2006 in review

Favourite Album: Well I listened to a lot of new music this past year but most of it was “More of the same.” A lot of poppy punk stuff. Fall Out Boy – Under the Cork Tree and AFI – December Underground were both solid commercial albums for sure. Billy Talent II and BuckCherry’s 15 were also both enjoyable. But by far the hands down kick-butt album of the year was Streetlight Manifesto – Keasbey Nights. While Reel Big Fish had a great ska album this year, Streetlight Manifesto had the purest ska I’ve heard in a long time. Fast, catchy and highly replayable.

Favourite Movie: Saw Lots of movies this year but not nearly as much as usual. With the advent of the wedding summer blockbusters were backburned in favour of making family happy and picking out invites. But the wife and I pretty much just stuck to horror movies whenever possible anyway. Silent Hill was pretty cool, and terrified the crap out of the wife, but I’d say my hands-down favourite movie this year (that you’ve probably never heard of) was The Descent. There’s a B-movie out there with the same name, ignore that. The Descent is a movie about a bunch of female thrill-seekers exploring an underground cave system. Of course things go horribly awry and the women end up in an unexplored sub-passage of the cave system and of course there’s something horrible down there. This movie had action, great cinematography, characters you actually cared about and a pretty solid underlying story. Plus I think just below the surface there was a little bit of Lord of the Flies beneath the whole slick paintjob. Also from a purely horror fan-boy prospective the movie was gruesome and pulled no punches at all. It was bloody and graphic. Definitely a must-see for horror fans or adventure fans with strong stomachs.

Favourite TV Series: What an awesome year for TV! Just when in the early 2000s I thought TV was doomed with the onslaught of Reality TV there’s finally a few rays breaking through the cloudy skies. The superhero action drama Heroes fills a great void in the Fantasy/Sci-Fi category. Prison Break, while not as good as the first season was still enjoyable this year. Last winter’s 24 was pulse pounding as always, but the show that really had me glued to my Computer monitor was Dexter. I devoted an entire blog post to this show so I won’t regurgitate it back to you. It’s awesome, you should definitely watch it, but it's only available on showtime.

Favourite Moment: Really anything I say at this point would be completely be overshadowed by THE big event. On October 7th of 2006 I married my girlfriend of 4 years, ‘twas a simple ceremony at a Catholic Church. Followed by a 12 course Chinese meal and a room full of incredibly drunk Newfoundlanders. It was a unique blend of East Coast Canadian and Far East Chinese, but all in all it went smoothly and I couldn’t have been happier. The first few months have proved to be blissfully happy as the only thing better than getting married to the one you love is not having to worry about planning a freakin’ wedding :p

Favourite Moment in Rollerblading: After almost 2 years of being unable to do 540s I’ve learned how to do them again, and can pretty much do them on demand now

Worse Moment in Rollerblading: After an almost 2 years of practice I still cannot do more than 2 or 3 grinds well.

Favourite Moment in Paintball: Getting a “Broken” Diablo Wrath for $100 bucks Canadian, replacing a $3 dollar hose and have it work flawlessly.

Worse Moment in Paintball: Every time I put my air tank on my 1 year old piranha and hearing it leak like sieve.

Favourite Moment in Poker: Making it to 7th place in a tournament of ~60 people on my first appearance at the tournament

Worse Moment in Poker: Losing $100 in one hand in Vegas when my pocket 9s were busted by pocket 6s on the turn.

Favourite Moment in Hockey: Scoring 2 goals and 2 assists in one game, including some super fancy behind-the-back passes

Worse Moment in Hockey: Watching the Ottawa Senators completely fall apart in the playoffs…. Again.

Here's hoping this year is event better!