A year in haphazard review

I hereby present KEVIN AND WHITNEY’S OFFICIAL “BEST OF” LIST OF 2009.

[I have excluded any categories that could be construed as offensive to any party likely to encounter this blog (including those that are likely to get me excluded from any party) and those that the esteemed judges termed “Unanswerable.”] PS: Answers that are bolded are links. Screw you, impossibly hard Internet!

Person of the Year (nonspecific): Lisa, the semi-insane masseuse

Runners up: Spoon, Red Robin “Special Sauce” Girl

Best TV Show: The IT Crowd

Runners up: The Tudors, How I Met Your Mother

Food of the Year: Homemade Pizza

Restaurant of the Year: Carmelita's

Runners up: Red Robin, Sandwich Spot (Rancho Cordova)

Catch Phrase of the Year: “Fair ain’t fair.”

Runners up: “Tough kittens.”

Enemy of the Year: Ex-supervisor whose name I am required by classiness to omit

Runners up: Tree cutting neighbor; that mean golden retriever down the block

Obsession of the Year (nonspecific):

Kevin: Tim Fite

Runners up: Joy Division, stretching, Fugazi, woodworking, Dan Malchoir, the financial collapse, Mark E. Smith

Whitney: William Somerset Maugham

Runners up: The Clotheshorse, the potential health benefits of yoga, making bread, Willa Cather, The Duchess of Duke Street

Blog of the Year:

Whitney: Whitebrook Farm

Runners up: Put This On, Apartment Therapy, The Clotheshorse

Kevin: Bridge Tunnel

Runners up: You Look Nice Today, But Does it Float?, Robert Ebert’s Journal

Musical Obsession of the Year:

Whitney: Bright Eyes (sad old albums)

Kevin: Tim Fite (old gangster albums)

Hot Date of the Year: Eating La Fiesta and eavesdropping on some high school kids who were evacuated due to “bad tar smells” and then going to Target

Runners up: Watching Mall Cop at the mall, Leonard Cohen (Katie and Kevin)

Movie of the Year: The Giant

Runners up: Big Fan (unseen), Quadrophenia

Celebrity Crush of the Year:

Whitney: The guy from 3rd Rock from the Sun

Runners up: James Dean, Alan Alda

Kevin: The girl from Marketplace

Runners up: Ellen Page

Thing That Got Too Cool So We Dropped It: twitter.com

Service Employee of the Year: Androgynous girl at Safeway

Runners up: Spoon, suave guy from Carmelitas

Cold hard fact of the year: hosting parties is expensive

Runners up: Spending money is totally awesome

Worst Meal of the Year: Completely organic falafel place located at Sunrise and Madison

Runners up: Marie Callenders on a Sunday

Worst Medical Decision of the Year:

Kevin: Upper Cervical Chiropractor

Whitney: Taking expired cold medicine

Pipe Dream of the Year: Des Moines

Runners up: Getting a teardrop trailer