Okay, I’m tired, sick, cranky, and looking oh-so forward to a New Year’s Eve consisting of sitting still and drinking tea. So without any further ado, here’s the Third Annual Pithlog List of Lists. As usual, more will be added as I see ‘em. Happy New Year, ya hosers.

Best (and Worst) of Online Media in 2002
Best and Worst of Las Vegas
Most Underrated CDs of 2002
Best Intranets of 2002
Top 10 Stories Politicians and PR People Tried to Bury
Best and Worst Games of 2002
Ted Casablanca’s Bah Humbugs
Vancouver News in Review 2002

‘Tis the season for making lists, so why not make one of your own with the help of the nifty YMDB.com, which provides an easy way to create, share, and comment on your list of favourite movies. (You can find my choices here.)

Hi. I said I wasn’t going to be back until the 30th, but this must be said right now: the fact that Flo won the Amazing Race last night has confirmed my belief that there is no justice in this world. I don’t care that the sainted Zach won with her. It’s just not fair, people. Not. Fair.

Well, tomorrow’s my twenty-eighth birthday, and seeing as I am slipping that much closer to being both old and crotchety, I thought I’d take a minute to complain about a few things that have been particularly egregious lately.

The Strokes
Crimes: The sad state of popular music means these guys get to be year-end critical darlings in 2001 and 2002 for the same freakin’ album. Julian Casablancas (or possible army of shaggy-haired clones) has spent the last year swanning around every celebrity gathering, photo shoot, festival, and opening of an envelope he hears about. Takes press coverage away from the real band of 2002, The Hives.
Mitigating Factors: Drummer is dating Drew Barrymore, a.k.a. the career kiss of death.

DVD Cases
Crimes: We can put a man on the moon, but we can’t make a DVD case that both firmly holds the discs and is easy to detach. What’s up with that?

People who call me “Jessie” within 10 seconds of meeting me
Crimes: Inevitable. Usually perpetrated by evil cold-calling marketers who want to pretend to be your buddy. New Year’s Resolution: if you are not my mother or my best friend, and you call me “Jessie” despite my unwavering use of “Jess” or “Jessica”, I am going to kick you in the shins.

Mitigating Factors: Use of nickname causes occasional pleasant reminder of grade five, where I called myself “Jessi” with a sun over the “i”.

Mazda’s “Zoom Zoom” Ads
Crimes: Both eerily catchy and painfully repetitive. Evil stares and fervent wishes still have not made small “Zoom Zoom” boy blow up. Lengthy version of ad usually played at ear-busting volumes in movie theatres.

Mitigating Factors: Commercials haven’t been spotted for a while, but still the post-traumatic pain lives on.

Writing Back to Nigerian Fraud Spammers
Crimes: Amusing the first ten thousand times someone had the idea, but quickly turned into picking battles with unarmed opponents. Opens door for new line of meta-website scamming the people who scammed the scammers.

Mitigating Factors: I really, really want a Register 419 Scam shirt.

J.Lo
Crimes: Duh. Ubiquitous.

Mitigating Factors: Possibly causes Gwyneth to look in the mirror and sadly contemplate her lack of booty.

I’ll try to add more as they come to me.

On a less grinchy note, happy holidays! No matter what you celebrate this time of year, I hope the next two weeks find you happy and surrounded by those you love. See you on the 30th!

Can we talk about Knight Rider for a second? It has, of course, the coolest theme music of all time, but bere’s what I don’t understand: Michael and KITT are part of this top secret organization that investigate matters of great security, yet in every single episode there’s a scene where KITT blows his cover by moving himself a few feet to avoid a two dollar parking ticket or something. It’s called “covert operations”, you lippy car you!

Apparently the new Knight Rider movie will be “inspired by The Fast and the Furious”, which I believe is marketing-speak for “It’s going to suck.”

As seen on MetaFilter, the WalMart Litigation Project, a website dedicated to tracking all the different lawsuits brought against the giant retailer and homogenizer.

Captain Cosmic’s Amazing Race Summaries — perfect for the over-analytical fan (like me!). Of course, apparently my rooting for a team makes them automatically ineligible to win, but can I get a “Woo!” for Ken and Gerard anyway? Woo!

At one point this weekend I was in a store that was playing a selection from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, and I realized that I was singing along with the Smurfberry Crunch lyrics. (half way down page) I suppose it could have been worse, though.. I could have been singing the theme to Urkel-Os (which, I hasten to add, I have never had the pleasure of trying).

“This site is dedicated to the many pants of Buffy.” No, really, it is. There’s lots of photos, but the slightly more verbal fan might prefer this article on “Leather Pants as a Signifier of Evil on Buffy the Vampire Slayer”.

Internet Geek Update: I’ve been planning to do this for a while, but this weekend I finally ditched Internet Explorer in favour of Mozilla, and thus far I’m quite pleased with it. On a whim I also installed The Proxomitron, which has customizable ad filters and other nifty online features, and used this set of filters to start off with. No popups, no ads, no midi.. it’s like surfing on a cloud, people.

Sorry, folks. I’ve been in a little post-travel funk for the past couple of weeks.. will try and do better, I promise.

Modern Dog Magazine — I saw a copy of their debut issue in a bookstore the other day, and thought it must be a joke. But no, it really is a “the lifestyle magazine for urban dogs and their companions”, whatever that means.