Dracula (et al.)'s Top Ten Thread

[IanTheCool]

I watch 2 of those shows. Mind you I don't seem to watch taht many shows anymore period.

I don't watch Treme probably because I have zero interest in New Orleans music.

[MovieBuff801]

Yeah, Fringe is certainly going out on a high note this season.

And, I just started watching Homeland -- 3 episodes into Season 1, currently -- and I'm LOVING it so far.

[JBond]

Good list. I agree Mad Men and Breaking Bad deserve high honors and that Game of Thrones and Homeland deserve...lesser high honors.

Though I would have put Community in the top 5 and Louie on the "Biggest Drops in Quality" list. Also, I don't feel like Fringe got that much better.

[FranklinTard]

wait a minute, how old are you drac? how can you have avoided hook by blues traveler?!?

[Doomsday]

From those I'm familiar with I think you're dead on. I haven't seen Homeland but a lot of people tell me it's right up my alley.

Sunny has been going downhill for a while, and while still entertaining a lot of the time it's nowhere near the peaks it reached in its earlier seasons.

The Office should have been cancelled when Carrell left, if not earlier than that. I missed a lot of last season because I just wasn't interested anymore but I've been tuning in this time just to see where it goes and where it ends. RIP.

[Deexan]

Fringe hasn't improved, it just feels like it's a bit better because after last year's mediocre-fest there was no expectation of greatness this time around.

[Dracula]

Top Ten National Flags
Sovereign nations find all kinds of crazy ways to compare themselves: military strength, economic domination, industrial prowess, natural beauty, Olympic medals… there are a million different criteria. One of the more, superficial, ways of comparing them is by ranking the designs chosen to represent the various states one their national flags. And that’s what I’m about to do. There’s no real criteria beyond the mandate that the flags not be boring.

Honorable Mentions:

A: Estonia

The one flag design that I have not patience for are the ones that adhere to the boring old “three color bars” template made famous by supposedly creative nations like France, Italy, and Russia. However, something about the colors chosen in this flag just makes it stand out. Black, White, and Blue all sort of go together and just feel and feel sort of comfortably somber. In short, this is the best example of a bad “genre” of flag, and that makes it stand out.

B: Georgia

I don’t know, I guess I’m just a sucker for four-way symmetry. There’s something oddly simple and almost medieval about this flag. In fact, the design was taken from a 14th century map and was only adopted as a symbol for a modern Georgia as recently as 2004. Before that they had a weird red flag with black and white stripes in the corner.

C: Saudi Arabia:

That inscription translates to “here is no god but God and Muhammad is the messenger of God” and the next thing you see is a sword. Ummm…. Wow, that’s not a very subtle message, there’s a certain “drop the mic” quality to it. It also means that the name of god is on the flag, so the nation treats it with a lot of added reverence. It’s never flown half mast and when people tried to put an image of the flag on a soccer ball once people protested.

D: Jamaica

Ultimately this is still just a “three colors displayed on a square” design, but they’re very well chosen colors and at least they found a cool X pattern to display them instead of just doing the “three square bars” thing. It was apparently modeled after the Scotish and Irish flags (which are traditionally big Xs) but filling in the backgrounds with interesting colors makes a world of difference. It feels as cool and diverse as the island it represents.

E: Sri Lanka

It’s a lion with a sword. That’s ****ing cool. In fact I might have been inclined to put the flag on the real list if it were just that, but then they had to ruin it by putting two random looking stripes on the left side. As it turns out the lion, the leaves, and the border all represent the Sinhalese ethnicity, and the two bars are a sort of concession to the Tamil and Muslim minority populations. That would seem to justify their inclusion, but that almost seems insulting to me. The focus is clearly on the giant lion, not the boring out of place lines. They’re both separate, and unequal… and seemingly being held hostage by a sword wielding lion… no wonder the Tamils are so angry.

[JBond]

You're right, the Estonia flag has a nice feel to it. Jamaican one is pretty cool too.

[FranklinTard]

Jamaica is quickly challenging Uganda as an anti homosexual bastion. Not sure how cool or diverse that is.

[JBond]

We're talking about flags...

[Ramplate]

Vexology YAY!

VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:

[iv3rdawG]

Nice timing

[Deexan]

Dracula has really raised the standard with this latest list.

[Dracula]

The Top Ten:

10: Albania

Damn. Now this is the mark of a nation that doesn’t **** around. I love a bold red and black color pallet and smartly keeps the focus on that badass coat of arms (which goes back to the Byzantine Empire), which is made all the bolder by the fact that it’s a black silhouette rather than a full color double eagle. It’s the kind of flag that a fictional evil country in an action movie or dystopian sci-fi movie would have.

9: Nepal

While most countries can’t agree about anything, there is one thing that most countries can agree on: flags should probably be rectangles. Well there’s one country with the balls to just say “**** that” and put out a flag that’s more like a pair of triangles, and that’s Nepal. That’s why I always try to spot this one whenever I see a display of multiple flags, it stands out like a sore thumb. I like that.

8: Kiribati

Kiribati is a chain of pacific islands to the northeast of Austrialia. They’re pretty much cut off of most world maps and you’d need a magnify glass to spot them on the maps that do show them at all. Maybe that’s why they feel the need have their flag stand out. While most flags deal in abstract symbols, this one could conceivably be an actual scene with the ocean, the sunset/sunrise and an oddly happy looking bird.

7: Bhutan

Mother****in’ dragons! Bhutan pretty much earned a slot on the list automatically by going full on dragon for its national flag. Apparently this specific dragon is a “thunder dragon” from Bhutanese mythology, and this dude is pretty much front and center in most Bhutanese national symbols. Hell, in their own language the country is called “Druk Yul” (land of Druk) and their political leaders are called Druk Gyalpo, which straight-up means Dragon King. The only reason this isn’t higher is that the dragon is kind of drawn oddly and probably shouldn’t be in black and white.

6: South Korea

South Korea is easily the richest and most prominent nation on the list. For whatever reason countries that are economically sound seem to have better things to do than design awesome flags, but Korea found a way to split the difference between creativity and practicality. The Yin/Yang thing in the center is a pretty nifty symbol and the four doodads that surround it really make it pop and stand out.

[PG Cooper]

Cool stuff so far.

[Ramplate]

Those are definitely some cool flags.

The Albanian flag is the heraldic symbol of the leader who fought against the Ottoman Empire.

The Nepal flag symbolizes the Himalayan Mountains.

Those 'doodads' on the South Korean flag are from the I Ching, or The Book of Changes, and the ones on the flag stand for Earth Air Wind and Fire. The I Ching are a collection of symbols that are used in divination.

If one has a difficult decision ahead of them - they would use three coins or some other such thing, and toss them. The resulting heads or tails corresponds to either a broken line or an unbroken line - which then is located in one of the 64 symbols, and then it is done again for the next set of lines. The two thee line sets are then each looked up for their meaning and the combination is supposed to guide the user as to what they should do with the decision in question.

[IanTheCool]

Originally Posted by Deexan

Dracula has really raised the standard with this latest list.

[IanTheCool]

Originally Posted by Ramplate

Those are definitely some cool flags.

Are they as cool as a maple leaf though?

[JBond]

The South Korean one is cool.

[IanTheCool]

This is a good list idea. I'm kind of jealous.

[Alien]

I've always liked the South Korea flag, it takes the japanese flag and says, "We can do it better..."

[Dracula]

5: Seychelles

Countries that just use three color bars take note. If you just want to depict a bunch of colors this is how it should be done. This design, which was introduced way back in… 1996, finds a cool way of splaying out said colors in a sort of sunrise looking thing coming out from the lower left corner.

4: Kenya

The Kenyan flag takes the traditional pan-African colors (red, black, and green representing blood, black people, and land), adds some white stripes to keep the flag from looking like a slightly modified “color bars” flag, and then puts a badass zulu sword and shield in the center. Technically the shield represents the Maasai people rather than the Zulu, and it works very well as a sort of national emblem that is both traditional and modernized.

3: Swaziland

The Swaziland flag is kind of the over-achieving younger sibling of Kenya’s flag. It also incorporates a zulu-esque shield but adds a whole lot of other stuff. The spears actually look like real bamboo and the stick with the leaves are also cool. What really sets the flag apart is the black/white pattern on the shield which is apparently meant to represent unity and harmony between the black and white populations, which is weird considering that whites only make up 3% of the population, but I guess it’s the thought that counts. Also, I like that he line between the two halves is kind of organic rather than a perfect balance.

2: Mozambique

This flag was clearly inspired by a quotation of the great political philosopher O'Shea Jackson which went: “AK-47 is the tool, don’t make me act a mother****ing fool.” Yeah, putting a modern assault rifle on your flag goes a long way and if they’d focused on that hoe meets rifle meets book meets Marxism symbol this would probably be number one. Unfortunately there’s a whole lot of other stuff taking up too much space. Shame.

1: Angola

Oh hell yeah. People can bicker for ages about the positive and negative effects of communist ideology on Africa in the 20th century but one thing that’s undeniable is that it led to the creation of some really cool flags. This one has a great color scheme, a good Marxist star, a cog wheel, and a damn machete. It’s a perfect modernization and localization of the old Soviet hammer and sickle and it has a perfect balance between simplicity and interesting content.

[PG Cooper]

Number one is pretty awesome.

[Ramplate]

Nice

[Deexan]

An AK on a flag? You learn something new every day.