the year in review

A year has past since the start of (at least) one cool thing, and 378 posts, 40,000 visitors and 60,000 page hits later I am still enjoying sharing my discoveries with new friends and old. I have been delighted to receive 26 guest contributions and hundreds of comments, and I hope to get many more next year.

Posting daily has occasionally been a bit of a chore, especially after Thursday nights with the guys, but what I have learned has been worth the effort. For the new year, my posting frequency will decrease but perhaps the quality will increase to compensate.

So, as we exit 2006 and ring in 2007 I wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year and thank you for your readership and support. I also wanted to recap the year that has past with a breakdown by topic of former cool things of the day:

Annual events: Chinese New Year, San Francisco International Film Festival, Sam, Vertical Challenge Helicopter Air Show, Pride Weekend, Independence Day, Pickles, Fantasy of Lights, Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir Christmas Concert (thanks Emmanuel) and Christmas Eve at Yoshi’s

Art and photography: Flickr, Picasa, Amazing Astronomical Images, Neat Image, the week in photos, A Better SD Memory Card (thanks Warren), Monet in Normandy, Photoshop Tutorials, HDR Photography (thanks Don), Photo Tips via Lifehacker, Gorillapod and Fan Ho

Bay Area activities: Año Nuevo, Pescadero, NUMMI, the rosicrucian egyptian museum (thanks Bill), Mobile Movies, Outdoor Movies, San Jose with Orlando, USS Hornet, USS Pampanito, SLAC and the SF Asian Art Museum

Consumer products: Downey ball, slippers, Gillette Fusion, woven dental floss, thorlo socks, Epson scanner, cheaper long distance, FlossAction Brush Heads and a Pineapple Slicer

Design: Ikea, Herman Yu Design, Design Resources on the Web, Bay Area Design Resources, desk chairs, Lemon Twist, The Jerker Desk, Frank Gehry for Tiffany, Heavy Duty Wall Hooks, Affordable Design, Design Within Reach, 2 Second Tent, I/O Brush, IDEO, One Bush Street, Bikinis and the iPod,

Destinations: Santa Barbara, A Sausalito Getaway (thanks Scott), Vegas and Hoover Dam

Food: see yesterday’s long reset

Games and toys: Set (thanks Scott), Adventure Games (thanks Julie), Talbot’s Toyland (thanks Bill), Burnout Revenge (thanks Mike), MAME (thanks Warren), Presidents and A**holes, RC Chevy Silverado and the Hot Wheels Radar Gun

Golf: Nike CPR Hybrid, HMB Golf Links and the Stanford Golf Course

Magazines: The Complete New Yorker, Must-Read New Yorker Articles, Top 10 Lists on Forbes.com, The Week Magazine, The Onion, SF Magazine, August 28 New Yorker and Spore.

Movies: Weeping Camel, Winged Migration, Mostly Martha, Infernal Affairs, Mad Hot Ballroom, Curse of the Were Rabbit, Grain in Ear, All the President’s Men, Thank You For Smoking, Dodgeball, Primer (thanks Scott), Syriana, Fearless, The Prestige, Clean, V for Vendetta, Lucky Number Slevin, Happy Feet (thanks Scott) and Curse of the Golden Flower,

Movie lists: Ang Lee, Wong Kar Wai, Hayao Miyazaki, John Cusack, Top 5 Science Fiction Movies and Bond Girls

Music artists: Lou Rawls, Johnny Hartman, Anton Kuerti, Guggenheim Grotto, Gabriel and Dresden, St. Lawrence String Quarter, David Poe, Iron and Wine, Jeff Klein, Elvis Costello, Silversun Pickups, Charles Brown, Retrobyte, Teitur, Tobias Froberg, Death Cab for Cutie, Elliott Smith (thanks Scott), Xzibit, Natalie Merchant, Brooke Ramel, Lindsey Buckingham, Prince in Las Vegas, Joe Newman and Damien Rice

Music blogs and web sites: Hype Machine, Motel de Moka, Songs Illinois, Free iTunes, Riding East and Concert Bootlegs

Music mixes: Soundtrack for a Story Evening, More Mellow Songs for a Rainy Night, 80’s Covers, 45s From My Youth, A New iMix, Summer Sambas, 12-inch Singes from Grad School, Top 5 Artists from the 70s, A Swinging Christmas and Cool Christmas Blues

Music lyrics: Nerdcore Rap and The Crane Wife

Radio and web radio: Launchcast v Pandora, KCRW, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me (thanks Mike) and Pete Tong

Short films and viral video: Lazy Sunday, Microsoft Designs the iPod, A Day in the Life of Natalie Portman, The Evolution of Dance, Guitar, Mentos and Diet Coke, OK Go, My Animated Day, In God We Trust, Superficial Friends, Shawshank in a Minute, Animusic, A Special Christmas Box, d7tv and the JibJab Year in Review

Software: TrueCrypt, Skype, Yahoo! Widgets, Freeware, Cleartype, Firefox PlayTagger, iTunes 7, Cleaning MP3 Tags, Tweaks For Your New Computer, Keyboard Shortcuts and Backing Up a DVD

Stories: Tamba Hali, You’re With Me, Leather, Fat Steve, The Bunny and the Cougar and NoKa Chocolates

Technology: the Roomba (thanks Don), Coinstar (thanks Tom), Google WiFi, The ThinkPad T60 and “Pimpstar” Fans

Television: Jungle, PBS On-Demand Video, TV Funhouse, Secrets of the Sexes, The Wire, Frontline – The Dark Side, No Direction Home, The Dog Whisperer, Aquaman, Top 11 Chappelle Show Sketches, Studio 60, Arrested Development (thanks Scott), Rome, Hacking Democracy and Festivus

Television Commercials: Music Used in TV Ads, Bollywood Fandango, I Pinch, European Car Commercials, I Walk the Line and Lo-Def Productions

Transportation: Pimpstar Rims, Fuel Cell Buses, Cleaner-Burning Vehicles, Stokke Strollers (thanks Warren), Z4 Coupe, Red Victor 1, Bond Cars, Cars from Tokyo Drift, Raytheon Hawker and the Eclipse 500 VLJ

Web sites and the web: flavorpill, Pandafix, Shiny Shiny, KeepVid, Digg, 511 Traffic, The Satorialist, Stumbleupon, Scam-baiting Wikipedia, Sigalert Traffic Information, 2007 iPod Buyer’s Guide, whocalled.us, Top “Undiscovered Web Sites, Ig Nobel Prizes, Sonic.net, Wallpaper and the Whitney Music Box

And, finally, a gift appropriate for all occasions, a donation to Heifer International (thanks Meg).