Flashback Monday, Mauve-Colored Memories: A Belated Look Back at 2008

Whoops! Apparently it's 2009 already, which means we got so wrapped up in reading Reston's instruction manual that we missed our second annual roundup of the year just passed. So in case you got an exit visa and managed to spend part of 2008 in an area without DRBs or Macaroni Grills, here's our informative look back. It was... a.... very... mauve year.

* For a “city of trees,” the mauve, oxygen-creating monsters sure have a whole bunch of enemies, including the gas company and the RA itself, which also likes to addle geese for fun and profit. Our treepocalypse was even mocked by what those cultural elitists like to sneeringly call "art." Fortunately, a well-written Web site can always help save the environment, particularly if people print out several thousand copies. Just don’t walk in whatever paltry patches of forest still remain, or the copperheads will kill you.

* Who cares about real estate values cratering when you’ve got awesome realty tactics like fire sales fiendishly clever auctions and ”price improvements” and spastically dancing open house signs? The scary thing? It seems to have kinda sorta worked.

* Even as the global economy imploded, Reston found awesome new business models for our post-consumer, brigand-intensive economy, even as one of its biggest employers lighted out for the territories. Reston Town Center got some shiny new buildings marked by pagan rituals and stores and those Google thingies the kids keep talking about. Just pay no attention to the hobo encampment across the street.

* While Bratz may rule the schoolz and the poolz, they don’t rule the courtz. Also: a tattered copy of Dickens and $135,000 is no substitute for a valid legal argument, or a clue for that matter.

* Reston’s officially the 37th most awesome place ever, plus a great place to retire, largely because of its preponderance of old nerds. So why are we all full of trepidation?

* During our MAJOR CRIME WAVE, we had athletic crooks. We had criminals who were closet Monty Python fans. We had criminals who wandered around in wetsuits and wigs. We had criminals who tried to steal dogs, and others who tried to make a fast buck selling illegal fish hypothalmuses or betraying our country, not to mention some real white collar criminals. We had others who got spooked by the sound of their own cellphone. And, 9 times out of 10, they all run off into the woods. But none of them have the street cred of these boyz. They must have played with Bratz when they were younger.

* Massive irregularities plagued our “election” in the fall. Fortunately we had observers from that other bastion of democracy to help sort everything out.

* Another Reston blog and one of those old-fashioned paper things people used to read before blogs, but also with Marmaduke, both shut their doors.

* Metro’s shiny new Silver Line might actually happen fer real, kids.

* 2008 was the Year of the Sidewalk and the Light Bulb. It’ll take the rest of the area decades to catch up with these crazy innovations!

* Earl the Squirrel lives. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

* We had one Olympic champion to cheer for. No, not that one.

* Reston kept Spreadin’ the Love to the rest of the world, exporting our noxious monkey viruses. But the real proof that we’re doing something right? Canadians hate us. And so do folks in Loudoun County.