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Culture Lust by Angela Carone

The Best of the Best of 2008 Lists

Liz Durrett Happy New Year, Culture Lusters.  Today is a day of new beginnings, bucket lists and resolutions, diet plans and newly purchased gym memberships.  It's a day of football, boring parades on television, and nursed hangovers.  In the south, it's all about black-eyed peas .  The media does a lot of recapping on this day and the internets are full of "best of" lists.  I compiled some of my favorites off-beat lists for you to read couchside. 

NPR has a great list of the 10 Best Unknown Artists from the year, with music included.  I love Liz Durrett's (pictured right) voice and am going to spend some quality time listening to Benji Hughes.  The A.V. Club publishes its band names from the year , possibly my favorite year-end list.  The metal genre always features some real doozies, like Engaged in Mutilating and Cemetary Rapist.  Band names from various other genres:  Your Kisses Cause Crashes, Funkmaster Cracker, Anthony Smith's Trunk Fulla Funk, and Shitty Shitty Band Band.  The list is long and truly magnificent!

If you're a big tv fan, than the A.V. Club has another list for you:  the best episodes from the best shows of the year.  I don't watch a lot of the shows on the list so I can't vouge for the curation, but the episode they picked from The Wire is a good choice so hopefully it's reflective of the overall quality. 

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Videogum has the Worst People of 2008 , which includes Kim Zolciak from Real Housewives of Atlanta , my one guilty pleasure, train wreck viewing experience of the year.  And here's a list of the 10 Worst DVD's of the Year .  I'm pretty sure KPBS film critic Beth Accomando would disagree with the inclusion of Sukiyaki Western Django .

The LA Times has the year's best and worst from the web.   Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog gets the props it deserves, as does Little Bill O'Reilly.  Cool Hunting chose their top five t-shirt designs of the year , as well as the top five art shows , buildings and green projects .  Those Cool Hunting folks know their stuff.

And finally, here are the New Yorker's most popular cartoons from the year.  Enjoy and cheers to a new lusty year in culture!

A big decision awaits some voters this July as the race for San Diego County’s Supervisor District 1 seat heats up. Are you ready to vote? Check out the KPBS Voter Hub to learn about the candidates, the key issues the board is facing and how you can make your voice heard.