This thing pt 3: This Thing's Revenge
Brandon gave me: TETRIS, SUPER-VILLIANY, TV, TOYS, HE-MAN, DOING-STUPID-BUT-FUN-THINGS AND BATMAN
Sylvia gave me: action figures, BATMAN, board games, cats, doinging stupid but fun things, legos, zombies
AJ gave me: cats, electricity, perfect strangers, he-man, transformers, legos, meat
Erin gave me: action figures, board games, cats, electricity, meat, perfect strangers, zombies
So, since most of those are doubles, I'll just do 1 big thing of it! Hooray! Might as well go in alphabetical order and everything. No need to go crazy here.
1. Action figures: when I was a very little kid (like 2-6 or so) I had a lot of He-Man action figures. My mom sold them. I had, as near as I can figure, about 60 or so of them. When I was 9, I got a bunch of TMNT, which I gave (most of them) away to a cousin who was younger and realyl enjoyed them. SInce then, I've been trying to re-find all my lost toys, plus I have several hundred other figures which make up the bulk of the decorations in the apartment/my old bedroom. They are awesome, look cool, and are wicked fun to play with.
2. Batman: Batman is the greatest super hero ever. Yes, I used the term SUPER hero. Not just hero. He's actually not my #1 hero, but he's a close second. Plus, he's got the best villains.
3. Board games: another thing that fills up a good chunk of my down time. I even created one! It's fun! I mostly prefer competetive games (Risk, Settlers, Zombies!!!, etc). Also, I would drop pretty much anything else I'm doing to play a good game of Scrabble.
4. Cats: cats are probably my favorite animal, and definitely my favorite pet-animal. The greatest cat who ever lived is Cuddles L. Thompson, who was my cat for 19 years. Zombie and Dagon are tied for second. I just like the great diversity in cat attitudes (or cattitudes) that I've seen in most cats (at least those I've gotten to know). They know they're better than us, and usually they are right.
5. Doing stupid-but-fun things: by this I mean things typically I do with Brent, usually at the university. Things like tossing a large, stuffed aligator off a balcony, or tossing a mummified pumpkin off a balcony, or having a cake fight in the office. Things that are done purely because they are senseless fun. Can't be beat.
6. Electricity: a lot of the things I do involve electrcity. I am really big on lights and cold-storage for food. Computers and Nintendos would be paper-weights without it. Thanks a bunch, electricity!
7. He-Man: He-Man was one of my first tv based obsessions. I had a lot of them. Beyond that, He-Man is greatly connected to one of the best Christmas memories ever. The big thing with He-Man though is that, despite the fact that the show is pretty bad, it still is just as good as it was when I watched it as a 3 year old. I can still sit down and watch literally hours of He-Man at a time. Go Filmation.
8. Legos: one of the greatest toys ever made. It requires imagination (at least old lego sets did... you know, when it was just "bunch of mixed lego pieces"). Lego can be anything and anything can be lego. Good times.
9. Meat: I'd be dead without meat. I tried a meatless week once - it was awful. Thanks all you cows, chickens and pigs for keeping me around. You guys rock/are delicious.
10. Perfect Strangers: this is probably my all-time favorite TV show. It was something I watched all the time when it was first on (one of 3 shows that was a regular with me and my dad along with the Raccoons and Father Dowling Mysteries), but unlike most of the shows I did that with in the 80s, it is still awesome (I can't tolerate ALF anymore, though it pretty much defined my life for about 5 years). "Standing Tall" is probably the best theme song ever written. I challenge you to name a better one. Now I do the dance of joy.
11. Super-Villainy: for the most part villains are better than heroes. They just have more meat to their characters, plus they can do whatever they want. When we used to play "super-hero" when I was little, I would either be Super-James (my heroic alter-ego), or a plethora of characters from the "Villain's League." Evil James was a good one of those... I was terrible at naming things then... Either way, to this day, given the choice, I would much rather be a villain than a hero. Way more fun.
12. Tetris: the best video game ever created. It takes a surprising amount of skill to actually do well at it ("well" being entirely defined by "better than whoever else you are playing with"). My sister rented this when I was 6 or 7, and I totally slaughtered everyone in my family at it. To date, this is the only game I've been consistantly good at (in terms of competition).
13. Toys: for most of this, see the first entry on "action figures." However, other toys are fun too. I pretty much like playing with things and toys fill that niche rather well.
14. Transformers: some of the best toys have been Transformers (another show which is still just as good as it was originally). I love the original show, I love both movies, but most of the other series' have sucked. Optimus Prime is one exception to the rule of "villains being better." However, Starscream is still better than Optimus, but only by a little. Starscream was actually almost the name of my cat.
15. TV: TV is another thing that made me what I am today. Don't get me wrong here: I went outside a LOT as a child, along with reading, school, etc (the usual kid things), but I watched a LOT of tv too. And it was all for the better. I am highly useful in remembering ridiculous facts that most people don't bother retaining. Can't remember the way that theme song went? I'm your man.
16. Zombies: the name I DID give my cat (well, Zombie). I have loved b-movies since late elementary school (since I saw Army of Darkness, basically) and my favorite of those is zombie movies. Yes, they are usually the same basic plot, but I don't care. I love those shambling, mindless, painfree eating-machines that are the undead. Yes, it's very easy to run away from a zombie, but the problem is you will get tired - they won't stop til they are completely destroyed (or at least until their brain is). And that's assuming there's only one zombie... which there almost never is. Plus, 'World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie Wars' was one of the best novels I've read in years. Kudos, zombies!
I'M FINISHED!