May 11, 2005 Work is slow today and feel like throwing this out there.  These are my opinions and if you don’t like them….tough.  They are my opinions to have. Best movie ever:  A Clockwork Orange -  No matter how many times I watch it, it keeps getting better and I see something new.  Rocky and Godfather 1 and 2 were close. Worst movie ever:  There’s so much crap out there, it was hard to narrow it down.  I’d have to go with Cabin Fever.  This 2002 release featuring Rider Strong (of Boy Meets World fame) sucked so bad, it made Tremors look like it could be an Academy Award winner.   Best band ever:  Metallica -  Yes they suck now, but you can’t take away what they did in the 80’s and early 90’s.  Some of the stuff from Load and Reload is good, not great.  St Anger just sucked and I can admit that. Worst band ever:  Dave Matthews Band -  I know there are people who love it, but I don’t see what the deal is.  The drummer is talented, but Dave himself sucks.  Damien’s Storm came in at a very close second.   Best job to have:  Stay at home dad when there aren’t any children.   Seriously though, astronaut. Worst job to have:  The guy who cleans stalls at the peep show.  This is documented, and I can’t think of anything worse than this. Best TV sitcom ever:  Seinfeld -  When the commercials to your final episode are priced as much as the Super Bowl ads, you’ve done something special.  This show impacted society like no other show. In fact, this show inspired my name: T-BONE! Worst TV sitcom ever:  There have been a lot of duds, but the one that actually got good ratings that was a total stinker was Dharma and Greg.   Both characters were so annoying and unwatchable.  And that show did load for their careers.  After Krippendorf’s Tribe and Ed TV, we didn’t hear much from Jenna Elman.  Thomas Gibson has been banished to made-for-TV movie purgatory.  You don’t hear me crying about that, either. Best 80’s cartoon:  Transformers -  The toys were cooler than He-Man and G.I. Joe. Worst 80’s cartoon: Jem - Because I’m a guy. Best color:  Green - Because it’s my column. Worst color:  Pink -  And guys, just because Queer Eye says it’s in style these days, it’s still not cool. Coolest car:  Delorean -  Sure nobody drives one now, but wouldn’t you want one just to say you drive the car from Back to the Future? Junkiest car:  Pinto  - I’ve never heard anyone brag about driving one of these. Best actor:  Oooh, this is a tough one.  I’ll give you three.  Gene Hackman, Edward Norton, and Robert De Niro.  All of them can play heroes or villains and be very versatile in any role. Worst actor:  Chris Klein -  I hear he’s a nice guy in real life.  But it’s a sad thing when you are known as a poor man’s Keanu Reeves.   Best actress:  I’m gonna have to go with Charlize Theron.  Yes, she’s a little one dimensional with her accent and all, but she was great in Monster.   Plus, I can’t think of many other great actresses and I’m tired of Julia Roberts being shoved down our throats.   Worst actress:  Other than Britney Spears’ offering in Crossroads, I’d have to go ahead and cut into a newcomer…Paris Hilton.  I hear she dies in House of Wax.  I’ll bet the audience cheers... all five of them in attendance. Best pro athlete:  Lance Armstrong -  His dominance in cycling is far greater than what any other athlete has done so far in their respective sports. Most overrated pro athlete:  Jason Giambi -  I know I’m picking on him along with everyone else, but this guy makes a ton of money and his current batting average is sitting at .165.  When he played with Oakland, everyone thought he was the next big thing.  So did George Steinbrenner apparently. Give this athlete a break:  Bill Buckner -  He didn’t lose the World Series.  His blunder blew that one play.  But if his teammates had played a little better and given a little cushion for error, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.  Also, that wasn’t even the last game.  The Sox had another game to play and make up for it.  But they were too busy feeling sorry for themselves and playing the blame game.  Now that the Curse is over, maybe this guy won’t get it so bad. Best blog:  Maddox  http://maddox.xmission.com/ Worst blog:  Schaivo http://durrrrr.blogspot.com/ Just a sampler.  I’m out for now. T-BONE!                                                                         Josh 'T-Bone' Pigott                                                                                   Contact Me

Lagniappe

The Bone Pile

A Clockwork Orange
(1971)

Alex, a teenage hooligan in a
near-future Britain, gets jailed by the
police. There he volunteers as guinea
pig for a new aversion therapy
proposed by the government to make
room in prisons for political prisoners.
"Cured" of his hooliganism and
released, he is rejected by his friends
and relatives. Eventually nearly dying,
he becomes a major embarrassment
for the government, who arrange to
cure him of his cure. A pivotal
moment is when he and his gang
break into an author's home: the book
he is writing (called "A Clockwork
Orange") is a plea against the use of
aversion therapy, on the grounds that
it turns people into Clockwork Oranges
(Ourang is Malay for "Man"): they are
not being good from choice
(sentiments later echoed by the prison
chaplain). The film reflects this: many
bad scenes in a Clockwork Orange are
accompanied by jolly music; if we are
to experience them as we should, we
have to do it consciously, by realising
they are bad, and not because the
director tells us so through the use of
music and images.

The De Lorean DMC-12 was a sports
car made by the De Lorean Motor
Company from 1981 to 1983. The
DMC-12 (also known simply as the De
Lorean, as it was the only automobile
produced by the company) featured
gull-wing doors and a brushed,
unpainted stainless steel body.
Approximately 9,200 DMC-12s were
produced.

The DMC-12 was famously featured in
the Back to the Future movies.

On October 26, 1986, with the Boston
Red Sox leading the New York Mets
3-2 in the best-of-7 series, the game
was tied in the bottom of the tenth
inning. Mookie Wilson of the Mets
fouled off several pitches before
hitting a ground ball to  Bill Buckner
at first base. The ball took a
deadening bounce on the dirt, rolled
under Buckner's glove, through his
legs and into right field, allowing Ray
Knight to score the winning run from
second base. It capped an
astonishing comeback for the Mets,
however, it did not (as is often
misremembered) end the World
Series. The Met victory, in fact,
forced a seventh game, which was
played two nights later and
subsequently won by the Mets.

Some observers of the game believe
that even if Buckner had cleanly
fielded the ball, he still would have
been unable to prevent Wilson from
reaching first base. Wilson was a very
fast runner, while Buckner had lost a
large part of his mobility because of a
long history of ankle injuries; it is
possible that Wilson would have
beaten Buckner to first base, which
would have extended the inning.

Jem was an animated series that ran
from 1985 to 1988 on NBC. The show
was about a singer, Jem, her band,
Jem and the Holograms, and their
adventures. Catch phrases from the
show included, "Showtime Synergy!"
and "She's truly, truly, truly
outrageous!"

The show was designed to appeal to
both girls and boys, with a mix of
action/adventure and fashion. The
theme song expresses this precisely:

From the Jem theme song:

Jem! (Jem is excitement) oh
Jem! (Jem is adventure) oh
Glamour and glitter, fashion and fame!
The later theme song, however, aims
the show squarely at a female
audience, imploring them to become
"Jem girls".