Sunday, February 24, 2008

The Top 100 movies

Via Becky, the top 100 movies of all time. Ones I've seen are in bold.


1. Citizen Kane (1941)
2. The Godfather
3. Casablanca (1942)
4. Raging Bull (1980)
5. Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
6. Gone with the Wind (1939)
7. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
8. Schindler’s List (1993)
9. Vertigo (1958)
10. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
11. City Lights (1931)
12. The Searchers (1956)
13. Star Wars (1977)
14. Psycho (1960)
15. Sunset Blvd. (1950)
16. 2001 : A Space Odyssey (1968)
17. The Graduate (1967)
18. The General (1927)
19. On the Waterfront (1954)
20. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
21. Chinatown (1974)
22. Some Like It Hot (1959)
23. The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
24. E.T. The Extraterrestrial (1982)
25. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
26. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
27. High Noon (1952)
28. All About Eve (1950)
29. Double Indemnity (1944)
30. Apocalypse Now (1979)
31. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
32. The Godfather Part II (1974)
33. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
34. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
35. Annie Hall (1977)
36. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
37. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
38. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
39. Dr. Strangelove (1964)
40. The Sound of Music (1965)
41. King Kong (1933)*
42. Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
43. Midnight Cowboy (1969)
44. The Philadelphia Story (1940)
45. Shane (1953)
46. It Happened One Night (1934)
47. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
48. Rear Window (1954)
49. Intolerance (1916)
50. Lord of the Rings : The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
51. West Side Story (1961)
52. Taxi Driver (1976)
53. Deer Hunter, The (1978)
54. M*A*S*H (1970)
55. North by Northwest (1959)
56. Jaws (1975)
57. Rocky (1976)
58. The Gold Rush (1925)
59. Nashville (1975)
60. Duck Soup (1933)
61. Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
62. American Graffiti (1973)
63. Cabaret (1972)
64. Network (1976)
65. The African Queen (1951)
66. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
67. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
68. Unforgiven (1992)
69. Tootsie (1982)
70. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
71. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
72. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
73. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
74. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
75. In the Heat of the Night (1967)
76. Forrest Gump (1994)
77. All the President’s Men (1976)
78. Modern Times (1936)
79. The Wild Bunch (1969)
80. The Apartment (1960)
81. Spartacus (1960)
82. Sunrise (1927)
83. Titanic (1997)
84. Easy Rider (1969)
85. A Night at the Opera (1935)
86. Platoon (1986)
87. 12 Angry Men (1957)
88. Bringing Up Baby (1938)
89. The Sixth Sense (1999)
90. Swing Time (1936)
91. Sophie’s Choice (1982)
92. Goodfellas (1990)
93. The French Connection (1971)
94. Pulp Fiction (1994)
95. The Last Picture Show (1971)
96. Do the Right Thing (1989)
97. Blade Runner (1982)
98. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
99. Toy Story(1995)
100. Ben-Hur (1959)

Hmm - some of those I'm missing I'd like to see, some I don't care, and some I actively avoid.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

"Cindy is cool"

I was an unpopular kid. Deeply unpopular. So unpopular that merely being in my proximity without immediate loud protest of the fact would endanger the status of the proximate kid. So unpopular that kids from four grades down knew my name, who I was, and that they needed to stay away from me or suffer.

Why exactly I became so much of a pariah, I have little idea. Middle school was the worst of it (5th to 8th in our system). By High School I had become merely invisible, which was a great relief. If I had no friends except my boyfriend (a charming fellow who called me "Hippo Hips" and reminded me constantly that no other boy in the school would talk to me voluntarily), at least I also had no tormentors. When I hit college, I began to find friends (most of whom are still friends today), who took me as I was, and from there I never looked back. If I still didn't understand popularity, I didn't really care anymore.

Still, those early lessons are ingrained, and ingrained deeply. So you can imagine my shock when Tuesday I overheard the two boys (pre-teen 1st and 2nd gups) whispering back and forth. "Why do you get to stand next to Cindy? I wanted to stand next to Cindy!" and the reply "Because I'm senior, and Cindy is cool."

Friday, February 15, 2008

The Week That Was

It's winter in Indiana - at least this week. Last week wasn't winter. Next week may, or may not, be winter, but this week is definitely winter. Indiana appears to get winter in 1-2 week spurts, intersperced with late fall and early spring. So last week it was in the 50's and 60's, but this week we had two snow days (Tues. & Wed.). Which given that we had a half-day today and no school Monday, makes for some very short school time. It works out for us though, because Aaron isn't feeling great - not sick enough to keep home, per se, but he has a persistent cough and is a lot less energetic than usual. A short week followed by three and-a-half days off seems a good thing.

My FIL was up this week visiting. He's still very discombobulated by his wife's death, and scared by the way his competence has tanked in its wake. Apparently this kind of confusion and loss of capability is very common following a spousal death (one of the reasons why you shouldn't make any major decisions for about a year), but it's frightening to him to have trouble doing things that a year ago were simple (like driving three hours to our house), and I don't blame him. Rob will be going back down to visit him next weekend, and will keep up the every other weekend visiting for a while.

My endocrinologist appointment was Monday - fortunately one of only two days this week that wasn't scotched by weather or other events. Good news all around. My cholesterol is down another ten points to 163 (Remember, I started at 257), my triglycerides are down from 225 to 93, my HDL/LDL ratio is up, my thyroid levels are within tolerance, and my blood pressure has returned to normal (it's been slowly creeping up for the last few years) at 112/65. I'm up two pounds from my last visit, but I had gained nearly seven over the holidays (Mom, Dad? Remember all that Ben & Jerry's you keep stashing in your freezer? I'm looking at you!), so up two means that I've lost most of the holiday weight gain. I also found a very cool site, Fitday, to help track diet and exercise, and with any luck get back on track with dropping weight.

The dojo has made another interim move. The new interim place is right across the street from the new permanent place. Master B say another month, but unless the builders are extremely efficient, I'm thinking closer to two. The new interim place is in a much nicer part of town than the old one, which makes a lot of people happy. The floor, on the other hand, could use a serious upgrade. It's linoleum, very slick, and very cold. It's also prone to getting wet, which gives it all the traction of an ice-skating rink. I keep getting this urge to go stock my first-aid kit with sprain tape and ice packs.

Finally, I'm in the throws of deciding which of my articles at Damn Interesting I want to put up for inclusion in the book. Damn Interesting now has an official book contract with a traditional publisher - so it's really going to happen - and we've each been asked to nominate those of our own articles we deem worthy. If I were more comfortable with tooting my own horn, I'd probably have an easier time of it. As is, I've nominated a couple, but feel very reluctant to speak up about as many as I probably should. So if anybody has read DI and has any articles they remember liking under my moniker (Cynthia Wood, articles between Feb. 2006 and May 2007) let me know.