Welp. 2020 is officially over. This was by far one of the strangest and trying years I have experienced. While most of our plans to travel, attend concerts and weddings, coach lacrosse and enjoy time with family and friends were interrupted, I still found ways to make 2020 the best I could for me. I was able to transform my fitness by exercising every day since April 1st. I watched more TV shows than ever before, and continued to enjoy podcasts, music, movies and YouTube videos. I had a successful year of blogging, writing about my monthly challenges that I began back in April. I ended up blogging 14 times and even though I did not produce any new vlogs, I did kick my video editing into gear, finishing up 10 videos since November 24th. Here are my “best” lists from 2020.
You can find my best lists from the previous 6 years here: 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014
Best Moment: In 2020 I ran my first marathon, biked over 1500 miles, completed 20K pushups, crunches and squats, but there was no greater moment than on December 4th when we got a new puppy! Cheddar is officially a part of the family. Such a loving, snuggly, sweet boy who makes us so happy every day. Watch the video of the night we picked him up
Best Vacation: Vacation is great, unfortunately we didn’t go anywhere in 2020 because of Covid. We had plans to go to Arizona, New York, California, and some other spots, but instead we were only able to drive to South Haven, Michigan. Still a solid trip!
Best TV Show: I watched more TV this year than ever before. My favorite show was Westworld (HBO), closely followed up by Barry (HBO), Avatar: The Last Airbender (Netflix), and The Last Dance (Netflix).
The rest of the TV shows I watched: American Horror Story Season 9, Arrested Development, Band of Brothers, Big Mouth, Chernobyl, DAVE (Lil Dicky), East Bound & Down, End of the F***ing World, Euphoria, Fargo, Hollywood, The Leftovers, The Night Of, Outer Banks, The Outsider, Ozark Season 3, The Queen’s Gambit, The Righteous Gemstones, Safe, Sex Education, True Detective, Vice Principals, Waco, Wild Wild Country, YOU.
Best Movie (Theaters): We saw Bombshell on January 1st with Sarah and Colin. It’s based on a true story about Fox News and the sicko dude who ran it at the top. Classic case of a man abusing power and making women do sick things… made me angry. Movie theaters pretty much closed in the middle of March and didn’t open back up.
Best New Movie I Saw: Parasite, which also happened to win the Academy Award for best picture of 2019. We watched a ton of movies at home this year including 60+ spooky movies in October.
Best Documentary: I watched a decent amount of documentaries this year, but none was better than the three-part Netflix documentary, Don’t F*** with Cats. The story of hunting an internet killer.
Other docs I watched that you should check out: Three Identical Strangers (Hulu), The Game Changers (Netflix), Taylor Swift: Miss Americana (Netflix), McMillons (Hulu / HBO), Tiger King (netflix), The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (amazon), Iron Cowboy: The Story of the 50-50-50 (amazon), Dirtbag (amazon), Shred America (amazon), Meru (amazon)
Best Album: My best album of 2020 was a surprise to me, but I absolutely loved it, especially when running. Machine Gun Kelly - Tickets to My Downfall. Gave me serious 2000s alternative punk vibes with a few Blink-182-esque songs; makes sense with Travis Barker on drums.
Runners Up: Dominic Fike - What Could Possibly Go Wrong, Taylor Swift - Folklore, Porridge Radio - Every Bad
Click the photo of each album below to give them a listen on YouTube.
Best Songs: I tried to keep up with new music releases throughout this year and added music to a playlist in real time instead of searching at the end of the year. This resulted in a playlist of over 300 songs which was a bit much. I trimmed this down to just 113. Here are the best 113 songs by 113 artists I chose for the year 2020. You can listen to them all now by checking out the Spotify or Amazon Playlist below.
Spotify Playlist / Amazon Playlist
If you don’t stream, here are my favorite 15 tracks from 2020:
Rain on Me - Lady Gaga
title track - Machine Gun Kelly
Feel You - My Morning Jacket
Sweet - Porridge Radio
Lazy - Surfaces
Borderline - Tame Impala
Fire - Waxahatchee
Boomer - Bartees Strange
Deep in Love - Bonnie Light Horseman
Home - Caribou
Everybody’s Alright - De Lux
Cancel Me - Dominic Fike
Whats Poppin (Remix) - Jack Harlow
Come & Go - Juice Wrld
how will i rest in peace if i’m buried by a highway? - KennyHoopla
Best Music Video: “I don’t cook, I don’t clean, but let me tell you how I got this ring.” The year of female rappers going hard. Don’t watch this one with your kids! WAP by Cardi B & Megan Thee Stallion.
Best Concert: It was a very strange year for concerts. Just halfway through March, the day I was supposed to see Tallest Man on Earth at Old Town School of Folk Music, concerts were cancelled. We didn’t know it at the time, but they would never come back in 2020. While I snuck in a couple shows in January and February, and there were many virtual online shows, it just wasn’t the same. Of the four shows I was able to make it to in 2002, Black Keys at Aragon took the cake. White Reaper opened up as Jmon and I caught the rock show at the Aragon Ballroom. Click the video below to check it out.
Best Podcasts: Listening to podcasts took a hit for a few months when I was not commuting to work every day, but I still pulled out three new podcast blogs this year, taking me over 100 total. Here are some of the new great new ones I found. Dolly Parton’s America, Crime Junkie, Seeing White
Best Jcubed Video: I had a big push of video editing in the last two months of the year. In fact, I finally finished the last five episodes of the 2014 series, The Road to Rado, and released a few more videos. I was hoping Big Chili Cookoff 2 would be finished, but stay tuned in early 2021 for that one!
Best Lacrosse Video: Coronavirus led me to make my first lacrosse stick trick video in 9 years. A little bit rusty, but still fun!
Best YouTube Channel: I have to give the channel of the year to Jeff Wittek and his barbershop. Here was his episode with last years best YouTube channel, The Nelk Boys. Solid comedy skits with awkward interviews while giving people haircuts.
Best Video: How Chicago looked for the last 9 months of the year, empty. Quality drone footage.
That closes up a pretty tough 2020 and all my “best” things from it. Here’s to hoping 2021 to be a better year than 2020!
See ya then
Josh