2008 Top 10

Hey, this "posting" to a "blog" thing is becoming a "regular" pastime for me. By the way, have you seen the "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks?

Okay, a friend of mine has thrown out a challenge to list your top 10 favorite discoveries of 2008. These don't have to be things that began to exist in 2008, they were just new(ish) to you last year. I thought that would be fun so took some time to think about it. I'm not sure this is my actual top 10 list as it's hard to think back that far with an 8-month-old baby who isn't sleeping through the night yet, but these are definitely things I enjoyed this year:

10. H&M
They opened one of these stores a few months ago at a mall about 12 miles from where I live. I'd never heard of them but found that they have such nice stuff and for really affordable prices, too. THEN they go and put things on crazy sales, like Buy 1 Get 1 Half Off for stuff that's already on clearance, like nice coats and sweaters. Totally cute things for little girls and boys and I can't wait to get some of it for Rachel and Ben.

9. Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
I'm a fan of Neil Patrick Harris. I think he's hilarious as Barney on How I Met Your Mother, and he's always an amusing talk show guest. This mini-musical stars him as wannabe evil villain Dr. Horrible, who falls for Penny, the girl next door, only to be thwarted by the tool-like actions of superhero Captain Hammer. Dr. Horrible is basically harmless and his attraction for Penny sweet, but you know that it's just not going to work out and something bad will result. After all, this *is* from Joss Whedon, purveyor of heartbreak galore in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series. But it's a very entertaining piece of work, albeit with a downer of an ending.

8. Toy Story Midway Mania
We took a trip to the Disneyland Resort in September. It was hard to get to everything we wanted to do since we were traveling with a 4-month-old baby and had a 4-year-old with us who could get cranky when tired and worn out, so we had to take things easy and missed some stuff. But we made sure to try out this ride, and it was AWESOME. You ride through 5 arcade games featuring characters from the Toy Story films, and at each stop, you shoot balls at targets to see how many points you can score. The games were fun, the ride cars move really fast through the ride, and even baby Ben seemed to enjoy being in it. I would have loved to have ridden it again, but when we went back towards the end of the day, there was a 45-minute wait, and that doesn't work with young kids.

(Side Note: Creating this list makes me wish I had been blogging throughout 2008 so that I could look back over previous posts for ideas to spark my memory.)

7. Jeff Probst's blog about Survivor: Gabon
I've somtimes thought Probst seemed like he thought he was too good for the show. Reading his blog, you can see that he's really a fan, and one with insider views on the show and the contestants. He's hilarious, too, and not afraid to call things like he sees them. This is the first season he's written a blog for Entertainment Weekly's Popwatch section, and I hope he continues to do it for however many seasons remain.

6. Lost Season 4
I've watched Lost since it first went on the air. Season 1 was amazing and blew me away and left me on the edge of my seat, waiting for more. Season 2 was uneven, but there were parts and characters that I still enjoyed. It really seemed like Lost stumbled a bit, but partway through Season 3, it started to regain its mojo, and that season ended with another astonishing cliffhanger. Season 4 was fabulous, and the episode that stands out most for me was "The Constant." Solidly steeped in the mythology that's been building since the beginning, it was also the most romantic and heartrending episode we've seen. I'm so excited for Season 5 to start (on January 21st!) and can't wait to see where the next two seasons takes us.

5. Food Network Programs
I've been a fan of Paula Deen for some time and used to like watching her cooking show on the Food Network, but the rest of the network was largely ignored by me. I started to get into watching a few more of the shows this year. Two in particular were ones I really enjoyed:

• Next Food Network Star - This show has aired three previous seasons, although I could only tell you one of the past winners -- Guy Fieri, who now hosts 3 shows on the Food Network, won season 2. I do enjoy watching him from time to time but hadn't tuned in to the competition that earned him his job. I did watch season 4 and found myself addicted to it. I enjoy reality competitions and am not sure why I never checked this one out, but I really liked seeing the challenges they faced, what they cooked, how they handled themselves on camera, etc. I'd like to catch the first three seasons if they're rerun, but so far I haven't seen them listed. I'll definitely be tuning in for season 5 when it starts. They just finished accepting applications, so hopefully they'll be filming and airing the episodes soon.
• Food Network Challenge - specifically the ones where people make amazing cakes. I looked for a link to the Disney/Pixar cake challenge but couldn't find one that had anything other than a cursory description. Cakes were made with the themes of Finding Nemo, Monsters, Inc., A Bug's Life and Toy Story. They were incredible, just really beautiful works of art in most cases. I also saw a Disney Princess Cake edition, and a Disney Villains one. Interestingly enough, I haven't really gotten into watching Ace of Cakes, even though that show is all about elaborate cakes. I think I just like to watch the actual process of the creation rather than the background stuff they seem to also cover in Ace of Cakes.
  
• Oh! how could I forget - I've been watching Dinner: Impossible as well. I can't remember if I started watching that in 2007 or 2008, but I very much prefer host Robert Irvine, who faked part of his resume and was given the boot for a while, to Michael Symon, an Iron Chef who was hired to replace him. Apparently Robert Irvine has made amends with Food Network since they rehired him and he'll have 6 episodes airing a little later this year, presumably followed by more seasons in the future. He's just more personable and fun to watch than Symon. For the uninitiated, this show puts a chef into a difficult situation where he has a fixed amount of time, limited access to food, archaic cooking tools and/or other challenges to face. Past challenges have included cooking dinner fit for a king for 30 people at a Renaissance Faire, using only tools and foods that existed in Renaissance times, and baking 2400 individual pastry pieces overnight for a bakery opening at 6am the next morning.

4. Google Reader
My husband has been using Google Reader for a while now, but I didn't think I really needed it. However, I got tired of trying to remember to visit all the sites I liked each day, especially when I'd miss 3 or 4 (or 5) days and all of a sudden have a ton of stuff to try to catch up on. Lo and behold, I started using Google Reader and have really appreciated being able to just click on it and find a bunch of things that are of interest to me when I have a few minutes to read. One of my favorite blog discovers this year is Cake Wrecks ("When Professional Cakes Go Horribly, Hilariously Wrong"). The site features atrocities in cake making in categories like Creepy Cakes, Creative Grammar and Missed Marks. They also showcase beautifully done cakes on Sundays with the Sunday Sweets categories. I cringe at some of the ugly ones shown and marvel at the Sunday creations. Another favorite website is Not Always Right, which features tales of idiocy from those working on the front lines of customer service. It's truly unbelievable how stupid some people can be, but these are all true stories, and many are hilarious. Also, Pixdaus delivers a wide variety of photos to my Reader program. The only problem is that there are often well over a hundred in a day, so sometimes I just click on "Mark All As Read" because I can't keep up otherwise. But I do every so often have a chance to check out a bunch of the photos and have seen some really beautiful shots.

3. Parental Assistance Tools
I honestly don't remember it being quite this tough to adjust to having our first baby in our lives. Baby Ben, while a sweetheart and a joy, has also deprived us of much more sleep and has had more trouble with teething, digestive problems and other things, so we've had our share of sleepless nights and fussy days. Consequently, I'm thankful for some of the things that have made this time easier, like:

• Cherry Coke Zero - As a non-coffee-drinker (usually), I appreciate having tasty diet caffeinated beverages available. I was formerly a Diet Cherry Coke drinker, but once I tasted this, it just doesn't compare. I also like Diet Dr. Pepper Cherry Vanilla for a caffeine fix.
• Gripe Water - The kind we use has sodium, ginger and fennel. Its uses include treatment of hiccups, colic and just general fussiness. We were using this pretty much around-the-clock for the first 3 or 4 months, although now it's tapered off to where we just need it every so often. It really does seem to work amazingly quickly to end Ben's hiccups, and it does help to settle him down when he's very fussy.
• Movies from the library - I've been getting movies from the library for a while now, but it wasn't until a few months back that I realized I could request movies that aren't even out on DVD yet, as long as they have a release date for DVD. I found it out almost by accident when I requested something that wasn't yet in the library catalog. I checked my account and found that I was now #1 on the list for that movie. So we've been to see movies like Tropic Thunder and The Dark Knight pretty early in their DVD release time because of getting in at or near the top of the hold list, which has been awesome. After all, how often do most parents of young babies make it to the movie theater?

2. The Advent Conspiracy
I heard about this through my church this past Christmas. The idea behind this is to take back Christmas from the materialism and commercialization. That's not to say that giving gifts is discouraged or considered wrong, nor is singing Christmas carols or going to parties or any of the other fun stuff that happens at Christmastime. But it also suggests bringing the main emphasis back to 4 basics:

• Worship Fully
• Spend Less
• Give More
• Love All

The four churches who began the Advent Conspiracy discovered that although it would take 9 billion dollars to ensure that everyone in the world has access to clean water, Americans alone spend about 450 billion dollars every Christmas. 450 billion dollars! The churches asked their attendees to find ways to give differently to those on their gift list, making some gifts, giving charitable donations for other people, choosing more economically items and other ways of paring down. In exchange, they took offerings on Christmas Eve and were able to donate half a million dollars (from just 4 churches) to those in need.

Hearing about this made me rethink what to give for Christmas. I haven't fully transitioned over to as pared-down a Christmas as I think I could do, especially since I tend to get carried away with the kids. But I had some ideas I carried out this year and am hoping to do even more for next Christmas. I found some good suggestions at Rethinking Christmas. I was talking with my mother-in-law about this at Christmas, and she's excited to put some of the ideas into play and to see if she can get her church interested, too. I'm looking forward to seeing how this evolves over time.

1. Facebook
And finally, my #1 discovery of 2008 was Facebook. I didn't see what all the big fuss was about, but once I joined, I found it to be addictive. I've reconnected with people I haven't talked to in up to 20 years! I was able to get back in touch with my matron of honor, who I'd lost contact with 9 years ago, and friends from college. I've become Facebook friends with people I currently know in real life and have had an easier time keeping up with what's going on in their day-to-day lives. I've discovered Scramble and Challenge Sudoku and the Never Ending Movie Quiz. Frankly, I could waste all kinds of time on Facebook, so it's a challenge to balance out time spent there with responsibilities and other things I'd like to do. But I think it's a really neat thing to be able to see so many parts of my life crisscrossing over time in one place, and it's been wonderful to get back in touch with formerly long-lost friends.

Whew! Okay, that took me longer to write out than I thought, and it ended up being quite lengthy. If you decide you'd like to come up with your own top 10 list for 2008, I'd love for you to put a link in the comments so I can see what you discovered last year. (That's assuming that anyone is reading this blog, so the comments section may just be quite dead.)

Also, I would have included the CD "O Holy Night" by Sara Groves on this list, but since I'd already blogged about that, I thought I would do other stuff here.