Peter and Rob Make Lists of Things: lists within lists

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Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Top 2 Things That Are Borderline Unforgivable

2. The Minnesota Twins did not win their season opener against the Seattle Mariners.

You guys better win tonight or I am taking over the team like that kid in Little Big League. There will be a reckoning! No one is safe! Not even you, Nicky Punto! Now, slide into first base head-first! Again! Again! Who do you play for! Again! Again!

1. I put up a "Happy Birthday, Paul Rudd" list, but not a "Happy Birthday, Mom" list?!

You guys, this was just bad, bad form. You may recall that yesterday, April 6th, I posted a list chronicling the eight best roles Paul Rudd has played, in honor of his 40th birthday. Well, where the hell was I on March 28th, and where was the tribute list to my dear mother? (Note: I'm not "just now bringing this up" 'cause my dad told me to or anything like that. It dawned on me this morning and I felt totes bummed, so I had to do something about it. In fact, DAD, where was the "How dare you not tribute your mom in list fashion!" email?! Diffusion of responsibility!) Anyway, here are the Top 8 Roles My Mom Has Played:

8) Department chair
7) First soprano (not like, first ever, but still!)
6) First librarian in space (that was a first)
5) Also the second librarian in space
4) "Melissa" in A.R. Gurney's Love Letters
3) Wife
2) Mother
1) Third librarian in space

I love you, Mom!

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Monday, January 5, 2009

Top 7 Lists of the Top Albums of 2008, In Alphabetical Order

Hahahahahayou guys, I am easing into this year by not doing much work on these lists. Once again, I have let my friends do the work for me. Here are the individual lists that contributed to yesterday's Top Albums of 2008 list. (Thanks again, boyos and girlo.) As a bonus, I have included each contributor's ideal mashup.

1. James

1. Kathleen Edwards – Asking for Flowers

2. The Mountain Goats – Heretic Pride

3. Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend

4. Tift Merritt – Another Country

5. Martha Wainwright – I Know You're Married But I Have Feelings Too

James' Ideal Mash-Up: Lucinda Williams' "Concrete and Barbed Wire" vs. Neko Case's "Star Witness" vs. Some song by whatever band composed of dudes I used to know will get famous next

2. Jeff

15. MGMT – Oracular Spectacular

14. The Hold Steady – Stay Positive

13. Deerhunter - Microcastle

12. Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kind

11. Wolf Parade – At Mount Zoomer

10. M83 – Saturdays = Youth

9. Conor Oberst - Conor Oberst

8. Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend

7. Girl Talk – Feed the Animals

6. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago

5. Shearwater – Rook

4. Sigur Ros – With A Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly

3. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes

2. Punch Brothers – Punch

1. TV on the Radio – Dear Science

Jeff's Ideal Mashup: Will.I.Am's "Yes We Can" vs. New Order's "Regret" vs. The Mayor of Helsinki mumbling in his sleep

3. Peter

15. The Very Best – The Very Best Mixtape

14. M83 - Saturdays = Youth

13. Nas – Untitled

12. Silver Jews – Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea

11. Feed the Animals – Girl Talk

10. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!

9. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes

8. Drive-By Truckers – Brighter Than Creation's Dark

7. Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend

6. Santogold – Santogold

5. Los Campesinos! – Hold On Now, Youngster...

4. TV on the Radio – Dear Science

3. Mountain Goats – Heretic Pride

2. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago

1. The Hold Steady – Stay Positive

Peter's Ideal Mashup: Bruce Springsteen's "Jungleland" vs. Tribe Called Quest's "Can I Kick It" vs. That part in The Departed when DiCaprio is all, "You don't have any cats... I like that" vs. A computerized voice saying "The Minnesota Vikings are Super Bowl Champions" vs. The Talking Heads' "Naive Melody"

4. Phil

15. MGMT – Oracular Spectacular

14. Al Green – Lay it Down

13. David Byrne & Brian Eno – Everything That Happens Will Happen Today

12. Okkervil River – The Stand-Ins

11. The Mountain Goats & Kaki King – Black Pear Tree EP

10. The Silver Jews – Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea

9. Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks – Real Emotional Trash

8. Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend

7. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago

6. Conor Oberst – Conor Oberst

5. TV on the Radio – Dear Science

4. My Morning Jacket – Evil Urges

3. Ezra Furman & The Harpoons – Inside the Human Body

2. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes

1. The Hold Steady – Stay Positive

Phil's Ideal Mashup: Your uncle gently humming in your ear vs. Your heart weeping fearfully in your chest vs. The devil's own violin vs. Every rap skit ever

5. Pitr

1. The Mountain Goats – Heretic Pride

2. Girl Talk – Feed the Animals

3. Mates of State – Re-Arrange Us

4. The Hold Steady – Stay Positive

5. Miley Cyrus – Breakout

6. The Walkmen – You & Me

7. E630 – Something for Everyone

Pitr's Ideal Mashup: Mashup A vs. Mashup B vs. John Darnielle Reading His Grocery List vs. The Truth (note: John Darnielle's grocery list is the truth.)

6. Rob

15. Randy Newman - Harps and Angels

14. Nas - Untitled

13. Scarlett Johansson - Anywhere I Lay My Head

12. GZA - Pro Tools

11. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

10. Blitzen Trapper - Furr

9. Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis - Two Men With the Blues

8. The Hold Steady - Stay Positive

7. TV on the Radio - Dear Science

6. Santogold - Santogold

5. The Magnetic Fields - Distortion

4. Girl Talk - Feed the Animals

3. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

2. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!

1. Phoebe Killdeer and the Short Straws - Weather's Coming...

Rob's Ideal Mashup: Dogs Barking "Jingle Bells" vs. Tom Waits' "What's He Building in There?" vs. Rob Trump reciting his favorite things

7. Shruti

15. Mates of State – Re-Arrange Us

14. Okkervil River – The Stand Ins

13. Girl Talk – Feed the Animals

12. Hot Chip – Made in the Dark

11. Death Cab for Cutie – Narrow Stairs

10. Apes and Androids – Blood Moon

9. The Hold Steady – Stay Positive

8. TV on the Radio – Dear Science

7. No Age – Nouns

6. Sigur Ros – With A Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly

5. Portishead – Third

4. Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend

3. Ra Ra Riot – The Rhumb Line

2. MGMT – Oracular Spectacular

1. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes

Shruti's Ideal Mashup: two cats making screechy cat-love vs. Lawrence Welk

OOH! And as a bonus-bonus:

8. Caitlin's ideal mashup: "This Christmas" vs. the prologue to Consciousness Explained vs. Tom sleep-singing (YES THAT IS A THING AND DOUBLE-YES IT IS BEAUTIFUL)

9. Laksh's ideal mashup: Lakshmi does not believe in mashups.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

The Next 11 US Presidents and My Thoughts on Them

AAAAH. There are so many presidents! There are ten more to go, and then one extra special one when the results are finalized! Live-blogging starts at 7ish! (If the election is called early, then... boo. But actually, in all likelihood, that would mean something awesome.)

22. Grover Cleveland

Oh, hey Grover Cleveland--the factoid president. Only guy to serve two non-consecutive terms, eh? YEAH THAT'S THE FIRST TIME I'VE HEARD THAT ONE, GUYS. Even better though, the GC has serious Buffalo Boy cred. Assistant DA of Erie County during the Civil War! Sheriff of Erie Country in 1871! Mayor of Buffalo in 1882! NICE! PS, though, dude... St. Joe's beat Cleveland Hill High in MasterMinds all the time. Grover was hounded by allegations of fathering an illegit child during his time in Buffalo. To be totally fair, who hasn't.

23. Benjamin Harrison

Benny the H was kind of a doucher. First off, he was William Henry Harrison's grandson and that's not a great place to start. Second, he was frequently decried by Democrats as the proprietor of the "Billion Dollar Congress", as federal spending ballooned over one billion dollars for the first time in US history. Basically, the Billion Dollar Congress was like the New York Yankees. Okay, it was exactly like the Yankees. In 1889, his first year in office, Harrison traded Vice President Levi P. Morton to Canada for veteran Prime Minister John MacDonald. Later in the year, he packaged his Secretaries of State and War (James G. Blaine and Redfield Proctor, respectively) and shipped them to Belgium for King Leopold II and his nephew/sucessor Albert. In 1890, Harrison went full-on Steinbrenner and picked up a slew of high-profile political free agents, including Porfirio Diaz of Mexico, Tsar Alexsander III, and Faisal bin Turki of Oman. Though Diaz batted .345 in 1891 and won the AL batting title, Harrison's lineup was sorely lacking Blaine's big game experience and his split-fingered fastball. Harrison's boys lost the World Series 4-2 to the upstart Boston Beaneaters.

24. Grover Cleveland

I've said my G-Cleves piece already, but just for the record... this dude's name was GROVER?! How amazing is that? Other famous Grovers include Grover from Sesame Street and Grover from Kicking and Screaming. AND HIS LAST NAME WAS CLEVELAND?!!!!?!?! Grover Cleveland. Are you kidding me? That sounds like a Pynchon character. I love it.

25. William McKinley

Hey! More Buffalo stuff! As in, William McKinley was assassinated there! Isn't my fair city great? Back in college when we were putting on Assassins, I got super-psyched to find out where the shooting actually took place. Turns out, it was at the Temple of Music, just down the street from my high-school girlfriend's house. WHAT. Hilarious. Also, they tore down the Temple of Music, which makes perfect sense, considering that it's Buffalo. The McKinley assassination has been blamed for the subsequent slowdown in Buffalo's prosperity, for Bethlehem Steel leaving, for Scott Norwood missing that kick in Super Bowl 25, for the next three Super Bowl losses, for the Blizzard of '77, for the Blizzard of '96, for the blizzard that will inevitably hit us this year, and for the film Bruce Almighty, set (unconvincingly) in Buffalo.

26. Theodore Roosevelt

Rough rider! Square Deal! Bull Moose! Shot bears! Wore glasses! Trust-buster! Big stick! Gave a speech after being shot in a bar! Also--and this is probably the most important thing--when I was seven and my family took a trip to South Dakota, the tour guide at Mount Rushmore picked me to play TR in our human-kid reenactment of the monument. ('Cause I wore glasses, too. Also I've been on many an African safari.)

27. William Howard Taft

More like... William Howard FATT, right? (You guys, I totally anagram-owned our 27th president just then.) Despite his famed bathtub mishap, I think Big Willie Style was actually a pretty underrated prez. A solid reputation as a trust-buster, a decent track record of across-the-aisle progressivism, and he established the parcel post system. Also, the guy had the biggest crush on world peace of all time. (He must've hated World War I.) Unfortunately, Taft's arbitration-based plans for an end to war never really got off the ground and he wasn't reelected. BUT, the dude got a new lease on life when President Harding appointed him Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (making him the only president to serve on the bench). Ultimately, Taft considered this his political zenith. Badass quote: "I don't remember that I ever was President."

28. Woodrow Wilson

Known as our most librarianish president, Woody Willy gets high marks for foreign policy, but was kind of a dick when it came to some more touchy subjects. It's generally not a great idea to advocate eugenics and segregation, but hey, I guess that's why I'm not on the $100,000 bill and I've never been president of Princeton. (PS: I was going to make a "Suck it, Princeton" joke, but I'm applying to grad school there.) All in all, he won a Nobel Peace Prize, so he can't have been all bad. Right? Plus, his 14 Points are any early example of list-format humor. How great is #11: "Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, and other Balkan states to be granted integrity, have their territories de-occupied, and Serbia to be given access to the Adriatic Sea"... HAH! Classic... that's so Wilson.

29. Warren G. Harding

There is little to say of Warren G. Harding, save if you are ever playing the sexy presidents game (where you take president names and make sexual puns on them), Warren G. Hardon is a good fall-back.

30. Calvin Coolidge

I knew a guy once who was obsessed with Silent Cal. He went so far as to use a shot of Coolidge fly-fishing for his Facebook photo. That's about it.

31. Herbert Hoover

Hey, buddy! Thanks for all those hoboes! Looks like I have you to thank for my quasi-obsession, eh?

32. Franklin D. Roosevelt

MINI-LIST!

Prominent Actors Who Have Portrayed FDR:

8. Michael McShane on Seinfeld

7. Ralph Bellamy in The Winds of War AND War and Remembrance

6. Jason Robards in FDR: The Last Year

5. John Lithgow in World War II: When Lions Roared

4. Jon Voight in Pearl Harbor

3. Edward Herrman in Annie

2. Howard da Silva (of 1776 fame) in The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover

1. Alan Cumming in Reefer Madness!

Monday, November 3, 2008

The First 21 US Presidents and My Thoughts On Them

Hey. Hey you. Make sure you vote tomorrow. And once you do, make sure to check out our live list-format coverage of the results. WAIT, did I just seriously say I was going to do that? UH OH, that must make it true.

The next twenty-two will be forthcoming in the wee hours of November 4th...

1. George Washington

As played as it may be--and it's pretty played, even for a viral video--it's hard for me to do better than that "Washington, fucking Washington" cartoon that the Professor Brothers guys made. (At this rate, this list will be the easiest and the fastest ever! I'll just post the greatest things other people have said about all 43 presidents... I'm sure that at no point will I be moved to offer commentary of a personal nature!)

2. John Adams

The best thing ever about John Adams is that he was played by Mr. Feeny (AKA William Daniels, but actually just Mr. Feeny) in the film/musical 1776. It's a nice thing to think that the founding of our country was accomplished with full orchestral accompaniment. Also, it's a nice thing to walk up and down stairs while singing, "Bustability!" at the top of your lungs. This is why we decided to live in a duplex apartment with a spiral staircase. (Unfortunately, there are no clips of that scene on YouTube... but there are these two guys lip-synching to it... and this amazing 1776 Brokeback-parody...)

3. Thomas Jefferson

TJ has always been a personal hero. I suppose in some way I inherited him from my dad. I admire him as a writer, a philosopher, a statesman, a naturalist, and a man. Plus, he played the violin. Once, I was thinking out loud about deism and someone scoffed, "Oh, I bet you like Thomas Jefferson." It's true. I do.

4. James Madison

You guys, I'm super conflicted about James Madison. I mean, the guy writes a third of the Federalist Papers (including #10 and #51!), he gets the primary author credit on the Constitution, he fathers the Bill of Rights (though Dolly Madison, oddly enough, wasn't presented for the birth...), AND he banged out the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions with Thomas Jefferson. (Here's a quick synopsis of those: "Hey, Alien and Sedition Acts. Y'all can suck on one.") But then he had to go and mess with Britain/Canada and throw us into The War of 1812. Yeah, yeah, yeah... impressment of sailors and such. But c'mon, they burned Buffalo. Also, there's Jimmy Mad's not-so-good record with veeps... two of 'em died in office. That's like, the life expectancy of a Spinal Tap drummer.

5. James Monroe

He of the eponymous Doctrine and the "Era of Good Feelings", also the namesake of Monrovia, Liberia. In lieu of formulating a staunch opinion on James Monroe, I will just say that I am watching the end of Reign of Fire right now and I am struck by the realization that Reign of Fire is a seriously solid movie.

6. John Quincy Adams

I don't have much to say about our sixth president. He's the only one with a "Q" in his name, that's for sure. Basically, I just imagined him walking around the White House, constantly getting interrupted by curmudgeonly aides and cabinet members barking, "I knew John Adams, and you, sir, are no John Adams."

7. Andrew Jackson

Does anyone else think that Andrew Jackson looks like Jon Stewart? That's always been my impression. Jackson is notable for two reasons, in my mind. He was the first president to have an attempt made on his life. Unfortunately, the would-be Booth was a crazy named Richard Lawrence who thought he was Richard III. Both of his pistols misfired and Jackson ended up beating the hell out of him with his cane. Good on ya, Old Hickory. Also, I was learning about Jacksonian Democracy during junior year when the vice principal came on the loudspeaker and said the Twin Towers had been hit. Actually, I don't know how true that is, but it's what I've always said when people ask. I've said it so many times that it's been internalized, I suppose. But for some reason, it doesn't ring true--how could we have gotten all the way to Jackson in AP US History in a week and a half of school? At this point though, there's no point in changing my story though. I don't want to be that guy who doesn't remember what he was doing when he first heard, ya know? Incidentally, I do remember where I was when I heard about JFK. It was thirty or so years after the fact, but for the record, I was in the dentist's waiting room, asking my mom questions about America.

8. Martin Van Buren

Martin Van Buren was a lot of things, but most importantly, he is the president most consistently referenced in Homestar Runner cartoons. Here is the proof.

9. William Henry Harrison

WHH is responsible for one of the most widely recounted presidential falsehoods, that bit about him giving the two hour inaugural address in the rain, and subsequently developing pneumonia and dying. In fact, most careful historians will agree than William Henry Harrison did not, in fact, only serve 30 days, 12 hours, and 30 minutes in office. He served two full terms, ended slavery, gave women the right to rock, and put the first man on the Sun.

10. John Tyler

Okay, that was a lie. William Henry Harrison died in office and John Tyler succeeded him. They called him "the man without a party" because the Whigs literally expelled him after he took office. This ushered in an era of semi-lame character actor presidents. Basically a bunch of Tom Wilkinsons and Philip Baker Halls. (Although I respect Wilkinson and PBH much more than Presidents Tyler through Buchanan.)

11. James K. Polk

I have a friend from back home who's convinced that James K. Polk was the greatest president ever, because he "did everything said he promised he would do while he was campaigning." His pre-election promise was basically, "I am going to get you guys so much fucking new land, it's not even funny. Spoiler alert: you're gonna love Oregon!" I dunno... guess you can't argue with Manifest Destiny. (Literally. If you argue with it, it takes your house. That's like, one of the rules.)

12. Zachary Taylor

Who elects a "Zach" president? That's ridiculous. Also, maybe he was poisoned?

13. Millard Fillmore

This guy founded the University of Buffalo, which is nice, because I basically grew up on UB's campus. It's where I learned to ride my bike there, where I learned to hit a baseball, where we went sledding in the winter. My dad and I used to walk over to this one decently-groomed baseball diamond about a half a mile from my house... he'd pitch and I'd hit for a while, then he'd send me into the outfield to shag flies. My one persistent demand was that we couldn't leave until I had made at least one "spectacular" catch. The field wasn't full-sized or anything, but way out in left (maybe 300 feet), there was a gravel path that I always aimed for. I held firm to the belief that if I ever hit a ball over that path, I would be a man. When I was 13 or 14, I finally did. I crushed one about 25 feet past that path, smacking into a pink, pre-fab technology building. It left a dent in the wall and everything. I showed it to my high school girlfriend once and told her that it meant I was a man, and then we made out for a few minutes under my dent. A few years ago, they painted that building white and flattened out the dents. Then, this year they tore the field down entirely. Oh well. Thanks, Millard Fillmore.

14. Franklin Pierce

I don't know too much about ol' Franklin Pierce, so ol' WikiPete got his wiki on and did some learning. Turns out he was the youngest U.S. president ever at the time of his inauguration (48 years), a good buddy of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and an unrepentant drunk. His presidency left Kansas bleeding and sought, at one point, to seize Cuba by force, but I'll forgive all that because after he lost the Democratic nomination in 1856, he said "There's nothing left to do but get drunk."

15. James Buchanan

A legit contender for worst president ever. He's probably best known for failing to prevent the American Civil War. Secession is illegal, he said, but so is a forcible attempt to stop it. Good one, J-Buck. Me dancing on your grave is disrespectful, but you trying to stop me would make you a zombie. (Zombie Buchanan = least scary zombie ever.)

16. Abraham Lincoln

A relevant gchat conversation:

Rob: why is anyone's favorite president not lincoln

i had this argument with molina bc of his bands obsessions with presidents

if your favorite president isnt lincoln you are either a) faking or b) do not know enough about lincoln

me: haha

or you don't like when people suspend habeas corpus

Rob: no the whole point of lincoln is that he gets 10000 badass points for suspending habeas corpus

he was basically proof all ends are justified by the means if your ends are awesome

In other news, once upon a time I played John Wilkes Booth in a production of Stephen Sondheim's Assassins. My roommates Tom and Caitlin played the Balladeer and the Proprietor, respectively... noted friend of PaRMLoT Rami Raff played John Hinckley--it was the best of times. Anyway, how sweet is this mustache? (Note: I am the one with the mustache):

I'm not saying that one part in one musical changed my opinion on Abraham Lincoln. Shooting him in the head in front of a crowd and getting applause for it didn't help, though.

17. Andrew Johnson

Andrew Johnson was to Abraham Lincoln as Matt Cassel is to Tom Brady. Also, he was a terrible president.

18. Ulysses S. Grant

Shitty, corrupt president, but a wonderful memoirist. (By the way, all you wacky Wesley Clark fans... they aren't all Eisenhowers.)

19. Rutherford B. Hayes

As I've written before, my friends in high school used to call my dad Rutherford. (They kind of look alike, and by kind of, I mean they both have beards.) This led to my mom becoming Lemonade Lynnette, a play on Lemonade Lucy, the actual Rutherford's wife... though my mom and Mrs. Hayes do not share the same rapid views on temperance. Basically, the Ruth is known for being the only president whose election was decided by a congressional commission. Hey, President Hayes... the Popular Vote is on line 1, it says screw off.

20. James A. Garfield

James A. Garfield was assassinated by Charles Guiteau four months into his presidency. (Well, he was shot four months in and died two months later after his doctors dicked around with his insides for a while. That was a mean way of saying that if he had lived, James A. Garfield would have had one hell of a malpractice claim. That was a snarky way of saying that James Garfield was killed by his doctors and not by his assassin.) Anyway, Charlie Guiteau is way more interesting than Garfield. (Anyone who has seen Assassins knows this.) Some fun pre-assassination highlights in the life of Charles Guiteau: joined free-love commune, kicked out of free-love commune twice because no one wanted his love (free or otherwise), obtained license to practice law in Chicago semi-fradulently, tried one case, lost that case, decided theology was a better pursuit than law, wrote a book called The Truth (most of which was the product of plagiarism), campaigned for Garfield, decided he was responsible for Garfield's election (even though his speech was mostly about Grant), decided he should be ambassador to France, bought a fancy looking gun, and headed off to the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station to kill the president.

21. Chester A. Arthur

Oh, so Guiteau's words while pulling the trigger were "I am a stalwart of the Stalwarts... Arthur is president now!" (Basically, there was a battle within the Republican party between Stalwarts like Arthur who favored spoils-system type political patronage and Half-Breeds like Garfield who pushed for civil service reform.) Anyway, how much does it suck to feel like the only reason you're president is because some bat-shit commune-reject likes your views on political machines and disagrees with your boss. Ultimately, Arthur's biggest achievement was the passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. (Any mention of this fact is notably absent from Alanis Morisette's "Ironic".) In 1884, Arthur went on to lose the Republican nomination to noted corrupt fuck James G. Blaine.

Peter and Rob Make Lists of Things

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Top 2 Things That Are Borderline Unforgivable

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Top 124 Sorta-Racist Questions People Are Asking on the Internet

Monday, January 5, 2009

Top 7 Lists of the Top Albums of 2008, In Alphabetical Order

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

The Next 11 US Presidents and My Thoughts on Them

Monday, November 3, 2008

The First 21 US Presidents and My Thoughts On Them

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