hatman | (no subject)

Comment on this post and I will choose seven interests from your profile and ask you to explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along.

alliegee asked me about...

1.) bunzleberry pie

Remember the movie Toy Story? Well, Disney made a cartoon spin-off series, as Disney is wont to do. It was called Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, and it was all about Buzz's adventures as a Space Ranger, foiling the plots of Evil Emperor Zurg. Of course, they had to expand the cast, so Buzz works with a mixed group of rookie rangers with various abilities. One of them, Booster, is a giant lovable super-strong egg-shaped red alien who left his peaceful little farm to pursue his dream of being a Space Ranger. Booster's favorite food (so good it's completely irresistible) is... bunzleberry pie. (Preferably homemade, by his mother, from fresh bunzleberries, which grow on bushes near the farm.)

I liked the show. Booster's a big goof. And bunzleberry pie just sounds like something I'd like to try, one of these days. And I like having silly, obscure things in my interests list.

2.) bioluminescence

The ability of certain living organisms to generate light. Fireflies. Glowing moss. Angler fish. Certain other deep sea creatures (including a couple species of squid). It's cool. And they're doing stuff with it now. They spliced some of those glowing fish genes into lab mice and made glowing mice. Over in Ohio State University, they're using the glowing mice to study cancer.

Also, I once came up with this crazy idea (which became an offhand joke in the epilogue of "The Alt-Clark Letters") to splice some of those genes into a pine tree, making a self-lighting Christmas tree. :)

3.) clowns

I like clowns. They're silly. And fun. I totally don't get people who are scared of them. And my first journal used a clown's name. Because I like to clown around, and use that as my outer persona whenever I can get away with it.

4.) macguyverisms

Apparantly, I misspelled this, but... oh well. MacGyver (no "u") was a TV show about the ultimate nerd hero. He knew the science of everything and used it to stop bad guys and escape from death traps. Looking back, the show wasn't actually that good, and, more than anything, Mac made things go boom. But I loved it at the time. And I love the idea of it. Armed only with a swiss army knife and a more than encyclopedic knowledge, Mac could turn anything into anything else. And he'd explain it in a voiceover (with the show's theme music in the background) as he worked. How he was scraping out the inside of the bike frame because it was usually lined with magnesium powder, which, under the right circumstances, could make a hot, sustainable flame (that was where, needing to rescue someone out of the back of a sealed armored car, he turned a bike into an impromptu blowtorch). Fans of the show gave those crazy stunts the name "MacGyverisms," and there was at least one in every episode.

I wanted to be MacGyver. I went to MIT with, on some level, the intention of learning how. I was going to set up a seminar with guest speakers teaching various random skills, and I was going to call it "MacGyver 101."

It's just neat. The epitome of engineering, in a way. It's like Batman, except he builds things and he doesn't have a costume and he hates violence.

Mac, BTW, was played by Richard Dean Anderson, who went on to play Col Jack O'Neill in Stargate SG-1. Mac knew everything about everything, tended to take things seriously, absolutely refused to use a gun, opposed the use of force in general, and would always shake his hand in pain after throwing a punch. Jack was... exactly the opposite in every possible way.

5.) ninjas with nametags

This is a little something I thought up that amused me. I decided it would make a fun random little thing to put on the interests lists. Basically, it's like this... Ninjas are supposed to be deadly assassins. People who have trained their whole lives with that very purpose in mind. And yet, they always fail. The good guy kicks their butts by the dozen, even if he's only trained for a couple of years (or less!). Why? Because he's a named character, and they're faceless cannon fodder.

You see it in the movies. You see it in the comic books. You see it in video games.

Elektra, a comic book character originally from DareDevil, was a girl who did martial arts training as a hobby. Her father died, she put on a costume, and... *poof* she could take on a room full of ninja assassins. In an ironic twist, she ended up becoming the leader of The Hand, the deadliest group of ninjas in the Marvel Universe. (The good guys can still kick their butts by the dozen, but they actually get hurt doing it.)

Ninjas have the training, the skills, and the reputation. And if they're allowed to work off-screen or off-panel, or at least in an area without a named character, they can be very effective. Now, a single, named ninja like Elektra can be a threat. A team with identifiable members (like the Ninja Turtles) can be very effective. The only thing stopping the mobs from being what they should be is that they come in faceless, nameless mobs.

Solution? Give them nametags. A generic ninja, dressed head to toe in black, is nothing. One hit, and he's out of the fight. Give him a name, and suddenly he's able to trade punches on equal footing. A whole mob of deadly shadow warriors, each with his (or her) own nametag hanging off the stealth suit, would be unstoppable. (And kind of funny to look at. In a deadly and intimidating way.)

6.) golden retrievers

Sweet, lovable, loving, soft, intelligent, fun, proper-sized dogs. I've had one golden or another all my life. (Well, my first dog was only half golden.) They're great family dogs. They deserve more of an explanation than the ninjas with nametags (which are, when you get down to it, a throwaway gag), but there isn't anything more I can say. They're just awesome. Best dogs in the world.

7.) other stuff

What can I say? I like stuff. I like all the random things in my interests list. But, besides, that, I also like other stuff. There's a lot of cool stuff I forgot to put in, and some I had to take out because I hit the maximum. And, really, no matter how good the list, there's always other stuff out there. Stuff is spiffy and all, but you've always got to remember that there's other stuff, too.

** You can comment and I'll ask about 7 of your interests, or you can just ask me about any of my interests if you want!**

In other news...

I've checked out that list of books from that meme that's been going around. I've read (unless I messed up the count), 19 of them. Many because I had to, for school. Some because I actually wanted to. I choose not to name them at this time, but I will mention that I thoroughly believe that there is a reason for the expression "hurts like the Dickens." And a certain other book I once read was (sorry if you enjoyed it - I know someone on my flist was talking about it a while ago) re-voltaire-ing.

But those are, for whatever reason, classics. I don't know how they came up with this list (I think someone mentioned, somewhere), but there are some really questionable things on it. "The DaVinci Code"? Okay if you enjoyed it. I'm sure it was an entertaining read. But is it really the kind of thing to make people go read? To hold up as an example of what people should be reading? Especially now that the fad has passed?

That's the one that jumped out at me most, but there are others I'd question. Which is another reason not to do the meme. I'd end up rambling on about too many things on the list...

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Date: 2008-07-05 11:26 am (UTC)

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