Zackies and I Dream of Weenie

Apparently there are several great places to score a descent hot dog in Nashville.

I have been a fan of both Zackies and I Dream of Weenie for a while.  This is merely a post to express my love.  If you live in Nashville and want a good hot dog, visit one of these places.

Zackies is located in Historic Germantown.  You order the dog you want (100% beef, turkey, vegi, brat, polish sausage, etc.) and all of the toppings come with no extra charge.  The fries are good.  The perogies are good.  You can’t go wrong.

I Dream of Weenie has great specials, serves its food out of an old yellow VW bus, and is well worth the visit.

1234 Seseme Street

This is a great rendition of a great song modified for Seseme Street just for me (and childrens everywhere).

top 10 favorite anti-heroes

In doing research on villains, i started thinking about another brand of character: the anti-hero. My list comes from literature, comics, and film.

10. Holden Caulfield – A very popular, angst-filled character from The Catcher in the Rye.  I really enjoyed the book, even though it’s not my favorite writings by J.D. Salinger.

9. Beatrix Kiddo (the Bride) – Kill Bill – The sword fight from II alone is worth mentioning her.

8. Arthur Dent – Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – I liked the movie ok (i really should see it again), but it’s one of my favorite books.  Arthur Dent is something else.

7. Jack Sparrow – obviously played brilliantly by Johnny Depp.

6. Wolverine – comic, film, or cartoon.  Especially Huge Jackman’s performance.  Maybe one of the best nailed performances of a superhero we have on film.

5. Magneto – both a villain and an anti-hero.  He seems to flip flop, but he doesn’t falter in his quest for equality for mutants.  Wow.  I totally geeked out there.

4. Jules Winnfield – Pulp Fiction – he’s just bad ass.

3. Han Solo – Star Wars – A hired hand, a smuggler, shot first, but ends up being one of our favorites from the entire Star Wars saga.

2. Severus Snape – played amazingly by Alan Rickman.  Rickman shaped how i saw Snape as i read.  His performance actually made the books better.  Snape is a very complex character, maybe the most complex of the entire Harry Potter series.

1. Tyler Durdan – Fight Club – This may be the only movie that i actually liked better than the book, although the book is very good.  Brad Pitt’s performance of Durdan is probably my favorite role of Pitt’s movie career.  It’s also my favorite performance by Edward Norton.  Durdan’s desire to positively impact the world through community and pseudo-terrorism is fascinating.  You can almost look into the mind of a terrorist and see why they do things.  Obviously, the amount of bad that Durdan does, or tells others to do, far outweighs the good, but the fact that he is so bad, yet you want to, in a way, be him, is so good.

top 10 favorite villains

In honor of today and politicians in general, here is a list for you. This is a list of my favorite villains.

10. Syler (Heroes) – Creepy, unpredictable, and kind of cool.  The whole part in season 2 where he didn’t have his powers i try to forget.

9. Lord Voldemort (book and movie) – ominous is the best word to describe ‘You-Know-Who’ or ‘He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’.

8. Venom (Spiderman) – just a really cool villain.  Gooey and strong and powerful and some of the powers of Spiderman.  I can play him in one of the video games I own.  VERY fun.

7. Emperor Palpatine – mainly for this speech: “Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design. Your friends, up there on the sanctuary moon, are walking into a trap, as is your Rebel fleet. It was *I* who allowed the Alliance to know the location of the shield generator! It is quite safe from your pitiful little band. An entire legion of my best troops awaits them! Oh, I’m afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive.”

6. The Brain – Pinky and the Brain.  No explanation needed.

5. Anton Chigurh – No Country for Old Men – Javier Bardem won Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role and made me uneasy in the process.  Maybe one of my favorite performances in the past several years by a villain.

4.  Agent Smith from the Matrix. Hugo Weaving nailed this role like he does most of his roles. Also, in my top 5 favorite movies of all time.

3. The Joker (Both Nicholson and Ledger) – hard to go wrong with demented homicidal maniacs as villains.

2. Magneto – I love the X-men movies, comics, cartoons, and video games.  Magneto is a complex villain, one with a purpose that isn’t evil in the way that trying to take over the world is evil, but has more depth. His dry wit and calm power is truly impressive.

1. Darth Vader – Most evil bad-ass in any movie.  You know he’s evil, yet, you want to be him for some reason.  Or maybe you don’t.  AND, he has a very cool name.

Honorable Mention – I like these guys too. In no particular order.

Boba Fett
Juggernaut (X-Men the cartoon and comics.  not so much the film.)
Kaiser Soeze – The Usual Suspects
Hannibal Lector
Megatron (Transformers)
Cobra Commander/Storm Shadow/Destro
Bill from Kill Bill
Elijah Price – Unbreakable
Sheriff of Nottingham – Robin Hood Prince of Thieves
John Doe – Kevin Spacey – Se7en