Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Attn: Listers

It seems these are all the rage these days.

MY TOP 20 LISTS LIST

20. Playboy Magazine's Top 25 Party Schools List
This is on here because Lehigh University regularly makes it on Playboy's legendary list, and I'm one of those people who will scream wildly whenever anybody says "What's Up Bethlehem!!" at a concert. I'm told that at one point in time, Lehigh occupied the top spot. As of the most recent census, it was at 23. Bad form, Engineers. Although I doubt Hef's scouts were around for the awe-inspiring trash-burning and beer-ponging alley party during that huge blizzard last year.

19. The Ten Commandments
Whatever your views on the subject of religion, this little compilation is the second-oldest surviving code of laws and much better known and quoted than the oldest, that of Hammurabi. Thus it's the foundation for all order in world society. Pretty cool, although if Lehigh had broken the top ten in the #20 list, I probably would have bumped this back. Haha, chaos rules. Also without the Ten Commandments we would never have had Yul Brynner saying "Where is your god now, Moses?"

18. Dr. Mindbender's Indispensable NES Games List
I don't remember when he posted this, or really what most of the games were, but it inspired me to go on a deep introspective of my own own NES experience and create my all-time Top 10 list (I won't be including any of my own lists on this list, but this is as close to a proxy as any will come), which I thoroughly enjoyed.

17. Zartan's Stereo Agency Holiday Wish List
Zartan came to see our early December show at the Wildflower in Bethlehem and came up with a list of things we would like to see happen to the band. So far, we are batting .750 on that (we got the bassist, the visuals got less busy, there's more cohesive scratching...just waiting on that M83 album), so long as you consider us the same group. And let's not kid ourselves, really.

16. Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points
What's not to love? No more "private international understandings" (secret alliances & deals). No trade embargos. National armaments reduced to the "lowest point consistent with domestic safety". Colonial self-determination. Send fruit baskets to the Bolsheviks. Take Belgium away from Italy. Pull the plug on the life-support systems of the Ottoman empire. Make Poland gigantic and give it a tiny little prosperous path to the sea that the Germans will, in their furious bitterness, promise not to take back by force, ever. And, of course, the formation of the League of Nations, later to implode from within due to doping scandals.

15. Netscape.com's Top 10 Southern Belles
Rowr.

14. VH1's Top 100 Awesomely Bad Songs
I think Michael Ian Black owns majority stock in VH1, which is fine really cos he's a pretty funny guy. At least, he's pretty funny for the volume I receive him in, which is approximately one viewing per month. Seasoned VH1 viewers may have put out several unsuccessful hits on him by now. Anyway, this list is great. And the videos that accompany the items on it are often just as great. Ring-a-ding-a-ding-dang-dooooooooo.

13. Tsikitas Retreakend's Top 100 Movie Lists En Masse
Nine freaking hours, holy f*cking crapola. There were, what, nine of us? Limited discussion on each entry? If I was Jack Spacely Tsikitas I would have entered the room at 8 am in tighty whities carrying a pair of tactical machine pistols and taken care of bidness. Unbelievable. My "Flix to See" list grew sevenfold, fortunately, Destro appears to have most of those at the castle. I just need to set aside the time, really.

12. My iPod's Top 25 Most Played List
Guaranteed I will always dig it. Currently occupying the top spots are Naked Pictures, International Spy, and the training montage from Spy Game.

11. Power 99's Top 9 @ 9
It's an oldies station now, but as lads sharing a bedroom my brother and I were all about this pop station and especially the nightly countdown. Vanilla Ice, LL Cool J, and that freakin' "Bartman" song. Oh yeah and MC Hammer. Damn. That's how I kept it real back at SSJ.

10. Calvin's (of "Calvin & Hobbes") list of A Million Things That Bug Him
He only got up to, I think, #3 before Hobbes said something incisively witty that provoked a chase/fight scene, but as an 11-year-old reading this for the first time it gave me something fun to imitate during my free moments in school. I may have gotten as far as 500.

9. Senator Joseph McCarthy's List of Commies
For those of you who don't know the history behind the term "McCarthyism", he was a crazy mofo from Wisconsin who started making waves one day by waving a piece of paper during a legislative session that, he claimed, had the names of 57 known communists scrawled upon it, all of whom were employed at the highest levels of the State Department and were very bad people. This riled everybody up and crazy sh*t went down until various committees and commissions finally unearthed the truth, which was that there was, in fact, nothing at all written on McCarthy's piece of paper, that the paper was actually a handkerchief, and that there is no such place as Wisconsin.

8. Major Bludd's Top 10 Memories from His College Years
Several of them are my own as well, and recalled just as fondly.

7. List of All Political Parties Officially Registered For In The State of Pennsylvania
None of this is made up. The highlights (in alphabetical order): The Birthday Party, Fascist Party, Facist Party (I am changing my registration to this, by the way), Grand Metacosmos Party, Halloween Party, I Don't Know Party, Interesting Party, Jedi Party, Keg Party, Might As Well Party, Mark Is God Party, Pumpkin Party, Principality of Zion Party, Skyhook Party, S.Q.U.I.D. Party, Whig Party, and the Wild Party.

6. Chris Curry's Shopping List
I haven't lived with that guy in a couple years but I guarantee that no matter what week you check it, it will be gold. I'm thinking it would likely include items like "100 Gallons of Well Water That I Personally Drive To Sullivan County And Back To Get" and "Cement 'n Milk Brekkie Cereal". Ooh, and don't forget "Individually Washed Ham Slices".

5. Chubbles' Top 1000 Songs List
I don't have the slightest recollection what was on this thing. But he put this thing together, carefully, at a time when only the super-rich had the internet and even then, there wasn't much you could do with it. I had enough trouble putting together my top 100 Beck songs, and he is my all-time favorite artist. I could never conceive of taking on a project like this. Even if I could name 1000, I could never accurately arrange them in order of preference. I mean, there would be days where he would run to his computer just so he could move a certain song up from 743 to 741. It's been like twelve years and my hat is still off.

4. Casey Kasem's Top 40
There was a good long stretch, from 8th grade through junior year of high school, where it was an obsession of Chubbles' and mine to meticulously track the movement of songs on this list, week to week. It would usually take about four hours and the interim period filled with one-on-one Dungeons & Dragons, MTG, or whatever computer game was big with us at the time (Doom/Quake, Civilization, Descent, etc.). This, plus the #5 list, pushed me to start making lists of my own. A major cornerstone of my formative years.

3. Homestar Runner's List That He Chooses To Recite On "The Show"
"tetherball"
"Olympic race"
"sparkling"
"Tim Duncan"
"Wisconsin"
"a book of matches"
"next week"
"a lot of money"
"witch's br--"

2. The Aggregate List of the Zandar/Major Bludd/FOS Beck Till You Smash Xtravaganza
Beck Till You Smash redefined the way lists should be created. Cases of Beck's and multiple bottles of whiskey ensured that the proper themes would become entrenched in the creation process. I've already discoursed at great length about the event and the list in past posts, as have the other participants. Refer to them. Truck Drivin' Neighbors Singing It Again...damn. Second Best Damn List Ever.

1. University of Chicago ScavHunt 2003 Item List
Ricksha drivers harrassing the innocents of Hyde Park. OmBudsMen surrounded by sultry secretaries in the middle of quads. Mario Brothers on the Comiskey Park Megatron. Lasers projecting spots on the moon. Centrifuges and miniature nuclear reactors. Massive outdoor keg parties sanctioned by the university complete with campus cops blocking city cops from entering. Real-life Mario Kart. It is one of my all-time most rewarding experiences, those five days I spent in South Chicago engaging in this festival of chaos with Chubbles and the rest of Team Phoenix. We took the gold, you better believe it. The complete list is here. Some of the items I was involved in: 4, 30 (I drove the RickJamesSha), 81 (I played the part of Juvenile)...f*ck this, it will take way too long to specify which ones I had my hand in. I remember building a Giant Boob that was to be piloted, Flinstones-style, into a Giant ZZZ Cup. I led a bunch of whores into a locals bar dressed as a pimp. I DJed the all-ScavHunt Kegger. I lost my mind and found it again. Please, just glance over this list. You may get an inkling of what I mean when I say this is the best list I have ever experienced.

12 Comments:

Blogger Paul Tsikitas said...

This is why I love you.

6:45 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

*stands up*

*applauds*

11:55 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I can't handle 1) the list itself OR 2) the scav hunt list. I'll be revisiting that scav hunt list many times in the future.

2:35 AM  
Blogger Face of Spades said...

Every year, the judges are selected and spend the entire school year preparing each list. It's actually a funded student organization.

Notice, btw, that all time and date specifications on the list are in what learned scholars will identify as the French Revolutionary calendar and clock.

1:17 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You know, it's too bad that I had a falling out with the school, and specifically with the people I did ScavHunt with, because I wish I could do that again and again. That was the most (actually, the only) fun I ever had in my four years on campus.

Also, please note that Wisconsin regularly hits #1 on that Playboy list.

4:15 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Danno, what did you do?

http://www.wmur.com/news/9625278/detail.html

12:54 PM  
Blogger Face of Spades said...

D-Generate into somethin fool
Ya just got tired
Of doin what ya told ta do
But that's the breaks, boy
yeaahhhhh
that's the breaks, little man


BREAK IT THE F*CK DOWN!!!!!!!!

(Yes. That is so yes. Like, I seriously want to go out and commit all kinds of like-minded vandalism.)

1:31 PM  
Blogger leo said...

You know, the head of the Costitutional or some other semi-major third party lives in Lancaster. He was quoted as saying the Lancaster governemnt, which is at least 80 % Republican, is "way too liberal." So that's nice to know.



I just want to know if there is an actual sensible name that serves to make the acronym SQUID, and what it is. You wouldn't happen to have that informatio.... hmmmmm? Because the fact that I can say I belong to the Pennsylvania S.Q.U.I.D. party alone kinda makes me want to be a part of it.

5:38 PM  
Blogger Paul Tsikitas said...

Seriously. You buy the drugs.

8:52 PM  
Blogger Chris said...

Warm me a Yeungling at the Fun House; it looks like I may be coming home a bit earlier than I had hoped...

2:08 PM  
Blogger Face of Spades said...

Holy Crap. Zartan, coming back from the jungles so soon?

Was the operation that successful? Have you turned the savages over to our side so quickly?

And I glanced around the internet a bit about the S.Q.U.I.D. thing, but found nothing.

3:22 PM  
Blogger Chris said...

Every man needs a man-crush, and mine, unfortunately, is the Country Director. I melt like Van Owen's body upon contact with Roland's Thompson gun when I talk to him, and he convinced me to stay and suffer through 3 more months before making a decision. So put that tepid Yeungling back in the basement. For now...

2:40 PM  

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