Friday, March 21, 2008

Another little list

Here are a few things I know something about:

  • Dungeons and Dragons, first and second editions, and lots of fantasy literature pre-2000.
  • cooking
  • early jazz, 1917-1950. Dixieland, hot jazz, swing, big band, thanks. Be-bop confuses and frightens me.
  • Crappy but fantastic science fiction television shows from the 80'd and 90's. I particularly like Quantum Leap, Star Trek: the Next Generation (mmm...Riker....), and Probe, which I only vaguely remember, but which to this day I will tell you was one of my favorite childhood TV shows. Please don't ask me to summarize a plot.
  • A teensy smattering of the following scientific-type ideologies: evolutionary biology (including the utterly fascinating insular evolution), basic chemistry and it's high-falutin' cousin, analytical chemistry, microbiology, human anatomy and physiology, and just enough physics to keep me upright and mobile. I also know how to find and cite sources for these.
  • The major design characteristics of Ceil Chapman, Emma Domb, and Elsa Schiaparelli.
  • Seminal bands of our current state of American popular music including a word or two each about early rock and rollers, British Invasion mod rockers, the birth of heavy metal in the late 1960's, swamp rock, and hair metal. Also, I will state with much vehemence that that Clash are not, never were, and GOD FORBID never should be considered New Wave. They were punk, punk, punk, Rock the Casbah not withstanding.
  • Just enough craftiness to glue my fingers together, sew over fingernails, and construct marvelous Halloween costumes.
Here are some things about which I remain in the dark:
  • How to pluck my eyebrows into any shape other than a boring straight line.
  • Post-1950 jazz. Sorry, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and Roy Eldridge. Nice try. I don't get you.
  • Why the hell they ever made Snuffy visible to anyone other than Big Bird.
  • How to explain the difference between cetrifugal and centripetal force, and why centrifugal force is imaginary, like Snuffy.
  • Most any popular culture except singer songwriters and a few movies from 1994-2000. I have no excuse except I was blinded by love.
  • How to use bias tape on extreme curves like scalloping.
  • The current system governing character creation and armor class in D&D; freakin' halflings now look like Tobey Maguire in Spiderman. THEY ARE HOBBITS, PEOPLE. They are FAT and wear wool. Yeesh.
THIS IS NOT A HALFLING:
I swear to Thor I am not an incurable geek. I can fake a conversation about independent music if I need to.

5 comments:

  1. You forgot about the cooking! Remember how I have to call you every time I'm at the grocery store? "Uhm, I want to buy this turnip. What do I do with it?" You always know.

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  2. Cooking is right there under 1st Ed. D&D and fantasy literature. I just figure lots of people know how, so it's not as interesting as the other stuff.

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  3. It was so small I didn't even notice...and yes, some people know how to cook, but not many people have mastered jambalaya, traditional Filipino cuisine, ganache worthy of wedding cakes, and the occasional impromptu pomegranate sauce.

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  4. I was young and didn't fully understand the appeal of Jean-Luc Picard. Riker, tho... Cmdr Will Riker was my favorite one.

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