Rants and Ranks

2016 WWE was filled with an abundance of great matches.  This mainly had to do with the inclusion of the Cruiserweight Classic, but seemingly every big PPV show had at least one memorable match.  2017 certainly isn't on the level of the previous year, but there were more than enough matches to rave about. This year, like all others, I made a mental list throughout the year of my favorites and at the end of the year I went back and watched them all.  A surprising number of them didn't hold up this year.  For example, I loved Nakamura vs. Cena from August 1st, but on re-watch it was nothing special. So here's a few things to remember when reading this list. Number one: this is WWE exclusively.  I don't watch enough NJPW or anything else to make a decisive list for those other promotions.  I would like to, but I don't see it happening any time in the near future.   Number two: these are listed chronologically.  I have a really hard time...

Here we are again with another one of my completely, utterly, insane breakdown of one of my favorite bands.  If you don't know my criteria you can check out one of my other  lists because I don't feel the need to re-post it again.  I will say that CS has the most extensive back catalog of any of the three that I've done this for.  Which made it more challenging, but also more fun.   Albums: Collective Soul 70.58 Dosage 66.5 Rabbit 64.08 Youth 62.09 Afterwards 60.92 Hints, Allegations, and Things Left Unsaid 49.69 Disciplined Breakdown 41.42 Blender 35.27 See What You Started... 28.36 (Click album cover for a more "disciplined" breakdown.) Songs: 1. Where the River Flows 2. The World I Know 3. Run 4. Satellite 5. Shine 6. Compliment  7. Bleed 8. Crown 9. She Does 10. Adored 11. December 12. No More, No Less 13. Why, Pt. 2 14. Heavy 15. Bearing Witness 16. How...

This past offseason may have been the busiest in NBA history.  Not just for sheer amount of movement, but for movement of key players all trying to maneuver themselves that much closer to the Warriors and the championship.  Will it work?  These teams are hoping so. Boston Celtics courtesy: cbs boston In the most shocking move of the summer Kyrie Irving requested a trade from a team that had been to three straight NBA Finals.  On the surface it’s quite baffling.  We can speculate all we want, but odds are we may never know the real truth.  What we do know is that Irving is now on the Celtics.  Joining him on the green team is Gordon Hayward.  Hayward is coming off his first all-star season, and is reunited with his old college coach.  (Something that had been rumored to be in the works for many years now.)  Hayward had been the man on the Jazz for a few seasons, so it will be interesting to see how he coexists with the pola...

Phobia 31.73 Much like what I did with  others   I'm ranking the songs of Breaking Benjamin to establish my favorite songs and then mathematically figuring out which is my favorite album in the process.    Just like last time, here's how it went down:  We Are Not Alone 29.36 So what was my criteria for ranking the songs?  Quite simply it was how much I liked them.  I didn't factor in intricate chord changes or anything that a musical "purist" would count as making a song great.  These are just a list of personal favorites; nothing more, nothing less.  Once I had all 56 listed, I assigned 56 points to the first place song.  55 to the second place, and so on.  I added up the total number of points for each song on each album and divided it by the number of songs on that album. Then PRESTO!  I had a total for each album that I could then rank it by.  Also remember this consists of only songs that appear on albums....

    At the beginning of this season, all anyone was talking about was the Warriors, now with Durant, and the former champs, the Cleveland Cavaliers.  As the season progressed, talks continued, and continued, and continued.  The absolute domination of each team's respective conference made it near-impossible to talk about anything else.  Sure, the Cavs ended up with the east's 2nd seed due to a horrendous month of March, but was there any doubt that Cleveland would make its third straight trip to the Finals?  Maybe for fans of the Celtics, but the Celtics proved to just be pretenders for now.   Durant had an injury scare during the year that cost him numerous games. The Warriors had to sacrifice a lot of depth to acquire Durant, so there was valid concern that this was  the worst possible case scenario for the Warriors.  Well suffice to say they didn't miss a beat, and come playoff time Durant was firing on all cylinders. So much so that...

Spiritual Machines 53.9 I've thought about doing this for some time now.  Listening and ranking every album and song of my favorite band, Our Lady Peace.  I was having lots of fun when I started this project, but naturally the more songs you hear, the more daunting the task becomes.  That being said, I relished in the chance to see the final product. Gravity 52.8 A few notes worth mentioning.  Firstly, this only contains songs from studio albums.  My goal was to use mathematics to figure out which albums were truly my favorites.  I had an idea naturally, but I didn't know if I could accurately lay them out in order without really thinking about it.  So since it was used for ranking albums, there are no rarities (like Trapeze) or covers (Dear Prudence, Drive, Imagine etc.) included here because that would have messed up the math.  Yes it would make for a more complete list of best songs, but again that wasn't the initial point.   ...