Answers, part the first

Time to start catching up on the answers to the First Round of Ask Me Anything!. (The second round will come maybe a few months from now, when I get bored again or something.) I'm answering these in fairly randomized order. Well, OK, there's nothing random about it; I'm taking the ones that lend themselves to "short answers" first.

:: Have you read any of Star Wars On Trial? What do you think of it.

I have, in fact, not read it. In fact, I don't know what it is! So off to Google I go...

[insert whirring sound of Google in action here]

OK, apparently Star Wars on Trial is a book in which David Brin (who is known to hate Star Wars) and Matthew Stover (who wrote one of the novelizations and maybe some other stuff) debate some points about Star Wars, such as "Science Fiction Filmmaking Has Been Reduced by Star Wars to Poorly Written Special Effects Extravaganzas". Maybe I'll seek this book out sometime, but I have to admit that at the outset it sounds like something that would piss me off at least half the time. I mean, just to that one "issue" I cite above (and not even granting the premise that Star Wars is badly written), it's not as if SF filmmaking was exactly a font of well-written movies before George Lucas came along. And so on.

So David Brin can bite me. Harumph!

Why is Dave Letterman so mean to Paul?

Huh. I confess that I've never found Letterman particularly "mean" to Paul -- he ribs the guy a lot, but to me Letterman always shows a great deal of respect for Paul and his talents. Now, Dave's certainly mean to Alan Kalter on occasion, but I suspect that's mostly schtick, anyway.

What did you think of V for Vendetta (the movie)?

Haven't seen it, and I haven't really decided if I want to or not. I dunno. I'm not that big a fan of the Wachowski's, liking The Matrix less every time I watch it and having fallen asleep in the first half hour of The Matrix Reloaded. The comic, though, was brilliant, although I haven't read it since 1989 or so.

Superpower: flying or invisibility?

Invisibility all the way. I could do a lot of good if I were invisible. Yeah...good...heh heh heh....

Who's your favorite Wilbury, and why?

Assuming we're talking about the Traveling Wilbury's, my fave is Roy Orbison.

If you could, scratch that, make it HAD TO - change one, at least fairly major, thing about the Star Wars prequels, what would it be?

Hmmmm...a tough one! I've never hated Jake Lloyd's performance in The Phantom Menace, but given how important the kid is to that movie and the skill he's shown with directing kids in the past, if Steven Spielberg was ever going to direct a Star Wars movie, that would have been the one.

(Other possible answers include having Frank Darabont do the scripts based on Lucas's story outlines, and to make a change to the actual storylines, having an attempt on Padme's life take place on Naboo in Attack of the Clones.)

And here are a few related ones:

What sort of carrot would it take to pull a Sampson & Delilah on that hair of yours, and what further impetus would be needed to shave the mug?

I had long hair in the mid and late 90s, but got it whacked when I left Pizza Hut to go work for Bob Evans, a company that had a strict hair-length policy for men. At the time I was grossly unhappy working for Pizza Hut, so leaving them for a company that was going to pay me more and treat me more professionally was worth losing the hair.

I eventually left Bob's when I decided that I just didn't want to be a restaurant manager (nothing against Bob's at all), and aside from going to Fantastic Sam's every so often to get the ends trimmed up, I've never had a haircut since. That was in January of 2000.

So there are circumstances under which I'd get the hair whacked. Right now, though, I can't imagine what they'd be. It'd have to be a job I really want at a place that genuinely forbids long hair.

Along other lines, having to undergo chemo or some other medical procedure that requires hair-cutting or results in hair loss would he endured if they came along.

With the beard, roughly the same answers apply. I just like this look. So if anyone's looking to entice me with some kind of bet, like "If the Bills win, I'll shave my head, but if the Jets win, you shave yourhead!", you'll need to find some other kind of bet-losing penalty!

In a question that echoes Buffalogeek's #3, what would it take to get you to lose the overalls?

An act of God.

Under threat of losing your right thumb and pinky toes, would you shave the beard, cut the hair, AND lose the overalls?

OK...I'm sensing a bit of distaste for my fashion choices from the citizens of Blogistan....

I don't have a question question; I just wanted to say I like the hair, the beard and the overalls.

Ha!

and the tie dye too.

Hooray!

More answers tomorrow or the day after, folks. Thanks to all who posed queries! This turns out to be a pretty fun exercise.