Finally, The Best Of 2008

That's right, it's the best of 2008. As the coolest person you all know, I feel as though my opinion should be valued more highly than others. And as such we have the best of 2008. These aren't actually opinions though, they are facts. Every statement in this post is as true as the statement "the Red Sox play in Boston" or "Georgia Tech over Georgia was a fluke."

Without further ado... (Some of the subject ideas were stolen from McCluca, so big ups)

Favorite Female Celebrity: Anne Hathaway
The reason Get Smart is in my 2008 top 10.

Favorite Male Celebrity: Clint Eastwood
Changeling? Gran Torino? Still bad ass? Yes.

Top News Moment: Sarah Palin and my subsequent boner.

Top Sports Moment: Game 5 of the ALCS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wAlL988Z_U&feature=related
Red Sox down by 7 runs in the seventh inning facing elimination win the game
2nd place: UGA Basketball wins SEC Championship in staggering fashion
3rd place: Kansas kicks the piss out of UNC in the Final Four (I will no doubt remember this long after I've forgotten every other sports moment of 2008)

Favorite Athlete: Jon Lester... what a year.
By sport: MLB (besides Lester): Jonathan Papelbon, NBA: Mario West, NFL: Adrian Peterson, NCAA FB: Knowshon Moreno, NCAA BB: Greg Paulus (but whatshisface from Kansas who had the monster game against UNC deserves love as does Sundiata Gaines), NHL: Ilya Kovalchuk, NCAA Baseball: Josh Fields & Dean Weaver...

Five Best Movies (So Far - I've seen 45 of them this year which is about 35 more than most of you, but intend to see 100 more):
1. WALL-E
2. Synecdoche, New York
3. The Dark Knight
4. My Blueberry Nights
5. Changeling

Three Worst Movies:
1. The Happening
2. Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull
3. The Eye

Best Blog:
"How Hi The Fi?" http://howhithefi.blogspot.com/

Five Best Albums (no order - this is also subject to mass overhaul)
Girl Talk - Feed The Animals
T.I. - Paper Trail
The Hold Steady - Stay Positive
TV On The Radio - Dear Science
Flight Of The Conchords - Flight Of The Conchords

Favorite Hip Hop Song:
T.I. (Feat Rihanna) - Live Your Life

Best Live Band I Saw This Year:
Of Montreal

Favorite 2008 Book Of The Very Few I've Read So Far:
John Hodgman - More Information Than You Require

Funniest Internet Video:
Andy Samberg & Co: Jizz In My Pants (SNL)
2nd Place: Bo Burnham - I'm Bo Yo

Favorite Things I Got Into In 2008 That Don't Necessarily Have Anything To Do With 2008:
Cormac McCarthy, The Office, Flight Of The Conchords, Book Collecting, The City Of Atlanta, Octane Coffee, The Hawks, The Falcons, The Thrashers, cigars etc, and, oh yeah, this blog.

Hopes For 2009: I hope the blog continues to grow and turns into something more interesting. I hope the Red Sox win the World Series, Duke wins the NCAA Championship, UGA wins the BCS, Jeff Gordon wins the Sprint Cup, Love, New Music from Bob Dylan, Sufjan Stevens, DMB... New book by Cormac McCarthy... The movie "The Road" is the best of the year, a high paying job, losing weight, staying healthy, strengthening friendships, seeing more independent films, broadening my horizons further, having time to read my books, making lots of money, figuring it all out and continuing my 24 1/2 year dominance of everything. Happy new year, bigness.

Crazy Month: Office, VPILF, Fantasy and, oh yeah, Love

This has been a crazy month.
The gallon challenge video has been put on hold indefinitely but there will be photos posted here before too long.
Third, my fantasy football team (1-1) is terrible and I'm losing interest fast. Of course if I'm 5-2 through 7 weeks my tune will change. Oddly, I have arguably the best running back in the game and I'm still disappointed. Go figure.
I have decided to watch all of the Marx Brothers movies in chronological order (I own 12 of the 13) and this was a fantastic decision. As I shared a few posts back, the Marx Brothers, particularly Groucho, are unbelivably brilliant and hilarious.
The Red Sox are probably, knock on wood, going to the playoffs. We have a 6 1/2 game lead in the wild card and are only a 1 1/2 games out of the division lead. We were tied for the division lead the other day before losing twice. I really, really, really hope we win the division. In other news, the Yankees' elimination number is 3, meaning they're almost gone.
I just finished up my DVDs of The Office Season 4, which is wonderful, and the new season is less than a week away. I'll probably be blogging on that when it gets rolling. I bought a book called "The Office And Philosophy" by the people who do the "Pop Culture and Philosophy" series which I enjoy. It's basically a collection of philosophical essays with an Office touch. I'm dying to tear into it but I spend way too much time online working on mix CDs and talking to Patricia.
Sarah Palin: VPILF. It's nice to be able to vote with my junk. It was the only decision in life I wasn't already making with my junk.
So yeah, there will be a lot more to talk about now. I won't have such a hiatus again, I hope. Post some comments, fools, and feel free to ask questions or make suggestions for lists. I never get list suggestions. I'm thinking about posting mix CD tracklists. Hmm.

A Little Toothpaste On A Monday Afternoon

Just a little ToothpasteForDinner to get the week rolling. Not a whole lot worth talking about. The Red Sox are surviving, Georgia football is set to start and we had our big fantasy draft. It went pretty well. With the 3rd overall pick I scored the 2nd best running back in the game as well as the best receiving corps in the league. Gotta be happy about that. My team looks something like this:

QB: Marc Bulger, David Garrard

RB: Adrian Peterson, Edgerrin James, Matt Forte, Rashard Mendenhall

WR: Braylon Edwards, Andre Johnson, Santonio Holmes, Bernard Berrian, Reggie Williams

TE: Todd Heap, Randy McMichael

K: Nick Folk

DEF: Seattle Seahawks, Philadelphia Eagles

That's all I got for now. Got 2 more drafts coming up as well as a possible second league of my own if I get enough interest.

Come On! Feel The Georgianoise!

Some exciting news today. Through the Sufjan Stevens rumor mill we have come to the conclusion that his next "State" album will be about a state whose first letter would be enough to determine which state it is. Thus, we can conclude that the state's first letter is not shared with any other states which leaves eight possible states:

Delaware

Florida
Georgia (!!!!)
Hawaii
Louisiana
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
Utah

My money's on Pennsylvania or Utah with Rhode Island being a possibility just because the name is so easy to turn into an album title for him. For those unfamiliar, Sufjan Stevens is probably the best musician to come out in the past ten years and it's been at least 3 years since he's put out a completely new album (there have been Christmas and Outtakes releases since then, but not real albums). He has thusfar done "Come On Feel The Illinoise!" and a Michigan album.

In other news, the fantasy football season is upon us which for me is significantly more interesting than the actual NFL season and even the average college football season. Technically this college football season is more interesting than the average one because of UGA's projected success but fantasy football is one of the most wonderful things in the world. People will be coming to my apartment Saturday evening for our draft. Nearly all of my closest friends are involved in my primary league this year which is really fun for me. It dawned on me recently that a lot of the people in the league don't know each other but everyone knows at least 2 other people so it should work. Two years ago I won the league and last year I came in third so it's been a good run thusfar for me in this game. The baseball league I'm in with Rob & B.J. is going especially well. I am in 2nd place with the playoffs right around the corner and I am playing the first place team and kicking his ass so far. A win could put me in first which I could possibly hold on to going into the playoffs. Not bad considering I was in 4th less than a month ago. I have an unhealthy interest in fantasy sports. Meanwhile, Rob is saying this fantasy football season will be his final due to waning interest. I cannot even fathom this. I can understand people not being into it to begin with, but I can't see someone being completely into it and then dropping it. Oh well. He'll be back.

Now for everyone's least favorite weekly blog feature: vinyl find of the week! This week is Gene Chandler - The Duke Of Earl. This is easily one of my five greatest record finds ever. I paid $3 for it, thinking it was perhaps a Duke Ellington record or just something random that might be interesting to check out. When I got home with my record finds that day, I began to look them all up. I was very disappointed that I had spent way more than I should've and came home with only 1-2 decent records. I couldn't find the record in question in the price guide thingy because it didn't have an artist's name listed in any of the common areas. A few weeks later I looked again. In the blurb of text on the back it had mentioned something about Gene Chandler. I knew Gene Chandler had written the original Duke Of Earl song but I had thought this record was someone else singing that song or something like that. I was wrong. Turns out this is the original Gene Chandler record. Then it got better. The standard issue of the Gene Chandler record was worth about $200, which is the value they generally give for older records featuring black artists and extremely popular songs from the time period. For instance, most of Chuck Berry's original records are worth $200. But this one had something a little different. The word "Stereophonic" is on the top of the cover. This meant that the record is "stereo" as opposed to "mono." This is significant in that it was released in 1961 but in 1961 there were very few stereo record players. Not until the Beatles came along were people like "holy crap I must listen to this in two speakers!" So basically, with no one having stereo record players, no one was yet buying stereo records. Especially stereo records of black artists. This turns a $200 record into an $800 record. That's right, book value $800. But it gets even better. Unlike all of the other high end records I own, this effing record is SEALED. Sealed records carry a value higher than anything else. This one has stayed sealed for 47 years. I could likely sell this one for it's book value or more if I found the right buyer. Wow. Not bad for $3.

Just to put this in perspective, I only own 5 records worth more than this and one worth the same. Of those 6, only one is not a Beatles record. None of the others are sealed. Woot.