the best of 2005: random cool stuff

In totally random order:

1. Resident Evil 4: This installment, featuring the ultracool Leon S. Kennedy, is extremely difficult, occasionally frustrating, and the most fun I've had playing a video game in a donkey's age. Between the Gamecube version and the PS2 version, I bet G and I have logged at least 100 hours of game time, and it's STILL fun!

2. Haunting Ground: An unusual take on the survival horror genre. You play as Fiona, a buxom British teenager who finds herself being chased by freaks through a castle. Fortunately, she has a brave canine companion, Hewie, to help her out along the way. (I fear the inevitable doujinshi featuring Fiona and Hewie.) Fun extras upon completing the game include a movie gallery, character sketches, and costumes ranging from the Texas Cowgirl (a patriotic bikini, cowboy hat, and chaps) to Illegal in Some States (a black S&M number complete with riding crop).

3. Shojo Beat: An English-language manga magazine? Yes indeed, and they actually picked a great selection of stuff, too, from the gothic (in the original sense of the word, not the trendy Hot Topic sense) creepiness of Godchild to the alternately funny and poignant Nana.

4. Minnie Wilde Magic: This perfume smells like tigerlilies and sunwarmed skin slathered with Bain de Soleil to me, and it's basically Spanish fly in a bottle.

5. "Starved": A hysterically funny, unrepentantly offensive sitcom about a group of New Yorkers with some serious food issues.

6. The Owls: I just discovered this band, but damn, they're good. My favorite songs are "Air", one of the best breakup songs I've ever heard, and "Luck", which sounds like something you'd listen to while driving all alone at night in a melancholy mood.

7. True Lemon: Thanks to these handy little packets of crystallized lemon juice, I'm drinking way more water than I used to.

8. Ben & Jerry's Uncanny Cashew: My new favorite ice cream flavor...well, after blue moon.

9. Jack FM: The radio station that dares to follow Supertramp with Moby.

10. The Chappelle Show: Yes, I'm very late to this party, but I had never seen the show before G introduced me to it, and now I am thoroughly convinced of Dave Chappelle's genius. "Fuck yo' couch, Eddie Murphy!" Too bad he hit the brakes.