Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Leaguer Interactivity Day

Short on content, and I kind of want to pack it in early tonight.


1) What was your first car? And do you miss it?

2) Are you going on vacation this summer, and where?

3) Who is a dame (or dude) in the media that you once dug?

4) What was your favorite toy as a child, and do you know where it is now?

5) What movie do you believe is brilliant that you are aware is not well regarded by the public or critics? And do you publicly defend the movie or not? (I'm not referring so much to movies you find a guilty pleasure... more along the lines of "why doesn't everyone see the genius I see in this thing?)

6) Album?

7) Television show?

8) And if I must... book.


Wonder Woman v. Tank. Art by Alex Ross.

13 comments:

mcsteans said...

My answers thataway.

tjeff said...

Car-
'86 Honda Accord. 3 clutch replacements. I drove it hard. Good stereo system.

Vacation (not all vacations, but whatever)-
Montreal, Spain, Germany, possibly Des Moines, Iowa, hopefully Austin one of these days....

Dame-
I was in lust with this girl Jamie on Charles in Charge (Nichole Eggert)

Movie-
I think Mission Impossible 3 was a really great action movie and was vastly underrated and poorly attended because Tom Cruise was cast at a terrible time.

Album-
Paul's Boutique is highly regarded by a lot of people in hindsight as their best, but I still think "Ill Communication" is the Beasties' most fully realized album. I think I'm in the minority, although it sold pretty well.

TV Show-
I thought "Joey" was pretty funny.

Book-
There's this great non fiction book called "America 1900" that I recommend. Lots of pictures. It tracks everything that was going on in the US within that one year span.

JAL said...

1) a blue 1984 Volvo 240D - yes

2) We plan to head to Portland for the Oregon Brewers Fest.

3) "Once dug" is the catch. I think I still dig them, but going back beyond the not too distant past, I'll have to go with the tried and true Audrey Horne. They didn't build 'em like that at Westwood.

4) It is a tie between this robotic scorpion thing that for some reason was really odd colors, like orange and purple and a large (12" maybe), very detailed Boba Fett. These were my only toy that seemed to have a life beyond what I gave them when I played with them. I'm sure they are in landfills, probably adventuring.

5) The Girl Next Door. It is brilliant.

6) After much thought, I simply don't know.

7) Survivor, though I have not seen the last few seasons. Season Two is excellent televison.

8) Hmmm. it's not not well regarded but Candy by Terry Southern is a real hoot and I don't think a whole lot of people would seek it out without word of mouth praise.

J.S. said...

1. Car- a copper colored Camaro. No, I don't really miss it. Though it served me well, that car really wasn't me.
2. Vacation- London in late June
3. Dame- Katee Sackhoff
4. Toy- not sure I had a favorite. They were all so temporary. I remember really being excited when I got Boba Fett's ship, The Slave I, but I remember having more fun with frisbees that substituted for Tron discs- and my bicycles were always critical to my happiness. When you're a kid who spends most of your time outdoors, your bicycle is your trusty steed.
6. One album? You have to be kidding. Spare Room Flange by the Mono Ensemble.
7. X-Files was big. So was Battlestar. Dukes of Hazard blew my mind back in the day...
8. Dune. A Brief History of Time. Vurt. Lonesome Dove. Where the Wild Things Are. No Country for Old Men.....Different books can be favorites for entirely different reasons and comparing one to another can be like comparing apples and oranges.

The League said...

Not to bag on your selections, but I am not sure X-Files was ever bagged upon by critics or did not enjoy a large fan base (until the recent movie, that is). I'd argue the same for your book selection.

And you skipped #5 altogether.

Nathan said...

1. 1981 Buick Century, a hand-me-down. I do not miss it.

2. Yes, we're going to Houston at some point. And we're taking an Amtrak trip to AUSTIN a week from Sunday!

3. Hmm. I liked Janine Turner or Northern Exposure, even moreso when she grew her hair a little longer than that boy-cut.

4. I don't know if it was my favorite, but I had a play "Holiday Inn." I only have the sign now, which is at my parents' house.

5. The Black Hole: http://tinyurl.com/d5q2v6

6. Herbie Hancock, "Secrets." Most critics dismiss it as Herbie-lite, but I think it's pretty soft-funky.

7. Three's Company.

8. I would have no idea. Probably G.I. Joe comic books from the 1980s. Which are mostly awful, but a few issues are really good.

NTT said...

1. Blue 1.6 4 Cylinder Nissan Sentra Station Wagon. This thing did 0-60 in like 25 seconds (or seemed like it). It was so underpowered, during the summer you turned off the air conditioner to allow more power to the engine. Do I miss it? Hell no.

2. Montreal

3. Sarah Michelle-Geller of Buffy Season 2. Natalie Merchant before she went spacey.

4. My collection of the Bandai Robotech mecha figures.

5. The Fountain, don't know why everyone hated it. Also Dark City, nobody seemed to like it except me when it first came out. And yes I publicly defend both.

6. I'm assuming questions 6-8 function as a continuation of #5's theme.

Album -- No clue, ABC's The Lexicon of Love? I'm not a music snob so I can't think of any album that's been panned but is underrated. I think Opal's Happy Nightmare Baby is brilliant and never achieved the recognition of Mazzy Star.

7. TV - Do foreign markets count? I have to say Rahxephon for Japanese TV. Rahxephon gets a bad rap for being a Neon Genesis Evangelion clone but I'd argue it took the premise of Neon Genesis and made it into a heart-breaking, actual epic story of love and redemption with an actual ending, something Neon Genesis sadly greatly lacked. For U.S., Parker Lewis Can't Lose.

8. Book - The Saga of the Pliocene Exiles, the fantasy/science fiction quartet by Julian May. Consisting of 4 novels, The Many Coloured Land, The Golden Torc, The Non-Born King and The Adversary, it told the story of a trapped group of human exiles in the Pliocene epoch where they discover they are caught in a civil war between two metapyschic powered races the Tanu and the Firvulag based on the mythology of ancient Ireland. It spans fantasy, science fiction and time travel into a multi-threaded arc that was so original it couldn't be comprehended by the Tolkien fans or hard SF fans because they didn't know how to approach the subject. It had the scope of Dune, high flying Elves vs. Trolls with superpowers fighting a mystical war with genetic engineering and psychic fireballs. It was a part of the New Wave SF introduced by Roger Zelazny and is promptly never acknowledged for its sheer out of control brilliance of ideas. It would what Grant Morrison would write if he wanted to retell the story of the Tuatha de Danaan through the lens of Frank Herbert and Roger Zelazny. Yeah, it influenced my youth quite a bit. Ok, that was way too long.

Anonymous said...

1- 1986 Buick Sentry. Nice car, but the V-4 engine was like driving a golf cart. I had the need, the need for speed.

2- Mazatlan, Mexico

3- Chick from the Cherry Pie video by warrant. Every dude on this thread who hit puberty in the late 80s early 90s knows exactly who I'm talking about. Don't deny it.

4- GI Joe soldiers. I liked them so much, I would even line them up and play GI Joe football with them. I alwsy thought Gung Ho looked like a prototypical defensive end.

5- Big Trouble in Little China. You appreciate something new every time you watch it.

6- Chris Knight, his first album. Like his voice, has songs that tell a story (ballad like) which I like.

7- Perfect Strangers. I'll be damned if cousin Larry and Balki didn't get it some hairbrained misadventures, but they always learned something about themselves in the end, and Balki's backwoods, foreign simple lifestyle taught us all in the big city what was really important in life. Having 2 smoking hot stewardess neighbors.

8- Damn. Reading. For fun ? Can I recommened The Essentials of Deportation, Removal and Relief. Has everything you want to know about trying to save your Immigrant client's hide. I did read Lone Survivor, about the Navy Seal who amazingly survived a Alamo-esque firefight with the Taliban. The readin gis brutal because the Seal actually wrote it and he sounded like a 16 yr old, but the story in of itself is pretty fascinating. Especially the end where this Pashtun tribe takes him in and protects him from the Taliban.

P-BO

Fantomenos said...

1) My Dad's beat up old Ford Escort. My current beat up Corolla isn't much better or worse, so I'm not sure I miss it.

2) I'll do my annual pilgrimage to Shorty's in Seattle to play pinball with old friends from school. Other than that, no plans

3) I can't be the only geek here to say Elisabeth Sladen, right?

4) A 2' tall Godzilla with flame tongue and launchable hand for some reason. Had to buy it with my own money, since my folks refused to part with 5 1978 dollars for "a hunk of plastic". It might still be at their house...

5) Aww, Nathan, I was gonna say "Black Hole". I guess I'm a heretic for liking Predator 2 better than the 1st one, which I'll argue with anyone, anywhere.

6) Off the top of my head, I disagree with Pitchforks assessment of Agoraphobic Nosebleed's latest, "Agorapocalypse" as being reductive. I think it's great!

7) A lot of people are saying "Anathem" is self-indulgent, especially with the made-up words, but I thought it was a hoot, best thing Stephenson's done.

J.S. said...

I misread the requirements for 5, 6,7, and 8, so I'm redoing them.

5. Big Trouble in Little China. Genius, and I will defend it as such until the day I die.
6. One album I like which was somewhat panned by critics was Miles Davis's On the Corner. It's a great album, but Miles Davis fans and critics can be way too hard on it.
Of course, my original response, Spare Room Flange, still works.
7. Farscape died way too early and was great. Same with The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
8. I haven't read that many books which were totally panned. When I was a kid I read the Dragonlance Chronicles, which were sort of loosely based on Dungeons and Dragons. The critics panned them, but the audience loved them. I remember trying to read Tolkien right after those books came out, and it felt like driving off of a fast moving freeway into mud.

The League said...

1) Reddish maroon 1983 Honda Accord. It was named "The Badger" (dangerous when cornered). And I miss it, even though the air conditioning broke and it had no power steering for the last year that I drove it.

2) I think San Francisco and the "wine country". Honestly am not sure about this wine country business, but everyone says I have to do it. isn't there a Maker's Mark Country I can decamp to instead?

3) People, I've made it abundantly clear...

4) I wrote this with no answer in mind. But I think its a blue, Fisher Price jet loosely baed on an F-15. And its in my garage.
I also had a cape with Batman stitched on the back that my grandmother made for me when I was very little. Loved it. No idea what became of it, but I probably wore it out.

5) Ironically, probably "Ed Wood" by Tim Burton. And his "Mars Attacks!". And I just let it slide when people bag on the original Superman movies. Yes, it was the 1970's. Get over it.

6) No passionate answer to this one. I recall being surprised more people weren't into the first "Animal Logic" album when I was 13. But I don't really care for it anymore, either. It seems neither family nore friends usually listen to what I'm listening to or like, so I kind of exist in a bubble where I haven't read music reviews or asked anyone their opinion in years.

7) Well, since they've canceled "Kings", I'd say that's a contender. Its one of the few shows I've watched that I thought had a great premise from episode one. I also liked "Brisco County, Jr." And they canceled that, too. I can probably name 50 "cult shows" I think are pretty awful but that comic geeks challenge, though.

8) It seems like it got horrible press and spawned protest groups and whatnot, but I think "American Psycho" was brilliant. Writing about a character doesn't necessarily mean you're condoning that character's actions. Also enjoyed Final Crisis.

NTT said...

Wasn't Final Crisis a best seller? From the numbers I've seen, it outsold every just about every DC title that was published this year. Maybe the critics panned it but I don't think the public came down on it very hard.

The League said...

I think it did sell well, now that you mention it. I'll be curious to see how it does in collected format.

I guess to balance the scales, I should mention Ennis's "Battlefields" mini series, which seem to get high acclaim, but don't sell through the roof.