I tried to be strong, but I couldn't resist an interest meme
Vectored via l555l: "Look at your LJ interests list. If you have fewer than 50 interests, pick every fifth one. If you have between 50 and 75, pick every seventh one. If you have more than 75, pick every tenth one. If you have fewer than 10, pick them all. List them on your LJ, and tell everyone exactly what it is about these things that interests you so much."
^_^7
I think the 'caret smiley' is cute, but I never used it much since I am more of winky smiley guy. Then it occurred to me that by adding a 7 to it I could transform it into something I could use when I wanted to indicate embarrassment ('anime-style' embarrassed laughter with one arm behind head). That is handy when you make many mistakes. Plus, I welcome pretty much any excuse to use the number 7.
anne elliot
While I love reading all of Jane Austen's novels, I think Persuasion is my favorite. While Anne Elliot has an admirable maturity and a quiet strength of character, what goes on inside, her gradual reawakening, is what fascinates me most.
bad movies
I like unintentionally entertaining movies. They can be simple B-movies that are fun to examine closely, like Gymkata, or low-budget trainwrecks like The Creeping Terror. As MST3K tried to show on a weekly basis, sometimes what you can bring to the table when viewing a movie is more entertaining than the movie alone.
brick oven pizza
My current stomping grounds seem to be bereft of really good pizza. The best I have been able to find so far is adequate pizza. When I am down visiting in CT, however, I have a lot of options available, with my current favorite being the unpretentious brick-oven yumminess of Roma's in Seymour. My kids aren't nuts about the blackened bits and all, so I often have to forgo the pleasure, however.
clearance racks
While I am forced by circumstance to be frugal, the fact is that I like doing it. I am not an enemy of spending money, just of not getting a good value for what is spent. The fact that I don't have much to spend is just coincidental. ;-)
cosmic wimpout
This game, along with Pass the Pigs (the one where you roll the li'l pig figures), has mysteriously provided continual amusement to my friends and I for quite some time now. I can't explain it.
doingwhatithinkisright
Don'cha love the length limitation on interests? ;-) One place I worked at for 13 years was always redesigning their employee rating forms. At one point they had something that was like a paper-n-pencil RPG character sheet... you had a set of 10-or-so characteristics with a 1-100 rating and a brief text explanation. At the time I also had a manager who gave me a low score on the does-what-he-is-told-to-do attribute and, for the text comment, put something to the effect of, "He always does what he thinks is right." For most of my managers during my time there, that was considered a plus, but not in this case. So, the tool low-balled me on that attribute and slipped it into the rating system without showing it to me, which is, I suppose, what they thought was right. It has always amused me to be tarred with such an epithet, so I didn't mind much when a later manager revealed it to me. In fact, figuring out what I think is right and trying to do it is an interest of mine.
fansubs
I have watched a lot of anime over the years, almost all of which has been fansubbed. It is fun to see very current anime and especially fun to see anime that is unlikely to ever get licensed here (like the oddball Sekushi Commando [torrents] that my brother and I can't get enough of but which no one else seems to appreciate ;-) ). The basic process of fansubbing: someone records a show and encodes it as an avi; someone translates the dialog in the show; someone adds the translation as subtitles to the avi; and someone makes the result available for downloading. Depending on the fansub group, the result might be available not too long after it was originally shown, even. A nice initial place to look for fansubs of unlicensed anime, available via bittorrent, is animesuki.com. If you need video codecs to watch the avi's on Windows, http://packs.matroska.org/ is a good start (lately I have had to add Koepi's XviD for some fansubs to play). You should also get Media Player Classic and make that your default player for video content instead of Windows Media Player... imagine: being able to use the spacebar to pause playback!
gaim
A little multiprotocol, multiplatform, opensource chat client with tabs. I currently use it on both Linux and Windows so I can be logged into AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Google Talk, and Sametime all with one client. With the gaim-encryption plugin my buddies and I have end-to-end encryption of the message bodies, as well, which is a nice touch. See http://gaim.sf.net/
king of the rocketmen
It is actually "rocket men", but I couldn't fit that. This is a fabulous old movie serial ([DVD][VHS]) on so many levels. First of all, the production quality was very, very good for its day. The flying scenes were about as noncheesy as the technology allowed (and were reused many times in subsequent serials). The newspapers that were flashed on the screen were actually filled with plausible articles, not just headlines with gibberish... how did they know I would be freeze-framing it to look at them like 40+ years later, anyway? ;-) The story also hits my unintentionally-amusing button, too. The protagonist, Jeff King, is a scientist whose specialty appears to be two-fisted melee combat. He is very weak on strategy and, while he wins all his individual fights, the evil mastermind pretty much comes out ahead in every single exciting encounter, right up to the climax. And what a climax it is, followed by the most innapproriate show-ending 'laugh moment' it has ever been my pleasure to witness. In Jeff King's defense, at least he didn't spend his time designing staggeringly-destructive devices like some of scientists in the show.
mooninites
I love these completely [and inappropriately] arrogant losers. I am not a big Aqua Teen Hunger Force fan, in general, but I will always be grateful to the show for bringing the 5000-dimensional Mooninites into existence.
popeye
The old Popeye comic strip ([toonpedia] [fansite] [wikipedia]) was great... silly and clever, slapstick and social commentary. I was surprised when I read them (in reprints published by Fantagraphics) since I had always kinda disliked the formulaic Popeye cartoon. Considering how often the character Bluto appears in the cartoon, it is interesting to note that it was in only one week of the strip.
shakespeare on wheels
This was a traveling UMBC production which was discontinued at about the time I moved from the area. Too bad, since it was great fun. The set was stowed on a flatbed trailer which became the main stage when it was set up at the location.
toucan taco
A Laurel, MD restaurant, formerly known as 'Tippy's Taco House'. This write up sums it up pretty well. I loved the food and the atmosphere.
yush
The spelling I usu use of that anime-take on the w00t-use of "yes!"
^_^7
I think the 'caret smiley' is cute, but I never used it much since I am more of winky smiley guy. Then it occurred to me that by adding a 7 to it I could transform it into something I could use when I wanted to indicate embarrassment ('anime-style' embarrassed laughter with one arm behind head). That is handy when you make many mistakes. Plus, I welcome pretty much any excuse to use the number 7.
anne elliot
While I love reading all of Jane Austen's novels, I think Persuasion is my favorite. While Anne Elliot has an admirable maturity and a quiet strength of character, what goes on inside, her gradual reawakening, is what fascinates me most.
bad movies
I like unintentionally entertaining movies. They can be simple B-movies that are fun to examine closely, like Gymkata, or low-budget trainwrecks like The Creeping Terror. As MST3K tried to show on a weekly basis, sometimes what you can bring to the table when viewing a movie is more entertaining than the movie alone.
brick oven pizza
My current stomping grounds seem to be bereft of really good pizza. The best I have been able to find so far is adequate pizza. When I am down visiting in CT, however, I have a lot of options available, with my current favorite being the unpretentious brick-oven yumminess of Roma's in Seymour. My kids aren't nuts about the blackened bits and all, so I often have to forgo the pleasure, however.
clearance racks
While I am forced by circumstance to be frugal, the fact is that I like doing it. I am not an enemy of spending money, just of not getting a good value for what is spent. The fact that I don't have much to spend is just coincidental. ;-)
cosmic wimpout
This game, along with Pass the Pigs (the one where you roll the li'l pig figures), has mysteriously provided continual amusement to my friends and I for quite some time now. I can't explain it.
doingwhatithinkisright
Don'cha love the length limitation on interests? ;-) One place I worked at for 13 years was always redesigning their employee rating forms. At one point they had something that was like a paper-n-pencil RPG character sheet... you had a set of 10-or-so characteristics with a 1-100 rating and a brief text explanation. At the time I also had a manager who gave me a low score on the does-what-he-is-told-to-do attribute and, for the text comment, put something to the effect of, "He always does what he thinks is right." For most of my managers during my time there, that was considered a plus, but not in this case. So, the tool low-balled me on that attribute and slipped it into the rating system without showing it to me, which is, I suppose, what they thought was right. It has always amused me to be tarred with such an epithet, so I didn't mind much when a later manager revealed it to me. In fact, figuring out what I think is right and trying to do it is an interest of mine.
fansubs
I have watched a lot of anime over the years, almost all of which has been fansubbed. It is fun to see very current anime and especially fun to see anime that is unlikely to ever get licensed here (like the oddball Sekushi Commando [torrents] that my brother and I can't get enough of but which no one else seems to appreciate ;-) ). The basic process of fansubbing: someone records a show and encodes it as an avi; someone translates the dialog in the show; someone adds the translation as subtitles to the avi; and someone makes the result available for downloading. Depending on the fansub group, the result might be available not too long after it was originally shown, even. A nice initial place to look for fansubs of unlicensed anime, available via bittorrent, is animesuki.com. If you need video codecs to watch the avi's on Windows, http://packs.matroska.org/ is a good start (lately I have had to add Koepi's XviD for some fansubs to play). You should also get Media Player Classic and make that your default player for video content instead of Windows Media Player... imagine: being able to use the spacebar to pause playback!
gaim
A little multiprotocol, multiplatform, opensource chat client with tabs. I currently use it on both Linux and Windows so I can be logged into AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Google Talk, and Sametime all with one client. With the gaim-encryption plugin my buddies and I have end-to-end encryption of the message bodies, as well, which is a nice touch. See http://gaim.sf.net/
king of the rocketmen
It is actually "rocket men", but I couldn't fit that. This is a fabulous old movie serial ([DVD][VHS]) on so many levels. First of all, the production quality was very, very good for its day. The flying scenes were about as noncheesy as the technology allowed (and were reused many times in subsequent serials). The newspapers that were flashed on the screen were actually filled with plausible articles, not just headlines with gibberish... how did they know I would be freeze-framing it to look at them like 40+ years later, anyway? ;-) The story also hits my unintentionally-amusing button, too. The protagonist, Jeff King, is a scientist whose specialty appears to be two-fisted melee combat. He is very weak on strategy and, while he wins all his individual fights, the evil mastermind pretty much comes out ahead in every single exciting encounter, right up to the climax. And what a climax it is, followed by the most innapproriate show-ending 'laugh moment' it has ever been my pleasure to witness. In Jeff King's defense, at least he didn't spend his time designing staggeringly-destructive devices like some of scientists in the show.
mooninites
I love these completely [and inappropriately] arrogant losers. I am not a big Aqua Teen Hunger Force fan, in general, but I will always be grateful to the show for bringing the 5000-dimensional Mooninites into existence.
popeye
The old Popeye comic strip ([toonpedia] [fansite] [wikipedia]) was great... silly and clever, slapstick and social commentary. I was surprised when I read them (in reprints published by Fantagraphics) since I had always kinda disliked the formulaic Popeye cartoon. Considering how often the character Bluto appears in the cartoon, it is interesting to note that it was in only one week of the strip.
shakespeare on wheels
This was a traveling UMBC production which was discontinued at about the time I moved from the area. Too bad, since it was great fun. The set was stowed on a flatbed trailer which became the main stage when it was set up at the location.
toucan taco
A Laurel, MD restaurant, formerly known as 'Tippy's Taco House'. This write up sums it up pretty well. I loved the food and the atmosphere.
yush
The spelling I usu use of that anime-take on the w00t-use of "yes!"