My top 100 movies

Why do I have a top 100 movie list? Well, there's a story to that, but I'll leave it for another time. The important thing is that everyone should have their own top 100 movie list.

Whenever this comes up, folks always say the same things - 'I haven't seen 100 movies', and 'I couldn't come up with 100.' Not true, not true for anybody. Just sit down, start a list of your favorite movies, and your list will only keep growing. Before you know it, you'll have 100, and then it's just a matter of putting them in the right order.

Just remember, it's your list. And when folks don't like what's in it, they can write down their own list.

Now, here it is...

Top 10

1 Lawrence of Arabia

2 2001: A Space Odyssey

3 Forrest Gump

4 It's a Wonderful Life

5 Pulp Fiction

6 The Bridge on the River Kwai

7 The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

8 The Empire Strikes Back

9 The Godfather

10 The Seven Samurai

Top 20

11 Apocalypse Now

12 Castaway

13 Citizen Kane

14 Contact

15 Ferris Bueller's Day Off

16 Finding Forrester

17 Life as a House

18 Modern Times

19 Star Trek II: The Wratch of Khan

20 Star Wars

Top 40

21 Babe

22 Carlito's Way

23 Excalibur

24 Fight Club

25 Kill Bill

26 Marathon Man

27 Patton

28 Pride and Prejudice (2006)

29 Psycho

30 Reservoir Dogs

31 Return of the Jedi

32 Rocky

33 Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

34 Star Trek: First Contact

35 The Andromeda Strain (1971)

36 The Godfather Part 2

37 The Natural

38 The Night of the Generals

39 The Searchers

40 The Sixth Sense

Top 60

41 Big

42 Coming to America

43 Dances with Wolves

44 Fall

45 Gladiator

46 Good Will Hunting

47 Goodfellas

48 Little Man Tate

49 Raiders of the Lost Ark

50 Rocky II

51 Saving Private Ryan

52 Seven

53 Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

54 The American President

55 The Outlaw Josey Wales

56 The Planet of the Apes

57 The Road Warrior

58 The Watchmen

59 Unbreakable

60 You've Got Mail

Top 80

61 A Man Called Horse

62 Close Encounters of the Third Kind

63 Far and Away

64 Groundhog Day

65 Heat

66 Ikiru

67 Little Big Man

68 Mary Poppins

69 Memento

70 Metropolis

71 No Way Out

72 Parenthood

73 Party Girl

74 Regarding Henry

75 The Blues Brothers

76 The Brothers McMullen

77 The Dirty Dozen

78 The Game

79 The Terminator

80 Twelve Monkeys

Top 100

81 A Few Good Men

82 Fantasia

83 Field of Dreams

84 Henry V (with Kenneth Brannagh)

85 Honeymoon in Vegas

86 Kelley's Heroes

87 The Great Santini

88 The Land That Time Forgot

89 The Man with One Red Shoe

90 The Money Pit

91 The Outsiders

92 The Shootist

93 The Silence of the Lambs

94 The Time Machine

95 The Untouchables

96 The Usual Suspects

97 The Wild Geese

98 The Wizard of Oz

99 Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

100 Zulu

Today is the two week anniversary of my Jeep getting stolen.

Yes, Tuesday September 8, 2009 was an eventful day. After hearing this story, one of my friends said that my Jeep has nine lives. This is true. Everything that has happened to it could fill a blog all by itself. This blog entry itself will be long, nevertheless, let's begin here...

That Tuesday was kind of a long day. I was picking up a friend and his family from the airport that night around 7:00 p.m. This alone required me to take a bus across town, pick up my buddy's truck, drive it to my place, and then later that night pick him up from the airport. So far so good. I got back home around 2:00 p.m. with the truck, when I made the turn in front of my apartment building, pass my parked Jeep. This is the last time I saw the Jeep before 'the incident'.

I went ahead and picked up my buddy, and he dropped me off back home around 7:30. The problem is that when he dropped me off, he parked exactly where I thought I had parked the Jeep. Something didn't seem right. I didn't say anything, but once he had left I stood on the sidewalk wondering if I was imagining things. Isn't this where I had parked the Jeep? Had I moved it? Was it parked somewhere else? It didn't take very long for the truth to hit me...

The Jeep was gone!!! Poof! Vanished! Just like that!

I went into my apartment, called the police, and about an hour later gave the details to a police officer. When we were wrapping up I asked Officer Fox (real name) if I'd ever see the Jeep again. He said, maybe, sometimes they show up about an hour later, sometimes they are gone forever. At this point, you (the reader) should recognize this as foreshadowing.

Throughout this time I was surprisingly calm, with the sinking suspicion that a nervous breakdown was only moments away. Anyway, at precisely 9:55 p.m. I got a call from the Bernalillo County Sherriff's Department. Did you report your car stolen? Yes. Well, we have it, along with the person who stole it, can you come over and pick it up? Well, no, but in a flash Officer Fox was there to pick me up and take me to the scene of the crime.

Apparently a heroin addict had stolen my Jeep and went on a crime spree in southern Albuquerque. Picture the scene - it's about 10:00 p.m., it's dark, the Jeep is in the middle of the road, traffic is being diverted, and no less than five police cars with their lights on have surrounded it. The 'suspect' is being handcuffed a few feet away.

The police are trying to figure out things. Sir, did you have anything in the car when it was stolen? No, the Jeep has an open top, so I don't keep anything in it. Are you sure? Well, no, not really, but I'm pretty sure. The police go off and huddle.

Then they return. Now, you gotta picture it, the police officers are big dudes, like football players. And they have these deep voices. So when they come over to talk to me, they make quite an impression. Sir, did you have a jack in your car. Yes, a small jack (I indicate how small with my hands), it fits under the car seat. So you didn't have a big jack, a highboy? No, I had a small jack (again, hand gestures). The police are puzzled, and so am I. Do they want me to jack up the Jeep? It sounds to me that they want me to jack up the Jeep, all four tires off the ground, but my little jack barely lifts one tire off the ground. How am I going to do this?

Eventually they let me go to the Jeep. A police officer points to something on the back seat. Sir, does this belong to you? No, none of this is mine. I am astonished. The Jeep is full of stolen stuff. There is so much in it, it looks like it was going to start falling off the open sides of the Jeep. Then I realize what all the car jack confusion was about - resting on the back seat is an industrial size jack that is as long as the Jeep is wide. It is huge. Each of the five cops is fantasizing about it in their garage. But, alas, it is evidence.

Anyway, the police collect some evidence and release the Jeep and the rest of the loot to me. In it there was a hospital robe, an IV kit, two pocket knives, a Leatherman, a tape measure, and some other stuff I can't remember (but I have at home). There was even a bag of Wendy's and some fries on the passenger side. Yes, at some point, the thief had gotten some food at the drive through.

The last and perhaps strangest element of this story is that the car thief/heroin addict did not hot wire the Jeep. He had a key. Everyone - the police and myself - were puzzled. I have my theories about this, but will leave it at that.

Today the bus was fetid.

Fetid is another word for foul smelling. And I would say that the bus smelled bad, but I've been on it before when it smelled real bad. One time it smelled so bad I got off two stops later and waited for the next bus.

The thing about the bus is that it is a source of endless entertainment. I ride it to school at least five days a week, and rarely does it disappoint. One time I saw a guy take a pill he found on the floor. One night I saw two guys roughing up a third guy at a bus stop. As the bus approached the stop, one of the guys waved the bus driver to move on. Another time I saw a guy on the bus wearing only a large orange sleeping bag. He was wearing it like a tent. All you could see was the sleeping bag and his two feet sticking out of the bottom - you couldn't even see his face. When we got to his stop, he simply stood up, without apparently being able to see, and walked out. And one other time I saw a bus driver- a woman- kick a guy off the bus. Literally, kick a guy, with her foot, off the bus!!

There are so many other things I could say about the bus, but don't worry, the stories will come. It's only a matter of time. OK, I'll go ahead and say it, today the bus smelled bad, real bad.

Let's start with the Tao of Lisa

At the end of this summer I spent three weeks visiting my brother and his family. Part of the motivation for visiting was to help out around the house. I folded laundry, drove one nephew to basketball practices, kept the other nephew preoccupied, etc. This doesn't sound like much, but hang around my sister-in-law, Lisa, for less than a week and you realize that her life is busy from sunrise to well past sundown. This was my introduction to the Way of Lisa.

Lisa doesn't ever think about doing anything. She does it. Nike should put her in their commercials. Just do it. Lisa springs from one activity to another - doing laundry, cooking, washing dishes, paying bills, shopping for groceries, taking her kids to the library. It's a sight to see, mostly because she handles it so effortlessly. Sure, she complains (only a little, no time) but watching her in action you realize that she might be the most effective human being on the planet. She would disagree, but she really is a master of every activity around her.

Now that I am back home, I've started to implement the Way of Lisa, and it is a blast, if only for the fun it is to dart from one activity to another. And you get so much done during the day.

So, just do it. Not like Nike, like Lisa.