Illustration by Clayton Hanmer
- Torontoist selected their city’s Heroes and Villains of the year—complete with some of the coolest original illustrations you will see on the whole wide internet. (Boo NHL and Earth Hour! Hooray wildlife and Roy Halladay!)
- Seattlest got what they wanted from modern corporate rock.
- Chicagoist took note of some political intrigue when a state senator’s husband confronted her opponent at one of his fundraisers.
- Bostonist came up with some exciting beer-related and liquor-related holiday gifts.
- LAist sat back, relaxed, and gave Neil Young’s “Dreamin’ Man Live ’92” a listen, and found it often was better than the studio album those performances wound up preceding.
- Phillyist took a look at their best reader-submitted photos of 2009.
- Londonist bravely stripped off and joined dozens of other foolhardy lunatics for a gonad-shrivelling dip in an ice-encrusted pool at the Brockwell Lido mid-winter swim. Brrrr!
- Shanghaiist documented the implosion of one of the oldest English teaching schools in the city, Kaien English. It’s a stark reminder of how little protection many foreigners working in China really have.
- SFist snapped some shots of Lady Gaga.
- DCist was stunned when a police detective drew a gun at a friendly snowball fight in the middle of Washington, D.C.’s big winter storm.
- Gothamist broke news of a naked bike ride to protest the removal of a bike lane but a winter storm made it a bust, much to the disappointment of a cop who yelled, “I want to see some boobs.”
