Top 5 Non-Stories of 2006

And now, the Top 5 Not News Stories of 2006:

These are stories that mattered to no one except the people directly involved in them, yet somehow managed to get covered on formerly respectable network newscasts along the economic and war news.

5. Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn Break-Up: C'mon! They met while filming a movie called The Break Up. Did anyone really think it was gonna last?

4. Tom Cruise: Anything about Tom Cruise is of no interest to me. His craziness, his feud with the producers of South Park, his wedding, his baby, his latest lameass movie. I don't give half a crap about any of it.

3. Michael Richards' "Rascist Meltdown": Washed up second banana from over rated sitcom goes has an onstage breakdown and begins a second career of apologizing. Big Deal.

2. Mel Gibson's Drunk Driving Stop: Mel Gibson doesn't like Jews? This is a surprise? Not so much. We've known this at least since The Passion of the Christ.

1. Ohio State/Michigan Game: Here in Columbus, Ohio,this would top the list every year, but this year, because the teams were ranked first and second by whoever ranks college football teams, the national media picked up on the madness. I'd call it a "Perfect Storm," but I really hate that overused cliche, so I'll just call it utter nonsense.

Runners Up for the WORD's Story of 2006

Call me superstitious, but I will not name The Word From On High's 2nd Biggest Story of 2006 until the year is officially over. After all, something big still could happen in the next two days, and if I jump the gun it probably will.

Now, I say the 2nd biggest story because the biggest story of the past twelve months, and likely for several more years to come, is the war in Iraq, but that's a story that's hard for me to write about with in my trademark flip, irreverent style, especially with a nephew in the Army and in the middle of that mess.

Barring any unforeseen breaking news before midnight on Sunday, however, I have already picked out my candidate for 2006's 2nd Biggest News Story, and will tell the world on Tuesday.

When TIME magazine named its first Man of the Year in 1927, the goal was not just to fill the mag in a slow news week, but also to correct what TIME's editors and readers considered a major oversight. The year's top newsmaker, Charles Lindbergh, had not appeared on TIME's cover at the time he made his historic trans-Atlantic flight earlier that year. Similarly, my 2nd Biggest Story of 2006 is something that I have previously not written about on this blog.

Meanwhile, here is a list of the Top 5 Runners-Up for 2nd Biggest Story of the Year:

5. Dick Cheney's Hunting "Accident": People he doesn't like, he just tells to "F*** off!" but his friends, he shoots in the face.

4. The Cartoon Riots: What outrages me is not that these cartoons dared to depict the prophet Mohammed, but that, for the most part, they were pretty lame.

3. Democrats Take Back Both Houses of Congress: A story that is, in very large part, an offshoot of the Biggest Story of the year.

2. Where's Fidel? Cuban leader Fidel Castro is reportedly very, very ill and has not been seen or heard from for months, leaving little bro Raul in charge. I'm beginning to suspect that Fidel has, in actuality, been dead since at least August.

1. Men Stuck In Chimneys. 2006 saw a strange rash of people getting stuck in their chimneys, and in two of the three cases I've reported on this year, when the guys were freed they were not wearing their pants. I blame Global Warming.

(STRAY THOUGHTS) Topic: Poor Al

Y'know, I was thinking, as I typed in Monday's post about "Weird" Al Yankovic, that, in recent years, at least, it must really suck to be "Weird" Al. After all, in order to parody popular music, you actually have to listen to the crap.

A Seasonal Top 5

TOP 5:

Christmas Songs That Really Aren't All That Christmasy

In fact, none of the listed songs even mention the holiday.

5. Winter Wonderland

4. Let It Snow

These two songs are simply odes to the joys of foul weather, actually more appropriate for the middle of January.

3. Frosty the Snowman

Y'know, I think that a snowman suddenly coming to life and starting to dance around would actually scare the holy living crap out of most small children, and what's so Christmasy about that?

2. My Favortite Things

Unlike the other songs on this list, this one isn't even about winter.

1. Jingle Bells

This may seem like the quintessential Christmas song, or as Lucy says in A Charlie Brown Christmas, "I mean 'Jingle Bells.' You know, Santa Claus and HO! HO! HO! and mistletoe and presents to pretty girls." However, the truth is that this ditty about the supposed fun of freezing your tuchus while galavanting about the wilderness in an "open sleigh" references precisely none of those things, or anything else even remotely specific to the Christmas holiday.

Movie Line No.6

Here's a line that would have made my list of the top 5 movie lines had I actually seen the film in question prior to posting it:

4 1/2.) Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

--The Princess Bride

Top 5: Vocabulary Builder Edition

I was planning on posting an insightful essay on why How I Met Your Mother sucks, and I will at a future date, probably tomorrow, but I was so shocked and saddened by the news of Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn's break-up (Oh, poor, poor Jen! Will she never find happiness?) that I cannot think straight. Therefore, all I can offer today is this lame Top 5 list that I've been saving for just such an occasion when I was stuck for something to throw up on the blog.

And now, ladies and giraffes, prepare yourself for:

TOP 5:

Words That I Wish I Had More Chances To Use In Everyday Conversation

(Mostly because they're really cool sounding and make you sound smart if you actually use them correctly.)

(And, yes, I do know what all of them mean. But if you don't, I'm including links to Wiktionary)

5.) penultimate

4.) counterintuitive

3.) avuncular

2.) benighted

1.) zeitgeist

Another Ray's Top 5

Top 5:

TV "Characters" That You Just KNOW Were Sleeping Together Even Though It Was Never Explicitly Stated On Their Shows

5. The Mod Squad

4. Mary Ann and Ginger

This would explain how, in 15 years on the island, neither of them ever got pregnant.

3. Shirley Partridge and Ruben Kincaid

That's why she never fired him. He wasn't a very good manager, after all.

2. Greg and Marcia Brady

1. Siskel and Ebert

The Word's TOP 5: Great Movie Lines

5.) You can't fight in here! This is the War Room!

--Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb

(1964)

4.) A toast, Jedediah. To love on my own terms; the only terms any of us ever know.

Citizen Kane

(1941)

3.) We all create God in our own image.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

(1979)

In truth, this line, by far the best bit of dialogue in the movie, isn't actually in the movie, at least not as it was released to theaters in December of 1979. Rather, it is among the deleted footage that was added for the film's TV debut and initial home video release in the early 80's.

2.) Ray, when someone asks if you're a god, you say "Yes"!

Ghostbusters

(1984)

Sadly, no one has ever asked me.

Drumroll, please! The Word From On High's No. 1 All Time Great Movie Line is:

1.) Somedays you just can't get rid of a bomb!

Batman (the one based on the 60's TV show)

(1966)