With the New Year staring us straight in our fat, desert eating faces, I felt like it was time to recap some of the highlights of the year in a sort of "Best-of" format. There might be a celebrity appearance and maybe some juicy gossip. Without further ado, I give you:

The Best Things About 2006

Best Collection of Days Dedicated to a Carnivorous Animal: Shark Week
While the Audubon society continues to put out their yearly "Bald Eagle" stamps (you bastards) and although home coming at UF is a force to be reckoned with, land dwelling animals just cannot hold a candle to a rampaging Shark. Thank you Discovery Channel for bringing such dramatic, meaningful television into my life during a time when all I could do was kill my roommate with my mind every 20 minutes.

Best Concert: The Hold Steady, Black Cat, Washington D.C.
We can debate this but I was there so it will be hard for you to understand. I think everything about that night was awesome, even the 7 dollar beers which I usually can't stand, upon which floated my imagination for 2 hours whilst power-chord ripping angels or rock-transcendence beat me about the head and shoulders (literally), making me feel both cynical and childlike at the same time about the Mississippi River, past girlfriends and growing up. Not to mention the 20-minute finale during which about 30 people and I were pulled up onto the stage, surrounding Craig Finn while he lay on the floor singing "Stuck Between Stations". Wayne Coyne only rolled around on top of the audience. This guy sprayed us down with Jim Bean. Tough Call.

Best News: My Brother Getting Married
Followed closely by: I'm going to be an Uncle. Talk about growing up. But you know, my brother's going to be a great father and I will be an even better uncle - the only one he/she will have, so really, we're stuck with each other. Next year: Really loud presents, the kind that drive mommy and daddy up the wall.

Best Flop Joke To Tell to A Group of Women in a Bar: "Why did Julia Roberts smear feces all over her face?" as told by Victor Aguilar (pick a bar)
The answer is anything, it doesn't have to make sense; the point is that you hate Julia Roberts. And I learned something this year, which is that most women actually like her. I think Pauly Shore was punched out after telling this same joke.

Best Old TV Show released on DVD: Airwolf
Hello? Could it be anything other than Airwolf? You have Stringfellow Hawk (and here I should just stop explaining myself; if you aren't on board at this point, I don't know what's going to do it) who steals a stealth helicopter from the military and proceeds to fly around the world hooking up with Deborah Pratt. SPOILER ALERT: Marella, played by Pratt, was a real woman, not some Bond floozy - and a computer programmer so you know she pretty much made Hawk feel stupid for all 15 episodes she was in, but really, that's what a hot woman is supposed to do. And then you kill her.

Best Field Trip: Two-way tie
Manhattan, NYC for the Save Darfur Rally and Chicago, IL for Jocelyn's Halloween Party
Between falling asleep on a rock in central park after passing out bagels to foreign nationals and seeing Phantom with Rob on Broadway (not to mention crashing on the sofa of a newly-wed Orthodox Jewish couple), my last trip to the Big Apple will stay in my mind for a long time. But I also made it out to the windy city for the first time where I ran into Ted and CJ and helped throw a pretty large Halloween party in North Ashland. Not too shabby for an out-of-towner.

Best Continued Occupation of a Foreign Nation: Canada
You maple-leaf flag waving bastards. If that syrup ever dries up, you know who's coming for your ass - Mexico, and we're not even doing that great a job of stopping them right now.

Best Naked Celebrity Photo Let Down: Britney Spears
Before I switched to a straight razor, I sent several photos of my face and what this electric shaver had done to me to Norelco and it was enough for them to apologize and send me not one but 2 razors free of charge. When I received the photos of Spears stepping out of Paris Hilton's car, I immediately cried inside because I was looking at the same scabby, pockmarked scar tissue over which I had threatened legal action. Seriously, I haven't seen intestine that abused since the UF-Arkansas game. So ends roughly 8 years of masturbatory fantasy; she's disgusting and my face is fine. I think I came out of that one all right.

Best Beer Its Okay to Hate: Pabst Blue Ribbon
This will be short: TO ALL WASHINGTON DC RESIDENTS MY AGE OR YOUNGER; Pabst is not trendy and you can't make it so. It is cheap for a reason. This is about the only thing my father and I agree on. So stop with this.

Best Party I Attended: Lissy's St. Patrick's Day party on Euclid, Adams Morgan D.C.
Ted can attest to the complete imbalance of propriety we displayed that evening; green beer and live bands, plus "Kiss Me I'm Irish" shirts tend to make for a lively evening. I think we went to something like 2 bar crawls and a parade that day, finishing strong somewhere near the Potomac with Ted being completely sure that he was in love with some girl whose name he couldn't remember. DC, in many ways you are like a protective playpen although technically mostly iron and granite.

Thank you, 2006! You were a pretty great year and you're still with us at the time of this writing. Maybe we don't have to end; maybe we can keep running into each other at parties. I have your number.