"Who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?" - HST

As it is customary every year in February, it's time to mention the Good Doctor again. This marks the third year anniversary of his unfortunate, albeit self-inflicted, death.

Yes...football season is over. And what a season it was. Finally the underdog had its day. Even the Good Doctor would probably have something to say about the New York Giants cold cocking and whooping the New England Patriots like Ike Turner used to beat Tina.

But Ike is dead now and so is the doctor and even though people remember Ike for being an asshole, people remember Thompson for who he was, what he left behind and whom he inspired.

He gave us gonzo journalism, which over the years has been changing and morphing. To some it's about covering politics with a wicked eye. Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi tries to do it on the campaign trail. Talking about the media and its goons as if he wasn't one himself. What would Thompson say about Clinton and Obama? Would he make allusions to being on the rag? Or, like comic D.L. Hughley said, would the First Lady ask for a "hot comb" and nobody would know what the fuck that is?

The whole generation now is preoccupied with cell phones and celebrities, coming up with shit like Brit-Brit and how she likes to show her snatch. We've got eye drops for chronic eye dryness that inform us that it wasn't tested on people with herpes of the eyes. We've got McDonald's selling salads and pharmaceutical companies mixing drugs for cholesterol AND high blood pressure. Writers finally showed Hollywood how if they don't give a fuck about them, they won't give a fuck about Hollywood.

And Angelina Jolie is pregnant!

But gonzo, always, I felt, was a state of mind. An attitude with a label. A certain way of looking at the world. Be it cynical, or heartfelt, angry or sad. It wasn't something that you could emulate, but rather, it was something that you had to learn through your own life. Thompson dared use to go to the edge, spit in the abyss and then go back and say that you did. Most fall off when they see the edge. But some don't. Some stay. Some do come back with that youthful glee and say, "You should have seen it, man."

Thompson had a love and hate relationship with deadlines. And I missed mine. He died on Feb. 20, 2005.

"But what now? What comes next?" - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.