Best of 2009 Part 2

Lets get right to it... read the last post if you are confused why there's old stuff here

Best 40 Songs of 2009:
1. Paper Planes, MIA
2. Stain, Nirvana
3. Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues, McLusky
4. America, Niblick Henbane
5. Puss N' Boots, New York Dolls
6. Toolmaster of Brainerd, Trip Shaekspear
7. Talk Dirty to Me, Poison
8. Don't Hand Me No Lines, Georgia Satelites
9. Lake Street is For Lovers, Lifter Puller
10. Feed My Family, Jen
11. Stab, Pine Box Boys
12. My War, Black Flag
13. I Don't Care, Black Flag
14. Cherry Bomb, The Runaways
15. True Believers, The Bouncing Souls
16. Seven Nation Army, The Flaming Lips
17. California Songs, Local H
18. Same Old Situation, Motley Crue
19. Everybody Knows, Leonard Cohen
20. Katmandu, Bob Segar
21. Rocky Mountain Time, John Prine
22. All I Want Is You, Barry Louis Polisar
23. Hair, Atmosphere
24. If You Don't Love Me, Warren Zevon
25. Saving Grace, Tom Petty
26. Ain't No Rest For the Wicked, Cage the Elephant
27. How Bizzare, OMC
28. The Wrestler, Bruce Springsteen
29. Friends in Low Places, Garth Brookes
30. Must Have Got Lost, J Giles Band
31. Radio Nowhere, Bruce Springsteen
32. Skyway, The Replacements
33. Muswell Hillbilly, The Kinks
34. All My Life, Foo Fighters
35. Drinking and Driving, Black Flag
36. Flirting with Disaster, Molly Hatchet
37. Dracula's Lament, Jason Siegel
38. Half Cocked Concepts, P.O.S.
39. Sexyback, Justin Timberlake
40. Too Drunk to Fuck, Dead Kennedys

Top 5 TV Shows I started watching in 2009:
1. The Soup
2. Sledge Hammer
3. America's Funniest Home Videos
4. Man Vs Food
5. MonsterQuest

Top 5 Graphic Novels Read in 2009
1. Sandman: The Doll's House, Neil Gram
2. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume II, Alan Moore
3. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, Alan Moore
4. Sandman: Dream Country, Neil Gram
5. Batman: Year One, Frank Miller

Best of 2009 Part 1

Okay here is my best of 2009 list. I'm going to start with Books and movies and I'll finish the rest later.
Oh, and for those of you who didn't read my best of the year list last year you should know that I use the Stockdale method of ranking, which means I will not be ranking the best movies/books that CAME OUT this year, I'll be ranking the best movies/books I SAW this year.
Anyway here are the lists:

Best 25 Movies of 2009:
1. The Hangover
2. Watchmen
3. Inglorious Bastards
4. Gone Baby Gone
5. Star Trek
6. Gran Torino
7. Citizen Kane
8. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
9. Ride the High Country
10. Street Fight
11. Taken
12. I Love You Man
13. The Curious Case of Benjiman Button
14. Forgetting Sara Marshall
15. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
16. The Wrestler
17. Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder
18. Valkarie
19. Last House on the Left
20. Slumdog Millionaire
21. Terminator Salvation
22. Hancock
23. Hellboy II: The Golden Army
24. Tyson
25. John Tucker Must Die

Worst Movie of 2009:
Mummy: The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor



20 Best Books of 2009
1. Brisinger, Christopher Paolini
2. Eldest, Christopher Paolini
3. Red Dragon, Thomas Harris
4. Eragon, Christopher Paolini
5. Sleeping in Flame, Jonathan Carroll
6. Top Dog, Jerry Jay Carroll
7. Hannibal, Thomas Harris
8. The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury
9. The Big Red One, Samuel Fuller
10. Top Dog, Jerry Jay Carroll
11. Black Sunday, Thomas Harris
12. Hannibal Rising, Thomas Harris
13. Timequake, Kurt Vonneguet
14. Intensity, Dean Koontz
15. Legion, William Peter Blattey
16. Ring, Koji Sanzuki
17. Ferenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
18. White Fang, Jack London
19. 1776, David McCullough
20. Mouthful of Rocks, Christian Jennings

Worst Book of 2009:
Interview with the Vampire

Stay Tuned for the lists of the best songs, best TV shows, and best graphic novels.

Top 50 Comedians of all time

Okay so I had the day off. And a day off wouldn't be completely wasted if I didn't spend at least part of it writing a new list. I thought I would write a list of my top 100 comedians of all time. Well, it turns out I don't actually like 100 comedians, I like about 50. And some of these I really don't even like that much. But anyway here is the list I made:

1. Zack Gelafanakis
2. Louis C.K.
3. David Cross
4. Chris Rock
5. Dave Attel
6. Patton Oswald
7. Demetri Martin
8. Dave Chappelle
9. Norm MacDonald
10. Dana Carvey
11. Jerry Seinfeld
12. Brian Posaine
13. Eddie Murphy
14. Artie Lange
15. Jim Norton
16. Harold Williams
17. Michael Ian Black
18. Dave Mordal
19. Adam Sandler
20. Jeffrey Ross
21. Aziz Ansasri
22. Rob Cantrell
23. Michael Schowalter
24. Kevin James
25. Denis Leary
26. Todd Glass
27. Steve Martin
28. Jim Carey
29. Ray Ramano
30. Eddie Pepitone
31. Mitch Hedberg
32. Richard Prior
33. Larry Miller
34. Andy Kaufman
35. Colin Quinn
36. Dennis Miller
37. Martin Lowrence
38. D.L. Hughley
39. Stephen Colbert
40. Jon Stewart
41. Fred Willard
42. Dave Thomas
43. Johnny Carson
44. George Carlin
45. Richard Belzer
46. Steven Wright
47. Drew Carey
48. Bob Newhart
49. David Letterman
50. Jonathan Winters

Mark Maguire Named St Louis Hitting Coach

Only Advice:
"Take Steroids"

Almost to 5,000 hits

And in less then 5 years!

That is over 1,000 hits per year!!!

You know I don't know too much about the internets but I think that makes this the most popular website in the entire system of tubes that is the internets.

I mean, there are only like 10, maybe 12 people tops that use this thing right?


Well, glad that post is out of the way.

See you all in 3 months or so!

In Where Blake Finds the Answer to a Question he Pondered, and Invites the Reader Along to Share in the Answer

So I've been listening to some Black Flag recently and thus put several of their songs on to my zune (that's right I actually have a zune instead of an ipod). One of the songs I have been listening too over and over again is "My War". When selecting songs I generally do not choose by artist, but instead just scroll through the alphabetical list of all the songs I have on the zune. In doing so I noticed that there are a whole bunch of songs on my zune that start with the word "my". It turns out there are 12. That got me to thinking, what word would have the most songs? Well since I have the list in front of me in alphebetical order, and because I'm a curious kinda guy, and because it's 9:06 and there's nothing on TV but I don't want to go to bed yet, I'm going to find out.

Hold on a second...

Okay, so for alphabetical listings Zune doesn't consider the word "the" to be the actual first word of the song. And seeing as how video rental stores do he same thing when stocking movies, I'm going to ignore "the" for this list as well. So in order to show you just how not close this contest was I'm going to show you the "competition" first. Oh, one clarification, I joined together different versions of the same word, i.e. I consider it and it's to be the same word for the purpose of this list. Anyway here we go:
America - 7
Break - 6
Get - 6
Great - 6
It - 8
Let - 7
My - 12
Rock - 13
Walk - 6
We - 6
What - 6
You - 13

And the winner, with an absolutely amazing 51 is:

"I"

That's right, I guess singers are just obsessed with themselves, or maybe just I am, but anyway I blew everyhing away. And now, for pretty much no reason I'm gonna write the list hereL:

I Ain't Got No Home In This World Anymore, Beck
I Am the Bullgod, Kid Rock
I Am the Walrus, Beatles
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, Wilco
I Believe in a Thing Called Love, The Darkness
I Can Remember, Korn
I Choose, Offspring
I Don't Care, Black Flag
I Don't Like Mondays, The Boomtown Rats
I Don't Like You, Stiff Little Fingers
I Don't Wanna Grow Up, Ramones
I Don't Wanna Get Over You, The Magnetic Fields
I Fought the Law, The Clash
I Fought the Law, Dead Kennedys
I Hear You Knocking, Dave Edmunds
I Held Her in My Arms, Violent Femmes
I Hung My Head, Johnny Cash
I Just Wanna Make Love to You, Foghat
I Just Want You, Ozzy Osbourne
I Knew the Bride When She Use to Rock-N-Roll, Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe
I Love NYC, Andrew WK
I Love Rock-N-Roll, Joan Jett
I Need Candy, mc chris
I Never Picked Cotton, Johnny Cash
I Predict a Riot, Kaizer Chiefs
I Saw Her Standing There, Beatles
I Think I Need a New Heart, Magnetic Fields
I Think I'm Turning Japaneese, The Vapors
I Walk the Line, Johnny Cash
I Wanna Be Sedated, Ramones
I Wanna Go Home, Beach Boys
I Want it All, Queen
I Was in Love with a Girl On LSD, Tom Petty
I Was in the House When the House Burned Down, Warren Zevon
I Will Survive, Cake
I Wish, Skee Lo
I Wish I Was Queer so I Could Get Chicks, Bloodhound Gangs
I Would Walk 500 Miles, The Proclaimers
I'll Melt with You, Modern English
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, Warren Zevon
I'll Stick Around, Foo Fighters
I'm Holding On, Ween
I'm in the Mood to Move, Ween
I'm Nothing, Violent Femmes
I'm the Man, Joe Jackson
I'm the Man Who Loves You, Wilco
I'm Waiting for the Man, David Bowie
I'm Waiting for the Man, Velvet Underground
I've Been Everywhere, Johnny Cash
I've Done Everything for You, Rick Springfield
I've Never Been in a Riot, The Mekons

Glad that's settled.

10 Movies Your Really Ought to See

Okay so I was trying to think up a list of movies that people would really be better off if they saw. I'm not going to include things like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings or Godfather or whatever because I'm sure everybody as either seen it, or knows that they ought to see it already. I'm also going to leave out the ones on the opposite spectrem that almost nobody has heard of, and that you couldn't even find if I did reccomend them. So I'm going for 10 movies that you might but might not know about that you really should see. Besides movies most people haven't heard of, I'm also going to include movies that people have heard of, but nobody ever actually bothered to see for some reason. So anyway here we go, in order of how much I like each movie:

1. Memento (2000)
18th best movie of all time
An amazing movie starring Guy Pearce of all people. This is one of Christopher Nolan's (The Dark Knight) first movies, and it might actually be his best. It tells the story in reverse of man with no short term memory trying to get revenge against the men who killed his wife. It's a really cool idea for a movie and its execution is even better than its set up. How good is it? Good enough that the nerds on the internet movie database have named it the 27th best movie of all time, there only off by 9.
2. The Wrong Guy (1997)
28th best movie of all time
This movie is actually one of the funniest movies I've ever seen in my life. It stars Dave Foley as a man who threatened to kill his boss, then walked into his office to find him murdered. He runs out of the building screaming and assumes everyone thinks he killed his boss. But in fact the murder was caught on tape, so nobody thinks he killed his boss, and nobody is looing for him. The genius in this movie is how it reverses every sing cliche of the genre, from the local police officer trying despreately to get the FEDS to take over the investigation to the poor struglling banker in danger of losing his savings and loan to a greedy farm. Really a great movie, you should check it out.
3. Dirty Work (1998)
49th best movie of all time
This movie stars Norm McDonald as a man who starts a revenge-for-hire business with his half brother so that they can earn enough money to save their dying father. I'm begining to realize that this list is likely to be dominated by halarious movies from the 90's with rediculous plotlines. Anyway, this movie was directed by Tom Saget right after he left Full House and it was kind of his mdium for saying all of the inappropriate things he couldn't say well on that show. It also features Chris Farley in a small but halarious role in one of his last ever films. Be prepared for a lot of laughs and all the gay sex jokes you can handle.
4. Things to Do in Denver When Your Dead (1995)
52nd best movie of all time
This is a really great movie, it has kind of an early Tarintino type feel to it, although to my knowledge he had nothing to do with it. It stars Andy Garcia as a gangster type who has gone semi-ligit who gets hired by an aging milionaire crime-boss (Christopher Walken) to kidnap and scare away the boyfriend of the girl his semi-retarded son is in love with. The plan goes poorly and Walken puts out hits on Garcia and all his friends that he got to do the job with him. Besides Garcia and Walken it also features great performances by Steve Buschemi and Christopher Loyd, its really a shame this movie never really got the attention it deserved.
5. City of God (2002)
62nd best movie of all time
This movie did get quite a bit of attention for a foreign film (I think it might have won for best foreign film) but I still doubt more then 2% of Americans have seen it. It tells the story of a kid growing up in the slums of Rio De Jinareo, Brazil. He's trying to weave his way around a life of drugs and crime in an effort to hopefully one day become a reporter. If they were able to make an American version with actors people have heard of that was exactly 1/2 as good it would probobly make 100 million dollars and sweep the oscars.
6. The 13th Warrior (1999)
74th best movie of all time
Okay, here's one you probobly have heard of (and more then likely didn't hear that great of things). This is a movie that generally got poor reviews and tanked at the box office and I honestly have no idea why. It stars Antonio Bandares in a retelling of Beowolf from the point of view of an Arabian scholor who got roped into the battle. Perhaps not the most universally appealing plot, but at least its interesting. This movie has a lot of great action scenes, and more importantly then anything else, is never boring. It also comes out of left field to have one of my all-time favorite non-comedic quotes from a movie: "From the moment we are born our days are measured out in advance and no amount of cowerdice can save you, fear profits man nothing."
7. Oldboy (2003)
100th best movie of all time
This is one of those movies that you see and then can't think about anything else for the next 3 hours. Its a Korean movie about a guy who is kidnapped and then imprisoned for over a decade and never told why. Then one day he is randomly realeased and then goes about trying to find out why he was imprisoned. This is of the South Korean revenge genre and here's a little clue to the amazing plot twist: the revenge being taken against the main character isn't that he was imprisoned, the man seeking revenge has a much more sinister plan. Really one of the creepiest twists at the end of any movie I've ever seen.
8. The Edge (1997)
105th best movie of all time
This movie stars Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins as two men stranded in the Alaskan wilderness. Hopkins is a millionaire with beautiful wife and Baldwin wants to kill him and take his money and his wife. Hopkins knows Baldwin wants to kill him, and Baldwin knows that he knows. It makes for a very interesting dynamic. But, the whole thing gets put on hold when a giant killer grizzly bear starts stalking them. This is really an amzing suspenseful film with great acting, its a shame nobody bothered to watch it.
9. Identity (2003)
132nd best movie of all time
Great suspense movie starring John Cusak and Ray Liotta. It's about a group of strangers who converge in a random small town in the middle of a rain storm and then start to die one by one. It's one of those movies that has a great big twist in the middle, and then some more twists latter on. And yeah, you could make the argument that the movie goes one twist to far, but the movie's so good along the way that that's forgiveable.
10. Evil Alien Conquorers (2002)
145th best movie of all time
Okay, Ill be honest, I skipped over a couple of great movies that I could have put on this list so that I could get to this one. It stars Diedrich Bater (Ozwald from Drew Carey show) and Chris Parnell (Dr. Spaceman on 30 Rock) as evil alien conquorers from the planet Kabeesh. They have no special skills, or abilaties, they have no advanced technology, and they have 3 days to kill every human on earth or they will be killed themselves. But as Miak (Diedrich Bater) says, "this is not a problem". If your into this kind of humor than this movie is absolutely halarious, and if your paying attention its actually a thinly vailed mockery of Islamic terrorists, you really ought to watch this movie.