Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen lots of “best” and “worst” lists for the PR year that (almost) was. Most of them were well-researched, informative overviews that helped give us a fuller picture of a topsy-turvy year in public relations.

We debated whether to put our heads together, conduct a survey, consult the Twittersphere and create the definitive list of 2012′s most important/influential PR stories. But then we just decided to put all that reasoned analysis aside and go completely subjective—so we compiled our 12 favorite stories that appeared on PRNewser in 2012.

Some are serious, some are silly and some are nearly unbelievable. Do they all reveal some larger truth about the PR industry? No. Are they the most important stories of the year? Definitely not. Then why did we choose them? Because we really enjoyed reading and writing them. That’s pretty much it.

Here are the first six, in no particular order:

• Fleishman-Hillard Canada Apologies for ‘Tackiest Press Release in Human History’ – Because you really can’t add anything to a story involving murder, cannibalism and psychopathic self-promotion—so in the future you probably shouldn’t even bother trying.
• Calm Down, Everybody: Big Bird Will Be Fine – Because who better to embody our country’s asinine politics than a seven-foot tall, gender-neutral bird with a best friend that no one else can see?
• Yoko Ono’s New Menswear Line Is a Brilliant PR Stunt – Because of open-toe thigh-high boots and “butt hoodies“. For men.
• Re-Branding a Country: Iceland Needs a New Name – Because we learned something useful on SNL‘s “Weekend Update” for the first time.
• ‘John Carter’ Is a Flop and Marketing Takes a Share of the Blame – Because, while we agree that the campaign was bad, marketing really wasn’t the problem here, folks. We tried to watch this movie, and we were astounded to learn that the guy behind Wall-E could make anything so dumb.
• Twitter and Facebook Have Changed How We Eat – Because sometimes it’s nice to have official research to confirm what you already knew: that everybody really just needs to stop Instagramming every damned omelet already. Come on!

Make sure to check back tomorrow for the rest of the list (if you’re not too wiped out).