obligatory best of 2018 post
December is upon us, which means all the legitimate, sophisticated, actual bloggers and journalists are publishing their “best of 2018”, lists. Clearly, I am a legitimate journalist, so I’m contractually obligated (by nobody) to make some lists. As usual, I cannot promise these lists will be relevant or useful. Enjoy!
Favorite New Houston Bar of 2018
Approximately 7,532 bars opened in Houston this year, if my math is correct. So I’m calling it a three-way tie between these places that I somehow found myself coming back to the most. All of them have been conveniently mentioned in previous posts, so I’ll save myself the trouble of telling you about them again here. Truckyard became my go-to pre- and post-game Astros spot. Saint Arnold Beer Garden I guess isn’t technically a bar, but it’s a great place to watch games (and celebrate birthdays…). Pitch 25 is just awesome, despite the whole soccer thing.
Favorite New Houston Restaurant of 2018
Unfortunately, due to my travel schedule and my tendency to just go to my old favorite places repeatedly (my diet is 75% Local Foods), I did not try enough qualifying restaurants to make an informed decision in this category.
Favorite New Coffee Shop
This was tough, but I’m going to go with Coral Sword because of the whole Hunter Pence thing. This is (kind of) an Astros blog, after all. (Who am I kidding; this blog is about nothing.)
Other coffee shops that opened this year: The Yellow Cup, Tea & Victory, Amaya (in Finn Hall), Coterie, Giant Leap (I think was this year).
Favorite Non-New Place That I Only Discovered In 2018
Eight Row Flint. Wait, I technically "discovered” it in late 2017. I can’t even pick places that fit my own weirdly specific completely arbitrary made up categories. But let’s add this to my ever-growing list of “bars that have an excellent drink selection and also legitimately great food and also an amazing patio that are also low-key good for Instagram.” No seriously. I have made this list.
Favorite Song(s) of 2018
Without a doubt, it’s “Hangout at the Gallows” by Father John Misty, which I listened to approximately 23,000 times this year. Also “Nice For What” by Drake. Judge me. Oh, and “High Horse” by Kacey Musgraves is basically a disco masterpiece.
Favorite Random Picture I Found On My Phone While Working On This Post
A LLAMA IN REAL LIFE! Also, HOW have I never been to the Renaissance Festival before this year?! I had SUCH a great time. And threw axes.
Favorite Non-Houston City I Visited in 2018
After spending half an hour in Portland, Maine on a solo day trip in July, I was basically ready to move there, but then I remembered the whole cold weather in the winter thing. Coffee shops and breweries and food EVERYWHEREEEE!
Favorite Meal Of 2018
Killen’s. Duh. Brisket (if you don’t order fatty brisket you’re wrong), whatever sides I’m feeling that day, and bread pudding for dessert. Always.
Best Impulse Purchase 2018
Fun Liz Fact: I am addicted to subscription boxes. I signed up for a coffee / vinyl record subscription, appropriately called “The Good Thing Club” from Tandem Coffee Roasters, which I discovered during my trip to Maine. It’s the best thing I get in the mail every month…including all, uh, three of the beauty boxes I’m subscribed to…
Favorite Astros Moment of 2018
That would be the Alex Bregman walk-off pop-up.
Coolest Thing I Did in 2018 (Houston Related)
After working a rodeo event (I would also highly recommend volunteering for the rodeo if you can get in on a good committee), my friend and I took an, uh, unofficial, unsupervised “tour” of the Astrodome. It was awesome. But also maybe a questionable life choice. #YOLO.
Favorite Podcast of 2018
My favorite podcast of this year, last year, and every year is called the Poscast, and it’s pointless and about nothing and when I get the notification every two(ish) weeks that a new episode is available it improves my entire day. Every person I’ve ever tried to describe it to has thought I was insane, so make of this “recommendation,” if you can even call it that, what you will.
Weirdest Thing I Found on the Internet in 2018
Y’all, I found my doppleganger this year. It’s the woman in this stock photo. I was mindlessly scrolling through Facebook one day, as one does, and when I saw this article go by, for a split second I thought it was a picture of me. I meannn….
Favorite Pic I Took At Lil’s
If you followed my Insta story at all during my six months in New Hampshire (did I mention I spent six months in New Hampshire? I feel like I don’t talk about that enough), you saw a picture of my favorite coffee place in Kittery, Maine, Lil’s, at least three times a week. It was (well, still is, I suppose) the cutest little bakery, with the best coffee in the area and really good crullers (which apparently are not a thing here)…and IT HAS A LITTLE RECORD STORE INSIDE. Ugh, I low-key miss it (and my teenage cousins think I don’t know how to use the youth lingo…). My daily Lil’s Insta story usually featured a temperature sticker, some exposed brick, and / or a cruller. Anyway, these are my favorites.
Most Extra Thing I Did in 2018
I threw what was probably the best Galentine’s Day party of all time (except the ones hosted by Leslie Knope herself, obviously). There were mini waffles, homemade frittatas, three different flavors of mimosas, a photo booth, gift bags, an official playlist curated by me (had to fit an insufferably pretentious phrase in this post somewhere), and a custom Snapchat filter. Because leave it to me to do my best party planning work when it involves a made up holiday from a television show that ended three years ago.
Favorite Tweets of 2018
I laughed at both of these tweets for a solid ten minutes each. One of them because it’s one of the funniest and stupidest things I’ve ever seen (and only makes sense if you’ve seen Frasier), and the other one because it’s way too real.
Hey baby I hear the blues a-callin' pic.twitter.com/yKSDR1TaPM
— Sean Leahy (@thepunningman) February 8, 2018
Nobody talks about Jesus' miracle of having 12 close friends in his 30s
— Mor-Manger (@Mormonger) March 18, 2018
Last Category.
And finally, since we are now sufficiently off-topic, these are my favorite YouTube videos that I discovered in 2018, neither of which were created in the year 2018.
And on that note…I’m not even going to try to come up with a good closing line here. How could I possibly top any of those Tweets / videos created by people who are actually funny?!
Here’s to hoping I discover even more awesome (or at least, awesome to me) stuff in 2019.
<3 liz
