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The Best Things Ever
12-22-2014

"You're the best...around"
-Joe Esposito (from Karate Kid)

We're subjected to lists all the time. They're so ubiquitous, I'm not sure we realize how present they are in our lives. Santa's list, a list of New Year's resolutions, shopping lists, to-do lists...and those are just the ones we make ourselves. SportsCenter has progressed past their Top 10 list to a Not Top 10 list. Sites like Buzzfeed and Cracked are clickholes based solely on lists of time-wasting nonsense (a.k.a. pop culture, which I love, so let's not speak ill of it). The MLB Network has a killer show called Prime 9 where they tear through the top 9 anything - 2nd baseman, pitching seasons, even facial hair. Most recently, Chris Rock even has a movie out called Top Five, which seems like a theft of an idea from one of my favorites, High Fidelity.

Ladies and gentlemen, let's cut through the fluff and get to the heat of the meat. Why waste your time with these boring, common man lists? Top plays from a Wednesday? Please. That's weak. Best albums of all-time? Pfft. Too limited. That's why I'm giving you the best thing you never knew you wanted -- the list to end ALL lists. Simply put, this is a list of the Best Things Ever In the History of Earth. That's right! Fuck every other list ever. This is the best of the best throughout all history. I'm sorry I ruined list-reading for the rest of your life. Just picture yourself in a month - you'll be listening to sportscasters debate the best defense in Super Bowl history, but in the back of your mind, you'll be thinking, "Sure the '85 Bears were awesome, but then again, they were no dinosaurs."

Since this is such a monumental, and personally biased, task, I'm avoiding rankings and simply putting everything in chronological order:


1) Water
What? What do I need to tell you about water? We would be fucked without it. It's been here since the beginning of time, and comprises about 65-70% of the earth. You wash your everything with it - from clothes and plates and cars to yourself. You have to drink it or you'll die in a couple days. It's pumped into and out of nearly every house in America and the world. I rest my case.



2) Fire
I had a little trouble between the chronology between #1 and #2, but I don't think anyone will judge me harshly for it. When I think Big Bang, I think of an explosion, and thus fire. However, fire needs oxygen and fuel and a spark in order to...well, exist. I'm assuming if all those ingredients are around, then water already exists. It's a photo finish. But anyway...

Fire is cool. It's useful for cooking, heating, building, and creating art. It's also just plain captivating. Who hasn't been at a bonfire or even a mini-fire and lost themselves staring at how the flames caress the wood and slowly consume it? (Darn, is that something an arsonist would say?) Plus, in modern times, every man knows that if you can master the art of putting fire to meat on a grill that you're the champion of the evening.



3) Dinosaurs
Before we humans were here (and thank goodness), dinosaurs had their run of this planet. I'm assuming they did all the same things we did, like not paying parking tickets and watching football on Sundays, but looked way cooler doing it. They also didn't have lotion to chill out their scaly skin. Still, they were the biggest, baddest MFers to ever occupy the planet. Some flew, some ate meat, and others were shitty vegans who probably just pretentiously talked about being vegan. Scientists are still questioning whether any had peanut allergies or were full-blown gluten-free nutjobs.

#1 destination, hands down, if I had a time machine would be to go back to the era of the dinosaurs. I'd stay for like 15 seconds until one looked at me funny and then I'd get the fuck back to the present day and try not to crap my pants doing it.



4) (Human) Sex
I don't need to explain this. Except to say that I'm not interested in any creatures that reproduce asexually or hermaphrodites like worms, or anything like that. Religion and carrying on the species be darned, I say. I'm talking about some Sheena Easton "I've been looking for you/You've been looking for me/Let's get together/and Do what comes naturally." (<--- You don't have to watch that, by the way. I'm only showing my age and a poor taste in music.)

Regardless, it's the "oldest profession" for a reason. And to this day, "sex sells." That's a good run. You can't ignore statistical or anecdotal data when it spans the whole of humans' time on earth. Don't blame me for getting it on being so damned awesome. Remember, I'm just here trying to chronicle the best things to ever exist. And if you think sex isn't in the Top 10, then feel free to state your case.



5) Alcohol
From a timeline perspective, Wiki estimates alcohol has been around since about 8000 BC. This was toward the end of the Stone Age, and presumably the beginning of the Age of Getting Plastered. Yeah, baby!

How much of a case (or 6-pack) do I need to make for alcohol? First and not foremost, I'm drinking right now. And guess what, it's doing two great things for me: A) helping my ideas flow better without all my stupid brain and critical thinking getting in the way of the funny. and B) settling my tummy. That's right - my stomach has been bothering me the last couple days. Maybe I caught a touch of the flu from someone who has bratty, germ-spewing kids. Who knows? The p(o)int is, beer settles my stomach when it's a little too active. True story!

Alcohol knocks down barriers. It facilitates laughs, sex, and good times! It removes all that pesky filtering between your true self and the real world. The only problem you'll have with that is if you're secretly an asshole.

Alcohol is in every good movie, at every cool party, made 1000s of Civil War battlefield surgeries possible, and in general, it just helps humans tolerate other humans. Slainte!!



6) Chocolate
I'm a milk chocolate fiend. This needs no explanation, except I'm puzzled as to why chocolate popped up a massive 6000 years (1900 BC) after alcohol. It's delicious, addictive, and it plays a big part of many of our holidays (Halloween, Christmas, Easter and Valentine's Day at the very least). At present, people disagree as to whether we're draining the earth's supply or not!



7) Nikola Tesla
Oh! We just jumped way ahead in time, as if nothing happened between 1900 BC and July 10, 1856. Well, nothing Top 10 worthy, at least. (Sorry George Washington!)

Of all the inventors, I'm most impressed-la with Tesla. Here's just a partial list of things you probably didn't know about him. He went toe-to-toe with Edison and beat him on his own, without having Edison's equivalent of an Indonesian sweatshop of inventing, patent-generating slaves. We have Telsa to thank for alternating current, which blew the fucking pants off of Edison's direct current. We have him to thank for every single electric motor. He arguably created a doomsday device and nearly championed free, wireless electricity for everyone on the planet! ...Oh, and all this before the first airplane took flight. Genius. Mad genius, but genius nonetheless.



8) Binary Code
This is a tough date to pin down, but I'm going to pick 1937, when someone I've never heard of, Claude Shannon, applied Boolean algebra to electric circuits. This is a totally nerdy/boring conversation, but all computers run on the basics of "on" vs "off," which is binary. Everything you do on a computer, from a Word document to Minesweeper to e-mail to ordering Christmas presents on Amazon or watching Tommy Lee and Pamela get it on or Barry Sanders highlights on YouTube, comes down to simple 0s and 1s. And it all started somewhere. Amazing. Worthy of the Top 10, I feel.



9) Michael Jordan
Don't say "What?" or "Really?" Just don't. This man was Phase 2 (after Magic and Bird were 1A and 1B) of saving the NBA. He's the reason Nike is Nike instead of British Knights. He's the best ever at basketball. He inspired many, including LeBron, to wear #23. And his legacy as possibly the greatest competitor the world has ever seen continues to grow.

As a card dealer, I know no one in the 50s-60s compares to Mickey Mantle. His fame, his popularity, his card prices...no one else is close. And this is from baseball's "Golden Age." The theory I've espoused to my friends is this: "You don't fuck with a 10-year-old's hero." Due to the Yankees being dominant - on TV so often for the Game of the Week, in so many World Series - Mickey Mantle was the hero to a generation of 10-year-old boys.

I was 12 in 1990, when Jordan and the Bulls won their first championship and started blazing a path to becoming a dynasty. You can't tell me anything negative about MJ, because I still see him with the nostalgic eyes of a middle school kid, and then a high school nerd, when every Bulls game was an event... with friends... with nachos... with our undivided attention. If the Bulls weren't on TV, they were on the radio with Johnny "Red" Kerr and Tommy Dore announcing. Basketball is in no way meant for the fucking radio, but I lapped it all up, and I've never been as attached to the game in anywhere near the same way since MJ left. For me and for countless youngsters, there will never be anyone to replace our childhood heroes, because after we're 10 or 12 or 15, we can't look at sports with the same innocence that we once did. At that age, you didn't think about the off-field issues or salary caps. The sport just involved the game, and maybe some predictably bland post-game comments. So don't bother telling someone who was a teenager when Mantle played that Mike Trout has the speed and range and pop to be the next Mickey Mantle, and don't tell me that someone can score more or and dunk flashier than Michael Jordan. We're just not listening.



10) Led Zeppelin
(Even more so than any picture of them on stage, this snapshot remains my favorite of Zep. So triumphant and yet care-free.)

Ah, a true homer pick for me. Go ahead, tell me they stole Stairway... tell me their lyrics are of the dark magic and don't make sense... tell me whatever you like... Led Zeppelin makes me happy. Probably a full 50-60% of their released songs are recognizable to anyone who has even a familiarity to the classic rock genre. That's a wicked high batting average. Put a mega-rangy lead singer and very competent bass player (along with other instruments as well) with a top 2 (two-armed) drummer and top 3-5 lead guitarist, and that's one colossal assembly of a group. No other artist or group even comes close.


Thanks for reading. Again, I write this fully realizing I will forever ruin your enjoyment of reading any other list. Feel free to lord this over any of your friends having a meaningless debate over Top QB or Best Supporting Actress of 2014. You are now superior. You now know the ultimate list of the Best Things Ever In the History of Earth. You're welcome.

Also receiving votes (in alphabetical order): air conditioning, baseball, baseball cards (OK, so I'm biased), Caddyshack, cinnamon, comedy, Leonardo Da Vinci, Dr. Pepper, electricity, gambling, The Great Wall of China, the human brain, lists, meth (I'm assuming), microprocessors, Mitch Hedberg, music, NASA, salt (seriously, it has a fascinating history), Toaster Strudels

Have fun!
-T

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tony@monstercards.net