Top 20 Amazing Sandcastles
I am sure we all remember with fondness the days of our youth filling little colored buckets with sand to build sandcastles - until our big brothers (or the school bullies) came along and destroyed them! What fun. Some people were fortunate enough to not have their castles ruined and with all the practice eventually developed a great artistic skill using sand as their medium. This is the top 20 amazing sandcastles!
Sandcastle 20
Top 10 Classic Cocktails
Friday has arrived again, so I have decided to do a cocktail list. I am a great fan of cocktails and have many a messy cocktail evening. In this list I will introduce you to the best version of each recipe for 10 classic cocktails. The recipes come from my own experience based upon my education in cocktails courtesy of some incredible cocktail bars and David A. Embury, the author of the finest book on cocktail making: The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks. I strongly urge any person interested in cocktails buy his book - it is unsurpassed. This book is so sought after that you will rarely find a copy for less than $200 US (it is a basic paperbook format). Fortunately for two lucky people, it is currently available on Amazon for $120 and $161 (both are used but good condition).
Aside from glasses, you will need some kind of hard object for squashing fruits in the glass (this is called a muddler). You will also need a cocktail shaker (a large lidded jar will do if you can not get a cocktail shaker), a tall glass, a stirrer, and a strainer. This is what they look like:
Top 10 Literary One Hit Wonders
This is a list of ten great writers that are famous for one novel and one novel alone. Some of them have written additional short stories or poetry and in a couple of cases additional novels (none of which are well known or ever rose to the prominence of their main work). Here are the top 10 literary one hit wonders.
10. Black BeautyAnna Sewell
At the age of 14, Anna Sewell fell while walking home from school in the rain, injuring both her ankles. Possibly through mistreatment of her injury, she became lame for the rest of her life and was unable to stand or walk for any length of time. For greater mobility, she frequently used horse-drawn carriages, which contributed to her love of horses and concern for the humane treatment of animals. Black Beauty is the only book she ever wrote. It was written during her later years as an invalid confined to her home.
Top 20 Most Beautiful Songs of the 80s
Everyone knows the 80s as the decade of greed and silly fashions, of Reaganites and Thatcherites??? and above all, of the decade of New Wave and Post-Punk music. Music with lots of synth and drum machines, jangly guitars and House beats. Party music, dance music. Fun music. Both the decade and the music are near to my heart, since I was there as an adult to appreciate it. I was 15 in 1980 and so had lived through my childhood and first half of adolescence in the 70s, a decade of malaise and atrocious fashions and godawful music (but not all bad, since the 70s had Bubblegum, Punk, and early New Wave) and so my generation was ready for a big change, OUR chance to overturn the flabby hippie aesthetic that had run for too long and was worn out, old, and charmless. So we chopped and moussed our hair into spikes and slashed shapes, adapted early late 50s/early 60s clothes to our needs, took on a cheesy, the-future-is-neon-bizarro attitude, put on our skinny ties and wayfairers, and went out to mock the world and DANCE.
And so our music became the soundtrack of a party… silly, upbeat, and ultimately disposable. The appropriate response to a Cold War world that was surely doomed.
Top 10 Badass Ancient Weapons
Long before drive by shootings and police stabbings, our ancestors used some truly badass weapons against each other. This is a list of the MOST badass weapons in ancient history. This list includes weapons up to the medieval period.
10. Culverin
Top 20 Quotes of Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker (August 22, 1893 ??? June 7, 1967) was an American writer and poet, best known for her caustic wit, wisecracks, and sharp eye for 20th century urban foibles. From a conflicted and unhappy childhood, Parker rose to acclaim, both for her literary output in such venues as The New Yorker and as a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table. Her letters, short stories, and articles are all brilliantly witty and I strongly recommend her work!
Quotes 1 - 5
1. I don’t care what is written about me so long as it isn’t true.
2. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.
3. You can’t teach an old dogma new tricks.
Top 10 Bizarre Museums
[WARNING: This list contains content that may offend some readers] Museums are meant to have wide appeal as institutions of learning, but sometimes things go awry - as is the case in the following ten bizarre museums. Take a journey to the dark side of museum life with our top 10 bizarre museums!
10. Museum of Jurassic Technology
The museum claims to have a “specialized repository of relics and artifacts from the Lower Jurassic, with an emphasis on those that demonstrate unusual or curious technological qualities.” This explains the museum’s name and also suggests its puzzling nature, since the Lower Jurassic ended over 150 million years before the appearance of hominoids and in particular before anything that could be called technology. Some of the exhibits found in the museum are a collection of decomposing antique dice owned by magician Ricky Jay, a collection devoted to trailer park culture, entitled “Garden of Eden On Wheels”, an exhibit on household myths of years past, and a collection of micro-miniature sculptures and paintings, such as a sculpture of Pope John Paul II carved from a single human hair and placed within the eye of a needle.
Top 10 Movies that Haven’t Been Made But Should Be
At present there is a writers strike on in Hollywood - this is the perfect opportunity for a budding screenwriter to make a blockbuster film and sell it to the big Hollywood producers. Below I have selected (with a little help from JT) 10 stories that would make truly amazing films. Be sure to tell us your own preferences in the comments - maybe we can inspire a great new film to be made.
10. Sharks in Venice
The advent of Snakes on a Plane has opened up the flood gates for all kinds of likeminded cheesy horror films to dominate our screens with their absurd titles and ???why didn???t I think of that??? premises. The most promising of this new batch of horror films is Sharks in Venice (???They???re SHARKS???.in VENICE!???) It???s a film that, as long as it delivers what its title promises, simply can not fail. A gondolier paddles desperately away from the Great White it has just poked in the eye; Hammerheads dive out of the water and begin gobbling up idle children playing on the canal front; and whale sharks shimmy through the narrow waterways, tearing away at Venice???s fragile canals, sinking the city further into its watery oblivion. Cue Samuel L. Jackson (or in this case Stephen Baldwin???), shark in one hand, telephone in the other: ???I have had it with these motherfuckin??? SHARKS in these motherfuckin??? VENETIAN CANALS!???
Top 10 Bizarre Mormon Beliefs
Every religion has unique beliefs. This is a list of odd LDS beliefs. Each Item on the list quotes LDS scripture so you can be sure it is authentic.
10. Tithing
While tithes are not uncommon among religion, rarely are they mandatory. LDS theology states that in order to make it to the highest kingdom of heaven, you must pay a full and honest tithe.
Top 10 Literary Graphic Novels
At one time people would have laughed if you had told them comic books were legitimate literature. Thankfully this narrow minded view has not only changed but reversed with modern day historians, many of whom have not only recognized comics and graphic novels as legitimate art forms, but have applauded many works as great examples of literature in general. This new recognition has spurred a boom in the mainstream acceptance of comics and graphic novels in Hollywood and in classrooms, libraries, and book stores nation wide.
In truth, there are more examples of good, solid, legitimate literature than we can hope to cover here, but for enquiring minds, or perhaps those new to the medium here is a top ten list (in no particular order) of just a few works that any fan of good writing, no matter the format, can appreciate.
10. MausArt Spiegelman
The Premise – a moving biographical tale about the stories of Spiegelman’s father Vladek. The story follows the life of Vladek Spiegelman as a Jew in 1930’s Europe, ultimately being captured by the Nazi’s in World War Two and living in a Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust. Gripping and moving the story shows many dark sides to humanity. Spiegelman shows a stroke of genius by using cartoon animals as the characters instead of human beings. Each ethnic race is portrayed as a different animal. Jews are portrayed as mice, German’s as cats, Americans as dogs, and more. Pay close attention because there is a lot of hidden meaning behind these characterizations. I thoroughly enjoyed the honesty of the story and the realistic characterization on the part of Mr. Speigelman, especially in the portrayal of his father, who although is the protagonist is shown to be real person who is flawed just like everyone else.
Top 10 Cinematic Psychopaths
If you say you’re a horror movie fan, that’s not really giving a lot of information. There are so many different types of horror movies and sub-genres of horror movies that two big fans of horror movies may like completely different films. While zombies, vampires, and werewolves all have their place, one of the most intriguing type of horror movie villains are psychopaths.
Human, yet incredibly evil, psychopaths are able to pass themselves off as another normal human being, yet how can you know that person standing next to you in an elevator is evil incarnate? While there are literally dozens and dozens of great psychopath movies, here is my list of the top ten movie psychopaths, based on charisma of the character, and scariness (so even though Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” is a classic, you won’t see it on this list).
10. Highwaymen2003
This movie stars Jim Caviezel as the protagonist, Rennie Cray, a husband whose wife was murdered by Fargo, a serial killer who gets kicks murdering women with his 1972 Cadillac El Dorado. Most of Fargo’s body are prosthetics, but he managed to make his car like an extension of his body, and he travels around the country murdering women, and leaving clues to taunt Rennie as he tries to follow him from town to town. Fargo is cruel and taunting, and he picks his victims out and hunts them down. While the movie is an iffy B movie, Fargo is a great modern psychopath.
Top 10 Great Underrated Female Singers
This list is my tribute to underrated or lesser known great female vocalists. These are all women who are unlikely to make it to most people’s top ten lists and I really would like to give them some exposure if possible. I must confess that this list is a little self-indulgent as these are some of my favorite singers.
9. Émilie Simon
In May 2003, she released her debut album Émilie Simon. The electronic album was critically acclaimed and went on to become a commercial success. To promote her album, she did numerous live performances and TV appearances all over France. In 2004, she was rewarded with a Victoire de la musique in the ‘Electronic Album’ category for the album. This girl needs to get the acclaim she deserves outside of France!
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