I don’t have cable television. I’m only allowed to leave the house on special occasions, and then only if I have an envelope of coupons somewhere on my person. The last book I was able to finish reading in one sitting involved a bunny and pictures … excuse me, illustrations, that were larger than the Sunday paper. So, you won’t be getting a Best Book/Music/Event That Happened Outside My Immediate Realm of Consciousness list from me. What you will get is … well, just read, and you’ll find out.

Biggest Whoop-Ass of 2004: Charley, Frances, Ivan, Jeanne, and Jon. Proof that Mother Nature hates mosquitos as much as she hates bowties.

He’ll win one for the Gipper with God, now. Nothing can bring Republicans and Democrats together like a shared love of jelly beans.

I’m pretty sure the Gipper spoke to the Bambino about this, too.

Best News Stories that Never Happened: Michael Jackson shut out of Olympics, runs to Bubbles the Chimp for comfort, they wed. Paris Hilton found in menage a trois with Rosie O’Donnel and Rupert from Survivor. Hillary Clinton purchases small town in Iowa, renames it I Hate Lewinsky-ville.

Best Idea I Wish I Had Come Up With: Sure, it’s pretty, but can it hold spare change? (Click HERE to see it up close and personal.)

Oh, yeah, and speaking of pussies …

…here’s one who’s clearly going straight to Hell.

And finally, and most importantly: Most In Need of Our Help. Find a relief organization, send whatever you can: money, prayers, yourself. Please.

(*Cross-posted at The Un-Common Tater)

Of all the objects, places, concepts, and titanic forces at play in 2004, the most monumental, influential, and ascendant is surely the blog. Laying total waste to all previous conceptions of what “news” and “media” mean, blogs have completely transformed how we parrot talking points - and have radically altered the world of media in 2004.

It was the blogosphere that single-handedly dethroned Dan Rather, somehow managing to promote the view that an unpopular septuagenarian newscaster had a liberal bias. To topple the iron edifice that was Fortress Rather, intrepid bloggers had to overcome not only the deep vein of public and private support for the nation’s last-place news network, but the remarkable solidarity of the modern news media, which might resist for minutes, or even hours, the urge to devour its own in a Darwinian feeding frenzy. As a triumph of media manipulation, this nearly outranks the feat of making Trent Lott look like an awkward old Dixiecrat.

It was the blogosphere which kept on the George Bush National Guard story long after it was ignored in the 2000 campaign, and while the mainstream media continued to overlook the issue until a casual remark made by Michael Moore in the primaries, it was the blogosphere and the blogosphere alone which used the scandal to cleverly dub Mr. Bush “aWol.”

It was the blogosphere that had the courage, perspective and sense of history to repeatedly note its truly singular role in the worldwide media apparatus. These courageous citizen newshounds doggedly pursued the big story of the year that Big Media didn’t want you to know about: that they were really important. And indeed, of all the news stories, ideas, or “memes” pushed by the blogosphere, this critical news story was broken by bloggers even harder than any other.

The accomplishments of blogs are too exhaustive to examine here, so the Medium Lobster will not bother to more than mention the successful campaigns to influence media coverage on the dangers of electronic voting, the mendacity of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and the pernici