We Love Lists

Six (Why six? Just because) favorite time-wasting websites:

1. Awful Plastic Surgery

Now you too can identify classic over-plastic-surgeried celebrity no-nos, like trout pout, face melt and Spitting Image puppet.

2. Photoshop Disasters

Amuse yourself trying to figure out where the photoshopper went wrong. Extra digits, missing limbs, and subjects who throw no shadow in bright sunlight.

3. Waiter Rant

A waiter describes life in the restaurant business in New York. He's a good writer, and published a book this fall which I gave my brother for Christmas.

4. Cake Wrecks

You'll never pass up an opportunity to check out the cakes in your grocery store bakery section after you see some of these.

5. Passive Aggressive Notes

Those notes people leave for each other when they really should just sit down and talk about it.

6. Found Magazine

Notes and drawings that people have found on the ground, in a book, etc., and sent in to the site.

We Love Lists

My #1 Video of the Campaign

Time: Top Ten Campaign Video Moments

A weird list. The Palin-Couric interviews get #1, that's justifiable, but "Joe Biden's One-Word Debate Answer" and Hillary Clinton's "Soprano's Video" beating will.i.am's "Yes We Can" video is ridiculous.

My top five:

1. John McCain "The Fundamentals of Our Economy Are Strong" (see above)
2. will.i.am "Yes We Can"
3. Tina Fey "I Can See Russia From My House"
4. Sarah Palin "In What Respect, Charlie?"
5. Sarah Palin "Putin Rears His Head"

Best Christmas Albums

I am a collector of many things, among them Christmas CDs. Which makes me look up at the title of this post and realize that I have carbon-dated myself by writing "albums". That's how music came when I was a kid and that's how my brain will continue to refer to CDs unless I really think hard about it.

And of course I love lists. I just compiled a list to post on this post by dooce asking for Christmas music recommendations. So here goes. From my years of collecting and listening to Christmas music, here's my top six list of Christmas CDs/albums:

1. Mixed Nuts Soundtrack. My personal all-time favorite Christmas CD. The best tracks are Fats Domino's "I'll Be Home for Christmas" and Eartha Kitt's "Santa Baby"

2. Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas. The classic.

3. Bullseye Blues Christmas. Best track, "Five Pound Box of Money" by Michelle "Evil Gal" Willson

4. The Alligator Records Christmas Collection. Best track, Tinsley Ellis's "Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin'"

5. The Platters A Christmas Album,

6. and last but not least, The Brian Setzer Orchestra Boogie Woogie Christmas

We Love Lists

Telegraph (uk): Barack Obama: The 50 facts you might not know

We Love Lists

Times (uk): The Greatest US Presidents - The Times US presidential rankings

The Times is a right wing rag which is why they rank George H.W. Bush ahead of Clinton. Satisfying, George W. Bush and Richard Nixon are tied at 37th, fifth from the bottom.

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Ancient Americas: Colossal stone head, La Venta archaeological site, Mexico (1st millennium BC)
Photograph: Danny Lehman/Corbis

Guardian (uk): 1000 artworks to see before you die

Photo Gallery: 21 artworks from Volume One

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slate.com: First Palin, Then Campaign Suspension. What Now?
Slate predicts McCain's next 10 Hail Mary stunts.

1. Returns to Vietnam and jails himself.
2. Offers the post of "vice vice president" to Warren Buffett.
3. Challenges Obama to suspend campaign so they both can go and personally drill for oil offshore.
4. Learns to use computer.
5. Does bombing run over Taliban-controlled tribal areas of Pakistan.
6. Offers to forgo salary, sell one house.
7. Sex-change operation.
8. Suspends campaign until Nov. 4, offers to start being president right now.
9. Sells Alaska to Russia for $700 billion.
10. Pledges to serve only one term. OK, half a term.

We Love Lists

10 Zen Monkeys: 25 Harshest Reactions To the Wall Street Bailout

It's a clean list. No "what are these cocksuckers doing with my fucking money" here. (That will get this blog banned in a few more airports!)

We Love Lists

Very good taste: The Omnivore’s Hundred

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar (separately, never together)
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin Yucch!
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads Yucch!
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill (Ewww)
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

We Love Lists

wikipedia: Psychedelic Art
Land of Psychedelic Illuminations (©Brian Exton): example of fractal influence

Cracked.com: The 5 Greatest Things Ever Accomplished While High

I saw this list on Boing Boing:

#5 Francis Crick Discovers DNA Thanks to LSD

#4 Freud and Cocaine Invent Psychoanalysis

#3 A Coke Addict Makes a Coke-Flavored Cola and Calls it Coke

#2 Dock Ellis Trips His Way to a No-Hitter

#1 Moses Takes 'Shrooms, Shits Out Ten Commandments

We Love Lists

John McCain's 70 policy flipflops (as of right now, more are added on a daily basis)

The Carpetbagger Report: Jukebox John keeps changing his tune

McCain never met a principle he couldn't change on a dime, or a whim, or in an instant.

We Love Lists

timran, Dailykos: McCain's History of Blow-Ups: The Top Ten

Temper, temper.

We Love Lists

#1: "Dead Parrot", Monty Python, 1969

nerve.com: The 50 Greatest Comedy Sketches of All Time

hat tip to BoingBoing

#12: "The Racial Draft" Chappelle's Show

If Woody Allen's monologue qualified as a sketch, I'd add "The Moose" (1965) to the list. The Berkowitzes! The moose is furious!

We Love Lists

AP Photo (via salon.com)
Martha Gellhorn with Ernest Hemingway in Sun Valley, Idaho, November 1940

takepart: Happy Women’s History Month! Top 10 Inspiring Quotes From Inspiring Women

6. People often say with pride, “I’m not interested in politics.” They might as well say, “I’m not interested in my standard of living, my health, my job, my rights, my freedoms, my future, or any future.”

Martha Gelhorn, Novelist, essayist, and war correspondent

We Love Lists

The first blog I read every day: Duncan Black's Eschaton



Guardian (uk): The world's 50 most powerful blogs

No DailyKos? No credibility. HuffPo gets lots of hits, but powerful? C'mon. Power is getting Democrats elected to Congress. DailyDKos does that and deserved to be on the list.

We Love Lists

Nightmarish: Statue of Coaticlue (15th century)

Telegraph (uk): The World's 50 Best Works of Art (and how to see them)

The human race has been making art for thousands of years. Here, in chronological order, critic Martin Gayford chooses his 50 artistic wonders of the world

It's a very idiosyncratic list with many massive objects. Not one female artist.

Music to Drive You Crazy

Mother Jones: The Torture Playlist

NEWS: Music has been used in American military prisons and on bases to induce sleep deprivation, "prolong capture shock," disorient detainees during interrogations—and also drown out screams. Based on a leaked interrogation log, news reports, and the accounts of soldiers and detainees, here are some of the songs that guards and interrogators chose.

I actually like three of the songs:

Don MacLean, American Pie

Bruce Springsteen, Born in the U.S.A.

David Gray, Babylon

You can listen to all 20 songs at the Mother Jones link. For all young parents, yes, the Barney theme song made the list.

We Love Lists

2Spare.com: 10 Creepiest Old Ads

hat tip to BlogsNow

We Love Lists

BBC News Magazine Monitor: 100 things we didn't know last year

hat tip to BlogsNow

We Love Lists

wikipedia: Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte painted by Georges-Pierre Seurat
Times (uk): The greatest art shows on Earth in 2008
If you are taking a winter break, there are a host of fine exhibitions around the world. Our correspondent picks her Top Ten

I'd like to get down to see this one, but it's only open for 3 more weeks:

NEW YORK

Georges Seurat: The Drawings This show focuses entirely on the Neo-Impressionist Seurat’s breathtaking drawings, such as The Echo (1883), left, of which he left around 500 after his death at the age of 31. Seurat’s lightness of touch belies the complexity of his investigation of the relationship between darkness and light, which gives these delicate but dramatic works their singular luminosity. The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, New York (001 212 708 9400; www.moma.org ), until Jan 7 Also on: Foto: Modernity in Central Europe 1918-1945, Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue, New York (001 212 423 3500; www.guggenheim.org ), until Jan 13