Eleven Months of Gheorgheness
Ten
Nine Admirations
Eight Matchups Worth Watching - not really
Seven Books for Reading
Six decades of Fairbank
Five bits and bobs
Four reasons to save 68 CDs
Three balls a-rainin'
Two more automotive wormhole websites
And a bald guy and some random hor-seys
It was always going to suck, this year, I suppose. And in a great many ways, 2017 didn't disappoint. Or, it disappointed, but didn't surprise. Well, it surprised sometimes at how much it disappointed, and to what degrees.
You get my point.
And if you didn't get my point, it wasn't from my lack of trying, at least early in the year. Fully 8 of my first 15 posts of 2017 dealt in some way about our new President*. While I'm too lazy to do the research for the rest of year, I suspect that the ratio only declined marginally.
Among my New Yhear's Resolutions for 2018 is to not obsess so much over our country's descent into a blackened hellscape. Which means you'll get lots of sunny content hereabouts. Other resolutions, should you care, include finally getting that tattoo I've been talking about for 20 years (I finally have a design), finishing my basement, and reducing the amount of time I waste on Twitter to a significant degree. I don't have a lot of faith in myself.
Where it didn't suck, though, was right here in Gheorgheville. It's true that the 212 posts we pumped out in 2017 represent our lowest output since 2007, but numbers don't always tell the full story. Now that Mark's finally joined us, we can admit that we're all 40-something heads of households with shit we gotta get done. That we cranked out any content at all on 58% of the year's days is noteworthy, according to me.
Hope you enjoy the look back:
January
The Gheorghian Calendar didn't mark the beginning of the year until January 5, as Gheorghemas 2016 didn't end until after New Year's Day. It's as if we wanted to hang on as long as we could to an era that held so much.
8 of the 15 posts in January dealt in some way with our new President
Of course we started the year with a Wrenball post.
The Women's March got some run. In a couple of posts.
FOGTB and FOD Lecky explained the rise of the asshole in chief.
One more heartfelt thank you from the Gheorghies to Barack Obama.
New Orleans was a good place to escape the reality of the Inauguration.
The President as Rick from The Young Ones. Yeah.
We had a lot of Japan-centric posts this year, starting with Pen Pineapple Apple Pen.
February
There was a lot of stuff featuring short people and music in the year's most diminutive month. Even Randy Newman made an appearance.Delle Donne to D.C.!
Footie analysis with a side of Bigly.
Logo Go Go.
TWIW: The Next One?
Support local actors. And support our friends' actor friends.
On Women's Basketball.
G:TB, providing parenting advice since 2003. Some of it good.
P-Funkin' the suburbs.
Buttwad, stewed.
March
We started the month with our last two Omar-themed posts and ended it with consecutive gems from TR. In like a lion, or something.
PSA, now that we're all middle-aged.
The Peeps Diorama Contest is Dead. Long live the Peeps Diorama Contest.
Nice.
Better Know Your Asshole Politician. We don't have a big enough staff to make this one recur.
Whether to laugh or cry, a theme for 2017.
Have fun, go nuts, sing about the Flying Squirrels.
I like 'em thick. And boozy.
Sometimes hate wins.
Math! Hoops! Math!
April
Don Rickles and J. Geils both died in April, and it was still a great month in terms of quality and diversity. We soldiered on through our grief, apparently.
Man Races Dog, Is Elf.Addiction is a bitch.
Kicks are art. Even moreso.
A very special Better Know.
So much winning, G:TB-style.
Squirrels begat humans. You're welcome.
Did we celebrate 4/20? Does the Pope shit in the woods with Ichiro?
Snoop Danny Dannnnnn.
Bubbachuck, served up Fairbank-style.
We majored in Bullshit.
May
If April was a strong group effort, May represented a bit of a breather. The first ten days were essentially filler, and we only hoisted up 15 total posts across the entire span. We got it together, eventually.
Whitney got himself a front-row seat at Preservation Hall.
Mexico took a good-sized chunk out of my internal workings, but Squeaky was there to help me out.
Joe Montana is laughing.
In retrospect, this might've been seen as an omen, as it wasn't even in the top ten worst things revealed to have been done by men this year.
Dog Bites Man.
No pressure, just $220 million on the line.
Once in a while, you get shown the light.
June
It's really hard to sum up June's output. Maybe just read it.
This was the best thing I did in 2017, across all categories.
TR made good decisions.
We said this, "The U.S. Men's National Team is breathing slightly easier after grabbing seven points from a possible nine in its past three matches. Bruce Arena's boys have risen from dead last in the final stage of CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying to third - and three teams automatically qualify for the 2018 tournament in Russia.
The Americans aren't out of the woods just yet, but the panic that set in after consecutive losses to Mexico and Costa Rica to begin the Hex has subsided." Yep, we're still pissed.
The oddly-placed 'h' in his name should've clued us in to Grohl's Gheorghiness earlier, now that we think about it.
Zman took our normal half-assed new music posts to a new level: personalized recommendations.
Back to back Ztravelogues from Japan, featuring edible horse and stuffed tigers.
The G:TB Word of the Year: Distraction.
July
Summer was really a slog for many of us, if you judge by postcount. And how else would you judge something like that. Starting in June, we went 19, 16, 15, 15. But we distilled those posts to their goddamn essence.
TR celebrated David Byrne.Teejay solved the mystery of the Russian election interference.
There's Only One Bradley Lowery. I think this was the best post I wrote this year. Or at least the one that moved me the most.
You gotta have heart, and set it to music for Greasetruck to record.
Humans are amazing.
August
What I learned on my summer vacation. (Spoiler: I learned that (or better, was reminded that) the trappings matter so much less than the company. That, my good friends, is what keeps me coming back to this humble corner of the internet.
The season of Summer Dave was nigh to non-existent.Arm me with harmony.
On August 16, management realized that we were half-assing it just a bit.
When we've got a good story, we don't hesitate to go back to it.
On occasion, I amuse myself. And nobody else.
Whitney, your social chairman.
White Supremacy.
A Poem for Houston.
September
The first post of the month was about poop. It got better from there.
Poop for cash.
Bobby the Brain, he ain't.Terra F-Irma.
Prince wrote Manic Monday, which gave me an excuse to Google Susannah Hoffs. Still making people happy, the Purple One.
A 9/11 Remembrance.
Whitney did it up, musically. Twice in one night? Not since I was a young lad. Musically.
TR wrote about Vietnam.
Return of the LHC, all sneaky-like.
A day of Days.
October
Things changed as the seasons did. We got a kick in the ass from an unlikely source, and we responded.
Norfolk celebrated the Virginia Squires, and one of us made smalltalk with Dr. J.
How to root for the baseball playoffs.
We wrote this: "A loss against cellar-dwelling T&T would be both unthinkable and disastrous. So we won't think about it." Checking...yep, still pissed.
C'mon, supervolcano.
Friday the 13th!
The annual G:TB Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Prediction Show.
Whitney went all Knute Rockne, and Team G:TB won one for the Gheorgher.
Cryptocash rules everything around me.
Of wives, shoes, and automatic toilets.
The G:TB Guide to Surviving the Mueller Investigation.
November
After averaging 16 posts/month from May through September, Team G:TB kicked into what passes as overdrive over the final quarter. Thanks to Whitney's pep talk, we dropped exactly 21 posts in each month of the final three. Some of them were even fairly entertaining.
You can't make it through a year without Zman writing about the Bills and the Browns, and why would you want to?
One treeeelion dollars.
Our semi-regular exhortation to cancer: go fuck yourself. And another edition.
Z got some of us hooked on car auctions.
We predicted things about the Wrens. And predictably, our predictions seem to be less than on target.
Fuck you money would be nice.
The G:TB community responded to a party host in need.
Dave wrote a shitload of words about youth soccer in a post that was at once inspirational, compelling, and educational while managing to also be hard to read for people with short attention spans.
Your way-too-early World Cup 2018 viewer's guide: Vamos Los Ticos!
There's only one Olli Tot, and there's damn sure only one Gheorghe: The Blog. Much love to all of you that make this place home, and many thanks for listening to my lunatic rants without too much judgment. I'll do better next year.
Until then, Gheorghies.
Posts
10 comments:
This is always an impressive undertaking by Rob.
As for Whit’s question about NYE plans, my wife turned 40 today so we just finished up a brunch with some friends. Not doing shit until later tonight when we’ll head over to a friends house for a late dinner and a few drinks.
George Clinton at the Tally Ho in Leesburg on 2/9. Who is in?
i'm your huckleberry, marls
Z- you should get one of those hats that Sean McDermott is wearing today.
the facebook tells us that the gtb family expanded by one today, as baby mayhugh joined us.
Congrats to the Jambonigooginnogin clan on the new addition.
Drinking some Jefferson's Ocean aged at sea at my neighbors house. (after several Aslin of course). Cheers all and Happy New Year!
Happy New Year, Gheorghies! I really do love you guys!
Happy new year folks.
Was loving the Phish show at a neighbor’s family-friendly house party, enjoying their giant HD TV and surround-sound system. But the wifey decided she was ready to drive home at 11 PM. She can’t lug around my 8 y/o as easily as me, given his cast, so it was party over for this guy. Suboptimal timing, but I won’t be incapacitated tmrw. And my kids watched the ball drop at home.
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