Listosaurus Rex

Nice, LifeHacker!

The website/blog, which is a haven for DIY-techie types of people, has put together a ranking of its most popular top ten lists of the 2008.

I don’t use the web-site too much, except for the occasional software advice.  However, these lists are worth a quick browse through.  You can pick out the ones that look interesting.

My favorites are the lists of Obscure Google Tricks, Underhyped Apps, and Easy Ways to Look Sharp.  Who doesn’t want to look sharp, after all?

The list is a part of the big Best of 2008 series of features.  It’s not even my favorite feature — I like the software overviews more.  But it was a list of lists; how could I not make a post about it here?

Let’s face it: I’m a young man in my 20’s.  I’m too young to be an expert on all of rock and roll’s back catalog.  And there is so much good music that has been produced that as soon as I start falling in love with a song or an album or an artist, it’s time to move on to the next one.

With the year coming to an end, people are focusing on the music that came out this calendar.  I’m here to take a look at a few of the songs that took a full hold of my attention, even if they didn’t come out this year.

Here are ten of my most-listened and most-appreciated songs this year, in no particular order.

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Time Magazine has outdone itself and brought you a whopping FIFTY top ten lists to recap 2008.  Wowza.

Here are topics covered:

Albums

Animal Stories

Awkward Moments

Best Biz Deals

Best Performances

Breakups

Buzzwords

Campaign Gaffes

Campaign Video Moments

Children’s Books

Crime Stories

Editorial Cartoons

Election Photos

Fashion Moments

Fashion Faux Pas

Fiction Books

Financial Collapses

Fleeting Celebrities

Food Trends

Gadgets

Green Ideas

iPhone Apps

Late Night Jokes

Magazine Covers

Medical Breakthroughs

Movies

Museum Exhibits

News Stories

Non-fiction Books

Oddball News Stories

Olympic Moments

Open Mike Moments

Outrageous Earmarks

Photos

Plays and Musicals

Political Lines

Quotes

Religion Stories

Scandals

Scientific Discoveries

Songs

Sports Moments

T-shirt Worthy Slogans

TV Ads

TV Episodes

TV Series

Underreported Stories

Video Games

Viral Videos

Worst Biz Deals

Each one of the ten entries for each of these fifty categories has a little paragraph or two to accompany it.

This is almost bewildering for me.  It’s just about too much to process.  Of course, I devoured the ones important to me (Albums, Movies, TV Series, Video Games, Sports Moments, etc.), but most I only had time to give a cursory glance.  It doesn’t help that you have to click through to a new page for each item of each list.  I wouldn’t mind having a few of these lists scrapped and had a new and improved interface implemented.

 Top 10 Outrageous Earmarks?  Top 10 Breakups?  I dunno if these should be mixed in with the big hitters.  But, hey, if a magazine is going to go all-out on something, at least it’s something easy to read, organized, and logical, like lists!

Overall, though, I would NOT recommend this list set for two reasons: 1) Dark Knight not mentioned as one of the top 10 movies of the year. 2) The Office not mentioned as one of the top 10 TV shows of the year. WTF!?!

Just kidding, these are definitely worth a look.  Pick out the ones that look most interesting you and you’ll probably get a lot out of it.

Pretty much every major video game site or blog put together big “best-of” lists for the last major console as the next generation of games started to come out.  The most interesting of these was the Gamecube lists, for a few reasons.  First of all, it had the fewest cross-platform games, making the lists the most insular.  Next, the Gamecube games continue to live on because of the backward compatibility and ‘Cube controller compatibility of the Wii.  Finally, Nintendo has always had the most obsessive, hardcore fans, the type of fans who will compulsively rank and debate their favorites because they love them so much.

I found a few lists I liked across the net and decided to assemble them into one ultimate, comprehensive top ten list.  There was a suprising amount of consitency, though nearly every list had its unique picks not seen on the other lists.  With some number crunching and weighting in a spreadsheet, I was able to come upon a final order for the games.

Without further ado, the lists, and my tabulation of the concensus Top 10 Greatest Gamecube games.

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Roger Ebert is absolutely my favorite movie critic. I don’t always agree with him (for example: he gave The Usual Suspects only one and a half stars) but I always like the thoughtful analysis. “Roger Ebert loves movies more, and better, than almost any critic” says famous director Martin Scorsese, and from my limited observation of movie criticism, I’d have to agree. He has a warm heart and an open mind towards movies, never afraid to learn something new from them or about them, never afraid to be pleasantly surprised or unfortunately disappointed. He gives a lot of four star reviews, but I think that such an esteemed critic, such an experienced viewer, is able to see beauty in so many movies is a great thing. Most people lose appreciation for an art when it becomes a career, when they spend too much time with it, when they develop familiarity. Not Roger. He remains passionate and joyous towards the art of cinema.

It’s just a little bit overdue, as he released it a few weeks ago, but here is his list of his top ten favorite movies from 2007:

1. Juno
2. No Country For Old Men
3. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
4. Atonement
5. The Kite Runner
6. Away From Her
7. Across The Universe
8. La Vie En Rose
9. The Great Debaters
10. Into the Wild

Of these I have sadly only seen three. I’m working on it, though. A few are coming to the cheap local theater I usher at, so I’ll get to see them for free.

Movies are an art, and as such, Ebert tends to go with the movies that move him the most, as opposed to those that have the tightest scripts, highest technical achievement, and the most critical praise. We see some of this with Juno, a romantic dramedy, at number one, and oft-maligned Kite Runner and Across the Universe earning spots on the list.

He provides solid reasoning for each of his picks. I think the list is worth a look.

What movies did you enjoy in 2007?