Last night the Doctor Demento Funny 25 gave us our annual update to the madness that is the Top 100 (or so) Demented Hits (from Funny 25′s) – 1974 to 2011. The great Luke Ski took this year’s top spot and added “Snoopy the Dogg” to the tie for #95 at the bottom of the list. He was a force this year, not only by taking #1, but by appearing with Cirque du So What on “Elevator” at #22 and collaborating with Dan of Flat 29 on #13′s “WalkingSilly”.

It was kind of a strange list with several returning songs from past years, including the obligatory “Dead Puppies” and “Fish Heads” along with “Wet Dream,” “The Ballad of Irving” (last seen 20 years ago in 1991), and “Amish Paradise” (returning for the first time since 2000). “Irving” moved up to the 13th spot in the Top 100, passing Julie Brown’s “The Homecoming Queen’s Got A Gun” and Weird Al’s “Amish Paradise” skipped “My Dead Dog Rover” and “The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny” into #35.

But the big news for Top 100 fans is that “Fish Heads” finally moved ahead of “Dead Puppies” as the all-time Number One song on the chart…the very thing the good Doctor Demento stated as fact years ago that set me on my annual quest to calculate its truth. It wasn’t before, but it is now.

Here’s this year’s list from DMDB.org along with some fun links.

#25 Dead Puppies - Ogden Edsl Wahalia Blues Ensemble Mondo Bizzario Band
#24 If You Want To Say Fuck, Say Fuck - Steve Goodie
#23 L. A. Dream - Henry Phillips
#22 Elevator - Cirque du So What?
#21 The Ballad Of Irving - Frank Gallop
#20 Horizontal Surfaces! - Sean Morey
#19 Amish Paradise - “Weird Al” Yankovic

#18 We Love Boobs - The Boobles
#17 Wet Dream - Kip Addotta
#16 How Do You Spell Quadaffi Khadafy? - Wally Wilson
#15 Charlie Sheen - Power Salad
#14 Atheists Don’t Have No Songs - Steve Martin & The Steep Canyon Rangers
#13 WalkingSilly - the great Luke Ski f/ Dan of Flat 29
#12 Fish Heads - Barnes & Barnes
#11 Avada Kedavra - Steve Goodie w/ Nuclear Bubble Wrap

#10 Street Meat (You Keep Tauntin’ Me) - Mike Phirman
#9 Help Me, Vodka - Robert Lund & Spaff.com
#8 When Will You Die - They Might Be Giants
#7 Super-Powers - Insane Ian
#6 You’re An Old Lady (Who Used To Be Hot) - Flat 29
#5 Perform This Way - “Weird Al” Yankovic
#4 Four Chords - Axis Of Awesome
#3 Global Warning - Throwing Toasters
#2 If I Could Be Weird Al - Moneyshot Cosmonauts

#1 Snoopy The Dogg - the great Luke Ski

Bolded the ones I’ve read and added some notes.

1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien

2. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

3. Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card [started to read it, but didn't get far]

4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert [the movie ruined it for me...every time I tried starting Dune, I got stuck on images from the movie and couldn't continue]

5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin

6. 1984, by George Orwell

7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov

9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman

12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan

13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell

14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson

15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore

16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov

17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein

18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss

19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut

20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley

21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick

22. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood

23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King [actually in the middle of this one]

24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke

25. The Stand, by Stephen King

26. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson

27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury

28. Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut

29. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman [got sidetracked and left it; gotta get back to this someday]

30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess

31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein

32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams

33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey

34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein

35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller

36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells

37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne

38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys

39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells

40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny

41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings

42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley

43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson

44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven

45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin

46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien [I tried...I really did...]

47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. White

48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman [another one I need to get to soon]

49. Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke

50. Contact, by Carl Sagan

51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons

52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman

53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson

54. World War Z, by Max Brooks

55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle

56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman

57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett

58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson

59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold

60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett

61. The Mote In God’s Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind

63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

64. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke

65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson

66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist

67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks

68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard

69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb

70. The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger

71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson

72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne

73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore

74. Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi

75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson

76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke

77. The Kushiel’s Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey

78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin

79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury

80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire

81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson

82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde

83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks

84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart

85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson

86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher

87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe

88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn

89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan

90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock

91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury

92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley

93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge

94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov

95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson

96. Lucifer’s Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis

98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville

99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony [read some of this]

100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis

First, we switched from Bright House’s preferred internet service, Road Runner, to Earthlink on the strength of reviews about Earthlink’s superior support and the fact that the sales guy didn’t try to bullshit me into paying more for a “turbo” service that isn’t any faster than regular cable. And, miraculously, despite both services coming from the same provider and through the same equipment, we’ve seen the frequent drops of service we were having under RR disappear (except for the mix-up in canceling the TV service when they cut off the internet too). If there is a speed difference between RR Turbo and plain old Earthlink, we haven’t noticed it, and it’s not like we’re light users…with a TV that is totally internet driven and up to four PC’s and a couple of smart phones and guest laptops using the ‘net at once.

For hardware, we’re using the Xbox 360 that we’ve had for games since 2006 or something. We had already been using it for Netflix viewing over the past couple of years, so it was all set up. But, after surveying the content landscape, there was a severe gap that needed filling, and when Apple dropped the price of its Apple TV  to $99, we got one.

For content, we have Netflix for the movies and seasons of shows on DVD and Hulu for current TV shows. (Hulu Plus is required for running it through the Xbox, but you also need a way to see the stuff they mark as “web only”…that’s where PlayOn comes in.)

PlayOn is for anything on the web that has a video feed but that’s not on Hulu Plus or Netflix, including Hulu, CBS, and a bunch of other sites. There are plugins for lots of extra sources at playonplugins.com

We bought the Apple TV for anything we absolutely can’t live without or wait until it gets on DVD (like Doctor Who). As a side benefit, it also has Netflix, and the YouTube channel has gotten a lot of use.

The Good

We are watching less “crap” TV just because it’s in front of us, and we’re not using it for background noise, just having it on for the sake of it. That actually took some getting used to, as I’ve been in a house with a TV that’s almost always on since 1962. We are also watching shows we might not have noticed, like the British show Misfits (which we love), and catching up on series that we somehow missed, like 30 Rock (which I can’t believe I never watched before). We’re not missing our regular morning dose of the Daily Show, lacking in new things to watch (like Wilfred) or feeling left out.

The Bad

We are now really dependent on the internet connection being up and good. We haven’t had a lot of the drops that we used to, but there was the incident where Bright House shut off the internet by mistake (just in time to miss the first episode of Torchwood). And currently we are sitting Xbox-less thanks to our Live account being hacked. Finally, we don’t usually care if a show is in HD, but video quality (with some exception) is not going to satisfy pickier people.

The Ugly

I’m a geek, so having a bunch of different devices to entertain me is not a problem. However, I want to make the experience as easy as possible for the rest of the family. Yes, we’re saving money, but it shouldn’t have to be a chore to figure out which device and service to use for the particular show you want to watch.

Unfortunately, I haven’t found a good all-in-one alternative, yet. As mentioned before, we need Apple TV to be able to rent things that aren’t available for free elsewhere, but Hulu doesn’t play on Apple. Meanwhile, the Xbox has all the other services, but they are on separate menus that aren’t all uniform or easy to follow (not to mention the $50 annual fee for Live and the threat of getting hacked). I tried using Windows Media Center to at least get everything onto one menu, but PlayOn doesn’t want to work through it for some reason.

I looked at Roku to be an alternative to the Xbox, but for some reason they are in a feud with PlayOn. PlayOn says they have a user-created channel that works, but any mention of PlayOn in the Roku forums is immediately stifled. Without PlayOn, you have Hulu Plus but none of the “web only” shows. Boxee has the opposite problem. It will play web-only Hulu, but it doesn’t support Hulu Plus.

I also looked at the Sony Internet TV Blue-ray disc player with Google TV. While we could use a blue ray player, the reviews aren’t glowing and the price tag of $300 kinda eats up the savings we’re wanting to see from ditching cable.

So, on balance, everything is good. Still looking for that magic cable/DVR replacement that plays all available content and is cheap.

To celebrate, I got picked up from work (down to one car temporarily thanks to a car crash by Pepperkat for those who don’t follow along on Facebook…) and we went to IHOP! Woo!!

Actually, we’re hopping in the car Friday morning, and we’re not coming back for just about the rest of June. Just the two of us driving about and seeing the sights. We’re going up to Chattanooga, first, then winding through the Blue Ridge Parkway for a few days before landing in Washington, DC, for a week. We’ll spend a couple days in Williamsburg and one in Charleston on our way back. Should be pretty fun. The only schedule we have is the pre-booked hotels. Other than that, we’re freeeeeeeeeeee!

Anywho, I’m back home for the foreseeable future, and I’ve got a stack of tunes lined up to record. In case you were wondering.

While ascribing all the evils of the last 10 years to one guy seems naive, Osama triggered death and war and a host of terror-inspired curbs on freedom that we’re never going to wipe away with his death. Good riddance. It’s guys like you that make taking Jesus’ commandment to love your enemies nearly impossible.

What disturbed me last night were the cheering throngs in the streets.

We didn’t win anything.

I started to write something similar, but Michele’s post is better than what I would have said. Granted, I’ve got “Ding! Dong! The witch is dead!” running through my head, but this isn’t your favorite sport team’s championship. This is the end of an expensive, bloody manhunt that might have meant something concrete years ago. Now, it’s just a symbolic act of retribution that doesn’t change much. Stop acting like the thugs in the streets on September 12, 2001, who cheered the attack on innocents and felt righteous doing so. Now is the time for quietly remembering all the lives lost over the last 10 years either due to this man’s minions or in the pursuit of justice.

The thing is, other than Lester and Beckett, the starting pitching has sucked donkey balls, and the bullpen has been like mystery meat…you don’t know what you’re getting from night to night.

Then there’s the offense (or lack thereof). Pedroia is trying to carry the team on his dwarven shoulders, but he can’t do it alone. I’m not overly worried about most of the hitters–they’re not on fire, but they’re not totally useless like Crawford and Youkilis. And I don’t mean that they aren’t trying. My God, it feels like the pair of them is so desperate for a hit, they look like they’re going to cry after each at-bat. At least Youk has gone back to his “Greek God of Walks” days, but Crawford is looking like this year’s version of Julio Lugo. (Worst free agent signings in Red Sox history)

After last year’s sad excuse of a season, in which everyone from Ortiz down to the bat boy went on the DL, I was hoping for something more this year…especially after signing Crawford and Gonzalez. But, again, no panic. Maybe Lackey will pitch well enough tonight to avoid being swept by the Rays (the third sweep in four series)!

And maybe I’ll win the lottery.

Ok, so I’m a little rusty, and this isn’t the greatest thing since Gortho started banging a 4/4 rhythm on a hollow log back in cave man days, but I like it. It’s a song by David Olney that I heard fellow Mainer Slaid Cleaves perform.

Millionaire.mp3

Bad news: The PC I use to get songs off the recorder and into distributable form hadn’t been updated for the last 4 years. So, it’s taken me all week to get it up to snuff…including fixing the dying sound card. Then, when I finally got everything in place last night, I listened to the song outside of my headphones, and it sounded terrible. The mix had no discernible bass line, and it was all muddy. So, while I don’t think I’ll have to re-record any parts, I do have to tear the thing open and re-mix it from scratch.

And it’s not exactly the greatest song in the world…so, spending this much time on it is bordering on wasteful. But I have to finish it before moving on. At least I am moving on, though, and (despite my bitching) having fun.