I missed My Monkey Baby! How did I miss My Monkey Baby? It was this one-off special about a lady with a monkey instead of a kid. And now I feel like a failure for letting it pass me by. I also sat out Jon and Kate and as much of Speidi as I could get away with. Intentionally. Especially Jon and Kate. I don’t feel like a failure over them.

It seems like all I’ve done all year is watch a billionty hours of television. And I did it for you. ALL for you. I’ve spent column word-counts excavating the gay and the ungay and the antigay and I still don’t think I scratched the surface. Like, for example, aside from this whole monkey debacle, Numb3rs got canceled, and I never even knew it was a show. Who was on it? That will be a mystery to me forever. Or until I go visit my mom’s nursing home and she’s sitting there watching it in the middle of the afternoon. Then I’ll know.

Anyway, here’s my list of my favorite 2009 television events. Some are programs. Some are incidents. And it’s subjective. For example, don’t hate me for not putting Glee on here. I like it a lot. I watch it regularly. But I can see myself continuing to live if it weren’t on the air. And in the comments section, if you promise not to be jerks about it, you can tell me what you liked best. But be nice. It’s Christmas and stuff:

1. Adam Lambert — No, I don’t really care about his singing that much. He’s talented, obviously, but it’s just not my thing. What I really like is the way he’s putting his own neck out there and being all TA-DAAAAHHH with the gay make-outs on the Internet and then, most famously, on live TV, causing ABC to piss their pants. Someone had to be the first to go there in a way that wasn’t just a goof like when Borat and Will Ferrell rolled around on that awards show. And he seems sturdy enough to take the heat. I’m all right with that guy.

2. The League — My male friends and I — whether they’re gay or straight — have a way of speaking to each other that assumes we can all take a verbal beating. It’s not a secret-agenda Boys in the Band bitchfest thing. It’s more like hazing and assumes an unfragile friendship bond. So I was really happy to find this new sitcom on FX about guys in a fantasy football league where the ball-busting insult hurling knows almost no bounds. Don’t watch if you’re overly sensitive about straight men taunting each other with gay stuff. The rest of us know that shit is still hilarious.