#28 Pita Sandwiches - A Quick, Healthy Meal.

I don't know what my deal is lately, but I've been eating better (and by that I mean more properly) the past year. I've been cutting out fast food and booze and add stuff from the food pyramid thingy in their place. Strangely, some of my favorite foods such as rare roast beef haven't been sitting very well with me lately. That's sorta why I decided to build my own pita. I cut up cucumber, tomato, lettuce, alfalfa sprouts and chicken (one of those roasters from the grocery store), spread some hummous into a whole wheat pita and I'm good to go. Multiply that by three and thats my lunch or dinner. It's sure cheaper than eating out.

#27 Hackers - Not the movie. The misunderstood minds who drive modern technology.

The popular conception of hackers is that they're pasty malcontents who use their arcane skills to launch nuclear missiles, shut down the national power grid or crash every PC in the world with lethal virii. The pasty part may be right, but the truth is that hackers are the reason why the internet is a part of our lives today. It was their incessant tinkering with the nuts and bolts of software and hardware that made the web so vital.

In the '70s, when computers were far from ubiquitous, it was phreakers who fooled around with Ma Bell. It was in these early days that the line between the free-thinking, communal-types and those who sought to control information was drawn. Bill Gates sent an open letter to computer hobbyists, a group led by Apple founder Steve Wozniak, decrying their sharing of DOS. Today, this and countless similar fights continue. Every day decisions are made by businesses and governments to limit our access to information. The fight to keep the net free is lead by hacker upstarts such as 2600 and the Electronic Freedom Foundation. Learn about the struggle before it's to late too decide whether you believe in it.

#26 Hellboy - What if Satan's son were a paranormal investigator?

He's a demon in a trenchcoat. A 10-foot tall, brick red humanoid with sawed-off horns and a granite fist. He works for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD) alongside Abe Sapien the fish man, Roger the homunculus and Johann Krauss, the man with the bubble head. He does battle with Nazis, the ghost of Rasputin and unnameable tentacled gods from the far side of Pluto. Artist and writer Mike Mignola's spare, blocky style perfectly suits the X-Files meets H.P. Lovecraft by way of Raiders of The Lost Ark vibe of this hugely entertaining comic.

Thanks, in part, to the sucess of Sam Raimi's Spiderman flick, Hellboy joins the legions of superheros due to make the pulp-to-projection transition in the near future. Lucky for us, director Guillermo del Toro, a longtime fan, is committed to making Hellboy's big-screen debut the best that it can be.

Take a look at The Corpse, my favorite short Hellboy story to get the feel of the series, then snag Hellboy: The Seed of Destruction to see where it all started.

#25 Futurama - Canceled, but still the best show on TV.

Matt Groenings sci-fi follow up to the Simpsons barely had the chance to stretch it's wings before falling under the network axe. The show cleverly used its genre setting (the malfunctioning society of Earth in the year 3000) to skewer classic sci-fi stories, modern day pop culture, technophobia and human foibles. Coming out of the gate, the vastly underappreciated show was smarter and funnier than the listless, recent seasons of Simpsons. The show hit it's stride with episode 3ACV04, The Luck of the Fryish, which follows Fry's quest for his lucky 7-leaf clover. Fry's past unravels in flashbacks as searches the ruins of New York for his childhood home. By the time Fry unearths his estranged brother's thousand year old corpse, the episode has delivered a lion's share of laughs and a poignant tale about loss and regret. When is the last time the Simpsons did that?

Sixteen unaired episodes of Futurama will hopefully see the light of day next season. Savor one of television's most creative and unique offerings before it's too late.

#24 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - By Michael Chabon.

Rarely does a literary novel read like read like a summer book. Chabon's Pulitzer Prize winner moves through the eventful lives of two fictional comic book creators with the same dizzying pace as the pulp books his characters create without denying them a full spectrum of complex emotions and problems. Pop culture looms large over the book; Houdini, Picasso and Orson Wells all make appearances in one way or another. The book is a must for any comics fan. The world is so alluring, though, that anyone, even those who don't appreciate Stan Lee's cameo appearance, can enjoy the book. Read the first chapter for yourself.

#23 Region Hacking - How to watch what you want on your DVD player.

When the DVD standard was created, studios and video companies lobbied to carve the globe into six regions, then encode DVDs so that they will only play in their home region. That means that US viewers can't watch Japanese DVDs and vice versa. Thank goodness for hackers. Now people who want to watch Spirited Away or Shaolin Soccer can - with a little extra work. PS2 owners can use DVD Region Free, a disc that flashes away your region settings, which revert once you reboot the machine. Many players (not just the legendary Apex) are remote hackable. Advanced users can update their firmware, by changing the code hard-wired into their DVD player. I'm poised to go all out and snag the Malata N996, which is not only code-free, but converts PAL (the UK TV format) to NTSC (our TV format).

Once you've tamed your player check out CD Japan and Amazon UK (Beware - PAL Region 2 DVDs will view strangely, or not at all, on US TVs without conversion, but seem to replay pretty well on my PC DVD) to hunt down the titles you've been missing.

#22 Grand Theft Auto 3 - The game has finally won me over.

I've had a love-hate relationship with GTA 3 since the game hit the streets last year. I initially found the play sloppy. The camera was never in the right place. The shaky controls made precision impossible and every mission a bloody mess. I got stuck and put the game to rest. Weeks later I picked it up again and slowly became enamored with exploring the world, completing side missions and hunting down hidden packages. Then I hit another bottleneck. Frustrated, I put the game down again. Recently, I finally beat the main missions...then started a new game, determined to 100% the damn thing this time. I can't figure out what it is brings me come back. Somehow, Rockstar has lured me in with their crowd-pleasing product, and I hate them for it.

#21 Watching 120 Minutes in 10 - Thanks to Tivo.

I remember staying up late as a teenager, bleary-eyed, waiting for something remotely interesting to appear on MTV. Their programming has become way more lame since then, so I just don't watch anymore. Their regular rotation offers nothing worth watching, but 120 Minutes (now on MTV2) usually offers one or two innovative videos by creative artists or beloved classics. Thanks to Tivo I can scan through the dreck (Coldplay, and all the other boring alterna-crap), the constant repeats (they played Clinic to death) and get to the one or weekly two high-points with little grief. If Tivo were around 10 years ago, I might have found it easier to stay awake in class.

#20 My New Backpack - Goodbye Courrier Bag.

I once thought that the only way to look cool was to wear your backpack on one shoulder. Then, I fell for the whole shoulder bag thing. I was a sucker. I don't care how dorky I look anymore. I'll strap my new rucksack up high, between my shoulderblades like an alpine hiker. Hell, I might even yodel. I'm tired of my bananas being squished as my overstuffed shoulder bag bounces against my hips. I'm throwing off the chains of coolness and double-strapping it. I'm not gonna risk my poor back anymore. I look like a dork no matter what I do, anyway. I only wish my pack had one of those neat plastic sphincters for my headphone jack.

#19 America's Best Comics - New, vital work from legendary writer Alan Moore.

The mad genius behind The Watchmen, V for Vendetta and From Hell has been very busy lately. Several years ago he started his own line of comics and wrote all five titles. Tom Strong is Moore's take on the überman, a hero who was raised in a chamber with cranked up gravity. Promethea is a female heroine whose powers stem from the combined imaginations of all humanity. Tomorrow Stories tells short tales in the vein of EC and Eisner. My favorite, Top 10, is cop drama set in a universe populated solely by superheros.

The most popular book in the line The League of Extraordinary Gentleman features dream team made up of characters from classic literature; Allan Quatermaine, Mina Harker, Captain Nemo and Dr. Jekyll go toe to toe with Dr. Fu Manchu. Volume II, which hits stores on July 24, 2002, pits the League against a Martian invasion (likely inspired my Edgar Rice Burroughs). America's Best Comics are smart, fun and quite diverse considering they're all about superheroes.

#18 Battle Royale - Japanese students are forced to play the most dangerous game.

In response to rampant juvenile delinquency Japan's government passes the BR Act-a law which allows the military to kidnap one class of students a year, strand them on an island, arm them and compel them kill each other until only one remains standing. Director Kinji Kukasaku, known for his post-WWII yakuza films, makes a bold, violent and vastly entertaining statement with this film. Takeshi "Beat" Kitano stars as one of the students' teachers. As usual he brings dark humor and pathos to a senselessly violent tale. Unlike many great contemporary Japanese films, Battle Royale is available to US viewers and probably won't be remade by Hollywood.

#17 Public Transportation - The stress-free way to commute.

There was a time when I scoffed at bus riders. Now, I walk a mile to the subway, then hop on a bus for my morning commute. My drive was 15 or 20 minutes shorter, but my back always hurt after the drive, and the Los Angeles traffic was a nightmare. Now, I get two easy doses of exercise a day, read comics and listen to music on the train and walk into work with a completely different attitude. Considering the lousy options other cities have, I'm truly grateful to live in a town with useful bus and train lines.

#16 The Devil's Backbone - From Director Guillermo del Toro

The man who lensed Blade 2 and Cronos tells a more personal tale in this ghost story set against the backdrop of the Spanish civil war. Blade 2, basically a work for hire, was frenetic, stylish and unabashedly shallow. The Devil's Backbone is populated by a cast of well-drawn characters, mainly the orphans of Communist sympathizers and their keepers. The haunting is elegantly presented and uses special effects in an eerie and unobtrusive way. The effectiveness of this film has me more excited than ever for del Toro's dream projects; a live action version of Hellboy and an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness.

#15 Shogun Warriors - Giant Robot Toys From the '70s

In 1970 manga artist Go Nagai conceived the notion of giant, often man-piloted, robots. Toys representing these new heros became wildly popular in Japan and were soon imported to the US by Mattel. My favorites are the Jumbo Machinders-hulking 24" vinyl robots that shoot missiles from their chests, throw springloaded fists halfway across the room and have detachable spaceship brains. The American Shogun Warrior line, which also spawned comic books, action figures and transforming spacecraft, was a sort of giant robot supergroup, putting all of Japan's popular robots in one milieu. Even mortal heroes Godzilla and Rodan joined the group. I never had these guys when I was a kid, so now I lurk the shadows toy conventions, yard sales and Ebay, plotting to complete my meager collection.

#14 Keep Fishin' - Weezer meets the Muppets.

Since day one Weezer have produced consistently excellent videos. Sure, they slipped up a little with the lame Marco Siega directed clip for the equally lame track Hashpipe, but now it seems they're returning to form. First they lured Spike Jonze back to video directing for Island in the Sun. Their latest video puts the band in the guest-starring spot on the original Muppet Show, recreating the original backstage set. Tons of classic characters make appearances including Kermit, Miss Piggy, Gonzo, Fozzie, Statler and Waldorf and The Swedish Chef. The only anachronism is a walk-on from the Pepe the Prawn. I guess rats are out and shrimp are in.

#13 Fela Anikulapo-Kuti - The father of Afrobeat

With his first band, Koola Lobitos, Fela put the popular music of Nigeria on the map. Fela's sound, originally rooted in a carefree style called highlife, soon evolved. The bandleader pioneered Afrobeat, an upbeat mix of traditional Afro-Cuban rhythms and American funk and soul, which he used as a backdrop for often humorous political messages. Fela's popularity spawned a thrilling musical movement centered in Lagos, Nigeria, much of which is represented on the excellent collection, Nigeria 70: The Definative Story of 1970s Funky Lagos from Strut Records. Sadly, Kuti died from AIDS-related complications in 1997. Today, Fela's influence still holds. His son, Femi continues in his footsteps while the New York music collective Antibalas creates new music in the Afrobeat tradition. A tribute to Kuti is planned for 2003.

#12 Ground Force - The BBC's Home Gardening Reality Show.

The new generation of DIY home improvement programming delivers entertainment by way of fantasy fulfillment and shabby-to-chic household makeovers. Trading Spaces and its vastly better UK original Changing Rooms merge the educational aspect of the light construction process with the guilty appeal of voyeurism. Ground Force, in which a team of gardeners sneaks onto a viewers’s property and builds them a garden over the course of a weekend, is my hands-down favorite. The crew is cool and down-to-earth, they do tasteful work and always work up a sweat. When the squad was given the opportunity to build a dream garden for a person they admire, they picked Nelson Mandela. How cool is that?

#11 Bursts of Productivity - The Good Kind of Work

Ever have one of those days (or hours) when you're able to plow through what would usually take you a week? I just cleared a huge part of my plate like some kind of copywriting berzerker. Thing is, I'm looking forward to a five day weekend, so I've got a little motivation. I'd bet the French, squeeze out the same work in their short work week as we do. Maybe they don't waste all their time reading blogs, watching trailers, and chatting like I usually do.

#10 Naps - Catching zzzzzs whenever I can.

Lately I've been nodding off on the bus. Yesterday after work I crashed hard, and didn't wake up for dinner until 9:30 P.M. According to napping experts Camille and Bill Anthony many great men favored mid-day sleeping. JFK, Winston Churchill, Thomas Edison and Johannes Brahms were all regular nappers. I must be in good company—in college I spent much of my free time on campus finding good places to sleep. The Anthonys advocate napping at work, something I've tried once or twice when particularly exhausted. Maybe I just shouldn't stay up so late.

#9 Warthog Jump: A Halo Physics Experiment— FPS fun.

This homegrown homage to the Xbox’s killer app makes me want to run out and buy the game immediately. Randall Glass, the film’s creator, cut the video with Apple iMovie, used dialogue samples from The Matrix, Star Wars and Monty Python and swiped songs by Pink Floyd, Blur, Jimmy Hendrix and Frank Sinatra for the soundtrack. If this kind of copyright infringement is wrong, I don’t ever want to be right.