I can't stop...Reviewing the year

So I am about to embark on my journey to Africa aka the Great Ivory Hunt of ’09 aka Jews wandering the desert: redux but before I did that I wanted to leave you all with a little present – my year in review. I apologize in advance if some or a lot of these comments seem like inside jokes, as I remember the year I usually think about the times I spent with other people and unfortunately (or fortunately in some cases) I could not be with all of you. I also apologize if this comes of as a little Joycean – there is no method to this really. Here goes nothing. Frank Sinatra- It was a Very Good Year

Biggest regret of the year – marking B instead of C on question 175 of the MBE on the California bar. Failing the bar is bad, but failing by one multiple choice question (3 points out of 4000) is worse. Oh well, I guess it just means bar trip 2.0 if I do it again in February. See you all in Thailand in February - we can ask Jeff David where the best massage is.

Year’s best premature celebration – A close one between Barack’s inauguration being a sign of real change and my bar trip. Barack still has time to redeem himself and certainly some things are changing. I guess I do too, but given the insanity of the trip I’m going with Bar Trip 1.0, since all I really had to celebrate was wasting a summer with Jeremy’s inappropriate comments, Tasa’s insanity and summer starters.

Years best wedding I was at – Sosa’s. Truly an amazing spectacle with more abuelo rum than was probably healthy. The most surprising thing of the whole evening? no one outside a certain groom vomited. This also won for best cameo by an unknown latin rap group, best demonstration of why americans are better than Panamanians and most sober Jeremy has ever been when the situation actually called for drunken revelry.

Years best wedding I was not at – Ellen and Jordan’s. Again, my apologies for not being there, but it sounded like a blast– Ellen you did a good job following Beyonce’s advice by putting ring on it.

Minor of the year (not in a sexual way you pervs) – Another really tough call between Miley and Andreita. Ultimately, I’m gonna have to go with the Chica Caliente. Miley had a great year – she put out an all time great pop song (I don’t care what anyone says) and inspired us with her honesty. But the Guatemalan brought something else to the table – she showed us how to salsa and even allegedly claimed I was a good dancer, knew who Comando Tiburon was, what Marlboro Blues were, and flat out just brought it at the wedding. Let it be known that I called this from the beginning of the night. Although I was getting statutory rape comments, I fended off the haters and by the end of the night all of the boys wanted to hang out with her (I think by then they had accepted they weren’t taking anyone home, so were a little more open to having good old fashioned underage fun, whereas I accepted this from the beginning of the night and ran with it – at least that’s how I remember it).

Miley Cyrus - Minors can party too


Year’s best gang – Scalibrini Ortiz. We ran BA for a solid week and not even Big Empanada could bring us down. First Wives Club was in close second, but its more of a support group than a gang.

Worst thing I heard all year – Hawver and Gabby bumping uglies. The only thing worse than the primal sounds being emitted from the penthouse that night was seeing this awkward facebook follow-up - and no Hawver, you dont sound like a real Argentine:
Greg Hawver: Huge soccer game tomorrow!!! Argentina v. Uruguay. I am very worried. Are we going to win? I think I will drink Malbec and eat a big steak while I watch it.
Gabriela Fagnilli Fuentes: Hola, bombón! I wish I could say We are going to win this game! But I can't bet on it, I don't trust this team that much... Anyway, what can I know? I used to be in the dream team, and finally we became the loser drink team haha! It's time! Go Argentina! I'll send you an email later about my trip, besossssssssssss
October 14 at 3:07pm
Greg Hawver: VICTORY! It was not pretty but Argentina did it! Wow, Maradona is muy gordo. And I think he was wearing a red cape tonight! Are you sure he is not still on drugs? OK, go celebrate tonight - I will talk to you later.

Best New Show when I need to impress you – Modern Family – see my post before. Simply awesome.

Real Best New Show – Make it or Break it – Its set in Colorado and had teenage girls with teenage girl drama – was there really any doubt whether I would love this show? Oh yeah, it also had gymnastics (not really sure how this adds to it, but it's important).

Blog of the year – In an upset, its actually engadget over this one. See, engadget gave me a computer for free in their Black Friday giveaway. All this blog has given me is a sense of insecurity. (Okay, I had that before, but its only adding to it).

Best bedmate of the year – Trotter. He comes to bed when you call him and knows when the lights go off its time to leave. What else could you ask for?

Worst bedmate of the year – Hawver. I clearly pissed off the Scalibrini’s because I had to share a bed with him almost every leg of the trip and got locked out, woken up and complained to nightly.

Year’s worst drinker – Tasa. Times drunk: 2. Times the end of the night revolved around her needing to stop a moving vehicle to vomit: 2.

Year’s best drinker – Milhouse. I only saw him drunk once or twice, but every time it amazes me how someone can be so good at being drunk. We had no resurrections of the Mexican Abe Lincoln this year, but there was the 90 minute love triangle story, which was equally Milhousean.

Year’s best concert – Matt and Kim/Cut Copy – This one is really out of just the amount of effort it took to make it happen. I have loved Matt and Kim for a while and when they were coming to Chapel Hill I had to go see them. So I bought tickets and got to the show just in time to hear Matt say, “Thanks so much, have a great night – The Cool Kids are coming up next” Totally pissed. Then, we found out they were coming again with Cut Copy – awesome! But for some reason we didn’t ever buy tickets and come the week of the show, its sold out, which is the first time I had ever seen something at the Cradle sell out. We could not find tickets anywhere (by that I mean craigslist). Through luck and bribery, the day of the show we finally got in and they were fucking awesome. Full of energy and they seemed really happy to be playing. To top it all off, Rachel got Kim to pose for some photos and sign a poster for me, informing me that a) she liked my flannel (which may have only encouraged the habit) and b) she recognized that she was my future wife. What a great fucking show.

Year’s worst concert – Matt and Kim/Cut Copy. For as awesome as Matt and Wifey were, Cut Copy blew. Hard. They did not play any instruments - it was like listening to their CD with some bright fucking lights shining on my face. Oh yeah, and their computers broke halfway through the set so they simply could not go on, and there was like a 35 minute delay because they were lazy asses who didnt want to actually perform music. Never trust an Australian.

Year's best band – Animal Collective – Between their album and the EP, a great year.

Year's best song when I’m trying to impress you – Don't Haunt this Place – Rural Alberta Advantage.

Rural Albert Advantage - Don't Haunt this Place - Maybe you will listen this time? No, thats okay.


Year's Real best song – Taylor Swift Love Story. The only tough part of this one was deciding between this and You Belong With Me. Look, I know it came out last year, but for me it’s a this year thing. If it has to be this year, its probably Off that by Jay Z.

Taylor Kaplan - How I Met Michael aka Love Story

Jay Z and Drank - Off That

Year's best album (both and real and for when I’m trying to impress you)- Phoenix – sorry, its not original or anything, but that album is great.

Year’s best video – Well Beyonce did have one of the best videos of all time, but I’m gonna say Major Lazer. It certainly made me miss awesome 80's cartoons..(Sorry, we can't embed it because of some stupid law or something).

Next year’s best new artist – J. Cole. Download his mixtapes. Then when he blows up next year, act like his debut doesn’t compare to the tapes. Basically pull a play out of Josh’s handbook. (Josh's note: Since Mike blew up my spot on J. Cole, I felt the need to post at least one of his tracks that seemed appropriate given the theme of this post. Seriously, check this guy out.)

J. Cole - Last Call

Year’s best reader – Anonymous. You never know what take he/she is going to give you or whether he/she hates you, loves you or really doesn’t care about you. In any event, anonymous always lets you know whats up and for that I appreciate him/her/it.

Year’s best reader I’ve never met – Virginia. Mainly because she actually reads the blog. The fact that she enjoys it (or at least claims to) adds to this prestigious award.

Entrance of the year – Jerome’s five minute WWF-style entrance into the pool at Sosa’s beach house after the girls left and the conch shell was smashed. It was epic.

Streaker of the year – Jerome about 5 minutes after the entrance. Some things just cant be unseen once they've been seen.

Cheapest Jew of the Year – Zackler. He complained in Cuzco that our cab cost 10 sols instead of 8 sols. The exchange rate was three soles to a dollar. Do the math. I wish that were the only instance. He also bargained with some poor street vendor to get the price of a hat down from 10 sols to 7 sols. I feel quite certain she needed that dollar more than him. (He probably views this as a complaint if he even reads this).

Currency of the year – Nueva Soles. Because of the high level of Spanish among our group, the Peruvian currency got shortened to souls so we would pay 20 souls for that or 40 souls for this. Anytime you can trade in souls, you are doing something right. Just ask any of my friends working for corporate firms. Or Jena, I mean Minerva Louise.

Mammal of the Year – Coatie aka the Nose Bear. The animal is under 20 pounds but strikes so much fear into the hearts of men that it had a group of eight able-bodied men running for their lives. Any creature that causes someone who is 6'4 and 50 feet away to break into a sprint and start yelling, "Appease the beasts" to get the others to throw provisionals (sandwiches) into the woods wins. Just ask Chris.

Paparazzi of the Year – Bloom and I for a little piece we like to call "Over the Halfway Line" featuring Josh and She Who Must Not be Named at Cosmic. Runner-Up - Bloom and I for a little piece we like to call "Poetry in Motion" featuring CJ and an anonymous lady friend making out in the back of a cab when we were in a car parallel to them.

Here is the winner - a blatant violation of the halfway line - show some restraint there Joshie boy. And here is the shocking thing; us being complete jackasses didn't salt Josh's game (though in hindsight I wish we had been able to and he probably does too). I guess he is good.....



WASP of the year – A real real close one here, but Danton edges out Stoup and Sr. Scrivey. I had to make a judgment call since we never held the WASP Olympics. Stoup loses because he is a half Jew. Scrivey loses because he gets his own category.

Nazi of the year – Andrew Scriven.

Burger of the year – In n out. No dressing or tomato. Ketchup and Mustard and Grilled onions.

Scandal of the year – A real close one. Tiger, or ... well ... the Great Backstabbing Debacle of '09. I’m gonna say its the Great Backstabbing Debacle because of the awesomeness of the timing and the general insanity that ensued but mostly because I enjoy being the source of other people's misery and after this went down, there was plenty of it for my friends.

Person most excited to be mentioned in the blog - We saw how much Beth wanted a shout out, but the real winner here is Tons of Fun. Every time I saw him I got lobbied on the perks of him being mentioned in this space. Anyone that knows me, knows this was not a wise strategy as spite is my primary motivator. But alas, it's the year's end, so here you go Tons, live it up cause it's not happening again for awhile.

Year’s worst online feature – the AutoAdd on Google mail/chat. I like the ability to heavily edit emails when I am trying to impress you and your IMing throws that off because I have to be witty on the fly, so I dont like it when suddenly email talks become IM talks. Furthermore, when I post stupid shit as my status message (like a link to this blog) I probably dont want you to see it because I like to hide how juvenile I am until I think you will accept it as charming not immature.

Facial Hair of the year - In a year that saw a lot of solid facial hair, from mustache week, to Stoup's credit card hippy beard to T-Pain's amish beard, Im gonna crown myself the champion for a little thing i like to call the chopstache. If there is any doubt, see below.

I can think of no better way to leave you for a few weeks then with that image burned into your mind. I hope everyone has a great holiday (by that I clearly mean Christmas since Hanukkah wrapped up already) and a happy new year. See you all in 2010. (Josh again- As someone who likes to think I know how Mike works, I couldn't help but think this is the song on repeat in Mike's inner monologue while he's in Africa and the rest of us idiots are here grinding it out.)
2Pac - Picture me Rolling