Travel Turtle

Over at Time they have a very comprehensive list of things that they decided were worthy of having separate top 10 lists for 2008. The possibilities are endless. I thought I’d make it easier for some of you, by naming my Top 10 Items on Time’s Top 10 of Everything lists. Got it? It’s not my favorite top 10 lists, but my favorite 10 things within all those lists. Make sense, now? Maybe? Well, it doesn’t really matter just keep reading. (Especially #10, it’ll make you cry!)

1. Top 10 Buzzwords of 2008, #6: Staycation. I hate the word, but it has to make my list because this attempts to be a travel-site and 2008 was the year of the staycation for the travel industry. (By the way, I read somewhere that the 2009 buzzword will be “NAYcation” - please no.)
2. Top 10 Food Trends of 2008, #10: Mex-Italian. I have to admit, I’ve never heard of this. But, as I get older and my favorite dishes morph from Italian dishes to Mexican dishes, I can only think that this is a good trend. Besides, I still have 16 days or so of 2008 to make up for lost Mex-Italian eating times.
3. Top 10 Gadgets of 2008, #8: Kindle. Maybe 20 of the last 30 items I want in my life, I want because of Oprah. The Kindle is the one thing on that list that I’d probably want even if Rachael Ray told me it was worth it. What stops me from going out and buying it right now (besides the fact that I can’t afford it) is that I’ve recently rediscovered my local library and free is always going to be cheaper than anything Amazon sells.
4. Top 10 Late Night Gags of 2008, #8: Mark Wahlberg talks to Animals. Am I the only person who loves Andy Samberg on SNL? Didn’t think so. Am I the only person who can not remember his name and tries to call him Adam Sandler even though Andy Samberg is really much funnier? Oh. Anyway, I loved the skit Adam Andy did on Mark Wahlberg, but loved the aftermath of it all. If you don’t know what I’m talking about click here first, then here, then here.
5. Top 10 Movies of 2008, #10 Encounters at the End of the World. Haven’t seen. Haven’t even heard of it. And I used to work somewhat in the movie industry. Weird. Anyway, it looks good, looks like something I’d enjoy and has instantly made it on my list of movies I want to see ASAP. 
6. Top 10 Olympic Moments of 2008, #5 Redeemed Team. First of all, I loved the Olympics this year. Loved it. Controversy and all. I haven’t watched an Olympics so intently since 1992 in Barcelona when Pablo Morales captured my heart. I wanted to make a Michael Phelps moment (which Time rated as the #1 Top Olympic Moment of 2008) mine, but it would be a lie. I like my list to include things that force me to self-reflect and the turn-around in my feelings for each and every basketball player on team USA definitely shifted. My Opening Ceremony thoughts on these guys: Why aren’t these fools wearing the team’s hats? Then throughout the games when they supported other athletes, and Kobe Bryant interviewed for Italian television showing his teammates his fluency. And as I just said a second ago, I have a lot more respect for Team USA. Though, I still don’t pay attention to basketball.
7. Top 10 TV Ads of 2008, #7 Visa’s Olympic Tearjerker. Continuing on the theme of the Olympics is this Visa commercial. I think I liked watching the ads even more than the games. (Does this make me double evil, enjoying an event on television staged in a country with so many human rights and environmental violation and then top it off with eating up the commercialism of the games and crying during credit card commercials?) Here’s the good Visa Commercial, by the way, try to enjoy it without feeling the urge to accumulate more debt on your credit cards: 
8. Top 10 Fiction Books of 2008, #1 2666 By Roberto Bolano. Again an item I didn’t experience in 2008, but will now take the time to put on my list of things to do in 2009. Besides, isn’t that what these “Year in Review” things are all about anyway, to remind you of things you weren’t cool enough to know about the first time around, so you get to it a year later?
9. Top 10 Songs of 2008, #8 MGMT’s Time to Pretend. I usually don’t even like music. I like this song I listened to it on repeat for about 1 hour and 15 minutes while I worked just yesterday. In fact, I’m listening to it now. It makes me want to stop writing lists and start living life. Go out. Get a lion. Visit it in Africa. (This reference will make sense in about 5 seconds if you keep reading.)
10. Top 10 Viral Videos of 2008, #3 Christian The Lion. As I said a few items ago, this is one of the things I wasn’t cool enough to get forwarded to me in 2008. Oh well. I just watched it 10 minutes ago and it made me cry. I want to explain that even though this is the 10th item on my list, and the 3rd item on the Times list, it really deserves to be the first. (I’m using wordpress and autogenerating-htmling a numbered list and it forces me to start and 1 and work my way to 10. I don’t know how to change that and I didn’t want this to be the first thing you saw because it needed more buildup than that. So here it is my number 1 choice, at number 10: