BEST TV SHOW:  The West Wing.  Good dialogue, funny, serious, rich charactors.  It suffered and got inconsistent when Sorkin left, but overall, it's run was no longer or shorter than it needed to be.

BEST MOVIE:  Lord of the Rings Trilogy.  No, I'm not a rabid fan, but I think these movies were simply the most entertaining of the oughts.  Nods to Little Miss Sunshine, Juno, Children of Men, Chicago, A Beuatiful Mind and The Departed.  Best Documentary was Man On Wire.  Best Foreign Film was Amilie.

BEST ACTOR:  Denzel Washington.  Started off the decade with Training Day and was consistently good in even the badder films. 

BEST ACTRESS: Meryl Streep.  Just couldn't do wrong.

ACTOR WHO "OWNED" THE DECADE:  George Clooney.  A busy actor, and given the amount of movies he made, it's surprising how good most of them were.  Not a bad decade for Johnny Depp either, who was pretty busy and always unique.

ACTRESS WHO "OWNED" THE DECADE:  Amy Adams, for my money.  Just something about her.

BEST "HOTTIE": Scarlett Johansson

BEST BOOK: Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

BEST NON-FICTION BOOK:  The 9/11 Commission Report.  It read like a novel.

BEST (NEW) PLAY:  August: Osage County by Tracy Letts

BEST (NEW) BROADWAY MUSICAL: Into the Heights.  With Spring Awakening close behind.

BEST SONG:  Chicago by Sufjan Stevens

BEST SPORTS STORY:  2004 Red Sox beating their 84 year World Series drought.

BEST REPUBLICAN SEX SCANDAL:  Mark "Hiking the Appalachian Trail" Sanford, although I have to acknowledge Senator Larry "Wide Stance" Craig.

BEST TV NEWS OUTLET: CNN, which shows you how bad news is these days.

BEST TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION:  Flash drives and other storage techniques, allowing for iPods, smartphones, DVRS, etc.

BEST INTERNET THING:  Google.  So important and Internet-changing that we almost take it for granted.

* Not really "annual"; that wouldn't make sense

And now…. the decade in seven minutes: