I saw 29 first-run movies in 2012, a little more than my average. I wasn’t consistent about it; I would go weeks letting stuff pass me by, then go on a tear and see two per week for a month before again sinking into a moviegoing torpor. I say this as prelude to my annual list of my favorites of the year.

There are plenty of movies I didn’t see, “The Master” being one of the more acclaimed ones that didn’t interest me. Consider the following merely a conversation-starter. “The Artist” and “The Iron Lady” came out at the end of 2011, but like most of the public, I saw them in 2012. Biggest puzzler of the year: the acclaim for “The Avengers,” a perfectly serviceable entertainment but one that didn’t excite me, and I’m a fan of the comics. What average folks saw in it is beyond me. It and “Amazing Spider-Man” didn’t quite make my Top 20. My least favorites were “Prometheus,” “Hitchcock” and “To Rome With Love.”

1. “Take This Waltz”

2. “Searching for Sugar Man”

3. ”Silver Linings Playbook”

4. “Moonrise Kingdom”

5. “Safety Not Guaranteed”

6. “Lincoln”

7. “The Sessions”

8. “Monsieur Lazhar”

9. “Bernie”

10. “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry”

From there, 11 to 20 would go something like this: ”Skyfall,” ”The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” ”Les Miserables,” ”The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” ”The Dark Knight Rises,” ”Jiro Dreams of Sushi,” “Argo,” ”Looper,” ”The Artist” and “The Iron Lady.”

What were your favorites and least favorites?

LA Weekly’s food writers love compiling top 5, top 10 and unnumbered best-of lists, which is smart because they’re as addictive to read as they must be to write. A friend sent me a link this morning to one list and I ended up reading a half-dozen. (Like Lay’s, you never can read just one.)

Among them is a 10 Best Fried Chicken in Los Angeles list and at No. 10 is (ta-da!) Donahoo’s in Pomona. Its box lunch consists, says the scribe, of “fries, which you can skip, and chicken, which you absolutely cannot.” No argument here. No. 1 is a place named Jim Dandy in South-Central.

Sunday’s column (read it here) answers the question: Has Upland’s Buffalo Inn really been there since 1929, as the signs say? Answer: sort of.

In a surprise to me, the establishment really was known as the Buffalo Inn from ’29 to ’39, went under various other names for the next four decades, then in 1977 became the place we know today, reviving the original name.

As a side note, this column was written in late August, with the “blisteringly hot lunch hour” that I mention occurring on a 100-degree-plus Friday. The column has been finished since early September, but one thing or another kept coming up (the Fair, Upland council meetings, etc.) and I let the column sit until a good opportunity presented itself to schedule it. Seemed like a perennial, and from my standpoint, it’s so rare to be a column ahead (usually I’m writing on deadline) that I enjoyed having one ready to go anytime I needed it. In fact, I enjoyed that so much, I stalled on running it just to savor the sensation.

I’m a little sheepish that I let it sit so long, but I hope you like it.

Feel free to comment about the Buffalo Inn, procrastinating columnists or other related topics.

Sunday’s column (read it here) is a followup to my piece from September about the house in Pomona where the college began. I mentioned there the existence of a duplicate of that house on the college’s Claremont campus. I got a look at it recently, as did the current owner of the Pomona original, and in my column I explore into its strange, wan history.

Wednesday’s column (read it here) begins with an item about a new Best Buy in Chino that the retailer seems to think is in Chino Hills. What’s funny is that this began as a one-line item about the new store, which I learned about from my Sunday advertising circular. But once I set out to determine the store’s location, things got more interesting, as you’ll see.

Following that are various items from around the valley and a plug for the Pomona Public Library’s Adopt-a-Magazine effort.

Laid low by a cold, I’m taking it easy today at home. Hope to be back at it Tuesday. In the meantime, go Cards!

Friday’s column (read it here) is about the dedication of the Route 66 Trailhead in Rancho Cucamonga near the new-ish bridge over Foothill Boulevard. Incidentally, despite what I wrote, it’s not officially a park, as I learned after deadline, but to us laypeople that’s a better generic noun than “trailhead” (or is it? I might be wrong). Also, I plug an event in Pomona on Sunday, for which tickets must be purchased Friday. I bought mine this morning at Frantz Cleaners.

Photo: Salt & Fat blog

The most disdained of pizza toppings, the anchovy, already down, was kicked by Assemblyman Curt Hagman (R-Pepperoni) (I mean, R-Chino Hills) in a “Point of View” column on the Bulletin’s Opinion page last week. Under the print headline “Why Californians dislike Legislature,” Hagman began: “The California state Legislature is about as popular as anchovies and airport pat-downs.”

Suddenly, contrary to Hagman’s intentions, I felt sympathetic to the Legislature. Not because of the airport security comparison, obviously, but because of the anchovy comparison.

I’ve always liked the anchovy. My dad likes them, my mom detests them. If we got anchovies on half (or a mere quarter) of a pizza, I would have a slice or two from that side. It was a mild form of living on the edge, not to mention a chance to be kind to my kindly father.

In our family, we also had a Thanksgiving-Christmas stuffing tradition: with oysters, or without. Pitting brother against brother, much like the Civil War, the choice made for a twice-annual, tongue-in-cheek debate, a kind of “Which Side Are You On?” at the dining room table. I didn’t care much but would always try a little oyster stuffing along with, wishy-washily, the regular kind. One exotic ingredient made a bland side dish a little dangerous. It was like “The Girl With Something Extra” as played out on my plate. (Not the ESP part, just the “something extra” part.)

As an adult, my default pizza setting is plain cheese, and my favorite toppings are probably sausage and mushroom, but I’ll get anchovies now and then. A lot of pizza places, especially chains, don’t even have anchovies, and sometimes the mom and pop places are out, because they never restocked after the last time someone ordered them, during one of the Bush presidencies.

I always like a Caesar salad made the traditional way, with at least one real anchovy fillet, but those are even rarer than anchovy pizzas.

I considered inviting Hagman out for an anchovy pizza, although I don’t know if anywhere in Chino Hills serves them, or if he would eat them.

Let’s hear from you. Forget the Legislature. What do you make of the humble anchovy?

P.S. If David Foster Wallace can write an essay collection titled “Consider the Lobster,” I can title a blog post “Consider the Anchovy.”

Wednesday’s column (read it here) is about Monday’s Upland council meeting and the unusual claim that a councilman got belligerent at a hat booth at the L.A. County Fair. If nothing else, it was a good excuse to make a lot of hat jokes. Why, you might say the column is full to the brim.

Sunday’s column (read it here) begins with the news that the Winchell’s Donuts sign in Upland, taken down in 2004 and installed in West Hollywood as public art in 2010, is still up months after it was due to be taken down. Following that are many short items.