FIVE THINGS I LIKE:
1. Fridays.
2. A mid-afternoon Classic Coke on the rocks.
3. The new thinner Triscuits. Could be the New Snack of 2102.
4. Keebler jumbo fudge-covered wafers.
5. Long johns (the pastry, not the under garment) with no pudding in the middle.

FOUND ON FACEBOOK: “Just having a blonde moment.” (I know people who are having a blonde LIFE.)

OVERRATED: Tim Conway.

UNDERRATED: Tim Allen.

FIVE THINGS I DON’T LIKE:
1. Crocs.
2. Sleeveless shirts.
3. Backyard gardens.
4. Tuna salad.
5. Chicken salad.

Tiffani-Amber Thiessen has come a long way since Saved by the Bell.

Welcome to your Monday edition of the High 5. This is the final guest blog by Mary Poletti, who will be turning things back over to the Man of Dirt on Tuesday. It’s been a privilege.

Today’s edition is dedicated to the Philadelphia Eagles, whose 2011 season The Onion described, in the most memorable (albeit satirical) piece of football writing I read all year, as a “gorgeously incoherent chronicle of desperation and futility.” You’ll get ‘em next year, guys.

TODAY: Seinfeld debuted in 1991. I don’t know many people who feel neutral toward this show — you love it or you hate it — but it undeniably broke new ground for sitcoms.

OVERRATED: Super Bowl XLVI, which will be a battle between two teams I hate, the New England Patriots and the New York Giants. I will be rooting for the one I hate slightly less, the Giants, only because I REALLY hate the Patriots. However, I haven’t been this unimpressed by pro football since the Rams’ first couple years in St. Louis.

UNDERRATED: Major League Baseball. Only a few more weeks until pitchers and catchers report to spring training!

FOUND ON FACEBOOK: “ALPACA: The Album. Probably not coming soon to a store near you, but I have the cover photo ready just in case.”

BIRTHDAY BANTER: Remember the part in Tommy Boy where Chris Farley’s character thinks Herbie Hancock was a framer of the Constitution?

• Actress Tiffani-Amber Thiessen is 38. (That means she actually was a teenager when she played one on Saved by the Bell.)

• Royal Princess Caroline of Monaco is 55. (The eldest child of Prince Rainier and Grace Kelly. Her younger brother Prince Albert II’s visit to Hannibal still ranks among the strangest things I’ve ever covered.)

• Actor Rutger Hauer is 68. (Best known for playing a villainous New Wave android in Blade Runner.)

• Early American statesman John Hancock would be 275. (The first signer of the Declaration of Independence.)

Happy Friday, and welcome to the Jan. 20 edition of the High 5, with your intrepid guest host, Mary Poletti. Today’s post is dedicated to the memory of actor Jack Webb, who played Sgt. Joe Friday in TV’s Dragnet. (See what I did there?)

TODAY: President Jimmy Carter in 1980 asked international Olympic officials to move the 1980 Summer Olympics from Moscow. They swiftly declined; after all, just a few months remained until the games. On March 21 of that year, Carter informed a group of U.S. athletes of what remains the only U.S. Olympic boycott in history.

FOUND ON FACEBOOK: “This guy is really rich, listen to him.”

OVERRATED: Dr. Pepper Ten commercials. Can we please drop the notion that diet soda is the domain of women and soda that doesn’t taste like diet is reserved for men? I know a lot of men who drink soda with “diet” printed on the can. I also happen to be a woman who drinks Pepsi Max, Pepsi’s answer to the male-marketed low-cal soda. Besides actually having zero calories (as opposed to 10-calorie Dr. Pepper Ten) and not tasting like lead tailings (as opposed to most diet soda), Pepsi Max has at least slightly less offensive commercials. They at least don’t involve explosions, a guy in Kevlar advising you to “keep the romantic comedies and lady drinks” and a tagline explicitly telling you, “It’s not for women.” There’s saying a drink is made for guys, and there’s saying a drink is not for women. Not for women? Is this a soda or a 7-year-old boy’s treehouse?

End rant.

UNDERRATED: The E*Trade baby. Still hilarious.

BIRTHDAY BANTER: Today’s Birthday Banter should tickle my father’s and better half’s fancy.

• Actor Rainn Wilson is 46. (He has become so recognizable as The Office‘s Dwight Schrute that I’m actually startled when I see him in something else. Take Juno, for example, or 1999′s Galaxy Quest. If that last one surprises you, you’re not alone by far.)

• Talk show host Bill Maher is 57. (Host of the always-aptly named Politically Incorrect, which aired from 1994 to 2002.)

• Astronaut Buzz Aldrin is 82. (The second of history’s handful of American moonwalkers. The actual number depends on whether you count Michael Jackson. Wocka wocka!)

• Actor DeForest Kelley, a.k.a. Star Trek‘s Dr. McCoy, would be 92. (I would have absolutely no idea who he was if it weren’t for my Trekkie dad.)

• Comedian George Burns would be 116. (He wasn’t God, he just played God in the movies. He was also half of the great Burns and Allen comedy team, who’s still cracking my better half up on late-night public television, half a century later.)

Welcome to today’s High 5, hosted by Mary Poletti, with all the crazy and half the calories of regular High 5.

We dedicate today’s edition to birthday girl Paula Deen, whose down-home Southern cooking (pass the metric ton of butter, please) made her a Type 2 diabetes poster child long before she became a Type 2 diabetes spokeswoman. Let the record show that this was a really tough call between Deen and another famous birthday spotlighted below, but in the end, I couldn’t pass up the chance to share one of the many hilarious Deen memes.

TODAY: Scrabble debuted on the board game market in 1955. You remember Scrabble — that thing you played before Words With Friends.

FOUND ON FACEBOOK: “Just because you got the monkey off your back does not mean the circus has left town.”

OVERRATED: Transaturated fat.

UNDERRATED: Your heart.

BIRTHDAY BANTER: Crossing my fingers that the Poe Toaster returns this year.

• Celebrity chef Paula Deen is 65. (Does anyone else find it a little too convenient that she’s managed to turn both insanely unhealthy eating and an often-related health problem to her financial advantage?)

• Singer Dolly Parton is 66. (She always puts me in mind of a couple lines in The First Wives Club: “She looks fabulous. Do you think she’s had work done?” “Honey, she’s a quilt.”)

• Singer Janis Joplin would be 69. (A talented, throaty-voiced 1960s singer who, in joining the fabled 27 Club, died far too young and tragically.)

• Actress Tippi Hedren is 81. (Who didn’t love her in The Birds?)

• Author Edgar Allen Poe would be 203. (“Quoth the raven: Nevermore!” A dedicated fan visited his Baltimore grave every Jan. 19 for 60 years, dressed in black, leaving behind red roses and a partially full bottle of French cognac. He or she has been absent the last two years, however. Bummer.)

Welcome to the Jan. 18 edition of the High 5, brought to you by the letter Q and Mary Poletti. Today’s edition is dedicated to Benjamin Franklin, who would have turned 306 yesterday. I’m a little embarrassed that I didn’t discover that until today.

TODAY: Captain James Cook discovered what he named the Sandwich Islands after financial supporter John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich (and the inventor of the sandwich), in 1778. We now know that delicious-sounding settlement as Hawaii.

FOUND ON FACEBOOK: “What’s it called when you’re scared of germaphobes? Cause I have that.”

OVERRATED: Raspberry Zingers.

UNDERRATED: Raspberry ginger ale.

BIRTHDAY BANTER: My favorite Cary Grant film? “His Girl Friday,” of course.

• Actor Kevin Costner is 57. (Man, that guy has made some wretched movies.)

• Musician and Korn frontman Jonathan Davis is 41. (Wait, Korn is still together?)

• Actor Cary Grant would be 108. (One of the most dashing Hollywood leading men of all time.)

• Author A.A. Milne, the creator of Winnie the Pooh, would be 130. (He also was a prolific playwright, but is best known for 1926′s “Winnie-the-Pooh.” Every child should read that book.)

Welcome to the Jan. 17 edition of the High 5. We made a call to the bullpen, and Mary Poletti will step in to present this week’s High 5 tomfoolery. Today’s edition is dedicated to birthday girl Betty White, who is, among other things, the last surviving Golden Girl.

TODAY: Operation Desert Storm began in 1991, with the U.S. and its United Nations allies beginning efforts to drive Saddam Hussein’s army out of Iraqi-occupied Kuwait. Before Geraldo Rivera embedded with Middle East fighters, there was the “Scud Stud,” NBC’s Arthur Kent.

FOUND ON FACEBOOK: “As the alarm goes off and I greet the new day, I have a choice to make on how I feel about waking up. It’s a toss up between ‘Good morning, God’ or ‘Good God, morning!’”

OVERRATED: Those little deer beepers you stick on the front of your car to frighten away animals in the road. As often as not, deer will stare at you as if to say, “And your point is?”

UNDERRATED: Honking your horn like a mad(wo)man.

BIRTHDAY BANTER: Seriously, Betty White’s SNL monologue was one of the funniest things to air on that show in years. See below.

• Actress Betty White is 90. (A hilarious, classy lady whose career is having a much-deserved renaissance.)

• Actor James Earl Jones is 81. (The voice of Darth Vader. Also, on a less menacing note, The Lion King‘s Mufasa.)

• Actress Zooey Deschanel is 32. (A somewhat overrated actress-singer who needs to pick one or the other. Preferably acting. I know a lot of people who love The New Girl, but not so many who love her band, She and Him.)

• Actor Jim Carrey is 50. (He was funniest about 15 years ago with the Ace Ventura movies. As time went on, I always thought he should stick with the more serious fare. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is absolutely heartbreaking.)

• Talk show host Maury Povich is 73. (Paternity test manufacturers everywhere should thank him.)

Welcome to the Jan. 16 edition of High 5, which will be the last presented by guest blogger Matt Hopf. This edition is dedicated to the Green Bay Packers. So much for that home field advantage.

TODAY: On this day in 1988, the St. Louis Cardinals football team announced they were moving to Arizona. (It only took 20 years for the team to actually make an impact in the league after the move.)

FOUND ON FACEBOOK: “You know how awful that Packers game was for my family? During a commercial, my Dad and I got into a fight about ‘The Artist’ – a film neither of us have seen. #footballruinslives”

OVERRATED: The New York Giants.

UNDERRATED: Any team that beats the New York Giants over the next few weeks. (Bitter Green Bay fan here.)

BIRTHDAY BANTER: Are St. Louis fans still mad that Albert left?

• Los Angeles Angels first baseman Albert Pujols is 32. (He is expected to earn way more than any designated hitter at the end of his contract.)
• Horror movie director John Carpenter is 64. (I have never seen one of his movies.)
• Actress Josie Davis is 39. (She was in the show “Charles in Charge.”)
• Actor Harry Carey would be 134 today. (No, he was not the baseball announcer.)

Take a break from the NFL playoffs and read the Jan. 15 edition of High 5, presented to you by Matt Hopf. Today’s edition is dedicated to Blake Toppmeyer, who now takes fashion advice from Steve.

TODAY: In 1870, a donkey was used to symbolize the Democratic Party for the first time in a Thomas Nast editorial cartoon. (If the U.S. was a three-party system, I wonder what animal would be used to represent the additional major party.)

FOUND ON FACEBOOK: “30 Rock might just be my favorite thing ever. It’s a tie with libraries and the ocean.”

OVERRATED: Skidding out on long drives on icy roads.

UNDERRATED: Snow forts (Adults can’t enjoy snow like kids can.)

BIRTHDAY BANTER: As I write this, I am hoping that the Saints lost Saturday. Go Packers!

• New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees is 33. (What a great quarterback.)
• St. Louis Cardinals left fielder Matt Holliday is 32. (I guess he is the superstar since Albert left.)
• Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. would have been 83. (One of the greatest speakers in the U.S. history.)

It may be Saturday, but guest blogger Matt Hopf is still here to present you the Jan. 14 edition of High 5, which is dedicated to Ellen Page, star of the film “Juno.”

TODAY: On this day in 1943, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt became the first president in office to travel in an airplane. He was flown from Miami to Morocco to meet with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. (I imagine the accommodations aboard Air Force One are much more comfortable today.)

FOUND ON FACEBOOK: “Oh my god, I was wrong! It was Earth all along! You finally made a monkey, (Yes, we finally made a monkey), yes you finally made a monkey out of meeeee!” (Classic episode of the “The Simpsons”)

OVERRATED: Ivan Drago

UNDERRATED: Apollo Creed

BIRTHDAY BANTER: “Rocky IV” should be be renamed “Rocky: The Musical.”

• Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters is 43. (I have always liked a few of their songs, but I have really come to appreciate them more recently.)
• Actor Jason Bateman is 43. (I don’t know about you, but he was creepy in “Juno.”)
• Actor Carl Weathers is 64. (You know him as Apollo Cree from “Rocky.”)
• Actress Faye Dunaway is 71. (“The Network” is the only film I have ever seen with her. What a fantastic film.)

Time to curl up with your laptop and read the Jan. 13 edition of High 5, presented by Matt Hopf. Today’s edition is dedicated to Woodrow Wilson, the face on the $100,000 bill. (I wish I had one of those in my wallet.)

TODAY: On this day in 1957, Wham-O Company produced the first Frisbee. (And so began all the 1980s movies Frisbee montages.)

FOUND ON FACEBOOK: “Was starting to feel a bit homesick, and then everyone started to talk about snow. Homesickness cured!”

OVERRATED: Washington Wizards (basically lost to the Chicago Bulls’ JV team).

UNDERRATED: Gandolf.

BIRTHDAY BANTER: I always liked Julia Louis-Dreyfus in “Christmas Vacation.” She played Margo, Clark Griswold’s uppity neighbor.

• Actor Orlando Bloom is 35. (He is much better in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy than other sword fighting movies he has appeared in.)
• Actor Michael Peña is 36. (I have nothing against him, but he comes across as whiny in some of his performances.)
• Actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus is 51. (She will forever be known as Elaine in “Seinfeld.”)
• President Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, would be 204. (His face was on the $10,000 bill.)