Lists

Dead Teen Songs: My Favourites
Published January 22, 2010 @ 09:59 in Lists, Music

Music In my travels the other night, I stumbled upon Dead Teen Songs or Teenage Death Music or the teen death song or teen tragedy. In addition to being quite the title, it's quite the list.

You've got to love songs about teenage death. Here are my ten favourite dead teen songs.

Last Kiss - Pearl Jam
Leader of the Pack - The Shangri-las
I Don't Like Mondays - Boomtown Rats
Delia's Gone - Johnny Cash
The Legend Of Tom Dooley - The Kingston Trio
Freddie's Dead - Curtis Mayfield
19 - Paul Hardcastle
Adam's Song - Blink 182
Jeremy - Pearl Jam
People Who Died - Jim Carroll

But my favourite teen tragedy song didn't even get a mention on this web page. That would be Big League by Tom Cochrane and Red Rider. Hit a truck doing seventy in the wrong lane to the big league.

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Top 10 Books of 2009 According to My Wife
Published January 12, 2010 @ 10:56 in Lists

Book I'm not much of a reader. I read a lot of the web, but not actual books.

My wife reads a lot, so I asked her to give me a list of her ten favourite books of 2009.

1. The Sealed Letter by Emman Donoghue

2. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson

3. Loving Frank by Nancy Horan

4. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

5. Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof

6. Julie & Julia by Julie Powell

7. When will there be good news? by Kate Atkinson

8. The Autobiography of Henry VIII by Margaret George

9. Outlander by Diana Galbaldon

10. Beach Music by Pat Conroy

I'm still partial to Goodnight Moon.

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Movies I Hated in 2009
Published January 11, 2010 @ 13:18 in Lists, Movies

movies On the weekend, I wrote about movies I loved in 2009. As promised, here are movies I gave 5 or less out of 10 a.k.a. movies I hated in 2009.

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2,155 Sources of Traffic, Here are the Top 10
Published January 2, 2010 @ 17:01 in Lists

hyperlink There were 2,155 sources of traffic to this site in 2009. #1 was Google and #2 was Yahoo. That's search engine traffic, and important, but this entry isn't about search engine traffic. It's about other sites that sent visitors over here throughout the year.

Excluding Google, Yahoo and Bing, here are the top ten sources of traffic to TorontoMike.com.

Inbound links are always appreciated, and whenever possible reciprocated.

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20 Celebrity Deaths of Significance in 2009
Published December 29, 2009 @ 16:23 in Lists

bereavement As 2009 draws to a close, you'll likely be seeing a lot of celebrity death lists, remembering those who died throughout the year. For as long as I've had a personal home page on the interweb, I've marked celebrity passings. You can read them all at http://www.torontomike.com/rest_in_peace/.

Here are twenty celebrities of note who passed away in 2009.

The Death of Childhood Memories

Here are ten deaths that in one way or another represented my fleeting youth. The older we get, the more icons from our childhood loves we lose. Still, we lost most of the following far too early.

Other Significant Celebrity Passings

There were a number of significant celebrity deaths in 2009. Here are ten more who left us in 2009.

Abe Vigoda, however, is alive.

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The 100 Best Band Names of All Time
Published December 14, 2009 @ 16:05 in Lists, Music

Music There's a link going around that lists the 100 best band names of all time.

Here's their top 10:

1. Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem (Leave it to The Muppets to come up with the BEST BAND NAME OF ALL TIME.)
2. Guided By Voices (This always seemed like the secret to Robert Pollard’s prolific and bizarre output.)
3. Joy Division (The name came from the 1955 novel House of Dolls in which a Nazi concentration camp had a prostitution arm.)
4. Led Zeppelin
5. A Tribe Called Quest
6. 13th Floor Elevators
7. Godspeed You! Black Emperor (Like Lemmy and the umlaut, we’d have retired random punctuation after these post-rock legends used it best.)
8. Public Enemy
9. Man… or Astro-Man? (After seeing them live, you still wonder.)
10. We Were Promised Jetpacks! (Yes, Scottish frontman Adam Thompson, we sure were.)

I like #3, #4, #5 and #8, but I'm not sure of the others. I don't even think #1 should count.

Without giving it a great deal of thought, here are my ten favourite band names.

Joy Division
Velvet Underground
Soundgarden
A Tribe Called Quest
The Flaming Lips
Revolting Cocks
Rage Against the Machine
Sex Pistols
Sonic Youth
The Psychedelic Furs

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40 Christmas Songs
Published December 11, 2009 @ 09:55 in Lists, Music

Tis the season we're inundated by Christmas music. Like any music, some Christmas songs are great, while others are pretty dreadful. This year, I decided to wade through my collection and produce the top 40 Christmas songs.

Yes, music playlists are totally subjective, so I'm sure I've missed a few of your personal favourites, or perhaps I included a Christmas song or two you despise. That's what the comments are for! Let me know where I messed up as we collaborate to mould the ideal Christmas playlist for 2009.

Christmas Don't Be Late - Alvin and the Chipmunks
Christmas Must Be Tonight - The Band
Do They Know It's Christmas? - Band Aid
Green Christmas - Barenaked Ladies
White Christmas - Bing Crosby
Mary Had A Baby - Bruce Cockburn
Santa Claus Is Coming To Town - Bruce Springsteen
Merry Christmas Baby - Chuck Berry
Joy To The World - Clem Snide
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas - Coldplay
First Noel - Crash Test Dummies
Little Drummer Boy - David Bowie and Bing Crosby
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! - Dean Martin
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - Death Cab For Cutie
Blue Christmas - Elvis Presley
I Believe in Father Christmas - Greg Lake
Santa Claus Go Straight To The Ghetto - James Brown
Happy Xmas (War Is Over) - John & Yoko And Plastic Ono Band And The Harlem Community Choir
Honky The Christmas Goose - Johnny Bower
I Wish It Was Christmas Today - Julian Casablancas
Christmas Night in Harlem - Louis Armstrong & His All Stars
Carol Of The Bells - Trans-Siberian Orchestra
The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas To You) - Nat King Cole
Merry Christmas, Baby - Otis Redding
Let Me Sleep - Pearl Jam
Fairytale of New York - The Pogues with Kirsty MacColl
2000 Miles - The Pretenders
Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight) - The Ramones
The Christmas Song - The Raveonettes
Baby, It's Cold Outside - Ray Charles
Christmas in Hollis - Run DMC
Song For A Winter's Night - Sarah McLachlan
What Christmas Means To Me - Stevie Wonder
You're A Mean One, Mr Grinch - Thurl Ravenscroft
O Holy Night - Tipitina's Foundation
Baby Please Come Home - U2
Christmas Time Is Here ( Instrumental) - Vince Guaraldi Trio
Greensleeves - Vince Guaraldi Trio
Christmas Wrapping - The Waitresses
Welcome Christmas - The Who's of Whoville

Merry Christmas!

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The 10 Best Christmas Movies / Specials
Published December 6, 2009 @ 13:08 in Lists, Movies

xmas Here are my ten favourite Christmas movies and specials. Feel free to add your favourites in the comments.

10. The Nightmare Before Christmas

9. It's A Wonderful Life

8. Love Actually

7. Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer

6. A Charlie Brown Christmas

5. The Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire

4. Bad Santa

3. The Polar Express

2. Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas

1. A Christmas Story

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Five Best Covers by Guns N' Roses
Published November 10, 2009 @ 18:54 in Lists, Music

Music In the late 80s, I absolutely loved Guns N' Roses. I literally wore out my Appetite for Destruction cassette. I had to score both Use Your Illusion 1 and Use Your Illusion 2 the day they were released. For a few years at least, GNR was the best band on the planet.

This entry isn't about GNR, although they're a candidate for my next primer. This entry is about my five favourite cover songs by Guns N' Roses.

1. "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" - Originally recorded by Bob Dylan

2. "Mama Kin" - Originally recorded by Aerosmith

3. "Hair of the Dog" - Originally recorded by Nazareth

4. "Live and Let Die" - Originally recorded by Wings

5. "Since I Don't Have You" - Originally recorded by The Skyliners

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Songs of Thanks: Your Thanksgiving Playlist
Published October 11, 2009 @ 17:12 in Lists, Music

Here in Canada, we're smack in the middle of our Thanksgiving long weekend. My family carved the turkey yesterday, but most are doing that today and some are doing that tomorrow. If you need a Thanksgiving playlist, here are songs from my collection with "thank" in the title.

Give Thanks and Praises - Bad Brains
Give Thanks and Praises - Bob Marley & The Wailers
I Thank You - Sam & Dave
I Thank You - The Commitments
I Wanna Thank You - Sloan
I Wanna Thank You Baby - Delbert McClinton
Thank God I'm A Country Boy - John Denver
Thank God It's Christmas - Queen
Thank God It's Monday - NOFX
Thank Jah - Bad Brains
Thank The Lord For The Night Time - Neil Diamond
Thank U - Alanis Morissette
Thank You - Led Zeppelin
Thank You - Boyz II Men
Thank You - Dido
Thank You - Jimmy Page & Robert Plant
Thank You - Jay-Z
Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again) - Sly & The Family Stone
Thank You Baby! (For Makin' Someday Come So Soon) - Shania Twain
Thank You For Talkin' To Me Africa - Sly & the Family Stone
Thank You for the Music - ABBA
Thank You Girl - The Beatles
Thank You Jack White (For The Fiber-Optic Jesus That You Gave Me) - The Flaming Lips
Thank You Mr. Poobah - The Paul Butterfield Blues Band
Thank You Too! - My Morning Jacket
Thank You World - The Statler Brothers
Thanks Bro - Filter
Thanks for the Pepperoni - George Harrison
Thanks That Was Fun - Barenaked Ladies
The Thanksgiving Song - Adam Sandler

If I missed a song of thanks, leave the song in the comments.

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