As noted by my esteemed colleagues, it's much easier to pick out 10 memorable works from other people than it is to find 10 of your own. Low self-esteem be damned, though, I'm going for it! Here now are the 10 stories I loved covering most over the last year.
Being a New Yorker, few things fascinate/disgust me more than the idea that the entire city is overrun by bedbugs -- bedbugs were to 2010 what cockroaches were to the 1970s. By logical extension then, the fact that a bunch of unemployed stage actors are going around cleaning up after these little buggers makes total sense. "I love it," 23-year-old actor Alexander Mace told the Wall Street Journal. "I do my work. We talk. It's almost like hanging out and having a good time, I just happen to be vacuuming books or spraying down knick-knacks with rubbing alcohol." Of course.
Take the biggest idiot of 2010 (Kanye West) and mesh him with the biggest idiot of the previous decade (George W. Bush) and what do you get? Complete awesomeness worthy of The Onion. Yes, President Bush did say being called a racist by West was the worst moment of his presidency... a presidency that included 9/11. America!
Glee will appear later on this list in a different setting -- and it will probably appear on a few of the other Movieline compilation lists -- but few stories brought me more joy in 2010 than the idea of Dianna Agron sitting at her laptop, writing the following explanation for the racy GQ photoshoot: "I am trying to live my life with a Sharpie marker approach. You can't erase the strokes you've made, but each step is much bolder and more deliberate."
For what it's worth, I referenced the inappropriate gay joke that opens the trailer for The Dilemma long before Anderson Cooper did. Like three weeks before. Take that, Coop!
The idea that Sarah Palin and her silly daughter were able to hijack something as benign as Dancing with the Stars and turn it into this polarizing political platform should be all you need to know about Mama Grizzly's power and lack thereof. That Bristol basically flipped off the entire country at the end of her improbable run to the finals only made this story even better.
I never got around to seeing Piranha 3D, and judging from the paltry domestic box office, you never did either. That doesn't mean the Weinstein Company gorefest didn't provide enough sexual exploitation and flying penises to last an entire summer.
This actually happened: "[Matthew] Weiner -- who is Jewish and can overlook Mel's infamous drunk rant of several years ago -- told a pal recently that he sees a lot of dramatic potential pitting Mel [Gibson] against Don Draper." We all laughed and scoffed at this then, and we can do it again now. Liz Smith, never change.
The AV Club might think Community is the second best show of 2010, but you know better. That's because you've watched season two and noticed how it pales in comparison to season one. You've also noticed how much it resembles the much-derided second season of Glee. If only the chattering class of TV critics didn't decide that Community was going to be their "We're still cool!" show this fall, the idea that these two shows share much DNA would have gotten more play.
As little Kiernan Shipka taught us, the Mad Men casts loves to party. This picture of Jon Hamm at an Emmy afterparty confirmed that.
· Watch Out for That Cow, Bro!
Forget the Blizzard of 2010; this amateur video -- emphasis on amateur -- of a tornado hitting Brooklyn this summer will be looked back upon by scholars as the sort of thing that heralded the End of Days. Bro.