Ready or not, The Parkie Awards for 2012

You can have your Grammys, Tonys, Oscars, Emmys and Golden Globes. Here, without the hoopla of a red-carpet runway and the expense of golden statuettes for the winners, are the Parkie Awards for the year past.

If you are new to this column, we will explain.  "Parkie" is the hideous nickname I bore through childhood and teenager status. The only reason you don't hear me called that any longer is that I have outlived everyone who knew me as, well, that name. But it seems like the perfect name for my personal awards to the heroes and jerks who deserve recognition for what they accomplished, who they were, how irritating they are, or how they spoiled my life in 2012.

One thing I know. In compiling this list, I came to the annual conclusion that I spend far too much of my declining years watching and stewing over sports. My despising the Yankees, the Packers, the Tar Heels and the South Eastern Conference is becoming too stressful.  Maybe in this new year I will mellow and cut those to whom I direct so much hate a little slack. And maybe not. There is also something to be said about being too old and cranky to change now.

So the winners—or losers, depending on one's point of view—are:

• Movies of the Year award: To "Les Miserables" and "The Rise of the Guardians," the only two times I was inside a theater all year. But they are good ones!