Year in Review

Okay, so this is late. I often don't bother with Year in Review kinds of things. But last year was really exceptional for me when it comes to blogging. Basically I went from being pretty much unknown except to a handful of random people to achieving a level of infamy previously unimagined by me.

At the beginning of 2006 hardly anyone had heard of "mole333." Now, I kid you not, I have had a local judge come up to me after a political meeting and say "Hey, you're that blogger guy." Three rival candidates and the campaign of a fourth rival all read my coverage of the NY-11 race and sometimes even took my online advice to heart. The Republican even took my off hand statement that "the Democrats could run a sponge cake and still beat any Republican in the district" and started to refer to himself as the "non-sponge cake candidate." I have been called by BBC radio twice and interviewed by a NY Times reporter. What happened? What got me noticed?

I am not even sure I know. Probably pure luck.

My favorite bit of recognition, though, came from a high school student who wrote to ask my permission to use a piece I wrote on Health Care in America, for a report she was writing. She somewhat sheepishly asked if I could give her more info on who I was because her teacher might not like it if she referenced someone named "mole333."

I wrote a post about the good stuff that happened in 2006. Everytime I sat down to write about the bad and the ugly of last year, I'd become paralyized by the massive amounts of badness and uglyness that permeated the year.

There was the triumvirate of firecrotch (Lindsay Lohan), skanky chocha (Paris Hilton), and white trash poontang (Britney Spears).

Ugh Britney.

Anorexia became the new black with Nicole Ritchie it's standard bearer. Yeah sure, anorectics have been banned from catwalks across the globe what with four dead models sacrificied to the disease but when we still have a coked-out yet incredibly rich Kate Moss prancing around ... well ... no wonder it's still considered hot in Hollywood.

There was also the crazy whacked out Tom Cruise with his scientology slave Katie Holmes and their tethan child. And Star Jones. And Donald Trump. And Kid Rock and Pam Anderson.

But those are just the entertainment.

What about Darfur?
Do you remember the devastation of Lebanon?
Then there's the never ending carnage in Iraq.
And the immigration raids.

Do you know where habeas corpus went?

How about Mark Foley?
Ted Haggard?
Samuel Alito?

The thing is ... all of this is too abstract, too far away when compared to the death of my niece Lydia.

There are many things to be grateful for this year that have nothing to do with the Democrats winning the elections. I mean, that was good, but life does go on.

Yet if you are like me or my kids, the list of "The Bad" and "The Very Ugly" may go on and on and on.

The lady on this ZoneChefs TV ad scares the beejeebuz out my hairless monkeys. I asked them, why they'd run screaming out of the living room or hide under pillows every time her head would pop on the boob tube. Their answer? "The lips mommy. It's the poofy lips from hell!"

And there you have it. The lady with "the poofy lips from hell" in the ZoneChefs commercial is on the top of "2006's The Very Ugly" list.

Who else do you want to add?