Etc...

Just stay there; don't move!

Like other species, dogs are creatures of habit, right? At least TJ, Udo, and Angela Baecker's pet boxer is - as the couple discovered earlier this month. They had just moved from the ground floo r of a building in Cologne, Germany, to a sixth-floor apartment, and TJ tagged along as they carried their belongings up all those stairs. So they assumed that he'd realize his environment was loftier now ... until they heard his cries of distress through an open window and looked out to see him stranded on another tenant's balcony three stories below. He'd jumped out for some exercise, as he used to do at their former residence. The dog wasn't hurt, but had to be rescued by the fire department using a ladder truck because the downstairs neighbors were away on vacation.

Squealing tires, exchanging gunfire at high speed, and weaving dangerously in and out of slower-moving traffic may be a Hollywood cliché, but movie audiences never seem to tire of ... the car chase. Knowing this, Hagerty Insurance, a collectible-vehicles insurer in Traverse City, Mich., conducted a survey to determine the most popular chase scenes. "Bullitt," starring Steve McQueen as a police detective driving a Ford Mustang up and down San Francisco's steep streets, captured 40 percent of the 2,000 votes cast. The movies with the best car chase scenes of all time, and the year of their release, from the survey results:

1. "Bullitt" 1968
2. "Gone in 60 Seconds" (remake) 2000
3. "Smokey and the Bandit" 1977
4. "The Blues Brothers" 1980
5. "Gone in 60 Seconds" 1974
6. "The French Connection" 1971
7. "Ronin" 1998
8. "Vanishing Point" 1971
9. "The Italian Job" (remake) 2003
10. "The Fast and the Furious" 2001
- www.hagerty.com