Back in June, I put together a list of the 10 Least-threatening Pro Wrestlers Named 'Ricky'. That got me thinking about the most threatening wrestlers named Ricky, which eventually brought me around to noticing how many wrestlers were named 'Dick', and how weird that is.

Long story short, I did extensive research on wrestling Dicks (not recommended without safesearch, btw) and complied a list of the Dick-related wrestling names I thought were the most threatening. Or the most concerning. Or the most obviously intended to make you think about dicks. I can't really explain that any better, just read the post and check out these weird dudes.

Warning: The word "dick" is typed a lot.

Continue reading this post »

Firstly, I'd like to give a big, formal thank you to m'main man Bill Hanstock for filling in on last week's Arbitrary Friday List, The 15 Greatest Characters In Magnolia, even if he didn't use my original idea (The 20 Best Characters In Josie And The Pussycats).

This week, something I've needed to write about for a while: low-brow pornography.

I know a lot about pornography, because 1) I have been on the Internet for 16-ish years, and 2) I have never pretended to be cool on it. I mean, I don't know a lot about it. I'm not a business insider. I know a lot about porn like someone on the Subway diet knows about Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki.

One of my favorite porn stars is Stephanie "Allie Sin" Draheim, a beautiful young woman from the redder-necked part of Florida who has never once looked enthusiastic while having sex and cannot stop getting arrested. She's got web-comic tattoos and just generally seems like a lady who'd benefit from a few friends who weren't eager to poop on her. I guess we could all benefit from that.

These are my picks for the 10 least prestigious films on her IMDB page.

Continue reading this post »

The Arbitrary Friday List is already a grand institution. I am filling in for B this week, so I hope that I can do it some small modicum of justice.

P.T. Anderson's (no, the other Paul Anderson, the good one) Magnolia is one of my absolute favorite films of all time. It's a phenomenal film and an amazing achievement. It's beloved my many and hated by many more. I've seen it more times than probably any other film not featuring Fozzie Bear.

It's an ensemble film in every sense of the word. The three-hour acting showcase weaves together some of the most compelling characters in cinematic history. And also Julianne Moore. So let's get to ranking them, shall we?

Continue reading this post »

Over the last few weeks, the Arbitrary Friday List has covered everything from popular culture to The Holy Bible and everything inbetween, so I wanted to stop alienating people and write about something we can all enjoy: colors.

The enjoyment of color (or specific colors) is highly subjective, so instead of ranking my favorite colors (royal blue, forest green) I've arranged them based on the number of Thumbs Up they got on YouTube. To do this, I am pretending that colors can be uploaded to YouTube, and that people on the Internet would observe and react to these colors as they would a collection of various colors mashed together into moving pictures.

If you have a favorite color (or a constructive comment on any of the colors featured), please utilize our comments section. Enough about comic books, boys ... it's time we talk about something important!

Continue reading this post »

That all being said, part of creating 8,000 comic book characters is that even if you create 1,000 amazing, important ones, you're still left with 7,000 that probably should've stayed in your sketchbook. Jack Kirby rarely created a total dud -- he didn't create a lot of BLOODSHOTs -- so characters with dumb names could turn out great (The Silver Surfer, for example) and terrible characters could end up with great names.

Because the Arbitrary Friday List celebrates only the least important aspects of popular culture (and it's Friday the 13th), here are 13 terrible Jack Kirby creations with killer names. Remember "terrible" for Jack Kirby is Deadpool for Rob Liefeld, so know the list was written with love and take it with a grain of salt. Or better yet, take it with GRAIN! THE SALT THAT KNOWS LIKE A MAN.

Continue reading this post »

If you don't know me personally, my favorite films are (in order) -- Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru (1952), Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and Newt Arnold's Bloodsport (1988).

There are a lot of characters to love in Bloodsport. Bolo Yeung's turn as Chong Li, the Chinese powerhouse who wears a headband and pumps his fists like a psychopath after he karate-murders people, is particularly memorable. This was '80s icon Jean Claude Van-Damme's first major starring role, and if you can get past half of what he does, everything he says and that scene where he stands still until it's time to pull up his underwear, he's great.

I'm a big fan of supporting players in films like these, so for this week's Arbitrary Friday List I've decided to rank the 15 worst fighters in the Bloodsport Kumite. I think the movie was set in 1975, but we're pretending this happened in real time in 1988.

I hope you enjoy my analysis. OKAY USA!

Continue reading this post »

Finally, we get to the point of the Arbitrary Friday List column. I didn't bring you here to make you laugh. Did you know that Jesus has a plan for you?

One of the things that ties the Progressive Boink staff closest together is our shared history of shifty childhood religious experiences. If you read Bill's excellent The 10 People You'll Meet At Church Youth Group you can easily identify me as #4 ("Bible nerd"). I once won a 35 MM camera by crushing a bunch of teens at Bible trivia. So of course once I got "80s television", "80s-to-most-of-the-90s television" and ""pro wrestling" out of the way, my list-making preferences would lean toward religion.

A few disclaimers:

1. I swear to God promise this list is for comedy purposes and is not a condemnation of anybody or anything anybody did in The Bible.

2. I spent about 13 years obsessively going to church but do not consider myself a scholar or expert, so if I get something wrong feel free to let me know in the comments, but don't pull that "Lot only had four children I don't see how that is really a 'lot' of children" shit on me.

3. I am aware that some of these names have great explanations and/or just mean something poetic in Hebrew, but jokes, so work with me.

Anyway, please enjoy the 16-or-so worst names for people in The Holy Bible I can remember off the top of my head.

Continue reading this post »

Continue reading this post »