Top 5 Friday: Holidays

Top 5 Fridays is back. Not a big crowd pleaser. But I don’t care.

Here are my Top 5 Favorite American Holidays:

1. Thanksgiving: Great food, football games, big family gatherings, a time to celebrate being thankful. It doesn’t get any better.
2. Memorial Day: The kickoff to summer holiday. The long weekend is often a time to start a big project. BBQs are common, too. A day to be thankful for our armed forces. And there’s usually great documentaries on the TV.
3. Independance Day, July 4: Fireworks! More BBQs with friends and family.
4. New Years Eve/Day: The start of a new year. A time of optimism and new hope of better times than the last year or finally getting stuff done. Plus a night of partying and staying up late (even though we go to bed at 12:01)
5. Labor Day: The end of the summer. One last hurrah to say goodbye. Plus a time to celebrate childbirth. That’s what this one’s for isn’t it? I don’t really know.

Sorry, Christmas didn’t make the list. No, I’m not a scrooge, but I prefer the no expectation holidays where we can gather with friends and family and just have good meals together.

Top 5 Friday: Ice Cream

Todd’s comment yesterday about frozen yogurt treats got my mind wandering over to ice cream.  I don’t typically eat a lot of ice cream or keep it in the house, because frankly, my metabolism isn’t what it used to be.  It all goes right to my thighs.

However, if there is a selection of ice cream out, here is the order of scoops I would go for:

1. Cookies and Cream – ’nuff said.  Any brand will do.
2. Breyers Vanilla -  Vanilla is ok with other brands, but Breyers Vanilla is simply the best.  Not their French Vanilla, though – just the regular pure vanilla.
3. Mint Chocolate Chip – Is it chocolate?  Is it a breath mint?  It doesn’t matter – it’s awesome.
4. Skinny Cow Vanilla Fudge Cups – Low fat ice cream that actually tastes good.  Only 2 points and it’s fantastic.
5. Cookie Dough - Just typing that makes me laugh and feel 20 years younger.  And I still like to sneak a bite of real cookie dough when Sara’s making cookies and not looking.

Top 5 Friday: Favorite Baseball Player Names

With the crushing news that Derek Lee may be out for two to three months with some fractured bones, I thought it might lift my spirits to look at something in baseball that makes me smile. So here are my Top Five Favorite Baseball Names. These are actual players playing in the major leagues right now.

• Moises Alou (Giants)
• Kiko Calero (Athletics)
• Milton Bradley (Athletics)
• Wily Mo Pena (Red Sox)
• Coco Crisp (Red Sox)

Top 5 Friday: Directors

I like movies, ok? So there are going to be a lot of Top 5 lists focused on movie related people. Today I’ll list my Top 5 Favorite Directors. There are always up and coming directors as well as the more obscure directors. But I’m going to list the ones with extensive bodies of work of which I’ve seen quite a few of and enjoyed. In no particular order, they are:

• Martin Scorsese – master of the mob movies and other greats (Goodfellas, Casino, Cape Fear, Raging Bull)
• Steven Spielberg – master of the big studio films, yet produces high quality movies time after time (E.T., Saving Private Ryan, Indiana Jones, Schindler’s List, Jaws)
• Alfred Hitchcock – master of the suspense movies. Any supsenseful movie today is compared to his works. (Pyscho, The Birds, North by Northwest, Vertigo)
• Stanley Kubrick – master of the dark side of human nature films. Was a recluse and demanding director. His films were often controversial. (The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Spartacus, 2001, Dr. Strangelove)
• Joel/Ethan Coen - the double-headed director. These guys are so good at making films together from beginning to end. (Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou, Intolerable Cruelty, The Big Lebowski)

Honorable mentions go to Tony Scott (Spy Game, Enemy of the State), Ridley Scott (Blackhawk Down, Gladiator) and Guy Ritchie (Snatch; Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels)

Top 5 Friday: Movies

Time for another installment of my Top 5 favorite somethings. Am I going to have enough of these to last a whole year? I think this will end up getting really weird at some point. (Top 5 favorite socks?) Well, I’ll go for an easy one this week.

Top 5 Favorite Movies of All Time (to date)

1. Chinatown (1974) Just a great film noir with the rising star Jack Nicholson as the lead. It’s creepy and disturbing, but fascinating at the same time.
2. The Matrix (1999) This movie just blew me away visually and with an interesting story – despite having Keanu Reeves in the lead role.
3. Return of the Jedi (1983) I know Empire is generally considered the best one, but I’ve always preferred this one a bit more because of the 3 battle scenes that go one at the same time at the end. It’s intense – and then the story gets resolved.
4. Airplane (1980) The original and still the best dumb comedies. The jokes are still funny today. It’s timeless.
5. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) The best adventure movie of all time. I used to make home videos of myself diving under the garage door and reaching back for my hat, ala Indiana Jones. You could say this movie inspired me.

Wow – tough list. I’m going to have to put up some honorable mentions as well: Citizen Kane (1941), Casablanca (1942), Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Goodfellas (1990), Snatch (2000), Black Hawk Down (2001). Man – I could go on and on. But then, that would negate the purpose of a top 5 list.

Top 5 Friday

I’ve been thinking about this post for a while. I originally got the idea from the tv show “Love Monkey” where one of the characters threw out her top 5 songs of all time. Then, inspired by Todd’s new blog (see new link over on the side) where he does a daily feature (I’m not that ambitious – I’m lucky to get any sort of post on any given day), I am now going to do Top 5 Fridays.

But first, I want to point out a new plugin for my blog: the “What I’m listening to now” list. This takes the music from my iTunes and stores them online at Last.fm (My page is here). Then, my blog pulls the last few songs from that database and displays them here. Very cool feature.

So, while on the topic of music, I give you this week’s top 5 list. I reserve the right to change this list at any time, but I’ve been thinking about this list for several weeks now and am pretty confident in it.

My Top 5 All Time Songs

The way I define these songs are ones that I won’t get out of the car for until they’re done playing. Songs that I’ll always crank up loud. Songs I’ll halt conversations for. Songs that I will never tire of. So, without further ado, and in no particular order, here it is:

• Into The Mystic – Van Morrison
• All Along the Watchtower – Jimi Hendrix version
• Free Bird – Lynard Skynard
• Hey Jude – The Beatles
• One – U2