Whenever the calendar rolls over to a fresh set of double digits the mainstream media loses its collective shit. You can’t buy groceries without seeing 50 tabloids looking to capitalize on the phenomenon. Going on Yahoo yields links to the greatest failures of the decade (Balloon boy made the list!)

No one would do this unless schmucks like you and I became very intrigued by their opinions and thoughts on the past 10 years. But what fun is just rehashing the past 10 years when I can look back in history and come up with some funnier and ultimately less disappointing lists than the starting lineup of Tim Kurkjian’s all decade team in baseball.

The 60’s

Best Thing: USA! USA! We put a man on a celestial body not named “Earth” for the first time in the history of mankind; and we did it before those dirty Soviets. I was born about 15 years later, after the fall of the Berlin wall. This is important to know, because whenever I encounter a Russian, a white hot rage runs though my body. I want to defeat them at everything: sports, economics, political policy, poker, drinking, and most importantly space exploration. If they put a man on mars before us I’ll consume rat poison on the spot. All this, and I didn’t even grow up during the Cold War.

Worst Thing: People were so stoned and high during most of the decade that it wasn’t until 1969 that people bothered to look at the world around them. Coincidentally this was when a small pocket of nerds and scientists who never used illicit drugs launched a rocket to the moon. Almost 75% of Americans thought they were still high when watching the footage.

The 70’s

Best Thing: Umm… Uhhhh… (consulting Wikipedia)…. Civil Rights!? The beginning of the Environmentalist movement? Good things for sure, but this was possibly the most boring decade. Looking back, I’m glad I wasn’t born until the 80’s.

Worst Thing: The Oil Crisis. Had we only taken a more progressive approach to finding a long term solution for energy, maybe we wouldn’t need to have diplomatic relationships with terrorists. Instead, we just bullied our way into more oil. This is like sitting down on your couch and having the button on your jeans come undone. It’s a sign you need to workout and lose weight. Instead you change into sweatpants.

The 80’s:

Best Thing: The Jamaican Bobsled Team! Here’s how bizarre this was. If you go to the summer Olympics in Rio in 5 years, ask someone if the Ukrainian Beach Volleyball team qualified. I’m guessing there are going to be a lot of blank “you can’t be serious, really?!” stares.  There were certainly more memorable events during the course of the decade, but these 4 guys from a tropical climate captured the worlds attention for 2 weeks during the winter of 88. They also inspired a movie, Cool Runnings which to this day remains one of John Candy’s finest performances.

Worst Thing: AIDS. Of all the decades worst this has to be the top of the list right? We went from doing lines of coke off a girls ass then fucking her, to having to carry around condoms and a written contract with a pre-penetration safety and well-being checklist. All because 2 dudes got confused.

The 90’s

Best Thing: The Internet goes live. Nothing more needs to be said, but I will anyways. It forever changed the way we communicate and watch porn. No other invention in the last 50 years even comes close to the cultural impact of the internet.

Worst Thing: Political correctness. White people were (and still are) afraid of being seen as sexists, racists, and necrophiliacs. They start acting like a woman has never seen or heard of sex acts while at work, hire minorities so they are seen as progressive and most certainly not racist, and generally do nothing about the whole necro thing. Can’t win em all.

The 2000’s

Best Thing: YouTube. Human beings do stupid things. Thanks to this wonderful service, we are now all able to revel in the misfortunes of others. I firmly believe that we as a people have devolved due to this. People will now risk their own well beings to get 100,000 views on YouTube. You don’t see whales purposely beaching themselves for a laugh. Even with that said, YouTube ranks as changing entertainment forever.

Worst Thing: September 11th. Whenever an entire religion (albiet the extremists) attack your countries basic principles of freedom, that is never a good thing.  Everything I said about the Soviets in the 60’s can be doubled for Islamic extremists today. The attacks changed the world as we know it, and most certainly not for the better.