-typical about him though, is the fact that he was raised by an overprotective blue whale (her name is Bubbie), and currently journeys through the high seas with a grizzled pirate by the name of Captain K'nuckles. It’s a deluge of nifty watercolor paintings and torn paper textures AND dabbles into the disgusting and sometimes disturbing. Don’t miss episodes: K’nuckles is a filthy rat & Mechanical genie island.

Honorable mention(s)
The Daily Show & The Colbert Report (the best “truthiness” and satire “news” out there), Keith Olbermann's Special Comments, The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Rick Roll (epic! This was the last thing on my mind while watching the parade) & The Bill O’ Reilly Flips Out Dance Remix (via the You Tube).

Best Video Games Of 2008

 

I would describe myself as a mild gamer. Keep in mind, I rock the PS3, Xbox 360 and the PSP. So all the games on my list reflect these platforms. Also, I enjoy mostly RPG’s, Platformers, 3rd person action type games. So, while the zombies look better every year I’m not really into splattering BRAINS and strategically dismembering spooky space creatures and basking in the most satisfying gore ever. That doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with just wanting to shoot stuff sometimes, it’s all good…just not my cup o’ tea. The great strength of the business these days is that it is catering to everyone, something I’ve seen both in the games and in the people who play them. The video game industry has never been more reliable in producing high-quality mass entertainment for a variety of audiences with a variety of tastes. Three years into the current generation of game systems, developers are ceding nothing to other entertainment media in terms of high-end production values and overall attention to detail. In these hard economic times there is NO BETTER bang for your buck. (Editors note: I have accepted minor input on these choices from friends and enemies alike and they have given their “two cents” when asked or otherwise).

Little Big Planet
There isn’t anything else like LBP on any system, anywhere. A powerful creative tool that puts unlimited potential in the palm of your hand. This game is lightning in a bottle. It reinvents how video games are played. A gamble that live up to the hype and feels like a birth of a revolution.

MGS4: Guns Of The Patriots
I didn’t play or even own this game (yet!) With that being said I’m told that nothing comes close to this masterpiece. Some have even said that this one will stand through the tests of time and will still be referred to as perhaps the pinnacle of storytelling in videogames. I know, I know…I’m off to the gamestop.

GTA4
Liberty City has never felt so alive. The best “open world’ game yet and the finest title of the series. It's amazing that a sequel that keeps the core gameplay concepts of its prior incarnations can do so much to change itself into something new. If all games were all this good, no one would ever leave the house.

Honorable mention(s)
Fable 2 (epic in scope & sound and completely absorbing), Prince Of Persia (It’s not very long but long enough) & Fallout 3 (think ‘Oblivion’ with guns).

Best Comics Of 2008

 

I dig the funny books (see previous blog posts) and as you all know there's more to the genre than X-ray vision and billowing capes. These tales seem to resonate and these deeper truths fire our imaginations. They wake us up, if only temporarily and vicariously, to something much greater than ourselves. And on that note…

Lets Go To Utah (www.letsgotoutah.com)
Dave Chisholm is living the dream. He is telling a story with Also, “Lets Go To Utah”. The book stars a young college student named Dave who begins to have horrible nightmares that push him towards Utah, of all places. Eventually, Dave resolves to head to Utah, but since he needs a ride to get there, a friend of a friend of a friend named Lief volunteers to drive, and hilarity ensues… as Lief is not exactly all right in the head, but his vices are not just “speeds” or “won’t chip in for gas” but rather “kills people”. Chisholm handles Dave’s reaction to what is going on quite nicely, especially when Dave escapes, only to find that he might be better off with the devil he knows. The story is very strong and the twists will have you guessing every issue. Also, the handling of the dialogue is top notch with very realistic back and forth between the characters. One of the best things about the art is the dynamic page layout. Each panel contributes to telling the story smoothly and supports the story well. The loose inks and fluid gestures create the atmosphere of a rollercoaster ride and as you turn every page, the ride and worse and worse and worse…until a complete halt at the end of each issue. Independent at it’s very best.

Invincible Iron Man (Marvel Comics/Matt Fraction/Salvador Larroca)
2008 year of the Iron Man! We all survived the summer onslaught of shell head. There were countless comic titles announced, crossovers, merchandise and oh yeah…a movie. We have seen Tony Stark go from beloved savior to pretty much on the bottom rung of the Marvel ladder. His company is in shambles, thanks both to the Skrull invasion and Ezekiel Stane's terror attacks. He's been ousted as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., and faced with the added indignity of having to hand the keys over to Norman Osborn. And if all that weren't bad enough, his Extremis powers have been eliminated, rendering his one functional suit near useless. “Invincible” seems to have it all…solid story arch’s, characterization, pacing, etc but Larocca can be inconsistent with the art at times (He draws the best looking suits but offers a lot wonky facial work). And…Marvel really needs an editor whose sole job is to monitor Osborn's hair style. It changes wildly from book to book.

What It Is (Lynda Barry)
This book is essential. It is the essence of the creative writing course. The book has a front section that is sort of an artistic, stream of consciousness, diaristic account of Lynda Barry's own creative life. Followed by a workbook…but it’s more like an inspiration guide. It's a great book about creativity, the imagination, self-expression, memoir…authentic and beautiful.

Merry Christmas (Circa 1978)

Dolphins Resurrection

 

By Omar Kelly...

Could there have been a better reversal of emotions for Dolphins fans and the team in one calendar year. From shame and embarrassment in 2007 to pride and joy in 2008.

"Guess who's back. Back again. Miami Dolphins. Tell a friend," Ted Ginn Jr. sang immediately after Sunday's 38-31 win over Kansas City, using Eminem's "Shady's back" song as a blueprint.
Sunday's come-from-behind win over the Chiefs sets up the biggest Dolphins game since 2001.

It puts Miami's most beloved franchise in position to play a winner-take-all game against the New York Jets next Sunday. One that will decide who takes home the AFC East crown and the home playoff game that comes with it, and likely sends the Patriots home for the season.
"It's a testament to how greedy our guys are," said quarterback Chad Pennington. "At the beginning of the year we believed that we could get to this point."

Pennington admitted as the season went on the belief grew more and more with each win. It got to the point where there wasn't a doubt the offense would score when given possession in the fourth quarter with a 31-31 game. And that's exactly what Pennington and crew did when Anthony Fasano carried too defenders into the end zone.

The triumph puts the Dolphins at 10 wins this season. Believe it or not, the Dolphins are at double-digits after winning just one in 2007.

But exactly how did this happen? How did this franchise transform itself from an unfortunate, unlucky batch of scraps to this scrappy unit that never stops clawing?

Can the Chiefs and the Lions bottle this and resurrect their franchises in one season? Maybe Bill Parcells' next book will outline it for us all, becoming a South Florida must-read.

What is it that transforms a roster filled with spare parts and faded stars into one of the NFL's best in 2008.

"Everybody knows and accepts their role," Ronnie Brown said. "That's the biggest part about being a team. And it's clear we've bought in."

Immediate following the game coach Tony Sparano was asked if he's thinking about the Jets game?

His response: "Yes I am."

When did he start thinking about it? "After I shook Herm [Edward's] hand."

It's officially O.K. for you to think about the Jets now, and to bask in the opportunity Chad Pennington has to get his revenge.

"Chad Pennington going back to New York with an opportunity to knock his old team out," Vonnie Holliday said, pointing out the game's Brett Favre-Pennington subplot. "I know every guy is going to rally around him."

It's about time South Florida starts rallying around their Dolphins, win or loss next week, because the coaches and players have certainly given our community something for the nation to talk about.

And who says the talk stops next weekend.

R2-Dance Off...WHAT?

Scratch Bastard!

The Pattern

 

It's a feeling of being literally unstuck, well...my consciousness is. I could never tell a story that is in a linear sequence. It requires artistry to create a good story about madness.

-DAG!

Living Through Hell On Earth

 

This might have been the best book I have read in the last few years. If you have sometime over the holidays to curl up with a good read I recommend “World War Z”. This GEM is written by son the Mel Brooks (Yes, that Mel Brooks), Max Brooks has carved his own Romero style niche. I dig how Brooks even gives play full nods and jibs at his previous work (Z.S.G.).

If you like zombie lit but are getting bored with viscera and nihilism, this is a great antidote. Brooks has taken his ironically deadpan "Zombie Survival Guide" and made a whole world out of it. Pretending to be an oral history of humanity's struggle against zombie hordes, this book has a cast of dozens, most of whom speak for only a few pages before yielding to other voices. As a result, we get a truly international view of the great crisis, and the situation and responses faced by people in a variety of settings. Each individual vignette is unique and special…from Tibetan smugglers to dirigible pilots to ex-politicians…each 'interview' has its own distinct voice. The feeling of reading the accounts of some of the bravest souls who have ever (never!) walked the earth.

As Brooks envisions it, the zombie plague encompasses the threat of terrorism and global war, natural catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina or the devastating tsunami, and global disease scares like avian flu and SARS.

Some of the best things about "World War Z" to me are the quality writing, the surprises of the plot and scenarios, and also the poignancy of the emotional impact. The experiences of the combat soldiers are deep and moving, and other sections like the struggle of a pilot trapped behind "enemy lines" and best of all, the K-9 handler's tale are brilliantly done and add both pathos and innovation to portrayal of human experience during the Zombie menace.

There is such depth, though, to his imagination that it is almost staggering to question how long Brooks sat in development of his zombie world. The varying responses by governments, the responses by different citizens, or even the effects of weather and climate on zombies are all explored to full, yet sometimes questionable, understanding. One of my personal favorites…The "Lobo"…a combination shovel and battle-axe put to great use throughout the novel. It is one of but many ingenius concepts envisioned by Brooks in his personal post-apocalyptic world…this is a world that everyone should explore.

Peace, DAG!

Then I guess we'll never know...

SHOE-I-CIDE Bomber!

 

Finally a journalist with integrity and backbone and I think now it’s about time for American journalists to take note of “asking the hard questions”. I’d like to buy this guy a beer…when he gets out of G-BAY.

Sage advice from the Monk...

 

...Thelonius Monk!!!

Speaking of nightmares...

Lost Book Club

A couple of things...

John 316(bible): For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

And the Lamppost...think Narnia. It's the portal the kids find as they enter the world (Narnia) and then they find it again many years later as adults, seem to recognize it, and stumble back into our world. Time passes by faster in Narnia than in our world.

Shock

 

The power of Mythic Fiction is that it can tear down the walls and windows, the artifice and laws by changing the logic, empowering the disenfranchised, or simply by asking. What if? This bold logic is not easy to attain. The destroyer/creator must first be able to imagine a world beyond his prison. The hardest thing to do is to break the chains of reality and go beyond into a world of your own creation.

Realistically speaking, humans aren't special. There are probably other beings out there more creative than we are, smarter than we are, more moral than we are, funnier then we are, etc. But at least on the flip, we won't be unique in our mediocrity either.

Forget this…“I should write something. I'm just smart enough to know how stupid I am...which stops me from creating anything”

And Do This…WRITE!

Shock, DAG!

Ps. I picked up "The Dark Knight" in Blu-Ray & Common "Universal Mind Control" this AM. Ain't that snappy?

Mythic Fiction

 

Should I event a new genre called Mythic Fiction? Or…Not Real Future Stories?

I’ve been writing down a lot of notes lately and I think I’m starting to see clearer. Maybe the book I’m reading (World War Z) has something to do with it (More on that GEM later)…I like tales that don’t fit nice and neatly into a space. Whether it’s Sci-Fi or Speculative fiction. What is Sci-Fi as a term anyway?

Science is not a thing, science isn't space, it isn't faster than light travel, it isn't lasers, robots, gene splicing...science is a process, a method, a way of looking at the universe, a way of asking questions and thinking about the proposed answers to those questions...and then asking more questions..

I mean…

I stare into the sky and watch a dot move slowly towards me. At some distance I recognize it as a shape I call a plane.

In the same place a french person would label it 'avion'. Someone with more knowledge than I might call it a Boeing 747.

Should the plane change it's name?

Peace, DAG!

Trouble Man

"Now I'm coming to get your honky ass!"

marvin gaye did the soundtrack as well, you dig?

The Cloud People

 

How dope is this!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1091550/Ancient-city-discovered-deep-Amazonian-rainforest-linked-legendary-white-skinned-Cloud-People-Peru.html#

A lost city discovered deep in the Amazon rainforest could unlock the secrets of a legendary tribe. Little is known about the Cloud People of Peru, an ancient, white-skinned civilisation wiped out by disease and war in the 16th century. But now archaeologists have uncovered a fortified citadel in a remote mountainous area of Peru known for its isolated natural beauty. It is thought this settlement may finally help historians unlock the secrets of the 'white warriors of the clouds'. The tribe had white skin and blonde hair - features which intrigue historians, as there is no known European ancestry in the region, where most inhabitants are darker skinned.

The citadel is tucked away in one of the most far-flung areas of the Amazon. It sits at the edge of a chasm which the tribe may have used as a lookout to spy on enemies. The main encampment is made up of circular stone houses overgrown by jungle over 12 acres, according to archaeologist Benedict Goicochea Perez. Rock paintings cover some of the fortifications and next to the dwellings are platforms believed to have been used to grind seeds and plants for food and medicine. The Cloud People once commanded a vast kingdom stretching across the Andes to the fringes of Peru's northern Amazon jungle, before it was conquered by the Incas. Named because they lived in rainforests filled with cloud-like mist, the tribe later sided with the Spanish-colonialists to defeat the Incas. But they were killed by epidemics of European diseases, such as measles and smallpox.

Much of their way of life, dating back to the ninth century, was also destroyed by pillaging, leaving little for archaeologists to examine. Remains have been found before but scientists have high hopes of the latest find, made by an expedition to the Jamalca district in Peru's Utcubamba province, about 500 miles north-east of the capital, Lima. Until recently, much of what was known about the lost civilisation was from Inca legends. Even the name they called themselves is unknown. The term Chachapoyas, or 'Cloud People', was given to them by the Incas. Their culture is best known for the Kuellap fortress on the top of a mountain in Utcubamba, which can only be compared in scale to the Incas' Machu Picchu retreat, built hundreds of years later.

Two years ago, archaeologists found an underground burial vault inside a cave with five mummies, two intact with skin and hair. Chachapoyas chronicler Pedro Cieza de Leon wrote of the tribe: 'They are the whitest and most handsome of all the people that I have seen, and their wives were so beautiful that because of their gentleness, many of them deserved to be the Incas' wives and to also be taken to the Sun Temple. 'The women and their husbands always dressed in woollen clothes and in their heads they wear their llautos [a woollen turban], which are a sign they wear to be known everywhere.'

The Chachapoyas' territory was located in the northern regions of the Andes in present-day Peru. It encompassed the triangular region formed by the confluence of the Maranon and Utcubamba rivers, in the zone of Bagua, up to the basin of the Abiseo river. The Maranon's size and the mountainous terrain meant the region was relatively isolated.

Finds like this have the potential to change the way we see the world and the history that has shaped our reality

Ice Pirates

 

More Yo Ho Ho…

Pirates chased and shot at a U.S. cruise ship with more than 1,000 people on board but failed to hijack the vessel as it sailed along a corridor patrolled by international warships, officials said Tuesday.

The captain of the M/S Nautica ordered passengers inside and gunned the engine, allowing the ship to outrun the pirates' speedboats in the Gulf of Aden on Sunday, a company spokesman said.

"It is very fortunate that the liner managed to escape," said Noel Choong, who heads the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center in Malaysia. He urged ships to remain vigilant in the area.

In a statement on its Web site, Oceania Cruises, Inc. said pirates fired eight rifle shots at the liner, but that the ship's captain increased speed and managed to outrun the skiffs.

"When the pirates were sighted, the captain went on the public address system and asked passengers to remain in the interior spaces of the ship and wait until he gave further instructions," said Tim Rubacky, spokesman for Oceania. "Within five minutes, it was over," he said.

December Looks GREAT! (other than my lack of concentration…Huh, What?)

Career, Incomes and Gains
There will be income from various sources comparing to the previous period. Your plans and schemes would be working properly. This is an excellent period for you. Each one of these three planets will render good support to you in all your undertakings. There may be some good news from a foreign land. Help will come from the higher authorities. You will also get opportunity to have good relation with powerful people in society. At the same time, transiting Jupiter shows Increase of knowledge. You will move in the company of saintly people.

Love, Family and Social Life
Some solid improvements in life would be possible. You will want your loving companion to be there for you, to share in your ups and downs, and to show loyalty and commitment to the relationship.

Education and Traveling
A lack of concentration as well as interest may spoil your education prospects. Now you would be much attracted towards other things than education. Even, during this month you would be slightly confused and not able to take a suitable decision according to current circumstances.

Health
An ordinary health would be enjoyed by you.

The term "Jump The Shark" comes to mind...

...But still, this has to be one of the best things ever. There I was on Thanksgiving Morn. Kelli & myself were about to go on a walk through our neighborhood. We were finishing up our morning coffee and I thought I would see what was poppin on the Macy's parade. I'm an antifan of parades. They do nothing for me. I flipped it on and caught the Sesame Street float. It was EPIC! and to me...S.S. still KILLS most the crap that they feed to kids nowadays. We caught a band, a couple of teenage lip sync phenoms and then there was this...The Fosters Float. I like F.H.F.I.F. ALOT! very DOPE cartoon. And then came the 'Rick Roll". I can't figure out which was better...The idea of this OR the commenators having to explain what a "Rick Roll" is. Classic!!!