Yet Another Subjective Best Stuff List

There are countless sites putting together vast, shiny, well-documented and well discussed "Best of 2009" and "Best of The Decade" lists right now.  Some of the better ones have several contributors to the lists in order to more accurately view the landscape that has passed, and others are simply compiled by one, well-known and respected author.

Regrettably, this is neither.

The lists or choices that follow are simply my own, subject to massive disagreement and vitriol, and are not necessarily contained to 2009 or the decade.  More simply put, what follows is the best stuff that I encountered this year, regardless if it was new or not.  I'll most likely add to this as the year moves closer to an end because I won't remember everything.

Books:
This category gets more complicated because I don't read bad books.  If I happen to slog through half of a book that is objectively terrible, I have no need to seek completion to a chore begun; I stop and move on to something else.  Some of the more wonderful books consumed this year:

-Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield
-The Life of Pi by Yann Martel
-Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
-Luckiest Man by Jonathan Eig
-Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman
-Beyond the Black River by Robert E. Howard
-All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

As good, or even majestic (as is the case with anything Robert E. Howard wrote) as some of those may be, there was one that surpassed the others, and I urge anyone who hasn't picked it up to do so quickly:

Best Day of 2009:
The easiest decision of the bunch.  On May 15th, my exceptionally happy son Jack Arthur made his grand entrance.

TV:
Strangely enough, television can be quite a polarizing subject.  Those people who are above such a mundane exercise as the watching of TV have a tendency to make the rest of us feel like terrible, soulless, unimaginative slobs who are hopelessly chained to the downfall of simple, honest, clean living.  I do my best to ignore such folk.  They're creeps.  And they usually have some irritating scent floating about them that makes actual conversation a bother.  Some of the most watched or enjoyed television of the year:

-The Office
-The Biggest Loser
-Scrubs (reruns or new episodes)
-Hell's Kitchen
-Rockies baseball
-Cash Cab
-Sunday or Monday Night Football When The Game Actually Mattered
-Man vs. Wild
-Baseball's Golden Age

I've never had HBO, thus the omission of whatever goodness they have going on there.  Nor am I a watcher of the massively successful Mad Men...though I don't know why.  However, I am proud to say that I am part of the greatest show that has ever been created!  And shame on all of you who disagree with me:

More 'Best of' nonsense to come later...