While everything I’ve read by Stephenson has a slight tinge of insanity, The Big U takes the cake. It’s the story American Megaversity, a massive university complex somewhere in the north east. It’s basically a self contained city that has been built up over years. It follows a number of characters life at AM over the course of one school year. There are the live action role playing nerds, factuality advisors, computer geeks, class presidents, socialist terrorists, Mormon student groups, rail guns and giant heartless rats.

It becomes blatantly obvious when a piano, throwing out the window of one of the residential towers, crashes through the roof of one of the research labs that the school year is going to a bumpy one. I don’t want to give away too much of the story, but just know that as the school year continues to progress, life at American Megaversity continues to deteriorate.

The thing is, as crazy as the story was, it brought back some memories from college life. I did a good bit of throwing random object out of residential tower windows. Never a piano, but there was a desk chair and an entire roll of carpet. Stephenson wrote The Big U in the 80’s after leaving his own college experience behind. I guess it’s safe to say that some things never change.

The Big U is a wild, and almost completely unbelievable story but one that you have no reason to skip. Read it. Now. Better yet, buy it from Amazon and I get like thirteen cents!

Best Olympic Moment Not Involving Michael Phelps

The Olympics were two of the greatest weeks of 2008 and there were dozens of amazing moments ranging from the incredible Opening Ceremonies to the unforgettable I Love Beijing theme song. There were so many great moments this year it’s hard to choose just one that stands out. Ok, that’s a lie. There’s one moment that was far better than any other and is, quite frankly, the greatest moment in aquatic sports history. The Justie for the Best Olympic Moment Not Involving Michael Phelps goes to Jason Lezak’s amazing comeback in the 4×100 relay which won the USA a gold and created one hell of a story. There has never been a comeback quite like that nor has there been an instance of shear determination. Way to go Lezak, way to go.

Greatest Thing on TV

All in all, it’s been a pretty crappy year for TV. The Writers Strike cut a lot of seasons short and seemed to affect the quality of TV for this season as well. So the pool to draw from here is obviously pretty slim. But there were some stand outs. The Office and 30 Rock have been stellar and new shows Fringe and Life on Mars have been entertaining. But one show has been better than the rest, so the Justie for Greatest Thing on TV goes to Chuck. Chuck is consistently entertaining and just quirky enough to be endearing but it was “Chuck Verses Tom Sawyer” that pulled it in. Twin Galaxies, arcade games and Rush? Can’t get much better than that.

Best Unintentional Use of Keywords to Drive in Search Engine Traffic

People search for funny things on the internet. Some people spend tons of money and time trying to figure out the best combination of Julianne Hough, Will Smith, Taylor Swift, Britney Spears, Tom Cruise, the Jonas Brothers and Wil Wheaton to get their search engine ranking high enough for people to notice. Around here I do things a little different. I write things and then see how people find them. If a Miley Cyrus mention gets slipped in, well, so be it. It was earlier this year while perusing my site logs that I came across this category’s winner. The Justie for Best Unintentional Use of Keywords to Drive in Search Engine Traffic goes to this post about Chinese food and Kevin Smith’s Zack and Miri Make a Porno. I’ll let you figure out what people were searching for.

Crappiest Thing to Happen to Someone Other Than Me

A lot of crappy things happened in 2008 including hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, fires and a new Rambo movie. I jumped off a cliff and blacked out in the water, but I’m exempt from this category for obvious reasons. No, there was one crappy thing that unfortunately deserves this Justie; the Crappiest Thing to Happen to Someone Other Than Me Justie goes to the economy. Sure, I’m affected indirectly, but whatever. The economy pretty much sucked this year and have put hundreds of thousands out of work. Unfortunately it looks like it may get worse before it gets better but one thing is for certain, it will get better. Here’s to hoping that the economy earns the 2009 Justie for the Greatest Thing to Happen to Someone Other Than Me.

Most Addicting Social Media Outlet

Hello my name is Justin and I’m a social media addict. This year there were plenty of social media sites begging to earn an addiction: Facebook, Shelfari, Strands, and Last.fm just to name a few. But there was one that stood out far above the rest — possibly combined. The Justie for the Most Addicting Social Media Outlet goes to Twitter. I wasn’t the only one addicted either. Not only did twitt rank as one of the years ‘buzzwords’, but now CNN even takes comments — and in some cases breaking news — from Twitter.

Strangest Nuance in a City I’ve Traveled To

This one is a tough one to call. I’ve been a number of places this year including Seattle, The Bahamas, New Orleans, Key West, North Carolina, Georgia and Utah. In those various places I’ve seen a fair share of strange things, like the odd traffic lights on the highway in Seattle, but by far the Strangest Nuance in a City I’ve Traveled To goes to Utah. Why Utah? Their numbering of streets is absolutely ridiculous. Everything is laid out in a grid, which makes sense, but that grid is far too large. For instance, we had to turn from S 700 E onto E 10600 S. Does that make any sense? Then, thrown into the middle of that was State St which does make sense. I don’t get it. Way to earn that Justie, Utah.

Coolest Thing of the Year

Despite all the crappy things that happened, 2008 had it’s share of some pretty cool things. Myron Rolle won a Rhodes Scholarship and I read Snow Crash, both pretty cool. The Dark Knight made a ton of money while the Devil Rays won the American League without any. Tiger Woods had the comeback of his career and Bill Gates ended his. All of these things are pretty cool, but only one can win the Award. The 2008 Justie for the Coolest Thing of the Year goes to The Olympics.

It was going to be pretty hard to beat the summer games. They began with the coolest Opening Ceremony ever performed (no video links available, stupid NBC) and included some unforgettable moments, a lot of which occurred in the pool. Michael Phelps won a record setting 8 gold medals, which will probably never happen again. Countless records were broken, smaller countries shined and for a few weeks in August the world actually came together and enjoyed each others company. You can’t really get much cooler than that.

All the Justies have been handed out and I’ve got nothing left for 2008. The ball will soon drop and bring in 2009. Let’s see what happens.

I get to B&N and can’t seem to find Neal Stephenson in the fiction section. Perturbed, I ask the cute info-desk girl. Unfazed by my question she says that of course Stepheson isn’t in fiction because he’s in science-fiction. Now I don’t really understand why science-fiction is separated from the rest of fiction at B&N; there isn’t a separate section for tropical pirate-related fiction, or chase one clue to the next in museums around the world fiction. So why does sci-fi get segregated? Anyway, I found the book and take it to the counter to pay. The fine gentleman at the register rings up the book and then proceeds to tell me about the “unofficial sequel.” I told him I don’t know anything about this one so why should I be interested in the sequel. After listening to him for five minutes I was finally on my way.

Snow Crash takes place in the near future where the world has pretty much gone to pot. Cities are really just one franchise after another, inflation has run out of control, the government is basically for hire, and the mafia runs all pizza delivery. Yeah, you heard me. This is all Reality. Everyone in the story has a ’second life,’ if you will, in the Metaverse (the internet). They all show up on The Street represented by avatars — Stephenson wrote Snow Crash in 1992, I mean this guy was way ahead of his time.

So the book revolves around two main characters: Hiro Protagonist (for real, he’s pretty much the coolest character on the planet), a sword caring hacker/spook/pizza delivery boy, and Y.T. who’s a fifteen year-old skater-punk Kourier, which is basically a FedEx chick on a skateboard who ‘poons’ cars and skates the highway to make deliveries. This unlikely dynamic duo is on the hunt tracking down Snow Crash — which might be a new drug but it also might be a new Metaverse virus. Oh yeah, and the bad guy they’re hunting carries a nuclear warhead that’s wired into his head. If you’re not all of a sudden itching to read this book you might want to check your pulse.

The book is good. Real good. So good that one night I lost track of time and read till 2am, finishing it completely. Yeah, that’s right. I read a book in less than six months. I’m moving up. If you want to check this book out, don’t go to the library, don’t go to the store, buy it from Amazon and throw a few cents my way. Or, you know, don’t. I’ll never know.

Have you read Snow Crash? What’d you think about it? Isn’t Hiro the baddest guy on the planet? And what about that dentata? That thing is messed up! Let me know at the bottom of the page.