The End of Year Review I: The Best of the Blog 2011

Welcome to the first round for the End of Year Reviews.

I will be late with the End of Year reviews for Video Games because I started my final game at the end of November and have not had a chance to finish it up for inclusion.

The End of Year music review and the live show review will be posted hopefully later today.

Right now, let's take a look back at the best stories and memories captured on the blog!

The Day The Blog Almost Died

A tiny life was in my hands on Saturday evening.  It was a life full of words, emotions, funnies, woes and life experiences.

This dying ember of life belonged to five year old, Bloggie Boo.

The HOchieS Blog had suddenly found itself in a predicament, its life in the hands of its creator and knowing full well that I made it, and I could take its life back.

The problem with Bloggie Boo was that it exceeded its free 1 GB capacity for pictures.

I could do one of three things:

1. Continue the Blog without pictures thereby maiming it and making it half the Blog it used to be.

2. Buy space and extend the Blog's life for a year - it'd be borrowed time and a renewal fee would have to occur every year.

3. Kill the blog.  Make it D-E-D.

Long story short, I did not really see any other option so I paid the damned $5.00 and here we are.

Due to this sudden turn of events, I may as well lay this out here and now.

I have been toying with the idea of putting adsense on the blog for some time now, and this is just one more step for me to do so.  I'm not sure how much money Bloggie Boo will make but even though I may be merciful, The Great Znyx will only heed those who are trying to work things out on their own.

So Blog, you need to cover your own cost of the picture/video fee!

I'm a little bit worried as to what sort of ads will run but we'll just have to see.  There's no solicitation here but it's just a note to be aware that things will look different in the future and I'm not being spammed.

The End of Year Review III: The Best of the Blog 2010

There are no best concert reviews to do this year, as I went to only two concerts and one showing at the Paramount.

H1 went to one concert, and one Broadway show.  She tells me she enjoyed Mama Mia!

If I had to pick what show was better, I'd go with Gorillaz over Muse.  I do not believe I even spoke about it but I also saw a Steven Wright comedy performance with Angelo.  It was okay.

Now, on to the very best of the blog - the best memories and stories (Or 2's opinion only)!

The end of an alcohol-free End of Decade "party" brought lots of misfortune in the HOchie household in January.  The one most infected by this 'drought' planned a freaking assassination of an innocent.  Things have never been the same between us since.

There were snow days galore in February! With extra days spent working from home in pajamas was great, and also made for some snowy blog posts.  However, what was most intriguing about this month? We found out that this blog might be a little bit racist.  Isn't everyone?

March was all about Moodou and Misadventures.  

April was a pretty busy month - many food adventures occurred but it was my admission of loving Hall & Oates and our subsequent discussion about which H&O songs best represented each of our frenemies, that had everyone on board.  H&O = bringing people together since the 1980s.

Not much happened in May, other than the realization that nerds need to eat too.

Ah, June in the city.  Midtown proves to be a strange place with Bieber fan girls, fruit carts, and people harbouring dark secrets in their backpacks.

Summer continues in full effect during July.  Things happen! Moodou makes an appearance and The HOchieS venture outside into the sun for ice-cream and burgers.  I wonder if we'll get lucky again this year? Although, venturing outside assaults my eyes.  Also this month, our favourite burger place opens up in the Theatre District, and it's later we vow to never go there again.

For a month I traditionally despise, August came up a winner.  Two days off were spent with Beetchie discovering awesome dumplings in Brooklyn, the best doughnuts and the best noodles ever consumed (this side of Japan), and Scott Pilgrim vs the Big Gay Ice-Cream Truck.  The HOchieS also warned of the impending Zombie Apocalypse, which you all ignored.  Here's a final warning for you guys - the choices are clear (for me, anyway): It's either you're food or a zombie.  I would hope to be the latter.

September was a good time, you know.  H1's birthday month was on complete with scary beastly surprise of extermination.  A trip to Brooklyn with everyone in tow for (finally!) some dim sum was made.  This month I also got into some artful crafting.

Oh, October.  You're so full of Halloween scares, apple picking, Gorillaz and birthdays! Okay, well maybe just Or 2's to really consider, uh...and Frass', but in 2010, the Blog turned Five Years Old.  Awww.  And the Blog even held a competition! How nice of you blog.  But how not nice of you to not give out your blog prizes to everyone yet.  Sorry.  What can I say? Bloggie Boo is a jerk.  You know who else is a jerk-face? The person who I thought was my friend, turned out to be someone completely different.

Usually by the time November hits, I'm super excited.  The end of the year looms and I get into the Spirit of Christmas.  Things were going okay at the start of the month! We ate oysters (not so great), made kurma (still undecided if great or not) and even saw Baby Jeebus.  It was then Thanksgiving rolled around and the rest of the year into January 2011 that became not so good times for me.  Curse this sickness! Ah well... these things happen.

In December, I at least, had a week of better days, just in time for Christmas.  There was not much blogging going on due to the aforementioned illness but I am thankful nonetheless.  It wasn't all bad! I got to see TD5, and play Rock Band 3 with Beetchie.  Oh, and before I forget, of course New Year's Eve is always hilarious.

So, thank you to all our frenemies for another great year.

Here's hoping our 2011 (which yes, has already started) is bad-assed on fun times for us all.

A Very Simple Entry: WINNERS

Beetchie's words: didepolo, inglysi, whograi, gandatiz, refane
TD5's words: unwoog, dentsp
Bughie J's words: gonic, magginse, teddu, anschaut
X's words: tallyt, pupgraba, knivery
Gen'Frien's words: chboyco
MC's words: ancelate, match, dishet
Anj's word: pandsm
H1's words: gunbrop, abooth

And the winning word is.... Knivery because the blog clearly knows that X is capable of doing that to her fellow contestants all in the name of winning a prize.

The other winners, in no particular order, are Inglysi because who does not like that Bloggie is racist and thinks that the Mal-asian should speak some English/Inglysi since she lives in America.  Pot calling Kettle black Bloggie?

The Blog has time and again proven that he is multilingual and this time chose to dispense some German wisdom to Bughie J.  But what does the Blog want you to look at Bughie J.?  Anschaut.

and finally, while MC might have thought that the Blog was heaping praise on him by calling him "De sheet", what the blog was really trying to say was that after MC was late as in "ancelate (and he's late!)" was that he, MC, was to be DISSED.  Dishet - diss-h-t. Because some of us have figured out that silent "h"s abound around here.

Consolation prize goes to Anj, picked at random because we did not know who else would win based on the words you, TD5 and Gen'Frien' got.  It was tough considering Bloggie Boo was not really working with anyone!

So there you have it!

X
Beetchie
Bughie J.
MC
Anj

You 5 are our winners of this competition celebrating the 5th Anniversary of the Blog's existence.

Due to the fact that boxes comprise both series 1 and 2 toys, we will put them in a hat and pull them in order listed above.

We will send the prizes to you guys and/or give it to you when we see you (some sooner than others).

The only request we have is that once you receive it, please open it and send us a picture of what you got.

Thanks for the fun times!

A Very Simple Entry to a Very Special Competition

In celebration of Bloggie Boo's 5 year Anniversary, The HOchieS are running a competition.

Unlike the last time when we taxed your very creative, witty brains for entries; this Blog-away/giveaway's rules are very simple.

To Enter, we need you frenemies to do the following:

1. Leave 5 comments per person on this post and be sure to include your Word Verification in the comments left.

We are going to trust you all to give us your first word verification received, whatever that may be, and not refresh the page for one you think is hilarious.

The whole point of this exercise is that the Blog is going to be "choosing" the winners.  We all know the Blog is not the most uhh...friendly of entities, but it often gives us real gems disguised as word verifications.

EDIT and UPDATE to the RULES (posted on 10/22/2010 at 10:30 p.m.):

At H1's suggestion, we will be running this competition for 5 days only (one day for each year the Blog has been alive).

Each person may leave one comment a day for each of those 5 days, OR 5 comments in total during the competition period (and don't forget you must include your word verification).  At the end of the 5 days, we may compile the word verifications during that period and see who fared best.

We're doing this because one word verification per person for the whole time may not decide clear winners.  Hey, leaving 5 each could mean they're all crappy (depends on what the Blog decides he wants to give you) but we think the chances at getting something good may be increased this way.

IMPORTANT: The Competition starts TODAY! and ends at 11 p.m. on October 27th, 2010 at 11 p.m.

The Prizes

Kid Robot's Mongers Toys

Series 1: Menthols (2 boxes bought)

Series 2: Filter Kings (3 boxes bought)

Series 1: The possibilities are endless.  I hope someone gets bacon.

Series 2: More possibilities.  I hope no repeat of the Drake incident.

As you all know, one of my favourite things to do with Beetchie is go to Toy Tokyo and we each buy a blind box of toys.  Capsule machines and blind box toys are an unhealthy obsession of mine (silence! I know I have many!), but this one... oh ho ho.  It's bad.  And it's bad for a couple of reasons (other than it being hilariously ridiculous and hilariously sad), such as the example here and here.

Fortunately for you guys, I did not pick these toys for myself so your chances may be pretty good at getting something you actually find amusing from this batch.  My luck is good for others, just not for myself.

I also feel I must apologize to Beetchie in advance - there just weren't any other good toys for me to run for this competition! They ran out of the Japanese Poop toys!

The HOchieS will pick 5 winning entries (or the 5 who fared best with their WVs), and these 5 will be the proud owners of 1 new Monger toy each.

And why wouldn't you want a Monger toy?

I mean...just look at them.

Good Luck!

Happy Banniday!

It's a very special day today - it's the day that Bloggie Boo was born, five years ago.

That's right!

The Blog is now 5 years old and he feels like celebrating.  Of course, he did not get his party favours together yet, so I cannot yet reveal what sort of Banniday (Birthday-Anniversary) celebration we will be having.

What I can say is that everyone is invited, and that details of a very special anniversary competition will be forthcoming.

In the meanwhile, Happy Birthday to you, Bloggie Boo.

May we all share fun memories together for the next five years and beyond, frenemies.

And may you, Bloggie Boo, stop being such a jerkface.

Oh, just jesting.  We think your witty word verifications are hilarious...Often insulting, but hilarious.