Category Archives: Top Ten Tuesday

The Top Ten Best 80’s Movies

Posted on March 22, 2022 | 8 comments

I was in a nostalgic mood this past weekend and watched some 80’s movies. Then I decided to create this list to see what others had to say about the movies of the best decade ever. If you agree or disagree, I’d love to hear in the comments what movies you’d add or take away from my list.

10. Raiders of the Last Ark, 1981. Starring Harrison Ford. Best line: “Snakes! Why’d it have to be snakes?” Who else feels this way?

9. The Breakfast Club, 1985. Starring Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, and Ally Sheedy. Best line: Does Barry Manilow know you raid his wardrobe?”  –John Bender to Richard Vernon

8. The Princess Bride 1987: Starring: Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Andre the Giant, Fred Savage, Wallace Shawn, Chris Sarandon, and Mandy Patinkin. Best Line: Have fun stormin’ da castle!” A great cameo by Billy Crystal

7. The ‘Burbs 1989: starring Tom Hanks, Carrie Fisher, Corey Feldman, Bruce Dern, and Rick Ducommon. Best line: “Ray, there’s no doubt anymore…This is real. Your neighbors are murdering people…They’re burying them in their backyard. Ray… this is Walter.” This is from the funniest scene in the movie.

6. Beetlejuice 1988: Starring Michael Keaton, Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin. Best line: “I’ve seen the Exorcist 167 times and it keeps getting funnier everytime I see it.”  I was traumatized by the Exorcist.

5. Top Gun 1986 Starring Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Anthony Edwards, and Val Kilmer. Best line: “You’re not going to be happy unless you’re going Mach 2 with your hair on fire.”  You and me both Maverick.

4. Batman 1989 Starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson. Best line: “Tell Me Something, My Friend, Have You Ever Danced With the Devil in the Pale Moonlight?”  In comparison with Adam Wests 1960’s Batman, this was a shock to the superhero movie genre.

3. Back to The Future 1985 Starring Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson and Crispin Glover. Best line: “Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads!” I wanted to be Marty McFly.

2. Field of Dreams, 1989 Starring Kevin Costner , James Earl Jones, Amy Madigan, and Ray Liotta. Best line: “Ty Cobb wanted to play…but none of us could stand the son-of-a-bitch when we were alive, so we told him to stick it!” It would have been too easy to go with “If you build it…”

1. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, 1986 Starring Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, Mia Sara, Jennifer Grey. Best line: “It’s not that I support fascism or any ism for that matter. Isms in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an ism, he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon, “I don’t believe in Beatles, I just believe in me.” Not bad, but then again he was the walrus.” As adults, don’t we still imagine skipping work and having a day like this?

There you go, MY top ten 80’s movies. If you could expand the list by adding your favs, what would some of them be?

Have a great Tuesday! ~Phil

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Top Ten Tuesday! Ten Travel Tips You Must Know!

Posted on April 27, 2021 | Leave a comment

Happy Tuesday everybody. Well, I guess it’s more of a happy Tuesday if you’re getting ready for a trip this weekend. As a prelude to my new travel website and writing venture, Philliver’s Travels, this post is a preview of some of the content you’ll see there.

As we all know, travel is fun and exciting, but it can be a little less than fun when things go wrong. So, to kick things off for my new site, I collaborated with freelance travel writer and International Living magazine/website contributor, Bel Woodhouse , to give you some things to think about before you leave home.

10. Have a “Go-bag” You know who has go-bags? Criminals & smart travelers. (One of those two are my target audience. Which are you?) What I mean by a Go-Bag, is when you travel, don’t take your home phone charger. Don’t take your entire medicine bottle from the cabinet, and for cripes sake, don’t take your toothbrush from home! Buy an extra phone charger, travel toothbrush, tiny tubes of toothpaste, and a weeks worth of your meds. Put them in your suitcase and leave them there! ALL. THE. TIME. That way, you’ll have less things to remember to pack. If you leave things behind at your hotel when you’re heading home, you won’t be out of luck until you can replace those items. As a man that has bought my fair share and your fair share of phone chargers when I get to a destination, having a Go-bag is a smart move.

9. (From Bel) Always have a good old fashioned paper map. Don’t rely on technology. Batteries go flat, coverage gets spotty, phones are stolen. Paper doesn’t let you down. I’ve had one in 30+ countries and have never been lost, mugged or had anything bad happen. EVER.

8. Count your kids: Traveling as a family? This ain’t your local shopping mall. Don’t take your eyes off your little ones. If there’s anything Home Alone taught us, it’s that you need to count your kids wherever you go. MacCaulay Culkin was left home alone and look how he turned out:

7. (From Bel) Know where you are, where you shouldn’t go and how to get back to your hotel, accommodation or nearest taxi.

6. Do the Math! Growing up, I hated mathematics. When you travel, it comes in handy. Just because it seems like you have plenty of time to get to your gate, don’t be fooled. If you show up at the airport Friday-Monday, four days of the week, you need to factor in extra drop off luggage line time and the security line time. On those four days there’s a higher volume of travelers and lines will be longer and slower. Also, if you have connecting flights, book your flights with at least a one hour and ten minute window between the first flight landing and the second flight taking off.  Trust me on that one.

5. (From Bel) Keep the majority of your money on your person, not in your wallet in case someone lifts it.

4. How to tip the housekeeping staff: If you’re staying in a hotel or resort with daily housekeeping, tipping them is customary, but how and when you tip makes a difference. $5 a day American is pretty standard, but should vary depending on the hotel you’re at. Let’s say you’re staying five days, do you dole out that $5 each day or wait until the end of your stay? Don’t wait until the end of the stay. Leave at least a $10 tip the first morning and spread the rest out over the week. My reason? Sometimes if you tip well early, you get better service, like a few extra coffee pods, extra towels, chocolates on the pillow, or just a generally better room cleaning. These folks work hard. Don’t be stingy!

3. (From Bel) Have situational awareness. Take note of what and who is around you. I was in a market in Nicaragua and made eye contact with a guy, then held my camera close until he moved past me only to push over another young woman and steal her camera. Know who and what is around you and keep an eye on your stuff.

2. Talk to the hotel/resort staff before going out: Not every hotel has a concierge, but the staff at every hotel is knowledgeable about the surrounding area and they always have tips and tricks to make your adventures safer, less costly, and more fun. Ask them if there’s some not so well known restaurants that are secret gems.

1. (From Bel) The biggest thing -Always be polite, manners get you everywhere in every country. Show respect. You are a guest and you’re not entitled to everything you want. I have seen many tourists be invited by locals on free tours and into their homes for a meal just by being polite. It opens doors and means the world to people no matter what country you’re in. It is the difference between a traveler and a tourist.

Thank you Bel for visiting #ThePhilFactor and thank you for being part of my Philliver’s Travels blog launch this coming Saturday.

Bel: “I love helping any way I can when someone has the courage to reach for the stars and try to achieve a new dream, project or just have a creative outlet. If you have the courage to try, you can enrich your life in so many ways. I used to be in the Navy, now I’m living my dream life in the Caribbean. Anything is possible when you have the courage to try.”

I couldn’t have been luckier to find Bel on IG (@thetravelbag.guru) and she couldn’t be any nicer. Come back on Saturday for the Philliver’s Travels blog launch and my interview with Bel. Have a great Tuesday! ~Phil

 

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My New Adventure: Philliver’s Travels

Posted on April 25, 2021 | 2 comments

Good morning and happy Sunday. As many of you have seen on social media, I’m launching a new website on Saturday, May 1, Philliver’s Travels.  The focus will be on travel. Over the last 15 years, because of my job and my desire to get away from the dreary northeast of the United States, I’ve travelled more than most, but not as much as some.

A beach in The Bahamas from my trip three years ago.

Unlike The Phil Factor, which has been all about finding humor in everyday situations, Philliver’s Travels will have travel reviews of locations, attractions and hotels and restaurants, educational information on how to travel hack to take a vacation without having to empty your life’s savings, and of course funny stories about my travel experiences. For all the smart stuff about travelling internationally and travel hacking, I’ll bring in experts for interviews.

Fort Myer’s Beach, Florida, on the Gulf coast

The Phil Factor isn’t going away, but it will remain more of an occasional blog as it has been for the past two years. If you have enjoyed my humor here, I hope that you’ll visit Philliver’s Travels regularly for that same humor applied to travel and the people and places I go. You’ll be able to find me on social media through a new Instagram, @phillivers_travels.

This Tuesday I’ll be giving a preview of some of the content you’ll see on Philliver’s Travels with a brand new Tuesday Top Ten list of travel tips from myself and International Living‘s (IG’s thetravelbag.guru) Bel Woodhouse! Have a great Sunday! ~Phil (or should I say Philliver?)  Btw, how many of you get the Philliver’s Travels reference? I’m thinking that about 50% of you get it and the other half just think it’s weird. Let me know in the comments!

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Top Ten Tuesday! Ten Funny Tweets!

Posted on November 20, 2018 | 5 comments

A lot of people say “Twitter? I don’t get it.” Sometimes even Presidents don’t get it even WHEN they THINK they DO. If you’re a President, or just someone who wants to understand Twitter better, follow these ten funny people”

Have a great Tuesday! ~Phil

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Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Funny Tweets

Posted on June 19, 2018 | 9 comments

A lot of people say “Twitter? I don’t get it.” If you don’t get it, the easiest thing you can do is to follow these ten funny people.

Now that you’ve started your day with a laugh, have a great Tuesday! ~Phil

 

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Top Ten Tuesday! My 10 Favorite One Hit Wonder Songs

Posted on May 29, 2018 | 18 comments

Usually one hit wonder songs seem like the greatest musical discovery in our lives for a few months and then they fade away, only to later embarrass us when someone discovers them in our music collection and mocks us. Here are 10 of my favorite one hit wonder songs. What are some of yours? I’d love to hear them in the comments.

10. Your Love by The Outfield. This was an 80’s classic and we all know the lyrics by heart. Oddly, one of my sons recently discovered The Outfield and loves the entire album.

9. Good Vibrations, Marky Mark and The Fun Bunch, 1991 No video here because I’m sure you all know this one. I wonder if The Fun Bunch is having as much fun now that Marky Mark has moved on to bigger and better things.

8. Somebody That I Used to Know, Gotye, 2011

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7. Who Let The Dogs Out? Baha Men, 2000  This song is a particular favorite of mine because of something that happened in a courtroom, one of the greatest moments in legal history, when I was on a jury in 2015. Here is what happened:

This is an actual exchange I witnessed in the courtroom between a cross examining defense attorney and a sworn under oath witness:

Attorney: So, you let the dogs out?

Witness: Yes.

When I heard that, I couldn’t help but smirk and I looked around at my fellow jurors and no one else seemed to have gotten the joke. I’ve never been more disappointed in a group of human beings in my life.

6. Stacy’s Mom, Fountains of Wayne, 2003 I find it impossible not to sing along. If you want to hear the song, don’t be afraid. The video is appropriate.

5. 1985, Bowling For Soup, 2004 Truth be told, I think I may have all this bands songs in my collection and they’re all hilarious. This one is the catchy and funny story of a suburban soccer mom who despises her minivan and wishes she were back in 1985 so that she might have a chance to “shake her ass on the hood of Whitesnake’s car.” Look it up and add it to your collection. You’ll thank me.

4. Jump Around, House of Pain, 1992  I first heard this song in a Pringles commercial in the 90’s. Here it is:

3. Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Deep Blue Something, 1996. I owned the cassette tape of this one long after I should have been buying cassettes.

2. Common People, William Shatner and Pulp, 2004. Pulp originally released this song on their own in 1995. When they re-released with Captain Kirk chipping in, it took them to new heights. If you don’t know it, give it a listen:

Gangam Style, Psy 2012. One of the weirdest most popular songs ever. The crazy video still cracks me up.

There is the Top Ten of one hit wonder songs that are actually in my music collection. So tell me in the comments, what are your embarrassing, dirty little secret one hit wonders that you sing aloud when you’re alone in your car?

Have a great Tuesday! ~Phil

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Top Ten Tuesday! Ten Funny Tweets

Posted on April 24, 2018 | 6 comments

techwheez.com

You know I’m a fan of Twitter and one of my favorite places to hang out is funny Twitter. Funny Twitter you ask? Yes, Funny Twitter. Twitter can be whatever you want and you can find groups of people from all over the world that share your interests. If you have an interest in hand painting the shells of left handed turtles, there’s a Twitter for that. It’s called Hand Painting Left Handed Turtle Shells Twitter! Duh! There’s Democrat Twitter, Republican Twitter, Canadian Twitter and British Twitter. If you belong to a group, there’s a Twitter for you. But my favorite Twitter is the one that commences at 5 p.m. U.S. EST on Friday. It’s Weekend Twitter! There are no holds barred. I will spare you some of the more.. ahem.. interesting tweets from Weekend Twitter. Here are some of my favorite recent tweets:

Have a great Tuesday and follow all these funny people on Twitter. ~Phil

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Top Ten Tuesday! Ten Reasons I Want To Live in Hotels Forever!

Posted on April 17, 2018 | 8 comments

Admittedly, this is a re-run. But it’s an appropriate one because I’m in a hotel all week this week for work. And, c’mon, seriously, who doesn’t want to live in a hotel? Am I right?

10. No lawn to mow: At hotels I won’t have any yardwork and yet the hedges will always be impeccably trimmed and sometimes in the whimsical shapes of animals. Or should it be the shapes of whimsical animals? Are animals capable of whimsy? I’m not even sure I am.

9. Housekeeping! Who doesn’t want their room cleaned every day? I imagine though that I’d develop an unhealthy Mom complex with my housekeeper to the point that she asks to be re-assigned to another floor.

8. The hotel bar: If I lived there it would be like Cheers and everyone would know my name and yell “Phil!” when I walk in.

7. Coffee in my room: I love just hopping out of bed, turning on the coffee maker and then hopping back in bed with my fresh cup of joe to watch the morning news.

6. The in room hotel safe: I don’t care if it’s tiny. I still feel cool as hell having a safe to lock things up with my secret code. I feel all Mission Impossible-like when I use the safe. I still can’t find a way to lower myself from the ceiling when I’m pretending to break into my own safe.

5. Fresh towels! Soft, cushy and clean every day. They make me feel like that fabric softener bear in the commercial. And btw, I’m only using them once. Re-using a towel is not going to save the planet. I saw a trash receptacle at my local supermarket that said “179 recycled milk jugs were used to create this trash can.” Are you kidding me? The time, energy and fossil fuel needed to make a giant trash can out of milk jugs probably shortened the life of this planet by a year. Don’t tell me to re-use my towels!

4. Weather: I grew up in upstate New York and I still live here. I’m sick and tired of snow. No, I don’t like the change of seasons. You know who says they like the change of seasons? People who live somewhere warm. Jackasses. Spend your whole life digging your car out of the snow six months a year and see if you like the change of seasons then. When I live in hotels I’ll never have to see snow again if I don’t want to.

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3. If You’re tired of the view you can move: If it’s the view from my room or just the city the hotel is in; if I’ve seen all there is to see I can just go to another hotel somewhere else. At some point you know I’ll be in Snow White’s Castle at Disney World. That will be awkward.

2. The friendly hotel staff: They have to be nice to you whether they like you or not. It’s not that I have any problem with people not liking me, but in real, non-hotel life sometimes other people are having bad days or whatever and are not nice. Within the safe confines of a hotel everyone is friendly and there to help. Who doesn’t enjoy groveling sycophants?

1. Being driven around: If I sold my house and car and lived in hotels I’d never have to drive again. At some point in the distant future my sight and reaction time will decline to the point that it would be unsafe for me to continue driving; but you know what? I’ll still have a driver’s license and no one will stop me. When I live in hotels I’ll just call for a taxi, shuttle bus or town car if I need to go somewhere. Me living in hotels will save lives, so if you would all go buy all of my books to the point that I get that trillion dollars I need, it may even save your life. Who knows? If left to my own devices I could be driving down your street someday and you don’t really want that do you?

As always, if you enjoy #ThePhilFactor feel free to share it by hitting the Facebok or Twitter share buttons below. Also, I’d love your vote for Funniest logger in the Annual Bloggers Bash Awards. You can vote  HERE !

Have a great Tuesday! ~Phil

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Top Ten Tuesday! Ten Things The Simpsons Predicted

Posted on February 27, 2018 | 19 comments

Apparently we’ve got a Psychic Showdown! I capitalized that as if Psychic Showdown was a reality show. It’s not. Not yet anyway, but I may just have predicted it. The Psychic Showdown this week is between me and The Simpsons. My psychitude abilities are well documented here on my blog. (Click THIS if you want to read those posts. If you can find it on Google, it must be true.) The world’s most famous cartoon, The Simpsons, made news this past week when The United States curling team won the Olympic gold medal, which was predicted in the Simpsons episode from Feb. 14, 2010 titled Boy Meets Curl. That’s not all they’ve predicted! Here are the top ten Psychic Simpsons predictions which have come true:

10: USA wins curling gold! (Feb. 10, 2014)

9. Siegfried and Roy’s Tiger Attack: Season 5, Episode 10, Mr. Burn’s opened a casino at which there was a magician act featuring two German magicians. Their show ended in tragedy when they were attacked by their tiger. In 2003, ten years later, during a Siegfried and Roy show in Las Vegas, Roy was attacked on stage by a white Bengal tiger.

8. President Trump: In a 2000 episode called Bart To The Future Lisa Simpson becomes President of the United States and says to her advisers, “As you know, we’ve inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump,”

7. Disney buying Fox: In a 1998 episode titled When You Dish Upon a Star, a sign outside of a building is shown that reads “20th Century Fox, a Division of Walt Disney Co.” In Dec. 2017, just a little over two months ago Disney announced a deal to acquire a significant share of the Fox networks assets.

6. NSA Spying Scandal: Remember back in 2013 when American defector Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the U.S. government monitoring private citizens electronic communications? (I made fun of the scandal in THIS top ten list in 2013) In a 2007 episode the Simpsons family is on the run from the government and are located because the NSA by listening in on one of their cell phone conversations. Go ahead, click the NSA link in the last sentence. I dare you.

5. The Horse Meat Scandal: In 2013 it was big news when it was discovered that some fast food restaurants used horse meat in their burgers. (To be honest, I’m happy any time they use any kind of real meat) In a 1994 episode of The Simpsons, the Springfield Elementary school was caught secretly using horse meat in their cafeteria.

4. The Simpsons seem to have predicted both The Big Bang Theory and the secret to the Universe: In a 1998 episode Homer decided to become an inventor. In the episode he was shown writing on a chalkboard with an equation that predicted the mass of the yet-to-be-discovered “God particle.” According to Dr. Simon Singh, a physicist “If you work it out, (the equation on the chalkboard) you get the mass of a Higgs boson that’s only a bit larger than the nano-mass of a Higgs boson actually is,” he told the Independent. “It’s kind of amazing as Homer makes this prediction 14 years before it was discovered.”

3. They Predicted a Nobel Prize Winner 6 years ahead!: In a 2010 episode Krusty wins a Nobel Peace Prize. In the episode, the characters had a betting pool on who would win the award. Bengt R. Holmstrom was predicted by Millhouse, who really did win the prize for Economics in 2016.

2. Clothing the David statue: In a 1990 episode a duplicate of Michelangelo’s David statue is brought to Springfield. Some Springfield citizens protested to have the nude statue covered up. In 2016 when a duplicate of the David statue was brought to St. Petersburg, Russia, citizens protested to have the naughty bits covered up.

1. The first iPod: The picture above is from a 1996 episode. The first iPod didn’t debut until 2001.

So there you have it. Trust me, there are many, many more examples of The Simpsons predicting the future. So tell me, who is your favorite psychic, The Phil Factor or Bart Simpson?

Have a great Tuesday! ~Phil#PHIL2020

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Top Ten Reasons I Should Be People’s Sexiest Man Alive

Posted on November 14, 2017 | 21 comments

Tomorrow People Magazine will name their Sexiest Man Alive for 2017. I have high hopes, but as usual I assume that People Magazine will pander to the lowest common denominator and choose some allegedly good looking, hunky but mindless actor or musician. Here are my ten reason’s why they should choose me:

10. Because Google Says So: Go to Google Images and Google  “Phil Sexiest Man Alive”. That picture above comes up first. If Google thinks it’s true, it must be.

9. Because I Have A Blog: I have a blog and I published a book. We’re not even sure if most of these pretty boys they choose can read much less write.

8. You Stare At My Picture More Than Theirs: Let’s face it, you’ve been to my blog several times a week over the past year, meaning that you’ve probably seen my little profile pic countless times. Over the past year you’ve looked at my picture far more than whoever People will choose, ergo, I am sexier.

7. I’m all natural: Unlike many previous Sexiest Man Alive winners, I’m all natural. No steroids, hair implants or hair dye. I’m 100% all-American male.

6. I’m Employed: Have you ever noticed that they always choose actors? That’s a fly by night bunch if I ever saw one. Flitting from one job to the next. I’m employed full-time every day and I have health insurance. That’s the American dream right?

5. I’m a Normal Guy: Aren’t we all tired of magazines pushing these unrealistic expectations of what is sexy on us? It’s always rail thin models with implants and “hunky” guys who have no real jobs so they work out all day with a personal trainer. How about if People chose a “real” man for Sexiest Man Alive? A normal guy who is sexy because he’s smart, funny, works hard, and provides for his family? Isn’t that what most women really want at the end of the day instead of an unattainable player?

4. I’m Smart: Now I know nobody is going to mistake me for Leonardo DaVinci, but I’m pretty sure I could crush Leonardo DiCaprio at Jeopardy! Most people think intelligence is sexy. Marilyn Monroe once said that the sexiest man alive was Albert Einstein. I’m not going to give you a lecture on physics, but I can hold up my end of a conversation.  I’m willing to pit myself against any show biz pretty boy in a Jeopardy! challenge. C’mon People magazine! Set it up! Let’s make this years Sexiest Man Alive earn it by being sexy inside and out. How about me, Bill Gates, and Neil DeGrasse Tyson vs. Channing Tatum, Bradley Cooper & Ryan Reynolds in a game of Trivial Pursuit? That would be riveting television!

3. I Would Look Great On Money: Why not? Why does money have to feature old,  dead Presidents? Most of them are pretty ugly any way. I propose that each Sexiest Man Alive gets to spend the following year as the face on the American one dollar bill.

2. Gray Hair is Distinguished: All you ladies always say that gray hair makes a man look “handsome” or “distinguished.” Over the past year my hair has been getting gray A.F. as the kids say. If chicks dig a guy with a little salt and pepper action going on, then I’m your man.

1. I’m Already Sexiest Blogger Alive: I was once named Sexiest Blogger Alive  so doesn’t it make sense that I should take the next step and ascend to the real throne? Go ahead, click that link. I dare you.

There you have it, my annual argument why I should be named Sexiest Man Alive. If I don’t win it this year, as a consolation there is one other thing I’d like to win: The AllAuthor.com Cover of The Month Contest. Please click THIS LINK and vote for my book cover. Thank you and have a great Tuesday! ~Phil

 

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