My Random 2012 Rewind

Time once again, for some of my most random thoughts – from the
"funtastic to the fantastic", here are 12 things we all lived through in 2012, through the eyes of those of us in the corner.

Gangnam of Thieves – Korean rapper Psy's Gangnam Style has now officially become THE most watched video of all time. The one-hit wonder has spawned a number of spin-offs and spoofs that have taken YouTube by storm. The once controversial artist has been widely accepted by his countrymen, MTV and the White House alike. A previous 'political thug' in his homeland of South Korea, Psy does now have a legit place in history. We will likely hear no more from this admittedly infectious little jam and that's just fine by me.

Boo Boo Knows Best – During this presidential election year, the  MOST watched television programming during the election of this country's, perhaps even the world's most important position of power was not the RNC or the Democratic conventions, it wasn't even the debates. It was coverage of America's newest sweetheart, pudgy princess of purgatory, Honey Boo Boo. Maybe the apocalypse did occur... 


"We will not fade quietly into the night–!" – So yet another 'end-of-days' has come and gone. Those crafty Mayans had a calendar that abruptly ended on December 21, 2012 which left many pondering the end of the world as we know it. As we all know, not very much happened, though there was a massive spike in tourism to Peru to see the Mayan ruins. The Mayans were of course, known for building a massive civilization and empire but honestly, they didn't even see the Spaniards coming. 


Rhymes with Snit – From out of the languishing ranks of lost souls from the Grand Old Party came a silver-tongued super-villian hell bent on sewing seeds of mistrust, deceit and lies throughout our fragile economy and deceiving nearly half of our countrymen that he was all that and a bag of chips on a shoulder. MItt Romney's laughable campaign of vapid emptiness took the country by storm until even Mitt's own kin folk woke up, hours before the election and said "WTF?" Swing and a miss, Mitt.

Free Eye Glasses with Every Paycheck! – ... aaaand speaking of poor judgement, the lofty referee lockout at the beginning of this year's NFL season saw a phalanx of scab referees hit the field–and football fans everywhere hit the bar, hit the bottle and hit the floor in utter disbelief as scores of horrifically bad calls bellowed when bad whistles blew for four weeks that utterly decimated the NFL with some to the most atrocious calling since Dewey vs Truman.

"And there came a day..." – I'm still reeling from the onscreen awesomeness that was Marvel's The Avengers, a near-perfect super-hero mash-up that smashed box office records, our perception of hero movies and puny Gods alike. With a $1.5 billion box office performance, the Avengers is just heating up. Expect more hero adventures in Thor and Iron man in 2013. As my favorite book growing up, the Avengers were, how do you say? The bomb diggity–! There, I said it and there's no taking it back.


Darth Vader gets Goofy – In one the most mesmerizing business buyouts of ALL TIME, Disney purchases the Star Wars intellectual property and rights to the franchise from an increasingly perplexing George Lucas for a mere $4.05 billion. While I am ELATED at the prospect of more SW movies, didn't George make like, $4 billion in merchandising alone? "Join me and together we can rule the empire...!" Done, done and done.


Standing Room Only – In one of 2013's most bizarre mass media events, Hollywood bad boy and conservative whack-a-doodle, Clint Eastwood has a conversation in front of the entire non-Honey-Boo-Boo-watching country with an invisible Barack Obama. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Dirty Harry goes off on an empty chair in front of... well all of us. I don't think the RNC has been this embarrassed since Sarah Pailin went all "hockey Mom" with her "drill-baby-drill!" bit.

The Accessible Red Planet – In September, a VERY under-reported event and the next step in man's exploration of space unfolded as the Martian Rover, Curiosity, landed safely on the Red Planet. It's two-year mission is to take it's 19+ cameras and feed back images and even live video of our small blushing sister planet. Curiosity will open up new discussions about the nature of Mars. Get your ray-guns ready...

Massacres on Main Street – the mass murders in a movie theater in Aurora Colorado and Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown Connecticut show us how out-of-control our gun culture has become. I don't care where you stand on the gun control issue, if this country had it's sh*t together with properly enforced gun laws, 20 kindergarten kids and scores of othewr innocents would still be alive today. Period. Good thing Automatic Rifles are selling out in record numbers across the US. Nope, don't see how that could POSSIBLY make things worse. Not one bit. 

Brain Food – AMC's family-friendly series chronicals a group of survivors as they make their way through a zombie apocalypse. Complete with enough gore and bloodletting to rival a pork processing plant, The Walking Dead, based on the phenomenally well written monthly comic from Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore is the show that everyone is somehow just now discovering. The first half of the astonishingly well written season three is done and the story picks up again February 2013. If you haven't watched it yet – well good God what are you waiting for? It is waayyy beyond a guilty little pleasure–its an American icon.

Greatest Love of All – We said goodbye to a host of VIP-level personalities in 2012, but none will impact me more than the untimely death of R and B/Pop dive Whitney Houston. no one defined the 1980's pop scene like Whitney. Her demise and slow sinking into the mire of heavy drug use does nothing in my eyes to diminish her fantastic contributions to music. RIP girl, you're the Greatest!

Happy New Year – to all of you who have been sent to the corner–thanks for reading! 2013 is coming hard and fast and the new year will have a new format and new stuff for me to get int trouble over. See you then!