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The NSX-Files 1998 Year End Awards
(don't forget to read the caveats!)

Okay, so it is the start of the New Year.   Every magazine, newspaper, or TV show I see is doing their "Year in Review" award winners.  So I figure, what the heck, I can do that also.  And you also know that my awards are not "tainted" by any advertising revenues that are paying for the publication/TV show, as I don't have any advertisers for this website yet.  So Drum Roll please.......on to the Awards!

Album of the Year:
No contest.  The winner is Celebrity Skin, by Hole. 

A great album should have the following qualities:
1.  Thematically ambitious.  Meaning that there is a common message or storyline behind the album.  Examples albums would be Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run(I'm gonna go grab the girl, and we're gonna get out of this loser town and search for our dreams), and Darkness on the Edge of Town(What if got the girl, got out of this loser town, but we were too optimistic and it didn't work out as planned.  Can I still deal with the disappointment?).   The Clash's London Calling(We are young, we are angry, and we ain't gonna take it anymore) 
2.  Inspirational.  By experiencing someone's else's triumphs or sorrows and how they dealt with it, you should feel uplifted, like you can go out and conquer the world.  
3.  It should sound great on your stereo when you crank it up.

Celebrity Skin is great music to be listening to at full blast while cruising in your car at high speeds.  Courtney Love's lyrics are hard to decipher, but they sound great.   But when you read the lyrics on the album liner notes, then you can really appreciate the CD, especially when you take into account she went from wife of a loser rock star, then became a rock star herself, then went to Hollywood and did the Larry Flynt movie and the Hollywood scene, then went back to full-on rock star with a great album, despite the nasty things that the so-called rock critics, music critics,  Hollywood critics, friends, enemies, etc. said about her.   THEN you can really appreciate her talent. 

"When I wake up in my makeup
It's too early for that dress
Wilted and fade somewhere in Hollywood
I'm glad I came here
With your pound of flesh
No second billing, 'cause your a star now
Oh, Cinderella
They aren't sluts like you
Beautiful garbage, beautiful dresses
Can you stand up or will you
Just fall down?"  - Lyrics from Celebrity Skin

"They know how to break all the girls like you
And they rob the souls of the girls like you
And they break the hearts of the girls....

And they royalty rate all the girls like youo
And they sell it out to the girls like you
To incorporate little girls" - Lyrics from Awful

A link to a fan's page on Courtney Love - http://www.angelfire.com/hi/barbiesdead/essay.html

Movie/Video of the Year:
Duh.  This one is easy.  The NSX-Files Volume III is the winner!

TV Show of the Year:
Tie between the X-Files (the new episodes are pretty good!) and Speed Vision's live coverage of the F1 races.

TV Gizmo of the Year:
Direct TV's DSS Satellite service.  If your stupid cable company doesn't give you Speed Vision 24 hours a day, FIRE THEM.  Get a Sony DSS dish, and watch the F1 races live.  

Aftermarket Car Part of the Year:
The Comptech Supercharger, of course.  Hey, I floor my car in 1st or 2nd gear, and I sweat I can feel the front end of the car rise up a little like it wants to go airborne.  320+ HP at the rear wheels, once you try it, you can't live without it.  Kinda like when you use a Pentium 450 computer for a while, and then you have to back and use a Pentium 166 computer.  It sucks when you ain't got the power to go fast.  Yeah it's expensive.....but I don't see anyone else making Superchargers or Turbos that have been "race tested" for NSXs.

Book of the Year:
No candidates reviewed.  I read one book every 10 years.  Who has time to read books?  Maybe you folks out there rainy Seattle or snowy East Coast have excess time to this, but we don't read books out here in sunny Southern California, as we are culturally deprived and proud of it.  We get out and drive our CARs and checkout the bikini clad babes every day, and suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder!  Here is is January 1, 1999, and it is sunny and 75 degrees outside.  I am going to the beach!

Magazine of the Year:
This one is tough........I subscribe to about 40 magazines.....hummmm....okay:
Automotive Magazine - Autoweek.  They print it before anyone else does, cause they are a weekly mag.
Non-Automotive Magazine -  This is tough......they all have a bunch of great articles, but also a bunch of really crummy ones.  Okay, so I will say for occassionally great articles in a magazine, I will say tie between Esquire, ESPN, Brill, and Wired.  Occasionally they have great articles, but they also have a lot that really suck.

Website of the Year:
Tie between NSX-Files and www.drudgereport.com.   Matt Drudge reports it before anyone else. 

Computer Gizmo of the Year:
Cable modem.  Surf the 'Net 25 times faster than a 28.8 modem.  Don't move into a house/apartment unless you verify they have cable modem access!

More later as I think about it...