Year in Review

Everyone seems to like to do these retrospective year in review posts, and who am I to go against the flow? Okay, the snickers can stop now, I’m gonna do this anyway. So let’s recap the year so far, going over my blogging history here as well as some stuff that I didn’t cover…

January

  • Started this blog!
  • Started doing independent/self-employed work after leaving my previous job.
  • Picked Fred Thompson as my candidate of choice, but thought Romney would win the nomination. If only.
  • Started using Ubuntu Linux as my primary OS for everything (again).
  • Giants advance to the Super Bowl off a wild card berth to face the undefeated Patriots!

February

  • Giants upset the Patriots in the Super Bowl with brilliant game-ending touchdown drive.
  • Began watching Battlestar Galactica, also known as televised heroin.
  • The Suns pick up Shaquille O’Neal. The heads of every writer for ESPN collectively explode.
  • Bush signs his economic stimulus plan into action. Hilarity ensues.
  • Romney drops out of the Republican race, leaving McCain and Huckabee as the front runners.
  • Obama surprises many by sticking close to Hillary in polls and winning some primaries.

March

  • It is revealed that Obama’s long time pastor and mentor is a racist lunatic. No one seems to care.
  • McCain clinches the nomination, largely on the grounds that he is a war hero and can make a good issue out of Iraq, and begins the most inept campaign in history.
  • Brett Favre “retires.” Heh.
  • The Suns don’t suck with Shaq, much to the dismay of everyone at ESPN.
  • JP Morgan buys Bear Stearns, which causes some non-financial heads to turn. They later smell coffee.
  • Gary Gygax and Arthur C Clarke die, marking the beginning of a really bad year for nerds.

April

  • The Suns lose to the Spurs in 5 games, prompting local outcries of “bring me the head of Ginobili.”
  • I buy a Razer mouse and begin a love affair with it.
  • I start a Bible study with Brian Aaby.
  • Obama makes his infamous “bitterly clinging to guns and religion” comment.
  • Gasoline prices spike to over $4/gal.
  • Charlton Heston dies. Liberals go to get his gun, and wet themselves when they see his collection.

May

  • People realize the surge worked in Iraq and that we’ve pretty much secured victory. Conservatives are left scratching their heads as to why McCain got the nod.
  • Massive earthquake in China kills somewhere between 70 and 80 thousand people, becoming one of the largest and deadliest quakes in history.

June

  • Supreme Court finds in favor of Heller in DC v Heller, affirming what those of us with common sense have known for years about the Second Amendment.
  • Obama clinches the Democratic nominations. Feminist heads everywhere explode.
  • Tomatoes declared a threat to national security or something. I don’t really remember because I don’t like tomatoes, except in ketchup form.
  • Bill Gates steps down from his duties at Microsoft to focus on philanthrophy. Nerds everywhere mourn the loss of the last tiny shred of soul at Microsoft.
  • Realizing I suck as my own boss, I go get a new job and begin training.
  • Bo Diddley, George Carlin, and Tim Russert die.

July

  • Obama goes on a European tour, speaking to huge crowds and evoking Godwin’s Law across internet forums anywhere. Little did we know that this was a fundraising tour – with anyone else, that would be illegal, right?
  • I begin working for my current employer, re-entering the cublicle farm with a loud sigh.
  • I switch back to Windows as my primary OS, mainly out of ease, and also because I’m playing a lot of games that I can’t get to work that well in Ubuntu.

August

  • Brett Favre traded to Jets, much to the dismay of… everyone, really.
  • The 2008 Olympics take place in Bejing, where runners and bikers immediately notice that the air is not so much air as smog.
  • Michael Phelps proves he’s superman, and Usain Bolt reveals himself as The Flash.
  • Joe Biden is selected as Obama’s running mate, to the collective yawns of everybody.
  • Sarah Palin is selected as McCain’s running mate, which makes people actually want to vote for him.
  • Russia attacks Georgia and is firmly scolded by American politicians, which Putin seems to think is hilarious. After even more angry letters, Russia decides to pull its tanks out and let Georgia have the land back – but not before they blow everything up.

September

  • The Large Hadron Collider is fired up and surprisingly, the world survives.
  • A week later, they break it, and won’t be able to fix it until late 2009. Good job, guys.
  • Freddy and Fannie are taken over the government because they’re “too big to let fail.” This makes a little sense at first, but before long everyone realizes that they’ve just entered the Twilight Zone.
  • Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy. Wall Street starts a long series of siezures.
  • Paul Newman dies, prompting many nights of his movies being watched.

October

  • Bush, Obama, and McCain work together to create a steaming pile of government that will give out 700 billion dollars of taxpayer money to people who’ve proven they can’t use it wisely.
  • McCain resolves to not say anything that could be construed as racist, mean, or unsupportive of Obama. Palin tells him to shove it and draws massive crowds by talking like a person actually talks and saying smart things.
  • Joe Biden is locked in a small plastic cage, where he will be unable to get anywhere near any members of the media or make any more apocalyptic prophecies.
  • Joe the Plumber asks Obama a question on his front lawn and is torn to shreds by the major news media for questioning the Chosen One.
  • OJ Simpson finally convicted of something he obviously did, and is finally sent to jail, which should end his 10 year crusade to find out who killed his wife who he killed.

November

  • McCain maintains his deathgrip on the idea of an honorable defeat and Barack Obama is elected president. Unicorns hail his election by flying over DC trailing rainbows.
  • There is a nationwide run on gun stores, causing massive shortages of handguns, “scary black rifles,” and ammunition. But this is totally a coincidence.
  • Good Old Games is launched, as is WoW expansion Wrath of the Lich King. My free time is suddenly sucked into nonexistence again.
  • V-I day announced, the media ignores it. They’ll probably mention it sometime after January 20th.
  • This blog gets linked from Instapundit, which kind of blows my idea of “lets celebrate 1500 visitors” out of the water with about a zillion new visitors.
  • A small group of terrorists attack Mumbai, resulting in hundreds dead and injured.
  • Michael Crichton dies. I was really looking forward to his next book, too.
  • Kim and Connie du Toit retire from blogging, leaving a huge hole in the blogosphere.

December

  • It’s confirmed that Janet Napolitano will step down as AZ Governor to take a cabinet position with Obama, which means Jan Brewer will be governor. This is awesome.
  • I mark another anniversary of my escape from the womb.
  • Majel Barrett-Roddenberry dies, leaving all future Enterprise computers without a voice.
  • I finally saw The Dark Knight, and it is awesome.
  • I get an iPod. This is awesome also.
  • I write a year in review post that you’re apparently reading.

Not a bad year, really. The next one certainly should be interesting… lets hope it’s in a good way. Happy new year, everyone.

Widgetry

So I decided I’ll play around with this blog a bit more. I just added myself to Technorati and got a Site Meter account, both available over on the sidebar. I’d been using plain old WordPress stats until now, but Site Meter is what all the cool kids seem to be using so I figured I’d join the club. As a result, the Site Meter stats are off by about 15,400 hits, about 90% of which I can thank the November Instalanche for.

So. Any other suggestions for sites to insert myself into, or widgets, tools, etc. I should be looking into?

2008 Weblog Awards – My Picks

The finalists for the 2008 Weblog Awards have been announced, and while I am (obviously) not on the list, several of my favorites are. Here are my votes for the categories I have any stake in, and if you haven’t taken the time to check out these blogs before, now’s as good a time as any.

Best Blog: Hot Air
Best Individual Blogger: Rachel Lucas
Best Humor Blog: Mother May I Sleep With Treacher
Best Comic Strip: xkcd
Best Conservative Blog: Ace of Spades
Best Political Coverage: American Thinker
Best Celebrity Blogger: Wil Wheaton
Best Technology Blog: lifehacker
Best Military Blog: Michael Yon
Best Law Blog: Volokh Conspiracy
Best Literature Blog: Neil Gaiman’s Journal
Best Middle East or Africa Blog: Michael J. Totten
Best Major Blog: Instapundit
Best Very Large Blog: Patterico’s Pontifications
Best Midsize Blog: Argghhh!
Best Small Blog: Nice Deb

You could do much worse with your afternoon than perusing those sites.  I would also give honorable mentions to IMAO for Best Humor Blog, Day By Day and Garfield Minus Garfield for Best Webcomic, and for Best Conservative Blog I can give a strong thumbs-up to several of the other sites that occupy my Google Reader: Power Line, Eject, Eject, Eject!, Michelle Malkin, small dead animals, and Little Green Footballs. For Best Technology Blog I would also reccommend Ars Technica, and for Military Blog I would also point you to Blackfive and This Ain’t Hell.

That should be enough links to keep anyone busy for a while.

Off into the sunset

Today marks the blogging retirement of Kim and Connie du Toit, people who I have been reading for upwards of five years. It’s been a treat to wake up every morning and read what he had to say, and it will be very wierd, to say the least, seeing that “Other Side” folder in my RSS feed sit at zero. Their farewell posts are up and comments on their site are open until midnight, so if any of you have been affected by their work, as I have, now is your chance to say “thank you” on the record.

To the du Toits, Kim especially, I can only say thank you, a thousand times thank you. For everything. You’ve given me some great advice in the forums and through email over the years, helped me learn a lot about our government, about guns and my rights, and about the world in general. To this day I still refer people to excellent posts of yours from years ago that articulate thoughts better than I ever could. There will be a large, empty hole where your voice was, and while I know you’ll never be replaced, I do look forward to finding your successors.