Why, don’t you want my two cents? Note that these are all chosen from what I’ve watched, done, seen or heard this year rather than what was released in 2006. So while, say, Clint Eastwood may win another Oscar for his WWII movie (or his other WWII movie) I didn’t see either so they aren’t in the candidate pool.
Moment (personal): My sister and brother-in-law walking in the door of my parents’ house with my nephew Jacob, the first time we got to meet the little guy.
Moment (technical/business): Going to Pasadena in January for the Rails Studio class. Honorable Mention: Gnomedex in Seattle, Eric Banhamou’s presentation at the July JHTC meeting.
Moment (political): Election Night, particularly watching CNN while in SeaTac waiting for my flight home from a job interview at Microsoft. Despite not getting an offer from MSFT.
Moment (sports): Liverpool winning the FA Cup after falling two goals behind, lead by Steven Gerrard’s offense and Pepe Reina’s goalkeeping.
Disappointment: Our troops are still dying in Iraq, Afghanistan is falling apart (with Somalia, the Sudan and Nigeria close behind), North Korea has several nuclear weapons and Iran is close behind and GW Bush is still president. The US team’s completely crap performance at the World Cup and USC’s last minute loss to Texas in the BCS Championship.
Purchase: Easily LittleSteven, my new MacBook, nothing else came close, which was driven home by the few days I had to go back to my WinXP Toshiba when this puppy had to go for service. Honorable Mentions: iBackup from Grapefruit Software, although since this is free/open source software I didn’t purchase it, and TextMate from Macromates, which did cost Eu40.
Gift: The longsleeve Liverpool FC jersey TS1 gave me for Hanukah and the continuing generosity of my parents.
TV comedy: Eureka (SciFi) was funny throughout its first season with good use of science fiction elements in the mystery and a very good Colin Ferguson as the fish out of water sheriff and Family Guy (Fox) was the best 30 minute show on any network. Honorable Mentions: Robot Chicken (Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim) and Viva Blackpool, a limited run musical/comedy/crime story mashup. Simpsons and Monk are still funny but not at their peak; Monk especially seems to have gotten into a rut and will need to pick it up in the winter season premiering in three weeks or lose me.
TV science fiction: Heroes (NBC) has come out of nowhere to show that major network scifi can be well done. Battlestar Galactica is still quality but the producers seem to have lost their way in regards to the bigger picture, similarly The 4400 (USA). Doctor Who is fun to watch but not first rank. Long in the tooth watchlist: both Stargates, though SG-1 is wrapping up after the winter season.
TV drama: The Wire (HBO) did a nearly complete reset this season but got terrific scripts from well-known mystery novelists like Dennis Lehane and Richard Price and consistently strong pacing from the stabl of directors. Mystery Monday (BBC America) brought us some outstanding British series including Life on Mars, Eleventh Hour, Wire in the Blood and Waking the Dead (but not all were worthy: Vincent and Murphy’s Law didn’t keep my interest for even one full episode). Honorable Mentions for Deadwood, 24, Dexter, Murder City and The Sopranos. Long in the tooth watchlist: the original CSI and CSI: Miami, the original Law & Order (when Jerry Orbach died, maybe the show should have too, though I still watch) and ER, which I did stop watching at least four years ago.
Movie comedy: Stranger than Fiction was strange, fictional and twistingly funny, best movie performance by Will Ferrell. Honorable Mention: Find Me Guilty. Classic: Eddie and the Cruisers.
Movie drama: An Inconvenient Truth may be a documentary but its also extremely dramatic and important as real life events continue to show (such as a 66 square kilometer ice shelf snapping off an island in the Candian Arctic). Honorable Mention: Hotel Rwanda. Classic: The Great Escape.
Book: Charlie Stross’s Accelerando was an amazing take on the Singularity and clearly my top read while Iain Banks was new (to me) author of the year, beginning with Look to Windward. I only seem to have read two non-fiction books but even so Jack Weatherford’s Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World is worth your time to understand one of the least well understood transformative figures of the Middle Ages.
Blog: Daring Fireball by John Gruber (note that I’m limiting myself to blogs which I first started reading this year), who I will support as soon as I start getting a paycheck again so I can get his Linked List RSS feed.
My 2006 sports predictions had some surprisingly good picks: Italy in the World Cup finals against a team that was not named Brazil, Germany or USA (though they won); Barcelona did win La Liga and the Champions League and beat an English club in the CL final; Chelsea won the EPL with Man United and Liverpool second and third and Arsenal capturing fourth on the last day of the season after a suspicious rash of food posioning struck Tottenham, the team ahead of them until that game. USC did not beat Texas in the BCS Championship game but Leinart, Bush and Vince Young did all go in the top 10 11 draft picks and both teams were in the preseason Top 10.
BillSaysThis 