Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Best of 2007, Part IV

Let's keep the countdown rolling for the middleCoast staff members Best (and/or Worst) Lists of 2007 (see Part I here, Part II here, and Part III here).


Sean (a.k.a. Too'sBiL) Presents:
The Top 10 Centennial Birthdays of 2007


Number 10

United Press International, the source for most everything you didn't need to know. From the CIA briefing the House Intelligence Committee on the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes to Jessica Alba's pregnancy.





Number 9

James Murray Spangler invents the first Hoover vacuum cleaner, spawning a million imitators, hundreds of hours of infomercial material, and the coolest looking vacuums known to man. People that have never in their life used a vacuum are plunking down a week's pay for the Dyson DC06 Robotic Ultravac. Not since John Holmes has there been a greater challenge to suck this much.







Number 8
John Wayne (May 26, 1907 - June 11, 1979)
The Duke inspires elementary school boys everywhere to mix cowboy boots with sweatpants.









Number 7

Oklahoma is born into the union, admitted as the 46th U.S. state. Eventually they managed to scrape together a college or two, and before long those schools started playing a game invented by Dr. James Naismith at Kansas University more than a decade before Oklahoma came into existence.







Number 6
The triode thermionic amplifier is invented. Kicking off a century of incredible advances in electronics and culminating in one of the greatest electronic devices every created, Guitar Hero III.







Number 5

The Autochrome Lumière is the first marketed color photography process. A process, which is now virtually dead to the average American, thanks in part to Number 6.







Number 4

Abraham Simpson - America's Favorite Octogenarian







Number 3

The United Parcel Service is born allowing us to fulfill our insatiable American appetite for planned obsolescence consumables, all from the comfort of our homes. Anything you want, they can get it to your door the next day...unless the next day is Saturday or Sunday, then you're screwed.







Number 2

Boris Rosing transmits silhouette images of geometric shapes, using a Nipkow disc, mirror-drum, and a cathode-ray tube receiver...the now obsolete CRT television. Long live the behemoth TV.







Number 1

Did we mention that the triode thermionic amplifier is invented? Kicking off a century of incredible advances in electronics and culminating in the greatest electronic device every created and accessory to some of the finest riffs in history, the Fender Stratocaster.

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