Fun Fest Top 10 Events

With Kingsport’s Fun Fest starting tonight, I thought I’d do a list of my top 10 favorite Fun Fest events over the years.   Here goes!

10.  Crazy Boat Race: I think it’s been well over 10 years since the last Crazy Boat Race, but it was one of Fun Fest’s biggest events during the early years.  Teams would build all sorts of unusual boats, and race them down the river at Riverfront Park.  It was a lot of fun to watch.  I’m not sure why they stopped having the boat race, but I remember there were some years that they had to cancel it because there wasn’t enough water in the river due to drought conditions.  I’m guessing safety concerns were probably a factor also.  I think they continued the event for a while under the name Crazy Boat Show, but I guess nobody was interested in looking at the boats if they never actually went into the water.

9.  Block Parties: The neighborhood I used to live in had a huge block party  for several years, and I always enjoyed it.  The neighborhood where I live now had one this year, and it was great as well.

8.  Fun Fest Goes to the Races: Back when the Kingsport Speedway was operating, they would always have a special race during Fun Fest week that usually drew one of their biggest crowds of the year.  I miss our local speedway, and I wish someone would fix it up and start holding races there again.

7.  Fun Fest Slam: While our local professional wrestling scene is going strong with at least 3 different promotions regularly running shows in Kingsport, I don’t think there is a special wrestling event as part of Fun Fest any longer.  One of the matches that stands out in my mind from one of the Fun Fest shows several years ago was Skyfire (who was EZ Money in ECW and Jason Jett in WCW) vs. Eddie Golden.  At the time, Lucha Libre style wrestling had just started getting popular in the U.S., and Skyfire and Golden did pretty much every Lucha Libre and high-flying move I’d ever seen in my life in that one match.  I still rate it is as one the top 10 matches I’ve ever seen in person.  I also enjoyed seeing Kane at one of the Fun Fest wrestling shows.

6.  Fun Fest Parade: I haven’t been to all of the Fun Fest parades over the years, but I try to make it to as many as I can.  I’ve always enjoyed watching parades, and in many ways, the Fun Fest parade seems to have gotten bigger than Kingsport’s Fourth of July parade.

5.  Crazy 8s: I’m not athlectic, and I don’t run in the 8k road race.  However, I love watching it.

4.  Taste of Tri-Cities: The Taste of Tri-Cities has changed over the years, but I’ve always enjoyed it.   In the early days of Fun Fest, The Taste was kind of an event to itself, while in recent years it’s become more of a support event to the concerts and other events going on near D.B., since all of the attendees need somewhere to eat.  The event was originally conceived to give visitors a chance to sample foods from several area restaurants, and it was priced accordingly.  The servings were small, and the price was rarely over $1 for any individual item.  That way, you could sample food from several different places without spending too much or getting stuffed.  Nowadays, the prices are basically the same that you would spend at the restaurant itself, and most vendors serve full meals.

3.  Balloon Race: I’ve always enjoyed watching hot air balloons, but the Fun Fest Balloon Rally used to be a competition.  A lead balloon would take off 20 minutes before the others, and the other balloons would chase it.  At some point, the lead balloon would land and place a target on the gound.  The pilots of the other balloons had to toss a beanbag towards the target, and whoever came closest was the winner.  I still enjoy the balloon rally, but it was more exciting when it was a race.

2.  Fun Fest Fireworks: In my opinion, the Fun Fest fireworks have always been better than Kingsport’s Fourth of July fireworks.

1.  AFG Treasure Hunt: I took part in the treasure hunt for many years when AFG was in charge of it.  I’ve even been known to take a week of vacation during Fun Fest just so I could participate in the daily treasure hunts.  I love Pal’s, but when they took over the treasure hunt a few years ago, it wasn’t as good.  The clues and hiding places just weren’t as good as AFG’s.  Another new batch of sponsors took over the event last year, and while it still wasn’t as good as the AFG Treasure Hunts, it was best one of the past few years.  I hope they can return my favorite Fun Fest event to its former glory.

Movie Review – The Strangers

It’s been a while since I did a movie review, so I thought I would review The Strangers, which I finally watched tonight.  As with most of my reviews, there will be some spoilers, so keep that in mind if you haven’t watched the movie yet.

I had heard back when the movie was playing in theaters that it was a pretty good movie that was brought down by a poor ending, and I agree with that assessment.  The Strangers seems to be one of those movies where the writers and director crafted an excellent movie for the most part, but couldn’t think of a good ending.

The first hour or so of the movie was quite good.  The plot is actually very basic – a couple returns home after attending a wedding, and unknown masked assailants attack them.  There is just enough time spent at the beginning of the movie developing the protagonists to make you care about them, but it didn’t take too long to get into the suspenseful part of the movie.  Simple but effective plot devices, such as knocks at the door and an unknown person standing in the yard staring in the window, are used to create an atmosphere that is genuinely scary.  I thought the skipping record on the record player while the villains searched the house for their victims was particularly effective.  The masks worn by the villains were very creepy as well.

The first 15 minutes or so of the movie’s second hour felt like filler to me.  It almost seemed like they made an hour-long movie that was really good, but realized it would have to be longer to see a theatrical release.  The things that happened during this part of the movie were very run-of-the-mill horror movie cliches.  The victim tries to run from the house to the barn, falls down and hurts her ankle, and has to crawl the rest of the way; the victim tries to call for help on an old radio but the villain smashes it; the victim hides in a closet while the villians walk around the house looking for her.  This part of the movie almost became boring.

The ending of the movie was very basic.  There wasn’t anything particularly creative about it, and there wasn’t any sort of revelation as to why the villains did what they did.  They just tied the victims to chairs and stabbed them.  When one of the victims asked why they were doing this, one of the villains simply replied “because you were home”.

There were several things that I didn’t like about the ending.  First, the villains removed their masks and revealed their faces to their victims before stabbing them – but their faces were never shown on camera.  This was a huge disappointment.  Secondly, the very end of the movie just didn’t make sense to me.  One of the victims was still alive – and the villains knew it.  However, they willingly left her alive.  I didn’t understand why they would do that, since they had shown their faces to her.  Finally, the final scene was puzzling.  Two kids entered the house and found the bodies of the victims who had been killed, as well as the surviving victim.  One of the kids approached the survivor, she opened her eyes and screamed, and the credits rolled.  I don’t know what that was supposed to represent, unless it was to show that she survived, but we already knew that.

As a new feature of my movie reviews, I’ve decided to end them not only by giving my rating of the movie, but also by picking three other movies from the same genre and telling whether I though they were better or worse than the movie I just reviewed.

The Strangers Rating:  *** (Good)

Was it better than:

• The Halloween remake?  YES
• Vacancy?  NO
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original)?  NO

The Chicken McSwiss

Today I saw a list on ListVerse.com called “Top 10 Failed McDonald’s Products”.  As I read the article, I thought of a McDonald’s product from days gone by that wasn’t mentioned on the list – the Chicken McSwiss.

The Chicken McSwiss was basically just a deep-fried chicken patty with Swiss cheese sauce on a bun, but the unique thing about it was that the chicken patty contained a piece of ham (between the breading and the chicken).

My first encounter with the Chicken McSwiss came during an elementary school field day.  My parents had stopped at McDonald’s on the way to the school to get our lunch, and when we opened the bags, we discovered that they had messed up our order.  Among other things, there was a Chicken McSwiss, which my parents hadn’t ordered, in the bag.  I tried it, and it was delicious.  I ate a lot of them during the months that they were offered.  To this day, it is one of my favorite McDonald’s items of all time.  Apparently not many people shared my enthusiasm, because the Chicken McSwiss was gone from the menu within 12 months at the longest, never to be seen again.

I Googled the Chicken McSwiss today, and I learned something that I didn’t know.  I found an old article from 1984 on a restaurant industry news site that said McDonald’s was preparing to test-market the new Chicken McSwiss in a limited number of East Tennessee locations.  I’m guessing now that it was probably never introduced outside of that market.   I’m probably one of the only people who ever tried the Chicken McSwiss.

Places I’d Like To Go

I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about places I’d like to go.  Some of them would be vacations, some day trips, and some are just places to eat.  Here’s a list of some of those places, in no particular order.

• Dollywood: This is the first time in several years that I haven’t bought a Dollywood pass.  My friends that I usually go to Dollywood with all decided not to get passes this year, and I don’t want to buy one unless I know I can make at least 2 trips to pay for it.

• Bonanza: The nearest Bonanza restaurant to where I live is close to an hour away, but we used to take regular trips there to eat.  It’s been too long since we’ve been.

• Myrtle Beach: My family used to take a vacation to Myrtle Beach every summer, but I haven’t been to the beach (Myrtle or any other) since the mid 90s.  I’m still sad that the Pavilion and the associated amusement park were torn down a couple of years ago.

• Cherokee, NC: This is a beautiful part of the country, and the scenery between here and there is awesome.  The area is rich in history, and it is a very interesting place to visit.  The Native Americans there allow you to play many fun games that they have prepared for you.  Sometimes they are so grateful that they even give you money.

• Cedar Point (Sandusky, OH) and Busch Gardens (Williamsburgh, VA): Of the amusement parks I’ve never visited, these are the top 2 on my list.

• Branson, Mo: Branson sounds like an interesting place to visit, and from what I’ve heard about it, it reminds me a lot of the Pigeon Forge / Gatlinburg area of Tennessee.  I’d be particularly interested in visiting Silver Dollar City, which is the sister park to Dollywood.

• Atlantic City, NJ: I’d love to go to Las Vegas, but I don’t like to fly, and it’s really too long of a drive.  I figure Atlantic City is the next closest thing to Vegas.

There you have it!  I don’t get to travel as much as I’d like, so I’m not sure if I’ll get to any of these places any time soon.  At least I can enjoy thinking about it!

Wrestlemania 25 Thoughts

As I did last year with Wrestlemania 24, I wanted to give my thoughts on Wrestlemania 25, which I watched last night.  I like to rate matches, so I’ll give each match a rating between zero and 4 stars.  Since I’m going to list the results of the matches, you might not want to read any further if you didn’t watch the show yet and plan to order the replay.

Pre-PPV Match – Tag-Team Unification Lumberjack Match:  Carlito & Primo Colon d. The Miz & John Morrison

After looking forward to Wrestlemania for days, WWE disappointed me before the PPV even started when I read that this match had been pulled from the PPV at the last minute.  Only the fans in attendance in Houston saw it.  To my knowledge, it didn’t even air on WWE.com.

I was disappointed for several reasons.  First, I just don’t like it when WWE doesn’t deliver something they advertised.  Second, The Miz and John Morrison worked as hard as anyone for the past 12 months, regularly wrestling on Raw, Smackdown, and ECW.  They deserved to be on Wrestlemania.  Finally, moving the match off of the PPV cost all of the lumberjacks their chance to appear on Wrestlemania.  It’s amazing how many wrestlers on the WWE roster didn’t appear on the show.

Match #1 – Money in the Bank Ladder Match:  C.M Punk def. Kane, Mark Henry, Shelton Benjamin, Christian, MVP, Finlay, and Kofi Kingston

As has always been the case with Money in the Bank, this was a good match.  The wrestlers put themselves through a lot of punishment.  It must be hard to keep coming up with new moves to do in ladder matches, but they threw a couple in.  One of these saw Kofi Kingston climb a closed ladder that was being held by Mark Henry.  The other saw Shelton Benjamin run across a contraption consisting of three ladders in order to powerbomb MVP from the top of a standing ladder, although he lost his grip and MVP just crumbled to the ground.  It was also amazing to see see Benjamin do a forward flip off of a very high ladder onto all of his opponents.  It was a fun match from start to finish, with my only complaint being that it was too short at just over 10 minutes.

Rating:  ***

Match #2 -  25 Diva Battle Royal: Won by “Santina” Marella

I was disappointed in this match.  I love battle royals, I thought WWE dropped the ball at every turn with this one.

The first problem was that they didn’t do any introductions for the divas at all.  They walked to the ring during Kid Rock’s performance, and they passed by so quickly that it was hard to spot who all was in the match.  This wouldn’t have been such a big deal if all of the Divas in the match were current WWE divas, but they had several returning Divas making special appearances.  There were so many girls in the ring that it was almost impossible to tell who all was in the there, and in fact, most of the returning Divas (Sunny, Molly Holly, Torrie Wilson, Jackie Gayda-Haas, Victoria, and Joy Giovanni) weren’t even mentioned until they got eliminated.  I’m glad all of these women got to compete in the match.  Molly is one of my favorite wrestlers, and Sunny still looks great.  But why invite them to Mania if they were going to basically be ignored?

The second problem with the match is that it only lasted about 5 minutes, which certainly isn’t long enough for a 25-participant battle royal.

The final problem is that this turned out to be nothing more than a comedy match.  Santino Marella snuck into the ring dressed as a woman, and he won the match.  His silly dance afterwards wasn’t the least bit entertaining, and we didn’t even get to see Beth Phoenix beat him up, even though Santino eliminated her.

With this match, the WWE managed to make a joke out of their entire women’s division in the span of about 5 minutes.

Rating:  1/2 star

Match #3 -  Handicap Elmination Match:  Chris Jericho d. Jimmy Snuka, Roddy Piper, and Ricky Steamboat

Jericho eliminated Snuka and Piper pretty quickly, which left us with a one-on-one match between Jericho and Steamboat.  It was one of my favorite parts of the show, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Ricky Steamboat was simply amazing.  He retired in the early 90s due to a back injury, but it didn’t look like he had been away from the ring for a day.  He was just as good as ever.  As my friend I was watching the show with commented, Steamboat is still better than a lot of the active wrestlers.  However, Jericho caught Steamboat with the Code Breaker after a few minutes and picked up the win.

I can’t say I liked what happened after the match, though.  Ric Flair was in the legends’ corner for the match, and I expected him to get revenge for the beatdown that Jericho gave him on Raw a couple of weeks ago.  However, Jericho took Flair out again and tossed him from the ring.  This led to an expected, but rather bad, confrontation between Jericho and Mickey Rourke, with Rourke knocking Jericho out with a single punch.

Rating: *** (Because of the Jericho vs. Steamboat part of the match)

Match #4 – Extreme Rules Match:  Matt Hardy d. Jeff Hardy

I hesitate to criticize this match, because it was a good bout.  Jeff Hardy put his body on the line doing a move that could have seriously injured him when he did a springboard from a tall ladder over an even taller ladder to do a leg drop from 20-25 feet in the air.  The guys used all sorts of weapons against each other.  The finish came when Matt hit Jeff with an awesome-looking Twist of Fate while Jeff had a folding metal chair around his neck.

Having said all of that, however, the match was lacking something.  Given the build to the match and the hatred that the Hardys should have been feeling for each other, I was expecting an epic match that would go down as one of Wrestlemania’s best.  Aside from the spot with the ladders, however, it was pretty much a run-of-the-mill WWE style hardcore match (which is to say it wasn’t as good as most matches in the original ECW).  Again, it was a good, enjoyable match, but it just didn’t deliver what I expected from these two at Wrestlemania, especially considering their involvement in much better TLC matches at Wrestlemania a few years ago.

Rating:  ***

Match #5 – IC Title Match:  Rey Misterio d. JBL

I was quite puzzled with this match.  JBL made his triumphant return to Texas as a champion, and then made history just like he’d promised to do:  by losing the match in 21 seconds.  I’m guessing that is probably the shortest IC title match not only at Wrestlemania, but in WWE history.  After the match, JBL grabbed the microphone and said “I quit”.  If that was really JBL’s last match, he sure went out in an unceremonious fashion.   There isn’t much to say about the match – it wasn’t long enough.

Rating:  * 1/2 (Rey’s moves looked fine, I just can’t give a very good rating to a 21 second match)

Match #6:  Undertaker d. Shawn Michaels

As I expected, this match stole the show.  The guys worked very hard for 35 full minutes.   There wasn’t a dull moment.

One moment that stands out in my mind in particular is when Shawn missed a moonsault off the top rope to the floor and landed with an impact that looked certain to break some bones – but didn’t as far as I know.  Another was when Undertaker got a head of steam and jumped over the top rope to the floor – where he crashed into a cameraman and landed on his head.

Shawn kicked out of the Chokeslam, the Last Ride, and a Tombstone.  Undertaker recovered from at least one Sweet Chin Music.  Taker finally got the better of Shawn after a second Tombstone.

For the second year in a row, HBK was involved in my favorite Wrestlemania match, as Shawn vs. Flair tore the house down last year.

Rating: ****

Match #7 – World Title Match:  John Cena d. Edge and Big Show

I can’t really think of much to say about this match.  It was a classic case of a “better than I thought it would be” match, but that’s because I didn’t expect much from it going in.

Rating: ** 1/2

Match #8 – WWE Title Match:  Triple H d. Randy Orton

I always hesitate to criticize wrestlers who go into the ring and put their bodies on the line for our entertainment, but there isn’t any way to sugarcoat it – this match was DULL.  Given the build to the match, I thought they might do something special with this one, but they didn’t.

The most exciting (but also kind of strange) part of the match was when both guys hit their finishers in the first 3 minutes of the match, to little effect.  The rest of the match was slow and plodding.  As with the Hardys’ match earlier, it was pretty devoid of emotion given the hatred the guys should have been feeling for each other following the events of the past few weeks.

The end of the match wasn’t even interesting.  There weren’t any back-and-forth near falls as I expect from a Wrestlemania main event.  Triple H simply decimated Orton for the last several minutes of the match and finally pinned him.

If this wasn’t the worst Wrestlemania main event ever, it has to be close.

Rating:  *

Closing Thoughts:

• I didn’t think this was the best Wrestlemania ever, but it wasn’t the worst, either, despite the surprisingly bad main event.  I enjoyed it, and that’s what matters.  The 4 hours went by quickly and I didn’t get tired of watching, so I think that speaks well that it was a good show.

• I thought it was interesting that two talents who no longer work for WWE on a regular basis – Jackie Gayda-Haas and Jimmy Snuka – made the show, while their relatives who are full-time employees of WWE – Charlie Haas and Sym Snuka – didn’t appear.

• WWE advertised this as the 25th anniversary of Wrestlemania, but it wasn’t.  It was the 25th Wrestlemania, but it was the 24th anniversary.  The only way it could be the 25th anniversary is if you count the first Wrestlemania as the first anniversary.  That would be same as saying your wedding day was also your first anniversary.

The First Bi-Annual Bristol Nascar Jellybean Challenge

While shopping for snacks to take to the Food City 500, my friend Chris and I decided to get some assorted Jelly Belly jellybeans.  I don’t eat many jellybeans and I generally don’t like them, but Jelly Bellys are good.  The different flavors actually taste like they’re supposed to, instead of all tasting the same like cheapo brands of jellybeans do.

Food City sells their Jelly Bellys by the pound (yes, we appropriately bought our snacks for the Food City 500 at Food City).  Apparently we went overboard in judging how many jellybeans to put in the bag, as it wound up costing $10.

I thought of an idea to use the jellybeans in a sort of Fantasy Nascar contest.  Chris and I would each pick two jellybeans out of the bag, and we’d pick cars that were the same color as the jellybeans.  Whoever picked the highest finishing car would win the contest.  The winner would have a choice of prizes – they would either get all of the remaining jellybeans, or they could force the loser to eat all of the remaining jellybeans before we got back to Kingsport.

I picked the first jellybean, and it was solid red.  I chose Tony Stewart as my driver, as his Office Depot car is mostly red.  Chris selected next and got a yellow bean.  He chose Clint Bowyer, not realizing that Bowyer’s paint scheme was only about 30% yellow.  The second bean I picked was yellow, and I picked Jeff Burton, who is driving the Caterpillar car this season.  Chris got a red bean with his second pick, and he made the surprising pick of Juan Montoya!

Just after the green flag flew is when the controversy began.  Chris noticed that the primary color of Bowyer’s car wasn’t yellow, and he tried to change his pick to Mark Martin.  I contended that you can’t change your pick after the race starts, while Chris said that wasn’t specified beforehand.

You can probably guess what happened.  Burton finished one spot ahead of Montoya, so I think I won.  But Martin finished ahead of both of them, and Chris says he won because he changed his pick to Martin.

Although the First Bi-Annual Bristol Nascar Jellybean Challenge ended in controversy, there were no hard feelings.  I intended to give the remaining jellybeans to Chris’ daughters, but I forgot and took them home.  So, I ate some of them, but I’m going to take the rest of them and give them to Chris.

What Have I Been Up To?

As usual, not much has changed in my life since my last post.  However, I thought I’d post a quick update on what I’ve been up to lately.

One thing I’ve noticed lately is that I have an overwhelming urge to buy some kind of new tech gadget.   That happens from time to time.  I’ve looked at the IPod Touch, new monitors, the Amazon Kindle, Blackberries, and Touch Screen PCs, to name a few.  So far, I’ve come to the conclusion that these items are very cool, but I don’t need them.  For the sake of my wallet, I hope my willpower holds out.

When it comes to gaming, I’ve recently completed both Fallout 3 and Fable 2 on the XBOX 360.  I’ve also been playing WWE vs. Smackdown 2009, and I finally got around to starting Mass Effect (I didn’t have a 360 when it came out).  I was disappointed that MLB 09: The Show, which is getting excellent reviews, is a PS3 exclusive.  Meanwhile, Major League Baseball 2K9, which is available for the XBOX 360, is getting horrible reviews.

I haven’t seen many movies lately, but I did watch Lady in the Water for the first time, and liked it.  I’ve also been spending a lot of time the past few days starting to catch up on TV shows I’ve gotten behind on.  As in, several seasons behind.

If you live in Kingsport and like japanese food, I’d recommend you try Tomoko, which recently opened in the old Wendy’s building in front of K-Mart.  I’ve also become a fan of Chili’s recently (even though they fired their best waitress).  Their Buffalo Chicken Fajitas are outstanding.  Of course, China Wok remians my favorite Chinese buffet, and I eat at Chik-Fil-A often as well.

I’ll try to post some detailed reviews soon of the games, movies, and restaurants I mentioned in this post.  Hopefully, my series where I rank the episodes of each season of the Andy Griffith Show will make its much-anticipated (?) return as well.

Favorites of 2008 – Additional Details

Over the past few days, I’ve posted my version of  year-end awards in the form of “Brent’s Favorites of 2008″.  I wanted to share some additional comments about some of my choices.

Restaurant (National Chain): Cheddar’s

The food and service are usually excellent at Cheddar’s, but what really sets it apart is that the prices are less expensive than other similar restaurants.

Restaurant (Fast Food):  Chick-Fil-A

I usually eat lunch at Chick-Fil-A 3 or 4 times a week, so that pretty much made it a shoo-in for my favorite fast food restaurant of the year.  The reason I eat there so much is that I discovered many of their menu items contain significantly less fat than other fast food places.

Restaurant (Local): China Wok

China Wok doesn’t have the biggest buffet among Chinese restaurants in the area by a long shot, but the food is so much better that it’s a great example of quality over quantity.  That’s not to say that there isn’t a good selection, because they still pack a lot of variety into their buffet.

Video Game: MLB Power Pros 2008 (PS2)

It might seem a little surprising that I picked a PS2 game as my favorite video game of the year, but I have PC games as a separate category, and I just bought my XBOX 360 a few weeks ago.  MLB Power Pros 2008 is a game that I would have dismissed without a second thought if not for the great reviews I read about it.  The players have a very cartoonish look, similar to the Miis on the Wii.  The player creation system plays out like a minauture Role Playing Game.  But, if you get into it, you’ll find that it plays a much better game of baseball than most “serious” baseball games.

PC Game: TrackMania Nations Forever

It wasn’t until I picked TrackMania Nations Forever as my favorite PC game of the year that I realized I must not have played many PC games that made a lasting impression on me during 2008.  That’s because I didn’t start playing TrackMania until the last week of 2008, yet I already thought it was better than any other PC game I could remember playing during the year.

TrackMania Nations Forever is a free racing game that is loads of fun.  The graphics are sharp and the gameplay is outstanding, and I understand that it will run well even on lower-end PCs.  It includes around 65 tracks, but there is also a track editor, and when you play online, if you choose a server that is using tracks you don’t have, the game will automatically download them for you.  There are also websites where you can download additionl tracks and car models.  I’ve read that there are literally thousands of user-made tracks available.  And yes, all of this is free.

For $40, you can upgrade to TrackMania United Forever, which adds 6 additional racing environments and vehicle types.  I’ll probably do that soon, because the amount of content available for the free version of the game is nearly infinite, with more coming every day, and I figure $40 for “nearly infinite” times 6 is a pretty good deal.

Card Game: Rage

I’ve only played Rage once, but that’s as long as it took for it to become my favorite card game.  The basic rules are similar to Rook or Spades where you make a bid on how many points or tricks you think you’ll win, and then try to win tricks by playing the highest card.  Rage includes some special cards that spice up gameplay, however, such as cards that allow you to change the trump color in the middle of a hand,  eliminate trumps altogether, or cause whoever wins the trick to lose 5 points from their total score.  I just hope I get to play it again, because it got very mixed reviews from my friends.

Board Game: Scattergories

I didn’t actually play Scattergories very much in 2008, but when I think about all of the board games I like, Scattergories is still my favorite after all of these years.  Some readers might be shocked that I didn’t pick Sorry or Oh What a Mountain!

Website: Facebook.com

I seem to spend as much time on Facebook as I do on all other websites combined, so it must be my favorite.

Favorites of 2008 – Part 2

After I posted my Favorites of 2008 list a couple of days ago, I thought of several more categories I should have included. In particular, I failed to include any musical categories in my list. Also, Rich posted some additional categories he’d like to hear my opinion on. So, here are my Favorites of 2008 – Part 2!

Brent’s Favorites of 2008 – Part 2

• Band/Singer: Freezepop
• New Band/Singer that I discovered this year: Bat for Lashes
• Album: Future Future Future Perfect (Freezepop)
• Radio Station: WVEK FM 102.7 (Tri-Cities Classic Hits)
• TV Station: Sci Fi
• Laundry Detergent: Abraxo
• Kool Aid Flavor: Didn’t drink any
• Gatorade Flavor: G2 Fruit Punch
• Toilet Paper: Whatever is on the roll
• Leather or Pleather: Pleather

Most Disappointing of 2008

As a follow up on my “Favorites of 2008″ post, I thought I’d do a “Most Disappointing of 2008″ list as well. I know that I sometimes enjoy reading “Worst Of” lists more than “Best Of” lists, because they’re usually more interesting. Again, these are just my opinions – nobody else got to vote!

Brent’s Most Disappointing of 2008

• Restaurant: Taco Bell
• Movie: Deathproof (Might be from an earlier year, but I didn’t watch it until this year)
• T.V. Show: The Price is Right (with Drew Carey as host)
• PC Game: Warhammer Online
• Website: WarhammerOnline.com (For the complete lack of Official forums or message boards)
• Sporting Event: Brickyard 400 (Cautions every 10 laps due to tire problems)
• Sports Team (Pro): Atlanta Braves (For not coming close to making the playoffs)
• Sports Team (College): University of Tennessee Volunteers Football (Poor record, not Bowl Eligible)

If you can think of any other categories you’d like to know my opinion of, post them in the comments!

I’d also like to note that I plan to discuss some of my picks for Favorites and Most Disappointing in more detail in my upcoming posts.