The Book of Daniel Vol. 2

What is the name of...

1. Your favorite book?
Oh, jeez.  I don't think I really have an answer to that one.  So I'll just say The Three Stooges Scrapbook.

2. Your favorite movie?
This one I *can* answer.  Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man (1995).

3. Your least favorite adaptation of a book to a movie?
While not *exactly* an adaptation of a specific book, my least favorite movie of all time would probably have to be A Christmas Story 2, ostensibly based on Jean Shepherd's writings, but lacking any of the charm, and missing many of the points of the books (and the original movie), with the idea of a boy learning life lessons and gaining an understanding of how family and the world at large works replaced with unfunny slapstick.  It comes off as more of a lame parody than either a continuation or an homage, and then has the gall to bill itself as "the REAL sequel," ignoring My Summer Story and the PBS specials that Shepherd was actually personally involved with.  I have seen movies that are objectively worse - Nukie comes to mind - but A Christmas Story 2 is the only movie that's ever made me legitimately angry while watching it.

4. Your least favorite adaptation ever of anything to a movie?
See #3.

5. Your first ever novel/comic book/movie character crush?
I think that list begins and ends with April O'Neil (TMNT '87).

1. Have you ever been the president of anything?
No.  My political career was limited to running for Vice President of my 5th grade class, with a platform of "more class parties" (which I would've had absolutely no authority to provide), and gave out Jolly Ranchers as part of my campaigning.  I lost by one vote to a kid named Scooter, who gave out chocolate.  I should've gone with chocolate, maybe I'd have won, and who knows where I'd be now.

2. What do you think is the most important leadership trait?
The ability to listen, and the ability to understand and learn from the past.

3. What time period did you find the most interesting to learn about in history class?
I mean, I'm a history teacher so I probably shouldn't play favorites too much.  My specialty is US history (esp. 19th century), but really, it's all interesting.

4. What's something you think about doing, but you haven't gotten back into in several years?
I'd love to get back into fencing at some point; I did that in high school and a little in college.  At age 40 and 20+ years out of practice, I doubt there's much opportunity left for any sort of major competition (unless there's some sort of senior tour), but just doing it for fun would be cool.

5. If you could add one more random holiday to February, what would it be?
National Stay Home, Eat Pizza and Play Video Games Day, I guess.  But really, eh, there's enough holidays already.

Bit of a random selection this time.

1. At what age did you discover you had a favorite color?
Not really sure; my favorite color is gray but I probably didn't realize that until high school.  I don't really remember having a specific favorite color in childhood.

2. What type (genre) of film do you prefer to see in a theater versus one you'd watch at home?
Silent movies with live accompaniment.  Otherwise I'm good at home.

3. What's your oldest object or item since childhood?
If it counts as an "object," I have a golden pothos plant that's as old as I am, so I guess it'd be that.

4. In what book would you insert yourself as a side character or friend to the protagonist?
That's kind of a hard one.  A lot of my favorites - such as Bernard Cornwell's Warlord trilogy and Saxon series - are in settings that, while interesting, aren't necessarily ones I'd want to actually *be* in.  So I think I'll pick the old Three Stooges comics - 'cuz then I could hang out with the Stooges.

5. What's your favorite shape or type of cloud?
The Glow Cloud.  All hail the Glow Cloud.

No context etc.

Teeth GarageUrban Yeti
Pore Gunk
Tokyo Sandblaster
Fusilli Jerry 

My birthday present to myself last year was an SNES repro cart of Final Fantasy V, which I've never actually finished, despite having several versions of it already (PlayStation, GBA, Pixel Remaster).  I wanted to finish it for the first time in its original form before doing the PR version, and also just to complete the set of SNES Final Fantasy carts.

I'm up to the merged (third) world, just completed the pyramid dungeon and got Lenna and the airship back, so I think I'm around 2/3 through.  I've enjoyed it overall, but there are several things that definitely hold me back from putting it on the same level as its immediate predecessor or successor (which is admittedly a tall order; FF4 is a classic, at least in its uncut form, and FF6 is very possibly my favorite game of any genre of all time).  

The story is definitely inferior, lacking the emotional weight that FF4 and especially FF6 had, and I think Bartz/Butz is a much weaker protagonist than Cecil or Terra, not having nearly the same amount of depth or connection to the player, and in his more annoying moments resembling Tidus from FF10 more than anything.  Additionally, I think the overall design of the game lags behind those two games, with dungeon designs especially leading to frustration on more than one occasion, and causing issues with difficulty balance (the aforementioned pyramid stage at the beginning of the merged world, for instance, features a notable spike in difficulty just as the game's narrative takes Lenna out of the party temporarily, leaving you to deal with it at a disadvantage with only three active characters).

Of course, there is a lot to like too.  The narrative, if not as epic as 4 or transcendent as 6, is fine enough in its own right; a standard but not unenjoyable fantasy story, and the job system - the game's biggest hook - is a lot of fun to play with and customize the characters to the player's liking.  Personally, I've established Butz as the main physical fighter albeit with a bit of a magic twist, with him spending much of the game so far as a Mystic Knight but currently training as Hunter; Lenna as the primary mage, currently largely switching between Summoner and Time Mage (with the opposite's magic type set as the secondary ability; Faris as a primarily speed-based melee fighter, having already mastered the Ninja class, and currently taking a break from Thief to start also working on Hunter, and the Galuf/Krile slot adapting as needed, having had a concentration on Blue Mage but also spending notable amounts of time as a Monk, Red Mage, Black Mage and White Mage.

Squaresoft - as it was then known - had an unbelievable run from the SNES era through their first year or so on PlayStation (an overall range of about 1991-97, producing banger after banger notably including FF4, Secret of Mana, FF6, Chrono Trigger (which is also on the short list for my all-time top-ten, along with FF6), Super Mario RPG (which, yes, was developed by Square), FF7, and Final Fantasy Tactics (not to mention a few excellent games that they published for other developers, like the first Breath of Fire and one of my all-time favorite fighting games, the first Bushido Blade).  During this time they also put out a few very good if not quite legendary titles like the criminally-underappreciated Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest and Secret of Evermore, and I think that category is where FF5 fits - not quite legendary, but nonetheless a strong installment in an excellent run.

As to the Final Fantasy series overall, I pretty much fell off it after 10.  While I loved 7, I absolutely hated 8, haven't given 9 a fair chance as of yet (and I should, as it's probably a far better game than I've credited for) and, while I liked a lot about 10, especially the battle system, there was a lot of poor writing, poor voice acting and general silliness that put me off the then-current direction of the series.  Maybe I should also try to find time to give 12 a shot at some point, as I know many like it, but especially when it started moving in its current action-RPG direction I lost what little remaining interest I had in the series (and I have zero interest in MMORPGs, so I'll probably never play 11 or 14, and still have no idea why they were made part of the main line instead of an online side-series).  But we'll always have the early NES classics and that sweet spot between 4 and 7, right?

1. What is your current main mode of transportation? e.g. car, bike, subway, walking, etc.
Just my ‘19 Outback.  93k miles and counting.

2. Are you satisfied with your current main mode of transportation (answer to question 1)? Why?
Yes.

3. Do you think you'll change your means of transit soon? e.g. buy a car, get rid of your car, walk more etc.? If so, why?
I hope not to.

4. If time, distance and money were not factors, how do you prefer to get from point A to point B?
Teleportation would be nice.

5. What was your worst transit experience?
A train car with the heat stuck on in late spring, between NYC and Poughkeepsie.

I think this is my shortest annual movies list since I started keeping them - without a few random documentaries and that Chuck E. Cheese thing, it would've been even shorter. In this turbulent year I focused more on books (and games). I even considered not bothering to post the list and just doing a combined 2023/2024 one next year, but whatever, here it is.

• Call Me Miss Cleo [Celia Aniskovich & Jennifer Brea, 2022]
• A Christmas Story [Bob Clark, 1983]*
• Chuck E. Cheese in the Galaxy 5000 [David Orr, 1999]
• Dead Man [Jim Jarmusch, 1995]*
• Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves [Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley, 2023]
• Happy Happy Joy Joy: The Ren & Stimpy Story [Kimo Easterwood & Ron Cicero, 2020]
• Hugo [Martin Scorsese, 2011]*
• John Wick: Chapter 2 [Chad Stahelski, 2017]
• Nope [Jordan Peele, 2022]
• The Orange Years: The Nickelodeon Story [Adam Sweeney & Scott Barber, 2018]
• Reality Bites [Ben Stiller, 1994]
• Renfield [Chris McKay, 2023]
• The Super Mario Bros. Movie [Aaron Horvath & Michael Jelenic, 2023]
• Tár [Todd Field, 2022]

*Re-watch Total movies: 13

Mom: “When you get older, you’ll realize that coffee and reading a book are one of the best things in life.”

12/22
1. Are you easily offended or upset by things other people post online?
Not generally.  But I tend to avoid the more charged sections of the internet.

2. How much does the order in which the Friday Five questions are presented here matter to you?
Not at all.

3. Have you ever made an effort to be inclusive, only to have someone complain that you were not being inclusive enough?
No, I don't think I've run into that.

4. Are you having a happy holiday season?
Reasonably.  It'll certainly end up being better than last year's.

5. Which holidays do you observe or celebrate?
Secular X-mas, with recognition to Festivus.


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12/15
1. What tradition makes the holidays for you?
Given the option, I would gladly have A Christmas Story on a loop the entire day.

2. Have you ever gone caroling door to door?
I don't *think* so.  I did do caroling with a Sunday school group in my very-young church-going days, but I don't think it was door-to-door, just in the park or something.

3. What holiday tradition would you happily see the back of?
Xmas stuff showing up in stores and in public before Thanksgiving (or, at this point, before *Halloween*).  

4. Have you ever spent Christmas way from your home and family?
No, fortunately.

5. Did you put milk and cookies out for Santa?
I don't go for milk on its own, and the cookies (which I really shouldn't have at this point) wouldn't make it to the time Santa arrives.