Okay, this is where I’m supposed to transition to a reflection of the ups/downs of ’08, but you know what?.... F the market: Why this year was primarily good
- Election, which gave me an (fill in the blank with something that rhymes and is inappropriate, though it’s just a medical term so I don’t understand why)
- Olympic opening ceremony in China did not disappoint and was not recalled due to excessive use of lead
- Facebook friend requests making me happy I did decide to buy my high school yearbook
- Rediscovering Terry Tate, Office Linebacker.
- Attending a shitload of football (6 games, including an amazing Monday Night Football game in Pittsburgh with senor Monjan)
- Gomez doesn’t die after a strange sideways pooping incident. Don’t ask.
- Getting a new car (Highlander Hybrid w/sunroof). The kids are not even allowed to SAY the word McDonalds in it yet.
- Family cruises – kids had a blast
- Guys weekend at Wisp. As we got on the lake and put the tube on the water, I admitted that although I’m pretty good at it, I hate tubing. Matt read my mind -- “Me too,” he added “ It’s cold, I’m tired….and a little scared.”
- Friends getaway at Aimee’s beach house…where Zack kept nailing us with water guns in the pool.
- Great TV: Lost and Battlestar didn’t disappoint and I discovered the Colbert Report (From ’07: A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y? Consonant or vowel? Make up your mind, we're at war)
- My 93-year-old grandfather is still ‘with it’: My mother takes my grandfather to the doctor for a checkup and he gets the normal questions, including “Who is the president now?” which he took a pass. My mother prompted them to ask him who he was voting for. “Obama,” he responds affirmatively. The interview continued and he has an epiphany and interrupts the doctor “I remember the president now, it’s Bush”. The doctor, just to make sure, asks him “which one?”. My grandfather got a subtle smile…“The wrong one.”
- Lots and lots of great music which I will share with you……..now
Here are the Top 10-ish Music-Related Things for me that didn’t necessarily come out in 2008 ....and here's a link to listen to them on Rhapsody...
My Rhapsody Playlist12) C Diddy – Air Guitar Champion!! Wearing a Hello Kitty Backpack as a shirt for some reason!!
11) Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog. The first two minutes are shaky and then the rest of the 30-minute online viral monster is worthy of the hype. Doogie Howser can blow. Okay, I didn’t mean it THAT way.
10) Weezer – they’re back to ‘Blue Album’ form.
9) Naïve New Beaters “Live Good” video. Can those mirrors make you taller?
8) Nas – Never was a Nas fan until this pretty political album. I still get chills at the end of “Black President” with the early-campaign intro of ‘our next president Barack Obama’.
7) Daughtry - I couldn’t get enough of his broken-record looping of the one line of every song he could remember, even after a full couple years with the album. I really must love Pete because that certainly sounds annoying just writing it.
6.75) John Legend on Colbert Christmas Special “Nutmeg”. “How about Cardamon? That won’t let me drop my loooove bomb.”
6) Lil Wayne – Tha Carter III – Wayne’s kind of a weirdo but gets extra points for saying ”Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice” in a song
5) Mike Doughty – Golden Delicious – Still amazing. “I Just Want The Girl In the Blue Dress” especially. He’s one TV commercial placement away from superstardom.
4) Jonathan Coulton – A lot to say about this guy that decided to put out a song a week and publish. Thanks Matt for the recommendation. Among his best was Code Monkey, W’s Duty (a remix of George W saying the word duty over and over), My Monkey and “Re:Your Brains”, a song about a zombie’s day at the office. Classic. To paraphrase, primarily because I'm too lazy to go back and listen to get it right:
Hey ya Tom it’s Bob, from the office down the hall.
How you doing buddy, how’ve you been?
Guess things are ok for me, except that I’m a zombie now
I really wish, you’d let us in
3) Gnarls Barkley – The Odd Couple makes this list for “Going On” alone.
2) The Past 2 years of Paste. I finally got around to listening to the past 1-2 years of old Paste monthy CD samplers and discovered some great singles. Here are some in no particular order. Club Thing – Yoav; Time to Pretend – MGMT; Scar That Never Heals – Jeremy Fisher; Foundations – Kate Nash; Graveyard Girl – M83; The Re-arranger – Mates of State; Freeway – Aimee Mann ; Curs in the Weeds – Horse Feathers; Honey Let Me Sing You A Song – Matt Hires; Just Stay – Kevin Devine
1) The entire car wholeheartedly singing Ben Lee’s “Catch My Disease”. It was sickeningly sweet family moment - pun only slightly intended as I didn’t initially intend one…but left it in after I reread the sentence, which I think makes it intentional so I went back and bolded it. So there.
Just one example of why it’s fun to be home
Zack was giving Pete one of his old Steelers mini-helmets. He was very proud of himself in how nice he was being to his brother and made a big production of a surprise ‘gift’. When Pete opened this gift, his face fell as he obviously was expecting a toy of some sort. Pete was searching for the words to show his disappointment. “I…don’t….like………..…Steelers.” Wendy, Vicki (mother-in-law) and I each audibly gasped and a hush fell over the room as if he had said he was a Republican. Remaining calm, I said “let’s not make a big deal out of this or he’ll dig in. Tomorrow he’ll change his mind.” The conversation ends and all calm is restored except 5 minutes later when Pete leans in closely and whispers to me “I’m not changing my mind.” Little f**cker.
An overextended explanation of the less fun
My morning routine (which I think has been bastardized by being away too much and only being able to think of it in work terms). See below -- and click on it to enlarge if you can't read it
New Years Anti-Resolutions for 2009 (what I resolve NOT to do in 2009)
- I will not have shameful joy when secretly tossing McDonalds Happy Meal toys
- I will not taunt Republicans
- I will not gloat that I’m awesome….except when I’m awesome
- I will not get addicted to the kids’ new wii….or at least not hide my addiction
- I will not be so awesome
- I will not forget how to get places just because I have GPS now…though I said the same thing about forgetting phone numbers before they were all stored in my phone.
- I will not wear the cub scout assistant den leader outfit, no matter how hard they try to make me
- I will not hold on to my old vinyl just because I can’t sell it on ebay
- I will not eat green eggs and ham. I will not eat them Sam I Am.
7) Cloverfield
6) The Lives of Others
5) Tropic Thunder
4) The Dark Knight
3) Five Days – HBO mini-series about a child disappearance. Overwhelming. Like someone winding up and kicking you in the ding ding. Repeatedly.
2) In Bruges
1) Bedtime Stories – not the movie itself, which was really just a ‘cute’ movie and as you know that just makes me irritable, but I took the kids and Becca would keep doing her high-pitched, nothing-in-life-is-better-than-this-moment giggle and then would lean her head on my shoulder.
Honorable Mention Albums and Songs
- New Pornographers – Adventures in Solitude
- Kanye West – 808s and Heartbreak
- The Montain Goats – Heretic Pride
- Vampire Weekend – Oxford Comma
- The Good The Bad and The Queen – Herculean
- Decemberists - 16 Military Wives
- Cool Kids - What Up Man
- Say Anything – In Defense of the Genre
- Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
- Dispatch - The General
- Fall Out Boy – Folie a Deux (especially Disloyal Order of Water Buffalos)
- Phantom Planet – Raise the Dead (especially ‘Do The Panic’)
Disappointments of 2008
- Tracy Chapman
- Counting Crows – Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings
- The Hold Steady - Stay Positive
- Regaining nearly half of the weight I lost this year in December
- Half of season 2 of Mad Men
- Mark Curry
- This list
- Vanguard and Schwab sending statements that I would have rather had been blank pages tainted with Anthrax
- The last 8 years of ER. Oh wait I take that back. This week is going to be ‘UNLIKE. ANY. ER. BEFORE”
- Watching an old man berate a store employee with a thin accent and then loudly ask him “should I write it down in English for you?” when they didn’t agree on the chain of events. Humans should not treat each other that way no matter what
