We continue our year-in-review series with Beehive Rewind III: Favorite Discovery of 2008.

Once again, we opened the topic up to Beehivers and Bee bloggers from other sites to talk about new things they discovered (or re-discovered, as the case may be) in '08 -- be it a new restaurant, TV show or local event. Read our picks, then add yours in the comments.

Mike Oz: Roller derby! Though, I know I shouldn't have waited until this year, I saw my first Smog City Roller Grrls bout in '08. Talk about a good time! SCRG and roller derby became the No. 1 thing on my "You should do this" list. While I'm sad to see Smog City go, I'm excited to see more roller derby in Fresno next year.

Heather McLane: My favorite discovery is AMC's "Mad Men." 1960s advertising world where the men wear suits, the secretaries are call girls, and the scotch pours all day long. What's not to love? Also, vodka tonics. My drink of choice for an afternoon spent marathon-watching the episodes I record on my third favorite discovery, the DVR.

Craig Kohlruss, Bee There: I'm excited to have found the Woodward Shakespeare Festival in 2008. I know it's been around for a few years but this is my first visit. I enjoyed relaxing under the stars at Woodward Park for Adam Meredith's performance as the title character in Hamlet. I decided to check out a second production by the company with The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged) at the Severance Studio in the Tower District. Although I'm not a huge Shakespeare fan, this show had me in stitches with laughter - much funnier than any movie I've seen this year.

(Photo: Adam Meredith as Hamlet by Craig Kohlruss)

Bethany Clough, Business blog: Oggi restaurant. I mourned the loss of Senses restaurant on Van Ness Avenue, but when Oggi Cosi Si Mangia (just call it Oggi) took its place, it became my new favorite restaurant.
From the lighted trees to the fireplace to the romantic ambience, I love everything about it. Charismatic Oggi (pronounced "OH-gee") owner Louie Maglieri is sure to stop by for a non-intrusive chat. And the food is oh-so-yummy, especially the veggie pizza.

John Rich, Sports Buzz: For me, it was a rediscovery: A return trip to Yosemite after more years away than I care to admit. It's such an awe-inspiring place, and it was even more cool to see my teenage kids' reaction.

Felicia Matlosz: For me, it's all about "The Mentalist" on CBS. My "discovery," I suppose, edges more toward anticipated event. I'd heard the handsome Simon Baker was starring in a new crime show and couldn't wait to see it. (Let me give another shout-out to his 2006 romantic film, "Something New" -- rent it, ladies.) The hit TV series is about a faux psychic, named Patrick Jane, whose phoniness led to personal tragedy. Now, he uses his powers of observation as a consultant to solve murders. The scripts started on the middling side but have picked up steam as we get to know Jane, in all his charming, smart and, at times, sad existence. I don't care that "Psych" fans say this is a rip-off of their show. This one's got Baker.

Donald Munro: My favorite "discovery" of 2008 is the author Sinclair Lewis, the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Yep, I'm WAY behind the times, considering that he died in 1951. But Lewis was new to me this year, and I embraced with zeal his crisp, wry writing style and pointed critiques of American capitalism and conformity during the first part of the 20th Century. This was a great time for me to discover him considering today's crumbling economy (and backlash against the excesses of greed), and I was reminded that the whole boom-and-bust cycle is nothing new in American history. In Lewis' "Babbitt," he tells the story of a middle-class underachiever whose devotion to materialism and ability to schmooze lets him overcome his own natural mediocrity. (It was such a wildly popular book that it even spawned a noun, "Babbittry," which signified the act of a narrow mind manipulating the American capitalist system.)

Hungry for more, I also read Lewis' scathing "Elmer Gantry," a book so controversial that it was banned in many cities, which is about a less-than-pious but golden-tongued preacher who rises to the spiritual top. Both books still seem fresh and relevant -- the highest praise. Next on my list is "It Can't Happen Here," written in 1935, about a power-hungry politician who takes advantage of a Depression to make himself dictator of the United States. I plan to read it and be very scared.

Will Albritton: Sweded movies. I met Roque Rodriguez during the Blogger Olympics, and that's when I discovered it: an online community of geeks who love movies so much that they remake them -- with no budget. It wasn't until Roque's first Swede Festival that I actually made one. Even though the movie "Be Kind Rewind" is credited with bringing this "swede" thing into the maingeek-stream, I recently saw a "film" that fellow local sweder Bryan Harley made back in 2001 (when dude was in high school). He combined the stories of "MacBeth" and "Shaft" for a class project. I realized that either Bryan is the true inventor of sweding, or people having have been doing this stuff for years. Finding out that there are much bigger geeks than me (and I didn't even have to look that far) was my favorite discovery of 2008.

Kathy Mahan: Mine is more of a rediscovery: The library. I know, it sounds geeky. But I discovered a whole new world compared to when I was a kid in the 80s and my dad dragged me to the library to find old newspaper articles on microfilm. Now, there's all kinds of cool stuff. I love the audiobooks on CD. And, you can take out CDs, DVDs. If something's not there, they find it for you within a couple weeks. It's been a treat. I head home with an armful of free bounty every few weeks. Really, you ought to try it out!

PREVIOUSLY ON THE BEEHIVE
- The Beehive Rewind: Most exciting moment of '08
- The Beehive Rewind: Favorite Fresno Event of 2008