It’s nearly 2008. I think my favorite part about the last couple weeks in December is looking back at the past year, and seeing what came out of it that was definitely worth the time and effort put into it. So here it is - the my tops lists:

Top 10 albums:

1. LCD Soundsystem - 45:33
2. Rascal Flatts - Still Feels Good
3. Craig David - Trust Me
4. Pinback - Autumn of Seraphs
5. Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity
6. RJD2 - The Third Hand
7. Panda Bear - Person Pitch
8. The Six Parts Seven - Casually Smashed to Pieces
9. Elliot Smith - New Moon
10. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

Runners up definitely - Feist, Radiohead, M.I.A and Of Montreal
Actually, i think this list of top albums might actually destroy mine… Not only is it a good list, but it’s also 100% Canadian. Woo! Feist!

Top 10 songs:

1. Apologize - Timbaland ft One Republic
2. Hot Stuff - Craig David
3. Toy Solider - Britney Spears
4. Alaska - Camera Obscura
5. The Way I am - Ingrid Michaelson
6. Bartender - T-Pain ft Akon
7. +81 - Deerhoof
8. Blueberry Tree Part II - Husky Rescue
9. My Moon My Man - Feist
10. The Past Is a Grotesque Animal - Of Montreal

Top 5 movies:

1. The Lives of Others
2. Little Miss Sunshine
3. Sweeny Todd
4. Amazing Grace
5. Surfs Up… fo reelz

Top 5 personal moments:

1. Moving home from BC… I miss BC a lot, but it is good to be home. And it looks like I’ll be here for a while, and that’s okay.
2. Getting alcohol poisoning. …I know, it doesn’t really sound all that good, but honestly - it made a good story and has terrified me into drinking less and less each time I go out.
3. The CFI leadership conference. It opened my eyes to a lot of things, introduced me to a lot of people and gave me an opportunity to converse with a lot of open minded, like minded people my age for a few days.
4. My first night out with Future Shop folks. Shit. Show. I established quite the name for myself that night. Gah.
5. Getting to meet Baby AJ! The birth of Baby Ella!

Top 3 games:

1. Oblivion!
2. Guitar Hero 2 - seriously, 3 isn’t really that much better. There are some good songs, but… meh.
3. Bioshock!

I hate halo 3 and the orange box. …so i dont even want to hear it. call of duty 4… it’s more than decent though. As is Assassins Creed, but I haven’t played it enough to put it in a top list.

Top 5 TV shows:

1. Heroes!
2. Flight of the Conchords
3. Planet Earth
4. Yo Gabba Gabba
5. The Office

Top 4 under-reported news stories:

1. Somalia … for some reason, few people knew about the + 1 million Somalians fleeing from their homes - while the UN sits back and watches.
2. Mansions in Luanda … Post-Civil war Angola had an economic growth rate 12.5% higher than China’s 11.5% rate. Thank you oil reserves!
3. 100 000 troops … Lined up along the Ethiopian and Eritrea border, just waiting to have at it, much like the crisis that happened there in 2002.
4. More reasons why teachers need to have background checks, character tests and need to be watched closely. Seriously.

Top 5 books:

1. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
2. Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill
3. The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester
4. Dirt - The Erosion of Civilizations by David Montgomery
5. Busting the Limits of Time by Martin Rudwick

Top 5 environmental stories:

1. Walmarts green appeal. …They’re still not perfect. They still encourage suburban sprawl. They still suck money out of people. They still pay employees shitty wages. But they are doing great initiatives for the environment. That is all.
2. Moving from “environmentalists kill the economy” to creating green jobs to increase economic growth. Creating new economic sectors that cater directly to the hippies. Solar panel companies, organic farms… the new green economy should create over 6 million jobs by 2015.
3. The world’s 15 greenest cities
4. The Great Biofuel Hoax
5. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its 4th Assessment Report in which it declared that global warming is “unequivocal” and that it was “very likely” that most of the observed warming was caused by man. More than 2500 scientists worked on the report. The panel’s work was recognized with a 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, which it shared with Al Gore.

Top 5 natural disasters:

1. Bangladesh Cyclones

2. Mexico Floods

3. Hurrican Felix

4. Greece Forest Fires

5. Peru Earthquake

My mother called me today asking when I was coming home, where I was… etc… It was around that time that I realized that I’ve been away from home for quite a while and havn’t been updating or anything! Oh dear. Well, I’m in the Toronto-ish area with Samis. Tonight we’re going to a bar with highschool friends to watch the hockey game… (Go Wings!… Only because I want to see the Sens EAT them in the final playoff…woo!) I spent most of today walking the dog and reading - I read a really horrible book called Fruitcake… it was one Sam had lying around her room.

Friday we baked a cake drunk. And listened to a lot of dance mix ‘95. Saturday we had a big huge party fully loaded with fireworks. Woo…

Our cake:

The only pan we could find was shaped like a heart - which was unfortunate since we were trying to mend our broken hearts and hate men. On top of that… it was a pretty horrible tasting cake.

I didn’t get many pictures of the party… but here is one of Fahad playing dream phone and Diamond with her new boyfriend Joe.

I am heading home tomorrow… my mom wants me to be in Guelph for the weekend so that I can help my grandma do a yardsale - I’ll say this… She better use the money made from that damn yardsale to buy me a frikkin’ bed. Seriously… The pull out is just not doing the job (maybe that’s why I’ve stayed at Sam’s for so long)

before I take off for the bar, I’ll just throw up one of our actual pictures from the hike. I’ll be home tomorrow, so I’ll get back on track again! Yip.Ee. Also, here is a cool picture of a volcanoe erupting on Lo.

For some really gorgeous photography check this shiz-natch out.

Also, the guy who did our banner - Aaron has some really great photos on his flickr. And my brother’s friend Stu has some great stuff too on his site such as this:

People make hilarious fuck ups that end up looking like politically incorrect parking lot porno…

People “tag” John Newcomb’s name all over campus…

But some spell it wrong…

And we’re so environmentally friendly that we have bunnies instead of lawn mowers.

No matter how bad of a day I’ve had… No matter how horrible of a radio show I’ve done… No matter how many assholes I run into…
I walk past this incredibly uncreative piece of graffiti at the public school that I cut through to get home and giggle to myself. Because it’s just so darned funny.