The period of festivities commonly known as "Christ-mass" is once more approaching - its fast becoming an annual event - and many of my fellow celebrants of commercial excess will no doubt be fretting about what they might possibly get for their loved ones.
Since all of the best media outlets seem to nowadays do a "review of the year" around this time, there's nothing to stop the worst media outlets from doing the same. This is where I come in.
The only possible problem is that I've not actually absorbed too much pop culture this year, but what the hell, maybe it'll be more focussed as a result - if I only drink the purest distillate of entertainment in the first place, then the goodness that I micturate in your direction should verily be potent indeed.
Some caveats. Firstly, alot of this stuff will be old news to all you hipsters - I'm not exactly an early-reviewer of cutting-edge product - but its a review of MY year rather than yours, so fruck it. And secondly, you probably wouldn't be able to buy some of this stuff anyway, TV programmes for example, which kind of defeats the object of the exercise. Still, you could always download it off a P2P network and burn it onto disc for your loved-ones. They'll thank you for it. Criminal. Thirdly, erm, maybe we should just drop the Christmas present theme to these awards - it doesn't really work.
Also, regular readers, having read all this before, will no doubt have already acted upon my recommendations like the brainwashed sheep that you are. Bleet.
Anyway, without further ado, I bring to you: Powersurge's pantheon of pop-culture present proposals, and that.
Album of the Year 1: DJ Shadow - Endtroducing (VSX review)
2: Air - Talkie Walkie
3: Scissor Sisters (VSX review)
4: Orbital - The Blue Album (VSX review)
TV Documentary of the Year 1: The Power of Nightmares (VSX review)
2: The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off
Comic strip of the year 1: Joe Sacco - The Fixer (Time review)
2: American Splendor (though strictly a film; VSX review)
Book of the Year (I've only read one!)
Stephen Baxter - Phase Space (VSX review)
Series of I'm A Celebrity-Get-Me-Out-Of-Here of the Year The first one (VSX review)
Blog disappointment of the year The way that old Haloscan Comments drop off my older blog archives, and that valid Comments on intermediate-era archives don't register on the blog. Gits.
VSX post that has resulted in the most sordid, nasty Google referrals of the Year
The Dirty Den one.
Villain of the Year
1: Coventry Airport's Bill Savage.
2: Osama Bin Bush.
3: The indicator stalk on my car.
4: That Andy bloke off of Eastenders.
B&B of the Year
The Castle Inn, Edgehill (VSX review)
Most unwholesome lyrics stuck on repeat-mode within my internal jukebox
1: Beenie Man - Dude ("I want a dude who will do me in the van, a thug that can handle his biz like a man".
2: NIN - The Wretched ("The clouds will part and the sky cracks open, and God himself will reach his fucking arm through, just to push you down, just to hold you down. Stuck in this hole with the shit and the piss, and it's hard to believe it could come down to this, back at the beginning. Sinking, spinning") Ahem.
3: NIN (again) - Big Man With A Gun (censored)
Blog Post-Containing-Maul-vs-Monkey-Image of the Year
1: THIS ONE c/o Psychbloke.
Right, that's yer lot. If you've managed to scroll your eyes this far down, then you truly deserve to be wished a very merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas!