Category: Friday Fives

1. What’s the biggest difference between you now and ten years ago?

About 40 lbs less of me to assess.

2. What’s the worst food to get hit by in a food fight?

An uncarved cantaloupe.

3. What is a movie where the bad guys won?

The Usual Suspects

4. What is the highest paying job that requires little to no interaction with other people?

Software beta testers? Call center Quality Assurance monitors? Concert solo cellist? Those are my three guesses.

5. What career would you choose if salary didn’t matter?

I had a friend back in Craig (Hi Dr. Dave) and he suggest that if he ever hit it big he would be a professional T-ball coach and I have to second that motion – what a dreamy occupation.

1. What weird food combinations do you really enjoy?

Trust me on this – Pringles plain potato chips, and iceberg lettuce.

Take a leave of torn lettuce and put it between the Pringles chip for a tasty sandwich snack.

2. What social stigma does society need to get over?

Just let go of hatin’ on all the gays and the trans – how does any of that affect you?

3. What food have you never eaten but would really like to try?

Fugu fish which is lethally poisonous to humans due to its tetrodotoxin, meaning it must be carefully prepared to remove toxic parts and to avoid contaminating the meat. Maybe just a bite to ensure I don’t die.

4. What’s something you really resent paying for?

Our ridiculous complex policy charging a fee for concierge trash removal from our front door. I would applaud this if there were an ability to opt out or if I didn’t live on the first floor very near the dumpster – making the whole idea kind of ridiculous.

5. What would a world populated by clones of you be like?

A bit lazy but kind and compassionate with a flair for a zippy joke.

1. Which movie has the best opening scene?

I love that opening from “Raiders of the Lost Ark” where the Paramount logo with the mountain top pans over to the jungle with the same mountain peak.

2. What are the three greatest crime movies of all time?

“The Sting” – a great caper film.

“The Ladykillers” – the Cohen Brothers remake

“The French Connection”

Runner Up: “Bullitt”

3. What film should everyone watch at least once in their life?

“Casablanca.” Get over yourself if you don’t watch old black-and-white films. This one is a gem with great cinematography and a top-notch script, and great acting.

4. What is your feel-good movie of choice?

I always get a bit teary eyed and chocked up watching “Finding Forester.”

5. What do you think is the greatest war film of all time?

“Saving Private Ryan”

1. What’s the worst traffic jam you’ve ever been in?

It is likely a trip back from Fruita, CO, back home to Denver on i-70 on a Sunday afternoon during ski season – traffic backed up west of Silverthorne all the way through the tunnel down to Idaho Springs, inching along at 5 miles an hour. I had to make the trip. Parents are in Fruita, and work beckons. I usually try to plan these trips to return on a Tuesday morning which is usually a traffic joy, but there are times when you just have to bite the bullet and take the miserable version of the trip.

2. What’s your favorite thing to keep you going during traffic jams?

Music. Really loud music almost always works.

3. What is your opinion about honking your vehicle’s horn in traffic?

Only necessary for safety/emergency purposes. Anxious and in a hurry? Honking the horn will not help that.

4. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever witnessed while stuck in traffic?

I used to drive a few times a month from Gunnison, CO, up to Grand Junction for Army Reserves while in college, and invariably on the road north out of Montrose, I would see drivers reading newspapers and magazines placed on their steering wheels. It seemed like it was a thing.

5. What is a traffic sign that does not exist but should?

A series of reminder signs in safety yellow diamonds demonstrating how turn signals/lane change signals work.

1. What’s the worst movie you’ve ever seen?

I have gone back to find the orginial movies for some of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 and can attest that TV’s Frank is correct, Manas, Hands of Fate is the worst.

2. What’s a great song that’s two minutes or less? “Rocky Racoon” by the Beatles. It tells a whole story and creates a great character narrative in about 90 seconds or so.

3. What is the absolute worst band name you can think of?
Well during the punk era I am sure some of the worst names have been used.
But “Puppy Dog Vomit” opens this week at the Paramount.

4. What’s the purest love song you’ve ever heard?
“Silly Love Songs” by Wings

5. What’s a band or artist you got into them late in their career?
I was in my 40s when I got into the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia catalog

You have a putt-putt golf course and get to design/name the first five holes – what are they?

1. Trump’s golf course has a par 17 and comes with a mini golf cart to travel every two feet for the next shot.

2. NRA gun store – a par 75, but you must use an AR-15 to get the ball into the hole.

3. Petting zoo-palooza is An easy par two but you get all distracted because it is filled with adorable baby goats and sheep who just want to cuddle.

4. Comet Ping Pong Pizza – you have to use a ping pong paddle to negotiate the ball through various pizza ingredient diversions.

5. Kayak water ride. You put the ball in a mini kayak then have to float it down a mini river diversion to get to the hole to score.

1. Today’s my birthday – when is yours?

The great part of birth on May 26 hovers near or lands on Memorial Day weekend. It is always a four-day weekend for me.

During the Star Wars era, Dad would load up the family car, and we headed to Denver to watch the original trilogy. I remember my birthday weekend in Denver watching Star Wars: A New Hope (However, it wasn’t referred to as New Hope yet.) We saw it at the Continental Theater on Hampden on the big 70 mm screen, and it was glorious.

2. You’re given a chance to irreversibly rewind time back to the date of your tenth birthday, but you need to decide within the next 30 seconds. Do you do it? Why or why not?

Oh, certainly. To relive the 70s and 80s all over again and be given a redo – absolutely sign me up.

3. What’s the worst birthday gift you ever got?

Nothing really comes to mind but probably from my grandma. She gave odd, overly practical, no-fun gifts.

4. When people sing happy birthday to you, what are you supposed to do?

I clap along, as it is probably uncomfortable for many other folks singing along.

5. You have the genie wish granted that allows you to fill the pinata with whatever you want – what is in the pinata?

Cash. Tons and tons of cash in large denominations.

1. Without saying your city’s name, what is your city’s best band or artist?

Most famous current – probably Nathaniel Ratcliff
Most famous – Phillip Bailey (Earth Wind & Fire)

2. What is your favorite one-hit-wonder song?

“Let it out (Let it all hang out)” – The Hombres

3. When you walk into a room, what theme song should start playing?

The Dick Van Dyke Show theme song.

4. What food aren’t you eating even if it was free?

Haggis

5. What’s your favorite card game?

A family card game called Nine Square. When the family gathers this game is usually ongoing and playing all the time l

1. What is the best time travel movie?

“Time After Time” H. G. Wells uses his time machine to pursue Jack the Ripper into the 20th century.

2. What’s the most terrifying movie you ever watched?

I am not much of a horror movie fan but, I went into “The Salem Witch Project” at a packed movie theater having known nothing about the film, and it scared my socks off.

3. What are your favorite movies of the 21st century?

I have mentioned this on the blog before. but I was quite taken by the Banshees of Inisherin. A quite charming quiet film.

4. What are your favorite Gene Wilder movies?

Dr. Frankenstein and The Frisco Kid.

5. If your life was a movie, what would it be like?

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

This week we are leveraging the “Colbert Questionnert”

1. Best sammich?
Lono will agree – Jerry’s Philly’s Cheesesteak joint down on Lincoln and Oswego. Now closed, but this man was indeed a sammich artist and had a love of crafting a perfect sammich in every bite. And he would talk and entertain as he made his hot beef and cheese concoction.

2. Apples or oranges?
Default to apples, but I really like oranges, but they mess up my blood sugar.

3. First concert
Stella Parton performed at the Ride ‘n Tie Days rodeo in Craig, Colorado, when I was about 9 years old.

As an adult – The Rolling Stones at Folsom Field in Boulder in 1981.

4. Ever asked someone for their autograph?
Yes, Al Franken when he was visiting our building when I worked at a newspaper in Denver. He was a college friend of our building owner who also owned Journal Graphics that did transcriptions of CNN in the old days Al was studying the coverage of the O.J . trial and visited, and I had a chance to meet him and get an autograph.

5. What happens when we die?
Worm food, then you turn into a dog.