Every self-respecting relationship has a “Top 5” list. Whether anyone has actually USED their list before (God bless them), or survived actually TRYING to use the list, is another story. But tonight, I added a new twist, a new entry, and a surprisingly close dilemma to any list I may find myself with in the future.

All women named “Danica” are now on my list.

It started obviously and innocently enough with superhot IndyCar driver Danica Patrick. Then a random thought popped into my head about Winnie Cooper from The Wonder Years, of course played by actress Danica McKellar.

What I discovered next surprised me.

While recent trips down memory lane reminded me that Winnie Cooper is hot as ever, I forgot just how hot she really is. I had all but marked her off as an above averagely cute “teenage Hollywood crush”. I was amazed at what I found, and have to admit that she gives the “Danica of the Moment” (who, if 32 drivers aren’t careful, just might win the Indy 500 in a few weeks) quite the run for her money:

And to think that Kevin almost threw it all away for Becky Slater (Danica’s real-life sister, btw), and that while she was wandering the halls of my newsroom today, Danica Part II still hasn’t met Tony.

*****
Just as I was starting to get over-the-top frustrated with EA Sports’ MVP 2005 baseball game for PS2, with their constant fellating of all things Bostonian, and the way I can drop 6-run decisions to the Mariners, yet take two out of three from the Yankees, and the “Dropkick Murphys” song that plays in the music rotation of the game, which, while catchy, gets a little too much Red Sox stuck in the back of its throat to make me care about it just happens to come on at the start of a 3-game home series against Boston, I go out and shut the Sox down. The first game was a pitching gem, with Joaquin Benoit scattering 4 hits through nine innings, and getting to Tim Wakefield’s almost-unfair knuckler for the game’s only two runs. Game two saw a few more bloop hits by the Sox, but a few runs in the eighth put away a 5-0 Rangers win. The series wrapped up with a gem from Ryan Drese. He gave up four hits in the first 3 or 4 innings, including a solo HR for Boston’s only run of the series, then shut them down from there. Down 1-0 in the bottom of the ninth, a Julio Franco (I usually keep my video game teams pretty much “out of the box”, or at least updated to current rosters, but if you think I wasn’t bringing my boy onto my squad, you’re nuts.) homer to right tied it at 1, then with one out and men on first and second, a 7-2-6 fielder’s choice off the wall by Richard Hidalgo scored the winning run. I would have been really pissed if I forgot to get the guy from first to second and the forceout would have cost me a win, but since it didn’t, I had to laugh.

And yes, if I could remember everything else as well as I remember a three-game series on a video game, my life would probably be alot better off.

Who asked you, anyway?