Category: Friday Fives

1. What’s the weirdest rule you had in your home growing up?

Not weird, perhaps, but a firm rule – be home for dinner by 6:30 and come in for the evening when the street lights go on (a mostly summer rule as we tended to run wild through the neighborhood in our small town as kids.)

2. What is a handy appliance in your home as a child that doesn’t appear in homes anymore?

The kitchen telephone on the wall with the 25-foot cord that could reach over most of the kitchen and the dining room.  Also the phonebook.

3. If the world had to return to just 3 television networks again – what shows on today would still be a hit?

Any one of the cop shows – I’ll go with “The FBI”

Any one of the medical shows.  I’ll go with “Chicago Med”

Any one of the reality singing shows. I’ll go with “The Masked Singer.”

4. What behemoth of a Detroit auto was your family car when you were growing up?

We had this huge, huge, huge 1972 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale with a Rocket 455 HP engine.  A literal couch on wheels.   About 9 MPG.

5. What was your go-to childhood snack/drink?

Bagel pizzas with pepperoni that I made in the toaster and grape juice.  Pure after school contentment.

1. What is your favorite place?

Growing up as a kid, we used to hang out a lot in the forest north of town on Black Mountain and Freman reservoir. There is a little cut-out area up there a few miles west of the lake that is so pretty and peaceful with lots of wildflowers and Colorado columbines growing and isolated. One of my favorite places.

2. What is your favorite place in your home?

My super comfy, new, adjustable bed. I think I could go full-on Brian Wilson in that thing and just stay in bed for a year and be happy.

3. Would you most want to live in a city, a suburb or the country?

I was raised in a small town and had a lot of country/rural exposure. Except for traffic, I prefer city living.

4. What is special about the town you live in?

Denver, baby. Mountains, plains. Snow, sunshine. It has it all.

5. How much time do you spend in nature?

Not enough. In fact of the last few years nearly none. Shame on me.

Autumn is here!

1. Do you have any special rituals to welcome the approaching season, such as cleaning or decorating?

Football mostly.  And I tend to get outside more and take longer walks.

2. Do you welcome the approaching season or despise it?

It is my favorite of the seasons. I like the smells, the temps and I find it blissfully nostalgic.

3. What has been the high point from the preceding season?

I got a nice new job that I enjoy.

4. What has been the low point from the preceding season?

The Colorado Rockies dismal season.

5. What are you looking forward to this Autumn?

Maybe taking some time off and a turn around of the dismal Denver Broncos’ season.

1. What bad film could be made into a great film if it were to be remade?

Mitchell!  (A Mystery Science Theater 3K film) with Jo Don Baker) It could be refilmed with George Clooney or Daniel Craig and made into a decent detective thriller.

2. Probably asked and answered, but, what is the absolute worst movie of all time? [defend]

Referencing above, take some time, go online and try, just try and watch the original, unedited version of “Manos, Hands of Fate.”  Just awful.

3. Conversely, the absolute best, bar none? [defend]

Casablanca.  A nearly perfect film, shot for shot, scene for scene.

4. What makes a better movie adaptation: a Nonfiction story or book or a novel to film?

The subject matter is not important – it is the film director and art director and some savvy editing that can take a film from “Okay” to “Great.” 

5. Off to youtube – whats a good ‘Tube post/link/scene from a movie that brings back the whole film so you don’t need to rewatch it?

John Wayne’s introductory scene in “Big Jake”

 

1. What “old person” things do you do?

I go to bed early.  On Sunday mornings I listen to my favorite radio show and do the New York Times Crossword puzzle.

2. What is one simple thing that you still can’t do?

My handwriting is still pretty dismal and I am incapable of doing most division in my head.

3. What is a lesson you only had to learn once? What’s the story behind it?

Be careful when taking a new job to listen to the voice in the back of your head and not take the job.

4. What is one random act of kindness a stranger did for you?

Well, there was that blow job in Geneva, but I will save that for another time.  (She thought I was Canadian.)

5. What was the nicest thing you’ve done yesterday?

I gave up my seat on the light rail to an older gentleman who seemed in pain and harried at the thought of standing holding to the rail during the trip.

1. What’s a sketchy cheap buy which ended up being one of your best purchases.

Well, this is a very recent purchase  On Amazon Prime Day in July, sight unseen, I bought a queen-sized bed mattress,  for less than $250.00. I haven’t slept better in years.  

2. What car would you buy from any era if you had 20k bucks?

I have always had a love/lust affair from one of those super lush Bugattis from around the 1920s.

3. You have won $100,000,000 in a Lottery, Only Catch is you can ONLY buy things that start with Your First Name Initial, What are you buying?

R – should be pretty simple. hmm.  The Rocky Mountains?

4. You would be rich if you had a dollar for every time what?

This is unfortunate to admit, but hardly a secret.  Picking my nose. I’d be a trillionaire.

5. What is your go-to phrase to low-key piss someone else off?

I stole this from Jim Ward from The Stephanie Miller Show, but it is perfect.  “It’s not patronizing,  it’s condescending – there’s a difference.” 

1. You get to make one law that goes into effect no matter how outrageous. What is it?

Tie Tuesday.  Everyone has to dress up in their “Sunday Best” to work or where ever on Tuesday.  One day a week we dress like Doris Day and Carey Grant.  Not a bad thing, not at all.

2. You get to host your own TV talk show. Who are your first three guests?

1. David Letterman

2. Author and Colorado School of Mines graduate George Saunders

3. Bruce Springsteen as musical guest

I will not take a moment to defend any of these as this list is perfection.

3. You get to choose the actor to portray you in the movie made of your life. Who do you cast?

I have vacillated over this for a bit. It is either Dick Van Dyke or Bill Murray.  Hmmm.  I am going with Bill.  He is my fashion idol. Now, if this has to be a contemporary actor (or even younger!)  maybe Seth Myers?

4. You just got arrested for murder in the middle of the night while you were in bed. They say you killed a mailman on March 10, 2019. How do you prove your innocence?

I can definitively show that no one entered or left my home on March 10 in the evening.  At that time I was unemployed and semi-permanently ensconced on my couch.   Here is my web traffic and phone GPS traffic.  I ain’t been nowhere, man.

5. You have unlimited resources and seven days to end the world in the most creative way possible. How would you do it?

I would meld the personas of Q from Star Trek (TNG) and the Stay Puft Marshmallow man and let him wreak his havoc.

1. If you get to have a third arm and got to choose its placement, where would you put it on your body?

Right under my left arm post pit.  Imagine the joy of having grocery bags in those hands and easily use the right hand to insert keys into the door and open it.  You could drive and also be able to turn the page on the book your reading (I am assuming in a world where extra arms are added on, we also have figured out self-driving to the extent that driving and reading is a possibility. )

2. You get to pick one superpower to just one of your friends. What do you pick?

Well sure.  My sister would have the power to instantly zap into the house foods to eat.  I am always asking her to whip up something really ridiculous and expensive and time-consuming and with such powers, she could put my annoying request to rest and we would eat well.

3. If you could choose a movie from your youth or past and fill it with CGI and 3D what film would you pick?

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  It cries out for some modern tech to really sell it.

4. What book/movie world would you want to live in and why?

It is kind of cliche as that is what the entire series is about –  but I would pick the Jasper Fforde Tuesday Next books.

5. You’re walking down the street, and look up to a see a man being carried off by a very large bird. What do you do?

It’s over.  It is now the time of cats and dogs falling from the sky. Carrion beasts pillaging the villages.  I would restart smoking and go back to drinking scotch and maybe take on opioids.  The end is neigh.

1. Have you ever had a nightmare formal dining experience?

I am sure there is one – I used to do some military general staff support big dinners with mucky-mucks.  But the only thing that really comes to mind was Thanksgiving this year – I was setting the table and dyslexic Roy but all the silverware on the table in the wrong order – spoon and knife on the wrong side, the fork on the wrong side, etc. . .  I have set dozens and dozens for formal dinner tables in my days in the service but a simple T-Day dinner and I did it all basakwards.   Not really a nightmare but that is all that comes to mind.

2. What is the worst thing to serve at an all you can eat buffet?

I can do me some damage at a buffet – salads, desserts, sushi, done it all. How about Ethiopian including beef tar tar.  It would take hours to refill and y of the empty courses and the tar tar would definitely go bad.

3. What is your “quick to prepare and impress for company” dinner to host with just minutes notice?

Spaghetti with meat sauce.  Easy peasy, delicious and the Fixin’s are always on hand.

4. What is your grab and go reliable lunch to take to work?

Tuna salad sandwiches.

5. What is your favorite dish that your mom used to make for you?

Lasagne.  Since I am now diabetic and don’t eat meat, it is in the rearview mirror, but if I ever get back on the beef, it is one of the first things I’ll cook.