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by - October 24, 2008 - 11:54 AM
1. The topic of Monday’s Lunchtime Quiz is Super Nintendo. In honor of that, what’s your proudest video game accomplishment? Mine is knocking out Mike Tyson—first when I was 9, then again in college after being told by a Nintendo-owning hallmate that it was literally impossible (”The programmers rigged it so Tyson always wins.”)
2. Of all the biographies you’ve ever read, what’s your favorite? (And do you recommend it to the flossy elite?)
3. So, what’s for lunch today?
4. With the proximity of the ‘Reply’ and ‘Reply All’ buttons on most email programs, there’s no shortage of stories about email disasters. What’s the most regrettable email incident you’ve witnessed (or caused)? If the responses are funny enough, we may spin this into an article of its own.
Comments (60)
Comment
These questions are right up my alley.
1. My brother and i had a $20 bet on who could beat Metroid first. I won. $20 was like $10,000 to me back then.
2. Love Evan Thomas’s RFK book. Highly recommended to any history lovers, whether you like the kennedy family or not.
3. I will be skipping lunch in hopes of getting out of work early this afternoon. Probably shouldn’t be spending time on here when i should be working, but i needed a floss fix!
4. My last boss mistakenly told me he wanted to fire me in an email that was supposed to go to the head of HR (we had the same first name). The thing is, after I confronted him on it, he was so embarrassed that he never went through with it. But I took it as a helpful hint that I should go find a new job, which i did.
posted by Ted on 10-24-2008 at 12:02 pm
1. I reached Ganon in the original Legend of Zelda without ever picking up a sword… it’s not easy.
2. I don’t typically read biographies, so I would have to say that Ayn Rand’s We The Living is the closest thing I’ve read to an (auto)biography in the last decade.
3. Panang chicken
4. I have yet to have a reply/reply all problem. I’ve accidentally replied to one person when I meant to reply to all, but never the other way around.
posted by HP on 10-24-2008 at 12:04 pm
1. I found all the Iris Treasures in Lufia II. That took FOREVER!
2. I really enjoyed Gene Wilder’s autobiography, “Kiss Me Like A Stranger: My Search for Love and Art.” I’d recommend it.
3. A spinach, goat cheese, cranberry, and pecan salad; crackers, and a plum.
4. A long time ago when e-mail survey memes between teenage friends were all the rage, I frequently got those surveys filled out with REALLY personal information from people I hardly knew who only meant to send their survey back to the sender.
posted by Andrea on 10-24-2008 at 12:16 pm
1. Beating Cutman in Mega Man (1). Beating the game was good too, but Cutman took me a lot of work (hey I was young).
2. No clue
3. Bagel Bites
4. I have yet to use the Reply to All button, I just reply then type in all the other names. I’ve seen many errors with a send to all option in the address book, but none from Reply to All.
posted by RX on 10-24-2008 at 12:16 pm
3. Very meaty spaghetti & potatoes Au gratin. Exciting, I know.
posted by susan on 10-24-2008 at 12:19 pm
My brother and I got a super nintendo for Christmas one year. We woke up around 4 a.m., opened it and the games, and put it all together. By the time the parents got up, we had conquered Contra, thanks to up,up, down, down, left, right, left right to get the extra 30 men!
posted by karissa on 10-24-2008 at 12:21 pm
1. Being asked to speak at a professional conference about video games! :-)
2. “The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary” by Simon Winchester.
3. I have no idea yet. Probably a run to Sheetz…
4. I once was communicating with two men about different jobs, and these two men had names that were inverse to one another (ex. Richard Patrick and Patrick Richards). As you can imagine, I sent the wrong e-mails to the wrong men. :-(
posted by Corrine on 10-24-2008 at 12:25 pm
1. 30 Lives cheat in Contra? Who needs it… I once beat the game without taking a hit. That took a while, especially since I made it to the final boss and was killed by one of those spider monkey bugs.
2. My all time favorite book is Johnny Cash’s autobiography Cash, By Johnny Cash.
3. 2 Valium and a glass of dexatrim.
4. My buddy, who is a high school theology teacher, once sent an email talking about how old and senile a nun at his school happed to be…and he accidentally sent to every Jesuit school in the nation. Not bad.
posted by D-town on 10-24-2008 at 12:28 pm
1. My most triumphant pre-teen, video game related moment was when I finally, after years of tears, completed the first Legend of Zelda game. I had been playing for what seemed like an eternity, so when I was able to beat this game…it was like a 600lb. gorilla had been removed.
2. I can’t really remember the last biography I read.
3. Big old cup ‘o’ coffee from Tim Hortons. Thank the heavens for Tim Horton.
4. On my work e-mail, I’ll usually get some mundane stuff from my fellow employees. Every now and again, they’ll be sent to everyone in the office, as well as a few outsiders. There was a particular e-mail that had the FAINTEST twinge of waxing political, which caused a bit of an uproar throughout the recipients, specifically those who don’t share this office. SO, after a few days of getting EVERYONE’S response about the topic, I sent out a ratherly passive-aggressive to the whole group, letting them know that right next to the ‘reply-all’ button was, indeed, the ‘reply’ button.
have a good weekend, everyone!
posted by Michael on 10-24-2008 at 12:32 pm
1. its not nintendo but when i was 15 my friend bet me 50 bucks i could not beat resident evil 1, 2 and 3 in one night. after a night of mountian dew fueled zombie slaughter i finished all three in 8 hours. he still owes me the money.
2. best auto biography was by a kid in my 2nd grade class, i will never forget “this is my dog jessie, he like to clean my ears” they had a copy of it in library for years (still might)
3. wendy’s spicy chicken go wrap
4. 97 percent of my co workers are women. and they had a chain e-mail going through on who they thought was the hottest guy in work (there is only 7 of us). my gf who i work with forwarded to me, and laughed that i was barely mention. and i of course hit reply all and said “thats good i would only touch these cows with a spatula”. i still work there, but i am looking for a new job
posted by dan on 10-24-2008 at 12:33 pm
1. Going “old school” on this one. A couple of years ago, we got an Atari 2600 emulator that included the game “Adventure” in showing my son how the game “worked” I beat the game on difficulty levels 1 & 2 from long repressed memory. Never mind the fact that it had been over 2 decades since I had laid eyes on the game.
2. Ruth Gordon’s autobiography is the only thing that springs to mind.
posted by EMStoveken on 10-24-2008 at 12:33 pm
1. designing my own D&D type maze with dragons & other obstacles when I was a kid with some Spinnaker software on my good ol’ Commodore 64
2. BeBe Buell’s biography. Total cheese & great tawdry gossip.
3. Leftover homemade California Rolls
4.Sending politically charged email out to a group and having angry dissenter hit reply all casued a poop storm of the greatest magnitude. Some folks still are not speaking to this day.
posted by qt314159265 on 10-24-2008 at 12:35 pm
1) Proudest video game moment: Beating Jafar on Sega Genesis’ “Aladdin”.
2) Not a big fan of biographies
3) Panera (broccoli cheddar soup and greek salad)
4) I can’t think of any email mishaps but I have had quite a few scares and I have been known to text message the wrong person.
I was once staying with my friend and her husband and they fought all the time. I thought I texted my boyfriend during one of their episodes, “They’re fighting again! Help!”. It turns out that I texted my friend who was downstairs fighting with her husband! I got away with it though. She thought I meant to text her just to remind them that I was present in the house!
posted by K on 10-24-2008 at 12:36 pm
1. My biggest accomplishment with a video game was finally being able to play Golden Eye 007 on N64 without getting motion sickness…for some reason all the spinning about and being able to play in 3D messed me up and I could only play for about 20 minutes before feeling sick.
2. Lillibet: An Intimate Portrait of Elizabeth II. and I would absolutely recommend it to fellow _flossers.
3. Lunch was lobster bisque, a grilled chicken sandwich, and fries.
4. A friend of mine inadvertently came out to his family when someone hit reply all to a survey instead of reply asking him if he’d come out to his family yet…his mother, sister, and two cousins were among the recipients.
posted by Kolja on 10-24-2008 at 12:39 pm
1. I am not a huge gamer, but one of my memorable game moments was when my Sims caught fire and died. [Oops.]
After that, I told a few friends about it and they told me that they would build rooms with no doors and a TON of firestarters on purpose. :P
2. Augusten Burroughs’ books are quite good. Michael Palin’s HUGE diaries were also good.
3. Spaghetti. Yum. Homemade, of course.
4. Never really had a “Reply to all” mishap. I don’t get enough email through my inbox to justify a “Reply to all” usage.
posted by Myleti on 10-24-2008 at 12:40 pm
1. Not quite my forte.
2. Ditto with Corrine on The Professor and the Madman.
3. Chili, the perfect comfort food on a cold fall day.
4. In college my roommate had the same name as a professor. I once accidently emailed the professor inviting her to my 21st birthday party. The professor was kind enough to forward the email to my roommate.
posted by Maggie on 10-24-2008 at 12:41 pm
2. Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson. IMO, Ben Franklin is the most interesting of our founding fathers, and I learned quite a few things that I didn’t already know about him (and that’s coming from a *huge* history nerd who is about six weeks away from a Master’s degree in history).
4. At work, we are always getting these stupid “quick reference guides” from our IT department. Every time they make even a minor change to an existing internal system or website they send us a quick reference guide, which explains in excruciatingly minute detail how to deal with the changes. It’s kind of like “Technology for Dummies” written on the level of a third grader. Every time we get one of these quick reference guides, the first three pages are – unfailingly – instructions on how to log on to the system, complete with screen shots. It’s actually become something of a running joke amongst the non-IT people in the company. A few months ago we got yet another QRG with log-on instructions, and someone decided that they had had enough. I actually think that they meant to hit “forward” instead of “reply to all,” but they ended up sending a profanity-laced rant to everyone on the distribution list…which is everyone in the entire company, including the CEO and all of the VPs. It said, verbatim,”I can’t believe they sent us another one of these f***ing log-in guides. If you haven’t figured out how to log in by now, you should be wearing a f***ing helmet. Way to insult our intelligence, ***holes!” I have no idea who the email was actually intended for.
Needless to say, this person is no longer with the company. The email has gone down in infamy, though, and it’s become a contest around here to see who can quote it first when we get the latest and greatest QRG (quoting is always done aloud, not by email – nobody is pushing their luck).
posted by dying alive on 10-24-2008 at 12:44 pm
1. My proudest videogame accomplishment? Probably finding/accomplishing everything in Okami. Such an amazing/beautiful game for those who have yet to play it.
2. “Kitchen Confidential: The Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly” by Anthony Bourdain and “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” by Ishmael Beah
3. A cheeseburger and fries. Friday classic.
4. I have still yet to see anyone do this at the office. Maybe one day I’ll have a pretty outstanding story to share.
posted by Christopher on 10-24-2008 at 12:45 pm
1. finished Contra (NES) WITHOUT using up up down down L R L R B A start.
2. The Dirt, by members of Motley Crue (aka some talented ghostwriters). Not literary by any means — my MFA instructors are spinning in their graves I’d imagine — but an interesting story if you were ever a fan.
3. Wendy’s double cheeseburger with no bun (I’m celiac), fries that I probably shouldn’t have eaten.
4. Technically not a reply all story, but I had a tech consultant I had just started working with — we’d met in person once and exchanged a few emails. On the day we met in person, a few hours later I get an email from her (and BTW, i’m a guy): “hey girlfriend!!! I’m SOOO glad it’s friday!! going to debbie’s tonight, so you just know there will be WINE involved!!!!. . .” I’m paraphrasing of course, but you get the idea. Nothing terrible, but nothing you’d want to send to a new client either. She was horrified, though I assured her I’m probably the best person on the planet she could have had that happen with — I really could care less, though it was kind of funny.
posted by EV on 10-24-2008 at 12:48 pm
1. Oh wow, I have to think long and hard about video game accomplishments…
I think the first time I beat Chip ‘n’ Dale Rescue Rangers for the NES was the greatest accomplishment for me as a kid, as it was the first game I ever finished (and without a warp at that, Mario fans!) Recently, I had a very good feeling when I finished Jumpin’ Jack Flash on Elite Beat Agents on Hard Rock…finishing any of those games that are easy to pick up but hard to master make you feel good.
2. My favorite biography was Jim Henson’s, the big coffee table one with all the muppets pictured inside everywhere. I learned so much about him and had a good time reading it.
3. Lunch was a fish sandwich. Yum!
4. I once replied to an e-mail that I meant to forward with my comment being “What in the heck do you think she meant by this??” and it went back to someone much, much higher than me.
posted by Amauriel on 10-24-2008 at 12:54 pm
1) My ex-wife and I beat Zelda: Ocarina of Time without cheats or hints. Not only did it feel like a great accomplishment because of the many frustrations (that game started showing up in our dreams), but it’s one of the fondest memories I have of our time together…cuddled together on our small, cheap loveseat working out all the puzzles and enemies.
posted by BT on 10-24-2008 at 12:56 pm
Can’t think of my video game accomplishment but encountered a hilarious reply all chain in college.
One girl sent an email to the class list saying that she couldn’t attend the study session and if anyone could send her a summary of what the prof said. She then added at the bottom “I really need to do well in this class, because my bf told me if I get a 3.8 GPA he’d take me snowboarding in Vail!”
About 5 minutes later someone replied
“Here are a couple of the things the professor stressed as important at the study session
1. SHUT THE F*** UP
P.S. No one gives a s*** about your rich b**** problems about having to go snowboarding at an exclusive resort so don’t clog up my goddamn email with s*** like that. B****.”
He didn’t use stars.
Ten minutes after that, the original girl sends out a hilarious reply where every third word was a 4-letter one.
Because they kept hitting reply to all, this whole thing went out to the entire class list–including the TAs and the professor himself.
posted by Kevin on 10-24-2008 at 1:05 pm
1) My proudest video game moment is actually finding time to play games, when I’m sure everyone I know is conspiring to prevent me from playing them. They must meet in a secret room when I’m not around and figure out ways to thwart me.
2) Longitude by Dava Sobel and The Professor and the Madman by an author who’s name I can’t remember at the moment…
3) Don’t know. I’ll probably end up scrounging leftovers from a conference room meeting… nah. Forget that. It’s a nice day… I think I’ll walk over to the sandwich shop and get a california pastrami…
4) Whenever I get a mass email with an obvious hoax (such as the glowing mountain dew one) I like to reply to all with disparaging text such as, “WRONG!” or “It’s a hoax, silly!” or “What on earth were you thinking!” followed by a link to snopes or some such with proof of said hoax. I’ve been told this is embarrasing and I should reply to the sender only and in a nicer manner… but at the same time I only tend to get emails like that from an individual once…
I have a slightly similar process that I do for email chain letters… but instead of responding with a link I respond with an alteration of the letter that pokes fun at the sender. I consider it an exercise in creative writing…
posted by Jason! on 10-24-2008 at 1:15 pm
1. The first time i beat Mike Tyson was one of my greatest accomplishments too…especially becuase it just happened a few years ago when i was in college. Also, beating Mario 3 a few years back was pretty sweet too. I had beat it before when i was younger, but this time i did it without using any cheats or warp whistles. Pretty sweet stuff
2. “If chins could kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor” by Bruce “Army of
Darkness” Campbell. I think i read it in about 2 days. That guy is awesome.
3. Ruben sandwich with garlic chips and a coke. Muy Delicioso
posted by Andy on 10-24-2008 at 1:16 pm
Okay, so earlier I did admit my brother and I cheated our way through Contra. We were young and excited about our new nintendo magazines as well.
posted by karissa on 10-24-2008 at 1:19 pm
1. Proudest video game moment was putting up triple digits on a team in Madden on Pro level with 6 minute quarters. Thank goodness for AI not being able to figure out the simple screen pass!
2. Don’t much like biographies but Jerry Garcia’s was pretty good.
3. Subway
4. Somebody accidently sent an email to the whole company asking for a ’sanitary napkin’.
posted by Joe on 10-24-2008 at 1:20 pm
1) Anything World of Warcraft-y bc its the only game I’ve really played.
2) Best autobiography/biography was either Ingrid Bergman or Katharine Hepburn. Don’t remember the titles.
3) Lunch will be pepper turkey sandwich with lettuce, tomato, onion and red pepper and this awesome dijon mustard. And some leftover rice.
4) Thankfully no reply all disasters. Come close a time or two though.
posted by Bug on 10-24-2008 at 1:24 pm
1. Um, when I conquered “Conker’s Bad Fur Day”?
2. I love biographies. “The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt” and “Theodore Rex” by Edmund Morris are parts one and two of trilogy on TR. The third part has yet to be released. They are amazing!
Also: Ecology of a Cracker Childhood
by Janisse Ray
and
Dreams of Trespass:Tales of a Harem Girlhood
by Fatima Mernissi
3. Skittles (blasted Halloween!) and Amy’s Organic Enchilada Meal.
4. Hasn’t happened yet.
posted by Laura on 10-24-2008 at 1:34 pm
1. ummm kicking my husbands butt in tekken?
2. on my to do list
3. subway turkey italian herbs and cheese bread w/ pepperjack cheese, green peppers, and sweet onion sauce. yum
4. none really that i can think of
posted by Julia on 10-24-2008 at 1:55 pm
1. finally beating Super Mario World! did it last year in college. still have yet to find two more secrets though…
posted by kelly on 10-24-2008 at 2:00 pm
1. Defeating the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters on my state-of-the-art Apple IIgs. Oh yeah. That was awesome. Oh, and beating Space Quest with all possible points (and King’s Quest, Gold Rush, and all other Sierra games and their sequels.)
2. Most recent? “Happy Endings” by Jim Norton. A dirty, yet hysterical comic with an equally funny and disturbing book. I’m not much of a bio reader (but go pick up “The Science of Fear” by Daniel Gardner NOW)
3. Chicken panini and some tomAHto bAZil soup. It must be pronounced that way in your head.
4. I work for a big company. An employee was involved in a NY Times cover story. I sent the link to 2 co-workers anlong with some ’snappy’ comments. Apparently, an errant keystroke included everyone in the western division. They weren’t sure if it was spam, or just an idiot (the latter, apparently, the correct answer). After unsuccessfully recalling the message, I was called into a Senior Exec’s office to explain. It went away, but it wasn’t pretty. (Did I mention that forwarding non-work-related emails is against policy?)
posted by Josh on 10-24-2008 at 2:02 pm
1. Not a gamer, though I used to kick butt at Asteriods
2. Winchester’s The Professor and the Madman is really good. I also liked What Fresh Hell is This? about Dorothy Parker and Savage Beauty about Edna St. Vincent Millay (Is it just me or is D-Town’s response to this question a quote from High Fidelity?)
3. Sonic Grilled Chicken Salad & an apple
4. Not a problem for me, but one of the customers where I work frequently sends forwards and replys that still have all the previous messages at the end–usually a lot of their internal bickering.
posted by Wendy on 10-24-2008 at 2:02 pm
1. Finishing the game “Rastan”. God knows how many hours and quarters I spent at the arcade on that game
2. Frank Zappa: The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play by Ben Watson. If FZ isn’t for you than read Catch a Fire: The life of Bob Marley by Timothy White.
3. Arby’s
4. Hasn’t happened…..yet.
posted by EPK on 10-24-2008 at 2:09 pm
1. Beat Mega Man II in one life using only 1 energy tank. Plus, I only used the Mega Buster except in the areas of Dr. Wily’s castle that required it (like Item-1 in the first stage or Bubble Lead against the final boss).
2. Michael Chrichton’s “Travels”. That man is insane.
3. Turkey sandwich with Mad Dog extreme mustard and some farmer’s market tomatoes.
posted by Erik on 10-24-2008 at 2:13 pm
1. I’m not sure anyone can appreciate the awesomeness of this, but I beat Final Fantasy I with a party of all White Mages.
2. Coltrane. More about his methods and habits than his actual life, but still cool.
3. Tuna salad
posted by Pwell83 on 10-24-2008 at 2:18 pm
2. I have so many–the biography of Marie Antoinette by Antonia Fraser. And, if autobiographies aren’t cheating, then Wonderful Tonight by Patti Boyd was great.
posted by Baby Friday on 10-24-2008 at 2:21 pm
Another great video game accomplishment happened in college. My best friends roommate thought she was the best a super tetris for N64….which might have been true before i got there. It started off as a close battle, but i ended up destroying here. That game is crazy on the eyes though cause if you blink, you’re dead
posted by Andy on 10-24-2008 at 2:22 pm
1. The first time I beat a Carmen Sandiego game in elementary school, I remember getting that cold feeling like “holy s*** I just did it.”
2. Cash, by Johnny Cash
3. Chicken basket from DQ
4. Never happened to me, but I’ve enjoyed reading some of these!
reCaptcha: repaving of
posted by Dave on 10-24-2008 at 2:33 pm
Don’t really play video games.
Read: Tell Me Where It Hurts: A Day of Humor, Healing and Hope in My Life as an Animal Surgeon by Nick Trout.
Lunch is: take out sushi.
I work for state government. The administration sent a statewide email to all employees explaining that you don’t have a choice about being on the statewide distribution list. Several people hit “reply all” with their comments complaining about being on the list, then dozens of people hit “reply all” and told them not to use “reply all” and more people told those people to stop, of course hitting “reply all”. The comments ranged from trying to be helpful to angry lambasting. It was annoying or hilarious, depending on your mood, and everyone in the entire state ended up with 50 emails that afternoon.
posted by Rhonda on 10-24-2008 at 2:37 pm
@ Pwell83
“I’m not sure anyone can appreciate the awesomeness of this, but I beat Final Fantasy I with a party of all White Mages.”
I appreciate the awesomeness of that! That’s pretty tough! That also represents… what… 150 hours?
posted by Jason! on 10-24-2008 at 2:39 pm
1. when everyone else had the first nintendo, we had a sega master system. “Alex Kidd in Miracle World” was their version of mario. i made it to the last castle. huge.
2. “everybody was so young” by amanda vaill about gerald and sarah murphy (the “divers” in ftizgerald’s “tender is the night”).
3. seriously sharp cheddar and triscuits
posted by spc on 10-24-2008 at 2:51 pm
4. This is a bit lengthy, but definitely one of the finest abuses of the “Reply All” button I’ve ever witnessed.
The original email was a standard reminder to all seniors at my University, giving details as to when and where senior pictures would be taken.
This is what followed, as documented by a buddy of mine who was lucky enough to receive all subsequent replies:
From: a student (10/29/07, 10:37pm)
Hey JP, do you want to go to get our pictures taken together? I am free anytime Wednesday afternoon, but not thursday because I need to get a hair cut, and then I need to go shopping for some pet food. Or maybe we could see if they could schedule something at night, to accomodate for our busy schedules. I am so excited for these pictures! What are you going to wear?
From: the friend (10/29/07, 10:48pm)
yo foley, i need some pet food as well, wanna go pick that up together? what time
works for you? just let the rest of us on this illio mailing list know
From: another (10/29/07, 10:59pm)
Hey Jon! Yeah, man…I’d love to get them taken together. I’d feel much more comfortable taking them with a friend there. Do you think it’d be possible to take a photo with two of us? I mean roommates for four years in a row…it’d be awesome if they had some sort of dorm room background!! I went to Wal-Mart and purchased an orange cap and gown because I thought the blue one was too plain. Let me know what you’re thinking.
kthxbai!
From: An annoyed Senior (10/29/07, 11:07pm)
Make sure you stop using the “Reply to all” button, because I’m sure everyone on this list doesn’t want to know any more than you’ve already told us.
And yes, I did hit reply to all on purpose.
Cheers
SC
From: Picking up on the joke (10/29/07, 11:15pm)
Hey, I hear they have a special deal for roommates where you sit on each others’ lap and then they tell you what your kids will look like in 20 years. Maybe they have a discount for 5,000 person pictures!!!
From: She figured it out! (10/29/07, 11:16pm)
They hit reply all on purpose too!
You guys are hilarious!!!
Kelly
From: That’s all he had to say? (10/29/07, 11:19pm)
Imagine that!
From: Seriously, guys, that’s enough (10/29/07, 11:25pm)
Naw Seriously stop sending me this stuff!
From: Seriously! I’m getting angry now (10/29/07, 11:26pm)
Hey Guys!!!! Did you hear about how sending spam via university emails could result in disciplinary action?? WOW!!!! =0
Cut this s@#$ before someone else has to!!!!
K thx!!!!! xoxoxoxo
From: Ignoring the ‘Stop’ Command (10/30/07, 12:02am)
yeah, ill pass on the food for the pets. tho if you bring me a dog, ill nurture it and eveyrone on the list can kno!!!
posted by antoinette jeanine on 10-24-2008 at 3:14 pm
1) Does anyone remember the old days when you couldn’t beat the game, it just kept looping forever? Got to level 147 on DigDug on my Atari 5200 and had something like 30 extra guys when I fianlly got bored and shut the machine off.
2)”I’m With the Band” by Pamela Des Barres. I also liked her follow up book “Take Another Little Piece of My Heart.” Both full of wonderful music industry gossip. After looking through this list, Bebe Buell’s autobiography as well as Patti Boyd’s are both on my list.
3) My daughter didn’t have school today, so we went out to eat at Applebee’s. 3 Three-Cheese Penne Pasta and onion rings for an appetizer.
4) Because of other’s misfortunes, I try to be very conscious to whom I reply on emails. However, I generally would not email anything that I would not be willing to say to someone’s face. Good rule to live by.
On a related note, my former boss got into trouble for sending an email to one of his friends talking about how our VP was a controlling b@#$%(which was a HUGE understatement) and didn’t let him promote the people he felt should be promoted. What he didn’t know is that the VP was monitoring any email going out to his friend (who was a former employee) and saw the email anyway. Kind of a bleak reminder that work email may not be personal and private.
posted by bzzyb on 10-24-2008 at 3:18 pm
The Eleanor Roosevelt Autobiography, as well as Blanche Wiesen Cook’s book, Elearor Roosevelt: The Defining Years, are both great books. I enjoyed Hillary Clinton: Living History greatly, as well.
posted by Jessica on 10-24-2008 at 3:26 pm
1) I know it’s not much, but sucessfully finding every golden skultulla in Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
2) I’ve only read one biography, and it was Malcolm X’s. I wasn’t a huge fan of it; I needed it for a report.
3) Instant yakisoba. Or pizza if the rumors around work are true.
4) I don’t have any stories about email catastrophies.
posted by Morgan on 10-24-2008 at 4:10 pm
1. Sadly my childhood was one bereft of video games. Though thanks to the internets, I can enjoy the original Super Mario Bro.s game whenever I want (though I can’t get past that #@$% jumping koopa)
2. ‘Kitchen Confidential’ by Anthony Bourdain. That book got me into cooking as a career as well as scaring the crap out of me over what really goes on in the back of the restaurant.
3. Leftover pasta shells and white cheddar with tuna. Had do fight off my roommate’s cats to eat it.
4. Several years ago I’d decided to break off a friendship with a person who pretty much used me. I’d written a scathing email to her telling her exactly how I felt about her and how she treated me…and then sent it to the wrong person. I was one letter off on her email address and ended up sending it to a missionary somewhere in the Pacific. After apologizing profusely to the lady and explaining what had happened, I wrote an email that was markedly nicer and sent it.
posted by heather on 10-24-2008 at 4:16 pm
1.) Never played Super Nintendo… But I can kick your ass at Tempest.
2.) “Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk” was kinda a biography…
3.) Nathan’s Polish Sausage and a bag of Tim’s Jalapeno Potato Chips outta the vending machine at work… Healthy, huh?
4.) I had applied to take an InDesign course. Of course my job wasn’t going to pay for it, so I was paying out of my own pocket and using my own vacation time to go… The company that was offering the training, kept canceling the class, moving back another month. After the third time, I forwarded the e-mail to a friend – with a single four letter expletive in 24 point type. Except I had neglected ‘Forward’ – I had hit ‘Reply’. Needless to say, I never did take that class (with that company).
posted by stuart on 10-24-2008 at 4:44 pm
1. never had a super nintendo but could save the princess in one man on the first nintendo system.
2. Harpo Speaks by Harpo Marx. Very funny and well written, especially for someone who dropped out of school in the second grade. He had a co-author assist him with the book but apparently he wrote most of it.
3. 1/2 a goat cheese and spinach quesadilla and mediterranean salad and Leonidas’ belgian chocolates for dessert!
4. Kind of along the lines of a “rely all” disaster… I didn’t sign off all the way from a public computer and had my email account open. Someone sent all my friends, family, professors, etc… a letter stating that I was “finally coming out of the closet” and that I hoped they would still all love and accept me in light of finding this new information out about me. Well, I’m not gay (and it would be fine if I was) so the whole experience felt like somewhat of a violation, but it was nice to know, by the reply letters that I received from my family and friends, that they still all loved me no matter what.
posted by slang on 10-24-2008 at 4:49 pm
1. I’ve never really been into video games, so my greatest accomplishments probably involve tetris or something along those lines.
2. It probably isn’t technically a biography because most of it is imagined, but The Death and Life of Miguel de Cervantes” by Stephen Marlowe was very entertaining.
3. I had leftover calzone from Mazzio’s and edamame.
4. We have a fitness center at work and last year someone sent a very simple, polite email to all the female members stating that someone had accidentally picked up her coat and left theirs which was the same color and similar style. She told the brand of hers (a very nice designer label) and the brand of the one left behind (something a little more affordable like Land’s End). The woman who sent the email and had the designer coat was engaged to the son of one of the founders of the company we work for. Then someone accidentally hit reply to all on a message that said something along the lines of, “Wow, big surprise that she can afford such an expensive coat!”
A collective “Oh no…” came out of every woman’s office near me when that email popped up!
posted by Nikki on 10-24-2008 at 7:25 pm
3. A microwave safe bowl of Beefaroni and Mandarin Oranges
posted by Sally Villarreal on 10-24-2008 at 8:59 pm
1. We had an Atari when it first came out (yes, I’m that old). No one in the house could get past level 3 on Frogger and I (the youngest at the time) beat the game. I was 12, but games and arcades were new then.
2. I’m partial to Poe, but I started reading him in the 3rd grade. Hmm, I wonder if that explains why I’m so warped?
3. Skipped it today. I’m home alone during the week and I don’t see the point of cooking for just me.
4. Wasn’t e-mail, it was cell. My nephew (28) was goofing around and put on one of his sister’s bras. We snapped pics with our cells and I accidentally sent it to everyone. He about died of embarrassment when all the texts came in! If you want, I’ll send you a copy lmfao
posted by Lorelei on 10-24-2008 at 10:47 pm
Don’t really play video games but I used to kick serious butt in Tetris.
I prefer fiction thanks. I had to read a bio of U.S. Grant in high school that I actually kind of liked but I forget the name.
Honey Mustard Pear-Vodka pork with rice (necessity is the mother of invention. It’s pretty good actually)
Heh heh…I was on the receiving end of several “reply to all” emails at college. I went to a _very_ conservative Christian Liberal Arts College in the south east (props if you can guess where). No language of any kind was tolerated (there is a famous example of the dean of men giving a lecture on why wuss is a “bad word”). Nor was badmouthing the school or anything about it. Yes some of the rules sucked but over all the school’s ok. Anyway, whenever a campus-wide email was sent out it was sent to N_athan U_ll (null). One email was informing the campus of a skating night close to finals. A student hit the “reply to all” button saying something along the lines of “Yeh, right before finals. What d*ck head planed that?” no asterisk. Another time at the same college, a work related email was sent to all the girls where I worked. Somehow it got sent to a guy as well. The email was innocuous (girls only outing or something like that) but the guy replied to all intentionally this time and included some very nasty things to say about girls in general as well as the suggestion that we check between his legs and realize that he is not a girl and that he’d not want to go to a stupid “c*nt party” anyway.
posted by Joanna on 10-24-2008 at 10:55 pm
Defeat of Mike Tyson in Mike Tyson Punch Out. First round knockout no less.
I knew it was possible, I was told that it couldn’t be done also. It’s only the people that couldn’t beat him that said that.
youtube.com/watch?v=QYR_acwm0VQ
posted by Adam on 10-25-2008 at 6:11 am
1. I’ve never been a good gamer…so my accomplishments are being able to get through a game at all. I’m not bad at Guitar Hero.
2. Jim Morrison…”No One Here Gets Out Alive.”
3. Friday’s lunch was a pretzel from the place at the mall. I took the day off to go shopping with my daughter.
4. This is the worst ever. My sister forwarded an e-mail to me from our other sister. Who is a religious fanatic. God talks directly to her, apparently. She and her husband are missionaries in the Caribbean islands. Anyway, my sister forwarded this e-mail where the crazy sister is talking about some church leader of theirs who died, and they’re “all going to go to Guyana to pray and bring him back from the dead. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Lord showed us his love by bringing Filbert back?”
So, I reply to my non-crazy sister, “Yeah, and wouldn’t it be nice if the tooth fairy left us $100 bills instead of quarters?”
Except when I replied, it replied to the attachment, and it went to my crazy Filbert-raising sister instead.
I never got a response from her, but I can feel her icy daggers penetrating me at family gatherings.
posted by bre on 10-25-2008 at 10:42 am
Loki;: The life of Charles Proteus Steinmetz: Jonathan Norton Leonard
General Electric’s resident geuius in the teens-20’s. Available from Amazon.
posted by Ken on 10-25-2008 at 12:26 pm
4. I sent an email to all my friends and my new boyfriend with a link to some article or another. My most prim-and-proper( to the outside world) friend accidentally reply-all’d to tell me that she had diarrhea so bad that she thought her “ass was going to explode.”
posted by bizet on 10-25-2008 at 2:37 pm
Wendy, Yes that is a High Fidelity quote and it makes me love D-Town just a little for putting it up there.
1. My sister and I once beat the Simpsons arcade game in an afternoon. I don’t think it took too many quarters either.
3. I had beef and barley soup, cornbread and an apple.
posted by Julia on 10-25-2008 at 5:50 pm
1. My best friend and I love Mario Bros. 3 on Super Mario All Stars. We have trained for years to be able to beat all of the levels, all the way through. I recently did it all by myself, something I’ve never been able to do. It might have been the proudest moment of my life. Is that sad?
2. Empire of Blue Water, by Stephen Talty. It’s a spectacular biography of Capt. Henry Morgan. Great for all you fellow pirates out there. Aargh.
3. Today, anything I want! On weekdays, it’s chicken strips. Every day. Oh, college food, how I won’t miss thee.
4. I am in a leadership organization, and last year there were some serious tensions going on between a few of the girls involved. It was all under the surface, but it had been simmering for some time. After the head of the organization sent out an e-mail saying that she would like to speak with some of the girls. One of them accidentally replied all when she was venting to her friend about the situation…and the head of the organization. Needless to say, the next meeting was not all that fun.
posted by Kieran on 10-25-2008 at 7:06 pm
1) ColecoVision Donkey Kong…used to be able to get to the kill screen with ONE man. Screen would go black..game over…the best thing was when Mom would yell to “share” the Colecovision with my brother…OK…2 Player Donkey Kong it is.
2)The Autobiography of Frederick Douglas (in one sitting…not a terribly long book though)
3)It’s Sunday…so Roast Beef Sandwiches and Potato Salad
4)Accidently NARC’d out the local record store when another “music fan” asked for a good place to get “imports”
posted by theums on 10-26-2008 at 10:14 pm
Julia, I completely agree. Anyone who quotes Nick Hornby (or John Cusack for that matter) is pretty great.
posted by Wendy on 10-27-2008 at 9:28 am