Script Frenzy

No longer a participant, but a "winner," with the icon to prove it over in the sidebar. Overall a positive experience, and I'll try to hone the craft a little bit--including, for real this time, an actual story outline.

Okay, but...

So, if video games aren't an addiction, then what do you call it when you've been sitting at your computer for twelve hours and you wonder why you're hungry when you've been typing "eat" all day?

What do you call it when you've been sitting at your computer for twelve hours and you wonder why you're thirsty when you've been typing "drink" all day?

What do you call it when you've been playing on a MUD for so long that you dream in text? Or when you've been playing Half-Life for so long that you dream that you're Gordon Freeman?

I'm not a mental health professional, so I'm not exactly going to argue with their judgement, but it seems to me that something would have to be going on in someone's brain when those things happen. (Yes, all those things happened to me.)

Press butt sits grime floor?

(Bonus points to anyone who knows what that's from without looking it up!) It's time for the Saturday Six, what with it being Saturday and all.

1. How far from your home is your nearest fire station?

2. Have you ever made a call to your local 911 service? If so, how long did it take for emergency personnel -- whatever type you needed -- to arrive?

3. If you had to choose one of the following, which emergency employee would you want to be: police officer, dispatcher, paramedic, firefighter; and why would you choose that one?

4. Take the quiz: What firefighter tool are you?

5. When you were little, did you ever dream of being a first responder?

6. What is your favorite first-responder-related movie or television show; and how realistically do you think it depicts what they really go through?

1. I don't know the distance exactly, but we're pretty close to a station. Maybe a mile and a half?

2. A call was made on my behalf when I slipped and cracked my spine. I'd guess it took about 15 minutes. I'm actually not sure why the ambulance came from Middleton; there was a Madison station that was a lot closer. But whatever... the ambulance came quickly.

3. Dispatcher. I don't like arguing, I don't like medicine, and I don't like being hot.

4. I'm a New York Roof Hook, whatever that may be.

5. No.

6. Emergency. My impressive was that it was pretty realistic, but what do I know?

Roll over, George Orwell

Keeping in mind the slogans of INGSOC, George W. Bush is about the strongest person in the world right now.

Seen the latest? As if Cheney's "I'm not part of the Executive Branch" stunner wasn't enough, it turns out that the president isn't either.

I've been trying to keep the cursing to a minimum these days, but...come on: WHAT THE FUCK?

I suppose they've already proved that they can get away with anything, but this is freaking ridiculous. How can people say, with a straight face, what these people are saying? ARE WE REALLY THIS STUPID?

901: The Friday Five

For my 901st post, here's the friday five.

1. If you were going to remake a movie, what would it be and who would you cast in the roles? In general, I don't like remakes, but I'll give this one a shot. The problem with remakes, of course, is that you have to bring something new to the table. I'd consider remaking The Odd Couple, but that's been done kind of a lot (I'd cast Tim Allen as Oscar and Bill Murray as Felix, just because that sounds too stupid to work). I think I'll end up passing on providing an actual answer, because all of the movies I'm considering remaking are musicals. Oh, no, wait, I would remake The Quiller Memorandum with Daniel Craig. (Who cares if he's also doing James Bond? He would make a great Quiller.)

2. If you could turn a book into a movie, what would it be and who would you cast in the roles? Max Allan Collins' True Detective, with Jake Gyllenhaal as Nate Heller. Jake was the first guy that came to mind. These books are really good, and there's series potential if the first one is a hit.

3. If you were going to turn a video game into a movie, what would it be? Would it be animated or live-action? I think that Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas would make a pretty good movie, actually. Live-action, I think.

4. You're going to turn a book into a TV series. What is it? Why would it make a good TV show? Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series would make a good TV show. It's so long, and so detailed, that it could run literally forever without reaching an end. You know, kind of like the books have. I think that Heinlein's Lazarus Long would make a good central character for a TV show. Time travel is cool. (They'd probably have to gloss over the part where he sleeps with his own mother.)

5. Do you generally prefer the movie versions or the novel versions of works? Depends on the work, I guess. In general, though, filmed versions of books are never as good as the books because films are all about leaving stuff out.

Very Special Event

This is my 900th post.

Since I started blogging back in 2004, posting illiterate, half-formed screeds on whatever, I've been through a lot of stuff. Probably a lot less than most people, but still...I got laid off, wrote some articles, got a new job, got stranded with my family in Chicago, got a new car, fractured my spine.

It's hard to believe that it's been that long, isn't it?

I'm glad to see, though, that one thing hasn't changed: George W. Bush is a stupid asshole.

And here's something else for your enjoyment: "I outed a gay man and called him a faggot and got fired from my TV show...but it's all his fault." Isaiah Washington's sheer gall just makes you sit back and say "Wow."

Happy 900th!

Friday Five

Here's today's Friday 5. This is the last post before the Very Special Event. Of course, with the way the blog displays, you'll probably see the Very Special Post long before you read this. Oh well!

1. If you get the first choice of Monopoly tokens, which do you choose? If someone else chooses it first, which is your second choice? The car, of course, followed by the hat. In my Green Bay Packer Monopoly set, it's the Cheesehead followed by the quarterback.

2. What’s a board game you are especially bad at? I like to play games, so I usually end up being pretty good at whatever I play, but if I had to pick one, I'd have to say that I stink at Go. No matter how I try, no matter how many books I read or games I play, I never get any better.

3. What board game are you particularly good at? Trivial Pursuit. I know a lot of really unimportant crap, so I love that kind of game. On a related note, I still remember the question that won me the first game of Trivial Pursuit I ever played: "Q: Who was Richard Nixon's first chief of staff? A: H.R. Haldeman."

4. How competitive do you get while playing board games or party games? I like to win, and I give no quarter. Not even to five-year-olds. However, I wouldn't go so far as to call myself "competitive," at least not as far as I understand the connotations. I don't get all arrogant and shouty and stuff--or at least I hope I don't.

5. What’s your favorite board game? What’s a board game you can’t stand? My favorite board game is Trivial Pursuit. Like I said, I love a good trivia game. I really can't stand Operation, if that counts as a board game, because it seems to me that there's very little "game" to it.

Friday Begins

Here's the first of a couple of meme posts before we get to a Very Special Event. Don't worry, you'll figure it out.

This is Four for Friday.

Q1 - Hands Off: Hugging is now a punishable offense at a Fairfax County, Virginia, school. School children at Kilmer Middle School in suburban Washington, DC, are now under a zero-tolerance touching policy. They're banned from poking, prodding, hugging, and even high-fiving one another. In your opinion, is this a good or bad thing?

Q2 - School Lunch: Did you bring a bag lunch to school or did you buy your lunch in the cafeteria? Did any of the schools you attended--excluding college or prep school--offer breakfast?

Q3 - Paying for Performance: Starting this fall, New York City students and their families could earn as much as $1,000 a year for doing well on standardized tests and showing up for class. As part of the City's new Opportunity NYC program (a conditional cash transfer program aimed at helping New Yorkers break the cycle of poverty), families can earn $25 or $50 per month for 95 percent school attendance for elementary, middle, and high school students; $25 for attending parent-teacher conferences; and $50 for obtaining a library card. An improvement in scores or proficiency on standardized tests at the elementary and middle school levels can earn a family from $300 or $350 per test; while at the high school level, a student can earn $600 for each passing grade on individual Regents exams. Incentives of $25 will be earned for both parental review of the test and discussion with teachers; high school students can earn $50 for taking the PSAT exam, and will share $600 with their parents for annually accumulating 11 credits, and a $400 bonus for graduating. Again, in your opinion, is this a good or bad thing? Should we be offering cash incentives for academic participation and performance?

Q4 - High School Reunions: Have you ever been to a high school reunion (yours or someone else's)? If so, what was it like? If not, is it because you refuse to go to one? If so, why?

Q1: Sounds stupid to me. Look, we as a society are already growing increasingly isolated from one another. Why encourage that? What purpose does a "no high-five" rule serve? What possible good can that do?

Q2: I always brought a bag lunch to school--ham and butter sandwich, or peanut butter and jelly sandwich. For a while, some kid would give me his lunch. I was never really sure why. That stopped, eventually. I don't think Iolani offered a breakfast. (By the way...I think I don't understand what a "prep school" is in this context; wasn't Iolani a prep school? Why can't I include it?)

Q3: Huh. I hadn't heard of this one before. I'm torn. On the one hand, doing well should be its own reward. On the other hand, I'm quite sure that there are people out there who will benefit from being paid to get good grades. If it works without bankrupting New York, then more power to them. I'm skeptical that such a thing could achieve any widespread success, though.

Q4: I have never b...you know what, that's a lie. I went with my grandfather to a function for his high school class. I don't really remember what it was like, except that it was pretty cool to be traveling with essentially no supervision. I have never been to one of my own (20th this year...yikes), for a couple of reasons: first, it's expensive to return to Hawaii; and second, I really have no desire to see any of the people who are likely to attend that sort of thing. There are exceptions, of course, and you know who you are.

Your princess is in another castle

Courtesy of the well-known Mo, here is a dude playing the Super Mario theme on a really cool 11-string bass. (Related question: at what point does an instrument like that stop being a bass and start being something else?)

Bbbbbbooking through Thursday

Here's today's Booking Through Thursday.

1. Do you have any old school books? Did you keep yours from college? Old textbooks from garage sales? Old workbooks from classes gone by? Yeah, I sure do. That stuff was expensive, man, you can't just throw it away. I still have all of my Computer Science texts (an algorithm is an algorithm), although I seem to have misplaced my copy of Brooks. I still have a Russian textbook and reader. I still have most of my old German books, those little yellow and green and orange Reclam things. And I still have my copy of Aldwell and Schachter. (It did not cost $113 seventeen years ago.)

2. How about your old notes, exams, papers? Do you save them? Or have they long since gone to the great Locker-in-the-sky?
I have notebooks and papers that date back to high school, as a matter of fact. I keep them around because I always used a section of my notebooks for writing stories, and I occasionally mine them for ideas. Some of them are not too bad, and of course some of them are awful. It's interesting to look at those old notebooks, though; for example, one of them has a bunch of trigonometry notes in it. They are gibberish to me now--but back in the day I tutored people in trigonometry.

More on Scalia's lunacy

Yesterday I posted a Kos link about how Antonin Scalia wants to base the law on a television show. I want to say a little bit more about this.

What is it with people not understanding how television and movies are made? Scalia here, Make It So there...I think somewhere along the line we've lost our gasp on basic principles.

Jack Bauer "saved Los Angeles," Judge Scalia, because the writer wrote, in his script, that Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. The writer could just as easily have written "Oops, L.A. is now a big hole in the ground."

Captain Bald Scenery-Chewer is a "great leader" because writers wrote him success. The things that Baldy does work because writers say they do. The writers could just as easily have written "Oops, while The Ham has his meeting, everything gets fucked up and everyone dies."

On TV, in the movies, Stuff Is Made Up. Things are the way they are because a writer said so. This is a great springboard for fan fiction--not national policy.

Three things of note

1. Not that I wish to generate any publicity for Bon Jovi, but when someone says "our new album is not 'Bon Jovi does country,'" isn't that a pretty good indication that that's exactly what it is?

2. Notice anything strange about this list of the 25 greatest action movies? (Hint: it's the fact that only about five of them are actually action movies.)

3, Apparently, Antonin Scalia wants to base U.S. law on television shows. This man is on the Supreme Court.

Free bonus item: the classics still hold up.

Monday Music Mambo

The Monday Music Mambo had an interesting question (an a not-so-interesting one) today:

If you were given an unlimited budget for one day, what music-related things would you splurge on? You could buy CDs (or ultra-rare LPs), concert tickets, memorabilia - anything related to music. Unlimited? I'd trick out my house with enough studio gear to choke three horses--and, since a studio is music-related, I'd build a studio in my basement. Then a piano, a string bass, a drum kit, a half-dozen computers with terabytes of disc space for recording, a couple of electric guitars and amps. MIDI gear. All sorts of world music gear. All of that stuff. Let's see, then I'd hire McCoy Tyner to play a private gig in the morning and Rush to play a private gig in the evening. CDs? Please--I believe the word "unlimited" was mentioned, and you can do a lot better than CDs.

What is your favorite style of music, or band/artist, that uses the violin/fiddle? Bluegrass.

FAQ

How's your back? Getting better. I basically have no spinal pain, and haven't for a while, but I've got nearly-persistent pain in the lower-right quadrant of my back. It feels like it's right over my hip. This is pain that I've had on and off for a long time, but the fall really seems to have aggravated it. However, it's a lot better than it was a month ago.

Any other weird medical stuff? Yeah. I pulled a half-inch piece of stuff that sure looked like white plastic out of my cheek this evening. I have no idea how it got there. It hurt like hell coming out--you'd think it would have hurt like hell going in.

How's Script Frenzy? I'm gonna hit over 12,000 words by the end of tonight, and I'm going to repeat something that I think I've said before: anyone who says they write without any kind of outline or notes is full of crap. I'm about to the point where aliens are going to have to land, because I have no ideas. Maybe I'll bother to outline my next NaNoWriMo project and that will make a difference.

Seen any good movies lately? TCM recently ran the four 1938-39 Nancy Drew movies starring Bonita Granville. They were fairly entertaining, and Bonita Granville had some nice outfits. I didn't hate "The Fantastic Four" as much as I thought I would, although I'm not planning on seeing the sequel. I'm waiting for Michael Bay's Transformers movie.

Read any good books? If you like thrillers, then you can't go wrong with Lee Child. His new Jack Reacher book is out now, and while it's not the best ook in the series, Child always reliably provides a good, entertaining read.

Music? How about this?

I frickin' love Spam

Courtesy of Sir F. Crisp comes a slashfood article on Burger King Hawaii adding Spam to their menu.

The availability of a Spam and rice and egg breakfast is one of the things I miss most about Hawaii.

Wednesday? Well, no.

I forgot to do the Wednesday Mind Hump this week. Oops.

1. Have you ever cut or burned yourself while cooking?

2. Have you ever put in a wrong ingredient in a dish (sugar instead of salt, for example)?

3. Have you ever dropped, or otherwise ruined, a dish just before serving it? Bonus points if you had a large number of people waiting to eat it.

4. In case you aren't a cook - Have you ever had a restaurant make a klutzy move that affected your meal? Tell us about it!

1. Oh yes, quite badly. Badly enough that I had to go to the emergency room. I had finished off a pan-fried chicken dish in the oven (it was very good), but forgot that it had been in the oven--after I plated everything, I picked up the pan with my bare hand.

2. Nope.

3. Yeah; I burned a dish that had a lot of really expensive ingredients in it, and that had taken a lot of effort to prepare. I didn't have a lot of people waiting to eat it--five is all--but I was still extremely disappointed. (We ate it anyway.)

4. Sort of. I went to a local eating establishment for lunch one day after visiting the library. I was seated, and I started to read. After a few chapters, I realized that I had yet to see a waiter. I just got up and left.

Thank God It's Friday

You know what's really tasty? Diet Rite Pure Zero White Grape. A little bit of a Splenda aftertaste, yeah, but very tasty nonetheless.

Anyway, it's manonica's T.G.I.F.!

1. Do you think that people are inherently good or evil?
2. Is having a child important to make your life complete?
3. Is it true that first love never dies?
4. After forgiving, can you really forget?
5. In the long run, do you believe that married couples are happier than single people?

1. I think people want to be good, but that for a wide variety of reasons we never quite get there. For example, I really do think that George W. Bush wants to be a good person, but he's just too goddamn stupid.

2. Hmmm...that's probably different for everyone. I'm not so sure I'd define parenthood as "completion" either. I don't feel completed by parenthood, but I do feel enriched.

3. No.

4. No.

5. Again, that's probably different for everyone. For example, Britney Spears is probably happier as a single person than she was in either of her marriages.

Friday Fun

Here's Friday Fun. It's all about trading.

1. If, for one day, you could flip-flop lives with any celebrity, who would it be and why?
2. If, for one day, you could flip-flop your significant other with someone else, who would it be and why?
3. Is there anyone you would not want to flip-flop lives with for a day? Why?
4. What is one aspect of your life you would like to flip-flop?

1. Bill Gates, so that I could make sure to cut a check to the real me for ten million dollars.

2. Captain Kirk--and she knows this--because he's awesome.

3. To be honest, I really wouldn't want to trade lives with anyone at all. I'm happy the way things are.

4. I'd probably study more in high school.

Four For Friday

Today's Four For Friday is interesting. Well, partially interesting.

Q1 - Music: A friend of mine has just over 1,500 songs on his computer that he listens to throughout the workday. Over time, he has become of tired of hearing the same music over and over again. His question is this… how do you branch out and find new music that you'll like?

Q2 - Church: The Church of England believes its Manchester Cathedral is no place for a gun battle, much less a gory one that can be viewed in any living room. Sony's PlayStation 3 release "Resistance: Fall of Man" features a battle among British and American soldiers and aliens inside the cathedral. The Anglicans are demanding an apology and a contribution to the Church's antiviolence education campaign using the game's profits. Sony maintains that it will not alter the game. Do you think the Church is owed an apology and payout?

Q3 - Take it With You: There's an old saying that goes something like this: You can't take it with you when you die! If you had to choose three items to be buried with, what would you choose?

Q4 - Hotels: When you stay at a hotel, do you take the free toiletries home at the end of your stay?

1. Go to the library and borrow CDs. That's what the library is for. A lot of times, sure, they don't have the latest and greatest, but you can at least listen to stuff you've never heard before. I would never have gotten into jazz had it not been for the library's copy of "John Coltrane: Live at Birdland." Plus...it's FREE. You simply cannot go wrong at the library.

2. I find this question to be very interesting. As a private citizen and speaking solely for myself...maybe. It's not a public building, is it? Using a 3d map of the White House or your state capitol would probably be okay, but the Empire State Building, not so much. I think this whole kerfuffle could have been handled better.

3. I'm not so sure that I have any objects that I value that much. It's all between the ears, baybee.

4. No. That seems so crass. And useless.

"That door has a history"

For my homies from way, way, way back in the day, here's a part of a video tour of the Iolani School campus. I ended up watching most of it, or at least the parts that showed things that were there back in our day: Castle Building, I Building, Art Building, Lower School, Student Center and so on. (I made The Wife watch them with me so that I could impress someone by saying, for example, "That's the choir room to the right," before the camera turned right and the narrator said "The choir room is in there.")

I think this part is my favorite, though, a spin around the inner courtyard of the I building, where I spent a lot of time in ninth grade. And also..."This door has a history."

Now THAT'S Jazz

I was looking for footage of the moon on YouTube and one of my search results was this video of Ella Fitzgerald singing "How High The Moon." It's awesome and incredible and all that, yes, but my favorite part is how she totally messes up the words and then scats about it. (Caveat Emptor: the words are wrong to me; I'm used to hearing them in a different order. But another video on YT shows her singing it the same way. Who the hell knows--the point is that this is an incredible performance.)

I love this show

I'm not a big fan of the "reality" genre on TV, but I've been watching a ton of "Pimp My Ride" and I have to say that it's an outstanding example of its class. Among other things, it's just so much fun watching people's reactions to their new cars.

I may have mentioned this before, but I do wish the show was longer and showed more of the work that goes into each vehicle.

Friday's Feast

The Friday memes don't always yield such an answer-worthy crop, at least not for me. Here's Friday's Feast.

Appetizer: What do you consider to be the ultimate snack food? Right now, my favorite snack is fresh mozzarella and a fresh baguette from the specialty store near us, Grape & Company. The cheese is really good; the owner makes it himself.

Soup: On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 as highest), about how popular is your last name? Probably 1. Maybe 2.

Salad: Who is your all-time favorite sitcom character, and why? Lucy Ricardo, because Lucille Ball is still the funniest woman on television after 50 years. Nobody else comes close.

Main Course: Do you shop online? If so, name some sites you like to browse for goodies. Food goodies? Dean and Deluca. Computer goodies? newegg. What other kinds of goodies should I mention?

Dessert: Fill in the blank: I think ___________ should be ___________. I think George W. Bush should be removed from office and thrown in jail.

Friday Fun

You know, I like the Friday memes the best. Here's Friday Fun. Kiki asks which of these would be more fun.

1. A mani/pedi or mountain biking? The mani/pedi, since I have to pick. I really wouldn't like either one, although a non-mountain bike ride would be fine.

2. A day at the beach or a day on the slopes? Beach, of course. Kailua or Waimanalo, probably. Ala Moana would be okay too, but I think I'd want some waves.

3. Dinner at a 5 star restaurant or homecooking at a diner?Jesus. Can I get a 5-star diner? If not, then fine dining would be more fun. I pick that $420 sushi place in New York run by Masa Takayama.

4. Coffee and a good book at a coffee shop or a cold drink and a good book in the park? The park.

5. Musical theater a là Broadway or a movie in the theater? While I love going to the movies, nothing will ever be as good as live theater on the professional level.

6. An evening at the opera or a rock concert? Depends on the opera and the concert. I'd usually pick the concert, but if the opera was "The Barber of Seville," I'd at least think about it. And if the concert was... I don't know, Jewel or something, then the opera would start to look good.

7. Manilow or Metallica? Which Metallica? I'll take pre-Load Metallica over Manilow, but post-Load Metallica... is Barry gonna do "Copacabana?"

Four for Friday

From belicove.com, here's Four for Friday.

Q1 - Customer Service: When was the last time you had to call a customer service department, and how would you rate the experience/service?

Q2 - Selling on eBay: If you were asked to sell one item that you currently own, what would you sell and how much do you think it would fetch on eBay?

Q3 - Take Your Medicine: When was the last time you took over-the-counter or prescription-strength medicine, and would you say it adequately alleviated or treated your symptoms or pain?

Q4 - Evolution: Do you think pigs will ever learn to fly?

1. Actually, just the other day I called IBM/Lenovo. My tablet doesn't automatically rotate the way it's supposed to. Their solution was for me to reinstall all of the junkware that came with the computer. Overall, the experience was good, even though I declined to download and install 1.3GB of stuff I didn't need.

2. An interesting question, because it doesn't say why you're selling it. Do you need the money, or is some psycho just demanding that you sell something? I'd sell my Aardvark DirectPro 24/96 sound card. I'd hope to get $50 for it. There are a few on eBay now, and one is sitting at $25 while three are at $100 with no bids.

3. This morning, and I'm not qualified to say whether it worked.

4. What does this have to do with evolution? Anyway, no, because there's no need for pigs to fly. And if they did, we'd never know because it would take millions of years. Although I suppose they will when The Monkey actually manages to say something without smirking, or when certain talentless whores stop claiming that "it's not right" that they go to jail the way anyone else would have to.

More clouds

So my first attempt at painting in ArtRage was kind of okay. I'm a little happier with this one, my second. Eventually I'll go look at the actual sky and then we'll really be cooking.

It's hump day

And therefore, here is the Wednesday Mind Hump.

1. Do you currently subscribe to any magazines? If so, which ones? I think our current subscriptions include The Nation, Smithsonian, and American Girl Magazine. Quite a diverse bunch.

2. What magazines have you subscribed to in the past? I used to subscribe to MacUser and Acoustic Guitar. We had a subscription to Premiere, but they stopped publishing. I think that's it. Oh, wait, I used to subscribe to The Economist.

3. What do you do with the little cards that always fall out of the magazine? Do you toss them, or have you found a use for them? I put them back, of course. They're part of the magazine. It, uh, drives up collectability. That's it. Yeah. Okay, really, I'm just anal.

4. If you could start a magazine, what would it be about? Who or what would be on the cover of the first issue? I'd start a fiction magazine, mystery probably. I actually looked into it at one point, but it involved more money than I was comfortable with spending, and more legal responsibility than I was comfortable with assuming. I'm not sure what would be on the first cover.

Duh... wha?

Productive day today, I suppose. Here's a little cartoon for you to marvel at. You know, or not.

ScriptFrenzy

Here's my ScriptFrenzy profile. A brief excerpt of my script is up there; the portion of a scene I've provided takes place on the back end of a montage that shows the four characters growing up together and graduating from pretty theft to purse snatching. They've just snatched a few purses and are hightailing it out of town.

So far, the Frenzy is pretty fun. Definitely easier (in some aspects) than NaNoWriMo. The word count payload, as I think I've mentioned, is a lot less, which makes for less stress. In fact, for the Frenzy, a person has the opposite problem from Nano: you actually need to not overwrite; it's quite easy to go overboard on scenes.

Just banging out words is the easy part--it's doing it right that's hard. My word count stands at 2831, but I'm in the middle of a scene and I'll probably hit 3500 before I'm done tonight.

Sunday Randomness

No, it's not my own randomness, but the randomness biog.

For this week, we are asked to name one of each of the following:

1. a movie that made you laugh: Clueless. That was the first one that came to mind--the scene where Cher drives on the L.A. freeway by accident had us screaming.

2. a book that made you cry: I know there was one recently, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was. So I'll say "Flowers for Algernon."

3. a best friend: My wife.

4. a favorite childhood memory: Playing Mr. N. Johnson in "Guys and Dolls" was a lot of fun. Having the responsibility for bringing my own sandwich every night (it was a prop) was not.

5. your favorite animal: Cows, which give us both milk and steak.

6. your favorite food: Manapua.

7. an item of clothing you can't do without: Jeans.

8. something you collect: I don't want to say that we purposely collect them, but we aren't accumulating fewer books as the years go by.

9. your favorite store to shop in: Target, I guess.

10. your favorite flower: Never thought about it. To be honest, I can't even name all that many flowers.

This week's Saturday Six

Man, I don't want to know what I'd do without Patrick.

1. When did you last compute the average number of miles to the gallon your car gets?

2. Do you use regular, midrange or premium octane fuel?

3. If you had to give up one or the other because of a government-mandated fuel-saving law, would you prefer to go without your car’s air conditioning or automatic transmission?

4. Take the quiz: What muscle car are you?

5. Of the cars you have driven and/or owned, which had the worst gas mileage? Did that have any impact on your decision to get rid of it or make plans to get rid of it?

6. On a scale of 1 to 10, with ten representing the most, how much will “environmental friendliness” have on your decision to buy your next vehicle?

1. A couple of weeks ago. I wouldn't necessarily say I computed it on purpose, though; there were 300 miles on the trip odometer and I put in 15 gallons. The calculation practically does itself.

2. Regular, of course. Is there a reason to use anything else?

3. I'd prefer to go without the air conditioning. I'm driving a borrowed car with a manual transmission now, and I have to say it's not as fun as it used to be.

4. This quiz was, as usual, just a bit silly. But I'd drive one of these.

What kind of Muscle Car are You? (pics)
1972 Chevrolet Chevelle SS 454 You are a 1972 Chevrolet Chevelle SS 454. You car has a huge ass engine....and thats all you care about! You know you can whoop on anyone at the dragstrip...and you love it! You really don't care about gas mileage...but you sure do go to the gas station alot!
Take The Quiz Now!	Quizzes by myYearbook.com

5. I really don't know; probably the Ford Bronco II. The mileage had nothing to do with our decision to get rid of it. It leaked oil (and burned it) like you wouldn't believe; we had to carry a case around in the back.

6. I like a car with good mileage, but the "environmentally friendly" tag adds money to the price tag. We really wanted to get a Prius or a Civic Hybrid this time around, but we wouldn't afford it. On the 10-scale it's a 10, but price is like an 11.

This whole topic makes me think about the cars we've owned over the last 16 years. We had the Bronco, a Honda Civic, and then the Escort we drove until it died. Now we have a Ford Focus.

A beautiful day in the neighborhood

Sir F. Crisp found this wonderful article about Mister Rogers. I thought I'd pass it on.