Take 26

I tagged myself with this lil' diversion while reading Bill and co. over at the Film Freak Central blog. The idea is to list 26 of your favorite movies with one (and only one) movie to represent each letter of the alphabet.

Certain of these were really tough (I seem to like a lotta movies that start with the letters A, D, R and S). Others were nearly impossible (movies starting with Q, U, X and Y haven't been particularly memorable entertainments in my life).

Anyhoo, here's what I decided on (inclined this time toward stuff I'd choose to watch again in the present, where every day I'm a little less interested in surrendering additional hours to a screen; some of my favorites I've seen enough times by now, but a few seem perennial):

Aviator, The
Blade Runner
Christmas Story, A
Dead Calm
Ed Wood
Flirting With Disaster
Groundhog Day
Hairspray (original)
Ice Storm, The
Jude
Kill Bill, Volume 1
Leaving Las Vegas
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Outlaw Josey Wales, The
Passion Fish
Quick and the Dead, The
Ravenous
Se7en
Tale of Two Sisters, A
Uncle Buck
Vanishing, The (Spoorloos)
Waking The Dead
X-Men 3 (I like when Wolvie can't get close to Jean)
You've Got Mail (I like when Tom can't get close to Meg)
Zodiac

If you wanna play, consider yourself tagged!

Nurse & Patient

Falling fast toward terminus 2008, I'm seeing this year as one of dreams come true.

I finished a novel.

I found a partner.

I started a band.

This last with my friend Rudy, who handles guitars while I drum and sing. We've written almost 30 songs together, and now we're in the process of narrowing down our list for an album of 10 tracks (my preference) or 14 (Rudy's) that rock and roll best.

Our collaboration's called Nurse & Patient: founded this summer after mutual job resignation, deepened through tumultuous relationships and breakups, and culminating with a month-long push to lay down recordings of what we've created so far.

Here's a small taste of what's on the way from us:

Love and Laughter

Some might say I had an unfortunate experience with internet dating. So I wouldn't necessarily recommend anyone sign up for, say, Lavalife (though some close friends met their wives and husbands there), or Plenty of Fish (ditto), and especially not Love Is Sexy (which I believe features bogus photos of non-existent members, all exceptionally good-looking and unable to reply to your solicitations unless copywriters happen to be working the day you initiate a virtual courtship - which is ironic for me, because one day not so long ago I was supposed to interview for a job there [the real reason I signed up to check it out - no, really!]; if you sign up as well, and do decide to leave, be prepared to spend months trying to convince their 'tech support' to remove you from all 1,200 mailing lists you've already been subscribed to).

Ahem.

I don't think I've ever sounded this bitchy on Mini Nerd before.

And make no mistake, this blog is no place for venting.

Here at Mini Nerd we like to entertain.

So do the folks at Mingle2, a "100% free online dating website run by a couple of guys from San Francisco", who create amusing content to promote their service. I'm not posting to suggest you sign up, mind. I want to show you the funny stuff.

Such as the following, available from the already-amusing URL http://divisibleby0.com/murder/:





There's lots more of this goofery available through the aforementioned link, all of it perpetrated by the talented Matthew Inman. I don't know the guy, but I like his sense of humor. And who knows? Maybe you'll find someone worthy of matrimony at his dating site. In the meantime, there are chuckles to be had.



Oh, and if I were to recommend an internet-assisted method for meeting the right person, as I did for my friend Sami this week, it would be this one: Meetup.com

So thanks to Mike for getting me started there,
And thanks to Dan for the Matthew Inman link,
And thanks to Guy for what may turn out to be the most rewarding hike of my life.

(I jumped the gun on Post #200. It's actually this one. But there really are only 32 left.)

Poetic Justice?

You decide.

(Thanks to Curtis for the pic.)

(And welcome to Post #200! Only 32 more to go...)

Turn To Page 23

Long ago, it took my mother serious effort to wean me off 'gamebooks' and start me on proper novels. I wasn't ready for stories where you turned the pages in order, there were no dice to roll, no mazes to draw your way through, nor multiple pathways and endings to explore via the time-honored cheating method of using all eight fingers and two thumbs to mark places in the book/adventure where you might die or survive.

That is to say, when Choose Your Own Adventure morphed into Be An Interplanetary Spy and Fighting Fantasy, I'd found my favorite childhood pastimes - wandering through works of the imagination as if the very narratives were geographies you could set foot in.

Now.

In addition to the Fighting Fantasy collection being the greatest books of all time, they also boasted the finest titles in history. The formula was airtight and magnificent. Examples include:

Forest of Doom
Armies of Death
Caverns of Malice
Masks of Mayhem
Portal of Evil
Master of Chaos
Tower of Destruction
House of Hell
Creature of Havoc

...and so on. You get the idea. Pick a threatening location or personage, stick an 'of' after it, and add an aggressive descriptor. It should come as no surprise that our very own F.O.R.G.E. (in the side-nav at right) was deeply influenced by such creative mastery as that leveraged to christen each volume of this landmark series.

Alas. Though I hold my favorite volumes of the Fighting Fantasy canon in high regard, they are not above loving ridicule. That's the best introduction I can muster for the following Photoshop tomfoolery that had me laughing so hard yesterday I almost saw my lungs for the first time - outside my body.

Commence fantastical mirthmaking:

























See the whole set here: Mightygodking Dot Com

And thanks to Dave for the link!

Barney Lives!

Top search terms finding Mini Nerd this week:

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i like nerds like me so lets get together and kill barney or something like that.com
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tubetube
how to dress like a nerd.com
steve reese passes away

A disturbing series of tubes!

Easy Commute

Earlier this year, I enjoyed making my way to work by bicycle.

These days, I utilize three transit systems: bus, train and subway in sequence.

It's really not as bad as I expected. I like having an extra hour to sleep, read and people-watch.

Still: this might be better.



I wonder how the concept of carpooling manifests in this transportation model?

Mech or Treat

No Halloween post from Mini?

No WAY.

This year, I missed Zombie Walk Toronto, but Lynn helped me celebrate my second-most-favoritest holiday a couple days early, before I hadda hurry off for World Fantasy 2008 to spend hours in the Hyatt bar (and related hospitality suites) boozing and schmoozing with fellow writers.

Thanks for the punkin-carvin' and monster-mashin', sweetie. Your willingness to overlook the faults of seminal zombie entertainments could use some refinement, but there are many more movies during which I can do my damnedest to cultivate in you an unconditional love for the undead.

Thanks also to Kim for linking the following video, the viewing of which damn well better spur fathers everywhere to step up their game in helping tykes truly own the night come All Hallows' Eve.