A series on the stuff that delighted us on the Internet this year.

I grew up in Massachusetts but at the other end of the state from Boston, so I never really got into the Boston Globe. Not that I imagine my friends who grew up near Boston were all obsessed with the Boston Globe or anything. God, I am being so boring right now, aren't I? This boringness is not something I would indulge in on a blind date. But what I am trying to do—and this is a segue I would never use on a blind date—is talk about my absolute favorite thing on the internet, which [...]

Nevada is a swing state; California is blue. During the presidential elections it's a regular thing for Californians to go to Nevada to campaign on behalf of their chosen candidate. I spent six hours on Saturday knocking on doors in a subdivision in South Reno assessing people's support for President Barack Obama, and, where appropriate, attempting to convince them to vote for him. Below is a log of my experience. I knocked on about forty doors but only talked to about 18 people. In the spaces of time between log entries, I was just covering ground and leaving literature for people who were not home.

6:25 Was picked up at [...]

That New York Times Magazine's article on the dangers of yoga has made a lot of people mad. It didn’t really make me mad—I do too much yoga to get mad, though I do still sniff disdainfully—but I did want to address why many of the arguments in it are totally lame.

1. The Times' health coverage often gives way to local news-flavored hysteria. You can’t expect the Sort of People Who Tend to Read The Times to freak out about Amber Alerts and Child Molesters. The readership simply isn’t concerned with anything that has no direct effect on them, unless that thing is cool (design), epic in [...]

Coming across a guide of "18 Common Phrases to Avoid In Conversation," I was struck by the rightness of the article's aim: Some things should indeed never be said. But the alternate conversational choices offered by the magazine seemed a bit passive aggressive to me —for example, "Is everything OK?" as a substitute for "You look tired." Naturally, I felt it was my duty to come up with some satisfactory alternatives.

Don’t say: “I could never wear that.” Why: It can be misunderstood as a criticism. (“I could never wear that because it’s so ugly.”) Instead: Suppose you meet up with a girlfriend at a party and her outfit [...]

When I read last fall that Marc and J.Lo were designing clothing line at Kohl’s, I thought, well, now they can’t break up. Who else besides each other could they really expect to weather the shame? I mean, J.Lo is an international superstar. Marc Anthony is a gross international superstar. Kohl’s is the place that everyone thinks is Mervyns and already closed.

To refer to this particular Sacramento-area Kohl’s store as “open” is an overstatement. The place is humid with recession and whatever it is that keeps fabric from rotting in storage containers. At 1 p.m. on a Sunday, the only people around seemed mostly up to no good, like [...]

Nine year old Betty Parris rolled over in bed. Her heavy fur blanket flopped over her face and she gagged. “This thing smells like smoke, fur trapper B.O. and beaver asshole,” she said, pushing it away. “I can’t believe that guy Pierre had the nerve to tell Father it would come out.”

Her cousin and bedmate, Abigail Williams, age 11, rubbed her eyes and sat up. “It really does stink,” she said. “But don’t worry. That place where Pierre lives is going to be called Canada someday, and every time he turns around he'll see this stupid restaurant with bad coffee called Tim Hortons. Everyone will tell him the donuts [...]