With 2011 coming to a close, a bunch of us here at Geeks of Doom, along with some Friends of Doom, decided to take a look back at some of our favorite albums that celebrated their 25th anniversary this year.

The year 1986 was a fantastic one for music, with pivotal albums from metal bands like Metallica and Slayer and rap artists like The Beastie Boys and Run-DMC. There was also great music topping the charts from artists like Genesis, Janet Jackson, and Van Halen. Oh and let’s not forget the soundtracks!

Check out our picks below for Our Favorite Albums Of 1986.

One year I was lucky enough to spend New Year’s Eve in Orlando, FL, at Disney World’s Pleasure Island, the nightclub are where there’s a NYE-style countdown and fireworks display every night. It’s an amazing place to be to bring in the new year.

Check out the video here below from spotlighting some fireworks displays at the Disney Parks throughout the last 40 years; there’s also a video of some of the highlights from last year’s New Year’s Eve celebration at Disneyland’s California Adventure Park theme park (in Anaheim, CA).

Artist John Quinn did a painting for a presentation for the people at Disney of Mickey Mouse and Pluto in a Frank Frazetta style and setting.

Another year, another cool holiday greeting from Quirk Books, publisher of awesomeness like Night of the Living Trekkies, The Captain Jack Sparrow Handbook, and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, as well as their upcoming release, Jason Heller’s Taft 2012.

This year’s holiday greetings came in the form of a hand-signed and numbered original limited edition silk screened print by Tim Gough that urged everyone to “devour more books” – and I happened to think that that’s a great suggestion!

Check out a photo of my print, which was 117 of 500, here below.

The $10 t-shirt deal of the day over at RIPT Apparel is a Firefly-themed shirt called “The Fighting Fireflies” by Brinkerhoff.

The sale at RIPT began today, Saturday, December 31, 2011, at midnight CST, and will continue for 24 hours from then, and once it’s over, it will not be sold on the site anymore.

Amazon currently has 100 MP3 Albums For $5 Each for the month of December 2011, so today’s the last day to grab the items in this sale. There’s plenty of great music from artists like Nine Inch Nails, Dio, Beck, Bruce Springsteen, and more, as well as soundtracks for Tron: Legacy and Book Of Mormon.

Below is a sample of some of the albums in this $5 sale, so grab it now before it’s over at 11:59pm PST tonight!

- Green Day – Insomniac
- Daft Punk – Tron: Legacy Reconfigured
- The Offspring – Greatest Hits
- The Book Of Mormon – Original Broadway Cast Recording
- Flight of the Conchords – I Told You I Was Freaky
- Bruce Springsteen – Greatest Hits
- Nine Inch Nails – The Downward Spiral
- Beck – Odelay
- Dio – Holy Diver
- Korn – Korn III: Remember Who You Are

The ebook deal of the day over at Amazon today is three top-rated American history books from historian Stephen E. Ambrose for only $1.99 each (that’s 80% off the list price).

- Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West
- Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of German
- Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors

Note – this deal is valid only for today, Saturday, December 31, 2011, until 11:59pm PST.

The video game deal of the day over at Amazon today is Crysis 2 for PC Download for only $9.99 (that’s 33% off the list price of $59.95)

Note, this deal is only for today, Saturday, December 31, 2011, til midnight PST while supplies last.

If you purchase this game download today, you’ll receive a $5 promotional credit good towards any of the 2011 bestselling video game downloads like Battlefield 3 or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in the month of January 2012. See the “Special Offers and Product Promotions” section of the product page.

The $10 t-shirt deal of the day over at TeeFury today is a design by Castle inspired by Seth Grahame-Smith’s book Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

The sale began at Teefury today, Saturday, December 31, 2011, at midnight EST, and will continue for 24 hours from then, and once it’s over, it will not be sold on the site anymore.

2011 was a big year for doorstopper-sized fantasy novels, particularly A Dance of Dragons by George R.R. Martin, which is a whopping 1,040 pages. It sold 298,000 copies on its first day alone, which included 170,000 hardcovers, 110,000 eBooks, and 18,000 audiobooks, proving that although ebook sales are catching up, print is still ahead for big releases like this.

Another major series that got a hugely anticipated sequel came in the form of Patrick Rothfuss’ The Wise Man’s Fear, which continues the events of The Name of the Wind and propels Kvothe into an even more compelling situations. Canadian horror also got a few notable entries with Enter, Night and Dead of Winter, both historical fiction novels and both superbly written. Small and mid-sized presses continue to produce some of the best genre fiction out there, and this year proved no exception.

Here’s my picks for the Top 10 Fantasy and Horror Books of 2011.