GregHowley.com

Now that 2007 is over, "best of" lists are popping up all over the place. So I thought it was only right to give my 2007 Book of the Year, Gadget of the Year, Game of the Year, and Movie of the Year.

Firstly, my Book of the Year. Here, I'm cheating: I'm referring not to books released this year, but rather to books I've read this year. I'd wanted to say that World War Z was my book of the year, but I actually read that one in late 2006. In 2007, the best book I read was The Golden Compass. I haven't yet seen the movie, which I'm sure isn't nearly as good as the book, but the book created an awesome alternate universe, vaguely steampunk in nature, and wove a fantastic story. The sequels weren't as good, but The Golden Compass was teriffic.

My Gadget of the Year would have to be my Samsung YP-U2J mp3 player. I love this thing. It looks and functions as a 2GB USB drive, but you can drag and drop mp3 files into it and then play them back without any extra equipment save headphones. It charges while it's plugged into the USB port, with no cables. It's better than an iPod because not only do I need no cables, I need no special software.

Game of the Year lists are everywhere this time of year. But I won't be giving my award to Halo 3 or Bioshock. Neither have I yet played Call of Duty 4, although it's sitting here on my desk right now. My game of the year is Portal. I loved that game. Aside from Portal, which is my game of the year for PC, (and 360, which I don't own) I'd have to give PS2 game of the year to God of War 2 and Wii Game of the Year to Super Mario Galaxy. I'll also give Nintendo DS game of the year to Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, which beats out Puzzle Quest by a narrow margin.

Lastly, my movie of the year. While I enjoyed Children of Men and I Am Legend, my movie of the year is a comedy: Knocked Up. Linda and I saw it a week or two after Lia was born, and the pregnancy/birth story really struck a chord with us. Also, it was damn funny. Too bad all the humor is about sex and drugs, because now I can't share the fun with family members.