The MRFH 2008 Revue – Sue!

Somewhere in Wisconsin, there is a small house. It’s brown, with a green roof and a nice little fenced in yard. As you enter through the front door, you are greeted with delight by a somewhat geriatric brindle hound who then has to take a nap to sleep off his exertions. You walk down the hallway and turn into a bedroom only slightly larger than the others. It’s only when you pause in the doorway that things begin to seem… not quite right.

There is a sound, a breathy whimper that speaks of deep-rooted terror and barely suppressed hyperventilation. The hair on the back of your neck stands up and you begin to look around, searching for the source that has caused the disembodied voice to project such anguish and fear.

And then I crawl out from under my bed, brush off a few dozen dust bunnies and ask you, “Is it 2009 yet?”

Now that it’s safely behind us and can’t get me anymore, can I just say that 2008 was easily the most craptastic year I’ve seen since the Nixon administration went all Ocean’s Eleven on the Watergate office complex?

Consider.

It was the year that gave us the creepiest, coolest Joker ever with one hand, then took Heath Ledger away with the other.

And Heath wasn’t the only one. Consider this partial and admittedly eclectic list of 2008 celebrity deaths:

• George Carlin

• Don LaFontaine.
• Bernie Mac
• Paul Newman
• Charleton Heston
• Roy Scheider
• Michael Crichton
• Gary Gygax
• Majel Barrett

Even Larry “Bozo the Clown” Harmon passed away fer criminy’s sake!

Sheesh. I should be happy that I only lost my car in a flood, watched my piddly little investments shrink until you’d need a microscope and tweezers to find them, and got cancer.

Yet, as 2008 continues to fade into the distance, I find myself at least marginally willing to reflect and seek out the good bits. There were some. Really.

First of all, my daughter saw her ambition of raising a second generation mutant army (with which to overthrow first MRFH and then possibly the world) come a little closer to fruition with the birth of Drew and Lady Luck’s daughter, Baby Luck. Ah, the days of sweet coup d’etat shall be upon us before we know it.

Secondly, although we said a sad goodbye to Shalen, we welcomed three shiny new Mutants into the fold with Kaleb in April and then Heather and Courtney in October. Verily their lights shine like beacons of mutantly goodness and keep me awake at night.

We also had a Mutant Summit, wherein I got to cough at no fewer than four mutants! It deserves a write up. It surely does.

The end of 2008 also saw the metamorphosis of MRFH from its old format into a new bloggeriffic style. We’re still working the kinks out, but it’s looking mighty fine and will undoubtedly enable us to continue to keep churning out reviews, articles and other goodies in a timely manner without our having to replace Justin with a cyborg. (This is a recession, you know. We’re just going to have to hang on to Justin 3.1, I’m afraid.)

Granted, I haven’t said much about the movies and entertainment of 2008. Let’s face it campers, I didn’t get out much. Let me think. Well, we had Wall-E. I liked Wall-E. And there was… uhm… yeah, The Dark Knight. I saw Hancock too, though it didn’t do much for me.

And then there was Twilight. But we’re not going to sparkle… I mean, talk about that.

All I can say is, welcome 2009. Don’t let me down, I’m begging you!