Horse Rankings

1. Diablo — Day and night he stands guard at Denver International Airport. All hail the demon horse!
2. Thunder — A purebred Arabian gelding who serves as the Denver Broncos' mascot.
3. Comet — Bruce Campbell's co-star on The Adventures of Brisco County Jr who basically carried the show.
4. Artax — That is, the horse from The NeverEnding Story.
5. War Horse — We'd all be speaking German right now if it weren't for this heroic animal.

Love Rankings

Love is a drug. Love is all you need. Love is only a feeling. But what's really the deal with this "love" thing anyway?

Setting aside the theological conception of love as "submission to God," and also setting aside the love of activities and places and things, let's confine the scope of "love" in this post to human interaction. There is a book which I have never read called The Five Love Languages (see http://www.5lovelanguages.com/) about how different people have different ways of demonstrating and receiving love.

Apparently the five ways of showing love and feeling loved are, in no particular order:

1. Words of affirmation
2. Acts of service
3. Receiving gifts
4. Quality time
5. Physical touch

Probably the idea is that all of these are equally valid and everybody has their own special, unique way of loving and blah blah blah. Rubbish! Separate is never equal. Further analysis is warranted.

"Gifts" (which I suppose also includes money) is obviously the stupidest way to show and receive love, because it is completely dependent on the giver's possession of property, which is not something anyone really has much control over. This love language is crass and materialistic.

"Words" is the second-stupidest way, because "talk is cheap" and "words are wind" and so on.

"Physical" probably makes the most sense out of all five things, but is unfortunately fraught with social problems, because our society retains so many Puritanical and Victorian proclivities about physical affection. Did you know that in some parts of the world it is common practice for men to hold hands with their male friends? To Americans, this seems super gay. Our culture also has a lot of norms governing physical affection between family members. Furthermore, some people (such as certain people with autism) just don't like to be touched. For instance, I do not like to be touched UNLESS it is an expression of affection, in which case I am quite amenable to it. But some autistic people don't like to be touched by anyone for any reason whatsoever.

That leaves "Acts" and "Time". The problem with "Acts" is that it kind of demands reciprocity by putting the receiver in debt, as it were, to the person performing the act. The same can also be said for "Time," I suppose, but I'd still give "Time" the edge over "Acts" because it is more likely to be a mutual exchange.

Ergo the official Venom and Honey™ Love Rankings:

1. Physical*
2. Time
3. Acts
4. Words
5. Gifts

In conclusion, you don't need to buy anybody a copy of The Five Love Languages for Christmas this year since I've already worked it out for you.

Love,
MDC

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*Physical with an asterisk because it is context-dependent.

Top Five: Side Ones, Track Ones

First, watch the following clip from High Fidelity:

Now presenting my Top Five Side Ones, Track Ones:

5. The Doors - "Break On Through"
   The Doors - First track, first side... of their very first record!
4. The Joshua Tree - "Where The Streets Have No Name"
   U2 - This one even gets the haters excited.
3. Love Over Gold - "Telegraph Road"
   Dire Straits - Perhaps Knopfler's greatest masterpiece.
2. Tattoo You - "Start Me Up"
   The Rolling Stones - Also the song they use to open their live shows.
1. The Beatles - "Back In The U.S.S.R"
   The Beatles - I have to agree with Jack Black on this one.

Honorable Mentions:

• Led Zeppelin III - "Immigrant Song"
  Led Zeppelin - This song grabs you by the balls -- the rest of the album never lets go.
• Arthur, or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire - "Victoria"
  The Kinks - A real rollicking rocker. Might've been in the Top Five if it weren't so sarcastic.
• Nice And Warm - "Nice And Warm"
  Tab Benoit - Again, first track of the first side of the very first album.
• Damn The Torpedoes - "Refugee"
  Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers - We can all agree that this is Tom Petty's best song, right?
• Heartbreaker - "To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High)"
  Ryan Adams - This really great lead-off song sets up an unreasonable expectation for the rest of an otherwise underwhelming album. N.B. - Technically not the first track.
 

Here they are again, for your listening pleasure: