Listmania 2008

Published 10:58 pm Sunday, December 28, 2008

All the cool kids are making their year-end top 10 lists, including Esquire, NPR and Google. We’re afraid they won’t let us sit with them at lunch anymore if we don’t make a list, too, so here are three suggestions for ending the old year and starting the new:

1) Buy some bubbly for your New Year’s Eve festivities. Experts suggest six sparkling wines that are inexpensive but still worth drinking. Their choices go for about $10 each, which means you can spend the rest of your budget on your favorite exotic hangover cure.

2) Clean out the attic. You never know what kind of pests might be lurking up there, as a Pennsylvania family discovered when police found a man living in their attic and wearing their clothes. The man allegedly made a Christmas list describing the items he is accused of stealing. Santa also brought him a couple things not on his list: an orange jumpsuit and a cozy jail cell.

3) Take cooking classes. The Web site rouxbe.com provides video lessons on using knives, making sauces and selecting pasta, among other things. One tip not provided by Rouxbe: How to cover your laptop in a protective layer of plastic wrap in case the lesson goes more explosively than shown in the video.