100 Coolest Things... #60 - 51

100 Coolest Things About 2006
#100 - 91
#90 - 81
#80 - 71
#70 - 61

60. McPhee’s Black Horse & the Cherry Tree
In keeping up with American Idol last season, my favorites were Kellie Pickler (Pickles), Taylor Hicks and Katharine McPhee. And my favorite song of the year is KT Tunstall’s “Black Horse & the Cherry Tree”. So imagine my delight when McPhee and Black Horse joined forces on May 2nd. Here’s what I wrote about it…

59. John C. Reilly in “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby”
Along with “Lady in the Water” and “Superman Returns”, Will Ferrill’s “Talladega Nights” will go down as a movie that I enjoyed, but wasn’t raving about. Hence, none of the three are in my 100 Coolest list this year. However, it did have its moments and funny quotes, but the saving grace of this movie belongs to John C. Reilly. His Cal Naughton, the forever second-fiddle to Ricky Bobby, was played to stupid perfection, half of Shake-n-Bake and finally, The Magic Man. To see a usually straight man upstage the comedian is shades of Jeff Daniels’ brilliant role (yes, I said brilliant) in “Dumb & Dumber”, overshadowing Jim Carrey.



58. X-Men: The Last Stand
You know I can dig on the X-Men. I’ve got 100s of X-Men comics, and so I was pretty pumped when this one came out. The director, Brett Ratner, comes fresh off of Rush Hour fame, so I knew the movie would give up some story and heart for more action and bang… and it did just that. I enjoyed it all the same, as Beast and Angel joins the fray, Jean Grey goes bad and the Juggernaut destroyed things. The ending left some to be desired, especially the dues ex machina way some of the bad guys died, but yet, I did leave the theater having enjoyed what I had seen.

57. Wendy Garner
I heart Wendy

56. Facebook
After my discovery of MySpace, I got an email that Facebook was suddenly available to everyone as well. Before, you could only get on if you had an school, or at least, alumni email, but now, its open to the world. Within two hours of having a profile, I already had 20+ friends (with the addition of the Lacey Formerly Known as Chavez, now I have 93) and its helped me keep up with my church kids, and Valleydale Church (an sbc fellowship) old friends like Leslie Cordellsworth, Laura Posey, Ric Paschal and beyond. And, I can keep up with Saratara, who’s currently in Bangladesh.

55. Lisa Taylor
I spend three years at Parisian Corporate, some of which was the next cube over from a mom of two named Lisa, who ended up being one of my closest friends at work. She was my peer in the next men’s buying office over, and this year, we were able to re-connect, meet for lunch and catch up. And she’s still just as charming and fun as always. Plus, she keeps me up to date on the collapse of the Parisian company (of which I’m happy I got out of five years ago)

54. Hem’s “Half Acre”
Have you seen the commercial? A baby drops her toy, and a guy bends over to hand it to her. The mom smiles, then later, saving a guy’s cup of coffee from spilling. Well, the guy in the window sees this, then later helps a fallen passer-by. Someone who sees this ends up holding the elevator for someone… and so on. Anyway, the lullaby you hear in the background is by a band called Hem, and the song is called “Half-Acre”, from the album “Rabbit Songs”. I’m not clear exactly what the song means, but it’s still haunting and awesome. The YouTube link shows an entire 3 ½ minute commercial/video.

53. Pickles
Kellie Pickler! Ah, Pickles was great and stupid at the same time, fun to watch and airheaded enough to smack equally. From Albemarle, NC, she made it to #6 in this season’s American Idol, and honestly, I think she might have a better future than My Girl McPhee. Her album is already out, and I look forward to hearing it.

52. Cars
So, make a movie for me that will keep me interested, and it has to be talking cars, with mouths on the grills and eyes in the windshields… and you know that Disney Pixar would do it. And they did. Cars was extremely entertaining, not only due to the quirky animation, but to the great voices of Owen Wilson, Bonnie Hunt (who is great in anything) and especially Larry the Cable Guy who steals the show as Mater.



51. John Cena & “The Marine”
When this movie came out, Michael Nipp emailed me and asked me to go see it. I told him to wait until it came to the $1 theater… so we did. And it was one of the most craptastic movies I’ve ever seen. John Cena is currently the WWE Champion, having just beaten Umaga in WWE’s New Years Revolution on Sunday, and though I don’t have a man-crush on John Cena as I do The Rock (though I still can’t get past Gridiron Gang…. Yeesh…) Cena is still my boy in WWE. So naturally, I’d go see The Marine. The great thing about this flick is that the violence isn’t overtly bad and Robert Patrick is mailing in his performance (which is just perfect for his character). Oh yeah, and Kelly Carlson (you might recognize her as Charlie Soda in Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation)

Coming Up:
Top Ten Disappointments of 2006... Top Ten Things I Can't For In 2007... and the Top 50 Coolest Things of 2006