Monday Musings: I Guess I Have to do a Power Rankings Too

I can actually say without sarcasm that Tech did not play this weekend. That’s new for me. Apparently we’ve just become a power rankings blog now (seriously, my slack has been blowing up all week because all of us keep power rankings things to each other), and since I’m a big team player I thought I’d join in with my own rankings. So without further ado, here are my power rankings of this week’s power rankings.

6. 1927 Season (Jake) - Real relatable Jake. Also, you did them in chronological order, not power order. They aren’t called chronological rankings Jake, that would just be a kid’s Christmas countdown calendar.

5. Fast Food Chains (Kieffer) - I have a lot of feelings about this one. First of all, Chick-fil-a not being number one is one of the worst opinions I have ever read on the internet. Second, get out of here with Whataburger and In-n-Out. Lemme tell ya something Kieffer. I do not live in Texas or California. Neither do most of the people who read this blog. You can’t just waive those things around and tell me they’re good and then remind me I can’t eat them.

Alright, now that that’s out of the way, I actually think that Kieffer’s rankings aren’t that bad. The issue though is that I live in Boston. Wanna guess what doesn’t exist in this city? Krystal, Bojangles, Zaxby’s (ranked too low also, Zaxby’s is top 3 easy), Chick-fil-a, or Cookout. Do y’all realize how hard it was for me to read this article? I’m out here getting Sweetgreen for lunch and thinking how I would trade the entire Freedom Trail for just one taste of Chick-fil-a. It’s just cruel to tease me like this.

4. ACC Uniforms (Danny) - This actually might have been my #1 if not for one glaring problem: Florida State clearly has the best uniforms in the ACC, maybe in the country. If you disagree you’re wrong. For that, Danny gets knocked back out of the top 50%.

3. Fast Food Breakfast (Ben) - This has to be the worst start to a power rankings of all time. Cracker Barrel? Come on. You get breakfast at Cracker Barrel when you stop to eat dinner at 8:00 on a road trip and want to play checkers and the tee game. In what world does this count as fast food? Society has rules Ben. Krispy Kreme? Not real breakfast. Krispy Kreme is strictly for late night self-hatred. Dunkin Donuts definitely moves the rankings in the right direction (it’s about the only piece of Boston culture I’ve picked up since moving here; I treat myself to a sausage, egg, and cheese on an english muffin every now and then. I’m still desperately clinging to their iced coffee even though it was 36 when I walked to work today). Ben narrowly cracks the top half with this one because his top spots finish strong and make me hungry.

2. Atlanta Wing Joints (Josh) - This one is very near the top because of its #1 - The Local. The Local has to be the biggest gem in Atlanta that no one knows about. Without a doubt the best wings that your money can buy. I can’t even tell you what my favorite flavor is because I’ve tried just about all of them and they’re all 10/10. Plus, they have tater tots. Josh gets all of the brownie points in the world for recognizing this dive bar for the wings gold it is. Thank you sir.

1. Rivals (Jake) - This was an easy decision for me; Jake did a great job with these rankings. He managed to get the top four exactly right while also appealing to my sense of school pride. I would’ve liked to see VT a little higher, but that’s just me nitpicking. He also nails the fact that we don’t hate Duke as much as we should, a take that I’ve been screaming for years to no one in particular. Finally, he gets a lot of credit for doing a top 25. The only other person to do more than 10 was Danny doing 14 and that’s because he had to. Jake went above and beyond with this one, and he deserves my prestigious top spot for it.

BONUS POWER RANKINGS

In an effort to not just make this article a clip show (did y’all see last week’s Always Sunny? All-time clip show episode), I’m giving y’all a bonus power rankings. But this isn’t gonna be any of that restaurants or Nintendo 64 games crap. This is the Monday Musings. One of my few consistent references is Greek mythology (MUSE-ings, get it??) because I love it so much. That’s why we’re gonna power rank the best non-God/Goddess Greek mythology characters.

επιτρέπει να φτάσουμε σε αυτό

99. Achilles - Achilles is TRASH. This isn’t a hot take, it’s fact. Everyone loves Achilles for some reason. Apparently everyone hasn’t read the Iliad, because Achilles is the absolute worst. The Iliad is about 400 pages of Achilles whining about literally everything that happens to him. Let me summarize for you, dear reader, the rough plot:

Achilles: hey man, I’m gonna fight for you and stuff cause we’re bros

Agamemnon: thanks bro, but you know that random girl that you stole two days ago after killing her father? She has to go. Gotta happen for our cause, I think we should give her back to gain some good will with the gods.

Achilles: WHAT? ABSOLUTELY NOT I LOVE HER SHE IS MY ONE AND ONLY

Agamemnon: wow chill man, you literally stole her from her father like two days ago for real. I need you on this one, I’ll give you like 100 other chicks.

Achilles: WHY DO YOU HATE ME SO MUCH? YOU AREN’T MY REAL FRIEND.

Agamemnon: wait are you serious rn.

Achilles: me and my men are no longer fighting for you. But we also don’t wanna leave cause that means effort, so we’re just gonna hang out and watch y’all get wrecked on the battlefield.

~~A bunch of time goes by during which Agamemnon’s forces get wrecked on the battlefield while Achilles just chills in his tent with prostitutes and drinks wine. Achilles’s friend Patroclus gets killed eventually.~~

Achilles: wow I loved Patroclus. I’m gonna kill everyone now. Mommy, get me some armor because I can’t do anything on my own and I’m useless without you and for some reason no one recognizes that.

Thetis: anything for you sweetie.

~~Thetis visits Hephaestus and he makes Achilles some armor.~~

~~Achilles kills Hector and proceeds to drag his body around the battlefield behind his chariot like a real jerk.~~

That’s it. The entire thing is Achilles being a jerk to everyone. It is a tragedy of our society that everyone thinks Achilles is so awesome. I am here to educate the people to the inconvenient truth.

9. Theseus - the king and uniter of Athens (the real one). Maybe if he hadn’t created ancient Athens, we wouldn’t be currently dealing with modern (decidedly less cool) Athens. Theseus really sucks for this.

8. The Lotus-eaters - these people are the millennials of the Classical era. They just lay around eating lotus plants all day doing nothing. Man, if they just stopped spending so much money on lotuses, they could afford to buy houses.

7. Calypso - the sorcerer of the sea who rules over all the pirates. Wait, that movie isn’t mythology canon? (wow this franchise really went downhill after one of the best Disney movies of all time...)

6. Jason - no I’m serious, Jason is the real name of a real person. Leader of the Argonauts, Jason’s greatest quest was to find the Golden Fleece (the wool of some cool flying golden ram; Greek mythology is full of [Sting] like this). I just think it’s incredible that his name is Jason. With a name like that he should’ve been destined to just be yet another business major or IE you know that worked at Deloitte, but he wanted better.

5. Polyphemus - you probably just know him as “the Cyclops”, the fierce and savage one-eyed giant that Odysseus encounters on his great journey and eventually outsmarts and injures. Well folks, call me Malcolm cause that is revisionist history (cannot recommend this podcast enough). What actually happens is that Odysseus and his crew break into Polyphemus’s cave and eat his food. For some reason Odysseus expects hospitality customs to be performed, but it seems to me that 1. Odysseus is in the wrong and 2. Giants probably have different customs than humans. Anyway, I think Polyphemus has gotten a bad rep and deserves better. He was just a simple (giant) sheep farmer living a peaceful life until Odysseus forced his hand.

4. Thanatos - hmmmm where have we heard this name before? Oh yeah, it was the inspiration for Thanos, current ultra-bad guy in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The personification of death, Thanatos was known to be “merciless and indiscriminate”. Sigmund Freud called the human death drive “Thanatos”, meaning human desire to engage in risky behavior (skydiving, climbing Everest, following Tech football, etc.). Thanatos earns a spot this high in the rankings mostly because of the more well-known Thanos. Easily the best villain Marvel (movies) have written, Thanos is a fantastic guy to set up the transition between Phase 3 and 4 of the MCU. And it’s all thanks to Thanatos.

3. Thetis - this woman is a SAINT (well, not literally of course) for putting up with and taking care of Achilles. Just a standard sea nymph, she is most famous for being Achilles’s mother and helping him in two major ways. The first is what I mentioned earlier, persuading Hephaestus to forge godly armor for him. The second is the more well-known story of her dipping him in the river Styx to give him immortality (although spoiler, she doesn’t do a great job). Thetis earns of of the top spots on these rankings because of how great of a mother she is. I mean I love my mom and all, but she has yet to give me godly armor (Christmas is coming up ma…). Thetis is the only one who can control Achilles, and for that she probably deserves a ton of credit for the fall of Troy.

2. Ajax the Lesser - not the Ajax that’s stronger than grease. Not even the Ajax that that tagline is based on (Ajax the Great). It must suck to be labeled as “the lesser”. What did he do to deserve that title other than be alive at the same time as the more famous Ajax? I liken this to the fact that Rafael Nadal would be the greatest tennis player of all time had he not played in the same era as Federer. Ajax the Lesser did a lot of great stuff in battle, and was the only Ajax to actually survive the Trojan war. Give the man the credit he deserves.

1. Atalanta - One of the alleged inspirations for the naming of our great city (and the name of one of it’s finest local beers), Atalanta led a crazy life. She was raised by a bear and then went on to be a great hunter. Her method of finding a husband was by promising herself to anyone who could beat her in a race (a race in which she speared you if you lost). Not a woman to be trifled with. She and her husband Hippomenes were transformed into lions because they were too frisky in a shrine. Scandalous demise and all, Atalanta takes the top spot on my rankings because I miss Atlanta and I miss the beer.

There you have it. If I missed any Greek characters you love, please let me know. If you are an Achilles fanboy and want to defend him in the comments, please rethink your choices and don’t. Next week we’ll have actual football talk after the Battle of the Techs, so look forward to that.