Hotseat! Grill a MoFo: The Tank

If you had to throw away all your movies but one, which one would you keep?

Do you avoid watching certain movies, simply because of an actor that is in them?

Name 5 actors you would love to meet, and why. What would you want to do to, or with them?

Who is your favorite superhero?

Who is your favorite action star?

What is your favorite holiday?

What is your favorite season?

Name the movie you hate the most.

What is your favorite hobby, besides watching movies?

Name the oldest movie you've seen.

Name the newest movie you've seen.

What is your favorite theater snack?

Do you prefer board games, or computer games?

Theater, or home theater?

What's your favorite sport?

Did you ever play any in school?

How is the gardening going?

Anymore trouble with the rabbits?

What all are you growing?

Do you grow fruit trees of any kind, as well?

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What do you get out of running? Sure, go ahead and explain the physical benefits if you like, but what does it do to your brain and your soul? Do you ever feel yourself "outside" of your body or are you careful to stay "inside"? Describe, if possible, the high you get from it.

Also, if you don't mind, I enjoyed your words about Jaws earlier. Can you expound a bit more on how Jaws makes you feel? Are there any parts of Jaws which might get you as high as long-distance running?

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

You haven't disappeared on us again, have you?

Maybe I missed a post where you are vacationing right now, or something. I feel the need to PM you about this now, instead of later . . .

Sorry folks....had some stuff going on here that's kind of had me scattered. Did some traveling too....(some pics on that a bit later ). But I'm on it now....

Probably Contact. Not for the sheer cinematic excellence of it by any means (though it's no slouch), but for the expanse of themes it addresses that encompass my life. Themes of: childhood loss and the dogged determination to devote one's life to eking out a meaning of such event(s); issues of God, cosmology and the ages-old conflict between science and religion; love and passion for the universe as a way toward a sensible perspective in what can seem like (at times) a senseless existence; the joy in preserving mystery; a captivating story by a man (Sagan) who, along with my father, thrust me deeper into my astronomical hobby with his PBS series (and book) Cosmos; and the fact that the message in the movie comes from Vega, which was the name of my German Shepherd who died this past February (we named her as a 6 week old pup in 1996- two years before the film...which, incidentally, I named her that because we got her in the summer and the star Vega is the brightest star in the summer constellations. Since I was also looking to the inevitability of her passing some day, I knew that I could look directly overhead here at my latitude and see her star on any clear summer night. May be overkill for a canine, but it is a constant memorial to her existence which contributed so much to our lives for 12 years.

That's a few reasons why I'd keep Contact.
Not by default, because I tend to gravitate toward the subject matter and/or director, who can accommodate for what lacks in some actors.

If I had to, I'd probably say most anything with Ben Affleck. Though I know there's a cadre of Tarantino fans here and I give him his due for some things, but I tend to grow weary of him. But it's probably all okay since we're both from the same town.
*RICHARD DREYFUSS:I would thank him for inspiring my dad's hairdo in the late 70's.

*KATHARINE HEPBURN: I would have liked to have gotten with her on any December 17th so she could sing "Happy Birthday" to me. Preferably, on a goldenly, small body of water.

*AUDREY HEPBURN: Just to gaze deeply into those eyes...

*ANTHONY HOPKINS: I'd like to take a stroll down some stately, tree-lined lane on some fabulous English, rural estate and get his take on his craft and life in general.

*STEVEN SPIELBERG: I know....he's not an "actor" but since he's appeared in some of his own films, we'll go with it.

I'd like to talk with him about what it was as a child that simultaneously fascinated and scared him the most.
I'd have to say Superman. Or the Greatest American Hero.
I would probably have to say Schwarzenegger. Though I feel like there's someone else I should name and I can't think of the name right now....
Christmas. Either that or Chocolate Cake Day, which rolls around every January 27th.
Spring. Terra firma emerges to life again and the atmosphere gets jiggy wit it.


Gigli. Never saw it, but it seems like I should hate it.
Dang...I gots bunches of 'em. Maybe too many, according to m'laydee. Probably caving, astronomy, meteorology, running, mountain biking, reading, writing, music, mineral collecting, metal detecting, oil painting. Until I find a way to combine all those, I'd venture a guess that meteorology or caving is one of my faves.
May be this...

To date, X Files:I Want To Believe.

Popcorn (no butter) chased hard with some plain M & M's.
Computer games by far. Until they come up with a first-person shooter Monopoly.
Theater for the big, anticipated releases (a real gamble nowadays with some audiences, on the enjoyability/annoyance factor) and for my own personal study of audience reaction. Home theater now that I have a big screen LCD and new surround sound. Home theater for in deeper study of the film too.
May be running right now. Though I have to say caving, mountain biking, tennis and basketball.
I did play basketball in high school. I also played some pickup games with the basketball players at East Tennessee State University outside my dorm in the late 80's. That is only important because I did block the shot of a future NBA player, Keith Jennings.
It's about half and half right now. Weird things with the pumpkins (only one left now), cucumbers getting eaten up, tomato plants are large and healthy but some tomatoes are getting bottom rot. We've got some good looking okra, had some good onions and we have one promising looking watermelon. This is our first shot at a raised garden or a garden at all for that matter and we are learning a lot. I have much to learn.
Ha ha! Not a bit. Balls of the moth seem to work. It's some other insecty critters that are stealing the show right now.
We got pumpkin, onion, lettuce, beefsteak tomatoes, okra, thumbelina carrots, cucumbers, watermelon and green peppers. Or we were supposed to have all of this stuff, no thanks to the freekin' hare.
You know...I'd love to. We used to have cherry trees in Tennessee and I remember the days of walking down to them and coming back up the hill with bowl-fulls of luscious cherries. Tending to a tree is a bit intimidating to me now in light of the difficulties I'm having with my garden.

I'd love to do Concorde grapes and make jelly just like my grandfather did in Knoxville when I was but a wee one. But my track record with vine-y things isn't to swift right now.

That's a starter....must hit the sack though for now. I shall return to some more a bit later.

Good day, my spelunking friend! I'm glad you're back. Hop onto the grill...

You obviously don't have claustrophobia, but is there something you're afraid of? Besides rabbits, that is.

My mom has a garden and brings forth all sorts of bounty from the earth, but it's a lot of work. When and why did you decide to do have a garden?

What's your real-life job, again? I forgot. Not chasing tornadoes I hope!

Do you have siblings? How many, what kind?

Can you take a picture of one of your oil paintings for us MoFo art lovers and post it, please?

__________________
If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.

Johann von Goethe

What is your favorite comic book?

__________________
"If you can't be funny be interesting."
Harold Ross

What do you get out of running? Sure, go ahead and explain the physical benefits if you like, but what does it do to your brain and your soul?
Excellent question.

It helps to connect all of me together... brain/mind/body/soul/emotions, etc. I'm not a "born" runner, nor do I genetically have a gift to be "fast." But that isn't the point for me. It is teaching me to get in touch with myself in surprisingly tangible ways by reconnecting parts of me that I had previously compartmentalized. Taking care of my body now isn't an afterthought if I'm going to continue running. I can't neglect diet or put eating the right things off for another time. My body speaks to me in ways that challenge ingrained habits. When my knee aches or my shins hurt, it's for a reason and I have to give attention to it or it gets worse. I can't put off not taking in enough water, etc. Overall, the discipline offered to me not only permeates running, but spills over into other areas of my life as well.

Having races to train for helps to sharpen the discipline, too.

If anyone's interested, you can go to this post on my personal blog to read a bit more in depth on the Tank Runner.

Do you ever feel yourself "outside" of your body or are you careful to stay "inside"? Describe, if possible the high you get from it.
Another good question. It probably depends on how my body is responding and feels on any given day, as it might be with any other physical endeavor. I probably find myself in both places...the high of the run simultaneously makes you more keenly aware of self and environment, but if you venture too far into that place, I suppose you can tend to lose touch with yourself. For me, and since I am still learning this stuff, there's a sense that a short tether between the inside and outside seems to be the way to go. I liken it to narrowing a 13.1 mile run down to just one step at a time....or just making it down to the light pole. That pace essentially grounds me, but not so much that I can't get to those outer realms, no matter how excruciating or euphoric.

The physical highs are well documented and are, for me, about what you read about it. You may have heard about the dreaded "wall" for runners/endurance athletes. There are several physical
mini-walls along the way too. I am assigning a kind of meaning to the way running has transformed my life that is allowing me to derive a mental/emotional high that is persistent.

The memory of the hard work, the overcoming of injuries and surmounting the odds and random circumstances that could have pushed me to abandon the quest to run my first half-marathon are now reality. The runs on the 11-degree nights at 1am under a star-studded sky and coming back home with eyelashes iced together is an example of this kind of high. Not once was I ever cold during these runs. Memories of the kind of communion I was discovering with myself and God and the world under the duress of painful heels and shins with the suspicion that I might not make it gels into a high that you can return to over and over.

Can you expound a bit more on how Jaws makes you feel? Are there any parts of Jaws which might get you as high as long-distance running?
Jaws is one of those movies for me that connect me to a time in my (early) life and the life of my family when we were still intact as such. Since my folks divorced when I was in 1st grade, I tend to seek out reference points that assist in remembering those times when I at least perceived some bit of stasis or stability in my life in the presence of a sense of deep loss over that event. Movies help do that, especially when I see the ones we all saw together. Nostalgic longing/wishful thinking.....but sometimes I just can't help it

Jaws is one of those markers for me. We were in Kure Beach, NC the summer it was released. It was my very first beach trip ever. I was dumbfounded by the image of the shark and was instantly smitten with rapt fascination for the creatures, in spite of its monster-ly intentions. One day after we saw the movie, my dad was wiped out by a large wave and didn't come up for a bit. Of course, I had images of fangs, fins and (gulp) severed arms. I remember in the opening scene where the girl is treading water. I knew how exhilerating that water-weightlessness was like. But the next time I would venture into the Atlantic after the movie (the next day), I could not do so without a hint of Jaws in the back of my mind. There wasn't quite a category in my young mind with which to place that co-existent fascination and fear. But I did come home with a stuffed shark toy.

This scene probably connects me to what I just described above:


This scene pumps me up pretty good (as do any with the shark), all from the relative (and painless) safety of my home theater:

Good day to you Mrs. D! Thanks a bunch...good to be back as always. I just hope some non-stick spray was applied (butter- flavored)......

Good question there. I am in the process of conquering my fear of heights. I am reduced to a trembling mass of gelatin when exposed to them. However, it is subsiding since I began a full out assault on this fear. Every year we go down to the Nantahala National Forest in Western North Carolina and camp. I decided to try and conquer every climbable fire tower I could, since there are plenty in the forest. Now I can climb these suckers and not feel like I'm going to croak.

I am quite impacted by the amount of work just a 4x8 raised garden has required. My family had one once as a kid. I don't remember too much about it though.

We have been trying to make the move toward all-organic and all local over the last little bit. Gardening was just that next little step we hadn't taken. We thought to get into it this season as a learning season....and it has certainly been that. We had talked about a garden for a little while and this season was when we decided to jump into it. As you know, there's nothing like plugging your fingers into the dirt and caring for the plants that connects you to the whole life-giving process of toiling over and caring for the earth we are given. The appreciation for my food that flows from that has exponentially increased and it accounts for an even greater stewardship in other areas of my life as well.

Oh, I'd luhv, luhv, LUUUUHV to get paid to chase 'nadoes.

In real life, I am a church planter/pastor. We started a church that reaches out to university students and young adults in our area. We have a small network of house churches and similar simple communities that meet in homes, apartments, bars, etc.....wherever is conducive for what's going on. Being in the home allows us to remain in our neighborhoods and be present to our neighbors and serve them in a way we couldn't in another format. I also mentor another young church planter here in town.

I also am adjunct faculty at a regional Christian university. I teach introductory courses on the Old Testament/New Testament, Apologetics, Biblical Themes, philosophy and a sociology.

I do. I have a sister who is two years older than I am. She has a beautiful family and teaches 6th grade in Tennessee. Here we are, ca. 1974, although she's the one who usually had me in a headlock:


Sure can....for a small processing fee.

I mainly do still life...nature scenes...and, you guessed it, thunderstorms including tornadoes. I'm in the process of painting a portrait of my dog, Vega. There's a few I'm posting here.

Though short-lived and somewhat obscure, the Godzilla comics were my favorite and I devoured them as a kid. I'm trying to collect them now.

Great answers, Tank.

I'll start small, because I need to get, but for starters, I wouldn't have pictured you naming Contact. I don't know why. I'm not even sure I had any idea what you would name, but it wasn't that one. I honestly couldn't get into it, but that's no insult, because the one I'd keep is Halloween. It was my first favorite, that whole favorite holiday thing. Yeah!



Now you're talking.

"Believe it or not, I'm walking on air. I never thought I could feel so free ee ee."

When I have time, I need to total this next questions answers, with all the grill people. That, and make sure I ask the rest of them. I do believe that this guy is winning the race.



Well, off I go.

"I'll be back!"

Contact was neck-and-neck with this.....


Halloween ain't bad though....


I was beginning to see this guy pop up quite a bit too. I'd be interested in seeing those numbers.

Halloween is bitchin', son. The real Halloween movie. Not Zombie's remake.

Is that Basket Case? I maybe remember 2-3 minutes of that movie. The fact that he needed to/could use the toilet, isn't one of them.

Originally Posted by Ðèstîñy
How is the gardening going?

It's about half and half right now. Weird things with the pumpkins (only one left now), cucumbers getting eaten up, tomato plants are large and healthy but some tomatoes are getting bottom rot. We've got some good looking okra, had some good onions and we have one promising looking watermelon. This is our first shot at a raised garden or a garden at all for that matter and we are learning a lot. I have much to learn.

As far as the melons, and such, put straw underneath them. Keep the tomatoes off the ground, entirely. I have these wooden things I strap mine to. The pumpkins have a bug that likes to crawl through that looong stem thing of theirs, and suck the life right out of it. I haven't studied that one yet, but the straw will help. There are many things you can do to help with insects. Plant Marigolds around your tomatoes.



As much as you may not like wasps, leave these where ever you see them around your garden areas.



They love a lot of the bugs that eat our stuff.

Then you have these guys . . .



Aphids, which I'll share my story about how I found out about them, later on. They are a pain as well, to certain trees, etc, but these guys love eating them, and you can actually buy them on-line.



There are also sprays you can make with things around the house. Nothing dangerous. One gets rid of aphids, and there is something for pretty much everything.

Originally Posted by Ðèstîñy
What all are you growing?

We got pumpkin, onion, lettuce, beefsteak tomatoes, okra, thumbelina carrots, cucumbers, watermelon and green peppers. Or we were supposed to have all of this stuff, no thanks to the freekin' hare.

Well, I'm glad the mothballs worked, and like you said, it's a learning experience.

Haha....yeah, that's Basket Case. I know what you mean there.

Good advice...thanks. So far, I have a trellis that I've been growing the pumpkin on (as opposed to them laying on the ground). I think I have squash bugs on them and some kind of yellowish caterpillar-y thing too...it's just about a half inch long though at most.

Same with the cucumbers, which we have done just okay with them. Tomatoes have been kept off the ground as well. There may have been something with the pH of the soil. I don't know.


Wish I had some of 'em. I'll take whatever help I can get.


Let me know what organic home-remedies/insecticides you've found that works.

Yes it is. I'm kind of non-plussed about things with this particular garden. I've talked with some friends north of us in Ohio and they are having the same kinds of problems with their vining plants. Apparently there is a lot of timing and meticulous search/destroy efforts required for these dudes.

Have you replaced your doggie?

How did you meet your partner?

What is your fav food

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Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
Buddha

No, not yet. My mother moved in with us about 3 months ago and she has a chihuahua and a cat. So by virtue of her pets, we "have" a dog and a cat, but they remain mostly in her room.

Outside of that situation, we would not have had another pet at this point. Still just a bit too soon I suppose.

M'laydee and I met in high school. I first saw her because she was a freshman and a popular cheerleader while I was a junior playing basketball. We later struck up a friendship since she was a fiesty, little "Hot Box" dancer in our school musical that year (Guys and Dolls) and her cousin and I were Sergeant Sarah Brown and Sky Masterson, (respectively, of course). I developed a crush on her but didn't tell anyone. We kind of went our own ways after high school. She would become a freshman and the university I was attending during my junior year. That was when we started dating. We dated about 2 years and were engaged for one year before our wedding.


Probably, Swedish Meatballs, though I don't eat them a whole lot. Especially not while I'm in training cuz I would eat them a lot. That, and....


I am a sucker for homemade ice cream. Not a bad option for breakfast, lunch and dinner.


....AND NONE OF THESE BURGERS....YOU ALL HEAR ME?

I know what you mean it took me 3 yrs to get another dog after mine had passed away


Awww Thanks I love hearing how people met

Yuck hate meat

Now you are talking my language