What Would You Do Again?

Day 215

Here are the next set of questions. Some of them were simple to answer, others I had some difficulties with. But as always, they were interesting.

So let's get on to the questions!

12. You meet a wizard in downtown Chicago. The wizard tells you he can make you more attractive if you pay him money. When you ask how this process works, the wizard points to a random person on the street. You look at this random stranger. The wizard says, "I will now make them a dollar more attractive." He waves his magic wand. Ostensibly, this person does not change at all; as far as you can tell, nothing is different. But--somehow--this person is suddenly a little more appealing. The tangible difference is invisible to the naked eye, but you can't deny that this person is vaguely sexier. This wizard has a weird rule, though--you can only pay him once. You can't keep giving him money until you're satisfied. You can only pay him one lump sum up front.

How much cash do you give the wizard?

If the wizard could promise that my baldness would be cured, I would give him some money. I don't think I need to be any more good looking/sexier than I am now. I'm married so I am not looking for anything. And that isn't just an excuse for me to look bad because I am married. I am not getting any younger and the older I get the more worn out my body becomes. But Kristy loves me no matter how I look. Honestly, I rarely have cash on me anyway. More than likely, I would probably give him the few dollars I might have in my wallet and call it good. It wouldn't hurt anyway and I might just get some hair back.


13. Every person you have ever slept with is invited to a banquet where you are the guest of honor. No one will be in attendance except you, the collection of your former lovers, and the catering service. After the meal, you are asked to give a fifteen-minute speech to the assembly.

What do you talk about?

Now this is an easy one since it would only be Kristy and I in attendance. I am not sure what I would talk about. I would probably talk about how we met and how I knew "she was the one". And then tell some jokes and see what it is like being a stand-up comedian.

14. For reasons that cannot be explained, cats can suddenly read at a twelfth-grade level. They can't talk and they can't write, but they can read silently and understand the text. Many cats love this new skill, because they now have something to do all day while they lay around the house; however, a few cats become depressed, because reading forces them to realize the limitations of their existence (not to mention the utter frustration of being unable to express themselves).

This being the case, do you think the average cat would enjoy Garfield, or would cats find this cartoon to be an insulting caricature?

I think a few cats would absolutely hate Jim Davis and his creation. But like most cats, I think they personally wouldn't give a flying fig. They are still fundamentally cats and therefore don't care one way or another.

This cat doesn't look too interested in Garfield.

15. You have a brain tumor. Though there is no discomfort at the moment, this tumor would unquestionably kill you in six months. However, your life can (and will) be saved by an operation; the only downside is that there will be a brutal incision to your frontal lobe. After the surgery, you will be significantly less intelligent. You will still be a fully functioning adult, but you will be less logical, you will have a terrible memory, and you will have little ability to understand complex concepts or difficult ideas. The surgery is in two weeks.

How do you spend the next fourteen days?

This is a difficult one since I do not know how I would truly act if I knew I was going to die in six months. But if I am going to die, I am going to die. I would rather have quality of life than quantity. During the two weeks I would definitely get a second opinion but aside from that I would make plans on how I want to spend the rest of my life. I wouldn't want to become a burden on Kristy and Logan. It would be sad for Logan to grow up without his dad but how much help would I be anyway? The biggest thing that gets me would be that I would have a terrible memory. I wouldn't be much use for my family and society.

16. Someone builds and optical portal that allows you to see a vision of your own life in the future (it’s essentially a crystal ball that shows a randomly selected image of what your life will be like in twenty years). You can only see into this portal for thirty seconds. When you finally peer into the crystal, you see yourself in a living room, two decades older than you are today. You are watching a Canadian football game, and you are extremely happy. You are wearing a CFL jersey. Your chair is surrounded by books and magazines that promote the Canadian Football League, and there are CFL pennants covering your walls. You are alone in the room, but you are gleefully muttering about historical moments in Canadian football history. It becomes clear that—for some unknown reason—you have become obsessed with Canadian football. And this future is static and absolute; no matter what you do, this future will happen. The optical portal is never wrong. This destiny cannot be changed.

The next day, you are flipping through television channels and randomly come across a pre-season CFL game between the Toronto Argonauts and the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Knowing your inevitable future, do you now watch it?

I don't think being obsessed with Canadian football would be all that bad. Obviously it will make me very happy in the future so why fight it? On the other hand, being a comic book and sci-fi geek, I would love to try to avoid Canadian football. I wouldn't watch the game (how the heck did the CFL get on TV here anyway?) to try to fight the future and create some sort of alternate reality. BUT I then would come to conclusion that why should I fight destiny? Especially since I will be very happy in this future. What if I fight watching the CFL and I lead a disastrous and unhappy life? Should I take my chances? I would fight it for the first little while but ultimately I would succumb. At least I would be happy.

Warren Moon played with the Edmonton Eskimos. The CFL can't be that bad right?

17. You are sitting in an empty bar (in a town you’ve never before visited), drinking Bacardi with a soft-spoken acquaintance you barely know. After an hour, a third individual walks into the tavern and sits by himself, and you ask your acquaintance who the new man is. “Be careful of that guy,” you are told. “He is a man with a past.” A few minutes later, a fourth person enters the bar; he also sits alone. You ask your acquaintance who this new individual is. “Be careful of that guy, too,” he says. “He is a man with no past.”

Which of these two people do you trust less?

Everyone has a past. I wouldn't trust either of them (including the guy telling me this) but ultimately I don't trust the man with no past more. It seems like a man with no past would have no fear for the future. If he doesn't pay attention to the past he seems to me like he would have no remorse. The guy who has a past may have taken lessons from it and learned from it, even though that doesn't necessarily mean he would make the correct choices this time. But I would rather take my chances with the guy with the past. I wouldn't be able to get a read on the man with no past.

18. You have won a prize. The prize has two options, and you can choose either (but not both). The first option is a year in Europe with a monthly stipend of $2,000. The second option is ten minutes on the moon.

Which option do you select?

While having money in Europe would be tempting, I would love to visit England and Greece and spend money freely I think I would rather go to the moon. I can always look up to the moon and see it anytime but how many times would I be able to look up and see the Earth? Besides with all the turmoil in Europe now I might not be able to have fun in Europe. And really, I could go to Europe at anytime. The moon would be a chance of a lifetime. So the moon it is.

Yeah, that would be worth it.

19. Your best friend is taking a nap on the floor of your living room. Suddenly, you are faced with a bizarre existential problem: This friend is going to die unless you kick them (as hard as you can) in the rib cage. If you don’t kick them while they slumber, they will never wake up. However, you can never explain this to your friend; if you later inform them that you did this to save their life, they will also die from that. So you have to kick a sleeping friend in the ribs, and you can’t tell them why.

Since you cannot tell your friend the truth, what excuse will you fabricate to explain this (seemingly inexplicable) attack?

I would call another friend of mine and tell him what was going on and have him come over. And then I would kick my sleeping friend and then tell my sleeping friend that my other friend bet me that I wouldn't kick him. Guys do stupid things all the time and I might be able to get away with it if I used the excuse of a bet. And if that sleeping guy is truly my friend he would forgive me. At least at some point he would.  

20. For whatever the reason, two unauthorized movies are made about your life. The first is an independently released documentary, primarily comprised of interviews with people who know you and bootleg footage from your actual life. Critics are describing the documentary as “brutally honest and relentlessly fair.” Meanwhile, Columbia Tri-Star has produced a big-budget biopic of your life, casting major Hollywood stars as you and all your acquaintances; though the movie is based on actual events, screenwriters have taken some liberties with the facts. Critics are split on the artistic merits of this fictionalized account, but audiences love it.

Which film would you be most interested in seeing?

I would want to see both of them even though I would be afraid of watching the independent film. Just who did they dig up for that film and what would they really cover? I would rather watch the Hollywood version since I would like to see who they cast to play me and what liberties they made with my life. I think I would get a kick out of that one more. I already lived the documentary, I don't know if I need to see it again.

21. Imagine you could go back to the age of five and relive the rest of your life, knowing everything that you know now. You will re-experience your entire adolescence with both the cognitive ability of an adult and the memories of everything you’ve learned form having lived your life previously.

Would you lose your virginity earlier or later than you did the first time around (and by how many years)?

Nothing would change. I would lose it the same time I did in this lifetime. It would be interesting to see what different choices I would make. I wonder if I would lose my virginity to the same person? I would be making different choices which might result in me meeting different people so who knows?

22. You work in an office. Generally, you are popular with your coworkers. However, you discover that there are currently two rumors circulating the office gossip mill, and both involve you. The first rumor is that you got drunk at the office holiday party and had sex with one of your married coworkers. This rumor is completely true, but most people don’t believe it. The second rumor is that you have been stealing hundreds of dollars of office supplies (and then selling them to cover a gambling debt). This rumor is completely false, but virtually everyone assumes it is factual.

Which of these two rumors is most troubling to you?

I think the gambling rumor would bug me the most since it is NOT true. I guess the best thing would be to just come clean about it and get the truth out. I don't want to be known as a thief and a liar.

23. Consider this possibility:
a. Think about deceased TV star John Ritter.

b. Now, pretend Ritter had never become famous. Pretend he was never affected by the trappings of fame, and try to imagine what his personality would have been like.

c. Now, imagine that this person—the unfamous John Ritter—is a character in a situation comedy.

d. Now, you are also a character in this sitcom, and the unfamous John Ritter character is your sitcom father.

e. However, this sitcom is actually your real life. In other words, you are living inside a sitcom: Everything about our life is a construction, featuring the unfamous John Ritter playing himself (in the role of your TV father). But this is not a sitcom. This is your real life.

How would you feel about this?

I love John Ritter. I don't think this would be a problem. I think I would be more disturbed that I was living in a sitcom than having John Ritter be my dad. And hopefully that means he might be living with Janet and Chrissy. That would be a plus.

And if the Ropers were my real neighbors? That would seal the deal!

What You Would You Do?

Day 214

My friend Rory has been reading some Chuck Klosterman recently and he posted on our board Chuck's 23 hypothetical questions from one of his books. There is an excellent article about the author here. We all posted our answers and I was surprised at how they all varied. I posted a couple myself and thought that they would make an excellent blog topic. Fellow bloggers are welcome to do this as well. I am only going to answer the first 11 and get around to the rest sometime this week or the next.

So let's start with Question #1!

1. Let us assume you met a rudimentary magician. Let us assume he can do five simple tricks--he can pull a rabbit out of his hat, he can make a coin disappear, he can turn the ace of spades into the Joker card, and two others in a similar vein. These are his only tricks and he can't learn any more; he can only do these five. HOWEVER, it turns out he's doing these five tricks with real magic. It's not an illusion; he can actually conjure the bunny out of the ether and he can move the coin through space. He's legitimately magical, but extremely limited in scope and influence.

Would this person be more impressive than Albert Einstein?

Even though this magician is pretty impressive, I would say that Albert Einstein was more impressive. The magician's accomplishments pales in comparison to Einstein's. And besides, I can learn from Einstein, I can try (and the word is try) to understand everything he understood. Knowing the magician (unless he is GOB from Arrested Development) he would never share his secrets with me so really all the magician can do is just show me his tricks. Which would get old.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it you lousy street magician!

2. Let us assume a fully grown, completely healthy Clydesdale horse has his hooves shackled to the ground while his head is held in place with thick rope. He is conscious and standing upright, but completely immobile. And let us assume that--for some reason--every political prisoner on earth (as cited by Amnesty International) will be released from captivity if you can kick this horse to death in less than twenty minutes. You are allowed to wear steel-toed boots.

Would you attempt to do this?

Have you ever seen a Clydesdale horse up close? They are freaking humongous! I don't think I would be able to kill it in twenty minutes. Especially if he was standing, my head would barely reach his leg. I guess I could try to break its legs since people usually put down a horse when it breaks its legs. I guess political prisoners would win out and be set free. I think I would rather have them free instead of child predators.

3. Let us assume there are two boxes on a table. In one box, there is a relatively normal turtle; in the other, Adolf Hitler's skull. You have to select one of these items for your home. If you select the turtle, you can't give it away and you have to keep it alive for two years; if either of these parameters are not met, you will be fined $999 by the state. If you select Hitler's skull, you are required to display it in a semi-prominent location in your living room for the same amount of time, although you will be paid a stipend of $120 per month for doing so. Display of the skull must be apolitical.

Which option do you select?

Money talks. I hate to admit it but in this case, I would take the moola and house Hitler's skull. Aside from being an interesting conversation piece, I could charge people to look at if I wanted too. And I also trust that people that I invite into my home would realize that I am not affiliated or empathizes with the Nazis.

4. Genetic engineers at Johns Hopkins University announce that they have developed a so-called "super gorilla." Though the animal cannot speak, it has a sign language lexicon of over twelve thousand words, an I.Q. of almost 85, and--most notably--a vague sense of self-awareness. Oddly, the creature (who weighs seven hundred pounds) becomes fascinated by football. The gorilla aspires to play the game at its highest level and quickly develops the rudimentary skills of a defensive end. ESPN analyst Tom Jackson speculates that this gorilla would be "borderline unblockable" and would likely average six sacks a game (although Jackson concedes the beast might be susceptible to counters and misdirection plays). Meanwhile, the gorilla has made it clear he would never intentionally injure any opponent.

You are commissioner of the NFL: Would you allow this gorilla to sign with the Oakland Raiders?

I don't think I would allow the gorilla to play. He is more important to science than he is to the NFL. On the other hand, if the gorilla would like to replace Al Davis as owner of the Oakland Raiders, I would have no problem with that. The Raiders might be better off. But then it might set a precedent, do we allow ANY animal in if it gets intelligent?

"As long as the gorilla can injure someone, I'm good!"

5. You meet your soul mate. However, there is a catch: Every three years, someone will break both of your soul mate's collarbones with a Crescent wrench, and there is only one way you can stop this from happening: You must swallow a pill that will make every song you hear--for the rest of your life--sound as if it's being performed by the band Alice in Chains. When you hear Creedence Clearwater Revival on the radio, it will sound (to your ears) like it's being played by Alice in Chains. If you see Radiohead live, every one of their tunes will sound like it's being covered by Alice in Chains. When you hear a commercial jingle on TV, it will sound like Alice in Chains; if you sing to yourself in the shower, your voice will sound like deceased Alice vocalist Layne Staley performing a capella (but it will only sound this way to you).
 
Would you swallow the pill?

Now this is a hard one. I love music and I love to sing. I feel that music is a huge part of my life. But then would I want Kristy to get her collarbones snapped every 3 years? It is only 3 years though. More than likely I would sacrifice my music to save her from such a horrific injury. Unless Kristy would be willing to take the beating...

Kristy has just informed me that she would be willing to get her collarbones broken. Her reasoning is she is already "old and brittle".

6. At long last, someone invents "the dream VCR." This machine allows you to tape an entire evening's worth of your own dreams, which you can then watch at your leisure. However, the inventor of the dream VCR will only allow you to use this device of you agree to a strange caveat: When you watch your dreams, you must do so with your family and your closest friends in the same room. They get to watch your dreams along with you. And if you don't agree to this, you can't use the dream VCR.

Would you still do this?

I'm torn on this one. I don't know if I would want to subject my family to my terrifying nightmares. Just ask Kristy, I have pretty vivid dreams and most of them are not nice. On the other hand, I would love to revisit them. I am sure I have blocked out parts of my dream or simply forgotten them when I wake. Now I have this cool gadget where I can replay them. But then I dream about tornadoes all the time so I am not sure I would want to see them again. But on the other hand I have dreamed where I was an X-Man. (I was Havok). I think I am leaning on letting people see my dreams as long as they remember that they are just dreams. And they might see some nudity since a lot of my dreams involve people walking in on me while I shower.

7. Defying all expectation, a group of Scottish marine biologists capture a live Loch Ness Monster. In an almost unbelievable coincidence, a bear hunter in the Pacific Northwest shoots a Sasquatch in the thigh, thereby allowing zoologists to take the furry monster into captivity. These events happen on the same afternoon. That evening, the president announces he may have thyroid cancer and will undergo a biopsy later that week.

You are the front page editor of The New York Times: What do you play as the biggest story?

As a responsible journalist I would run the President story. But then the Sasquatch would be more sensational and more important to United States readers. I would probably run the Loch Ness/Sasquatch story because of the unlikely, improbable event of them happening at roughly the same time. And the geek in me is a little intrigued.

8. You meet the perfect person. Romantically, this person is ideal: You find them physically attractive, intellectually stimulating, consistently funny, and deeply compassionate. However, they have one quirk: This individual is obsessed with Jim Henson's gothic puppet fantasy The Dark Crystal. Beyond watching it on DVD at least once a month, he/she peppers casual conversation with Dark Crystal references, uses Dark Crystal analogies to explain everyday events, and occasionally likes to talk intensely about the film's "deeper philosophy."

Would this be enough to stop you from marrying this individual?

Seriously? Do I need to remind every one that I am a comic fan? I could do the same exact thing with Banshee and the X-Men. And I am sure I do that now anyway. So yeah, no biggie here.

"The World According to Banshee"

9. A novel titled Interior Mirror is released to mammoth commercial success (despite middling reviews). However, a curious social trend emerges: Though no one can prove a direct scientific link, it appears that almost 30 percent of the people who read this book immediately become homosexual. Many of these new found homosexuals credit the book for helping them reach this conclusion about their orientation, despite the fact that Interior Mirror is ostensibly a crime novel with no homoerotic content (and was written by a straight man).

Would this phenomenon increase (or decrease) the likelihood of you reading this book?

I hardly read books anyway. I don't think this would sway me either way. I do admit that I would be a little more intrigued by reading it but I don't think it would get me to do it. I don't think it would make me go gay anyway. Now if it was an X-Men comic with Banshee in it then I totally would be all over that. Crime novels hold little interest to me.

10. This is the opening line of Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City: "You are not the kind of guy who would be in a place like this at this time of the morning." Think about that line in the context of the novel (assuming you've read it). Now go to your CD collection and find Heart's Little Queen album (assuming you own it). Listen to the opening riff to "Barracuda."

Which of these two introductions is a higher form of art?

I have not read the novel but I do own "Barracuda" and I love that opening riff. But the question isn't about what I am familiar with and what I like more. Personally I think music, especially rock music gets a bad rap and doesn't get appreciated as an art as much as it should. So I would go with Barracuda.

11. You are watching a movie in a crowded theater. Though the plot is mediocre, you find yourself dazzled by the special effects. But with twenty minutes left in the film, you are struck with an undeniable feeling of doom: You are suddenly certain your mother has just died. There is no logical reason for this to be true, but you are certain of it. You are overtaken with the irrational metaphysical sense that--somewhere--your mom has just perished. But this is only an intuitive, amorphous feeling; there is no evidence for this, and your mother has not been ill.
Would you immediately exit the theater, or would you finish watching the movie?

I would leave the theater and try to call my mom. If she didn't answer her phone, I would call my sister. If she wasn't with mom, I would be on my way up to house. I don't ignore those feelings, usually when I get feelings like this they are dead on the money. Pun fully intended.

The world will be around tomorrow so I can catch this flick at a later time.

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Well, that was a little more intensive and thought provoking than I thought it would be. I still will finish up the rest of the questions but I am curious to see how you guys respond.