On second thought ...

By virtue of purchasing Celtics-Heat tickets in 2009, I have received intermittent phone calls from the Miami Heat ticket office, usually at obscene hours like 9 or 10 a.m.

They offered me packages to Heat games and I politely turned them down.

In retrospect, perhaps I made the wrong decision.

Now I'd have to do many unsavory things just to have the privilege of standing outside the arena for Heat-Bobcats in February.

I traveled down to South Beach for drinks with a pal from work, ostensibly for some good social time but we both wanted to be down there on this night. We plopped down at a random bar at the Lincoln Mall (an outdoor strip of posh restaurants, art galleries and bars) and waited as LeBron made out with himself in the mirror on national TV.

This pal is a Heat fan, but also a LeBron hater. He was - and still is - legitimately torn about LeBron James teaming up with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh on his beloved team. For years, this fan has loathed LeBron for what he claimed was James' supreme, preening selfishness. I shrugged him off, thinking he was just bitter because LBJ is more talented than Wade.

(But the past few weeks have proved him right.)

Random beautiful people in designer clothes stopped at TVs all across South Beach as LeBron's head appeared on every single screen I could see. It was like Big Brother. He was EVERYWHERE. Then he said he plans to "take his talents to South Beach" and the fans cheered.

No, they didn't erupt. They didn't act like a massive glob of people in a major European city watching the World Cup. People clapped, yelled, and high-fived for a few minutes then went on their way. They had some priceless art to buy and some homeless people to laugh at.

That said, there was a general excitement in the air and as the announcement rang out through all the speakers, only my LeBron-hating Heat fan and myself stood stoically. If this town can do one thing, it's jump on a bandwagon.

Nine trillion words have been written on LeBron and we're due for a few trillion more in the next few days. I can't say anything that someone else hasn't already come up with. I'm just glad this whole fiasco is finally over. In a few days, perhaps I can go more than 10 or 12 hours without hearing the words "LeBron" and "James."

And after that, perhaps a whole day sans LeBron James.

By that time, unfortunately, I'll still be kicking myself for not buying those tickets when I had the chance. Despise this super Justice League amalgamation in Miami all you want, it would still be great to see in person.

And I let a cheap ticket to witness it all live get away.

Best of the 2000s: Movies

Isn't this a little late? Yes. Pretend I'm a contractor for the Big Dig. I'll get the job done, but only several months later and with outrageous cost overruns.

It just popped in my head the other day: I forgot to give my loyal audience my top movies of the last decade! For shame!

So here you are.

10. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006): There were two movies that made it hurt to laugh last decade and this was one of them. Borat's chauvinistic, anti-Semitic, twisted world view dovetails nicely with the seedy underbelly of America. What the movie tells us - through real people - is that plenty of Americans think just like this guy. It felt wrong to laugh at this movie, but laugh I did.

9. Downfall (2004): I've told plenty of people to watch this 2 1/2 hour movie with German subtitles, but no one seems to listen to me. This is far from a popcorn flick, but it contains the best leading role performance of the decade. Bruno Ganz nails Hitler, with his descent into madness, paranoia and depression. His left arm quakes, spittle flies from his mouth and he stalks around his bunker hunched over in physical and mental agony. Little by little, he realizes his dreams for a world empire are crumbling. I saw this movie years ago and his performance still sticks with me.

P.S. If you've ever seen the "Hitler reacts" videos on Youtube, they come from this movie.

8. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004): Endlessly quotable and irreparably silly, this is the best comedy of the 2000's. It's not as sweet as 40-year-old Virgin, but it is funnier. The non-sequiters, the winking parody of TV news and classic inflated male ego humor of Will Ferrell and the gang produces a laugh a minute. That's a comedy's only job.

7. The Departed (2006): Initially, this Oscar-winner left me a little cold. Terrifically entertaining, but not quite as deep as I had hoped. Jack Nicholson phoned in his performance in this one. He wasn't playing Frank Costello, he was playing Jack Nicholson playing Frank Costello. His villain belonged in a comic book. On the other hand, Leonardo DiCaprio proved to me he was much more than the hear throb from Titanic. He outshined an All-Star cast in this Boston mobster epic. I can't say this about many movies, but this remains very re-watachable.

6. Bowling for Columbine (2002): Michael Moore is kind of a parody of himself these days, but he's famous because he makes damn good movies. This was his coup de gras. Using the Columbine massacre as a springboard, he delves into America's crazy culture of gun fetishization, constant fear, paranoia and violence and how this atmosphere contributes to tragic events like that school shooting. Pick apart a fact here or a fact there all you want, the main thesis of the film is correct. The movie works like a great editorial. It has a point to make and it makes it convincingly and memorably.

5. Brokeback Mountain (2005): The movie is a punchline now. Whenever I say I like this movie, I always hear, "Gay! Gay!" Robbed of the Oscar by the much, much inferior Crash, Brokeback Mountain proved to be more than just an ending for a joke. It's a gut-wrenching tale of a forbidden love that came along in a time when homosexuality was hotly debated in our culture and out politics. Through all the bluster surrounding its release, the movie simply showed how two men dealt with their passion for each other and how it wrecked them from the inside. Heath Ledger proved himself a real actor in this one. The last song and image still haunt me.

4. No Country for Old Men (2007): I'll spare you the fancy film buff talk about deep themes and the human condition. This Cohen Brothers film was by far the most suspenseful movie of the decade. Javier Bardem's Anton Chigurh chilled me to the bone as he killed and hunted without one hint of human emotion. Many ripped the ending, and though it was far from perfect, it held true to the movie's purpose. Violence is dealt out in our modern world randomly and unfairly.

3. Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004): The second in Quentin Tarantino's homage to martial arts films, Kill Bill Vol. 2 is one of those movies that if I happen to find it on a random day, I have to finish it. It has all the Tarantino elements: Random outbursts of violence, long patches of clever dialogue and a diverse cast of morally ambiguous criminals. The scene where Beatrice Kiddo is being buried alive and then calls back to her tutelage under Pai Mai to escape is perfect. Just perfect. This movie has style, sex appeal, violence, witty dialogue, a great revenge plot, Michael Madsen ... what more could you want?

2. Mulholland Drive (2001): Great movies are supposed to be an experience - visceral, emotional, indelible - and this film from surrealist David Lynch put me through one I will never forget. The first time I watched this movie I was with a bunch of friends, who like me were utterly confused and flabbergasted by the ending. I literally had no idea what I had just seen. Usually, I dislike movies that try to be confusing and surreal just for the sake of it, but this one left me feeling more haunted and inquisitive than betrayed or angry. So I read up online about it that night and then watched it again.

I did not get much sleep that evening.

Like a great puzzle, once you solve it, the whole act of putting it together garners more meaning. This is a freakish, burrow-your-soul forray into Hollywood culture. Through all the weirdness - the cowboy, the blue box, the tiny old couple, the monster behind the dumpster, the dwarf in the wheel chair, the Silencio club - Mulholland Drive is a bruised and nostalgic look at how Hollywood seduces and how Hollywood destroys. The final third of this movie still leaves me shivering when I think about it. I usually try not to.

One last thing, Naomi Watts is my favorite actress because of this movie. She pulls off the switch in characters so effortlessly that it amazes me to this day. She's willing to do risque, off-beat roles and Betty/Diane tops them all. Definitely Oscar-worthy. Like this movie. When surreal and ridiculous is done well, it really resonates. Why else would I still remember the very night I first saw it, almost ten years later?

1. The Dark Knight (2008): The 2000s was a decade for the superhero epics, the comic book remakes, the special effects fantasy extravaganzas. Lord of the Rings. Spider-Man, Sin City. Iron Man. The list goes on. None of them could approach the raw brilliance of this gritty look at the Batman saga. This is more than a superhero movie. Much, much more. It's about terrorism. It's about the roots of evil and chaos. It's about how society keeps chaos at bay while also cultivating it. It's about how bad one has to be to actually do some good.

Batman has always been my favorite superhero. He's a film noir symbol who was always seeped in a more realistic, less idolized world than that of Superman or Spider-Man. This sequel from Christopher Nolan maintained a fierce loyalty to this interpretation. Obviously, we know how that was achieved. Heath Ledger as the Joker.

It's probably the most memorable and impactful character performance since Forrest Gump or Frank Slade. Ledger took the Joker from a cackling cartoon to a full-fledged nightmarish psychopath. Every single second he's on screen you can't think of anything else besides: My God! He's nailing this beyond belief! Just take all his scenes and put them together and you probably have the 11th best movie of the decade.

Besides Ledger's Hall of Fame offering, Nolan gives us an excellent, thought-provoking script and some of the best action scenes in film history. The attack on the Harvey Dent convoy in the streets of Chicago is exactly what an action scene should be.

The one flaw I would point out is the Two-Face subplot, which felt rushed. Besides that, nothing in this movie bothered me, not even the Rachel Dawes stuff. The Dark Knight never bores and never stoops to just another comic book rehash that is supposed to make millions and then go away until the next sequel.

It didn't win the Best Picture Oscar. It wasn't even nominated. It may always been seen as an action movie. That's not fair. Look behind the gloss and the special effects and the entertainment value. There's a real movie underneath, a movie that pretentious art-house fanatics such as myself can debate over while wearing berets and eating arugula.

Missed the cut

25th Hour

The Lives of Others

City of God

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Gladiator

Mystic River

Munich

Memento

Almost Famous

Tune in next week for my best radio programs from the 1940s!

Bring me a pink hat

I'm starting to come around on soccer.

Yes, I woke up in time for the second half of USA-Algeria in the World Cup. It's tough to admit, but that was some of the best, most intense athletic competition I have seen in a while. Certainly the best soccer game I've had the pleasure of watching.

Team USA had chance after chance after chance to score. My pulse quickened with each missed opportunity as the clock ticked toward 90ish and the end of America's World Cup run.

A 0-0 tie and the United States goes home and soccer is set back another five years after a second disappointing World Cup in a row.

It certainly did not seem to be in the stars for the red, white and blue. One disallowed goal robbed them of a win over Slovenia. Another goal wiped away against Algeria. Tons of missed chances. In my groggy state, I held little hope.

Then Landon Donovan streaked down a huge area of open field, passed it to the middle and found the back of the net off a save and I jumped out of bed yelling. The person upstairs did so as well. I heard the yelling and the felt the ceiling shake a tad.

So ... I am starting to come around on the beautiful game. I still wouldn't watch MLS regular season games or some random European game, but high-stakes, elite soccer is something I can get behind. Does this make me a bandwagon jumper?

Quite simply, yes. But I have no problem confessing this.

Here are the good things about soccer.

1. No commercials: Watching an NFL or NBA game, you're bound to see more erection pill ads than the actual game. Soccer games fly by. You can get five minutes with a commercial break. Biggest factor in its favor.

2. High stakes: I can watch almost any sport if the stakes are high enough. I'll watch the Masters, Wimbledon, Stanley Cup playoff games, etc. You can't find higher stakes than the World Cup.

3. New Zealand tying Italy: Thanks to some obnoxious Facebook people who root for Italy over America even though they were born and lived here their whole lives, I root against the Azzurri. That tie gave me great satisfaction.

It's not all good. The flopping is ridiculous and embarrassing. It's above shameful. And don't even compare it to flopping in basketball. Pau Gasol flops all over the place, but at least he doesn't pretend he got shot in the knee and start writhing on the ground in absolute agony.

The stoppage time doesn't make much sense either. Soccer games just end at a secret time and you're left to guess. Why not just stop the clock during the game, for an "injury" or a goal, instead of adding extra time at the end?

And I still don't get this offsides thing.

Nonetheless, I'm starting to like it as a niche sport. It won't supplant baseball, football and basketball in my mind, but it can carve a nice spot right below them with the occasional golf tournament or big boxing/UFC match. It's just hard not to like the World Cup.

Give me a pink Bayern Munchen hat and a knock-off Messi jersey and I'll be ready to join the hooligans.

But I still refuse to call it football.

The One Where I Make a Very Inappropriate Analogy

Over the past ten or so years, I've had plenty of practice at what Jeff would call "The Blackout." After agonizing losses by a Boston team, I will avoid any and all media that I possibly can. I don't need the failure of my team rubbed in my face for 48 straight hours.

Unfortunately, I'm also in the worst possible job in which to conduct a true blackout. There are 5,000 TVs at work and all of them are on sports channels.

Needless to say, the Lakers' championship will pounded into all senses of my brain tomorrow and there's absolutely nothing I can do.

But I can control what I watched tonight. Not one second of the celebration. Nope, I watched Valkyrie. There was nothing else on On Demand worth seeing. So I watched a movie about a failed plot to assassinate Hitler starring Tom Cruise with an eye patch.

And this may be the copious amount of Miller Lite I imbibed tonight, but I saw some parallels to the NBA Finals. The Celtics were the Resistance. They tried valiantly to take down Hitler (Lakers) and came really close. They had the lead in the fourth quarter, so to speak, but Hitler rallied and ended up killing them all. The end.

Oh boy. I've really lost it. I know. The Lakers aren't Nazis, but they're still despicable. I'm just admitting what hit my brain while watching the film. Good efforts and good intentions don't always end up with good results.

Screw this. It's time to really let it all out.

THAT F*&%ING SUCKED!!!!!!!!!!

The Celtics shut down Kobe Bryant. He was awful. Couldn't hit anything. No one on the Lakers could. They shot 33 percent. The Celtics had a 13-point lead in the fourth quarter. And the Celtics F$%&ing lost???? They blew a Game 7 about a month after the Bruins blew their Game 7. What's going on???? They got a great game from Rasheed Wallace, too!!

13 POINT-LEAD!!!!!!!!!!!

Sigh.

It's easy to see why in retrospect. They got demolished - DEMOLISHED - on the glass all day. As bad as the Lakers offense was, the Celtics' offense was worse. At the end, it was all isolation plays that went nowhere and resulted in terrible shots. No cutting to the rim. No post play. And sure as hell no free throws.

(The refs did not lose this game or series for Boston. But how did the Lakers have twice as many free throws in every game when they weren't the aggressors? How come they let the teams play in the first three quarters and then call a foul parade in the last? Ugh.)

Frankly, the Lakers had more talent. They actually hit the shots when it counted. They rebounded. They hit free throws at the end. And now they're champions for about the 4,456th time in the past ten years. The bad guys win sometimes. And when the Cavs do a sign and trade with Lakers, shipping LeBron to L.A. for Adam Morrison's mustache, the Lake Show will win a few hundred more.

The 2009-10 Celtics were always an infuriating, yet valiant club. Some days they played like absolute crap, engaging in months of listless basketball. This was why I wasn't expecting anything from this team. But they turned it on in the playoffs.

Still ... the see-saw act continued. They laid an egg in Game 3 vs. Cleveland. They laid an egg in Game 5 vs. Orlando. In the first game of the Finals, they just didn't show up. It was over by the middle of the first quarter. Inexcusable. Same thing for Game 6. This series was going to be tough enough without just handing games away.

For all the no-shows, there were games like tonight where they poured their heart and soul into every minute. Most of the times, their best efforts were enough. Not this time.

And that's how I'll remember this team. They were tough and feisty but also infuriatingly inconsistent. You know how Mets/Yankee fans feel about Darryl Strawberry? He had immense talent and always played hard. When he was on, he was a treat to watch. But every now and then the inevitable relapses came.

The Celtics weren't talented enough to relapse twice in these Finals. So it came down to a wacky Game 7, where their best wasn't enough, either. Like the 2003 Red Sox and the 2006-2007 Patriots, they gave us a bunch of great memories but will always be remembered for the way they lost.

I'm proud of the good, junkyard dog Celtics, frustrated and disappointed at the relapsing Celtics.

Honestly, I don't know what I think of them as a whole right now. The pain of this loss is too close right now. This goes up to No. 4 on my Most Agonizing Boston Loss list.

1. Pats lose to Giants

2. Red Sox lose 2003 ALCS

3. Patriots lose 2006 AFC title game.

4. Celtics lose Game 7

5. Northeastern's loss to BU in the Beanpot final. (We had 'em!)

What I do know for certain is that my hatred of the Lakers is finally in my blood. I've never liked them, but now I hate them. I hate Pau Gasol's Institute of Floptology, Kobe Bryant and his fake family bullshit after the half. I hate their purse poodle fans and their smug coach. I hate Derek Fisher and his BS shots. I despise them now with 100 percent of my being.

And I hope they go 0-82 next year. I mean, Hitler won in Valkyrie, but killed himself nine months later.

So there's that ...

Hit the road, Jack

Talk about a double whammy. Just under 24 hours from the end of Lost, another ground-breaking drama left our airwaves. If you know me at all, you know this goodbye was especially taxing on my fragile soul.

For nearly a decade, I've watched and re-watched every episode of 24. Nine years ago, in November of 2001, this Fox drama debuted with a pilot episode containing a blown-up passenger jet just weeks after 9/11. Gutsy. As each episode ticked by in real time and the producers raised the ante with each hour, I quickly realized this was no ordinary show.

Unfortunately, they decided to end this series the day after Lost's send off. Both shows were equally revolutionary, but Lost received a hero's goodbye while 24 sort of whimpered away. It's a shame really, and despite the drop in quality in the last few seasons, Jack Bauer and company deserved better.

The two-hour finale did not measure up to Lost's. It did not pack the punch that I was hoping for since it basically served as a set-up for the potential movie. On a murderous rampage the past few weeks, they brought Jack Bauer back to sanity, but not convincingly. About to assassinate the president of Russia, Jack decides against it with help from trusted sidekick Chloe O'Brian. And that was it. The psycho Jack that took the show in a daring new direction disappeared. They took the cheap and easy way out.

The final scene did serve as a fitting tribute to the core relationship of the show the past four seasons - Chloe and Jack. They say goodbye via video camera and Jack wanders off in exile, a bloody and battered mess, hunted by the country he served his whole life. An ending reminiscent to Season 4. Chloe says "shut it down" and the camera flickers off Jack, revealing the famous clock counting down to zero.

The final two hours felt more like a season finale than a series ender, which I should have expected. Nonetheless, it left me wanting. Maybe this is just my form of denial. Maybe I just can't accept the fact that the ticking clock and Bauer's bulging veins will not be on my TV anymore.

But enough about Season 8, a fine, yet unspectacular offering of the JB saga. I admit I watch too much TV, but what it detracts from my social life it adds to my TV expertize. 24, especially its debut season, changed the manner in which I watch and digest television.

From the death of Janet York to the reveal of the mole, the inaugural season just kicked my ass. I did not expect American TV shows to coldly kill innocent characters like 24 did. I could never predict it would turn a heroic character into the season's biggest traitor. It broke every rule I was weaned on watching ER and Law & Order during high school.

Then it ended with Jack discovering his murdered pregnant wife and I still vividly remember the feeling I had watching that moment. A kick to the stomach. I was almost breathless. It still stands as the greatest hour of episodic TV I've seen. From there, Season 2 started with the show's best plot arc, the search for the nuclear bomb. Year after year, 24 dealt with terrorism, torture, action and espionage with a skill and style usually reserved for Jason Bourne movies.

What makes the show stand the test of time is it's unflinching insistence on sacrifice. Good people die. Good people have tragic endings. Bad guys win sometimes. James Bond always gets the girl at the end and only gets a few scratches. Jack Bauer lost his pregnant wife, his relationship with his daughter, several girlfriends, countless partners and colleagues and even his best sidekick in Tony Almaeda.

His story is tragic. Happiness was never in the cards for him. For a network TV show, this is extremely rare. Enormous credit goes to Kiefer Sutherland, who brought a volcanic intensity to this character every hour while also giving him a heart and soul slowly eroded by each and every tragic choice he made in each season. He turned Jack Bauer from a man doing everything to protect his family and his country into a popular culture icon.

It's corny, I know, but I'm going to miss this show. While it wasn't the best acted, best written and while it wasn't the deepest or most thoughtful show of the past 10 years, it's by far the most entertaining. It never lost it's forward momentum. It never got muddled in minutiae like The Sopranos or lost in crazy mythology like Lost or Alias. 24 served at the alter of its kinetic plot and never wavered.

So thank you, 24, for giving us Jack Bauer, Nina Myers, David Palmer (who played Barack Obama way back in 2001), Chloe O'Brian, Sherry Palmer, Charles Logan, Tony Almeida, Michelle Dessler, Aaron Pierce, Stephen Saunders, Renee Walker, Allison Taylor and many other memorable characters. Thanks for the twists, the ticking clock and the Bauer kill count. Thanks most of all for being fun to watch all these years.

I can't believe you're gone (sort of). It's enough to make even a tough, hard-as-nails guy like me shed a tear.

See ya, Jack.

Time to let go

Closing a TV series is a dicey business. Questions and cliffhangers propel TV shows. A movie dispatches its plot and characters in two hours. Lost sustained its spinning (donkey) wheels for six years.

So when something that is meant to keep going and going finally stops, what do you do?

It had to end somehow, which will surely leave people who invested years into the show feeling empty. There's no way to please them all, but one thing is certain: Lost had to move on, and now its obsessive, manic fan base must follow suit.

If you hadn't heard, Lost came to an end in an epic, 2 1/2-hour orgy of sentimentality and spiritual affirmation. All questions weren't answered. All fates weren't spelled out. However, the finale did give us a satisfactory, intensely emotional conclusion, one that won't have me second-guessing my devotion to this one-of-a-kind series.

It was all worth it.

So where to begin? The highlight has to be the grand, messianic sacrifice of Jack Shephard. Always a divisive character, Jack is the well-meaning leader who proved that hell is indeed paved with good intentions. He tried to bring the castaways together from the very first season and failed. He tried to get everyone off the island and failed. He was divorced, destitute and even suicidal after escaping the island for the first time, proving to himself that his father was right to think very little of him.

Then he saw the light. He came back to the island having converted from a man of science to a man of faith. Jack, the tortured, failed hero found his salvation and ultimate redemption by claiming the protectorship mantle of the island from Jacob, taking down the island's force of evil and ultimately sacrificing himself for the sake of his friends and the world. What he couldn't find in life, he found in death.

The final scene, showing Jack stumbling through the bamboo forest until he collapsed provoked some manly tears. He ends up like we first saw him, lying on his back and gazing skyward. And then old friend Vincent appeared to be with Jack in his last moments. (If you've ever had a dog and did not get emotional when that happened, check your pulse.) Jack spots his friends escaping the island in the Ajira plane and smiles, a grin he earned through six bumpy seasons.

And his eye closed.

Before he died, he appointed Hurley as the new protector in what may be one of the most satisfying, memorable scenes in the show's history. Hurley, always full of self-doubt, bitterly argued that Jack didn't have to die. But he eventually knew what had to be done. (The minute he said, "I'm glad it wasn't me" during the last episode, you knew this might happen tonight.)
I bet the Hurley administration was much cooler than Jacob's.

The redemption carousel wasn't about to stop since Hurley needed a right-hand man, and who better than Ben? A perfect ending for Ben, a character who did more than enough evil things to merit infinite hatred from the fans, but through the sheer force of an all-time performance from Michael Emerson, he was always strangely likable. The fact that he came around to being a decent person really made me smile during that scene. He always wanted to be special on the island, which drove him to do many heinous things. Good ol' Hurley made his dream come true at last, right when Ben deserved it the most.

Off the island, we finally find out that the Sideways universe was actually a purgatory-esque waiting room for heaven. All the characters, dead or alive, lived out their fears/doubts/faults/dreams in this spiritual construct throughout the season. They made peace with their real lives and with those they loved the most. Each awakening, from Charlie/Claire to Sawyer/Juliet did its best to draw some tears and raise some goosebumps. While the mythology was always the most interesting facet of the show, the characters and their relationships were the most important. This episode made sure we understood that.

Many of the Lost-aways gathered in a church and waited for Jack to finally come around and accept his death. His scene with his dead father will be parsed like the Zapruder film for the next few decades as it served as the Rossetta Stone for this final season. Some of the characters died before Jack, like Charlie and Sayid, and some died after, like Hurley and Desmond, but they all died at some point. What we saw on the island did happen. There were no do-overs. No re-set button. They just all needed to come to grips before they could all move on to the heavenly white light that awaited them.

Sawyer got to hold Juliet one last time. Sayid got one last kiss with Shannon. Ben apologized for murdering Locke - my favorite scene from the episode. This was the last duet between Terry O'Quinn and Michael Emerson and I'll be damned if it wasn't fitting. They provided us two of the best and most enduring characters in TV history and I loved that they got closure.

I loved that everyone got closure.

So the phenomenon that was Lost is finally over. Our characters didn't die alone. They all waited for each other in the afterlife because their time together was the most important part of their lives. And meanwhile the island remains, ever mysterious. The "Light" still shines. The wreckage of Oceanic 815 still litters the lonely beach, a memento of the gigantic imprint these people left there on that rock and in our TV-watching lives.

"The End" goes up there with Six Feet Under's finale as the best series closer I've seen. All the debate, all the 25-page Doc Jensen recaps, all the Lostpedia browsing was worth it.

Yeah, I can move on now.

Tardy to the party

Before we get into this, let me remind you that I was on the Barack Obama train very early.

With that out of the way, I have the uncanny ability to be late on fads or technology or movies or music. I still don't have a smart phone. I just recently bought an HDTV. I don't own a Lady Gaga CD. I'm always tardy to the party.

This struck my mind as I watched the season finale of HBO's "The Ricky Gervais Show." I laughed so much my chest ached and my eyes watered. The show gives an animated interpretation to the podcasts of Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington.

Back in 2006, the Schaibles tried to get me hooked on that show. For a myriad of reasons, I failed to follow the lead. I was very, very travel weary by that time in San Diego and I was in a post-gradution, pre-employment funk. Years later, I realize they were right all along, because this show (which applies to the podcasts) is hilarious.

Some may not like the cartoon aspect, but I think it makes Pilkington's odd statements that much funnier. There's the part where they talk about the ghost of Pilkington getting a rectal exam, haunting a doctor's office. The drawing of said ghost nearly had me cackling on the floor. When Pilkington talks about having a conversation with a worm, the pictorial interpretation cracks me up.

The highlights of this program are plentiful. Karl talking about finding a strange home with a note that had a list of baby items to buy, then on the back it said, "Nevermind. Baby dead." I lost it. The part where they talk about the monkey in space and Ricky asks how the monkey finds the moon and Karl says, "He turns left." Hilarious. The part when Stephen asks how Karl would walk if his head was facing the opposite direction. Would he walk backwards, which would make it forwards for him in that case? No. Karl says he'd walk sideways so no one would notice. I'm not sure that makes any sense, but it's damn funny.

How does one describe Mr. Pilkington. He's not stupid, but he says a lot of stupid things, but these stupid things have some strange logic to them. This logic plays off great with straight-laced Gervais and Merchant. I love when Pilkington says something crazy, meaning every word of it without a hint of irony, and Gervais screams at him, "You're talking absolute bollocks!" I love everything about this show.

Too bad I'm four years late.

That's not all. Last summer I bought "Only by the Night" by Kings of Leon (thanks in large part to the urging of Zach Hossem). The album grew on me quickly. They've been described as the southern Strokes, which is appropriate but not the whole story. They have a gothic, Radiohead sensibility. Finally, I purchased another album from them, "Because of the Times."

I bought it blindly, based on the strength of "Night." Lo and behold, this album gets four stars. The genesis of "Only by the Night" can be heard in this 2007 release. Catchy, moody, fresh, mid-tempo rock. In particular I enjoy "On call," "Arizona," and "Fans."

I bring up the Kings of Leon because I had the chance to see them in concert in June of 2008 and completely whiffed. They were opening for Pearl Jam in West Palm Beach. At that point, I had only heard "Bucket" and wasn't completely awed by it. So my friends and I stayed in the outside area while the Kings played. Note this was the day before my infamous trip to New Zealand.

Now that I know how great this band is, I'm very upset that I twiddled my thumbs while they played their set. Thankfully, they're returning to the area later this year.

So yeah, I'm late with many things in our popular culture. Kings of Leon have been around for years and it took me this long to discover them. Shameful. Same goes for the wonder of the world (and "round-headed buffoon") that is Karl Pilkington.

But ... I knew back in 2004 Obama would be president someday! Never forget that. I'll make sure you don't.