The Riddle of Steel

[swashbuckler332]

Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis, and the warming of the globe, there was an age undreamed of where shining countries lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars. And unto this, Arnold, destined to bear the jeweled crown of California upon a troubled brow, tread the jeweled gubernatorial seats of the Earth under his sandaled feet. It is I, his chronicler, who alone can tell thee of his saga...




Let me tell you of the days of high adventure!

The "Check Engine Soon" light on The Executor came on, and this weekend she started rumbling at around 60 miles per hour - a sound which got exponentially louder the faster I went. The former turned out to be nothing (the computer needs to be reset every couple thousand miles or so), the latter is because of the tires, which I'm having replaced as it was too damn loud, I had to turn up the music real loud to cover it. Besides, if something did go wrong with the car, I wouldn't necessarily be able to tell with the entire car vibrating into the eight dimension like that. I'm just glad that it was not a serious problem with a car I bought a little over two months ago.

Tagged by revolos55:

Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 16 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 16 people to be tagged.

As usual, I don't tag people. If you feel like doing it yourself, do it.

1. I had curly hair when I was a child (yes, I looked like a cherub). My mother gave me a haircut, and it's been wavy ever since.
2. I have some sort of mild OCD that effects my handwriting. I fill in my letters.
3. When my grandfather first installed Windows 3.1 on his computer way back in the day, he thought that because I am left-handed, it would be easier for me to use the mouse if it was to the left of the keyboard. Of course, his was the only computer I have ever come across upon which the mouse was on the left side. I am therefore one of the few people I know who are mousebidextrous.
4. I almost always prefer analog readouts to digital ones, whether it be a clock face, speedometer or a Sidekick meter.
5. Every New Year, Art comes up and asks me:Conan! What is best in life!?!
   ...to which I respond (in the appropriate voice):To crush your enemies, see them driven before you and to hear the lamentations of their women.
   This is invariably immediately followed by a reprise of the question, to which I respond:To bash down trees and hear the lamentations of the apples!
   This is a tradition started by Raz, who one New Year went on a rant that lasted about five minutes and had Art and I on the floor laughing so hard we couldn't breathe. Unfortunately, not one of us can remember a word of what he said that night.
6. I periodically re-try foods that I have not liked in the past in case my tastes have changed enough to start including them. The food that has been reclaimed from my apathy have included horseradish and sweet potatoes.
7. I hate sauerkraut and cole slaw with a fiery passion equal to a thousand suns - which may make me one of the few Jews on the planet that does.
8. If you ever hear me say "We'll throw food at them," it is a reference to a something Frankie said when I worked at Tower Records. The full statement was, "It's gonna be the fuckin' best! There'll be naked chicks there! We'll throw food at them!" This comment became a part of the Tower lexicon, and it sometimes comes out involuntarily.
9. I first became interested in filmmaking because of a book my father got for me one Christmas about Industrial Light and Magic. Ironically, my interest in special effects was established during the transition from analog to digital. I have nothing against CGI, I think it is a useful tool... but I just don't find stories about finding the right algorithm to mimic airbrushing techniques for skin texture as interesting as ">PFFT< The shark is not working! >PFFT< Repeat: the shark is not working!" However, that interest led me to be fascinated by the technical aspects of film, which, has persisted to this day.
10. I do not understand how anybody who has had a third-grade education can't understand the proper use of an apostrophe.
11. I am a huge pizza snob. I've tasted what people outside of New York call "pizza," it's bread with stuff on it.
12. I have a pet peeve about non-fiction films like Apollo 13 (which I otherwise like very much) depicting sound in space. In fact, I have found in the few cases in science fiction where the silence of space is accurately portrayed - 2001: A Space Odyssey, Firefly/Serenity - to have been extremely effective dramatically.
13. Genre is one of my favorite topics with respect to film because it is so layered and intricate. I enjoy dissecting a film to determine how it works on both the semantic and syntactic levels (i.e. Alien is semantically science-fiction but syntactically it is a horror film). It is annoying to me that genre, a study of the mechanics of a narrative is so often confused with the basic categories you find a movie in at the video store.
14. The city of Boston seems to hate me. It tried to kill my Toyota, The Zen Room twice, and it succeeded the second time. It also re-arranges itself geographically to confound me. I have witnesses.
15. My family has several movie-related rituals. We watch Young Frankenstein religiously, Die Hard is our Christmas movie and Trading Places is for the New Year.
16. I am not the cable guy from the Verizon FIOS commercial.