As fate would have it, this happens to be both the wrap-up of the year in posting and also the 900th overall post in Polivision history. Double landmark! What does it mean?! Well for one, it means that milestones are getting easier to predict here on the blog, as I've (somewhat unwittingly) kept up an average of 11 posts per month since November 2011. That's the key to any successful blog, isn't it, regular content. You can log onto this site every single day…uh….well, every single three days or so….and always find a new post to sink your teeth into. Or just read, since biting a computer screen is painful.
Here are my favourite posts of 2012. If your favourite isn't on the list, it means your opinion isn't worth shit.
December 10: Breaking down the best times of the year to break up with someone. It's odd that 'break up' and 'break down' can both be negative things. 'Breaking sideways' isn't really a term, but I'd imagine it's like breaking even, right? Or being a student at Breaker High.
December 7: I take joy in the public humiliation of others by analyzing GIFs of Oscar nominees reacting to the announcement of the winner. I shouldn't talk; if I'm ever nominated for an Oscar and lose, I'll just start spitting like some type of angry camel.
November 27: My review of Cloud Atlas. While it isn't the *best* film I've seen all year, it's one of the few that inspired me to actually devote an entire post to its existence. Let this be a lesson, film studio PR people who undoubtedly have this blog bookmarked: if you cast Jim Broadbent, I will always give you free publicity.
November 24: My list of Bruce Springsteen's 79 best songs. Since its writing, I've stumbled upon about a half-dozen other tunes that realistically should've been included, at least in the bottom 40 or whatnot. C'est la vie. I take solace in the fact that this wasn't nearly the most egregious Springsteen-related mistake made all year, New York Times. "Springstein"? Really?!
November 7: Rupert from Survivor runs for Congress! This topic was endlessly funny to me. I hope he just growled at his opponents during the debates rather than answer questions.
November 1: Ranting about the board game Clue. See, as much as I have trouble with Clue's structure, I still enjoy playing it. Don't get me started on fucking Cranium, an atrocity of a game that I'll only play again if I've suffered damage to my actual cranium.
October 30: I get in a huff about those little write-ups that the Yahoo fantasy football engine generates about your results. Oddly, after I wrote this post, my team went on a hot streak and got into the playoffs, where I promptly lost in the first round to my brother. Ugh, of all people. He was 3-0 against me this season, the bastard. Well, ok, not actually a bastard, I have it on good authority that that insult is just incorrect.
October 25: As a celebration of my 31st birthday, I listed the 31 most notable people who share my October 24th date. Yep, it's sad that Jonas "The Monster" Gustavsson still counts as one of the most notable, but what can I say, I live in southern Ontario.
October 12: Kind of a random edition of the 'Random Nonsense' series except it includes probably my favourite one-liner of the year. You'll know it when you see it, since we share a hive mind. Resistance is futile.
October 11: Suggestions for the new series of Heritage Moment commercials. NONE were selected, dammit, not even the one about Robin Sparkles. What horseshit.
October 4
August 30
July 2
April 18
March 6: The first five instalments of my Shakespeare re-read series. Hilariously, my intent was to re-read and review all 38 plays in 2012 alone, and I ended up re-reading and writing about….five of them. For shame. Reading these over again, the Othello entry on July 2 was clearly the one where I had the most (any?) interesting things to say, which isn't a surprise given that Othello was my clear favourite of the five I've read thus far. Stay tuned to the series in 2013 when I try to reach the freaking double-digit barrier.
September 25: My rant about the fiasco that was the NFL's use of replacement referees, plus the story of my friend Ian becoming a Seahawks fan. Given how good the Shawks have been playing lately, Ian may have jumped onto the bandwagon at literally the best possible moment. CAW CAW CAW! (Though I hope Green Bay beats them by 30 points if they meet again in the playoffs.)
September 19: I meet exactly zero famous people during TIFF so I'm forced to blog about seeing people who kinda resemble celebrities. If Mary Hart ever found herself going this, she would consider it rock bottom.
September 11: I rank the 44 best cast members in Saturday Night Live history. With just a few months of hindsight, I really want to bump Bill Hader up at least five more slots.
September 5: My NFL season preview. In case you ever doubted I was an idiot, I picked the Raiders and the Bills to both make the playoffs.
August 25: Writing about Bruce Springsteen's phenomenal concert in Toronto last summer. I literally can't praise this show highly enough. Take an angelic choir, multiply it by 50, add denim and that's still not quite enough.
August 16: My (borderline thumbs down) review of "Take This Waltz," which ended up being one of the more popular posts of the year in terms of page views. Just one comment, though, which I'd love to believe was Sarah Polley, thus bringing us a step closer to dating.
August 10: A tribute to my old Toyota Echo, which finally shuffled off this mortal coil after 12 years on the road. Not to disrespect the memory of my beloved old Echo, but my new car is way, way, way, way, way better. (Saying 'way' six times would've been disrespectful.)
August 5: A tribute to terrible Canadiens goalie Andre "Red Light" Racicot, owner of the greatest sports nickname of all time.
August 1: I get all inspired by the Sight & Sound critics' list and come up with what I think are the ten greatest films of all time. Snow Dogs was 11th.
July 31: I analyze a dream I had about two friends cheating on each other and things get surprisingly deep. Yes, "deep" is the word I'll use instead of "overwrought."
July 19: My 'best of the year in TV' recap post known as the Alterna-Emmys. Also, I don't think I commented on the actual Emmys this year but holy crap were they bad. Almost nothing but repeat winners who didn't need more Emmys (Bowen, Stonestreet, Paul) ahead of non-recognized co-stars, Amy Poehler lost again and fucking Jon Cryer got another Emmy. Jon Cryer, for god's sake. I just have to ask, how nice is this guy? The conventional wisdom is that his past Emmys came as somewhat of a reward since he's supposedly a great guy and had to put up with Charlie Sheen's nonsense, but what's the reason now? Angus Jones reveals himself as a nutter so it's Emmy time again for Cryer?
July 16: "So why DON'T celebrities endorse condoms?", was the question never asked until this very post.
June 27: The third part of my TV year in review (the first two parts are linked within the open sentence). Not to spoil next year's list too soon, but let's just say that Homeland is not going to be cracking the "elite" section in 2013. If you saw the last three episodes, you know why.
June 12: The list of Simpsons lines I use on a near-daily basis. It already has one addendum and, as the opening goes, "this is going to be the most-edited post I've ever written, since I will no doubt be adding omissions until possibly the day I die." How fun!
June 8: A breakdown of the Megan Draper character and what she brought to the table during the most recent season of Mad Men. It's a pretty good piece, if I do say so myself, though I don't mind admitting that it was at least 50 percent inspired by the fact that Jessica Pare is absurdly gorgeous. Credibility!
May 29: A celebration of 30 Rock's terrific sixth season, and I really could repeat everything for its subsequent seventh (and final) year. I am going to severely miss this show when it's gone.
May 21: Kristen Wiig leaves SNL, everyone associated with the show treats it like the queen is abdicating her throne, and I simply don't get the fuss. As I stated a bunch of times in the post, I even liked Kristen Wiig, but really, has SNL missed a beat without her this season? Seems like Cecily Strong and Kate McKinnon (who I always keep calling "Kate Middleton") have stepped into the "lead female" void pretty easily.
May 19: While we're on an SNL bent, here are my choices as the 15 best Digital Shorts from the Lonely Island guys, complete with links to most of the videos.
May 16: One of those "Survivor winner analysis" posts that are interesting to exactly nobody outside of very hardcore Survivor fans. On the bright side, I had plenty to write about here since Kim Spradlin played one of the best games of any…..I'll stop. You don't care. I saw you yawn, don't try to hide it.
May 6
May 2: Previewing the year's summer movies. I've gotta say, I only ended up seeing around half of these since I simply put up a better guard against wasting my money seeing movies that I knew would top out at 'meh' at best. For instance, I was very keen on Bourne Legacy in the post but when push came to shove, I felt I could skip it without feeling like I'd missed anything.
April 29: One of my more brilliant advertising ideas, one that would've both promoted a local road race and also spoke out against racism. (I'm making it sound like this was actually a legitimate and good idea…it wasn't. This post is really stupid. Arr, I don't know what I'm doin')
April 26: The origin of the legendary Lea Thompson Joke.
April 11: Holy crap, even more Saturday Night Live-related content, as I break down Taran Killam's viral video of him re-enacting Robyn's "Call Your Girlfriend" video. One of these years I need to break down and just attend an SNL broadcast. What are the odds that I'll go through the ticket lottery, somehow get tickets, fly all the way to New York and then the host ends up being, like, Dog the Bounty Hunter?
March 2
March 5
March 13
March 21
March 28
March 30: I spent basically the entire month of March to breaking down a "Wire March Madness" tournament that analyzed the characters and the show. This whole project ended up being a lot more time-consuming than originally conceived, but it really made me happy since a) I beat Grantland's half-assed Wire tournament to the punch and b) I just really enjoy talking about this amazing show. Also, as if there wasn't enough Wire stuff on Polivision in March, I also linked to this hilarious Lance Reddick Funny Or Die video.
February 23: The 2011 Markademy Awards. I'm not sure yet how 2012 will break down but it *feels* at this moment like there have been a lot more good films out this year than last. And that's even with my skipping Bourne Legacy, which I'm certain will end up winning 16 actual Oscars and forcing the Academy to re-design the Oscar statue in Jeremy Renner's likeness.
February 18: My "Joe Flacco sucks" post that is still as accurate today as it was 10 months ago. Some of the specific names I've ranked ahead of Flacco (Rivers? Vick? Stafford?) may look silly now, but just slot RG3, Russell Wilson and Andrew Luck in their place.
February 15: I list the 83 best Beatles songs of all time. Judged on the merit of 'music I listened to while writing and researching the post,' this may have been my favourite entry of all time. Second was my post ranking the best Antonin Dvorak concertos (link not available).
February 14: "The obligatory half-assed Valentine's Day post," complete with the grim-sounding title of "V'Alonetine's Day." Geez, I wasn't that down in the dumps, past self. And things are looking up for me now, I went out with a girl on an internet date and afterwards she promptly deleted her account! Of course, I had no way of contacting her outside that account….uh….aw nuts, this February's post actually will be grim.
February 1: A look back at my two "these actors should be more famous" lists to see if, in fact, they'd gotten more famous. Maybe 2013 will be Harriet Sansom Harris' year.
January 15: Recapping/venting about the Packers' frustrating-as-fuck playoff loss to the eventual Super Bowl champion New York Giants, who also beat the crap out of Green Bay during this most recent season. I am hoping against hope that NY loses this weekend and misses the postseason since they are one of two teams (San Francisco the other) that I would be terrified to see the Packers play en route to the Super Bowl. No other teams particularly scare me --- not the Broncos, not the Patriots, especially not the Texans (my backhanded preseason SB pick!) and Falcons, and not the Seahawks unless the Pack somehow end up playing them in Seattle. This all being said, watch Green Bay get upset in the first round by, like, the Bears or some nonsense.
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