I’m a bit late for my usual “looking back at 2009″ posting, but better late than never right?

Best albums of 2009: Silver Sun Pickups (Swoon), Tiesto (Kaleidoscope)

2009 Hit Movies: GI Joe, We Live in Public, Zombieland

2009 Movie Misses: District 9, Rachel Getting Married (Yes, it did come out in 2008. It deserves special mention in 2009 for being that bad. And that’s coming from someone who would watch Anne Hathaway read a magazine for 90 minutes.)

Great TV of 2009: Tru Blood, Battlestar Galactica finale, “The National Parks” miniseries on PBS

Lowlights of 2009: Not making Lollapalooza for the first time in five years. Chicago not getting the 2016 Olympics and how some people cheered against it. Painting my house. Brewers not making the playoffs.

Highlights of 2009: Being elected the Board President for the Park People. President Obama’s inauguration. Painting my house. Season tickets for the Brewers. Getting to have a hand in writing two pieces of major State legislation. Bringing Emerson and Carter camping for the first time.

2009 was also another good year for the weblog. February turned out to be the busiest month of the year with 150,000 page views in the month and over 1,200 visitors per day. It coincided with the publishing of the most popular posting I’ve ever done, the open records request I did to uncover the fact that the State spent $2 million on a web site that has less functionality than my weblog. Since then, I’ve been averaging just over 1,000 visitors and 5,000 page views per day to the weblog. Not earth shattering numbers, but a pretty good year.

That posting about the $2 million website still gets a few hits a day and was the most popular of the year. The other top articles of the year were the one that got some major play after I called out right wing radio host Mark Belling for calling women who breast feed their children “sows” and some of the more level headed commentary found on the subject about the McBride/Flynn affair back in June.

Thanks for making 2009 a great year and especially to those of you who continue to engage in reasoned debate on a regular basis about the issues facing Milwaukee and America.

Best wishes for a prosperous and joyous New Year!

Have a good New Year celebration, whatever it may be. I’ll be checking out for the rest of the year.

I leave you with this, enjoy and see you in 2010!

While I was out shopping for the kids the other day, I caught myself thinking about all the toys I wanted when I was a kid myself but never got.

As many know, when I was growing up my family was, well.. poor. One of my most vivid memories I have as a kid is waiting in line in the Carson City community center for Government issued cheese and powdered milk. The memory is stamped into my brain as clearly as the plain black letters on the white background of the packages of the food we were waiting for. Despite our station in life at the time, we were able to have a good education through the miracle of Catholic charity which allowed me and my brothers to attend a parochial elementary school.

One of the more interesting things about going to St. Theresa’s Catholic school at that time was we were in classrooms with a lot of kids who very much could afford to go there. Several of my classmates had parents who were doctors, orthodontists and one of my friends was the son of the Lt. Governor (later Governor after we moved) at the time. The great and terrible thing about this is we had access to some of the greatest toys of the time, which is how every 4th grade boy rates his existence, but only while visiting friends houses.

On Christmas mornings back then, my friends were getting new Diamondback or Hutch bikes, opening a new Nintendo Entertainment System or ripping open the packaging of the latest Transformer.

At the Cody household, we would instead be opening up Go Bots (or their knockoffs) and other toys that were more affordable and three boys could share. Not that I have any regrets or am complaining by the way, I wouldn’t trade the memories of those Christmas mornings in for anything, and I appreciate things now later in life as a result of not “having it all” as a kid.

The one exception to the “I never got any of the ‘awesome’ toys as a kid” rule, is the one year my brother Scott and I got real Transformers under the tree. They weren’t Go Bots or Dashbots, but real Transformers just like on the cartoons! Mirage and Bumblebee.

Of course the irony was that we were so eager to play with them, we opened them weeks before Christmas and when we were caught opening empty boxes Christmas morning, they were taken away for good.

So we got by as kids tend to do, and like I said, I don’t regret it a bit.

But I walking down the toy isle the other day, I did feel some of that old nostalgia coming back, especially when I saw the G.I. Joe toys.

Again, for most boys my age, G.I. Joe toys were where it was at. On top of tapping into the natural fascination of all things military that young boys often have, we would always make it home from school to watch the cartoon at 3:30 where the slogan “Knowing is half the battle” taught us in a tough, cool way things like the importance of staying away from downed power lines.

Luckily for us, G.I. Joe action figures were also moderately priced, which meant that around Christmas time and birthdays we could expect a few under the tree to play with. If things were going well at work, or we had made a few extra batches of “Wisconsin Bell” flags on the side for my moms company (A whole other story…) we might even get an accessory like jeep or tank to go with our G.I. Joe action figures. Most of the time, we would end up taking our action figures and jeeps over to the friends houses who’s parents could afford the more expensive toys.

So in the interest of Christmas and keeping things on the lighter side for the next few days, I share with you my top five toys that I lusted after but never received as a kid. Maybe you’ve got some of your own to share?

The “Jetfire” Transformer. He was massive and shiny and huge and sold from the top shelf at Mervyn’s.

Star Wars AT-AT – Again, another huge toy that we probably didn’t have the action figure manpower to operate, but very desirable none the less!

G.I. Joe “HALO” Parachute Pack – I actually did get this for a birthday, but was only able to use it once as Duke and his HALO parachute were never recovered after their initial launch. Weather conditions were good, but looking back, the model rocket engine we strapped him to may have been a bit too powerful. He was last seen accelerating out of my backyard and towards Lake Tahoe, much to the initial delight of my friends and I.

The U.S.S. Flagg – Another massive toy. Looking back, we probably didn’t have enough Joes to actually man the ship.

1984 Diamondback dirt bike. Dirt bikes were a big deal in Nevada in the mid-80’s. This is a good example of a classic 84 Diamondback, although I would have preferred some axle pegs on the front and back. And check out the links on that chain. Awesome.

So what are some of the toys you look back fondly? Have a great Christmas!

As 2009 draws to a close (whew) and Christmas draws near, I thought I’d share a few videos that pretty much sum up both.

The first is a fun video that uses Google Wave to look back on 2009:

The second is a video that makes the case – which needs to be done every year – about what Christmas is really about.

On a completely separate note… Dear video producers: Please put the morphing 3D title text plugins and generators made famous in the movie Valkyrie and the Ford truck commercials away now. They have become the 2009 video equivalent of the drop shadow in Photoshop; overused but rarely done well. Every time I see this effect in use lately, I cringe.

If you’re tired of listening to the TV stations who are on DEFCON 1 because we’re about to get snow – in Wisconsin! in December! – you might want to take your mind off that and enjoy the a time when commercialism went hand in hand. Disco Star Wars!

Yes, it’s Monday.