I'm hitting the road for New Year's, so you won't be hearing from me for about a week. Thanks for all your readership this year, and best of luck to all in 2007.

Last week, in observance of Festivus, I recapped all the things that disappointed me in 2006. In truth, I don't have bad days, just days that aren't as great as usual. And I'd like to end the blogging year on a positive note, highlighting those things that I really enjoyed.

As usual, you won't get much of a glimpse into my private life — it's defined as such for a reason. Rather, I touch on familiar banal interests I typical document in this space. Trust that 2006 was a great year all around, and there's not enough time in the day to get to everything.

• I Didn't Die: My No. 1 goal every year is to not die. Before embarking on something, I might ask myself, "Will this kill me instantly?" If the answer is yes, I don't do it. Thus, I don't eat from NYC street vendors.

• Poker: My latest mutli-hour-a-day addiction, joining previous winners Guitar, Madden & GTA: Vice City for Playstation 2, Internet Surfing and all-time winner Yankees Baseball. I wrote about my first week playing poker online for real money (albeit at micro-stakes 5-cent/10-cent blinds). Around 20,000 hands later, I'm up to $418 on my $100 investment, which is +3,180 big blinds over a four-month period. I've found the competition at 10-cent/25-cent tables to be discernibly tougher (opponents play less trouble hands, actually re-raise in position to make decisions tough for opponents betting into them, and post much more often on poker forums), so I stick with the ultra-cheapies and play, in essence, for fun only.

Eventually, I'll convince myself that I should log much more time in the 25-cent arena, since I'm already average there, and I'm just leaving money on the table if I can ascend — as I did at the 10-cent games — from middle-of-the-road to consistent winner. A new blueprint will have to be crafted, of course.

Interestingly, my few $1/$2 stints at live casinos (profitable, overall) seemed easier to beat than 25-cent games online.

• Playstation Portable: God's gift to air travel. Even a game like Madden 07, with 22 players on the relatively small screen (though it is the largest in the portable game console category) works great, and I've got about 100 songs on the media card as well. A high percentage of PSP games listed on Metacritic received glowing reviews.

• Fantasy Fest: Could very well be the most fun week I've ever experienced. Definitely on the to-do list for 2007.

• Boston Massacre: How sweep it was when the Yankees went into Boston — up 1½ games in the AL East — for what was supposed to be a grueling, five-game, late-August series, only to leave the Red Sux in a pile of rubble. Manny Ramirez left Monday's series finale with a cramp in his right hamstring, and no one's seen him since. (Nice third-place finish, by the way.)

• New York Giants' Home Schedule: The games got bigger and bigger, from the season-opening Manning Bowl to the divisional swing game against the Redskins that was going to leave us either a hopeful 2-2 or hampered 1-3, to a battle for NFC supremacy against the Bears in prime time, to chance after chance after chance against the Cowboys, Eagles and Saints to get some kind of grip on a playoff spot. Ticket holders couldn't ask for anything more ... except for a team to show up once in awhile.

• DVR: My RCN service touted a new digital video recording service with a Tivo-like engine (abilities to search for scheduled programs by keyword, title and genre; record one program while watching another) for about $9 over what I was paying a month. And somehow I got five channels for each of the premium movie networks, like Skinemax, Showtime, The Movie Channel, Starz, etc., in additional to HBO, of which I was already a subscriber. Sounds too good to be true, but I ain't calling to complain about my bill.

• Traveling: Had great times in Key West, Las Vegas, San Diego, Chicago, South Florida, Jamaica and trips to Tampa, Philadelphia and Baltimore to see the Yanks. And then I came home to the best city in the world.

• Sales: I'm allergic to retail. Thank you, Internet, and all you've done to create immense competition among sellers.

• Yankees Fans: Another record attendance, both at home and on the road. Rest assured, our day is coming. These postseason disappointments have come just when personal publishing has exploded. But every Yankees blogger, podcaster, Photoshopper and YouTube junkie knows that when World Series championship No. 27 becomes reality, we're going to hit back twice as hard as we've taken over the past few years. If you're a Yankees hater, you're gonna loathe the Internet for at least a year after.

• Syracuse's Big East Tournament Run: What a week for Gerry McNamara. We went from a team unlikely to get an NCAA bid to a No. 5 seed in a four-day span. Many considered the super-sized Big East to be the best league in NCAA hoops history, we were the official champions. That's back-to-back, Jack.

• So Much More, But It's 2 a.m. and I Have to Pack... 2006 rocked.

Also See:

• My 2006 Web Finds — All my wacky-link posts in a 2006 that featured the "chili dog" sex act, a carpenter who got caught working in the nude (again), "Whores in the news" action figures, Atari 2600's cum-catching game, a contest to date Ron Jeremy, a bacon-flavored air-freshener and more!