Mike's Archive

Category: Top 5

  • Desert Island Beers

    A neat riff on the now famous “Desert Island Discs“, I thought I’d take a stab at this:

    Dogfish Head Chicory Stoudt: Chock full of chocolate and coffee, this baby will keep you warm on those cold, lonely nights.

    Yuengling Lager: Because the only thing worse than remembering home when you’re stranded on a desert island is not remembering home.

    Pilsner Urquell: The real stuff. On draft, of course. They tried to make the best Pilsner in the world. They succeeded.

    Modelo Especial: Hey, it is a desert island after all… if you didn’t have a light, refreshing Mexican beer, you’d probably wish you did.

    Half & Half: The very best of the beer combinations, Guinness & Harp go together like peanut butter and jelly.

  • Top 5 Song Lyrics

    So Britain chose the line “One life, with each other, sisters, brothers” from U2’s “One” as their all time favorite song lyric. (This, by the way, was my Senior Prom theme.)

    That being said, I tried to think of my favorite song lyrics ever. It’s quite a daunting task, actually, but here’s 5 I came up with this morning, in no particular order:

    Bruce Springsteen    : “Show a little faith, there’s magic in the night”, from “Thunder Road”

    Golden Smog: “In a bar-room patrons singing, but I just sat there drinkin’, that’s until you came along”, from “Until You Came Along”

    Marah: “My heart is a saxophone solo from a third story window just before dawn”, from “My Heart is the Bums on the Street”

    The Haynes Boys (Tim Easton): “I don’t want to grow old, always drinkin’, but I want to grow old, drinkin’ with you”, from “Bitters Past”.

    Bruce Springsteen: “The poets down here don’t write nothing at all, they just stand back and let it all be”, from “Jungleland”

    What are your favorites? Which ones did I miss?

  • Top 10 Hottest Tickets in Sports

    Darren Rovell of the worldwide leader recently posted his top 10 “hottest tickets in American sports”. I agree with Rovell on the Derby, Sox-Yanks at Fenway, and Duke-Carolina at Cameron, but I’ve got 7 others I’d rather see than what he lists:

    World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party, Jacksonville, FL: The Florida – Georgia football game may be the toughest College Football ticket in the nation; seats are available online for no less than $300 for the ’06 game in APRIL. The party starts up Thursday and runs hard through Thursday night, not to mention that it’s October in Florida. And you’d prefer to be at The Masters?

    Cowboys @ Eagles, October 8, 2006, Philadelphia, PA: OK, so maybe this is just a one-off, but consider this: who in their right mind scheduled this game — T.O.’s return to the City of Brotherly Love — at 4pm in early October? Half of the crowd will have been drinking since 8 a.m. Enough said.

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  • Top 5 U-Dub Mistakes against UConn

    5. In general, their inablity to not give up crappy fouls at inopportune times. The one that got me the most was when either Jones or Dentmon gave a reach-in foul just as the shot clock hits 25 and the ball was still in UConn’s backcourt. That’s the kind of foul that makes a coach’s blood boil. Jones 5th was also a total tick-tack foul, just a stupid play by a supposed team leader who knew he was playing with 4.

    4. Roy getting in Gay’s face and picking up his 4th on the technical with 13 mins to go. Granted, had the whistle-happy officials let the players decide the game, this might not be an issue, but as the senior leader of the team and clearly the best player on the court, Roy should know better than to let some punk-ass freshman wind him up. As much as they had plenty of chances to win the game after this point, effectively it was over when Roy went to the bench. I truly believe UW wins in regulation without this call.

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  • Top 5 Candy List

    In response to Wisdom’s awesome candy post, I’m listing my top 5 candy choices:

    Twix — My all time fav, a beautiful combination of chocolate, caramel and cookie. Eat one or two, and serve with a tall glass of milk.

    KitKat — Simple, but beautiful — milk chocolate meets flaky wafer. Recent additions Dark Chocolate, Triple Chocolate and Big Kat only add to the legacy.

    Butterfinger BBs — I love the flavor of the original Butterfinger, but there is just too much finger and not enough chocolate, making it somewhat difficult to eat. The BBs add more chocolate and lessen the stickyness, but keep the wonderful peanuty flavor. The mini bars are pretty sweet too, but nothing beats Selma’s Butterfinger Brownie.

    Reese’s PBC — needs no explanation. Serve chilled.

    Heath Bar — only because Ben & Jerry’s Coffee Heath Bar Crunch is one of the most divine creations known to man.

    What are your favorites?

  • Top 5 Cover Songs – Non-Xmas

    So a few weeks ago my pal Gordo challenged me to put together a list of my 5 all time favorite cover songs. Feeling the Yuletide spirit, I changed the assignment, choosing to put up my five favorite Xmas covers. However, as promised, I’ve also put together my five favorite regular covers, as originally requested.

    Oh, so my criteria for this is that the cover has to be better than the original. There are a lot of nice covers that pretty much just regurgitate the original, which really doesn’t do a whole lot of good for anyone. Anyhoo, here goes:

    “Jersey Girl”, Bruce Springsteen: Amazingly, this song has become so ingrained in the Springsteen canon, most people don’t ever realize it was first performed by Tom Waits. Really, this is what a cover is all about — making it completely one’s own.

    “Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World”, Israel Kamakawiwo`ole: This song has become the de facto Hawaiian anthem, and deservedly so. Just a beautifully poignant, unique song.

    “Lawyers, Guns and Money”, The Wallflowers: Despite the recent trend to honor Warren Zevon posthumously, and despite his obvious success as a songwriter and performer, I never really cared for his music. However, Jakob Dylan & Co. inject new life into this one — It flat-out rocks!

    “Wurlitzer Prize”, Norah Jones: Although never realeased on a proper album, it is my favorite track by Jones. Her sultry voice matches the achingly beautiful song perfectly.

    “Streets of Philadelphia”, Marah: David Bielanko’s rollicking banjo turns the downtrodden original into a fun-loving barnburner. While it may take away a bit from the original’s serious overtones, it rocks nonetheless.

  • Top 5 Christmas Albums

    Time to resurrect an old favorite, Songoose’s Top 5 Christmas Albums.

  • Top Phive Jimmy Buffett Tailgate Setups

    There is nothing quite like a Jimmy Buffett tailgate — sun, phun, booze, island attire, and most importantly, an abundance of pure joy. You don’t see fights, bitterness or anything you might find in any other pre-concert parking lot. People are just happy to be there and share in the feeling. So, in honor of the upcoming Jimmy Buffett concert at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia this Saturday, I’m listing my Top Phive Phavorite Buffett Tailgate setups. (One will certainly notice that 3 of 5 came from Great Woods in Boston, the pinnacle of JB parties — a labor day institution for years that will be missed.)

    I look for three important things when I think of a great tailgate setup:

    • It has to be creative – erected bars are fun and cool but a lot of people have them so its hard to differentiate.
    • It has to bring people to your space. Jimmy parties are about the parrothead community, and the great ones bring strangers together like they’ve known each other for years.
    • It has to promote debauchery. Obviously.

    On to the list… (more…)