While 2009 started on an optimistic note, the year probably won’t go down as one of America’s finest—what with all the wars, economic crises and political gridlock and everything. Despite all this serious business, we still found plenty of time to pay attention to the antics of celebrities big and small—a little too much attention, on occasion. Here are ten controversies that, while treated like big deals at the time, we probably won’t tell our grandchildren about.

• Oh noes! Michael Phelps smoked pot!

There were already signs Olympic hero Michael Phelps was not without his vices—that stripper he dated, for instance—but that didn’t keep people from being outraged when a photograph revealed that the swimmer not only knew what a bong was, but actually used one at a party! Despite apologizing, Phelps was suspended from swimming for three months and Kellogg dropped him as a spokesperson, not wanting their munchies to be associated with marijuana use. Phelps was back breaking records and winning medals by summer’s World Aquatic Championships—but with his drug use now a matter of public record, he’ll never grace the front of a Frosted Flakes box again.

• Oh noes! Christian Bale got mad on a movie set!

Holy tirade, Batman! Christian Bale became an Internet laughingstock after NSFW audio of the Dark Knight star tearing  into cinematographer Shane Hurlbut leaked from the set of Terminator: Salvation. While friends tried to explain how distracting it is for a crew to work on lighting during a scene, webheads couldn’t keep from wedging “Ohhhhh, goooood for you!” and “F— sake, man, you’re amateur!” into every clip they could. The giggles had mostly died down by the time Public Enemies came out, but we still can’t see the guy without yelling “NO!!! NNNOOO!!!”

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A shout out to Balloon Boy Falcon Henne, who has perfectly summed up how we feel about this balloon hoopla in one fell puke. Surely you know the story: a boy climbed into his crazy Wife Swappin’ dad’s storm chasing balloon except he didn’t he was in the attic and CNN anchors had a orgasm live on national TV watching the balloon fly through the sky and come crashing down while the military and cops scrambled to help until they all realized there was no one in there and while that was going on the entire web was Twittering the whole thing and turning it into the biggest meme of 2009 and hey, the whole thing might be a hoax!

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the kid then  went on CNN with his family, farted, and admitted to Wolf Blitzer that the whole thing was “for a show.” Yeah, that all makes us want to puke too, Falcon.

We could go into all the nitty-gritty deets from yesterday’s balloon debacle and today’s awkward aftermath, but frankly we’re burnt out on the craziness of it all and will happy let the rest of the web do it for us:

• The full story from CNN.
• Imma let you finish, but here are the best balloon boy memes the web has to offer.
• Tons of photos and videos of the wacky science-obsessed family.
• Richard Henne acting like a total a-hole on “Wife Swap.”

View photos of Balloon Boy Falcon Henne below.