2010

Yesterday we gave you the top 10 stories from Punching Kitty based on hard traffic numbers, today we have a list purely picked because we liked them the best. Favoritism at it’s finest. We picked this list completely independently from the previous “traffic” list so yes, there are a few on this one that also happened to get a lot of traffic.

Since we took care of the “wow what a year” crap in the last list, we won’t repeat the same stuff here and instead just hit you right in the face with #10:

10. Fox2′s “Web Center” is Apparently a Closet With a Computer in it

First on our list was a little post based on a little statement thrown out by local news channel Fox 2 when we had a video of theirs on in the background while looking for something to write about: “Live in the “Web Center,” George Sells. Fox 2 News.”

Ok this thing is a converted closet isn’t it?! It has to be. Somewhere there is a janitor pissed off he can’t keep his mop there anymore. Why go the trouble of calling this clearly random room with an outlet on one of the walls the “Web Center”…is it because this room has the good power strip?

Oh local news, you never cease to amaze us with your egotistical lameness.

9. KMOV’s Virginia Kerr Had Her Baby, Told Twitter ALL About It

Dupe! We mentioned this one on the other list. Nothing more to add.

8. 10 St. Louis Tips for the Hollidays

It seems like forever ago now, but it was just early January, 2010 when the Cardinals threw down the big bucks for outfielder Matt Holliday.  We celebrated with “Matt Holliday Day” and took a moment to give a little present to our new St. Louis residents: Some tips and a map…

2. If you ever drive west so far that don’t see gay or black people anymore, you’ve gone past 270.  Turn around.

3. Try the Imo’s.  Even if you don’t like it, say you do.

…

6. Keep this map we made you on you to find out where and where NOT to go. (Circles are good)

7. Cinco de Mayo on Cherokee Street

When pressed to name our favorite little of all the yearly St. Louis festivals and goings-on, Cherokee Street’s Cinco de Mayo will always be on that list. This year was no exception, with good food, crazy Mexican music we didn’t understand but others seemed to enjoy and lots of good photo opportunities. Our favorite was this shot from the parade:

6. Get Your 2010 St. Louis Themed Halloween Costumes Right Here

Anything were we got to Photoshop a zombie Tony LaRussa (which we really impressed ourselves with) and create a wig for Larry Rice that’s more realistic than he’s used to has to make the top ten list.

Oh, there was one other costume we made, but we’ll talk about that drunk little fella later…or just click #6 to see it now. A reminder: You’re an adult, so if you want to print out our costume and wear it tomorrow night, you go right ahead.

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Maybe you haven’t heard, but websites like lists. A lot. Especially at the end of the year. We promise to only throw a couple of these your way though. This is one of them.

2010 turned out to be a big year at Punching Kitty with every month bringing loads of new readers and record traffic, so just like last December, its a good time to take a look back at the posts the reading public found most attractive. This list is based purely on traffic which is kinda of a crap metric since things that the beginning of the year get an obvious boost, but it’s still the best we’ve got that this point. No matter, hopefully the new readers we’ve picked up will be able to catch up on the work we did earlier in the year.

Look for our Top 10  personal favorite stories list later this week.

10. St. Louis Sex Blog, The Beautiful Kind, Vanishes

A crazy year (that looks to continue in to 2010) for local sex blogger, then only known as “The Beautiful Kind”, all started when, with a flurry of cryptic tweets, her popular blog vanished from the internet. It didn’t take much to guess what happened though: The anonymous blogger had been outed.

The acclaimed, anonymous, and St. Louis based erotic blog The Beautiful Kind really felt like it was just starting to take off. Much like this very blog, it was included in the recent list of favorite blogs by the Riverfront Times and we kept hearing more and more people naming themselves as readers to the constantly updated titillating stories of threesomes, butt-sex [Editor’s Note: Is butt-sex hyphenated?] and partner swapping.

Though we aren’t sure of the time of the change, some time yesterday thebeautifulkind.com was removed along with all of its content and replaced with a message from “TBK’s web guru” admitting that “the site will remain closed until further notice.”

She weathered that storm though, to only find herself in a few others later in 2010 after bringing her blog back, all of which we dutifully reported on while trying our damnedest to not “insert” too many dick jokes in to the reporting of her seriously crazy year.

9. Craigslist: Anyone Seen the Cardinals Team We Had In April?

So…maybe you heard about this one…because it was freaking everywhere in September. Deadspin.com’s Will Leitch had it on his personal blog, it was mentioned in the Post Dispatch as well as countless random Cardinals, Reds, and Cubs blogs. All we did was post a Craiglist ad looking for the Cardinal team we had in April.

Here’s how we thought it would go when we came up with the idea: We liked the idea of the post (obviously) but were worried that it was too short, not enough jokes, and would get yanked from Craigslist in about two seconds since jokes don’t usually last long on there in the “serious” buying and selling pages.

Never underestimate how much this town loves it’s Cardinals and how pissed off we were last year.

8. Brad Penny’s Girlfriend is Straight Bangin’ Yo

…speaking of the lost Cardinal season of 2010, remember when Brad Penny made a pit stop in St. Louis to throw a few innings, hit a grand slam and then head for the trainers room? Good times. Apparently we all took solace in the fact that at least this square-headed, paper mache pitcher has drug the pineapple through quite a few sexy ladies in his day. At the time we hypothesized:

Jesus, its like this guys privates are made of dark chocolate.

In a related story Ray King recently drew a face on a pillow and named it Sarah.

We hear Ray King and his pillow girlfriend are still doing well.

7. Apparently People Don’t Like Dan McLaughlin

Portly Cardinals broadcaster Dan McLaughlin makes his first appearance on this list in the post about how no one likes him. Fun times for Danny Mac.

It all started with that “De-motivational” poster someone made in his honor and ended with us receiving a few comments and an inbox full of “Here’s why I think Dan McLaughlin is a douche bag…” stories.

If we have to pick one…

some of the security guys at busch loathe the guy. the one constant in all the stories i’ve heard are the “do you know who i am?” types of responses they get to the “sir, you can’t park your car in a fire zone”, etc. normally you wouldn’t think too much of it, it’s just that the only other story like this i’ve heard from these same people are about barry bonds.

if you think about all the huge personalities from all reaches of the media that these people see on a daily basis, if the only stories of prickish behavior i get are about dan mclaughlin and barry freaking bonds…well, it’s not going to leave a great impression.

6. Hopeville Homeless Camp Not Gone, Just Somewhere Else Now

This one was a surprise. Apparently people are interested in where hobo tent forts are forming in town, or Hopeville, the newly located homeless camp, got wifi.

We think it was our awesome tip to have homeless people invest in a St. Louis/San Fran startup Square-based payment system.

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Nothing like a bet no one knows or cares about with a city we are clearly better than on a field of play that probably ranks in the top 10 most boring bets of all time to get a city of people excited about something! In an effort to get Missourians excited about the 2010 Census, Mayor Slay and Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser have agreed on a friendly competition to see which City improves its Census mail-in response by the highest percentage from 2000-2010. [Read More]