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On the last day of 2009 our thoughts inevitably stray to the year we're leaving behind. "We'll do a retrospective," we thought, a look back at the funny stories, Apple's moves...but then we thought, "what fun would that be?" Much better to keep reporting half baked rumors, so-crazy-they're-true stories and things that just plain make us laugh--like we do every other day!

Tablet First
We hate to make the obvious joke (ok, no, we love it) but something just got out of China without being censored!! Kaifu Lee, former President of Google China, has talked about the Apple tablet in his microblog. And his language is so concrete we're not worried about anything being lost in translation:

"The Apple Tablet looks like a bigger iPhone that sports an awesome UI packed in a beautiful 10.1-inch screen. The tablet combines the functions of both netbook and kindle, an ebook reader. It has virtual keyboard for text entry and a webcam for video conferencing."

Yes. It's basically the same thing we've been seeing, hearing and posting for months. But it's coming from someone who could conceivably BE RIGHT. Anywhoo, we're excited. 27 days till we know for sure.

Crazy But True
We always manage to find things that make us go, really? That's actually happening? And for some reason ( we did not plan this, have nothing much against the Chinese government and most assuredly do not want them visiting our place of residence in the wee hours of the new year) we're talking about our neighbors in the East once again. This time, we visit one of our favorite topics: censorship. For obvious reasons, the Chinese government is not--shall we say--a fan of the Dalai Lama, having called his peaceful eminence a "devil with a human face" (We're gonna go ahead and say that traslation is pretty safe too). But when the Chinese government is unhappy, the Chinese government does something about it, darn it...and they've blocked all apps pertaining to the Dalai Lama from the Chinese version of the App Store. Like we said: crazy but true.

Laughing Out Loud
We weren't going to go through all of our old stories for a retrospective, but some of PC World's caught our eye again today, as they catalogued their "most hated stories of 2009." Some highlights? "Apple tablet is a train wreck" got a -448 rating, "Apple monopolies must be broken" (-487 rating) and "Snow Leopard stinks next to Windows 7" topped the list with a huge -2724 rating. (Just to be clear, none of those are exact quotes.)

Mac fans are everywhere, PC World...we jest. They do a great job covering every side of a story, but we did get a good gigle when we saw the dominating thread in the most reviled stories list.

Wish us a happy new year on Twitter!

All the best things for a happy and healthy New Year, Newsies...and thanks for reading.