this kid stole his grandma's SUV because he likes doing hoodrat stuff with his friend.

Enter Kazoo Man performed by Mr. Tim



VS.

Snoop Dogg performing Sad But True

This has got us in full-on gibbering OMG THAT IS SOOOO KEWL mode. It's a fake trailer for a hypothetical Thundercats movie starring Brad Pitt, Hugh Jackman and Vin Diesel, made by cutting together footage from masterpieces such as The Chronicles Of Riddick, Troy, X-Men 2, Spy Kids and Farscape. It manages to not only be better than many of the source films, but also to get us more excited for a Thundercats movie than any real-life Thundercats movie possibly could.

Depressingly, it turns out there is actually a Thundercats movie in the works , and it will be entirely CGI and directed by a video game designer and it will almost certainly suck.

Stephen Fry
The National Treasure™ became an internet treasure as well this year, from the immense gadget reviews on his blog to his regular podcasts, to actually having proper conversations with fans on Twitter. A model for how to do online engagement. And that's without even mentioning his magical communicating testicles.

Spotify
While a gazillion online music services launched in 2008, Spotify is the one we just fell in love with. Instant, seamless streaming music from a huge library, that lets you share tracks with friends, collaborate on playlists, and more. And best of all, it’s free (there’s also a subscription option). It’s invite-only right now - but they’ve kindly given us a bunch of invites for Metro readers. It's on a first come, first served basis (and limited to UK users only) so you'll need to be quick. The invites have now gone - sorry. If you still really, really want one, leave a comment below with a valid email address, and we'll see what we can do. No promises, mind...



Parry Gripp
From the Hamster on a Piano to Spaghetti Cat, the absurbist, insanely catchy songs of Nerf Herder frontman Gripp captured the bizarre glories of minor internet memes.


The Big Picture
Easily the blog of the year, Alan Taylor's photoblog for the Boston Globe is stunningly simple - posting newsworthy photographs at a huge size. But it’s Taylor’s eye for the beautiful or shocking image that makes it such a must-read. Still doubtful? Check out his pictures of the year, or especially the incredible posts on the Sun and the Antartic.


Mars Phoenix
In the year that WALL-E enchanted cinema audiences, the real-life adventures of a robot alone on a desolate planet captured the hearts of internet users. The Mars Phoenix lander’s first-person online updates - on Twitter and for Gizmodo - talked about its work, answered questions, and announced major scientific discoveries announced major scientific discoveries on Twitter before they broke anywhere else. Actually the work of NASA news officer Veronica McGregor, the jokey, engaging tone made people quickly fall in love with the little enthusiastic robot. And as it slowly froze to death in the long Martian winter, millions of miles from home, its final messages - ‘Take care of that beautiful blue marble out there in space, our home planet. I’ll be keeping an eye from here’ - left more than a few people in tears.

The CCTV headquarters

This photo was taken inside a Taxi

Cousins in another taxi

Last week, New York Governor David Paterson proposed a state budget for 2009 that both reduces spending on essential programs and taxes everything save Tab and record albums. We'll let him explain his predicament to you:

This is another shot of thesweet-as-pie baby hippo.

Mom's wondering,"Does this angle make my butt look big?"

... and no matter how cute it already was, it only gets cuter I believe.

Time magazine has selected their person of the year. Guess what, it's President-elect Barack Obama. Yeah, ironically, Ebony magazine announced their person of the year, and it's Ed Begley Jr. Gay leaders are furious at Barack Obama because he picked an anti-gay minister to deliver a prayer during the inauguration ceremony. Yeah. Gay leaders are also furious at Obama because the tie he's planning to wear is all wrong.

President Bush is hosting a lunch next month with President-elect Obama and all the former presidents. Isn't that cool? Yeah. Bush said, 'I invited all 43 guys, but only four responded.' He doesn't know what happened.

We absolutely love, love, love this Flickr group dedicated to re-enacting scenes from Gary Larson’s wonderful Far Sides cartoons.


Our favourite so far is the polar bear pretending to be a penguin. Now, please, someone do'Cow Tools'

Image: Another Mouth To Feed by Cayusa from theFlicr Far Side Re-enactments pool, under a Creative Commons license.