This Is Definitely the Best Podcast That You’ll Watch Today

Well, friends, if you have a few hours (literally!) to kill over the next little while, you could do much worse than to spend them with the team at A-to-J Talks and lil ol’ me talking about the best stuff from 2016.


It actually happened in 2016, too!

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An Actual 2016 Year in Review in Review

Hot damn, amigos, 2016 finally died the cold, inexorable death that it deserved, and it’s already being remembered as what the cool kids these days are calling a “corker.” Inexplicable election results! Shocking losses of beloved personalities! Confusing and sometimes discomfiting international developments. And that’s just in the world of idol!

With everything that happened, including this here website (/thumbs to suspenders), I figured that just recapping the best of it would be kind of boring, so we can do that and also talk about all the gawdawful shitty things, too.

Sound fun? Great. Continue reading

The Best Podcast of 2016 Award Will Not Go to This Episode

Oh man.

Yep. We’re doing this. It’s gonna get gnarly. Continue reading

Your Homicidols Best of 2016

You people drive me crazy! In eight full days to vote, you still managed to have ties from the first ballot right up through early last evening, and you didn’t fare that much better on the other ballots. I’m kidding, of course; the reality is that this was in a lot of ways a commentary on the diversity of our community and at-times-unexpected preferences off the beaten path. It was also an emphatic boot stomp in a number of categories as somebody’s very good year meant that they dominated the results.

There are winners here based on voting, but every person, group, incident and song that was nominated is worthy of praise, and those that made it this far deserve a lot of respect for winning hearts and minds. What follows is your preference, though, paired with my own commentary (I OWN THIS PLACE!) for reference in the Match a Maniac Challenge.

Special thanks as always to Kerrie for providing the artwork (BUY HER STUFF), and thanks of course to our gifts donors from NECRONOMIDOL and PiGU, both of whom deservedly figured among your finalists and will no doubt be a big part of what we talk about in 2017 and beyond.

Without (additional) further ado, I give you your Best of 2016: Continue reading

The 2016 Homicidols Best of the Year, Ballot 3

Major prize update! Go read here if you like cool stuff and want to get some

We made it! This is the last segment of voting for the Best of 2016. Ballot 2 and Ballot 1 are still open if you need to revisit or add your votes for the first time. Remember: If you want to be in the running for prizes, you need to have completed all three ballots.

We’ve been through some tough choices so far, gang, and let me tell you that what I know of the tallies so far says that you collectively have had a tough time — we’ve had a lot of great stuff to choose from! But now it’s down to brass tacks for some of the most important stuff going.

Get ready to vote! Continue reading

The 2016 Homicidols Best of the Year, Ballot 2

Ballot 2 is upon us! Ballot 1 is actually still open if you’d like to take a pass at it and be in the running for the Guso Drop CD+poster and/or potentially any other goods that make it. Details on that, and other things, here.

This round is quite the challenge, team. The B-side and Video of the Year categories were both plenty dramatic on the first ballot (with drama continuing to unfold!); I can only imagine how some of these are going to shake out.

Ready? Continue reading

The 2016 Homicidols Best of the Year, Ballot 1

Hey gang! As I mentioned, the ballot for this year’s community best-of awards is being broken up into three pieces so as for everything to be a little more manageable.

Before you begin, take a few minutes to consider these various things, if you haven’t already. If you have already, fyi, a few details were changed a little bit to make things better; nothing substantive, just logistics around the prize process.

Ready? Continue reading

Best of 2016 Voting Closes Soon — Last Call!

Voting’s Closed!

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Take Maniac’s Best of 2016 Challenge

Before we actually kick off voting for the Best of 2016, team, I thought I’d actually get around to introducing the You vs. Me component so it makes a little bit more sense.

See, you’re all smart, tasteful people. You’re here, after all! I, however, am the smartest and tastefulest and will brook no argument, and while I won’t be making any direct interventions into the community’s vote for the best of the year, I will nonetheless make my own thoughts known.

I’ve asked a genuine panel of experts* to vouchsafe my submissions; the task before you (should you dare to take it on!) is to see just how well you know your Homicidol Maniac. Using the ballot below, select for each category not your own favorite, but what you think mine is. Continue reading

Your Nominees for the Best of 2016, Adjusted

You guys know that I think you’re all great, but I want to drive that point home: You’re great! You’ve been very contributory over the last month+ while we got down to the brass tacks of 2016’s very best (or worst, as the case may be), and I could not be happier or more appreciative. Give yourselves a virtual round of applause!

Before I share the post-pre-final nominees, a word on process:

  • Final voting will begin on Dec. 12 and run until Dec. 17
  • The game element, Match A Maniac, will run Dec. 7-10
  • I’m waiting on confirmation from some people about prizes, but there might be some!

Now, there has been consternation about November and December happenings being left out of the best-of process; here is where we address that.

  • The by-category final nominees are on the other side of the jump. These were determined by aggregate totals from the pre-finals, with an adjustment explained below*. If you have other questions, feel free to ask; I’m just trying to save space here.
  • If you have an incident, release, etc. that isn’t on a finals list, it can still make the finals if:
    1. You nominate it out loud in the comments, like “I want to include Zenkimi’s Anima Animus PRDX in the finals.”
    2. You and enough other people muster enough post-nominations for what you support to match the lowest pre-vote total of the nominees who made it in.
    3. Nothing will be removed from the lists, so just consider that; is what you’re nominating at least as good/bad as what’s there, or better/worse? Or are you just trying to advance a personal favorite?
    4. Also, anything that was involved in the earlier nominations is exempt. Sorry, losers!

Feel free to ask any questions about process and whatnot. I’ll keep this open through Tuesday, Dec. 6. Now, are you ready to see your finalists? Continue reading