Year in Review, part two.

Well, I had every intention of posting part two of the 2008 Year in Review a few days after part one. You should know better than to expect that kind of accountability from me. Moving on!

September
I don't want to pat myself on the back too much for this, but my entry about Hurricane Ike was strangely prescient...

...here's a picture of the path Galveston's hurricane took.


And just for shits and grins, here's a picture of Ike's projected path, scheduled to hit sometime this weekend. He's gonna beat us like he beat Tina.


I say it was prescient because Ike basically wiped Galveston off the map...again.

October
Well, this is about the time the blog went dark, so I'm going off of memory. The first thing that pops to mind when I think about October is Texas Tech football. This was easily the best season we've had since...well, ever. We -- Tech fans -- were incredibly excited (our excitement even led to a cross-sectional trashtalk blog that started with ambitious intentions, but ultimately turned into a one-person rant....kinda like this blog!). Anyway, October was easily our finest month, culminating in a last second, for-the-ages victory over #1 Texas (it technically happened on November 1st, but I was wearing a Halloween costume at the time, so it's going here).


(side note: Brent Musberger's call sucked. The call on the play was fine, but everything after that just sucked the life out of the moment. No wonder ESPN uses the Texas Tech radio call when they show that play)

November
November got off to a great start! Not only did Texas Tech knock off #1 Texas (have I mentioned that?), but I became an uncle! Yup. Uncle Robert. My sister went into labor at halftime of the Tech/Texas game (how rude!) and gave birth to a healthy baby boy the following morning. Being an uncle is great. You get to play with the baby, hold him, squeeze his little toes...and when he starts crying, you get to go into the other room! Why would I ever have children of my own?!


December
You know, after such an eventful year...December was pretty quiet. I turned 29. A lot of people have asked me how I feel about that. You know, being one year closer to 30. I don't understand why I should be panicking about this. 29 is one full year from 30. So I've got til December to really get my life in order. Right? Right.

So we're moving on! 2009 is already 27 days old. There's a lot to get to, but first...

...just in time to ruin your post-Christmas diet, it’s time to serve up some hot, crispy, delicious knuggets! (one sauce per customer, please).

They’ve been remaking a lot of horror movies lately. Starting with Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 2003, followed by Halloween in 2007, and now Friday the 13th (coming to a theatre near you on Friday! The 13th! Of…uhh…February.)

Is any movie off limits? Is nothing sacred?! I mean, Halloween was pretty groundbreaking (from what I’ve been told). Not that I’m complaining. My biggest problem with today’s horror movies is that none of them really has a villain. It seems like every horror movie from the past ten years has relied too much on anticipation and suspense, when ultimately, the super scary killer was just a dead Japanese kid in his underwear meowing at our heroine. Anyway. The previews I’ve seen for Friday the 13th feature Jason pretty prominently. Am I crazy or was he not even in Friday the 13th? But I’m being picky. And really, that’s not the point I was trying to make here. The point I was trying to make was this – how soon is too soon? The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was made in 1974, so thirty years passed before the remake. Halloween came out in 1978. Again, nearly 30 years passed. Friday the 13th came out in 1980. So…you guessed it…30 years. Does that seem a little too soon? If 30 years is the new cutoff, we can expect the following movies in the next twelve months or so:

Animal House (July 1978) – depending on who got the rights to this, the remake would either star Jonah Hill and Michael Cera, and be a sweet comedy full of dick and fart jokes…or it would star a cast of nobodies and go straight to DVD. And be full of dick and fart jokes.

Grease (June 1978) – With the success of Hairspray and Mamma Mia…I gotta think this is already being talked about in a conference room somewhere in LA.

The Wiz (October 1978) – starring Chris Brown as the scarecrow, Ne-Yo as the Tin Man, T-Pain as the cowardly lion and Beyonce as Dorothy!


Lord of the Rings (November 1978) Oh wait…

The Warriors (February 1979) – Ugh. This is inevitable, isn’t it?

Alien (May 1979) – I don’t know. I wasn’t a huge fan of the original. Kinda…boring? But it could be good if they redid it well. Right?

The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh (November 1979) – Finally! I’ve been waiting for them to remake this forever!

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (December 1979) Oh wait…

I’ll just say this – The Neverending Story was released in 1984. We’re waaaaiting, Hollywood.

Well, it would be negligent of me not to mention that we swore in our 44th president last week. And to be honest, I’m excited. Maybe I’m just getting caught up in the madness, but…well, whether that’s the case or not…it’s exciting! President Obama seems like a man who sticks to his convictions and really does have the noblest intentions for this country. Now then. This isn’t a political blog. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned anything even remotely political on this blog. That’s because I don’t follow politics. I know. It’s irresponsible, whatever. I told myself I would follow sports and music til I was 30, then I would switch over to politics. And I plan to spend the next eleven months doing just that. Anyway, my point. My point. What was my point? Ah. I was watching ESPN (sports!) last week, and for some reason, they decided to film Lebron James as he was watching the inauguration with his kids. His kids looked like they were five and two years old, at the most, so naturally, they just bounced around on the couch, not paying attention. So philosopher/political activist Lebron began spouting various platitudes about historical this and landmark that. Fine. I agree. Then he threw out the ol’ “I never thought that, in my lifetime, I’d live to see a black president.” Alright, that’s enough. Maybe I’m naïve. Maybe I don’t really understand just how insidery and exclusionary Washington is. But I, for one, did think I’d see a black president in my lifetime! I mean, how can a guy (who’s only 24, I might add) like Lebron James – he of a worldwide marketing campaign and hundred million dollar endorsement contract – think that the idea of a black president is so outrageous that it simply wasn’t going to happen sometime in the next seventy years?!

In other sports-related news…you may have heard, but there’s a big game that’s been monopolizing most of the sports media this week. That’s right…the NHL All Star Game! Yup, it was held last week in Montreal, and the East edged the West 12-11. I seriously had no idea the NHL All Star Game was happening so soon. Come to think of it, when did their season start?

I don’t know why the NHL has fallen out of favor with American audiences. Maybe it’s the alienating effect of those thick Canadian accents on the announcers (“And Edmonton brings oot their third line agay-nst Mantioba’s first!”), maybe it’s the fact that the sport is played on ice, maybe it’s the impossible-to-see puck. Or maybe it’s the fact that they have All Stars named Dion Phaneuf and Anze Kopitar. Zdeno Chara! Kimmo Timonen!

Ilya Kovalchuk, everybody! Let's get 2009 under way!