The Friday Random Ten+5 is still gettin' it done after all these years.

I don't remember where the inspiration for this week's +5 came from, but I was talking with Holly the other day about something -- maybe it was a movie, maybe it was an album, maybe it was a car -- and we were remarking on how well it had held up over the years. In our instant-gratification culture these days, I think that's a quality that doesn't get talked up enough: Anybody can make an object, whether it's a work of art or a consumer good, that gets people jazzed at the moment it's introduced, but it's much harder to make something about which people will be saying 20 or 30 years hence, "Wow, it's been a long time but that thing has still managed not to be embarrassing. I'd still be proud to watch/drive/listen to/be seen in public with that." So here's a salute to that which has stood the ravages of time better than lesser creations: Five People, Places, And Things That Have Held Up Really Well.



"Terminator 2: Judgment Day"
It's hard to believe that this movie is nearly 20 years old -- it was one of the first movies I saw after we moved down to Georgia in the summer of '91 -- and even harder to believe just how good the "liquid metal" visual effects look. For all the hype these days about advancements in CGI and 3D and whatever else, James Cameron probably set a bar with this movie for seamlessly blending CGI and live action that still hasn't been cleared. And while Cameron himself hasn't entirely resisted the temptation to make movies with so much CGI they might as well be video games, he still does it better than just about anyone out there.



Kathryn Bigelow
Cameron's one glaring error: calling it quits with Kathryn Bigelow after only two years. The picture above, taken shortly before Bigelow became the first female Best Picture winner in Oscar history? She was fifty-eight years old when that was taken. Guys, I know I can't speak for all of us, but if someone came to me and said "Marry your current girlfriend and she'll still look like this 30 years from now," I'd take that deal no questions asked. (Side note: Does winning the Oscar for "The Hurt Locker" give Bigelow the creative leeway she needs to make the "Point Break" sequel we've all been awaiting for nearly two decades? God, I hope so.) Honorable mention: Helen Mirren, old enough to qualify for Social Security but still straight-up crushing it in stuff like this.


Tears for Fears Everybody Wants to Rule the World
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Tears for Fears
As much as I like '80s New Wave music -- fuck that, as much as I love it; I celebrate its entire catalog -- even I have to admit that a substantial portion of it comes off as really cheesy these days. Tears for Fears, though, is in a lot of ways an exception. I mean, you can occasionally hear some 1985 in the tinniness of the synthesizers or drum machines, but otherwise, this shit still sounds really good, and Songs from the Big Chair is just a great album, period.



old Volvos
This past Tuesday I went down to the Volvo dealer in town for a special promotional event unveiling the new S60 sedan, which is certainly a gorgeous automobile, but let's take a minute to salute its boxy predecessors for their noble service in the mission of getting us to where we need to go and not getting us killed on the way there. Given how a lot of car manufacturers are re-introducing the concept of sharp angles in some of their recent designs, it's remarkable to ponder how good some of these old-style Volvos still look (the ones that have been well-maintained, at least), and while they may not have the laundry list of computerized, triple-redundant, radar-guided safety features that the new S60 has, they're still safe as a freaking house in the unfortunate event that you actually hit something. (Though I have to admit that the new S60, which has a camera mounted above the rearview mirror that scans the road for objects that look like people and will slam on the brakes for you if you're about to hit one of them, is pretty badass. Still, they're not bringing the wagon, and that is damn near unforgivable.)



"Muppet Babies"
This was the centerpiece of my Saturday-morning cartoon viewing for the vast majority of my childhood, and looking back on it now, it's funny how many of the visual gags went completely over my head. There was the Monty Python-esque cut-and-paste animation, which of course I totally didn't recognize as being Monty Python-esque to begin with, but this show was also chock full of pop-culture references that perhaps presaged all of us Gen-Xers growing up to become witheringly post-modern pop-culture-obsessed hipsters. That's what this show was: a training class for future hipsters. I'd really like to do a study interviewing people who were regular viewers of this show back in the '80s and seeing how many of them went on to become bloggers.

And now the Ten:

1. Young Holt Unlimited, "Soulful Strut"
2. Underworld, "EssGee"
3. Pet Shop Boys, "Minimal"
4. Moby, "Guitar Flute and String"
5. Cee-Lo, "Let's Stay Together"
6. Meat Beat Manifesto, "Everything Counts"
7. Underworld, "Kittens"
8. The Chemical Brothers, "Swoon"
9. New Order, "Thieves Like Us"
10. Ice Cube, "When Will They Shoot?"

Your turn to take over in the comments: Random Tens, and nominations for stuff that's really stood up well over the years, are welcomed.

The Friday Random Ten+5 stands up for wagon rights.

If you've been reading this blog for a long time you're probably aware of my borderline-unnatural obsession with station wagons, Volvos in particular. So imagine my dismay today when I discovered that this sweet piece of ass . . .





. . . probably won't be coming to the United States. That's right: Volvo, the company that helped turn station wagons into status objects, that put the 265-horsepower V70R on the road, that once used the advertising tagline "Until Ferrari builds a station wagon," is denying us the V60 wagon you see above. That's kind of like McDonald's announcing that it's only selling Big Macs in Europe and Asia from now on. Sure, you could just go get a Quarter Pounder or even an Angus Deluxe, but what if what you really want is a fricking Big Mac? And why would McDonald's just arbitrarily deprive us of the main product they built their name on to begin with?

Of course, a lot of the blame rests with people who insist on buying SUVs instead of wagons, which are just as practical but sleeker, more agile, and way more efficient. At any rate, in a world where even Volvo can no longer be counted on to stand up for station wagons, I figured I'd use this week's +5 to pay tribute to the wagon's unsung badassedness -- so join me, won't you, as I sing the praises of the Five Most Awesome Non-Volvo Station Wagons Ever:



Ford Taurus
Hell of a way to kick this off, I know. But hear me out: When the Taurus first came out in 1985, at a time when pretty much every other car was rocking sharp angles and square sealed-beam headlights, this thing was hot shit. Or at least I thought so as an impressionable third-grader, and when my mom finally replaced her old Chevy Malibu with a Taurus LX wagon in 1987, I was in heaven. Not only did the thing look badass, but for the first time our family had a car with a rear-facing third seat in it, which my sister and I had coveted for years. Of course, it didn't take that long before we discovered that my cousin Duff and I were the only ones who could sit back there for any length of time without getting carsick, but hey, good for us. Incidentally, I remember taking a family trip up to Washington, D.C., when I was in junior high, and Duff was the one sitting back there with me while we were stopped at a traffic light somewhere in Alexandria and a dude in an Escort rear-ended us. Yup, we got to watch the whole way as the guy -- who was dealing with one of his kids in the passenger seat -- sped toward us, looked up, mouthed the words "Oh shit," tried to hit the brakes, and plowed into us at 30 or 35 miles an hour. The Taurus? Ended up with barely a scratch on the back bumper. So don't tell me that thing wasn't gangsta. Sometimes I still get wistful about it. Room for five passengers and two or three kegs . . . yeah, that would've been an awesome car to take up to college.



Citroën DS Break
Before anyone makes any French-car jokes, "Break" isn't meant to be a consumer warning, it's just the French shorthand for "station wagon." (In the UK it was called "Safari" or "Familiale"; in the U.S. it was just called the "Wagon." Man, we had no imagination whatsoever back then.) By any name, the DS was decades ahead of its time when it first hit the roads in the mid-fifties: It was one of the first cars ever to have disc brakes, power steering, and a semi-automatic transmission; the wagon added a cavernous cargo area and a rear-facing third seat (w00t). The DS as a whole developed a devoted cult following, but the wagon has been converted into everything from ambulances to Ghostbustermobiles to off-roaders to, well, whatever the hell this is. There are still a few of them plying the roads in various far-flung corners of the U.S., and I'd like to think I'll be able to get my hands on one of them someday.



Bentley Continental Flying Star
OK, this one's a bit of a fudge, because it's not technically a station wagon, it's a "shooting-brake" -- a specialized niche of car developed by (mostly British) rich guys who wanted to have something as fast and stylish as a grand touring car but also wanted to be able to carry their rifles and hunting dogs around their property. The Flying Star, converted from the standard-issue Bentley Continental by Italian coachbuilding house Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera, has everything that makes the Continental awesome (twin-turbo W12 engine, 0-60 in less than five seconds, top speed butting right up against the 200-mph mark) but adds a cargo area big enough for me to go by and borrow my parents' lawnmower when I've got yard work to do. Hey, awesome! And it only costs 590,000 Euros, which at the present exchange rate I think converts to approximately half a bajillion dollars. Give or take.



Alfa Romeo 156 Crosswagon
The Crosswagon was sort of the Italian version of the Subaru Outback -- take a mainstream station wagon, jack up the suspension a couple inches, add bigger tires, and throw on some body cladding to make it appeal to people who might otherwise get snowed into buying an SUV. As the picture above indicates, it could actually hold its own off-road -- as much as anyone in Italy would ever need it to, anyway -- but had a high-pressure turbodiesel engine that got gas mileage in the mid-30s. Presumably this would have been the preferred car of left-leaning Italian soccer moms, which is a demographic I can live with. (Actually, they'd be called "mamme di calcio" over there. See, this blog teaches you stuff.)



Audi RS6 Avant
I'm assuming you gearheads out there are familiar with the Audi R8, yes? OK, ponder this: Audi took the 5.2-liter V10 out of that car, dialed the horsepower up a few notches, and dropped it into a station wagon, which you can purchase and drive up to 174 miles per hour -- assuming you live in Germany, have $160,000, and are comfortable with the prospect of your face being peeled off by g-forces, Colonel Stapp-style. Quite simply, it is not only the most bad-ass station wagon ever produced but one of the most bad-ass cars on the planet, period. The only thing it doesn't have is the all-important rear-facing third seat, which is kind of a shame, because I think it'd be fun to put your kids back there and let them wave as you smoke Porsche 911s and Shelby Mustangs away from stoplights.

By the way, I'm launching a Twitter campaign (aimed at @VolvoCars_US) to demand that Volvo treat the V60 wagon as an equal: Be sure to use the hashtags #shameonyouvolvo and #freetheV60, along with whatever else you can come up with. With your help, I can force Volvo to bend to my whim and bring the V60 stateside, or at least send me some free shit.

Here's the Ten:

1. Pet Shop Boys, "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind of Thing" (extended version)
2. The Trammps, "Disco Inferno"
3. The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the U.K."
4. Eric B. and Rakim, "I Ain't No Joke"
5. U2, "The Unforgettable Fire"
6. Ned's Atomic Dustbin, "Grey Cell Green"
7. Beck, "Novacane"
8. Gorillaz, "Feel Good Inc."
9. Morrissey, "I'm Not Sorry"
10. Ice Cube, "Wicked"

Your turn -- your favorite wagons and/or wagon-related memories (even those not involving accidents), along with your own Random Tens, in the comments, por favor.

The Friday Random Ten+5 gives some shout-outs, then books out.

I'm kind of having to punt on the +5 this week because I have to leave for Atlanta in less than an hour and a half, so it's going to be more or less a roundup of random awesome stuff -- My Heisman Ballot Of Five Things That Have Been Awesome To Me This Week.



Green's package store on Ponce de Leon in Atlanta
Always a frequent spot to hit on the way to a Saturday of tailgating in Athens, but now virtually mandatory due to the fact that a) they keep expanding their liquor selections, b) they have a new walk-in Belgian beer cooler, and c) it takes a lot of alcohol consumption to make Georgia's defense look good.



Erin Andrews in glasses
Not a great screengrab above, but if you were watching Georgia's game against Arkansas last week then you know what I'm talking about. EA looked hot enough that all actual sexy librarians should now be referred to as sporting the "Erin Andrews at the Georgia-Arkansas game look."



Airplanes with funny paint jobs
See also: the Southwest Airlines "Shamu" planes; Western Pacific's old "Simpsons" plane; and SkyEurope's Boeing 737s with supermodels on the side. OK, that last one isn't really "funny" per se, but it still gets your attention.



The Jaguar XFR
The James Bond of cars: handsome, suave, doesn't look out of place at either a five-star restaurant or a competitive sporting event, and can straight-up murder any of its competitors without really breaking a sweat.



Hot wings at B. Merrell's in Columbus
I know I make fun of Columbus all the time, but it does have one major claim to fame: the site of the best Buffalo wings in the universe. A bold statement, I know, but B. Merrell's has ruined me for hot wings just about any place else in the world because theirs are so much better. Crispy without being breaded; sauce that's hot but not overpowering; perfectly rotisserie-cooked so that you can pack away 20 of them in barely more than the blink of an eye. Wing perfection, and I should know, because if you'd seen my gut lately you'd know that I've put away a few.

And now the Ten:

1. Thom Yorke, "Skip Divided"
2. Hall & Oates, "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)"
3. Dr. Dre, "Let Me Ride"
4. U2, "North and South of the River"
5. KRS-One, "2nd Quarter -- Free Throws"
6. Richard Cheese, "Fight for Your Right"
7. Meat Beat Manifesto, "Let Go"
8. A Tribe Called Quest, "The Infamous Date Rape"
9. Radiohead, "Myxomatosis (Judge, Jury & Executioner)"
10. Dead Kennedys, "Stealing People's Mail"

What's been awesome to you this week? Throw that stuff (along with your Random Tens) in the comments . . . and I'm outta here.

The Friday Random Ten+5 writes checks that neither its body nor any of its other possessions can cash.

As my unemployment enters its second month and the search for new full-time wages grows longer and more frustrating, I've started looking for outside-the-box ways to make some extra cash. Some, like manning EDSBS for a week, have been right in my wheelhouse and relatively simple to pull off; others, like Johnny Dillinger-style bank robbery, have been sexy and potentially lucrative but rather impractical, both from a logistical and from a legal standpoint. But then there's the lottery. Only requires a small investment, is perfectly legal, potentially has a huge, life's-troubles-vaporizing payoff -- other than the fact that any given participant has but an astronomically small chance of actually winning, it's a can't-miss proposition.

Last time I paid a visit home to Georgia, the Mega Millions jackpot was at $120 million, and since then it's rolled over to a cool $146 million. What would I do with money like that? Oh, I'd find some ways to blow it to pieces, make no mistake. Obviously my first order of business would be to take care of practical matters like paying off credit cards, making charitable donations, and investing to create a secure future for the children I will one day either father myself or purchase off the Chinese black market, but with nine figures at my disposal I'm sure I'd have a lot left over even after all that. So this week's +5 is The First Five Things I'd Buy If I Hit The Mega Millions Jackpot Tonight:



A beach house on Edisto Island, S.C.
We first went to Edisto back when I was like 12 years old because one of my dad's patients gave us a week at his (gorgeous, immaculate) beach house there as a thank-you for having treated him so well. I fell in love with the place almost the minute we set foot on the island. It's about halfway between Hilton Head and Charleston on the South Carolina coast, which means it's close enough to those places to go shopping or get a fancy dinner or something, but far enough away that things are fairly quiet and isolated most of the time (and it's nowhere near as loud or tacky as Myrtle Beach). Sort-of-funny story: The guy who owned the house was a South Carolina grad and had Gamecock memorabilia all over the place, but this was long before I had any sort of real immersion in SEC football, so I just snickered at all the books and signs and trinkets referring to the Cocks. Heh, I really haven't matured in the last two decades at all.



A Lego room
We've been over this, right? Yeah, we have: a room covered floor-to-ceiling with those green, nubby Lego baseplates and with a giant walk-in closet full of shelves and drawers to contain and organize different kinds of Lego pieces. I certainly don't pretend to be the first person to come up with this idea, but I'd like to think I could do it better than anyone who has come before me. And that would be a major step in forging my lifelong friendship with Knowshon Moreno.



An antique Citroën DS
Preferably a fuel-injected, flush-headlamped DS23 from 1973 or so. I have to think I'd be the only person in Birmingham with one of these. And just to be really pointlessly extravagant, I might also try to find an old, scrapped 2CV body shell that I could put in the game room of my man-cave and use as a driver's seat for playing Mario Kart Wii. With all this newfound time on my hands, I have been crushing it at Mario Kart these days.



Eighties-style tabletop-cabinet arcade game
Man cannot live on Wii alone, however. If I could, I'd try to find one of those arcade machines that has like 39 games in a single machine -- Pac-Man, Galaga, Spy Hunter, Xevious, Donkey Kong, Arkanoid, all the good ones. Why a tabletop-style setup rather than an upright cabinet? Because you can't set a drink on an upright.



A big enough donation to the University of Georgia athletics association that I can get season tickets for the rest of my life
I honestly can't even fathom how big a donation this would have to be, but I'd like to see if, oh, a check for $20 million or so would be enough to convince them to name it Doug Gillett Field at Sanford Stadium. And if it was, whether they would then paint this picture in little logos on the 20-yard lines.

Wish me luck, peasants! In the meantime, the Ten:

1. Big Audio Dynamite II, "Can't Wait" (live)
2. Marvin Gaye, "Right On"
3. Gorillaz, "Latin Simone"
4. Talking Heads, "Slippery People" (live)
5. Thievery Corporation, "The Foundation"
6. Isaac Hayes, "Theme from 'Shaft'"
7. Pet Shop Boys, "Up Against It"
8. House of Pain, "Jump Around"
9. Handsome Boy Modeling School, "The Projects"
10. Pet Shop Boys, "It's Alright" (extended disco mix)

Your turn: Throw your lottery-jackpot wish lists and/or Random Tens in the comments.

OK, maybe they're finally getting it.

After more than a decade, GM is finally getting out of the erectile-dysfunction business. Good for them.



Looking back over that previous statement, it occurred to me that I might have come off a little harsh, and that my statement might be construed as insulting to Hummer enthusiasts. I know that not all Hummer owners are douchey middle-aged guys trying to overcompensate for the fact that they can't get it up anymore, and in most cases have minuscule cocks to begin with. Some of them are also brainless suburban-Atlanta housewives who are convinced that some day they might have to slog through six inches of snow to get to Starbucks.

And the rest are rap stars and professional athletes.

I hope that clears things up.

The Friday Random Ten+5 gets wistful. Or maybe just pathetic.

The other day Orson Swindle announced that he'd gotten an advance copy of Phil Steele's legendary preseason college-football publication, that lucky rat bastard (except for the whole, you know, breaking your back and ending up immobilized for weeks thing). Between the imminent release of the annual Steele opus and the preseason top 25s that have started popping up on various Web sites over the past few weeks, I've really been reminded just how much I'm starting to miss football. It was acute enough when we still at least had the distractions of National Signing Day, spring games, or the NFL draft to distract us; at this point we've basically got three more months of nothin'. And it hurts.

But that's just one of the things I've been missing lately. There are plenty of other things I've found myself pining for, or at least wishing they'd pop up again, and thus this week's +5 is Five People, Places, And/Or Things I've Been Missing Lately:



Alfa Romeo
Originally, this Italian car company, which had stopped selling in the U.S. in 1995, was supposed to return to the American market in 2007. Then it was 2008, then 2009. And now that the economy has gone in the crapper and the auto industry is on life support, it looks like they've pushed the date back to 2011. That may actually be a good thing, since it'll probably take at least that long for me to pay off the rest of my credit-card debt, but once I get that off my permanent record I want to be able to buy a Brera (above) or, barring that, a 159, particularly the station-wagon version. Speaking of which, I miss station wagons.



Getting to visit the cockpit
I can remember flying on Piedmont Airlines as a little kid and getting to go up and say hello to the pilots (and no, none of them ever asked me if I liked movies about gladiators or had seen a grown man naked), and then getting my "pilot wings" pinned on me by a flight attendant. Post-9/11, of course, you practically need security clearance to get anywhere near the cockpit, and I'm kind of bummed my kids are never going to be able to have that experience. And at the risk of sinking into "What's the deal with airline food?" humor, I also miss decent snacks on airplanes. I can remember when Piedmont would give you a bag of smokehouse almonds even on a short hop over the Smokies; then airlines throttled back to honey-roasted peanuts, then regular peanuts, and now you're lucky if the flight attendants fire a bag of goldfish at you with one of those compressed-air guns they use to launch T-shirts at people at basketball games. And why don't they just make the whole airplane out of the black box?!? OK, I'm done now.



Mike Wallace
Wallace is/was the standard-bearer for a dying breed of journalist: the investigative reporter/interviewer who wasn't afraid to be a complete asshole. Once upon a time, interviewers were less concerned with currying favor and being best buds with their sources/interviewees than they were with actually asking tough questions and getting relevant information, and when you sat down across from Wallace, you knew you were going to get some shots across the bow (or maybe right into your gut). Who has that kind of balls these days? Hardly anybody on the Sunday-morning talk shows, that's for sure, and not even Wallace's own son, Chris, who is a dead ringer for Dr. Leo Spaceman but has yet to do anything else to distinguish himself.



Punk rock
Watched the movie "24 Hour Party People" the other night, about Factory Records and the Madchester music scene of the 1980s, and it was awesome. And it reminded me how much I miss good music in general, but also punk rock in particular. And I'm not talking about bullshit pseudo-punk like Fall Out Boy, or even goofball pop-punk like Blink-182, I'm talking about genuine, angry, garagey punk like the Clash or the Sex Pistols or the Buzzcocks (above) or Iggy Pop. I mean, the economy's in the shitter and nobody can find a job, which was a defining theme in a lot of the British punk of the late '70s, and just like the people in that period, we're coming off a long stretch in which pop music has sucked out loud and desperately needs someone to rebel against it. Somebody give me an oi.



Boobs
Yeah, it's been a while.

And now the Ten:

1. Richard Cheese, "More Human Than Human"
2. Flight of the Conchords, "The Prince of Parties"
3. Naked Eyes, "Promises, Promises"
4. Radiohead, "Paranoid Android"
5. Big Country, "In a Big Country"
6. Elvis Presley, "Suspicious Minds"
7. Sting, "Seven Days"
8. Underworld, "Shudder/King of Snake"
9. John Phillip Sousa, "The Liberty Bell"
10. U2, "Lemon" (Bad Yard club mix)

Your turn, punks. Random Tens and lists of stuff you've been missing lately go in the comments.

The Friday Random Ten+5 sells out.

One of my early New Year's resolutions (or resolution-like substance) is to get off my fat ass and put some real effort into making some money off the crap that I write -- double up on my freelancing efforts, sell a short story or two, finally buckle down and dig into the football novel I've had the idea to write for like a decade now. Theoretically, that could also include making some more money off this blog -- I mean, I have a little trickle of cash coming in every few months from the Google ads you see on this site, which I'm grateful for, but it could stand to be kicked up a notch. Is this site reputable enough to bring in some cash through direct editorial endorsements of various products and services? Ehh, probably not, but Todd at Roll Bama Roll evidently thinks his is, because he took the bold step earlier this week of singling out some brands he would gladly (and blatantly) shill for in exchange for a certain amount of that company's products. Kind of like a barter system, in other words, and I'm totally down with that. Cash doesn't necessarily need to change hands here, just some products whose regular (and free) presence could markedly improve my standard of living. So take a look, corporate America (and other countries), because I'm ready to start making deals here. And this week's +5 is Five Products I'd Be More Than Happyth To Shill For On A Trade Basis:



Zaxby's
Todd is 100-percent right about this one -- there ain't a single thing on their menu that I couldn't eat every day. In fact, Zaxby's came up in conversation at the office the other day and I determined that if I was stranded on a deserted island and could only have one kind of food washing up in crates on the shore every now and then, it'd be Zaxby's chicken fingers. Along with an advertising/endorsement trade deal, I'll even throw in a free marketing idea for you, guys: Start selling breakfast. Go head-to-head with Chick-fil-A in the chicken-biscuit arena; the tougher competition will make both companies work harder to create an even more perfect product, and the consumer will benefit. There; you can drop my block of gift certificates in the mail whenever it's convenient.



Cherry Coke Zero
The discovery of this wonderful concoction in my office was treated with the same wide-eyed enthusiasm I imagine mankind displayed when he first figured out how to create fire. It doesn't have any calories, but it doesn't have the bitter artificial-sweetener taste of a traditional diet drink, and to my mind it actually tastes better than regular Coke because it isn't so sugary sweet I think I'm giving myself diabetes every time I take a sip. I'm not a huge soft-drink consumer to begin with, but I figure if Coke sends my office a 12-pack every week we can call it even.



Jaguar Cars Ltd.
I still love my VW, but it'll be 10 years old next August, and it's probably a good time to at least start putting feelers out about possible replacements. And the Jaguar XF -- the supercharged replacement for the old S-Type that was named to Car and Driver's 10Best list in its first year of production -- is at the top of my list. Jaguar, you don't even have to give me one, just lend it to me for a year and I'll still give you all the free press you can stand. When that year is up, we can talk about re-upping the deal, but at the very least I'll have paid off my credit cards to the point where I can actually think about absorbing a car payment again.



Southwest Airlines
I flew SWA out to Arizona back in September and it was a pretty good experience, but I didn't really think a whole lot of it until I boarded a US Airways flight out to Los Angeles two months later. In addition to the $300-something US Airways charged me for a ticket, they charged me $15 to check a suitcase and another two bucks for a Coke on the Charlotte-L.A. leg. Yup, you don't even get so much as a Coke or a packet of peanuts without forking over some cash. Meanwhile, Southwest doesn't charge for the first two checked bags, doesn't charge extra for window or aisle seats, and slings free soft drinks all day long. Guys, between that and Birmingham's status as a secondary hub, you had me at "hello," and for the comparatively low cost of one free round-trip ticket per month you can plaster ads all over this site until you're blue in the face.



Stoli Blakberi
For those of you who caught one of my Facebook updates earlier in the week, this is the brew I was drinking straight at our office Christmas party at my editor's house. Knowing my history with vodka, it's a wonder I'm still employed as of this writing, but man, what wonderful stuff. It's just sweet enough that you can drink it straight even if you're not a drunk like myself, it has a nice aroma, and it makes for a vodka tonic that's damn near the nectar of the gods. Stoli has been my brand for a while now, but guys, you've outdone yourselves -- now your job is to keep a regular supply of this stuff coming my way so that I can extol its many virtues and come up with new recipes to spread far and wide. My next concept? The vodka float -- one half-fill glass of Blakberi, add a splash of Ocean Spray cran-raspberry juice, dump in a big heapin' scoop of vanilla ice cream (or, alternatively, this), float away on a cloud of ecstasy. I think y'all hear me knockin', and I think I'm comin' in.

My pockets are empty, my hand is out, my principles have temporarily been suspended -- let's do this, people. And now the Ten:

1. The Chemical Brothers, "Song to the Siren"
2. Pet Shop Boys, "So Hard" (The KLF vs. Pet Shop Boys remix)
3. BT, "Deeper Sunshine"
4. The Clash, "Should I Stay or Should I Go"
5. INXS, "Need You Tonight"
6. Underworld, "To Heal"
7. Underworld, "EssGee"
8. Orbital, "Waving Not Drowning"
9. Pet Shop Boys, "It Must Be Obvious" (UFO mix)
10. Bananarama, "Venus"

Your turn to make that pitch, readers -- Random Tens and/or naked appeals to major corporations for mutual marketing-centered back-scratching go in the comments.