2008 in review

movies
saw iron man, thought it was amazing. saw wall-e, it blew my mind. saw dark knight, couldn’t believe iron man was my number three for the year. i think it’d be a tough call as to whether i think wall-e or dark knight is technically better, but they’re such different movies it doesn’t really matter. get smart and clone wars i liked a lot more than i expected, hellboy 2 was boring. that’s about it.

television
the finales of lost and galactica were both spectacularly ballsy, which made up for atlantis just completely falling apart. at this point i don’t even care about the new stargate show. but i can’t effing wait for the last episodes of galactica and more lost. also notable this year; the lepidopterists.

music
alpinisms by school of seven bells, burial by burial, guero by beck, and the third hand by rjd2.

video games
most of my playtime was put into animal crossing and nytimes crosswords on the ds, and gta 3 for pc, but castle crashers on live arcade and gta 4 on 360 were both wiildly impressive titles on opposite ends of the gaming spectrum. gears 2 got completely insane at the end, and they get points for not screwing with the good bits from the first game. a more coherent story would have been nice, though.

toys
clone wars captain rex and artoo, mark 01 iron man, the just-released bionicle guys with actual hands. the clone wars happy meal bobble-heads, especially boba fett and the talking yoda. a replica of captain harlock’s arcadia starship, a classic design by leiji matsumoto. egyptian spawn’s sebek, the crocodile king. there’s more but i can barely remember anything right now, so those are standing out as satisfying purchases. although the most toy-love this year was to 10th anniversary beast wars optimus primal, who gives me a thumbs-up whenever i walk by that shelf.

comics
i had to stop buying comics when my hours got cut, so not only am i like six months behind, but i was already behind on reading stuff at the time and i still haven’t caught up. the most satisfying comics i read this year were the ‘hob’ storyline at dresden codak, and the last four pages of mighty god kings cover of brand new day.

reading
not so many books this year (god, did i actually read any?) but i read a hell of a lot of the new yorker, and the standard amount of blogs and wikipedia and so on. i think one of my favorite extended reads this year was sandwich girls archives about her year at mcmurdo station. favorite writer for the year is probably abhay khosla and his essays on secret invasion, blue beetle, and so on. wildly entertaining.

bad news
the writers strike, the election cycle, the economic collapse of the free world, the mexican drug war, my brother losing his job and now his unemployment benefits, finding a (live!) black widow spider in a box at work, having my hours cut back at work, having my health insurance cut at work, breaking my hand at work.

good news
del toro making the hobbit, lots of new babies at christmas this year, my niece screaming ‘SEAN!’ every morning when i come downstairs and running up to hug me, my treo smartphone, new scott pilgrim coming soon, and President-Elect Barack Obama.

weather
an inch-ish of snow the week before christmas. six-plus inches of snow plus an inch of ice plus six-ish more inches of snow the week of christmas. surprise inch of snow last week, another inch-plus falling right now. i hasn’t snowed this heavily this often in portland in years and years. it can be a pain in the ass but while it’s falling i’m six years old and it’s christmastime. magical.

the internet
tr2n footage from sdcc, batman needs to tone it down, cup of brown joy, the xtacles first two episodes (down now), and of course, the wonder that is lol trek.

also, these two images made my year.

via balakov

via ffffound