Rank Ideas

Hang up the boots. Give the game away. Get the gold watch and walk off into the sunset. It'll give you more time to listen to our episode passing judgment on your conceptualisation of such things. And, over time, all things.

Do you ask a shark to rank fearsome? Do you ask Apollo to rank beauty? Do you ask the moon to rank mystery? Do you ask marionettes to rank subservience? Of course not. And yet! You ask us to rank style - and we don't even blink. What's more, we do it with an impossible blend of confidence, humlity and grace that let's you know that you are listening to Number One Podcast of Ranking Ideas: Rank Ide...

If you strike me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine. With that cleared up we can dust off our rank coats and get adorned so that we can look the part astride our rank beasts, who are naturally resplendant in rank regalia of their own. I say, 'of their own', but they neither procured nor maintain it. Despite this apparently uneven relationship, we persist, because they...

Born from an egg on a mountain top, punkiest Nick and Chris that ever popped. They knew every magic trick under the sun, to tease the gods and everyone and have some fun. Monkey Magic, Monkey Magic, Monkey Magic, Monkey Magic. Confirmed true. The rest is all academic speculation/fan theory.

Whoever it was that send us the 'thank you for ranking ideas' card and bouquet of expensive nuts - we want to say, 'thank you'!  And what better way to do that, than by recording yet another episode of your all-time favourite podcast. Who knows what the theme of such an episode could be! I'm sure it will inspire a rabbit-hole of panic-learning about syncronicity. For which I can only say, you are...

If you could travel forwards just 41 minutes you would realise what a great decision it is that you're about to make. That's right, spending the next 41 minutes eating a big huge sandwich while mapping out where in your week you can schedule the perfect time to enjoy another episode of Rank Ideas™!

Life - it's the best thing we get. And yet it is replete with suffering! Hellish paths or no, you can't enjoy a good soda water from beyond the grave.  Should life be protected at all costs? Surely not all costs. What is the limit? Find out, as we perfectly rank yet another idea on our quest that goes until and beyond the boundaries of life itself!

I understand that a lot of people listen to podcasts as a form of escapism. What better way to escape that, than to switch on, lock in, and explicitly explore the concept itself! I'd apologise in advance for ruining the concept, but this distressing experience could end up inspiring you to seek even better platforms of bliss, in which case, I will pre-emptively assume your gratitude and heartfully...

Is progress linear? Of course not. But is linear progress? Also no. If you imagine everything as a progress bar, you're probably frustrated by the rate of petrol cars. But, of course, if you're frustrated by slow progress bars, you would have been filtered out of our listenership during our inexplicable 9 month hiatus! Good news for the true loyalists who survive - we're back on the air and on sch...

Today we're ranking Ambition. But for full disclosure - we are on a mission to rank every single human idea in the correct order from best to worst, so we may be a little biased when it comes to the topic. Fortunately for you, the self-awareness that led to the above disclosure more than offsets any risk of us getting it wrong. "Let's Rank!"

I think I may have already referenced the Tower of Power song, 'What is Hip?', in an earlier episode, but if it's not too 'cringe' to repeat myself, I will once again say: 🎶"sometimes hipness is, what it ain't" 🎶 Something to think about.

I'm starting to think that Nick is picking these topics to send me a message. What's next? 'Being really good at board games'?! Well guess what buddy - it's gonna rank highly! Very highly indeed.  Higher than your precious punctuality? We must wait and see!

As a kid I had a varnished timber bed and it was impossible to lie there at night and not find all sorts of faces and other patterns in the knots of the wood. Similarly, it seems to be unavoidable to some degree to do the same at the conceptual level and ascribe human traits to all sorts of extremely non-human inanimate features of our lives. We even name cyclones. Seems pretty cool. Maybe in time...

Who could more deserving of an elegant description of this episode than you, the person who has come to read one? And yet, there's so seldomly one to find here. Far more likely that you'll find a slathering of semi-conscious, tediously self-referential musings on the noun that forms the week's episode. But, of course, if you'd been here before then you'd know what to expect, and what more would yo...

This episode description? Wow, you found it! Well done, I'm honestly surprised. But can you read it? You can? Oh yeah, that's right - you love to read. How else would you enjoy your subscription to Dork Magazine? Haha, I'm just kidding around! You're really normal. Don't worry. You'll never have to worry about being exceptional. You honestly couldn't fit in any better, even if you had a podcast ra...

The premium way to prevent people from storming your fortress, is to surround it with a deep trench that you fill with water. I'm sorry if this is news to you. If you think that this episode is looking at moats as a mere metaphor, then I invite you to raid our podcast HQ. But I have to warn you, you're going to need to bring a big bridge with you. Because there's a moat.

It's incredible to think that after all these years, the Rank Ideas podcast is just four trophies away from our feted EGOT. While we wait, we are lucky to have the greatest award of all - friendship. And this old soccer trophy I have that says 'best podcast co-host' in Nick's handwriting. Are awards generally any good though? Listen up to know definitively!

I wonder if there's been a single year in the history of our species where a person hasn't taken the life of another. It would have to have been a year when there weren't many of us around. I hope we can get another such year soon! 2024 is already out, so it'll have to be 2025. In the meantime, is the idea of murder useful in our quest for good life?  Only time will tell. Time, and this episode of...

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Whimsy. /ˈwɪmzi/   synonyms: arbitrariness, capriciousness, flightiness, whimsey, whimsicality. type of: irresponsibility, irresponsibleness.   Damn. That doesn't sound so good. Good thing the thesaurus doesn't have much of a role in modern society. Especially not in the Rank Ideas HQ, which doesn't even have a bookshelf. Purple monkey dishwasher.

Every episode we release these days is about generalisation. Same must go for every podcast. That's new media for you. Next you'll be telling me that all new media is podcasts. Which, also, is correct.

Excited to report that our species is almost totally connected to each other and we can finally find harmony by hearing everyone's perspective. Ceaselessly. Don't forget to like, share and subscribe!

In writing this episode description I looked up the 7 deadly sins. It turns out there used to be more but they were cut down by combining them and then re-expanded before being picked up by Billy Graham of all people. He still holds the record for largest crowd at the Melbourne Cricket Ground - something like 160,000 in the 1950s. More than 7% of the entire city at the time. Insane to imagine. Som...

Time might seem like a funny thing to rank - after all it's an undeniable part of the natural world. But with a bit of digging, it seems clear that our experience of time is really impacted by our cultural framing of it. For the best? You tell us! By meeting us in the past, ideally at a time when we were better at checking our emails.