Okay, I admit this is really dumb, but this is actually what I thought Droid Does meant when I first read it (yes, I know how stupid that sounds, and how it doesn't make any sense, but that's somehow what I thought - it just read that way). Whatever you want to say, I find it hilarious and will continue to do so.

At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig by John Gimlette

How much do you know about Paraguay? How much do most people in the US know about Paraguay? How much do I know? Let's see. I watched them in the World Cup, and I know that Roque Santa Cruz hails from there, and that's about it. I couldn't have even told you it was landlocked. Embarrassing, maybe, but best to be honest with myself.

In the Head of the Inflatable Pig is a combination travelogue and basic history guide to Paraguay - the author intersperses his experiences visiting historical places in Paraguay, his experiences with the people he comes across while visiting those places, and bits of history - both important political moments and interesting tidbits of history he comes across that may not be important in the largest sense but provide insight into the Paraguayan way of life, which is really what runs through all the sections of the book.

I get a taste of the history of Paraguay which is absolutely fascinating (which is helped by Gimlette's writing style and the general organization of the book) - a series of dictators each with their own eccentricities - one who drove the country into an unbelievably debilitating war in the late 19th century (the War of the Triple Alliance (which I knew the name of, but just about nothing else) killing over 80% of the population and leaving a 10-1 female to male ratio which is hard to digest even as I type it now), a period of instability, and a 35-year long brutal dictatorship which lasted up until almost the end of the 20th century. In addition, I get a flavor of the culture and the Paraguayans attitude towards their series of dictators. It left me, while reading it, thinking about how inconceivable it is, as an American, even with all my frustrations with our political process, to imagine what it would be like to be living under constant dictatorship and the weight of such a brutal history and to appreciate how the Paraguayans carry on.

More than just straight history, though (not that straight history is not enough for an excellent book) Gimlette lends some insight into Paraguayan culture. I don't mean culture so much in the particular art, or music, or literature, but more in the sense of the general attitudes and

Recently, I read another book about South America, The Lost City of Z, and it made me read more about South American, and in that case the Amazon. This book is very different but makes me feel the same way, not just about South America but about any country. Every country has its own story - its own unique history - before reading this book, Paraguay was just a country next to and with a similar name than Uruguay, who probably had some dictatorial issues, sure, but that's about it.

And yes, sure, that sounds obvious, as if it's coming from an ignorant person who should have known more about the country in the first place, and yes, that's at least partly true. But even so it speaks to a broader point (yes I'm not I'm going a bit far here) about the simplicity with which people view the world all too often (and why history is so valuable even today) - people are quick to group people and make snap judgments, to look no deeper than the surface, because they don't have enough information and because they don't care enough but there's almost always a nuanced reason for everything that you'll miss if you don't look a little harder. To give the most broad example, many people within Paraguay kept voting for people who were related to their old brutal dictatorship, which seems crazy, until you realize that in a country with so much instability economically and politically, that time represented the only stability they ever knew.

Anyway, even if you don't get that much, it's a good book for the anecdotes alone, so read it.

I just discovered something for which I desperately am seeking physical proof.

It turns out that one of a very young Brad Garrett's first, uh, roles, was as a the model for the back cover of Electric Light Orchestra's album Discovery, in which he is, according to wikipedia, "dressed in middle eastern clothes, turban and holding a big sword." I have been conducting some google searching and have yet to locate this back cover. As it is, I'm going to have to search for this every time I go to a record store (the few that are left these days) and at the very least hope to find it and get a photograph it. I have a hard time believing it's not on the internet somewhere, but so far at least it's eluded me.

As a longtime participant in College Bowl during college, I learned to think of trivia in threes, as many questions were three part questions ("bonuses")about something similar (ie. three different bands recorded songs called "Learning to Fly"), so whenever I see two of something unusual, I automatically think, with one more it could be a bonus.

Last night, I watched the Sam Peckinpah film Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and it contained the second driver-of-car-talking-to-disembodied-head-sitting-on-passenger-seat scene I've ever seen (the first is the Quentin Tarantino guest directed sequence in Sin City in which Clive Owen has Benecio Del Toro's head on his passenger seat). One more and there'd be a bonus...

I have ranked the top 68 television shows of the '00s, and will be presenting them, one-by-one, starting with 68 and working down. The rankings are more or less based on the show's popularity, it's cult status, it's critical acclaim, and my personal liking of it, with a heavy dose of arbitrariness added in. If a show was a big enough phenomena, I'll keep it on the list - but if I don't like it, I may drop it some spots. One other caveat - these are primetime shows (I apologize if I put a cable show that wasn't, I thought they were all primetime shows - the main point of this is just that no talk shows, no Colbert and Daily show that would be on otherwise).

31: Aqua Teen Hunger Force

Aqua Teen Hunger Force will always hold a special place in my heart even though I honestly haven't watched much of it in the last. Still, even through to this day, a picture of Master Shake is my facebook icon.

Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block in general was a phenomenon in the first decade of the 21st century amongst a certain segment of the population - boys in particular aged from about high school to about 30. There were a whole host of shows that played a part in this - Harvey Birdman, Sealab 2021 along with repeated programming of shows on other network - such as Futurama andFamily Guy, but indisputably the biggest of the original programming was Aqua Teen Hunger Force. ATHF (for short) was based around the absurd premise of a trio of human-sized fast food items - a shake (Master Shake), fries (Frylock), and a, uh, meatball (Meatwad) who could talk and had powers (shooting lasers for Frylock, changing shapes for Meatwad and, well, nothing really for Master Shake) solving mysteries in suburban New Jersey, all while bothering their Jersey slob neighbor Carl. Of course the premise was even this coherent just to get them on the air - their creators and no actual intent for them to be solving mysteries all the time (they do in about the first three episodes) - that was merely the only way to convince Cartoon Network to put the show on (The show is kind of a spinoff of Space Ghost Coast to Coast, where a twisted version of the characters appeared (though Meatwad looks pretty much the same)).

ATHF became a minor sensation. During the first couple years of college, watching Adult Swim was a weekly ritual. Every week I'd get together with my friends and put it on, every Sunday night when the new comedies aired. I was so obsessed with these episodes that I can even now recite some of the episodes nearly line for line, particularly what may have been our favorite episode, Revenge of the Mooninites, which featured a belt which gave Foreigner powers - my friends and I loved the episode so much we actually started listening to Foreigner more because of it.

ATHF became the type of quick barometer of what people I could get along with that certain pop culture phenomena become to individuals (not that I'm endorsing super quick judgment, but hey, everybody does it, and sometimes it's right) - I remember talking to a coworker in the first or second summer after it's existence and finding out first she didn't know what it was, and then that she more than just didn't like it, she didn't get it - I tried to be polite but inside, I scoffed. The show was never bound to appeal to more than a niche population - it was far too ridiculous - but it had a cult among those who did.

ATHF got a national airing to many who had absolutely no idea what it was for a brief moment when, in 2007, a viral marketing campaign went wrong (or right, considering the amount of publicity in generated) when commuters reported LED set ups of the Mooninites by a T station in Boston unlit and replete with a power source and some exposed wiring, which was essentially a giant sized Lite Brite. Before you could say Ignignokt and Err, there was a huge freak out and the site was surrounded by fire, police and ambulances, none of whom clearly was a stoner or under 30 because one look at it for anyone who had seen the show would clearly recognize the character, who appeared in many episodes. A second sign was spotted, and the full blown panic was repeated. It's hard to tell whether this speaks more to the incompetence of the Boston police department or the generation gap. The two people responsible for the marketing campaign was even arrested, citing an incredibly far-fetched idea that they were trying to start a panic.

The episodes got even more ridiculous as time went on, and I haven't seen a lot of the later ones - it's the last of the old Williams Street Adult Swim series still airing - and I don't watch Adult Swim with the insistent regularity that I used to (that's not to say I don't tune in occasionally, especially for Venture Bros.). But that should take nothing away from those classic early episodes.

I have ranked the top 68 television shows of the '00s, and will be presenting them, one-by-one, starting with 68 and working down. The rankings are more or less based on the show's popularity, it's cult status, it's critical acclaim, and my personal liking of it, with a heavy dose of arbitrariness added in. If a show was a big enough phenomena, I'll keep it on the list - but if I don't like it, I may drop it some spots. One other caveat - these are primetime shows (I apologize if I put a cable show that wasn't, I thought they were all primetime shows - the main point of this is just that no talk shows, no Colbert and Daily show that would be on otherwise).

31: Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad is probably my favorite drama on TV right now (though Mad Men is closing in with it's currently very strong season). The show improves over each of the first three seasons, with the third getting into the darkest, but the most interesting territory, not to mention the most exciting as well. The show also manages to trade off suspense and introspectivity (yeah it's probably not a word - I'm still using it) very well - late in the third season, there is a bottle episode which could easily have fallen flat but was very entertaining and seemed to fit within the context of the season.

The ending of the third season did something that's relatively rare for me in shows - got me excited enough about the possibilities that it makes me want to go online and read everything about what people thought about the episode, and the season - blog entries, comments, interviews with the creator (Oh, to think when I liked Lost, at the beginning this happened a bit). Even better, reading this stuff actually made me like the show more, rather than less. When I would go on to read about Lost opinions and theories, a little thought would make a lot of the initial excitement about the show lessen - it make a lot less sense after thinking about it. With Breaking Bad, reading about it pointed me in new directions and illuminated things I hadn't noticed - not just plot related, but ideas about the characters and the way the show is shot. I read one particular interview with the show's creator Vince Gilligan, and what he said about the way the show is written rang true - he said that they didn't, for the most part, plan out entire season arcs from the beginning - rather that they often wrote themselves into corners and then tried to write their way out of them. While that sounds like a recipe for disaster, it actually succeeds time and again over the course of the show - so many times I wondered how exactly they'd get out of a tricky situation without making it so the show couldn't continue anymore and they've cleverly, and plausibly within the boundaries of the show managed to work their way out.

Bryan Cranston's Walter White is a moving and nuanced protagonist up there with the best in TV - the Tony Sorpanos, the Don Drapers, though opposite of Draper, whose work life is honest (more or less), but family life is not, White does not mess around on his family, but his dishonest career comes up and screws with his family life anyway, no matter how much he tries to prevent it. Cranston and Aaron Paul as Jesse, the second principal character (Cranston's Christopher Moltisanti? Maybe a stretch...) both give excellent performances and create a really interesting relationship between the two characters - often it's portrayed that although Jesse is the career criminal, he's the one with the true heart of gold, while the socially awkward middle aged father career science teacher is the cold and inhuman one. Maybe that sounds cliche, and to put it in one sentence it is, but as it's shown over the course of three seasons, it a lot more subtle and complicated.

The one flaw the show has is the occasional unnecessary gimmick - the show is so strong already that sometimes it resorts to cheap tricks that it doesn't need to succeed. A couple of the gimmicky conceits really work well - I particularly loved Tuco's uncle who appeared in season 2 when Walt and Jesse were kidnapped, and could see them plotting, but could only hit his bell, rather than speak. Ones that don't work though include particularly the gimmick in which the end of the episode, or season (in the case of the second season) is shown at the beginning and we're left to wonder how it gets there. This doesn't add a whole lot to the show, and particularly in the case of the second season the whole airplane-crashed-by-Jane's-grieving-dad plot didn't do it for me (thought it wasn't so overwhelming as to ruin the show or anything) - it seemed out of place - but I'll chalk it up to not quite being able to paint out of one of those corners as well as they do it every other time (though the crash itself was fine - leading to the great scene of Walter explaining why there's no need to fret to his school's student body).

Book Review: The Lost City of Z by David Grann

My grandma and I were reading buddies. Whenever I visited her, we'd talk about what the other was reading, or had read recently, and how was it, and so forth, even though we just about never read the same things. She always said that reading was one of the things that kept her going into old age - one of her favorite parts about reading was that you could immerse yourself in another place, or another culture, or another time and feel what it was like even without leaving your house. Personally, that had generally not been a major factor in my motivation for reading, but reading something like this makes you understand why that rationale can be so powerful.

That's only one of the reasons this book is so fascinating - the adventure in the Amazon aspect. Everything described about the amazon area was so interesting I found myself looking up more online later, and wanting to find another book that talks about the area - my imagination was piqued by all the unique dangers and experiences of the amazon - I felt like a little boy reading an adventure novel (I guess it's not that far away from truth) - undiscovered tribes, with thousands of unique languages who could befriend explorers, take them prisoner and eat them (yes, it sounds like an old-fashioned belief, but apparently a couple of the tribes actually practiced cannibalistic behavior) along with untold ways leading to an untimely death - several different insects alone, many poisonous animals, starvation, and of course sheer mental insanity.

Another reason to read the book is the mystery - there's a degree of suspense to unraveling what actually happened to Percy Fawcett, the protagonist of the non-fiction work - an incredibly riveting figure - unrelentingly loyal to a few, showing no fear in the face of these dangers, but also impossible to get along with for anyone who didn't share his one-dimensional keep-going never-stop mentality. There are even various little clues - journal entries, some of them possibly coded, rumors and stories from local tribes, and little bits, possibly true, or possibly not from the different explorers who have followed him in - at least those who survived.

A third (I'd say last, but that implies a more limited list than I'd like - maybe I'll think of more later?) is the reason I end up most often end up reading non-fiction books - the history. The shift in anthropological ideas, and how Fawcett was both ahead of time in his treatment of the natives, and still a member of his time with his generally noble savage beliefs. The notion of exploration, of how to deal with something completely new is compelling, and the amazon in the early 20th century (and probably to a lesser extent today) is particularly interesting because of how it was the last truly unexplored place on the planet, and that even as technology outside kept improving, explorers struggled to make use of that technology within the jungle. There's some strange romance to the notion that a small group of explorers could succeed where a giant battalion could not, and to the idea that even to this day there's some unexplored piece left.

And it kind of teases you - because in the end, there wasn't realy an answer, even though reading the whole way you kind of knew there wouldn't be - and to some extent, that's probably the point - all these people looking for definitive, certain, iron-clad proof that just is never going to exist as hard as it is to except, and it is hard, but it's a little less hard because of how enjoyable for us (not for them surely - with the malaria, and the yellow fever, and bugs, and the pirhanas and whatnot) the journey is getting there.

I have ranked the top 68 television shows of the '00s, and will be presenting them, one-by-one, starting with 68 and working down. The rankings are more or less based on the show's popularity, it's cult status, it's critical acclaim, and my personal liking of it, with a heavy dose of arbitrariness added in. If a show was a big enough phenomena, I'll keep it on the list - but if I don't like it, I may drop it some spots. One other caveat - these are primetime shows (I apologize if I put a cable show that wasn't, I thought they were all primetime shows - the main point of this is just that no talk shows, no Colbert and Daily show that would be on otherwise).

32: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire

Oh, to remember again what it was like to be alive during the great Game Show Revival on the turn of the 21st century. Sure, reality television was just a baby, and would go on to dominate the television landscape for much of the decade. But there was a trend, harking back on an older tradition, that burned first, and burned faster. The resurgence of the game show. And sure, game shows had been running during the day for years - Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy and The Price is Right among others. But this was the Game Show's big return to prime time, and the king of and inspiration for the revival was Who Wants to Be A Millionaire.

Ten contestants would begin each show with what was called a "Fastest Finger" - they would need to put four things in order, and the fastest to do so, was chosen to compete on the "hot seat." They would then answer multiple choice questions which went up in value, fifteen of increasing difficulty, the last one worth a million. One wrong sent the contestant home, but to to help each contestant were three "lifelines," which could each be used once - the 50/50 which eliminated two of the choices, Ask the Audience, which let the studio audience weigh in with their thoughts on a question, and Phone-a-Friend which let the contestant call someone they knew and get their opinion on a question.

Millionaire started in the UK, first airing in 1998, and spread to the US a year later, hosted by Regis Philbin, where it quickly became a sensation. Actually, sensation is underselling it. Because of its success, ABC began airing in three times a week. It's hard to describe just how big Millionaire was at that time. Looking at the Nielsen ratings for the year of 1999-2000 forces me to do a double take no matter how many times I see it - the top three spots were all taken by the three weekly editions of Millionaire. Phrases came into the lexicon from the show, like lifeline, but most of all "Final Answer" - before accepting any choice from the contestant, Philbin would ask - "Is this your final answer?," and the contestant would have to respond in kind for the answer to count. The phrase was ubiquitous - most hilariously winding up in the Simpsons rom-com "Love is Nice."

Part of the beauty was that anyone could try out for the game show by calling up from their house and answering questions - if they got them right, they'd be entered into the pool for the show. It was so big that when the first person came along and won the million, he became a household name - John Carpenter (and directed Vampires, no less! (he didn't), not to mention the fact that he was so confident on the million dollar question ( "Which of these U.S. Presidents appeared on the television series Laugh-In?") that he used his last lifeline - his phone-a-friend to call his father and let him know he was about to win a million dollars (to be fair, it was a really easy million dollar question.)

Of course, with that kind of overexposure it was due to burnout. It got a little less popular the next year, a lot less popular the year after that, and it was done, mercifully put to bed by ABC. One does wonder if the show could have lasted a little longer if ABC had put it on a little more judiciously - though that brings up the great question, like with a young pitcher on a potentially world series winning team - is it worth hurting the pitcher's arm, or overexposing the show, for that one year of absolutely glory. Who can say.

A character from the dead-too-soon Party Down said in an episode that the key to a long relationship is to be a crockpot - burn too bright and you're likely to kill the relationship early - maybe the same is true for game shows. The daytime version of Millionaire, hosted by former View and current Today Show anchor Meredith Viera, has been running strong since 2002 - never the same type of national water-cooler-buzzing presence its predecessor was but still going, and there's something to be said for that too. Oh, and that the show inspired Best Picture winner Slumdog Millionaire's creation. Not a bad legacy.

I have ranked the top 68 television shows of the '00s, and will be presenting them, one-by-one, starting with 68 and working down. The rankings are more or less based on the show's popularity, it's cult status, it's critical acclaim, and my personal liking of it, with a heavy dose of arbitrariness added in. If a show was a big enough phenomena, I'll keep it on the list - but if I don't like it, I may drop it some spots. One other caveat - these are primetime shows (I apologize if I put a cable show that wasn't, I thought they were all primetime shows - the main point of this is just that no talk shows, no Colbert and Daily show that would be on otherwise).

33: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

One of my personal favorite comedies currently on TV, I got on board sometime during the third season, when a friend in Philadelphia gave me the heads up (relatively soon after the airing of the It's Always Sunny commercials which were parodies of the Mac and PC ads - Mac would say "I'm Mac", and then one of the other characters would say "I'm PC" and then what it stood for - the only one I remember is that Danny DeVito said "Perverted Clown" - not sure why that stood out - I had absolutely no idea what was going on in the commercials). Since then, I've been a devoted viewer and have been surprised at just how big the show has gotten - the cast went on a tour doing renditions of "The Nightman Cometh" - the musical performed within the show, and people dressed as Green Man - Charlie's characters which involves him wearing a full body green lyrca suit - pop out at any Philadelphia sporting event.

The party line on Sunny is that it's something like Seinfeld on crack - or in my way of saying it, while sometimes the Seinfeld characters are insensitive to others - you can imagine wanting to be friends with them - you'd never want to be friends with the Sunny characters - they're - and this is one of the things that separates from just about everything else on TV - jackasses, dicks, all together despicable people - and there's pretty much no reason ever given for you to feel any other way about them (well, except maybe Charlie - he's pretty lovable).

Each episode generally has a familiar set up - someone in the Gang - the shorthand for the characters Dennis, Mac, Charlie, Dee and Frank - gets an idea - and the Gang generally splits up into two groups taking on something to do with the idea, getting themselves into all sorts of trouble, and constantly backstabbing and betraying one another, which has absolutely no consequences by the time the next episode rolls around.

It's super low budget, it's theme song is some old timey instrumental music and every time I think the writers have absolutely exhausted things to make fun of and socially acceptable lines to cross (the gang takes on abortion, the gang deals with racism, the gang deals with drugs), they find something new, and it's more or less been consistently funny (obviously there are better and worse episodes, but generally even the worse episodes have a few great laugh lines - even the weird flashback-gang-are-characters-in-revolutionary-times episode which was the worst of the series).

It may not be the best crafted show out there, or having the most meaningful or engaging story - there's almost no serial element - but it does what comedy shows in theory should do best - its' funny - more than funny - it's hilarious - I probably laugh more while watching Sunny than almost any show on during the same time - and it passes the test for longer term appreciation - it's full of repeatable lines that last - watching repeats are just as funny as watching for the first time. It's one of the few shows that I have more or less unrestrained praise - sure, it puts up a ceiling by not being a show with many layers or meanings or story or feeling but it sets out to do one thing and it does it very well.

I have ranked the top 68 television shows of the '00s, and will be presenting them, one-by-one, starting with 68 and working down. The rankings are more or less based on the show's popularity, it's cult status, it's critical acclaim, and my personal liking of it, with a heavy dose of arbitrariness added in. If a show was a big enough phenomena, I'll keep it on the list - but if I don't like it, I may drop it some spots. One other caveat - these are primetime shows (I apologize if I put a cable show that wasn't, I thought they were all primetime shows - the main point of this is just that no talk shows, no Colbert and Daily show that would be on otherwise).

34: The West Wing

Even though I watched this show regularly for the first three seasons, it blows me mind to think of it as a 2000s show and realize it went on til 2006 - I always associate it with the late '90s and high school, which I graduated in 2001. Of course, it's biggest impact was certainly in those first three seasons, before Aaron Sorkin left. I've heard relatively decent things about the post-Sorkin years, particularly about the last season, where the new election seemed to capture a little bit of buzz, albeit not generating much in the way of ratings, as Jimmy Smits ran versus Alan Alda for the presidency (And poor John Spencer died right before he was to be Vice President - RIP John Spencer).

In the beginning though, the West Wing was really a sensation - both commercially and critically - in its first four years it won the Emmy for the Best Drama, with eleven different actors and actresses being nominated over the course of the series, and six of them winning at least one. The show was known for it's Aaron Sorkin patented - walk-and-talk style - witty, fast-talking conversations between staff members that happened as they moved from one oh-so-important meeting to another.

In my civics-minded, trying-to-get-into-college, days of junior and senior year of high school, I would go to model congress every Wednesday (kind of an informal debate club) and come back in time to watch the vast majority of West Wing followed by Law & Order. Watching it, for one hour goverment just seemed, well, good. You hear that expression "good government" - and I think there the implication, in my mind, anyway, is just that in the minimalist sense - the government is not corrupt, not actively cheating the taxpayer. And sure, the Bartlett administration in the West Wing had that. But the term could be used more broadly in the magical fictional world of the West Wing - it was good - the people were generally wise, the President in particular, and while they made mistakes, the mistakes were so good natured and accidentally misguided that who could blame them - these were people you saw running a government and wanted to vote them back in in perpetuity (Of course I say this as a liberal - I'm sure there are some conservative viewers who felt different, but as much as it can be, they were even good - well-meaning, above their partisan slant).

Now I don't want to sound too simply jaundiced about the modern political system - sure, I admit to being not thrilled about the way politics works sometimes, but I don't think there's anything modern about that - these problems have existed for years and years - just not as much in the West Wing. As someone who is inclined towards the cynical, maybe there was something I particularly appreciated about watching the workings of the staffers on the West Wing and seeing them do things that more often than not made you want to believe in the power of government, and particularly in American Democracy. Once in a while it's nice to be hopeful, even if it's based on something fictional.

Burned Out Mets Fandom

I don't want to speak for all (or even most) Mets fans, but by the last couple months of this year, I've been feeling more burnt out as Mets fan than I can remember feeling in years. I've only watched occasional games over the last month, and even when watching I'll turn away early in the game, or pay half attention. I can't remember the last year I've attended as few games as I did this year (3). Part of this is certainly due to the general quality of product on the field - it's rough to watch a bad team for one (though the Mets aren't a truly awful team - 4 games under .500 with a Pythagorean winning percentage of .500 - just an awfully underachieving team) and it's even less inspiring when you're being forced to watch a lineup full of not-really-prospects like Lucas Duda, Quad-Aers like Jesus Feliciano, and way-too-young-all-field-no-hit players like Ruben Tejada.

It all starts with 17 games left in 2007, when the now fabled collapse began - the Mets blew a 7 game lead, a lead which they had had for four months, culminated by losing on the last day of the season in blowout fashion to the Marlins, in a game started by one time arch-rival Tom Glavine, his last as a Met, which was over before it even began - he allowed seven runs in the first while only managing to get one out. Of course, like a financial down or up cycle, we could only know for sure when tides changed in hindsight - at the time, it was bad, absolutely brutal, certainly - perhaps worse than the seven game loss to the Cardinals in the NLCS the year before - but there was hope all the same - the Mets were just removed from their fantastic 2006, and it was a serious of freak bad luck in the bullpen that had caused some of those losses, and with solid performances from 2006 acquisitions Oliver Perez and John Maine, it seemed like 2008 would be closer to 2006 than 2007.

It turned out to be wrong of course - 2008 ended up being a poor man's 2007 - the lead was never quite as big, and the team never quite seemed as good (though it finished with one more win than the year before) - and while it was just as tough to swallow, the eventual collapse was more expected if nothing else - it's as if we were back at home with the feeling that mets fans need to expect everything to go wrong, and that for some reason that was just on a strange hiatus for 2006. I was at the last game at Shea Stadium, where the Mets played a meaningful last game of the season for the second straight year, losing again to end any playoff hopes. Compared to the year before of course, 2009 was simply an unmitigated disaster - every important player not named David Wright was injured for a significant part of the season, and Wright had a power outage leading to no Met having more than 12 home runs, and that being by the mostly-no-hit, no-field Daniel Murphy. 2010 was a much more successful year record-wise than 2009, but it was still below .500, and it came at a point where I honestly didn't expect anything more than a third place finish from the Mets.

Now, it didn't help at all that while the Mets were going from blowing leads to never having them in the first place, the Mets biggest rivals were succeeding, well, about as much as baseball teams can succeed - the Phillies have made the playoffs every year from 2007 to 2010, won the World Series in 2008 and won the pennant in 2009, while the Yankees won the World Series in 2009. It's serious insult added to terrible performances by the Mets.

By the end, no, middle, no, mostly beginning at the latest of this year, Mets fans had lost confidence in their manager and general manager to put together a team capable of winning anything, not to mention the ownership, which sadly isn't going anywhere. It became a matter of riding out the year to wait for changes after the year. And by the end of the year, watching the Mets was no longer an act of enjoyment - it was a reminder of failure.

I just want to make it known that I do not blame the players, and particularly am not one of those people who thinks that not making the playoffs is on the shoulders of David Wright and Jose Reyes and we should trade them - they - for the most part - have done their part - it's been the pieces around them that have been insufficient.

My friend Rich made a point which I think resonates a lot - Mets fans are back in a mode in which anyone in charge of the Mets should be considered guilty until proven innocent. I desperately want to give new management a chance, but I have absolutely no faith in the current ownership group to pick new management I would support.

I hope, I really do, that next year begins with a management team that is capable to making the Mets a team that can compete for the playoffs every year, but I can't get back that excited feeling until I see something in action.

Red Bull Fandom

I've just started, over the past few months to be a serious New York Red Bulls fan. Now, before, if you had asked me, I would have said I was a Red Bulls fan - and I wasn't entirely just pulling it out of thin air - I occasionally followed the stories and I watched playoff games, but I couldn't tell you who they were playing next week, or who their regular center backs were. Suffice to say, I was a very casual fan. For years, I had wanted to make a more concerted effort to follow the Red Bulls - a few years ago, I became a fan of the Blackburn Rovers in the English Premier League which is great, but games are not on often because they're kind of a second tier time, and after all, I'm from the US, I should have a US team to root for, dammit.

I had chosen the Red Bulls as the local team (either reason 1 or 1A on how to chose a team, along with team your parents rooted for) which comes with the benefits that all the games will be shown on local TV. Before I watched my first few games, I looked up the players and history on wikipedia - but you can't really learn them that way (well, you can - you can just force yourself to memorize them, but that's kind of cheating and absolutely no fun). Each game, I would remember one or two more players - just by osmosis, and sooner or later, you get to know the players, where they play and more and more about their style, and hopefully start remembering at least the better players on opposing teams.

There's a great getting-to-know you feeling about the early stages of following a new team. You can even note that fantastic first moment when the team scores and you actually feel an authentic, unforced moment of joy - one that you can only earn from commitment to a team - learning the players as they kick corners or crosses or tackle opposing attackers (As soccer goes, it's a lot easier to learn the more offensively minded players usually, as they're the ones scoring the goals). And, of course with that, the actual feeling of irrational anger and disappointment that follows a loss (failing to get a win when the other side has ten men for most of the match? Come on!).

It feels a little bit like cheating to be really getting into it when the Red Bulls are just starting to coalesce as one of the favorites for the MLS Cup (Yes, that's what it's called) or the Supporters Shield (best regular season record, and this is a much cooler name than MLS Cup (and possibly as important - winning a regular season is a regularly underrated feat in American sports where playoffs are such a big deal). That said, I don't feel too bad considering it's hardly like jumping on the Yankees' bandwagon - MLS could use all the fans they could get, and most people in New York still don't give a shit about the Red Bulls.

And yeah, getting players who are big names, and who as someone who followed soccer even just a little bit knows, is pretty exciting - Thierry Henry was the leading goal scorer for Arsenal for years, and Rafael Marquez was a key cog in Barcelona's defense, and is still captain of the Mexican national team. Adding to that is young guns like Tim Ream, who could be on the US team in a couple of years.

It's exciting - it's easy enough - watching just two hours a week - and you get on board with both a franchise and a new league. I know some people are content with just one or two sports, and going all out with those but I like a more broad approach (not every sport of course, no NASCAR - everyone's got to have limits). Plus, it's good to diversify the things you care about - when your other teams are in down years (Mets, Bills - and we'll see on Knicks), it's nice to have enough that one of them is bound to be successful.

So yeah, go Red Bulls!

True Blood Finale

Warning: Spoilers

I was quite dissappointed in the True Blood finale, and most of the second half of the season, after I watched the last three in a row, especially compared to last season. Last season featured two big plots that slowly built up, gaining momentum - more and more happening - and then one plot reached its cliamx, the Fellowship of the Sun plot, leaving the last couple episodes up for wrapping up the Maryann the maenad plot.

This season, the most exciting episodes seemed to happen about halfway through the season. The season started slow, sure, but all True Blood seasons (or all three of them, anyway) start slow. Generally they've started to seriously speed up later on. Some of the plots that I was waiting to be folding into one of the more important plots never really coalesced. For example, the Jason plot - him with the warepanther Crystal and trying to defend her from her incestuous family while saving her compound - where was that going? What does that have to do with anything? Who cares? I thought for sure her people would somehow be relevant to the season's end game, but nope. (This doesn't mean I expect there to be no smaller subplots - just fewer and more focus on the bigger plots, especially by the end - smaller plots like the Hoyt-Jessica one are fine, or even the Lafayette plot with his new guy - that never really seemed like it had much to do with anything and that was fine aside from the too much screen time it got at the end where main plots should be taking over). Also, towards the end of the season, certain plots seemed to come out of absolutely nowhere. Sam and his murderous backstory burglarizing and then being backstabbed? Where the fuck did that come from? Why is that coming up for the first time in a season's last episode, where things are being concluded? And the Sam plotline never went anywhere in terms of the main plotlines - I thought for sure Sam's brother would end up being one of the main villains of the season, but that never kind of really developed, it just kept repeating the part about him being a bad kid and Sam trying to straighten him out over and over again until the last half hour or so.

Finally, there's the main plotline itself. Russell Edgington is made out to be the oldest, most powerful vampire any of the characters on the show has ever known or heard about (at least until next season). He is the King of Mississippi, and now Louisiana as well, and commands an army of werevolves that have been around for centuries. He ends the ninth episode of this season by killing a news reporter on TV and telling everyone he is prepared to take over humanity. And that's about the most climactic his story gets. Considering how much Russell has been built up, it's remarkably easy for Eric and Bill to trick him, and it takes about 10 minutes. There's no fanfare. Shouldn't there be some vampires or wolves protecting him? Why the countless mentions of his wolf armies and flashbacks of Eric fighting them and then absolutely no mention of that again? I really don't get it. Maybe they're building up something especially epic for next season, but I don't have much faith in that. I just feel kind of disappointed.