Reminiscences!

Golly, it’s been quite the year!

Let’s hit the high notes as we look back and look forward.

Well, the first place I’m inclined to look is my very first major essay for the site: Manipulation! (The general idea was that Maribou would be my editor. Soon after that first essay was done, she started her push to investigate, get accepted to, and then start studying for Graduate School… so that lasted one essay). Now, that was my first essay… what was my *FAVORITE* essay from the last year? Tchaikovsky!, that was the essay where I tried to explain what, exactly, it was that I saw in Pro Wrestling that made it worth sacrificing Monday nights (and the occasional Sunday night) for. (And if I had to pick a second, I’d pick Antagonist!, an essay where I ruminated on different kinds of bad guys).

Now, it would be remiss of me to not mention how, in the last year, not only did *I* start writing stuff here but so did Patrick. He wrote (an writes) the heck out of things. Here is his first guest post, here is his introductory post, here is his post that got linked by io9, and here is his post that remains the number one clicked-upon post here at Mindless Diversions that is responsible for our biggest day of traffic in our history. (I don’t intend to sell him short in this essay by moving to the next paragraph… it’s more that I don’t want to steal his thunder if he wants to write about what he happens to remember from 2011.)

When it comes to recommendations, I admit to falling in love with some games and recommending them to let them languish two weeks later… I wonder if I should have follow-up essays about that sort of thing… anyway, there are a number of recommendations from the last year that I absolutely stand by not because I say this or that about them, but because they occupy my time as I’m doing this or that and I find myself devoting a number of cycles to thinking about this movie, this video game, or this album even though I’m busy doing something at work: when it comes to movies, Last Hero In China, when it comes to video games, Skyrim, and when it comes to albums, Loveless.

Looking back on Wednesdays, the biggest response to any given Wednesday post I had was this one talking about the evolution of a song went from country to R&B to funk to sample in an entirely different kind of song entirely. There are a couple of songs that I don’t know if you listened to but I hope you do… I really love them. Too Much Saturn is a song about not becoming a better person despite one’s best efforts (or maybe it’s about becoming one). There are a couple of modern Krisha hymns here. And, of course, Dred Zeppelin’s cover of Stairway to Heaven is here (if you listen to one, and only one of these songs: make it this one).

When it comes to Saturday mornings, my favorite commercial remains Smurfberry Crunch, the creepiest remains Maureen McCormick’s “New Living Barbie“, and the saturday morning cartoon song that still stays stuck in my head is “Here comes help! Here comes action! Here comes Buford…”

I’d like to thank each and every one of you (but especially Patrick) for making this year such an awesome one. Next year will be even better! Sure.

(And extra special “founder of our feast” thanks to ED Kain, without whom none of this would be possible. Thanks Erik!)

Is there anything in particular that you would like to see more of in 2012?

Edit: Oh! And one thing I forgot to mention! I would love for you (yes! *YOU* to submit a guest post for us here! We’ve had great posts from our very own Dman, Spivak, Trumwill, Kimmi, and RTod! (Edit: Also! Wardsmith!) Better than anything I have written! If you have a recommendation that you want to share, or a song for Wednesday, or an essay for Monday, or a bottle of wine for Friday, or even a television commercial for Saturday morning, WRITE ME at AskJaybird@gmail.com and we will see that your post will be posted on the next appropriate day!)