Well, my new TiVo box is up and running, and the first thing I did was sign up for some season passes to record my favorite shows (especially ones I never get to see). Part of what's cool about Tivo is that it lets you record shows and keep a certain number of episodes around just so you can watch them whenever you want (which is great for talk shows). While Stef added a few choices of her own, here are the top five shows I TiVoed so far:

1. The Daily Show (Bubba Clinton is on tonight!)
2. The Colbert Report (for my daily dose of truthiness)
3. Star Trek: The Next Generation (Space, the final frontier...)
4. Seinfeld (only the best show ever; gotta have a few around)
5. Conan O'Brien (because I haven't been up past 12:30 in a year)

What TV shows (especially ones you never get to see) would you record, if you could? Drop a note in the comments...

Somebody shoot me. This is day six of me being ill, and I'm ready for it to be over. Here are the top five things I hate about being sick:

1. When you think you're done blowing your nose, are about to move on, and then realize you need another tissue
   
2. When you go on a coughing jag for a couple minutes and people start giving you dirty looks
   
3. Hacking stuff up every twenty minutes
   
4. Getting so hooked on your cold medicine(s) that you have to start upping your dosage
   
5. Drinking so much damn water that you need a bathroom break six times an hour

At the rate I'm going I'll be blowing brain matter through my nose on my birthday. That's always fun.

by el Scoot

A while ago, Zack started a thread here with the top five events he'd like to attend during his lifetime. I thought I'd follow up with my list of the top five events I wouldn't attend under any circumstances. In descending order:

#5: The Major League Baseball All-Star Game. There was a time when I would have KILLED to go to the All-Star Game. I still love the GAME of baseball, but I haven't spent a dime on a major league game since the strike in 1994 wiped out the World Series, and the tenth birthday outing I'd planned for Zack and some of his friends. I can hold a grudge, dammit!

#4: Mardi Gras. There also was a time when I would have jumped at the chance to be in New Orleans on Fat Tuesday. This has nothing to do with the current state of affairs in New Orleans; I've only been there once, but I had a ton of fun and ate some great meals. I'd love to go back...just not during Mardi Gras. I've gotten to an age where there's no appeal in fighting that drunken throng.

#3: Running with the bulls in Pamplona. This always gave me one impression: really, really stupid. Dangerous. I don't get it.

#2: The Republican National Convention. Would I COVER a GOP National Convention as a reporter? Sure I would. But, man...it would be tough.

And, #1: The Daytona 500. Tens of thousands of NASCAR fans, all still deeply mourning the death of Dale Earnhart while swilling their beer, sweating, dancing to country music, and cheering for Earnhart wanna-bes. (Does the "500" mean the total number of teeth at the race?). I wouldn't go there with a wheelbarrow full of free tickets.

There you have it. Other suggestions?

I'm a big fan of live concert albums. It's one thing to have a favorite band/album/song, but unless they can play it live, it's not worth paying for concert tickets. For my money, a great live band can take mediocre/good music and make it truly great.

Anyway, here are my top five favorite concert albums:

1. U2 - New Years Night in Dublin 89-90
   It's a bootleg, but the audio quality is excellent. They open with Auld Lang Syne and go right into Streets. Goosebumps.
   
2. Guster - Live 6/17/04 Myrtle Beach
   My new favorite band plays a great setlist of their best songs. Oh, and the Meowstro is great too.
   
3. Dave Matthews Band - Listener Supported
   This is DMB at the top of their game on this one.
   
4. Ben Folds Live
   The best of Ben Folds Five and Ben's solo material. He does the coolest audience participation stuff of any modern musical performer.
   
5. Sting - All This Time
   Very chill, but it swings too. Sting is so smooth it's scary.

Honorable Mention: Talking Heads - Stop Making Sense
Just a brilliant concert film/album from one of the great bands of the 80s.

Yesterday I got an anonymous email from someone about a new mockumentary film that satirizes multi-level marketing firms like the evil AMWAY corporation. The movie looks really funny, and the timing couldn't be better -- the filmmakers have already arranged premieres in Lansing, Grand Rapids, Flint, Ann Arbor, and Detroit for October this fall, which is perfect timing for the governor's race.

Anyway, this got me thinking about my favorite mockumentary films/TV shows, so here they are:

1. The Office
2. Curb Your Enthusiasm (the original HBO documentary)
3. This is Spinal Tap
4. Arrested Development
5. Waiting for Guffman

What are your favs?

Okay, even though I'm not a student anymore, I still have to deal with welcome week at Michigan State because I live so close to East Lansing (not to mention the fact that my girlfriend is starting her senior year of school). Here are the top five worst things about welcome week at MSU:

1. Having it take 20+ min. to drive on Grand River thru East Lansing
2. Going into any kind of bookstore (it's like a suicide run)
3. Parking. Anywhere.
4. Meijer and their damn "midnight madness"
5. Getting cut off by a van stuffed to the gills on US 127

Like I said, it's our two-year anniversary today, so here are the top five annoyingly cute things about Stefy and me as a couple.

1. We basically never fight
2. W don't like being apart from each other for more than 24hrs
3. We pretty much like the same stuff (shows, movies, sports, etc.)
4. We both really love each other's families
5. We thumb wrestle whenever we get bored

I could probably fill a book with this category, but here are five everyday things that bug the hell out of me.

1. People not holding doors open (honestly, it takes 5 seconds, chump)
2. Biting my hangnails (it's disgusting, it hurts, I can't stop)
3. Drivers not using turn signals (these people should be shot)
4. When people take my parking spot at work (don't go there)
5. When people clap at the end of a movie (memo: they can't hear you)

Okay, what did I forget?

Here's another silly top five category, the top five events I want to attend before I die:

1. Wimbledon (I could keel over the next day and I'd be happy)
2. Superbowl (to see the Lions... ha, yeah right)
3. Democratic National Convention (for serious)
4. A Steve Jobs Keynote (oh, there's one more thing...)
5. A Michigan State Bowl Game (psshyeah)

How about yours?

by Scooter

My criteria may differ from yours a bit in that not all of these songs directly address a particular war as much as the state of mind that leads to war...

1: "What's Going On," Marvin Gaye. Why is this on top? The message is so powerful that Motown, at first, didn't want to release it. It addresses more than just Vietnam, but social/racial/economic divides as well. That would make it a great song no matter what, but combined with an irresistable dance groove...wow!

2: "Like A Rolling Stone," Bob Dylan. He wrote other great protest songs, too, of course..."Masters of War" comes to mind...but this one is his finest hour. The live version with The Band on "Before the Flood" is incredible.

3: "War," Edwin Starr. This song, along with others like "What's Going On," brought into sharp focus the role of black America in protesting Vietnam. Helluva funk groove (GREAT horns), and a great live cover version on Bruce Springsteen's live box set.

4: "Born in the USA," Bruce Springsteen. His most misunderstood and misused song. People hear the force of the arrangement with the E Street Band and consider it an anthem, when it's really an indictment of Vietnam and the treatment of veterans of that war. It made him a superstar, but my gut tells me he regrets the original arrangement as a result.

5: "Imagine," John Lennon. Speaks for itself.

Hard to leave Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" off this list; Pete Seeger's "If I Had A Hammer" wants in, too.

I continue to wonder when the music artists of today will REALLY take on the current world situation in a way that captures the public. A few have at least tried, not the least of which is Neil Young's "Living With War," but it isn't as though he's well known among the younger generation. Bruce had a golden opportunity with "We Shall Overcome," and it's a great CD, but he left off some potential songs that would have made it even better.

Name the biggest stars in the world today, and none of them have really even tried to earn a spot on a list like this. Pity.

EDITOR'S NOTE: If you would like to submit a Top Five post, just send me an email.

Okay, this is a tough category, but here we go. These are my top five favorite TV characters of all time, listed in no particular order...

• Capt. Jean-Luc Picard (make it so!)
• George Costanza (it's never been so fun to watch someone so pathetic)
• Kevin Arnold (if I had grown up in the 60s, I would be him)
• Larry David (deep down, I am him)
• Joel Fleishman (a total prick, but still a personal favorite)

Okay, so who are your favorite TV characters?

It's important to note that this is entirely different from great movie theme songs. If I did that list, I have a feeling John Williams would walk away with the whole thing.

Movie soundtracks are one of those things that can help make a good movie great, and a great movie a classic. Does that make sense? Anyway, here they are, my top five favorite movie soundtracks:

1. The Royal Tenenbaums (what a glorious mishmash of music)
2. Lost In Translation (sonically amazing)
3. About a Boy (it's just fun and whimsical)
4. American Beauty (there's an eerie peacefulness about it)
5. Braveheart (not usually into the bagpipes, but this is a gem)

Honorable mention: Blues Brothers (love it, but this is just a great compilation of fantastic songs).

I really don't watch TV like I used to, but the idiot box is still a great way to pass the time. So, here they are. My top five favoirte TV channels:

1. CNN (yeah, I'm hip like that)
2. VH1 (lots of very watchable and addictive crap)
3. Comedy Central (I love Colbert and TDS, when I catch them)
4. Bravo (not that there's anything wrong with that)
5. E! (more crap, but less quality crap than VH1)

I think this category is pretty self-explanatory. These are some of the tv shows that I'm ashamed to say I watched over the years (some more than others), and no, I'm not counting daytime shows or anything before I was ten. Please don't judge me.

1. Dawson's Creek (my mom's fault)
2. Project Runway (this is Stefanie's doing; carry on!)
3. 7th Heaven (no good reason)
4. America's Next Top Model (also Stefy's doing; notice a trend?)
5. Golden Girls (it was summer and nothing else was on... honest)

Boy, after going through a long dry spell for top five categories, I've been coming up with all sorts of pointless new ideas for countdowns lately. And here's the latest: my top five favorite freeware apps for Mac OS X:

1. Camino [OS X aquified version of Firefox/Mozilla]
2. Cyberduck [an FTP client]
3. Vienna [RSS feed reader]
4. MySync [does what .mac does for $0]
5. Skype [free phone calls to landlines = yum]

Frankly, I don't know how you Windows users get by without slick freeware apps like these. Then again, I don't know how you can stand to use Windows at all.

I've been saying I'll get a new car in a year for about six months, which means I want to start getting serious about narrowing down which model I want to buy. Just a couple weeks ago, I thought I had a few different cars in mind that I wanted to test drive, and while some of those ideas are still on the list (like the Pontiac G6), I'm really gung-ho about looking at a few different hybrid cars, after having seen An Inconvenient Truth over the weekend. While I almost certainly won't even be test driving some of these cars for various reasons, here are the top five hybrid cars I would like to buy if money were no object:

1. Toyota Camry (my dad is probably buying one of these bad boys)
2. Honda Accord (unfamiliar w/ Hondas, but I hear good things)
3. Lexus 400h (Stef drives one, and it's a bute)
4. Toyota Prius (it be ugly, but this is probably what I'm most serious about)
5. Ford Escape (not sure about Fords these days, but I think they look cool)

This might seem like a silly category, but for a news junkie like me, it's a big deal. Here are my top five favorite TV news programs (not counting ones on Comedy Central):

1. Countdown with Keith Olbermann (the un-O'Reilly on MSNBC)
2. American Morning (CNN)
3. CBS Evening News (Rather: yes! Scheiffer: eh. Kouric: blah)
4. Lou Dobbs (CNN; sure, he's a blowhard, but still a good show)
5. Hardball (MSNBC; I hate C. Matthews, but still a good plitical show)

Well it's Friday night, and the mood is right. Gonna have some fun, show ya how it's done, TGIF! Yep, the glory days of bad Friday television started back in 1989, when ABC started the TGIF lineup. Ah, memories!

Here are my top five favorite TGIF shows:

1. Perfect Strangers
2. Full House (aka "Bad Television" in my home)
3. Family Matters
4. Boy Meets World
5. Hangin' with Mr. Cooper

It's been a while since I did one of these, and since I didn't have any milk at home to pour myself a bowl of cereal this morning, I'm in a breakfast mood. I know this is silly, but here are my top five favorite breakfast foods (can you tell I'm hungry?):

1. My dad's pancakes
2. Scrambled eggs
3. Bacon
4. Cinnamon Rolls
5. Strawberry Pop Tarts

It's a slow day for new material, so that means now is the perfect time for a top five post. Today's topic is my top five favorite albums to listen to while I'm at work. This is a very fickle category, because the album has to be able to hold my attention without being either too loud (for the sake of others) or too soft (to the point where I can't hear it). Anyway, here's the list...

1. Van Morrison, Back on Top
2. Paul McCartney, Flaming Pie
3. Eric Clapton, Back Home
4. K.D. Lang, Ingenue
5. Travis, 12 Memories

Okay, May is almost over, and we're already ankle deep in the summer blockbuster movie season. So, appropriately, the theme this week is my top five favorite big, dumb summer movies of all-time.

1. Jurrasic Park
2. Batman Begins
3. Independence Day
4. Mission: Impossible (the first one)
5. X-Men 2

BONUS LIST:
My bottom five, least favorite big, dumb summer movies of all-time.

1. Jurassic Park III
2. Batman & Robin
3. Spider Man 2
4. Mission Impossible II
5. Da Vinci Code

Well, tomorrow is the big American Idol performance night. We're down to the final three, so it's really starting to get serious. This week the contestants will each sing three songs: one chosen by themselves, one picked by the judges, and one selected by Clive Davis.

While we're clearly out of time to use any of these themes in this season, here are the top five musical categories I would like to see the produces pick for themes in future cycles:

1. Beatles week (duh)
2. Billy Joel week
3. Bonnie Raitt week (as suggested by EW's Popwatch)
4. Sting/Police week
5. Prince week (supposed to happen back in March, but plans fell through)

What are your picks?

It's been a while since I put up a top five list, mostly because I haven't been able to think of a good category. Well, since my office is planning to play The Price is Right at our annual luncheon, I was sent on a mission to track down the original theme music. I found a whole website with just about every theme song ever written available for download, and it set up a great top five theme: my favorite tv theme songs. So, here they are:

1. The Sopranos
2. Star Trek
3. Doug
4. Mission Impossible
5. Duck Tales

What are your favorites?

Okay, we haven't done one of these in a while. It's time for a new top five.

Since lent finally ended last week, I completely fell off the Coke wagon again. Yesterday I downed three glasses at Holmes Hall over one meal. So, here they are, my top five favorite carbonated beverages:

1. Coca-Cola
2. Sierra Mist
3. Jones Lemon Drop
4. IBC Root Beer
5. Jones Fufu Berry

And, while it's no longer available in grocery stores, I would have to stick Vanilla Coke in the number 2 spot if I could still get my hands on a bottle.

What are your favs?

Okay, I've done enough complaining about school lately. It's time to think positive. Here are my top five favorite MSU professors from the last four years:

1. Jeff Wray (Screenwriting)
2. Jen Fay (Intro to Film, Film Theory, & Film History)
3. Justus Nieland (Film Criticism, Advanced Criticism)
4. Mary Hartson (Spanish 201)
5. Eric Petrie (James Madison Writing)

In honor of March Madness starting today, the today's top five ranks my favorite Michigan State NCAA tournament years. Here they are:

1. [2000] The first championship since Magic Johnson's 1979 win. Mateen getting hurt in the title game and then coming back to finish it out against Florida? Priceless.

2. [2005] I had totally written off last year's team after another disappointing regular season. And then everything started falling into place. Izzo's fourth and most surprising final four appearance.

3. [1999] MSU's first final four appearance in forever. Led by Antonio Smith (Godfather of the Flinstones), the Spartans march to the final four before losing a heartbreaker to the hated Duke Blue Devils. Still the best MSU team of my lifetime.

4. [2003] Following 2002's early exit (thanks, Marcus Taylor), the Spartys make a surprising charge to the Elite Eight. East Lansing explodes, and mayhem ensues.

5. [2001] A decidedly weaker MSU team follows up the 2000 championship with another final four run, led by Charlie Bell and Jason Richardson.

Well, I just dropped about 2 g's on a new computer, so I thought it would be appropriate to list off the next top five BIG purchases I need/want to make:

1. a new couch
2. new living room tables
3. a new car
4. a new suit and dress shoes
5. a headboard for my bed

Okay, this week's top five is my least favorite college classes at MSU:

1. COM 200 -- Most. Boring. Class. Ever. Taken in SS06.
2. PLS 201 -- An elective. A complete waste of time. Taken in SS06.
3. ENG 210 -- My first English class. Asleep more than awake. Taken FS03.
4. JRN 100 -- Interesting material, but the prof was insane. Taken in SS04.
5. SPN 201 -- Foreign language classes are horrible. Taken in FS02.

I could probably put two more COM classes on this list, but that would really convince me that it was a waste of time as a cognate.

I can't think of anything special right now, so here are my top five favorite websites to check about a hundred times a day:

1. CNN
2. Huffington Post
3. DailyKos
4. EW's PopWatch
5. MacBytes

Well, after a two-week hiatus, top five makes it's glorious return. With the Golden Globes now out of the way, and the Oscars just around the corner, here are my top five picks for the best movies of 2005:

1. Walk The Line
2. Good Night, And Good Luck
3. The 40-Year-Old Virgin (seriously)
4. Brokeback Mountain
5. Munich

Bonus top five... my favorite movies of 2005:

1. The 40-Year-Old Virgin
2. Batman Begins
3. Walk The Line
4. Wedding Crashers
5. Millions

And my least favorite film of the year: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.