The Flop Year in Fun: 10-1

OK, I'm much more optimistic about 2006 than I was about 2005. But then again, 2005 was my worst year since 2001. Goodbye and good riddance. When I look back on 2005, I'll focus more on the following things:

10. Internet video fun. I used to hate anything involving internet videos, especially the computer-crashing ones you get forwarded like five times. Call it more evidence of my Luddism, but my co-blogger's the one who regards text messages as the work of dark forces. My December was brightened by two clips. One showed University of Michigan students running around in Pac-Man costumes. The critic in me wishes they'd found a way to have a blue ghost get chased, or to devise fruit that materializes out of no where. The other film clip was mentioned in my iPod post. I watched it on the R train platform after the Alamo Bowl, mostly to keep from throwing myself in front of the next train.

9. Hilton Head. Spent a week at the beach in the middle of the fall. We had a guest blogger, Blog Pinup Brian and I invented a new sport, I got to grill out nearly every night and the weather was perfect. Also, I taught the (then-regnant) Queen of 2005 how to throw a football. Then I got worked like a Michigan State corner by Her Majesty. My only regret is that we never went crabbing. But I bought some local shrimp and grilled them.

8. Last Night, James Salter. A collection of short stories I read over and over again this spring. Salter is kind of known as a writer's writer, and it's easy to see why. He writes about regret and missed chances and roads not taken. Each story lands as softly as a snowflake. You don't notice them having any individual effect, but then you're sitting there on the subway imagining what it'll be like to run into ex-girlfriends 10 years from now.

7. Crenshaw Melon. This requires no explanation Does anything rule more than the 'shaw? No.

6. Squirrels are rodents, motherfucker. Although my co-blogger and I are equals, for the purposes of this blog (each of us owns 50 percent of the common stock in Cole Slaw Blog, Inc., and are co-principals in Ramekin Media Holdings), he basically considers me an unlettered dolt. So he was filled with screeching agony when he was proven wrong, and it turned out that squirrels really are rodents.

5. The Gooseberry Redemption. I attempted to blame humble produce for the flailings of a major league baseball team. But then I realized it was all my fault. But then the Indians got their shit together again, letting me off the hook. But then they missed the goddamn postseason by a narrow margin, anyway. It was still the best Indians season since 1999. What do you want? I told you it was a shitty year.

4. Sports blogs. 2003 was the year I first started reading blogs regularly. I had occasionally paid attention to the spastic Kausfiles when reading Slate. But on the eve of the Iraq war, I was basically reading as little actual news as possible. Until I read something about Josh Marshall being "on fire" lately. I clicked through and became a fan of the format. So it was natural that my interest, OK, my obsession, with sports would bring me to read blogs like Mistake by the Lake, Mgoblog, EDSBS and the like. (All linked on the right). Now I don't know what I'd do without them.

3. Rocky Top, performed by an imaginary blue crab. No, seriously. I forget when it was, but my co-blogger and I had met for a couple beers, and were later joined by the usual suspects (i.e. the queen and her pinup consort). At some point, talk turned to the upcoming Hilton Head trip. I explained that chicken necks were the preferred bait. I then illustrated this point by improvising new lyrics to the University of Tennessee's fight song, as I would imagine a crab singing them. I don't recall the exact lyrics, but I recall that "Oh boy, I sure do love chicken necks" was a key phrase. "Chicken necks, you'll always be, a favorite meal for me." This cracked up Crimenotes. Which then cracked me up. And that was the hardest I laughed in 2005.

Bonus note: I just looked up the lyrics to "Rocky Top" and they contain multiple references to moonshine. It would follow that Ohio State's songs contain references to uninformed voters, prison rape and public corruption. And only the most perceptive of our readers will realize that this is a swipe against Ohio, not the Buckeyes.

2. "Touchdown, Manningham!" Those of us who have the final minutes of the Penn State game saved on their DVRs know that this is what Brad Nessler said at the precise moment that 2005 peaked for me. Last season's shittiness was almost worth it, because we might never have had the finish against Penn State. Zeroes on the clock. Pandemonium on the field. Can I think of a better finish for Michigan that I actually got to see? Well, a couple spring to mind. But not one of them was that. Fucking Awesome. If Tyler Ecker had just tossed the football to Steve Breaston, it would have been the sweetest terrible season ever.

1. Alton Brown, genius. For all the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments I undertook in 2005, I'll take plenty of good out of it. 2005 is the year I discovered Alton Brown. And made him my hero. He's like a cool uncle you wish you had _ and I've got two pretty cool uncles. But neither one is an actual genius. Not in the kitchen anyway. Brown reminds me of those college professors who lived for teaching, and never got tired of explaining the basic stuff because they understood that it was the heart and soul of matters. Brown's enthusiasm is palpable _ and contagious. Good Eats is a staple on my DVR, and I also bought one of his books. I've changed how I do a lot of things in the kitchen, and I've tried to adopt his resourcefulness outside of it, as well. I feel about Alton Brown the way my co-blogger does about Craig Finn, but in a much less spazzy way. Everyone's invited over for roast pork loin once I get my oven calibrated. Or, in the spring, some brunch that entails some soft-shelled Callinectes sapidus, poached eggs and Alton's hollandaise.