Sports: Giants beating Patriots in Super Bowl.

I guess Hillary isn’t the only one who found out in 2008 that “inevitability” ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Oh yeah, and some guy swam well in China.

Elections: Barack Obama’s victory. No, not because of Barack Obama. Not even because an African-American won per se. But because his election showed that an African-American can win. His winning just happens to be the only way we could know that our nation has made that much progress vs. just a few decades ago. Congratulations America.

Music: Man, I guess I’ve been pretty out of touch with the new stuff over the past year, unless I’m just forgetting something. I can certainly say which performance moved me the most, largely due to context, but that’s part of the performance, I suppose

Also, kudos to this dude

(yeah, yeah, it came out prior to 2008, but that’s when I discovered it, and if my girlfriend can consider the day she got her cat to be the cat’s birthday, I can apply the same egocentric concept here).

Movie: There are too many movies on my “to-see” list for me to feel legit putting one here. Instead, I’ll just say that the best pre-2008 movie that I finally saw in 2008 was The Boxer (1997, Daniel Day-Lewis), which is now on my top ten all-time favorites list.

TV Ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eXfvRcllV8 (gee, thanks a lot for making me send you more money that I could have spent on some neat gadget. You guys don’t play fair. www.aspca.org )

Branding: “The Genocide Olympics” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/opinion/24kristof.html?_r=1 I encourage folks to visit www.SaveDarfur.org

Cutest Animal (other than my Buddy and Pancho and my girlfriend’s Cosi, in case any of them are reading this): Knut. If you can make it past the almost unbearable (no pun intended) music and overproduced graphics of the first minute or so, this video is nice, if ya’ like cute animals, that is:

Dark humor one-liner: “There are only two positions to take in this market: cash and fetal.” (I don’t know who originally said it, or even if it originated this year or during some previous crisis).

Political Primaries Election Night Analyses: CNN’s John King. Those of us with an unhealthy intensity of interest in the presidential primaries could appreciate King’s clear analysis of how much of the vote from which counties was already “in” (included in the total state percentages at that point) and the implications in terms of likely trend when the as-yet uncounted votes rolled in.

Blogs: Best New Blog: www.EconomistMom.com Diane (EconomistMom) covers economic policy, particularly federal fiscal policy, in a way that simultaneously (1) enables folks with very little understanding of economics to learn the concepts and facts they need in order to consider merits (or lack thereof) of policy being debated, and (2) enables other folks like me (not an economist, but with a bit of formal economics education plus some self-teaching) to gain important insights into such policy matters.

Best Previously Existing Blog: www.SwordsCrossed.org The only politics blog I know of that provides (to a large extent) an escape from almost completely mindless hyperpartisanship. Sure, the volume (diaries and comments) is not great (hint, hint: guys, let’s talk marketing in 2009), and Forvm (the other community blog I know of that is not, by design at least, focused on one side or the other of the political/ideological spectrum) has greater volume, Forvm is comprised mostly of knee-jerk, committed hyperpartisans (I’d guess about 80% on the left, 20% on the right) with whom it’s quite difficult to have a real, good-faith, mutually-responsive, substantive, logical discussion/debate. We have a couple of individuals here on SC who are like that, but most are not.

As a note: I consider www.CapitalGainsandGames.com , another excellent economic policy blog, something of a hybrid as far as “new” vs. “previously existing”, because, although I think it existing prior to 2008, Andrew Samwick joined it in 2008, and that’s when I discovered it, and Andrew brings much to it.

This diary is just a quick & dirty “best of” -- far, far from exhaustive. I’m sure many more categories can be added, as well as different favorites within the above categories. The floor is yours. Oh, and I hope someone does a “Worst of 2008”. That might be more fun, and would be a good opportunity for cathartic venting by all (something new to all you fellow bloggers, I’m sure).