The 100 Greatest Things Of All Time: #89

#89: Dinosaur tributes

Friend MM alerted me to this odd little subculture on YouTube. As he put it, "If we act now, we could be among the very first to make fun of these people. Now is not the time for timidity!" And so we press forward boldly, heedless of the perils that threaten from every side.

As a lover of dinosaurs since the tender age of 5, I realize that, in a counterfactual realm in which I swallowed several lead fishing weights during childhood development, I could have become a prolific auteur of dinosaur tribute videos set to Gwar. Actually, wait a second. There is nothing stopping me from doing so now. Prepare to be rocked by a tribute to Compsognathus; music by Viking Love.

Here's a quote from the annotation to a video tribute to Spinosaurus:

"There is absolutely no point in arguing about Spinosaurus vs. T. rex. Especially on this video. I'll just remove your comment without hesitation. I'm bloody sick of people fighting about this. It's an endless cycle, and you can't win it. Nobody is going to change other peoples' minds."

An endless cycle without resolution. The only way out is in.

The 100 Greatest Things Of All Time: So Far
100: The 1989 Honda Civic LX sedan (manual transmission)
99: Weird dream that a Merychippus had one time
98: The sun
97: Pharrell Williams
96: A shack near San Gregorio, CA
95: The breakfast sandwich
94: Antimony
93: Seeing through Melville's bullshit
92: The scrappy white guy
91: Barack Hussein Obama
90: Foam
89: Dinosaur tributes

The 100 Greatest Things Of All Time: #90

#90: Foam

There was a vigorous internal debate about this entry; that's why it took so long. Corn Chips & Pie staff members-- a team of rivals-- were bitterly divided, turning this seemingly inoffensive substance into ground zero for the culture wars. There were harsh words, resignations, even low-grade violence (slap fights). Not even time may heal these wounds. The figurative ones, I mean. Allow me to recap the various arguments:

• Pro: Ocean foam (or, if you prefer, "turgid, roiling sea-cream") is lovely.
• Pro: The line "...to the oceans, white with foooooaaaaam" is the high point of "God Bless America."
• Pro: Foam is a comfortable substance upon which to sleep.
• Pro/Con: The very fabric of space-time may be a type of foam.
• Pro: Foam "#1" fingers allow sports fans to convey a sentiment otherwise inexpressible, freeing the hitherto unrealized notion from the nebulous aether outside the gates of human communicability.
• Pro: Prior to the invention of foam by Jesus Christ, people shaved with menstrual blood.
• Pro: Some people enjoy foam on their twee little coffee drinks.
  

I really don't see what the fuss was all about. Foam!

The 100 Greatest Things Of All Time: So Far
100: The 1989 Honda Civic LX sedan (manual transmission)
99: Weird dream that a Merychippus had one time
98: The sun
97: Pharrell Williams
96: A shack near San Gregorio, CA
95: The breakfast sandwich
94: Antimony
93: Seeing through Melville's bullshit
92: The scrappy white guy
91: Barack Hussein Obama
90: Foam