Dewar’s Profile Continued: My Favorites

Always Under Construction

Equation: Boltzmann’s equation (for better or worse I am, after all, a geek; of course I have a favorite equation – doesn’t everyone?)

Activities:

Outdoor: bicycling (I had ridden the same Italian 10 speed road bike for 37 years but recently got a Litespeed cyclocross bike), skiing (downhill & uphill), backpacking

Indoor: shooting pool (I’m captain of the pool team for the Spirit Keeper saloon) & playing electric bass (a Fender Mustang); Shooting pool on the road in Cimarron, New Mexico: side pocket shot & 8-ball shot

Liquid Refreshments: microbrewery beers, wine, Bailey’s, & Harv’s – unfortunately, not Dewar’s

Movies:

Westerns: Silverado, Magnificent Seven, Red River, Tombstone, Stagecoach, & True Grit

War: They Were Expendable, The Victors, Last of the Mohicans (I guess that’s war)

SF (classic): War of the Worlds & Forbidden Planet

SF (modern): The Crow, Pi, X-Men (wow!); I like the new Star Trek movie series too although I never did like the original Trek

Fantasy: I don’t generally like fantasy but the first of the Ring Trilogy wasn’t bad – I haven’t decided whether it’s worth getting the DVD

Apocalyptic: The Road Warrior & Independence Day

Cyberpunk: The Matrix; I’d like to see a movie version of Neuromancer

Drama: The Hustler & Breakfast at Tiffany’s; I’m sure that there are others but drama really isn’t my thing; A Beautiful Mind is the best drama that I’ve seen in a long time.

Humor: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Annie Hall, Sleeper, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and Galaxy Quest

Unclassifiable: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (I really liked this)

Music:

Rock:

Classic: Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Blondie, & Heart (lots of others too)

Neo-Classic: Live, Counting Crows, Wallflowers, & SR-71

Solo: Jackson Browne, Neil Young, Carol King, Bob Seger (he’s from Ann Arbor), & Cyndi Lauper

Dylanesque: Dylan (who else?)

Country: Eagles (of course) & Outlaws

Heavy Metal (Z >=42): Husker Du

Light Metal (Z<42): Meat Loaf (The Loaf is getting older but still hanging in there and performs with his daughter too)

Country Metal: Jason and the Scorchers

Punk: Blink 182 & Green Day (gr8t contemporary rock & roll bands)

Industrial: Scorpions (totally awesome band)

Alternative: Violent Femmes (from NYC as you might guess)

Grunge: Nine Inch Nails (Garbage isn’t bad but the name bothers me – my parents used to accuse me of listening to garbage)

Techno: thanks to my daughter I’ve come to like techno

Country&Western: Grateful Dead (arguably) and Kinky Friedman & the Texas Jewboys; I like Garth Brooks too even though a friend once told me

that he’d barf all over my new Garth Brooks CD if I took it out of the bag in his presence!; I recently discovered Lucinda Williams and listen to her CD all the time

Classical: J.S. Bach, Handel, Elgar, Mahler, and most 19^th century Russians, especially Tchaikovsky

Books & Authors:

Classics: Sterne, Tristram Shandy

Fiction: Eco, especially Foucault’s Pendulum (possibly my favorite book of all time) and Aldous Huxley

Non-Fiction: Boorstin, Tuchman, Dyson, Gleick, Richard Rhodes, & lots of others

SF (classic): Poul Anderson, John Brunner, Philip Farmer, older LeGuin, & lots of others

SF (contemporary): Niven & Pournelle (when I’m in the mood and willing to bite my tongue)

SF (cyberpunk): Neal Stephenson (especially The Diamond Age & Snow Crash) and Wm. Gibson (especially Virtual Light & Idoru)

Mysteries: my favorite dicks are Sherlock Holmes, Nero Wolfe (& Archie too) - I can quote extensively from Holmes and Wolfe; Carlotta Carlyle;

Jim Qwilleran & Koko; V.I. Warshawsky; Kinsey Millhone; Miss Marple; and, of course, Kinky Friedman!

Political: P.J. O’Rourke and some Hunter Thompson

Philosophy: D. Hume and B. Russell

Mathematics: John Allen Paulos

Biology: Richard Dawkins

Physics: R.P. Feynman

Computation & Technology: Donald Norman

Futurology: Freeman Dyson

TV: I don’t watch TV and haven’t in several decades