Craig's Blog of Destiny

Several of the other blogs I check out are on Blogger, so I have a profile there.  I didn’t bother to answer their Info questions, but thought I would bring them, and my answers over here:

Interests:  My interests are wide and varied;  I like music, movies, books, cooking, and eating.  However, my wife would tell you that my passions are my family; Middle Earth; Rush; and my imaginary friends Owen and Samwise.

Favorite Movies:  Man, is this difficult.  I like lots of movies.  Although I tend to prefer comedies I like all kinds of movies, from dramas like American Beauty and The Usual Suspects to adventures like the Indiana Jones movies or the Jason Bourne series to fantasies like Back to the Future and Dragonslayer to animations like Toy Story and Shrek to sports movies like Hoosiers and A League of Their Own to science fiction like the Matrix and Twelve Monkeys to musicals like Paint Your Wagon and Brother Where Art Thou to quirky things like Momento and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  Some movies that deserve special mention:  Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – one of the great bonding experiences I had with my Dad was watching Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid;  Field of Dreams – maybe the only movie experience that is better than the book;  The Princess Bride – this one is just as good as the book, but in movie form; Across the Universe – great music from the Beattles performed by great artists and in an interesting story line; the original Longest Yard – another bond with my dad movie; Bull Durham – THE baseball movie.  I have to mention The Lord of the Rings movies, but to be honest it’s hard for me to be objective about them.  They are really great movies, however, it’s sort of like if someone made a movie of my life; no matter how good it is, it wouldn’t ever be “right.”  As good as the movies are, there is just too much about them that isn’t “right”.

Favorite Music:  I like lots of music.  Big, big Rush fan and typically I’ll gravitate to loud drums and quitars with complicated beats.  But I like many, many other styles as well – lately I’ve been listening to the gospel group Take Six.  It’ll be much easier to say what I don’t like:  anything country.  I just don’t understand country music’s appeal.  And rap.  Rap isn’t really music, is it?

Favorite Books:  The Lord of the Rings will always be at the top of my book lists.  I still  read it  every couple of years.  My favorite author is John Irving: I enjoy just about anything he writes.  Recognizing that even in his library there are going to be some that are better than others, I would put A Prayer for Owen Meany and Cider House Rules at the top.  There are so many good books:  Memoirs of An Invisible Man by H. F. Saint; Boys Life by Robert McCammon (“this one’s for the boys!”); Glory Road, Stranger in a Strange Land and Time Enough for Love by Robert Heinlein; Pastwatch, The Lost Boys and Folk of the Fringe by Orson Scott Card; Stephen King’s Dark Tower series; Jack Finney’s Time and Again and From Time to Time; Weaveworld, Geek Love; many of Ken Follet’s books; Einstein’s Dreams; Anatomy of a Murder; Burden of Proof and Pleading Guilty by Scott Turow; John Varley’s Gaen Trilogy; The Princess Bride, Magic, Ragtime, The Dragon Riders of Pern, Bid Time Return (better known by it’s movie title: Somewhere in Time); can’t forget Harry Potter!; Bill Pullman’s Amber Spyglass; The Time Travelers Wife, etc, etc, etc…  My book list could go on and on forever and ever.

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Several years ago American Express ran a series of tv and print ads with the tag line “My Life, My Card.”  The ads featured well known personalities giving responses to what are, in theory, introspective questions about their lives.  So, for the “About Me” section of the blog I’ve stolen their questions and answered them: