I did hte Mysterious Cloaked Figure's Astonishing Test from time to time on my old blog. He would ask silly/interesting/nerdly questions and a group of us would answer and report back to his blog with our answers. This provided some nice cross traffic and that most elusive of blog-stuff, content. Well as a changeup he is now doing something he calls "Perilous!"

Here are the rules. Below, you will find 20 answers. You will have one week to come up with the corresponding questions and post them on your blogs, leaving a link to your post in the comments on his site. Next week, he'll reveal the questions he was thinking of, along with everyone's scores.

In lieu of any writing on my novel (a thing which might frustrate one of you) I will do part II of MCF's Perilous! wherein I have been provided 20 answers and must provide 20 questions.

Well it's time for MCF's Perilous. He poses the answers and I sally forth with questions.

We're on again. Hit the link for my questions.

Aaaaand we're back with the latest version of MCF's Perilous! V. I supply twenty questions to his twenty answers. Click for the "funny".

Picked this up from a religious blog done in a ME theme: Lord of the Kingdom

To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?

Hobbit
Take this quiz!

Quizilla |
Join

| Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

Geek's geek Wil Wheaton has written up a post both on his blog,WWdN: In Exile: Geek in Review: Pac-Man Fever, and Suicide Girls (not gonna link that generally NSFW site) that has to do with the passing of an American icon, the video game arcade.

Another day, another MCF's Nexus of Improbability: MCF's Perilous! 2.II.

Eric's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Idea ain't so bad. He's taken Star Wars characters and re-imagined them, steampunk style. Go check it out.

Yet another Q&A from that Mysterious Cloaked Figure. Yes, it's time for MCF's Perilous! 2.III.

HT to Rey, MCF and Lorna.

Everyone else is doing it. Why shouldn't I?

According to SwanShadow Thinks Out Loud British movie magazine SFX lists the following as the Top Ten Science Fiction movies of all time:

1. Serenity.
2. Star Wars
3. Blade Runner
4. Planet of the Apes
5. The Matrix
6. Alien
7. Forbidden Planet
8. 2001: A Space Odyssey
9. The Terminator
10. Back to the Future

Rather than give my reactions (Swan Shadow's are good) I think I shall attempt my own listage.

The Rocky Mountain Ride is a blogtalk radio show that a long time web buddy Aaron Delay has recently started. I've appeared on it three times now (once for his comedy show and twice on his political show) and the political show may well be a regular thing.

If you want to hear our thoughts on Pelosi, diplomacy, abortion, and Tom Tancredo hit the first link and play/download the Rocky Mountain Political Ride from Apr 7, 11:00PM. We're like Hannity & Colmes if they were Christian and a skosh more moderate and polite and definitely better looking. Well me anyway.

New Rocky Mountain Political and Religious Rides up.

Also I posted my response to Sid. Finally.

Check out my Rock the Boat - Concert Coverage and let me know what you think. I'll be posting concert pics this evening along with a bit of a blog post on my LA adventures. Also perhaps I will pick 500 words back up.

Okay so I've been tagged by Bear (which makes me giddy, no one ever tags me) to do the "Eight Things" meme. I'm keepin' it light because there are many things I could put here that aren't ready for prime time. So without further adieu here are eight things you don't know about me.

Have a looksee at Technical Stew. We've got a couple of new posts and a new poll up.

Get your daily dose of whacky humanity at Bent Sense, a new blog by blog friend, Jerry.

BentSense: Tossing aside common sense and using some warped form of judgment, most usually based on, but not limited to, the idea of political correctness and/or the desire to side-step any personal responsibility.

MCF posted this and I love me some lists, so here you go.

Janet, of the excellent blog The Art of Getting By, has a little thing she does called "Tell it to me Tuesday" wherein she asks a question and encourages folks to answer it on their blog and then link back to hers. This one is about your favorite national holiday.

I figured I'd chime in since I'll guest post over there once in the near future. I'd have to go with Thanksgiving. Why? Follow me.

First and foremost, Fall is my favorite time of year. Any holiday in the Fall is a bonus. The colors of the leaves, a nice snap in the air, the smell of bonfires all generate memories and emotions that warm me to the core. Awesome.

Then of course there's the food. My family puts on a ridiculous spread. And it's not just the traditional stuff though turkey, taters, and cranberry sauce are there. Living near the coast there's also a fair amount of seafood and wild game to be had. We put oysters in our stuffing. There's probably going to be venison and maybe swan or goose. Not to mention pumpkin and sweet potato pie. If made the way they should be, there's definitely a difference and I eat enough of each to make me sick.

It's such a great time to get together with family. There's no pressure gift-wise, although we do do some wrapping of presents. We talk into the small hours, paying cards and listening to Christmas music.

There's usually a lot of sleeping involved and I love me some sleep.

In seriousness though there's also the spiritual aspect of it which too often gets the short shrift. For me it really is a time to sit back and reflect on what I have to be thankful for. There's quite a lot these days. While both my family and my in-laws have had some rough bumps over the last year including losing a family member, most of us are still happy and relatively healthy. Even the harder parts can be cause for giving thanks, if you look at the growth that has come out of them and God's provision that brought us through them. We live in a country that I love warts and all. A place where you can say what you will and worship how you want.

So that's my favorite national holiday. What's yours?

Read this article "Don't Suffer the Little Children - A father of four explains the realist approach to parenting." by Tony Woodlief and then go subscribe to his blog. You will be entertained and quite possibly touched and enlightened.

I got this meme from MCF who got it from here.

1. Go here: http://www.careercruising.com/default.asp
2. Put in Username: nycareers, Password: landmark.
3. Take their "Career Matchmaker" questions.
4. Post the top results.

I've always felt like the jobs I've had have been more out of necessity than choice. The results really weren't all that surprising. In some ways I'm in the right field, but there are other things that I could be doing that I'd enjoy as much or more.

This week's question from Janet is a simple one with the possibility of being a long, detailed answer:

"What are your favorite songs with a name in the title?"

Well no long detailed answer, but as MCF usually does I do provide YouTube videos of each.

I wrote a guest post for Janet at the art of getting by. Give it a look!

By way of encouraging this blogs religious tendencies (a dangerous thing at best) Casey has blessed me with the Mathetes award. According to the blog Management By God who originated it, mathetes "is the Greek word for disciple, and the role of the disciple (per the Great Commission) it to make more disciples. I'd like to take the opportunity to award five other bloggers with this award and badge for acting in the role of a disciple of Christ. These five all share the message in their own creative ways, and I admire them all for what they do."

I'm honored and as the way things usually work, I am to pass this on to five other bloggers whom I feel are deserving. These folks should pass the love on as they see fit.

RC at Strange Culture for his deep looks at faith and media.
Pink aka Bear at Pinakidion a long time friend and certifiable certified man of God.
Dan at Cerulean Sanctum who consistently brings the knowledge.
Steve at Theological Musings who consistently raises the level of discussion to higher heights.
And the Thinklings as a group, their being no more welcoming, touching, and most importantly gospel oriented group blog in the god-blogosphere.

So there you have it. If you're a person of faith or an honest seeker, or heck even an "opponent" you could do little better than to check these folks out. Careful though, you might learn something.

It's that time again. Janet's Tell It To Me Tuesday asks the following.

If you could have any super power, what would it be and why?

Feel free to get creative here. No there aren't any extra credit points involved, but a little ingenuity never hurt anyone, right?

Heroes does a decent job of pulling off the repercussions of super powers in the real world and as Sid points out in his answer the power you have may carry a tremendous weight. When Jesus performed miracles he was often mobbed. A college buddy, Jeff, when asked this question always said that he would take invulnerability because anyone with super powers in this world would eventually be hunted down and dissected or killed. My adolescent self often chose x-ray vision and/or invisibility for the usual adolescent reasons.

So what about me? I'm tempted to cop out and say the power of Dr. Strange, who could do pretty much anything, but I think that that circumvents the intent. I think I'd choose the ability to change my molecular density, a la the Martian Manhunter. On one end of the spectrum I'd be able to walk through walls. On the other end I'd be able to make myself as hard as diamond (maintaining flexibility somehow). This would naturally extend to whatever I was touching. That would effectively make me indestructible and able to go anywhere, but it's not too flashy. Hopefully I'd use it to help out wherever that sort of thing might come in handy. Mostly I'd probably be using it to get a beer out of the fridge without opening the door or sharpening knives on the back of my hand, stuff like that. Honestly I'm not very heroic and having a super power wouldn't be likely to change that.

While not a super power per se, the other thing that appeals to me is having Batman's intellect/detective abilities. The scale to which the comics take it certainly seems at least supra-human if not super-human. Now that, that I think I'd actually use.

Doug at Nerds With Kids brought us this little gem:

and says it best.

the trailer and posters for this train wreck seem to indicate that the movie has taken the concept of three guys on helium singing pop songs and made it worse. That's gotta be some kind of scientific breakthrough.

You should really check out his site. It does indeed rock the hizzy.

Can't talk, pretty busy. But I felt I must post this. If you haven't played this game and are into board games in any way, you must play it. I was kindly invited to Sid's house f'realz and his lovely wife cooked us an eqaully lovely dinner. Afterwards, while drinking coffee laced with Bailey's and topped with whipped cream and chocolate shavings (evil, the woman is eeeee-vil) the three of us played this. Afterwards we talked and talked and talked s'more. Thanks guys!

I've been wanting to tackle this, but Pyromaniacs' own Dan Phillips takes an excellent stab.

Religion is stacking up to be quite the topic during this election cycle. When questioners bring up the matter of religion, or try to pursue it very far, one of the common preferred responses is, "My religion is very private. I keep it separate from my politics. My religion will not influence me one way or the other in office."

To which Dan says:

This response — if it means anything at all — can only mean one of three things:

The speaker is a liar
The speaker is a hypocrite
The speaker can't rub two live neurons together

I'd say that's pretty fair. Go read the article then come back and we can discuss.

MCF, knowing how much I love memes, tagged me with an astrological one.The month meme has the following rules:

1. Mention the person who tagged you and create a link back to them.
2. Copy-paste the traits for all the twelve months (see below).
3. Pick your month of birth.
4. Highlight the traits that apply to you.
5. Tag 12 people and let them know by visiting their blogs and leaving a comment for them.
6. Let the person who tagged you know when you've done it!

So click on if you care dare.

It occured to me when I tagged those 12 folks yesterday that a few of them may not be on the ol' blogroll. So I have taken small pains to fix that. All of the blogs over there are worth reading, though one or two may currently be on hiatus. To those that are I say, come back to the blog-o-verse soon. I figure if you're reading this then you're starved for good content and odds are you're not getting it here so I'll point you where you can get some. Keep in mind the usual warnings apply. The views espoused on these blogs may not and in most cases do not necessarily line up with yours truly and some may contain adult languages and'or adult situations (whatever those are), but most of them are as "mature" as I am (heh) and all are smarter in various areas and are work safe ninety-nine point nine percent of the time (George likes his Cheesecake). Though if you're at work then what the heck are you doing reading blogs. Go write those TPS reports!!

This is dead on accurate even to the picture of what I'll look like in 20 years.

What Kind of Evangelical Are You created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Evangelical Presbyterian You're an Evangelical Presbyterian, probably a member of a PCA church. Sound theology and reverent worship are important to you, but so are outreach and ministry to the community. You are likely to be from the deep South, and perhaps at one time you were Southern Baptist. Evangelical Presbyterian 85% Moderate Evangelical 75% Baptist 60% Reformed Baptist 55% Conservative Evangelical 55% High Church Nomad 55% Presby - Old School 50% Fightin' Fundy 50%

ht to Bob and Casey.

I'm getting my year in review posted at another blog which I will link to next week, so instead I shall ste ahem borrow an idea from Strange Culture and so I present My Personal Favorites of 2007.

I am soooo going to start posting back over at Technical Stew again!! I abandoned ship when things got bizzay. Apologies to Pat and Dan.

Anyway posted a brief thing on VoodooPad.

It's been a while since I did one of Janet's "Tell It To Me Tuesday"s. This one caught me.

What are the most disturbing films you have ever seen and what, in your opinion, made them so disturbing?

My answer sprang instantly to mind. It's 8MM. No it wasn't Cage's acting. I'll be honest, not a lot from the film stuck with me so I couldn't tell you how good or bad his perf was. In case you don't remember, it's about a private investigator who's been hired to find out if a snuff film is real or not. Snuff films (pornography where one of the participants is killed for real) are the stuff of urban legend. Teh movie is all about Tom Welles' (Cage) descent into the world of darkness.

Two quotes, both from Max California (Joaquin Phoenix) really speak to me. "If you dance with the devil, the devil don't change. The devil changes you." and "There are some things that you see, and you can't unsee them." Without getting into too much personal detail I'll just say that I know how true these statements are and for that reason this movie really got me.

No other movie I can think of really got to me, except maybe Saw. Gore porn disturbs me no so much because I get physically ill (though both it and Planet Terror did make me queasy), but because there's a market for it.

Over at Middle Zone Musings bloggers are being invited to share the posts from 2007 that they learned the most from. I posted my "best of". Comment here, there, or EVERYWHERE!!!

Over there on that left sidebar thing I added a few new blogs that I should have added aeons ago. I read them all regularly (I know, I read too many blogs).

from Janet

This week the infamous Razzies released their list of nominations. If you don't know what the Razzies are, simply think of the Oscars on opposite day. They honor the best just like the Oscars do, only in the Razzies case, they honor the best of the worst. Which leads me to today's question...

What do you think were the worst performances of the year? In the name of expansion this could be the worst movie or acting in a movie, worst TV show or even worst album or song. Feel free to write as little or as much that comes to mind.

Hmmmm, I don't watch that many movies so I like to make sure that the ones I DO watch are pretty good. TV opens it up.

Here's one (in the spirit of the song):

Though it could be said that it was pretty convincing to some folks in NH I reckon.

If I could give a Razzie for Worst OS I think it would go to Windows Vista hands down. I can't think of an operating system previously that had people clamoring for a downgrade.

For Worst Board Game I have to say it would be this:

A game based on Joel Osteens book.

Worst Idea for a Reality TV Show ever? Kid Nation. Whoever thought that up needs to.... You know I can't really think of anything suitable.

That's some pretty bad stuff right there.

That's about all I have for now. What about you guys?

Some time back I found the photoblog Insect Picture of the Day. David Brady is big on user submissions so I sent a few his way. He posted my first submission on Friday, Spider Shelter. Check it out and if you have any good buggy pics send them to him.