Thursday, December 31, 2020

Goodbye 2020


 

Vox edited together the things that happened in 2020. It's a lot, and it goes fast. Unlike 2020. Here's hoping 2021 will bring brighter days.  

Year-end Lists 2020: Personal

(Thanks, WTM!)

While 2020 has been an awful and momentous year for everyone, the pandemic did not impact me personally as much as other people, because I live alone and already worked from home. But it was a big downer for my kids, who were looking forward to a big ceremony upon graduating from college. Instead, they were sent home March 13th to finish classes online, had no commencement, and got their diplomas in the mail. I am still exceedingly proud of both Princess and Gothgrrl on attaining their bachelor's degrees.

The big event that changed my life this year was my mother breaking her hip. Suddenly, I'm in charge of her life (along with my brother and SIL). We weren't about to leave her in a nursing home any longer than we had to, and it's dangerous to bring too many strangers around, so the family has been caring for her at her home, about 20 miles from mine. Ten months later, she has made quite a lot of progress in recovering, but still needs a walker and cannot cook for herself, so my SIL and I split our time staying with her, with help from brother Bill and her granddaughters when they are available. That makes keeping up with blogging a lot harder, and I've slipped somewhat in those duties. But I managed to experiment with all this hair that hasn't seen a salon in over a year.

It was a weird year professionally, too. Early in 2020, I was "ghosted" by Considerable. They just stopped responding to my emails. I eventually figured out that my boss must have been let go and he may have been too traumatized, and then later embarrassed, to let me know. At least that's the most charitable assumption I can muster. I struggled financially, but it was a blessing in disguise because I was quite busy with Mom. I managed to keep up with Neatorama, but I wouldn't have had the time for longform writing. And recently I joined Boing Boing, so things are looking up!  

The pandemic summer was a long one. My garden didn't produce much compared to other years, mainly because I didn't put in the necessary time. I had three unemployed college graduates living with me: my two daughters, and an international student who eventually got a job with a biotech lab in Cambridge. Gothgrrl started veterinary school in August, and seems to have taken to it like a duck to water. Princess got a job and a cat and an apartment about two hours from here.

Another thing that happened was that I lost my sweet baby Frisby last spring under horrible circumstances that I don't even want to write about. The situation was exacerbated by the lockdown and Mom's hospital stay, and I didn't have a chance to properly mourn until much later. She was only a year old. I won't get another kitten for the foreseeable future. The three cats I have will have to do. 

As 2020 draws to a close, I am exceedingly happy that we have a new administration coming in to Washington, although I know it will take quite some time to undo the damage that the current administration has done to our country. I am also truly thankful for covid vaccines -if only everyone could get them before they get the disease. I'll keep praying about that.

I hope things are also looking up for you, and that 2021 will bring you health, happiness, and blessings!

Auld Lang Syne



The finale at the Musikparade Lanxess Arena Köln in 2016 featured a mass band of pipes and drums playing Auld Lang Syne. While the song is traditional for the holiday, we won't be sad or wax nostalgic about seeing 2020 go and 2021 arrive, not a moment too soon.

One Year on a Beaver Dam in Minnesota



Footage from a trail cam at a beaver dam just south of Voyageurs National Park shows us a variety of animals using it as a river crossing. Over a year's time, we see wolves, bears, deer, beavers (of course), and other creatures, as well as the changing of the seasons. The dam is so sturdy that vegetation thrives on top, and the resulting pond is calm enough to freeze in winter. Good work, beaver! (via Metafilter)


New Year’s Jokes

Did you hear what the dyslexic Highway Patrolman did on New Year's?

He spent the whole night handing out I.U.D.'s

***

Carl's New Year's Eve party was an annual occurrence with numerous guests arriving.  During the evening, a man knocked on the door, was greeted heartily although no one knew who he was, and was led to where the drinks were, in the kitchen. 

He sat there happily, chatting away, for a couple of hours before a strange light dawned on his face.

'You know,' he confided to Carl, 'I wasn't even invited to this party.  I just came over to tell you that some of your guests' cars are blocking my drive.'

He continued, 'My wife's been sitting out in the car waiting for me to get them moved, so that we can go out.'

***

Sally was taking an afternoon nap on New Year's Eve before the festivities. After she woke up, she confided to George, her husband, 'I just dreamed that you gave me a diamond ring for a New Year's present. What do you think it all means?'

'Aha, you'll know tonight,' answered George smiling broadly.

At midnight, as the New Year was chiming, George approached Sally and handed her small package.  Delighted and excited she opened it quickly. There in her hand rested a book entitled: The Meaning of Dreams.

Year-end Lists 2020: Miscellaneous

An Honest Trailer for 2020


The Best Things About the Worst Year Ever.

If 2020 were a...

Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year 2020 is "Pandemic." Read a list of the eleven most-looked-up words this year.

20 things that made the world a better place in 2020.

2020 NORML Victories

The 15 Objects That Defined 2020.

For the culinary industry, this wash of a year has meant massive financial losses and closings, but also the pause of long-in-the-works projects that, due to the pandemic, are now deferred indefinitely. 

Dezeen's top 10 museums and galleries of 2020.

The Worst Ghosts of 2020.

The Year in Volcanic Activity.

Best Illusions of the Year 2020.

The Best Pandemic Projects of 2020


'Zoom face,' TikTok hacks and DIY self-care: 2020's biggest beauty trends.

Here's how travel benefited from a bad year.

Our Writers Shout Out The Best Beers They Tried In 2020.

Our 8 Best Work-From-Home Tips From 2020. https://lifehacker.com/our-8-best-work-from-home-tips-from-2020-1845928572

The Best Ads Of 2020. 

5 Garbage Trends That We Need To Leave Behind In 2021. 

The Strangest Medical Cases of 2020, like the man with green urine, another man with three kidneys, and a woman who shed infectious particles of the novel coronavirus for 70 days straight. 

What Did We Get Stuck In Our Rectums Last Year?



See all the year-end lists here.

Miss Cellania's Links

Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann on Gilligan's Island, died Wednesday of Covid-19 complications. She was 82.

Portraits of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Favorite Collars and the Stories Behind Them. (via Nag on the Lake)

When Your Outfit Is Made Illegal. As they say, dress for the job (or social class) you want, not the one you have. (via Digg)

2020 Might Be a Year Best Looked at From Above.

Pugilism on the Plains. In 1923, Montana real estate developer James “Body” Johnson Jr. was looking for a way to invigorate his small town, and was taken with the idea of staging a fight with world champion Jack Dempsey.

Florida's Covid-19 vaccine rollout goes as well as you'd expect. It's first-come first-served for anyone over 65. (via Fark)

Prohibition whisky found while renovating the "Bootlegger Bungalow." (via Laughing Squid

The Knights of Renesmee spent three years making a shot-for-shot Sweded version of the entire Star Wars prequel trilogy. It's actually quite funny due to creative prop choices, wardrobe malfunctions, and the world's least expensive CGI. (via reddit)   

Minnesotastan has been running a series of pictures of his readers' bookcases at TYWKIWDBI. One particular picture revealed something amazing about the owners.

A blast from the past (2017): 10 Famous Birthdays to Celebrate in January.

Happy New Year



Rhe DeVille first did this song for New Year’s Eve in 2009, and it’s still my favorite song for the holiday. I hope your new year is joyful.

Tweet of the Day

They had to go quickly to distill all the craziness down to five minutes. (via Digg)

Year-end Lists 2020: Best of Blogs and Websites


I didn't have a good image for this post, so here's Stephen Colbert's New Year greeting.

Many of your favorite blogs and websites do an internal list of their biggest, best, or most interesting posts the past year. I try to find as many of those as I can to let you know about them, but I always feel as if I've missed someone important. If you know of such a list that I haven't included here, let me know and I will update it.  

Reddit’s 2020 Year in Review. The top post was from Rick Astley.

Reddit’s 2020 Community Reflections.

Here are the milestone moments of the year as reported by America’s Finest News Source (The Onion).

Longform's Best Articles of 2020.

Our Favorite io9 Videos of 2020.

Fark's Headline of the Year winners. See the other contenders here

Gizmodo's 100 Most Popular Posts of 2020.

Buzzfeed's Top Quizzes of 2020.

Twenty-Five of Smithsonian's Favorite Stories From 2020.

2020’s 20 most-read stories on Ars Technica.

Messy Nessy Chic’s 20 Greatest Hits of 2020.

A Strange Company 2020.  

Best of the Infidel, 2020.

Mental Floss' 25 Most Popular Stories of 2020.

See all the year-end lists here

Do You Love Me?



Boston Dynamics gives us a New Year greeting in the form of dancing robots. This is terrifying. If robots can dance like this, is there anything they can't do? (via reddit)

New Year Plans



Bettering oneself is always easier to do "in a few days." I'm busy maximizing contrast myself, but I know that January first will make no difference at all. This comic is from Nathan Pyle's Strange Planet.

Year-end Lists 2020: Internet

Google's Year In Search 2020

Google Trends has released the top search terms for 2020, and made this video to illustrate the overarching topics of what people searched for. It's a short but good look at the year, centered around the word "why," but then you see the actual lists of top searches in the US, and the top "why" doesn't have anything to do with big events. The global list is more consistent, with really big news at the top of every topic.

The A.V. Club's best things on the internet in 2020, and the worst things.

The 39 Most Defining Memes of 2020.

The biggest Tweets of 2020, and other 2020 statistics from Twitter.

Here’s The Most Shared News Post On Facebook In 2020 (It’s Not What You Think).

Facebook's Year in Review 2020.

Year in Review: The Biggest Social Media Moments of 2020.

Social Media Got Very Sad in 2020. 

Pandemics and politics: 2020 through the lens of Wikipedia

YouTube announces the top videos and creators of 2020.

The Most Viral Video On TikTok This Year.

Top 200 most common passwords of the year 2020.

Tinder's Year in Swipe 2020.

The Best Podcasts of 2020. 

See all the year-end lists here.

Bicycles on a Ski Slope



I don't know what they expected, riding bikes down a ski slope, but you know what to expect, you just don't know when. When it starts, it's all downhill from there, so to speak. You can see the long version here.

Held annually at the Les Deux Alpes ski resort in France, the Mountain of Hell pits 700 racers against a 15-mile course of snow, ice, rocks, and singletrack. The riders descend 8,530 feet in the process. And what’s best is they all start at the same time. So when one rider loses it on the slippery glacier, well, it becomes a pinball machine at full tilt.
(via Bits and Pieces)

Tweet of the Day

If you don't get it, you are no true Star Wars fan, but it's explained here. (via reddit)

Year-end Lists 2020: People



So, How Was Your 2020, ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic

Meet TIME's First-Ever Kid of the Year.

‘Many people did something immense, for complete strangers’ – readers’ heroes of 2020.

TIME's heroes of 2020

2020 Was the Year of Everyone Thirsting Online.

Video: 2020's Oddest Celebrity Couples

10 Celebrities We Didn’t Hate in 2020.

This is The Year Celebrities Lost Their Shine.

Biggest Celeb Scandals of 2020: From Ellen DeGeneres’ Unmasking to the Kardashians’ Pandemic Partying.

From The Root: The 2020 Wypipo Awards.

25 Karens who shaped 2020—for the worse.

In Memoriam


Celebrities we lost in 2020.

Notable Literary Deaths in 2020.

Scientists we lost in 2020.

Overlooked But Very Notable Deaths In 2020, part one and part two

Know their names: Black people killed by police in the US.

Faces of some of the lives lost this year in the COVID-19 crisis. These are just a small sample of the more than 333,000 people who died of the disease in the the US in 2020.

And for the rest of us...

See all the year-end lists here.
 

Year-end Lists 2020: Photography

Embed from Getty Images

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Here are millions of words. 

Can You Believe Your Eyes That All This Happened in 2020?

Here Are The Best Pictures Of Px3 “State Of The World Photography” Contest That Sum Up 2020.

2020 in photographs, from the Associated Press.

National Geographic's Year in Pictures.

Flickr’s Top 25 photos in 2020.

Buzzfeed’s 56 Most Powerful Photos Of This Year.

Earth Looked Like Hell From Space This Year.

TIME's Best Photojournalism of 2020.

CNN's year in pictures.

Reuters' Pictures of the year 2020.

Buzzfeed's
Best Photo Stories From This Year.

See all the year-end lists here.

Year-end Lists 2020: Politics



Of course, the biggest American political story this year was the election. But let's not forget the impeachment, the scandals, the covid response, the protests, and the fact that few people have written about this year in politics because of the possibility of something else big and unprecedented happening at any moment.  

The Best Thing That Happened in 2020? American Voters Saved Our Democracy.

From coronavirus to Trump: 2020’s top 5 political stories.

2020 was a year of reckonings across the United States.

FactCheck.org presents the Whoppers of 2020.

Monsters of 2020: The United States Senate.

Lisa Kudrow's Perfect Parody of 2020 Politics

From the Netflix series Death to 2020.

See all the year-end lists here.

Miss Cellania's Links

15 New Year's Food Traditions from Around the World. (via The Week)

The forgotten life of Einstein's first wife. What she felt would advance their future together ended up costing her everything. (via Damn Interesting

Apple Pie Art.
 
People Are Sharing How They Cope With Being Shamed For Following COVID-19 Guidelines.

Re-gifted cakes. I guess that's better than saying recycled cakes.

Watch falling dominoes go up before they come down! (via Infidel753)

A Relative Timeline of Star Wars Events, using recent years as reference.

Gorgeous Vintage New Year’s Greeting Cards – Circa 1900.

The Unknown Father. Alois Schicklgruber was illegitimate, and arranged his own name.  

A blast from the past (2015): The Kyshtym Disaster: The Largest Nuclear Disaster You've Never Heard Of.

The Cat's Favorite Movie



Flatscreen television sets have opened up a whole new world to dogs and cats, who used to pay no attention at all to cathode-ray tube TV. Ella is a senior rescue cat who loves to watch TV, but she prefers to see one particular film, every day if possible. You can see more of Ella at her Instagram page.

Tweet of the Day

(via Everlasting Blort)

Year-end Lists 2020: News


Image from John Oliver says goodbye to 2020.

These were CNN's top 100 digital stories of 2020. 

Video: The major events that changed the world in 2020.

The Best and Worst of the World's Covid-19 Response.

Everything You Already Forgot About 2020.

The global view from Australia: 2020 in Sound. This is powerful.

2020 in 20 charts.

Dave Barry’s Year in Review: 2020 was a year of nonstop awfulness. 

35 good news stories from 2020 you might have missed.

Here’s a look back at the best and worst of news media in 2020.

Bloomberg Businessweek year-end Jealousy List. These are stories their reporters wished they had written.

The best journalism of 2020: Covering the pandemic.

The Most Absurd News Stories Of 2020: The Year That Broke Satire.

60 Things You Won't (But Also Totally Will) Believe Happened In Florida In 2020.

Headline of the Year Tournament.

Best News Bloopers 2020

Yeah, it’s long, because we had a lot of opportunities for things to go wrong, with so much news and so many journalists working solo or from home.

See all the year-end lists here.

Celebrate New Year's Eve with a Friendly Game of Chess



In 1995, a group of four chess enthusiasts were devastated when their opponents took their queen in a very public New Year's Eve match at Madison Square Garden. Exactly 25 years later, they are staging a rematch, online of course. Phish will present "Dinner and a Rematch" on New Year's Eve, pitting themselves against online participants. You can join in through Chess.com (registration required). In addition to chess, there will be recipe swapping and some music. Drinking is optional, since you'll be at home anyway. And may the best mass player win. (via Metafilter)

Year-end Lists 2020: Sports

Embed from Getty Images

Sports in 2020 was a mess. The Tokyo Olympic games were postponed for a year, although they are still branded as Tokyo 2020. The Kentucky Derby, traditionally held the first Saturday in may, finally came around in September. And games that happened were played in stadiums filled with stuffed animals, cardboard cutouts, or no one at all.

2020: The year in sports when everybody lost. From the New York Times.

The surreal world of sports in 2020.

In 2020's empty arenas, we learned what fans really mean to sport. 

2020 in review: 25 stories that shaped the sporting year.

Baseball to Brady: 2020’s top 5 sports stories.

ESPN's Sports year in Photos.

Idiot of the Year: 40 of the dumbest fish to swim through 2020's sea of stupidity. Check here for the top ten coming soon.

What 2020 meant in Major League Soccer, club-by-club.

Celebrating college football's 2020 success stories. 

The top tennis stories of 2020.

Best of 2020: the top outdoor and extreme sport stories of the year, from triumphs to tragedies.

The 10 Best Wrestling Matches Of 2020.

See all the year-end lists here.

Year-end Lists 2020: Games and Tech



The year of the pandemic was the year everyone had to learn tech, as schools and workplaces went online. The gaps were laid bare: people who didn't know what to do, and places where internet access was not up to the task. But there were also innovations.

Zoomification of society: Tech's influence (and necessity) was impossible to ignore in 2020.

The Top Tech Stories of 2020.

The worst passwords of 2020, and other tech stories you may have missed.

Top 10 women in tech and diversity in tech stories of 2020.

The 100 Best Inventions of 2020.

Esquire's 27 Coolest New Gadgets of 2020.

25 Tech Things Buzzfeed Tried And Liked In 2020.

2020: bad year, good gadgets.

Quibi, Twitter hack and misinformation: The biggest tech fails of 2020.


There were no "technical" problems during this Zoom meeting, just human error. But human error in dealing with tech was a big part of our lives in 2020.

The Strange Story Behind the Best Game of 2020.

Polygon's 50 best games of 2020.

Luke Plunkett's Top 10 Games Of 2020.

Zack Zwiezen's Top 10 Games Of 2020.

Ars Technica’s best games of 2020.

Den of Geek's Best Games of 2020.

Slate's Best Video Games of 2020.

The Best Games Of 2020 That You’ve Never Heard Of.

The Biggest Video Game Disappointments Of 2020.

See all the year-end lists here.

Miss Cellania's Links

Weird Al Yankovic's 9th Grade Crush. And how they reconnected.

If the Characters in The Lord of the Rings Were Dogs.

Founding Father Gouverneur Morris Died From a Self-Inflicted Penis Injury. (via Strange Company

The ‘Batman Effect’: How Having an Alter Ego Empowers You.  (via Damn Interesting)

Trump’s presidential legacy, by the numbers. (via Fark

2020 News Headlines, Generated by Artificial Intelligence.

Picard and Q as Bert and Ernie.

A Time Traveller’s Guide to Savannah, Georgia.

The Dumbest Moments of the Trump Presidency.

A blast from the past (2015): 8 Extreme Disney Princess Mashups.


Final Exam Video Project



Sven Johnson had to make a video for the final exam in some media class, demonstrating his understanding of different technical aspects of production. What makes Sven's project stand out is that his brother is comedian and successful YouTuber Gus Johnson, who volunteered to help out by appearing on camera. Sven has not revealed what grade he received. (via reddit)




Tweet of the Day

(via Fark)

Year-end Lists 2020: Science



In science as in everything else, the pandemic dominated all other news in 2020. Climate change was next, bringing fires, hurricanes, and political fighting to our headlines and crossing a point of no return on the inside pages. Science magazine presents their top scientific breakthroughs of 2020 above. Read more about the scientific breakthrough of the year and the scientific breakdown of the year. They are both about the pandemic.   

An Oral History of the Day Everything Changed. Keep in mind, this was written in April.

COVID and 2020
: An extraordinary year for science.

This COVID-19 pandemic timeline shows how fast the coronavirus took over our lives. 

LiveScience's most popular science stories of 2020.

The virus-free scientific breakthroughs of 2020, chosen by scientists.

From Murder Hornets To Asteroid Samples: The Top Science Stories Of 2020.

10 Major Science discoveries that you may have missed in 2020.

From Elvis worms to the Milky Way’s edge, these science stories sparked joy in 2020.

The Top 10 Websites for Science in 2020.

The Biggest Junk Science of 2020.

The Top Retractions of 2020. Since the top ten are all about covid-19 (and the top three about hydroxychloroquine), they also offer five on other subjects

Nature’s 10: ten people who helped shape science in 2020.

The 9 top health and medicine breakthroughs of 2020.

‘Ugliest orchid in the world’ among 2020's new plant discoveries.

Chemistry that delighted us in 2020. 

The year 2020 in space discoveries.

The Top Ten Ocean Stories of 2020.

The Most Intriguing Archaeological Discoveries of 2020.

The Top Ten Dinosaur Discoveries of 2020.

These Conservation Stories Prove 2020 Was Not All Bad News. 

The Biggest Climate Wins of 2020.

Five of 2020's Top Climate Grifters.

The best science images of 2020. 

See all the year-end lists here.


Year-end Lists 2020: Animals



2020 Year in Review: Amazing Animal Stories.

The Best, Funniest, and Most Heartwarming Pet Stories of 2020: A Year in Review.

The 20 Funniest Animal Stories of 2020. 


10 bizarre animal stories of 2020.

Wildlife success stories of 2020.

Heroes of 2020: My Cat—the Smartest, Best Cat. He Is Named Smarty Cat.

The Top Pet Products of 2020.



See all the year-end lists here.

10 Points to Ponder as 2020 Draws to a Close

1.  The dumbest thing I ever bought was a 2020 planner.

2.  2019: Stay away from negative people.
     2020: Stay away from positive people.

3.  The world has turned upside down. Old folks are sneaking out of the house & their kids are yelling at them to stay indoors!

4.  This morning I saw a neighbor talking to her cat. It was obvious she thought her cat understood her. I came to my house & told my dog....   We had a good laugh.

5.  Every few days try your jeans on just to make sure they fit. Pajamas will have you believe all is well in the kingdom.

6.  Does anyone know if we can take showers yet or should we just keep washing our hands?

7.  I never thought the comment, “I wouldn’t touch him/her with a 6-foot pole” would become a national policy, yet here we are!

8.  I need to practice social-distancing from the refrigerator.

9.  I hope the weather is good tomorrow for my trip to the Backyard. I’m getting tired of the Living Room.

10. Never in a million years could I have imagined I would go up to a bank teller with a mask on and ask for money.

(Thank, WTM!)


Year-end Lists 2020: Movies & TV

Sleepy Skunk's Move Trailer Mashup 2020 


Sleepy Skunk made an artistic and emotional mashup of the movies of 2020 with footage taken from their trailers. There's a list of the movies here. This video contains NSFW language.  

Movie theaters were closed most of this year, and many productions were postponed due to the pandemic. Movies that were ready to launch went to television and streaming services. Therefore, I am combining movies and television into one post for this year.

An Incomplete List Of TV And Movie Things To Be Thankful For In 2020.

The Pop Culture We're Thankful for Getting Us Through 2020.

2020 is the year of the Kind Movie — and it couldn’t have come at a better time. 

The Best (and Worst) of 2020 in Quarantine-themed Movies, TV Shows, Comedy, and More.

The Top 10 Movies Of 2020, According To Everyone.

Uproxx's
Best Movies Of 2020.

John Waters’s Top 10 movies of 2020.

The 13 best British movies of 2020.

Den of Geek's Best Horror Movies of 2020.

How Horror Helped Us Survive 2020. 

The Best Shots From Movies in 2020.

Entertainment Weekly's
10 best (and 5 worst) movies of 2020.

Variety's Worst Films of 2020.

2020’s Best Movie and TV Moments


Esquire's Best TV Series of 2020. 

Uproxx's Best TV Shows Of 2020.

io9's 12 Best (and 7 Worst) Television Shows of 2020.

Polygon's best TV shows of 2020.

The Daily Dot's
best TV shows we watched in 2020.

The Most Popular TV Shows on Netflix in 2020.

Buzzfeed's 12 Best Episodes Of TV In 2020.

The Best Animated Series of 2020. 

2020 was animation’s biggest, gayest year so far.

Uproxx's Favorite Television Performances Of 2020.

47 TV Character Deaths From 2020 That Were Heartbreaking And Shocking From Start To Finish.

Villains, Fake Names, And, Uh, Bull Semen: Uproxx's Very Specific TV Awards For 2020.

Den of Geek's Best TV Comedies of 2020.

23 TV Storylines That Deserve To Burn In The Dumpster Fire That Was 2020.

The Fictional Characters, TV Shows, and Movies We Lost in 2020.

See all the year-end lists here.



CinderFella



Todrick Hall produced this all-singing, all-dancing alternate take on the story of Cinderella. Watch for people you may recognize, like Lance Bass and Janice Dickenson. Well done! (via Metafilter)

Tweet of the Day

(via Nag on the Lake

Year-end Lists 2020: Music

United State of Pop 2020 (Something to Believe In)

In a year when there were almost no concerts, no music festivals, and hardly any live music even in small venues like bars, some songs managed to catch our ears. DJ Earworm is back with his annual remix of the biggest 25 songs of the year (in the USA). He calls it Something to Believe In. You'll find a list of the songs at YouTube

2020 Was The Year Of Protest Music.

Here Are The Most-Streamed Artists, Songs, Albums And Podcasts On Spotify In 2020.

The 2020 Uproxx music critics poll

NPR's 50 Best Albums Of 2020.

Rolling Stone's 50 Best Albums of 2020.

Uproxx's 50 Best Albums Of 2020.

Pitchfork's 50 Best Albums of 2020.

Uproxx's Best R&B Albums Of 2020. 

Paste's 10 Best Country Albums of 2020.

Jazzwise's Top 20 Jazz Albums of 2020. 

Uproxx's Best Hip-Hop Albums Of 2020.

18 Great Albums You Might Have Missed in 2020.

Pitchfork's 100 Best Songs of 2020.

Uproxx's 50 Best Songs Of 2020.

Rolling Stone's
50 Best Songs of 2020.

Pitchfork's 36 Best Rap Songs of 2020.

Pitchfork's 20 Best Music Videos of 2020.

See all the year-end lists here.


A 50-year Timeline of Pop Music by DJ Earworm



DJ Earworm put together instrumental snippets of 52 hit songs, one for each year from 1970 to 2020 (there's two for 1985). It's like a timeline of pop music, accurately called Time of Our Lives. The part you will like best starts at whatever year you turned 12. I knew all of them until they got to the years when I was raising children, then my recognition got a little spotty. There's a list of the songs used at the YouTube page.

Vaccine Tracker



It's going to be a long few months ahead until the vaccine is available to everyone. But the last ten months have been 15 years long, so we should be used to it by now. This comic is from Randall Munroe at xkcd.

Year-end Lists 2020: Books



Smithsonian's Best Books of 2020.

NPR's Best Books of 2020.

Esquire's Best Books to Elevate Your Reading List in 2020.

Time's 100 Must-Read Books of 2020.

Jason Kottke's Best Books of 2020.

Vox's 15 best books our book critic read this year.

The New York Times' 10 Best Books Of 2020. May be paywalled.

Here Are 20 Photo Books That Brought Us Joy In The Very Exhausting Year Of 2020.

Time's 10 Best Fiction Books of 2020.

Smithsonian's Ten Best Science Books of 2020.

The Guardian's best science books of 2020.

Smithsonian's Ten Best Books About Travel of 2020.

Smithsonian's Ten Best History Books of 2020.

The New Yorker's Best Cookbooks of 2020.

Smithsonian's Ten Best Books About Food of 2020.

The Guardian's best politics books of 2020.

The Guardian's best science fiction and fantasy books of 2020.

The Guardian's best sports books of 2020.

The New York Public Library's Best Books for Kids 2020.

The Guardian's best autobiography and memoirs of 2020.

27 Of The Best Romance Novels Of 2020.

Forbes' Best Graphic Novels Of 2020.

Nerdist's Best Comics of 2020.

Our Favorite Comic Moments of 2020.

The 89 Best Book Covers of 2020.



See all the year-end lists here.