#71 Lone Wolf and Cub

This manga tells the story of Itto Ogami, a shogunate assassin turned ronin, and his son Daigoro. The pair travels the figurative road to meifumado, or damnation. Lone Wolf and Cub is a tale of vengeance and honor. The lessons of bushido are taught in strokes of violence and moments of compassion. Writer Kazuo Koike and artist Goseki Kojima paint the nuanced, beautiful and haunting saga with admirable skill and intelligence. It's not hyperbolic to call Lone Wolf and Cub one of the great works in the brief lifetime of comics.

The 1970s brought Lone Wolf and Cub to the screen in a series of films that played up the violent aspects of the tale. The comics were first introduced to U.S. audiences in 1987. First Comics published many of the books, but skipped some of the stories, and canceled the comic before readers got the chance to learn the fate of the Wolf and Cub.
Now, Dark Horse has just finished publishing the entire series, from beginning to end in affordable 300-page volumes. In Japan, interest in these tales has returned. Rumor has it that Takeshi "Beat" Kitano, will play the samurai in a new feature film.

#70 Iron Beer

I developed a taste for this Cuban soft drink when I was a kid. My aunt, Clara, poured it over ice whenever my sister and I came to visit. We'd drink our sodas and munch on galletas while the grown-ups talked about grown-up things. Here in LA Iron Beer is fairly hard to come by. My two favorite Cuban food spots, Porto's Bakery and Versailles both run out of Iron Beer fairly frequently. In case you're wondering, my buddy Jesse compares the soda to a mix of Dr. Pepper and cough syrup, but I think Mr. Cook's description is right on the money.

#69 City of God

Now here's a movie I can recommend. This lively Brazilian film directed by Kátia Lund and Fernando Meirelles tells the story of Rocket, a young photographer who lives in the violent Rio de Janeiro favela Cidade de Deus. Rocket's life is a difficult one, where life is cheap and pleasure simple. The tone of the story hops between tragedy of comedy with an astounding ease. The narrative too bounces around from one tale to the next, barely settling on one character before another is introduced. The film in it's unflinching portrayal of life in the ghetto has stirred controversy in Brazil, where many hail it as a long overdue criticism of the enormous economic rift between the rich and the country's olvidados, the forgotten poor.

#68 Daredevil

The problem with Daredevil is the problem with pretty much every movie made today. The intrusive contemporary soundtrack, the gimmicky editing, the "no duh" voice over and the over-the-top acting are an unfortunate, but increasingly common ailment of Hollywood films. I guarantee that every bit of the flick that made me want to pull my hair out, was a decision made by committee. Still, it was nice to see a faithful interpretation of Frank Miller's comic book storylines portrayed on screen. Sometimes it's as simple as that. Daredevil gave a new life to characters I once knew. I liked Daredevil, but I still wouldn't recommend it.

#68 Metroid Prime

Samus Aran is the latest of the classic Nintendo characters to make the leap from two-dimensional platformers to the modern three-dimensional action adventure. In this update you see everything through Samus’s heap-up display, but the game has little else in common with a first-person shooter. Metroid Prime’s play style is one part exploration, one part combat. As you move through the beautifully rendered, unique environments you earn new equipment, such as Space Boots or a grappling hook, that make new portions of the game accessible. Sure, this mechanic is the same, old bring a key to open the locked door routine, but Metroid Prime makes the gimmick feel organic. As you backtrack through the game, many rooms seem transformed by Samus’s newfound abilities. Combat wise the game is tough but fair. Some of the final bosses are downright nasty, but if I can beat them anybody can.

#67 The Office

The BBC is on the cutting edge of contemporary comedy. Occasionally BBC America finds time between episodes of So Graham Norton and Changing Rooms to actually air these amazing shows. The Office is a mockumentary (cringe) that follows the dreary workday lives of employees in a paper distribution office. Their boss, David Brent (played by Ricky Gervais), is a self-righteous jackass who likes people to think that he sees himself as smart, funny and indispensable. Brent's desperate actions betray that deep down he knows he's none of the above. At first glance, The Office seems to cover similar ground as Mike Judge's Office Space. In making Brent the show's protagonist, The Office takes a subtle, darker, and more cynical look at wasted lives than Office Space ever dared. Wait. Did I mention that the show is hilarious?

#66 Fast Food Nation

Eric Schlosser's examination of the fast food industry follows in the footsteps of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, casting light on the darker side of food production. The most interesting aspect of the book is not in the fine details (though the statistics are startling), but in its more broad criticism of the corporatization of our food culture and how the shocking numbers seen in meager wages, foodborne illnesses and workplace injuries are a direct result of it. Here's an excerpt. Next on my list of Non-fiction economy-related reads is Nickle and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. I'll file a report when I've finished it.

#65 Mazan: Flash of the Blade

During my recent travels I stumbled across a London arcade called Play 2 Win. The place ingeniously combines legal gambling (video poker, etc.) and arcade gaming. It's a setup which, in theory, would give adults something to do while their kids play video games, or vice versa. I didn't see any kids there at all, but I did see some great, contemporary arcade machines including Police 911 and House of the Dead 3. I also spotted the ubiquitous bemania game; Dancing Stage 2: Euromix by Konami, which is just like our DDR. The most intriguing of the games was Mazan: Flash of the Blade from Konami. This Mocap (Motion Capture) game is played by swinging a physical sword around. Onscreen samurai, demons and monsters split with the diagonal slash of your blade. This involving gameplay makes Mazan satisfying, and, like other Mocap games, quite physically challenging.

#64 London

Man am I exhausted. 12 hours of air travel both ways and two days of late nights at pubs is tiring. The Sanderson, where I stayed, is a beautiful, but expensive hotel in a very cool part of London called Soho. The decor reminded me of the end of 2001. There was plenty of shopping near the hotel. I found some cool stuff (I'm Alan Partridge and League of Gentlemen DVDs and the two recent issues of the excellent video game magazine Edge) at HMV, Virgin, and WH Smith. I ate at Pret A Manger again (I love those sandwiches) and found an excellent hip-hop record shop called Mr. Bongo, which has a really nice latin music department in the basement.

Nokia's presentation was impressive. They made their pitch on a series of boats on the Thames, showed us the device while we sipped champagne on the London Eye then let us booze it up at a club called Motion. Even though the fine folks at Nokia bent over backwards to make us happy, the highlight of my trip was simply meeting the other journalists. I shared drinks with folks from IGN, Men's Journal, Happy, Loosie, YRB, Gamespot and TechTV just to name a few. I'm beginning to feel that quitting my job was a smart move.

#63 Travel

I'm going to London on Nokia's dime. Those nutty Finns are unveiling a new portable video game device called the N-Gage. Apparently they're pulling out all the stops. I'm staying at the Sanderson, which is one of those fancy Ian Schrager hotels like the Paramount and the Mondrian if you keep up with that sort of thing. I'm hoping that this is just the first of many trips I'll be taking as a freelance writer.

#62 The Space Shuttle

Since 1981 these sturdy spacecraft have been taking astronauts into outer space. With their workmanlike regularity the Space Shuttles helped turn the public's perception of manned space flight from the spectacle of the Apollo moon missions to that of an everyday occurance. The dream of living in space has been made all the more real by the heroes who punched the clock in every Space Shuttle mission.