Fare thee well, 2005

2005: The year has been short, but the days were long.

Because our opinions matter the most out of all the people we know, we have decided to privelege you with a "Year in Review" spectacular. We took whatever Giz could remember happening, and gave it the breakdown.

Star wars finally ending

V: Goodbye and good riddance to the prequel trilogy. I initially liked Episode III, but it was only before I realized how far I had lowered my standards for the new movies. George Lucas raped my childhood.

G: I only saw the first one, and thought the original 3 were highly overrated, but then again I have been told that I hate Jesus and puppies. I was hoping that this would mean the end of crazy Freakazoids(!) at the movie theatre, with LOTR ending as well, but we still have x-men and Harry Potter to give people another alternate dimension in which to sequester themselves.

R: Well, since I wasn't alive to experience the paradigm shift that the original three apparently caused, I had no stock in these movies. By no means a movie buff, I'm easily placated by a visceral appeal. Thrumming bass drone, minor-toned chanting a la The Omen, and the crackling hum of light sabers and I'll say I got my matinee's worth. No, they definately don't capture the epic mythology of 4-6, but they were pretty. And nope, still don't take Ewan McGregor seriously since Moulin Rouge.

The White Sox winning, finally.

V: The White Sox winning means the Astros lost. This is sad, because it will probably be another 25 years before they are competitive enough to make it back to the series, the rate this off-season is going.

G: I bought a White Sox hat when I was in the 5th grade, I think because Dr. Dre had one, I'm not sure. Congrats to them, lord knows the Rangers are never going to win.

R: Who are the White Sox? They play for Bismarck, ND right?

-The birth of Smelliot

V: The insurance refers to the birth of a child as a "life change." How apt the nomenclature is. Elliot is the man. I can't even imagine what life would be like without him now. This may sound like a rationalization, but I swear it's not – 22 is the perfect age to have a child. I love the little guy, and I love my life.

G: It was a great day in history. Wish I could see more of the little man, but alas….

R: Nothing was so surreal as watching Vince's patriarchal instincts kick in when I first met Elliot. I mean, yeah, Vince is mature and shit, but what a drunkass. I'm defiiately proud of Vince as a father and I'm looking forward to knocking up some leggy blonde soon.

-Sudoku

V: I have only recently discovered this. It's a good time killer, I guess, but I'd rather just read something.

G: I see it everywhere, on the bus, on the subway, in my sleep. This game is awesome. Where has it been all of my life?

R: I totally got to this before the masses. I was going to Sudoku shows way before you even heard of it. Anyways, it's all sold out now. The major labels totally fucked their art. Fucking sell-out Sudoku.

-Ashley messing up on SNL, even though Vince loves her

V: Ashlee Simpson can do no wrong.

G: The best part is when she tried to play it off by dancing a fucking jig. Just priceless!!

R: She should've just played it off Elvis Costello style. Stop! Stop the music! We've gotta play something The Man doesn't want us to. Like.....that piece I wrote about the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China!

-Return of Family Guy

V: In all honesty, I have yet to see a new episode. I couldn't tell you what I do on Sunday nights, but I'm sure it's important enough to warrant missing these.

G: This just goes to show that shows can be brought back from the dead, and that networks do occasionally listen to viewers. It gives hope for Carnivale, Kitchen Confidential, Wonderfalls, Arrested Development, et al, etc, etc.

R: When Brian got into a banana costume and starting singing "It's peanut butter and Jelly time. Peanut Butter Jelly with a baseball bat." I came all over Arun's face.

-Giz moved to NY

V: Giz leaves Texas. This is still a bit of an enigma to me. It is difficult to comprehend packing up and moving 2000 miles away with only a tentative gameplan and completely lacking a job, but you pulled it off. You win.

G: Story of the year for me anyways. I still have no gameplan, and am nearly completely lacking of a job, but this is totally fucking awesome, and the best decision that I ever made in my life.

R: Definitely ballsy. Of course I want him back, but he's happy or whatever with his neo-bohemian lifestyle and Interpol-inspired sartorial sense and he should stay. Just know that I'm slowly becoming a more pitiable human being without mentors around. Oldest guy in the chapter (besides Linus)? WTF? And uh, Prison Sex is on Undertow.

-Seabass gets shipped out

V: Beloved Seabass. I'm still not sure how the National Guard can pull you into active duty when you're a semester away from graduating, but I guess it's just part of the job description. At least he's a good sport about it. Hooray, war.

G: What a hardass.

R: He's lost 30 pounds since he get deployed, so uh....fuck Atkins, send fat people to war. Not that you're fat Seabass....uh....see you in a little bit.

-Michael Jackson Trial

V: I don't remember if he was acquitted or not. That's how much I cared.

G: What a pedorass, my hero.

R: But he made Thriller, man.

-Robert Blake Trial

V: I got nothin'.

G: I have no idea what the outcome was, but I hear that it was important.

R: He totally killed that bitch, right?

-Phil Spektor Trial

V: As you can see, I care little to nothing about high profile trials, or trials at all for that matter.

G: What a Musical badass, what a fucking weirdo.

R: Yeah, I got nothing for this one.

-The MTA Strike

V: This made Giz angry, so it made me angry. Grrrrrr.

G: See previous post. What a colossal waste of time. I love the fact that they got nothing out of it except for lost pay and having to pay $2500 each in fines. Go MTA strike!

R: No unions in Texas.

-Peter Braunstein (the "fireman" rapist guy)

V: I have no idea who this is, it must be some silly NYC thing.

G: This is the dude who bough all sorts of fireman's crap on ebay, dressed up like a fireman on Halloween weekend, and conned his way into a house of a coworker, saying that he needed to check the smoke detector, and proceeded to tie her up and rape her for 13 hours. He used to be a journalist, and then there was a nationwide man-hunt for the dude. You can see all the shit that he bought on ebay. They finally caught him last week. It was all over Gawker….i guess it was some silly nyc thing.

R: Giz broke my smoke detector.

- Undefeated Longhorns

V: Probably one of the biggest stories of the year. Fuck it. THE biggest story of the year. I feel as if each and every step I have ever taken in my life has been part of a deterministic system with this season as the inevitable and predestined end. It has been absolutely magical. From the taste of glory in Colombus, to the miracle in Stillwater; from the mental sigh of relief at the Cotton bowl, to the adrenaline rush and electricity I felt at each and every home game – words cannot describe the overwhelming sense of emotion this team evokes in me. I will weep on Wednesday night. There will be no drunkenness. It will be a sacred moment, and should be experienced as such. The tears of joy and pure love will flow like they never have before. Hook 'em, and God bless Texas.

G: I am going to reserve judgement on this until next week, but if we win, it will be the biggest day of my life. We have all been waiting a lifetime for this, and this will truly be the greatest thing ever, in the history of superlatives.

R: This should be my senior year, so it's all me. Best senior year ever. We'll do great next year too during my second senior year.

-IPods

V: I finally joined the Ipod army this Christmas, thanks to a semi-mother-in-law who treats me far better than I deserve. I still can't believe I waited this long to get one – I've bought them as gifts for other people, but never got one for myself. Wtf? I am IN LOVE with mine now, with podcasts, and with the Itunes music store. It is my New Year's resolution to do my best to stay legit and actually pay for music *cough Giz*

G: I have had my generation III since 2003, and I wish I had a new one. The iPod changed my life for the better, as it will for everyone who gets one. If I could only get the new one in my 3rd generations case, I would be a happy man.

R: My brother gave me his old one as my 21st birthday present. I showed him by deleting all his music off it and filling it with a Pitchfork prescribed plethora of pretention. Definately has improved my quality of life and ability to mass consume new music. Maybe I'll develop my own sense of musical taste soon. *crosses fingers*

-Katrina/Rita

V: Disaster strikes. Twice. I never saw this coming.

Unfortunately, when I think Katrina, even now, I still think first about all the finger pointing. It definitely made for some of the worst news coverage in the history of the world. I think the collective headline over anything Katrina-related for the months following its strike was "BUSH HATES BLACKS, SENDS HURRICANE TO WIPE OUT THEIR EXISTENCE." We had hundreds of thousands of people displaced, tens of thousands of whom experienced devastating property loss, and yet we always seemed to come back to the blame game. Message to idiots: if you are relying on the government to save people from an overwhelmingly powerful force of nature, please, send me a postcard from fantasy land. Shut up, get your head out of your asses, and do something. Oh wait, how could I forget? Bitching is what you do best.

Rita was the bane of my existence for a grand total of 17 hours as I made a 100 mile trek to La Grange. Thank God my mind shut down and went into autopilot mode, or I may have gone insane. Especially during that stretch when I went exactly 1.5 miles in 5 hours. In 100 degree heat. Or when I realized that my gerbil - my traveling companion, my friend – died of heatstroke. Poor little guy. Never again, says I. I will ride it out next time, no questions asked.

G: That sucks that you were tooling all around Texas when Rita hit, it was my last week in Dallas, and you should have been at the party. We made the mistake of having it on the same weekend as ACL and then the hurricane hits, just our luck. It was still a kickass party. Now if we had only served Hurricanes and Magaritas for our Hurricane Rita party, it would have been the coolest thing ever.

R: My family was safe north of Dallas. My uncle spent an hour getting to the nearest on-ramp, gave up, and drove home. My highschool "friends" in Beaumont ate some tree trunks, but for the most part were ok. The upshot of this snafu for us was the introduction of a pretentious, Jewish Tulane-refugee into the courtyard who refused to drink beer. Que ridiculo.

-London and Madrid Bombings

V: Bombers are insane, and I don't understand them or the efficacy of their tactics.

G: This sucked for everyone. But at least tickets to London are cheaper now.

R: It's the button-mashing of the radical sect.

-Tori Spelling gets engaged again (it was just yesterday)

V: Scratch this one.

G: Noted.

R: Marriage to celebrities is like dating in middle school.

-Brad and Jennifer getting Divorced

V: Since when is Brad Pitt as old as my father? Jennifer Anniston is hottest woman alive. Their breakup was a blessing in disguise for her, once she realizes that I am contemplating dating her.

G: She is married to me now. We are adopting.

R: If she would've just snuck in a boob job, none of this would've happened.

-Steroid Scandal

V: Waste of time, waste of money, waste of humanity. Dear Congressman X, FUCK OFF. Go bang an intern or something productive like that. Whatever you do, stay the hell out of it. Addressing the issue at hand, I am not really anti-steroid. It's an artifact of ridiculously high salaries for paid athletes. These guys get paid unfathomable amounts to perform, and perform, and perform again. Do you think a $10 million contract isn't worth cutting a couple corners or taking a shortcut to power? If the league really cares enough to fix the problem, or at least tone it down a bit, here's a failsafe solution: get a damn salary cap. PLEASE. Still, the 2005 steroid story was the gayness of Congress. (Link to previous post.)

G: Rafael Palmeiro goes for sure hall of famer to going down in the annuls of history as a cheater. He was a total badass, and now look at him. I say don't blame the message or the messenger, rules is rules, but congress does not need to be involved. Congress should worry about making my shoes smell better.

R: I'd take 'em, but I just can't afford anymore penile atrophy. Shit...I'm hung like a mezcal worm.

-Kenny Rogers

V: Promise me son not to do the things I've done.

G: Now is the time to fold 'em.

R: All I see is Will Sasso getting hit in the head with a flying 3 wood.

-Dave Chapelle going nuts.

V: Biggest disappointment of the year. Dave, you were on the top of the world. Way to blow it…

G: Ditto

R: But come'on, World of Warcraft.

-Ricky Williams quitting, then coming back

V: Ol' Rick...

G: He is so much the man.

R: Let's get stoned.

-Kanye West

V: Get a clue, Kanye. (Link to previous post.)

G: George Bush hates black people. I hate Kanye West.

R: Racial indignation is always en vogue.

-Tom Cruise

V: The biggest crackpot celebrity of all time? This guy fascinates me. Whereas most celebs "practice" Scientology or Kabballah to be fashionable, Tom actually believes in the crap. He has made it his identity. And the Oprah appearance? You can't write that kind of stuff. That was an instantly classic moment in television history. The Hollywood inmates are running the asylum. Too good, too good.

G: Only good things can come out of this. Bigger boobs for Katie Holmes. The coining of the term "jump the couch", Increased use of psychiatrists (hence more jobs for struggling psych majors)

R: The man's got nice hair though. Seriously, well-managed locks.

-Cloning

V: Hwang successfully created 11 embryonic stem cell lines. We are on our way to miracle cures! The end is in sight! This will save lives! Oh wait, never mind. He lied about it all, and as a result was forced to resign from his post as researcher at his Korean university last week. Now, I've got plenty to say about both the practicality and morality of embryonic stem cell research, and cloning in general, but suffice it to say that these latest developments are totally unsurprising to me. (Link to previous post.)

G: I have no opinion on cloning, I say, make my shoes smell better.

R: Man, I don't fucking know. My lymph nodes are so distended that I have no discernible jaw bone. I can't drink! It's fucking December 30th! I'll take some fucking stem cells. Miracle cure! Miracle cure!

-Terri Schiavo

V: Disgusting, to say the least. The sheer magnitude of people's ignorance and/or lack of developed conscience are staggering. It brought physical pain to my heart to hear so many otherwise good and wonderful people repeat, ad nauseum, that "that is no way to live." When did we forget about the merits of suffering?

G: I was totally amazed how the entire country responded to this. It was all over the place. And once, again, I totally was lacking of an opinion. I was like, "Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is Awesome!" whenever somebody asked me about this. It was a big story though.

R: Fucked up.

-Papal Death and Election

V: As John Paul II was the only papa I have ever known throughout my entire life, this came as quite the blow to me. He is now and forever deserving of the title of "the Great," and in my opinion, is the greatest leader/man of the 20th century. The depth of his legacy is hardly fathomable. Of course, I was ecstatic that Ratzinger was elected; even more so when he took on the name Benedict. He is going to give Western Europe a fighting chance at survival. JP2 was right: this period is a "new springtime for the Church." It is a great time to be Catholic.

G: I read The DaVinci Code, so I consider myself well versed in the intricacies of papal ceremonies and traditions. OK, so I know nothing, but it was really staggering how the world gathered and watched all of this take place. I even watched the funeral, and I have only been to one ever. I really, really, know very little about the new Pope, so little that his name escapes me entirely, but if this guy is half as good as Vince told me his predecessor was, he will be a good one.

R: I have so much John Paul II memorabilia from my 2001 visit to Rome. It's beautiful. I love Papa postcards and bookmarks with felt backing. I wish I had a better informed view of the modern church, but alas, my undergraduate career leaves me little time for organized religion, especially with my abject hedonism and self-centered worldview.

And that's the way we roll.

I will exercise my self-appointed authority and posthumously dub 2005 the Year of the Longhorn. And 2006? We will have to see...

Here's to another great one in 2006. Everyone: Stay safe, and Happy New Year.

Mens sana in corpore sano.