53 posts tagged “qotd”

What's the most famous movie you've never seen? 
Submitted by Mike.

I'd have to say E.T. is the biggest movie from my childhood that I never got to see. My mom thought it'd be too violent/troubling and barred me from seeing it. I think I was 10 or 11 and it was a weird decision because I had seen Rambo movies around that time as well (thanks to my cool uncle and the Rambo flicks did kind of scare me a bit). She also kept the TV off the night that nuclear war thing The Day After played. It was two weird things she really wanted to protect me from, even though I was old enough to handle both of them. E.T. didn't come out on VHS for years afterwards and by then I was a pissed off teenager that didn't care anymore.

In the past ten years I'd say Titanic was the biggest thing I missed. I just never had any desire to see it and then when it got really huge I definitely didn't want to see it. By 2007, it's a badge of honor.

What's the best thing since sliced bread?

Andre Torrez.

What are your top 5 movies/DVDs of 2006?

It's been a fairly forgetful year for movies, at least for me. The films I wanted to see where few and far between and I only saw maybe 2 or 3 in a theater all year (we have got to get a steady babysitter and remedy this). Here are all that I remember (in no particular order):

• Clerks 2: I wish Kevin Smith could grow up and do something funny and human like 40 year old virgin, but he can still write funny scripts. Clerks 2 gets on my list because the climax scene was a wonderful example of absurdist comedy.
• Inconvenient Truth: Al Gore proves he can be funny and interesting and makes a boring downer of a presentation feel great. Nice upbeat "we can do this!" ending instead of what you usually get in a lefty movie (which usually end with "well, the whole system sucks and I have no solution but please think of one").
• Talledega Nights: I would put this up there with Dumb and Dumber as a movie that does stupid so well, it leaps to the other end of the spectrum and reaches brilliance. I'll see anything with Wil Farrel in it, but he has produced a lot of junk in the last couple years. I was fully expecting this to crash and burn but I had a blast. That just happened.
• Little Miss Sunshine was only ho-hum for me. I'll put it on this list because I can't recall anything better. The cast was amazing but I was disappointed that I only laughed twice in two hours (once when the nurse yells KAREN, and the other time when the biker dude gives the family a standing ovation on stage). It was well-acted and touching in many places but the ending could have been much funnier and I think the smart members of the family could have had a lot more funny lines.
  

Is that it? I honestly can't think of anything else. I guess I spent the first the first three months of the year catching up on 2005 Oscar picks, and don't recall much from this year. I have a stack of good 2006 movies from Netflix I need to watch (wordplay, brick, etc) so maybe this list will grow.

What are your top 5 CDs/albums of 2006? 
Submitted by eliz. s.

No particular order and I'm too lazy to look them up on amazon:

• Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins: Rabbit Furcoat (You Are What You Love is a perfect song in every way)
• The Raconteurs: Broken Boy Soldiers (just plain nice rock music)
• The Long Winters: Putting the Days to Bed (ditto)
• JT: Futuresex/Lovesounds (hey, fuck you, it's good)
• Gnarls Barkley: St. Elsewhere (sorry, I'm getting less cool as I get older)
  

What comedian makes you pee your pants laughing?
Submitted by pookieb.

Lately, it's Demetri Martin (whose album I could not download for free on the internets and had to actually pay for at the iTunes store -- though I like supporting good comedy, it was kind of odd since so many free comedy albums are out there).

I guess best comedian of all time would be Bill Hicks. Fuck...if he only lived. I remember him being really crazy and edgy back in '91 but you listen to it now and it practically predicts our present day politics.

I would have loved to see Hicks live through Bush II. My god, the material he could have come up with.

Windows, Mac, Linux - What's your preference and why?
Submitted by ramblingsbymark.

Cray!

What's your dream career? 
Submitted by Something.

• Making money while I sleep.
  
• Farting around online and getting paid for it.
  
• Blogging when the feeling strikes me.
• Writing articles every so often for big publications.
  
• Programming new ideas for my websites.
  
• Speaking at conferences.

Hey! I guess I am living the dream!

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?  Why? 
Submitted by abcdefg81.

I've been asking myself this a lot lately. I've spent my whole life having far-off goals that seemed impossible at first and to my surprise, I've eventually achieved a good deal of them. So while this question may seem far-fetched, I will be working towards it whether I know it or not. I might as well plan ahead.

I really like NYC (in the summer) but I also love perfect year-round weather (you can have the east coast/northern latitude winters). Hawaii is too claustrophobic so I'd say going back to Southern California would probably be it. Somewhere along the coast, probably in the greater San Diego area. It must have a view and be bikeable to the coast.

Actually, I think Sydney, Australia would be my dream address, but it'd be a drag being so far away from everyone I know and having to do 18 hour flights whenever I wanted to see a conference or watch a friend get married.

Do you listen to podcasts?  Are there any you'd recommend? 
Inspired by Alex.

I don't do the gym and I don't commute, so I have no dead time for podcast listening. I still find 43 Folders and Ze Frank's The Show to be worth my full attention, but other than that, nada.

Though earlier this week I took my ~1 hour bike ride loop into the country and loaded up a Future of Web Apps talk I ditched while I was in SF. It actually worked out really well. I heard the entire thing start to finish before my ride was over though on downhills the wind noise would drown out the little ipod headphones. Oh, and in case you were wondering, yes, in Oregon it's actually legal to wear two headphones while riding a bike and since I ride on low-traffic farm roads, it's fairly safe to do it.

What was your very first job? 
Submitted by Laurel.

When I was about 15, I had a string of jobs that I held for three days. It was either my quitting or getting fired. All these jobs were set up by my dad who talked his way into them hirning me. He thought I was lazy and needed to "get off my ass" every summer between years of high school so he took the initiative since I just wanted to ride my bike. It's a blur at this point which one was the first exactly.

I think it might have been working in the back of an italian deli making sandwiches and salads, and doing restaurant cleanup. It was a boring three days and I didn't like having to work from 5pm until 10pm for minimum wage. Making $3.25/hr meant I could afford my own car in about 27 years at that rate. Also, I smelled like grease when it was over from cleaning the entire kitchen out. My dad lied about my age to convince them to hire me, which I didn't like either.

The first job I got on my own was working at a bike shop, which I loved, despite the low pay and crazy boss, since I was surrounded by stuff I loved and people that loved them.