Three Updates, Not Third Wishes

These three updates come from the three fronts on which I seem to be fighting.

Concerning Wishes:

The following is from the "Legacy and Influences" section of Steve Perry's Wikipedia page. It proves something about Wikipedia, though I'll let you decide what that is.

Steve Perry is frequently considered one of the best male rock vocalists of all time. He consistently ranks among the top ten rock vocalists of all time in many music polls. His signature style of using real emotion in every performance, along with his unmistakable tenor voice, makes him a rarity in music. With Perry's wide range of vocal abilities, he was able to invent the power ballad and take it to a new level of emotion and feeling. It was said that Jon Bon Jovi gave him the name "The Voice". Queen guitarist Brian May said in a 2007 interview "Perry is a truly luminous singer, in my opinion — a voice in a million".

Many artists have cited Steve Perry as being an influence including: Josh Groban, Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty, Chris Daughtry, Garth Brooks, Jon Bon Jovi, Barney Greenway of Napalm Death, and Sebastian Bach.

Concerning Snacks

To illustrate further just how far gone the American Snacking Crisis is, allow me to relate an anecdote. Tonight, Zach and I went to see the very last showing of Frost/Nixon in Athens (Fantastic—I recommend it). At the Athena Grand, they sell their tickets directly out of the concessions line, which is a shrewd business move because it removes the pain of taking out your wallet twice. You may have decided about what to see before you came, but you've only begun to consider things like Sour Patch Kids and Junior Mints.

Those aren't so much of a temptation for me, but fountain drinks are. I'm in a pact not to drink soda except for the last day of the month, so when I stepped to the front of the line I knew it would only be a ticket for me. But then, just above the cashier's shoulder, I saw the swirling frosty goodness of a generic slushy machine. "Those aren't carbonated, Zach!" I reveled, and then said, "One ticket and one slushy."

The boy glanced over his shoulder at the machine and asked, "What color would you like, red or blue?"

Did that kid just ask me what color of slushy I wanted? "Don't you mean, 'What flavor?'"

"Uh, yeah. Red or blue?"

I took the red-flavored slushy. Mr. President, what we need is a taskforce.


Concerning Trivial Pursuit:¹

My last post's instigating adventure occurred en route to Rollerbowl, Athens' only bowling alley.² When we arrived, we found the place beleaguered by—what else?—leaguers, so we couldn't play.³ Instead we went to my house to drown our Combined sorrows over Newtons and Trivial Pursuit. We were playing a beautifully preserved Genus edition with the original 1982 questions. Some of the questions were for things that have now become so esoteric that they are virtually unanswerable, and others that may once have been trivial are now so obvious as to be laughable. Among them were these gems:

• Who puts you in the driver's seat?
• Who tells it like it is?
• What does I.Q. stand for?
• What is a pyrotechnic display?⁴

At one point I answered a green one correctly for a pie and reached over to fit a green piece in my token. I wasn't really paying attention to the simple operation, and when I couldn't fit the piece in after a few seconds I looked to see what the problem was.


It was a Monopoly house.



¹ If wishes are my Afghanistan and Combos are my Iraq, Trivial Pursuit is my War on Drugs.
² But not, as one may guess, Athens' only roller rink. In fact, it's not a roller rink at all.
³ That was for you, Zach.
⁴ They are Hertz, Howard Cosell, "intelligence quotient," and a fireworks show.