It’s the end of the year, a time for reflecting and summation. It is a totally arbitrary time, probably adopted from some pagans, just like most of the holidays on the Gregorian calendar. But the year had to end sometime, and that time is now1. Time for the quality of weather to plummet, and for the amount of listicles published to soar. I now have a blog, and so by the transitive property I must now make listicles, like so2:

http://i.adultswim.com/adultswim/adultswimtv/tools/swf/viralplayer.swf

BEST PICTURES I TOOK THIS YEAR, AS JUDGED BY ME

Two of them are screencaps. I don’t take a lot of pictures.

AWESOME SONGS THAT MAY NOT HAVE COME OUT THIS YEAR BUT I LISTENED TO A LOT ANYWAY

https://rd.io/i/QWRkrDMeyj0/

COOL ARTICLES I READ, PROBABLY THIS YEAR

On Smarm (Gawker)

What is smarm, exactly? Smarm is a kind of performance—an assumption of the forms of seriousness, of virtue, of constructiveness, without the substance. Smarm is concerned with appropriateness and with tone. Smarm disapproves.

Smarm would rather talk about anything other than smarm. Why, smarm asks, can’t everyone just be nicer?

The Period is Pissed (The New Republic)

The period was always the humblest of punctuation marks. Recently, however, it’s started getting angry. I’ve noticed it in my text messages and online chats, where people use the period not simply to conclude a sentence, but to announce “I am not happy about the sentence I just concluded.”

How to Win Any Bourbon Argument (Esquire)

You’ve gone and done it. You’ve expressed a preference for a bourbon within earshot of another person. Little did you realize that arguing about bourbon is now our sixth most popular sport, behind arguing about “grape vs. grain” vodkas, parenting strategies, craft beers, workout regimens, and college football.

Get Ready to Lose Your Job (TechCrunch)

Kurzweil claims that whenever technology hits a limit, “a paradigm shift (i.e., a fundamental change in the approach) occurs, which enables exponential growth to continue.” That’s not much more than a convenient article of faith. As Peter Thiel points out, “technological progress has fallen short in many domains. Consider the most literal instance of non-acceleration: We are no longer moving faster. The centuries-long acceleration of travel speeds … reversed with the decommissioning of the Concorde in 2003.”

The Pixar Theory (John Negroni)

This post expounds the theory that all Pixar movies (from Toy Story to Monsters University) exist in the same timeline and are all connected, which is simultaneously crazy and awesome (crawesome).

Megan Mullaly and Nick Offerman answer your questions on how to “engage in romantic love” (A.V. Club)

(There is a phrase repeated through several answers that I will not include here. Rated PG-13)

2013 LIST OF BEST BEST-OF LISTS … 2013

BEST CONDIMENTS TO PUT ON SANDWICHES OR WHAT HAVE YOU

  1. BARBECUE SAUCE
  2. NOTHING

BEST AMOUNT OF ITEMS TO PUT IN A LIST

  1. 3
  2. 5
  3. 2
  4. 0
  5. 34

PLACES I VISITED THIS YEAR THAT ARE ALSO BEST I GUESS

  • Cancun
  • San Francisco
  • Destin
  • Long Island (the good parts)

All in all, a good year. See you for the next one.


  1. Because nothing happens between December 22 and January.
  2. Try to watch this and not say “Scooby Doo Monster Game” in your best Sean Connery voice. You can’t.

Sound off

Comment

  1. Lots of pretty terrible things happened this year. It wasn’t all bad though. Here were the bright spots. (And here is the review of last year.) Enjoy the verbose headers.
    A reminder on how to make listicles:
    http://i.adultswim.com/adultswim/adultswimtv/tools/swf/viralplayer.swf

    MUSIC I ENJOYED THIS YEAR THAT MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE BEEN RELEASED DURING THIS CALENDAR YEAR

    PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN BY ME (OR SOMEONE ELSE) THIS YEAR WHICH WOULD CAUSE ME SADNESS IF THEY WERE DELETED OR OTHERWISE LOST
    Or: In Case You Can’t Tell, We Have A Dog

    <a href="https://pilch.me/wpid-wp-1419191949625/"></a>

    &lt;a href="https://pilch.me/wpid-wp-1419192986926/"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

    &lt;a href="https://pilch.me/wpid-wp-1419191839420/"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

    &lt;a href="https://pilch.me/wpid-wp-1411170384346/"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

    &lt;a href="https://pilch.me/wpid-wp-1408060101601/"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

    Kaylee’s action shot

    &lt;a href="https://pilch.me/wpid-wp-1408059960719/"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

    Chilling, watching the other dogs

    &lt;a href="https://pilch.me/original/"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

    &lt;a href="https://pilch.me/wpid-wp-1398532699171/"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

    Before the Hold Steady show

    &lt;a href="https://pilch.me/wpid-wp-1419203227372/"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

    &lt;a href="https://pilch.me/wpid-wp-1419203069893/"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

    &lt;a href="https://pilch.me/wpid-wp-1419034279470/"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

    &lt;a href="https://pilch.me/wpid-wp-1419203330162/"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

    Turn one, Indianapolis 500

    &lt;a href="https://pilch.me/wpid-wp-1401977459289/"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

    MOVIES I WATCHED THIS YEAR AND WILL LIKELY PURCHASE ON DIGITAL VIDEO DISC (OR OTHER FORMAT) BECAUSE I ENJOYED THEM
    Interstellar
    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vxOhd4qlnA?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent&w=900&h=507%5D
    St. Vincent1
    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dP5lJnJHXg?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent&w=900&h=507%5D
    Birdman
    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-umj5cxtgBA?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent&w=900&h=507%5D
    The Grand Budapest Hotel
    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fg5iWmQjwk?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent&w=900&h=507%5D
    The Lego Movie2
    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ_JOBCLF-I?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent&w=900&h=507%5D
    ARTICLES I READ THIS YEAR AND THEN BOOKMARKED AND PROBABLY SHARED SO OTHERS WOULD READ THEM AS WELL
    The Future Of Culture Wars Is Here, And It’s Gamergate – Deadspin

    In many ways, Gamergate is an almost perfect closed-bottle ecosystem of bad internet tics and shoddy debating tactics. Bringing together the grievances of video game fans, self-appointed specialists in journalism ethics, and dedicated misogynists, it’s captured an especially broad phylum of trolls and built the sort of structure you’d expect to see if, say, you’d asked the old Fires of Heaven message boards to swing a Senate seat. It’s a fascinating glimpse of the future of grievance politics as they will be carried out by people who grew up online.

    Playing With My Son – Medium

    If you have a kid, why not run experiments on them? It’s like running experiments on a little clone of yourself! And almost always probably legal.
    It’s disappointing how many people have children and miss this golden opportunity, usually waiting until they’re in their teens to start playing mindgames with them.

    My 14-Hour Search for the End of TGI Friday’s Endless Appetizers – Gawker

    The day after “Endless Appetizers” was announced, I went to TGI Friday’s in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Sheepshead Bay. I wanted to challenge the hubris of a company co-opting the infinite for a marketing gimmick. I wanted to demand accountability from copywriters.
    I wanted to call their bluff and eat appetizers until they kicked me out, to seek the limit of this supposedly limitless publicity stunt.
    I soon learned the limit does not exist.

    Squirtle, I (Should) Choose You! Settling a Great Pokémon Debate with Science – Scientific American

    But no matter what my relationship to Pokémon is now, I can’t deny that it was one of the driving forces in my nerdy life. And like any fanboy or girl who has ever played the original games, Pokémon was singular in that it provided me the first life-altering choice in my young life: Which of the starting Pokémon—Squirtle, Charmander, or Bulbasaur—should I pick? It felt like a digital “Sophie’s Choice,” with any decision rendering two Pokémon forever un-catchable, destined to be used against me by my rival.

    THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE MEDIOCRE PEOPLE – The Rumpus

    …We can’t all be grand visionaries. We can’t all be Picassos. We want to make our business, make our art, sell it, make some money, raise a family, and try to be happy. My feeling, based on my own experience, is that aiming for grandiosity is the fastest route to failure. For every Mark Zuckerberg, there are 1000 Jack Zuckermans. Who is Jack Zuckerman? I have no idea. That’s my point. If you’re Jack Zuckerman and you’re reading this, I apologize. You aimed for the stars and missed. Your reentry into the atmosphere involved a broken heat shield, and you burned to a crisp by the time you hit the ocean. Now we have no idea who you are.

    Programming Sucks – Peter Welch

    You can’t restart the internet. Trillions of dollars depend on a rickety cobweb of unofficial agreements and “good enough for now” code with comments like “TODO: FIX THIS IT’S A REALLY DANGEROUS HACK BUT I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S WRONG” that were written ten years ago. I haven’t even mentioned the legions of people attacking various parts of the internet for espionage and profit or because they’re bored. Ever heard of 4chan? 4chan might destroy your life and business because they decided they didn’t like you for an afternoon, and we don’t even worry about 4chan because another nuke doesn’t make that much difference in a nuclear winter.

    BEST NEWS OF THE YEAR THAT CANNOT BE TOPPED, EVEN IF I WAS AWARDED THE POWERBALL JACKPOT BY A RECENTLY-RESURRECTED J. H. CHRIST
    A healthy baby Pilch is on the way. It’s a boy.

    Hey, there’s a St. Vincent in the music and movie section! Not pictures or articles though. Maybe next year.

    I’ve already declared that we are a Lego Movie family. Not a Frozen family.

    Also on:

  2. (and 2017 as well)
    What a year(s) it has been. Even if I had written a year in review post for 2017, 2018 still felt like it was five and a half years. But, like 2017, I do not feel like writing one of these posts this year. Maybe it is because it is not as fun as it used to be. Maybe it is because all the things I would put here are already posted, categorized neatly without the need for an EOY summary.
    The major theme for me of the past 1-2 years is that I feel like I could not keep up. Everything moved fast, and seemed to constantly accelerate. Professional responsibilities changed, which was exciting and harrowing. Our toddler is a big kid, to the point where he wants to do everything but can’t just yet. The world at large seems to hurdle between inspiration and death spiral, practically minute to minute.
    So I’m going to use some of the scrum training we got this year for a full-blown retrospective.1

    what went well
    I enjoyed sharing my interests with our son. He is old enough to follow and play Telltale Lego games, and enjoys Lego Batman, the Incredibles, and playing as Cappy in Super Mario Odyssey. There was also at least one occasion where he got multiple KO’s in Smash.
    We were able to sell our house after failing to do so 3 years ago. It was a great starter house, but it was on the verge of becoming a burden, and now it is someone else’s problem.
    I am fairly sure I have not logged in to Facebook in 8-10 months. My wife finally got around to deleting her account – it is probably time for me to do the same.
    what didn’t go well
    I am consistently depressed by the state of America writ large, and unsure of how to improve it, which feeds the depression because I then feel complicit in the problem. This goes back to recognizing privilege.
    what to improve
    On a personal level, I need to address my more materialistic urges. I have plenty, and am due for a major konmari.
    I spend a lot of free time consuming things, and need to find a project where I can make something instead.
    I also need to keep up with the journal habit. In 2017 I filled 9 or 10 pocket notebooks, but only did 3 or 4 in 2018. I’ve picked it back up for this first week of 2019, and I already have a much clearer head.
    On a larger scale, I need to figure out how to engage with my community. It’s hard to find the time and energy and cause, but I still need to get out of my shell and help once in a while.
    for now…
    I will go drink a beer with a picture of a fish on it, and do some dad things.
    This is the most I’ve written in a long time – need to get back in this habit too.

    For media picks, here is my year in movies. Best games were Breath of the Wild and Smash Bros Ultimate. I am still listening to Masseduction and Everything Now – not sure there was any new music in 2018.