Big Gheorghe gave to me
Ten (plus one) Months of Gheorghness
Nine cheers for Mike
Eight Miscellaneous Items - Probably for Next Christmas (or for yourself, or perhaps a fellow GTB'r right now, just cuz)
Seven (Give or Take) Voters (Should Be) Voting
Six Simpler Memories
Five shows to binge watch on TV
Four Random Thoughts
Three Punk Rock Playlists
Two Digits Throughout History
And the debut of Mac McFis-ty
Man, I have no idea how Dave Barry does it. Reading a year's worth of posts and selecting the 'best' is hard goddamn work. You're welcome, jerks.
As ever, in the midst of our earnest dipshittery, we wrote some pretty good stuff. I've said it before, but our takes on the election were really fucking spot on. Hell, I predicted the outcome in May. Sort of. Wish I'd sent that post to the Clinton campaign. Zman delivered more than a few lengthy, giffy, and intelligent pieces. And now that the Teej has graduated from big boy school, we can expect the pace of his memery to pick back up.
Looking back on some of my own crap, I realized that I really leaned way to hard on 'if I'm/we're being honest' this year. I'll work on that in 2017, though, if I'm being honest, I won't have much success. Shrug emoji.
But enough prelude. Herewith, the best Gheorgheness of 2016. Nice job, kids.
January
We started fast, with 24 posts in each of the year's first three months. We didn't keep up that pace, as one might expect. Gheorghemas 2015 ended on January 11, so we're right on target this year.Complex magazine dropped a piece on the rapper of the year for every annum since 1979. It had killer artwork.
We had high hopes for the Wrens. Shocker, that.
In the first of many Gheorghe Explains the Election posts, we examined the Assholian Candidate.
Behold, the Gheorghian Singularity.
Soccer on soccer on soccer.
Even more soccer, and arguably the greatest post title in G:TB history.
February
February was really top notch. Clearly the Most Valuable Month of 2016. Good content, the highest post/day ratio of the year. Every month should be February.
Two violins and a DJ.
Soul Train. Dazz Band. Genius.
Fratty filler from the Teej.
We still had high hopes for the Wrens, and then a week later one of us was exposed as an idiot.I was depressed about the election. In February.
Zman giffed the electoral process.
Dave wrote an editorial about education. I don't think he really understands our audience.
Zman bouillabaise.
We didn't get much Greasetruck this year, but this song about a dog and the blues was dope.
G:TB beefed with the Aussie hoops web community.
Danimal hijacked my post about Rickie Fowler's hideous shoes, made it better.
March
TR dropped a porn-related throwback. Because he's TR.
Dave faceswapped with his colleague, which was unpredictable. And then made an outlandish claim about it, which was entirely predictable.
I'll put our election coverage up against the mainstream media's any day. This one was about Trump's Vice-Presidential options.
According to science, being a Gheorghie is good for you.
A National Cereal Day throwback.
The oblong ball is rolling.
The first of multiple posts about Morgans this year. Who knew that the Mog was the official automobile of G:TB?
Dave posted something like 40 episodes of The Test in 2016. Postcount! This one was about Zombeavers. I don't know, either.
Z appreciated Phife. And some other shit.
Rappers and the law.
How I learned to love the hustle, Dominican-style.
April
April kinda sucked. We only managed 17 posts, and more than half of them could be defined as filler. And both Prince and Pearl Washington died.
Zman found a beaut of a 911. Pretty sure he didn't buy it.We had high hopes for Gianni Infantino. Results, mixed.
I turned Dave on to some new podcasts. And that's it, you freaks.
Danimal hung out with Tiger. Got some television face time, too.
We were so desperate for content that we dug up something Clarence wrote 16 years ago. No shit.
May
As much as April sucked, May ruled. Decent number of posts at 22, but more importantly, a significant percentage of them were good to sublime.
Zman continued to demonstrate his mastery of the .gif-based post, this time in reference to the NFL draft.
Chat shit, get banged, win the whole goddamned Premier League.
Read Charlie Pierce on Pearl again.
I wrote about digital currency. And Abba. As one does.
Holy fuck. Holy fuck. Holy fuck. You guys. You guys. I predicted Trump's win in May, when I wrote this about InBev changing the name of Budweiser to 'America':
"No, this marketing campaign - which may well prove to be brilliant in terms of reversing the slide of America's once-dominant beer brand - is inspired by and catering to the rising nationalism stoked by Trump. And unless I miss my mark, America the brand will amplify Trump the candidate's message throughout the summer, peanut butter to his white chocolate. He'll hold cans up as props at rallies, telling us how A-B InBev recognized the path to America's greatness he promises. His supporters will buy it by the keg in symbolic support of the candidate and the country.
And the shitshow will roll on.
Winter is coming, friends, and I'm not sure anyone can stop it."
God damn, but our election coverage was fucking good. From my completely unbiased perspective.
Minnesota high school hockey hair FTW.
More Z-style giffery, this time about Kanye and a Hungarian.
I. Can. Drive. Twenty Fiiiiive.
Zman with the giffy hat trick, in which he kills Jeffrey Loria.
To round out one of the best months in GTB history, in terms of individual performances, Z also did this:
June
Steph versus Bron, and I couldn't decide.
Muhammad Ali died, but that was balanced out by The Test's second season debut.
We wrote about the U.S. Open Cup. Because soccer.
Gordie Howe died, too, and we tried to define a G:TB Hat Trick.
Gheorghe endorsed Gary Johnson. For the weed, mostly.
We learned that TR fathered Zson.
When TR's feelin' it (and 'it' isn't Zman's wife), we get some sweet music posts.
Quietly, ESPN's on the subversive tip.
"Go Fuck Yourself."
July
The year started going downhill in July in terms of quantity - we never hit 20 posts in any month after June. But there were some highlights:
Zman can't help himself when it comes to tennis.
There was a G:TB tie-in to FBI Director Comey's public release about Hillary Clinton's emails. It was funny at the time.
Terry Tarpey, oui.
Consecutive political/social commentary posts, one somber and one...not.
Automatic, hydromatic, Strat-O-Matic.
TR took a month off (Summer of TR!), wrote about Lionel Ritchie.
Fucking Poke Bar, man.
Too much Morgan isn't enough. (Joke for 4 or 5.)
Zman did a T-NC book report, and Shlara said this in the comments:
"I endorse reading "Between the World and Me" and the case for reparations in the Atlantic.
Then watch all 6 parts of OJ Made in America
Then watch Straight Outta Compton
Then wander over to the Undefeated and read anything by my friend Domonique--especially that piece about black babies and alligators. Well, you can read basically anything non-sports on the site by other writers too.
Then listen to the conversations in this country about lives and guns and jobs and access and education.
Then think about what you can do in your little slice of the world, with the people you know, to make things a little bit better for everyone. Then go do that. And when that commitment to make a difference starts wavering--go back and watch or read some of these things again.
It's all about everyday people being decent to everyday people--every day."
That last part is required behavior, and all the more important right now.
Zman couldn't let TR be the only one who wrote about his impressive dadding.
Jack Urbont! Winner!
August
Ichiro!
Curt Schilling is a Nazi douchewhistle asshat. But he loves the troops.
Someone doesn't care for NoVA drivers.
Anna Kendrick wants to be Squirrel's Girl. I might've added an 's to that. A boy can dream.Mark Post Alert!
Donna Martin Graduates! So does Teejay. Shlara, too. Legit proud of both of you.
In the first of the zTravelogue series, our hero flies to and from Japan, and all we got were these lousy media reviews.
And in the second, squirrel socks and cultural insight.
The Little Red-Haired Girl died, and I used the occasion to congratulate myself. In retrospect, that seems pretty fucked up.
I got hip to the Hip right at the very end.
The aliens are coming. Maybe just breathing heavy, but still.
Summer Dave came and went. Lifespan of a fruit fly. But he did leave us this nugget, which is profound in its simplicity:
"I don't think I've done anything particularly out of the ordinary to deserve this good fortune. I was just born in the right place, at the right time, with the right color skin, and the right genes. As Woody Allen said, '80 percent of life is showing up.'"
Too many folks with the wrong genes are fucked if the rest of us don't show up over the next few years.
September
The Clarence Institute of Finding Shit Out (CIFSO) went public with its first survey. Results were enjoyable.Zman has my legal back. This is some tortious interference right here.
The next zTravelogue makes me hungry as fuck.
The week of Z continued apace: WWZD.
And a Bills season preview. Guess who wrote it.
I don't usually link to The Test posts (there were nearly 40 this year, after all), but when I do, they've got lots of words.
Gheorghe, still an advertising icon in the DMV.
Arnold Palmer died. And Danimal recounted a doozy of a story. Fucker still can't figure out how fonts work, but we still love him. (Danimal, that is.)
October
Bruges knows from brews.
Men in Blazers celebrated me celebrating Bob Bradley. Which was awesome at the time, and like everything else in 2016 turned to monkey shit not 90 days later. Fuck you, 2016.
In which Donald Trump and the Humpty Hump became intertwined for your reading enjoyment.Barack Obama told us this was a great time to be alive. That seemed awesome at the time. Wish that fucker had told Hillary to spend some fucking advertising dollars in Michigan and Wisconsin.
Ichiro! (Whiskey)
Joe Biden drove his old Corvette. Fuck, but we're going to miss Uncle Joe. And if it seems that this recap is starting to use 'fuck' a lot, well, we're getting close to November, aren't we?
I wrote about the Red Sox winning the 2004 World Series. I have a blog and you don't*, so you will listen to every damn word I have to say.
* not necessarily true
Dolly. Miley. Jolene.
November
In a simpler time, I got drunk and taught my kid about music.
On November 8, I wrote this:
"Intellectually, I feel pretty good this morning. Barring a cataclysmic, systematic, and unprecedented failure on the part of the American political polling establishment, the facts suggest that Hillary Clinton should be elected President, and this godforsaken shitshow of an election will come to its only sane conclusion."Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck
Zman and The Teej took a break from their morning show to analyze the election results, each in his own way.
And then Zman and I reviewed the new ATCQ album and previewed the new Tribe hoops season, all at the same time.
I laughed.
Continuing this month's collaboration theme, Mark and I previewed the SEC Championship. It didn't go as well as the greatest thing in the history of the internet.
There you go, boys and girls. Another year of dipshittery in the books. We're slowing down in our old age, but we still managed to drop 235 self-referential, fillerful, and every once in a while compelling piles of words in this steaming pile of a year.
I don't know if 2017 will be better - given the coming change at the top, it's a decent bet that it'll suck even more - but I do know that this little corner of the internet brings me joy. And this fucked up world needs all the joy it can find. For that reason, this year's Most Valuable Gheorghie is G:TB itself. A shining beacon of sublime silliness and a welcome break from reality. Treat yourselves to something nice, my friends. You've earned it.
Happy New Year, you magnificent bastards.
Posts
34 comments:
Nice effort roberto.
I mean to go to bed at 11:30 last night but stumbled into last 30 minutes of the Battle of the Bastards and binged into 15 minutes of the next episode (Loras' and Cirsei's trials before the High Sparrow). It's a pretty fantastic 45 minutes of TV, especially considering it spans two episodes. Now I am tired.
can we talk about what james harden did yesterday?
he led the league in points, assists, and rebounds last night
Has an NBA team ever gone from so awful to watch to incredibly entertaining as quickly as Houston has? I say no. Thanks, Mike D'Antoni.
Also, I prefer meaningless CFB games on New Year's Day as opposed to these meaningless NFL games.
awesome, i love this post every year-- mainly because my memory is so bad. nothing boosts my self-esteem more than remembering how much i look like brad pitt.
early to bed paid off last night-- the mountain was full of snow and empty all morning. no one showed up until noon.
Turns out Stranger Things brings the heat right out of the gate. I told the wife we need to get through that before digging into Season 2 of Narcos. Good shit.
tribe looking to avoid an 0-2 caa start today in hempstead. where we never win. bad times, man.
i was at the kennedy center with yasiin bey and talib kweli last night. 'course, i was there to watch 'into the woods'. it's a big building. the play was awesome. i bet the bey show was, too.
Yasiin Bey and Talib Kweli are Blackstar. I would kill to see that show, especially now that Bey is retiring.
it was part of bey's farewell tour. kweli joined him for a few tunes, apparently. as did a few other folks.
Jump started our car in the rain today and have now left it at the machanic so 2017 off to a bang
TR--I'm also watching Stranger Things over the holiday--and wow--it is intense.
Also amusing for the 80s stylings.
lane kiffin not coaching for alabama in the national championship game. on the one hand, that's a disruption. on the other, as mark would say, that offense wasn't all that with him calling the shots. clemson's defense was dominant against ohio state. i can easily see them winning this game, especially since watson's the kind of qb that causes trouble for alabama's defense - as he's already proven.
The Lane Kiffin thing is about as Lane Kiffin as it gets. The guy just attracts drama. Pretty interesting on field implications. Sark and Lane are of the same offensive mind set but only one of them has been on the sideline with his true freshman QB all year long. I think that matters come Monday night.
I was already picking Clemson, this doesn't change that obviously.
When Florida finally, mercifully gets a good QB again (because they have to at some point, right?), I will be the happiest boy in all the land.
Further proof of my idiocy: I haven't watched The Americans or Man In The High Castle because Apple TV doesn't have the Amazon app, and I just realized I could stream in from my iPad to Apple TV via AirPlay. Just realized this.
does one need the amazon app on the ipad to be able to download amazon stuff for offline viewing? got some cross-country flying in my future, and would love to watch both of those shows.
You need the app and an Amazon prime account. At least that's what I have. Don't know if you can stream in the plane so you might want to download the content.
yeah, that's why i want to download. i've got prime. guess i need to get the app.
Guys--everyone needs to seriously start watching The Americans so you're prepared for life after Jan 20
the tribe can't stop annnnybody
Reading is fundamental. I'm pretty sure you need the Amazon app to download and view their TV shows.
You do. I need to get on Man in the High Castle. I still haven't gotten around to the new episodes of Black Mirror.
yes, z. i was affirming the knowledge you dropped. much love to you.
and much love to daniel dixon, who dropped a 28-footer at the overtime buzzer to beat hofstra, 95-93. you gotta go find the highlight. hofstra hates that kid.
I meant I need to read more closely, not you. You asked about downloading and I was like "you should download" because I didn't read well enough.
apparently it's a communicable affliction.
So much time with my kids rendered me incapable of communicating clearly.
I don't remember Sean McDermott from our time at W&M but apparently he's interviewing for the Bills job.
He became D.C. of the Eagles after John Johnson passed away from cancer when he was in his early 30's. Had some HC interviews last year as well. He was a year or two behind us.
The Rose Bowl was fucking fun.
i have a good friend who's a penn state graduate who was at the game. he was pretty excited, right up until he wasn't. trace mcsorley is from my town - won a state high school championship as a freshman. he's a stud. but he couldn't have sucked more in the first and last quarters.
As we stand at the precipice of what's shaping up to be the most transparently corrupt four year stretch of our federal government's history, Virginia Representative (and apparent Starbucks fan) Robert Goodlatte announced that "House Republicans, defying their top leaders, voted Monday to significantly curtail the power of an independent ethics office set up in 2008 in the aftermath of corruption scandals that sent three members of Congress to jail." I guess this swamp won't let itself get drained.
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/us/politics/with-no-warning-house-republicans-vote-to-hobble-independent-ethics-office.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
Openly telling us they plan to fill their pockets and fuck us.
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