Ego! Ego! Ego!

10 Favorite Cities

This one’s a bit tricky — I’m not sure I have ten favorite cities. I’m not much of a city person, really. Let me see.

1. Portland, OR. (Hence the move)
2. York, England (nostalgia from when I was there as an exchange student, probably, but it’s still awesome)
3. Bath, England (SO PRETTY! Also close to Stonehenge and Avebury)
4. Milpitas, CA (it’s my hometown, I’m kind of required, right? But in its defense, it does have really pretty hills)
5. …

Yeah. That’s about it.

Every other city I can think of, there are things I hate about it as much as things I like. Take San Francisco — it has Alcatraz (one of my favorite tourist destinations!), the Golden Gate, some truly gorgeous scenery and architecture, and a food and music/theater scene that can’t be beat. It’s also the worst place I have ever had the displeasure of driving, ever; one of the most dangerous cities for pedestrians in the nation; and filled with places that smell like pee. Plus the Bay water is covered with a sheen of oil from all the shipping (I know because I’ve been kayaking in the Bay, and it was the only time I ever kayaked without falling out. I was too scared of the gross water to fall out) and there’s no freaking parking.

10 Favorite Musicians

Oo, this one might be a bit tricky, if only because I know a lot of musicians. But, if I go by how much I pay attention to their contribution to the music (as opposed to the gestalt of the grouop) and how excited I get (or would get) about seeing them, here’s the list:

1. Les Claypool, bassist and band leader for a ton of bands, including Primus
2. Roy Zimmerman, folk singer, guitarist, and composer
3. Pelle Almqvist, lead singer for The Hives (dude can sing, oh my god, and he gives an amazing live show)
4. Fatboy Slim (is a dj a musician? I say yes, and I say dude is ahmayzing, especially live)
5. Gene Hoglan, drummer for Dethklok, Strapping Young Lad, and many others(dude is a crazy talented drummer, and if you don’t know who he is you are missing out on some awesome metal)
   
6. Trent Reznor
7. Noodles, lead guitarist for the Offspring
8. Christopher Lee, doy. How could I not love a heavy metal musician in his nineties who was also Dracula???
9. Adele (I can’t get over how well she sings, holy crap)
10. ffffffffff whoever I’m forgetting. It’s been a long week.

10 Favorite Video Games

Ohhhhh yes.

1. Borderlands / Borderlands 2 (It’s a tie. There are things to love and be annoyed by about both of them. What matters is, they’re awesome enough that I am actually a pretty good first-person shooter gamer now from playing them so much.)
2. Rock Band 3 (well, all the Rock Band and Guitar Hero games are awesome in their own way, but I mostly play RB3 these days)
3. Beatles Rock Band (it’s different enough it deserves its own entry)
4. Plants vs. Zombies
5. Brutal Legend
6. Overlord
7. Diablo II
8. Diablo III (I hate the server-side play, but otherwise it’s win)
9. Dungeon Keeper 2
10. Burnout Revenge

10 Favorite TV Shows

Like with movies, this is a tricky one. What I like depends on the lens I’m looking through. So, I’ll narrow it down to fav TV Shows right now, like, shows I loooove watching right now. Not “of all time” or whatever, not “based on quality of writing/cinematography/whatever.” Just what I love now.

1. Hannibal
   OMG if you are not watching this show please watch it, preferably over Hulu or Amazon or on the nights it airs — it’s in dire need of ratings. It’s really gruesome, but also really psychological, and Mads Mikkelsen’s performance as Hannibal is a thing of beauty. SO GOOD.
2. Community
   But only the real seasons. The zombie, Dan-Harmon-less recent season never happened.
3. Party Down
   This is my go-to show for when I have had a hard day at work. No matter how crappy my day was, the main character’s day will be worse somehow. Hilariously so.
4. Highlander: The Series
   So much to love about this show. Short term: hot dudes with swords! Long term: a thoughtful analysis of philosophical/ethical quandaries like whether revenge is ever justified, whether it’s possible to love someone forever, etc. Some of the producers are into Jewish theology/philosophy, so those themes creep in. It’s awesome. And cheesy as shit — many eps have not aged well. I love it.
5. Adventure Time
   This weird little cartoon has stolen my heart. So fun. Yay!
6. New Girl
   Quirky and hilarious, and also skewering the whole “manic pixie dream girl” stereotype. I love it.
7. Bob’s Burgers
   Another cartoon! Love it, though, mostly because of the weird characters and perfectly timed and delivered dialogue.
8. Parks & Recreation
   This show started out good, hit its stride fairly quickly, and then worked its way up to being epic and awesome by season three. It’s so good that we used it to distract me when I was having endometriosis pain so agonizing that I seriously considered going to the ER. Eventually my pain meds kicked in enough and the pain diminished enough that I was okay, but I needed to be distracted for an hour or two to keep myself calm. This show did it. SO GOOD.
9. Tabletop
   Technically not a TV show, it’s on YouTube, but it’s SO GOOD. Watching Wil Wheaton and his friends play awesome tabletop games is surprisingly awesome.
10. Strip Search
    Another YouTube channel show — it’s a reality show where web cartoonists compete for various prizes, with a focus on the end prize: a year embedded in the Penny Arcade empire. Hilarious and sometimes surprisingly moving. Plus, it’s introduced me to a ton of awesome web cartoonists. :)

10 Favorite Films

I get asked stuff like this all the time, thanks to my movie reviewing. I have a really, really hard time choosing, if only because I recognize how dependent my answer is upon my mood. Am I feeling pensive? Stressed? Excited? Irritable? What do I feel like I need from a movie right this moment? Education? Entertainment? Spectacle? Catharsis?

So… yeah. It’s rough.

Right now I’m into spectacle/entertainment, so I’ll do my 10 fav action/spectacle/awesomeness movies:

1. Terminator 2
2. The Avengers
3. Iron Man (the first one)
4. The Losers
5. Any Fast & Furious movie (the new one is fun as hell)
6. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
7. Pitch Black
8. The Warrior’s Way
9. Crank
10. The Transporter

10 Favorite Albums

This is a little harder than my 10 favorite bands, boy howdy.

1. The Brown Album, by Primus
   It’s one of the only albums where I enjoy all the songs on it. Every single one. 
2. Pretty Hate Machine, by NIN
   My teen angst in one convenient location.
3. The Fragile, by NIN
   Angst and rage and beauty and fragility and love and hate and and and. An amazing album.
4. Elephant Power, MC Yogi
   I know, he didn’t make my favorite bands list. This is an amazing album, though.
5. Dazed and Confused, the Soundtrack
   An awesome collection of songs.
6. Lex Hives, by The Hives
   Their music just keeps getting better and better.
7. Dethalbum I, by Dethklok
   So. Good.
8. Dethalbum II, by Dethklok
   Even. Better. In spite of the shift in how Brandon Small does his vocals. Plus, it got me through a rough time in my life a few years ago.
9. Leviathan, by Mastodon
   Dude, it’s a heavy metal concept album about Moby Dick. That is fucking awesome.
10. CHANT, by The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos
    Gregorian chant is the schiznit, and this is one of the first albums of it I ever got. Love it.

10 Favorite Bands

This is a bit easier than yesterday’s, and not just because I have my CDs unpacked. I have a lot less music than I do books!

1. Nine Inch Nails
2. The Foremen
3. Blue Oyster Cult
4. Primus
5. The Hives
6. The Police
7. Pink
8. Garbage
9. Dethklok (I don’t care if they’re a “fake” band — I’ve seen ’em live several times and they sure looked real to me)
10. Christopher Lee’s metal stuff

A meme! I’ve seen this going around Tumblr, and thought it sounded like fun.

1. 10 favourite book/book series
2. 10 favourite bands
3. 10 favourite albums
4. 10 favourite films
5. 10 favourite tv shows
6. 10 favourite video games
7. 10 favourite musicians
8. 10 favourite cities
9. 10 favourite foods
10. 10 favourite fictional characters
11. 10 favourite websites
12. 10 favourite places
13. 10 favourite actors
14. 10 favourite actresses
15. 10 favourite smells