Fare thee well, 2006.
Well, it’s been another year. Didn’t it feel year-ish? As if we’ve come full circle? Call me crazy, but right now it feels like something old is ending, and something new is just about to begin.
We all know what the end of the year means: it means that pundits everywhere are holding forth on what happened in the last year. As if you don’t already know. As if the memories were scrubbed clean from your minds sometime during Christmas. Well, I’m going to do the same thing, and Mrs. Kennedy, also known as Eden, better known as the author of Fussy, is going to help me. Onward!
Favorite news story of 2006
Eden:
Python Eats Pregnant Sheep!
Alice:
While a snake eating a larger animal than itself is indeed a glorious event, my favorite news item still has to be Delta’s breastfeeding debacle. But this is only because I never believed that so many people would take my post about it literally and write me long, vitriolic, typo-strewn emails. BRESTFEDING WOMEN ARE NOT DISCUSTING YOU HORIBLE PERSON!! YOU’RE MOTHER PROBABLY BOTLE-FED YU!! Each new email thrilled me just a little bit more. Oh, thank you!
Most panic-inducing news story of 2006
Eden:
Elephants deliberately killing people “with the ceremonious flash and precision of gladiators.” The chronic stress of shrinking habitats and the aftermath of poaching appears to be bringing on a total collapse of elephant societies all over the globe. What people could do about it, of course, is to quit poaching and leave all the elephant habitats alone and, oh, eliminate poverty, war, and disease.
Alice:
All ocean life will disappear in a little over forty years. Not only will this mean no more delicious seafood, but it will also mean, in the words of this article, “apocalypse.” You don’t say! More shrimp, please!
Worst song of 2006
Eden:
Anything on a
Alice:
I was going to say that song by Fergie, but then I imagined “London Bridge” produced by the Satan-worshipers who created Kidzbop, and my brain liquefied and streamed out of my nostrils. I bet it’s being recorded right now. Chipper ten-year-olds squawking about their London Bridges. This will be my nomination for worst song of 2007. Does anyone have a tissue?
Most unnecessary medical study of 2006
Eden:
Maternal Diet During Pregnancy Can Impact Offspring For Generations, Study Shows.I like this story because it reminds me of what my yoga teacher once told me, that practicing yoga with diligence will affect your family for ten generations. In both directions. It’s just so mystically satisfying, whereas telling a pregnant woman that that tub of Haagen Dazs will enfatten her grandchildren is a surefire recipe for guilt and paranoia. Oh, how I heart science.
Alice:
Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer.
Scientists just couldn’t sit with the idea that prayer might help some people, so they spent 2.4 million dollars to recheck this oft-quoted finding. Conclusion? Using prayer in a controlled study doesn’t seem to do very much, and sometimes it hurts. This god we’re praying to is weak and ineffectual, and we must find a new one forthwith. Let’s spend another 2.4 million to find a better one!
Best blog post of 2006
Eden:
My very favorite new blog of 2006 is Whoopee, which is written by Antonia, who makes me laugh and who, despite the appearance of her brand new baby girl, has gone so far as to send me things in the mail to both prove that she actually exists and to make me laugh. This post is just one of many that made tears run down my face.
Alice:
Bad News Hughes writes posts for which you should set aside entire days to read. Because when you do, you will laugh until you’re half-retching, half-crying, and at the same time emailing your friends and begging them to read. Then you’ll lie down for a while, giggling helplessly, wondering what’s wrong with the world that everyone isn’t laughing as hard as you are right now. Then you’ll check your email and most of your friends won’t want to talk to you anymore. Because Bad News Hughes is riddled with filthy, tasteless material. The particular post I am most fond of discusses in great detail a maneuver known as the Minnesota wristwatch. I cannot possibly describe this post in any kind of way that would do it justice and/or gain the approval of the AlphaMom editorial staff. I will just say that it makes me laugh so hard that when I reread it just now I had to stop reading before I tore a muscle. If you read this and don’t laugh, I don’t want to know you. Patrick Hughes has never sent me any gifts, for the record, and yet here I am, touting his genius. Such is my journalistic integrity.
Word we’d like to see destroyed in 2007
Eden:
BRANGELINA. World, please refrain henceforth from ever conflating two celebrity names. Unless you’re Stephen Colbert, who combined Felicity Huffman and William H. Macy to create the splendid “Filliam H. Muffman” and may freely continue to make fun of this wretched trend until it’s over.
Alice:
Assvice– a word often seen on blogs to mean unsolicited and/or unhelpful advice. There are 39,400 references to assvice on Google. And now the word must die. Not even Stephen Colbert could use this word and get away with it.
Most annoying commercial of 2006
Eden:
I tend to tune out annoying commercials, but the commercial I love best is one for Nike where basketball star LeBron James acts out four different characters arguing about a dunk contest: a grandpa, a pretty boy, a skinny kid with a big head, and himself. I love the end when the pretty boy, who’s all in silver lam?, and who’s huffy about being beaten by the real LeBron, says in this soft, pretty voice, “Dunk contests are bourgeois.”
Alice:
Those VW Jetta commercials where some young attractive people are driving along and chatting when WHAMMO! another car hits them. With this ad campaign, I finally got what I’ve been looking for all along: more emotional scarring. Thanks, Volkswagen!
Predicted body part that will be exposed by celebrities in 2007.
Eden: Toe cleavage.
Me: Clearly, it will be the taint. It will take a can-do attitude and a lot of flexibility, but if anyone can expose this little-seen body part, it’s a celebrity.
