Best and Worst of 2008

Best Thing I Said to a Child: "Don't eat that crayon, it's yucky."
Worst Thing I Said to a Child: "Herpes!" (Babies find that word hilarious)

Best Restaurant Meal: Cashion's Eat Place with Refugee and Lemmonex.
Worst Restaurant Meal: One in which my companions monopolized the waitress, asked incessant and nonsensical questions, and agonized over each plate as if they were defusing bombs made of glazed chicken.

Best Karaoke Moment: Drunkenly singing "Bohemian Rhapsody" with J.'s family in his dad's living room on Christmas Eve.
Worst Karaoke Moment: Getting up on stage at Recessions and realizing the only part I knew of "It Takes Two (to Make a Thing Go Right)" is the chorus. "It takes two to make a thing go right, it takes two to make it out of sight..." followed by mumbling and baffled silence among me and my singing companions.

Best Dating Advice Received: "You scare the crap out of people. And that's OK."
Worst Dating Advice Received: "Boys worry less about dating girls inferior to them in intellect, since it is generally expected that a girl won't be as intelligent as the boy she dates." (from 1958's best and most enlightened book, "The Art of Dating.")

Best Show: The Swell Season
Worst Show: Aimee Mann (tip: Don't go to a show of all breakup songs with someone you recently broke up with)

Best Film: Wow, 2008 was kind of a dead zone for this. But Wall-E was awesome and thought-provoking.
Worst Film: Synedoche, New York. Move past the pretentious title for a moment, and take in the sort of drear-fest that doughy male middle-aged film critics lose their minds over. Then note the rest of the audience, who are mostly saying, "Since when is 'life sucks, then you die' a novel premise for a movie?" Then count the number of people sleeping through this exploration of how it's hard out here for a wimp.

Best Day at Work: The day I got laid off, and spent the afternoon drinking champagne with Lemmonex. Way better than an afternoon of filing.
Worst Day at Work: When I found out my hours got cut, and I still had to finish out the day.

Best Date: Beer and sausages, followed by a jazz festival, followed by pool.
Worst Date: The one where not even I could get a word in edgewise.

Best Thing About 2008: All the wonderful, cutely flawed and overwhelmingly kind new friends I made.
Worst Thing About 2008: A falling out with one of my oldest friends.

Happy New Year, all of you. And remember: nothing says New Year's Day like Dramamine, Gatorade, and maybe a McMuffin if you're in real pain. See ya next year, LYLAS, KIT, and all that other abbreviated yearbook sincerity. Take care.