List #784: Animals I Have Eaten in Burger Form

List #784: Animals, including birds or fish, I Have Eaten in Burger* Form

1. Cow
2. Turkey
3. Deer
4. Elk
5. Bison
6. Lamb
7. Ostrich
8. Chicken
9. Salmon
10. Yak


*Ground Meat, as a Patty

List #783: 5 Pont Plan to Fix 'Murica

List #783: 5 Pont Plan to Fix 'Murica

1.  Amend the Pledge of Allegiance to say "...under the Christian GOD... (like the Founding Father's originally intended)
2. Shoot anyone that doesn't say the Pledge of Allegiance, correctly, 5 times per day (facing the nearest publicly displayed 10 Commandments.  (I mean, of course, allow Citizens to do the shooting.  We don't want the government turning on it's people by enforcing laws)
3. Replace Foreign Language classes in Primary-Secondary schools with Firearm training classes. (namby-pamby intellectuals that go to "college" can learn to talk foreign)
4. As a reward and incentive to engage in the Capitlaist Dream,  make it so person/coprorate-entity-with-personhood who has/makes enough money to pay taxes  only have to pay 1 cent (Cent, not "percent).  Punish Lazy Freeleechers(i.e. anyone who doesn't make enough money to pay there taxes) by only issuing Voter ID cards to those who pay taxes.
5. Anyone accused of being a Socialist/Communist/Liberal/UnAmerican (I mean, they're the same thing, right? Why we need so many words?) should be detained without counsel for an indefinite time.

*Note:  any errors in grammar, spelling, or punctuation are you're problem, not mine. I typed this, so it must be Right.

List #782: Goals for 2013

 Goals for 2013

1. Eat better and more creatively
2. Workout better and more creatively
3.  Play music more often
4. Travel more
5. Another Thing
6. Be a better human being

List #781: A Few Favorite Things from 2012

A Few Favorite Things from 2012

1. Portland visit in the Summer
2. New Puppy at Mom's House
3. Community, Season 3
4. Return to Ravnica
5. Brussells Sprouts
6. Dad's 60th Birthday Party
7. Boot Hockey at Christmas

List #780: Goals 2012 Report Card

Goals 2012 Report Card  (see this list)

1. Get back to being in good shape   (OKAY)

2. Read more books (and get caught up with WoT)  (READ MORE, DIDN'T GET CAUGHT UP)

3. Out of bed by 6:05 (EXCEEDED)

4. Bake Muffins  (NO)

5. Be better at my job (SOMEWHAT)

List #779: Winter Sports Engaged In During the Break

Winter Sports Engaged In During the Break

1. Hiking/Dog-walking
2. Boot Hockey (pike lake)
3. Downhill Skiing (spirit mountain)
4. Ice Skating (woodland)
5. X-C Skiing (hartley)

List #778: Favorite Christmas Gifts Given This Year

 Favorite Christmas Gifts Given This Year

1. Cajon Bongo (brother)
2. Jingle Bells (sister)
3. Return To Forever CD (dad)
4. Duluth Pack Scout Pack (gf)
5. Story People print (mom)

List #777: 7 More Favorite 7s

 7 More Favorite 7s  (see list #700)

1. ROY G. BIV (is a colorful man)
2. 7 Samurai
3. The Magnificent 7 (cowboys, not gymnasts)
4. Fmaj7
5. The 7 Kingdoms of Westeros
6. Up
7. "7th of a 7th Son" by Iron Maiden

List #776: 5 Reasons I'm Proud to be American

5 Reasons I'm Proud to be American

1. The First Amendment (which allows me to write this list, and, someday, it's counterpoint)
2. The path to our Nation's Capitol building is lined with institutions of learning and repositories of knowledge
3. The ability to vote
4. We invented jazz
5. It is theoretically possible for anyone to find success

List #775: 5 Reasons I know I'm a giant child

5 Reasons I know I'm a giant child
1. Construction paper, Crayola crayons and markers are my art supplies of choice
2. I love tag
3. Dinosaurs!
4. I still get super excited on Christmas Morning (and have trouble sleeping on Christmas Eve)
5. I would eat kraft macaroni and cheese for every meal if I were allowed to.

List #774: 5 Reasons I know I'm Old

5 Reasons I know I'm an old man

1. I have no desire to ever drink Mt. Dew again
2. I still think that it's important to read things that are more than 140 characters long, with the purpose of gaining Knowledge
3. People that can't be quiet and sit still for a movie, shouldn't be going to movie theaters
4. I don't think that print Newspapers are obsolete
5. My "phone" makes telephone calls

List #773: How to Build 100 EDH / Commander Decks

How to Build 100 EDH/Commander Decks*

1. Don't Be Hung Up on Perfection:   Not every deck is going to be an hyper-optimized pile of staples

2. Play "Bad" Cards:  your decks will get boring if every deck has the same staples.  Use this opportunity to try out "less good' cards

3. Proxy (fairly) --  Some cards that are good enough for a lot of decks are big $, and you might not have stacks of them.  To me, fairly means you can proxy something as long as you own at least one copy of it, but no more than 3 non-dual-land proxies per deck.

4. Restrictions = Creativity:  not every green deck need be "Ramp to Fatties". Giving yourself restrictions can lead to more ideas for decks...  Mono-blue beat-down,  creature-less green,  all one-drops, Samurai tribal, Ice Age Block Constructed etc.   

5. Sleeves are for Wimps:  or people with extra time and money to keep decks in the right sleeves.  I'd rather spend money on more cards, than on 10,000 sleeves, but your mileage may vary.

6. Play for Funsies:  see #1.  If you are tournament-hustler Spikey McSpikerson, you're probably only going to optimize one deck to KILL and win all of the prizes and money and glory.  Building in bulk, not all of your decks are going to be optimized to win, (or at least not win in the same old way).  Be happy to play for the game to pull off an awesome play, or be part of epic games, or just to sling cardboard with your friends.

7. Build for Art Sometimes:  an extension of #4.  Some of your decks might be exercises more than anything else. Try building a Rainbow Stairwell, or Tag-Team decks, or 'drafting' out of your deckless-cards (see #9), keeping a few "teaching" decks is a good idea too.

8. Have a Lot of Cards:  it helps if you've already got a ton of cards to build from. any card that isn't in a deck should make you want to put it into a deck or make a deck for it.

9. Play Favorites:  some decks are worth going back and tweaking with the newest cards, others can be built and finished. Keeping all of the decks up to date would be foolish, costly, and time-consuming. On the other hand, keeping a few favorite decks as fresh as possible, is also important.

10. Don't Go Bankrupt Trying to Do it All at Once:  My initial goal was just to have one of each possible combination (including no-color and 4-color). Once that happened I thought about going for two of each legal combination.  The idea of shooting for 100 didn't come up until about #65.

*As of this posting, I have about 80 complete, with 5 more in the works (and 5 more Guild Wars waiting for Gatecrash)

List #772: Comics I Currently Buy

Comics I currently Buy, in order of excitement to read

1. Fables

2. Invincible

3. American Vampire (and mini-series)

4. Walking Dead

5. Fairest (fables spin-off)

6. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 9

7. Angel and Faith (and other Buffy Spin-offs)

8. Uncanny X-force

9. Dial H-for Hero

10. Unwritten

11. Edison Rex (digital)

List #771: Favorite characters on Freaks and Geeks

Favorite characters on Freaks and Geeks

1. Bill

2. Mr. Weir   (because's he's a nuanced TV dad)

3. Nick Andopolous (because one day he became Marshall)

4. Sam Weir

5. Lindsey Weir

6. Daniel Desario  (mostly because of the finale)

7. Mr. Rosso

8. Millie

9.The Gym Teacher  (because he was basically an alright dude)

10. Harris

List #770: Favorite things to do with Tortilla Chips

Favorite things to do with Tortilla Chips (assuming they will be eaten)

1. Put hummus on them 

2. Melt Cheese on them 

3. Eat rice with them

4. Eat them Plain

5. Salsify them

6. Crumble on top of Mac'n'Cheese

7. Put them in soups

8. Eat all other left-overs with them

List #769: A Few Things About the Digital World that Bother Me a Lot

 A Few (among many) Things About the Digital World that Bother Me a Lot

1. the balkanization of media outlets (why can I buy DC comics from comixology's website, but not their "app")

2. privacy vs commerce  (I am Google's product)

3. idiots who write comments on youtube, amazon, etc. (no comment)

4. proprietary formats (this is better)

5. net neutrality being threatened 

6. the appification of the internet and the death of the web. 

7. leasing things in the cloud instead of having them

8. the "bleed" of the major tech companies in their quest for dominance (Facebook should not be a search engine, Google should not be a social networking site,  apple should make cool devices,  Amazon should sell content and products)

List #768: 5 Reasons I lost interest in Heroclix

5 Reasons I lost interest in Heroclix

1. too many new sets or different releases of sets

2. too many rule changes (especially the TK rule changes)

3. too many new or more complex special powers

4. too many Must Have pieces as prizes for highly competitive tournaments only

5. E. D. H.

List #767: Reasons why "Community" might be my favorite show ever

List #767: Reasons why "Community" Might Be My Favorite Show Ever (As Proved By Comparisons To Other Shows I Enjoy (or just other shows))

1.   It plays with Genre in the medium of Television Sitcom  in a way similar to how How I Met Your Mother occaisonally plays with Structure in the same medium... except all of the time and better.

2.  After watching the first episode or two, I thought it was going to be a throw-away, background, fill-the-time-between-shows-I-want-to-watch kind of show, (or maybe just another dumb vehicle for some former/peripheral stars like Chase and McHale) but like the similarly brilliant Veronica Mars it soon became something far better than I ever could have predicted based on the first two episodes.  (and I really hope that the miraculous announcement of another short season doesn't end up as only-just-really-pretty-good as VM did)

3.  It was a show that did adventurous and wildly different things each week, but, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer,  it did so while still having the heart of the show be about character development and relationships, just using the monster/trope-of-the-week as the flavoring.  It's like every week was a "Once More, With Feeling"...  (and several times, even better)

4.  There is no TV (ex/fake)lawyer I'd rather hear speechify than Jeff Winger (except maybe Boston Legal's  Alan Shore)

5. Its consistency in both seeming absurdity and reference to its own continuity rivals Arrested Development (and the aformentioned HIMYM)

6. Its characters may have unlikeable qualities, but that makes them that much more interesting (so SUCK IT! Seinfeld)


7.  It's not going to be the same  if the visionary writer behind it all isn't on the show next year,  like a Sorkin-less West Wing


8. Lets be really honest now...  Abed/Inspector spacetime shows more about multi-dimensionality and character develpment,  than that other, 1-dimensional, 'somewhere-on-the-spectrum' guy on that show that's in the exact same time-slot   could ever figure out with 5 PhDs in Physics  and unfinity equations that the writer had to hire a paid physics consultant to write on the whiteboards.

8a. And also, really,  name a character on Big Bang Theory that you actually care about in some way?  Name a character that's had any development or growth, or that isn't a one-note (albeit funny) gag character, (except for maybe Penny).  Don't me wrong;  BBT is highly watchable (I record it) and is, like most things Chuck Lorre makes, good for some cheap, obvious laughs, but, for a show about "geniuses" it's surprisingly dumb... makes me think that Obama's right about the value of Community College.

9. "Remedial Chaos Theory" did everything right with alternate timelines that Lost struggled with, and if last night's episode was truly the last one (which I will consider it to be, if next season is Harmon-less), it did everything right with a final episode that  Lost, or The Soprano's didn't.

10.  It's a show where the Place (Greendale) is as central to the focus as the Characters are, and it's a show with students, teachers and staff at a school that isn't a "Show about School",  (and it's got Michael K. Williams saying "A man's gotta have a code").  Plus Dan Harmon even pretty much admits that he's heavily influenced by The Wire  (and last night's episode totally ended with a Wire montage) :

"And so whether I like it or not, and as risky as it is, I need to lay some plans at the beginning of season three that we’ll build to at the end. And I think that’s going to be a sweeping enough change to accomplish. I’ve been studying The Wire over this break and observing the art of the opposite of modularity, which is serialization. That’s not to say that season three of Community will be season four of The Wire, but it is to say that beyond Modern Family and beyond Parks And Rec, the ingredient that will keep Community alive to season four exists somewhere in The Wire. [Laughs.] I don’t know how to explain that, but I know it has something to do with the way they end their seasons with these glamorous montages and needle-drops of these stories that seemed disparate and all operate on some theme."  --Dan Harmon, Onion AV Club

(11.  Alison Brie is even more adorable than on Mad Men)

(12.  James Franco (of Freaks and Geeks) is the "White Donald Glover" ... much respect to Childish Gambino)

List #766: "About Google"

List #766: "About Google"

"Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful TO ADVERTISERS AND SHAREHOLDERS"

"Our Philosophy: 10 Things"

1: Focus on the user"S INFORMATION and all else will (We don't 'Follow' here at G, we '+1')

2.It’s best to do one thing really, really well, AND THAT THING ISN"T WEB SEARCH, IT TOTES SOCIAL MEDIA

3: Fast is better than slow." (yeah, they're still fast, can't complain)

4. #4: Democracy on the web works. democracy means 'we tell you what you want, right?

5. You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer. WE CAN FIND YOU ANYWHERE THANKS TO GPS !

6: You can make money without doing evil... you just can't make it any more while doing good

7.There’s always more information out there. AND WE KNOW YOU"VE BEEN HIDING IT FROM US

8: The need for information crosses all borders, so we'll put our stuff in the hands of national-level domains. China will be good, right?

9: You can be serious without a suit, or any other clothes for that matter if you're hot (since we'll be watching you 24/7)

10. Great just isn't good enough, so we've decided not to be great anymore.

List #765: A Few Thoughts on the Future of These Lists

List #765: A Few Thoughts on the Future of These Lists

1. I've completed my second full year (with a ~35 list interlude in 2010

2. They are still fun to write, but less so now that Facebook doesn't import them

3. I may shift it to a different hosting service if Google is still ticking me off

4. I will probably not do them daily for 2012

5. It would be nice to get to #800 and restart in 2013

6. I was less diligent about daily updates the second time through

7. I enjoy getting comments

8. My requests for audience participation went largely unanswered

9. I might work on the Nic-ipedia again

10. Thanks for reading. Happy New Year.