It has been a funny old year. The Rodternet has seen a lot of things: Good, bad and The Rod!

Since 13th July 2002, The Rod has had the honor of writing a column for Al's Place. It has been immense fun and He hopes you have enjoyed reading RodVision as much as The Rod enjoyed writing it.

In many cases, sequels are NEVER as good as the original. The Rod has taken the liberty of categorising them:

Absolute Stinkers

Hannibal (Book was GREAT though)

Even Worse than a stinker

American Psycho 2: All American Girl (Aww Hell she was cute though!!)

Rock On

Blade 2

Empire Strikes Back

Return of The Jedi

Attack of The Clones

X2

Matrix Reloaded

Of course there ARE hundreds more films which could fit into this matrix, but that’s for another day!

Hopefully Quantum Leap will fall within the Rock On category. But, just in case it doesn’t, here is The Rod’s thinking on what SHOULD be the storyline:

Quantum Leap: The Beach Mission

Sam/New Leaper leaps into a beach volleyball tournament. The leapers mission is to help the young lady become the world Beach Swimsuit Model Champeen. To accomplish this, the young lady (who also happens to be a lingerie model AND clothing designer MUST come up with a groundbreaking design for this, her share of the prize money for winning the beach volleyball tournament would enable her to design her swimsuit.

The subplot would be that the young lady goes on to invent the Victoria’s Secret range.

Of course you can imagine the hilarity with Al constantly letching at the other volleyball contestants AND ogling the young lady with whom Sam/New leaper had switched places. He would undoubtedly help with the lingerie designs as well!!!

Quantum Leap was a very entertaining TV series in the early to mid 90's. However, it could be that Quantum Leap has a special meaning to the viewer.

To The Rod, Quantum Leap meant more than a TV series, and more of a way of life. He can empathise with Sam and the loneliness He must feel, continually leaping around.

The Rod was born in 1977, at the age of 4, He and His mother left His native country, and moved to what was hopefully a better life.

His mother remarried, and settled down to life in another country. However, after 2 years, and as soon as Little Rod had started to settle down and make friends, they moved across the country and started again.

After a year, they moved again. The Rod counts a further 8 relocations after this.

Looking back, it seemed to The Rod that as soon as He started to ease into His new home, He was moved away from it. Perhaps this is why He is now a loner; perhaps this is the reason He finds it difficult to make friends, to fit in. Even now, in His late twenties, The Rod can count on one hand the number of real friends He has.

What does Quantum Leap mean to you? To The Rod it means friendship. It can be represented as Al's Place, and the community of friends The Rod has discovered there.

Quantum Leap has also brought The Rod a form of stardom. He gets dozens of emails almost daily commenting on His work, or asking Him what He thinks of this or that, hell even asking for different pictures of Himself ( ;-) ). He was on another forum last month, and someone replied to one of His posts asking if He was "the rodvision dude".

The Rod isn’t going to tell you that He is one of these Jamokies who claim that without Quantum Leap He would never have done X or Y. Hell, The Rod was moving around LONG before Sam Beckett stepped into that Accelerator Chamber.

What He is telling you, is that without Quantum Leap, would YOU have heard of The Rod?

He's THE Hot Rod Baby!!

Should you wish to email The Rod about this article or ANY QL related matter, or even if you Rodettes out there just want to send Him fan mail/pictures. You can do so by contacting Him at therod@quantumleap-alsplace.com