Archive for the ‘Top Ten’ Category
The Top Ten Lettuces of All Time
Have you ever been sitting around, watching the game, drinking a beer (or maybe some Yellow Tail), and had a sudden craving for some lettuce? Of course you have – we all have. Lettuce has always been one of the most overlooked snack foods; traditionalists still like to think of lettuce as nothing more than “the backbone of the salad.” Based on the lines at most of the lettuce takeout shops here in Chelsea, NYC, that is simply not the case. Herewith, our guide to help the savvy snacker navigate the many delicious choices in Lactuca Sativa.
The Top Ten Lettuces of All Time
10. Chinese
Leafy and delicous
Pros: Really brings out the tanins in an ice cold Nehi Peach beverage; also cookable
Cons: Hungry again a few minutes later (mostly because of the negative calories, not because of the whole “you’re hungry again in an hour after eating Chinese food” stereotype)
9. Boston
Crunchy and versatile
Pros: Looks like an artichoke; tastes similar to Cheetos
Cons: Consistently exhibits smug, superior attitude; sticks to teeth
8. Lollo Rosso
Moody and multi-layered
Pros: So sophisticated looking, will make friends jealous; colors run through significant portion of the Roy G. Biv spectrum
Cons: Difficult to decide which end is the most edible; not as suitable for “snacking on the go” as other lettuces
7. Taco Bell Volcano
Zesty and filling
Pros: Infused with horse estrogen and nacho cheese; nice seasoned ground beef aftertaste
Cons: One of the few members of the lettuce family that you don’t burn more calories by eating than you do by ingesting
6. Buttercrunch
Crunchy and buttery
Pros: Inspired poor-selling line of Girl Scout cookies; somewhat resembles a lion’s mane
Cons: Cats of all types are lame; actual butter content is surprisingly low
5. Tom Thumb
Almost alliterative and surprisingly filling
Pros: Delightful in early spring paired with a Diet Coke with Lime; can be used as a boutonnière in a pinch
Cons: Doesn’t get the party started as much as its name suggests
4. Summer Crisp
Warm and crunchy
Pros: Somewhat counterintuitively, is crispy year-round; splendid as both the filling and the wrapping element of a lettuce wrap
Cons: Not available at the bodega around the corner; depressing to eat in NYC in February when it’s fucking 12 degrees
3. Arugula (the honorary lettuce)
Mustardy or spinachy
Pros: Makes you feel like a real fucking fancy pants when you eat it; it’s fun to ask the uneducated whether they like it and hear them try to pretend they know what fucking arugula is
Cons: Not really a lettuce, although my investigative reporting stopped short of figuring out what it really is. This isn’t friggin “top ten arugulas.”
2. Romaine
Regal and stout
Pros: Leaves can be used as a dustpan; standalone, it tastes a bit like lamb vindaloo
Cons: Its reputation got overstated a bit during the Caesar Salad Boom of the late 90s
1. Iceberg
Timeless and circular
Pros: Structure/concentration of the layers allows for eating like an apple; perfect snack for when you are starving but have a weigh-in in the next few hours
Cons: Makes you pretty full after 2-3 heads
Chilly17
Untimely Topics: My Top Ten Christmas Presents
This would probably have made more sense last week, but I was kinda tied up with the whole gambling/drinking thing. This week, though, I have turned over a new leaf, not entirely because I’m mired in a dry county. I’m sure tomorrow when I get to LA i will continue to maintain a monkish existence. Except I will eat more chili verde than most monks probably eat.
My Top Ten Christmas Presents
10. Commodore 64 Computer
64Ks of RAM power
I was finally going to enter the world of more powerful computing after being in TI-99/4A non-extended BASIC hell for three years. Machine code via PEEKs and POKEs of a non-sexual nature, it was all there for the taking. Typing in 1800 lines of code from Games magazine would certainly be worth it now, those games would most likely be Donkey Kong-esque masterpieces. Alas, it was not to be.
9. Six Million Dollar Man Action Figure
Bionic eye aesthetics have improved since 1975
One of the first hugely popular tie-in toys, the SMDM doll had a ton of shit on it – creepy bionic eye (a peephole carved in the back of Steve Austin’s head), karate/lifting arm mechanism, skin you could fucking peel back to reveal circuitry! This was the pinnacle of 1975 toy chic. (Apparently, after 30 years or so, the peel-backable skin becomes just a hard plastic sheath, so some enterprising lads have come up with a foreskinish SMDM replacement skin. I’m serious, someone makes that. What a sweet world we live in.)
8. Don’t Break The Ice Game
Much funner than it looks (plus I was like four)
A precursor to the Jenga-type games in which you try to prevent shit from falling apart. Provided early lessons about risk management and dealing with personal loss. There was another sweet game I got the same year where the goal was to fish stuff out of a sewer with magnets on a string – the name of which escapes me. They still make DBTI, so it must still be fun as shit if you are four.
7. Stretch Armstrong Malleable Action Figure
#1 all-time unintended use toy
This toy was fun because it was filled with some mysterious mixture (best guess: 45% wet cement, 55% pudding) and every kid in the world was striving to pull the fucking arms off to see what was inside. It was also incredibly heavy – I once bludgeoned a cat to death with one. Okay, that never really happened – any self-respecting cat could easily dodge a 75 pound toy being swung by an eight year old – but I wanted to reiterate that I don’t care for cats.
6. Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots
Super-compelling box + fun toy
Not much to say about RESERs – one of the best toys ever. I believe we managed to destroy ours in less than six hours, but it was fun as shit while it lasted.
5. Coleco Electronic Quarterback
Exceptional 1D graphics
Kids these days don’t have no ‘magination – when I was nine, I had to pretend that one bright dot evading three slightly less bright dots was Niners/Bengals. Now the Madden games are accurate down to whether Tony Romo’s facial hair reflects a Thursday, Sunday or Monday game.
4. Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle
His name was frickin evel and he was still mad popular
Before the Six Million Dollar Man hit, EK was the doll-I-mean-action-figure to own. I was particularly psyched to get the Stunt Cycle and attempt to jump over like 60 buses. Unfortunately I didn’t have that many buses so had to just jump it off the table and shit. This toy actually didn’t work nearly as well as the commercials suggested, but still, Evel Knievel was the shit.
3. TI 99/4A Computer
Adding a cassette tape drive really amped up the action
Yes, numbers 2 and 3 on this list happened the same year, known as “The Christmas.” (Of course, there was an element of bribery involved, as I was being forced to move to what I thought was a shithole city. This was later confirmed to be true.) Two computers on here? I must be a dork. The TI-99/4A was a piece of shit, but at the time (1982?) it looked to be more powerful/versatile than a VIC-20. That’s probably the only time that “powerful/versatile” and TI-99/4A have ever been used in a sentence, but it did allow me to copy ridiculously long BASIC code for simplistic games out of a magazine. Those games were about as fun as playing tic-tac-toe against yourself. Still, nostalgia.
2. Murray Moped/Chick Magnet
Ladies, try and keep it in your pants
The computer was to enhance the brainpower, but the moped was all about the chicks. Once the muffler went, it had the approximate volume of an asthmatic Harley and offered an unfortunate plume of smoke as my calling card. Still, mobility.
1. Atari 2600
I was a Space Invaders guy
The big daddy of them all – need I say more?
Bonus Wastedpotentialz!: Select Christmas Disappointments
Rocket Tubes
Only takes 17 hours to assemble!
Did not work. At all. Fuckers.
Slinky
Sweet theme song, though
We always lived in a one-story house, so it was great fun watching a Slinky go down one step. Inevitably got all kinked up and was impossible to unkink.
Socks
Even worse if you only get a single sock
Basic necessities – socks, non-thong underwear, Yellow Tail, dental floss – do not make great presents.
Commodore 64
How can a gift be disappointing if it’s on the “best” list? If you have to pack it back up and take it back to the store two days later. We had an, uh, earnings revision – cash flow was less robust than originally projected.
Sporadically yours,
Chilly17
A Lot of Wasted Potential(z)
Posted by: chilly17 in Pop Culture, Top Ten on December 11th, 2009
It is frigid in NYC right now – 26 degrees at 11:30 AM. Awesome. And, I’m on a two week drinking sabbatical due to some recent fatassness issues, so I can’t even find solace in a jug of Yellow Tail. The life that so recently was one to brag about has become one in which I’m shivering, wearing a sweatshirt indoors and sipping a diet coke with lime. Nothing to brag about here now, but that’s a fucking tailor-made segue into some 2009 things that could’ve been good/great (potential) but instead managed to suck (wasted).
A Lot of Wasted Potential(z)
1. Celebrity sex scandals not involving Sofia Vergara
One more in case you are unclear on the concept...
It is not a shocking conceit to me that famous, wealthy men will have extramarital affairs. It is shocking to me that the objects of their affections will be fatnormous interns, perkins waitresses or average vegas hobags. Gentleman (and for discretion’s sake I’m not naming names here), take a good look at the lady above. That’s who/what you should be striving for – make the world a better place for everyone if we’re going to have to look at pictures plastered all over the place.
2. Yellow Tail pinot noir – I love Yellow Tail, I love pinot noir, but I do not love Yellow Tail pinot noir. Sure, it has some nice tanins and a crisp bouqet, but it lacks the intricate taste (oaky with a hint of sriracha) and delicate finish of my favorite Yellow Tail varietal, purple. The pinot also disappointed when paired with a variety of tapas (Andy Capp’s hot fries, velveeta cheese and some starbursts). All purple, all the time from here on out.
3. Billy’s Bakery peanut butter chocolate pie
Sweeter than it looks
Should be labeled “peanut butter chocolate pie concentrate” with very specific health warnings regarding eating it undiluted. Parsing out the main ingredients, peanut putter chocolate pie sounds like it should be a big, fat Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg in a graham cracker crust. While it looks delicious, at our Thanksgiving gathering, no one could muster more than a sporkful without sending blood sugar levels skyrocketing to life-threatening levels. I’m pretty sure I got diabetes from it. Also, not so delicious.
4. FlashForward - A road I’ve been down several times before: cool, thought-provoking concept, strong cast (on paper) from a network that allegedly (Lost) knows how to pull these things off. The execution has been terrible, with too much focus on meaningless (in the grand scheme of things) sentimentality, ham-handed acting – particularly from the simian Joseph Fiennes – and a boring progression of the story.
Could also have reiterated other once-promising shows that devolved into suck (Weeds, Californication, Entourage) or the abortion that was X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
5. Trying to watch Drag Me To Hell with drunk person who dislikes scary movies
Needs more Sofia...
Lessons learned: Do not fall for it when a drunk person or SO, desirous of watching Year One (15% fresh), attempts to use reverse psychology by agreeing to watch your suggestion, the more lauded Drag Me To Hell (92% fresh). Right after pushing “purchase” she will then start ranting about how she hates scary movies and thought you’d pick Year One instead. And continue babbling throughout the movie. I do recall there was a lot of vomiting (in the movie, not from the drunk person). I need to watch this one again.
6. Blackberry Storm – It looked like Research In Motion had a good shot at chipping away some of the iPhone’s early lead in the smartphone market. The Storm looked cool, had a unique touchscreen keyboard with tactile feedback and had the benefit of the Verizon network. Too bad the keyboard didn’t work quite as well as advertised, the browser was clunky and slow to react and the ergonomic design of the phone was sorely lacking (unless you enjoy having the phone switch in and out of speaker as your ear touches it when trying to use it as a conventional phone device).
Supposedly SI columnist Peter King hated his Storm, and when fortunate enough to be sitting next to the head of the Storm development team at a Red Sox game, let him hear about it. Maybe they worked out some of the kinks for the Storm II, but I suspect that instead the Droid will be the smartphone of choice for Verizon. Swing and miss, RIM.
7. Arby’s gyro
WTF?
Along the lines of the YT pinot paradox, I love some arby’s and I love some gyro. But, come on, arby’s – this isn’t a friggin gyro! It’s a roast beef pita! Sandwich type isn’t determined by the choice of bread; peanut butter and jelly on a tortilla isn’t suddenly a chicken burrito. Put a real gyro rotisserie up, arby’s, and then you’re on to something.
8. Eminem’s new album - Repetitive woe-is-me-I-have-addictions lyrics peppered with a bunch of three-years-too-late pop culture references. Felt like a particularly musty episode of Entourage. Em, it’s probably safe to move away from Mariah and Jessica Simpson as objects of your derision; maybe step up to some Taylor Swift hate. By the way, Mariah managed to cut you off at the knees with “Obsessed”; she could teach you a thing or two about retaliation.
9. Jamarcus Russell and the Pittsburgh Steelers (tie)
A twist on the old statue of liberty play
Jamarcus allegedly has as much physical talent as anyone in the NFL, but enjoys eating and drinking more than working at his craft. Translation: he sucks. Which hasn’t helped the development of my boy Darren McFadden, who I projected to be better than Adrian Peterson. Great prediction, Chilly.
Pittsburgh has lost to Cleveland, Oakland and Kansas CIty in the last month. Wow. Horrendous.
10. Breaking Dawn – The fourth installment of Stephanie Meyer’s unheralded Twilight series was a relative disappointment given the strong foundation she’d laid with the first three novels. The resolution of the multi-species love quintangle – Bella, the human; Edward, the vampire; Jakob, the werewolf; Darren, the zombie; Suesta, the mummy – was predictable and left the reader yearning for Jakob to finally find some requited love. The final battle with the emo ninja battalion was anticlimactic and had too many errors – it’s common knowledge that ninjas hate the pacific northwest in the fall and that a mummy can only take on three ninjas, max – to be taken seriously.
I believe my Twilight fanfic at twilightfanfic.com/chilly17/breakingpwn offers a more realistic resolution to this overlooked series.
Have a good weekend,
Chilly17
