20 posts tagged “qotd”

What's the best April Fools' Day prank you've ever had pulled on you?
Courtesy of Team Vox.

The only one I can think about right now is this one. Man, I was PISSED.

Did you shop for great deals on Black Friday or Cyber Monday?  Or did you observe Buy Nothing Day?

Black Friday was indisputably a bust.

Spurred on by a television commercial she had seen only once, advertising a laptop for $229, Wendy began a Thanksgiving-day-long crusade to convince me to queue up with the rest of the maniacs at Best Buy at 4:00 AM. At some point during the day, drunk on tryptophan and commerce, she determined that the best way to do this would be to never go to bed. We would stay up, in her determination, playing Apples to Apples until about 3:00, then head over to the mall. Try as I might to disabuse her of this idea, she remained Wendy, which means that pretty much anyone can talk her into anything except old Harith.

During the course of our evening hangouts, our friends were able to convince Wendy that this might not be the best idea. Special thanks to Stu, who suggested that Wendy consider the potential for bodily injury, and Mackey, who brought up the possibility of automobile accident in the parking lot.

I'm not going to lie -- we need a new computer, really, really badly, and this was a ridiculously good deal. But as with most things, it wasn't meant to be.

Tim, who is in fact a maniac, was in line at 4:00, and informed us at 6:30, when he finally was able to pay and leave, that the laptops were already spoken for by the time he had arrived. The man who was first in line had apparently been there since 8:45 on Thanksgiving morning. I envisioned some poor, embattled wife bringing this jerk Thanksgiving dinner in a Tupperware container. This is, needless to say, not my scene.

Waking, fully rested, around 9:00 on Black Friday morning, Wendy and I decided that our need for a computer was in fact great, and that we would go see, just see, what regular sales were going on. We loaded up and, like hip hop, went were the people were going: the mall.

The scene can only be described as weird. We got a really good parking spot, perhaps because we were so early. Inside, the mall was packed with dutiful consumers, as might be expected, but the place was eerily quiet, like we were in the eye of the storm. Madness raged around us, but we were strangely calm.

At Best Buy, we were told by an uncomfortable member of the Geek Squad, whose vast skills do not extend to salesmanship, that there were no regular sales going on. He then proceeded to try to sell us an $850 Sony which, while apparently a good machine, we could buy any day of the year. I managed to extricate us by saying that we were going to "look around some more." Wendy and I agreed that there would probably be a good sale before Christmas, and we'd keep our eyes open.

We proceeded down to H&M, which was sold out of the new messenger bag I wanted, and then had lunch.

When Wendy met up with her mom, aunt, and cousin Amy for Lady Shopping, we recounted our day's tribulations, noting that in years previous, we would have been so committed to the idea of buying something, we probably would have gone home with the $850 laptop. Said Amy, "Wow, guys... that's growth."

What are your Major League Baseball playoff predictions?

Predictions? No, more like pipe dreams.

As always I would like to see the Yankees not fucking choke and actually make it to the series. In order for this to happen, I'm pretty sure the Angels have to take the Red Sox, because I'm a lot more comfortable with the Yankees' chances against the Angels. Most likely, whatever happens the Yankees will choke somewhere along the line. Probably not against the Indians, but it's possible.

On the National League side of things, everyone's pretty evenly matched and I'm not emotionally invested in any of the teams. I would, however, give anything to see the Cubs in the series, most especially if it was a Cubs/Yankees series. This is where my plan indisputably falls apart. If they make it past the Diamondbacks (really, really hope so) they have to then beat either the Phillies or the Rockies, neither a really promising situation. The fingers are crossed, but not very crossed.

What game are you really good at?

It turns out, totally inexplicably, that candlepin bowling is my sporte.

What television show stands the test of time?

I previously alluded to this fact: I spent all weekend sitting on my couch, watching Batman: The Animated Series. And it was a three-day weekend.

This thing is ill. I mean, it is ridiculous. I remember at the time thinking it was "awesome," but I was ten (sidenote: at one point, I noticed the copyright date at the end of an episode and realized that these came out 15 years ago, and I'm fucking old) and not in any position to appreciate the artistry behind it.

The show, introduced after the success of the two Tim Burton Batman movies, draws from aspects of Burton's design and combines them, to great effect, with the old Max Fleischer Superman cartoons. The result is this amazingly stylized mix of film noir, Art Deco, and classic comics that pretty much completely revolutionized television animation. The music is literally not to be believed: every character has a leitmotif, most episodes have their own recurring theme, and everything is recorded by a damn orchestra. The whole thing takes on a much more serious tone than any cartoon I had encountered previously (I grew up on Superfriends) and, even at the time, I think we could all tell that for once we were not being spoken down to, and it was refreshing. 

Clowns: delightful or terrifying?

I've just finished watching four episodes of Batman: The Animated Series (the greatest television cartoon of all time), including "Joker's Favor," one of my favorite episodes when I was a kid. So I'm going to say delightfully terrifying.

What do you have, what do you need and what do you want?
Submitted by Miss Scotch.

I've been seriously blocked on entries for a while, for some reason, so I decided to do a nice light Question to maybe try to kick start the thing.

So, I'm going to do this list style:

I have kind of a headache. I didn't eat breakfast (I never eat breakfast) which was a mistake as always. I decided a better use of my time would be to load the new Rilo Kiley album on my iPod this morning, a decision with which I am exceedingly happy, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm hungry. I'm heading to NYC tonight after work for a Fire Flies show, so whatever I do about lunch has to last at least until 8:00 pm, probably more like 9:00. That's a lot of pressure, especially since I really just want a slice of pizza.

I need time and money to start just, you know, appearing. The Rev is winding up for our next release, Dala by Ashley Pond, which is coming up surprisingly soon. The CD will be available on September 25 with a release party on October 6. Between now and then is the clamoring for a press kit, a listening party, and other general preparations. So, in terms of what I would need to make this wish a reality, I could do with a mastery over space and time. That way, I could really take my time on preparations, and I imagine I would be able to parlay this gift into some sort of moneymaking endeavor.

I want a Mac. So, so much.

What was the last wedding you went to?  Were you in the wedding?

Yeah, this is pretty weird.

The last wedding I went to, I suspect, was Chris Graham's, last November? I'll feel pretty awful if I've forgotten one. But the reason why this is strange is that I'm gearing up for Thom and Lacy's big day this Saturday. This is not the only evidence that there are weird vibrations in the air, man.

People do many different things to cope with stress, loss, and "bumps in the road". How do you handle stress and hard times? 
Submitted by RedlyGal. 

It's weird that this question comes today, as last week was extremely trying by any standard, especially coming in the middle of an extremely happy and stress-free summer. With the death of a close friend of Wendy's last weekend and the end of a particularly troubling business arrangement late in the week, I found myself falling back on some road-tested coping mechanisms.

If it's true that no man is an island, then this man is the middle of Kansas. In the face of hard times, my first defense is people. The best way for me to work out what precisely my problems are and the best tack for dealing with them is to talk it over with my most trusted advisers. There was a time when I threw a much wider net over the people with whom I would share my problems, but as years moved on, I got a little more private and now choose to stay a bit closer to home. This is really the problem-solving step. Everything else is just an attempt to calm down, which is actually a bit silly, as you might imagine.

In the realm of relaxation, nothing beats a movie for me. Going to the movies is best, Netflix is also great. In the case of last week's travails, I had The Simpsons Movie to look forward to. It was excellent. The landscape is somewhat barren for the rest of the summer, but then Oscar season starts. I also spent a lot of last week watching trailers.

Reading is another good way to alleviate stress, not only because I love it so much, but also because you really feel like you're accomplishing something. As you all know, last week's reading was all about one thing, and I am glad to report that I finished reading Harry Potter last Friday (before learning even the smallest detail of the plot). It was awesome.

And clearly, what would any problem be without a suitably angsty soundtrack. The best music depends on the problem you're dealing with, of course: if your car breaks down, listening to Cat Power is maybe a little excessive. Last week was actually a fairly musical one: Tom and I went to the studio to listen to rough mixes of his album, I got my hands on a copy of the forthcoming Sense Offenders record (#*!&*@%), and (single, but powerful, tear), Saturday night was Five Alpha Beatdown's last show of all time ever, and they finally released their album Hello We Are Five Alpha Beatdown From Iceland. These three were more than enough to hold me. In the in-between moments, I was listening to the usual assortment of Elliott Smith, Bright Eyes, and Kevin Hume. I've also been digging on the Peter Bjorn & John CD a whole lot.

Finally, for good measure, we had grilling on Saturday. If all else fails, fucking grill some meat and eat it.

What are five things that most people don't know about you? 
Submitted by mika.

I love things like this, but then I feel so much pressure to come up with something interesting. I'm pretty open and not all that deep, so I feel like people already know the necessities. I'll try to go for some more obscure stuff.

1. I learned to knit in an hour in the cafe at Borders. This was only the basic mechanics of knitting -- I still can't purl -- but I learned enough to make Wendy a scarf for our first anniversary, the ultimate goal of the endeavor. My dutiful teacher and hipster spirit animal Katie set me well on my way quickly (we met before my shift started that day) and told me that it would probably take a while, and when I thought I was done, to keep going. I took her word on it. Two weeks later, I called her to tell her I thought I was done, and could she please show me how to tie it off. Imagine Katie's surprise when I handed over the seven-foot-long scarf. As it turns out, I knit faster than she expected. Wendy loved it. There are pictures from when I gave it to her.
2. I like the idea of having a regular drink, but I just love too many of them. I mean, it would be cool, in theory, to have a drink associated with you. But, when you think about it, why limit yourself? When I first turned 21, I was a rum and Coke man, having not yet discovered beer. Soon, though, it was all over. During the winter I drink a lot of Johnny Walker Black. Gin and tonics, vodka tonics, and Cape Cods are good when it's hot out and you're thirsty. And beer, of course- I can't even settle on one beer. Never mind wine. You see my problem. They're all so delicious!
3. I have the following up in my cube presently: Three fliers from shows this year, a single panel from Calvin and Hobbes, a single panel from Achewood, the article about Karen's coat from the Times, my summer reading list with two checkmarks (way behind as I didn't factor in Harry Potter and I was suddenly struck with the desire to re-read Fight Club), and two photos from our visit to New York last fall, which were the only set of pictures on my hard drive at work.
4. I used to get "Be Our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast stuck in my head all the time. Here's the breakdown: for the entire three years that I worked in the cafe at Borders, I would constantly realize that I had been singing "Be Our Guest" in my head. When I realized, I never had any idea how long it was going on, or why it started. I wouldn't be able to shake it. Next night, same thing. I would generally notice while I was washing the dishes, but I knew that it had been going on already. Since I left Borders, I have rarely, if ever at all, thought about this song. I will probably never unlock the secret to this mystery.
5. I'm turning a quarter-century this Sunday. Actually, everyone knows this. I'm pretty excited.

Wendy noted that it was too bad I already gave away a pretty good fact that almost no one knows.