Heroes is a show that thrives on buzz. Their “save the cheerleader, save the world” campaign in the first season had everyone talking and propelled it from “good show” to the coveted status of “pop culture phenomenon.” Right now, though, after a fairly disappointing second “season” (I put season in quotes because it was only like five episodes long) the buzz couldn’t be anymore dead.

The real question that I wonder is whether not coming back after the writers’ strike will hurt the super-powered drama. As of right now, there is absolutely no buzz around Peter, Sylar, Mohinder and the gang. Will that be a problem come the 2008-09 season?

Last fall, things ended pretty disappointedly. Niki died for no reason, Maya didn’t die and Adam, a villain with plenty of potential was buried alive by Hiro. There wasn’t anything to really generate excitement going into the second half of the season. Then, there wasn’t a second half. The writers cut things short.

However, when plenty of other shows came back after the multi-month layoff, Heroes did not. Creator Tim Kring decided to wait until next season to re-approach the show. That could be a costly mistake. While shows like LOST and Grey’s Anatomy were really finding their groove after the strike, Heroes was sitting there doing nothing.

Not only were people not talking about it, they have started to forget about it all together. Suddenly, a show that was all over the place and a hit from day one has an uphill climb it must face next fall. Kring and company are going to have to turn out something pretty fantastic to get the viewers back in season three.

The ratings will be down initially – as they have been for pretty much every show after the strike – so they’re going to have to rebuild the buzz. But if anyone can do it, Heroes can. Let’s just hope it doesn’t take someone powers on Peter Petrelli has access to in order to make it happen.

There is always a lot of debate on the position of designated hitter. Everyone always says that because they don’t play a position in the field on defense that DHs are less valuable than any other player, thus lessening their accomplishments in general.

That’s just ridiculous.

Sure, I can buy that argument for the Most Valuable Player race. If candidate A is a good defender in center field who hit the crap out of the ball and candidate B was designated hitter who hit the crap out of the ball, then yeah, candidate A probably was more valuable. He helped his team in both of the major categories that players contribute to: scoring runs and preventing runs. Meanwhile, candidate B only helped in scoring runs.

(On a tangent, you can make the argument that if candidate A is a crappy fielding shortstop and candidate B is a DH, candidate B may actually be more valuable. Depending on how bad A is at fielding, he may be actually costing his team runs with the glove. But, I digress.)

However, when it comes to honoring players in the hall of fame, whether the player was a designated hitter should have no bearing on their candidacy. In about a couple, we’re going to hear a lot about this argument when Edgar Martinez comes up to vote for the hall. He is the first full-time designated hitter that can make a real case for the hall of fame. Although, I would argue that there is no case to be made, Edgar should be in easy.

Look at his career stats:

2055 games, 309 HRs, .312 batting average, .418 OBP, .518 slugging pct.

If Edgar has played a position in the field, no matter how bad of a fielder he was, he would be in for sure. But, since he played as a designated hitter most of his career, finding a spot in Cooperstown is not a given. In turn, Edgar may be done in because of the rules of the game. He only played designated hitter because it was an option. Had there been no possibility of DHing, he probably would have played a combination of third and first base. To penalize him thusly seems quite a bit unfair.

One thing I wanted to point out about his stats that really makes his case as well as anything else is his on-base percentage. Reading Joe Posnanski’s blog, I noticed this. Of the 22 players in baseball history who have had a career on-base percentage of .400 or better (It’s .418 for Edgar) in at least 2,000 games played, the only ones who aren’t enshrined in the hall of fame are players whose five year waiting period isn’t up yet. Every player who could be in the hall of fame who achieved that IS in the hall of fame. Edgar, along with Barry Bonds, Frank Thomas, Manny Ramirez, Jeff Bagwell, Jim Thome and Rickey Henderson are all knocking on the door.

I hope that when it comes time for someone to answer that knocking for Edgar, that it’s the hall of fame committee on the other end with some good news.

Last Thursday’s season finale of LOST was odd. Good, but odd. I’m still not sure how John Locke moved the island, how he died, why everyone was calling him Jeremy Benthem, why Ben can’t go back to the island or even things as simple as how Aaron survived the helicopter crash. But one thing is for sure, LOST is awesome.

While the finale was great, it definitely doesn’t live up to the massively high bar that last season’s finale set. With Charlie dying, the castaways making contact with the freighter and everything else going on, the end of season three was heart wrenching. And then, of course, there was the ultimate moment. The absolute game-changing scene that set LOST up for its best season (season four) to date.

When Kate got out of that car to face a crazy, bearded Jack I just about lost it (no pun intended). That was seriously the most mind bending moment I have ever experienced in my days of watching television. They had us looking one direction and then BAM! they come at us with the flash forward jab from nowhere. It was almost as powerful as when I saw the Sixth Sense, knowing nothing about Bruce Willis’ from-the-grave performance.

But more than just the mind-blowing aspect, last season’s finale did something that a lot of shows are unable to do. It absolutely changed tracks and made the show better in the process.

Most TV shows, after the first season just aren’t the same. After 22+ episodes, the initial novelty of the show goes away and the story changes… mostly for the worse. LOST was a perfect example of that (the OC is an even better one, but that’s a subject for another date). It was originally a show about a bunch of people who crash landed on an island and were alone and fighting to survive. That was the core in the first season.

But after that, things changed. They had to. There’s only so many plot lines you can develop without adding new characters, ideas and story lines to the fold. So, in season two and three, the others, the tallies, Desmond and the Dharma Initiative came into play. That changed the show for good, and because of that season two and three suffered. It was not longer just about crash survivors trying to stay alive on the island.

With the flash forward, and subsequently this past season, the creators took the show in a whole new direction that had made the show something completely different than it began. But it’s something better. Hopefully that trend continues as things change yet again in season number five.

Well, Barack Obama unofficially became the democratic nominee today. Thank god. The six month long march to this point has been excruciating. From his win in Iowa to open things off to his win in Montana to symbolically bring things to a close, it has been a bumpy road for the first African American nominee for president.

Obama is the first candidate of my lifetime where I feel like he is MY candidate. Sure, I supported John Kerry even before his win in Iowa in 2004 and voted for him on Election Day, but that wasn’t the same as this. Obama has been my guy from the beginning. Since before the beginning, even.

Four years ago, at the Democratic National Convention he was the keynote speaker. I had no idea who he was or even what he was all about. But after I saw his speech, talking about how there should be no division between red states and blue states… that we are the UNITED States of America, I was instantly hooked on his powerful words. Before that moment I didn’t know who he was, but after that I had just one thought: this guy is going to be president someday. Now, he just has one more step to go to achieve that predication.

So for Obama and his ability to capture the hearts of young voters everywhere, here is what I believe was the ultimate turning point toward his victory. After losing in New Hampshire, he gave the speech that I think will be the defining moment of this race. Even though he lost that day, he gave us one simple thought: Yes we can! And now, nearly six months later I can say this: Yes he did!

Yes we can:

“We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics. And they will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks and months to come.

We’ve been asked to pause for a reality check. We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.

For when we have faced down impossible odds, when we’ve been told we’re not ready or that we shouldn’t try or that we can’t, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can. Yes, we can. Yes, we can.

It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation: Yes, we can.

It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail towards freedom through the darkest of nights: Yes, we can.

It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness: Yes, we can.

It was the call of workers who organized, women who reached for the ballot, a president who chose the moon as our new frontier, and a king who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the promised land: Yes, we can, to justice and equality.

Yes, we can, to opportunity and prosperity. Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can repair this world. Yes, we can.” — Barack Obama

I don’t have much time to write in the opening entry, so I am going to keep it short.

The opening line for my first novel: The American dream is dead.

I have a couple of quotes that I found to be particularly poignant from Vanity Fair’s story on the primary campaign of Robert Kennedy in 1968. But first I wanted to reflect on what I read. I am quite astonished by the mindset of a lot of people when he entered the race in 1968. The story went into detail about how many people who knew him, even those in his campaign, thought he was going to be assassinated before he ever won the presidency. What a strange period of time for our country. With JFK’s assassination at the beginning of the decade and MLK and RFK’s assassinations near the end, along with the Vietnam War and everything else going on, I can’t imagine what it was like living in the 1960s.

But what I really took from the story was just what kind of a person Kennedy was. He was a lightning rod for hope in this country, and he ran for the presidency – when politically, it probably wasn’t the best idea in the world to go up against sitting president LBJ (by the way, what is with the three initial names in the ’60s?) – on the grounds of what he believed was right. Kennedy was morally opposed to Vietnam and that’s why he put himself out there like that. It’s refreshing to see a politician do something for that reason.

“Only those who dare to fail greatly can achieve greatly” – Bobby Kennedy

“The hottest places on Hell are reserved for those who, in a time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality” – Dante

I think both of those quotes pretty well sum up the picture that the Vanity Fair article painted of Kennedy. He stood up for what he believed in because he couldn’t imagine doing otherwise and he dared to failed in the hopes of really achieving something great for this nation. It is quite a shame that he died because I believe he could have done wonders for our great nation. Remember, Richard Nixon ended up getting elected instead and politically, at least, that set the United States back big time.