The Year in Review.

A tumultuous year indeed. A lot of shit happened, some people died, some people did outrageously dumb things, and I had more life experiences crammed into this fateful year than probably the course of my entire life up to this point. 2006 was by far one of the worst years of my life, but that's the nice thing about the last digit changing, isn't it? 2007, with it's completely meaningless new '7,' holds the promise of a millenium. I have decided to use it as a catalyst for change. But this is not a 'resolutions' post. 2006's been a doozy, and I thought a recap might be in order. So let's begin, shall we?


2006 WAS AWESOME

1) MySpace. I have been an upstanding member of the MySpace community since April of this year. I was late to the game and I know that, but whatever. I think it speaks for my character that it took me quite so long to take the plunge.

2) The War of Terror. I mean, on Terror. Oh, hold on... That wasn't awesome?!? Damn you, FoxNews! Does anyone else think it's funny that the so-called War on Terror has been reduced to its most common denominators? It's been boiled down to the concepts of fear (Iraq, al Qaida, persons who wear turbans and burqas, anyone with crude oil) and freedom (America). It's just a ridiculous shit show and I'm sick of hearing about it.

3) The year in employable Reds. Let's see. The King Republican is busy cooking up Armageddon over in the Middle East. One Republican swindled 85 million dollars from Indian casinos. One Republican shot his closest advisor in the face at point blank range. One Republican advised the president that it's OK to throw the notions of privacy and personal security to the wind and wire-tap all our phones. One Republican used his electoral campaign to launder Russian money and misappropriate it for personal use. Granted, there was one misstep on the Democratic side... A Democrat got caught catching multiple furtive Internet gropes with underage boys. Oh, no, wait.... Fuck. FoxNews fucked this one also! That was a Republican too.

4) The year in getting served. In 2006, a lot of media succubi finally got what they had coming. It is not often that the undeservingly famous get their comeuppance. Anyone getting their comeuppance is worthwhile, but when the whole thing plays out like a soapy opera in the public eye, it makes for delicious television. Like when that fat waddly c-word Star Jones 'quit' The View, just to have the dragonlady Barbara Walters announce the day after she left that she'd known she was not being renewed for months. Or when Federline finally got served (literally) with some long overdue divorce papers, right after his album completely tanked. Or when Bill Clinton single-handedly embarrased FoxNews. Or when Rachel Zoe got exposed as a wrinkly drug dealer and got fired by everyone. Served! Served! SERVED! SERVED!!!

5) "It's maaaaaade out of peeeeeople! Just keedding!" I would have preferred some type of prolonged torture at the hands of his own people, but... Ding dong, the Sloba's dead, the Wicked Slobodan of the East is dead.

6) The legislative process finally works out. Another new thing was that I became a freshly-minted American in 2006. Not to sound like an ungrateful sycophant, but I really never gave two shits about being an American citizen. I had a Green Card, which basically afforded me all the rights of a naturalized American, with the exception of being able to vote and apply for American Idol. But it just so happened that I was essentially handed a citizenship just a few days before the local elections. Well, I took it upon myself to get registered and vote, and I am so glad I did, because I, and others like me, manyhandedly returned the control of Congress to the blues. Hallelujah. On January 1st, Congress is Democratic, my special man Eliot Spitzer takes control of New York State (that's the sequel to All the King's Men waiting to happen), and the lovely and talented Ms. Pelosi become's the country's first female (not to mention Democratic) Speaker of the House. New World order, bitches.




2006 WAS WIGGIDY WIGGIDY WIGGIDY WACK

1) MySpace. While it has proven to be an endless resource in so many ways, there are just certain things about MySpace that should be regulated. I feel that a bulleted list is necessary.
~ My first beef is with people who load up their page with enough HTML code to crash a computer at the Pentagon. Can you really not live if your page doesn't come alive with animation, sparkly bunnies, special cursors and porn-site color schemes at every click? Grow up.
~ People that refer to their page as their 'Space.' Newsflash, dork - your page is nothing but a homogenous blip on a massive server. This is not your special place to write really bad poetry and put up your crappy drawings of mythical creatures that are really just pictures of you with pointy ears and fangs and ET fingers as interpreted by a five year old. No amount of fantasizing about the importance of your 'space' is going to make you any less of a chronic masturbator with bad skin, so let's just stop it. Okay?
~ Enough with the friend requests. I'm talking to you, TransAm253.
~ Sweet Jesus Christ, the pictures. Oh, for Chrissake. Using a photo that stretches the limits of PG-13 nudity will not make you any more sexy or any less overweight. Using one where you're shirtless in your bathroom taken with a camera phone will not mask your pitiful, mindless existence in the Midwest. A picture of you wearing a cape and a ton of eyeliner while mugging earnestly will not bring you any closer to your dream of being Count Dracula. Giant Dior sunglasses and a pout will not convince the planet that you didn't buy them at the Korean. Wake up. You work at Wendy's. A 50 Cent wallpaper doesn't make you any less of a Caucasian tub of lard with idiotic cornrows. Putting up pictures of you and your boyfriend don't make him love you again. Putting up pictures of your baby doesn't make you any less of a deadbeat dad. Staring into the lens like your tortured soul is about to pour out of your eyeballs don't make you any smarter or more interesting (it does, however, make you look constipated). Kissy faces don't make you adorable.

2) Ridiculous word hybrids. Surely, 2006 was the year of the portmanteau. If I never hear another Tomkat or Brangelina or Vaughniston (are you serious? Vaughniston?!?) I'll die happy. What's next? Romijerryoconnell?

3) The emergence of Williamsburgers. Listen, I have no problem with Williamsburg. It's a quaint, clean enclave in Brooklyn with really good restaurants, hot boys and sometimes rowdy, boozy parties. I also have no problem with people, even the painfully hip types that tend to populate my fair city, until I get to meet them and hate them personally if applicable. What I do, however, take issue with, is people from Williamsburg. They walk around like a bunch of uniformed clowns. The dudes looking all fragile with their cardigans and their painted-on stretch jeans that constrict their junk and their really expensive sneakers that probably smell like death and their devil-may-care scarves tied dashingly around their skinny, pimply necks and their patchy facial hair and their ironic motherfucking glasses. And the girls with their sweaty, unbrushed hair and their sweaty, bleeding makeup in Technicolor shades running all over their sweaty faces, and their polyester dresses (in which they are, no doubt, sweating) cinched at the waist with the widest, brightest belt they could find at the flea market, and their emerald green fucking leggings tucked into an ugly pair of your grandma's boots, and on top of everything just pile on enough seventies costume jewelry to oufit a neighborhood yard sale. Jesus Christ.

4) That dumb cow Kate Moss. What a fucking waste of humanity that dumb bitch is. Unfortunately, humanity is also a fucking waste, proving singlehandedly that the rich and famous are completely exempt from consequence. First of all, her sweaty, bovine-faced junkie boyfriend is a walking ad for abortion. (Seriously. Imagine having really awkward smelly lanky sex with Pete Doherty for a second. Okay? Now go ahead, I'll wait for you to vomit. Go on, I'll be right here when you get back.) Excellent role model for your kids, Katie. Secondly, does anyone even buy the 'it was just this one time' song and dance? Kate Moss has been doing massive amounts of blow since puberty. Then she gets caught cutting lines on camera - congratulations you dumb bitch, now the whole world knows you're a miserable human being and an unfit mother. And then, she picks up four major advertising contracts and (insert unbelieving head skake here) wins Supermodel of the Year?!?!? What the FUCK?!?!? Is the rest of the world doing massive amount of blow too?



In any case, enough with the ranting. New Year's was awesome, I went to a party down the street from my house, got to wear a real slutty dress, got pretty massively shitfaced for free, danced a lot, and got kissed at midnight. Topped off by a stumble home and blissful sleep at the hands of my Swedish foam mattress. It was a great way to kick off the new year. 2007 here I come. YEAH!!!

(My adorable friend Devin laughs while my roomie gets mercilessly hit on in the background on New Year's Eve. Note the red Solo cups full of cocktail. Awesome.)