Top Ten of 2010

It is That Time of the Year--the time for doing memes and making lists. Many blogs and websites do format or genre-specific lists (such as SPIN's annual best records, best singles, best reissues, and so forth), but I refuse to be tied down! Thus my year-end list is all over the map. In no particular order, behold Diana's Top Ten of 2010:

10. Best news site: The Wild Hunt. Specifically geared toward pagan and other minority religious news, The Wild Hunt is penned by Jason Pitzl-Waters, a thoughtful, excellent journalist all around. The comments are full of a great variety of people from many religions and paths, and though there are occasional dust-ups, remain some of the most civil comment threads I've seen anywhere online.

9. Best radical feminist: or at least most amusing and incisive, is Twisty Faster of I Blame the Patriarchy. Her strident, hyperbolic, generally loud style of news reporting (and I use these adjectives in complete awe and appreciation) make for reading that is both fun and--to use one of her signature phrases--lobe-blowing.

8. Best boyfriend: mine, of course! Dear manfriend, for cooking, cleaning, taking care of the furry bastards, downloading Wham!'s entire catalogue to your phone before we drove to Georgia, and generally being awesome, here's to you.

7. Best heavy metal album: Poetry for the Poisoned, Kamelot's newest offering (of course! I am nothing if not predictable). View the video for their single "The Great Pandemonium" here on their MySpace page.

6. Best movie: haters gonna hate, but make way for Inception. And people, there was a metric FUCKTON (to be scientific about it) of Movies Diana Loved this year. But the Nolan tour-de-force takes the cake--for making lucid dreaming seem possible, for giving us Tom Hardy, JGL, and Ken Watanabe in snazzy suits, for making pranking your friends a lot easier. The prank, of course, is setting your most neurotic friend's alarm clock to play "Non, je ne regrette rien" when he or she wakes up in the morning.

5. Best blog for news, opinion, storytelling, and more from women of color and other minorities: Womanist Musings. The author/editor, Renee Martin, blogs her own views and news as well as welcoming contributors of all stripes.

4. Best paranormal fantasy book: Queen of Shadows by Dianne Sylvan. Not Sylvan's first book (her others include The Circle Within and the excellent The Body Sacred), this is her debut fiction effort, a sexy, funny, smart entry into the ever-widening canon of vampire-centered fiction. Bonus: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Serenity shout-outs!

3. Best fuck-you song: "Fuck You" by Cee Lo Green, of course. Duh.

2. Best validation of my wit: Topless Robot's Superhero Tweets contest gave my entry an honorable mention. As Kamelot would say, ONE DAY I'LL WIN.

1. Best friend: as ever, the witty, smart, compassionate, inimitable DR SHE BLOGGO. Newish to the blogosphere, her blog is already linked all over the web (mainly for her Glee insights and awesome graphics). Read! Follow! Love!