Archive for 'Top Five'
Top Five Ways “Dutch” is Used as an Adjective About Things that Have Nothing to do with the Netherlands
5. Dutch auction: An auction in which the auctioneer starts at a high auction price and proceeds to cut the price until someone is found to buy at that price.
4. Dutch oven: Refers to a thick-walled cooking pot with a tight-fitting lid, which is a common item found in many places throughout the world. Probably [...]
Full Story“Now with open belly rescue feature!”: Top Five Dead Taun Taun-obilia
For those of you who are not Star Wars babies, a word from Wikipedia about TaunTauns:
Tauntauns are 2.5 m (8.2 ft) tall bipeds, indigenous to the ice planet Hoth. Tauntauns are covered with white fur and have downturned horns, four nostrils, and a foul body odor. They subsist off lichen found in hoarfrost as well [...]
Top Five Movies in Which Tom Cruise Lives a Secret Double Life
We’re not sure what this means, and we’re not prepared to speculate. Still, Mr. Cruise seems to take a lot of roles that require him to play a man leading a double life.
Full StoryBethany Brings Us Top Five “More” Appalling Examples of the Sexualization of Little Girls
Ernie hates when I send these to him, but it’s an important issue . . . – B
Full StoryTop Five American Cult Scandals
5. Charles Manson’s Family.
4. Heaven’s Gate: Its 39 members committed suicide during the pass of the comet Hale-Bopp on March 26, 1997, so that their souls could join a spaceship following it.
3. MOVE: A Philadelphia-based religious Afro-centric back-to-nature cult that was a thorn in the side of the Philadelphia police for many years, until the [...]
Full StoryTop Five Real People Changed to See What They’d Look Like if They Became Na’vi, the Blue People from Avatar
5. Mr. Bean
4. Tom Cruise
3. The Beatles
2. Michael Jackson
1. Palestinian protesters
Full StoryTop Five Novels (or Poems) about People Bent on Revenge
It’s a strong impulse, the will avenge oneself, and it’s driven the plot of many a story. Let’s have a look at the top five books defined by revenge.
Full StoryBethany Brings Us Top Five Media Retail Businesses that are Dying Fast!
We miss music stores! And it’s hard to replace the experience of a bookstore. Whither the media of yesteryear? Yesteryear in this case being 2003 . . . . Check out Bethany’s top five!
Full StoryBethany Gives Us More Top Five Barbies!
5. Catwoman Barbie
4. Athena Barbie
3. Barbra Streisand Barbie!
2. Hot Wizard of Oz Dorothy
1. Computer Engineer Barbie, Yay!
Plus one WTF?
Plus another WTF? It’s Palm Beach Barbie, in case girls want to pretend they’re an elderly woman wearing a caftan on her way to grab an Early Bird special.
Full StoryTop Five Movies that Take Place Mostly in Malls
5. Scenes from a Mall (1991)
(Fun factoid: those are not Bette Midler and Woody Allen’s bodies on the poster. In the days before Photoshop, someone went to the trouble of cutting and pasting those heads onto those bodies. Is being Woody Allen’s body-double a career low or a lifetime low?) [Yeah, one of the worst [...]
Full StoryTop Five Words for the Recent Blizzard (Philadelphia Edition)
5. Snow D-Day (as in “snow day”)
4. Snowtastrophe
3. Snowpacalypse
2. Snowffleupagus
1. Snomageddon
Thanks to E-Verser Chris for getting us started on this.
Oh, and thanks to Erica, for sending in this picture from her neighborhood.
You just gotta love Philly. And while we’re on the topic, you also gotta love a “regional cuisine” that consists of “Cheesesteak with Cheeze [...]
Full StoryTop Five Father/Daughter Relationships in Shakespeare
5. Portia and her father, Merchant of Venice: “so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father.”
4. Jessica and Shylock, Merchant of Venice: “My daughter! My ducats! My daughter! My ducats!”
3. Perdita and Leontes, A Winter’s Tale: born in prison and doomed to death as an infant by [...]
Full StoryTop Five Relatively Recent Cases of Famous Men Having Illegitimate Children/Second Families
5. Strom Thurmond: After the Senator’s death, it was revealed that the staunch racial segregationist had, at age 22, fathered a child with his family’s black maid, then-16-years-old, Carrie Butler. Thurmond supported his daughter, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, at various times throughout her life, paying her college tuition and occasionally providing her with money, but never [...]
Full StoryBethany’s Top Five Words in English in which the Feminine is the Unmarked Category
“Unmarked category” means the default. So for many words, for a long time, one assumed it was used to refer to a man, unless someone specifically stated it was a woman. This is why one might say “woman doctor.” Otherwise it might be assumed that when one says “doctor,” one means a man. This usage [...]
Full StoryTop Five Plays or Movies that about Shakespeare but Not Adaptations of his Plays
5. Elizabeth Rex: Queen Elizabeth spends a few hours talking to a man in Shakespeare’s acting troupe who specializes in playing women. In other words:a man who plays women teaches a woman who acts like a man how to be a woman on the eve of the execution of the man she loves (Essex) for [...]
Full StoryTop Five People Killed While Skiing
5. Ulrike Maier: world class Austrian skier, broke her neck in a fall while racing. Age: 26.
4. Doak Walker: Heisman Trophy winner and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Age: 72!
3. Sonny Bono: skied into a tree. Age: 62.
2. Michael L. Kennedy (son of Robert Kennedy): skied into a tree while playing “ski [...]
Full StoryTop Five Movies about People Visiting Las Vegas and Doing “Crazy” Things
5. What Happens in Vegas (2008): dumped workaholic and fired slacker end up married after night of debauchery, and also win 3 million dollars at the slots. Judge sentences them to live together for 6 months, with whoever asks to be let out of the marriage automatically forfeiting the money to the other. Naturally, both [...]
Full StoryTop Five Things that Happened During the Year Without a Summer
Backstory: large volcanic eruptions in 1815 essentially cancelled summer in the northern hemisphere in 1816, and frost destroyed a large percentage of crops. The subsequent fall and winter were even more brutal. This caused the last non-politically-related famine in Europe. A number of other important things happened during that summer and fall, which may or [...]
Full StoryTop Five Puppet Sex Scenes (Yeah, That’s Right)
5. Youth in Revolt: poor, virginal teen Nick Twisp is portrayed as a puppet during the credits of this movie, and he watches puppet bluebirds get it on, though more in a people than birdlike fashion, I’d say.
4. Avenue Q
3. Team America: World Police: This is the edited, less raunchy version. But still NC-17.
2. Being [...]
Full StoryTop Five US Literary Giants who have Died Recently
We’ve lost some big ones in the last year or so. See if any of your favorites made the E-Verse list this time.
Full StoryTop Five Countries that are Coastline Hogs
Yes, coastline hogs! They take up what looks geographically to be a disproportionate amount of coastline. A lot of wars have been fought over these lands!
5. Vietnam. Laos is completely landlocked, while Vietnam has all of the eastern coastline of Indochina.
4. Myanmar/Burma. It has a long, slender, southern section that represents what geographically looks to [...]
Full StoryTop Five “Purple” People, or People Who Like(d) Purple
5. Oscar Wilde
4. Lewis Carroll
3. Virginia Woolf
2. Alice Walker
1. Prince
Extra: Jenny Joseph, who wrote “when I am an old woman I shall wear purple.”
Also: Samuel L. Jackson, who insisted that his light saber be purple in the Star Wars Prequels
Full StoryTop Five Movies about People who Enter the Movies and Movie Characters Who Enter the Real World
5. Sherlock Jr. (1924)
4. Albert Goes Through (1933)
No images or clips to be found anywhere!
3. Blazing Saddles (1974)
2. The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
1. The Last Action Hero (1993)
Full Story“Thus conscience does make cowards of us all”: E-Verse Top Five Film Versions of Hamlet’s Soliloquy
They all want to play Hamlet. But who is the best? Have a look for yourself and weigh in.
Full StoryTop Five Scary Clowns
5. Doink the Clown, a pro-wrestler
4. The clown on Bart’s bed on The Simpsons
3. Pennywise the clown from Stephen King’s It
2. The Joker
1. John Wayne Gacy
Some honorable mentions:
Insane Clown Posse
And their numerous epigones, the Juggalos
And perhaps scariest of all . . . that damned clown from Poltergeist!
And of course . . . The Last Supper, [...]
Full StoryE-Verse Picks the Top 25 Most Interesting Wikipedia Articles
25. New York Conspiracy of 1741 (Question to ponder: why do the Salem Witch Trials, which happened 50 years earlier, in a town of much smaller population, and which resulted in far fewer deaths, get so much attention, while this event, which happened in the major population center, even then, of New York City, and [...]
Full StoryTop Five Books of Celebrity Poetry
They might not have much going for them as poets, but boy can they move units. I worked for News America Publishing, HarperCollins’ parent company, when Jewel’s book of poetry, Night Without Armor (the title really says it all) was published. The first printing in hardcover was 800,000 (for those who don’t know much about [...]
Full StoryTop Five Books Recently Published by Dead Authors
5. This is Walter by David Foster Wallace
4. Look at the Birdie by Kurt Vonnegut
3. The Suicide Run by William Styron
2. My Father’s Tears and Other Stories by John Updike
1. The Original of Laura, by Vladimir Nabokov. Sure, he declined to publish it during his lifetime, but hey, he’d wanted Lolita destroyed, too.
Extra: Pirate Latitudes [...]
Full StoryTop Five Women in Shakespeare Plays Who are Wrongly Accused
5. Hermione in Winter’s Tale: accused by her crazy husband of unfaithfulness.
4. Hero in Much Ado About Nothing: accused by her tricked fiance of having sex the night before their wedding.
3. Desdemona in Othello: accused by her tricked husband of unfaithfulness.
2. Cordelia in King Lear: accused by her narcissistic father of not loving him.
1. Titania [...]
Full StoryTop Five Movies in Which the Crazy People are Really the Sane Ones, and It’s the Sane Ones Who are Really Crazy
5. Marat/Sade (1967)
4. Benny and Joon (1993)
3. Changeling (1980)
2. King of Hearts (1996)
1. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
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