TV, Music down - we'll do books this evening. These weren't necessarily released this year - they were just the ones I read for the first time and thought were excellent. I read a lot of other books but these are the ones that stood out. And since we are talking about books, here is a picture of Kristin, myself and Nick Hornby when we met him this summer.

Spinning the Globe : The Rise, Fall, and Return to Greatness of the Harlem Globetrotters by Ben Green

The Miracle of St. Anthony: A Season with Coach Bob Hurley and Basketball's Most Improbable Dynasty by Adrian Wojnarwoski

A Series of Unfortunate Events Book 12 - The Penultimate Peril by Lemony Snicket

The Giver by Lois Lowery

The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog by Mo Willems

The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien

Eragon by Christopher Paolini

A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby

The absolute worst book of the year was Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling. The parts where Harry and Dumbledore were searching for Voldemort's horcruxes were really good, the rest was trash. Apparently J.K. Rowling is looking to be a writer for MTV's Laguna Beach or some crappy show like that after she finishes the series.

Here is what I liked on TV this year:

1) The Office - This season has been absolutely hysterical. Last season was good but not as good as the BBC version. The second season has proven to be laugh out loud funny 99% of the time. Why Steve Carrell didn't get a Golden Globe nomination is beyond me!

2) Family Guy - I love having this show back. Consistently funny and raunchy from week to week. My 5th graders at school say they watch this show - I'm guessing they are missing 85% of the jokes. The pop culture references have been first rate - the A-Team episode was a hoot.

3) Lost - After last season's ending, I was a little worried about this year. The first episode was one of the best episodes of TV ever - I loved it. There is a lot going on right now and I'm eager to see what is going to happen the rest of the season. This is about the only drama show I watch but it's still got it's funny moments.

4) The Simpsons - The greatest show of all time is still funny, but not as consistently as it used to be. My favorite thing all season was the spoof they did on Maurice Sendek.

5) My Name is Earl - Excellent lead in show to The Office. Jason Lee is great. Not as funny as I thought it would be but it's well written and pretty creative. I'm anxious to see how long they can keep it up - seems like crossing things off his list will get pretty old quick but they've done a good job so far.

6) The 4400 - Only on during the summer but it's pretty fun. The acting isn't that great but they do feature some cool bands and I like the story.

I wish Bravo would bring back Significant Others - that show was hysterical.

Here we go, we'll star with the best music of the year:

TOP 10 BEST ALBUMS OF 2005

1. The Decemberists – Picaresque

2. Sufjan Stevens – Illinois

3. Idlewild – Warnings/Promises

4. Bright Eyes – I’m Wide Awake, Its Morning

5. Eels – Blinking Lights and Other Revelations

6. Okkervil River – Black Sheep Boy

7. Ben Folds – Songs for Silverman

8. Josh Rouse – Nashville

9. Franz Ferdinand – You Could Have It So Much Better

10. Son Volt – Okemah and the Melody of Riot

BEST OF THE REST (listed alphabetically)

Ryan Adams – Cold Roses / Beck – Guero / Brendan Benson – The Alternative to Love / Bright Eyes – Digital Ash in the Digital Urn / Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah – self-titled / Coldplay – X&Y / Eisley – Room Noises / Fruit Bats – Spelled in Bones / Great Lake Swimmers – self-titled / Great Lake Swimmers – Bodies and Minds / Ed Harcourt – Strangers / Headphones – self-titled / Jars of Clay – Redemption Songs / Damien Jurado – On My Way to Absence / Kaiser Chiefs – Employeement / Magnolia Electric Company – What Comes After the Blues / Matt Pond PA – Several Arrows Later / The Novaks – self-titled / Of Montreal – The Sunlandic Twins / Oranger – New Comes and Goes / The Perishers – Let There Be Morning / The Pernice Brothers – Discover a Lovelier You / The White Stripes – Get Behind Me, Satan

Nice win for Duke yesterday. Everyone played well and I hope they continue this throughout the rest of the season. It has to be tough trying to mesh a group of freshmen with seniors. I think Redick and Williams are being excellent leaders on the court. Plus it doesn't hurt that Redick is a scoring machine. I'd really like to see a Duke-Gonazaga matchup - Redick and Morrison would be fun to watch. I thought Paulus played great yesterday - he looked terrible on Wednesday night but had an excellent game offensively and defensively yesterday. Dockery has really picked up his play the last couple of games - he totally shut down Gibson yesterday to the point where he was totally ineffective. This was a good building block and hopefully everyone continues to improve.

The Bears got whupped up today. I knew their defense would have one bad game and of course, the offense wasn't capable of rescuing them today. The defense has rescued the team so many times this year, it would be nice for the offense to return the favor once in a while.

In case you haven't seen our top ten music picks for the year, I'll be posting them over the next couple of days. I should probably post some books and movies as well, although there are some films we still need to see - King Kong, Narnia, Syriana and Munich. I bet Dad and Travis would like to see those as well so I don't mind waiting until CT so they can treat us. :)

Unfortunately for me but fortunately for Kristin, our cable service does not have Fox Sports. We have Comcrap Sports even though we don't have Comcrap as our service provider. Due to this, I was unable to watch the Duke game Sunday evening and was forced to push the refresh button over and over on the computer. And as you probably now, I was unable to watch one of the most exciting finishes in recent memory. I'm glad they won but it's obvious they need me watching for them to perform at high levels. I'm pretty sure the Penn/Duke game is on the deuce tomorrow night so I can watch.

We traveled to downtown Chicago on Saturday to do a little Christmas shoppings and check out Marshall Field's one more time before it changes names to Macys. It was pretty cold and there was a Bears game so foot traffic wasn't too bad. We had fun at the Kris Krindle mart in Daley Plaza and checking out the decorations. Here is a picture of me in front of the huge Christmas tree.

We had a new furnace installed this afternoon. Now we don't have to wake up to 4o degree temperatures in the house in the morning. That's good.

Yay! I'm finished with my grad classes for the semester. It's nice to be done and not have to worry about making the drive to DeKalb for a little while. Only one class up at DeKalb next semester and it's a weekend class so driving won't be that bad. Should be graduating in May with my masters. Finally!

Kristin and I saw "Walk the Line" last night. Both of us thought it was great. Everyone in the movie is very good and the singing by Joaquin Phoenix is fantastic. We didn't realize that Cash toured with so many famous people including Elvis - it was a good history lesson for us. I'm guessing this movie will get some Oscar nominations and most likely some gold statues.

If you are still working on shopping for me for Christmas, I forgot I wanted these shirts:
http://www.nokona.com/promo.html#cloth
The first one I would like is the Nokona Golf Polo shirt - either grey or navy sizeL
The second one is Nokona T-Shirt raglan style - size L

I saw this headline on Yahoo and thought it was pretty funny:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051203/ap_en_tv/people_sharpton