Wow – time flies when you move to a new city, a friend visits, and you’re busy as hell with work. I haven’t been as diligent with my “Best of 2009″ challenge posts as I had anticipated, so I’m going to do the speed version to catch up to the current day and hopefully I can maintain a more consistent pacing throughout the rest of the month.

Best Blog Find of the Year: The best blog find of the year was easily NY Mag’s Daily Intel’s Gossip Girl Recap. I could probably come up with a list of great bloggers that are far removed from Traditional Media, but there is something amazing about the snarky, hilarious, and spot on recaps of the Greatest Show of Our Time. It’s the one blog that I honestly anticipate each Tuesday Morning and Friday Afternoon (where, in true Social Media/UGC glory – they take the best comments from the Tuesday recap.) Sadly, when there isn’t a new show (like for the next few months), there isn’t a recap…so I’ll just wait with bated breath until Gossip Girl is new again and I can get my fix…

Best Moment of Peace: Peace is not an adjective that I would have used to describe the year. Hectic, crazy, and consistently at 11 are more accurate descriptors. My most relaxing moments came in Orlando during Izeafest. It was probably the first time I relaxed all year – enjoying the central Florida sunlight and lounging poolside. A lot of my life came into focus then and set the tone for my move and everything that happened since….

Best Challenge: I think dealing with an unhappy work environment was the hardest thing I had to do this year. I don’t air “family business” on the internet, but it was a trying time emotionally and professionally – which ultimately precipitated this epic move back to New York. That’s all I’ll say for now, but I’m always up for discussing things over drinks…

Album of the Year: Wow – this year was the first year where I would struggle to identify an album that really impressed me. The closest I would come to is either the Dirty Projector’s Bitte Orca or Yeah Yeah Yeah’s It’s Blitz. Those really win by default, as I haven’t really consumed much new music this year.

Best Place: The place I spent the most amount of time in was probably The Cup in Boulder. It was my favorite coffee shop. My favorite place to waste a weekend day. My favorite place to get work done, to meet with friends, to enjoy fun banter from the employees. I already miss having a place like that here in New York. It was just cozy – felt better than home – and that’s a tough ambiance to capture.

New Food: I’m not very adventurous with food, so I’m not sure I actually even had something “new” this year. I ate more sushi than I ever did but that was more due to a higher threshold for disposable income and greater access to good and inexpensive sushi.

Best Change You Made to Where you Live: I moved to New York

Best Rush: Not appropriate to write here…..

Best Packaging: It didn’t come out last year but I discovered it: Mad Men’s Season 1 packaging. Awesome.

Whew – that was tough to catch up. Now I am and I’m happy. I’ll make sure to get all of these done before the New Year – even if my next post ends up being on the 31st full of the next 16…..