Five alive

I have not been watching movies lately, so we have a little diversion here. My patron, Middento, answered five questions on his blog a little while ago. So I asked for five for mine.

1. I first met you in your freshman fall in college, both of us new arrivals to D.C. Given a time machine (just like Bill & Ted), what item of wisdom would you like to tell that kid from six years ago? (Optional follow-up: what bit of fool-hardiness should that kid remind you of now?) I have grown less mature and more foolhardy as I've gotten older, so I'm not sure if it's possible to answer this question without going cross-eyed. But: I would tell my younger self to drop the journalism major and make better use of his time. Or drop out of school entirely and come back when he's ready to actually learn and stop wasting people's time and money. On the flip side, I would not be interested in anything my freshman self would have to say. He was a stupid boy.

2. Describe your feelings toward book paper (as opposed to, say, the gloss of magazine paper). It's about smell, not texture. Sometimes I smell the pages of a book -- riffle the leaves in front of my nose and inhale -- and can remember exactly how that book made me feel as I read it. In fact, you could blindfold me, pick my five favorite books from my shelf, flutter them in front of my nose and I'd be able to tell which is which. Magazine paper is less evocative.

3. Captain Renault has just told you to round up the usual suspects. Who are they -- and where? They are a DVD at Blockbuster.

4. Apparently, these quizzes have questions involving identification with inanimate objects. In which case -- poof! you're a desk! Describe yourself, and what's on/in you. I am a desk from the future -- a future where desks are not made of metals and woods but of highly-pressurized and dense air. So one does appear to be, in effect, writing on nothing at all. But this ether-desk works beautifully and is solid and smooth and functional without being apparent. The only downside is that the desk has no drawers. Which is typical of me as a human, since I eschew pants.

5. You've clearly been a bad, bad boy and are going straight to hell. When you arrive, you'll be strapped into the chair akin to that used to change Alex in Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, so that you will be forced to watch something. Happily, however, you are given a choice. Which would you choose first: Xanadu, Gigli, BloodRayne, Kazaam or Bolero? I have never seen any of these, so the whole experience would, at the very least, be a new one. And I like new experiences, so this isn't hell at all! Is it? Is it?

Bonus: Have you ever danced with the devil by the pale moon light? In October 2005, I peered down the chasm of eternity and saw the face of forever, but there was no dancing involved.

Now do you have any questions for me? Until I post next, I will answer with sharp honesty any question written in the comments. Upcoming: I see Spider-Man 3 on Thursday.