10. Chevy Caprice/Ford Crown Victoria:  These cars had to make the list.  Watch any movie from 1980 to 1995 and I GUARANTEE you will see a Caprice or Crown Vic in some form.  It is mind boggling how many of these cars were built, and they were solid to boot!  They were more than just cop cars or taxi’s too.  Grandma and Grandpa drove Crown Victorias for as long as I can remember.  They’re some of the most spacious and comfortable cars to ride and drive that I know of.  Oh, my first car was a 1979 Caprice too.  “The Beast”.

9. Dodge Caravan:  Now you’re thinking.  “Damn, this is going to be one lame list.” But you need to pack that crap up right here and right now.  The Dodge Caravan was AMAZING.  UN-FING BELIEVABLE.  If you grew up in the 90’s or had kids in the 90’s.  I guarandamntee you at least rode in a mini-van.  I’d venture to guess that your family even owned one.  We had a Chevy Astro, ourselves.  And if it weren’t for the Dodge Caravan… there would be no minivan.  You know how people feel about mini-vans NOW.  Well when the Dodge Caravan came out.  All of a sudden everyone felt EXACTLY THE SAME about station wagons.  The Caravan kicked off 2 decades of the active family lifestyle all by its damn self.  Show some g-d respect.

8. Lincoln Mark VII:  Nothing says “Word, bro” like a 5.0 Mustang.  How many times has some 19 year old jack-ass pulled up next to you at a stop light thinking they’re hot stuff in their primered up GT and gone screaming off thinking there cool?  You know what’s ACTUALLY cool?  Having a little class.  Knowing that you could mash the pedal on that same 5.0 HO motor if you needed to, but you just aren’t in that much of a hurry.  Cocktails aren’t until 7PM.  Besides, the longer it takes you to get there, the longer you get to enjoy those leather seats, wrapped steering wheel, six way power seats and a little bit of elegance that goes with driving a Lincoln.  And then if some punk in a Camaro wants to show you what’s up, it’s on.

7. Ford LTD II:  The LTD II makes this list for two reasons.  A) It is quintessential late 70’s design with the stacked headlights, hood ornament, and big bumpers.  and B) I LOVE big cars.  And they don’t get much bigger than this.  There’s more metal in the hood of that car that there is in most cars today… total.  There’s just something about a big car that says, “I’m more important than one parking space”.  More than that, I think the people that drove these cars knew what it meant to go somewhere.  The automobile shouldn’t be some utilitarian machine that mind numbingly transports you from point A to point B.  If you want that, get a Toyota.  But a car like this has all the things you love about getting home after a long day and leaning back in your favorite chair.  And why should that be anchored to your home?  Kick back.  Relax.  Stretch your feet out.  You’re on a mother f’n boat.

6. 70’s & 80’s Chevy Pickups:  Back when trucks were used for things like: Working.  And before trucks were used for things like: Driving to work.  There is a difference.  The Chevy truck specifically makes the list because it’s so damn good looking.  Chevy kept the same body style for almost two decades and for good reason.  There’s lots of these old rusty trucks around, but when you see one that is original, clean and taken care of, you just have to say, “That’s a damn nice truck”.  That is if they haven’t primered it up and painted it with some kind of glittery boat paint.

5. Chrysler 300:  Okay, so this one almost feels like it doesn’t fit here, right?  85 Chevy, 78 Ford… 2004 Chrysler 300?  What’s up with that.  Well, here it is.  Click THIS LINK, THIS LINK, THIS LINK, or THIS LINK.  From about 1993 to 2005 I think just about every friggin’ car looked almost exactly the same.  And that being remarkably similar to a suppository.  When the new Chrysler 300 came out, I thought, “FINALLY!  Something that has some STYLE, some LINES!”  People always talk about how back in the 50’s and 60’s they made cars that were truly art.  I dare somebody to tell me the 1997 Monte Carlo is a piece of art.  But once the 300 came out and was SUCCESSFUL… all of a sudden you saw other vehicle manufactures start taking some bold strokes of their own.  Finally we’re starting to see new cars again that actually have a statement to make!

4. Vista Cruiser:  I don’t care what you say. Station wagons are sweet.  Much like the mini-van the bad wrap they get isn’t from their own dysfunction, but rather the dysfunction that took place from within.  When you get your family cooped up inside ANY finite space, there’s bound to be weeping and gnashing of teeth.  Don’t take that out on the station wagon though.  And if you’re going to get a wagon, at the top of the heap is the Vista Cruiser.  The class of an Oldsmobile, the freedom of looking up at the stars as you roll down the road to Lord know where dad is taking you next.  Plus put some sweet chrome wheels and a throaty exhaust on, and you have one car I’d be proud to be picked up from school in.

3. Jeep Wagoneer:  I really came close to putting the Grand Cherokee on this list because I truly love it so far, but I couldn’t do it because I just haven’t got to know it yet.  Not that I know the Wagoneer any better, but from what I can tell, this Jeep wants nothing to do with stoplights.  Or even pavement for that matter.  A friend of mine, their family had a Grand Wagoneer as I was growing up, and I just remember being very fond of that vehicle.  Maybe it was the wood grain, or maybe it’s because they seemed a little out of place compared to everything else at the end of their run.  But whatever it was, it always felt like its own idea.  Not playing off of the flavor of the year.  It was about getting away from everything.  And that’s an idea I can rally around.  Hook up an Airstream to the bumper, and you’ve found my paradise.

2. Oldsmobile Toronado:  This blog has talked more about the Toronado than probably any other, and I could probably lament even further.  But I’ll just sum it up by saying, “Best car I’ve ever owned, by far.”

1. Chevy El Camino:  Save your trailer park jokes, alright?  Because some day your sorry butt is going to want to move a couch.  And its going to cost you a 12-Pack.  Because the El Camino doesn’t work for free.  If any vehicle was my Holy Grail, it’s the El Camino.  I had one, and it met an un-timely demise.  Some day… some day… I will ride again.  And have the ability to haul home countless antique radios, engine blocks, and untold other monstrosities that are outcasts from an earlier time… just like the El Camino.

Pit stop

10. Wires:  Don’t get me wrong. Wires are an amazing technological advancement and enable pretty much every device and contraption that I use on a daily basis. But this isn’t a list of the worst technological advances, it is of the most annoying. And while functional and necessary, there’s few things I hate more than untangling wires. Headphone cables, extension cords, speaker cables. Cable management is a skill and an art. One that I certainly have not mastered.

8. Digital Distribution: I’ve spoken on this in great length in the podcast. When you buy digitally you’re willingly giving up some control of your purchase. Want to carry that game over to your new system? Better hope the publisher supports it. Want to trade in your old software? Tough luck. I’ll take my physical copy every time, thank you!

7. Spam: A decade ago, this might have made number one on the list. But now, spam filters have gotten pretty darn good. Still you have to wonder, spammers wouldn’t keep sending out these messages if they weren’t effective. Someone, somewhere, is following through on these offers for blatantly misspelled prescription drugs. For the most part a couple junk e-mail addresses to use when you sign up for stuff and gmail, and you hardly have to worry about Spam anymore.

6. DRM (Digital Rights Management): Breifly DRM is copy protection that at its simplest prevents unauthorized duplicates of a copyrighted piece of work from being made. And at its most extreme restricts which devices you can use, and even how many times you can use it.
DRM in large is an effort to thwart piracy. Problem is DRM only hurts the honest paying customer, while the pirate still gets their content for free and without restriction.
I’m not saying I have a better solution, but I am saying DRM isn’t the answer. And if anything encourages piracy.

5. CGI Cartoons: I’m not saying that CGI can’t be appreciated, and that there is not some beautiful art direction that goes into CGI titles. I am disheartened that CGI cartoons have all but done away with traditional animated cartoons. This goes for the Saturday morning cartoons as well as the feature films. It’s rare to find an animated show that is truly drawn by human hands.
Cartoons are an art, same as movies, paintings, video games, or anything else. And it’s sad to see a very intimate style of art being lost to a more manufactured form.
I imagine that it is the way most things are in the world. CGI animation must be cheaper now than traditional animation to produce. Long live the almighty dollar.

4. Seat Belt Dingers: Don’t mistake, I wear my seat belt. Even moreso now that I’m a father. I feel like it’s the responsible thing to do.
But never once have I heard that DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING and thought: Ahh, thanks for the reminder. What I think is, “You #(*$&’n SOB computer! Fine I’ll put my @$#)& seat belt on! Chill the )&*% out!” What I would appreciate is maybe a SINGLE DING. After that if I choose not to wear my seatbelt… I’m on my own. I don’t need somebody nagging my ass to get things done. I get plenty of that outside my car. (No Andrea, I’m not talking about you!)

3. Automated Phone Directories: Few things piss me off more. How many times have you called a support line, listen to all the options and think… well, “It’s kind of a Press 3 question, but it’s also kind of a Press 5 question.” Sure as shit you’re going to pick the wrong option EVERY TIME.
When when you finally do get through to the person that barely speaks English and hates their job even more than you hate yours, GOOD LUCK getting transferred to the right person.
Usually if I can’t just google it… I just give up.

2. CFL Bulbs: This Top Ten list certainly isn’t on a linear scale. If anything it’s a hyperbolic scale. Let’s just say I hate CFLs a lot more than I hate everything else on this list. And that should tell you as well how much I hate number 1…
Why the hate for CFLs? The reasoning is three fold.
Number one: Warm up time. Remember when you flipped a switch and the lights came on? Not with CFLs, you flip the switch, then you get that half second of, “Didn’t I f’n turn on the light?” And then you have to wait a good minute or two for the full luminosity to kick in. Ever tried a CFL for a porch light in winter? Talk about useless.
Number two: Color temperature. If want pasty blue light I’ll spend more time at the office. I like a nice warm light. It feels homey. It feels more natural.
Number three: The look friggin’ ridiculous! Look at that picture! Is that not the dumbest shit you’ve ever seen!? Look! I have rotini popping out of my ceiling fan! I’ve even seen CFLs encased in plastic domes so that they LOOK like incandescents. WTF!? It’s like they admit no one want to lay eyes on these things! Worst of all they’re outlawing the ye’ olden light bulbs in some places. What has this world come to?

1. Cell Phones: More than anything else in the history of invention, I despise the cell phone. The last thing I want in the world is to be in continuous contact with it. The world sucks. I hate it. I want to exist in it in the most minimal way possible.
Nothing is more fun that being on vacation and the phone rings… “Hey, I know you’re on vacation but…” Seriously, what is wrong with just BEING GONE? I LIKE some solitude. I LIKE being disconnected.
And it’s not the fact that I’m constantly bombarded… as much as it is, that I COULD be at any moment, at any place. You’re constantly a slave to everyone else’s whims and desires. Whether it’s to come in and work over time, or just social chit chat.
If I leave my cell phone at home, head to the grocery store, roll my car and die because no one could find me. Know that at least I went the way I wanted to go… without being disturbed.

10. Gameboy Advance – Indigo color: I still maintain that this was stolen from me. I couldn’t simply misplace something like this. Regardless of what happened, I haven’t seen my original GBA in a long long time. Now, I have the GBA-SP which is awesome, and pretty much superior in every way over the original, but I spent so much time with my GBA back in the day, trying to find just the right angle to catch the light. Not to mention it’s somewhat more comfortable than the GBA-SP. I’d love to have one back just for the nostalgia.

9. Sega Genesis: I’ve never owned a Sega system. But the Genesis is the one I’m most familiar with. I remember playing it occasionally at friends houses. I also remember having to firmly choose one side or the other… and I chose Nintendo. But no sense hating on Sega any more. Now I’d just like to play some of the great games I missed out on.

8. Atari 2600: One word… “Woodgrain”. I bet this thing looked pretty damn slick in 1978. I also used to have an Atari 2600 I picked up at a garage sale back in my youth. I never appreciated it for what it was back then though and myself ended up selling it at a garage sale. Now I finally figured out what it’s all about. HIGH SCORES! I grew up in the era where the point was to BEAT a game. But these games were designed to push the gamer to their limits. No matter how far you got, you always could have gone farther. The games were short and repetitive, but that was the point.

7. Real Pinball Machine:  Video games are all well and fun.  But there’s something about the mechanical pops, clunks, and dings of a pinball machine that is entrancing.  I was never all that good at pinball, and that’s obviously because I never had a pinball machine of my own to practice on.

6. Colecovision: The Colecovision had to have blown some minds in 1982.  It was one of the first home consoles to deliver graphics that were close to what you actually saw in the arcades.  Playing Pac-Man on the Atari 2600 for instance was an… approximation of what Pac-Man looked like.  But playing it on the Colecovision looked damn close to what you would actually play in the arcades.  It had graphics approaching NES levels years before the NES was released.  But the video game crash of 1983 ended pre-maturely the Colecovision lifespan.   It’s an interesting looking console that actually has some very good games.  And there’s probably $60 worth of copper in the Colecovision power adapter.

5. Original Gameboy:  When it comes to playing Gameboy games, you have a lot of options.  GBA, GBA-SP, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Pocket, Gameboy Light, Super Gameboy, Gameboy Player, and probably the worst choice to play a Gameboy game on is the original Gameboy itself.  But there’s just some kind of nostalgia there of staring at that green screen, feeling the ribbed plastic in the palm of your hand and listening to those tinny little sound effects pop out of the speaker.  The only reason to have a Gameboy is to remember what it was like to play the Gameboy.  From a time when portable games were mostly limited almost entirely to segmented LCD displays and handheld poker games, the Gameboy was pretty friggin awesome in its day.

4. Mame Cabinet:  Now we’re getting serious.  This kind of setup is way out of my price range, but this list isn’t meant to be realistic anyway.  First off a MAME cabinet is in short, an arcade cabinet that plays all kinds of arcade games.  There’s a ton of old arcade games I remember playing, and you’re hard pressed to find an arcade theseday, and when you do the are kinda dingy, creepy, and filled with “out of order” signs.  I would completely have a blast building one of these, and PLAYING one of these.

3. PacMan Cocktail Table:  What’s better than gaming?  Gaming and cocktails!  I remember coming across several of these over the years.  Laundry mats, hotels, Taco Tico’s.  I haven’t seen one in the wild for a long time.  But in my basement I think it would be the ultimate conversation piece.  A conversation that ends with finding out who’s score is highest.  These are pretty pricey, but there are also plans available on the internet to build your own.  This would be another great platform to run a MAME machine.

2. Gameboy Micro:  The little GBA Micro didn’t have much of a spot light.  It came out around the same time as the Nintendo DS.  The GBA Micro was probably Nintendo’s hedge bet incase the DS didn’t take off.  After over 150 Million DS units now sold, we know how that story ended.  Nevertheless, the GBA Micro was a great little system, and probably the one I see the most useful today.  Portable consoles are still just a little too big to be considered “pocket sized”, but the GBA Micro is absolutely perfect for sliding into your pocket and ready to play at a moment’s notice.  Due to the limited sales, used ones are going for more than I’m willing to pay right now since I have my GBA-SP that will do all the same stuff.  But maybe someday I can justify it.

1. Vectrex: The Vectrex is my holy grail. And I’ve pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I will never have one. A used Vectrex in good shape is pushing beyond the $300 mark. That’s a pretty hefty price to pay, and one that’s really hard to justify to the wife, let alone myself. But ever since I saw it, there’s just been something about it that struck me as awesome. Maybe it’s the different screen overlays for each game. Or the crunchy sound effects. I guess at it’s core I love it because it is such a potent example of what cutting edge technology was in the 80’s. The styling, bulkiness. Something that today looks incredibly antiquated, but in its time was fresh, new and exciting. It’s a wonderful juxtaposition of time and gaming that I think makes it so interesting.