Friday Lit Review: Wayside School

This week I decided to share a few books that I really enjoyed in elementary school, and which my teachers enjoyed sharing with me. They are the books about Wayside School by Louis Sachar, who also wrote Holes.

The first book, Sideways Stories from Wayside School, introduces us to the horribly misbuilt Wayside School where there are 30 stories, one classroom on each, instead of 30 classrooms on one main floor.



The book has 30 chapters, each one dealing with one of the students of the 30th floor class, or their teacher (Mrs. Jewls) or one of the odd substitutes that show up when Mrs. Jewls isn't feeling well. Each chapter encapsulates a short story where one of the students has an experience where we get to know them better or more about the class.

The 2nd book, Wayside School is Falling Down, continues with more stories about our favorite class.



And I just recently have learned that there is a 3rd book, Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, which I need to check out.



There are also two books which are titled Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School and More Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School, which don't really have much in the way of narrative, but are packed full of logic based puzzles, that for the most part are going to be for kids at a higher level of education than the stories are intended for, at least that was my experience.

Sorry for the shortness of this post, but I wanted to make sure I posted something this week, as I skipped last week's review, and am headed out for a camping trip here shortly.

My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine?

As you may or may not have heard, head astronomers today stripped Pluto of its planet status. Not sure what its status is now. What I'm really worried about is what mnemonic today's rising generation will use to learn the names of the planets. When I was growing up I learned the ever popular, "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas", which I actually once heard (and have forever since been unable to escape) a musical version of that changed Pizzas to Pizzapies, for rhythmic reasons. It seems creatively ignorant to just update the mnemonic by dropping the pizza at the end. So I'm going to suggest some new phrases that could help today's youth to become more familiar with things that are far off in space.

M V E M J S U N P

Many Virile Earth Men Just Sleep Under New Pillows

Monday Ve Eat Mangy Japanese Uber-Nasty Potatoes
Part of the new healthier school lunch movement (as described by the German foreign exchange student).

Me: Vegetables? Eeew Man! Junk! U: NP
Who said it had to be all one phrase? Or not use txt-msg slang?

My Venomous Earthworm May Jenerate Some Unseen New Poison
Kids today aren't the best spellers

Apparently its not as easy as it might seem. Anyone have any better ideas?

Update: I actually forgot to take the P off the end of the ones above, so now I will offer you some post-Pluto phrases

M V E M J S U N

Motorized Vehicles Enter Military Junket Sans Ultra Nightvision
The nightvision being removed was one of the stipulations of the meeting.

Murder Victims Elicit Mercy; Jury Says, "Undead Non-eligible"
Much as we'd like to do something for them, we have a strict no zombie policy.

Marriage Vows Encourage Monogamy. Joint Suffering Undermines Nuptials.
Much as the vows say in sickness and in health, its a lot easier in health.

Mental Visions Evoke My Junior Season's Unprecedented Numbers.
And what a season it was.

A late summernight's dream

I've been having some pretty wacky dreams lately, and while I don't always remember all the details or even any of them, I usually can get a few of the details straight if I think about it enough while I'm awake before its faded away.

Anyway, last night I dreamed I was in Ushuaia (in Tierra del Fuego), which is actually a place I dream about a lot for some reason. Anyway, in this dream, I remember thinking, "Hey, I usually dream about coming here, but this time I'm really here!" Not sure why I fall for it every time. Anyway, I was there with a few friends and then I got on this little boat to go out in the harbor, and it was spinning around like crazy in the water, but heading over to the end of the bay. There was some kind of rope boundary that I ran into which was subsequently knocked into the water and actually made someone else's boat tip over and pitch its pilot into the water. Unfortunately this section of the bay happened to be full of sharks. Maybe thats why there was a rope there? Not sure. Anyway, at this point, my boat is careening crazily through these shark-infested waters, all the while threatening to pitch me overboard.

I think after an extended period of this, I finally decided to wake up, although I did do some more dreaming about Ushuaia. I always try to go to houses of members that I know there, but they are rarely home, or else I can never quite figure out where they lived. I know we crossed over the border to Chile at one point, and I remember thinking that I wanted to go visit the National Park that I never made it to while I was there as a missionary. Anyway, I think my favorite part of the dream was that part where I was totally convinced that this time it wasn't a dream. I'm so gullible. :)

Friday Lit Review: The Progress Paradox

For this week's lit review, I'm going to give you a review of the book that I just finished reading earlier this week, The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse by Gregg Easterbrook, who you may or may not recognize as ESPN.com's Tuesday Morning Quarterback. (He also happens to be one of the editors of the New Republic.)

The basic premise of the book is that life continues to improve in most measurable ways: people live longer, have more resources, crime is down, democracy is up around the world, etc; meanwhile, people are not any happier, and in some cases are more unhappy.

In a sense, the book discusses the meaning of life and what things really make us happy, which sounds like a fairly religious topic, but the book manages to thoroughly discuss this theme in a fairly scientific/statistical manner, with only a few theological references.

A few reasons Easterbrook gives for people feeling worse is that much of today's media is geared around calling everything a "crisis" and focusing on the negative trends rather than the positive. Politicians also have a vested interested in pointing out problems that need solving. Also, our material wealth has gone way past satisfying needs, but wants unfortunately can almost never been satisfied.

But beyond these external influences, he also talks about how recent studies have shown that gratitude and forgiveness, in addition to be acts of graciousness, also tend to make people happier. And people who are happier tend to live longer, healthier lives and make more money. So even if you don't like other people, its in your own interest to forgive and give thanks. :)

Another point he made that I liked was that we see a lot of problems in society today that seem intractable, insolvable even; but we should realize that many problems that we have solved as a society (polio, smallpox, the cold war) were once viewed the same way. That we should trust in the ingenuity of man to solve problems that may seem unsolvable. We just haven't started working on solutions to those problems yet.

I found a lot of stuff here that were in accordance with my own personal beliefs and it was good to see an optimistic look at the present and the future, as opposed to all the doom and gloom that's out there right now.

Resistance is Futile. You Will be Assimilated

I know its not quite as obvious a comparison as the whole pirate pants photo montage, but there's just something about those Bluetooth wireless hands-free cell phone earpieces that some people are wearing these days that reminds me of the Borg from Star Trek.

I mean, honestly, how hard is it to hold a phone with your hand? I can see for someone who is driving, or someone who is working at a job where they need both their hands for typing while they talk on the phone. But almost always when I see someone wearing one of those things its just when they are walking around. At the mall, or on the street, or wherever. Because it sure is inconvenient to have to use your hand to hold the phone.

Do they think that it makes them look cool? Almost always its some business casual type person who probably got their work to buy it for them, and they are feeling like they are pretty much the bomb because of how cool their wireless hands-free adapter is. They probably are the kind of people who get a new phone every 6 weeks whenever the latest trendy phone comes out.

I thought it was easy to get confused by the person talking right behind you before. Now, you could even be looking at them and not know that they are using the phone. How long before people start getting cellphones implanted in their skull for more "convenience"?

Friday Lit Review: The Great Brain series by John D. Fitzgerald

I'm going way back this week to some books that I read early on in my reading career. I had probably finished this series by the time I was in 2nd grade. I only know this because I remember choosing one of them as my favorite book when it was my turn to be the class spotlight. The Great Brain series was authored by John D. Fitzgerald and are told in first person by the author chronicling the adventures of him and his older brother Tom, "The Great Brain". Tom uses his "great intelligence and money-loving heart" to set up scams where he swindles local kids out of their money or just finds ways to earn money at little cost to him.

One thing I found interesting about the books was that they take place in Utah around the turn of the century (the last century, not this one). The Fitzgeralds were Catholics growing up in Utah, and the books are set in a fictional town called Adenville, although the wikipedia entry indicates a good guess for the actual location would be Price, which surprised me a bit, as I had always imagined it being more near St. George, but maybe that's just because it said southern Utah somewhere.

Anyway, there were 7 books in the series when I was growing up, although my research tells me that there is now an 8th book that was published post-humously that gets some pretty good reviews on Amazon. I'd post pictures of them all here, but I was unable to find cover photos for about half of them, so I decided against it. The books in the series are:

The Great Brain
More Adventures of the Great Brain
Me and My Little Brain
The Great Brain at the Academy
The Great Brain Reforms
The Return of the Great Brain
The Great Brain Does It Again

The Great Brain is Back

The last one being the one that I have not yet read. Of the original 7, I always liked "Me and My Little Brain" and "The Great Brain at the Academy" the best. In "My and My Little Brain", JD (all the boys in the family go by their first two initials), the author, steps into the role of conniver, as TD (Tom) has gone to Salt Lake City to attend high school (the academy). In "The Great Brain at the Academy", we get to learn about TD's adventures away at a Catholic school in Salt Lake.

I think these books are at a pretty low reading level, but are great stories for anyone who likes great stories about kids. My brother and I found them at my grandparents' house and took them home for ourselves, at least two of them. The rest all showed up shortly thereafter, although I don't know if my parents bought them for us, or if they were also at my grandparents' originally. Either way, I'm sure I read them all through a couple times growing up.

Friday Lit Review: Pretty much everything by John Bellairs

Once when I was growing up, my mother bought me a book titled "The Curse of the Blue Figurine" by John Bellairs. Not sure what inspired her to buy it for me, but I think she also bought one of his books for my older brother. Turns out, the books were pretty downright scary (at least for me, whose imagination tends to run a bit wild) for kids. He's written a whole slew of book where children are the heroes, and the villains, well they range from evil sorcerer's to witches to mummies to ghosts to killer robots and even to demons.

The books for the most part feature one of three teenaged heroes: Johnny Dixon (hero of the Curse of the Blue Figurine and many others), Anthony Monday (first appearing in The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn), and Lewis Barnavelt (who first appeared in the first of Bellairs' young adult books, "The House with the Clock in its Walls"). Each of the respective heroes has their share of adult mentors and child peers who play roles that grow and diminish from book to book.

The subject matter of the books often includes references to the occult and to religious imagery. There are usually supernatural powers at play and some pretty scary stuff tends to happen (in my opinion).

Sadly, I learned while researching for this entry that John Bellairs passed away in 1991, but another author, Brad Strickland, was hired to complete two unfinished manuscripts and to write novels based on some brief descriptions Bellairs left behind. Since completing those Strickland has been authorized to write books with the same characters and has continued to do so with the latest book being published this year. I haven't read any of the Strickland penned books, and on the surface, I hate the idea of someone writing books about characters they didn't invent. Feels too much like fan fiction. But as I haven't read any of them, I hesitate to decry them at this juncture.

A few of the books that stand out most to me from the collection are:


The Curse of the Blue Figurine


The House with the Clock in its Walls


The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn


The Revenge of the Wizard's Ghost


The Eyes of the Killer Robot

That said, I think I enjoyed pretty much all of Bellairs' works and highly recommend them for young adults and adults who don't mind reading a book written for young adults (Harry Potter, anyone?).

Good References:
Wikipedia: John Bellairs
Bellairsia

But my lips hurt real bad!

I feel like lately I've let this blog kind of scrape by with my Friday features to help remind me to write a bit, and I've been trying to figure out what topic I could possibly find that would give me a forum to speak my mind. Well I finally found one: chapstick addiction. Now, I realize I am far from the first to address this issue (Lip Balm Anonymous seems to be the main hub for this topic.) But I feel like I need to add my voice to the others crying out "Put the chapstick down and slowly back away." Too many people I know (girls especially) are obsessed with their chapstick/lip balm/carmex/lip gloss/etc and are in constant need of re-application. If the anti-sun/skin cancer people could get people to reapply this obsessively they could stop cranking out weird commercials where the sun is chasing people. These lip products come in many shapes and sizes. Sticks, tubes, squeeze bottles, that thing that looks like a giant Q-tip. But they all share one common characteristic -- they all create dependencies in their users.

Now I'll admit up front that I am not a user of the products mentioned above and perhaps that would make me unqualified to give my opinion on the subject, but I don't smoke and am firmly in the anti-smoking camp, both for my own benefits as for those of the smoker. In this case, I think both of those topics apply. I personally am tired of seeing people bemoan, in Napoleon Dynamite-like fashion, the fact that they've forgotten their chapstick and does someone please have some they can borrow? People who won't share a soda can, have no problem sharing chapstick with another person. Not that I have some, but I get tired of the questions. And seriously, can you really need chapstick that bad? Some people even have those sleeve things that they hook on to their keys (don't get me started on the ginormous keychain conglomeration that some people carry) that carry their chapstick for them everywhere. I can conceive of people's lips getting chapped in the wintertime, but year-round, all-day, non-stop chappiness? I'm having a hard time buying that. Even people who are too obese to leave the house don't need to eat all day long. I never thought they would become our example of moderation.

I've heard (as yet unsubstantiated) rumors that some lip balm makers put shredded glass in their products that actually make your lips chapped, making users want to keep on using the product. Whether this is true or not, something's going on that makes people unable to function without their chapstick, and it needs to stop. Heaven forbid your lips not actually be greased up like the proverbial pig for a few moments. And if you really can't survive without the taste of cherry on your lips 24-7, you might just consider seeking professional help.

Are there any addicts out there who can offer me some kind of explanation for this obsession?

Friday Lit Review: The Dark is Rising Sequence

The Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper


Over Sea, Under Stone


The Dark is Rising


Greenwitch


The Grey King


Silver on the Tree

The Dark is Rising Sequence is another 5 book series that like the Prydain Chronicles draws on English and Welsh mythology for some of its setting. This series describes the culmination of a ages-old struggle between good (The Light) and evil (The Dark). The Light must seek out and acquire 4 separate artifacts (The Things of Power) in order to defeat the Dark. The main characters in the series are mainly children (some teenagers) who under the guidance of Merriman Lyon (Merlin perhaps?) who helps them to acquire the Things of Power and prepare for the final showdown.

I read The Dark is Rising first, and strangely, though it is the namesake of the series, it is not the first book, although the first two books could probably survive being read in any order, as they occur fairly separately, with the heroes of each coming together in the third book.

I like the classic formula of seeking out some mystical objects and preparing for a final showdown. Feels kind of like the plot for the upcoming Harry Potter #7, no? Find the objects (the Horcruxes) in preparation for a showdown with evil. Its a time-tested formula. The Dark is Rising (the book, not the series) actually has a mini object-gathering quest plot in and of itself, as one of the Things of Power is a set of 6 signs that each must be sought out by Will Stanton and joined together.

Just thinking about these books makes me want to re-read them, and luckily my parents gave me the whole set for Christmas one year, so I think they must be on a shelf somewhere at home.

Also similar to the Prydain Chronicles, one of the books, The Dark is Rising was a Newberry Honor book, and a later one, The Grey King, won the Newberry Medal.

Friday Lit Review: The Chronicles of Prydain

The Chronicles of Prydain is a 5 book series by Lloyd Alexander that few people probably know by name, but many more will recognize the 2nd book in the series, The Black Cauldron.

The books in the series are:


The Book of Three


The Black Cauldron


The Castle of Llyr


Taran Wanderer


The High King

The main character in each of these books is Taran, Assistant Pig Keeper whose main task in live is taking care of a prophetic pig named Hen Wen. At least until one day the pig runs away and he sets off in search of her. So begins the tale of Taran who while young finds himself thrust into a battle between good and evil against the evil Arawn, possessor of the Black Cauldron that can create armies of the Undead.

Taran collects a crew of companions throughout his journey: Eilonwy, a girl with a few magical skills who tends to be the typical easily offended woman for the most part. Fflewddur Fflam, a bard with a harp whose strings break when he overexaggerates things, which is fairly common, and Gurgi, a hairy creature from the forest who is always eager to help out.

Taran's adventures provide a nice arc that include his growing up and seeking for the parents he never knew, along with the constant battle against the dark lord Arawn, all the while coming to know many of the magical and mystical peoples of Prydain. The High King, the culmination of the series won the 1969 Newberry Medal (given for the most outstanding book for children each year), and is a wonderful read, enhanced of course if you've taken the time to enjoy the first 4 books in the series. As you'll find is common with me, I was very sad to see this series come to an end.

The Book of Three and the Black Cauldron served as the basis for an animated Disney film titled the Black Cauldron.

From the Draftbin: Dreams that seem real

In the draft section of my blogs I have a few topics that got started but never finished, or just titles for blogs that haven't happened yet. Among these, I had this title, "Dreams that seem real" and decided to tell you about it.

Do you ever have a dream that seems so real that you wake up and know it was a dream, but are uncertain if the things you were dreaming about were actually something that happened, but as a result you want to verify what the real truth is? This happens to me a few times a year, but the most memorable time in recent years was about a year and a half ago. It was early January and I had just returned from a New Year's trip to the Fiesta Bowl in Tempe, Arizona. I was in the middle of my first year of graduate school, but the new semester of school had not yet.

I dreamed that I had signed up for a semester-long internship doing informatics research in Brazil, and for some reason I really, really did not want to go. I don't remember the exact reason I didn't want to go, maybe something about not having a good project idea? I don't know. The point is, I was desperate to get out of going, and I was talking to my mom (the thing about dreams is that people seem to show up pretty randomly) about not going, and she was adamant that I go, because "you bought non-refundable plane tickets, so you have to go." And I was trying to get her to let me not go and just eat the cost of the tickets.

Now, I know that not all of the dream seemed real. For example, as we were boarding the plane, one of those planes that lands on water, there was a tiger in the water that was trying to eat me. I know that that never happened to me, and I know that the conversation I had with my mom wasn't real, but when I woke up I was feeling really stressed out that maybe I had signed up for a semester in Brazil and had completely forgotten about it. This dream is also a classic example of the kinds of dreams I have. Pretty much they are normal, everyday situations but with some kind of element of stress added in for fun. I don't dream of scary monsters or abstract symbols of my inner-psyche (as far as I know). Rather I dream that I've made some kind of social faux pas or have made a fool of myself, or somehow have been irresponsible regarding something under my stewardship.

Does that ever happen to you?

The Friday Literature Review

As promised, today marks the beginning of a new Friday feature. I'm not sure that anyone actually cares about this or not, although if anyone is out there, you probably prefer that I write something as opposed to writing nothing, and if nothing else, having a weely feature helps me remember to keep writing.

The new feature will be a Friday Literature Review (FLitR?), and my original thought is to focus mainly on series of books that I've enjoyed over the years. I should mention that growing up I had a pretty voracious appetite for fiction and would plow through most books in a matter of days. Now that I'm older I can still find this happy place, but time constraints and a more developed set of social skills tend to limit my reading time. Also, its been harder for me to find books that I like as much these days, so feel free to recommend books I might enjoy as you begin to see the kinds of things I've enjoyed to date.

That said, I haven't put a lot of time this week into blog prep, so lamentably (for you the reader) I'm going to hold off on a review until next week. But I will leave you with this quick meme (one of the most common ones I see) as a bribe to keep you coming back:

4 Things About Me

4 jobs I have had in my life:
-McDonalds crew chief
-College of Pharmacy Receptionist
-Computer Science T.A.
-Programmer/Analyst 2 (my official title) in the Temple Department at the COB.

4 movies I would watch over and over:
-Oceans 11
-O Brother Where Art Thou?
-Dumb and Dumber
-Newsies

4 places I have lived
-New Orleans, LA
-Grantsville, UT
-A large portion of southern Argentina (Patagonia)
-Salt Lake City, UT

4 TV shows I watch
-The Office
-Lost
-Arrested Development (sniff)
-Umm...I don't have cable any more, so I don't watch much TV. Can I count Diggnation?

4 places I have been on vacation
-SoCal
-The Oregon Coast
-Washington D.C.
-Tempe, AZ (Fiesta Bowl, baby!)

4 websites I visit daily
-MyYahoo
-Flickr
-McSweeneys
-ESPN.com/Page2

4 favorite foods
-Steak
-Cafe Rio Pork Salad
-Ham and Cheese Empanadas (fried if I can get someone else to make them, otherwise baked cuz they're easier to make)
-Wendy's Monterrey Ranch Chicken Sandwich (only available as a specialty sandwich)

4 places I would rather be right now
-Eating lunch
-Playing with my niece
-Someplace cooler (temperature-wise. How could anywhere else be cooler than SLC?)
-Argentina

Classic Cartoon Countdown #1: Transformers

Well, I can only drag this thing out so long. If it seems as though I've been neglecting this blog lately, its only because I've been out of town so much lately, first to California and then this week to Nashville. And while I had visions of cranking out a few more honorable mentions, I can't justify putting the actual countdown off any further, so they'll have to go mentionless. Without further ado, I give you the #1 Classic Cartoon of my childhood: The Transformers


Transformers! More than meets the eye!


The Autobots were mainly cars and were the good guys.


The leader of the Autobots was Optimus Prime a big rig truck who in his robot form was only the main engine part of the truck. Where the trailer portion of his truck form came from I never knew. Just when he would transform it would come out of nowhere.


The Decepticons were the bad guys and were a bit more versatile in their forms, although they had a large fleet of jets that was probably their core transformation.


The leader of the Decepticons was Megatron, a robot that transformed into a gun that was like a hundred times smaller than his robot form. He would transform into the gun, and one of the other Decepticons would shoot the gun. In addition to the jets there was also a guy who changed into a tape recorder (Soundwave), and he had some little mini-decepticons who were the tapes and would come out and turn into a dog or a bat and attack the Autobots.

Soundwave

Somehow these robots came from outer space and were here on the earth battling each other. There were always some humans around for us to relate to, and I remember learning from this show that being inside a car during a lightning storm is good because the rubber tires keep you grounded.

Eventually, to keep the interest of the viewers, some new subgroups of robots were introduced. The ones I most remember were the Dinobots, who were autobots who turned into dinosaurs; the Constructicons, decepticons who transformed into construction vehicles, but also could merge all together in Voltron-like fashion to make one super robot; the Aerialbots, Autobots who were jets, and who also formed some uber-robot; and the Insecticons, Decepticon insect robots.


The Constructicons


Transformers was a great show and I really enjoyed it until perhaps they got too successful for their own good. At some point, a Transformers movie was made for theatrical release. I remember we were really excited about it, but never actually went to see it. (We usually only went to 1 or 2 movies a year when I was growing up.) I've still never actually seen this Transformers movie, but there must have been some huge plot points, because after the movie came out, the entire cartoon changed a ton. Most notably Optimus Prime had been replaced by a robot named Rodimus Prime, but also there were some new weird space robots and we never could really figure out what was going on and who everyone was. So we lost interest and stopped watching it. I'm not sure whose idea it was for the movie to completely change the plot of the TV show and leave some of us lost and bewildered.

As I've been reliving this memories from my childhood, I find that a lot of the shows I used to watch were thinly veiled commercials for the toys that were affiliated with the shows. But apparently the veil was thick enough that I never really felt that way about the show. In fact, I always felt that the toys were just a way for us to relive our favorite moments from the shows. That said, the Transformers were by far the coolest toys ever associated with a cartoon. Toys that transformed from robots into jets, cars, guns, tape recorders, even dinosaurs and insects.

I remember one year making a list of Christmas gifts I would like that included probably 20 different transformers. Not that I expected to get them all, just that I would have been happy with any of them. The only drawback I can remember to the toys was that you had to put all the stickers on yourself, and it was no easy task to get them all lined up in the right spot without them getting stuck misaligned. Getting those stickers right could make or break the look of your Transformer and it was a stressful first 30 minutes of having the toy as you got it all set up. I remember my older brother got the whole set of Constructicons one year, and one of the pieces was kind of tricky to transform, at least tricky enough that I broke it once and had to pay to replace it.

The Transformers truly were a great show with a great line of toys associated with it. And for that they have earned the #1 spot on my Classic Cartoon Countdown.

***********************************************

Here's the final countdown:
#10: Underdog
#9: Thundercats
#8: G.I. Joe
#7: Superfriends
#6: Scooby's All Star Laff-a-lympics
#5: Voltron
#4: X-men
#3: Looney Tunes
#2: He-Man and the Masters of the Universe
#1: Transformers

Stay tuned next week for a brand new Friday feature.

Random Thoughts from I-15

I'm briefly back in town, having arrived late last night from family vacation to California, and I'll be leaving Monday for a brief academic trip to Nashville. Watch for pictures on Flickr and what not, but I thought I'd share some of the random musings I had during my 12 hour drive home.

-If gangs really want to be taken seriously, they should start graffiti-ing things other than mirrors and stalls in public restrooms. I mean seriously, when did this become the place to mark your territory?

-There's such a thing as an Old Navy outlet store. How do you get cheaper than regular Old Navy? Do the cargo pants come with dollar bills tucked into the pockets?

-When there's a big row of cars in the passing lane all going 10 under the speed limit, somewhere in the front of that row, there's someone with open road in front of them. What is that person thinking? Are they thinking? What's it like to be that person?

-I was impressed and pleased by the presence of dedicated slow lanes for trucks west of Vegas, but can't we go a step farther and create a special lefthand lane that you can't drive in unless you are doing at least 5 over the speed limit? I know that this is how the "fast" lane ought to work, but there are way too many people who think that they are too good for the "slow" lane, even though they aren't even approaching the speed limit. I think making it explicit would really help things along.

-How would I know where the Starbucks is in Baker, lady? I've been here for about 20 minutes, and all of them were spent in the Arbys I just walked out of.

-Diary Queen is pretty much the place to be in Scipio.

-I like to sleep with a cone of silence surrounding me. Some people seem to drive with a cone of blindness surrounding them.

Classic Cartoon Countdown #2: He-Man and the Masters of the Universe

I am Adam. Prince of Eternia and keeper of the secrets of Castle Greyskull. This is Cringer... my fearless friend.


Fabulous secret powers were revealed to me the day I held aloft my magic sword...


...and said... By the power of Greyskull!


Only a few others share this secret... The Sorceress...

...Man-At-Arms...

and Orko.


Together we defend Castle Greyskull from the evil forces of Skeletor.






I'm really not sure that much else needs to be said. I think the intro speaks for itself. But maybe I'll just say that He-man was a show that I loved to watch every afternoon. This cartoon is just recently becoming available on DVD, so maybe I'll have to check that out sometime. He-man always had plenty of chances to get rid of Skeletor. Pretty much every week, he'd have Skeletor hanging off a cliff or something, only to let him go.

He-man had some of the coolest toys of all the shows out there. Every action figure had its own unique feature it seemed. There was the cobra guy who shot "acid" (I guess if you had some kind of acid you could use that instead of water), I had a lizard guy with a tail you could whip around, there was a two headed guy, a guy with three different faces (Man-E-Faces, I believe was his name), Ram Man, who had a spring inside so you could launch him just like in the show. The Orko figure I had had a little zip cord thing to make him move around on his own, plus it came with a magic trick. There was even a line of He-man figures that featured a rotating chest piece that showed battle damage! There were tons of unique figures to get. Of course there were a few lame ones. Our neighbors had a Prince Adam figure, and someone I knew had a Teela figure. Who wants a girl action figure? Girls?

And we haven't even got to the castles yet. You could get the Castle Greyskull or Skeletor's castle and they each had some cool features. I especially remember Skeletor's castle had a microphone that you could use to change your voice to sound kind of Skeletor-ish. How cool is that?

The success of the cartoon inspired a theatrical released movie that was a huuuuuuuuuuuuuge disappointment. Basically, He-man and Skeletor came to our world and did some stuff, but they were the only characters from the cartoon who even showed up. Not sure who thought this would be a good idea. Maybe Los Angeles (or wherever it was set) was easier to get to for filming than Eternia. Whatever the case was, I'm sure children across the country shared a collective, "huh?" upon viewing this film.

***********************************************

One quick note regarding the countdown. In American Idol-esque fashion, you'll have to wait a little more to find out what is #1. I'm leaving tomorrow morning for a family vacation to California (Oceanside) and will likely be without internet for approximately 8 days. I can only imagine the number of emails I'll have in my Inbox when I return (2? 3?), but I'll also be unable to post to the blog. And I'll only be in town for 1 day before I leave for a conference in Nashville, so I can't promise that you'll know the winner until two weeks from today at the earliest. On that note...Big Digital, out.

***********************************************

Here's the updated countdown:
#10: Underdog
#9: Thundercats
#8: G.I. Joe
#7: Superfriends
#6: Scooby's All Star Laff-a-lympics
#5: Voltron
#4: X-men
#3: Looney Tunes
#2: He-Man and the Masters of the Universe

Classic Cartoon Countdown #3: Looney Tunes

In the grand scheme of cartoons, the looney tunes crew really deserves their own special category. So many classic characters and classic cartoons with a huge portion of success coming on television as opposed to the feature film route that Disney has gone. Sure, the Looney tunes have had their theatrical moments (Space Jam, Looney Tunes: Back in Action), but they pale in comparison (in my mind at least) to the classic cartoon plots that kept us rolling every Saturday morning. The fairly large cast of Looney Tunes, some of whom never meet each other include:

Bugs Bunny - the star of the cast, who has run into most of the characters in the course of all the toons, he's always the smartest (and a real smart-aleck), and wins in the end, although sometimes things look bleak for our hero.

Daffy Duck - Bugs' rival, especially in the sense of the whole duck season-rabbit season debate. Daffy always seems to get his bill blown around to the back of his face. I love it when that happens.


Elmer Fudd - Fun with speech impediments. Awesome. "Be Vewwy, Vewwy, Qwiet. I'm hunting wabbits."


Sylvester and Tweety Pie - I'll be honest, not my favorites, but still crucial members of the team.


Yosemite Sam - for some reason we always called him 'Semite Sam when I was growing up. Usually faces off with Bugs Bunny and gets really mad, shoots his guns, etc. Somehow became a popular mudflap icon.


The Tasmanian Devil - tears things up, usually interacts with Bugs Bunny. Somehow became a popular T-shirt icon along with Bugs and some of the others in the early 90s. Not sure how that happened. Of course, I'm not sure how wearing clothes backwards became popular back then either. I mean, I know it was because Kris Kross was doing it, but I don't know how that made it popular.


Speedy Gonzalez - Andale! Andale! Arriba!


Pepe le Pew - Always chasing that cat with the stripe down her back. Does he even do anything else? I love how she's always running at top speed, and he just hops along and always catches up.


Porky Pig - More fun with speech impediments. Does this guy have a job besides stuttering through the whole Th-th-th-that's all Folks?


Marvin the Martian - Always getting ready to destroy Earth with a death ray or chasing Bugs Bunny around, and talking in his funny voice.


Foghorn Leghorn - I-I-I-I say boy, let me tell you...


Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner - I've saved my favorites for last. I love to watch the Coyote with all his schemes and how they all go awry in the most impossible ways imaginable. I think my favorite Looney Tune of all time is the one where he's got some kind of boulder catapult set up to launch a boulder at the roadrunner, but somehow the boulder or the catapult itself end up on him every time, in ways that completely defy physics. He must get smashed like 15 different ways.

Some of my other favorite Looney Tunes, aside from the aforementioned Roadrunner, and the whole Duck Season-Rabbit Season bit, include the singing frog who only sings when no one else is around ("Hello my honey, hello my baby, hello my ragtime gal"), the Barber of Seville, the other opera looking one where Elmer is dressed like a Viking and sings "North wind blow, South wind blow, thunder, hurricane, typhoon,....smog!", the one where Bugs is visiting some castle and some guy gets "The Nose in the Book penalty", when Bugs takes on the bull as a matador,and I'm sure there's others that I'm forgetting right now. If not for Looney Tunes I would never have heard the phrase "one lump or two", and even know I'd be more likely to associate it with getting hit in the head with a large mallet. I remember hearing how violent the looney tunes were, but c'mon how many people have access to dynamite.

But seriously, Looney Tunes put out some great stuff. Better than the Tiny Toons, and anything else they've come up with lately. Just give me the classic shorts.


Th-th-that's All Folks!

********************************************************************************

Here's the updated countdown:
#10: Underdog
#9: Thundercats
#8: G.I. Joe
#7: Superfriends
#6: Scooby's All Star Laff-a-lympics
#5: Voltron
#4: X-men
#3: Looney Tunes